Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time Part 24

THE BARON PASQUIER TO M. GUIZOT.

_Paris, July 18th, 1820._

Sir,

I have just discovered the cause of the mistake against which you protest, and into which I myself led the Keeper of the Seals.

Your name, in fact, appears in the list of expenses chargeable on my department, for a sum of 6000 francs. In notifying this charge to me, an error was committed in marking it as annual: I therefore considered it from that time in the light of a pension.

I have now ascertained that it does not a.s.sume that character, and that it related only to a specified sum which had been allowed to you, to a.s.sist in the establishment of a Journal. It was supposed that this a.s.sistance was to be continued, in the form of an annuity, towards covering the expenses.

I shall immediately undeceive the Keeper of the Seals by giving him the correct explanation.

Receive, I pray you, the a.s.surance of my high consideration.

PASQUIER.

No. XII.

M. BeRANGER TO M. GUIZOT, MINISTER FOR PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

M. Minister,

Excuse the liberty I take in recommending to your notice the widow and children of Emile Debraux. You will undoubtedly ask who was this Emile Debraux. I can inform you, for I have written his panegyric in verse and in prose. He was a writer of songs. You are too polite to ask me at present what a writer of songs is; and I am not sorry, for I should be considerably embarra.s.sed in answering the question. What I can tell you is, that Debraux was a good Frenchman, who sang against the old Government until his voice was extinguished, and that he died six months after the Revolution of July, leaving his family in the most abject poverty. He was influential with the inferior cla.s.ses; and you may rest a.s.sured that, as he was not quite as particular as I am in regard to rhyme and its consequences, he would have sung the new Government, for his only directing compa.s.s was the tricoloured flag.

For myself, I have always disavowed the t.i.tle of a man of letters, as being too ambitious for a mere sonneteer; nevertheless, I am most anxious that you should consider the widow of Emile Debraux as the widow of a literary man, for it seems to me that it is only under that t.i.tle she could have any claim to the relief distributed by your department.

I have already pet.i.tioned the Commission of Indemnity for Political Criminals, in favour of this family. But under the Restoration, Debraux underwent a very slight sentence, which gives but a small claim to his widow. From that quarter I therefore obtained only a trifle.

If I could be fortunate enough to interest you in the fate of these unfortunate people, I should applaud myself for the liberty I have taken in advocating their cause. I have been encouraged by the tokens of kindness you have sometimes bestowed on me.

I embrace this opportunity of renewing my thanks, and I beg you to receive the a.s.surance of the high consideration with which I have the honour to remain,

Your very humble Servant,

BeRANGER.

_Pa.s.sy, Feb. 13th, 1834._

END OF VOLUME I.