The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-04 00:00:00

M. BERRYER.

The glory of the French bar, the eagle of French
Oratory and standard-bearer of the Legitimist party,
Pierre Antoine Berryer, was born at Paris on the 4th
of January, 1790. His father, who still lives, held
before the Revolution a rather high station at the bar.
Of a prudent and sagacious nature, M. Berryer, senior,
beheld the palladium of our liberties in the demonstra-
tions of independence made by the Parliaments.
Eloquent and able, he could, like so many other lawyers
of the time, have declaimed in the Constituante and
..egislative assemblies, or in the Convention—like so
many others, also, he might have been beheaded by
order of the Comite de Salut Public. He preferred
to keep aloof, deploring the ruin of the old privi-
leges of his order, and bringing up his son in the love
of the institutions under which France had grown
great for so many centuries. When the worst times of
the revolutionary storm had passed M. Berryer, senior,
entrusted his son to the oratorians of Juilly. Then,
as at the present day, the College of Juilly was dis-
tinguished for substantial instruction, and, above all,
for the care bestowed upon religions education. Young
lierryor gave early proof of equal intelligence and idle-
ness ; he was a middling student, working by fits and
starts, of mortifying inferiority in Greek version, but on
times superb in amplification or French oratory. On the
other hand, the student displayed a piety and fervour at
remarkable, that after going through philosophy he
wanted to become a priest, and it required every effort
to prevent his entering a seminary.
This first religious education made on the youth's heart
an impression which was never effaced. It has been such
that although M. Berryer has spent his life is sifting
law-suits by thousands, plunged up to his neck in the
materialism of affairs and the dissipation of the world,
and enjoying the pleasures of all sorts which it has
yielded him, he has ever remained a fervent and con-
vinced Catholic.

M. Berryer had not all those obstacles to over.
come which most eminent men have had to encounter
at their entry into life. His father, who then had
a vast number of clients, saw at a glance
that he would go quick and far in the career of the
bar, and he WAS not mistaken. Nature had gifted him
with all that constitutes the orator—a pure and powerful
voice, a fine and expressive countenance, broad lungs,
and the passionate organisation of a tribune. After some
veers divided between the theoretical study of law and
the experimental study of life ; after some months spent
in the attorney's office to practice law fencing ; after hav-
ing, when scarcely twenty-one years old, married against
wind and tide a young and handsome person, Mae.
Gauthier, of whom he was deeply enamoured, M. Ber-
rycr made his debuts at the bar in the last years of the
Empire, and those debuts were so many triumphs.
At about the same period, that is to say in 1814, M.
Berryer's political opinions were colourless ; he liked
neither war nor despotism, and yet participated, to a
certain degree, in the enthusiasm with which Napoleon
inspired youth at that period ; his father, besides, war.
indebted to the Imperial system for the restoration of
his fortune, and he himself, as he said later, " was com-
mencing his career amidst the noise of arms, and waking
to the cries of glory of the Empire, rhea old quarrels
were stifled."

Nrvertheless, when the first restoration occurred, it
found in M. Berryer a devoted Royalist, and from that
period the line of the political man, taken in its ensem-
ble, has not varied.

On Napoleon's return from Elba, M. Berrycr, faith-
ful to his recent convictions, entered the ranks of the
Royalist volunteers. After the second fall of Napo-
icon, convinced " that it was not a King's business to
pick up the wounded on a field of battle in order to
carry them to the scaffold," he devoted himself to the
defence of the victims of the reaction. He took his
place by his father find M. Dupin in the trial of Mar-
shal Ney, pleaded before a Council of War for General
Debelle, and, after vainly striving to wrest him from
his condemnation, succeeded in obtaining from the King
a commutation of the penalty. Some days later, on
the 26th April, 1815, he won a complete triumph, the
young Royal volunteer sheltered with his eloquence and
saved one of the most glorious veterans of the Imperial
armies, General Cambronne. In the affair of Generals
Caneul and Donnadieu, accused of a plot against the
life of the King, M. Berrycr violently attacked the De-
cazes Cabine►, which he charged with being the insti-
gator of the Lyons and Grenoble insurrections. A
pamphlet he published at that period excited much
clamour, and from that moment M. Berryer found him-
self connected with that class of pure Royalists clus-
tered about MM. de Chateaubriand, Bonald, Lamen-
nais, Carbiere, and Villele, and sounding the alarm in
the columns of the Conservateur.

