Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de mon temps (Tome 3)

The memoir recounts the author's tenure as minister of public instruction and the cabinet's conviction that a genuinely free government requires effective guarantees for individual rights and competent administration of public affairs. It outlines the cabinet's mixed composition, internal differences, and the political dangers and oppositions that surrounded it. A substantial section argues for a unified system of public education, reviews past organizational experiments since the Revolution, and reports observations of foreign models. The author explains how he organized the ministry on taking office, drafted and presented legislation on primary instruction with parliamentary allies. The narrative closes with accounts of the session's opening, an attempt on the sovereign's life, and his own illness.