ese were merely
inward lucubrations, not actually ambitious designs; if power had been
offered to him he would assuredly have refused it; he had too little
confidence in the future, and too much personal pride, to encounter
such a risk of failure.

M. de Villele, still suffering from the accusations first whispered
against him in 1828, and which had remained in abeyance in the Chamber
of Deputies, had formally refused to attend the session of 1829, and
held himself in retirement at his estate near Toulouse; it was evident
that he could not return to power, and act with the Chamber that had
thrown him out. Neither the King nor himself would have consented, as I
think, to encounter at that time the hazard of a new dissolution.

M. de Chateaubriand was at Rome. On the formation of the Cabinet of
M. de Martignac he had accepted that embassy, and from thence, with a
mixture of ambition and contempt he watched the uncertain policy and
wavering position of the Ministers at Paris. When he learned that they
were beaten, and would in all probability be compelled to retire, he
immediately commenced an active agitation. "You estimate correctly my
surprise," he wrote to Madame Recamier, "at the news of the _withdrawal_
of the two bills. Wounded self-love makes men children, and gives them
very bad advice. What will be the end of all this? Will the Ministers
endeavour to hold place? Will they retire partially or all together? Who
will succeed them? How is a Cabinet to be composed? I assure you that,
were it not for the pain of losing your society, I should rejoice at
being here, out of the way, and at not being mixed up in all these
enmities and follies, for I find that all are equally in the wrong....
Attend well to this; here is something more explicit: if by chance the
portfolio of Foreign Affairs should be offered to me (and I have no
reason to expect it), I should not refuse. I should come to Paris, I
should speak to the King, I should arrange a Ministry without being
included in it; for myself, I should propose, to attach me to my own
work, a suitable position. I think, as you know, that it belongs to my
ministerial reputation, as well as to revenge me for the injury I
sustained from Villele, that the portfolio of Foreign Affairs should be
given to me for the moment. This is the only honourable mode in which I
could rejoin the Administration. But that done, I should immediately
retire, to the great satisfaction of all new aspi