And not content even with such severe language as this, Chateaubriand at times takes to satire. In his account of the Congress of Verona he tells how it came about that he at one time stood so high in the King's favour that his fellow-ministers were positively jealous of him: "The King often went to sleep in the Cabinet Council; and it was the best thing he could do, for when he was not asleep he told stories. He had a great gift of mimicry. But this did not amuse M. de Villèle, who wished to discuss affairs of state. M. de Corcière put his elbows, his snuffbox, and his blue pocket-handkerchief on the table; the other ministers listened in silence. I alone could not help being amused by His Majesty's anecdotes, and this evidently delighted him. When he was searching for an excuse to tell a story, he would say in his little thin, clear voice: 'I want to make M. de Chateaubriand laugh.'"[12]
It does not surprise us that Chateaubriand, after demonstrating how in a democratic community men make their way by talking volubly of liberty, the progress of humanity, the future, &c, should wind up with the following description of the conditions prevailing in the aristocratic, royalist society, the praises of which he had always sung: "Play whist, bring out with an air of seriousness and profundity the impertinences and witticisms which you have prepared, and the brilliant career of your genius is assured."
Thus completely was the man who inaugurates the half-beliefs, the æsthetic Christianity, and the affected royalism of the nineteenth century cured of all illusions.
He was too proud to wear his mask to the end, and he threw it off completely "beyond the grave."
He himself names as his "chief faults" ennui, disgust with everything, and constant doubt. These faults had their good sides. Profound indifference to all this world has to bestow preserved him from the temptations of base ambition; doubt preserved him from placing implicit confidence in the doctrines which a spirit of aristocratic defiance more than anything else led him to champion; his pride sustained him, and though it did not preserve him from hypocrisy, it kept him from ever committing a mean action. But, until the ingratitude of the authority which he had reinstated roused him to rebellion, there was a hopeless discord between his nature and the part he played.