or attempted since 1789, the Charter comprised that which was the most
generally recognized and admitted by the public at large, as well as by
professed politicians. At such moments controversy subsides; the
resolutions adopted by men of action, present an epitome of the ideas
common to men of thought. A republic would be to revive the Revolution;
the Constitution of 1791 would be government without power; the old
French Constitution, if the name were applicable, had been found
ineffective in 1789, equally incapable of self-maintenance or
amelioration. All that it had once possessed of greatness or utility,
the Parliaments, the different Orders, the various local institutions,
were so evidently beyond the possibility of re-establishment, that no
one thought seriously of such a proposition. The Charter was already
written in the experience and reflection of the country. It emanated as
naturally from the mind of Louis XVIII., returning from England, as from
the deliberations of the Senate, intent on renouncing the yoke of the
Empire. It was the produce of the necessities and convictions of the
hour. Judged by itself, notwithstanding its inherent defects and the
objections of opponents, the Charter was a very practicable political
implement. Power and liberty found ample scope there for exercise and
defence; the workmen were much less adapted to the machine than the
machine to the work.

Thoroughly distinguished from each other in ideas and character, and
extremely unequal in mind and merit, the three leading Ministers of
Louis XVIII. at that epoch, M. de Talleyrand, the Abbe de Montesquiou,
and M. de Blacas, were all specially unsuited to the government they
were called on to found.

I say only what I truly think; yet I do not feel myself compelled, in
speaking of those with whom I have come in contact, to say all that I
think. I owe nothing to M. de Talleyrand; in my public career he
thwarted rather than assisted me; but when we have been much associated
with an eminent man, and have long reciprocated amicable intercourse,
self-respect renders it imperative to speak of him with a certain degree
of reserve. At the crisis of the Restoration, M. de Talleyrand
displayed, in a very superior manner, the qualities of sagacity, cool
determination, and preponderating influence. Not long after, at Vienna,
he manifested the same endowments, and others even more rare and
apposite, when representing the House of Bourbon and the Euro