A.Cter the accession of the Villele Cabinet, Ber-
ryer soon had to combat his political friends in their
tendencies restrictive of the lib,:rties of the press. He
assisted with his pen the Journal des Debuts, Dra-
preau blanc, and Quotidienne. At about the 521130
time, M. Berryer co-operated i❑ the foundation of the

_ .
Societe des Bonnes Lettres and the Societe des Bonnes

Etudes ; for the first time he launched into political
questions of the highest order in a series of moral les-
sons. The audience was a numerous one, the orator
met with complete success, and perhaps that fore-
taste of Parliamentary triumphs added to his inclina-
tion for political life. Already had M. de Villele, on
his accession to office, striven to obtain the services

of a young man who held out such bright hopes ; but
M. Berryer had felt that he would be a loser if he
exchanged for the situation of Procureur-General his
independent and profitable station at the bar. He
refused, and remained an advocate, taking, ne•aerthe-
less, a part in the various Ministerial transformations—
a part conspicuous enough to impair his personal in-
terests and check the progress of his fortune. At
length, when M. Berryer had attained the age qualify-
ing him for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, the
Polignac Administration, which bad just been formed,
hastened to make every effort towards enlisting him
under his banner. To secure beforehand his qualifica-
tions, M. Berryer had just bought the estate of Anger-
ville, the acquisition of which had considerably encum-
bered his fortune. M. Berryer hesitated at first be-
tween Royal solicitations and the embarrassment of his
private affairs, and ended by sacrificing his bright station
at the bar and the immense resources which his talents
yielded him, to the uncertainty of political life.
Proposed as Ministerial candidate at the Electoral
College of Puy, M. Berryer was returned by a majo-
rity, and made his debut in the Chamber of Deputies
on the 9th of March, 1830, in the debate upon the
memorable address of the two hundred and twenty-one.
Placed from that moment at the head of the Ministerial
phalanx, M. Berryer might expect, as every body else
did, an approaching elevation. He was offered a seat
in the Cabinet hut declined it, being unwilling to play
a secondary part, and to submit to Prince de Polignac's
political notions. Tue revolution of July, IS3O, sud-
denly dispelled his bright prospects.
On this event taking place M. Berrycr hastened to
his post, and, so early as the 7:h of August, protested
against the powers which the Chamber arrogated, de-
claring that he did not consider himself as having the
right to deliberate upon the vacancy of the Throne and
the election of a King. The royalty of July was not

the less proclaimed.- Most of the I:et;itimisis deserted
the Chambers, and M. Berryer soon found himself
almost alone, with an oath to take repugnant to his
conscience. He was in great perplexity. On the one
hand his political friends, who placed their only hopes
in his oratorical powers, endeavoured to keep him to his
seat, from considerations of devotedness and honour ;
on the other, many friends, interested in his welfare and
prospects, urged him not to sacrifice his life to a despe-
rate cause, but to resume his profitable profession at
the bar.

Of the two courses M. .Berryer followed the most
painful and unprofitable. He took the oath with all
reserves, continued a Deputy, and from that moment
WAS engaged in the lice of permanent Opposition, from
which he has since not departed.
On the .sth of October, :831, he and M. Thiers
met on the same side for the first time, in support of the
maintenance of the peerage heirship. On rising some
days after to defend the anniversary of the 21st January,
and being led to pay a tribute to the memory of Louis
XVI., M. Berryer was interrupted by sonic clamour,
when he flung to the Gauche one of those admirable
apostrophes which he always has at his command
On the day he was condemned, it was permitted to
dwell on the virtues of Louis XVI. ; I am not aware
that the Convention interrupted the defenders of the
King."
Whilst M. Berryer thus proceeded as a Fabius
cuitctator towards a third restoration, a woman, more
impatient, betook herself to the more perilous chance of
arms. The Duchess de Berry crossed France, and La
Vendee, at her call, recovered some of its old energy.
A letter was addressed by her to the L,!gititnists of
Paris, iufornaing them of her arrival. To the latter
‘a annexed a long note in cyphers, whose key the
vPrincess had forgotten to give. M. Berrver's sagacity
soon found it. It was the words •`Le Gouvernement
should
dl
himself
Paris i s
nti t
provisoire, ' substituted for the twenty-four letters of the
alphabet.
a twasria dl
ecided t
nthat t
attend
Berryeri‘t a meeting
at Vannes to attempt to join the Princess, and to
make her abandon her projects, M. Be
the 22d of May at Nantes, and on the
same evening er was on
pro-
ceeding through the Bocage. He at length reached the
a
little farm and humble room where our greatest orator was
to oppose his eloquence to a woman of feeble body, but
with a heart of steel. The discussion lasted till
morn-
ing,W hen daylight came she Was exhausted, but not
convinced ; and M. Berryer withdrew in affliction, for
he forsaw the catastrophe. On reaching Nantes he
received a letter, announcing that the insurrection was
fixed for the night of the 3d June. On that day M.
Berryer was proceeding towards Switzerland, when, at