Henry Reeve and James Thomson Shotwell

“ Nothing would have been easier than to strengthen the conservative party by attaching the suffrage to the possession of land in France, but blank resistance was the sole answer of the government to the just and moderate demands of the opposition. Warning after warning was addressed to them in vain by friends and by foes alike; and they remained profoundly unconscious of their danger till the moment when it overwhelmed them. Strange to say, Guizot never acknowledged either at the time or to his dying day the nature of this error ”

“ Gross abuses and breaches of trust came to light even in the ranks of the government, and under an incorruptible minister the administration was denounced as corrupt. Licet uti alieno vitio is a proposition as false in politics as it is in divinity.
Of his parliamentary eloquence it is impossible to speak too highly. It was terse, austere, demonstrative and commanding,—not persuasive, not humorous, seldom adorned, but condensed with the force of a supreme authority in the fewest words. He was essentially a ministerial speaker, far more powerful in defence than in opposition. ”

“ They knew that the elements of anarchy were still fermenting in the country; these they hoped to subdue, not by reactionary measures, but by the firm application of the power of a limited constitution, based on the suffrages of the middle class and defended by the highest literary talent of the times. Their motives were honourable. Their views were philosophical. But they were opposed alike to the democratical spirit of the age, to the military traditions of the empire, and to the bigotry and absolutism of the court. ”

“ They were both men of high principles and honour; the Scotch Presbyterianism which had moulded the faith of Lord Aberdeen was reflected in the Huguenot minister of France; both were men of extreme simplicity of taste, joined to the refinement of scholarship and culture; both had an intense aversion to war and felt themselves ill-qualified to carry on those adventurous operations which inflamed the imagination of their respective opponents. In the eyes of Lord Palmerston and Thiers their policy was mean and pitiful ”

“ The opposition in France denounced Guizot’s foreign policy as basely subservient to England. He replied in terms of unmeasured contempt,—“You may raise the pile of calumny as high as you will; vous n’arriverez jamais à la hauteur de mon dédain!” The opposition in England attacked Lord Aberdeen with the same reproaches, but in vain. ”

“ Driven from Nîmes by the Revolution, Madame Guizot and her son repaired to Geneva, where he received his education. In spite of her decided Calvinistic opinions, the theories of Rousseau, then much in fashion, were not without their influence on Madame Guizot. She was a strong Liberal, and she even adopted the notion inculcated in the Émile that every man ought to learn a manual trade or craft. Young Guizot was taught to be a carpenter, and he so far succeeded in his work that he made a table with his own hands, which is still preserved. ”

“ In the consistory of the Protestant church in Paris Guizot exercised a similar influence. His early education and his experience of life conspired to strengthen the convictions of a religious temperament. He remained through life a firm believer in the truths of revelation, and a volume of Meditations on the Christian Religion was one of his latest works. ”

“ The Martignac administration restored Guizot in 1828 to his professor’s chair and to the council of state. Then it was that he delivered the celebrated courses of lectures which raised his reputation as an historian to the highest point of fame, and placed him amongst the best writers of France and of Europe. These lectures formed the basis of his general Histoire de la civilisation en Europe (1828; Eng. trans, by W. Hazlitt, 3 vols., 1846) , and of his Histoire de la civilisation en France (4 vols., 1830) , works which must ever be regarded as classics of modern historical research. ”

“ In this he entirely succeeded by his courage and eloquence as a parliamentary leader, and by the use of all those means of influence which France too liberally supplies to a dominant minister. No one ever doubted the purity and disinterestedness of Guizot’s own conduct. He despised money; he lived and died poor ”

“ That doubt, replied Guizot, is decisive of the question, and instantly resigned, returning to the chamber only to announce that the administration was at an end and that Molé had been sent for by the king. Molé failed in the attempt to form a government, and between midnight and one in the morning Guizot, who had according to his custom retired early to rest, was again sent for to the Tuileries. The king asked his advice. “We are no longer the ministers of your Majesty,” replied Guizot; “it rests with others to decide on the course to be pursued. ”

“ The society of England, though many persons disapproved of much of his recent policy, received the fallen statesman with as much distinction and respect as they had shown eight years before to the king’s ambassador. ”