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Updated: June 18, 2025
In the end, Villèle dismissed Montmorency for the independent line he had taken, and sent a milder note than the three eastern powers, but withdrew his ambassador from Madrid soon after the other ambassadors had departed. Great Britain was in consequence the only great power which still continued diplomatic relations with Spain at the end of January, 1823.
To-morrow I shall say a mass for the success of your good cause. It is all-important, for the sake of the monarchy and of religion itself that you should receive this appointment. Monsieur Rabourdin is a liberal; he subscribes to the 'Journal des Debats, a dangerous newspaper, which made war on Monsieur le Comte de Villele to please the wounded vanity of Monsieur de Chateaubriand.
Without betraying M. de Villèle, he afforded him little aid, and committed him repeatedly by his language in public, which invariably tended more to maintain his own position in the Church than to serve the Cabinet.
While faithfully serving his friends, M. de Villèle sought for and availed himself of every opportunity that offered of making some compensation to his adversaries. It was not that the state of his mind was changed in principle, or that he had identified himself with the new and liberally-disposed society which he courted with so much solicitude.
He has saved my credit, he would go through fire and water for me, he has relieved me of my wife, he has brought me clients, he has procured for me almost all the business in the Villele loans I owe my life to him, he is the father of my children; I can never forget all this." In this case the compensations may be looked upon as complete; but unfortunately there are compensations of all kinds.
Three months only had elapsed since M. de Villèle, separated from his most brilliant colleagues and an important portion of his old friends, had sustained the entire weight of government, when the King Louis XVIII. died.
If his ministers wished to credit their liberal policy with the ovations he had received in the east, he called their attention to the fact that he had been not less well received the year before under the Villele ministry at the time of his visit to the camp of Saint Omer.
M. de Villèle persisted, the King yielded, and, in defiance of the electoral law which, in 1820, M. de Villèle and the right-hand party had enacted, in spite of their six years of power, in spite of all the efforts of Government to influence the elections, they produced a result in conformity with the state of general feeling, a majority composed of different elements, but decidedly hostile to the Cabinet.
This law was a coup d'état against electoral opinions and representative government. It gave the king and his government the advantage of fixing for seven years longer the majority which was secured by the elections of 1822, and of closing the Chamber against a modification of public opinions. Villèle and Chateaubriand were the authors of this act.
M. de Villèle was not endowed with these qualities. His mind was accurate, rather than expanded; he had more ingenuity than vigour, and he yielded to his party when he could no longer direct it.
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