Even in songs
he has a constrained air sometimes, but this constraint gave him more
force. He produces the impression of superiority to his class.
Beranger had given up his little post at the University before declaring
open war against the government. He was before long indicted, and in
1822 condemned to several months' imprisonment, for having scandalized
the throne and the altar. His popularity became at once boundless; he
was sensible of it, and enjoyed it. "They are going to indict your
songs," said some one to him. "So much the better!" he replied,--"that
will gilt-edge them." He thought so well of this _gilding_, that in
1828, during the ministry of M. Martignac, a very moderate man and of a
conciliatory semi-liberalism, he found means to get indicted again and
to undergo a new condemnation, by attacks which some even of his friends
then thought untimely. Once again Beranger was impassioned; he declared
his enemies incurable and incorrigible; and soon came the ordinances of
July, 1830, and the Revolution in their train, to prove him right.
In 1830, at the moment when the Revolution took place, the popularity
of Beranger was at its height. His opinion was much deferred to in the
course taken during and after "the three great days.
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