， ， ， ，
∞
* * * * *, x :）.*******; * * · * * * *'ſ · · · ſ · · · · · · · · · -
- ~- « · s · ， ， ， ， ， ， ！·* g * . .« * * * * • * ， ， ， ， .
•· · *， ， ， º
* ¿ $¢ £ ©s
！ ！ ！ №
gº sº ººº ！ ）
， ， ， ， ， , ， , ！
&. ， ， ！
ſë ： 3 § ¶ ¡ ¿ ?№
ſ į 2 ） . . ſ
∞ √° √2 , ！
• Lºs •
* ， ， ， ， ;

S.25 & /&
rivate Library
3 E. M. PECPX.
& DETROIT,
M|CH,
d
*X
Q
-s
Ş






º
2
#
v 4
§ NVRINUll!]]||
3. #
*
wº
--
º, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J. J. J. J. & J. Cº. tº 7 At
g *****
!
MRS. BARNARD PIERCE
MRS. CARL HAESSLER
MRS. HOWARD LUCE
MISS MARGARET KNIGHT

§§№.-
№.§§§§%·-
§§№%ſ.|-
§§§|（
§§ſae·
§ÈÄ
：|×-
§§|×|－
§§
|（§.
---
--~~~
-
º
-
º-
º
º
2.
---
-
-- ---
-
--
º
--~~~~
--
º:
---
-
º
º
º
---
-
：
-ſaeſae
±，±，±，±ſae
£
£
№é
-
272^.

t } * *
2%a 777 & 77/2,~ & a 227 *3-
THE HISTORY
OF
T H E R E S T () R A TI () N
OF
MONARCHY IN FRANCE.
BY ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE,
AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTs.”
TRANSLATED BY
C APTAIN R. A. F. T. E. R.
IN FOUR WOLUMES.
WOL. I.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
1891.
24 25 | 7 || *
LONDON :
sepp:NTED FROM STEREo-PLATES BY william clowes AND sons, limitºry
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS,
º “
k
&
8 v,
CONTENTS OF WOLUME I.
NoTICE . . . . s e e º e o e º e º e e e º e s a e
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BOOK FIRST.
Retrospective View of Napoleon's Reign—Napoleon in 1813—His return to
Paris—The Allied Armies on the Rhine—Convocation of the State Coun-
cil, the 11th of November—A Conscription of 300,000 men decreed—
Military condition of France—Opening of the Legislative Assembly—
The Emperor's Speech—Proposals from Frankfort—Projected Congress
at Manheim–Choice of Commissioners by the Senate and the Legislative
Assembly to examine and report upon this negociation—Hostile choice of
the Legislative Assembly—M. Lainé—M Raynouaid–Address of M. de
Fontanes—Cambaceres—M. Lainé's Protest—Napoleon's indignation—
Savary—Suppression of the Address of the Legislative Assembly—Its
Dissolution—Grand reception of the 1st of January, 1814—The Em-
peror's Speech to the Legislative Assembly—Reconstitution of the Na-
tional Guard of Paris—Presentation of Marie-Louise and her son to the
officers of the National Guard—Allocution of Napoleon—Marie-Louise
—Departure of Napoleon for the Army, 23rd January—Schwartzenburg
and Blucher pass the Rhine, 31st December—Lassitude of France—
Arrival of Napoleon at Châlons, 25th Janualy . . . . . . . .
BOOK SECOND.
Campaign of 1814–Plan of Napoleon—March of the Emperor on St. Dizier
to meet the Allies—Napoleon falls back on Brienne—Combat of Brienne
—Junction of Plucher and Schwartzenburg—Battle of La Rothierre–
Combat of Marmont at Rosnay—Napoleon goes to Troyes—His resi-
dence and hesitation at Troyes—Congress of Chatillon—Caulancourt—
Ultimatum of the Allied Sovereigns on the 8th of January—Correspond-
ence of the Emperor and Joseph—Blucher falls back on Châlons, and
marches on Palis—Napoleon marches to Champ Aubert to stop Blucher
—Combat of Champ Aubert–Battle of Montmirail—Battle of Wau-
champ—Napoleon withdraws from Caulaincourt the authority to sign a
Peace—Schwartzenburg threatens Paris, and advances by the valley of
the Seine—Napoleon flies to meet him—Battle of Montereau—Napoleon
re-enters Troyes the 23rd January—Royalist manifestation—Execution
of the Chevalier Gouault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BOOK THIRD.
Allies demand a suspension of arms—Conferences of Lusigny—The
allied troops take Soissons—Blucher unites all his corps d'armée—He
marches on Troyes towards Schwartzenburg—Rencontre of Napoleon
and Blucher—Méry-sur-Seine—Blucher abandons the valley of the Seine,
and advances on Paris by the valley of the Marne—Moltier and Mar-
mont fall back upon Paris—Soissons is retaken by Mortier—Napoleon
quits Schwartzenburg, and flies to Blucher—He overtakes him at La
Ferté-sous-Jouarre—Blucher passes the Marne, pursued by Napoleon–
Blucher hemmed in by the Emperor, Mortier, and Marmont, escapes by
Soissons, abandons the Aisne, and retires upon Laon—Napoleon crosses
the Aisne at Béry-au-Bac, and attacks at Craoline the Russian and Prus-
sian corps which came to cover Blucher—Battle of Craonme—Battle of
Laon—Halt of Napoleon at Rheims—Schwartzenburg marches on Paris,
and advances to Provins—Tactics of the Emperor—He returns to Troyes
to operate on the rear of the enemy—Pauic of the allies—Schwartzen-
Th
©
wi CONTENTS.
P A GH
burg falls back upon Troyes and Dijon—Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube—The
Emperor's new plan of campaign—Decree for a levy en masse—Apathy
of France—March of Napoleon towards St. Dizier–Treaty of Chau-
mont—Concentration of the Allied Armies at Châlons—Their indecision
—They march on Paris—Situation of Paris and of France—Flight of
Marie-Louise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
BOOK FOURTH.
Progress of Napoleon towards Paris—He passes Troyes and Sens—Arti.al of
the Allied Armies before Paris—Battle of Paris—Joseph orders Marmont
to capitulate—Proclamation of Joseph—Flight of Joseph, of Jerome, and
of the Government—Mortier offers a suspension of arms—Last resist-
ance of Marmont—He proposes a suspension of arms—Deputation from
the Municipal Council to Marmont—Capitulation of Marmont, the 30th
March—Messrs. de Chabrol and Pasquier at the Quarter-general of the
Emperor Alexander—Alexander—He receives a deputation from the
Parisians—Speech of Alexander—Entrance of the Allied Armies into
Paris—Aspect of Paris—Petition from the Authorities of Paris to Alex-
ander—Royalist manifestation on the entrance of the Sovereigns . . . 81
IBOOK FIFTH.
Napoleon at the village of La Cour de France, near Paris, on the evening of
the 30th March—Meeting between the retreating French troops of
General Belliard and the Emperor—Napoleon learns the capitulation of
Paris—His indignation—He sends Caulancourt to Paris—Caulaincourt
tries in vain to enter Paris—He returns to the Emperor—He is sent a
second time to the Allies—Napoleon goes to Fontainebleau—Meeting of
Caulaincourt and the Grand Duke Constantine at the Barriers—He takes
Caulaincourt into Paris—Alexander receives him—Interview between
Alexander and Caulaincourt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
BOOK SIXTH.
Alexander at the hotel of M. de Talleyrand—M. de Talleyrand—Night con-
ference of the Allies–-Deliberation—Alexander—The Duke d'Alberg—
Pozzo di Borgo—M. de Talleyrand–Declaration of the Sovereigns—
Royalist deputation to Alexander—Answer of M. de Nesselrode—
Royalist Propagandism—The Press—Pamphlet of M. de Chateaubriand:
“Bonaparte and the Bourbons."—The public mind—Convocation of the
Senate—Sitting of the 1st of April—Formation of the Provisional
Government—M. de Talleyrand—The Duke d'Alberg–M. de Jaucourt—
General Beurnonville—The Abbé de Montesquiou—The Municipal
Council— Manifesto of M. Bellart . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
BOOK SEVENTH.
Sitting of the Senate the 2nd of April–Declaration of Forfeiture—Sitting
of the Senate the 3rd of April—Text of the Decree of Forfeiture—
Adhesion of the Legislative Body—Manifestations of Paris against the
Emperor—The Ministry—Progress of Opinion—Adhesion of the other
Constituted Bodies—Manifesto of the Provisional Government—Situa-
tion of the Emperor and of the Allies—Napoleon at Fontainebleau—
Return of Caulaincourt to Fontainebleau in the night of the 2nd of
April–Proclamation of Napoleon to his Guard, the 3d of April–Order
of the day for the march of the army on Paris—Opposition of the Mar-
shals—Interview of Napoleon and Marmont—Adhesion of Marmont
to the forfeiture of the Emperor—Letter of Marmont to Prince Schwart-
zenburg—The Prince's answer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
BOOK EIGHTH.
Abdication of Napoletºn—He sends Caulaincourt and Macdonald as Plenipo-
tentiaries to Paris—Council of the Marshals and the Allied Sovercigns
on the 4th of April—Rejection of the Regency—Defection of Marmont'
CONTENTS.
vii
PAGE
Troops—Nocturnal Supper of the Generals and Oſficers—March of the
6th Corps into the enemy's lines—Its revolt on its arrival at Versailles—
Its march towards Rambouillet—Marmont, hastening to Versailles, stops
and appeases the 6th Corps—Oration of Marmont, on his return at the
hotel of M. de Talleyrand—Order of the day of Napoleon on the 5th of
April—Return of the Plenipotentiaries to Fontainebleau—Napoleon wishes
to commence the war—He renounces the idea—Departure of Caulain-
court for Paris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|BOOK NINTH.
Treaty of Fontainebleau of the 11th of April—Return of Caulaincourt and
The
The
Macdonald—Napoleon refuses to sign the treaty—Rumours of poison-
ing—Ratification of the treaty—Life of Napoleon at Fontainebleau—
Journey of Marie-Louise—Her residence at Blois—Struggles of Marie-
Louise against the brothers of the Emperor—Her departure from Blois
the 16th April—She returns to her father—Last days of Napoleon at
Fontainebleau—The farewell and address of Napoleon to his Guard—
The Author's opinion of Napoleon . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BOOK TENTH.
Bourbons—Louis XVIII.-His life at the Court of Louis XVI.-His
disposition—His understanding—His conduct during the Revolution—His
flight from Paris—His residence at Coblentz—Treaty of Pilnitz—Mani-
festo of the French princes—Aspect of the Court of the Count de Pro-
vence during the Emigration—His opinions—His unpopularity with the
Emigrants—Popularity of his brother the Count d'Artois—Letter of the
Count de Provence to Louis XVI.--War against the Republic—The
Count de Provence Regent—His intrigues in France and in Vendée—His
manifesto on the death of Louis XVI.—His life at Verona—He quits
Verona, and visits the army of Condé–His negociations with Pichegru—
He leaves the army of Condé—His adventures and his life in Germany
—He retires to Mittau—He is forced to quit it—His return to Mittau—
He goes to England —He is received by the Duke of Buckingham—He
retires to Hartwell—M. de Blacas—Life and meditations of Louis XVIII.
at Hartwell—England and Louis XVIII. in 1813 . . . . . . . .
BOOK ELEVENTH.
Count d'Artois—His character—His position at Court and in France in
1789—His flight from Versailles—His travels in Belgium, Italy Germany,
and Russia—The Count d'Artois and the Count de Provence at Coblentz—
Their respective positions during the emigration—War against France—
The Count d'Artois retires to England—His intrigues—He leaves Eng.
land to make a descent upon Brittany—He stops at l'Isle Dieu-His
return to London—Letter from Charette—Attempt of the Emigrants of
London against the life of the First Consul—Death of Madame de Polas-
tron—Grief of the Count d'Artois—Influence of this death upon the
character and politics of the Count d'Artois—The Duke d'Angoulême—
The Duke de Berry—The Duchess d’Angoulême—Her life in the prison
of the Temple—Death of her brother—She is released from prison, and
goes into Germany—Her marriage at Mittau—The Duke d'Orleans—
The Prince de Condé–The Duke de Bourbon–The Duke d'Enghien—
His character—His love—His life at Ettenheim—Napoleon has him
watched—The kidnapping of the Duke d'Enghien—He is conducted to
Strasbourg–His letter to the Princess Charlotte—His diary—He is taken
to Paris, and imprisoned at Vincennes . . . . . . . . . . . .
BOOK TWELFTH.
Napoleon at Malmaison — His preparations for the death of the Duke
I72
200
292
d'Enghien — Examination of the Duke d'Enghien — His Trial — His
Condemnation—His Execution—Arrival of the Princess Charlotte at
Paris–Remarks on the conduct of Napoleon . . . . . . . . .
356,
wiii CONTENTS
PAGI
BOOK THIRTEENTH.
The Bourbons quit England—Indifference of the French and the Allies
towards the Bourbons in January, 1814—The Count d'Artois enters
, France—His situation in the midst of the Allies—The Duke d'Angoulême
disembarks in Spain—His proclamations—Order of the day of Marshal
Soult—Attitude of Wellington—Royalist conspiracy at Bordeaux—The
Duke d'Angoulême enters Bordeaux—The Duke de Berry at Jersey—
State of the Royalist parties at Paris—Discussions between the Senate
and the Abbé Montesquiou, Commissioner of Louis XVIII.-Recogni-
tion of Louis XVIII. as King of France by the Senate, April 6, 1814 -
Departure of the Count d'Artois from Nancy —His entry into Paris—The
Senate recognises him as Lieutenant-general of the kingdom—Reception
of the Senate and the Legislative Body by the Count d'Artois—He nomi-
nates a council of government—M. de Vitrolles—Convention of 23rd
of April–Deputation of the Count de Bruges and of Pozzo di Borgo to
Louis XVIII.-Departure of Louis XVIII. from Hartwell, 18th April—
His entry into London—His arrival at Dover-—His speech to the Prince
Regent—He sails for France, and disembarks at Calais—He passes
through Boulogne, Montreuil, Abbeville, and Amiens—His halt at Com-
piègne—Deputation of the Marshals of Napoleon—Speech of Berthier-
Deputation of the Legislative Body—Conference of Louis XVIII. with
the Emperor Alexander—The Emperor of Austria and the King of
Prussia arrive at Compiègne—Dinner of the Sovereigns . . . . . 380
IBOOK FOURTEENTH.
Project of a royal declaration proposed by the Senate to Louis XVIII.
—His refusal—He goes to live at St. Ouen—Deputation of the Senate—
Speech of M. de Talleyrand–Declaration from St. Ouen—Entrance of
Louis XVIII, into Paris—His cortège—He goes to the Cathedral—His
arrival at the Tuileries—He appoints his Ministry—M. d'Ambray—The
Abbé de Montesquiou—The Abbé Louis—M. Beugnot—General Dupont
— M. Ferrand––M. de Talleyrand—M. de Blacas—Memoir of Fouché to
Louis XVIII.-Creation of the Military Household of the King—Charter
of 1814—Opposition of M. de Villele—Treaty of Paris—Departure of the
Allies—Formation of the Chamber of Peers—Opening of the Chambers,
June 4, 1814—The King's Speech—Speeches of the Chancellor d'Ambray
and of M. Ferrand—Address of the Chamber of Peers and the Legis-
lative Body—Ordonnance on the observation of Sunday—Project of Law
on the Press—Speech of the Abbé Montesquiou—Report of M. Raynouard
—The Law is adopted by the Legislative Body and the Chamber of Peers
—Financial measures presented to the King by the Abbé Louis—Law for
restitution of incomes and property not sold—Exposé of M. Ferrand's
motives—Report of M. Bédoch—Speeches of M. Lainé and of Marshal
Macdonald—Adoption of the Law—General Excelmans and Marshal
Soult—The Duke d'Orleans at the Palais-Royal—The Duke and Duchess
d'Angoulême in La Vendée—The Duke de Berry—The Count d'Artois—
The Prince of Condé–The Duke de Bourbon—Return of France to the
Bourbons—Situation of Louis XVIII.-Departure of M. de Talleyrand
for Vienna—Congress of Vienna. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
TXOOK FIFTEENTH.
Revival of literature, of philosophy of history, of the press—Madame de
Staël —M. de Chateaubriand—M. de Bonald——M. de Fontanes—M. de
Maistre—M. de Lamennais—M. Cousin—The saloons of Paris—The
King's cabinet—M. de Talleyrand—Madame de Staël—Madame de Duras
—Madame de la Trémouille—-Madame de Broglie—Madame de Saint-
Aulaire—Madame de Montcalm—M. Casimir Périer—M. Laffitte—Bé-
ranger–The Journals—Queen Hortense—Carnot's pamphlet—Letter of
Fouché–Intercourse of Louis XVIIL with Barras . . . . . . . . 497
PREFA C E.
* * > *-
I.
THE rapidity of time supplies the place of distance. When
we are separated by many events from the period we undertake
to illustrate, we fancy that a lapse of ages has intervened.
The years that have flown by since my birth have been full of
vicissitudes, of falling nations, of reigns, empires, and republics.
Contemporary history has, in fact, ceased to exist; for the
days that have just gone by, seem already to have sunk deep
into the shadow of the past. The perspective recedes by the
grandeur and the multitude of events which interpose between
the eye and the memory.
I scarcely exceed the middle age of man, and I have
already lived under ten dominations, or ten different govern-
ments, in France. Between infancy and maturity I have
witnessed ten revolutions: the Constitutional Government of
Louis XVI., the first Republic, the Directory, the Consulate,
the Empire, the first Restoration in 1814, the Second Govern-
ment of the “Hundred Days” by Napoleon, the Second
Restoration in 1815, the Reign of Louis Philippe, and the
Second Republic:—ten cataracts, by which the spirit of modern
liberty and the stationary or obstructive spirit have endea-
voured, by turns, to descend or to remount the declivity of
revolutions.
II.
My heart has throbbed with these emotions; I have lived
in this current of passing events; I have been afflicted or
rejoiced at these downfalls, or these successions; I have suffered
X PREFACE,
from these subversions, and I have been instructed by these
spectacles. My existence has vegetated, has made a noise,
has been matured, has grown old, and has been renewed in
me. I have understood, or have fancied I understood, whither
the world was tending on the current of destiny. A recent
vicissitude has raised me for a moment to the head of one of
these movements, between a government which overthrew
itself, and a community which it was necessary to collect
together, to save and to re-constitute it on a new basis. The
Second Republic was the result. This was for a long period,
at least, the only system which could rally and incite the
people. Monarchies had crumbled beneath them, one after
another, whatever modifications might have been attempted in
their principles of vitality. Dynasties waging civil wars for
the throne, were nothing more themselves than mediums and
causes of internecine conflicts, amongst the people, between
their respective partisans. Claims upon the crown had become
factions. The nation itself was indivisible; its pretenders were
divided. The country alone could reign.
It had further to make, for the defence of the foundations
of society, efforts which demand the power and the unanimity
of a people. Finally, it had, it still has, to effect—in its
laws, in its ideas, and in its relations of class with class, in its
established religion, in its public instruction, in its philosophy,
and in its manners—emergetical reforms which the hand of
no monarchy is sufficiently strong and sufficiently devoted
to accomplish. Revolutions are made by republics. They
arise from the government of the people, operating in their
great experience upon themselves. This age has works of too
much importance to accomplish, and questions of civilization
and religion too complicated to solve, not to continue long
republican, or not to return frequently to that form of govern-
ment. I am therefore a republican, from a knowledge of the
PREFACE xi
things which must happen, and from devotion to the great work
of the age. Without overlooking any of the inconveniences
and dangers of democracy, I am of opinion that we should
accept them heroically as a task. It is the instrument which
wounds and bruises the hand of the statesman; but it is the
instrument of great things. We must renounce great things;
we must again recline on the indolent couch of habits and
prejudices; or we must risk the Republic. This is my profes-
sion of faith.
III.
It is with this conviction that I have undertaken to write
the history of the two reigns of the Restoration. Let me not,
however, be misunderstood; for this conviction will not render
me unjust. I shall have rather to divest myself of an excess
of impartiality as to the events of my first epoch. Two mela
are comprised in the historian,—the man of impressions, and
the man of judgment. My judgment may be severe; but my
impressions are excited, and almost affected, in behalf of the
Restoration. Though frequently condemning it, I cannot refuse
it my sympathy. “Why so?” murmurs the austere republican.
I will tell him. 'Tis because it was the period when feeling
and imagination were allowed to mingle most with political
Science—'tis because succeeding historians have been unjust
towards this phase of our fluctuating progress—'tis because
they have written a satire rather than a history of the Restora-
tion—'tis because we walk with facility over that which is
falling—'tis that, between the enthusiasm of the servile glory
of the Empire, and the vulgar utility of the reign of Louis
Philippe, they have crushed two princes, two reigns, and two
generations of political men, worthy of more consideration—
'tis, finally, that my heart feels an interest in that forgotten
generation, though my understanding is in favour of the future.
xii WºREFACE.
IV.
My infancy, my earliest thoughts, my blood were royalist.
In the paternal mansion I had been rocked in my cradle by
those domestic narratives of the still reeking dramas of the
Revolution. A young and beautiful queen, dragged from her
bed, and pursued, half naked, by the daggers of the populace
in her own palace, on the 5th and 6th October; her guards
slaughtered in defending her, on the threshold of her chamber,
by the pikes of assassins; a royal family flying, with their children
in their arms, from the Tuileries to the National Assembly,
the 10th of August; the towers of the Temple filled with the
mysteries of their captivity; the scaffold of a king, of his wife,
of his sister; his son brutalized by solitude, the mockery of a
brutal artisan; his daughter left alone, to weep the destruction
of her race, under the vaults of a prison worse than a sepulchre;
then liberated, in the darkness of the night, on condition of
perpetual exile; princes hitherto celebrated for their intellect,
their grace, and even for their volatility, wandering from
court to court, from retreat to retreat, without any one knowing
where they concealed their miseries;–there was, in this fright-
ful catastrophe, something to excite the nerves of an infant.
The heart, when of noble origin, is always on the side of the
unfortunate: the imagination is the veritable plotter of restora-
tlOnS.
W.
And then again, this Restoration coincided with my youth;
its rising splendour mingled with and became a portion of my
existence. The hour of enthusiasm had struck. It was
poetical, like the visions of old—miraculous as a resurrection.
The old became young again in the memories of the past
the women wept ; the clergy prayed; music resounded on
PREFA CE. xiii
every side; infants wondered, and rejoiced in hope. The
Empire had oppressed the soul of the nation. The mental
spring of a whole people rectified itself at the word liberty,
which for ten years had been proscribed. The republicans,
avenged by the fall of him who had destroyed the Republic,
embraced the royalists with a warmth of reconciliation, of
which constitutional liberty was to be the pledge. This
return appeared to be that of the monarchy modified by exile,
and of liberty purified by expiation. It was an epoch of
regeneration, pacific, intellectual, and liberal for France.
Poetry, literature, and arts forgotten, enslaved, or disciplined
under the police of the Empire, seemed to spring from the
soil under the feet of the Bourbons. It appeared as if respira-
tion had been restored to the world, after having been suffo-
cated for ten years by tyrºnny: it breathed freely now for the
past, the present, and the future. Never will the century
behold a similar epoch. No one ever thought of to-morrow.
Inspired by hope, the humiliations and misfortunes of the
country were forgotten. The soldiers of Napoleon alone held
down their heads as they laid down their arms; for their
courtier chiefs had already passed over to the side of the
conqueror
W].
It is natural that such a spectacle, and the speciacles
which followed the first day of this Restoration,-(the liberty
of the press, the freedom of speech, the electoral movements,
which at length excited a people so long motionless and mute;
the books kept back by the imperial censorship, which issued
in hurried numbers, like whole catacombs of thought; the
pamphlets, the journals multiplied and free, the narratives of
exile and of emigration; the great writers, the publicists, the
philosophers, the poets, the Staëls, the Bonalds, the Chateau.
XIV PREFACE.
briands, the De Maistres; the great orators who practised
themselves in discussion, the Lainés, the De Serres, the
Foys; the sight of those princes and of those princesses,
before whom France composed its features, to render their
country sweet and hospitable in their eyes; the saloons, the
theatres, the fêtes, the assemblies of an aristocracy eager
to enjoy; enthusiastic women, beautiful, intellectuai, and
grouping once more around them the illustrious men of
Europe, of the war, of the tribune, of literature and of art;)—
it is natural. I say, that the impressions of such a period,
in the existence of a people, should remain profoundly
engraved in the memory of a young man, and predispose, at
a later period, the man of maturity to I know not what
partiality in his reminiscenses of this fascinating dawn of
his opinions. s
WII.
Such is, I confess, my tenderness or my weakness of mind
towards the Restoration. Its faults and its misfortunes have
made no alteration in my first impressions. I have interdicted
myself from serving, and still more from liking, the monarchy
without antecedents, without prestige, and without right, which
succeeded, in 1830, to the government of my sympathies.
The uncle was solely unpardonable in replacing the nephew.
Nature, at least, is a legitimacy for those who do not recognise
legitimacy in a political sense. The Republic from this period
might have set aside the throne; no other sovereign than the
people could occupy it. The Revolution of July would then have
been a progress; but it was only a subversion. It did not replace
the throne; it did not crown the nation; it only put off the
day of struggle. Although I have never disturbed or insulted
the government of Louis Philippe, for fear of disturbing the
country itself, I had an instinctive perception of its instability.
PIREFACE. XV
It is with governments as with metals: nothing false has
strength; truth is the vital principle of everything. Nothing
was true in that royalty, but a throne and a people equally
defrauded. Sooner or later it must have perished as it arose—
in a breath. Neither eminent men, nor ministers, nor orators,
nor abilities, nor talents, nor even private virtues were want-
ing to this reign. What it wanted was respect—that which
gives durability to institutions, the youngest as well as the
oldest. When it was asked what it was, it could invoke
neither God nor the people; it could only say for itself, “I am
the negation of Divine right, which prolongs the hereditary
reign of princes; and I am the negation of the right of
nations to choose their own kings.” Between hereditary right,
which it had banished, and national election, which it had
eluded, what could it do? Manoeuvre, negociate, compound,
unduly influence, or corrupt. It was a government with two
faces, neither of which spoke the truth.
VIII.
Its fall, in leaving the palace vacant, made room for abso-
lute right, the right national, the right natural, the right
of every man coming into this world to have his portion of
suffrage, intelligence, and will in the government, the vote
universal. Universal Suffrage is the true name of modern
society at present. This principle has made a Republic of
France; and it could not do otherwise. In the state of in-
credulity, of anarchy, and of struggle in which the monarchi-
cal principle, personified in three dynasties, was plunged with
itself, to give France of 1848 to monarchy, would be to give
it up to factions. The country should assume the dictatorship;
the dictatorship of a country is republicanism. It has taken
the dictatorship, and will preserve it so long as it is worthy of
XVl PREFACE,
the name of a nation. For a prince or a dynasty which abdi-
cates is replaced by another dynasty, or by another prince.
But a nation worn out, or incapable of liberty, which abdi-
cates, what can replace it? Nothing but a chasm in history;
nothing but shame, servitude, or tyranny. We look upon the
map of the world, and say, “A great people occupied that
place; but now there is nothing but a great blot upon the
dignity of nations.” -
IX.
After having paid our tribute of sincerity to the age, we
ought to pay our tribute of gratitude to the writers who have
illumined and placed landmarks for us upon this route of
history. We owe much to two amongst them above all: M.
Lubis, who has so well divested himself of his prepossessions
for the Bourbons, in recounting, with courageous impartiality
and with a luminous appreciation, the faults and the misfor-
tunes of his cause; M. de Vaulabelle next, who in our opinion
has somewhat too largely drawn his facts from hostile sources;
but who has disposed his matter, and written with a conscious-
ness of talent, and an art of grouping events which assigns
him a distinguished rank amongst historians. We ourselves
have written from another point of view, because we were farther
removed than they from the impression of the drama; but
without them we could not have written. M. Lubis has
recorded the feeling of the Restoration; M. de Vaulabelle also
the feeling, and often the opposition, of liberalism. Without
the spirit of bigotry or of opposition, we shall endeavour to
write the truth.
THE
HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION
OF
MON ARCHY IN FRANCE.
B00F FIRST.
Retrospective view of Napoleon’s reign—Napoleon in 1813—His return
to Paris—The Allied Armies on the Rhine—Convocation of the
State Council, the 11th of November—A Conscription of 300,000
men decreed—Military condition of France—Opening of the Legis-
lative Assembly—The Emperor’s speech—Proposals from Frank-
fort—Projected Congress at Manheim–Choice of Commissioners
by the Senate and the Legislative Assembly to examine and report
upon this negociation—Hostile choice of the Legislative Assembly
—M. Lainé—M. Raynouard—Address of M. de Fontanes—Cam-
baceres—M. Lainé's Protest—Napoleon's indignation—Savary—
Suppression of the Address of the Legislative Assembly—Its
Dissolution—Grand reception of the 1st of January, 1814—The
Emperor's speech to the Legislative Assexibly—Reconstitution of
the National Guard of Paris–Presentation of Marie-Louise and her
son to the officers of the National Guard—Allocution of Napoleon—
Marie-Louise—Departure of Napoleon for the Army, 23rd January
—Schwartzenburg and Blucher pass the Rhine, 31st December—
Lassitude of France—Arrival of Napoleon at Chalons, 25th January.
I.
THE reign of Napoleon was drawing to a crisis. It may
be defined in few words. The old world renovated by a new
man, plastering up, so to speak, decrepit ages with modern
glory. His genius was posthumous. The first of soldiers,
rot of statesmen, he was clear-sighted as to the past, but blind
to the future. If this judgment is thought too harsh, its
justice may be proved by a retrospective glance.
&
2 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
Retrospective view of Napoleon's reign.
Men should be judged not by their fortune, but by their
decds. Napoleon held in his grasp the largest share of power.
ever confided by Providence to a mortal hand for the purpose
of creating civilization and nationality. What has he left
behind him 7 Nothing but a conquered country, and an im-
mortal name. He was the Sophist of the counter-revolution.
The world called for a renovator, Napoleon Bonaparte
became its conqueror. France looked for the spirit of reform-
ation, and he imposed upon her despotism and discipline.
To liberty of conscience (the great aspiration of his age), he
replied by a papal coronation—a simonial treaty with Rome—
the Concordat.
Impiety lurked beneath the official pomp of public wor-
ship. Instead of seeking to revive true faith by liberty of
conscience, Napoleon, at a distance of ten centuries, enacted a
parody upon Charlemagne, without having the faith of the
neophyte, or the heroic sincerity of this Constantine of Gaul
and Germany. To the desire for equality of rights, Napoleon
replied by creating a military aristocracy and a feudality of the
sword; to the desire for liberty of thought, he replied by the
censorship and the monopoly of the public press; to the desire
for freedom of discussion, he replied by silent tribunes sur-
rounded by a mute assembly, whose only remaining privilege
was to listen to and applaud the official organs of the imperial
will.
Thus human intellect languished, literature was degraded,
the arts were enslaved, and the public mind withered beneath
a despotic rule. Victory alone could retard the explosion of
national independence,—of human intelligence. The day she
ceased to gild this universal yoke, it would appear in its true
light,-glory for one only, humiliation for all, a reproach upon
the dignity of the nation, an appeal to continental insurrection.
Victory at length forsook him.
The smothered genius of the Revolution burst forth in
the spirit of popular independence. The remorseful feelings
of insulted nations, the pride of humiliated sovereigns, recoiled
against the. vanquished conqueror of the world, and tracked
his steps through each succeeding defeat far beyond the IRhine,
1813 O F MON ARCH Y IN FRANCE. 3
The last years of Napoleon's reign.
wresting from his grasp, not only Spain, Italy, Holland,
Belgium, Prussia, Germany, Switzerland, and Savoy, but even
France herself—France, so long the means of his glory, now
fated to be the battle-field of the last struggle of her hero.
II.
During the last years of his domination, Napoleon had
yielded to the temptations of fortune. His intelligence and
activity diminished in proportion as his empire extended.
Separated from his fellow men by the servile court he had
gathered around him, and always clothed in the drapery of
empire, as if apprehensive of confessing to himself that the
upstart of genius, circumvented by etiquette and adulation—the
Emperor, in short, had disparaged the man. His Spanish
campaign had resembled those of Darius, or of Louis XIV.,
looking on at a distance, commanding by signs, doing nothing
but by his lieutenants. His Russian campaign had embraced
the world without the power of restraining it. He had con-
ducted it with effeminacy, pursued it with blindness, finished
it recklessly, and atoned for it with insensibility. There was
not an officer of his army who would not have better conducted,
or better managed, the retreat of 700,000 men,-worthy of
another Xenophon. He came post from the Beresina to the
Tuileries without casting a single look behind him. He
seemed to have given up everything to fortune, from the day
she refused him the universe, like the gamester who had
played against the continent, and thrown up the game on
losing the first important cast. His diplomacy had been no
less blind and undecided than his campaign. In venturing
his legions, under the menace of a Russian winter, as far as
Moscow, he had calculated at once upon war and peace;—on
war, to force a peace from the Emperor Alexander, and on
peace, to rescue his army from the dangers into which his
temerity had plunged it. Accustomed to the enervated people
of the East and South, whom he had easily subdued, he was
astonished at finding a nation resolved to set their dwellings
in a blaze rather than own subjection to a foreign master. He
A 2
4. HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 1.
Napoleon's difficulties.
never dreamt of resistance; he scarcely would believe in climate.
In the Kremlin he sacrificed the time which autumn allowed
him for his retreat. His generals said to him—“Remain here
with the élite of your troops during this long winter, or lose no
time in falling back on a line of operations in communication
with your empire and your reinforcements;” but he had not the
wisdom to choose either the bold cantonment, or the prudent
retreat. Deceived by the illusions of peace, with which he per-
sisted in lulling himself, he did not retreat till actually driven
by the first snows. He was then flanked by the Russians,
harassed by the Cossacks, weakened by hunger, and separated
from his disaffected auxiliaries; thus every night leaving frag-
ments of his dying army upon the road. Germany, a witness
of this flight, slipt through his fingers. His allies being
vanquished enemies, his defeat restored to them their patriotism.
He had been sufficiently fascinated by his own prestige to
induce him to believe in the fidelity of these allies in the midst
of his misfortunes; but he had scarcely taken shelter in the
Tuileries before the feeble nucleus of his army, left by him
under the command of Murat, had vanished; and Murat him-
self had thrown up his command, that he might go to Naples,
and meditate his defection to save his throne.
III.
Napoleon's courage rather than his genius seemed to have
revived in the German campaign of 1813. Dresden and
Leipsic were victories and reverses worthy of his name. Peace
was still in his hands; but a humiliating peace could not
Satisfy a man whose fame, as an invincible general, was his title
to the respect of Europe, and to the absolute throne of France.
He had reckoned again on impossibilities. He had neglected
to recall from Spain and Italy his old legions, who were inured
to war, being afraid of appearing to give up one single thought
of universal monarchy. To fall back and concentrate his forces
was to avow himself defeated, and to confess that he felt his
weakness. This, however, he did not feel; or, at least, he did
not wish to confess as much to France. He had incessantly
1818.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 5
His illusions and hopes.
feasted the nation with miracles, and he promised to treat it
with new ones; nay, he promised them to himself. He had
been so deified by his flatterers, that he finished by believing
in his own divinity: hence the rupture of all serious negocia-
tions with the continent, the scattering of his armies from
Madrid to Amsterdam, and the weakness and inexperience of
his troops in France at the moment the allied armies crossed
the Rhine.
IV. *
Then indeed he relinquished the demi-god, and once more
became a man. The shame of having brought the armies of
Europe upon the soil of his country, as the only result of so
many victories, purchased with the blood of France,—the mor-
tification of reigning over an empire, every inhabitant of which
might call him to account for his violated hearth,-the respect
due to his military name, the inveterate expectation of pro-
digies, the suffering patriotism of this great people, who in
accusing their sovereign recognised in him their general also,-
the devotion of his old lieutenants and of his young troops,
proud of combating under the orders and under the eye of the
genius of war, the dissipated illusions which allowed him
to see distinctly both his peril and his resources,—the field of
battle on the soil of France, so well studied, every city, every
village, and every furrow of which reminded him that he fought
for the national hearth, in fine, his wife, his child, the throne,
to leave, or to lose them,--the despair of nature and of ambition
in his breast—restored to him all that he had lost in the whirl-
wind of prosperity. He forgot his ten years of universal power
and pride,-he flung away his sceptre and his mantle of cere-
mony, and resumed his uniform and his sword. He again became
a soldier, to reconquer the empire, or to fall in the midst of his
undiminished glory. This was the day for testing his genius;
the others had been only those of his fortune. The most pre-
judiced historian must hail him as great in this final effort to
retain the fortune that was eluding his grasp. He shook off
ten years of his age. His soul, benumbed by the throne,
6 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
Napoleon's personal appearance.
triumphed over the enfeeblement of his body. The Bonaparte
of Marengo was no longer seen ; but in him revived another
Napoleon. *
V.
The empire had made him old before his time. Gratified
ambition, satiated pride, the delights of a palace, a luxurious
table, a voluptuous couch, youthful wives, complaisant mistresses,
long vigils, sleepless nights, divided between labour and festive
pleasure, the habit of constant riding which made him corpulent,
—all tended to deaden his limbs and enervate his faculties. An
early obesity overloaded him with flesh. His cheeks, formerly
streaked with muscles and hollowed by the working of genius,
were broad, full, and overhanging, like those of Otho in the
Roman medals of the empire. An excess of bile mingling
with the blood, gave a yellow tint to the skin, which at a
distance looked like a varnish of pale gold on his countenance.
His lips still preserved their Grecian outline and steady grace,
passing easily from a smile to a menace. His solid bony chin
formed an appropriate base for his features. His nose was
but a line, thin and transparent. The paleness of his cheeks gave
greater brilliancy to the blue of his eyes. His look was search-
ing, unsteady as a wavering flame—an emblem of inquietude.
His forehead seemed to have widened, from the scantiness of
his thin black hair, which was falling from the moisture of
continual thought. It might be said that his head, naturally
small, had increased in size to give ample scope between his
temples for the machinery and combinations of a mind, every
thought of which was an empire. The map of the world
seemed to have been encrusted on the orb of that reflective
head. But it was beginning to yield; and he inclined it often
on his breast, while crossing his arms like Frederick II.-
an attitude and gesture which he appeared to affect. Unable
any longer to seduce his courtiers and his soldiers by the
charm of youth, it was evident he wished to fascinate them by
the rough, pensive, and disdainful character of himself-of his
model in his latter days. He moulded himself, as it were,
into the statue of reflection, before his troops, who gave him
1813.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 7
sº-º-
His return to Paris in 1813.
the nickname of Father Thoughtful.” He assumed the pose of
destiny. Something rough, rude, and Savage in his movements
revealed his southern and insular origin. The man of the
Mediterranean broke out constantly through the Frenchman.
His nature, too great and too powerful for the part he had to
play, overflowed on all occasions. He bore no resemblance to
any of the men around him. Superior and altogether different,
he was an offspring of the sun, of the sea, and of the battle
field,—out of his element even in his own palace, and a
stranger even in his own empire. Such was at this period
the profile, the bust, and the external physiognomy of Napoleon.
VI.
Two years previously, his return to Paris, formerly so tri-
umphant, was sudden, gloomy, and nocturnal. He arrived
without attendants, as if he wished to surprise or outstrip a revo-
lution. He had thus entered the capital vanquished but notbeaten
down, on the night of November 9th, 1813. His armies had
vanished, while those of the allies were on the Rhine. The
latter seemed to stop, undecided, and as if astonished at their
victories, without knowing whether they dared venture to cross
the river. France was really no longer guarded except by the
shadow of her buried legions, by the Rhine, by her fortified
places, and by the mountains of the Vosges. But the police
of the empire was so implacable, and the silence of public
opinion so strictly enforced, that the mass of the population
was altogether ignorant of the truth, even of the ordinary facts;
and the overwhelming rush of all Europe upon us was unre-
vealed in the intimacy of private intercourse, except in an
under tone, by vague and broken expressions. Spies and
informers had become acknowledged ministers of despotism.
Even the features seemed fearful of betraying the scorets of
the heart. To announce a defeat of the Emperor would have
been high treason against his fortune. There was a lurking
recollection of the terrible '93 in the government of Napoleon,
who had lived, and grown up, and been intimate with the men
* Pere la Pensée.
8 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 1.
Convocation of the Council of State.
of that period. The summary justice, the dungeons, the state
prisons, the courts-martial, even the bloodshed of that period,
were not modes of governing so repugnant to his ministers
as no longer to be apprehended. This was evinced a few weeks
afterwards in the capital city of the province of Champagne.
VII.
Napoleon devoted the following day to his wife, to his son,
to his family, and to his confidential friends. He resolved to
forestal public complaints by audacity, and to quell the rising
opposition by additional exactions and persecution of public
opinion. To avoid accusation he placed himself in the situation
of accuser. On the 11th of November he convoked his Council
of State at the Tuileries. This Council was composed of able
professional men, well acquainted with business, rigid to subor-
dinates, and pliant to their master. The majority were men
of talent and intelligence, whose characters were not inured to
resistance. Several were men of the Convention; some of the
Reign of Terror, and a few of them regicides. But these were
too decidedly sold to the Empire, and they had too often re-
pudiated liberty ever to fall back on revolution. Napoleon held
them by their apostacy; he showed them to the people as ensigns
of democracy and pledges of revolution; but he himself looked
on them without fear, as instruments of domination incapable
thenceforward of any other task than of rendering servitude
popular. How great soever was their habit of smiling on their
master, and felicitating every conjuncture with a common-place
affectation of joy, the ministers and councillors of State had not,
on the present occasion, time to compose their features. Their
looks and their silence betrayed their embarrassment. They
did not yet know if Napoleon wished for condolence or en-
couragement. They were beginning also mentally to accuse that
ill fortune which by its adverse obstinacy seriously compromised
their own positions. They were melancholy and undecided.
Napoleon had learned their sentiments from his minister of
police, and had resolved to astonish them by the amplitude of
his confessions, and to overstep their fears by the exaggeration
·
º
222, 2.
º
.



1813.] OF MONATCHY IN FRANCE. 9
A Conscription of 300,000 men decreed.
of his disasters. Europe in arms, treading on his footsteps,
did not indeed allow of any further dissimulation. He affected
to repose in them unlimited confidence, and to complain against
men and destiny. He exerted himself to inspire with terror
the souls of his courtiers who were linked to his fate, that this
very terror should instil a desperate courage into the counsels
he required of them.
VIII.
Napoleon began by addressing, in rude terms, severe and
unexpected reproaches against some of his inferior ministers,
as a sacrifice to untoward events, and in order that the thunder
which fell upon them should re-assure and inspirit the others.
He required the impost to be doubled; but being irritated by
a slight murmur; —“Taxation,” he boldly continued, “has no
limits. It must progress in proportion to the danger of the
country. Its proper scale is the necessity of the government.
The law which says otherwise is a wicked law.” The Council
was silent, and acceded.
He proposed levying a new Conscription of 300,000 men,
already exempt from service, and returned to their families
four years before. A gloomy silence revealed the astonishment
of the Council at this new decimation of the youth of France.
One alone, more servile than his colleagues, acceded to the
proposition, on the plea of salvation to the Empire. Napoleon,
to whom everything short of enthusiasm appeared to be resist-
ance, changed colour, and contracted his brows. He wished to
be not merely obeyed but applauded. Another approver was
at length found, who ventured so far as to reproach the Em-
peror for talking of invaded frontiers, as if even the admission
of a reverse was an outrage on the inviolability of his star. The
certainty of invasion appeared to him more degrading to ac-
knowledge than to submit to. France even conquered should
still believe that its master was invincible.
Napoleon, prepared for the obsequiousness of his courtiers,
affected to repel this servility with disdain. “Why should we
endeavour,” he exclaimed, “to conceal the truth? All must
t
I () HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Booſ: 1.
Napoleon's Address on the state of France.
be told. Has not Wellington invaded the south 2 Do not the
Russians menace the north ? the Austrians and the Germans
my provinces on the east?” Then with an accent resembling
that of the Marseillaise of 1792, the enthusiasm of which he
would gladly awaken, he continued:—“Wellington is in France!
Oh what shame ! and the country has not risen to expel him!”.'
As if he had left anything in France to rise but the soil itself.
“All my allies have abandoned me,” he continued in broken
accents, and casting his eyes reproachfully towards heaven.
“The Germans have betrayed me ! they even wished to cut off
my retreat. Therefore have they been massacred —No! no
peace, till I have burnt their capital. A triumvirate is formed
in the north—the same that dismembered Poland—(as if he
himself had not secured the fragments of that dismembered
Poland, and of Venice subdued by Austria!) No truce till this
triumvirate is broken up ! I want 300,000 men. I shall form
a camp of 100,000 men at Bordeaux, one at Lyons, and one at
Metz. I shall thus have a million of men but I must have
men full grown, and not children who encumber my hospitals,
and die on my route.” *
“Yes, Sire,” said a councillor; “ancient France must
remain intact.” Napoleon was indignant at being so little un-
derstood, and at seeing the humility of his Council limit itself
to this small portion of the Empire. “And Holland 1" he ex-
claimed, striking with his clenched fist the arm of the chair—
“If I must give up Holland, I would rather give it back to
the Sea. Councillors of State, we require a new impulse !
Every one must march You are fathers of families; you
are the chiefs of the nation; 'tis you that must put it in
motion 33
No enthusiasm, however, evinced itself in their manner.
Napoleon looked at them, and continued, as if he had heard
the word which beset his imagination, though as yet unpro-
nounced. “You speak of peace, I think; I only hear this
word peace! when every one should cry out for war!”
His Council decreed, without remark, the 300,000 men.
Napoleon dismissed them with the watchword “Enthusiasm,”
but despondency was its only answer. He occupied himself,
1813.] OF MONAIRCHY IN IFIRA NCE. | 1
Convocation of the Legislative Assembly.
with his usual feverish activity, in collecting around the weak
skeletons of corps which he had left upon the Rhine, in Bel-
gium and in Holland, the remains of veteran troops which he
had at hand, detachments of his guard, and the new levies in
garrison in the interior. But, with the exception of his old
bands, reduced to about 80,000 men, his wishes were rendered
fruitless by the exhaustion and the apathy of the empire. He
issued orders to no effect; he called for chimerical contingents.
He counted his men on his plans and his encampments, yet
he had nothing but ciphers in his wide domains. His nights
thus occupied produced nothing for the day. He displayed as
much activity in his councils, in his capital, and in his palace,
as at the period when he kept the whole world in motion from
his cabinet; but he now only gave motion to himself. Military
France had expired on the battle fields of Germany, of Spain,
and of Russia; nothing but its general remained. He con-
tinued to speak of legions which no longer existed. His
palace was become a palace of dreams. He was there alone
with the spectre of his old universal power and his uncon-
querable will. He marched, but nothing followed him.
IX.
In his communications to his Senate, Napoleon was fully
as imperative as in the days of his victories. Certain before-
hand of the servility of those men, worn out by revolution and
grown old in adulation, he merely intimated his wishes, which
they hastened to convert into a Senatus Consultum. He con-
voked the Legislative Assembly at Paris for the 19th Decem-
ber; but he feared that these silent representatives of the De-
partments, imbued with the general disaffection, might raise
an importunate voice through the medium of their President.
He foresaw that they might choose a man of independence for
their President, and he therefore deprived them of their right
to choose one. M. Molé was the Minister of Justice—a
young man of illustrious name, precocious talent, and with
opinions adapted to the time. Pushing his zeal for monarchy
even to the extreme of despotism, venturing much to please
12 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
Opening of the Legislative Assembly.
and everything to serve, he took upon himself the task of jus
tifying, before the public, this caprice of his master. He spoke
of the aspect of the Emperor, who might be astonished at the
presence of an unknown President. He alleged the danger of
a new man being ignorant of or infringing the consecrated
etiquette of the palace. The Empire, in its decline, attached
itself, like the Byzantine empire, to the lowest puerilities of
the throne; nor was it certain whether despotism or the
nation debased itself the most in similar effrontery. They
played off institutions of ten years' standing with the ridiculous
pride of monarchics grown old, and fallen into second child-
hood. Human dignity laughcd at its own degradation.
X.
The Legislative Assembly commenced its session, but the
nation expected little from this shadow of a representation.
The Constitution condemned it to be mute. To give silent
votes on projects of law presented by the government, and to
sanction its orders, was all the power entrusted to this Assem-
bly. Napoleon himself had taken care to define it as a Legis-
lative Council, not a national representation. It would be a
criminal pretension, he said, to think of representing the
nation in the presence of the Emperor. The nation, however,
looked for more from the Legislative Assembly than from the
Senate. If a murmur could be expected to escape against
such a system of constraint, it was from thence. The mem-
bers at least brought with them to Paris a lively impression of
the sufferings and humiliation of the country. Napoleon dis-
covered and watched for this murmur. Until now he had
been overwhelmed with perpetual felicitations; but this time
he demanded more, -he demanded passive obedience and
supreme devotion. While enforcing these, he might also pro-
duce a cry of anguish; but he had arranged everything with
his creatures to stifle the cry.
IHe nominated as President of the Legislative Assembly an
eminent lawyer, Regnier, Duke of Massa, who had been
moulded to his hand by favours and dignities. He appeared
1813.] • OF MO NARCHY IN FRANCE. 13
The Emperor's speech.
with all military pomp at the opening of the session. He read
a speech, the words of which were calculated to be understood
in a double sense; by the people as pledges of peace, and by
the constituted bodies as a summons to an energetical concur-
rence in the war. At the conclusion he affected an abjuration
of ambition and a spirit of paternal feeling, calculated to
inspire hopes of his forbearance in negociating. The wisdom
of mature manhood, and the lassitude of the war-worn soldier,
might be recognised in his accents: they even displayed a
degree of melancholy which recalled that of his youth, and
softened the asperity of adverse opinions.
“I had conceived,” said he, “and executed great designs
for the prosperity and happiness of the world!” Here he
paused, as if to give time for thought, to meditate in silence on
his reverses, and to measure the greatness of his fall. He
then continued with a grave tone :—“A monarch and a father,
I feel how much peace can add to the stability of the throne
and the security of families. Negociations have been entered
into with the allied powers. I have acceded to the preli-
minary bases they presented. I therefore entertained hopes that
before the opening of this session the Congress of Manheim
would have assembled. But new delays, which cannot be at-
tributed to France, have deferred the moment so strongly
required by the voice of the world. My ministers will acquaint
you with my wishes on this subject. The documents connected
with the negociations will be laid before you.’
He departed; but his words had been received with pro-
found incredulity, concealed under a feigned confidence. It
was well known that the negociations were nothing but a cur-
tain, behind which he and Europe veiled their preparations
for a final war. Once in revolt against him, Europe could
not again sit down obedient to his hand. Once stript in the
eyes of France of the spell of his conquests, she would no
longer submit to his government. Crowned by victory, defeat
deprived him of the sovereignty. This he knew; and he only
presented France with the hope of peace to furnish himself
with the means of war. He could only reconquer his throne
on new fields of battle; and once a victor he could not stop in
14 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Doot; 1.
&sa======
Proposals from Frankfort.
his career Every peace was a forfeiture to a soldier who had
possessed the continent. It was not peace,—it was a second
universal power that he meditated. Two or three fortunate
battles would suffice to give it him. Could not fortune again
do what she had already done?
The negociations were not serious, either at the Tuileries, or
at the general quarters of the Allies. On both sides they
made dupes,—the Allies, of Europe; and Napoleon, of France.
XI.
At the moment when the armies of the allied powers had
reached the Rhine, without daring as yet to cross it, Prince
Metternich, the all-powerful minister of Austria, recollected
that the Empress Marie-Louise was the daughter of his
Emperor. The Rhine once crossed, the dethronement of
Napoleon would be one of the consequences of victory. But
in dethroning Napoleon, the throne of Marie-Louise might
also crumble with it. This was dangerous to the policy of
Austria, which would thus lose the close alliance of France,
the benefits of a Regency, and the patronage of an infant
Emperor of the French. It would still further be a family
disgrace, and a laceration of the heart for the Emperor Francis.
