d. Later, in retracing in his journal this phase of his career, he
wrote:--

"All that took place was of a feebleness destructive of all government,
and disheartening for him who bears all the responsibility for it, with
the weight of affairs besides. But he was not, and did not pretend to
be, the Cardinal Richelieu. He had not his character, nor his ambition,
nor his superior gifts. He did not even envy them. Had he been quite
different in this regard, to repress and annul his king, to oppress the
daughter of Louis XVI. and the widow of the Duke of Berry, to exile
from France the new Gaston d'Orleans, and his numerous family, to bring
down the heads of the court pygmies,--more dangerous, perhaps, with
their influence over the King and his family and their vexatious
intrigues in the Court of Peers than the Montmorencys and the
Cinq-Mars,--this was a rele to which he never aspired and would not
have accepted."

Charles X. sacrificed M. de Villele, who, however, had his sympathy,
and replaced him with a liberal minister, perhaps with a mental
reservation as to a ministry, before long, from the extreme Right. The
retiring minister wished to remain in the Chamber of Deputies, to
defend his acts. For their part, his successors, fearing his influence
in that body, wished his transfer to the Chamber of Peers, where, in
their judgment, he would be less dangerous. At the last Council of
Ministers attended by M. de Villele, the King passed to him a note in
pencil, announcing that he had called him to the peerage. The statesman
declined, in a note also in pencil. "You wish then to impose yourself
upon me as minister?" wrote the King once more. M. de Villele appeared
moved, and passed to the sovereign this response: "The King well knows
the contrary; but since he can write it, let him do with me what he
will." The next day the Martignac ministry entered on its duties, and
the Duchess of Angoule'me said to Charles X.: "It is true, then, that
you are letting Villele go? My father, you descend to-day the first
step of the throne."

XXII

THE MARTIGNAC MINISTRY

Mde. Martignac, who succeeded M. de Villele in the Ministry of the
Interior, was a man of merit, honest, liberal, and sincerely devoted to
the King. Born in 1776, at Bordeaux, he was at first an advocate at the
bar of that city, and at the same time made himself known by some witty
vaudevilles. On the return of the Bourbons, he entered the magistracy,
became proc