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I did not at that time return to public office. The Cabinet made no such proposition to me, and I refrained from suggesting it; on either side we were right. M. de Martignac came from the ranks of M. de Villèle's party, and was obliged to keep measures with them; it would not have been consistent in him to hold intimate relations with their adversaries.
Here I had evidently fallen upon my legs, for not only was the family a most agreeable one, but their hospitality was of the most generous kind. Sir Stapylton Cotton was our frequent visitor, together with M. Martignac, afterwards Minister of Charles the Tenth. Here I had an opportunity of meeting some of the prettiest women of a city famed all over Europe for its female beauty.
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." 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.
In confiding to each other their ideas, Celeste, instigated by her vindictive brother the priest, enlightened Sylvie as to the dangers she would incur. Sylvie trembled; she was terribly afraid of death, an idea which shakes all celibates to their centre. But just at this time the Martignac ministry came into power, a Liberal victory which overthrew the Villele administration.
In this weak position, two individuals, M. de Martignac, as actual head of the Cabinet, without being president, and M. Royer-Collard, as president of the Chamber of Deputies, alone contributed a small degree of strength and reputation to the new Ministry; but they were far from being equal to its difficulties or dangers.
I remember the morning when our butcher's boy brought the news that the first German flag had been hung out on the balcony of the Ministry of War. Now I thought, the Latin will boil over! And I wanted to be there to see. I hurried down the quiet rue de Martignac, turned the corner of the Place Sainte Clotilde, and came on an orderly crowd filling the street before the Ministry of War.
The Duchess of Gontaut, who was used to frank talk with the King, said: "In the circumstances existing, I long for, I confess it frankly, and at the risk of displeasing Your Majesty, yes, I long for the Martignac ministry." Then, adds the Duchess in her unpublished Memoirs, the King, more impatient than ever, turned his back on me, and took his way to his apartment.
Georges d'Estourny, whose ambition grew bolder with success, had taken under his patronage a man who had come from the depths of the country to carry on a business in Paris, and whom the Liberal party were anxious to indemnify for certain sentences endured with much courage in the struggle of the press with Charles X.'s government, the persecution being relaxed, however, during the Martignac administration.
The ultras were thinking much less of the real interests of the monarchy than of their own spites and their personal ambitions. These pretended supports of the throne were digging the abyss in which the throne was to be swallowed up. Charles X., blinded, was already thinking of calling the Prince de Polignac to power, and regarded the Martignac ministry as a provisional expedient.
In confiding to each other their ideas, Celeste, instigated by her vindictive brother the priest, enlightened Sylvie as to the dangers she would incur. Sylvie trembled; she was terribly afraid of death, an idea which shakes all celibates to their centre. But just at this time the Martignac ministry came into power, a Liberal victory which overthrew the Villele administration.
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