Prince Metternich (long accustomed to the court of Napoleon,
where by turns he had been slighted and caressed by the
princesses of the imperial blood), did not participate in the
antipathies of the old dynasties against this court of military
upstarts. He dreaded, moreover, the despair of a man of
genius, placed, by a refusal to accommodate existing differences,
between the throne and death. Finally, he was a diplomatist,
and he liked to have the disposal of destiny. He accordingly
made an overture to M. de Saint Aignau, one of the best ac-
credited ministers of Napoleon in Germany. Stopped at
Weimar, M. de Saint Aignau was brought to the Austrian
quarter-general, whence he was invited by M. de Metternich
to Frankfort. There he dictated a note to him, intimating to
Napoleon on what terms Europe would again treat with him.
The ministers of the other powers gave in their adhesion to
1813.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 15,
Projected Congress at Manheim.
smºgºmºv
the principles of this negociation. M. de Metternich was
sincere, because he was interested: the others feigned to
believe in the possibility of such a peace. But they were too
enlightened either to hope or to fear it. The soul of Napoleon,
though conquered, could not contain itself within the limits,
which it was pretended to lay down for him.
These limits were those of ancient France. Napoleon was
called upon to renounce all sovereignty in Germany beyond
the Rhine, in Spain, in Italy, and in Holland. On this basis
he would be treated with ; but military operations would not
be suspended during the negociations.
XII.
It was to this note that Napoleon had referred, in nam.
ing Manheim as the place of meeting of the Congress.
This assent to a general assembly of the European powers
upon the soil of ancient France,—too narrow a limit even for
the Empire—sufficiently intimated that this Congress was a
mere illusion, with which Napoleon wished to amuse his sub-
jects; for scarcely six months had elapsed since he had refused
at Dresden one half of the continent. To keep up the decep-
tion, however, he adhered a few days after to the bases laid
down in the note of the allied powers. The letters and the
answers crossed one another so slowly as to indicate on both.
sides an apprehension of being too strictly united. The Con-
gress of Manheim never took place. Time and events had
kept their onward march. It was these letters, mutually ex-
changed to fix upon a centre of negociation, which Napoleon
called the documents connected with the treaty. He had them
Sent to the Senate and the Legislative Assembly at the same
time. These two bodies appointed committees to report upon
the documents, and to express the opinions of the Senators and
the Deputies on the state of affairs. The ministers, the
Councillors, and the courtiers exerted themselves to procure
Votes for men to be depended upon,-that is to say, for those
Whose minds were enervated, and whose consciences were
corrupt.
16 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
-mºs
Commissioners chosen by the Senate.
XIII.
The Senate appointed without deliberation those of its
members whose diplomatic antecedents and eminent merit
seemed to designate them as best calculated for this study of
European politics. These were Monsieur de Talleyrand, a
maa with two faces, one of which never betrayed the other,
capable of conveying a secret meaning to Europe in an ambi-
guous declaration to Napoleon. IIe began to foresee the fall,
and was looking out for new ground without losing his footing
on the old. Monsieur de Fontane an elegant but mediocre
poet,_an ostentatious orator, skilful in dressing up the rude
wishes of his master in courtly phraseology,<-Cicero in ordinary
to the new Caesar, but Cicero after his prostration to good
fortune. He did not love liberty, which he confounded with
revolutionary licence. Persecuted by it in 1793 he had sought
shelter under the sabre of the Emperor; and from this asylum
he dared do everything against liberty. He had made a dignity
of flattery; but his flattery was supple, never base. In other
respects he was of an upright spirit, and of a literary mind,
—one in whose breast the business of a flatterer had extin-
guished independence, but not honesty. General Beurnonville
an old soldier of the Republican wars, a sort of Dumouriez
without his treason. Reminiscences of liberty were mingled
in his mind with the passive obedience of military discipline.
Monsieur de Saint Marsan a nobleman of Turin, a French-
man by service, an Italian in intellect, one of those men whom
Napoleon had nationalized for their merit, who was compro-
mised in his fortunes, and who had no country to receive him
after the Empire. Barbé Marbois closed the list,-a bold and
independent old man, formerly transported on the 18th Fruc-
tidor, delivered from proscription by the Consulate, and who
adorned the Senate by the probity of his character and the
fame of his misfortunes. One might expect from a committee
so chosen a just mixture of freedom of opinion and deference
of will, expressed in great propriety of language. The Senate
could flatter no more ; it had not yet dared to advise.
1813.] Or MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 17
M. Lainé, Deputy of Bourdeaux.
XIV.
The choice of the Legislative Assembly indicated a different
spirit. Opinion, still in subjection, not daring to express itself
in words, evinced itself at least by the ballot. This ballot for
the first time struck off all the notoriously servile names. The
habitual flatterers trembled with indigmation at being excluded,
and went full of complaints to Cambaceres and to the Duke of
Rovigo, the minions of the Emperor. M. Lainé, Raynouard,
Gallois, Maine de Biram and Flaugergues were chosen by an
immense majority. These names, which would have been ä
pledge of wisdom and strength in the eyes of a temperate
government, appeared like a menace against the court of the
Emperor. They were independent, and therefore the cham-
pions of revolt.
M. Lainé was deputy from Bordeaux. Worthy by his
eloquence of the forum, made illustrious by Vergniaud, he had
the same greatness of soul as the Girondist orator; but he had
neither his indolence nor his weakness. Born in the Landes,
leading a rural life, living in a stoical mediocrity, in the midst
of his fields, and far from the baseness of courts, absorbed in
the contemplation of great events, elevated by the spectacle of
mature to the adoration of the type divine, deeply read in
history, steeped in the precepts of the Stoics, and in the con-
tempt of Tacitus for the vices of his time, M. Lainé had all
his pride without any of his bitterness. He was the orator
and the philosopher of antiquity, transplanted, with the mild
spirit of the Christian, into the midst of modern events. His
courage was never the boiling of angry passions, but the intre-
pidity of duty. Nature had made this man, and kept him in
reserve, to strike the first blow at despotism. He did not
belong to the party of the Bourbons; he was a Republican
by nature and inclination. Reason alone called him at a later
period to the service of kings. To induce him to condescend
to approach the court it was essential that his conscience should
convince him that his country existed in the throne. This was
the culminating member of the committee: I do not flatter
IB
18 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Door J.
M. Raynouard.—M. de Fontanes.
his tomb,-I venerate it; for it encloses a great vestige of
humanity. -
XV.
M. Raynouard was deputy from Toulouse. His name was
made illustrious rather late in life by the celebrated tragedy of
“The Templars.” He was an austere and studious poet, but
somewhat rude. His verses displayed the rigidity of his
character: his character had the naiveté, the simplicity, and
the elevation of his talent. He made no distinction between
genius and virtue. With a rugged aspect, but little formed to
please, incapable of flattery, he mourished against the despotism
of Napoleon the hidden but bitter hatred which arises from
respect for the dignity of a nation. Despotism appeared to
him less an oppression than an insult to human nature.
Esteemed by his colleagues, he spoke with a masculine liberty,
but he wrote with a savage rudeness of expression.
The other three members of the committee were men of a
calm and philosophical opposition, as became an opposition
without a tribune, without orators, and without journals.
XVI.
M. de Fontanes, at once confidant of the Emperor and
reporter of the Senate, satisfied the throne and the public
opinion, by one of those phrases in which the public found the
word peace, and the Emperor found ample authority for war.
“Peace,” said the Senate, “is what France and humanity
require. If the enemy persists in refusing it, them, indeed,
we shall fight for our country amidst the tombs of our fathers
and the cradles of our children | " When such words are only
ratified by a defection two months after they were uttered,
they are preserved in the history of nations, not as oaths but
as perjuries of eloquence.
The Legislative Assembly was slower in its proceedings.
Dissatisfaction was desirous of finding vent; but there was
hazard in effecting it. It broke out at length, however, in spite
of the menaces of Monsieur de Hegnier, Duke de Massa, and
the caresses of Cambaceres. A silent member of the Conven-
1813.] OF MONAIRCHY IN IFRANCE. J 9
The Arch-chancellor Cambaceres,
—-
tion during the Reign of Terror, Cambaceres had left in an
ambiguity, favourable to his character, his vote on the trial of
Louis XVI. After the Convention he had devoted himself to
Bonaparte with that presentiment of weakness which seeks for
support. Bonaparte esteemed his capacity, and feared nothing
from his courage. No one knew better than Cambaceres how
to conform himself to second-class duties; he thus removed all
jealousy from first-rate actors. Napoleon had elevated him as
high as he possibly could, without fearing his too near approach.
Subordination of character, on the part of Cambaceres, played
the game of flattery. There was something of the Alcibiades
grown old in this prince of a new date. He was Arch-chan-
cellor of the Empire, a sort of civil-viceroy, whom the sovereign
left at Paris during his distant campaigns, to represent him at
the head of the Council of State, and to be answerable to him
for France. Cambaceres affected some ridiculous peculiarities
by way of pledges to the Emperor of his lacking ambition. A
man, thus making himself a butt to the railleries of the court and
the laughter of the people, might be useful, but could never be
dangerous. Cambaceres accepted, and even seemed to look
for this ridicule. He walked every evening in the old court
costume, accompanied by two grotesque chamberlains, with head
bare, periwigged and powdered, like our grandfathers in the
galleries of the Palais Royal. Women of the town, children,
and strangers followed this group with their gaze and hootings.
He sought for the celebrity of Apicius; he exacted etiquette,
Obeisances, and titles from the oldest aristocracies around him.
He was the superannuated genius of ceremonial in a monarchy
of upstarts. He was an essay on the costumes of the Empire.
But under these futilities of the courtier, Cambaceres concealed
an honest heart, a humane disposition, profound science, and a
firm spirit of government. He was laughed at, but he was
esteemed. Such was the Arch-chancellor
XVII.
g He did not attempt, in the secret discussions of the Legis-
lative Assembly, to deny the apathy of the nation, but to deaden
B 2
20 HISTORY OF THE RESTURATIOfN | BOOK 1.
s—
M. Lainé commissioned to draw up the Report,
~r:--
the expression of it in the Address. The spectre of the revolu
tion had driven him back even to degradation, and to adoration
of despotism. He dreaded everything that bore a resemblance
to sincerity, for fear of giving birth to liberty. He conjured
the deputies to think in silence. He admitted the general
desire for peace, but he contested with the committee the right
of raising their voices, even to give expression to the sufferings
of the people.
XVIII.
The attitude of M. Lainé, which was modest and reflective,
resembled his character. His quiet and restrained gesture, as
he placed his hands on his breast, seemed to attest the honest
convictions of his mind. His head, which was slightly bowed,
had nothing of the defiance of the tribune. His voice pos
sessed the gravity and the nervous sensibility of his thoughts.
He was indignant at the submission required of the represen
tatives of a people by order of its master. “No,” he ex-
claimed, in sorrowful accents; “no, the legislative body, so
long depressed, must be elevated; the cry of the people for
peace must be heard; their groaning under oppression must
at length break forth !” With the exception of about fifty
deputies, riveted to despotism by its dignities, or trembling
with cowardice under the anger of the Emperor, all hearts
echoed the sentiments of M. Lainé. He was commissioned
to draw up the Report, which was adopted. It was, in guarded
language, a revival of the constitution,-a timid insurrection
of hearts against the excess of servitude,-the right of com-,
plaint, the last right of a nation, claimed, at least, by its
representatives,—a faint recollection of the Assembly of the
Jeu de Paume at Versailles, but under the sceptre of an armed
master and in a palace surrounded by Pretorian Guards.
M. Lainé ventured to say, in the name of the Legislative
Body, -“Amidst the disasters of war, a ray of hope is felt on
hearing kings and nations alike manifest a desire for peace.
The declarations of the great powers agree in fact, gentlemen,
with the universal wish of Europe for peace; and also with
1818.] OF MON ARCHY IN IFRANCE. 2]
His emergetic address.
the wish so generally expressed to us by our respective con-
stituencies, of which the legislative body is the natural organ.
“What then can retard the blessings of this peace 2 We
have, as the first guarantee of the Emperor's pacific designs,
adversity—that unerring counsellor of kings. The means pro-
posed to us for repulsing the enemy and obtaining peace will
be effectual, if the French people are convinced that their
blood will be no longer shed, except to defend their country
and its guardian laws.
“But the words “Peace and Country' would resound in vain,
if we had no guarantee for those institutions which create the
One and maintain the other.
“Your committee think it indispensable, that while the
government is proposing the promptest measures for the
safety of the state, the Emperor should be supplicated to
maintain the full and unquestionable execution of the laws
which guarantee to the people of France the rights of liberty,
of safety, of property; and to the nation the free exercise of
its political rights and privileges. This guarantee appears to
your committee to be the most effectual means of inspiring the
French people with the necessary energy for their own defence.
“We are anxious to connect the throne with the nation, so
as to ensure their united efforts against anarchy, arbitrary
power, and the enemies of the country.
“If the first wish of the Emperor on this pressing occa-
sion has been to call around the throne the Deputies of the
nation, does it not also become our paramount duty to acquaint
the monarch with the truth, and the universal wish of the
people for peace?”
This expression of Deputies of the nation was a revolution
in itself. The 18th Brumaire re-appeared, and avenged itself
in a single phrase.
XIX.
This was the first time that Napoleon had encountered a
single soul in revolt against his sovereign will, since the day
he had beaten down all beneath his sceptre. It would have
been better, doubtless, that this reproach, embodied in a
22. HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
Napoleon's indigmation against the Assembly.
national cry, should have been uttered during the days of his
oppression, rather than at the moment when he was verging
towards his fall, and when France itself fell with him. But
M. Lainé had not been guilty of any courtier-like adulation.
His soul had been long indignant at the civil degradation of
his country. He had the right of expressing his sentiments
at all times; and he did so as a free man, and not as a tribune
of the people. Moreover, nations that have experienced but
little generosity are not disposed to be generous themselves,
when they assert their rights against the declining power of
their oppressors. They avail themselves of the weakness of
their tyrants to exercise their own tyranny. Possibly this is
not magnanimity, but it is destiny.
XX.
Napoleon felt that he was no longer Napoleon, if the
independant voice of this orator of the legislative body
was not instantly stifled by the thunder of his own. He
uttered a cry of fury either real or affected. He filled his
palace, his council, his conversation with the repetition of the
insult he had suffered. He exerted himself to raise the
official indignation of his court and of the nation to the level
of his own resentment. He signified to his ministers and
his creatures the propriety of imitating and diffusing the
ebullitions of his anger. The public voice, in its sycophancy,
uttered one continuous cry against the insolence of M. Lainé.
The minister of police was Savary, Duke of Rovigo, an old
companion in arms of the Emperor, whose merit lay in a
blind personal devotion to the interests and even the caprices
of his master. This unlimited devotion to Napoleon had been
evinced by services, such as are fatal even to friendship itself.
The maine of the Duke de Rovigo was affixed to the midnight
trial of the Duke d'Enghiem. Condemned like an assassin,
this young prince fell in the ditch of Vincennes under the
balls of a military tribunal, assembled by order of Napoleon.
He had been abducted from a foreign country by an outrage
on the law of nations. His imprisonment resembled an act
.818.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCY. 23
Savary, the Minister of Police.
of treachery, and his death a heinous crime. His blood
cried, and will continue to cry, from age to age, against his
murderer. Although Savary had done nothing but obey an
order, still there are acts of obedience which are called, justly
or unjustly, a participation in crime. This justice or injustice
of public opinion is the responsibility incurred by the instru-
ments of tyranny ; and the Service of a tyrant would be but
too agreeable, if every act became justifiable from its being
executed by authority. This, however, is not the case. The
responsibility ascends and descends from the head to the
members; and nothing is forgotten, either in the concoction
of the crime or in its execution. Every drop of blood that
is shed re-appears either on the name or on the hand, or even
on the fame;—the meanest executioner is accountable as well
as the first and greatest.
XXI.
Savary summoned the members of the commission to his
hotel. So insolent an order from the minister of police to
the representatives of a national assembly, bore some resem-
blance to a mittimus; and on receiving it the members of the
commission deliberated whether they should obey it or not.
Some of them, apprehending that a coup d'etat was con-
templated against their persons, suggested an address to the
nation, to convoke an immediate meeting of the [legislative
Assembly, and to place themselves under the safeguard of the
threatened representation. But this advice appeared too
violent, and the proposed resolutions too devoid of the moral
force necessary to sustain them. M. Lainé and his colleagues
preferred meeting all the danger of the crisis in their own
persons. *
They accordingly repaired to the hotel of the minister.
His countenance bore the reflection of that of Napoleon; and
his voice was a premeditated echo of his master's. He began
by menaces, as if to test the courage of the Deputies. “The
discontented,” he said to M. Lainé, “take your name as a
signal for revolt. My police find this name mixed up with
24 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [I:00R 1.
His conference with the Assembly.
all sorts of plots. No one can be considered guiltless of mischief
which may arise from such language as yours.”
While speaking thus, the minion of the Emperor gradually
elevated his voice to a menacing pitch.
“My conscience,” replied M. Lainé, “speaks even more
forcibly than you do.”
These words seemed to damp the energy of the minister.
He lowered his tone, and assumed a soothing accent, after
having tried in vain to bully and overawe.
“You are honourable men,” said Savary, “and I should
be proud of having you for my personal friends. But the
Emperor is hesitating between resolutions of an extreme
tendency. You have irritated him. You have parodied the
insurrection of the Constituent Assembly. He cannot allow
you to deliberate during his absence; for he is going to the
army, and you would dethrone him. He does not like to run
this danger. ‘They wish for the Bourbons,’ said the Emperor
to me; ‘but first of all we shall have more battles of Ivry !’”
Savary then turning again towards M. Lainé, “what is
the object you have in view?” he asked with a look which
solicited confidence while exacting a confession.
“I am desirous,” replied M. Lainé, “of saving my country,
or at least of breathing gloriously for the nation the last sigh
of liberty.”
“We are desirous,” added his colleagues, “that the
Emperor should extend his hand to raise a prostrate nation.”
Even this humility, in the answer of M. Lainé's colleagues
representatives of the Assembly, did not appear to be a suffi
cient retractation of their audacity. The minister prohibite
their meeting, or even seeing one another again.
XXII.
The Emperor received the Senate. M. de Fontanes, i.
the Address drawn up by him, mingled with the customary
flattery a few words of truth, in the exact proportion which
the Emperor might have the magnanimity to tolerate,
“Let us rally,” said the orator, “round the diadem on
1814.] of MonARCHY IN FRANCE.
2
5
Address of the Assembly suppressed.
which the splendour of fifty victories shines through a passing
cloud.”
He spoke also of peace; of power which consolidates itself
in fixing its limits; of the art of conserving the happinesss of
a nation, but above all of flying to arms.
“We must talk no longer,” replied Napoleon, of recovering
the conquests that we have made. The liberation of our soil
and the blessings of peace,—this is our rallying cry. Our pro-
vinces are invaded. I call on the French to rescue France.”
After these words he ordered the address of the Legislative
Assembly to be suppressed, and adjourned that body to a future
period. Savary had given expression to his thoughts: he did
not wish to leave a deliberative assembly behind him. The
eloquence of M. Lainé alone had appeared to him an echo of
1789. He knew that giving a voice to a nation was im-
parting to it the breath of liberty. The following day he
gave vent to the full tide of anger which had been accumulating
in his breast since the meeting of the Legislative Assembly.
It was the 1st of January, 1814—the day when court
ceremonial brings to the foot of the throne the deliberative
bodies and high dignitaries of the country, mingled with the
courtiers of the palace. The members of the Legislative
Assembly, summoned the evening before, approached to pass
before the Emperor. He stopped them with a motion of his
hand; for he wished that his resentment at their temerity
should resound through France and throughout all Europe.
He affected a paroxysm of ill-restrained anger. The studied
irregularity of his words, his abrupt gestures, and thundering
voice gave to this speech the appearance of an impromptu
explosion, rather than of a well considered harangue. This,
however, it was ; for he had meditated and prepared it for a
whole week. It was the address of the tyrant on a first
assault, who was desirous of crushing, by an unexpected on-
slaught, the independence which had begun to manifest itself.
XXIII.
“Deputies of the Legislative Assembly " he exclaimed,
concentrating upon them the terrors of his threatening brow,
20 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
Napoleon's reproaches.
“you might have done much good, and you have done a great
deal of evil.”
“Nine-tenths of you are worthy men, but the rest are
sactious.
‘I called you to my aid, and you have said and done
everything to assist the enemy. Instead of uniting, you have
sown dissension amongst us.
“Your committee has been led away by men devoted to
England. M. Lainé, your reporter, is a wicked man. His
report has been drawn up with a degree of cunning, and with
intentions which you little suspect. Two battles lost in
the province of Champagne would have done less mischief.
“In your report you have mingled the most cutting irony
with the most bitter reproaches, You tell me that adversity
has given me salutary lessons. How could you reproach me
for my misfortunes? I have borne them with honour, for I
have received from nature a firm and lofty spirit; and had I
not this pride of soul I never should have raised myself to the
greatest throne on earth.
“I was, however, in want of consolation, and I expected it
from you. You have tried to cover me with mud; but I am
one of those men who may be killed, though not dishonoured.
“Is it by such reproaches you would increase the splendour
of the throne? But what is the throne itself? Four pieces of
wood garnished with a piece of velvet! All depends upon him
who occupies it. The throne is inherent in the nation. Are
you ignorant that I above all represent that nation? You attack
it in attacking me. Four times have I been chosen by the
nation | Four times have I had the votes of five millions of
citizens ! I have a title, but you have none. You are only the
Deputies of the departments of the Empire.
“Is this the moment to meet me with remonstrances, when
200,000 Cossacks have crossed our frontiers? Is this a moment
to discuss the liberty and safety of individuals, when political
liberty and national independence are at stake? Your ideo-
logists demand guarantees against arbitrary power, at a moment
when France only asks them against the enemy
“Are you not satisfied with the Constitution? Four
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 27
His despotic character.
months ago you should have asked for another, or waited two
years after the peace.
“You speak of abuses and of vexations. I know they exist
as well as you do. They arise from circumstances and the
misfortunes of the times. Why speak of our domestic squabbles
before Europe in arms? Family jars should be kept secret.*
You wish to imitate the Constituent Assembly, and begin a
revolution; but I shall not imitate the king who was then upon
the throne. I would give up that throne; for I would rather
make sovereigns of the people than be myself a regal slave.”
XXIV.
This speech was devoid of national respect, as well of indi-
vidua, Justice. “I have a title, and you have not,” in the mouth of
a soldier who had purloined all his titles from the French people
sword in hand, was the most insolent derision ever uttered from
the throne to the representatives of a nation. But if such
insults were contemptible in the mouth of a conqueror, intoxicated
with victory and power, they borrowed, on this occasion at least,
a certain grandeur of courage from the difficulties against which
he was struggling. He stood up boldly against misfortune; he
gave his ultimatum to adversity. This was no degradation to his
former fame, but a repetition of defiance to destiny, and
contempt for public opinion. It was an additional crime against,
the sovereignity and the dignity of the people; but the crime
was, at least, a courageous one. His courtiers alone thought it
sublime; but general opinion branded it as senseless and brutal.
He anticipated from it a great effect on the imagination of the
multitude; but it only produced great astonishment, great
Scandal, and an excitement of wounded dignity throughout the
country. He humbled the mation at a moment when his in-
terest required that he should elevate it. Nations sometimes
imbibe devotion from misfortune, but never from humiliation.
This speech, passing from mouth to mouth in all parts of the
Empire, made people believe in that inspired madness which
precedes the fall of men doomed to destruction. He wished to
* “Il faut laver son linge sale en famille.”—Sc in orig. §
28 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
The National Guards assembled.
spread terror through the souls of his cnemies; but he inspired
them only with irritation and disdain.
XXV.
After having astonished he was desirous of conciliating.
On the 22nd of January, the evening before his departure for
the army, he convoked, at the palace, the chiefs of the National
Guard of Paris. The paucity of troops, and the necessity, for
some days at least, of covering the capital, which his manoeuvres
might lay open to an attack, had constrained him to re-organize
this civic militia, which the name of La Fayette and the re-
collections of '89 made particularly obnoxious to his sus-
picions. To arm the National Guard was, in his eyes, to
revive the revolution. But, unable to advance the claim of
right he found it least dangerous to appeal to the arms of the
citizens. Moreover, he reserved to himself the chief command
of this army of the domestic hearth; and in his absence he en-
trusted that command to Marshal Moncey. The Marshal was
incapable of failing in a duty to him as easily manageable as his
trustworthy sword. The National Guard felt honoured and
proud of obeying an old soldier who had participated in the
glory but never in the wrongs of tyranny.
Napoleon made a theatrical presentation of the Empress
Marie-Louise and her son to the officers of the National Guard.
This spectacle was intended not only for Paris but Vienna.
He wished to remind the Emperor of Austria, his father-in-law,
that the blows directed against him by the allied armies would
also reach his own daughter. He presented to him his
grandson in the arms of his mother and above the heads of the
National Guards. This scene was a silent negociation, through
which he hoped to find a response in the heart of Francis II.
Marie-Louise was little known to the Parisians, and but
little beloved in France. Borne away from Vienna as a
trophy of victory, conquered more than courted, succeeding,
in the hero's couch, the still living Empress Josephine,
whose Creole graces, apparent goodness, and light hearted
disposition, made her, even with these very defects, more
1814 ) OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 29
Marie-Louise.
popular with so light and superſicial a people; a stranger
in the midst of France, speaking its language with timidity,
studying its manmers with embarrassment, Marie-Louise
lived in seclusion, like a captive annidst the official circle
with which the Emperor surrounded her. That court of
beautiful women, newly titled, anxious to repress every attrac-
tion except that of their own rank and high favour, allowed
nothing to be known of the new Empress, except the simplicity
and the awkwardness natural to one who was almost a child,
and which was calculated to render her unpopular in her
own court. That court was the haughty slanderer of the
young Empress. Marie-Louise took refuge in court ceremony,
—in solitude and in silence against the malevolence that acted
as a spy on her every word and action. Intimidated by the
fame, by the grandeur, and by the impetuous tenderness of
the ravisher, whom she dared not to contemplate as a husband,
1t is unknown whether her timidity permitted her to love him
with unrestrained affection. Napoleon loved her with feelings
of superiority and pride. She was the blazon of his affiliation
with great dynasties; she was the mother of his son, and
the establishment of his ambition. But though he exalted no
favourites, less from virtue than constitutional disdain, he was
known to have had passing predilections for some of the beau-
tiful women by whom he was surrounded. Jealousy therefore,
though she dared not accuse her rivals, might have chilled the
heart of Marie-Louise. The public were unjust enough to
require from her the most passionate and devoted love, when
her mature could only inspire her with duty and respect
for a soldier who had merely recognized in her a hostage for
Germany and a pledge of posterity. *
This constraint obscured her natural charms, clouded her
features, intimidated her mind, and depressed her heart. She
Was only regarded as a foreign ornament attached to the
columns of the throne. Even history, written in ignorance of
the truth, and influenced by the resentment of Napoleon's
Courtiers, has slandered this princess. Those who have known
her will award her, not the stoical and theatrical glory which
People required of her, but her natural qualities. She was a
30 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Booſt t.
Portraiture of Marie-Louise.
charming daughter of the Tyrol, with blue eyes and fair hair.
Her complexion varied with the whiteness of its snows and
the roses of its valleys; her figure light and graceful, its attitude
yielding and languid, like those German maidens who seem to
look for the support of some manly heart. Her dreamy glance,
full of internal visions, was veiled by the silken fringes of her
eyes. Her lips were somewhat pouting,-her bosom full of
sighs and fruitful affection; her arms were of due length,
fair and admirably moulded, and fell with graceful languor on
her robe, as if weary of the burthen of her destiny. Her
neck habitually inclined towards her shoulder. She appeared
of northern melancholy transplanted into the tumult of a
Gallic camp. The pretended insipidity of silence concealed
thoughts delicately feminine, and the mysteries of sentiment,
which wafted her in imagination far from that court to her mag-
nificent but rude place of exile. The moment she returned
to her private apartments, or to the solitude of her gar-
dens, she again became essentially German. She cultivated
the arts of poetry, painting, and music. In these accomplish-
ments education had rendered her perfect, as if to console her,
when far from her native land, for the absence and the sorrows
to which she would one day be exposed. In these acquire-
ments she excelled ; but they were confined to herself alone.
She read and repeated from memory the poetry of her native
bards. By nature she was simple, but pleasing, and absorbed
within herself; externally silent but full of internal feelings;
formed for domestic love in an obscure destiny; but, dazzled on
a throne, she felt herself exposed to the gaze of the world as
the conquest of pride, not the love of a hero. She could
dissemble nothing, either during her grandeur, or after the
reverses of her lord; and this was her crime. The theatrical
world, into which she had been thrown, looked for the picture .
of conjugal passion in a captive of victory. She was too
unsophisticated to affect love, when she only felt obedience,
timidity, and resignation. Nature will pity, though history may
accuse her.
This is a true portraiture of Marie-Louise. I wrote it in
her presence ten years afterwards. She had developed, at that
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. $1
Napoleon presents his wife and son to the National Guards.
period, during her liberty and her widowhood, all the hidden
graces of her youth. They wished her to play a part;-the
actress was wanting, but the woman remained. History
should award her—what the partial verdict of Napoleon's
courtiers has refused—pity, tenderness, and grace.
./
XXVI.
Such was the Empress presented by Napoleon to the
National Guard at Paris, his son, the King of Rome, in her
arms. This spectacle was the mute eloquence which affected
the hearts of the Parisians. They were received with cries,
tears, and arms raised to heaven. Nature claimed her empire,
and so did pride. The armed citizens of the capital were
proud of this daughter of the Caesars, confided, as if in pledge,
to the city of the revolution. This mother and her child,
covered by the swords of all, seemed for an instant to form
the domestic hearth of each. When the heart has its part to
play, which is so rare in the crises of empires, it breaks forth,
and conquers all for the moment. At this affecting scene
the national opposition was allayed. France thought itself
Napoleonized for a day, because its heart had beat for a
woman and a child. Napoleon, taking his son from his
mother's breast, embraced him, raised him in his arms, placed
him, with tears in his eyes, in the arms of the officers nearest
to him, and advancing into the midst of the immense circle,
which the chiefs of the city formed around the principal hall
of the palace, he spoke to them in that voice, by turns manly
and tender, which seemed like the soldier giving way to the
feelings of the husband and the sire. Talma, the great im-
personator of the living statues of history, had been with him
the evening before; but nature, at this moment, was a teacher
of attitudes more sovereign and infallible than Talma. Napo-
leon had nothing to learn from the stage but the folds of the
Costume which he had the ridiculous weakness to drape for
the eyes of his audience. His destiny draped it enough; his
heart spoke better than the part he had to play. He was
natural, heroic, familiar. He concealed none of the chances
32 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
Napoleon's departure for the campaign.
-- - -s -- - - -
of war, none of the dangers which every moment threatened
the capital. He explained how this danger would be only
apparent, how he would return with his forces, augmented by .
his garrisons being relieved from blockade,-to crush the
enemy between Paris and his army. “Be but united,” said
he “and resist the attempts that will be made to detach you
from me. I leave you the Empress and the King of Rome,
my wife' my son I go in tranquil confidence, entrusting them
to your love. What I have dearest in the world I place in
your hands.”
XXVII.
Paris resounded with this farewell. It excited it for a
moment, as it had done the palace. The following day it was
known that Napoleon had left during the night for Chalons. It
was also known that he never appeared with the army but on the
eve of a battle. But no more miracles were expected. The
campaigns of Russia, of Spain, and of Dresden had chilled the
ardour of hope. Yet the noise of the first shock was listened
for attentively. The last campaign was about to open. We shall
not recount it in its details, but in its results—it alone merits
an historian. Napoleon emerged from it greater than he had
ever been, even at the zenith of his power. It is not his glory
as a general—but his fall as a sovereign—that we trace in this
recital. We shall only enter upon details of the former, so far
as may be necessary to show how this heroic fall opened the
way for the Restoration.
XXVIII.
A million of men, armed by the resentment of Europe,
collected together by the genius of the Coalition, and encouraged
by the reverses of him who had been so long thought invincible,
entered, army after army, upon the soil of France. The circle of
action, still free for the Emperor, was contracting its limits
every twenty-four hours. Wellington had descended from the
Pyrenees on the south, with the English army, inured to war,
and bringing as auxiliaries the best troops of Spain and
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 33
--
The Allied Armies.
Portugal. The armies of Marshal Soult, and of Marshal
Suchet, retired rapidly upon France, to defend their native soil
against this invasion of two long provoked nations. Bubna and
Bellegarde, two Austrian generals, at the head of a hundred
thousand men, held Prince Eugene, Napoleon's Viceroy, in
check in the Milanese territory, and crossed the Alps to debouch
on Lyons by the gorges of Savoy. Bernadotte, the modern
Coriolanus, without having to revenge upon his country the
wrongs of his prototype, had sold himself to the Coalition, at the
price of the crown of Sweden. Against Belgium and the
Rhine he conducted, beneath our flag, 120,000 men, consisting
of all the Second-rate nations of the North. Prince Schwartz-
enburg, generalissimo of the Coalition, and Blucher, the
Prussian general, crossed the Rhine on the night of the 31st
of December, and directed about 200,000 men, of all
nations, to the foot of the Vosges,—our last rampart. Four
columns, of 400,000 combatants, penetrated Germany by
four roads, to recruit, with inexaustible reinforcements, the
van of the armies already entered upon the soil of France.
The sovereigns themselves (the Emperor of Russia, the Em-
peror of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the King of Sweden)
marched with their troops; as if to declare to the world that
they had for the future exchanged their capitals for the camp;
and that they were not going to make a campaign, but a unani-
mous and final crusade against the oppressor of the continent.
To these masses paid by England, recruited by patriotism,
and whom even defeats had taught to conquer, Napoleon could
only place in opposition the exhausted and broken up remains
of his once splendid armies
XXIX
France, in spite of the appeals made to its patriotism by
the Emperor and by the Senate, did not arise. It was drained
of its legions: it wished for peace and liberty. It feared that
in rising it would rise for the Emperor, and not for the
Country. It was resolved to furnish no more blood to gratify
his ambition. The long despotism it had groaned under, his
C
§ { HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION TBOOK 1
-*
Trresolution of Napoleon.
deprived it of all respect even for its own soil; and through-
out the country was heard this impious word of discourage-
ment, pushed even to indifference for personal consequences—
“Tyrant for Tyrant!” The Prefects decreed new levies; the
gendarmes conducted the conscripts, frequently in chains, on
the roads to the depôts: but scarcely were they liberated, when
they took the road back again to their cabins and their
villages. The most warlike provinces, Burgundy, Autun, and
Britammy, concealed bands of deserters in their woods,—the
last hopes of their families, who persisted in a life of wandering
wretchedness, rather than rejoin their regiments.
XXX.
Moreover, Napoleon, during the seventy days which the
slowness and timidity of the allies had left him to resolve on
something great, had taken no resolution. He was seen to
display, in the palace of the Tuileries, the indecision and
uncertainty of Moscow. He lost the precious time in deliber-
ating with himself and with others, in contending with the
senate and the legislative assembly, and in pouring forth
interminable effusions of eloquence with his confidants. He
had become, for some years past, prodigiously loquacious, a
sign of decreasing volition and action with men who have been
long indebted to fortune. He lost more time in convincing
than in conquering. The more he felt that public opinion was
deserting him, the more he sought to restrain it, by exciting
admiration in confidential communications to the first comer,
or by articles dictated for the Moniteur. He himself con-
stituted his own public opinion. No one but himself spoke
freely in France. His internal life was one continued
monologue; it might be said that he was killing time. He
seemed to expect—either from his negociations, which were not
even commenced, or from his star, which he felt was not yet
extinct—I know not what prodigy that was to restore to him
what he had lost. He had the predestination of men and of
things about to fall,—the immobility of the man against the
progress of time.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 35
es-ºs--------
Strength of the French armies.
XXXI.
An invincible resource remained to him at the beginning of
December. He had but to look with a firm eye on his position,
and instead of continuing scattered and dispersed over the re-
mains of his conquests, to fall back on, and concentrate him-
self in, the heart of France. He had in Spain the armies of
Soult and Suchet, forming together 80,000 men, inured to
conflict, disciplined in war, and commanded by generals
who sprang, like himself, from the school of the Republican
wars. He had in Italy the army of the King of Naples, and
30,000 men, comprising several excellent French regiments
and superior officers equally devoted to their country as well as
to Murat;-50,000 men, French and Milanese troops, were fight-
ing and manoeuvring ineffectually for his kingdom of Italy, on
the other side of the Alps. Holland and Belgium, fruitlessly
occupied and painfully retained, absorbed 40,000 men, under his
best generals of the second class. Finally, he had left, without
foresight, more than 120,000 men, shut up beyond his reach in
Mayence, and in all the strong places beyond the Rhine, like
land-marks lost upon the road, which he might never again
behold. Thus there were in all 320,000 soldiers, ready
formed, inured to war, disciplined, armed, and furnished with
artillery and horses, which, united with the 80,000 men in the
interior, would have formed, under his hand, and in the heart
of France, an army of 400,000 combatants. He had had ninety
days of a season favourable for the marching and provision-
ing of troops, to recall to his side these remnants of his
forces. He could have stationed them in the fertile provinces
and on the rivers which surround the capital, flank them with
his fortified places, connect them by his great cities and the re-
cruiting depôts of his regiments, encourage them by his presence,
animate them by his valour, and impel them by his genius;–
400,000 men could be thus concentrated, thus disposed, thus
excited,—merely attacked on remote points of their circumfer-
ence, themselves always close to the centre which would have
§
86 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1.
Prostration of France.
supported from its nucleus every radius of the circle, and would
have been always in number equal, and often superior, to the
attacking columns of the Allies. Every partial victory of the
enemy's generals would have been a sterile triumph; for none
of them would have dared to follow it up to the heart of such
a mass, to break and engulf themselves against the walls of
Paris. The least defeat, on the contrary, would have allowed
Napoleon to launch a hundred thousand men against the flanks
or the rear of the retreating enemy. Time and distance, which
weaken an invading army, would have inured to war, recruited,
and strengthened that of France. Decisive victory, with im-
portant consequences, or certain peace, with great concessions
for the country, would have been the result of such a resolution.
It would have been the '92 of France, disciplined, inured to
war, and invincible, the patriotism of the nation under a
single head, its bayonets in a single hand. What might not
have been done by a desperate army, the élite of our armies
of ten years, commanded by a hero, and inspired by the soil,
and by the hearth of every citizen beneath its feet? In
taking such a part Napoleon would have been as wonderful in
his concentration as in his conquests. It would have been
Frederick the Great, aggrandized by the immensity of the
enemy's troops, and by the force of destiny. Napoleon over-
looked this resolution. It required, to carry it out, not a
greater genius but a greater soul than his. He must have
sacrificed his pride to his real glory, renounced himself to
save his country, sacrificed his family crowns and the con-
quered provinces, to render Paris invincible. He wanted this
heroism. He disputed with destiny; but she obeys only
those who outstrip her in the race. He fed nis soul with
illusions; he threw away the time to his own disadvantage.
Tie was timid in taking extreme measures, under circum-
stances which called for the utmost efforts of mind and genius.
The throne had lessened the man : he was beneath the part
which destiny gave him to play. The statesman failed, but the
soldier remained ; in him it replaced the general.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 37
The Emperor's departure for Châlons.
XXXII.
Seventy thousand troops constituted the only army with
which Napoleon had to manoeuvre, and combat a million of men
in the heart of France. Victory itself could do nothing for so
small a number: it could only waste them less rapidly than
defeat. Did he depend on impossibilities; or was he only
desirous of illustrating his last struggle 2 No one knows what
was passing in that soul, maddened for so many years by
illusions. The most likely solution is, that he calculated on
some brilliant but passing success, which might have served a
a pretext for the Emperor of Austria to negociate with hir
He never thought that a father would dishonour his son-in-law,
or that kings would dethrone the conqueror of the revolution.
But, at all events, he did not doubt that, even if conquered
and deprived of the throne, the empire would be transmitted
to his son.
He arrived at Châlons on the 25th of January, ruminating
on thoughts like the above. Cries of “Vive l'Empereur ! a
bas les droits réunis /" met him everywhere on the road. The
people, excited and discontented at the same time, evinced, in
the same breath, their enthusiasm for the warrior and their
weariness of tyranny
B00K SECONI),
Campaign of 1814—Plan of Napoleon—March of the Emperor on St.
Dizier, to meet the Allies—Napoleon falls back on Brienne—Combat
of Brienne–Junction of Blucher and Schwartzenburg—Battle of
La Rothierre—Combat of Marmont at Rosmay—Napoleon goes to
Troyes—His residence and hesitation at Troyes—Congress of Cha-
tillon—Caulaincourt—Ultimatum of the Allied Sovereigns on the 8th
of January–Correspondence of the Emperor and Joseph—Blucher
falls back on Châlons, and marches on Paris—Napoleon marches to
Champ Aubert to stop Blucher—Combat of Champ Aubert–Battle
of Montmirail—Battle of Wauchamp—Napoleon withdraws from Cau-
laincourt the authority to sign a Peace—Schwartzenburg threatens
Paris, and advances by the valley of the Seine—Napoleon flies to meet
him—Battle of Montereau—Napoleon re-enters Troyes the 23d Ja-
nuary—Royalist manifestation—Execution of the Chevalier Gouault.
I.
OUR generals, left without sufficient force on the banks of
the Rhine, had, at first, tried to close, at least, the passes of
the Vosges and of Alsace,—those avenues to our plains.
Turned and compromised, they had fallen back slowly to the
reverse side of those mountains which look down on France.
They were closely followed by 400,000 men, Russians, Prus-
sians, and Austrians, daily augmented by fresh columns from the
Rhine. These 400,000 men formed two armies, the one under
the orders of Schwartzenburg, the other under the command of
Blucher. After having overrun the basin of the Rhine, Alsace,
Franche-Compté, the valleys of the Vosges, and Lorraine, they
directed their steps slowly towards each other, to re-unite, like
the armies of Attila, at Troyes, the capital of Champagne. The
Emperor, in imitation of himself, as it often happens with ex-
hausted genius, had resolved to throw himself boldly between
these two armies, give battle separately to each of his enemies
with his handful of desperate combatants, and to remove them
from each other as much as possible, the one to the left towards
1814.] RESTORATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 39
Operations of the armies.
his strong places in the north, the other to the right towards
Lyons, and to profit against each of these armies, thus thrown
into the interior, by the chances of victory, the panics of defeat,
and the enthusiasm of the national insurrections round the
footsteps of the strangers. This plan, though inferior to that
of concentration, to which nations as well as individuals are
prompted by a defensive struggle, might be understood, if the
Emperor had an army equal in number to one half or one
quarter of either of the armies marching upon him. But on
the day he arrived at Châlons the allies numbered already
400,000 soldiers in France;—500,000 more were descending
in rear of this advance guard from the Alps, from the Pyrenees,
from the Vosges, and from the Jura. A campaign thus projected
was, therefore, nothing but a kind of heroic adventure. He was
about to squander the remaining blood of his brave companions,
in order to render his fall illustrious, and annihilate a nation.
Napoleon had made Châlons the pivot of all that remained
to him of his guard, and of his new levies
II.
The heads of columns of the Russian and Prussian armies,
commanded by Blucher, were approaching St. Dizier. The
advance guard of the Austrian army, under Schwartzenburg, was
arriving at Langres. The Emperor only occupied with the
French army the space between these two cities, with the plains
of Paris in his rear. The old troops and his young soldiers
received him with an enthusiasm to which the misfortunes of
their general seemed to add what the heart confers on glory,
the despairing tenderness of devotion. Their acclamations
braved adversity, and bade defiance to death. Napoleon
profited by that burst of enthusiasm which his presence always
created in his camp. He threw himself with this handful of
men before the Prussian army, to cut it off from the road to
Langres, and arrive before it on the banks of the Marne, which
it had to cross on its way to Troyes. It was too late. One
half of the Prussian army had already passed the Marne, and
was advancing in force towards the capital of Champagne. The
40 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 2.
Military enthusiasm in the Emperor's favour.
*
other half was about to cross the river, when Napoleon arrived
there. He had now to choose at a single glance between the
two chances offered him by fortune : either to cut in two the
army of Blucher, and separate its fragments to the right and
left; or else to throw himself by forced marches in front of the
first column of that army which was advancing before him to
Troyes, to attack it, break it, enter Troyes before Schwartzen-
burg, and thus place himself as an impregnable barrier at the
point of junction assigned for the two armies. The necessity of
preceding the Emperors at Troyes decided him promptly to the
latter course. The timidity of their march—the indecision of
their first columns in venturing into the heart of France—
might afford him an opportunity of conquering. A victory, even
incomplete, over the corps d'armée, with which were the allied
sovereigns, might strike them with astonishment, and induce
them to open negociations. The general and the statesman
both urged him to fly to the solution of his destiny. This
was Troyes. -
III
The rigours of the season seemed to increase the fatigues of
the campaign. A long continuance of cold rains had cut up the
roads. A mantle of snow and hoar frost covered and concealed
the beaten tracks and quagmires, where the feet of the soldiers,
and of the horses, and the wheels of the cannons frequently
stuck in the mud. The army was fortunately in light marching
order; for, united in feeling with the inhabitants, they found
bread and forage everywhere. The humblest cabins gave up
their little stores, with cordial hospitality, to warm and nourish
these last defenders of the soil of France. Very few stragglers
remained upon the road; enthusiasm rallied all, and hurried
them forward after the Emperor. The magic spell of his
numerous victories seemed to have lodged itself in the mind of
his guard, and of the battalions of reserve. This guard looked
upon itself as jointly responsible with the Emperor, and bound
in honour to devote itself, even to the last man, for the deliver.
ance of the native soil. The shame of having permitted the
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. y 4 J
Napoleon's advance on Brienne.
enemy to touch it, and the ardent desire of expelling them,
weighed heavily on the rough visages of these brave Pretorians.
They marched, with downcast eyes and knitted brows, in a
silence more sinister and warlike than their soldierly gaiety of
other days. They felt that it was no longer victory alone but
the vengeance of their country that marched invisible before
them. Moreover, the great majority of these soldiers, hardened
by the Sands of Egypt, by the sun of Spain, by the snows of
Poland and Russia, were veterans inured to marches, and un-
dismayed by the cannon's roar, true animated machines of war,
who seemed no longer to participate in the weakness and the
wants of humanity. Confidence in themselves, contempt of
Superior numbers, and indifference under fire, multiplied them
in their own eyes.
'Twas in the midst of a column of these troops that Napo-
leon marched, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback,
never entering his carriage, and only retiring on the halt into
the first mechanic's or peasant's cottage that opened at his
name, to spread out his maps, trace his route, dictate orders
to his officers, or snatch a moment's sleep by the fire of the
bivouac or the cottage hearth.
IV
Napoleon accordingly recalled his advance-guard, which
had already passed St. Dizier, and directed his columns on
Brienne. Blucher having timely notice of the approach of
the French army, had placed the first half of the Russian
and Prussian army in this town and castle. Napoleon
thus, in the last period of his military career, found him-
self, like a stag at bay, exactly at his starting point. It
was at the school of Brienne that he had received his first
lesson in the art of war. His obscure infancy re-appeared to him
at the decline of his power and of his glory. An abyss of
events lay between these two points of his life. It seemed as
if he was going to fight in the presence of his youthful reminis-
cences. This thought, say his confidants, renewed his faith in
the smiles of fortune; he recognised his battle field by the
42 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 2.
Battle of Brienne.
traces of his early footsteps engraved in his memory; he did
not hesitate a moment to attack 60,000 men with one third
of his forces. The Russian generals, Saken and Alsafief, were
charged with the defence of the town, and the Prussians, under
Blucher himself, with defending the surrounding hills and the
formidable position of the castle. Napoleon ordered an imme-
diate assault, without giving his troops time to repose, to dry
themselves, or even to take refreshment; they were as impatient
for the fight as he was himself. This was the first great col-
lision on the soil of France, and the conflict was terrible. Napo-
leon put his good fortune to the test, and it responded in the
energies of his soldiers. Brienne and the castle were carried
by the irresistible impetuosity of the guard. Numbers disap-
peared before intrepidity. Blucher fought, as usual, like a
common soldier, to lead on or to restrain his battalions. Twice
surrounded by charges of French troops, he was separated from
his squadrons, and fought hand to hand, not for victory but life.
Twice freeing himself with his sabre from the hands of our
dragoons, he escaped only by the chances of the mêlée and by
the vigour of his horse. Before this short wintry day had
yielded to the cover of night and of the snow, the bodies of
10,000 slain had strewed the shelving heights of Brienne.
Blucher, in despair of breaking that rampart of bayonets, fell
back in silence, and proceeded by the right bank of the Aube,
to effect his junction with the army of Schwartzenburg, in the
neighbourhood of Bar and of Troyes.
Napoleon himself only owed his salvation to the night. He
was returning slowly after the action to his quarters, at some
distance from the re-conquered city, and was somewhat in ad-
vance of his staff, which left him respectfully to the indulgence
of his own thoughts. The French and Russian regiments were
still mingled here and there, as it happens after battles con-
tinued till night overtakes the combatants. A squadron of Rus-
sian cavalry, straying down the slope of the hill to regain the
retreating army, heard the horses of the Emperor's escort ap-
proaching, and charged them in the dark. Napoleon, for a
moment surrounded, was recognised, and sailed by two
Russian dragoons. General Corbineau threw himself between
1814.] OF MON AIRCHY IN FRANCE 43
Battle of La Rothierre.
the Emperor and one of the Cossacks; and the aide-de-camp
Gourgaud shot down the other with his pistol. The escort
immediately charged and saved all. Napoleon resumed the
way to his bivouac, meditating on the sterility of a victory
which cost him five or six thousand killed and wounded, and
which only produced a slight alteration of route on the army
of the enemy.
W.
Blucher and Schwartzenburg effected their junction the
following day at Bar-sur-Aube. They then returned, to the num-
ber of 150,000 men, to attack Napoleon while weakened by his
first victory. He waited for them at the village of Rothierre,
three leagues from Brienne, where he could only bring 40,000
men into position. Despairing of conquest, and consuming
fruitlessly both time and blood, Napoleon maintained, without
advantage, this field of battle by the heroism of his soldiers.
There, as elsewhere, he seemed to expect impossibilities, in-
stead of falling back, like Turenne or Frederick, under his
numerical inferiority, and contracting the space around him.
The habit of superiority possessed by his troops over those of
the enemy deceived even himself. He fought with a remnant
of his army, as he had formerly fought with 500,000 men. He
still possessed the genius of combat; but he had no longer that
of circumstances, Six thousand Frenchmen again laid down
their lives in the furrows of La Rothierre. Twelve thousand
lives in three days were cut off from an army of 70,000 fight-
ing men Napoleon seemed only to implore the night to con-
ceal, for the first time, the grief and humiliation of a retreat.
During the battle he had ordered bridges to be thrown across
the Aube; and leaving Marshal Marmont with a rear-guard of
6,000 men, he availed himself of the obscurity to pass the river,
and to take once more, as if by chance, the road to Troyes.
WI
We say by chance; for the occupation of Troyes, proper
enough before the junction of Rlucher and Schwartzenburg
44 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION |Book 2.
Napoleon's arrival at Troyes.
was now of no consequence, since that junction had been
effected, in spite of him, after the battles of Brienne and
La Rothierre. He continued a route without object; he was
wandering about France; it was no longer a march. Marmont
followed him, closely pursued by the Prussian cavalry, and
found himself headed at Rosmay by 20,000 Bavarians. Here
he drew up, and, heroically imitating the Emperor at Brienne,
he charged with a few battalions the corps d'armée which
opposed his passage. He opened a road for himself at the
point of the bayonet, and arrived with his division at Arcis-
sur-Aube, at the same hour that the Emperor was entering
Troyes.
VII.
Napoleon had scarcely arrived at Troyes, when he regretted
having stopped there. He could neither defend himself in.
that place, nor make use of it as the base of an aggressive
operation. The vain satisfaction of entering a city of his
empire, and remaining there three days, cost him 12,000 men,
the exhaustion of the remainder, and his removal twenty five
leagues farther from his capital, which was now exposed by his
operations to the extreme frontier of Champagne. The Paris
road was open to the two united armies of Blucher and
Schwartzenburg, if, crushing the feeble force of the Emperor,
they had continued their march, not to shun but to pursue him.
VIII.
Sinister intelligence of reverse after reverse reached him
from all parts of the empire, during the three days that he
remained in a state of indecision at Troyes. General Maison,
his confidential lieutenant in Belgium, expelled by an insur
rection which sprang up under his feet, retired into the
Department du Nord, with scarce sufficient strength to defend
it. Marshal Soult, the coolest and most consummate of his
generals, was falling back, step by step, upon Toulouse, from
the direction of Bordeaux, which had been marked out for
1814.1 OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 45
4 *-*.
