Chapter 457: Welcome to Submit Your Contributions

What kind of person is Guizot?

Arthur thought Hugo would denounce this gentleman who was criticized in history with an impassioned attitude, but what he didn't expect was that in Hugo's mouth, Guizot seemed to be completely different from the words read in the book.

As a leader of French romantic literature, Hugo's impression of Guizot was not only not bad, but quite good.

At least in Hugo's eyes in 1833, Guizot was an out-and-out gentleman.

Guizot's grandfather was a member of the Mountain Party during the French Revolution and had served as the governor of the Gard Province, while his grandfather was an underground priest of the Calvinist Church. Both paternal and maternal relatives were high-level intellectuals.

But this does not mean that Guizot had a good childhood. During the French Revolution, even these upper-class families were always in turmoil.

Guizot's father was arrested by the Jacobins because he was accused of being a Girondist.

Guizot's grandfather, either out of self-protection or due to party prejudice, was unwilling to rescue his son-in-law no matter how much his daughter begged, but watched him being sent to the guillotine in his own jurisdiction.

In order to get rid of this sad memory, Guizot's mother brought him and his brother to live in Geneva, Switzerland. Here, Guizot not only learned many skills, but also learned many languages ​​including Latin, Greek, German, English and Italian.

The misfortune of his childhood and his study experience in Geneva eventually made Guizot form his current political stance.

Compared with those extremely conservative royalists, Guizot is a liberal.

Compared with those republicans who are closer to the Jacobins, Guizot is a conservative.

If we look at Guizot from a British perspective, this gentleman's position should be between the Duke of Wellington and Sir Peel. He is a Tory who insists on constitutional monarchy.

For a Frenchman, the saddest position is Guizot's.

He could only survive in the gap between the Republicans and the Royalists, and neither side would regard him as an absolute member of their own. What's worse, Guizot did not advocate violent revolution, but preferred gentle gradual reform.

For a country like France, where people often push cannons into the streets, Guizot's approach was tantamount to handing the rope around his neck to the Republicans and the Royalists.

But such a position was not without any benefits. Since he returned to his country in 1805, the 18-year-old Guizot quickly stood out in the literary circle of Paris with his profound knowledge. A book "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" made him a historian with a good reputation throughout France.

Fontaine, the president of the Sorbonne University in Paris, even went to invite Guizot to the Sorbonne University as a professor of modern history. In that year, Guizot was just a young man of 25 years old.

If there was anything that Guizot, who was already in high spirits at the age of 25, was unhappy about, it was that he hated Napoleon, the emperor of the French Empire at that time. He never participated in specific political activities and always insisted on his identity as a liberal. He spent money to exempt himself from military service, escaped the fanatical military atmosphere at that time, and refused to sing praises for the emperor.

After Napoleon abdicated, Louis XVIII of the Bourbon Dynasty was crowned king in Paris. In order to win over the liberal literati at that time, Louis XVIII quite cleverly promoted Guizot, who had no foundation, to Secretary of State, and then further appointed him as Minister of the Interior.

At this time, Guizot, who entered the cabinet, was less than 30 years old.

Louis XVIII's ideas were similar to Guizot's. This king who developed a liberal and open-minded tendency in his youth was also a centrist.

He witnessed the execution of his brother Louis XVI, the death of his nephew Louis XVII in prison, and the tragic experience of his niece Marie Therese. The various agitations during the Great Revolution made Louis XVIII convinced that France could no longer go back to the old path of absolute monarchy.

During his time in the cabinet, Guizot implemented the common ideas he and the king had shared very well. On the one hand, he affirmed many important principles of the Great Revolution, such as equality before the law, freedom of religious belief, and freedom of the press and publication. He resolutely did not allow the restored aristocratic forces to counterattack the Republicans. On the other hand, Guizot opposed the radical liberals' uncompromising attitude towards the old aristocracy.

But as mentioned above, even though Guizot had the support of Louis XVIII, even Louis XVIII himself could not control the balance between the royalists and the Republicans.

On February 13, 1820, the crown prince, the Duke of Berry, was assassinated, and the balance was finally broken.

The extreme royalists took the opportunity to blame the liberals for the case, forcing Prime Minister Elie Decazes to resign and replace him with the extreme representative Count Villers to form a cabinet.

They issued decrees in favor of the aristocracy and strengthened the control of public opinion. The church forces also regained the power of education and culture, and the black terror once again descended on the sky of France.

Seeing that he was unable to save the situation, Guizot took the initiative to resign and returned to his professorial chair at the Sorbonne University in Paris.

Louis XVIII was also powerless to intervene in the current situation. In anger, this rare enlightened king of the Bourbon dynasty finally fell ill.

Seeing his brother Charles X, who had finally achieved his wish and became the new crown prince, he could only curse angrily before his death: "Humph! I'm afraid my brother will not die in this bed."

Louis XVIII's curse did come true. In July 1830, a revolution broke out in Paris. Charles X announced his abdication and fled to Britain with his wife and children.

But at least before 1830, he did comfortably serve as an absolute monarch for several years.

For Guizot, the decade from 1820 to 1830 was his most difficult.

He returned to the university to concentrate on his studies, preached his ideas to students and the public, and published many historical works.

"History of the Origin of European Representative System", "Introduction to French History", "Collection of Memoirs of the English Revolution", and "History of the English Revolution in the 17th Century" are all works of this period, and Guizot's choice of topics alone can tell what he wants to say.

Everyone knows that he is a dissident of the current government, but Guizot never advocates the use of violence to overthrow the current government, but insists on the view that legal struggle is the best way to solve problems.

The government's response to Guizot's views is that they canceled all of Guizot's courses at the Sorbonne University.

