Revolution took place, the popularity of Béranger was at its height. His opinion was much deferred to in the course taken during and after "the three great days." The intimate friend of most of the chiefs of the opposition who were now in power, of great influence with the young, and trusted by the people, it was essential that he should not oppose the plan of making the Duke of Orleans King. Béranger, in his Biography, speaks modestly of his part in these movements. In his conversations he attributed a great deal to himself. He loved to describe himself in the midst of the people who surrounded the Hôtel of M. Laffitte, going and coming, listening to each, consulted by all, and continually sent for by Laffitte, who was confined to his armchair by a swollen foot. Seeing the hesitation prolonged, he whispered in Laffitte's ear that it was time to decide, for, if they did not take the Duke of Orleans for King pretty soon, the Revolution was in danger of turning out an émeute. He gave this advice simply as a patriot, for he was not of the Orleans party. When he came out, his younger friends, the republicans, reproached him; but he replied, "It is not a king I want, but only a plank to get over the stream." He set the first example of disrespect for the plank he thought so useful; indeed, the comparison itself is rather a contemptuous one.
He afterwards behaved, however, with great sense and wisdom. He declined all offices and honors, considering his part as political songster at an end. In 1833 he published a collection in which were remarked some songs of a higher order, less partisan, and in which he foreshadowed a broader and more peaceful democracy. After this he was silent, and as he was continually visited and consulted, he resolved upon leaving Paris for some years, in order to escape this annoyance. He went first to the neighborhood of Tours, and then to Fontainebleau; but the free, conversational life of Paris was too dear to him, and he returned to live in seclusion, though always much visited by his troops of friends, and much sought after. In leaving Paris during the first years of Louis Philippe's reign, and closing, as he called it, his consulting office, his chief aim was to escape the questions, solicitations, and confidences of opposite parties, in all of which he continued to have many friends who would gladly have brought him over to their way of thinking. He did not wish to be any longer what he had been so much,—a consulting politician; but he did not cease to be a practical philosopher with a crowd of disciples, and a consulting democrat. Chateaubriand, Lamennais, Lamartine,—the chiefs of parties at first totally opposed to his own,—came to seek his friendship, and loved to repose and refresh themselves in his conversation. He enjoyed, a little mischievously, seeing one of them (Chateaubriand) lay aside his royalism, another (Lamennais) abjure his Catholicism, and the third (Lamartine) forget his former aristocracy, in visiting him. He looked upon this, and justly, as a homage paid to the manners and spirit of the age, of which he was the humble but inflexible representative.
When the Revolution of 1848 burst unexpectedly, he was not charmed with it,—nay, it made him even a little sad. Less a republican than a patriot, he saw immense danger for France, as he knew her, in the establishment of the pure republican form. He was of opinion that it was necessary to wear out the monarchy little by little,—that with time and patience it would fall of itself; but he had to do with an impatient people, and he lamented it. "We had a ladder to go down by," said he, "and here we are jumping out of the window!" It was the same sentiment of patriotism, mingled with a certain almost mystical enthusiasm for the great personality of Napoleon, nourished and augmented with growing years, which made him accept the events of 1851-2 and the new Empire.
The religion of Béranger, which was so anti-Catholic, and which seems even to have dispensed with Christianity, reduced