National apathy.—M. de Caulaincourt.
him on retiring from Spain. Paris was dissatisfied at not
having yet heard the report of any one of those victories to which
she had been accustomed on the opening of a campaign. The
departments which were invaded or threatened did not rise
spontaneously at the noise of the enemy's tread. The volun-
teers of 1792 no longer crowded the roads, to the inspiring strains
of the Marseillaise. Despotism did not produce the miracles
of freedom. France was unmoved. People began to discuss,
in an under tone, the nature of the government which should
succeed the Empire, and some even ventured to recollect the
Bourbons, who for twenty years had been forgotten. This
long oblivion was favourable to their cause. Old recollections
possess a spell which may appear pregnant with indefinite
hopes in the eyes of the people: the past has its illusions as
well as the future The rising generation was no longer
disgusted with those memoirs of the old kings related to them
by their fathers. The minister of police, Savary, had rudely
told his master the truth. The Empire began to tremble
beneath his feet. There was still time to make up for the
disproportion of his force to the enormous armies which
hemmed him in, by forming round his capital a belt of 200,000
men, drawn from all the extremities to the centre. He would
and he would not—he was guided one hour by reason, an
hour after by the faintest glimmer of his star; a little by
necessity, a little by illusion ; yet always in a state of indeci-
sion. His lengthened residence at Troyes was only a pro-
longation and a symptom of this want of decision.
IX.
M. de Caulaincourt (his confidential negociator after M.
de Talleyrand had incurred his suspicions) had left Paris
some days before the departure of Napoleon for the army
As the confidant of the Emperor, his name was stained
with the involuntary but terrible complicity in the abduction
of the Duke d'Enghien. He was one of the instruments
made use of by Napoleon to lead the victim to immolation.
This accusation weighed heavy upon Caulaincourt. His favour
46 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 2.
Congress of Chatillon.
with the Emperor, his dignities, his title of Duke of Vicenza,
his long familiarity with the Emperor of Russia, at whose
court he had resided as ambassador, were insufficient to dispel
this cloud from his brow. He had been deceived; he declared
himself to be innocent. He was credited; but he would not
pardon himself for having obeyed an order which approximated
to a crime. For the excess of his devotion to the Emperor
he found no refuge but in his conscience before God and men.
Such a negociator must have been passionately desirous of
peace; for peace would definitively set aside the Bourbons.
The names of Caulaincourt and of Condé could never exist
together in France: their return was his exile; for this he
had been chosen by Napoleon. He knew that an ambassador
so compromised with the Restoration could never intrigue on
its behalf. An evident complicity guaranteed a fidelity
beyond all suspicion.
X
Caulaincourt having arrived at the advanced posts of the
allied army was detained there for some weeks. The Rhine
was crossed; the columns were advancing; the generals were
manoeuvring; the provinces were falling one after another into
the hands of the Coalition. The foreign cabinets were
desirous of giving scope to their victories. It would always be
time enough to open a congress, when events had become
more manifest. At length M. de Metternich, the Ulysses of
this council of kings, made them consent to open a pretended
congress even in the heart of France. The allies made choice
of the little town of Chatillon, on the confines of Burgundy
and Champagne, at the confluence of the routes of all those
armies which now disputed the soil of France. Chatillon was
rendered neutral, in order that the seat of negociation should
not be troubled by the vicissitudes of war.
On the 27th of January, Caulaincourt, who was still
detained at Nancy, received an invitation from Prince Metter-
nich to repair to Chatillon. He there found Count Razumoski,
negociator from the Emperor Alexander; Count de Stadion.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 47
Ultimatum of the Allied Sovereigns.
from Austria; Baron de Humboldt, from Prussia ; and Lord
Castlereagh, from England. The conferences opened on the
4th of February, without much hope on either side. It was
rather an official conversation between the representatives of
the allied powers and of Napoleon, than a negociation which
had a truce for its basis, and peace for its object. It was
evident that the real plenipotentiary, invisible in such a con-
gress, was the fortune of war. Military events, the real basis
of the conference, were changing every hour. How then could
the discussions have a commencement and a solution?
The Emperor Napoleon himself, notwithstanding the con-
fidence reposed in his negociator, had taken care not to invest
him with full powers, or a decided ultimatum. At the cont-
mencement he had ordered M. de Caulaincourt to consent only
to the natural limits ; and in these natural limits he comprised
the departments on the left bank of the Rhine, Belgium,
Antwerp, Ostend, and Savoy. Some days after he sent him
the formal authority to consent even to the dismemberment of
these conquests of the revolution. “Agree to all,” wrote Napo-
leon, “to save the capital, and to avoid a final battle, which
would swallow up the last forces of the kingdom.”
XI
Couriers, bearing the reciprocal resolutions of Napoleon and
the allies, were exchanged every hour between Chatillon and
the French general quarters. On the eve or on the termina-
tion of each combat, Napoleon received a despatch, and dictated
an answer. He fought and treated at the same time. On
receiving, on the 8th, the ultimatum of the allied powers,
which required the Emperor to divest France of all the
adjacent provinces under his sovereignty, he had just fought,
and been defeated. He shut himself up for hours together, to
conceal the humiliation of this ultimatum, and the anxiety of
his irresolution, from his confidants. At last he permitted the
entrance of Berthier and Maret,_his two companions in the
field and the cabinet; and holding Caulaincourt's letter in his
hand,-‘‘What!” said he to them, “do they require that I
48 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 2.
w—
Indignation of the Emperor.
should sign such a treaty as this, and that I should trample on
the oath I have taken to detach nothing from the soil of the
empire? Unheard of reverses may force from me a promise
to renounce my own conquests ; but that I should also abandon
the conquests made before me !—that, as a reward for so many
efforts, so much blood, and such brilliant victories, I should
leave France smaller than I found it !—Never !—What shall I
be in the eyes of the French people, when I shall have signed
their humiliation ? What shall I reply to the republicans of
the Senate, when they demand from me their barrier of the
Rhine? Heaven preserve me from such affronts? Reply, if
you will:—tell Caulaincourt that I reject this treaty. I prefer
running the last hazard of battle.”
At these words he threw himself on his bed, and passed
wrhole hours without sleep, listening to Maret, who advised
him to be resigned to necessity. Maret having at length
obtained authority to reply, at least in evasive terms, and to
compound with the enemy, he retired, drew up the despatch,
gave it to the courier, and returned to the Emperor's chamber,
to inform him that he had been obeyed, and that the courier
was already on his way to Chatillon. -
XII
But the Emperor, tormented by want of sleep, and seeking
pleasanter dreams from his maps than from his couch, had
quitted his camp-bed. He was extended on the floor of his
chamber, half-dressed; his hands and his eyes fixed upon his
maps, which were lying before him, measuring the dis
tances with the points of a compass. Maret entered the room
silently, for fear of disturbing the Emperor; but Napoleon,
raising his head at the noise of his minister's steps:—“Ah,
there you are,” said he, with a smiling and animated counte-
nance. “This is a fine time for concessions and protocols I
am this moment beating Blucher in my mind's eye. He
advances on Paris by the route of Montmirail. I march; I
beat him to-morrow ; I beat him after to morrow. If this
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 49
Napoleon's correspondence with his brother Joseph.
infallible movement has the success I expect from it, fate is
on the turn, and we shall speak another language.” -
Thus his thoughts, at all times as variable and as undecided
as his fortune, gave to his resolutions the vicissitudes of events,
and even the fugitive reflections of his dreams. His corre-
spondence with his brother Joseph, the King of Spain, whom
he had left at Paris at the head of affairs, as guardian of the
Empress, and superintendant of his ministers, presents but
the alternatives of discouragement and hope, which followed
the bent of his destiny, rising and falling with his elevation
or his final abasement; but the sad reality may therein be
distinguished, even amidst Napoleon's cries of victory, and the
adulations of his brother.
XIII
“My brother,” (wrote the Emperor, on the 8th of Feb-
ruary,) “the Emperor Alexander seems to have made some
false dispositions. I could defeat him; but I sacrifice every-
thing to the necessity of covering Paris. However, from the
part I play we shall not be reduced to this extremity.”
“Sire!" replied Joseph, “let us not hide from ourselves
that the consternation of the people of Paris might produce
fatal results to the Empress and the princesses. The men
attached to your government think that the departure of the
Empress from Paris might give a capital to the Bourbons. I
See alarm on every countenance.”
“My brother,” wrote Napoleon, “prepare Paris for every
extremity; carry away the ministers; leave nothing precious at
the chateau of Fontainebleau.”
Two days after:—“My brother, the situation of Paris is
not what the alarmists believe, Those around you are losing
their senses; the moment is difficult without doubt, neverthe-
less since I left you I have had nothing but victories. The
bad spirit of Talleyrand, and of the men who wish to paralyse
the nation, has prevented me from rousing it to arms, and
behold the result | Let us be confident and bold.”
“Sire I’’ replied Joseph, who knew more of public opinio a
D
50 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION | Book 2.
*-
Napoleon's correspondence.
in Paris than they did at the camp, “I shall save the treasure.
The waggons are all ready, awaiting the hour of peril in the
court of the Carrousel. We think of bringing away the
pictures and the statues from the Museum. The prayers at
St. Genevieve will not raise the courage of the people : their
spirits are cast down. The religious fatalism, with which the
people are inspired by this recourse to miracles, would only
increase the indifference and careless egotism of the masses.
We shall obtain nothing from the Catholics, until you have
restored liberty and Rome to the Pope. I have passed the
day in raising the hopes of men, who have less firmness than
the Empress.”
Four days later, Napoleon, having decided at length, but
too late, on falling back to cover France, wrote to Joseph :—
“Transmit this letter to the Empress Josephine, that she
may write to Eugene to come to me, and to form a junction
with the army of Augereau, which covers Lyons.”
A week after, this was counter-ordered.
“Sire ſ” again replies Joseph, “all our resources at Paris
consist of six thousand muskets. Is it with this that we can
levy and equip an army of forty thousand men? Circumstances
are more powerful than men'"
The first cry of necessity being acknowledged, he con-
tinues:– “Yield to events | Preserve what may yet be
preserved Save your life, precious to millions of men.
There is no dishonour in yielding to numbers, and accepting
peace. There would be dishonour in abandoming the throne,
because you would thus abandon a crowd of men who have
devoted themselves to you. Make peace at any price.”
“My brother,” replied Napoleon, “Prince Schwartzenburg
comes at length to give me signs of life He demands a
suspension of arms. The cowards ! at the first shock these
Wretches fall on their knees. No!—no armistice until the soil
is purged of them. Everything is changed with the allies.
Alexander asks to treat. A battle has decided between us.
The enemy is beaten. I shall make a peace more worthy still
than the peace on the basis of Frankfort.”
“Sign, Sire.” said Joseph, “sign on the soil of France,
1814.j OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 51, ,
Napoleons correspondence with his brother.
sºm--
now invaded, what you would have signed with equal honour
on the other side of the Rhine. The enemy only asks you for.
a truce, to gain time to rally in greater masses against you.”
“I had no occasion for your sermons,” said the Emperor
to him, “to be disposed to peace, if it was possible. The
Emperors had marked out their lodging at Fontainebleau: they
are now flying towards Champagne "
“Sire, the conditions offered to me, as well as to you, are
rather a capitulation than a peace. Now that they fly, their
ideas ought to be changed. Your bulletin of to day has been
badly received by public opinion. Some phrases have been
interpreted as subterfuges to elude peace.”
Exalted by success, Napoleon replies:—“My brother, I
am entering Troyes. I am besieged with flags of truce.
begging for a cessation of hostilities. I shall be this evening
at Chatillon sur Seine. The minister of the Home Depart-
ment, M. de Montalivet, is pusillanimous. He has a foolish,
idea of men. Neither he, nor the minister of police, Savary,
knows what France is.”
“Sire,” writes Joseph, “M. de Montalivet is extremely
zealous in your service. He devotes himself to furnishing you
with the forces you demand.”
“My brother,” writes Napoleon, “assemble the ministers,
the great dignitaries, the présidents of the Council of State.
Read to them the conditions that are offered me, (to circumscribe
France within her ancient limits). It is not advice that I
want; it is the feeling I wish to know.”
“Sire, I have held the Council. Their advice is, to accept
anything rather than expose Paris. They consider that this
occupation of Paris would be the end of your dynasty, and the
commencement of great misfortunes. Peace, whatever it may
be It is necessary now. It may terminate some day when
France shall have time to breathe. Enter into a truce then
With a mental reservation, since the wickedness of your enemies
Will not grant you a just peace. You will remain to France,
and France will remain to you. You will be recognised by
England. You will a second time save the country by peace,
after having saved and rendered it illustrious so many times
52 HISTORY OF THE RESTORA'ſ Iory ſpook 2,
His illusions and mental anxieties.
by war. France will return you in blessings what super-
ficial minds will think you have lost in glory.
“Yesterday the public funds fell to 51 francs, one half of
their nominal value. Macdonald is outflanked. The enemy's
skirmishers advance to within a few miles of Paris. Bordeaux
is fermenting like a furnace of civil war. Soult is assailed by
immense forces. You are still a victor. Sign a peace. You
will blot Louis XII. and Henry IV. from the memory of the
French; you will become the father of the people.”
Napoleon (in reply),—“My brother, I have examined the posi-
tion of the enemy; it is too strong. I shall fall back. Marmont
has acted like a young Subaltern. The young guard is melting
like snow. My dragoon guards are also decimated; my old guard
maintains itself. Orderredoubts to be thrownup on Montmartre.”
Such was the correspondence maintained between the
Emperor and his brother, during the marches and counter-
marches of this short campaign. We there read the internal
colloquies of his soul with his thoughts, the alternate struggle
between his illusions and his resolutions. His heart was
expanded or compressed with the events of each day. He
still relied on France, which did not, however, rise at his call.
He had no plan but that of the previous night, which was
abandoned by that of the following morn. His mind was a
chaos, his thoughts were fluctuating. Salvation no longer
existed for him, except from a great plan, rationally adopted,
and pursued with unity of purpose and constancy of operation.
He adopted all, and abandoned all. These half measures
could, therefore, give him only imperfect results. The enemy's
numbers increased—space was contracting—time was flying—
France was becoming weary. It was a campaign of chance.
No heroism could correct such a perpetual vicissitude of ideas.
The great timidity of the allies caused, however, brilliant
triumphs to the armies of Napoleon.
XIV.
Blucher, overcome but not beaten at La Rothierre, instead
of falling upon the little army of the Emperor with all his
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 52.
Blucher marches towards Paris.—Battle of Champ Aubert.
attainable and reunited forces, fell back upon Châlons to pick
up his rear-guard. From thence he marched rapidly on Paris
by the valley of the Marne. The Prince of Schwartzenburg
advanced in mass from Troyes, to effect the same object by the
valley of the Seine. Napoleon was between these two routes,
and between these two armies, at six leagues from each,
closing against Schwartzenburg the road from Troyes to Paris
On hearing from Macdonald of Blucher's having invaded the
plains of Paris, Napoleon resolved to attack him again, defeat
him, and return in time to fight Schwartzenburg in the
vicinity of Troyes. He proceeded by forced marches to
Champ Aubert, took the Russian army of 120,000 men in
flank, broke it, killed 5,000 men, traversed it in every direction,
and scattered its fragments; throwing some back again upon
Châlons; the others under the command of Generals York and
Saken being already advanced into the plain of Meaux, and
within sight of the spires of Paris. The victory was brilliant,
but unproductive. The following day the Russian and Prussian
columns of York and Saken, returning from Meaux at the
noise of the cannon, to the number of 60,000 men, came
into collision with the harassed army of Napoleon, on the
hills of Montmirail. The French had only 25,000 combatants
left; but they were the élite of France,—men tried in the
battles of ten campaigns, emboldened by the victory they had
just won, and thinking they now played the last stake for
their country. The terrible battle on the slope of the hills,
and in the gorges, which Napoleon had to penetrate in order
to meet the Prussians, continued from day-break till night-fall.
The most brilliant winter sun shone upon the hills, which
were void of foliage. It flashed upon the arms and the
cannon, and delineated to the eye the two armies and their
movements. The one immense, tranquil, confident in the
Support in their rear of new and inexhaustible battalions; the
other scarcely perceptible, worn out, covered with mud from
the double marches they had made for the last fortnight, and
from their bivouacs and battles; feeling their native soil beneath
their feet, contracting and melting away every evening; having
nothing in perspective, even after a victory, but another
54 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATTON [BOOK 2.
Battle of Montmirail,
fruitless battle field; nothing behind them but another army
to fight on the morrow; and yet they were burning with
ardour for the fray. It might be said that the elevated site of
the village of Marchais, advancing into the plain, garnished
with batteries, and covered with Russian and Prussian battalions,
was the Thermopylae of France. The Emperor Napoleon on
foot, by the side of a little wood, ploughed by the enemy's
bullets, directed from thence the attack of his troops. This
village and the scattered farm-houses in the hollows of the
surrounding hills, were taken and retaken several times by the
French and by the Prussians. Numerous spectators, from
Montmirail and the neighbouring villages, contemplated, as
from the benches of an amphitheatre, this unequal struggle
between the North and the South, in which the genius of war,
after ravaging the world, was now desolating their native soil.
Their countenances were full of emotion and terror, and their
arms idly inactive. None now remained but old men and
children, and a population harassed with ten years of insatiable
recruiting. They wept for their country,+they felt for their
great captain and his decimated battalions; but they joined them
not. Weariness and long suffering had produced indifference
XV.
Towards the close of the day, the French, to prevent the
Russians and Prussians from seeking shelter in the embattled
hamlets at the foot of the promontories of Montmirail, set fire
to some farm houses. The smoke of this conflagration and
that of the battle field, floated a long time over the two
armies, like clouds in the sun, and rendered the fortune of the
day uncertain. But at length Napoleon, supported on his
right by Marmont, came off victor in all the gorges and on all
the heights of this sanguinary field. The 60,000 Russians
and Prussians of Saken and York fled again in disorder
towards Meaux; seeking at hazard the course of the Marne,
to cross it, and take shelter behind that river. Had there
been an army of reserve under the walls of Paris, they would
have been utterly destroyed; and Napoleon, falling imme
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 55
Battle of Wauchamp.
diately upon Blucher, shorn of one half his battalions, would
have crushed him under the Vosges. But he could only
conquer; he could neither profit by a victory, nor pursue a
vanquished enemy.
XVI.
This however he did, and it proved his ruin. He forgot,
or feigned forgetfulness, that Blucher was advancing on his
right, with a fresh army augmented to 100,000 men, by the
junction of generals Kleist and Langeron, who had been
recalled from the blockade of Mayence to take their positions
in the line. He forgot also that Schwartzenburg, with another
army of 200,000 combatants, was in his rear, on the road from
Troyes to Paris. He had already advanced in pursuit of York
and Saken; but the third day after his victory, Blucher
debouched at Montmirail with all his army by the Châlons
road, and pushed his columns as far as Vauchamp, a village
where Napoleon, undecided in his plans, appeared to await
him. A second battle, more unequal, but fully as terrible,
and still more triumphant for Napoleon, took place between
this fresh army of Blucher's, and the broken but unconquerable
fragments of the Emperor. The genius of their chief and the
intrepidity of their own souls immortalized a second time the
plains of Montmirail. Blucher defeated, and driven back on
all points, but impelled by that physical courage which sub-
stitutes the arm for the head, and uselessly transforms the
general into the hero, vainly exposed his own person in the
front and rear of his broken columns. Twice surrounded by
the French, fighting hand to hand, thrown from his horse,
remounted by his hussars, and liberated by his lieutenants, he
dyed with his blood this immense battle field. His Savage
impetuosity was disconcerted by the coup d'ail and superior
coolness of Napoleon. This second and superior Russian
army, crossing Montmirail under the shells and bullets of the
French, dispersed like the first amidst the shades of might,
disappeared on the road to Châlons, by which they had arrived
Thus with his left the Emperor had scattered York and
Saken on the unknown banks of the Marne; and with his
56 f{ISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 2.
Napoleon revokes the authority given to Caulancourt.
right had driven back Blucher, Kleist, and Langeron, upon the
ravaged plains of Châlons. Paris had now breathing time.
Napoleon had room for his operations, and time to concert his
measures. He received a new impulse, but he also resumed
his pride. He forgot at Montmirail that five victories in ten
days did not constitute a campaign, and that his blows only
fell around himself. The wave, though at a distance, always
returned to engulf him Napoleon was a victor, but the
country was lost.
XVII,
At this glimpse of good fortune he hastened to revoke the
authority he had given to Caulaincourt to sign a peace on the
basis of a frontier reduced to the limits of 1789. “I have
conquered; your attitude must remain the same for peace,” (he
thus wrote from the field of battle to his plenipotentiary;) “but
sign nothing without my order, because I alone know my posi-
tion.” It was evident that he reserved all negociation for his
sword, and that the congress was nothing but a side conversa-
tion during the marches and battles of the great drama. The
cannon alone negociated.
XVIII.
While he thus indulged in the pleasures of a fleeting hope,
within the contracted horizon of Montmirail, giving rest to his
troops, and disposing of his killed and wounded, the army of
the Emperors, without one obstacle before them, were crossing
the Seine, in columns innumerable, at Nogent sur Seine, and
at Montereau ; thus threatening Paris by its widest valleys,
and by the plains to the east and south. The capital, for a
moment re-assured on the side of Meaux, began to look with
terror towards Melun and Fontainebleau. They had nothing
to defend them on the Seine but two of Napoleon's veterans,
Marshal Victor and Marshal Oudinot, gallant chiefs, but
reduced to a handful of men, who could only dispute the roads
and the bridges, for honour more than for safety. They fell back
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 57
*
He marches to the defence of Paris.
slowly but despairingly on Paris, which did not send them a
single soldier to replace those which every evening they left
upon the roads or the field of battle. Their retreat, converging
to the plains which surround the capital, must have brought
them sooner or later in sight of the Emperor, as to a last
halting place, where they might fall together
XIX
Napoleon—tranquil for a day, thanks to the astonishment
with which he had struck York, Saken, Blucher, Kleist,
Langeron, the Prussians and the Russians—now fell back,
with an army somewhat recruited by the reinforcements of
Marmont and Mortier. He borrowed, to treble the rapidity of
his march, the horses and carriages of the country he traversed.
His artillery, his guard, his infantry were posted forward; his
cavalry made double stages. He outran time ; he devoured
distance. A day and night march of thirty hours enabled him
to cross the country from the Marne to the Seine, between
Montmirail and Montereau. On the noise of his approach,
increased by the fame of his last victories over the Russians,
the Austrian general Bianchi, who had pushed forward with
300,000 men to the gates of Fontainebleau, fell back to Fos-
Sard. The village of Fossard, united with Montereau by a
short causeway resembling the street of a suburb, is the point
where the roads from Paris to Fontainebleau, and from Paris
to Troyes, cross each other. One of these roads passes through
Montereau, where it crosses the Seine and Yonne, at their
confluence, over bridges rendered famous in the civil wars of
France. Napoleon ordered Marshal Victor, whom he found
within reach of his orders, to seize on these bridges, which
were essential to his plan of the following day, for attacking
Bianchi at Fossard, and cutting in two the Austrian army, as
he had done that of Russia. Victor, from exhaustion, obeyed
slowly, and lost the critical moment in giving some rest to his
troops. A Wurtemburg division, detached by Bianchi, pre-
ceded him, and having penetrated through Montereau, fortified
the bridges behind them, clambered up the high chalky cliffs
58 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 2.
Battle of Montereau.
which command the town, and drew up on the heights of Sur-
ville, in order to check Napoleon's descent upon Montereau.
Victor, rendered desperate by the invectives of the Emperor,
resolved to wash out his reproaches with his own blood. He
attacked the Wurtemburghers like a man determined to win
the passage or to die, and exposed his life without reserve,
his son-in-law, General Chateau, being killed by his side. On
the noise of this struggle on the other side of the hills of
Montereau, Napoleon pressed forward his columns, and found
himself overwhelmed, by the batteries of the Austrians, at a
moment when he thought they were beyond the bridges. He
became irritated and obstinate; he pushed forward his guard to
the assault, and drove the Wurtemburghers from the heights
into the town; pointing his cannon with his own hand on the
enemy massed in the streets and on the bridges. They re-
turned the cannonade, and Napoleon's artillerymen fell in
numbers at his feet. The survivors conjured him to take
shelter, and to save a chief and a rallying point for France
“My friends,” he replied, smiling, and looking with a serene
eye on the projectiles that ploughed the earth around him,
“the bullet which is to kill me is not yet cast !” He thus
awaited the tardy advance of his masses, throwing meanwhile
into disorder, under the rapid discharges of his unconquerable
artillery, the enemy's army exposed to his eager glance between
Fossard and Montereau. Towards the close of the day, feeling
himself in force, he pushed forward General Gerard, one of
his best lieutenants, with a division of Bretons, against the
suburb of Montereau, to clear the streets leading to the bridges.
Pajol, a bold cavalry officer, profiting by the passage opened
by Gerard, marched under cover, and sheltered from the can-
non of the Emperor, as far as the turning of the suburb, which
makes an elbow with the bridges. Then at a gallop his
cavalry swept them péle-mêle with the Austrians, sabred the
runaways, and clearing a passage for Napoleon advanced along
the causeway as far as Fossard. Napoleon with his 40,000 men,
which had arrived during the action, passed the rivers which
covered Bianchi, and gained a brilliant but a useless victory.
While he was forcing this passage, Bianchi, rapidly throwing
1844.] OT' MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 59
&
****
The Emperor re-enters Troyes.
back his 30,000 men from Fontainebleau upon Sens, escaped
from the Emperor's plan, and resumed his communication with
Schwartzenburg. His escape, however, was a flight; and
1’aris, a second time delivered, resounded with the exploits of
Montereau. The Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the
King of Prussia, astounded at the defeat of their advance
guard, hesitated whether they should advance or retreat.
Napoleon, bold and rapid as a whirlwind, quitted the neigh-
bourhood of Paris, and followed Bianchi in his retreat upon
the road to Troyes. On the 21st he halted at Bray, in the
chamber the Emperor of Russia had just quitted to follow the
ebbing tide which carried the allies back again into Champagne.
Schwartzenburg had already sent the baggage back into the
defiles of the Vosges. The Russians of the Emperor's guard,
who were following him to the Austrian quarter-general, re-
tired to Langres. The allied sovereigns were at Chaumont.
Sixty leagues of space and freedom of movement had been
re-conquered for Napoleon by the cannon of Montereau. On
the 23rd he re-entered Troyes as a conqueror in the footsteps
of Alexander's Russians. The city thus delivered received
him in triumph. A witness of the enemy's terror, it looked
on the re-appearance of Napoleon as a decisive return of victory
to his standard
XX.
Napoleon himself partook of the confidence which sprang
up under the footsteps of his invincible, battalions. This
time at least peace was in his own hands, had he hastened to,
obtain it; but he lost time in avenging himself, and driving.
to irritation and despair a party which his success had suf-
ficiently punished,—the few remaining partisans of the house
of Bourbon.
Hitherto this party had been a mere shadow; but Napoleon
in striking at it, gave it a fresh existence. He wrote in letters
of blood the name of Bourbon, which it was his interest to
obliterate, by treating with contempt the vain and feeble
Symptoms still lingering amongst the population.
60 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 2.
ë —- *—1––– ºf
_r=r
*
Royalist manifestation,
During the time that Troyes was occupied by the enemy,
some old emigrant royalist officers, the Marquis de Vidranges,
the Chevalier de Gouault, and five or six inhabitants of the
city, eager to anticipate an opinion still slumbering, presented
themselves before the Emperor of Russia, and begged him to
proclaim the restoration of the royal house of their ancient
masters to the throne of France. The Emperor evinced some
vague and silent inclimation towards this fallen party; but he
would neither prejudice the sentiments of his ally, the Emperor
of Austria, nor give his word, which he might have to withdraw
at a later period; nor ruin by injudicious encouragement men
willing to venture all in the dark. He replied that the chances
of war were uncertain, and that it would be no gratification to
him to see worthy persons sacrifice themselves even in an at-
tempt to dethrone his enemy. The royalist deputation retired,
privately encouraged, perhaps, by some refugee or emigrant
officers, attached to, the quarter-general of the Emperor of
Russia. The demonstration was therefore limited to a few
white cockades and decorations of the order of Saint Louis,
displayed on the hats or at the button holes of some old
royalists, or their enthusiastic offspring. On the conclusion of
this little drama the Marquis de Vidranges departed for
Franche-Comté, where the Count d'Artois had ventured to
appear, in the suite and under the safeguard of the Austrians.
The companions of his imprudence remained at Troyes.
XXI.
On his entry into the city Napoleon demanded that he
should be put in possession of the traitors, who, in repudiating .
his name, had, he asserted, made common cause with the
enemies of their country. M. de Gouault who had been sent
before a court-martial even before the Emperor sat down, was
tried, condemned, and shot, in spite of the entreaties of
M. de Megrigny, a gentleman of the country, and one of
Napoleon's equerries ; thus expiating by his blood the
temerity of his enthusiasm for his ancient masters. He was
conducted to the place of execution with a placard on his
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 6]
Execution of the Chevalier Gouault.
breast, inscribed with the word traitor. The report of this
vengeance, on a man isolated and without accomplices, the
day after those victories which had made Caesar generous,
excited in France less terror than indignation. What effect
could the life or death of an old royalist, guilty of illusion or
fanaticism, have in a European quarrel with the ruler of
France, which was not to be judged by a single execution, but
by ten battle fields 2 Napoleon should have conciliated opinion
by indulgence, but he saddened and disgusted by his rigour.
It was not the country but his own dynasty that he covered
with the blood he had shed. This selfish piece of vengeance
was deemed a cruelty: it recalled the memory of the Dukg
d'Enghien.
B00K THIRD,
The Allies demand a suspension of arms—Conferences of Lusigny—The
allied troops take Soissons—Blucher unites all his corps d'armée-,
He marches on Troyes towards Schwartzenburg – Rencontre of
Napoleon and Blucher—Méry-sur-Seine—Blucher abandons the
valley of the Seine, and advances on Paris by the valley of the
Marne—Mortier and Marmont fall back upon Paris–Soissons is'
retaken by Mortier—Napoleon quits Schwartzenburg, and flies to
Blucher—He overtakes him at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre—Blucher
passes the Marne, pursued by Napoleon—Blucher hemmed in by the
Emperor, Mortier, and Marmont, escapes by Soissons, abandons the
Aisne, and letires upon Laon—Napoleon crosses the Aisne at Béry-
au-Bac, and attacks at Craonne the Russian and Prussian corps
which came to cover Blucher—Battle of Craonne—Battle of Laon—
Halt of Napoleon at Rheims—Schwartzenburg marches on Paris, and
advances to Provins—Tactics of the Emperor—He returns to Troyes
to operate on the rear of the enemy—Panic of the allies—Schwart-
zenburg falls back upon Troyes and Dijon—Battle of Arcis-sur-
Aube—The Emperor's new plan of campaign—Decree for a levy en
masse—Apathy of France—March of Napoleon towards St. Dizier
—Treaty of Chaumont—Concentration of the Allied Armies at
Châlons—Their indecision—They march on Paris—Situation of
Paris and of France—Flight of Marie-Louise.
I.
THE enemy retreated in all directions by forced marches
from Troyes, which had now become the head quarters-general
of Napoleon ; and it was impossible to say how far they would
be carried by the panic which seized them on the approach
and at the name of the Emperor After a short repose, Na-
poleon, without driving them to absolute extremity, intended
to cut up the scattered columns of their rear so effectually
that terror alone should supply his place, while he returned, to
attack the army of Blucher, for the third time.
Having halted for the night of the 17th at Nangis, in the
cottage of a wheelwright, he received, in the character of nego-
1814.) RESTORATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 63
Proposed suspension of hostilities.—Conferences of Lusigny.
ciator. the Prince of Lichtenstein, sent by the generalissimo,
Prince Schwartzenburg, to demand a suspension of arms, with
the view of giving time for serious negociations for peace. N apo-
eon, affecting greater confidence in the result of his victories than
perhaps he really felt, complained of the encouragement given
to the partisans of the Bourbons against him. “Is it then a
war against the throme,” he exclaimed, “instead of a war against
the victor, that you intend to carry on ? The Duke d'An-
goulême is at the head quarters of the Duke of Wellington,
and he is permitted to address from thence proclamations
to the southern portion of my Empire, and even to my own
soldiers? Can I believe that my father-in-law, the Emperor
Francis, is so blind, or so unnatural, as to project the de-
thronement of his own daughter, and the disinheriting of his
own grandson?” g
The prince, however, re-assured the Emperor, dissipated his
doubts, asserted that the residence of some princes of the
house of Bourbon amongst the armies of Europe, was merely
on sufferance: or, at the utmost, an admissible means of diver-
sion between hostile forces; but the allies, he added, only
wished for peace, and not to destroy the Empire. Napoleon
declined any further explanation of his views, until he had
taken counsel from the night. Fresh couriers might bring him
every hour additional reasons for demanding greater concessions;
and with this idea he retired to rest t
II.
Nothing occurred during the night but the arrival of a
Second aide-de-camp from Schwartzenburg, bearing a more
precise requisition to open conferences for an armistice as the
precursor of peace. Napoleon fixed the place of meeting for
this purpose at the village of Lusigny, between Vandoeuvre and
Troyes, and sent thither one of his most brilliant officers, M.
de Flahaut. This envoy found there three of the allied
generals, deputed to arrange with him the preliminaries of an
armistice. These were General Duca on the part of Austria,
General Schouwalof for Russia, and General Rauch for Prussia,
64 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 3,
The allied troops capture Soissons,
While these officers were discussing the bases of a cessation of
hostilities, and the portion of France over which it should extend,
Napoleon, more confident in a successful operation than a
political conference, re-formed his columns of attack, to complete
the overthrow of the grand Austrian army; and he had already
commenced his march for that purpose, when he was recalled,
by the rumour of disaster, towards the army of Blucher.
Generals York and Saken, who had been cut off from the
army of the Prussian general-in-chief, by the battles of Mont-
mirail and Vauchamp, had retired precipitately, to the number
of forty or fifty thousand men, to the plains that lay open before
them, pursued by Mortier, who had been detached with only a
few thousand men, Victory, however, increased his numbers,
which were now sufficient to disperse the fragments of a con-
quered army, wandering on an enemy's soil. These remains,
intending to cross the Aisne at Soissons, to take refuge in the
north, and to rejoin the Belgian army, arrived under the walls
of Soissons, at the same time that General Woromzoff, command-
ing the army of invasion of the north, had arrived thereby another
route. General Rusca, in defending Soissons against them, was
killed on the breach; and the two armies of Saken and Woronzoff
effected their junction in the conquered city. Strengthened by
this coalition they took courage, and fell back upon Châlons, to
rejoin the defeated army of Blucher, their general-in-chief.
Thus recruited, Blucher resumed, with 60,000 men, his route,
twice interrupted, towards Troyes, to fly to the assistance of
Schwartzenburg; but was encountered by Napoleon at Méry-sur-
Seine. A terrible shock signalized this unexpected meeting of the
two armies. The town of Méry-sur-Seine crumbled beneath the
bullets, and was consumed by the shells of both armies, leaving
nothing but a ruined mass of blackened walls and smoking
houses on the banks of the river.
Blucher, repulsed a third time by this unexpected shock,
gave way, renounced his intended junction with the Austrians,
regained the valley of the Marne, and advanced on Paris, for
the purpose of recalling Napoleon to the defence of his capital.
Mortier and Marmont, with two weak divisions of 7,000
men each, operating between Paris and the Marne, fell back
1814.] OH, MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 65
Napoleon's operations against Blucher.
slowly on the capital. They had no other object than to gain time,
and to give scope for the grand manoeuvres of the Emperor
III.
On learning this, Napoleon, trembling for his capital and
for his government, abandoned the Austrians to themselves,
and traversing with his recruited troops the whole space lying
between Troyes and Sezanne, he prepared to take Blucher once
more in the rear, in the neighbourhood of Meaux, while Mortier
and Marmont attacked him in front. Pushing on from Sezanne,
he had already nearly reached Ferté-sous-Jouarre, the position
where Blucher was held in check by Mortier and Marmont.
The Prussian army, annihilated, was about to become the trophy
of this combination. Relieved from this force, Napoleon was cer.
tain of an easy triumph over the Austrians. His army partici-
pated in his hopes, and enthusiasm accelerated their steps. In
a few hours the Marne would engulf the wreck of Blucher and the
Russians; but this general, divining the thoughts of Napoleon, and
desirous of withdrawing him on his own track from the pursuit
of Schwartzenburg, had forced the passage of the Marne, and
burnt the bridges, before Napoleon could attain his object. From
the heights which slope downtowards the river, the Emperor saw
the Prussian army defile in Safety on the opposite bank, and
directing its long columns towards the north.
IV
A terrible suspicion now seized the mind of Napoleon
Should he allow Blucher, at the head of an unbroken army, to
march round Paris, and spread terror through the capital? Or
should he consume time and distance in following him, and
thus give Schwartzenburg an opportunity of returning in mass,
and unopposed, upon Fontainebleau ? Paris appeared to him
once more the heart of the Empire, which it was essential to
cover ; and he decided on crossing the Marne in pursuit of
Blucher: but he lost two days in re-establishing the bridges,
and passing his army to the other side of the river.
E
86 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION TBOOK 8,
The garrison of Soissons opens its gates to the Prussians.
Then seeking on the map an intermediate point between
Soissons and Rheims, he placed his finger on Fismes. He
arrived there at day-break on the 4th of March. This move-
ment placed Blucher between Napoleon on one side, Marmont
and Mortier on the other, and Soissons and the Aisne in front.
Soissons had been recovered by Mortier, and commanded the
bridges of the Aisne. Blucher was, in short, a prisoner, and
Napoleon thought he had nothing more to do than to dictate
his capitulation.
V
But the best concerted plans are often frustrated by the
chance of war. The weakness or timidity of the little
garrison of Soissons had opened the gates of that city to the
Prussians of the North, at a period when a further resistance
of a few hours would have delivered a captive army into the
hands of the Emperor and his generals. Blucher was received
at Soissons by the army of Witzingerode and of Bulan, which
increased his forces to loo,000 men. But he so much dreaded
a fourth collision with the Emperor, that he retreated again
from the Aisne, and proceeded by forced marches to Laon.
Another doubt now seized upon Napoleon. Ought he to
fall back or pursue 2 Carried on by enthusiasm he pursued,
and crossed the Aisne at Béry-au-Bac. On the 7th of March
he encountered at Craonne the Russian and Prussian corps
which were marching from Soissons to cover Blucher, after
having saved him. Napoleon charged them at the point of
the bayonet on the heights of Craonne, which were studded
with batteries. The Russians died at their guns, after mowing
down all ranks of our soldiers; but the survivors yielded to
the repeated assaults of Napoleon, and fled in disorder
towards Leon. Blucher was already there, worn-out, wounded,
and astonished at so incessant a pursuit. The Emperor, who
had not given him a moment to breathe, was on the point of
seizing him. The Prussian army experienced at that moment
the discouragement arising from continual retreats after defeat.
The fame of Napoleon weighed heavily on Blucher and his
soldiers. Everything presaged the annihilation of these three
1814.} OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 67
Sudden junction of Bernadotte's army with the Prussians.—Fierce rencontre.
armies, the fragments of which could only form a junction
under the cannon of their conqueror. -
VI.
But a fourth army came to the assistance of Blucher, on
the instant that Napoleon appeared in his front. It was that
of the King of Sweden, Bernadotte,_this Murat of the North,
from whose breast the family of kings, into which he had
entered, had obliterated his country. He did not command
in person: councils and contingents combated for him, but
his sword respected the blood of his countrymen.
Napoleon, a witness of this junction of Bernadotte's army
with the two armies of Blucher and that of Witzingerode,
did not, however, hesitate a moment in attacking these
100,000 men, with less than 30,000 combatants, harassed
with marches, but invincible in heart. He pushed forward
Marshal Ney and General Gourgaud—two impetuous soldiers
—on a defile hemmed in by marshes, which sheltered the army
of Blucher. The troops which defended it were crushed; and
night alone interrupted the battle.
It was renewed at day-break the following day; but the
first discharge of artillery was scarcely heard, when a dreadful
piece of news fell upon the heart of Napoleon, yet still with-
out breaking it. Marmont, surprised on the evening before
by a force disproportioned to his weakness, lost 3000 men and
40 pieces of artillery. The Emperor, though dismayed, con-
cealed his loss, and boldly attacked his 100,000 enemies in
position under the walls of Laon. In vain his battalions
escaladed these terraces of fire at his voice; they were driven
down in fragments. The French army was consumed and
melted away before those masses which were covered by their
batteries, and rendered inaccessible by the nature of the
ground. It was the rock of Napoleon's fortunes. He recoiled
before impossibility, rallied his mutilated army, and retired,
Without being pursued, towards Rheims, a wanderer in his
own empire, and seeking therein, almost in vain, a city open
to receive his army. The Russian general Saint-Priest, a
68 HISTORY OF TIIE RESTORATION ſpook 3.
- -
The Emperor enters Rheims.-The difficulties of his situation.
Frenchman of illustrious family, attached to the I&ussian
army after the emigration, commanded at Rheims. He was
killed there in opposing the entrance of the French. 4,000
Russians perished with him, leaving their colours and artillery to
Napoleon, the last and sterile trophy of the closing struggle.
The Emperor having entered Rheims, remained there three
days to reorganise his shattered forces. On whatever side he
looked he saw no route open for him, but such as he should
open through five opposing armies. Despatches reached him
with difficulty: he was reduced to conjectures, and wandered
about, feeling his way amongst the provinces, and coming in
contact, every step he took, with a new enemy. This was the
deplorable and fatal consequence of a want of decision and of
concentration at the commencement of the campaign. His
heroism, even, was thus turned against himself. No genius
and no resources could make up for a want of judgment as to
his true position. Offensive operations, in a war essentially
defensive, consumed, misled, and dethroned him.
VII.
During these eight days, lost in useless pursuit of the
Russian and Prussian corps of Blucher, the Austrians, re-
assured by the retirement of Napoleon, had returned in irre-
sistible masses towards Troyes, and from thence towards
Paris. Oudinot and Macdonald had only, like Marmont and
Mortier, divisions calculated for affairs of outposts, to oppose
200,000 men. On the 16th of March the Austrian vanguard
was at Provins, and another day's march would have brought
them under the heights of Montmartre. A courier announced
this intelligence to the Emperor. It was no longer time to
cover the capital; and distrusting the defence of its barriers
in a city with a million inhabitants, he re-took the road to
Troyes to recall Schwartzenburg by the apprehension that a
French army, commanded by the Emperor, had intervened
between him and the base of his operations. -
This sentiment, indeed, had acted upon Schwartzenburg
more nowerfully and more rapidly than Napoleon had imagined.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 69
Panic of the Allied Armies.—Napoleon's intrepidity.
At the first rumour of the Emperor's return to Champagne,
the Austrian army, as if seized with panic at a single name,
had retreated by every road from the walls of Paris, as far as
Troyes and Dijon. The Emperor of Austria, fearful of being
surrounded, even in the midst of his troops, took refuge at
Dijon. Alexander and the King of Prussia had got beyond
Troyes. These sovereigns, magnifying the danger by the
memory of so many former defeats, and fearful of a snare in
the very heart of France, which had fallen with such apparent
facility into their hands, agreed to send, to their respective
plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Chatillon, the most press-
ing instructions to effect a peace Had the Emperor had
timely notice of these terrors, he could have signed a peace on
a European basis, at the moment that his own Empire was
fading beneath his feet; but he was ignorant of these terrors.
Alarmed on his own part at the masses crowding down upon
him, he retreated towards Arcis-sur-Aube, where he unex
pectedly came in contact with the army of Schwartzenburg. A
sanguinary battle ensued, unexpectedly to both generals, be-
tween the French and Austrians. Napoleon fought at hazard,
without any other plan than the necessity of fighting, and the
resolution to conquer or die. He renewed in this action the
miracles of bravery and Sang-froid of Lodi and Rivoli; and
his youngest soldiers blushed at the idea of deserting a chief
who hazarded his own life with such invincible courage. He
was repeatedly seen spurring his horse to a gallop against the
enemy's cannon, and re-appearing, as if inaccessible to death,
after the smoke had evaporated. A live shell having fallen in
front of one of his young battalions, which recoiled and
wavered in expectation of the explosion, Napoleon, to re-assure
them, spurred his charger towards the instrument of destruc-
tion, made him smell the burning match, waited unshaken for
the explosion, and was blown up. Rolling in the dust with
his mutilated steed, and rising without a wound, amidst the
plaudits of his soldiers, he calmly demanded another horse, and
continued to brave the grape shot, and to fly into the thickest
of the battle. His guard at length arrived, and restored the
fortune of the day.
70 FIISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 3.
The Emperor resolves on abandoning Paris.
VIII
Night, and the accumulating masses of Schwartzenburg,
obliged the Emperor to secure himself in the town, and to
fortify it for the defence of his few remaining forces. During
this night he kept in check 150,000 men, and availed himself
of the darkness to construct several bridges over the Aube.
Unable, however, to break those Austrian masses which blocked
his route to Paris, he took counsel from despair, which inspired
him too late with the idea, that would have rendered him in-
vincible, had he adopted it sooner. He resolved to abandon
Paris and the heart of France to their fate, and to throw him-
self on Lorraine, on the Meuse, and on the Rhine; to rally, by
raising the blockades, the garrisons of Metz, of Verdun, and of
Mayence, and finally to raise the departments beyond the Rhine,
which he was told were so devoted to his sceptre. He was thus
in hopes of returning with 100,000 men to the soil of France,
to spring like a lion amidst the columns of the army of invasion—
to break, disperse, and strike them in detail—imprison their
scattered portions between the Rhine and the Loire—raise
beneath their feet his great cities and his rural districts—and
give to the astonished world the spectacle of a million of men
devoured by the soil they had imprudently invaded. This was
an heroic dream; but yet it was a dream. Such a campaign
required an idolized chief—the enthusiasm of a unanimous
cause—a nation fresh, neither exhausted by tyranny nor sunk
into apathy and indifference. A Vendée is not composed of
Soldiers, but of citizens, of children, of old men, and of women,
determined to die, and to whom defeats are martyrdom. The
letters of Jerome on the Spirit of Peace, the languor of public
opinion, the desertion from his depôts, the immobility of France
under the footsteps of invasion, its resignation, its effeminacy,
the murmurs even of his marshals and of his most faithful
lieutenants, sufficiently indicated to Napoleon that the country
would awake no more but to the voice of liberty. The general
was expiating the faults of the despot. His guard was following
and dying for him; but it followed him rather from esprit de
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE, 71
as-ºs-
His ineffectual appeal to the French people.
corps, and from a recollection of their common glory, than
from any hope for the future. They were the martyrs of
military honour. They followed to the death, not the cause,
but the chief and the banner
IX.
The rest of the French people looked on and lamented
Napoleon had in vain issued decrees for levies en masse, for the
arming of civic guards, the insurrection for hearths and altars,
the sounding of the tocsin, the destruction of roads, and a
running fire on the flanks of the enemy. But wherever his can-
non did not resound, France was silent and motionless. Public
enthusiasm confined itself to two or three corps of partisans,
recruited in Burgundy by three gentlemen,-bold military ad
venturers, Count Gustave de Damas, in the mountains which
separate the Loire from the Saone,—M. de Moncroe at Maçon
and at Châlons,—Count de Forbin-Janson in Autum. Each of
these corps barely comprised a few hundred men, who harassed
the enemy on their flanks, and dispersed after short expeditions.
When the Austrians approached the villages, or retired from
them, some peasants fired on their stragglers from the borders
of the woods; and there ended the national insurrection decreed
by Napoleon His own name was the obstacle to this insur-
rection. The mass of the people were so weary of his yoke, that
they dreaded the return of his power almost as much as they
detested the foreign invasion. But the people, though deaf to
the voice of the chief, were moved with pity for his soldiers.
Every volley of the enemy struck horror to their hearts; they
felt as if their own children were the victims. Napoleon, hoping
to arouse the nation from its apathy by a brilliant attempt
on the rear of the allied armies, marched towards the Meuse,
and arrived on the 23rd of March at Saint Dizier, where a ray
of peace recalled him once more to politics.
X
Caulaincourt was greatly puzzled at the congress of Cha-
tillon, between the contradictory instructions of the Emperor
72 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 3.
Coalition entered into by the Allies to dethrone the Emperor.
and the requirements of the allies; which became stringent, or
slackened according to the vicissitudes of the campaign. He
hastened to give his master a final counsel to resign himself to
fate; for he saw no other means of salvation than a prompt cur-
tailment of the ancient empire, to preserve, at least, the country
and the throne. The military conferences of Ilusigny had only
consisted of a few hours' conversation between M. de Flahaut and
the allied generals. The great powers, whose plenipotentiaries
were at Chatillon, after wavering for some weeks with their armies,
had signed among themselves at Chaumont a coalition still more
irrevocable against the Emperor; engaging themselves, jointly
and severally, not to lay down their arms, until the conqueror
of the continent should have returned within the limits which
France had overstepped in 1792. By this treaty England took
into her pay 500,000 soldiers of the sovereigns of the North.
Caulaincourt acquainted the Emperor with this ultimatum of
the allies; and the generals and ministers of Napoleon ex-
changed between themselves and Caulaincourt those bitter and .
desponding expressions which are a prelude to the despair of a
ruined cause. Success conceals faults from the eyes of courtiers,
which are revealed by continued reverses. The responsibility
of the general misfortune is first declared in low murmurs, and
them in open reproaches against him to whom they owe every-
thing. They accuse him of being no longer in a position to
maintain their fortunes. Ingratitude at last replaces the accent
of pity; and when people begin to express their sorrow aloud
for a man who is falling, it is not long before they abandon him.
XI
Such was the spirit that prevailed at the bivouacs of
Napoleon, when Caulaincourt arrived. Even he himself had
become, in spite of his fidelity, a troublesome confidant to the
Emperor. He knew his want of decision, and reproached
him, in an under-tone, not for his reverses, but for his obstinate
adherence to hope. For a long time past Caulaincourt had
abandoned all hope. The name of the Bourbons, although it
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 73
Caulaincourt's advice.—Concentration of the Allied Armies.
had never been pronounced by the high powers, was common
enough in the private conversation of the negociators. This
name was the hidden thought of Europe, if Napoleon persisted
in risking all to save all. His negociator conjured him to
compound with necessity; but Napoleon, intoxicated with the
new plan which he had conceived, and fancying he had already
accomplished this victorious return which he was about to
make from beyond the Rhine, at the head of his liberated
garrisons, smiled with pity upon Caulaincourt, and said to him,
with the prophetic accent he had acquired in his intercourse
with fatality: “Don’t be uneasy; I am nearer to Munich than
the allies are to Paris.”
XII.
At the moment that Napoleon, incredulous of adversity,
was pronouncing these words, the hostile armies of Schwartzen-
burg and of Blucher, driven back from Paris, as we have seen,
by the march of the Emperor upon Troyes, were concentrating,
in innumerable masses, on the plains of Châlons, to resist the
shock they expected he would make on the rear of the Coalition.
Napoleon at first thought they were in the neighbourhood of the
capital; but their presence at Châlons made him hesitate in
the execution of the new plan he was beginning to effect; for
he apprehended that their concentrated weight might press
heavily on his rear. He meditated, -he fluctuated,—he
wavered six whole days between the instinct which attracted
him towards his capital, and the temerity that drew him towards
the Rhine and the Meuse. *
During these days of incertitude, the allies themselves were
in a state of indecision at Châlons. The opinion of the most
Consummate and the most timid generals was, that they had
everything to apprehend from a man like Napoleon, that they
should fall back together, and in invincible numbers, upon
their base of operation, to spare Germany a visit from the
Emperor, who would cut them off from their supplies in a
country rising in insurrection beneath their feet. The opinion
of the French generals, refugees in the Russian camp, and the
74 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION | Book 3.
The Emperor pursues the Allies on their route to Paris.
resolution of the Emperor Alexander himself, young, ardent,
adventurous, and having Moscow to avenge, was to advance
rapidly on Paris, to seize upon the heart of France, to excite
public opinion, to encourage liberty, to give hope to the friends
of the Bourbons, and to leave the Emperor, cut off by himself
from his people, to moulder away in his loneliness and his
agitation. The wishes of England, the insinuations of the
partisans of restoration in France, the resentment of the foreign
courts, the personal hatred of some diplomatists in the suite of
the quarter-general, the common cause amongst the princes of
the ancient races against the race of the Sword, and finally, the
manoeuvres still under the surface, but able and active, of some
royalists of the interior, who besieged the bivouac of the
Emperor, decided them on this plan. On the 25th the united
armies advanced once more towards Paris, by the roads which
follow the valley of the Marne.
