On the return of the
Bourbons, he entered the magistracy, became procureur-general at
Limoges, was elected a deputy in 1821, and distinguished himself
in the tribune. He was Minister of the Interior from January,
1828, to August, 1829, and his name was given to the ministry of
which he was a member. He had for colleagues enlightened and
moderate men, such as Count Auguste de La Ferronnays, M. Roy,
Count Portalis. He tried to reconcile the different parties, and
to preserve the throne from the double danger of reaction and
revolution. Taken between two fires, the extreme Right and the
extreme Left, he was destined to fail in his generous effort.
The royalist sentiment was becoming constantly more feeble. The
24th of January, 1828, some days after the formation of the
Martignac ministry, the Viscount Sosthenes de La Rochefoucauld
wrote, in a report to the King:--
"In going to Saint-Denis, the 2lst of January (the anniversary of
the death of Louis XVI.), and seeing the lightness with which the
court itself conducted itself there, it was impossible for me not
to make many reflections on the futility of an age in which no
memory is sacred. And by what right can the people be asked to
have a better memory when such an example is given to them? No
cortege, no coaches draped, none of the pomp that strikes the
imagination and the eye. Some isolated carriages, passing rapidly
over the route, as if every one longed to be more promptly rid of
whatever is grave and mournful in this day of cruel memory.
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