No. XI.

Letters relative to my Dismissal from the Council of State, on the 17th July, 1820.

M. de Serre (Keeper of the Great Seal) to M. Guizot.

Paris, July 17th, 1820.

I regret being compelled to announce to you that you have ceased to belong to the Council of State. The violent hostility in which you have lately indulged, without the shadow of a pretext, against the King's government, has rendered this measure inevitable. You will readily understand how much it is personally distressing to myself. My friendly feelings towards you induce me to express a hope that you may reserve yourself for the future, and that you will not compromise by false steps the talents which may still advantageously serve the King and the country.

You enjoy at present a pension of six thousand francs chargeable on the department of Foreign Affairs. This allowance will be continued. Rest assured that I shall be happy, in all that is compatible with my duty, to afford you proofs of my sincere attachment.

De Serre.

M. Guizot to M. de Serre.

July 17th, 1820.

I expected your letter; I had reason to foresee it, and I did foresee it when I so loudly declared my disapprobation of the acts and speeches of the Ministers. I congratulate myself that I have nothing to change in my conduct. Tomorrow, as today, I shall belong to myself, and to myself alone.

I have not and I never had any pension or allowance chargeable on the department of Foreign Affairs. I am therefore not necessitated to decline keeping it. I cannot comprehend how your mistake has arisen. I request you to rectify it, as regards yourself and the other Ministers, for I cannot suffer such an error to be propagated.

Accept, I entreat you, the assurance of my respectful consideration.

Guizot.

M. Guizot to the Baron Pasquier, Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Paris, July 17th, 1820.

Baron,

The Keeper of the Seals, on announcing to me that, in common with several of my friends, I am removed from the Council of State, writes to me thus: "You enjoy at present a pension of six thousand francs, chargeable on the department of Foreign Affairs; this allowance will be continued." I have been extremely astonished by this mistake; I am completely ignorant of the cause. I have not and I never had any pension or allowance of any description chargeable on the department of Foreign Affairs. Consequently I am not called upon to refuse its continuance. It will be very easy for you, Baron, to verify this fact, and I request you to do so, as well for the Keeper of the Seals as for yourself, for I cannot suffer the slightest doubt to exist on this subject.

Accept, etc.

Guizot.

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 assume that character, and that it related only to a specified sum which had been allowed to you, to assist in the establishment of a Journal. It was supposed that this assistance 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 assurance of my high consideration.

Pasquier.