XIII
Napoleon, induced, it is said, by his lieutenants, instead of
prosecuting his route to Nancy, followed the allies again to cut
them off from the road to Paris. He had thus lost eight days
—a period sufficient for him to obtain five battles—in accom-
plishing one-half of a plan; and he was about to lose seven or
eight more in retracing his steps. In this campaign he had
no resolution except to reverse preceding resolutions. His
character on this occasion evidently betrayed his genius. The
most devoted of his generals partly saw and abused the facility
he evinced in changing his mind. It would suit them better
to return to Paris, and capitulate to save their families, their
dignities, and their fortunes, than to plunge with their chief
into the adventures of a wandering campaign beyond the
Meuse and the Rhine. They wished for an end of this strug.
gle without hope. They were weary, not of fighting, but of
continuing to descend. The spirit of the country sooner or
later penetrates the ranks of the army.
1814] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 75
Napoleon's urgent despatches to his brother Joseph.
XIV.
The concentration of the allied armies, in the plains of
Châlons, had removed them far enough from Paris to enable
Napoleon, though still four marches farther off, by doubling his
speed to arrive almost at the same time as the heads of their
columns at the gates of his capital. Even making allowance
for delays and engagements, it would suffice for the Parisians
to defend their gates for only two days. The Emperor sent
courier upon courier to his brother Joseph, conjuring him to
re-animate the spirit of Paris, to arm the people and the
students, and to ask this final effort of two days only from a
population of so many hundred thousand souls. “At this
price,” he said, “all would be saved. I am going to ma-
noeuvre,” he repeated, “in such a manner that it is possible you
may not hear of me for several days. If the enemy advance
upon Paris in such force as to render all resistance vain, send
off, in the direction of the Loire, the Empress Regent, my
son, the grand dignitaries, the ministers, the great officers of
the crown, and the treasury. Do not quit my son, and recol-
lect that I would rather see him in the Seine than in the hands
of the enemies of France. The fate of Astyanax, prisoner
with the Greeks, has always appeared to me the most unhappy
fate recorded in history.”
His misfortunes thus were already elevated in his imagina
tion to a level with the great epic calamities of Homer and
of Virgil. Poetry, like religion in a broken spirit, took
possession of his mind through the medium of adversity.
XV
What he had foreseen was verified at Paris sooner even than
he had thought it possible. Marmont and Mortier, exhausted
by retreats without an object, and by continual skirmishes at
Outposts, were wandering in the environs of Paris. Wherever
their decimated battalions left an opening, the Cossacks—
those hardy marauders of the desert—threw themselves upon
76 H1STORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 3.
*.
Universal consternation in Paris and the Provinces.
our villages; and by the terror of their lances, and their ter-
rible pillaging, scattered the frightened inhabitants even to the
walls of Paris, Nothing was any longer heard about the
Emperor. The city resounded with sinister rumours. The
squares, the Boulevards, the Champs-Elysées, and the court-
yards of houses were crowded with fugitives from the country.
Carriages were laden with furniture, or wine snatched from the
devastations of the war, and cattle sheltered by the peasants
within the walls of the capital. The south seemed ready to
detach itself from the Empire, and to proclaim some unknown
government. Lyons (for a short time defended by Augereau
at the head of 17,000 men and some bodies of cavalry, returned
from Spain), yielded on the return of the army of Bianchi.
The course of the Saone was alternately occupied and given up
by Augereau; but the capitulation of Lyons threw him, without
any advantage to Paris, towards the mountains of the Jura.
The provinces of the Loire alone were free. But behind these
provinces the west of France might be expected from day to
day to co-operate with the Royalist movements, which were
concocting at Bordeaux, by an insurrection which would have
placed Paris between two wars. Joseph, and his brothers
Louis and Jerome, felt all the responsibility which weighed
upon them. They were answerable to their brother and to the
dynasty of Napoleon for the Empress and her son. Even
supposing that Napoleon himself was compelled to capitulate,
to abdicate, or to die, the Regency, and the transmission of the
imperial throne to the King of Rome, was an ultimate asylum
for their fortunes. Driven from Madrid, from Holland, and
from Westphalia, these experimental kings would continue, at
least, princes of the imperial blood at Paris. They convoked
a Supreme Council, to which they summoned Cambaceres, the
ministers, the presidents of the Council of State, the great
dignitaries of the Empire who were the most identified with the
new regime, and the most compromised members of the Senate.
Joseph read the letter of the Emperor, ordering him to save
his wife and his son. The Empress herself was present,
silent and trembling at this council, in which her brothers-in-law
were going to decide on her destiny . Opinions were divided.
1814.] MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 77
*------> *-
Alarm and difficulties of Marie-Louise.
Boulay (de la Meurthe) accustomed to revolutionary dramas,
knew by experience the inconstancy of the people and the
power of enthusiasm. He knew that the flight of this princess,
proving the despair of her cause, would crumble the Empire
under her feet. This heroic opinion would call up the reso-
lution of Maria. Theresa. But resolutions like that of Maria
Theresa only suit those dynasties which have been rooted for
years in the hearts of nations. When they do not excite the
fanaticism of religious devotion in the cause of princes they
become mere parodies on popular enthusiasm. The council
itself was not composed of men decided on saving a dynasty,
or perishing for it. After some deliberation, slow, tame, and
altogether official, and which seemed intended only to shift
from one to another the responsibility of a retreat, they
separated at midnight, without coming to a conclusion. No
one dared to adopt a resolution which might become a crime,
if the Emperor should conquer once more, and call his brothers
to account for the abandoning of his capital. They referred to
Napoleon's letter, which forbade his wife to reside at Paris, in
case of extreme peril. They foresaw the peril, but did not
declare it to exist.
XVI.
Cambaceres and Joseph, desirous of laying on Marie
Louise herself the responsibility of a resolution which ought
to come from them, followed her, after the council, to her
private apartments, where they beset her with ambiguous
hints and suggestions, to obtain from her such a decision as
would bear them harmless. But whether it was that she
feared the anger of her husband, whether she was disposed to
remain passive in her capital, where she felt herself more
surrounded with respect for her sex and rank, whether she
was apprehensive of becoming, in the hands of her brothers-in-
law, a wandering victim of Bonaparte's ambition, and an
instrument of civil war, hurried in the midst of camps from
province to province, Marie-Louise conquered her timidity
She replied with firmness to Joseph and Cambaceres, that the
78 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 3.
Preparations for the flight of the Empress and her son.
resolution belonged to them ; that she would never take it
upon herself; that they were her official councillors, and that
she would only obey, whether she was to go or stay, an order
maturely considered and signed by them. But they eluded
this responsibility. The order to depart, eventually given by
Napoleon in his letter, was therefore an absolute text which
the Empress resolved to obey. Preparations were accordingly
made for flight; the waggons were immediately laden with the
treasury; the private papers of the Emperor were packed up,
as also the crown diamonds, and the day of departure was fixed
for the 29th of March,
XVII.
But every horse that galloped into the court of the palace
might announce a courier, and bring a counter order from the
Emperor. Time was therefore given for such a contingency.
The Empress, surrounded by ladies, by courtiers, and by
officers appointed to attend her, waited from daybreak till mid-
day the signal for departure, which was to have been given by
Joseph. This prince, mounting his horse the preceding night,
had gone to visit and animate the advanced guards at the
barriers and at the principal entrances to Paris. But the
mass of the population was ignorant even of this last demon.
stration of resistance. They accused Joseph of royal effeminacy,
contracted in the bosom of the voluptuous courts of the South,
—on the thrones of Naples and Madrid.
Joseph, however, did not return, and said nothing further
to the Empress. The officers of the National Guard, who were
stationed at the palace, conjured her to remain. They were
in hopes that the presence in Paris of the daughter of the
Emperor of Austria would be a safeguard against the horrors
of a city about to be besieged. Marie-Louise in tears by
turns yielded and resisted their entreaties. It was evident
that any obstacle which would obstruct her obedience of the
: Emperor's order to quit Paris, would have relieved her from
great uncertainty, by removing the importunities of Napoleon's
brothers. On the other hand, the provident men, and the
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 70
*-
Their departure from Paris.
party of M. de Talleyrand, embarrassed by the presence of
this princess in the negociations which they were already
concocting, for the purpose of giving up her throne to other
princes, privately pressed her departure. Clarke, the Minister
of War, sent at noon to tell her that he could no longer answer
for the safety of the roads, overrun as they were by bands of
Cossacks, if she delayed her departure till the morrow. Twelve
of the court carriages, ready for the road since morning, were
waiting in the court of the palace, surrounded by a strong
escort of the cavalry of the guard. Marie-Louise at length
tore herself away from her palace, one of her equerries carrying
in his arms the King of Rome. This beautiful child, already
made proud by the adulation which outstript his age, seized
upon the balustrade of the grand staircase, and refused to be
exiled from the throne. “I will not go away,” he cried.
“When the Emperor is absent, am not I the master here ?”
It might be said he foresaw that, between the pomp and
grandeur of the Tuileries and the funeral vaults of Schoenbrunn,
there remained for him but a few short years of adolescence
and of melancholy. The royal carriages defiled slowly, like a
funeral procession, along the quays; and only a few groups of
curious persons stopped here and there to witness the departure
of this convoy of a dynasty. Not a voice was raised to utter a
farewell of the people to the wife and son of Napoleon, flying
at hazard, and trailing after them the last vestiges of imperial
splendour.
Such was the popularity of this reign, which history
painted, a few years after, as the fanaticism of the people.
XVIII
While the Empress thus slowly followed the road to the
imperial chateau of Rambouillet, the drums beat to arms to
summon the citizens to the defence of the capital. The
National Guard took arms, less to frighten the enemy than to
guard their own homes. But the students, and some of those
men who are called forth by patriotism and danger, and the
more so when danger is most imminent, flew to the gates and
8U HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 3.
Consternation at Paris.
to the heights of Montmartre. The faubourgs, on seeing them
pass, loudly demanded arms; but every thing was wanting: the
Empire had exhausted all on foreign battle fields. The news
of the departure of the Empress, and the removal of the seat
of government from the capital, depressed and astounded all
hearts; and the last blow, under which empires crumble into
nothing, was awaited in melancholy silence.
Joseph, returning to Paris after having seen at a distance
the irruption of hostile armies which covered the plains and
the road to the capital, avoided the populous streets; and con-
voking a nocturnal assemblage of the ministers and the council
of regency, prepared to follow the footsteps of the Empress,
with these last remains of the reign of Napoleon
B00K FOURTH.
Progress of Napoleon towards Paris—He passes Troyes and Sens—Arrival
of the Allied Armies before Paris—Battle of Paris—Joseph orders
Marmont to capitulate—Proclamation of Joseph—Flight of Joseph,
of Jerome, and of the Government—Mortier offers a suspension of
arms—Last resistance of Marmont—He proposes a Suspension of
arms—Deputation from the Municipal Council to Marmont—Capi-
tulation of Marmont, the 30th of March—Messrs. de Chabrol and
Pasquier at the Quarter-general of the Emperor Alexander —
Alexander—He receives a deputation from the Parisians—Speech
of Alexander—Entrance of the Allied Armies into Paris—Aspect of
Paris—Petition from the Authorities of Paris to Alexander—Royalist
manifestation on the entrance of the Sovereigns.
I.
WHILE Paris thus resigned itself, almost unarmed, to the in-
numerable forces by which it was surrounded, Napoleon was
anxiously calculating the time and the stages which separated
him from his capital. He had seventy leagues to travel over,
with an army exhausted by marches and countermarches, but
impatient to see once more the walls of Paris, and to gain
there one last glorious victory. The soldiers, whose feet were
torn by the roads and the Snows of a winter campaign, forgot
their weariness and their wounds in seeing their Emperor,
sometimes mounted, sometimes on foot, marching in the midst
of them. The feverish impatience of Napoleon was communi-
cated from his eyes to theirs. The shame of seeing the capital
of France threatened by a foreign enemy weighed upon their
souls as the remorse of so much glory lost. They pressed
forward to anticipate the vengeance of the world,—Napoleon
to regain the Empire. Throwing into the canals, or burning,
all the baggage that retarded their speed, they marched as far
as twenty leagues a day. On arriving at Troyes, at eleven
o'clock on the night of the 29th, Napoleon despatched from
thence General Count de Girardin to Paris, to order a final
K"
82 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 4.
Progress of Napoleon on Paris, and the arrival of the Allied Armies.
defence, which would give him time to arrive. He quitted
the place himself on the 30th, at the head of the remains of
his guard, hastening towards Pont-sur-Yonne and towards
Moret. About five leagues from Troyes, while his guard was
resting, the enigma of his fate seemed to be insupportable.
He threw himself into a light car of wicker-work, which chance
presented, and, accompanied by some officers of his staff, took
the road to Sens. On passing through this town he sum-
moned the magistrates, and ordered them to prepare the ne-
cessary rations for 150,000 men, which he told them he was
leading to the defence of Paris. He then galloped, in the
darkness of the night, along the road to Fontainebleau.
II
During this rapid march of Napoleon and his handful of
soldiers towards the capital, Paris was approached within
cannon range by the first corps of the three hostile armies.
The Russian general, Rayewski, marching from Bondy in three
columns of attack, ascended the slopes of Belleville. The
guard of the Emperor Alexander followed and supported them.
These heights of Belleville, covered with groups of houses and
gardens, command the eastern half of Paris. Marmont, en-
trenched in these gardens and suburbs, defended, with the
courage of despair, this last bulwark of his country. His
artillery, ploughing the Russian columns, swept Pantin and
Romainville, and the enemy wavered on this side. Blucher
and his army had not yet arrived in sight of Paris; and the
Russian general, Barclay de Tolly, not seeing him debouch, to
co-operate in this attack on a city containing a million of souls,
trembled at the thought of being outstripped by Napoleon,
before his junction with the Prussians under the heights of
Montmartre. The Austrian general Giùlay, coming from Fon-
tainebleau, was also late. All these delays might afford time
for the return of Napoleon. Barclay de Tolly, therefore, com-
promised his whole army in order to force Paris, without wait-
ing for Generals Blucher and Giùlay; but Marmont and his
soldiers, strengthened by some volunteers, and animated by
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 83
====- sº
Joseph Bonaparte.—The Emperor Alexander's declaration.
the enthusiasm which the actual presence of one's country
imparts, strewed with dead bodies the terraces of Belleville,
repulsed the Russians, and kept them in check till the middle
of the day. Joseph on horseback rode along, and encouraged
the advanced posts. “Defend yourselves | I am with you !”
he said to the soldiers and the volunteers. But these words
added nothing to the enthusiasm of the French battalions.
They knew nothing about Joseph ; the shadow of Napoleon
would have better defended Paris.
Joseph, giving faith to the letters of Napoleon, thought
that Paris was only insulted by a detached corps of the allied
armies, and that the sovereigns and the mass of their troops
were engaged, in the vicinity of Troyes, in a struggle with
his brother. A French officer, however, who had been carried
off the evening before by a wandering band of Cossacks, and
taken to the quarter-general of the Emperor of Russia, un-
deceived Joseph on this head. This officer had seen Alexander
himself, surrounded by all his troops, at a short distance from
Paris. “It is not against the French nation that I am making
war,” said Alexander to him, “but against Napoleon. He
carried fire and sword into my dominions, and burnt my cities
Go and tell the Parisians that I wish to enter their city, not as a
barbarian, but as a friend; their fate is in their own hands.”
On hearing the recital of this interview, Joseph felt that
any resistance against such united forces, would destroy the
capital without saving the Empire. Nevertheless, after issuing
an order to treat with the enemy, he revoked it, on the faith
of other intelligence. At noon the armies of Blucher and of
Austria debouched—the one on the south, the other on the
north—on the plains of Montmartre and of the Seine. Mar-
mont was still fighting, and in every charge from the foot of
the heights drove back the enemy. But fresh masses replaced
those that retired; the batteries of artillery drew nigh to each
other; and shells exploding over the heads of Joseph and his
staff, he sent an aide-de-camp to Marmont ordering him to
capitulate. The impossibility of finding the marshal, who was
one of the first in the midst of the fire, or of clearing the space
which separated the tirailleurs of the two armies, torn up as it
F 2 -- -
84 HISTORY OF THE RESTOIRATION [BOOK 4.
wºm-
Joseph's Proclamation to the Parisians, and his flight.
was with shells and bullets, retarded the flags of truce. The
noise of artillery increased ; and the enemy, by forcing Mont-
martre and Belleville at the same time, might easily enter by
storm a city disarmed under the orders of its few defenders.
III.
Joseph, however, wished to deceive Paris till the last mo-
ment, in order that the sedition concocting against the Empire
in the hearts of its inhabitants should not explode—at least
under the feet of Napoleon's brothers. He issued a proclama-
tion to them, in which he represented the five united armies of
the allies as a single column, retreating from Meaux, and pur.
sued by the Emperor. When despotism is once obliged to
have recourse to falsehood, it is condemned to deception to its
last hour. “Let us arm,” he exclaimed; “I shall remain with
you ! I let us defend this great city, its monuments, its riches,
our wives, our children; and let the enemy be disgraced before
those walls which he hopes to pass in triumph ' " The idle
Parisians, dispersed about their Boulevards and their public
gardens, read these words, and for a moment believed them.
“The Emperor,” said they to each other, “is at this moment
attacking the rear of this rash vanguard of the Coalition. That
is his cannon we hear roaring; and these are his bullets
that are falling upon our house-tops. He is bringing back
the fortune that had gone astray for a moment.” Such were
the expressions of the partisans of Napoleon, confiding in his
genius, within the walls of Paris; while men of courage and of
patriotism were dying under the last discharges of the Russians,
on the heights of Belleville and of Menilmontant.
IV
During this short-lived confidence, which the proclamation
of Joseph imparted to the city, this prince, his brother Jerome,
and the minister of war, Clarke, descending from the heights
of Montmartre, were flying at the utmost speed of their horses,
by the external Boulevards, and crossing the Bois de Boulogne,
to reach Blois. The individuals most compromised by the
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 85.
Flight of the French Ministers.-Suspension of hostilities proposed.
government of Napoleon were following them; and of all the
imperial court there now only remained at Paris the marshals
who were defending its walls. The Empire was now nothing
but a quarter general, obliged to capitulate to save this great
focus of the country.
Mortier, attacked towards noon by the overwhelming forces
of the two armies, had no more ammunition to maintain the
action. He was on the point of being cut off from Marmont,
surrounded and driven back into the streets of Paris, now be-
come a dreadful scene of carnage. He bitterly cursed that
shadow of a government which had fled, leaving its last
defenders without reinforcements, without cannon, and without
ammunition. He at length received the order of Joseph, and
hastened to write upon a drum-head, in the midst of the
fire, a few lines to Prince Schwartzenburg. “Prince,” said
Mortier, “let us save a useless effusion of blood. I propose to
you a suspension of arms, for twenty-four hours, during which we
will treat, in order to save Paris from the horrors of a siege.
Otherwise, we will defend ourselves within its walls to the death.”
The Austrian generalissimo hastened to accept the proposi-
tion of Mortier, and the firing ceased on that side. Marmont,
although he at length had received an order to capitulate, con-
tinued to defend himself. The confusion of the different
movements, the impossibility of communicating amidst the
showers of balls, the enthusiasm of the volunteers, and the
students of the Polytechnic school, who served his artillery
even to the last bullet, prevented an arrangement. Blucher,
during these last struggles of Marmont, had gained the heights
of Montmartre, and turned his batteries from thence upon
Paris. The marshal seeing the city under the fire of the
Prussians, sent Colonel Labedoyère with propositions similar
to those of Mortier to the quarter-general of the allies.
Labedoyère's horse, and that of his trumpeter, were killed at
the moment they debouched on the plain. Seven times the
officers who attempted with flags of truce to clear the space
between the two armies were laid with their horses in the
dust. It was not until five o'clock in the evening that M. de
Quelen, an aide-de-camp, succeeded in reaching the village of
sº
86 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 4.
Suspension of arms.-Bravery of Marshal Marmont.
Bondy, the quarter-general of Alexander and the King of
Prussia. These princes sent back the aide-de-camp with an
escort to the Russian advanced posts at La Villette ; where,
on the table of a public-house, and amidst the roar of musketry,
a suspension of arms for four hours was signed.
While M. de Quelen was thus putting an end to the firing,
Marmont (excited by the combat, by the vicinity of Paris, and
by the sentiment of the final service he was trying to render
to his Emperor and to the friend of his youth) remained the
very last in the high street of Belleville, disputing, step by step,
the houses of this suburb with the enemy. His sword being
broken, he had a musket in his hand; his hat and clothes
were pierced with balls; his features blackened with the smoke
of the combat; and he who was next day to be called the first
of traitors was now the last of the heroes. He looked for
death as if with a presentiment of the double duties between
which he was about to find himself placed, and by which the
fame of his fidelity and patriotism was to suffer so long ºn
eclipse for his country. Death, however, failed him. While
his tirailleurs, covered by the gardens and the houses on one
side of the street, were firing over his head at the Russians,
already masters of the other side, a handful of grenadiers
rushed forward to surround and save their general. They
retreated fighting, with him in the midst of them, step by step,
as far as the barrier. One arm in a sling, one hand shot
through, and the bodies of five horses killed under him during
the action, sufficiently attested that if, on the following day, he
did not do enough for the Empire, he did enough on this day
for glory and for his country. Were it not for that handful
of grenadiers the army would have brought only the dead body
of their general within the walls of Paris
V
The silence of the artillery intimated to the city that the
armistice had been signed; and the troops, in number about
17,000, retired within the walls. The inhabitants of the
Suburbs received them with tears of patriotism and admiration
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 87
Manifestation of public opinion in Paris.
Their cause was forgotten, but every heart acknowledged their
heroism: France pardons every thing to unfortunate bravery.
Napoleon himself, though execrated some weeks before, would
have had a triumph in his retreat, had he returned to his capital
at such a moment. Pity extinguishes hatred; the people were
subdued, and they pardoned. But the opinion of the centre of
Paris did not pardon. France, weary of making sacrifices and
of incurring dangers for its Emperor, was thinking of itself;
and the question was asked if every thing must be sacrificed
for this man, even to the ashes of the capital. The principal
citizens of Paris took counsel of their interest, of their fortune,
and of the salvation of their wives and children. The govern-
ment having disappeared with Joseph, Cambaceres, Regnault
de Saint-Jean d’Angely, the ministers, and the great courtiers
of the Emperor, public opinion began to show itself. A great
number of eminent men, bankers, merchants, citizens, and
lawyers, left their homes, met, consulted, and coming to an
understanding on one common sentiment, the preservation of
their country, they began to discuss loudly the probability of an
arrangement with Europe. The enemy's cannon had broken the
seal that had been imposed on hearts as well as lips. A general
murmur arose for a peace necessary to all. A current of
opinion almost unanimous was formed, as in revolutions, to
repudiate a man who could neither protect the frontiers, nor
even preserve the heart of the nation in Paris. Ought France,
said they, to offer up her capital as a holocaust to this insatiable
genius of war? The allies in their proclamations, the Emperors
in their words at Bondy, declared that they only carried on
the war against the ambition of Napoleon. Ought France to
take the part, even to her last man, of a chief who had usurped
his throne, stolen all their liberties, and drained their veins ?
Was not this devotion to the glory of an individual a sophism
of self-denial,—an outrage on true patriotism 2 Such were the
arguments of the citizens, on seeing the mutilated columns
of Mortier and Marmont enter, the cars streaming with blood,
laden with the wounded, and with the dead bodies of the brave
volunteers, who had fallen under the fire of the Russians and
Prussians at Montmartre.
88 FHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 4.
Conference between Marshal Marmont and the citizens of Paris.
VI.
The principal men amongst these citizens crowded round
the door of Marshal Marmont. They demanded to speak to
him of the extremity to which Paris was reduced, and of the
perils of the coming might. The marshal, disarmed, wounded,
covered with dust and blood, received them. His aspect re-
doubled the emotion excited by his words. “Honour and
fidelity to the Emperor are satisfied,” said his friends to him.
“The army is saved by the armistice, which has given it time
to penetrate our walls, to take shelter behind Paris, to retire
upon the Loire. But what is to become of us?—our families,
our old men, our wives, our children, our homes, our monu.
ments, this people without arms and without food, given up
to all the horrors of hunger, in a city surrounded by 500,000
men,--what will be their fate? Do you wish that, in the dark-
mess of the coming night, this capital, taken by assault, or else
given up without conditions and without safeguard, should be-
come a scene of carnage, of pillage, and of conflagration under
the irritated hordes of the North? Will you place your
egotistical fidelity of a soldier, or even of the friend of your
Emperor, on a level with, and above your sentiments as a man,
and your duty as a citizen? Have you not yourself, your wife,
your relations, your friends, and your fellow-citizens within
these walls 2 The chance of war gives this moment to your own
hands alone the fate of Paris and of France. Is it not a
terrible but a positive responsibility which you cannot divest
yourself of without a crime? Is Paris, then—the capital of
the civilized world—the heart of the nation—nothing more in
your eyes than one of those uninhabited and uncultivated fields
that a general abandons or ravages with indifference, to suit
the plans of his chief, or the exigencies of a manoeuvre ?”
VII.
Marmont was convinced, and agreed to the necessity of a
capitulation for Paris; but be excused himself, by his incom
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. S9
*ms
Marshal Marmont capitulates, and delivers up the gates of Paris.
petence, from taking a resolution on which would depend the
fate of the Empire. “I am neither the government,” he said,
“nor even the commander-in-chief of the army. I am only a
lieutenant of the Emperor, a soldier of the country. By what
title dare I stipulate, in my own name, conditions which it only
belongs to the country itself, or to the Emperor, to agree to ?
The Emperor, they say, is coming from Fontainebleau; I shall
take him my troops, and he will do in the matter what his
genius and his authority shall judge best for his own cause and
that of the country.”
The citizens replied: “It is the business of the country then
to decide for itself. The ministers of Napoleon have abandoned
the capital. Shall we allow our homes to be destroyed through
a superstitious reverence for a government which has only been
able to bring upon us a final destruction?” The Municipal
Council of Paris, that domestic system of government, which is
to be found when political governments disappear, added its
weight to that of the citizens, bankers, and merchants, who
besieged the marshal. Marmont wavered between his military
and his civil duty. In obeying his Emperor, he exposed Paris
to one of those signal catastrophes which obliterates a capital
from the soil. In yielding to the Municipal Council, and to
the just terrors of the citizens, he would ruin his general, and
sacrifice his own name. Separated from the army of the
Emperor by the forces of the enemy, he could only decide from
necessity. He yielded to the suggestions of his heart: he
capitulated, and delivered up the gates of Paris; causing his
army to fall back upon Fontainebleau. There was no treason—
there was no weakness—even in this movement, which substi-
tuted a capitulation for a siege. What could a general do, cut
off from all reinforcements, and having fought to the last ex-
tremity with 17,000 men against 300,000? It was not Mar-
mont who on this day betrayed Paris, it was Paris which
betrayed Marmont, by not rising up in its own defence. This
heart of the Empire no longer vibrated, except against
Napoleon himself. -
90 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 4.
Terms of the capitulation, and preparations for its execution.
VIII.
The capitulation specified that the corps d'armée—for thus
the wreck was still called—should march out of the capital
on the morning of the 31st of March; and that hostilities should
not recommence till two hours after the evacuation of the city,
—that is to say, at nine o'clock; that the National Guard should
submit themselves to the orders of the allied powers; and that,
finally, the capital of France was to be recommended to the
generosity of the allies.
The night was silent and gloomy. The noise made by the
wheels of the caissons and the horses' feet of the French columns,
who were retiring amidst lamentations, alone disturbed the
anxious sleep of the citizens. But the report of the capitulation
re-assured the timid. They knew that the mayor of Paris, M.
de Chabrol, and M. Pasquier, prefect of Police, had gone to the
quarter-general of the Emperor Alexander, at Bondy, to confer
with the conquerors, and to come to an understanding with the
foreign generals on the execution of the capitulation. The
character of these two magistrates imparted confidence to the
citizens. They were of that class of persons who serve their
governments with intelligence and propriety, but who do
not devote themselves beyond possibility, nor pride them-
selves on resisting necessity to the death. The one, M. de
Chabrol, was an impartial administrator, beloved by the capital;
the other, M. Pasquier, of an ancient legislative race, was one
of those men in whom every cause would find a useful instru-
ment, provided those causes added to their grandeur, without
dishonouring their characters. They were both too strongly
impressed with a feeling of the catastrophe that awaited the
Empire, to run the risk of being buried under its ruins. They
thus re-assured Paris even by the pliability of their convictions;
for it was well known that they would not obstimately persevere
in constancy to a crumbling fortune. Some citizens, amongst
those most eager for a change of masters, accompanied them to
the camp of the allies, to feel the pulses of the strangers, with
a view to foretell the dénouement. Caulaincourt, who had been
1814.] . OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 9]
Character of the Emperor Alexander of Russia.
travelling about for several nights in the service of his master,
arrived at Bondy, at the same moment, to catch up the last
thread of a negociation so frequently broken by alternate defeat
and victory. These officials, coming to plead before the
Emperor Alexander such different causes, awaited his rising, to
learn what Fate was about to pronounce by his dictum.
IX.
The Emperor Alexander was astonished and softened by
his victory. To dictate laws at the gates of Paris to the
people who had burnt his own capital,—to hold in his hand
the crown, or the abdication of the conqueror, whose friend,
and almost whose flatterer he had been, was sufficient in itself
to intoxicate an ordinary soul. But that of Alexander was
a great one. Like other great souls he placed his glory not
in vengeance but in generosity. Reprisals on a vanquished
people, or a conquered man, appeared to him what they really
are—an abuse of success This prince, although he had the
pliability of the Greek race, and the fanaticism of the races of
the North, had likewise, above all, the grand dramatic magna-
nimity of the heroic races of the East. He wished to imitate
antiquity, not by devastation but by virtue He aspired to
civilization,--he respected humanity,+he profoundly adored
Divine Providence, whose instrument he believed himself to
be, for the purpose of liberating the world from the despotism
which Napoleon had imposed, for the last fifteen years, on the
independence of nations, and on the freedom of the human
mind. Young, handsome, beloved by all, bearing only upon
his features the melancholy reflection of past reminiscences,
he stood with a majestic simplicity before public opinion. He
was not so much flattered at conquering the French as in
pleasing them. He seemed as if soliciting their pardon for
his triumphs. He was desirous that France should see in him
not a barbarian but an admirer, not a conqueror but a liberator
and a friend. To this gentleness of character—to this grace
which seems to crave indulgence for its superiority—the
Emperor Alexander joined an exalted adoration of Divine
92 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 4,
Audience of the Parisian authorities with Alexande".
Providence. His impassioned and chivalrous soul had been
still further moulded to gentleness and sorrow, by the love of
some admirable women. That satiety of pleasure, which re-
strained early the desires of his senses, had been replaced
by a species of pious Platonism, that never fading love,
which suffers no exhaustion. A woman, still handsome, a
species of Christian sybil, Madame de Krudener, was in
correspondence with him. She prophetically promised him
the glory of Constantine in cementing a new Christianity.
The famaticism of Greek orthodoxy, the doctrines of the
Catholic philosopher De Maistre, who had long resided at his
court, the lights of the French rationalist philosophy, and,
finally, the illuminated pietism of Madame Krudener, were
commingled in the religious soul of Alexander. It was a
great eclectic system, of which the worship was vague, but
whose deity was enthroned in his heart. Every noble part
must have a noble inspiration ; and in finding the former
expand, Alexander had proportionately increased the latter.
His thoughts ascended to the Supreme; he thanked him for
having given him the triumph; and he ardently sought to
sanctify it in his soul, before the Supreme Being, by benefit-
ing humanity.
X.
Such were the true dispositions of the Emperor Alexander
at the moment he awoke and found himself a conqueror at
the gates of Paris. He admitted the magistrates, the chiefs
of the National Guard, and the citizens to an audience. He
appeared with modesty before them: it was the conqueror who
seemed to supplicate. “I deplore this war,” he said to them.
“I do not wage it against the French, but against the man
who makes an abuse of their name and of their blood to
oppress all Europe. It was he who came to provoke me to
the very centre of my Empire, to ravage my provinces, to
immolate my people, and to burn my cities. The justice of
God has brought me this day under those walls from which
the aggression went forth. I shall only profit by this favour
that Providence has bestowed upon my arms, by reconciling
1814. OF MONARC HY IN FRANC ſº. 93.
Development of public opinion.
France with the other nations of the earth, and by giving
peace to the human race.”
The Emperor then promised to protect the capital: and
addressing the chiefs of the National Guard, he authorized
them to preserve their organization and their arms, and to
watch conjointly with his troops over the safety of the citizens.
During this interview, M. de Nesselrode, the Emperor
Alexander's minister, privately informed M. de Talleyrand,
that his imperial master was desirous of conversing with him;
and that he would go and reside in his hotel, after the allied
armies had entered Paris
XI.
Nothing in the aspect of Paris announced the consterna-
tion of a capital which expects its conqueror. The Boulevards,
the faubourgs, the streets, were crowded with an immense
multitude, whose countenances expressed more curiosity than
sorrow. Everything, even its own humiliation, is mere spec-
tacle for such a city. It must, however, be acknowledged that
what rendered this humiliation less visible was the sentiment
of the people, and of the immense majority of the citizens.
It was not so much France as the Emperor, who appeared to
them to be conquered. They said to themselves with truth,
“It is not the enemy that triumphs over him ; it is we, who
allow him to fall. If he had not pushed his tyranny, and the
usurpation of all our rights over our liberties, to that excess
that makes patriotism give way before the dignity of man,
France, arousing herself as in 1792, would have driven back,
even to their very capitals, these sovereign profaners of our
soil. We are invaded because we permit it. We are van-
quished in the man that was our chief; but this chief, being
once out of the question, we will again seize on victory, in re-
suming our liberty and our desire for combat.” Every face
and every expression still further displayed the most pas-
sionate curiosity to know the definitive fate which this eventful
day would produce for the country. Would that military
despotism elevate itself again in a capital which it could not
94 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 4.
Indignant feeling of the Faubourgs.
preserve? And if not, what description of government would
its fall impose upon, or leave to the free choice of, France?
These thoughts scarcely allowed time to ruminate on the mag-
nitude of our reverses, or on the disgrace of the occupation.
The controversies of the citizens amongst themselves, on the
probabilities of the future, and their individual preferences for
such or such a form of government, agitated Paris with a
movement and a murmur which gave it an appearance of a day
of festival, of spectacle, and of degradation.
The people of the populous quarters and of the faubourgs
alone bore on their countenances the rage of patriotism, and
the consternation of citizens. These simple beings, strangers
to political debates for the choice of governments, had their
minds only occupied with the fate of their country. The
families, from which the ranks of the army were recruited, in-
terested themselves above all others with the struggles, the
defeats, and the victories of their sons and brothers. The
soldiers of Mortier and Marmont, famished, suffering, and
wounded, after passing the night in the faubourgs, and retiring
through the streets, had disseminated all round an ardent pity
for their miseries, a fanatical hatred against the foreigners,
and a low but deep murmur of indignation against a capitula-
tion which would deliver Paris to the mercy of our enemies,
and condemn our last remaining troops to the shame and
misery of a retreat. Some groups of these men of the lower
classes, armed with pikes which the king Joseph had distri-
buted amongst them in small numbers, brandished their arms,
protested against the cowardice of the city, and gave utterance
to imprecations against the absconded brothers and ministers
of Napoleon. But these imprecations died away amidst the
silence and resignation of the crown. No one took up arms
for the capital, lest it should be thought he was arming in
the cause of Napoleon
XII.
At ten o'clock in the morning, under a beautiful spring sun,
and amidst crowds peaceful and contented, as if they had
assembled to witness a review of all Europe, the allied armies
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 95
Entrance of the Allied Armies into Paris.
commenced their march into Paris. These troops, having
reposed for several days after their marches and battles, had
had time to remove from their clothes and their arms the stains
of a short but terrible campaign. The men, the horses, the
artillery, the standards, shome forth in all the military splendour
of gold and steel. Each of the Russian, Prussian, Austrian,
and German regiments seemed to come out of their barracks,
or their quarters, to march past in review order under the eyes
of their respective sovereigns. 250,000 cavalry, artillery, and
infantry marched in close columns of thirty men in front, on
all the roads to the east and north of Paris, and entered the
gates of the city with drums beating and colours flying.
Some squadrons of Cossacks, and Oriental cavalry from
Caucasus, were thrown out in front of the army, as if to keep
its passage clear through the principal streets of the city. On
their appearance the people of the quarter of the Bastille arose
in a tumult, and uttered, in sign of defiance, shouts of “Vive
Bonapartel.” Some armed men rushed out of the crowd towards
an aide-de-camp of the Emperor Alexander, who was going to
prepare his quarters. “Come on, Frenchmen ſ” cried these
desperate fellows. “The Emperor Napoleon is coming ! let
us destroy the enemy " The people, however, were deaf to
the cry. The National Guard interposed, protected the detach-
ment, and raised up a few wounded officers. The heads of the
, foreign columns soon after appeared on the Boulevards.
The alleys, the balconies, the roofs of the houses were like
so many benches of an immense and silent circus, contem
plating this dénouement of the European drama of ten years.
The Grand Duke Constantine, brother of the Emperor Alexan-
der, advanced on a wild and powerful horse, from the Steppes
of Tartary, at the head of the Russian cavalry. This prince,
with a Tartar countenance, a wild look, rough accents, and
martial gestures, represented the barbarian warrior, called forth
from the depths of the northern deserts to overwhelm the
south. But submissive as a slave, subdued and affectionate
to his brother, the Grand Duke Constantine imposed upon
his squadrons the dis ipline and humanity of the profoundest
peace.
96 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book A.
Alexander's reply to the Mayors of Paris.
XIII
While the Grand Duke was slowly marching his 80,000
cavalry towards the Champs-Elysées, by the Boulevards, the
Emperor Alexander had gone with all his generals to rejoin the
King of Prussia, at the gates of Paris, in order that he might
be a partaker of the triumph as he had been of the victory.
The Mayors of Paris waited on him to recommend the capital
to his protection. :
“The fate of arms has conducted me hither,” Alexander
replied to them. “Your Emperor, who was once my ally, has
twice deceived me. I am far from wishing to return upon
France the evil she has done me. The French people are my
friends, and I wish to prove to them that I am come to do good
for evil. Napoleon alone is my enemy. I shall protect Paris;
I shall respect its citizens and its monuments. I shall only
guarter in it my select troops. I shall preserve your National
Guard, which constitutes the élite of your citizens. Your future
fate rests entirely with yourselves.”
XIV
In these words Alexander sufficiently indicated who was to
be the victim of the invasion. Napoleon being his only enemy,
it was evident that he must be sacrificed on the altar of peace.
But though this was the conclusion to be drawn, he did not
express it in direct terms.
After these words, admirably calculated to sound and to
coreiliate public opinion against the only obstacle to the recon-
ciliation of mankind, the Emperor Alexander and the King of
Prussia rode slowly towards the Porte Saint Martin. They
were surrounded by a numerous and brilliant cortège of minor
Sovereigns, princes, and generals; and were escorted, in front
and rear, by the regiments of their guards, and by a regular
regiment of Cossacks of the Don, whose Oriental aspect excited
general astonishment. These troops, by the beauty of their
horses, the stature of the men of the north, the cleanliness.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY TN FRANCE, 97.
Entry of the Allied Armies into Paris.
elegance and richness of their uniforms, arms, and appoint-
ments, formed a striking contrast with the half-starved and
harassed cavalry of the handful of French heroes, bowed down
with fatigue, and their uniforms stained with blood and dirt,
whom Paris had seen traversing its streets the night before.
The drums, the trumpets, and the brass instruments of the
military bands, made the streets resound with martial music;
—warlike flourishes for them, but sorrow and humiliation for
us. The streets leading from the barriers to the faubourg
Saint Martin appeared from the windows like a river of steel.
At the spot where this wide faubourg joins the Boulevards
by the triumphal arch of Louis XIV., the columns, obstructed
by the immense crowds of the population of Paris, collected
from every quarter of the south and the west, wavered a
moment as if arrested by this tide of humanity; but at length
they slowly opened a passage for themselves, by the avenue
which leads to the Champs-Elysées. Paris had never seen
such an ocean of Sabres, of bayonets, and of cannons, inundate
its streets and squares. The people, so often deceived by the
bulletins of the Emperor, who only spoke to them of the
victories of his arms and the defeats of his enemies, at length
saw the melancholy truth with their own eyes; France dis-
armed and exhausted—Europe armed and inexhaustible. This
spectacle detached them from the Emperor. The masses only
judge by their senses: visible power attracts them to the side
of fortune. On this occasion the multitude, at first silent and
confounded, began to think the fall of Napoleon accomplished.
From this feeling of his fall to a general execration of his
fatal power, there was but one step; and some royalists speedily
gave the signal for it.
XV.
When the allied sovereigns, the Emperor Alexander, the
King of Prussia, the Prince of Schwartzenburg, the generals,
the ministers, and the ambassadors, all on horseback, had
attained that part of the Boulevard adjoining the most opulent
quarters of Paris, cries of “Vive le Roi!” were uttered amongst
G
9S History of THE RESTORATION [BOOK ,
Enthusiasm in favour of the Bourbons.
some groups around them. This cry, stifled since 1791, and
mew to the rising generation, astonished at first, like the echo
of another century. The people, scarcely conceiving its object,
continued a long time aloof. The sovereigns themselves
although secretly predisposed to receive it, seemed to think
the demonstration was premature, and did not smile propitious.
Their aspects grew dark, and they made signs with their hands
to some gentlemen who had raised the cry to check and reserve
their dangerous enthusiasm for another occasion. But whether
this silent recommendation of prudence in the attitude of the
sovereigns was sincere, whether it was only a more clever
and more delicate provocation for an expression of popular
feeling, certain it is that it was not obeyed. The groups,
amongst which were a number of old republicans, mingled
with young partisans of the Bourbons, seemed willing to do
violence to the sovereigns and their suite, to extort from
them a sign of acquiescence in their cries. Around the
Emperor and the King of Prussia, the generals and ministers,
fearing less than their sovereigns to take part in the demon-
stration, gave visible encouragement, by looks, Smiles, and
gestures, to acclamations which avenged them on the Empire.
As the staff of the allies penetrated still farther into the
quarters inhabited by the nobility, bankers, and wealthy mer.
chants, the seats of arts and luxury, these cries increased in
volume and significance. The assemblages that uttered them
multiplied around the princes. Some young people of both
sexes, waving white handkerchiefs in their hands, displayed
them to the eyes of the allies, like a standard, to remind them
of a cause till them silent. The most devoted, forgetting all
personal prudence, and even the dignity of a conquered people,
threw themselves upon the horses of the sovereigns, embraced
their boots, seized the reins of their bridles, clasped their
hands, threw their eyes upwards on their countenances, and
seemed to supplicate them to pronouncer a word that would
free their souls from the yoke of the Empire, and restore to
them the kings of their fathers. They scattered white cock-
ades annongst the crowd ; they waved white ribbons at the
ends of their canes; while the ladies, at the windows of their
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 99
Order and discipline of the allied troops.
houses, replied to these cries and these signals by similar
demonstrations. They clapped their hands to encourage the
royalists; they bowed from their balconies on the passage of
the sovereigns; they dressed their windows with white flags;
they raised up their children in their arms, and prolonged
from house to house the multiplied cries of “Long live our
liberators' Down with the tyrant! Long live the Bourbons !”
The houses only presented one colour and one voice.
XVI.
The people of these quarters appeared to be astonished, and,
as if undecided between the humiliation of seeing their capital
in the hands of strangers and the novelty of the spectacle, Na-
poleon was in their eyes the great culprit of the invasion which
profaned the stones of their city. The calm and affecting atti-
tude of the sovereigns, the discipline of their troops, the polite-
ness of the generals, the modesty of the conquerors, the miracle
of the capital thus respected, of those tranquil hearths, of those
peaceful processions, of those monuments undefiled, of those
magazines wide open,-while not a hand dared touch the riches
with which they were filled, –that armed National Guard which
formed a barrier around this torrent of northern hordes, this
police, this security, these tranquil visages, these signs of joy,
these festival banners in the bosom of a city so long threatened,
—now occupied rather than conquered,—made the people pass
from consternation to gratitude, and to the enthusiasm of their
security in this bewilderment of their imagination and their
Senses. The slightest impulsion would have driven them to
resolutions the most unexpected the evening before. Without
knowing in reality the meaning of these signs, these flags,
these royalist cries, they mingled with them tamely and blindly,
as if out of complaisance towards some unknown object which
presented itself to them for the solution of their uncertainties.
Nevertheless, this royalist movement (conceived in some
chateaux and in some hotels, got up that morning only by
Some young men and some old members of the ancient nobility,
favoured by some literary men, agreed to and encouraged by
G 2
I 00 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION ſBook 4.
The friends of the Bourbon dynasty.
Some ambitious ones, eager to desert the Empire, and to offer
their services to a new sovereign) did not communicate itself,
without murmurs and without resistance amongst the people.
Some blushed at this manifestation of real and profound hatred
of the Empire, as being a shameful and compulsory homage to
their conquerors. Others looked on such displays as unreflect-
ing, imprudent, and as likely to form, on the morrow, lists of
proscription against Paris. The greater number were actually
ignorant for whom and for what the royalists were expending
so much ardent enthusiasm. Children under the Republic,
youths under the Consulate, men under the Empire—they
knew nothing of the history of their country but the revolution,
the conquests, and the reverses of the Emperor. The friends of
the absent family of the Bourbons succeeded but with difficulty,
and by taking public opinion as it were by surprise, to present
before the eyes of the Emperor of Russia some appearance of
a national wish in favour of the Restoration. One thing alone
was sincere and profound amongst the reflecting part of the
population,-weariness of the Empire, and hatred of tyranny.
XVII.
The marching of the allied armies continued for a portion
of the day. The Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia,
constantly hemmed in and beset by a handful of royalists, had
at length passed from reserve and indecision to enthusiasm.
They had had short conversations and sudden colloquies with the
men who pressed nearest to them. They appeared to be influ-
enced by the opinions of those around them. These opinions
and recollections were represented by men who bore the most
celebrated names of the monarchy, or the highest fame in liter-
ature, the Montmorencies, the Lévis, the D'Hauteforts, the
Choiseuls, the Kergorlays, the Chateaubriands, the Fitz-
James's, the Adhemars, the Noailles, the Boisgelins, the
Talleyrand de Perigords, the Juignes, the Wirieus. These
men supplied the place of number by the energy and boldness
of their famaticism for the royal cause. Their attachment to
the sovereigns ºf the ancient race of Bourbon was rather a
1814.] OF MONARCIIY IN FRANCE. I ()]
Their manifestation of feeling.
worship than a simple preference. It was less their power
than their history that they sought to regain with the kings of
their former days. On that morning, before the presence of
the foreign troops could insure them the patronage of the
allies, they had rashly risked their lives by grouping themselves,
on foot or on horseback, on the Place de la Concorde, and
individually wearing a cockade which the people might look
upon as a symbol of treason, and punish with death. But
carried away by impatience, and knowing that revolutions
demand a devotion regardless of consequences, they had ven-
tured their lives for their ancient reminiscences. Certain of
being massacred by the people, or by Napoleon if they failed, they
had no other salvation than in the complicity of the Emperor
Alexander. This it was necessary to obtain, and in this they
succeeded.
B001 FIFTH,
Napoleon at the village of La Cour de France, near Paris, on the evening
of the 30th March—Meeting between the retreating French troops
of General Belliard and the Emperor—Napoleon learns the capitu-
lation of Paris—His indignation—He sends Caulaincourt to Paris–
Caulaincourt tries in vain to enter Paris–He returns to the Emperor
—He is sent a second time to the Allies—Napoleon goes to Fon-
tainebleau – Meeting of Caulaincourt and the Grand Duke Constantine
at the Barriers—He takes Caulaincourt into Paris—Alexander re-
ceives him—Interview between Alexander and Caulaincourt.
I.
WE must now ask what the Emperor was doing on the night
preceding the triumphal entry of the foreign sovereigns into
Paris?
We have seen that after having ordered the assembling by
forced marches of the remains of his army on the 2nd of April,
under the walls of Paris, he had quitted Troyes on the 30th of
March, at daybreak; and that, accompanied only by Berthier,
his major-general, and by Caulaincourt, his confidential negoci-
ator, he had precipitated his course towards Paris. Uncertain
of the success or reverses of Marmont and Mortier, he trembled
for the heart of his Empire, for his wife, for his son, for his
brothers, for his throne, and for his glory. He hoped that his
presence and his name alone would be equal to an army for the
defence of Paris. He only asked two days from Time, and a
respite from Destiny. If time and destiny had granted his
request, 60,000 men concentrated under the walls, an immense
artillery, ready supplies, a popular enthusiasm communicated
by his soldiers, one or two brilliant successes over Schwartzen-
burg or Blucher, and negociations taken up by Caulaincourt on
the basis of Chatillon, might still leave him, not his greatness
but his throne. He no longer denied the necessity of peace, and
he hastened to grasp it, after having so frequently disdained it.
islaj REstor ATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 103
Napoleon at the village of La Cour de France.
But peace, the Empire, the throne, and glory were about to
quit him all at the same time. He flew to learn as quick as
possible the decree of destiny, so frequently dictated by him,
and now recorded against him.
II.
In two hours the chance carriage he had procured near
Montereau brought him at a gallop by the country roads across
the plains between the village of Essonne and that of Willejuif,
nearly to the gates of Paris. He had avoided Fontainebleau,
for fear of finding the town occupied by detachments of
Schwartzenburg's army. Nobody on the deserted roads, by
which his guide had conducted him, could give him a word of in-
telligence as to the fate of Paris and his armies. The night was
gloomy, the cold excessive, and the Emperor silent between
the two last companions of his fortune. This carriage contained
the master of the world flying to meet his destiny.
It stopped at the village of La Cour de France, built upon
the last hill of a chain which commands the river and the valley
of the Seine on one side, and the river and valley of the Essonne
on the other. But the obscurity of the night only allowed
him to see, to the right and left of these two vast horizons,
the distant glimmer of bivouac fires, extending in lines on the
hills of Villeneuve Saint George and of Charenton, and pro-
longed still nearer to the banks of the Seine, without being
able to distinguish if these fires belonged to the troops of
Mortier and Marmont, or to the enemy's camp.
III.
He threw himself out of the carriage, and ran to the Posting
Flouse, to inquire about what he was ardent and trembled to
learm. Before he could meet a single man to interrogate, he
saw, at some distance in the wide street of the village, dis-
bänded soldiers, marching in groups towards Fontainebleau.
He was astonished and indignant. “How !” he exclaimed;
“what is the reason these soldiers are not marching on Paris 2"
I 04 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 5.
The Emperor's indignation on learning the capitulation of Paris.
On hearing the voice of the Emperor, General Belliard, one of
his most devoted lieutenants, issued forth from the obscurity of
the door, and explaimed the fatal mystery of this contradictory
march. “Paris,” he said, “has capitulated; the enemy enters
to-morrow, two hours after sunrise; and these troops are the
remains of Marmont and Mortier's armies, falling back on
Fontainebleau, in order to join the Emperor's army at Troyes.”
A dead silence was the only answer of Napoleon, resem-
bling the momentary hush which follows the sudden crushing
of a lofty edifice. It was, in fact, the annihilation of his last
hope. He passed his hands several times across his forehead,
to wipe off the cold perspiration in which it was bathed; them,
like a man who collects his fortitude to place him on a level
with his misfortunes, he recomposed his features, strengthened
his voice, resumed his firmness, and feigning against men an
anger which he had only a right to feel against events, he
broke out in an explosion of contempt and imprecations against
his lieutenants, against his ministers, and against his brother,
whose incapacity and want of character had allowed his ene-
mies to get before him. He walked backwards and forwards
with abrupt steps, followed by Caulaincourt, Berthier, and
Belliard, on the open rugged place which extends in front of
the hotel. He stopped—he rushed on again—he seemed to
hesitate—then retraced his steps. He appeared to communi-
cate to his walk, sometimes slow, and sometimes rapid, all the
indecision, every impulse, every turn, and every confused
movement of his thoughts. His lieutenants looked at each
other, but did not dare to mingle their advice with the counsel
he was holding in his own mind. Then he poured forth a
volley of interrogatories.
