BERRYER, PIERRE A. 



Government. The royalist feelings of Ber- 

 ryer were well known ; but the public were 

 amazed to find that the evidence against him 

 was a fabrication supported by perjury. Ber- 

 ry er was at once acquitted, and speedily as- 

 sumed his place in the Legislature, from which 

 he demanded the pardon of the duchess, who 

 had been at length found and imprisoned. On 

 this event occurring, Chateaubriand published 

 a pamphlet, in which he addressed the duchess, 

 and used the words, " Yotre fils est notre roi." 

 He received addresses from a large number of 

 students. The Government prosecuted him 

 for sedition, along with the editors of six jour- 

 nals in which his reply to the students had ap- 

 peared. Berryer was retained for the defence, 

 and obtained a unanimous verdict of acquittal 

 for all his clients. In 1834-'35 he successfully 

 defended D'Argenson, De Puyraveau, and 

 Gamier Pages ; and in 1836 was presented by 

 the French Legitimists with the estate of 

 Angerville, which his difficulties compelled 

 him to offer for sale in the following year ; but 

 the party again raised a subscription for him. 

 He paid a visit to Charles X. in his exile shortly 

 before his decease. On the trial of Louis Na- 

 poleon for his attempt at Boulogne in 1840, 

 the prince chose Berryer and Marie as his de- 

 fenders, and Berryer made a bold speech, say- 

 ing it was natural that the prince should desire 

 to place himself at the head of the French na- 

 tion as chief mourner for Napoleon, whose re- 

 mains were then on their way from St. Helena. 

 His dynasty had been elected by 4,000,000 

 Frenchmen, and he was the heir to that throne. 

 He must be treated like those of other deposed 

 dynasties, and condemned simply to exile. At 

 the end of the same year France was roused 

 by the success of Sir C. Napier at Acre, and 

 the peaceful address of the French ministry 

 was fiercely debated. Berryer, in his speech 

 against it, called on the Chamber to make a 

 protest which would gladden the spirit of the 

 French people. Berryer was one of the French 

 deputies who attended the mock court of the 

 Count de Chambord in Belgrave Square in 

 1843 ; but he spoke powerfully in his own de- 

 fence and that of 3,000 other French subjects, 

 and in indignant protest against a paragraph 

 of the royal address reflecting on them. He 

 attacked the ministry in the same year for dis- 

 avowing the acts of Admiral Dupetit Thouars 

 in seizing Tahiti ; and in 1845 he urged the 

 plea of liberty of conscience against the law to 

 exile the Jesuits. At the Revolution of 1848 

 Berryer made no sign, but was chosen deputy 

 for the Bouches du Rh6ne. During the re- 

 public he said little, but was opposed to Louis 

 Napoleon, and protested against the repeal of 

 the law exiling the Bourbons, for the curious 

 reason that the Count de Chambord, a mon- 

 arch kept illegally from his throne, could not 

 accept permission to enter his own kingdom. 

 Berryer joined with the party that endeavored 

 to destroy the power of the President and to 

 impeach him ; but, when the coup d'etat of 



December 2, 1851, had been effected, he ceased 

 to take an active part in politics. lie endeav- 

 ored to effect a reconciliation between the 

 branches of the Bourbons. He was batonnier 

 of the French bar in 1852, and was elected an 

 Academician in 1855, when he did not, as was 

 customary, pay a complimentary visit to the 

 head of the Government. "When Montalem- 

 bert was prosecuted, in 1858, for publishing 

 his celebrated " Debate on India in the Eng- 

 lish House of Commons," he intrusted his de- 

 fence to Berryer; and in 1861 Berryer was 

 counsel for Miss Patterson in her suit against 

 the representatives of Jerome Bonaparte. He 

 allowed himself to be nominated as a candidate 

 in 1863 for the representation of the Bouches 

 du Rh6ne, and was returned along with Thiers 

 and M. Marie. In the Imperial Chamber of 

 Deputies, Berryer did not take a very active 

 part. He spoke in 186Y in favor of the French 

 intervention in Rome, and made an indignant 

 protest against the attacks on the French press 

 by the Count de Kerveguen. Berry er's latest 

 act in political life was his adhesion to the Bau- 

 din subscription by a public letter dictated 

 from his bed and addressed to the editor of the 

 Electeur. It runs as follows: "Sis: On the 

 2d of December, 1851, I moved and obtained 

 from the National Assembly, sitting in the 

 mairie of the eleventh arrondissement, a de- 

 cree of forfeiture and outlawry against the 

 President of the Republic, inviting citizens to 

 resist the violation of the laws if the President 

 was guilty. This decree was made as public 

 in Paris as was possible. My colleague, M 

 Baudin, energetically obeyed the orders of the 

 Assembly ; he was a victim of his obedience, 

 and I feel myself bound to join in the subscrip- 

 tion opened for the erection of an expiatory 

 monument over his grave." The day when 

 Berryer entered the Chamber of Deputies, 

 Royer Collard said of him : " It is not merely 

 a talent; it is a power." After hearing his 

 first great speech in 1830, his friends hailed in 

 him the advent of a second Mirabeau. All 

 critics seem to be agreed that, since that "im- 

 perial voice " fell silent, no other has so domi- 

 nated and swayed a French audience as that 

 of Berryer. "He was more than an orator; 

 he was the living personification of human 

 speech, in its splendor and in its majesty. In 

 him all was eloquent the tone, gesture, atti- 

 tude, and look, as well as the inspiration." 

 All ear and eye witnesses testify to an impe- 

 rial something in his manner, which, with the 

 words, produced effects that the reading of 

 these alone, forcible as they are, utterly fails to 

 explain. It was only in the last session that 

 with this, and a phrase, he cowed to silence the 

 noisy majority of the Corps Legislatif. Rou- 

 her's petulant hardihood, defiant of Favre and 

 Thiers, was veiled with respect before Berryer, 

 before whose silent look and brief contempt- 

 uous pause, even Granier Cassagnac himself, for 

 once in his boisterous life, sank . abashed. His 

 person was good, his features were fine and 



