Office, and was attached first to the Spanish Embassy; he then went to London, in attendance on his father, and finally followed the illustrious and unfortunate Rossi to Rome. The crisis of 1848 restored him to private life, and to his taste for intellectual problems. Broglie Inheriting as he did the blood of the Albert de Neckers and Madame de Staël, he was a born publicist, a Christian publicist. The practical direction of minds, the politics of religion, education, the moral tendencies and aspirations of peoples in themselves or between one another, such were the subjects which attracted him; he was neither a psychologist, nor a philosopher, nor a sower of ideas; he was an inquirer into the inner forces of collectivities, a calculator of the emotions which shake the masses and determine the movements of souls. There was in him much conscientiousness, correctness and knowledge, along with a sober imagination, limited and cool, which could neither give itself a free rein nor become gracious. An intimate friend of the Duc de Broglie said to him one day: "Just stretch out that hand of yours which sticks behind your back not knowing what to do with itself." This dread of geniality rendered the demeanour of this "honest man" icy. Aristocratic pride, men said. No! Albert de Broglie must rather be held to have been, like some others, shy. His "doctrines" isolated him, as isolated him, as the uniform isolated Marshal MacMahon, and, for the latter, camp life was, in any case, life. This epoch is notable in France by a scarcity of men of action, although men of high intellect were not rare. Most of those men who then held power had investigated the theory of their con victions at length; not satisfied with this, they had written it down. A waste of trouble, a waste of strength. Conviction and action do not need so much argumentation. The man who explains himself, confuses himself; self-analysis is selfdestruction. Now the Duc de Broglie, like Falloux, like so many others, was one of those refined dialecticians. Along with them he founded the Correspondant, that is that is to say, one of those "nests" in which men write and talk, hives of indiscretions, infidelities, and police investigations. What floods of ink and saliva were shed under the Empire in these liberal talking shops! The clubs, the Revue des Deux-Mondes, the Faubourg, the salons -and that of the Duc de Broglie held the first rank-formed a distinguished society, which carried on a guerilla war against "the tyrant" with pin-pricks and epigrams. This was the "umbrella party," and it fraternised with the most temperate among the Republicans. In order to come to an understanding, there was much talk, on both sides, of decentralisation. In advance of the heavy cavalry of the Correspondant and the Revue, the lighter papers, the Figaro, the Nain Jaune, beat up the country and did the skirmishing. In 1869 the Duc de Broglie had been candidate for the Eure, M. Janvier de la Motte being Prefect. He had been defeated; Bonapartism, formidable throughout Normandy, showed the Duke that it had to be reckoned with. The dissensions of the Eure were to have in the sequel a certain echo in the general affairs of the country.' 1 See the curious work of M. Louis Passy on the Marquis de Blosseville, p. 412. M. Thiers thought it a clever stroke to send him to England as Ambassador; but this born debater soon hankered after the parliament. On his election in 1871 the Duc de Broglie immediately took a place of mark in the National Assembly. He absented himself as little as possible, first from Bordeaux and then from Versailles. As soon as he could, he gave up London. The blood of the de Broglie threw him across the path of M. Thiers. The old fighter saw, not without some perturbation, this young athlete enter the lists-heir to the paternal mistrust, and one who, from the elevation of a very well informed past, knew everything, saw everything, and judged everything. The very name of de Broglie irritated him, and not without reason. At the first bout M. Thiers fell heavily. The Duke imposed on the Presidency the ally of his family, Marshal MacMahon. As Vice-president of the Council and chief of the Cabinet, he himself became master of the Government. It is now necessary to explain his means of action, and the object before him. The Duc de Broglie was neither a tribune nor a soldier, nor an administrator, barely a party chief. His personality was a complex one. He influenced Society, the parties, the majority; he was at home in the parliament and on the tribune, but he seemed to borrow his real strength from some hidden and mysterious source other than that which was revealed to the general eye. A taste for politics, natural authority; skill in tangling and unravelling the fine threads of passions, in seizing opportunities and in weighing men; a piercing dialectic, a way of driving the argument right into the heart of an adversary and leaving it there; these were faculties and weapons which made him a psychologist and a polemist in politics rather than a statesman. When he came to power, his set and stiff training in the libraries and clubs of the Liberal opposition, hampered him more than it helped him. The superiority of his person was, however, imposing. That tall, strong, cold-looking man, with a wide brow, tight lips, and short grey moustache, could not pass unnoticed. In spite of the oddness of his jerky gestures, his cracked voice, and a nervous twitch of the shoulder and face, he was not one of those who raise a laugh. Still less did he encourage the easy familiarities of the lobbies. The influence which he exercised over the parliamentary world is so much the more remarkable because he did not invite confidence, and never gave himself away. This orator was a man of silence. "We never knew where he was leading us; we were told nothing;" thus did those who had accepted his discipline sometimes express themselves. Still, they did accept it. In fact, the Duc de Broglie was a born chief, one of those chiefs who never render accounts, and of whom accounts are not demanded, because they are known to be highminded, upright, proud, and disinterested. A strange mixture: virtue, religion, knowledge, eloquence, rectitude, but all this somewhat stifled, cramped, embarrassed by a kind of constraint, which resembled a want of frankness, and was only a want of geniality and ease. Gambetta, who for his part took so much trouble to gain over this parliamentary society an influence which was to be short-lived, said one day of the Duc de Broglie, with a suspicion of malice: "A lobby Macchiavelli; a voiceless orator." In this sarcasm there was homage. Gambetta had often gauged the vigour, talent, and authority of this trying and intractable opponent. The Duc Whither was this extraordinarily reserved de Broglie's and enigmatic personality going? Whither Plans was he leading the Marshal, the Ministry, the Assembly, and France? On this question the shadows thicken. "Social defence," of that there was no doubt, the fight against the Revolution, "moral order," consecrated by a national return to Catholicism-these were his chosen formulæ, and assuredly gave the basis of his way of thinking. But, the next step: if the issue were the restoration of the Monarchy, the Comte de Chambord, the question of the flag? The shadows darken yet more. Those best informed affirm that from the outset he cherished no illusions on the subject of the fusion; notably so far as the Comte de Chambord was concerned, he never held the attitude which breathes and inspires confidence. Must it be said that he held himself in reserve? Not even this phrase is entirely correct; nobody fought more openly than he did, risking, by reason of his very merits, a more dangerous game and a wider unpopularity. Last of all, there would be found, above all in the case of the Duc de Broglie, a latent fidelity to the Orleanist cause, a very prudent fidelity which was willing to await, in order to pledge the princes without compromising them, the hour when, consecrated legitimate heirs of the dynasty, they would be able to proclaim without danger and without surrender their unshakeable attachment to modern France. His dream would |