“Where is my wife? where is my son ? where is the
army? What is become of the National Guard of Paris,
and of the battle they were to have fought, to the last man,
under its walls 2 and the marshals 2 and Mortier 2 and
Marmont?—Where shall I find them again?”
He received answers to some of these questions; but without
listening to them he went on.
“The night is still mine,” he cried. “The enemy only
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 105
His determination to recapture Paris.
enters at daybreak! My carriage my carriage | Let us go this
instant Let us get before Blucher and Schwartzenburg | Let
Belliard follow me with the cavalry ! Let us fight even in the
streets and squares of Paris My presence, my name, the
courage of my troops, the necessity of following me, or of dying,
will arouse Paris. My army, which is following me, will arrive
in the midst of the struggle; it will take the enemy in rear,
while we are fighting them in front Come on | Success
awaits me, perhaps, in my last reverse.” And, stamping his
feet with impatience, he hastened with voice and gesture the
carriage he had ordered.
Berthier, Belliard, and Caulaincourt, confounded at the
extent of a disaster, of which they had only revealed to him one-
half, trembled at the idea of a battle of extermination in the midst
of a great capital. It would be the war of ancient barbarism,
with its conflagrations, its massacres, and its cities and people ob-
literated from the soil. They were obliged to remind him that
the rights of men, no less than the laws of humanity, were
decidedly opposed to a design so extreme and so fatal. They
acknowledged to him that the army of Paris and the generals
were already bound by a convention which made it their duty
to fall back upon Fontainebleau. “Madmen " exclaimed
Napoleon to himself. “Joseph My ministers! What! with
a formidable artillery in their arsenals, they had only a battery
of six pieces, and an empty magazine on Montmartre. They
ought to have had 200 pieces there. What have they done
with them? Men without hearts, or without heads, to let
everything go to destruction where I am not l”
IV.
Then still more earnestly he demanded a carriage and horses,
to fly to the assistance of the capital. “I must go there at every
risk l’’ he said; “I shall never quitit but dead or a conqueror!”
But while Napoleon thus abandoned himself to this ex-
tremity of anger, impatience, and heroism, in presence of the
three companions of his fortunes, who were standing immoveably
before him, some generals, colonels, and troopers of his guard,
106 HISTORY of THE RESTORATION LBook 5.
He sends Caulaincourt to Paris to negociate.
in their retreat, arrived successively in groups on the road from
Paris, stopped, dismounted on hearing his name, and closed
sorrowfully around their Emperor. He interrogated them one
by one, and heard from them, one after another, the details of
the battle, the retreat of their corps, the loss of their regiments,
and the breaking up of their forces. The bodies of 4000 men
strewed the environs of Paris.
At these recitals, which were mutually confirmed and even
aggravated by the different relators, Napoleon at length gave
up the idea of sending back this wreck of the army upon Paris,
or of going thither himself. He reverted to the idea of nego-
ciating again, for a remnant of the Empire, before the enemy
should occupy his palace. He recollected that he was the
friend of Alexander, that he was the son-in-law of the Emperor
Francis. He thought that these titles, and the shadow of his
own name, would arrest in time the last profanation of his crown.
He took Caulaincourt aside, and ordered him to get a horse
saddled, and to penetrate before daybreak to the quarter-general
of the allies. “Ride full speed,” he said to his confidential
negociator. “Ride! I am given up and sold ! See if I have time
yet to intervene in the treaty which is signing, perhaps already,
without me and against me. I give you full powers Do not
lose an instant I await you here ! Return at a moment, and
let me know my fate 1” Caulaincourt rode off, and cleared at a
gallop the short distance which separated them from Villejuif.
Napoleon ordered Belliard to bivouac the troops, as they arrived
from the other side of the river Essonme. He then entered the
hotel, followed by Belliard and Berthier. w
W.
Meanwhile Caulaincourt arrived at the advanced posts of
the enemy, gave his name, and demanded in vain a passage, as
being charged with a mission from the Emperor. He was
obliged to give up the hope of passing, and returned, two hours
after his departure, to find his master, and acquaint him with
his fruitless attempt. Iłut nothing satisfied Napoleon, who
wished, at every hazard, that his name should appear in the
1814. of MonARCHY IN FRANCE. 1 ()7
Napoleon's invectives against his ministers.-He goes to Fontainebleau.
treaty either as Emperor or General. A treaty in which, should
his name and interests be omitted, would be at once to pro-
nounce his dethronement. He only allowed Caulaincourt time
to get a fresh horse, and then sent him to try another route.
“The wretches " he exclaimed, while Caulaincourt wiped the
perspiration from his brow;-“the cowards ! I only asked
them to hold out twenty-four hours There is Marmont, who
had sworn that he would be cut to pieces under the walls of
Paris and Joseph, my brother, setting my troops the example
of retreat Nevertheless, they knew that on the 2nd of April,
the day after to-morrow, I should be at the head of 60,000
men, at the gates And there is my brave guard and my young
military schools l and the volunteers, who are astounded at that
National Guard who had sworn to me to defend my wife and
my son They have capitulated . They have betrayed their
brother, their country, their sovereign They have dishonoured
France in the eyes of Europe . They have permitted the
enemy's columns, which I was in pursuit of, to enter a capital
of 1,000,000 souls . " -
Then turning to Caulaincourt: — “Hasten!” he cried.
“Quick quick | Force an entrance to the Emperor Alex-
ander I'll sign whatever you conclude with them. I have
no other hope but in you ! This night contains my fate and
that of the Empire "
After these broken expressions, the Emperor held out his
hand to Caulaincourt, who pressed it as he raised it to his lips.
The might was now far advanced, as Caulaincourt galloped once
more into the deep obscurity, by another road to Paris, the
lights of which he saw glimmering before him.
VI.
Napoleon, renouncing for the moment an armed return to
his capital, mounted his horse, and slowly and in silence took
the route to Fontainebleau, this palace of his happiness, of his
hunting, and of his fêtes. A group of general officers followed
him, absorbed in sad reflection. At daybreak the Em.
peror arrived in the empty courtyard of this residence of
108 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Boom 5.
} f
Caulaincourt is again sent to Paris.
Francis I. As if already desirous of accommodating his exist-
ence in proportion to his destiny, which was fast contracting,
and of abdicating his pomp before his Empire, he forbade the
state apartments to be opened for him. He took up his resi-
dence, rather as a private person than a sovereign, in an entresol
at the angle of the palace. Its windows opened upon the
garden, shaded on this side by a forest of fir trees. A stair-
case of a few steps descended from his chamber into a parterre,
eserved and separated by an enclosure from the royal garden.
This parterre, the shrubs of which had scarcely begun to bud
on the approach of April, bore some resemblance to those
Champs des morts of Corsica and Tuscany, enclosed with walls
and bordered with cypress trees; a conformity of site and desti-
nation which had, doubtless, induced Napoleon instinctively to
shelter his destiny in this angle of the chateau.
The troops, as they arrived by different routes from Paris,
and from Troyes, by Fossard, were cantoned in the town and
the adjacent villages.
VII.
We shall now return to Caulaincourt, who expected nothing
from obeying a second time the orders of his master, whom
misfortune had rendered more imperative than ever. He was
stopped and interrogated every instant by officers, soldiers, and
friends of Napoleon, fugitives from Paris, who asked him where
the Emperor was. “We fought for him till night came on,”
cried the troops. “Let him but appear ! If he lives, let us
Rnow his wishes; we are ready to fight again Let him lead
us back to Paris | The enemy shall never enter its walls but
over the dead body of the last French soldier . If he is dead,
still let us know it, and lead us against the enemy. We will
avenge his fall!”
Such was the disposition of the troops, so different from
that of the people:—their faces sunburnt, their lips shrivelled,
their eyes bloodshot, with arms in slings, and shoes worn off
their feet—these soldiers, seated in road-side ditches, or drag-
: : ging themselves through the muddy roads, imparted by their
e § {.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 100
He meets the Grand Duke Constantine at the Barriers.
aspect a character of despair and melancholy in their attachment
to their Emperor. Every time that Caulaincourt told them
that Napoleon was alive, and that he was waiting for them at
Fontainebleau, they responded in a voice almost extinct, by the
cry of “Vive l'Empereur !” Then, with accelerated pace, they
resumed their journey to rejoin him.
While these last sad remnants of his army were protesting
against ingratitude with their almost expiring efforts, the civil
and military chiefs, amongst whom he had divided the spoils of
the world, were bargaining with his conquerors, and giving his
throne as a ransom for their titles and their treasures.
VIII.
The Russians were encamped on the roads which debouch
at the barriers of Melun, Orleans, and Chartres. A girdle of
forces of all nations thus encircled Paris. At daybreak Cau-
laincourt found himself in the midst of these troops getting
ready to seize upon their prey. A murmur of pride and joy
issued from all the bivouacs. Martial instruments of music,
and the voices of the officers, were summoning the soldiers to
the triumph of entering that capital which the sun was about
to illumine. This joy was like the solemnity of mourning to
the eyes and the heart of Napoleon's wandering negociator. Re-
pulsed a second time from all the posts, he took refuge, during
the whole day, in one of those isolated farm-houses which stand
amidst the vast plains of Paris. This shelter he did not quit
until the evening, when the silence of drums and trumpets
gave him to understand that the allied armies had all entered
within the walls.
Conceiving that Paris being now occupied, the interdiction,
which had hitherto stopped his passage would cease, and that
he could at length penetrate to the residence of Alexander, he
proceeded accordingly; but being repulsed once more, he was
discouraged, and in despair took the route to Fontainebleau.
By chance, however, he met the carriage of the Grand Duke
Constantine, brother to the Emperor of Russia, who was about
to enter the barriers. This prince recognised Caulaincourt,
| I () HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 5.
Caulaincourt's interview with the Emperor Alex:nder.
who had been a long time Napoleon's ambassador in Russia.
He saluted him as an unfortunate friend ; and confessed to him
that the most inflexible precautions were taken by the minions
of Monsieur de Talleyrand, whose guest Alexander was, to close
the cabinet of the sovereigns against every emissary of Napoleon.
But prevailed on by the prayers and the manly sorrow of Cau-
laincourt, Constantine ventured to violate the countersign of
this policy. He took Caulaincourt into his carriage, dressed
him with his own hands in a pelisse and a Russian cap, and
conducted him thus disguised to the Champs-Elysées, in the
vicinity of the hotel of Monsieur de Talleyrand. He left Cau-
laincourt alone in his carriage, under the safeguard of his Cos-
sacks; and from this concealment the ambassador of Napoleon
witnessed, during a part of the night, the tumultuous concourse
of diplomatic personages, of generals and political men that the
critical hour, and the still undecided councils of the Emperor
of Russia and the King of Prussia had brought to the gates of
the palace, from which the voice of fate was about to issue.
The Grand Duke Constantine, being detained by his bro-
ther, did not return to his carriage till towards morning. He
had at length obtained from Alexander permission to introduce
the last representative of Napoleon. Caulaincourt dismounted,
and traversed, under his disguise, protected by the Grand Duke,
the saloons full of the enemies of his master. He passed un-
known, and was received by Alexander.
IX.
The Emperor was familiar, magnanimous, and compassionate.
He encouraged the confidence of Caulaincourt by the confidence
he himself displayed. He recalled his ancient sentiments for
Napoleon, and evinced his intention of treating him with that
generosity which heroes owe to themselves after a victory. He
did not pronounce upon the fate which was reserved for him ;
but he acknowledged to Caulaincourt that his reign and the
reign of his son, who would be inspired by the traditions of his
glory and of his conquests, were declared to be thenceforward
incompatible with the peace of Europe and European order.
1814.] OF MON ARCH Y IN FRANCE. - 1 11
sº--
Their conference respecting Napoleon.
“Is his ruin then sworn ?” said the ambassador. “Whose
fault is it?” replied Alexander, in a tone inflexible, but full of
emotion. “Whose fault is it? What have I not done to prevent
these extremities, to open his eyes to the crime and the danger
of coming to invade my empire—an empire whose sovereign felt
honoured with the name of his friend ? In the candid sim-
plicity of my youth, I had believed more in friendship than in
policy. He has cruelly deceived me. But never mind; if his
destiny depended solely on this hand I would sign a peace once
more on the condition of leaving this empire to my enemy. I
find no hatred in my heart, which was formerly full of enthu-
siasm for him. But the peace of the world requires the re-
establishment of the house of Bourbon on the throne of
France. These princes have had a numerous party in the
councils of the allies. With this family Europe has no war to
apprehend. Talleyrand answers to us for the wishes of the
Senate, of the people, and of the chiefs of the army. Every-
thing intimates to us the weariness of glory and of sacrifices
for one man alone, who has abused the enthusiasm that your
nation has evinced for him.”
X.
Caulaincourt endeavoured to convince the Emperor of
Russia that this pretended return of the hearts of the people
to the forgotten family of these kings, was only an artifice
concocted between some diplomatists and courtiers of the old
regime, to counterfeit public opinion. That the Bourbons had
retrograded a century in twenty-five years; that a long exile
was an abyss between them and France of the present day:
that their return, by reviving, in the hearts of the old nobility
and of the clergy, hopes counter-revolutionary, but without
force, would only occasion new struggles between popular and
monarchical principles—struggles in which the monarchy, cer-
tainly vanquished, would again compromise the thrones of the
world.
Alexander admitted the danger; but he turned aside these
objections by repeating to Caulaincourt that the Bourbons
112 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 5.
-
Alexander's courtesy to Caulaincourt.
would by no means be forced upon, or even suggested to
France by the allies:–that they would limit themselves to
declaring the incompatibility of Europe with the conquering
dynasty of Napoleon; and that, for all the rest, they were de-
cided on referring the free choice of its government to the
opinion of the nation. He added, that the great bodies con-
stituted by Napoleon himself had already loudly declared their
return to the ancient royal house, based upon liberal and con-
stitutional institutions. The Emperor, however, yielding a
little, as if from complaisance to Caulaincourt, finished by re-
gretting his want of power and his isolation in the council of
the sovereigns, and by promising the ambassador that he would
plead again the following day the cause of the regency of
Marie-Louise.
The night was far advanced, and day was about to break:
the Emperor, as if desirous of sanctioning the hopes that he
had given to Caulaincourt, by a still greater act of kindness,
made him sleep on a divan in the chamber where he himself
slept. The part he had to play was not yet quite settled in his
own mind. He had been dazzled at an early age by enthu-
siasm for Napoleon ; he was proud of having measured his
strength with him in the page of history; he affected from his
infancy, which was trained by revolutionary instructors, the
popularity of a prince in advance of his age ; he rallied old
notions, and the antiquated remains of the court and emigra-
tion. He had no inclination for the princes of the house of
Bourbon. These princes had only shown at St. Petersburg
the externals of the chivalry of their race, at a period when
Catherine II. expected from them the temerity of heroism,
and when she had lent them her subsidies and her support.
Moreover, Alexander dreaded England through these princes,
who had become for many years the clients of that power.
Caulaincourt, privately shut up all the following day in the
apartment of the Grand Duke Constantine, waited, with a
mixture of hope and fear, the result of the last councils, which
now multiplied between the sovereigns, the foreign generals,
the partisans of the house of Bourbon, the influential members
of the Senate, and the marshals of the Emperor. This day
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. II 3
Caulº incourt's anxiety for the result of the royal councils.
was to reveal the fate of Europe, transfer the sceptre from one
hand to another, abolish the military government, and bring to
an end a domination of which even its glory could no longer
lighten the burthen. The reign of the sword was terminating;
that of opinion was about to commence.
BU)0'K SIXTHI.
Alexander at the hotel of M. de Talleyrand—M. de Talleyrand—Night
conference of the Allies—Deliberation — Alexander—The Duke
d'Alberg—Pozzo di Borgo—M. de Talleyrand–Declaration of the
Sovereigns—Royalist deputation to Alexander—Answer of M. de
Nesselrode—Royalist Propagandism—The Press—Pamphlet of M.
de Chateaubriand: “Bonaparte and the Bourbons”—The public
mind—Convocation of the Senate—Sitting of the 1st of April—
Formation of the Provisional Government—M. de Talleyrand—The
Duke d'Alberg—M. de Jancourt—General Beurnonville—The Abbé
de Montesquiou—The Municipal Council–Manifesto of M. Bellart.
I.
AFTER his triumphal entrance into Paris, the IEmperor Alexan-
der had dismounted at he hotel of M. de Talleyrand, situated
at the angle of the Champs-Elysee and of the garden of the
Tuileries, whose vast and splendid apartments had served as a pre-
text to the ministers and aides-de-camp of the Emperor for their
choice of this residence. But the underhand relations of M. de
Talleyrand with the foreign diplomatists of Alexander's cabinet,
his private correspondence with the princes of the house of
Bourbon, through M. de Vitrolles, a voluntary negociator, bold
and active, between royalist opinions and imperialist disaffection,
the hatred which M. de Talleyrand sufficiently evinced, since his
disgrace, against the Emperor, his influence with the Senate, his
credit with old partisans of the revolution, his family connections
and intercourse with the highest aristocracy of France,—finally,
his reputation, almost prophetic, for divining events, now became
so great, that when he was seen inclining towards either party
in the State, it was looked upon as insuring the fortune of that
party. These were the real motives which had conducted
Alexander to the hotel of this statesman. Even this favour of
the young sovereign, in becoming the guest of the old diploma-
tist, was calculated to increase the importance which public
1814.1 RESTORATION OF MONARCIIY IN FRANCE. I 15
Napoleon's suspicions of Talleyrand's intrigues and defection.
opinion already attached to the resolutions of M. de Talleyrand.
The royalist party, which knew beforehand that the Restoration
would arise out of these conferences, had had the cleverness to
place them thus at the very hearth and under the auspices of
the statesman whose ear they wished to gain, and whose credit
they wished to consolidate.
II.
For a long time past M. de Talleyrand had inspired
Napoleon with serious suspicions. He had several times medi-
tated his arrest, in order to put a stop to intrigues and defections,
for which his first reverses were to be the signal. He had not,
however, dared to do it. Bold and prompt in striking vulgar
treason; even cruel, and devoid of justice and of pity towards
the Duke d'Enghien, the Sovereign Pontiff, and the princes of
the house of Spain, yet Napoleon, at this latter period, had
become weak in resolution towards certain leaders of public
opinion in his own court, whom he hated, but was obliged to
tolerate. He flew into passions, he murmured, he threatened.
He broke out intentionally into fits of anger against them, but,
when about to strike, his heart failed him. He caressed, he
enriched, he made efforts to retain, or to draw towards him, by
an excess of benefits, or an apparent confidence, those whom
he dreaded the most as secret enemies. It might be said that,
implacable as he was towards physical power, he was prudent
towards the powers of intelligence and opinion, as if he foresaw
that his ruin would spring from the revolt of intellect against
material power. Fouché and Talleyrand were two examples
of this weakness. Dreading in Fouché a revolutionary conspi-
rator, who might some day or other rekindle the republican spark
in the Senate and amongst the people, he contented himself
with removing him honourably from Paris, and retaining him
in Italy, under the pretext of a superintendence in chief of Rome
and Naples. Apprehending in Talleyrand a royalist conspirator,
who might, in case of reverse, give up him and his dynasty as
a ransom to the old powers of Europe, he had not even ven.
tured to remove him from Paris during his campaign. He placed
H 2
| 16 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 6.
Talleyrand's intriguing policy.
*-
him under the surveillance of Savary, his minister of police; but
he left him his dignities, his official confidence; even his place
in the Council of State, between his brother Joseph and the
Empress. M. de Talleyrand had such decided weight with
public opinion, that it seemed to the Emperor less dangerous
still to tolerate him as a doubtful friend, than to strike him as
a declared enemy. This timidity and want of decision hastened
his political ruin at home; as they had prepared his military
decay in his last campaigns. He had become, as he advanced
in years, a man of expedients. This was an inconsistency in
principle. Tyranny, which deliberates and compounds, is only
the hesitation of violence. M. de Talleyrand knew the
Emperor's hatred of him, and the private terror with which he
inspired his master. He was decided on having the first blow,
and anxiously watched for the hour, to declare himself without
imprudence.
III.
At length he thought the hour had arrived, and he seized
upon it the day that Joseph and the Empress left Paris with
the government. His proper place was in the midst of this
fugitive court : he received an order to follow it to Blois, and
he feigned obedience. He had his equipages prepared ostenta-
tiously, sent some confidants to the barrier, by which he was to
depart, got into his carriage, departed, and caused himself to
be arrested at the gates of Paris by the accomplices he had
posted there. This pretended opposition to his following the
imperial government appeared to him a sufficient pretext for
returning to his hotel, and remaining at Paris. He thought
he should be all right with Napoleon if victory brought him
back to his capital, and all right with his enemies if they
entered before him. His connection with the allied princes
and sovereigns, the hints he had dropt at Petersburg, at
Vienna, and at London, his problematical resistance to the
murder of the Duke d'Enghien, to the usurpation of the throne
of Spain, to Napoleon's ambition for conquest, his influence in
the Senate, where he was at the same time the representative
of the Emperor's wishes, and the compass which steered the
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. l 7
Night conference of the Allies.
opposition ; finally, his prodigious reputation for cleverness and
foresight, must assign him a great part to act in the battle that
was to decide the fate of the world. We have seen that his
foresight did not deceive him, and that his residence became
the council-hall of Europe.
IV.
The Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, the Prince
of Schwartzenburg (representing the Emperor of Austria,
Prince Lichtenstein, Count Nesselrode minister and confidant
of Alexander), assembled in conference on the night which
followed their entrance into Paris. They were still excited by
their triumph, astonished at the solemn yet smiling aspect of
the capital, which, from the Porte Saint Martin to the Tuile-
ries, had seemed to receive them less as conquerors than guests.
The acclamations of the royalists, who begged of them a king
of their ancient race, still resounded in their ears. Doubtless
also their long resentment, and the memory of their humilia-
tions under the sword of Napoleon, cried for vengeance from
the depth of their hearts. In another point of view, the
rising of the capital of the Empire against an enemy still
under arms, must seem to them a decisive weapon against
him. Thus the pride of these sovereigns, the worship of
the old dynasties, the expiation of the triumphs against their
people, and the tactics most proper to disarm the common
enemy, combined in advising them secretly to make choice of
another government for France. But what they wished they
did not dare to do of themselves. They desired to give an
appearance of freedom to the national will, and only to appear
as the armed witnesses of the fall of Napoleon and the esta-
blishment of another monarchy. But the presence alone of
the foreign sovereigns, at the head of a million of men, at this
deliberation, stigmatized its independence and its dignity.
There can be no deliberation under the sword. The attitude
of the country, at the moment it was recalling the house of
Bourbon, was sufficient to taint the Restoration with servitude;
and it served somewhat later as a perpetual text to its enemics
I 18 {{{S^TORY OF THE RESTORATION ſpoor; 6.
Causes which led to the Restoration.
This text, so true in appearance, was nevertheless, at this
moment, really false. With the exception of the army, and of
the servile and military court of the Emperor, France, almost
to a man, longed to throw off the yoke of a master who op-
pressed the country while he made it illustrious. If France
had been called upon to vote with an entire freedom of opinion,
in the absence of Napoleon's army as well as of the armies of
the allies, it is not at all doubtful to those who recollect that
period, that it would have voted almost unanimously for the
downfall of Napoleon and his dynasty. But whether it would
have voted for restoring the princes of the exiled house of
Bourbon, or for a constitutional republic, which should be the
guardian of the principles of its revolution of 1789, may form
a question. A government which connected tradition with
hope, which reconciled hostile thrones, and which promised a
peaceful era to the nations,—such a government, accredited by
pledges of liberty, of constitution, of amnesty for the past, and
of progress for the future, had a better chance of being freely
voted than the Empire, which had been made unpopular by its
defeats, or than the Republic, which was threatening from its
recollections. It is therefore correct to say that the Restora-
tion was adopted under a foreign hand, and that in appearance
it was a forced government; but it is still more correct to say
that it would have been equally adopted, under the above cir-
cumstances, by the unbiassed wishes of liberated France. It
would have appeared as an obligatory transaction with Europe,
and a transaction of preference with itself-an act of necessity
in a pleasing reminiscence ;-that is the real state of the case.
It was sufficient in the crisis to pronounce the name to the
French people to induce them instantly to adopt it. The
intrigues of the royalists, after all, aided but little towards the
triumph; it was more the triumph of circumstances than of a
party.
V.
Alexander gave every possible freedom to discussion in this
conference. He alone of the allied sovereigns spoke, and with
the eloquence of a great soul enacting a great part. The spirit
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. | 19
The sentiments of Alexander.—The Duke d'Alberg.
of the age had illumined his breast; and he seemed to pro-
mulgate it from the throne as if he had been, at one and
the same time, the genius of monarchies and the genius of
nations. The future page of Europe, liberal and constitutional,
unfolded itself before him. He was recognised as the pupil
of Catherine II., that Semiramis of the North, who drew her
inspiration from the philosophy of Montesquicu and Voltaire.
He was felt to be the disciple and friend of the republican
La Harpe, the correspondent of the German philosophers, and
of the school of Madame de Staël. He repudiated conquest
in the name of humanity, despotism in the name of the dignity
of nations, the dismemberment of France in the name of
the independence of races and of the equilibrium of Europe.
“We have here,” he said, in conclusion, “only two enemies to
combat, Napoleon, the oppressor of the world, and the enemies,
whoever they may be, of the independence of the French
people.” Then turning towards the King of Prussia,-
modest, sorrowful and silent since the death of his wife, Queen
Louise, the beauty of Germany, who was killed by the victories
and the insults of Napoleon,--"My brother,” he continued,
“and you Prince Schwartzenburg, who represent here the
Emperor of Austria, say if my words are not the expression of
our sentiments in common towards France.”
The King of Prussia and the generalissimo replied by a
simple inclination of the head; and the resolution was forthwith
adopted of dethroning the disturber of Europe.
VI
The Duke d'Alberg, a confidant of M. de Talleyrand, but
a confidant thrust forward by him to beat the way, and occa-
Sionally to fall into dilemmas, then defended the cause of the
regency of Marie-Louise. He represented the dangers of a
new struggle between the revolution consummated, and the
threatening counter-revolution, under a family long exiled:
the propriety of respecting, in the Empress, the daughter of one
of the sovereigns leagued to deliver Europe, but not to humiliate
himself by the degradation of his own blood; and the passion of
120 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 6.
Pozzo di Borgo.
the army for the name of Napoleon, which thus connected it with
the cause of his wife and of his son. The King of Prussia display-
ed no sign of favour or dissent on his immoveable countenance;
while Prince Schwartzenburg, though, as a member of the Ger-
man aristocracy, hating the sovereignty of a parvenu, still could
not, as generalissimo of the Emperor Francis, oppose the con-
sideration which the conference entertained for his sovereign.
M. de Talleyrand, so penetrating, studied with a coup d'oeil,
apparently dull and distracted, the impressions which the words
of the Duke d'Alberg had produced on the countenance of
Alexander. He thought he could perceive the astonishment
and pain which the proposition of a Napoleon regency had
involuntarily impressed on the features of the Emperor of
łussia. This prince, in fact, could feel no inclination for a
regency which would always give, in the councils of France, an
ascendancy so paternal, so filial, and so dominant to Austria.
The movement of his lips had several times indicated that he
was repressing, in his own mind, his objections to this proposi-
tion. M. de Talleyrand abandoned by his silence a confidant
whom he had compromised. He spoke no more himself.
His long connection with Napoleon, the titles, the functions,
the gifts that he had received from him imposed upon him,
even amidst his ingratitude, the externals of gratitude and
sorrow. It was his cue not to provoke but to seem to accept
the necessity of this defection. A man who already had an
understanding with him, an intrepid soldier, a consummate
diplomatist, aide-de-camp to Alexander, admitted into all the
secrets of the allied courts, of which he was the motive power,
and a man whose mind possessed the stubborn will of the
Corsican with the graceful flexibility of the Greek, Pozzo di
forgo, opportunely broke a silence which might have given
birth to a half measure.
VII.
Pozzo di Borgo was a countryman of Napoleon's, and like
him, of a noble family. He was connected with him also at
the commencement of his career, by a conformity of revolu.
1814.] OF MONARCHY fM FRANCE. 12]
Character of Pozzo di Borgo.
tionary ardour and of youth, by which he had been signalized
in his island, and by which he had been carried to the Legisla-
tive Assembly. He had been affected by the virtues and the
misfortunes of Louis XVI. He had returned to Corsica con
verted to constitutional royalty, and had there fomented and
served the cause of the independence of his country, which he
wished to deliver from the tyranny of the Reign of Terror.
He had, in concert with the patriot Paoli, solicited the alliance
of England. Meanwhile, Napoleon had persevered in the
contrary cause, and had become an adept of the most exalted
Jacobinism. Hence sprang up, between these two islanders,
one of those hatreds which the sun of the south transmits from
race to race with the blood. Having taken refuge in London,
after the expulsion of the English from Corsica, Pozzo di
Borgo there connected himself with the most implacable
enemies of Bonaparte. Gifted with a noble exterior, with
the most penetrating and impassioned eloquence, the most
simple and most elegant manners—a soldier, a diplomatist, a
publicist,--at once a man of pleasure and of business—Pozzo
di Borgo had been admitted, by the attraction alone of his
superior nature, into the familiarity and the esteem of the
English and continental aristocracy. He was one of those
men whose merit and attraction strike the eye at the first
glance. Admitted into the Russian service he had gained the
attachment of Alexander by a similarity of natural gifts, and
he had been employed by this sovereign at the court of Berna-
dotte, King of Sweden. These two refugees from Napoleon
had associated their hatred against him; and it was by their
hands that the political plans, and the plans of campaign for
the liberation of Europe, had been traced. Moreau, this old
rival of Napoleon's, was recalled from America by their
counsels, but arrived too late. Pozzo had followed the
Emperor Alexander through all the battle-fields of 1813 and
of 1814. That prince's aide-de-camp by day, his councillor
at night; able in foreseeing where the fortune of the enemy
should be struck at, he had pointed out Paris with his finger
to the Emperor Alexander, at the moment Napoleon appeared
to be resuming the offensive at Troyes. The Emperor con-
192 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION thook 6.
His speech against the proposed regency of Marie-Louise.
fided in his counsel, and triumphed under his inspiration: he
was therefore more than ever disposed to listen to it.
VIII.
Pozzo di Borgo knew that he flattered in secret the incli-
nations of his master, the intrigues of M. de Talleyrand, the
vengeance of the court of London, and the resentment of the
aristocracy of Vienna, in speaking against the half measure of
the regency. “As long as the name of Napoleon,” he said,
“weighs from the throne of France upon the imagination of
Europe, Europe will not consider itself either satisfied or
delivered. It will always see in the government of the son, a
minor, the threatening soul of the father. Peace, necessary to
nations, and glorious to kings, will have no foundation in
public confidence. War will always spring up under the feet
of the man who has ravaged, humbled, and subdued the con-
tinent. If he is present, nothing will restrain his genius,
impatient of action and of adventures. The allied armies will
have no sooner returned into their respective countries than
ambition again will inflame the mind of this man; again he
will summon to the field his country, speedily restored from
its dis sters; and once more it will be necessary to repeat over
him those victories so dearly purchased by the treasures and
the blood of the human race. If banished far from France,
his councils will cross the sea, and his lieutenants and his
ministers will seize upon the regency. They will show his
son as a standard of fanaticism, and as an idol to his troops.
France, which now abhors the author of its ruin, will rise to
demand him again from the sovereigns. Will they refuse the
war? Or will they again accept it? To allow the Empire to
survive the Emperor, this is not to extinguish the incendiary
fire of Europe, but to cover it with treacherous ashes, under
which will smoulder a new conflagration. Half measures are
the disavowal of great minds. Europe has performed an
immense work in liberating the continent from its tyrant. Will
it now stultify its labours by a conclusion that will render both
its power and its wisdom doubtful for the future? It is for
1814.] OF MON ATCHY IN FRANCE. | 23
The throne of France interdicted to the race of Napoleon.
-
the sovereigns and the statesmen to decide. For my part, I
coincide with victory—it made Napoleon, and it has un-made
him It was his only title to the Empire, let the Empire
fall with the man who raised it! At this price alone you can
purchase the security of thrones and nations.”
IX.
The sentiments so forcibly expressed by Pozzo di Borgo
were so consonant with the feelings of the Emperor of Russia,
the King of Prussia, Prince Schwartzenburg, and M. de Talley-
rand, that these personages appeared to yield from conviction
to the force of motives which were but too strongly implanted
in their own breasts.
It was therefore unanimously agreed, without further dis-
cussion, that the throne of France should be interdicted to the
race of Napoleon.
The Emperor being set aside, there now remained either a
Bourbon or one of those kings and of those military chiefs that
victory and the favour of Napoleon had elevated to the level of
thrones. The Emperor Alexander seemed inclined to this
course. He had too long and too loudly repudiated the worn-
out cause of the legitimate sovereigns of monarchical France,
not to feel humbled in secret at now returning to it. He had
fraternised too much for the last ten years with the members of
the Napoleon family,–with his generals and his ambassadors;
in a word, he had affected too much to be a man of the new
era, to put himself forward now as the advocate of the old;
he thought he should lose thereby something of the popularity
of being an imprejudiced prince, with which the men of the
imperial epoch had flattered him, and on which he prided
himself as much as on victory. He muttered, it is said, the
name of Bernadotte, the Frenchman, King of Sweden; then
leagued with the enemies of his country. It is thought he had
given to Bernadotte, not promises but vague hopes, when he
Seduced and riveted him to the Coalition. Madame de Staël
and the liberal party, of which she was the oracle, had also en-
joyed the hospitality of the King of Sweden, and in her
124 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION iDook 6.
Talleyrand's speech on the succession to the French throne.
rancour against Napoleon she had frequently agitated at
Stockholm the idea of replacing Bonaparte by a newly-made
prince, rendered popular by a revolutionary spirit, of which he
would be the restoration in a constitutional government.
X.
1M. de Talleyrand was certain, beforehand, of the almost
unanimous success of his scheme. He read this at the bottom
of all that had been spoken, and all that had been omitted,
by those who appeared to be deliberating. “There are,” said
he, with that oracular brevity which precisely states the idea
and obviates objection,--" there are only two principles now at
issue in the world—legitimacy and chance. Legitimacy is
a right recovered, recognised, consecrated by reasoning and
by tradition. Chance is victory, or defeat, fortune, reverse,
despotism, revolution, fact! Europe, if it wishes to escape re-
volution, fact, chance, or subversion, should attach itself to
right; or, in other words, to legitimacy. Decrees will then
no longer be simply material force ; they will be the moral
authority of a dogma Superior to the vicissitudes of events.”
“There are,” he added, addressing himself to the Em-
peror Alexander, as if replying to his insinuation of the name
of Bernadotte,_* there are only two things possible in this
case: either Napoleon, or Louis XVIII. The Emperor can
have no other successor on the throne than a king by right.
Any one elevated to the rank of king by victory, or by genius,
would be beneath him. He is the first of soldiers. After him,
there is not one in France, or in the world, who could make
ten men march in his cause.” He thus developed his thoughts
in few words. Then summing them up in a concise axiom,
calculated to fix itself in the intellect, and to run its course
under a light form in the circulation of floating opinions,—
“Everything, Sire, that is not Napoleon or Louis XVIII. is
an intrigue !”
This was placing the Emperor and the council in an alter-
native which did not allow them to hesitate in their decision.
1814.] OF MON AT (, HY IN FRANCE, 125
*º &
His opinions of the Senate.
Napoleon was the supreme danger. The intrigue was a pallia-
tive unworthy of Europe. Alexander exclaimed, like a man
convinced beforehand, that M. de Talleyrand had read the rid-
dle of the difficulty, and that he was most decidedly of his
opinion. -
“But,” he added, with an appearance of scruple and anx-
iety, which seemed to attest his respect for the French nation,
“we are strangers—we cannot thus appear to dispose of the
throne—we cannot recall, by our own sole authority, princes
whom the people, perhaps, will not receive from our hands.
What means have we of ascertaining the real wishes of the
nation ?”
XI.
M. de Tallevrand pronounced the name of the Senate, the
only great consulcuted body then at Paris. This body had no
popular mission, being nominated by the Emperor; but it was
imposing by the names of its members, and by the part
Napoleon had made it play, with an appearance of deference
which the Senate repaid him in adulation. The Senate could,
therefore, in a crisis like the present, simulate in the eyes of
France and of Europe a shadow of representation. Its voice,
if it ventured to elevate it, might impart to a resolution, not
the authority of right but the signal of revolution. By a
strange phenomenon of supplemess in this debased, and, so to
speak, domestic body of the empire, M. de Talleyrand was
previously certain of its complaisance towards the Emperor
when triumphant, and of its defection from the Emperor when
vanquished. Those things which the imperial Senate repre-
sented the best, were the vices of the nation (broken down
under ten years of despotism), versatility, adoration of success,
and treachery to misfortune. M. de Talleyrand answered for
this constituted body to Alexander. He took the pen to draw
up with his own hand (under the dictation of the sovereigns and
generals present at the conference), the declaration to the
French, which he wished to render irrevocable by a publicity
that would make it impossible for any one to alter their minds
on the subject.
126 HISTORY OF THE RESTOR ATION [Book 6.
* * *-
Declaration of the Allied sovereigns to the French nation.
XII.
y
“The allied armies,” wrote M. de Talleyrand, “have
occupied the capital of France. The sovereigns have heard
the wishes of the French nation, and declare—
“That if the conditions of peace ought to comprise the
strongest guarantees, when the object was to enchain the
ambition of Bonaparte, they ought to be more favourable,
when, by a return towards a wise government, France herself
will offer the assurance of repose. The sovereigns proclaim in
consequence—
“That they will no longer treat with Napoleon Bonaparte—"
These were the identical words which the conference dic-
tated to him who held the pen. He felt that they might leave
a hope and a return to the Empire in the person of the son, or
of some member of the dynasty whom he wished to include in
the same interdiction. He stopped in silence, and looked at
the Emperor of Russia, as if he would have interrogated the
eyes of this prince, and would have supplicated him to finish
with another word a sentence which appeared to him insufficient
and dangerous. Alexander understood the glance, walked
about the saloon in some agitation, looked in his turn, without
speaking, at the King of Prussia and the Austrian general-
issimo; then, as if he had taken upon himself alone the
hazard and the responsibility of this total condemnation of
the modern dynasty,+“Nor with any member of his family,”
said he, indicating with his finger to M. de Talleyrand to finish
thus the suspended phrase. None of the members of the
conference uttered an objection against this decision of Alex-
ander; M. de Talleyrand wrote, and continued :—
“The sovereigns will respect the integrity of ancient
France, such as it existed under its legitimate kings. They
may even do more, because they will always profess the
principle that, for the happiness of Europe, France must
be great and powerful.”
“They will recognise and guarantee the constitution that
the French nation shall adopt.”
1814.] OF MON AIRC IIY IN IFRANCE. 127
Diplomatic abilities of Talleyrand.
“They invite the Senate to designate, as speedily as possible,
a provisional government, who may provide for the necessities
of the administration, and prepare the constitution which will
suit the French people.”
XIII
M. de Talleyrand, wishing to forestal, by a revolution
accomplished, the arrival of the Emperor of Austria at Paris,
and the intrigues, the supplications, and the paternal remorse
which the partisans of the Empire might excite in the heart
of this prince, gave orders instantly for the printing, posting,
and distributing of this declaration.
In every word it contains, there may be recognised the
hand of a man consummate in the knowledge and in the
practice of public opinion. The Issentment against Napoleon,
universal then in the minds of the people, weary and trampled
on, was satisfied by his forfeiture of the Empire. The national
repugnance to the influence of Austria, during a long minority,
received therein a guarantee in the exclusion of the regency.
Patriotism was reassured in it by the integrity of the kingdom.
National ambition was even flattered by the possibility in per-
spective of an aggrandizement of territory. The royalists
saw in it the certain restoration of the only race which could
replace glory by that legitimacy, the name of which was now
first pronounced to the people. Reviving liberalism was therein
called forth, and excited at the summons of liberty, by the
promise of a constitution freely discussed. The new-born
interests and the Napoleonian ambitions were therein pacified
by the appeal made to the Senate, who would certainly betray
no one but the Emperor, and who would shield with amnesty
and inviolability the lives, the fortunes, and the dignities of
the army, and of the court of Napoleon. Finally, the people
of the capital and of the provinces, who were trembling for
their country, for their homes, and for the security of person
and property, were therein admirably invited to the peace, by
the magnanimity of the conquerors, who swore to respect all
men,-one alone excepted.
128 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Booſt 6
Enthusiasm of the Royalists.
XIV.
Accordingly, this declaration, so cleverly moulded, with
pledges and hopes to all, was received by an immense majority
of the people with acclamations. The army alone was sorrow-
ful; but it felt itself alone. It lamented, but without giving
Way to irritation. The chiefs, satiated and worn out, restrained
instead of exciting the emotions of the soldiers.
XV.
Scarcely had the rumours and the first copies of this decla-
ration passed beyond the walls of Monsieur de Talleyrand's
hotel, amongst the groups of royalists who waited on the stair-
cases, in the courts, and on the square, when cries of “Vive le
Roi!” arose towards heaven, and resounded through the win-
dows of the apartment where the sovereigns were still sitting.
Some hundreds of young gentlemen, of the noblest houses of
the faubourg Saint Germain, felt themselves impelled to seize
on the hour given by Providence to the ancient aristocracy and
to the secular monarchy. Ancient servants of Louis XVI.
escaped from the scaffold and from emigration—journalists
oppressed and despoiled by the despotism of Napoleon's police,
such as the Bertins, &c.—publicists and writers who had
not deserted the lost cause, such as Messrs. de Chateaubriand
and Ferrand—and, finally, those young patricians, so elegant,
so intrepid, and so emergetic, that were attracted by the whirl-
wind of the moment—assembled in the first house that would
open to their impatience to deliberate on the impulsion to be
given to the great event. The object was to forestal the
resolutions or indecision of a Senate suspected, odious, and sold
either to the remnants of the Empire, or to the interests and
the recollections of the revolution. But these young men were
so full of feeling, and so void of ideas, the fever of enthusiasm
imparted such delirium to their words, and they were so little
accustomed to deliberating and speech-making, that the sitting
was nothing but a long tumult, and none of them succeeded
in expressing and causing to be adopted a single resolution.
1814.] OF MONAY&CIHY IN FRANCE, I 29
Conference of the Royalists with Count Nesselrode.
One young man alone, of the noble house of La Rochefou-
cault, obtained a hearing by the authority of his name, by the
ardour of his enthusiasm, and by his commanding attitude.
The fervour of his royalism enlightened him on the greatest
danger of revolutions, that of discussing without a decided
object. “One hour,” he said, “might sink the legitimate
monarchy under their feet, while they exhausted themselves in
vain acclamations for their kings.” Count Sosthène de la
Rochefoucault proposed, therefore, to appoint a deputation to
repair on the instant to the Emperor of Russia, to ascertain
officially the declaration of the Sovereigns, and to state the
wishes of the nobility, and the intelligence and fidelity of
France in favour of legitimate royalty. The motion was car-
ried: Sosthène dela Rochefoucault, Monsieur de Chateaubriand,
at once the most popular and most illustrious writer of the age,
Monsieur Caesar de Choiseul, and Monsieur Ferrand, an old and
mediocre orator, but just then surrounded by a halo of import-
ance, and the fame of an oracle, repaired, in the name of the
royalists, to the palace of Monsieur de Talleyrand.
XVI.
On being introduced, they demanded to see the Emperor
Alexander; but that prince had already retired to rest. His
minister, Monsieur de Nesselrode, received the deputation
instead of his master. The heart of Monsieur de Nesselrode
was already favourable to the prayer about to be addressed to
the Emperor; but not one of the four deputies, whether from
emotion or timidity under so great an event, or inaptitude of
speech, could give expression to the resolution with which they
were charged to the allied powers. M. de Choiseul was a
soldier, M. Ferrand, dull in intellect, dogmatic and tardy, stam-
mered; M. de Chateaubriand, a genius solemn and well studied,
was fearful that he could not find, without having written and
meditated them, words appropriate to the majesty of the occa-
sion : he could not think of using any but the most illustrious
language; Sosthène de la Rochefoucault, therefore, though the
I
I 30 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 6.
Joy of the Royalists at Alexander's reply.
youngest, with the eloquence only of zeal and impatience,
spoke for all. M. de Nesselrode only required a pretext to
urge the allied powers still further.
XVII.
“I have just left the Emperor,” replied the minister to
the deputies. “I know his wishes. Return to those who have
sent you, and say to them, ‘Tell all the French people that
the Emperor accepts the expression of their wishes, so strongly
manifested this day before his eyes, and that he will confer
the crown on him to whom it belongs. Louis XVIII. will
re-ascend the throne of France.”
The hearts of the four delegates broke out in transports of
joy and gratitude at these words. Their eyes overflowed with
tears; they held in their hands the regrets, the hopes, the
illusions, the enthusiasm, of their age or their youth. They
flew to report these words, these acclamations, these tears,
this enthusiasm, to their assembly, at the house of M. de
Morfontaine. The cries, the plaudits, the embracings, the
tumults of the meeting shook the house. It was the long re-
pressed explosion of a century, thinking itself liberated from
the tomb, and about to resume possession of the world. The
only means of allaying this fever of excitement was by extin-
guishing the lights, and consigning the assembly, intoxicated
with triumph, to the darkness which obliged them to disperse.
XVIII.
During the night, these royalists arranged amongst them-
selves their different parts. Thousands of white flags and white
cockades were manufactured by the fair hands of the ladies of
the nobility, to be thrown amongst the people. The prefec.
ture of police was evacuated by the agents of the Emperor,
and occupied by a trustworthy royalist. The journals, released
from the censorship, given up to their ancient proprietors, or
created on the spur of the moment by writers for the emer-
gency, changed hands, and dressed up, för-their opening
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 131
M. de Chateaubriand.
numbers, opinions proscribed in France but the evening before.
Insult and outrage burst forth—the retarded vengeance of a
long and insupportable oppression—on Napoleon, on his name,
on his glory, on his crimes, on his race! It was the outburst-
ing of the irritated soul of a great party, rolling, after the
dike is broken, with the billows of legitimate anger—the
froth, the dregs, and the impurities of the human heart.
XIX.
M. de Chateaubriand, the first writer of the day, did not
preserve either his conscience or his genius from the outpour-
ing of insults and calumnies, thrown upon a great but a fallen
name. He foresaw for some months the hour of the downfall;
and he fostered in his heart a just resentment against the des.
potism of Napoleon, who pressed but the more heavily on
intelligence, the more that intelligence was exalted. Madame
de Staël, and all great and liberal Souls, experienced the same
depression, Napoleon had declared himself the native enemy
of all power of thought, and of all independence. Thought
and independence repaid him with hatred for the contempt
and oppression he had declared against them. His fall would
allow all hearts to respire again, and it was but natural that
they should wish for it with a generous passion. Every
modern Tacitus whetted in silence the stilus which was one
day to describe the reign of the soldier who put a gag upon
history, as if he had foreseen the future vengeance of the
human mind.
But this vengeance should not degrade itself into calumny.
M. de Chateaubriand calumniated even tyranny. He had
written a severe pamphlet against the Emperor, and in favour
of the restoration of the Bourbons, in which he dragged his
name through the blood and through the mire of the charnel-
houses of the time. He himself performed in it the office of
hangman to the reign of the Emperor. He chiseled in it, as
it were, stones for the people with which to stone their idol.
Ełe had formerly praised him, even by sacred comparisons with
the heroes of the Bible. IIe had also served him in the
I 2
132 H 1STORY OF THE RESTURATION | BOOK 6.
His vituperations against Napoleon.
subordinate ranks of diplomacy. After the assassination of
the Duke d'Enghien the enthusiasm of the writer, which had
changed into contempt, had placed him in a secret but cautious
opposition. He called himself proscribed and persecuted: yet
he was never proscribed, except by imperial favours, nor per-
secuted, except by the affected contempt of his master. His
friend M. de Fontanes, a favourite of Napoleon, was always a
ready mediator between the two illustrious persons that he
loved. The proscription of M. de Chateaubriand was nothing
in reality but a noble attitude. He enjoyed in peace his
country, his studies, his fame, and the worship which his book
on the Genius of Christianity had gained for him from the
pious and devout,
XX.
However this may have been, he bore about him, for
several months, his unedited pamphlet, as the sword which was
to give the last blow to the tyrant. This pamphlet, printed
in the might, and delivered in fragments to the journals, inun-
dated Paris in the morning, and very shortly all France, with
maledictions against the Emperor and the Empire. Napoleon
was therein painted in the traits of the modern. Attila, and
with the features still more hideous of a hangman, effecting
with his own hands the executions in which he delighted.
He was represented at Fontainebleau, torturing the conscience
of Pius VII., and dragging the Pontiff by his white locks on
the flags of his prison, a martyr at once to his complaisance
for, and resistance of the crowned upstart. M. de Chateau-
briand re-opened all the dungeons, to indicate therein to the
people, with his finger, the tortures, the gags, the pretended
silent assassinations of victims. He raked up all the ashes,
from that of Pichegru down to the plague hospital at Jaffa, to
drag, from out of the long-buried mass, accusations, suspicions,
and crimes. It was the bitter speech of the public prosecutor
of humanity and of liberty, written by the hand of the Furies,
against the great culprit of the age. He did not spare his
enemy even those vile accusations of sordid avarice and of
peculation whi' pc)\ctrate the deemest and tarnish the most.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 133
Chateaubriand's services to the cause of the Bourbons.
in the vulgar and venal souls of the multitude. Robbery,
cowardice, cruelty, sword, poison, — everything served as a
weapon to stab that fame he wished to extinguish. This book,
issued leaf by leaf to the public, during several days, was the
more terrible, inasmuch as it succeeded the long silence of a
mute opposition. The truth of these calumnies was believed,
because they succeeded to ten years' falsehood of the official
press. It was the first cry of the century gagged by the police;
and it was listened to as a revelation from the tomb. M. de
Chateaubriand, in putting forth this character of Napoleon, as
food for the wickedness of the people, and a homage to the
royalist party, was guilty of an action which no political passion
can excuse,_the annihilation of a reign by poisoned weapons.
But this wicked action, praised at the time because the time
required it, was repudiated at a later period by the conscience
of the age, though it contributed powerfully then to render the
Impire unpopular. When M. de Chateaubriand presented
himself to Louis XVIII., to receive his reward for it, in the
shape of favours from the new monarchy, this prince said to
him, “Your book has been worth an army to my cause.”
But, by a just reaction some months afterwards, the indigna-
tion of the Bonapartists, and the opposition of impartial men,
against the calumnies and the outrages of this book, served
powerfully to render the name of Napoleon popular, and to
draw this same people to his side. Justice alone renders fame
immortal.
XXI.
The name of the Bourbons, however, though unknown to
or forgotten by the population, spread in the pages of M. de
Chateaubriand, and of the liberated journals, throughout all the
Empire. Astonishment was the first impression. Then peo-
ple began to think they remembered; finally, they passed in a
few hours from astonishment and forgetfulness to a species of
Bourbonian faith. They rallied, without contesting anything,
at the name, which seemed to be a revelation of safety amidst
the general eclipse of all things. . There was some incredulity,
but few or no murmurs. Providence seemed to manifest itself
134 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 6.
Family of the Bourbons.
with victory for this name. M. de Chateaubriand was the
oracle of this feeling. He described in attractive language the
imaginary persons, the misfortunes, the virtues, the goodness,
the graces of the exiled members of this family, whose existence
even was scarcely known a few days before. Louis XVIII.
was a sage of the school and of the poem of Fenelon, bringing
from foreign climates policy, experience, peace, amnesty for the
past. Charles X., then Count of Artois, was the heroic cheva-
lier of the middle ages, decorated even with those generous
weaknesses of the heart which the French prefer almost to
virtues. The Duchess d’Angoulême, the orphan of the Tem-
ple, was the propitiatory victim of the Revolution, the tender
and religious pledge of pardon. The Duke d'Angoulême, a
second Duke of Burgundy, had prepared in exile for the throne
by his docility to the lessons of his uncle and of his father,
brothers of Louis XVI., anointed, as it were, by his blood.
