To literature the restoration of the monarchy was, to all appearance at least, a herald of liberty. After the lapse of twenty-five years, free discussion of ideas was again possible. The heavy hand which had lain so crushingly on the press had been removed. The fettered intellects and suppressed ideas were free to bestir themselves; men were at liberty to investigate into and judge the past, the Empire as well as the Revolution; and no great hindrances were placed in the way of their deliberating the future of France.
They were free to do it, but had they any inclination? If they had, it was of the slightest. The mood of France was the mood which follows on a long illness or on a war which has ended in defeat. Not that men longed for redress on the field of battle. Towards the close of Napoleon's reign no echo was awakened in their hearts when the cannon in front of the Invalides proclaimed a victory. They longed for peace, as the sick man, exhausted by blood-letting, longs for rest.
To Frenchmen the idea of living a long, peaceful life once more became a familiar one. For years mothers had trembled when they saw their sons approaching the age of manhood, that is to say, the age at which they became first soldiers and ere long corpses; now they began to hope that these sons had a long life before them. The youths, to whom in their boyhood the rattle of drums and blare of trumpets had been familiar sounds, who even at school had accustomed themselves to the thought of early won honour and an early death, were now obliged to familiarise themselves with the idea of life in time of peace. The natural death to which they now looked forward seemed hideous in comparison with death as it had displayed itself to them heretofore, gloriously beautiful in the purple of victory; what was almost a feeling of disappointment came over them, and they began to brood. Most of the young men who had so long been forced to sacrifice their personal life to the life of the State, the requirements of war, the general aims of their country, welcomed with delight the news that they might break the ranks, and were no longer bound to walk in step behind the drum; they shook the dust of the highways off their feet, threw off their uniforms, and tried to banish every remembrance of military discipline. Coming straight from the battle-fields of the Empire, from the noise and bloodshed of war, they took refuge in the quietness of a country life, far from the bustle and uproar of human crowds. Such was the mood of the moment--a wearied, but complex mood. There was disappointment in it, and hope, and inclination to personal day dreaming. It was not a mood favourable to action, but to brooding, reflection, deliberation.