But this is not the most painful thing for Guizot. What hurts him the most is that when Louis XVIII died and Charles X succeeded to the throne, the regulations and bills prohibiting immigration and restarting the death penalty for blasphemers were issued one after another.

As a result, there was a huge split within the parliament. The romantic liberals represented by Chateaubriand believed that this was a pure historical reversal, suppressing freedom and blaspheming the idea of ​​natural human rights. The extreme faction led by Bourdon believed that the settlement of the Great Revolution was far from enough.

What made Guizot almost collapse was that his wife, the writer Pauline de Morin, who had been in love with him for many years and was 14 years older than him, died of illness.

Perhaps to comfort her husband, or perhaps to make him remember her forever, Pauline helped Guizot arrange his next marriage on her deathbed. She introduced her niece to her husband and helped him remarry.

And when Pauline left, she seemed to take her husband's bad luck with her.

The consequences of Charles X's perverse actions finally appeared. In order to calm the increasingly turbulent situation in the country, he had to reorganize the cabinet, and Guizot's courses at the Sorbonne University were reopened.

At the Sorbonne, Guizot of history, Cousin of philosophy and Vellemans of literature formed the academic triumvirate of the Sorbonne. They taught together publicly, and each course attracted thousands of citizens to attend the class spontaneously.

Among these citizens were young nobles, students from the middle class, small vendors and soldiers from the lower class, and even many foreigners.

And romantic writers such as Hugo, Dumas, and Vigny often came to the Sorbonne to listen to Guizot's generous speeches, so to a certain extent, there are now anonymous students of Guizot in all walks of life in Paris.

Such public lectures naturally made Guizot's reputation grow, and he became a leader of the constitutional monarchy.

After the July Revolution, Louis Philippe, after resolving the domestic turmoil, also planned to resume the middle line of the Louis XVIII period.

So, not surprisingly, Guizot entered the cabinet again in 1832, and this time, he would serve as Minister of Education and shoulder the heavy responsibility of national education reform.

According to the draft of education reform proposed by Guizot, the centrist minister who has regained power has put forward the following three opinions.

First, a primary school is set up in each township and a high school is set up in each city. Education funds are allocated by the national treasury or paid by local special education taxes.

Second, each province establishes a normal school and stipulates the minimum salary standard for teachers.

Third, the power of religious groups and churches to issue teacher qualification certificates before 1830 is abolished. The teacher qualification standards are uniformly formulated and assessed by government agencies.

Even if we put aside Guizot’s struggle with the government of Charles X ten years ago, it is not difficult to understand why Hugo highly evaluates him just by looking at what he is doing now.

In the face of power, Guizot did not bend. And when he waited for the opportunity, he proved that he was not a scholar who could only talk, but a pragmatic minister who really wanted to make the country better.

Although Arthur didn’t know what Guizot did in the next few decades to be so disgusting, at least at this point in time, he was definitely a gentleman shining with the glory of idealism.

Especially when Arthur saw the various actions of the Parisian writers, he wanted to applaud the pure love between Guizot and his deceased wife.

Hugo saw the surprised look on Arthur's face and couldn't help laughing: "Sir, why are you so surprised? Has anyone falsely accused you that Mr. Guizot is a difficult person to get along with?"

"Oh...that's not the case." Arthur joked: "But I was shocked when I heard someone put him on the same level as Metternich. I don't know Mr. Guizot, but I know a thing or two about Metternich. Do you know Heine? My impression of Metternich basically comes from him."

Hugo couldn't help cursing when he heard this: "Putting Guizot on the same level as Metternich? Only those orthodox extreme royalists can slander him so shamelessly! As for Mr. Heine, of course I know him, I have some friendship with him, he is a very interesting guy, and it is very appropriate to describe Metternich as German hemorrhoids and urinary incontinence."

Arthur laughed and turned the page: "Okay, I think I have a good idea about Mr. Guizot. Do you know Mr. Thiers?"

"Thiers?"

When Hugo heard the name, he couldn't help showing a very intriguing expression on his face: "Three years ago, Thiers was still hanging out with us in the Parisian literary circle. But my friendship with him is not as deep as before. If you want to know him, I suggest you go to Honoré. He used to have a good relationship with Mr. Thiers. As for how he is now, I don't know."

"Honoré?" Arthur asked, "Do you mean Mr. Balzac?"

Hugo admitted generously: "Yes, it's him. According to his habit, maybe he is in this hotel at this time."

When Arthur heard this, he couldn't help but look at Victor next to him.

Both of them read the same information from each other's eyes. The detective's sense of smell is always the same-it turns out that Hugo not only peeked at Winnie, he even didn't let Balzac go.

Perhaps sensing their call, there was a knock on the door in the room.

Balzac's lazy voice came from outside the house. Judging from his long tail tone, this guy should have just finished a fierce battle and was stretching at the moment.

"Victor, are you there? I have a new manuscript here, do you want to come and help me take a look?"

Hugo opened the door, revealing the figure of the fat Balzac outside the door.

When Balzac saw Hugo, he waved the manuscript in his hand casually at him: "I plan to write Thiers into the book and give him the alias of Rastignac. If this novel is published, do you think he will come to trouble me?"

When Arthur heard this, he immediately stood up and said: "What novel? Can I take a look?"

Balzac found Arthur and Vidocq in the house, and was stunned and said: "Mr. Vidocq is here! Who is this person next to him?"

Arthur extended his hand in a friendly manner and introduced himself with a smile: "Arthur Hastings, a publisher from London. I am now looking for authors who can contribute to our magazine "The Englishman" in Paris. I wonder if you have submitted articles to our magazine?"

"Publisher of "The Englishman"?" Balzac's expression suddenly became strange: "If I remember correctly, "The Englishman" should be the magazine that published "The Count of Monte Cristo"?"