The Duke de Berry, a young Henry IV., had his pardonable
levities, but they were as pledges of the bravery, and of the
goodness of the Béarnais king. There were the Condés, two
generations of heroes, of whom the cruelty of the tyrant had
cut down the flower, and embittered the life. The Duke
d'Orleans was a popular prince, who had caused to be forgotten
the revolutionary crimes of his name, by the repentance of
innocence, and pursued, in a foreign land, the life of an artisan,
to elevate himself, by his merit alone, to a level with the heirs
of the crown.
France was wonderstruck, delighted, and affected by these
pictures. Every journal, every pamphlet, every conversation
coloured them with tints appropriate to the opinions of the
different classes of the nation,-warm for the South, heroic for
La Vendée, patriotic for the East, liberal and reflective for the
North and for Paris. A vague and immense poetry of opinion
thus preceded the return of this family, in which each began
to see personified one of his dreams of government or of the
heart.
Such was the real state of the public mind in France on
the lst of April, and the days that followed the occupation of
Paris. Amidst the magic spell of hope the actual misery was
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 135
*
Obsequiousness of the Senate.
scarcely seen. No family existing on the soil could create
this unanimity of illusion and of adhesion. Long exile pro
duced the effect of distance : it imparted additional grandeur
and solemnity to the figures.
XXII.
The Senate alone began to be alarmed at an enthu-
siasm that carried public feeling beyond the bounds which it
was their interest to prescribe. They had too often suc-
cumbed to Napoleon not to be ready to submit to Europe
and to united opinion. It was not for Napoleon that they
wished to dispute with Europe, but for themselves. Men
saturated with power, with dignities, with honours, with
aristocracy, with salaries, the senators of the Empire, hoped
still further to maintain their ascendancy, their authority, and
their fortunes by their defection. This made the Emperor a
subject of bargain. Talleyrand adroitly cast on them a ray of
hope, that they would preserve their titles as the price of
recalling the Bourbons: this name he insimuated without pro-
nouncing. “Seize the hour,” said he, in guarded language,
through his confidants to the Senate. “Do not bargain with
necessity. To-day you may dispose of your adhesion to the
secret wishes of the great powers; to-morrow public opinion,
which is rapidly rising, will sweep you away. You will be
confounded in the general shipwreck, from which you can
save, if not the Emperor, at least your dignities and your
riches.” The Senate in a mass were disposed to listem to the
counsels of destiny and of M. de Talleyrand. Nothing pre-
pares the mind better for treason than the basemess of adula-
tion. When we have no longer a refuge in our conscience we
willingly seek it in prostration,
XXIII.
The emissaries of M. de Talleyrand had employed the
right in dissipating the last scruples of the senators. It had
| 85 IIISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 6.
Its constituent elements.
not been difficult to make such a class of men (generally
enervated, and moulded to circumstances), understand that the
interest of the country and that of their body were equally
concerned in a prompt repudiation of the vanquished. There
were only about 100 senators in Paris at the time; they were
old, broken, and so exhausted by the revolutions, and by the
responsibilities of tyranny and of baseness, submitted to
by them in the decrees of conscription, of imposts, and of
silent endurance which Napoleon had made them countersign
during the last ten years. Some of them were parvenu princes
of the Emperor's family; others of his household. A great
number were men of no mark or consideration, chosen for their
insignificance of mind, and effeminacy of character, that the
absence of all personal value should leave them only the bor-
rowed worth of their dignities. A very small number had
been artfully infused, of liberal and even of revolutionary
opinions, in order that an appearance of opposition in the body
should give the nation an idea of contradiction and of inde-
endence, which in reality did not exist. Amongst this small
uumber of senators, destined to authenticate the liberty and
impartiality of the Senate, there were some few partisans of
the house of Bourbon, and some obstimate sectarians of re-
publican institutions. Amongst the former were Malleville,
Barthelemy, Pastoret, Barbé-Marbois, and Jaucourt; amongst
the second were Tracy, Volney, Gregoire, and their friends of
1789 and of 1701. In relying on these two groups, equally
hostile to the Empire, M. de Talleyrand, aided by the force of
events which disconcerted all resistance, was almost sure of
commanding the Senate. He had past servitude as a pledge
for the future. He accordingly convoked an extraordinary
sitting of the Senate for the 1st of April. Several members of
this body, fearing to compromise themselves with the past, or
to engage themselves in the future, evaded the meeting by a
hasty retreat, or some colourable pretence. Sixty-four only
assembled. These men were the most courageous, the least
attached to the Empire, the most determined on bending, or
the most in a hurry for a change of masters. The shame of
deſection no longer stood in their way.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 137
Talleyrand's address to the Senate.
XXIV.
“Senators,” said M. de Talleyrand to them, wishing to
cover an imperious resolution with an appearance of discussion,
“the object of calling you together is to lay a proposition
before you. This word alone,” he added, fixing his eyes on
the paper in which he had made a memorandum of his speech,
“this word alone sufficiently indicates the liberty which all in
this assembly enjoy of freely expressing their opinions. That
liberty gives you the means of allowing a generous scope to
the sentiments with which your souls are imbued—the wish
to save your country,<-and the resolution to fly to the assist-
ance of a destitute and forsaken people. The circumstances,
however grave they may be, cannot be beyond the firm and
enlightened patriotism of all the members of this assembly,
and you have assuredly all equally felt the necessity of a de-
liberation which shall obviate the least possible delay; for the
day should not be allowed to pass without restoring the action
of administration—this first of all wants—by the formation of
a government whose authority, established to meet the neces-
sity of the moment, cannot be otherwise than re-assuring.”
XXV.
These words, drawn up by the Abbé de Pradt, did not
disguise the abject act that was so imperatively called for,
under the pomp and dignity of language. It was the stam-
mering of impudence offering the vilest pretext for cowardice.
The words were as low as the sentiments; and they were re-
ceived, as they had been written and pronounced, with shame
upon the features, and the haste of fickleness in the heart.
No one answered; but all bowed their heads in token of
universal assent. Some hands applauded with a faint sem-
blance of enthusiasm for the energy of cowardice converted
into civic courage. M. de Talleyrand understood, by this
silence, that Fortune was the only goddess they worshipped,
and that he could dispose of them as he wished, to sell the
138 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 6.
Talleyrand nominates a Provisional Government.
Empire to its enemies. He nominated, even without con-
sulting his colleagues, the members of a provisional govern-
ment, maturely selected by himself alone, during the last
night; and this choice was ratified by a Senatus consultum,
voted without discussion on the motion of M. de Talleyrand.
He then flattered the liberals of the Senate, by reminding
them that the allies had pronounced the word Constitution, and
that it would be necessary to promulgate one. The Senate being
pressed for time, limited themselves to decreeing the basis;
the first article being for the maintenance of their own body.
Mention was also made of a legislative body and of freedom
of opinion; but they had been so long accustomed to silence,
that they never even mentioned liberty of speech. They
guaranteed to the army, which they wished to detach from its
chief, the maintenance of rank and pay,+to the holders of
emigrants' property inviolability of possession,-the spoils of
the Revolution, which constituted the wealth of many of the
senators;–amnesty for political opinions;—freedom of worship
and of written speech, subject, however, to the laws repressive
of these two items of liberty.
XXVI.
The members of the provisional government had been
selected with profound sagacity by M. de Talleyrand. The
names constituted So just an equilibrium as to give hopes to
all parties of public opinion, whom it was necessary first to
detach from Napoleon to precipitate afterwards into the arms
of the Bourbons. He presided himself, at first, over this
government, in virtue of his title of Grand Dignitary of the
Empire, of mediator accepted by Alexander between the allies
and the nation, and as representative of the interests of the
Senate. This triple attitude constituted him, as it were, a per-
sonification of political indecision. All parties might hope
everything from such a man. After M. de Talleyrand came
the Duke d'Alberg, illustrious by name, of German origin,
though a Frenchman in his dignities, equally apt to connect
himself again with aristocracy by his birth, or to serve a revo.
18 4.] OF MON AIR CHY IN 17 RANCE, 139
Duke d'Alberg.—M. de Jaucourt.
lutionary government by his opinions. He was one of those
cosmopolites in character and ideas which nature has formed
to surmount all emergencies. The Duke d'Alberg, a great
lord, enlightened, graceful, insinuating, useful in the negocia-
tions of M. de Talleyrand, had, however, no personal ascen-
dancy beyond his name in France. He could make himself
useful to all parties; but the allies suited him best, for he had
to purchase his titles from them in Germany by the services
he might render in France.
XXVII.
The next was M. de Jaucourt, a member of the ancient
aristocracy of France, but revolutionized, who since 1790 had
belonged to the moderate revolutionary school of M. de Talley-
rand and M. de Lafayette. But, as intrepid in conscience and
in heart for good order as he was resolute for reform, M. de
Jaucourt, in 1791 and in 1792, had displayed, in the camp, in
the struggles of Paris, and in the assemblies, the courage of a
hero in the breast of a sage. He had struggled with voice
and hand against the most popular representatives, and against
the all-powerful demagogues of the clubs. Imprisoned for his
boldness after the 10th of August, he had been preserved
by Dantom from the premeditated massacres of September.
Madame de Stael, who admired his courage, who shared in his
opinions, and who enjoyed the graces of his intellect, had
enabled him to escape, and had prepared an asylum for him in
Switzerland. Having returned to France, after a long exile,
he found his friend, M. de Talleyrand, minister of the Consul
Bonaparte. His resentment against the Reign of Terror
threw him upon the new regime as an asylum against the
Jacobins; and he found in it safety, dignity, and fortune.
His devotion was rewarded with the senatorship of Florence.
But discontentment and the unsatiated ambition of M. de
Talleyrand had drawn him into the general disaffection to the
I'mpire. He was one of the first in the Senate whom the
excessive tyranny, or the dreadful reverses of Napoleon, had dis
gusted; and he returncil with victory to the gods of his youth,
l 10 HISTORY OF THE RESTOR TION [BOOR 6.
(i.eneral Beurmonville.
legitimacy and constitutional liberty. Such a man, riveted to
M. de Talleyrand by fifteen years' intimacy, and finding in the
past an excuse for his ardent defection, admirably suited the
able hand of his friend. He was calculated to attract both
the nobility and the moderate party of the Revolution. Friend-
ship united him with M. de Talleyrand, birth with the aris
tocracy, his sympathies with the constitution, and favours
received with the Empire. He was thus connected by all
these motives with every party in the State.
XXVIII.
General Beurnonville came next;—a man of mixed feelings
like Jaucourt; of noble birth, flexible but honest opinions,
and of distinguished valour in the armies of the Republic. Du-
mouriez, whose second in command he had been, had surnamed
him the French Ajaw. Being minister of war in 1793, Beur-
monville had struggled with intrepidity against the dominant
Jacobins. He was sent to Belgium at the period of Dumouriez’
treason, to counteract it, and retain his old general within the
limits of his duty; but Dumouriez had him arrested and de-
livered to the Austrians. After four years' imprisonment in
the dungeons of Olmutz, he was exchanged, after the fall of
Robespierre, with the daughter of Louis XVI., then a captive
in the Temple. Napoleon received with favour this wreck of
our revolutionary wars, and appointed him a member of the
Senate. Beurmonville, nevertheless, found himself neglected,
and felt that he was superseded by the Emperor's companions
of Egypt and Italy; but his own recollections hinted to him
that he was himself a greater man than these new camp
favourites. His heart also recalled to him the sovereigns of
his youth, for whom he had fought on the 10th of August.
The ruin of Napoleon would bring once more his name and his
services on the stage; therefore he could not be expected to
devote himself for a government which he had found ungrate-
ful and unjust. M. de Talleyrand presented him as a pledge
to the old army, as a hero disowned by the republican wars,
whom the constitutional monarchy could honour without fear.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 14 l
Abbé de Montesquiou.
The name of Beurnonville had three aspects which consolidated
in his mind the three opinions; but his heart was for the
Restoration.
XXIX.
The provisional government received its ultimate significa-
tion from the last name with which M. de Talleyrand liad com-
pleted the list. This was the name of the Abbé de Montes.
quiou, a member of one of the families which constitute the
original stock of aristocratical and monarchical France. This
name in history precedes even that of the two last races of our
kings. The people, even the democracy, love those names
which form the habitudes and titles of their annals; they seem
to ennoble even the popular revolutions. At an early age the
Abbé de Montesquiou had been elevated by his birth to the
highest functions of the clergy. An able negociator, insinuating
and cool, between the interests of his order, which he endea-
voured to save, and the exigencies of the Revolution, which he
tried to moderate without shocking, he had acquired a double
influence in the Constituent Assembly. An arbiter often
chosen, always respected, between philosophy impatient to
strike at the church, and the church contesting the wrecks of
its temporal establishment; since the accomplishment of the
Revolution, he held relations, by no means Secret, with Louis
XVIII., whose principal correspondent he was at Paris.
Napoleon knew this, and suffered it; for he preferred between
Louis XVIII. and Paris, a correspondence almost avowed, to
hidden and desperate conspiracies. M. de Montesquiou was,
so to speak, the chief of a pacific conspiracy tolerated by him
against whom it was directed. A man of decorum in every.
thing, of gentleness, of compromise, the Abbé de Montesquiou
was eminently calculated to re-assure, against the vengeance of
a Restoration, those parties too deeply compromised in the
Revolution and in the Empire: his name, moreover, afforded
an indubitable pledge to the royalists. On seeing him in-
scribed in the list of the provisional government, the friends
of the Bourbons could no longer doubt that Louis XVIII. was
the culminating point of its ministry and mission.
142 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 6.
The Municipal Council of Paris.—M. Bellart.
XXX.
These were the preludes of the revolution which was pre
paring at the residence of M. de Talleyrand and in the Senate.
There only wanted the official voice of the people of Paris, and
that broke forth in the course of the day. The Municipal
Council, that shadow of the ancient commune, carefully purified,
and severely mutilated in its powers by the Emperor, never-
theless still comprised those elements of municipal represem-
tation which personified the cities. What was formerly called
the Third Estate, and now the citizens, constituted the most
dominant portion of the Municipal Council. Trade and com-
erce, arts, industry, the bar and the magistracy, were, and
still are, naturally placed in this local and departmental repre-
sentation, by the electors of these different professions;
electors the most numerous of all in towns, because these
professions are there most general. The aristocracy of the
different quarters and professions sat, and always will sit, in
the municipality. Opinions, like the conditions of the parties,
are there moderate; intelligence quick and perspicuous, but
of a local character, and circumscribed by private interests,
like the instinct of the domestic hearth and the popular work-
shop. These bodies very seldom take the initiative in political
questions; but the signal of common peril is prompt to issue
from them. It is there that the murmur of public resentment
originates and swells against persecutions which menace the
security of private life. Heroism is mute within their walls,
but social selfishness is impassioned and eloquent.
M. Bellart, until this period an enthusiast, and frequently
a flatterer of the genius of Napoleon (so greatly had that
genius overshadowed and given a lustre to France), was
imbued all at once with the public impression of terror and
deception which had seized upon Paris, since the Emperor
had made of France and the capital a field of battle, and the
prey of foreigners. His victories had appeared to M. Bellart
as so many virtues, and his reverses as so many crimes. He
qecame enraged against the man who could not conquer
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 143
Declaration of the Municipal Council against Napoleon.
destiny, and proposed to the Municipal Council to strike the
first blow ever struck by a constituted body against the
Emperor and the Empire. The prefect of Paris, M. de
Chatrol, did not venture to approve or resist the motion.
Incapable of betraying, but weary perhaps of serving, he retired
and resigned his functions. The Council, thus abandoned to
itself, voted and circulated the following declaration,-an
explosion of justice for some—of vengeance for others—of
desertion for all.
“INHABITANTs of PARIs'
“Your magistrates would be traitors towards you and our
country, if, by vile personal considerations, they any longer re-
pressed the voice of their conscience. It cries out to them that
you owe all the evils that overwhelm you to one man alone.
“It is he who, every year, by the conscription, has deci
mated our families. Who amongst us has not lost a son, a
brother, relations or friends? For whom have all these brave
men died? For him alone, and not for the country. For
what cause? They have been immolated, solely immolated o
the insanity of leaving after him the memory of the most
frightful oppressor that has ever harassed the human race.
“It is he who, instead of four hundred millions that
France paid under our good kings for liberty, tranquil and
happy, has overwhelmed us with more than fifteen hundred
millions of taxes, to which he has threatened to add more.
“It is he who has shut us out from the seas of both worlds,
who has dried up the sources of national industry, torn the
husbandman from our fields, and the workman from our
manufactories.
“To him we owe the hatred of all nations without having
merited it, since, like them, we were the unfortunate victims,
rather than the criminal instruments of his rage.
“Is it not he also who, violating what men hold most
sacred, has kept in captivity the venerable chief of religion,
and deprived of his dominions, by a detestable perfidy, a king,
his ally, thus giving up to destruction the Spanish nation—our
old and ever faithful friend?
144 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 6.
Declaration of the Municipal Council against Napoleon.
“Is it not he, again, who, an enemy to his own subjects,
so long deceived by him, after having just refused an honour-
able peace, in which our unfortunate country might, at least,
have had time to respire, has finished, by giving the parricidal
order to expose fruitlessly the National Guard for the impracti-
cable defence of the capital, upon which he has thus invoked all
the vengeance of the enemy?
“Is it not, finally, he, who dreading truth above all things,
has outrageously dismissed our legislators, in the face of Europe,
because they once ventured to tell it to him with delicacy and
dignity?
“What matters it that he has sacrificed only a small num-
ber of persons to his hatred, or, more properly, to his private
revenge, if he has sacrificed France—why do we say France—
all Europe, to his immeasurable ambition ?
“Ambition or vengeance—the cause is nothing. Whatever
may be this cause, look at the effect. Look at the vast conti-
ment of Europe, covered everywhere with the mingled bones of
the French, and of people who had nothing to demand from
one another, who bore no hatred to each other, between whom
distance prevented quarrels, and whom he has plunged into
war merely to fill the earth with the terror of his name !
“Why are we told of his past victories? What good have
these fatal victories done us? The hatred of nations, the tears
of our families, the forced celibacy of our daughters, the ruin
of all fortunes, the premature widowhood of our women, the
despair of fathers and mothers, to whom, of a numerous pos-
terity, there no longer remains a filial hand to close their eyes.
Behold the fruits of his boasted victories It is they that have
now brought, even to our walls, hitherto undefiled under the
paternal administration of our kings, those strangers, whose
generous protection demands our gratitude, when it would have
been sweeter to us to offer them a disinterested alliance.
“There is not one amongst them who, in his secret heart,
does not detest him as a public enemy—not one who, in his
most confidential intercourse, has not formed the wish to see a
termination of so many cruelties.
“If we delayed any longer in giving expression to this wish
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 145
Their declaration in favour of the Bourbons.
of our hearts and of yours, we should be deserters from the
public cause,
“Europe in arms demands it of us; it implores it as
a benefit to humanity, as the guarantee of a peace durable and
universal. *
“Parisians! Europe in arms would not obtain it from your
magistrates if it was not in conformity with their duty.
“But it is in the name of these duties, and of the most
sacred of all, that we abjure all obedience to the usurper, to
return to our legitimate masters.
“If there be danger in following this movement of the
heart and the conscience, we accept it. History and the grati.
tude of the French people will preserve ournames, and bequeath
them to the esteem of posterity.
“In consequence, the Council-general of the department
of the Seine, the Municipal Council of Paris, spontaneously
assembled, declares unanimously, by all the members present –
“That it formally renounces all obedience to Napoleon
Bonaparte ;-expresses the most ardent wish that the monar-
chical government should be re-established, in the person of
Louis XVIII., and of his legitimate successors;–and decrees
that the present declaration, and the proclamation which
explains it, shall be printed, distributed, and posted in Paris,
notified to all the authorities remaining in Paris and in the
provinces, and transmitted to all the councils-general of
departments.”
B00 K SEWENTH.
Sitting of the Senate the 2nd of April–Declaration of forfeiture—Sitting
of the Senate the 3rd of April—Text of the Decree of Forfeiture—
Adhesion of the Legislative Body—Manifestation of Paris against the
Emperor—The Ministry— Progress of opinion—Adhesion of the other
Constituted Bodies—Manifesto of the Provisional Government—
Situation of the Emperor and of the Allies—Napoleon at Fontaine-
ł'eau—Return of Caulaincourt to Fontainebleau in the night of the
2nd of April–Proclamation of Napoleon to his Guard, the 3d of
April–Order of the day for the march of the army on Paris—
Opposition of the Marshals—Interview of Napoleon and Marmont—
Adhesion of Marmont to the forfeiture of the Emperor—Letter of
Marmont to Prince Schwartzenburg—The Prince's answer.
I.
THIS imprecation of the municipal body of Paris against him
who was already called the public enemy, gave a decided im-
petus to public opinion, still mute in Paris and the departments.
When Paris spoke so loudly who could be silent? Its voice
was echoed throughout all France. Indignation and insult rose
now as high as servility and adulation had done before. Rome,
in the time of the sudden elevations and falls of its emperors,
did not offer a worse example, or more Scandalous outrages after
the prostration. Minds that had most rebelled against the
Napoleon tyranny—nay, the most generous, because they had
been the most firm—rejoiced at this vengeance of liberty, but
blushed at this shameless apostacy of a people.
M. de Talleyrand wished for this explosion, but he wished
for it slower and later. He complained to his confidants of an
outbreak which might enable the allied powers to do without
him and the Senate. He stipulated with Louis XVIII, and
with Alexander in the name of public opinion; but public
opinion, in speaking so loudly, had outstript him. It re-
vealed to the allies and to the Bourbons a general spirit of
1814.] RESTORATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. I47
Meeting of the Senate.—M Lambrechts.--M. Barthelemy.
disaffection against the Empire, and of natural attraction towards
a restoration, which took away all price from his services, and
all merit from his negociations. It made him secondary to the
royalists, whom he wished to serve, but over whom he wished
to dominate in serving them. He was therefore compelled to
hurry the Senate in declaring the forfeiture of the Emperor, an
act which he had hoped to keep suspended and undecided, as
a menace and as a hope, marketable in his hands with both
parties.
II.
The Senate flew to the palace, where they held their sittings,
to obey his orders.
The old republicans, for want of royalists, whom Napoleon
had most carefully excluded from the Senate, hastened to seize
again, if only for an hour, a shadow of national sovereignty, to
strike down tyranny at their feet—a just expiation of the 18th
Brumaire, avenged, at least, in a representative assembly; but an
assembly whose gates were protected by foreigners. The dis-
cussion was opened by M. Lambrechts, a Belgian republican,
who had received the French in Belgium as the army of
philosophy and of liberty. He was minister under the Directory,
and had combated with energy the weakness of that govern-
ment which had allowed itself to slide down the declivity of
monarchical reaction. He had voted against the Empire, without
concealment. Nevertheless, esteem for Belgium, which Na-
poleon wished to flatter, had elevated him to the Senate. He
was fated to die as he had lived, arraigning with his last sigh
the cause of his death, “the shame of having seem so many acts
of cowardice.”
Lambrechts was the political friend of Lanjuínais, the
purest and most obstinate republican in the Senate; of Tracy, of
Gregoire, of Garat, a name misplaced in a monarchical Senate,
after having presided at the execution of a king.—Barthelemy,
nephew of a philosophical writer, who had closed the eighteenth
century by the Voyage of Anacharsis into republican anti-
quity, presided at the sitting. Barthelemy, an inoffensive man
of attractive manners and irreproachable career, was the only
J 2
148 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 7.
Declaration of the Senate, deposing Napoleon Bonaparte.
monarchical negociator whose talents had been employed by
the Republic. His missions into Switzerland, or at the con-
ferences for the peace of Bâle, had made him intimate with
many members of the emigration. The esteem of all parties
had raised him to the Directory, and the choice of Napoleon to
the Senate. He was one of those men who are loved and
honoured by all parties, when they have the discretion to recog-
nize authority. On the present occasion he imparted to the
Senate the appearance, at least, of impartiality and patriotism,
«»
III.
Lambrechts proposed to the Senate a Senatus consultum, in
the following terms:— -
“The Senate declares Napoleon Bonaparte and his family
to have forfeited the throne. It absolves the people and the
army from their oath of fidelity.”
This was voted without a single protest; those members of
the Senate, who were most devoted to Napoleon, having pro-
tested only by their absence. The others retired, silent and
humbled, after giving in their votes: they had purchased their
dignities by an act of cowardice. Had they been convinced of
the necessity of deposing him who created them, they owed
it to themselves to have done so in the full enjoyment of liberty.
They voted the forfeiture of one master, at the signal and under
the Sword of others. The Republic had witnessed days more
ill-omened, but never one so ignominious,
IV
But the form in which this abject Senate had voted its
own degradation in that of the Emperor, surpassed the
slavishness of the act itself. The Senate drew up, with its own
hand, the motives which had decided it in repudiating the
Empire; and Lambrechts was charged with embodying them
in an act of accusation, every word of which reproached the
Senators with their patient servility.
Under the hand of Lambrechts, and the other republicans
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 149
Their condemnatory charges against him.
of the Senate, these texts of accusation were legitimate; it was
the retaliation of liberty But, in the mouths of deserters from
all liberty and accomplices of oppression, these complaints
were only the crimes of adversity, thrown back by cowards on
the vanquished, to clear themselves of imputation.
V.
They said—“The conservative Senate, considering that in
a constitutional monarchy the monarch exists only in virtue of
the constitution, or of the social compact—
“That Napoleon Bonaparte, during some period of a go-
vernment firm and prudent, had given cause to the nation to
expect for the future acts of wisdom and justice; but that he
had afterwards torn the compact which united him to the French
people, viz., by levying imposts, by establishing taxes otherwise
than in virtue of the law, against the express tenor of the oath
he had taken on his accession to the throne, in conformity
with article 53 of the act of the constitutions of the 28th
Floreal, year XII:
“That he committed this outrage on the rights of the peo-
ple, at the time when he adjourned, without necessity, the
legislative body, and had suppressed as criminal a report of
this body, whose right and title he contested to a national
representation:
“That he undertook a series of wars in violation of article
50 of the act of the constitutions of 22nd Frimaire, year XIII,
which says that the declaration of war be prepared, discussed,
decreed and promulgated in like manner as the law:
“That he unconstitutionally issued several decrees, bearing
the pain of death; more especially the two decrees of the 5th
March last, tending to constitute as national a war which had
no origin except in the interest of his unmeasured ambition:
“That he has violated the constitutional laws by his decrees
on state prisoners:
“That he has abolished the responsibility of the ministers,
confounded all the powers, and destroyed the independence of
the judicial bodies:
150 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOH 7.
Deposition of Napoleon decreed.
“Considering that the liberty of the press, established and
consecrated as one of the rights of the nation, has been com-
stantly subject to the arbitrary censorship of his police, and
that at the same time he has always availed himself of the
press to fill France and Europe with unfounded statements,
false maxims, doctrines favourable to despotism, and insults to
foreign governments:
“That acts and reports approved by the Senate have suf.
fered alterations in their publication which have been made in
them : -
“Considering that, instead of reigning with a sole view to
the interest, the happiness, and the glory of the French people,
in the terms of his oath, Napoleon has crowned the misfortunes
of his country:—By his refusal to treat on conditions which
the national interest obliged him to accept, and which did not
compromise the honour of France—by the abuse he has made
of all the means that have been confided to him, in men and
money—by abandoning his wounded without dressings, with-
out assistance, and without subsistence—by various measures,
the consequences of which were the ruin of cities, the depopu-
lation of the country, famine, and contagious maladies :
“Considering that, for all these reasons, the Imperial
Government, established by the Senatus consultum of the 28th
Floreal, year XII, has ceased to exist, and that the manifest
wish of the French people calls for an order of things, the first
result of which shall be the re-establishment of a general peace,
and which shall also be the epoch of a solemn reconciliation.
between all the States of the great European family:
“The Senate declares and decrees as follows:–
“Napoleon Bonaparte has forfeited the throme; and the
hereditary right established in his family is abolished.
$ “The French people and the army are absolved from their
oath of fidelity towards Napoleon Bonaparte.”
VI.
Before this declaration of the Senate, public opinion had
already given utterance to these just maledictions against
1814.] OF MON ARC IHY IN FRANCE. 1 5 I
Public disgust at the obsequiousness of the Senate.
tyranny; and it had declared to all the world, except the
Senate, the right of proffering them. It availed itself of the
baseness of this body; but it held it in contempt. A unani
mous murmur of indignation arose throughout all France
against senators who thus enhanced the obsequiousness of their
prostration before the Empire by the complacency of their
insults against the man they had deified. The little esteem
that had remained for the Senate had now disappeared altoge.
ther. There was nothing heard but exclamations against its
pretensions to serve as the organ of the country, and to per-
petuate its authority by its basemess. M. de Talleyrand and
his confidants felt themselves outstript. France was escaping
from them; for it wished to speak by more independent voices.
A few members of the legislative body, hastening of themselves
to Paris, assembled spontaneously, and voted without delibe-
ration, and without the charge of new crimes, the abolition
of the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte and of his family. The
crime was before their eyes—it was France in silent servitude,
exhausted of its blood, conquered and possessed by foreigners.
But France listened with more dignity and a fuller response
to the just and briefly-expressed voice of its legislators. She
replied with a cry almost unanimous, “Down with the tyrant!”
This cry was interpreted in Paris by scenes degrading to the
dignity of a people. Royalist enthusiasm endeavoured to
excite, and even to bribe, the popular passions into a saturnalia
against the representation of the fallen dynasty. Young, beau-
tiful, and titled ladies lent themselves to unworthy ovations to
victory against their country. They exhibited themselves on
the promenades, on foot and on horseback, offering flowers to
the barbarians. Men of illustrious names endeavoured to
mutilate the monuments on which the Emperor had associated
his name with the memory of our triumphs. One of them
attached the star of the legion of honour to the tail of his
horse. Some others yoked themselves to cords, which were
passed round the statue of Napoleon, on his column of con
quered bronze, and vainly endeavoured to drag it down upon
the pavement. They blushed at a later period, not for their
hatred, but for those demonstrations in which they confounded
1 j? IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 7,
The Provisional Government nominates a Ministry.
this hatred against tyranny with insults upon the military glory
of the country. Happily, however, not a drop of blood was shed
in these tumults. The royalists and the republicans only pro-
tested against the dynasty of the Empire by their joy at its
repudiation.
VII
The provisional government nominated a ministry, tempo-
rary like itself; the members chosen were able and popular
men,-one alone excepted. M. Henrion de Pansey, the light
and dignity of the French magistracy, was minister of justice.
This was to indicate that justice would admit neither favours
nor vengeance. Henrion de Pansey was an old man, who had
witnessed three reigns, and the Reign of Terror, without com-
plicity as without weakness. He had Bourbon sympathies but
revolutionary intelligence. There was no one better calculated
than this man—mild, firm, and impassable—to represent the
law, and to reconcile the old throne with the newly constituted
soil.
M. Malouet, an old member of our assemblies (the more
faithful to constitutional opinions, that with him they had
been more moderate and better considered) received the
ministry of marine. He had returned from exile faithful to
the Bourbons, but unconnected with the ultra friends of this
court; sufficiently attached to Louis XVIII. to be acceptable
to that monarch, and sufficiently independent to place his
counsels between the court of the emigration and himself.
The Abbé Louis, a satellite of M. de Talleyrand since the
commencement of the revolution, was a man of the Mirabeau
and Raymal school, initiated in questions of public credit, of
industry, and of commerce; prudent in affairs, determined and
impassioned in political counsels, and bitter, from theory,
against Napoleon and his régime. He had the charge of
finances, and he restored them -
M. Anglès, a new man, formed in the administrative
school of the Empire, was appointed minister of police.
Unknown to public opinion, it evinced for him neither favour
for distrust.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. I 53
*
M. Beugnot.—M. de Laforét.—General Dupont.
M. Beugnot, one of those men of resource and circumstances
which are to be found at all epochs, was called to the ministry
of the interior. He had been a deputy of the legislative
assembly in 1791, and an intrepid defender of the king and
the constitution against the Jacobins. Proscribed by them
during their reign, he was rallied to the Empire by functions
and recognitions which would have compromised, in this cause,
a spirit less buoyant. A man of such flexibility as enabled
him to keep up with the course of all events, of classical erudi-
tion, brilliant conversation, and with an honest heart, though
somewhat anxious to please. M. Beugnot was agreeable to
M. de Talleyrand from his docility, and likely to please the
future government by his complaisance. He was a tradition
of the Empire, useful to the ignorance of the emigrants, and
agreeable to a dynasty at once antiquated and new to business.
M. de Laforêt, an old diplomatist of Napoleon's, at the
United States, at Vienna and in Spain, moulded during these
missions to the hand of M. de Talleyrand, received the port-
folio of foreign affairs. The diplomacy of France invaded left
him no other attitude than that of expectation. He danced
attendance upon M. de Talleyrand, and made him known to
Louis XVIII.
Finally, the war office was confided to General Dupont.
This officer had courage and capacity, but had been unfortunate;
his only title to so important a post, in the decline and pre-
sent position of the army, being his resentment against the
Emperor. He had just come out of a state prison, and was
rising from under a military blemish, to take the direction of
the army, and the cause of what now alone remained to our
arms—honour. A soldier, and the son of a soldier, General
Dupont had distinguished himself at an early age in the wars
of the Republic, had grown up in those of the Empire, and was
one of the first to follow in the footsteps of the men whose glory
and whose services had elevated them to the rank of marshals
in the army of Napoleon. But one day had ruined all. Sur-
rounded in Spain by the English army and the national militia,
he set the first example of a French army capitulating instead
of conquering. Baylen proved to Napoleon that he could not
154 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 7.
Manifestation of public opinion in favour of the Restoration.
be only conquered but humbled ; but he preferred accusing his
lieutenant of treason or cowardice. Dupont was neither a
coward nor a traitor, but simply unequal to the event. Being
accused on his return to France, he was awaiting the judgment
he had come to brave, when M. de Talleyrand, seeking for an
irreconcilable enemy to the Emperor amongst his generals,
made choice of Dupont. The army mourned at a selection
which seemed to it to be either a vengeance or an affront; and
the name of General Dupont became a bitter recrimination of
the Bonapartists against the Bourbons. Emigration and de-
fection appeared to form a junction against them in a single
name. This reproach was unjust, but it sufficed that it was
possible to show to M. de Talleyrand the propriety of shielding
from it the government of Louis XVIII. Resentment, how-
ever, blinded him; it was not services he wanted, but the
gratification of his hatred. He was deceived on the present
occasion; for the name of General Dupont was a pledge given
for the Emperor's return from Elba.
VIII.
Meanwhile the agitation of public opinion, which M. de
Talleyrand was desirous of provoking and retarding at the
same time, carried everything before it, even to the govern-
ment itself. Ruin is never stopped half way; and the patience
of diplomacy is never imparted to a people whose oppression is
about to crumble, and who are precipitating themselves into
the arms of a new government. This M. de Talleyrand now
learned for the first time; and he had to experience it several
times more in the short space of a few months. He had un-
chained hope, the most maddening passion of a suffering people,
and it must very soon have left him behind, if he did not decide
on following it; but, as at his age he had nothing to refuse to
time, he resolved to conquer, and to push on the Restoration as
quick and as far as public opinion demanded. He commenced
by indifference towards the Senate itself, having obtained from
it all that he wanted; ingratitude for some, an insurrectional
act for others, and forfeiture for all. He allowed the other
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 155
Declarations of the Provisional Government against Napoleon.
constituted bodies of the State to promulgate their defection
freely, and in emulation of each other; these bodies rivalled
the Municipal Council in insults on the past, and prostration
to the future. Every hour a desertion, an address, or an
insult exploded against the repudiated government. Every
constituted body and political personage seemed eager to make
a formal declaration of ingratitude, and by the energy of their
insults to give a pledge against a return to slavery. The pro-
visional government itself felt that if it did not speak out, it
would be found wanting in the enthusiasm of hatred ; and in
the following words adjured the army and the people to pro-
nounce against Napoleon –
IX.
“France has at length shaken off the yoke under which
she has groaned with you for so many years. You have
hitherto only fought for your country; you can now no longer
fight but against her, under the banner of him that leads you.
Behold what you have suffered from his tyranny. You were,
not long since, a million of soldiers; nearly all have perished
Peace is in your hands. Will you refuse it to desolate France?
To France, which calls upon and supplicates you? She speaks
to you through her Senate, through her capital, through her
misfortunes. You are the noblest of her children, and cannot
belong to him who has ravaged her, and who has delivered her
up without means of defence. You are no longer the soldiers
of Napoleon; the Senate and all France absolve you from your
oaths.”
To the people it said:— .
“On issuing from our civil discords we had chosen for our
chief a man who appeared upon the scene of the world with the
stamp of greatness. In him we confided all our hopes, and
these hopes have been betrayed. He knew not how to reign,
either in the national interest, or in the interest even of his
own despotism. He believed alone in force, and force has this
day ruined him ; a just return for insane ambition. At length
this tyranny has ceased; the allied powers have entered the
156 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 7.
State of parties, and the situation of Napoleon.
capital of France. They come to reconcile with Europe a brave
and unfortunate people.
“Frenchmen the Senate has declared Napoleon to have
forfeited the throne. The country is no longer with him.
Another system alone can save it. We have experienced the
excesses of popular licence, and those of absolute power; let
us re-establish the ancient monarchy, limiting by wise laws
the various powers of which it is composed.
“That, under the shelter of a paternal throne, exhausted
agriculture may re-flourish; that commerce, clogged with im-
pediments, may recover its freedom; that our youth may no
longer be mowed down by arms, even before they have strength
to carry them ; that the order of nature may no more be
interrupted, and that the old may hope to die before their
children, Frenchmen let us rally Peace is about to put an
end to the disorders of Europe. France will repose after her
long agitations; and, more enlightened by the double experience
of anarchy and despotism, she will at length find happiness in
the return of a tutelar government.”
X.
The allies becoming uneasy, were now pressing France to
finish their work herself; and M. de Talleyrand began to
appear, in their eyes, too slow and measured in his proceedings.
No victory was sufficient to inspire them with confidence, so
long as the Emperor was at large; and even he had not yet
resigned himself to his fortune.
Doubtless the occupation of his capital by the armies of
the Coalition, the flight of the regency, which on its departure
only met with isolation and pity, the defection of the Senate,
the formation of a provisional government, and the approach-
ing arrival of the Bourbons, the adhesion of a multitude of
cities and of constituted bodies to the forfeiture, the Bourbon
revolution prematurely accomplished at Bordeaux, the apathy
of his generals, who seemed only to wait for a word from him
to relieve them from their fidelity to his eagles;–all these
disasters, all these symptoms, all these insults of destiny, left
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 157
Situation of the Allies, and the position of Napoleon.
him but little hope to relieve himself from his despondency at
Fontainebleau. But he might find in despair itself one of
those sudden resolutions which change the catastrophe of
human affairs, and which are the forlorn hope of great souls.
At no period of this long campaign was he, perhaps, in a
military point of view, in a more menacing attitude before his
enemies;–and this he felt.
XI.
The Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, and Prince
Schwartzenburg, had acted rather as political men than as
tacticians, in hurrying into Paris while such a general as
Napoleon was still manoeuvring in their rear and flanks. M.
de Vitrolles, and the royalist agents who had given them this
bold counsel, had rashly answered for its success. But if
Paris had been less enerwated, and less disaffected to the
Empire than these interested councillors had described it, the
situation of the allies within its walls was worse than that of
the Emperor at Fontainebleau. These princes and chiefs, to
occupy and keep down so vast a capital, had been obliged to
concentrate therein all their forces. A murmur of anger, or
of shame, amongst that numerous and warlike population, a
Bourbon insult to the citizens, a conflict between the soldiers
and the citizens, a drop of French blood shed in the streets, a
cannon shot of the French army resounding from without,
might make of Paris a snare, a prison, and a tomb for the
allied armies. Napoleon, supported but a few hours by the
rising of the capital, and by a patriotic insurrection of the
towns, the villages, the roads, and the country, on their line of
retreat, might pour forth 60,000 men refreshed, concentrated,
indignant, through the streets of his capital, reconquer it in a
day, and devote its victors to destruction. All the troops of
Marmont and Mortier were at eight leagues' distance from
Paris, as an advance guard on both banks of the Essonne,
between Fontainebleau and the capital. The army of Napoleon
had immediately followed him from Champagne, and numbered
40,000 combatants, exclusive of the Imperial Guard, which,
! 5S HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 7.
Power of public opinion in France.
of itself, was equivalent to a third army. These 60,000 men,
reunited thus under the walls of Fontainebleau, tempered by
adversity, indifferent to fire, despising numbers, full of con-
fidence in themselves, and of fanaticism for their Emperor,
demanded with loud cries a return to Paris–vengeance and
battle. Napoleon showed himself every day to these troops in
the court of the palace; he read their wishes in their faces;
he carried away their acclamations in his heart; he revolved
in his mind, day and night, thoughts such as those that laid
the foundation of his greatness. In finding himself still so
beloved by his soldiers, he could not believe that he was hated
by the people. His country seemed to have become itself
again, and to palpitate once more within his breast. He dreamt
of his own revival in that of France.
XII.
But the power of opinion, which he had so much despised,
so outraged, and so persecuted, was unknown to him. Between
the army and the country he had created an abyss of public
feeling. The country, whose name he had so long cast into
the shade by absorbing it in his own, had arrived at the point
of resentment against him, that, of all its enemies, it was he,
perhaps, it dreaded most Despairing and discouraged by him,
his return appeared to it less a deliverance than a new servitude.
He had broken the spring of patriotism in their souls, by bend-
ing it so often. Public opinion in France was more formidable
to him than the armies of all the coalitions in the world; and
this he felt, without confessing it to himself. He was astonished
at himself that he did not take the most emergetic resolutions,
at the aspect of his troops, on counting his soldiers, at the cries
of his battalions. He longed to march, and every evening gave
orders for decisive movements the following day; but he re
called them in the night, became agitated, and continued
immoveable. He experienced a weakness and vacillation of
resolution and of will, the cause of which he could not divine:
it was, that public opinion weighed heavily on his mind.
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. | 59
Apprehensions of a general conflict.
XIII.
M. de Talleyrard, the royalists who surrounded him, and in-
creased in number every hour, even the republicans who were
united at this moment with the royalists by a community of
hatred, the diplomatists, theforeign generals, the Senate,the legis-
lative body, the chiefs of the National Guard of Paris, and finally,
the opulent citizens who trembled for their city, were all in
alarm at the danger to which Paris would be exposed, if the
Emperor listened to the counsels of extremity and despair.
They brought into action all the influence of a frightened
capital on the minds of the marshals and generals of Napoleon.
They exerted themselves, through the medium of their friends,
of their wives, of their families, by the sacred name of their
country, for the interest even of their own future lives and
fortunes, to detach them, one by one, from Napoleon. They
depicted to them the capital set on fire in the struggle, their
relations slaughtered, their dwellings ravaged, their names
accursed, their responsibility written in letters of blood, if they
should obey one man in preference to their country; and if, to
gratify the frantic ambition of one proscribed by the whole
world, they should betray the most Sacred of all oaths—that
which binds every citizen at his birth to his fellow-citizens.
Napoleon was nothing more in their eyes, and in the eyes of
nearly the whole population of France, than a man in a state
of insanity, from whose hands it was necessary to remove every
weapon, that he should not employ them in committing parricide.
An opinion so unanimous, so combined, so impassioned, so
patriotic in its terms—expressed everywhere and at all times
by the mouths of friends, of fathers, of wives, and of fellow-
citizens—could not fail to influence the generals, whom lassitude
and reverses had already more than half persuaded. They
struggled no more except for the honour of their country, and
the decency of defection. The unobstructed road between their
corps d'armée and the gates of Paris, the wish to see their
families again, after their long campaigns, the necessity of con-
ferring with the provisional government, and with the allied
160 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 7.
Charge of defection against Marshal Marmont.
generals, on the line of demarcation, and the conditions of the
armistice, furnished them with continual pretexts for visiting
Paris. There was a negociation, continual and silent, between
the capital and the army, independent of that which the Em-
peror himself continued with Alexander, through Caulaincourt
and his marshals. A situation strained to so delicate a point
could not fail to be broken by some chance or other; and this
chance existed in the heart of one of Napoleon's oldest com-
panions in arms, torn between the despair of striking the last
blows, useless, in his idea, to the country, and the shame of
appearing to abandon his chief and his benefactor. Marmont
adopted one of those middle courses which saves the conscience
only by staining the fidelity. The capitulation of Paris, a mea-
sure of prudence under an appearance of treason, after an
heroic struggle with himself had already engaged and compro-
mised Marmont.
XIV.
Although this marshal had fought to the last, and sought
for death even to the faubourgs of Paris, some of his lieutenants
and of his soldiers, irritated at yielding up the capital of the
Empire on an armistice, had raised a cry of treason against him,
when falling back on Essonne. General Chastel, who com-
manded a part of his cavalry (an intrepid soldier, but blinded
by a military fanaticism,) had apostrophized Marmont under the
name of traitor. Marmont, whose blood had been shed on that
day freely enough in the cause of honour, replied to the insult
by threatening General Chastel with a court-martial, when the
army should be no longer before the enemy. Since that capitu-
lation, that retreat, and these injurious suspicions of his officers
and soldiers, Marmont, though blameless and without remorse,
was not without embarrassment as to the opinion of the army and
the Emperor. Misfortune creates injustice. Napoleon might
reproach himself with not having secured, at every risk to his
own fortunes, the few hours he required from the defence, to
enable him to reach Paris before Alexander. The marshal,
occupied at Essonne amidst his corps d'armée, had not
ventured to meet the eye of Napoleon at Fontainebleau; for
18; 4.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. I (; 1
Napoleon's indignant address to his troops.
doubtless in that eye he had expected to meet a reproach.
Days flew by, each carrying off one of the resolutions and
irresolutions of the Emperor. Each of these days also tended
to weaken the fidelity of his generals.
XV,
We have seen that M. de Caulaincourt (incessantly sent
from Fontainebleau to Paris, and back again from Paris to
Fontainebleau), had failed in his attempt, first to induce the
allied powers to treat with Napoleon, and afterwards to obtain
a recognition of the regency. The dynasty was swept away,
and nothing now remained but the person of the Emperor, and
the fate that was preparing for him, intervening between the
throne and the final forfeiture. Caulaincourt had returned on
the night of the 2nd to Fontainebleau, to bring these melancholy
decrees of victory to his master. Napoleon, full of a last hope
until then, revolted against these decrees. He waited im-
patiently for day-break, assembled his troops in the courts and
in the gardens of the palace, mounted his horse, surrounded by
his marshals and his aides-de-camp, and passing down the front
f the battalions of his guard, he read, with a loud and irritated
.oice, a proclamation which he had written to sound their
resolution.
“Soldiers the enemy has outstript us by three marches
and made himself master of Paris. We must expel him
Unworthy Frenchmen, emigrants, whom we had pardoned
have hoisted the white cockade, and joined the ranks of the
enemy. Cowards ! They shall receive the reward of this new
attempt. Let us swear to conquer or die! Let us swear to
make them respect this tricolour cockade, which for twenty
years past has been found upon the road of glory and of honourt'
XVI.
The voice of their Emperor resounded in the hearts of the
battalions and squadrons. A shudder passed through the ranks,
sabres clattered, foreheads grew pale, and lips trembled and
R
| 6’s HISTORY OF THE IRESTORATION [BOOK 7.
Enthusiasm of the soldiers.
responded in long rumbling acclamations, like the bellowing of
anger that begins to growl in the hollow chest. “To Paris
to Paris!” shouted the soldiers. “Let our Emperor lead us
there !” Their eyes seemed to devour in advance the short
distance which separated them from the enemy, and their
sabres to sweep the foe from the streets of the capital, restored
to their country and their Emperor. Napoleon (gazing on the
marshals and generals grouped around him, as he pointed out
to them this inextinguishable enthusiasm for war, rekindled by
his presence in the breasts of his soldiers), seemed to reproach
them for their supineness, and for the symptoms of disaffection
in the chiefs. No longer doubting the energy with which he
would be followed by his soldiers, he returned to his palace,
pursued even to the interior of his apartments by the prolonged
echo of fidelity and devotion from his troops. He walked for a
long time alone in his cabinet, with broken steps, with gestures
of the hand, and with attitudes of reflection and of buoyancy,
which revealed the struggling of his spirit with some great design.
Then, sitting down, and taking the pen with his own hand, he
wrote the order to the army to put itself in motion the follow-
ing day for Paris, and to advance his quarter-general from Fon-
tainebleau to Essomme. It was the signal of battle before Paris,
in which he at length resolved to sacrifice his life, or to re-con-
quer his imperial crown.
XVII.
This resolution transpired in the evening through the ru-
mours of the palace. It made the army tremble with vengeance
and with joy; but it made the chiefs also tremble for Paris,
for France, and for their own future prospects. They had
none of them the same motives as Napoleon, to risk the fruits
of their lives, and the responsibility of their names, in a
struggle of despair. If the Empire fell, their fame would still
remain, as well as their rank, their riches, their nobility, and
the certainty of being sought for, honoured, and consecrated.
by any other government, which would settle accounts with
glory, and the services rendered to the country. None of them
wished to tarnish their names With treason ; but neither did
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. I (33
Deliberations of the French Marshals.
any of them wish to second what they considered as insanity.
It was therefore necessary, whatever the cost, to prevent the
Emperor from putting their fidelity to the test, and from
risking a last battle, in which to follow him would be madness,
and to desert him cowardice.
XVIII.
No sooner had the chiefs of the army been made acquainted
with the resolution of the Emperor, than the same sentiment
raised the same murmur in their minds, inciting them, by the
instinct of a common thought, to interrogate each other on their
impressions, and to concert a plan of resistance, of objections,
and of deliberations, which should make the mind of the Em-
peror hesitate and waver. It was in the palace itself that the
marshals and the chiefs of corps met and assembled, at the
first word, in the same spirit of opposition to the desperate
plan of Napoleon. This opposition, so long cogitating, under
the semblance of devotion and the promptitude of obedience,
broke out at length in their gestures, in their looks, and in
their acclamations. A specious and honourable pretext justi-
fied the harshness and impropriety of it in their own eyes.
This was the interest of the army of which they considered
themselves the natural representatives, and for which they
began to negociate, without a warrant, by trustworthy persons,
with the provisional government. None of these martial per-
Sonages dissembled for a moment that Napoleon was politically
extinct, and that a new reign was about to commence. Mili-
tary discipline, in depriving the man of camps and battles of
the exercise of his own will, deprives him, more than it does
any other profession, of that energy of character so necessary
in the vicissitudes of political events. It inspires him with
personal intrepidity, but divests him of civic constancy. No-
thing yields so much and so quickly in the storm of revolutions
as generals; they follow the noble profession of arms, but they
follow it under every master; they pass from one court to an-
other, from an empire to a monarchy, from a monarchy to a
republic, not like courtiers, but like servants, the sword of
every hand which lends or gives itself to the last person that
K 2
(; 4 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 7.
Intriguing spirit of Talleyrand.
wears a crown. It is in the ranks of the army that we must
look for the heroism of courage; but we rarely find there the
heroism of independence.
XIX.
M. de Talleyrand, accustomed to so many governments, and
so many revolutions of the palace, had judged, from the obse-
quiousness of these men to Napoleon in his prosperity, of their
pliancy on his fall. He had them sounded, interrogated,
almost negociated with, apart from their sovereign, by General
Dupont, and by his confidential agents. To them he repre-
sented Napoleon as already condemned in the councils of
Europe, and repulsed from France. He asked them if the
army, after having sacrificed for him so much blood, ought
again to sacrifice itself on his tomb, even to suicide. He gave
a glimmering to their eyes of the gratitude of the future sove-
reign, who would recompense the services rendered to France,
or who would proscribe through them the executioners and the
incendiaries of his capital.
These insinuations found ready access to those hearts,
ulcerated by reverses, which were desirous of casting upon one
alone the responsibility, the resentment, and the odium of the
common calamity. A sort of ill-sounding and wrong-sided
glory attached itself even, in the idea of some of these mar-
shals, to a rudeness of language, and to an abruptness of op-
position, which gave them the appearance of a manly inde-
pendence; but their complicity in the 18th Brumaire, their
obsequiousness to the Emperor, their ready acquiescence of ten
years to all the caprices of tyranny, took away from them the
right to this stern patriotism. We murmur only with dignity
against the excess of power that we have combated. These
men of Napoleon's camps never dreamt of separating their
cause from his, until his decline. This was just to him, but
iniquitous for them. When a master has been followed even
in his worst faults, until he begins to fall, there is only one
1eal excuse for the companions of his fortune, which is to fall
with him.
