in the year 1814. I had neither served
under the Revolution nor the Empire: a stranger to the first from youth,
and to the second from disposition. Since I have had some share in the
government of men, I have learned to do justice to the Emperor Napoleon.
He was endowed with a genius incomparably active and powerful, much to
be admired for his antipathy to disorder, for his profound instincts in
ruling, and for his energetic rapidity in reconstructing the social
framework. But this genius had no check, acknowledged no limit to its
desires or will, either emanating from Heaven or man, and thus remained
revolutionary while combating revolution: thoroughly acquainted with the
general conditions of society, but imperfectly, or rather, coarsely
understanding the moral necessities of human nature; sometimes
satisfying them with the soundest judgment, and at others depreciating
and insulting them with impious pride. Who could have believed that the
same man who had established the Concordat, and re-opened the churches
in France, would have carried off the Pope from Rome, and kept him a
prisoner at Fontainebleau?

It is going too far to apply the same ill-treatment to philosophers and
Christians, to reason and faith. Amongst the great men of his class,
Napoleon was by far the most necessary for the times. None but himself
could have so quickly and effectually substituted order in place of
anarchy; but no one was so chimerical as to the future, for after having
been master of France and Europe, he suffered Europe to drive him even
from France. His name is greater and more enduring than his actions, the
most brilliant of which, his conquests, disappeared suddenly and for
ever, with himself. In rendering homage to his exalted qualities, I feel
no regret at not having appreciated them until after his death. For me,
under the Empire, there was too much of the arrogance of power, too much
contempt of right, too much revolution, and too little liberty.

It is not that at that period I was much engaged in politics, or
over-impatient for the freedom that should open to me the road I
desired. I associated myself with the Opposition, but it was an
Opposition bearing little resemblance to that which we have seen and
created during the last thirty years. It was formed from the relics of
the philosophic world and liberal aristocracy of the eighteenth century,
the last representatives of the saloons in which all subjects whatever
had been f