| | | | | The last words of M. de Barante confided the care of his | memory to the illustrious statesman whose name had for | half a century been so closely associated with his own and | the memoir of M. Guizot has been more than justified the | confidence of his friend. There is nothing, in the firm, clear | outline he has traced, to remind us that the eighty years of | the biographer tread close on the eighty-four of the subject | of his sketch; indeed, the distinguishing characteristics of | M. Guizot were never better illustrated than in this memoir. | Touching but slightly on the literary qualities by which M. | de Barante has been best known, his biographer has | confined himself to the narrative of a life in which he found | realized his own ideal of highmindedness and good sense, | and in the seeming failure of whose close M. Guizot can | still find hope for the cause he has served so long. It is, | indeed, hard for France and for the world when men like | De Morny die satisfied, and men like De Barante sad and | disheartened, turning away form this world

"for a faith | and trust which it was essential for him to have in the | ultimate destiny of mankind"

But, hard as it is, there | is truth as well as courage in the unshaken faith of his | biographer in the

"great but modest party"

of | which M. de Barante was one of the most faithful | representatives: ~~ | Prosper de Barante was born on the 10th of June 1782, of an | Auvergnat family who had gradually mounted form the | station of merchants in the little town of Thiers into the | proprietors of the estate to which they owed their name. His | father, an earnest-minded Jansenist, was bitten with the | enthusiasm for education which Rousseau had made the | fashion of the day, and the picture of the boy's training is | one of the most charming passages of the book. His mother | nursed him at her own breast; his father compiled | grammars and books of geography for him; everything was | taught by means of conversation, and walks, excursions, | amusements were turned to educational purposes. The | storm of the Revolution broke up the pleasant little circle. | The boy was hardly ten years old when he was carrying | vegetables to his father in prison and listening to the song | beneath the prison windows: ~~ | | | His real life, however, only began when, after running | away from the Ecole Polytechnique, he found | himself in 1809 at Geneva with his father, who had been | named prefet of a place where ~~ in the | emphatic words of Sismondi ~~ he knew how to make | himself beloved even while enforcing conscriptions and | levying taxes. Sismondi was himself living at Geneva; | Madame de Stael resided in the neighbourhood, at Coppet; | and De Barante told in after life how the prefet | sought refuge from the startling ideas and vehement | language of the French Corinne in the quiet talk of the aged | Necker. But on the son Geneva left an impress which never | wore away ~~ A certain tendency Quakerlike sobriety of | tone, and above all a moral honesty which enabled gin to | pass unhurt through the seductions of the world on which | he was about to enter. It is almost startling to see how | clearly, from the very outset, the young De Barante saw the | hollowness of the Imperial system and the essential | instability of Napoleon's character. Indeed, the few | occasions on which he had an opportunity of personally | judging him were not calculated to raise him in the esteem | of his cool, silent critic. Never unjust to the immense | intellectual power which the Emperor possessed, he | watched with a quiet contempt the pitiful violence and | vanity which displayed itself in oaths over the council | table, or hectoring talk at Imperial levees about | the superiority of Alexander to Caesar, or of Louis XIV. To | Henry IV. But it was the injustice and oppression which he | saw around him, while accompanying the French army as a | Government clerk in the campaigns of Jena and Friedland, | which finally disgusted Propser de Barante with the | imperial system. Of the many significant stories which he | has left, we can quote but one. Appointed auditor of the | Silesian accounts after the Peace of Tilsit, De Barante laid | before Daru, who was now the real ruler of Prussia, the | balance of two or three millions of francs which remained | after the rest had been made up by forced levies: ~~ | | | | M. Daru was easily spared, for his scrupulous | employe was already under sentence of recall; one of | his letters had been opened, and the Emperor had already | ordered the return of the troublesome Government clerks | The

"nonsense"

