Souvenirs d'un ultra-royaliste (1815-1832) by Ferdinand de Bertier

Abstract

296 BOOK REVIEWS and honor from Protestant countries, where unmarried mothers were expected to keep their children and no wheels of abandonment existed. One wonders if attitudes toward such women and their offspring with regard to honor were all that less strong than in Italy. Kertzer gives a hint of this in his epilogue, which examines the contemporary implications of his research, and where he asserts that in the 1920's thousands of young women in the United States were "driven out of their homes, forced to seek anonymous refuge in institutions set up for this purpose," although in contrast to Italy they were encouraged to keep their babies (pp. 183-184). This emphasis on honor was hardly the Counter-Reformation at work, and a more careful analysis ofhonor in Protestant Europe could only enhance Kertzer's presentation of conditions in Catholic Italy. Such suggestions are, however, ancillary. Overall, this is a dramatic work of real importance that will set the terms of debate in this field for a long time to come. Steven C. Hughes Loyola College in Maryland Souvenirs d'un ultra-royaliste (1815-1832). By Ferdinand de Bertier. Edited and introduced by Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny. (Paris: Librairie Jules Tallandier. 1993. Pp. 691. 198 FF.) With the publication of the memoirs ofComte Ferdinand de Bertier ( 17821864 ), the scholarly labors of Père Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, the distinguished French historian and authority on the French Restoration, have come full circle. In manuscript Bertier's memoirs were the main source for his published dissertation: Le Comte Ferdinand de Bertier et l'énigme de la Congrégation (1948). In the intervening years he published over fifteen historical works, of which La Restauration 1815—1830 (1977), later translated into English, is particularly noteworthy. The work under review is a sequel to Souvenirs Inédits d'un conspirateur ( 1990), which covered the period from 1 789 to 181 4. Like the earlier volume, it includes only those parts of the original manuscript deemed of historical interest. Ferdinand de Bertier belonged to the robe nobility, holding administrative rather than judicial offices. His father, the intendant of the Paris generality in 1789, was lynched by the mob, and his head was mounted on a pike. This atrocity aroused in Ferdinand an intense hatred of the French Revolution that fired his militancy for the royalist cause. A devout ultramontane Catholic, he ardently desired the union of throne and altar. To further these aims he established in 1810 a secret society, the Chevalerie de la Foi, incorporating into it features of religious and military knighthoods and even of the masonic order, which he briefly joined to learn its system of BOOK REVIEWS 297 secrecy. (This is described in chapter 8 of the first volume.) It rapidly gained adherents among influential members of the nobility. It incited resistance to Napoleon, prepared the return of Louis XVIII, and influenced events during the ministries ofVillèle and Polignac. After 1830, against his better judgment, Bertier joined remnants of the now-disbanded secret knighthood in a disastrous attempt to overthrow Louis Philippe and restore the Bourbon dynasty. Bertier held various posts including prefect in two departments, counselor of state, deputy, and minister of state, but never a top-level one. A good administrator, skilled at operating behind the scenes, he lacked confidence in himself as a leader. More royalist than the king, he had difficulty in compromising . As memoirist, Bertier has an engaging style, a good narrative sense, and a historian's concern for accuracy. But his opinions of adversaries are hardly dispassionate. Bertier de Sauvigny, a direct descendant of Bertier, has done a superb job of editing Bertier's memoirs. The notes constitute a veritable who's who of the period. The editor mentions their "superabundance," for which historians will be generally grateful. A minor defect is a sprinkling of typographic errors. What is the value of Souvenirs d'un ultra-royaliste to scholars? Besides an insider's view of Restoration politics, it provides a unique insight into the workings of the secret knighthood, which some historians have either ignored or lumped together with the Congrégation. Bertier de Sauvigny's dissertation argues persuasively for the...