de Polignac, to protest
against the charter granted by Louis XVIII. This they regarded as an
ill-advised edict extorted from the Crown by the necessity of the
moment, only to be annulled later on. And, therefore, so far from
co-operating with the King to bring about a new condition of things,
the Marquis d'Esgrignon stood aloof, an upholder of the straitest sect
of the Right in politics, until such time as his vast fortune should
be restored to him. Nor did he so much as admit the thought of the
indemnity which filled the minds of the Villele ministry, and formed a
part of a design of strengthening the Crown by putting an end to those
fatal distinctions of ownership which still lingered on in spite of
legislation.
The miracles of the Restoration of 1814, the still greater miracle of
Napoleon's return in 1815, the portents of a second flight of the
Bourbons, and a second reinstatement (that almost fabulous phase of
contemporary history), all these things took the Marquis by
surprise at the age of sixty-seven. At that time of life, the most
high-spirited men of their age were not so much vanquished as worn out
in the struggle with the Revolution; their activity, in their remote
provincial retreats, had turned into a passionately held and immovable
conviction; and almost all of them were shut in by the enervating,
easy round of daily life in the country.
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