Note 9 — Chapter III

I owe it to myself to repeat here the retractation of an error (I am not disposed to use any other word) entertained in regard to my connection with the Hundred Days, and the part I took at that period. This retractation, which appeared thirteen years ago in the 'Moniteur Universel' of the 4th of February, 1844, is couched in the following terms:—"Several journals have recently said or implied that M. Guizot, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was Secretary-General to the Ministry of the Interior in 1814 and 1815, had retained his office during the Hundred Days, under General Count Carnot, appointed Minister of the Interior by the Imperial decree of the 20th of March, 1815; that he had signed the Additional Act, and that he had been subsequently dismissed. One of these journals has invoked the testimony of the 'Moniteur.' These assertions are utterly false. M. Guizot, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, had, on the 20th of March, 1815, quitted the department of the Interior; and by an Imperial decree of the 23rd of the same month, his office of Secretary-General was conferred upon Baron Basset de Châteaubourg, formerly Prefect (see the 'Bulletin des Lois,' no. v. p. 34). The notice in the 'Moniteur' of the 14th of May, 1815, page 546, did not refer to M. François Guizot, but to M. Jean-Jacques Guizot, head-clerk at that time in the Ministry of the Interior, who was actually dismissed from his office in the course of May 1815."

Notwithstanding this official refutation, founded on official acts, and published in 1844 in the 'Moniteur,' where the error had originated, the same mis-statement appeared in 1847, in the 'History of the Two Restorations,' by M. Vaulabelle (2nd edition, vol. ii. p. 276), and again in 1851, in the 'History of the Restoration,' by M. de Lamartine (vol. iv. p. 15).