nity of satisfying
himself that the King had judged correctly. M. de Serre having refused
to hold office in the new Cabinet, M. de Villele, to remove him with the
semblance of a compliment, requested the King to appoint him ambassador
at Naples. M. de Montmorency, who wanted this post for his cousin the
Duke de Laval, went so far as to say that he should resign if it were
refused to him. The King and M. de Villele kept their resolution;
M. de Serre went to Naples, and M. de Montmorency remained in the
Ministry, but not without discontent at the preponderance of a colleague
who had treated him with so little complaisance.

M. de Chateaubriand, by accepting the embassy to London, relieved
M. de Villele from many little daily annoyances; but he was not long
satisfied with his new post. He wished to reign in a coterie, and to
receive adulation without constraint. He produced less effect in English
society than he had anticipated; he wanted more success and of a more
varied character; he was looked upon as a distinguished writer, rather
than as a great politician; they considered him more opinionated than
profound, and too much occupied with himself. He excited curiosity, but
not the admiration he coveted; he was not always the leading object of
attention, and enjoyed less freedom, while he called forth little of the
enthusiastic idolatry to which he had been accustomed elsewhere. London,
the English court and drawing-rooms, wearied and displeased him; he has
perpetuated the impression in his Memoirs:--"Every kind of reputation,"
he says, "travels rapidly to the banks of the Thames, and leaves them
again with the same speed. I should have worried myself to no purpose by
endeavouring to acquire any knowledge of the English. What a life is a
London season! I should prefer the galleys a hundred times."

An opportunity soon presented itself, which enabled him to seek in
another direction more worldly excitement and popularity. Revolution and
civil war went on increasing in Spain from day to day; tumults, murders,
sanguinary combats between the people and the royal guards, the troops
of the line and the militia, multiplied in the streets of Madrid. The
life of Ferdinand VII. appeared to be in question, and his liberty was
actually invaded.

M. de Metternich, whose importance and influence in Europe had greatly
increased ever since he had so correctly foreseen the weakness, and so
rapidly stifled the explosion, of the Italian re