"
Charles X. sacrificed M. de Villele, who, however, had his
sympathy, and replaced him with a liberal minister, perhaps with a
mental reservation as to a ministry, before long, from the extreme
Right. The retiring minister wished to remain in the Chamber of
Deputies, to defend his acts. For their part, his successors,
fearing his influence in that body, wished his transfer to the
Chamber of Peers, where, in their judgment, he would be less
dangerous. At the last Council of Ministers attended by M. de
Villele, the King passed to him a note in pencil, announcing that
he had called him to the peerage. The statesman declined, in a
note also in pencil. "You wish then to impose yourself upon me as
minister?" wrote the King once more. M. de Villele appeared moved,
and passed to the sovereign this response: "The King well knows
the contrary; but since he can write it, let him do with me what
he will." 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."
XXII
THE MARTIGNAC MINISTRY
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. Born in 1776, at Bordeaux, he was at first an
advocate at the bar of that city, and at the same time made
himself known by some witty vaudevilles.
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