1814.] OF MONARCH Y IN FRANCE. I (35.
Feelings of the French Marshals against Napoleon.
XX.
Marshal Oudinot, the Bayard of the Republic and of the
Empire, devoted to the Emperor, but still more devoted to
the army of which he was the model, was one of the first to
break out against the madness of a chief who could not be
touched even with the wounds of his country, and who wished
to plunge the remains of his personal ambition into the flames
and the blood of the capital. This explosion of a heart whose
patriotism extinguished its fidelity, produced an ebullition, from
the mouths and hearts of the other marshals and chiefs of divi-
sions, of the discontent and despair of the crisis, so long muttered
with a low voice. The conviction of a common thought multi-
plied reproaches, and increased audacity in every heart. All
disguise of private sentiments was at once thrown off, and the
murmur and the resolution to disobey were intentionally
elevated high enough, that the noise might reach the ears of
the Emperor, and that the certainty of the resistance he was
about to experience, for the first time, might spare his lieute-
nants the unpleasantness of opposing him to his face.
XXI.
During this first insurrection of the mind, in the courts, in
the gardens, and in the halls of the palace, the Emperor, shut
up with Caulaincourt, poured out bitter complaints of his ruin,
accusations against the Emperor of Russia, formerly his friend,
and now his executioner, imprecations against Talleyrand and
the Senate, and contempt, incredulity and irony against the
Bourbons, that posthumous dynasty, incapable, he said, to
goverm a newly enlightened people. Then resuming his con-
fidence, and reminding Caulaincourt of the heartfelt cries of
his army which he had heard:—“To-morrow,” he said, “I
shall march with 60,000 men to the gates of Paris. My brave
veterans acknowledge me still, and acknowledge me alome.
The noise of my cannon shall awaken Paris: it will rise
behind the Russians, while I attack them in front. Victory is
166 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION (Book 7.
Anxieties and purple x t es of the Emperor.
mine, and that shall be my judge. If the French, after their
deliverance, think me still worthy of the throne, they will
restore it to me. The might passed in these conversations and
illusions.
XXII
The Emperor, however, while affecting to maintain his
illusions before Caulaincourt, had doubts, which he did not
wish to have elucidated, of the obedience of his generals to
his orders. To doubt obedience to him at such a moment was
to recognise revolt: to recognise, without punishing it, was to
submit himself tamely to the caprice of his lieutenants. He
recoiled before this outbreak, and flattered himself that the
night and reflection would bring back his generals to their
duty. Before Berthier himself, his confidant and chief of the
staff, he guarded himself against expressing the least distrust
as to the execution of his orders, which he continued to
dictate. He slept for some hours, and dressed himself early
to inspect from the windows the execution of some movements
of the troops which he had ordered. But the hours passed on
until noon, without his hearing, in the camps around Fontaine-
bleau, any other noise than that of the ordinary calls of the
drum in an army at rest. Vacancy, immobility, and silence
continued to reign everywhere. Still he could not bring him-
self to believe in the very first disobedience he had ever
experienced in his life from his army, and he did not dare to
ask any questions, lest he should have to yield or to punish.
He affected to think, and to say to Caulaincourt, and other
confidants, that the preparations for departure, to secure
conveyance, forage, and subsistence for the army, had doubtless
retarded, to this advanced hour, the march of the columns on
Essonne.
At noon the ordinary parade of the guards on duty took
place in the court of the palace. The rumour of Napoleon's
abdication, which was rapidly spread during the night by his
marshals, as if to give him this indirect summons of destiny
through the public voice, spread along the ranks and over the
palace. These rumours at length reached the ears of Napo-
1814.] OF MO NARCHY IN FRANCE. 167
News of his dethronement.
leon, and produced a paleness over his features; for he antici
pated a more direct summons from those who in their hearts
were longing for his fall. The tragical scenes of the Lower
Empire, and of the palace of Paul the First, floated in his
imagination. He yielded within himself to necessity; but,
outwardly affecting the confidence of incontestable command,
he mounted his horse in the midst of his generals, and
reviewed his detachments in silence. Sorrow, doubt, and pity
were strongly marked on the rough features of the soldiers.
At this moment an aide-de-camp of Marmont's arrived full
speed from Essonne; he dismounted, delivered his despatches,
and divulged among the group that surrounded him the news
of the Emperor's dethronement by the Senate. This intelli-
gence passed from mouth to mouth amongst the marshals, and
through the silent ranks of the soldiery. Some it exasperated,
others it confounded, and it rejoiced a few ; but to the greater
number it offered a door open to ingratitude and infidelity.
The review was a gloomy one, and terminated without the
customary cries of loyalty and affection. It was now evident
to Napoleon that his orders had been treated with contempt,
and that all eyes were turned towards Paris for a signal which
should decide between him and the Senate. He dismounted,
pale and careworm, at the bottom of the grand staircase in the
palace, and made a sign with his hand to the marshals and the
generals that he did not wish to be accompanied into his
apartments. His lieutenants looked at each other; and,
mutually encouraged by a single giance, they paid no attention
to his sign, but rapidly followed him, as if with their customary
respect, and entered immediately after him the saloon leading
to his cabinet.
XXIII.
Let us leave for a moment this scene, as yet so silent, and
cast an eye on what is passing at Paris and in Marmont's army,
—the advance-guard and left flank of that of Napoleon.
The Senate, as we have said, declared themselves every
moment with increasing audacity against the Empire. Beur-
nonville sent message upon message to Marmont, to detach
I G8 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 7.
Defections and rumours of treason at Paris.
his army from a chief repudiated by victory and by the
voice of the nation. The Emperor, on his side, the day after
his arrival at Fontainebleau, had gone to visit Marmont and
the lines of his army. Rumours of treason, and reproaches on
the promptitude of the capitulation of Paris, had resounded in
his ears during this visit. He pretended, however, not to hear
them; and whether, from a full confidence of a friendship of
twenty years, and the brotherhood of so many battle-fields,
whether from judicious dissimulation to preserve in his in-
terests a division which in a word might alienate, he had
saluted Marmont in his ordinary manner. He honoured in
him unfortunate valour, and distributed praises, promotion,
and decorations amongst his officers. This last interview be-
tween the Emperor and his ancient aide-de-camp seemed to
attach Marmont more than ever to his duty. The Emperor
himself stifled the exasperated denunciations which General
Chastel had uttered against the marshal on the march from
Paris. He attributed them to the anger which retreat excites
in a generous heart; and he therefore ordered both generals to
forget, the one his reproaches, and the other the vengeance of
a military tribunal with which he had menaced his subordinate
officer.
XXIV.
But the Emperor had scarcely quitted the army of Marmont,
when emissaries from the minister of war, from M. de Talley-
rand, from the royalists, and above all, from the republicans,
insinuated themselves into his camp, and penetrated even into
his own presence. It may be very well believed that the mind
of the marshal, already much afflicted, was more and more
worked upon by solicitations, invested in colours of true patriot-
ism, and which placed him in the terrible alternative of failing
in friendship for his old chief, or of divesting himself of all
solicitude for his country. In this agitation of Marmont's
mind, Prince Schwartzenburg, who commanded the troops in
front of Essonne, summoned the marshal in the name of peace,
and in the name of the new government of his country, to pre-
vent a useless effusion of blood; and to range himself, as he
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 169
Negociations between Prince Schwartzenburg and Marshal Maimont.
said, under the colours of the cause that was truly French.
The commandant of the National Guard of Paris, General
Dessoles, an old lieutenant of Moreau's, full of a just resent-
ment against the Emperor, addressed the same prayers to
Marmont, in the name of his fellow-citizens of Paris, as it
affected their lives, their properties and their families. His
adhesion, he said, to the new national government, would settle
every thing. The destiny of France rested entirely at this
moment upon one man alone, who was arbiter between the
Empire, still armed, and the nation, suppliant at the feet of
the general nearest to it for its capital and its blood.
XXV
The marshal did not dare to take wholly upon himself the
entire weight of a decision which he felt beforehand must crush
him in the estimation of honour and of gratitude, and in the
page of history. He deliberated with himself; but to deliberate
when military duty called for obedience was already to betray.
As a military man, he condemned himself; as a friend he
afflicted his own heart; as citizen of a country, the fate of which
was in his own hands, he made, perhaps, one of those superna-
tural efforts which immolate one duty to another, and which
sacrifice a man for the public safety. However this may be,
Marmont wished for an excuse; which was an ample admission
that he was going to commit a fault. He assembled at Essonne
all the generals, and all the superior officers of his army, and
he consulted them on the adhesion that they were to give or
to refuse, in the name of the army, to the propositions of Paris,
of the provisional government, and of the allies. The moment
must have been very critical, and the pressure of events and
of the national opinion excessive in the extreme; for all pro-
nounced for the adhesion. One reserve only was made, which
was called for by the memory of past events, and even by the
decency of defection: this was, that guarantees should be given
for the life and liberty of the Emperor.
Marmont wrote a letter to Prince Schwartzenburg, in which
might at once be seen his resolution, his sorrow, and his remorse.
| 70 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 7
Marshal Marmont proposes terms of capitulation.
XXVI.
“I have received,” he said, “the letter which your high-
ness has done me the honour to write to me. Public opinion
has always been the rule of my conduct. The army and the
people have been absolved from their oath of fidelity towards
the Emperor Napoleon, by the decree of the Senate. I am
disposed to concur in such a conjunction of the people and the
army, as may obviate all chance of civil war, and prevent the
effusion of French blood. In consequence, I am ready to quit
the army of the Emperor Napoleon on the following con-
ditions, for which I demand a written guarantee:—
“Art. I. The troops which shall quit the standard of
Napoleon shall be allowed to retire freely into Normandy.
“Art. II. If, in consequence of this movement, the events
of the war should place in the hands of the allied powers the
person of Napoleon Bonaparte, his life and liberty shall be
guaranteed to him, in a space of ground, and in a country cir-
cumscribed, at the choice of the allied powers and of the
French government.”
XXVII.
It will be seen that the authors of this defection did not
dissemble any of the consequences that it was preparing.
They knew they would deliver up Napoleon, in withdrawing,
without his knowledge, the rampart which still sheltered him ;
and they stipulated beforehand the ambiguous condition of his
captivity. The terms of Art. II. might, in fact, be as well
applied to a prison as to an empire. The best proof that
Marmont spoke the wishes of the enemies of his sovereign, of
his benefactor, and of his general, is, that the allies ratified
his words by their signatures, and that they even extended
their meaning by conferring upon Napoleon a sovereignty in
his banishment.
“I cannot sufficiently express to you,” replied the general-
issimo of the allied troops to Marmont, “the satisfaction I feel
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. I 71
Marmont's offer accepted by the Allies.
at learning the alacrity with which you accept the invitation of
the provisional government, in ranging yourself under the ban-
ner of the French cause. The distinguished services that you
have rendered to your country are generally recognised. You
have now crowned them by restoring to their homes the few
brave men that have escaped the ambition of one. I appre-
ciate, above all, the delicacy of the article which you demand, and
to which I agree, relative to the person of Napoleon. Nothing
could better characterize the generosity so natural to the
French, and by which you are so particularly distinguished.”
The allies thus disguised from Marmont the fault he had
committed, by designating it as delicacy and generosity, which
extended more indulgence to Napoleon than to himself. They
had hardly signed the convention, however, before he appeared
to repent it, and to wish to redeem the cruel share he bore in the
transaction, by making efforts, in concert with other marshals,
in favour of the regency, and the transmission of the Empire
to the son of his benefactor. Let us now return to Fontaine-
bleau.
B00K EIGHTH.
Abdication of Napoleon—He sends Caulaincourt and Macdonald as Pleni-
potentiaries to Paris—Council of the Marshals and the Allied Sove-
reigns on the 4th of April—Rejection of the Regency—Defection
of Marmont's Troops—Nocturnal Supper of the Generals and
Officers—March of the 6th Corps into the enemy's lines—Its revolt
on its arrival at Versailles—Its march towards Rambouillet—Mar-
mont, hastening to Versailles, stops and appeases the 6th corps—
Oration of Marmont, on his return, at the hotel of M. de Talleyrand—
Order of the day of Napoleon on the 5th of April—Return of the
Plenipotentiaries to Fontainebleau—Napoleon wishes to commence
the war—He renounces the idea—Departure of Caulaincourt for
Paris.
I.
THE Emperor, on entering his apartments, with a determined
voice ordered the head-quarters to advance to Ponthierry, on
the road to Essonne. This he thought would be a tacit order
to his marshals also to follow him with their main divisions.
He did not expect that his companions in arms would abandon
him in the last struggle; for though he had no longer any
confidence in their devotion he still believed in their honour.
The marshals, however, who had followed him to the very
last position to which he appeared desirous of retreating, formed
before him a group of enigmatical faces. Undecided between
habitual respect and the audacity of an unwonted resolution,
their features revealed the ambiguity of the part they played.
Ready to bow respectfully if the Emperor would comprehend
their significant gestures and silent importunity, but ready to
enforce their object, if he persisted in not understanding them.
The long silence which thus ensued between the Emperor and
his lieutenants was the most solemn dialogue of the scene.
Napoleon consulted by his looks the eyes of his officers, who
also consulted his in a like manner, each appearing to wait for
the other to develope their intentions. This, however, N apo-
1814 J RESTORATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 173
D termined spirit evinced by the Marshals.
leon did not yet dream of doing, while his lieutenants trembled
at the prospect of being forced to open the conference. The
mortification of waiting in vain, increased by the settled inten-
tion of effecting their object, excited the rage and impatience
of the military chiefs, till at length, despairing to convince but
determined to achieve, they were about to declare themselves.
II.
“I rely upon you, gentlemen,” said Napoleon at length,
lastening to anticipate them by a word to which they had so
often responded, and which required some sign of acquiescence.
The marshals, however, instead of retiring respectfully, as usual
on such occasions, to execute the orders they received, drew
close together, and firmly fixing their feet on the floor, showed,
by this attitude, their resolution to remain. Napoleon was
agitated, but restrained his feelings, till Marshal Ney, whose
numerous exploits had given him the right of expressing him-
self with more freedom than the others, exclaimed, “That not
a single sword should leave the scabbard to effect the useless
and insane crime of a desperate ambition against the country.”
Napoleon regarded him with reproachful astonishment. This
was the first truth he had heard during ten years of service;
and coming from the soul, of one of his most heroic companions,
it had the accent of a revolt and the bitterness of an abandom-
ment. He was thunderstruck and disconcerted, as he had been
on the 18th Brumaire, by the voices and gestures of the repre-
sentatives at Saint Cloud. Napoleon, in fact, required an army
between himself and the truth. He could not combat audacity
hand to hand.
III.
His lieutenants, Ney, Oudinot, Lefebvre, supported, with
all the energy of abrupt speech and indomitable will, the de-
claration of the marshal. The faces, the tone, the imperatively
extended arms and pointed fingers of the officers, the low mur-
murs, the threatening looks, the broken words scarcely checked
on the lips, the stamping of feet and the clatter of sabres on
17.4 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Door S.
They submit to the Emperor the necessity of abdicating.
the floor, seemed to indicate to Napoleon, that matters were
fast verging to extremities, and that the terror he had so long
inspired was at length recoiling upon himself. He, neverthe
less, again tried his noral power: he raised his brow, which
had bent beneath the keenest reproaches, and again dismissing
his lieutenants by a gesture, “The army at least—will that
follow me?” he said with a bitter smile. “The army,” replied
the marshals, in a more vehement tone, “will obey its generals.”
This was turning against his own heart the sword he had placed
in their hands. Napoleon felt himself disarmed. It only re-
mained for him to set at defiance his companions in glory, in
the most insulting manner, by clearing a passage through the
group that pressed around him, and by rushing out on the
terrace of the court to call upon his grenadiers to avenge their
Emperor. But here, as at Saint Cloud, his foot, his heart, his
voice failed him. He crossed his arms on his breast, bent down
his head, appeared to reflect a long time in silence, then com-
posed his features to hide his humiliation; and in the tone of
a man who voluntarily seeks counsel of his friends, instead of
submitting himself to their will through force: “Well,” he said
to them, “what ought I to do in your opinion ?”
“Abdicate 1” exclaimed, in a rough and unanimous voice,
the marshals nearest to him.
“Yes, there remains for you, for us, for our country, no
other course, no other means of safety than your abdication,”
exclaimed the others.
“And see what you have gained by not following the advice
of your friends, when they wished you to make peace,” said
Marshal Lefebvre.
A general murmur of approbation revealed to Napoleon that
he had no further hope or even pity to expect in all these hearts.
He heard, though he feigned not to hear, words which revealed
the long hidden depths of his soul. He saw that the resent-
ment of the nation overflowed even from the lips of its last
preservers. No commiseration concealed from him their ingrati-
tude. Defection assumed the accent of patriotism. Vulgar
minds, that have cringed the lowest before prosperity, conduct
themselves with the utmost insolence before misfortune.
1814.] OF MON ARC IIY IN FRANCE. 175
He writes and signs his abdication.
Military bluntness is then dignified by the name of frankness;
yet this tardy frankness is often but the revenge of long ser-
vility. It was not spared to Napoleon. In a few moments he
was overwhelmed with those voices which had been so long
smothered with forced adulation. He merited this punishment
from that public opinion which he himself had so much abused.
But was it the recipients of his own favours that should have
inflicted it?
IV.
Napoleon submitted himself, not to their counsels, but to
destiny, which had disarmed him. “I will present to you my
abdication,-leave me for a moment to write it,” he said. The
marshals withdrew towards the door of the narrow closet, without
losing sight of the Emperor. He sat down before a small
table covered with green cloth. He took a pen, reflected a mo-
ment, and then weighing the words in his mind he wrote
deliberately, and with a trembling hand, his abdication in the
following words:—
“The allied powers having proclaimed that the Em-
peror Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of
peace, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares
that he is ready to descend from the throne, to quit France, and
even life itself, for the good of the country; without prejudice,
however, to the rights of his son, to those of the regency of the
Empress, and to the maintenance of the laws of the Empire.
“Given at our Palace of Fontainebleau, the 4th April, 1814.
“NAPOLEoN.”
V.
“There, gentlemen,” said he, addressing the marshals who
advanced towards him; “are you satisfied ?”
The lieutenants received the abdication from his hands,
read it, and bowed in satisfaction. This abdication was their
ransom for the country, and their personal treaty with Europe.
They troubled themselves little about the conditions that the
Emperor seemed to attach to it. Without a sword or a crown
negociation is at an end. They held their oaths and their
I76 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION | Boc K 8.
His desperate resolves and agony of mind.
liberty in their hands, and they were fully determined never again
to confide them to him.
VI.
As to Napoleon, although the scene which had just passed
left him no further illusion on the attachment of ambition to
power, he feigned still to entertain it, either to flatter himself
or his marshals, or rather, perhaps, to cover with an appearance
of dignity and independance the violence he had suffered, and
which he would not even confess to himself. “Gentlemen,”
said he to them, in a voice which he strove to render confident
and martial, “you must now go to Paris to defend the interests
of my son, the interests of the army—those of France. I name
as my commissioners the Duke of Vicenza (Caulaincourt), the
Marshal Prince of Moskowa, and the Marshal Duke of Ragusa.
Are you satisfied with the names?—do these interests appear
to you in good hands?”
The generals signified their assent.
VII.
Napoleon, who had remained standing in a state of nervous
agitation from the moment he had tendered the act of abdica-
tion to his companions in arms, could no longer resist the ex-
haustion which often follows a violent shock of the mind. He
sank exhausted on a sofa, and waited a moment to recover his
breath. Then placing his hands on his forehead, he seemed
to be absorbed in the deepest anxiety. Nothing was heard
through the silence of the closet (illumed by the Sun's rays),
but the sound of his difficult breathing. The marshals felt
pained by this agony of an expiring ambition; but they believed
him at length conquered. They were mistaken. This phrenzy
of Napoleon's disguised a last stratagem of his passion for
empire. He started up, as if seized with a sudden repentance,
and darting towards his generals, as if to re-possess and tear up
his written resignation: “No, no!” he cried, “there shall be
no regency. With my guard alone, and the army of Marmont,
I shall be in Paris to-morrow !”
1814.] O'F MON AIR CHY IN FRANCE. 177
sº-
Napoleon's indignation against his Marshals,
g-
One unanimous exclamation of the generals protested with
indignation against this resumption of the will they thought
they had conquered. Marshal Ney spoke to him with the
emergetic roughness of a soldier who no longer hesitates to
oppose rudeness to insanity. Napoleon's blood flew to his
temples, and his gestures were those of suppressed despair.
He could no longer brook the presence of the men who had torn
from him even his self-respect. “Retire,” he said to them
in a voice of thunder. They went out with downcast looks,
recommending silence to each other on the violence employed
to effect the abdication. They carried with them the Empire;
for the Emperor they little cared now.
VIII.
The marshals had scarcely left, when Napoleon wrote
another copy of his abdication; and calling Caulaincourt, gave
it to him, as a last instrument of negociation with which he was
to bargain with the allies, to obtain in return the regency and
the succession of his son. His heart, long restrained by the
presence of his lieutenants, before whom he dared not show
his rage, and before whom, also, he blushed to display his
weakness, at last broke forth :—“The ingrates,” he repeated
several times; “the ingrates they owe me everything; and
they have not even waited for the hour when they might
abandon me with decency. It would have been less cruel to
have fallen under the hands of our enemies; but under those
of my friends ! Ungrateful men I made them what they
are ; I gave them that army which they threaten to turn
against myself l’’
This was truly said, as regarded some of the men of the
army ; but it was not true as applied to the veterans of the
Republic. Their names flourished even before his. They had
been of use in his service, and some had tarnished them by
Servility. Napoleon and they might exchange mutual reproaches;
they for having bent beneath his tyranny, and he for having par.
ticipated in the fruits of their servility, and forgotten that they
were free men, until he himself was vanquished.
I,
178 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOR 8,
* *-*-----------------------
His conferences with Caulaincourt.
IX.
Napoleon then threw himself into the arms of Caulain-
court, and moaned for a few moments on his breast. Caulain-
court's future prospects were bound up with those of Napoleon.
Although he had cleared himself of the direct participation
which attached to him in the murder of the last of the
Condés, he knew that the recollection of it weighed heavily
on his name, and would follow him as a calumny or as a ven-
geance under the reign of the Bourbons. The Empire was
not only his point of fidelity, it was his safeguard, and he
clung to its last wreck with as much tenacity as the Emperor
himself. The others were only compromised as regarded the
victories and defeats of Napoleon ; but Caulaincourt was com-
promised in his expiations. Still the friendship of Alexander,
which he had cultivated during his mumerous missions to that
prince, left him some hope of an arrangement for the Emperor
and of protection for himself. Napoleon ordered him again to
depart, and named to him Marmont and Ney as first negociators
with the allied sovereigns. He had experienced the severity
of Ney, but he believed him sufficiently appeased by the
abdication. As to Marmont, he was still ignorant of the promised
defection which the Prince of Schwartzenburg held in his
hands.
X.
-*
Caulaincourt, more diffident because he knew more, repre-
sented to the Emperor that the absence of Marmont from
Fontainebleau might perhaps retard the course of the negocia-
tion, and that it would be better to name Macdonald. Maret,
Duke of Bassano, had followed Napoleon in his campaigns as
secretary of state. He possessed over the Emperor the ascen-
dancy which constant presence, familiarity, and habit impart. He
was called and consulted. Being a man of honour himself he
suspected not the honour of others; he recommended Mac
donald, who was summoned accordingly.
This was a gentleman of Irish extraction, whose ancestors
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, | 79
Marshal Macdonald.-His devotion to the Emperor.
had followed James II. into France. Fidelity flowed in
his veins. Although revolution had obliged him, like all
soldiers, to serve different parties, he was ever faithful to his
sword. A soldier before the revolution, a general during the
wars of the Republic, under Moreau in Germany, under
Pichegru in Holland, and under Championnet at Naples, he
had rendered his name illustrious by the glorious retreat of
the Trebia,-a retreat equivalent to a victory. On the 18th
Brumaire, he had, like all the generals present in Paris, lent
his countenance to Bonaparte to put down the Republic, Na-
poleon had employed him, and aggrandized and distinguished
him, but with reserve and distrust. Macdonald was not a
protegé of his alone, and he feared in him a man who too well
remembered Moreau; but Macdonald undeceived him in the
hour of trial. Although this general the day before had
advised the abdication, and that morning had joined the group
of officers who had imperiously demanded the sceptre from
Napoleon, he had spoken with that respect with which misfor-
tune inspires the generous heart, and that disregard of Con-
sequences characteristic of the noble mind. Though the least
favoured of the marshals, he had shown himself the most
faithful. On the counsel being given, he had offered the Em-
peror his sword and intervention to the last extremity. Na-
poleon was affected. He had found his last friend in one
whom he suspected would be his most severe judge. He sum-
moned Macdonald, and confided to him, with considerable
emotion, the fate of his last hopes and the prospects of his son.
“I have wronged you,” said the Emperor; “do you not re-
member it?” “No,” said Macdonald ; “I remember nothing
but your confidence in me.” The Emperor pressed the hand
of the soldier; tears stood in the eyes of both.
XI.
The plenipotentiaries Caulaincourt, Ney, and Macdonald
left the Emperor alone, plunged in humiliation and grief.
They got into a carriage, and hastened towards Paris.
A few hours afterwards they were introduced to the pre-
L 3
180 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 8
Conference between Canlaincourt and the Emperor Alexander.
sence of the Emperor Alexander. They did not doubt that
this prince, convinced of the peril of a last encounter with
Napoleon, and secretly inimical to the Bourbons, would favour
the regency of the Empress. The negociation had added to
their number Marshal Marmont, whom they took up at his
camp at Essonne. This officer began to repent of his too
complete defection, the secret of which had not yet transpired.
His troops, under the command of his lieutenants, had not
yet commenced the movement towards Normandy, and Mar-
mont did not dare to avow to his companions-in-arms that he
had treated without them. He hoped to regain possession of
his convention with Schwartzenburg. He wished, at all events,
to postpone the execution of it, until after the regency should
be ratified by Alexander; but chance completed the defection
already commenced, and closed the door against his return to
fidelity.
XII.
Caulaincourt, whose familiarity with Alexander was of long
standing, took precedence of the marshals on entering the
presence of that prince. Alexander pretended to him that he
had been drawn, in spite of himself, into an universal league
against the dynasty of Napoleon. He related to Caulaincourt
the importunities of M. de Talleyrand, the Abbé Louis, the
Abbé de Pradt, the Abbé de Montesquiou, four old members of
the clergy hackneyed in the intrigues of their policy, like the
eunuchs of the Byzantime courts. He revealed to him the
defection of Marmont and his staff; he informed him that
General Souham, who commanded the army of Essonne, in
the absence of the marshal, had publicly, at that very moment,
left Napoleon unprotected and disarmed by abandoming his
position. Napoleon, without soldiers, was therefore no longer
a mame of which they could avail themselves to press the
regency upon the councils of the allies. He was no longer
anything but a captive, the conditions of whose captivity they
were about to determine. Alexander, with that courteous
dissimulation of the Greek character, which is also found in
the Sclavonic race, affected, while speaking thus, as much
1814] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. I Sf
Interview between the French Marshals and the Allied Sovereigns.
grief and regret as though he were still Napoleon's friend.
He condoled while he wounded. He held forth hopes, and
withdrew them in every word and accent. Caulaincourt,
alarmed, still had faith in the influence of the marshals on the
Emperor, and they were introduced.
XIII.
The Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, the generals,
the foreign diplomatists, General Beurnonville, the members
of the provisional government, and the principal agents of M.
de Talleyrand and the royalists, were present at the interview,
where the question of the throne was for the last time and
irrevocably to be decided. Caulaincourt presented to the
sovereigns the conditional act of abdication. The King of
Prussia, full of the battle of Jena, and of vengeance for a
beloved woman whose death had been caused by Napoleon,
opened the debate. He told the emissaries of Napoleon, that
the hour for a compromise was past, that France had pro-
nounced her opinion with irresistible authority, against the
hereditary despotism of a chief who had deceived her, and
that she now reclaimed her ancient kings, by the voice of the
Senate and of the people.
Macdonald pleaded the cause of Napoleon with calm and
respectful energy: “He yields up the Empire as a ransom
for the throne of his son,” said he ; “he restores peace to the
mniverse, and gives up his sword and his rights on this con
dition. The blood which would yet be shed in Europe, were
he to resist to the last, would no longer be laid at his door.
The sovereigns who have taken up arms, not in the cause of
any crowned family in particular, but to restore independence
and peace to mankind, cannot consistently allow their armies
and the population to encounter such risks, to effect a dethrome-
ment which was not the original object of their league. The
aamy is still faithful and numerous between Fontainebleau and
Paris, and at the voice of Napoleon would commence the
most terrible and deplorable of battles. Is it consistent with
182 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION TBOOK 8.
Marshal Marmont's introduction to the conference.
reason and humanity, that the first soldier in the world should
be reduced to such a desperate extremity?”
XIV.
Such were Macdonald's words; but when he spoke of the
army, as still prepared to follow its general, a smile of in-
credulity which he could not understand, appeared on the lips
of those present. An enigmatical whispering disturbed him
and Ney, when the door opened, and Marmont appeared. He
entered, and this time at least came in good faith, though at a
late hour, to join his companions in arms, and intercede in
favour of the regency. He was ashamed of appearing less
loyal and attached than Macdonald and Ney, who owed less
to the Emperor. He was received by M. de Talleyrand, the
emissaries of the provisional government, and the allied generals,
with such demonstrations of cordiality and joy, as were cal-
culated to win his heart to the cause of the allies. The
evidence of a prior understanding might be seen in their faces.
Marmont was already alienated, in the minds of the council,
from the cause of the Empire; and those who defended it
turned pale on seeing the warmth of his reception, and his
familiarity with the allies. They, however, suspected but a
part of the truth, of which Marmont was entirely ignorant.
His army, in favour of which he came to negociate, no longer
existed. During his absence, his generals, summoned by
Schwartzenburg and influenced by the emissaries from Paris,
had executed the convention; had marched their troops through
the lines of Prince Schwartzenburg, and fallen back upon
Versailles, even more anxious than their general to place
Paris and the allied armies between the Emperor and them-
selves. This movement being accomplished was equivalent,
to a capitulation. Marmont's forces were, from this time
forward, completely hemmed in by the enemy, and Napoleon's
army had no longer either front, flank, or line. It consisted
of but a handful of brave men, surrounded and exposed on all
sides, and rallying round the last palace of their sovereign.
1814.] OF MON ATCHY IN FRANCE. | 83
Austrian despatch announcing the breaking up of Napoleon's army.
XV.
Just as Marmont was about to speak, and by an appear-
ance of loyalty to emulate his colleagues in their intercession,
a despatch was brought to the Emperor Alexander, which he
opened. It was from the Austrian generalissimo, and an-
nounced the breaking up and movements of the army of the
Emperor. Alexander read it aloud, and thus put an end to all
further conference. Marmont, who had given no orders for
this movement, was thunderstruck. Caulaincourt, Macdonald,
and Ney were struck dumb ; for, while they were pleading,
fate or treachery had decided. Silence reigned through the
council—a silence of joy on the one hand, and of consternation
and shame on the other; while astonishment prevailed over all.
There was nothing left to negociate for; and nothing now re-
mained but to implore. The marshals and Caulaincourt
retired.
XVI.
Every one applauded their fidelity, and sympathised with
their grief; and Beurnonville, an old companion in arms of
Macdonald's in the wars of the Republic, advanced to the mar-
shal, and held out his hand to him. “Do not speak to me,”
said Macdonald ; “you have made me forget in one day a
friendship of thirty years' standing.” Then turning to Gen.
Dupont, minister of war, “As to you,” he said, “you had a
right to hate the Emperor, for he was unjust to you; but why
avenge a personal injury upon your country?”
M. de Talleyrand having approached the group of mar-
shals, whose voices resounded with the tones of indigmation
and despair, begged them to speak lower, and to remember that
they were not in his house them, but in that of the Emperor
Alexander. Macdonald answered him with the energy of
despair and contempt. Marmont struck his forehead with
his clenched hands, and deplored the precipitation of his
generals, who had acted without orders. “I would give an
arm,” he cried, “to repair the fault of my generals.” “Say
I S4 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [3ook 8.
The events which led to this result.
Father their crime,” replied Macdonald; “for which their heads
would not atone.”
XVII,
Marmont's despair, though late, was not feigned. No-
thing had been as yet settled in his own mind, notwithstand-
ing the guilty convention of Essonne, which he had resolved
to execute at his own time, and not till after the conferences
of Paris should have guaranteed the integrity of his position,
the safety of his army, and the personal conditions of the Em-
peror; but the first step in the descent to treachery inevitably
leads to ruin. The following are the events that Marmont
had not foreseen, and which took place during his absence.
Napoleon, irritated by the violence with which his lieute-
mants had forced the abdication from him, began again to think
of war on their departure. He had sent Colonel Gourgaud,
one of his young orderly officers, devoted to him with all the
enthusiasm of his age and his heart, to Marmont's camp, to
bring that marshal back with him to Fontainebleau, Napo-
leon hoping to find in him more constancy and devotion to
his desperate resolves than in his other lieutenants. With
Marmont and his guard he could brave the revolted generals
of his other corps, expose them to the resentment of the
soldiery, name other generals, again take the command, march
on Paris, and either change or modify his fortune. Gourgaud,
not finding Marmont at Essonne, the marshal being then
negociating in Paris, was astonished that the chief of a division
should have abandoned his post, in the presence of the enemy.
He learnt from Marmont's aide-de camp, Colonel Fabvier, that
the rumour of the Emperor's abdication had already spread
throughout the army by the despatches come from the out-
posts, and that each of the generals of division began to think
of himself. Colonel Fabvier, faithful to his duty, and of tried
honour, went himself to look for his marshal, whose return he
hoped for, and on his way revived the vigilance and courage
of the outposts. Gourgaud, in pursuit of his mission, went
to summon Mortier to a nocturnal interview with Napoleon at
Fontainebleau, to concert a grand movement unknown to the
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 185
The treachery of Marmont's Generals.
disaffected marshals. While Berthier, chief of the staff, feel-
ing uneasy at Gourgaud's long absence, sent by an orderly to
the camp of Essonne a fresh invitation to Marmont to come
immediately, and receive the orders of the Emperor.
XVIII.
This fresh invitation to Marmont, together with the increasing
rumour of the abdication, and the departure of the marshals,
whose motives were unknown, but of whose discontent they
were aware, led Marmont's staff to believe that the Emperor
wished, by a personal and insane renewal of hostilities, to protest
against the will of the chiefs of the army and the interests of
the country. Indignation and disaffection now usurped the
place of anxiety. In the absence of the marshal, Generals
Bordesoulle, Compans, Digeon, Ledru-Desessarts, and Mey-
madier meeting, communicated to each other their apprehen-
sions, and decided on taking it upon themselves to disarm the
fallen Emperor of all means of uselessly shedding the blood of
France, and of his soldiers. Each of these generals agreed to
collect his chief officers around his table at the close of day,
and to induce them, either by force of conviction, or by disci-
pline, to aid in the movement which should disarm Napoleon.
They accordingly entertained them until midnight as boon
companions whom they were unwilling to part with ; and then,
when the colonels were about to return to their posts, the
generals informed them that the Emperor had decided to
march on Paris, that they were to make room for the army of
Fontainebleau which followed him, and to march as an advanced
guard on the road to Versailles. All flew to their arms with
cries of “Vive l'Empereur !” and a desperate impatience for
vengeance signalized this last fidelity of the corps. The cavalry
marched in the dark, under the command of General Bordesoulle,
towards Paris.
XIX.
In the meanwhile Colonel Fabvier, Marmont's aide-de-camp,
returning from the outposts, and meeting the columns in full
I S6 EIISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 8.
The French troops led into an Ambuscade.
route, was astonished, and made inquiries, not understanding
a movement that his marshal had not commanded, but the
soldiers could give him no explanation. At last he reached
the generals, who were warming themselves at a bivouac fire,
near the river Essonne, while their columns defiled over the
bridge.
Fabvier inquired of General Souham the reason of a noc
turnal movement which would throw the troops into the enemy's
lines. Souham replied that he was not accustomed to render
an account of his actions to his inferior officers; but on Fabvier's
respectfully urging his question:-‘‘Your marshal,” he replied,
“has taken shelter in Paris, and I will not risk my head through
the responsibility he has left us.” General Compans joined
Eabvier in strenuously advising the abandoning of a movement,
which there would be quite time enough to make, if they learnt
that the Emperor really intended to compromise and sacrifice
his last remaining soldiers; but Souham was inflexible. “No,
no,” said he; “the foot is raised—the step must be taken l’’
and the army accordingly proceeded on its march.
XX.
The advanced guard felt astonished at meeting with nº
enemy. The darkness of the night concealed from their view
the plains on each side of the road, and strange noises arose at
intervals in the distance. The soldiers thought that they were
columns of the army of Fontainebleau that were marching
with them on their right and left flanks; but the break of day
showed them the batteries, battalions, and squadrons of the
Russian army drawn up in battle array on both sides of the
road. They had marched, since three o'clock that morning,
between two invisible lines, ready to close behind them. Their
indignation was extreme, all return impossible, and a cry of
restrained fury broke from the ranks, which continued all the way
to Versailles. The rear guard alone, commanded by General
Chastel, discovered the snare by the light of the dawning day,
before they had crossed the bridge of Essonne, and, halting im
mediately, hastily fortified this pass, to protect the Emperor
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 187
Their indignation.—General Bourdesoulle's explanation.
At Corbeil, General Lucotte refused to follow Marmont's
army, and swore to die at his post.
XXI.
General Bordesoulle had no sooner arrived at Versailles
than he wrote to Marmont to explain to him the motives which
had decided his generals, without orders from him, on making
the movement which it had been settled should be delayed
until his return from Paris, and congratulated himself in this
letter on the unanimity with which the troops had followed
the impetus he had given; but even while Bordesoulle was
Writing, the soldiers, recovered from their astonishment, and
dispersed through the town of Versailles and the surrounding
villages, had congregated together in groups, interrogated
each other, became indignant, accused their chiefs of the crime
of a desertion which dishonoured their corps, and broke forth
into acclamations for their Emperor, and imprecations on their
generals. Colonel Ordener assembled at his house all the
other colonels, who, revolting against the treachery of their
generals, conferred upon him the command of their battalions.
He accordingly ordered the cavalry to mount, and directed
them on Rambouillet, that they might return by that circuitous
route to Fontainebleau. The entire force, infantry, artillery,
and cavalry, spontaneously seized their arms, and fell into the
ranks, deaf to the voices of the generals, and hastened to follow
in the steps of Ordener, to return to their Emperor; while the
town, roads, and woods echoed with their fury and acclama-
tions—the expression of their desperate and indomitable
fidelity to their vanquished Emperor.
XXII.
The provisional government being informed of this revolt,
and fearful lest it should win over the troops and the people,
Conjured Marmont to encounter the fury of his army, and recall
it to its duty. The marshal hastened to comply, although
death appeared inevitable; yet it would at least unravel the
188 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 8.
Quarrel between Marmont and General Ordener.
complicated web of fault and misfortune in his unhappy posi-
tion. He started on one of his fleetest horses in pursuit of
Ordener, on the road to Rambouillet. “Stop !” he cried to
that officer; “reconduct my troops to Versailles, or I will have
you seized and tried for usurping the command.” “I defy
you,” replied the colonel ; “the troops are not yours; there is
no military law which condemns them to obey the dictates of
treachery;-and if there were, there is no soldier here so base
as to comply with it.” -
The loud voices of the two generals, the agitation of the
groups when they threatened and questioned each other, and
the confused halt which suspended the march of the columns,
drew the officers and soldiers around Marmont, whose voice
they recognised, and whose fidelity they suspected, but whose
courage they admired. He tore his uniform before them,
showed them the scars of his wounds, recalled to their memory
their exploits together in the same battle fields, and vindicated
himself from the stigma of an order he had not given, but
entreated them to decide between him and the insurrection,
and assured them that the peace already signed would render
their movement of the night before harmless to their compa-
mions in arms, and to the Emperor. He begged they would
kill him rather than for ever disgrace themselves by abandon-
ing their general. The soldiers nearest him were moved at
his voice; they repented their breach of discipline, abandoned
Ordener, and cried “Vive Marmont.” Hurrying along the
others, and following him, they resumed the road to their can-
tonments. Marmont harangued, reviewed, placed them again
under the hands of their generals, and returned in triumph to
Paris.
M. de Talleyrand, the ministers, and the allied sovereigns
received him with open arms, and overwhelmed him with
praises. A second time, they said, has he saved the blood of
the capital. Surrounded and courted by all, at the conclusion
of a dinner at M. de Talleyrand's, he was greeted with immense
applause and clapping of hands; but yet, in the midst of the
enthusiasm of his master's enemies, Marmont must have felt the
pitiful reality of his defection.
.814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 189
Order of the day issued by the Emperor.
XXIII.
While these events, which were crowded into the short
space of a night and a morning, were taking place at Paris and
Versailles, the Emperor, alone at Fontainebleau, waited in vain
for Marmont and Mortier—the two last hopes of his fortune.
Instead of these two marshals, whose fidelity he wished to try
again in the hope of their winning over the rest, he received.
a private despatch from Caulaincourt, containing a copy of the
secret convention between Marmont and the allies. An hour
afterwards Gourgaud and Chastel hastened to inform him of
the nocturnal defection of the whole army of Essonne. The
acts and insulting proclamations of the Senate reached him at
the same moment, and he was prostrated once more, only to
rise again. But depressed as he was, he was determined at all
events to bandy recrimination and invective with that servile
Senate, that dared to raise its voice only against the van-
quished ; and, shutting himself up in his cabinet, he wrote
the following order of the day to the army,
XXIV.
“Fontainebleau, 5th of April, 1814.
“The Emperor thanks the army for the attachment which
it shows to him, and particularly because it recognises France
in him and not in the people of the capital. The soldier fol-
lows the good and ill fortune of his general, his honour, and his
religion. The Duke of Ragusa has not given proof of this
feeling to his companions in arms; he has passed over to the
allies. The Emperor cannot approve of the conditions on
which he has taken this step; he cannot accept his life and
liberty at the hands of a subject.
“The Senate has taken upon itself to dispose of the French
government; it has forgotten that it owes to the Emperor the
power which it now abuses; that it was the Emperor who
190 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 8.
saved a part of its members from the storms of the Revolution,
and drew from obscurity and protected the others against the
hatred of the nation.
“The Senate relies upon the articles of the constitution
in order to overturn it; and does not blush to upbraid the
Emperor, forgetting that, as the first body of the State, it
has taken part in all events. It has gone so far as to dare to
accuse the Emperor of having altered the acts in the course of
publication. The whole world knows he had no occasion for
such artifices. A sign was an order for the Senate, who always
did even more than was required of them. The Emperor has
always been accessible to the remonstrances of his ministers,
and he expected from them, in this emergency, the most com-
plete justification of the measures he had taken. If enthusiasm
was mingled in the addresses and public speeches, then the
Emperor has been deceived. But those who made use of such
language should attribute to themselves the consequences of
their flatteries.
“The Senate does not blush to speak of libels published
against foreign governments; it forgets that they were drawn
up in their own breasts So long as fortune showed herself
faithful to their sovereign, these men have remained faithful,
and no complaint was heard of the abuse of power. If the
Emperor despised the senators, as he is accused of doing, the
world will this day acknowledge he had reasons enough for his
contempt. He held his dignity of God and of the nation; they
alone could deprive him of it; he has always considered it a
burden, and when he accepted it, it was with the conviction
that he alone was worthy to bear it.
“The welfare of France appeared wound up in the destiny
of the Emperor. Now that fortune has decided against him, the
wish of the nation alone could persuade him to remain longer
on the throne. If he must consider himself as the only obstacle
to peace, he willingly makes this last sacrifice to France. He
has, therefore, sent the Prince of Moskowa and the Dukes of
Vicenza and Tarentum to Paris, to enter upon the negociation.
The army may rest assured that its honour will never be
opposed to the welfare of France.”
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 191
IHe receives the ultimatum of the Allied Sovereigns.
-*-
XXV.
This address to his troops, nevertheless, covered another
appeal to their compassion, under the semblance of a feigned
resignation in giving up the Empire. He clung obstimately to
hope, even while she deserted him. A carriage which drove
into the court-yard arrived to dispel all remaining illusion. He
darted to the window in time to see Caulaimcourt, Macdonald,
and Ney descend from it, bringing to him the ultimatum of
his enemies. Their features alone revealed to him the melan-
choly and inflexible nature of his destiny. Caulaincourt and
Macdonald tempered the impression by their attitude of silent
compassion; but Marshal Ney, although loyal, bore in his looks
that fierceness of resolve with which it is useless to contend.
He no longer struggled in his own mind. Already tired before
he left Fontainebleau of a vain and unpatriotic contest between
the Emperor and destiny, his sojourn and conversations in
Paris had disposed him less than ever to favour this obstimate
determination to reign; it appeared to him the insanity of a
single man against the only salvation of the country. Mild at
first, still obedient, always undaunted—worn out at last, he
finished by becoming exasperated. All his past devotion turned
to anger, which he could not disguise, and which his eyes,
voice, feet, actions, and muttering betrayed.
XXVI.
Before seeing the Emperor again, Ney had fortified himself
against any return of weakness or devotion, and had bound
himself by a hasty and irrevocable act to the Bourbons.—“I
went yesterday to Paris,” he wrote to M. de Talleyrand, “with
the Duke of Tarentum and the Duke of Vicenza, entrusted with
full powers to defend, before his Majesty the Emperor Alexan-
der, the interests of the Emperor Napoleon's dynasty. An
unexpected event having suddenly stopped the negociations,
which nevertheless appeared to promise the happiest results,
I then saw that, to avert from our much-loved country the
I 92 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 8.
His determination to resist the conditions.
dreadful consequences of a civil war, it only remained for the
French to embrace the cause of our ancient kings; and im-
pressed with this feeling I have this evening waited upon the
Emperor Napoleon to represent to him the wishes of the na-
tion. To-morrow morning I hope to receive from his own
hands the formal and authentic deed of his abdication; and
immediately thereupon I shall have the honour of waiting upon
your most serene highness.
“Fontainebleau, 5th of April, eleven o'clock at night.”
XXVII.
Ney's language to the Emperor was in conformity with the
state of his mind; he withdrew all hope from the first word, *.
and appeared determined neither to allow any further dis-
cussion, or to be moved to pity, nor yet to suffer his victim to
linger on. “Well then,” said the Emperor, “the affair is now
at an end, and there is no other resource for the army, or for
myself, or for you either,” he added, looking at the two marshals,
“We are called upon to capitulate without a single condition.
Will the army consent to this? For my part, I never will!”
and he proceeded to enumerate the scattered forces which he
could re-unite or rally; 25,000 men at Fontainebleau, 20,000
under Augereau at Lyons, as many under Prince Eugene in
Italy, the army of Suchet in Catalonia, and that of Soult at
Toulouse; in all, 150,000 fighting men, with the Emperor at
their head, and France in full insurrection by their side. Was
this not more than enough to enable him to maintain the con-
ditions of an abdication? And while doing so, aided by the
chances of war, might it not, perhaps, be sufficient to enable
him to recover empire and honour?
In vain Macdonald and Caulaincourt laboured to obtain by
earnest persuasion that result which Ney had endeavoured to
extort by brutal severity; but during the whole of that long
night they found it impossible to conquer the obstimacy of
Napoleon. He struggled for his posterity, and, pretending that
he had sacrificed the present, clung desperately to the future,
IHis son, his name, and race, once established on the throne,
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 193
The Emperor's desire to renew hostilities.
would be to him the renewal of his past glory, after having lost it.
The agitation of his soulfilled the palace with uncertainty, distrac-
tion, and treachery, and all around him wavered as he did himself.
XXVIII.
Caulaincourt remained alone with the Emperor, after the
departure of the marshals, and the night was spent in bitter
railings against destiny and mankind. Ambition will never
acknowledge that men are sufficiently faithful, if they do not
follow its dictates even to suicide. By turns he sat down, got
up, walked about, and again sat down, speaking either to himself
or to Caulaincourt, and then suddenly kicking away the chair
on which he rested his legs, which were worn out with exertion,
he darted towards the maps which lay open on the table, and
with black pins marked out the plan of the campaign which was
left him in the other half of France.
“Do they imagine that the treachery of a few cowards is
the final decision of France?” said he to Caulaincourt, beckoning
him towards him, and pointing out the course of the Seine,
the Saone, the Loire, and the Rhone. “No, no! the nation
has not ratified their treason; I will call the people to my
aid . The fools know not that such a man as I am only ceases
to be terrible when laid in the gravel To-morrow, at sunrise,
and in a single hour, I can destroy all these plots which they
are hatching around me. Follow me with your eye, Caulain-
court. At Lyons I will rally the remaining 150,000 men; I
will adopt the watchword of liberty which is now raised against
me, and inscribe independence and country on my eagles. If
the enervated chiefs of the army are tired, let them repose in
shame. I will find, beneath the worsted epaulette, new mar.
shals and new princes, instead of those whose embroidered uni-
forms have made them forget the blue coat of the private
soldier, while their most honoured titles shall adorn others I”
XXIX.
He desired Caulaincourt to take a pen, and write to Ney
and Macdonald, who had returned to Paris, freed at last from
their oaths, and little inclined to renew them ; but Caulain.
M
I9 | HISTORY OF THE RESTOIRATION [Book 8.
Napoleon deserted by his friends.
court, whose patience, if not his devotion, was exhausted,
refused to do so, remonstrated, and begged of him to reconsider.
“No,” cried Napoleon, “I have considered everything, and
have but one course to take. The allies have rejected the
personal sacrifice I offered to make to them two days ago.
Well then I, in my turn, withdraw the abdication | Let the
sword decide, and blood flow ! and let it fall on the heads
of those dastards who desired the humiliation of the country "
Then feeling that he was losing himself in idle recurrences
to the past, now impossible to recover, he allowed the pen to
fall, of its own accord, from the hands of Caulaincourt. He
appeared at last to give way to necessity, softened, and even
deprecated his conduct. “We are very wretched” said he, to
the only witness of his perplexities, “we are very wretched—
for you are so, as well as myself. I know it, I know it, my
friend Go and take some repose ; there is, henceforth, none
for me. You will return. The night will perhaps have en-
lightened me.”
XXX.
Caulaincourt retired, only to return immediately that the
IEmperor should send for him ; but, already were Napoleon's
most intimate friends, his oldest companions and nearest
courtiers, preparing to leave him for ever. The sunshine of
prosperity had set on the ancient chateau of Francis the First,
and was about to rise in Paris with the dawn of another reign,
and every one feared to be too late; for, to be suspected of too
protracted a fidelity might become the crime of a whole life,
and give a death-blow to that ambition which they had no idea
of abandoning, together with the Emperor. It was evident
that Napoleon was about to become the public enemy, the
guilty one, on whom was about to be heaped every description
of abuse and disgrace; in short, the great proscribed of Europe
and of France; and all trembled lest they should be included in
this ostracism. The marshals, with the exception of Mac-
donald, set the example; and when the sword wavered, how
could it be expected that the rest of the court should resist
following 2 for it is not in the saloons of a master that souls
1814.1 OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 195
The defection of his generals and officers.
become tempered, and characters hardened and proved. All
that was wanting was a pretext to desert with decency, which
Napoleon would not afford them by his obstinacy and vacilla-
tion; and the impatience to abandon was changed into anger
at the stubbornness of their master. The courts, halls, corri-
dors, and even the anti-chambers of the little apartment occu-
pied by the Emperor, were filled with groups of his officers,
dignitaries, and servants, who loudly descanted in terms of
severity and contempt on his desperate struggle to reign;
while the sound penetrated to the most retired part of Napo-
leon's apartment, like the voice of reproach, and seemed to in-
crease in volume as each passing hour destroyed his last hopes.