was a | calm estimate of the position and character of Napoleon, | which, if the notes given by M. Guizot are accurate records | of it, is simply wonderful in a young man of twenty-two. | The miseries of war, the sufferings of conqueror and | conquered, had left on his mind ineffaceable traces; but it | was in the rash conception of his later projects, his reckless | reliance on sheer luck and good fortune, the utterly unstable | character of the situation created by the Treaty of Tilsit, | that De Barante saw the ground for real uneasiness as to the | fate of his Empire: ~~ | | M. de Barante had abundance of this leisure in his obscure | Breton sous-prefecture of Bressuire, where from | the mouth of Madame Larochejacquelin, the acquaintance | of whose family he had the good fortune to make, he | listened to the story of the insurrection of La Vendee, | which forms the subject of one of his earliest works. His | adhesion to the Bourbons during the memorable Hundred | Days was rewarded with rapid advancement. He joined the | Administration as Councillor and Superintendent of | Revenue, and in 1819 was summoned to the Chamber of | Peers, but his political career terminated for the time with | the secession of the Doctrinaires from the Ministry of the | Duc de Richelieu, and, declining the post of Minister at | Copenhagen, M. de Barante, with the most illustrious of his | political allies, devoted himself to the pursuit of literature. | It is with a legitimate pride that M. Guizot recalls the | intellectual glory of the period from 1820 to 1830 ~~ a | period, as he well remarks, unlike the Augustan age or the | age of Louis Quatorze, when literature still flourished while | political freedom slept, but rather resembling the age of | Pericles in the proof it affords that the struggles of 0plitical | life may be reconciled with an intellectual effort of | surpassing splendour, and with a bold advance of the | human mind towards truth in art or poetry or philosophy. | Like Guizot himself, M. de Barante devoted himself, after | some essays in dramatic criticism, to the study of history; | and, of the many great historic works which the ten years | produced, his history of the Dukes of Burgundy, if not the | first in real value, was destined to attain the widest fame. | We shall not attempt any more than his biographer has | done to examine the merits or demerits of this remarkable | work, or of the theory on which it is based. The theory was | expressed in the well-known words of Quintilian which | serve as the motto of the book, | and the | attempt of the historian throughout is to set before his | readers the actual facts in a vivid picture of the time | without any attempt to group them on any preconceived | system, or to prove by them any political or historical | theory. As to the execution of the design there can be little | question. The story flows on with all the picturesque | interest, and indeed often in the very words, of the | chroniclers it follows; and if one misses the painstaking | research and wider range of Thierry, or the flashes of | genius which here and there lift Michelet from the historian | into the poet, it is impossible not to won the easy grace of | the narrative or the pathos with which it invests such an | event as the death of Charles the Rash. But as an attempt to | return to the mere story-telling of he chroniclers whom it | follows it must be acknowledge to be a failure; the theory | indeed on which De Barante worked is one which it was | impossible for him to carry into practice. The chronicler | relates as he hears, and the order of events, their form and | colour in his narrative derive all their artlessness from the | circumstances of his actual position. But it is impossible to | transfer this artlessness to the canvas of the modern | historian, forced as he is to select the facts that are | characteristic or to judge between conflicting statements | each of which claims to be true ~~ above all, to bring the | facts thus judged and selected before the eyes of readers | utterly strange to the temper and atmosphere of the age of | which he tells. His aim is, no doubt, to set nothing but a | truthful picture of facts before them; but his judgment of | the facts, his arrangement of the picture, his effort after | truthfulness, are all governed by a theory within him which | is none the less real for being unconscious.

"Let the | facts be stated, and let each man judge of them as he | pleases,"

was the dictum of an historian who forgot | that he had already judged as he pleased of the facts before | submitting them to the public, and that it was not the facts | alone, but the facts with his judgment of them, though | unexpressed, which made up his narrative. But even had | this objection been removed, there was an element in De | Barante's mind which would have effectually prevented | him from being the mere narrator of facts which he aimed | at becoming. In no man was what we may venture to call | moral enthusiasm stronger than in the historian of the | Dukes of Burgundy, no man was less inclined to view an | historical question in Bacon's dry light. | he says himself, | and, as he confessed, the war between | power and freedom, might and right, was present to him in | every page of his story. His labour would not be thrown | away, he said, if it had taught men the value of intelligence | and common sense in improving society, morality, and | religion, or had stripped the appearance of success from | violence and corruption in the affairs of nations. The lesson | may be right or wrong, but it is plain that a work which is | intended, however silently, to teach such a lesson cannot be | fairly said to be written

"ad narrandum, non ad | probandum."

the intention must have been present to | the historian's mind, and have told at least as powerfully on | his treatment of the facts as they are likely to tell on their | readers. | M. de Barante was interrupted in his project of a work even | more important ~~ a History of the Parliament of Paris ~~ | by the Revolution of 1830, which restored his friends to | power. But his embassies at Turin and St. Petersburg were | uneventful, and the world gained by the Revolution of 1848 | which again restored him to literature. His History of the | National Convention, and a number of smaller works, were | the fruits of this last period of leisure. The political state of | France grew the darker for him as years crept on, and it was | in sadness and dejection that the old man at last passed | away. What followed must be told in other words than | ours: ~~ | | And in him all paid their homage to that one party to which | he had so faithfully adhered ~~

"the party of good | sense and moral honesty, who desire to see all lawful rights | respected, and look forward to the development, at once | regular and free, of all the healthy energies of the human | race."