He was obliged, from time to time, to open the door, and in a
voice by turns imperious or severe, order his chamberlain in
waiting to silence these muttered sounds of disaffection. Even
those with whom he was most intimate, and to whom he con
fided his reverses and his thoughts, immediately reported them
in the conversations of the palace, and thereby increased the
general fears and discontent. Every one tried to impress upon
his neighbour the urgent reasons for flight which he enter-
tained; so that the ingratitude, instead of being individual,
might appear general, and already desertion was loudly and
unblushingly spoken of. One party urged the uselessness of
remaining in a palace now changed into a barrack, and about
to become a prison; the others, the necessity of going to Paris,
to protect their wives, mothers, or children, who were becoming
alarmed. The latter showed letters from M. de Talleyrand or
the senators, and the former suddenly recollected that their
names belonged, in the first instance, to the ancient monarchy;
and on its return to the Tuileries they could not think of being
absent. All of them had certain affairs, interests, family con-
eerns or duties of situation, which ought to outweigh the use-
less determination of sustaining a fallen soldier; and some of
them being compromised as accomplices, thought it necessary
to seek for pardon by evincing an inclination to betray, as a
pledge of fresh fidelity to the rising power. At the doors of all
the apartments, in the corridors, on the staircases, and in the
yards, preparations for departure were making without re-
M 2
196 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOR 8.
Public impatience.
straint ; the greater part leaving without the ceremony of a
farewell; while every now and then the noise of a carriage roll-
ing through the courts of honour gave notice of another de-
Sertion. In the morning the palace was nearly empty, even
the domestic household of the Emperor having absconded. If
by chance he summoned any of the dignitaries of his court, the
officers of his staff, or of his household, he was told that they
were gone. A bitter smile and expression of cold disdain
passed across his features at each fresh proof of the baseness of
interested attachments, and he seemed to fortify himself with
that contempt which he had ever professed for mankind, and
which, at the same time, justified their personal degradation.
He had never loved anything; but had violated every feeling;
how, therefore, could he have any claim on the hearts or good
feeling of his followers? He met with no sympathy even
from those old domestic servants, who, in familiarity and long
habit, frequently attach to the person rather than the station.
Richard had his Blondel, and Louis XVI. his Cléry; but
Napoleon had not even his Mameluke. His court had cor-
rupted all. The soldiers alone, and those of his officers least
honoured and distinguished, and furthest removed from his
favour, showed themselves faithful to him to the last moment;
proving that the camp had at least sustained, their honour,
while interest had corrupted the court.
XXXI. &
“Would it were finished 1" was the general cry of thos(
who still remained about him in the morning; but when they
learnt that he was about to recall Ney and Macdonald, to break
off the negociation and withdraw his word, the murmur in-
creased to insolence, and even to outrage. The walls of the
palace, which had beheld the fetes of his days of glory, had
never re-echoed with adulation as they now did with impreca-
tions, on the day of his fall. It was justly feared that there
was no longer time to come to terms of capitulation with the
Bourbons. The allied armies, relieved from the fear of a
battle before Paris, by the defection of Marmont, who ha.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. | 97
g-
Desperate situation of the Emperor.
also outflanked Mortier, and by the successive espousal of
their cause by the generals and corps that were at a distance
from the Emperor, had manoeuvred with perfect freedom to
surround Napoleon completely in his last asylum. The roads
to Fontainebleau were closed on all parts. The Russians
extended before Paris to Melum and Montereau. Another
army of Alexander's guarded Essonne and the passage of that
river; the roads of Chartres and Orleans were intercepted
by numerous corps. All the country between the Seine, the
Marne, the Yonne, and the Loire, was occupied by the Austrian
army, which had followed, from halting-place to halting-place,
our retreat on Paris. The small army of Augereau, driven
out of Lyons and thrown back on Franche-Comté, could no
longer even disturb the rear guard of the Austrians; and the
space was thus gradually narrowing around him who had
ravaged the world; while 200,000 men, arranged in columns
of attack for the last two days and nights, were about to
pounce upon the last remnant of Napoleon's guard.
XXXII.
Informed of this resolution of the allies and of their
manoeuvres, Napoleon summoned Caulaincourt; and, whether
sincere in his show of energy, or wishing it to appear that he
only yielded on the advice of his friends, he stated his deter-
mination to extricate himself from this circle of enemies by a
sortie at the head of his 80,000 men. Caulaincourt repre-
sented to him the extreme danger of such a step to the
country, to the army, and to himself. “Dangerſ" cried the
Emperor; “do you think I fear it? Ah ! my life is a heavy
burden, of which I should be happy to be relieved. An useless
life without an object—a life which I will no longer support.
But before involving that of others, I wish to question them
as to their opinion of this desperate resolve. Call around me
the marshals and generals who still remain. I wish to know,
in short, if my cause is their cause, and whether the cause of
my family is no longer the cause of France. I will be guided
by their opinion "
198 HISTORY UF TIl E IRESTORATION [BOOK 5.
General Berthier's advice to Napoleon.
XXXIII.
This opinion had been sufficiently made known to him by
the decisive scenes of the two first abdications, and the solitude
which was forming around him, and it was evident he only
wanted a pretext for again resigning himself, in apparent
obedience to a moral violence, exercised against his own will
by his last companions in arms. He wished to secure himself
against the opinion of posterity and of France, that it might be
said of him, and that he himself might be one day enabled to say:
“I wished, and could still have fought and conquered, but
they would not allow me to do so. The throme and country
have been delivered up by them, not by me.” For, if it had
been otherwise, is it likely that so consummate a general
would have allowed himself to be reduced to 20,000 men,
abandoned by his lieutenants, and surrounded in a forest by
200,000 soldiers, before giving battle? History cannot accept
as truths the pretences of pride when driven to the last
extremity. In these cases the truth lies in deeds, not words,
and the deeds of Napoleon at Fontainebleau, after the first day,
give evidence of a disposition to negociate, not to fight, while
his resolves exhibit the position of a diplomatist, not the
manoeuvres of an old general. -
XXXIV.
Berthier, hitherto faithful, though wearied, came with the
marshals and commanding officers. Their looks were con-
strained, sorrowful, and embarrassed. Their opinions had
been given three days before, and they did not wish to repeat
them, but rather desired to leave their confirmation to the course
of events. Berthier asserted, in a few words and in an
official manner, the growing and insurmountable dangers of
their situation. “Fontainebleau will be completely surrounded
in a few hours,” said he. “I know it,” replied the Emperor,
as if the truth was unpleasant to him. “The question is not
of the enemy, but of you and me. I have offered my abdica
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 199
Napoleon's angry conference with his generals.
tion; but they mow impose upon me the abdication of my
family. They wish me to depose my own wife —my son —
and all who belong to my family | Will you allow it? I
have the means of cutting my way through the lines that
surround me; I can traverse and arouse the whole of France;
I can repair to the Alps, rejoin Augereau, rally Soult, recall
Suchet, and reaching Eugene in Lombardy thus pass into
Italy, and there found with you a new empire—a new throne
—and new fortunes for my companions ; until the voice of
France shall recall us to our country. Will you follow me?”
XXXV.
The countenances of his generals had already expressed
their sentiments; their voices now unanimously answered him,
that what he proposed was to carry civil war from province to
province throughout France, to draw the armies of Europe by
millions into the last retreats of the independence of the
country, and to change their native land into an universal
field of battle and rapime ! There could be no glory where all
patriotism was wanting ; and how could the conquerors of the
world stoop to imitate the adventurers of the middle ages, by
going in search of foreign thrones, after having abdicated that
of the universe ?
The Emperor irritated, or pretending to be so, desired
them to leave him to his reflections.
The marshals accordingly left. “What men '" said he to
Caulaincourt, again seating himself before his maps; “what
men they have neither heart nor soul! I am ruined by the
selfishness and ingratitude of my brothers in arms rather than
by fortune. All is at an endſ Depart, and confirm the two
abdications.”
Caulaincourt set out a third time for Paris; and nothing
now remained but to stipulate on behalf of Napoleon and his
family for those conditions, more or less generous, which the
allied sovereigns should feel disposed to grant, on this sur-
render of the world, w
1800 K NIN TH,
Treaty of Fontainebleau of the 11th of April—Return of Caulaincourt
and Macdonald—Napoleon refuses to sign the treaty—Rumours of
poisoning—Ratification of the treaty—Life of Napoleon at Fontaine-
bleau–Journey of Marie-Louise—Her residence at Blois—Struggles
of Marie-Louise against the brothers of the Emperor—Her departure
from Blois the 16th April—She returns to her father—Last days of
Napoleon at Fontainebleau—The farewell and address of Napoleon
to his Guard—The Author's opinion of Napoleon.
I.
THOUGHTs crowded, and resolutions struggled with each other
in the mind of the Emperor when left to himself. Caulain-
court had scarcely departed, when Napoleon sent an aide-de-
camp after him to Paris, with a letter to this effect:—“Come
back; bring me my abdication; I am vanquished; I am a
prisoner of war; I yield to the fate of arms; no treaty; a
simple cartel is enough.”
In the evening another messenger conveyed to Caulaincourt
the order to discontinue all negociation.
In the course of the night a third message reached him to
this effect—“I order you to bring me my abdication. At all
events no stipulation for money. 'Tis humiliating !” Seven
couriers in twenty-four hours harassed Napoleon's negociator,
with orders and counter-orders of this nature. He repented
having abdicated. He had given authority, by his own con-
sent, for his forfeiture and that of his family. He better
liked the condition of a prisoner of war, and deposition by
foreign arms, than a treaty and voluntary abdication. He
might recriminate at a subsequent period upon the former, but
he could not protest against the latter. He was right now,
with reference to his future prospects; but, like all inconsistent
men, he was right against himself. He had twice signed his
own condemnation. -
1814.] RESTORATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 201
Treaty of Fontainebleau.
II.
His negociator at Paris, and the marshals who seconded
him, listened no more to these tergiversations of his mind.
They continued, in his behalf, to negociate for him and for his,
conditions the most worthy of his past greatness, and best cal-
culated for his future security. Their own honour required
that these conditions should appear worthy of the man, whose
life and honour they had guaranteed on forsaking his colours.
On the 11th the treaty was signed at Paris by the allied
powers, which gave to Napoleon an intermediate station between
the condition of a king and that of a private individual : too
great if he was no longer anything but a soldier; too narrow
and too menacing if he was still a monarch; concession to
the terror of his name, or imprudence from the magnanimity of
Alexander. Diocletian, after the Empire, only wished for a
garden in Illyria; Charles V. a convent in Estremadura. The
blood of France and of Europe very soon effaced this treaty,
which ran as follows. It marks a halt in the destiny of Napo.
leon and in the calamities of France.
III.
“TREATY OF FONTAINEBLEAU of APRIL 11, 1814.
“His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon on the one part, and
their Majesties the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and
Bohemia, the Emperor of all the Russias, and the King of
Prussia, stipulating in their own names, as well as in that of
all the allies, on the other; having named for their plenipo-
tentiaries, viz.-His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, the
Sieurs Armand-Augustin Louis de Caulaincourt, Duke of
Vicenza, his grand equerry, senator, minister of foreign
affairs, Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour, Knight of the
Orders of Leopold of Austria, of Saint Andrew, of Saint
Alexander Newsky, of Saint Anne of Russia, and of several
others; Michael Ney, Duke of Elchingen and Marshal of the
Empire, Grand Eagle of tºe Legion of Honour, Knight of the
202 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 9.
Treaty of Fontainebleau.
Iron Crown, and of the Order of Christ; James Stephen
Alexander Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, Marshal of the
Empire, Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour, and Knight of
the Iron Crown :
“And his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, the Sieur
Clement Wenceslas Lothaire, Prince of Metternich, Wine-
bourg Sachsenhausen, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Grand
Cross of the Royal Order of Saint Stephen, Grand Eagle of
the Legion of Honour, Knight of the Orders of Saint Andrew,
of Saint Alexander Newsky, and of Saint Anne of Russia, of .
the Black Eagle, and of the Red Eagle of Prussia, Grand Cross
of the Order of Saint Joseph of Wurzbourg, Knight of the
Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and of many others; Chan-
cellor of the Military Order of Maria-Theresa, Curator of the
Imperial Academy of his Royal, Imperial, and Apostolic Ma-
jesty, and his minister of state for conferences and for foreign
affairs.
[In the treaty with Russia are the titles of Baron Nessel-
rode, and in the treaty with Prussia those of Baron de Har-
denberg.]
“The plenipotentiaries above named, after having proceeded
to the exchange of their respective full powers, have agreed
to the following articles:—
ARTICLE I.
“His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon renounces, for him-
self, his successors and descendants, as well as for each of the
members of his family, all right of sovereignty and domination,
as well over the French Empire and the kingdom of Italy, as
over all other countries.
ARTICLE II.
“Their Majesties the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress
Marie-Louise, will preserve their titles and qualities to enjoy
them during their lives.
“The mother, brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces of the
Emperor shall equally preserve, wherever they may be sojourn-
ing, the titles of princes of his family.
1814.] OF MON AIRC HY IN FRANCE. 2, 3
Treaty of Fontainebleau.
ARTICLE III.
“The island of Elba, adopted by his Majesty the Emperor
Napoleon, for the place of his residence, shall form, during his
life, a separate principality, which shall be possessed by him
in all sovereignty and property.
ARTICI,E IV.
“All the allied powers engage themselves to employ their
good offices to cause to be respected, by the Barbary powers,
the flag and territory of the island of Elba, so that in its
relations with the Barbary powers it should be assimilated to
France.
AIRTICLE V.
“The Duchies of Parma, of Placentia, and of Guastalla
shall be given, in all property and sovereignty, to her Majesty
the Empress Marie-Louise.
“They shall pass to her son and to his descendants in
direct line. The prince her son shall take, from this time, the
title of Prince of Parma, of Placentia, and of Guastalla,
ARTICLE VI.
“There shall be reserved, in the countries which Napoleon
renounces for himself and his family, certain domains or donné
des rentes on the grand livre of France, producing an annual net
revenue, deduction being made for all charges, of 2,500,000
francs. These domains, or rentes, shall belong in all property,
and to be disposed of as it shall seem best to them, to the
princes and the princesses of his family, and shall be divided
amongst them in such manner that the revenue of each be in
the proportion following:—
“To Madame Mére, 300,000f.
“To King Joseph and to the Queen, 500,000f.
“To King Louis, 200,000f.
“To Queen Hortensia and to her children, 400,000f.
“To King Jerome and to the Queen, 500,000f.
“To the Princess Eliza, 300,000f.
“To the Princessºauline, 300,000f.
204 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 9.
Treaty of Fontainebleau.
“The princes and princesses of the family of the Emperor
Napoleon shall preserve, over and above, all property real and
personal, of whatsoever nature it may be, which they possess
in private right, and especially the income they enjoy, equally
as private individuals, on the grand livre of France, or the
Monte Napoleone of Milan.
ARTICLE VII.
“The annual income of the Empress Josephine shall be
reduced to 1,000,000f., in domains, or in inscriptions on the
grand livre of France. She shall continue to enjoy, in full
property, all her estates real and personal, and may dispose of
them in conformity with the laws of France.
ARTICLE VIII
“There shall be given to Prince Eugene, Viceroy of Italy,
a suitable establishment out of France.
ARTICLE IX.
“The estates which his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon
possesses in France, whether of extraordinary or private domain,
shall revert to the crown.
“Of the sums funded by the Emperor Napoleon, whether
in the grand livre, or in the Bank of France, whether in
canal shares, or in any other manner, and which his Majesty
gives up to the crown, there shall be reserved a capital which
shall not exceed 2,000,000f., to be disposed of in gratuities in
favour of persons who shall be inscribed in the list that shall
be signed by the Emperor Napoleon, and which shall be
remitted to the French government.
ARTICLE X.
“All the crown jewels shall revert to France.
ARTICLE XI.
“The Emperor Napoleon shall cause to be returned to the
treasury, and to other public chests, all the sums and effects
1814.] Otº MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 205
Treaty of Fontainebleau.
which may have been displaced by his orders upon the occasion
of what accrues from the civil list.
ARTICLE XII.
“The debts of the household of his Majesty the Emperor
Napoleon, as they exist on the day of the signing of the pre-
sent treaty, shall be immediately liquidated out of the arrears
due from the public treasury to the civil list, according to the
statements which shall be signed by a commissioner to be ap-
pointed for this purpose.
ARTICLE XIII.
“The obligations of the Monte Napoleone of Milan, to.
wards all its creditors, whether French or strangers, shall be
exactly fulfilled, without any alteration being made in this
respect. -
ARTICLE XIV.
“All such safe-conducts shall be furnished as are neces-
sary for the free journey of his Majesty the Emperor Napo-
leon, of the Empress, of the princes and princess, and of all
the persons of their suite who shall wish to accompany them, or
to establish themselves out of France, as well as for the passage
of all the equipages, horses, and effects which belong to them.
“The allied powers shall furnish, in consequence, officers
and men as an escort.
ARTICLE XV,
“The imperial guard shall furnish a detachment from
1200 to 1500 men, of all arms, to serve as an escort as far as
Saint Tropez, the place of embarcation.
ARTICLE XVI.
“There-shall be furnished an armed corvette and the ves-
sels of transport necessary to conduct to the place of his des.
tination his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, as well as his
household. The corvette shall remain the full property of his
majesty.
206 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Dool; 9.
Treaty of Fontainebleau.
ARTICLE XVII.
“His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon can take with him,
and keep for his guard, 400 men, volunteers, officers, sub-
officers, and soldiers.
ARTICLE XVIII.
“All French persons who shall follow his Majesty the
Emperor Napoleon and his family, shall be bound, if they
do not wish to lose their quality of French subjects, to return
to France in the term of three years, unless they are comprised
in the exceptions that the French Government reserve the
power of granting after the expiration of this term.
ARTICLE XIX.
“The Polish troops of all arms, which are in the service of
France, shall have the liberty of returning to their own coun-
try, preserving their arms and baggage as a testimonial of
their honourable services. The officers, sub-officers, and
soldiers shall preserve the decorations which shall have been
granted to them, and the pensions attached to these decorations.
ARTICLE XXe
“The high allied powers guarantee the execution of all the
articles of the present treaty. They engage themselves further,
that they shall be adopted and guaranteed by France.
ARTICLE XXI.
“The present treaty shall be ratified, and the ratifications
of it shall be exchanged at Paris in the term of two days, or
sooner, if possible.
“Done at Paris, the 11th April, 1814.
(Signed)
“CAULAINcouTT, Duke of Vicenza.
“The Marshal Duke of Tarentum, MACDoNALD.
“The Marshal Duke of Elchingen, NEY.
(Signed)
“The Prince of METTERNICH.”
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 207
Reflections on the Treaty.
The same articles have been signed separately, and under
the same date, on the part of Russia, by the Count of Nessel-
rode, and on the part of Prussia, by the Baron of Hardenberg.
IV.
Such was the treaty that liquidated the blood of a million
of men, the Empire, the genius, and the glory of ten years.
A little island of the Tuscan sea was now to shut up this man,
which all Europe was too narrow to contain. Was it a defini-
tive repose, or was it only a halt in the march of one whose life
had agitated that of his age? This was the question that
every body put to themselves the day after the treaty was
signed. Napoleon himself evidently considered it but as a
halt; and he was already preparing himself in thought to re-
gain what had been taken from him by those very means which
had still been left him. He knew the nature of men; he had
experience of fortune; he felt his power in the army, and he
believed in a morrow to every thing human. It was not
doubted by men of deep penetration, any more than by himself,
that this apparent expiation of his glory would speedily satisfy
the resentment of the people against him that exile would
shield him against the unpopularity of his fall; that the faults
and the difficulties of the new reign would cause a reaction for
him of regrets, of excuses, and of comparisons in favour of an
opinion that he was about to revivify, by acquiring new strength
and vigour from misfortune, in the eyes of his partisans; that
his glory, veiled but not extinct, would shine out with a splen-
dour all the more fascinating from the distance ; finally, that
this rock, so near to Italy and to France, would become the re-
fuge of all the hopes of his party, and a culminating point for all
the internal factions. Athens never allowed the approach of
Themistocles to his country till death had secured them from
his arts; but Napoleon was greater than Themistocles. There
were only two means for Europe to preserve itself from his
genius—a distant and insuperable exile, or a diminished throne,
which they might have allowed him to remount, and to struggle
with the awakening liberties of his country. A treaty of peace
208 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 0.
Napoleon's refusal to sign the Treaty.
signed by him, after the occupation of Paris, and on the ruins
of his empire, would have degraded him in the eyes of France;
a treaty of banishment aggrandized and gave him fresh lustre,
It is shame alone that can conquer glory. Alexander, in this
treaty, showed himself magnanimous, but without a knowledge
of history. He foresaw nothing, or he foresaw too much.
Perhaps his counsellors thought it advisable to leave this living
menace suspended over the reign of the Bourbons.
V.
Caulaincourt and Macdonald brought this treaty to Fontaine-
bleau, without dissembling the difficulties they would have to
encounter in obtaining Napoleon's signature to it; but they
were resolved equally with Europe in having it accomplished,
even against the apparent will of him whose fate it was to seal.
People were tired of struggling with him and against him;
honour and fidelity were satisfied, and, ratified or not, the treaty
was thenceforward the law of destiny.
Napoleon received it with affected indignation, although he
was previously made acquainted with all the details by the
private reports which Caulaincourt had sent him from hour to
hour. But it suited the future part he had to play to protest
against it, even to the last stipulation. He seemed also to
expect something further from time; and he did not wish to
lose in his hurry what it might yet have in store for him.
“Have you brought me my abdication at last?” he cried with
a piercing voice, on seeing his plenipotentiary again. Caulain-
court, astonished, replied, that the first basis of any treaty at
all was naturally the abdication remitted to the allied sovereigns,
and that it had been long before consigned to the same publi-
city as other official documents. “Well! of what use is this
treaty to me?” replied Napoleon. “I shall not recognise it; I
don't wish to sign; I shall not sign it.”
He thus consumed the whole day in contesting with his
negociators; till, worn out with his subterfuges, and discouraged
by his resistance, they deposited the treaty on the table, and
retired, leaving him to the night and to his own reflections.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 209
Rumours of his taking poison.
VI.
In the middle of the night the servants of the Emperor
knocked at the door of Caulaincourt's apartment, and called
him out of his sleep to go to their master. Caulaincourt found
Napoleon pale and depressed, suffering from spasms of the
stomach and nervous lamentations which had alarmed his
domestics. His principal Surgeon, Ivan, was in attendance on
him; and it was whispered in the chamber that he had at-
tempted to commit suicide by swallowing the poison of Cabanis,
by which Condorcet, when imprisoned, had avoided capital
punishment. The Emperor neither admitted nor denied this
supposition, which would give a tragical motive to a slight in-
disposition, and a text for the tender supplications of his
friends. His medical attendant contented himself with ad-
ministering some cups of tea to his patient; by which he was
relieved, and he fell asleep again without any other medicine.
The doctor appeared so unconscious of the symptoms, and was
so little alarmed at the consequences of this pretended poison-
ing, that he retired from Fontainebleau at day-break
VII.
On awaking, Napoleon, referring in ambiguous terms to
the idea of the poisoning which fatality had prevented him
from accomplishing:—“God would not permit it,” he said;
“I cannot die l’” And as his servants, affecting to fear that
he would still renew the attempt, spoke to him of his glory, of
France, of his wife, of his son, who ought to attach him to
life:—“My son,” he exclaimed; “my son —what a dismal
inheritance I leave him This child, though born a king, at
present has not even a country ! Why was I not allowed to
die?”
“No, Sire,” tenderly replied Caulaincourt, “it is while
living that France should weep for you!”
“France has abandoned me,” said Napoleon. “The
ingratitude of men has made my head turn with disgust 1”
N
210 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 9,
lmprobability of his committing suicide.
With a violent gesture he drew aside his bed curtain, which
had obscured from him the first rays of the sun. He appeared
so full of life and of self-command, that a thunderbolt alone
seemed capable of destroying him. “ These few days past,”
he said, “I have experienced such a concentration and jarring
of events within me, that I dread insanity. Insanity,” he
added, “is the abdication of humanity! Rather give me
death !”
“I shall sign to day,” he continued, after a moment's
silence; “you may retire.”
VIII.
These last words sufficiently explained the secret of the
might. Napoleon wanted witnesses of the moral violence
which had torn from him a concession which it was his intention
one day to call in question. He would be said to have
struggled even to suicide, and not to have yielded but to the
impossibility of dying. No person of observation believed in
this poisoning. The perfect possession of his faculties, attested
by the obstinate diplomacy of his actions, of his words, of his
negociation during these long days, the elasticity of his mind
before and after the might scene, the lightness of his indis-
position, the trifling nature of the remedies, the indifference
of the doctor, the promptness of the recovery, all indicated
either an accidental illness, or a premeditated tragical scene,
to excuse him from signing, or to excite the pity and com-
# miseration of the age. But the nature of Napoleon revolted
against suicide: his mind was strong, his soul possessed neither
tenderness nor human weakness; he only felt by intellect.
His mathematical genius calculated everything, and never
yielded to sensibility. A single tear, at the death of his
dearest companions in arms, had never tarnished his eye or
his judgment. He was broken by the present state of his
affairs, exasperated at ingratitude, and humbled by desertion :
but he was far from despairing of the future. Such a man
never kills himself while an army remains to his hand, a glory
to enjoy, and an Empire to re-conquer, Even the clauses of
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 2 I {
The Emperor signs the Treaty.—Marshal Macdonald.
this treaty, which he disputed one by one, sufficiently show
that he did not consider himself as yet done with existence. The
island of Elba, on which his thoughts were already bent, and
whence he had in imagination already returned, was the very
reverse of that death sought after at Fontainebleau. Moreover,
Napolean was a Corsican; his fibres were tempered by the light
and the air of the South; whereas suicide is a malady of northern
climates.
But his nature was of a dramatic cast as well as his destiny.
A great actor for the last fifteen years upon the stage of Europe
and of the world, he arranged his attitudes, and studied his
gestures and his by-play. An actor, even in the most rapid
transitions of his fortune, he wanted a tragic Scene at the
catastrophe. If he did not plan it, at least he accepted it from
chance. Such was the night of Fontainebleau.
IX.
When he had risen he called for Caulaincourt, whom he
could hope to deceive less than any other; for this friend of his
latter days had been confidentially charged by himself to prepare
these conditions which he had affected to reject so haughtily.
“Now hasten the conclusion of all,” he said to him; put
this treaty, when I shall have signed it, into the hands of the
allied sovereigns: let them know that I treat with them and
not with the provisional government, in which I can see nothing
but traitors and factionists?”
Macdonald and Ney having entered, he took the pen and
signed. His features bore traces of the disquietude of the
night, and of the real or pretended agitation of his mind.
His forehead, concealed in his hands, was bent downwards;
but he rose to thank Macdonald, who owed him least, and
had done the most for him. By his bearing towards Mac-
donald he nobly avenged for the ungrateful rudeness or
the rapid hurry of desertion of the others. “Marshal,” he
Said, “I am no longer rich enough to recompense your last and
faithful services. I have been deceived as to your sentiments
N ?
212 1HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 9.
Preparations for Napoleon's departure to Elba.
towards me.” “Sire,” replied Macdonald, with the generosity
of a great soul, “I have forgotten everything since 1809.”
“That is true, I know it,” added the Emperor; “but since
I can no longer recompense you according to the wish of my
heart, I wish at least to leave you a Sowvenir of me, which
shall remind yourself of what you were in these days of trial.
Caulaincourt,” he said, turning towards his confidential officer,
“ask for the sabre that was given to me in Egypt, by Mourad-
Bey, and which I wore at the battle of Mount Tabor.” The
oriental weapon being brought, Napoleon, handing it to the
marshal, “There,” said he, “is the only reward of your attach.
ment that I have to give you. You were my friend!” “Sire,”
replied the brave soldier, pressing the weapon to his heart, “I
shall preserve it all my life, and if I should ever have a son, it
will be his most precious inheritance.” “Give me your hand,”
murmured Napoleon, “and let us embrace l’” The Emperor
and his general embraced each other, and tears stood in the
eyes of both as they parted.
X.
The signing of the treaty by Napoleon was a signal through
the palace for almost universal desertion. Every one now
began to think only of making his peace with the new govern-
ment. All hastened to fly; every one dreaded that the Em-
peror would include his name amongst those whose fidelity he
would invoke to accompany him in his exile. Maret alone, of
all his old ministers, remained at his post, as secretary of
state, with his master, now without power and without a court.
After Macdonald and Caulaimcourt had taken the treaty'
signed to Paris, the allied sovereigns each appointed a commis-
sioner to accompany the Emperor through France to the port
on the Mediterranean. Schouwalof for Russia, Koller for
Austria, Campbell for England, Valdebourg Fruchssefs for
Prussia: formed the court of the exile, charged to superintend,
to serve, and to honour the proscribed of Europe. The irritation
of the south of France was such at that time, against Napoleon,
that he required a safeguard amongst his own subjects. In
1814.] OIF MON ARCIHY IN FRANCE. 213
His mental abstraction and solicitude.
the departments of the centre and the east, on the contrary,
his presence might awaken military enthusiasm, and give a
chief to insurrection and the independence of the country.
From these two considerations, the escort of the commissioners,
and of an imposing armed force, was necessary to the Sovereigns
and to Napoleon himself. His death would have been the
crime of Europe; his evasion and his call to arms would have
been the renewal of a war without grandeur, but not without,
calamities.
Caulaincourt preceded, by a few hours, the arrival of the
four commissioners at Fontainebleau, to prepare the Emperor
to receive this foreign court. The palace already resembled
a tomb: silence and vacuity reigned in the courts and in the
halls. Here and there only, some groups of soldiers, less
habituated to the spectacle of vicissitudes, and less used to
human compassion, wandered round the walls and round the
gardens of the palace, endeavouring to catch a glimpse, through
the balustrades of the parterres and the balconies, of the
fugitive form of their general, to comfort him with an acclama-
tion. The Emperor appeared and disappeared alternately;
he gave no sign of encouragement, nor even of attention to
these groups and their cries: he seemed totally absorbed in
himself: his body and his mind were equally devoid of rest,
XI,
At this moment he was walking alone and with measured
steps, in the alleys of an enclosed parterre, scarcely yet covered
with the young foliage of spring, resembling a monastic garden,
enclosed between an advanced wing of the building and the walls
of the chapel. The thick shadow of the forest formed the back of
the picture, bordered with oaks, where the thoughts, might
Wander amidst an unlimited solitude. It was there that his
confidant found him. The voice and footsteps of Caulaincourt
could hardly dissipate the reverie of the Emperor. He might be
likened to the shade of Charles V., regretting the empire in the
corridors of the monastery of Saint-Just. His heart had recently
2 I { HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Boor 9.
His favourite, General Berthier, deserts him.
been torn by a silent desertion more bitter than all the others.
Berthier had departed by stealth, without waiting for permis-
sion, or even saying adieu. This marshal, the privileged com-
panion of the Emperor since the Italian campaigns, was the
Hephæstion of the modern Alexander. He slept in his tent,
he dined at his table, he was the reflex of each of his thoughts,
the organ of every order, his voice, his pen, his hand, his soul.
But Berthier had nourished for fifteen years in his heart one
of those passions at once simple and chivalrous, which form
the guiding star and the fatality of a whole life. He loved a
beautiful Italian, who had formerly fascinated him at Milan,
and whom neither war, nor ambition, nor glory, nor the friend-
ship of the Emperor could for a moment detach from his
thoughts and his eyes. In his tent on the eve of battle the
portrait of this beauty, deified by his worship, was suspended by
the side of his arms, rivalling his duty, and consoling the pains
of absence by the imaginary presence of her he adored. The
idea of for ever quitting this beloved objeet, should the Emperor
require from his gratitude his attendance in exile, had led
astray the mind of Berthier. He trembled every instant since
the abdication, lest his master should put his attachment to a too
cruel test, by telling him to choose between his duty and his love.
This proof he evaded by deserting in the night his companion
in arms and his benefactor. Unfaithful to the exiled Napoleon,
through fidelity to love, he fled, as if to bind himself in closer
chains, by offering his infidelity to the Bourbons. Napoleon
had not yet embarked for the island of Elba, when already
Berthier, his major-general and his military confidant, was
lavishing, under the canopies of the Tuileries and the white
plume, his complaisanee and devotion to the new reign;–an-
other example of prostration attheshrine of Fortune. Napoleon
had no right to complain, for he desired the abasement of all
minds; and fidelity is the courage of the heart. But he did
lament, however, this desertion of men to whom he had been
hourly accustomed for so many years. This disappearance of his
most familiar confidants was like the rending of his heart: it
was, however, only the rending of his habits; for he habituated
himself to them, but never attached himself,
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 215
Devotion of the soldiers and subalterns.
XII.
“Well” said he, endeavouring to give a tone of raillery to
his voice, which, however, became elevated as he alluded to
the recent desertion, “you then, at least, seemed determined
to exercise to the very last your functions of grand equerry.
Can you believe that Berthier is gone? Gome! without even
bidding me farewell! He was born a courtier,” he added with
disdain; “and you will see before long my vice-constable will
beg for employment at the court of my enemies!” Then
running over the names of all the marshals and dignitaries of
his kingdom who had followed the flight of fortune for some
days past; “I am mortified,” he exclaimed, “for human nature
and for France, that men, elevated by me so high, should fall
so low by the weight of their own characters | What must the
allied sovereigns think of men whom I made the ornaments of
my reign? Hasten, hasten my departure! I am ashamed of the
turpitude of France. See the commissioners, and hurry them;
let us go.”
At the very moment he was thus accusing those whom he
had associated with all his glories, with all his power, with all
his spoils, the subaltern portion of his army, whose services,
whose heroism, and whose blood he had squandered with crimi-
mal neglect and apathy—those whose bodies he had strewn
upon every route in Europe—were devoting themselves to him
with more heart than ever. His attendants introduced to him
every moment, in the garden, brave subalterns or soldiers of
his guard, who came to supplicate that they might be included
in the small body of troops which the treaty had left him,
Soliciting exile with him more earnestly than the evening before
they would have solicited a look, a decoration, or a promotion.
Great attachments proceed from the masses, because they spring
from nature. Nature is magnanimous, courts are selfish, and
favour is corrupt.
XIII.
The necessity of ratifying in London the treaty of Fontaine-
bleau, prolonged for some days the residence of the Emperor
2 || 6 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 9.
Desertion of Fontanes, the poet.
in that palace. These days, which he sought to prolong arti-
ficially himself, as if to await some palpitation of France at his
name, and as if to enjoy a remnant of imperial splendour, were
silent, idle, and repining. Regret or gratitude brought but
rare visitors from Paris or the army. These were desirous of
being en régle with fortune: courtiers taking pride to them-
selves in bidding one party farewell before they saluted the
other. But even these civilities of defection towards misfor-
tune were by no means numerous. The crowd troubled them-
selves no more about the matter than to hasten by their impa-
tience the prompt removal of him they had deified for ten years.
It seemed to them that he would carry away with him, beyond
the seas, the stigma of their ingratitude. The name and the
shadow of Fontainebleau reached them too readily at Paris.
Macdonald, Mortier, and Moncey, soldiers of a period less
servile than that of the Empire, returned to do honour to
ancient loyalty and ancient fortune. The Emperor received
them with gratitude, and their names formed a striking con-
trast with those of whose absence he complained. Cambaceres,
he often exclaimed, Molé, Ney, Berthier, above all; Fontanes
even Fontanes, the proscribed, sheltered by the Consulate
Fontanes, the favourite of his sister | Fontanes, the poet of
religion and the throne, the orator of prosperity, now the
senator negociating with the Restoration the deposition of his
imperial idol. He could not console himself for this desertion.
Literature, which he had so much debased, now seemed to him
the guardian of virtue and of the decency of characters. It
has been in the ranks of the great men of philosophy or of
poetry that great examples of fidelity have been found in
ancient and in modern times. Fontanes, by his elevated soul,
by his classical talents, by the dignity of his life, would have
been worthy of perpetuating them. He had protected his
rivals, while he was powerful, against the anger of the Em-
peror. He had nobly defended, in M. de Chateaubriand and
in Madame de Staël, the generous independence of the mind
and of the heart, and now he was already one of the favourites
of the future reign. The secret of this position of Fontanes
was not in his heart, but in his opinions. He had been a
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 2 17
Fontanes.—Napoleon's speculations about Elba.
royalist with Andrew Chenier, Delille, and Roucher, from
indignation against the crimes of the demagogues, and from a
generous compassion for the martyrdom of the Bourbons. He
had then courageously struggled against the sanguinary tyranny
of the people. He had braved the scaffold, and had been
proscribed. On again finding the Bourbons, he had found the
kings of his youth and the recollections of his first fidelity.
The worship of the Emperor had disgusted him. He saw him
replunge the country into barbarism and into the disasters of
invasions and revolutions. He had thrown himself to the side
of his country; but he had forgotten misfortune. There should
have intervened at least some time between Napoleon and him,
to have prepared him for inaction, silence, and mourning. He
had flattered too much to anathematise; he failed in point of
time; he appeared ungrateful towards his benefactor; but he was
only inopportune in the acts of the Senate against Napoleon.
Napoleon loved him for the classical elegance of his language
and of his understanding; he saw in him a poet of the court of
Augustus; he could not console himself at seeing him slide into
the court of another. Thus were the hours passed at Fontaine-
bleau in recriminations against the Solitude which the deposition
had spread around the Emperor.
XIV.
Two days before the 20th April, which was at length fixed
as the day of departure, a general officer, obstinate in his
desire to retain the Emperor in France, came to acquaint him
with the sentiments of the French army, which had fallen back
behind the Loire, and was ready to renew thestruggle in his name.
“It is too late,” said Napoleon; “I could have done it, and
they didn't wish it; let destiny be accomplished ſ” He occupied
himself no further, except in personal preparations for his
departure, and with imaginary speculations about Elba; in
which his fancy led him astray. The vacancy which the lost
world had left in his soul was already filled up by this small
and ultimate shadow of domination. To such a man, to live
was to reign.
218 HISTOI&Y OF THE RESTORATION [Booſt 0.
Marie-Louise.
But he already occupied himself in taking pledges for
a reaction in his destiny. That upon which he counted most
was a speedy reunion with his wife and son. His wife, in his
banishment, would secure to him the respectful compassion of
the world and the private favour of Austria ; his son would
prolong his family and dynasty. He did not doubt, or rather
he pretended not to doubt, that the allied sovereigns would
leave him these two consolations in his exile and guarantees of
liberty. He affected to speak and to write of it as if these two
conditions were not essential clauses of the treaty: wherever
the man goes his family go with him. But Napoleon was
more than a man—he was a sovereign and a dethroned dynasty.
He could not have forgotten what he himself had made of these
family ties, with respect to the princes of the house of Condé,
the royal family of Sweden, the royal family of Spain, the
Duke d'Enghien, Gustavus IV, Ferdinand VII., and Pius
VII., carried away in the darkness of the night from his
palace, to languish, far away from his relatives and friends, in
the very place where he was now himself recriminating against
the tyranny of others. His wife, the young Marie-Louise,
whom he now reclaimed with so much confidence and so much
right—what was she herself, if not a conquest of military power,
and a spoil of policy, torm from a family which had made a
ransom of this princess 2 But these retributions on his own
acts did not deprive him of his ardour to recover the Empress,
to decorate his reign in the isle of Elba, and perhaps to become
his personal protection, and his most eloquent and moving
pleader in his journey through that part of France whose sym-
pathy he was desirous of obtaining. *
XV.
Let us now return to the fugitive court of Marie-Louise,
and relate what was passing there, during this long decline of
the Empire and the Emperor.
We have seen that Marie-Louise had left Paris three days
before the occupation of that capital. Ten of the court car-
riages, filled with the ministers, the great officers and the ladies
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 219
Journey of Marie-Louise and the Court from Paris.
of her suite, formed this cortège of a flying court, slowly directing
its steps towards the old chateau of Rambouillet. The princess
was weeping not only at this flight, a prelude to the catastrophe
of her husband, but at the constraint imposed upon her of
obeying those imperial councillors who were dragging her to
the unknown extremities of the empire, and who might intend
to make of her a centre and a provocation of desperate war-
Her husband was in one place, her father in another, and her
child with herself-all these affections, all these destinies
opposed in interest to one another; she herself a certain vic-
tim on whichever side she saw the triumph; a foreign court
around her all sold to her husband, and from which he had
pitilessly expelled every one, even to the humblest companion
of her infancy, who might remind her of the language and the
recollections of her country; and eyes everywhere which spied
her tears and controlled her attitude in the presence of dis-
affected populations. There was in all this enough to fill with
sorrow the heart of a young woman only twenty years of age.
Cambaceres, imperturbable in his countenance, trembling in his
heart, and uncertain in his thoughts, followed with the great
officers of the crown.
XVI.
The cortège stopped for one night in the antiquated soli-
tude of Rambouillet. The absence of news from Paris, and the
dread of being outstript by some corps of the enemy's cavalry,
made them hurry their departure the following day for Chartres.
: During the night Joseph and Jerome, the two already uncrowned
brothers of Napoleon, arrived there with the Queen, the minister
of war, Clarke, and other functionaries escaped from Paris. The
Empress Josephine and her daughter had taken shelter on the
same day in the chateau of Navarre in Normandy, the appanage
of this Empress after her repudiation. Two Empresses, two
courts, two dynasties dispossessed, were already following this
Empire, equally encumbered with grandeur and with ruin, ten
years after its establishment.
At Vendome the Empress received the first letter from
Napoleon since his departure from the Tuileries. This letter
220 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOR 9,
The Emperor's correspondencewith the Empress.
announced to Marie-Louise the fatal news of the occupation of
Paris, and the arrival too late of the Emperor at the village of
Cour de France; it breathed still nothing but war, and en-
couraged the fugitive court to manifestations of authority, and
defence to the last; it nourished the hope which Napoleon still
had of a speedy and triumphal entry into Paris. These letters
from the Emperor to his young wife succeeded each other
$frequently during these days of anguish; but however intimate
such effusions might be, between a husband, falling from the
throne of the world, and a wife, daughter of the Caesars and
mother of his son whom he was dragging down in his fall, they
were written, not by the hand but under the dictation of
the Emperor. More frequently even these letters were not dic-
tated, but simply written by the confidential secretaries of
Napoleon, to whom he negligently delivered the text. Such was
in his mind the serious pre-occupation of his rank, that he inter-
posed the coldness and official etiquette of courts between
himself and the heart of his wife. The Empire had usurped the
place of nature in that soul infatuated with power. It was from
this rigorous sentiment of majesty and Superiority, without in-
termission, in the interior of his domestic life as in exterior
ceremonies, that he sat down alone at his table with the Empress.
He proportioned the arrangement of seats also to his wife's
dignity and his own. In the long soirées of the palace, whilst
he alone reposed on an imperial divan, he kept his ministers,
his marshals, and even the wives of men of the loftiest names
and highest rank in his court standing before him. These were
littlenesses of glory and of rank which, instead of aggrandizing
the man, recalled the private origin of all the haughtincss with
which he thus wished to dominate.
XVII.
Marie-Louise was obliged to remain eight days at Blois.
The brothers and ministers of the Emperor, who imperiously
appointed her places of residence and directed her movements,
endeavoured to make this town the temporary capital of the
roving government. The Emperor, who still influenced them,
1814.] . OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 221
Marie-Louise at Blois.
communicated with them and the Fmpress by means of
officers of his household, who went to Blois under various
pretexts. The road to Fontainebleau, although rendered im-
passable to an imperial cortège, was not sufficiently so to inter
cept emissaries. The letters of the Empress, thus transmitted,
appear sometimes to reveal the desire, whether real or merely
apparent on her part, to rejoin her husband. She was
evidently distracted between the desire to do what her duty
as a wife commanded her, and the fear of compromising herself
and her child by throwing herself as a hostage of the Bonaparte
family, into the midst of a handful of warlike men, reduced to
the last extremities of a sanguinary and desperate struggle.
Not daring openly to avow this extreme repugnance to a suite
of persons, devoted even to violence to the interests of the
Empire, nor entirely to resist the constraint of the brothers of
Napoleon, without a single confidant at her side, to whom she
could unburthen her mind; dreading a spy in each of her
intrusive courtiers; her anxieties, her sleepless nights, her
contradictory resolutions, her concealed tears, the injunctions
of her husband, who was calling her to his side, the voice of
her son who kept her back, the memory and private warnings
of her father, which enjoined her to suspend her intentions
and to wait, had thrown her into a lowness of spirits and a
prostration of physical power, which only revealed itself by
spasms, despondency, and sobbing. She could not persuade
herself that the Emperor of Austria, who bore her an affection
so tender, and who had commanded this union with the
authority of a father, would ever consent to dethrone his
daughter's husband. She reserved herself as a beloved medi-
ator, and a sure negociator, at the last moment between Napo-
leon and him. Such was the soul of this princess, wife, and
mother, isolated and beset by so many opposite feelings and
counsels during this regency of Blois.
XVIII.
With these ideas Marie-Louise sent M. de Champagny, a
man reasonably devoted to her interests, and of some col.sider-
222 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 9.
She sends negociators to her father, the Emperor of Austria.
ation in both camps, to the Emperor of Austria, who was still
at Dijon. M. de Montalivet, a minister of moderate faculties,
in easy times and daily labours, but misplaced amidst these
tempests, was appointed to the post of M. de Champagny,
minister directing the semblance of an administration in the
shadow of an empire. Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely,
famatically devoted to Napoleon, was sent some days after to
the Emperor of Austria. This was an unfortunate choice,
from his being so excessively compromised in the cause of
imperialism. Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely was of the
school of Fontanes. An eloquent and courageous struggler
against the excesses of the Revolution, he had driven it back
even to despotism. He drew up the most absolute acts of the
Emperor. His name had become latterly as unpopular as the
tyranny itself. Faithful even to authority, though it crushed
him, he did himself honour in not following the deserters; but
he made the Empire unpopular by serving it. Soon after, M,
de Saint Aulaire, a man of great name, of a diplomatic spirit.
and a character which bent sufficiently to circumstances,
followed in the footsteps of Regnault de Saint Jean d’Angely.
Finally, M. de Beausset, prefect of the palace, more especially
devoted to the Empress, and more proper to intercede, went
in his turn to offer tears rather than reasoning to the Emperor
Francis. These negociators had no ascendancy over this so-
vereign, who had implicitly confided every thing to M. de
Metternich, his prime minister. Banishment was therefore
decreed; victory had pronounced it, and Marie-Louise was
twice Sacrificed.
XIX.
Meanwhile the two brothers of the Emperor, Joseph and
Jerome, held her captive in the hotel of the regency at Blois.
Guarded by a detachment of the troops of Napoleon, who was
preparing a military expedition to carry her away, honoured in
appearance with the majesty and the authority of Regent, pre-
siding every day at the council of ministers, she was in reality
subject to and superintended by Joseph and Jerome, and by
those dignitaries who were the accomplices of their master.
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 223
Character of Marie-Louise.
They trembled, however, lest a sudden expedition of
Russian cavalry to the city of Blois should come and wrest
from them, with the Empress, this last pledge of Empire, and
of negociation, which remained in their hands. They suppli-
cated her, and summoned her more and more every hour to
quit Blois, and to follow them into the provinces most distant
from the theatre of war, and covered by the Loire. Marie-
Louise expressed an invincible repugnance to follow them.
She distrusted these dethroned princes, pushed into extreme
resolutions by the ruin of their own ambition. She shuddered
at the thought of becoming, in their hands, the hostage of their
despair, and the property of a civil war. She formed courage
in her terror: she put off, she refused, she exaggerated the
failure of her strength, which made her prefer, she said, wait-
ing her destiny, whatever it might be, rather than go to pro-
voke it by new flights. She took refuge against the entreaties
in the interior of her apartments, and even in her bed.
XX.
History ought here to avenge the rights of nature, and dis-
close the secret sentiments of the woman concealed beneath the
conventional sentiments of the Empress. Her deep instinctive
feelings, disregarded by the pitiless partisans of her husband's
ambition, exposed Marie-Louise to reproach, injustice, and
scorn. She has been condemned for not having been the
theatrical heroine of an affection she never felt. Overlooking
the feelings of a woman, her accusers forgot that the heart will
make itself heard even in the drama of such an unparalleled
destiny; and if the heart is not always a justification it is at
least an excuse. Justice should weigh such excuses even when
she condemns
Marie-Louise never loved Napoleon. How could she love
him? He had grown old in camps, and amidst the toils of
ambition: she was only nineteen. His soldier's heart was cold
and inflexible as the spirit of calculation which accomplished
his greatness. That of the fair German princess was gentle,
timid, and pensive as the poetic dreams of her native land.
She had fallen from the steps of an ancient throne; he had
22 # HISTOINY OF THE RESTORATION [Bool; 9.
Napoleon's want of conjugal affection.
mounted upon his by the force of arms, and by trampling here.
ditary rights under foot. Her early prejudices and education
had taught her to consider Napoleon as the scourge of God,
the Attila of modern kingdoms, the oppressor of Germany, the
murderer of princes, the ravager of nations, the incendiary of
capitals; in a word, the enemy against whom her prayers had
been raised to heaven from her cradle in the palace of her
ancestors. She regarded herself as a hostage conceded through
fear to the conqueror, after the ungrateful and tolerated repu-
diation of a wife who had been the very instrument of his for-
tunes. She felt that she had been sold, not given. She looked
upon herself as the cruel ransom of her father and her country.
She had resigned to her fate as an immolation. The splen-
dours of an imperial throne were to her as the flowers decking
a victim for sacrifice. Cast alone, and without a friend, into a
court composed of parvenu soldiers, revolutionary courtiers, and
bantering women, whose names, manners, and language were
unknown to her, her youth was consumed in silent etiquette.
Even her husband's first addresses were not calculated to in-
spire confidence. There was something disrespectful and
violent in his affection ; he wounded even when he sought to
please. His very love was rough and imperious; terror inter-
posed between him and the heart of his young wife, and even
the birth of an ardently desired son could not unite such op-
posite natures. Marie-Louise felt that to Napoleon she was
only a medium of posterity, -not a wife and a mother, but
merely the root of an hereditary dynasty. This master of the
world could not boast even the inherent virtues of love, faith
and constancy to the one woman ; his attachments were tran-
sient and numerous. He respected not the jealousies natural
to the bosom of a wife; and though he did not openly proclaim
his amours like Louis XIV., neither did he possess that
monarch's courtesy and refinement. The most noted beauties
of his own and of foreign courts were not to him objects of
passionate love, but of irresistible, transient desire; thus even
mingling his contempt with his love. Napoleon's long and
frequent absences; his severe and minute orders so strictly ob-
served by a household of spies instead of friends, chosen rather
1814.] OF MON ATRCHY IN FRANCE. 225
Critical situation of Marie-Louise.
m—
to control than to execute the will of the Empress; his pettish-
ness of temper on his frequent abrupt returns; morose and
melancholy after experiencing reverses (her only recreation
being ostentatious, tiresome and frivolous ceremonies);-nothing
of such a life, of such a character, of such a man was calculated
to inspire Marie-Louise with love. Her heart and her imagina-
tion expatriated in France, had remained beyond the Rhine.
The splendours of the Empire might have consoled another;
but Marie-Louise was better formed for the tender attachment
of private life, and the simple pleasures of a German home.
XXI.
It is not to be wondered that a young woman, to whose
natural disposition, family, and feelings, such great violence
had been offered, and seeing herself on the eve of being
rescued through the victory gained by her father, should not
express any very sincere and ardent desire, at variance with her
own will, to return to captivity, and be again at the mercy of her
goalers of Blois. She knew neither how to dissemble nor play
the part of a conjugal heroine, foreign to her nature, and which
she did not feel. This was her only crime. She tremblingly
awaited the fate which was to plunge her, alone at least, from
one misfortune into another. She would not run to meet it.
The officers of Napoleon, and his two brothers, whom he had
placed about her, to advise, or force her either to some desperate
political measures to reign, or to an adventurous flight towards
the Emperor, did not cease to prompt her to these measures,
and to hint at a departure. She listened with repugnance, and
took refuge in silence ; she stole away from their importunities,
and clung to her retirement at Blois. Passive resistance on
the one side, baffled impatience on the other, events hastening
to a crisis, and the continual reinforcements of foreign troops
around her residence, must sooner or later bring to a violent
issue that struggle, as yet confined within the bounds of decorum,
between a young woman and her counsellors.
XXII.
On Friday the 8th of April, at an hour when the ladies'
apartments are still inaccessible to the domestics of the court,
O
226 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION BOOK 9.
Subjected to moral restraint.
•r- --
a commotion arose within the residence of the Empress at
Blois. The noise of animated conversation, of commands, and
resistance, issued from the inner apartments, where the young
princess had been awakened from sleep. The waiting-women,
the servants, and guards in attendance, were astonished at so
unusual an occurrence in the palace at such an hour. En-
quiring groups formed in the ante-chambers and in the courts.
They spoke of moral restraint exercised over the Empress to
force her to flee with the brothers of Napoleon towards the
interior of France, or to Fontainebleau. Emotion and indig-
nation were depicted on the faces, and expressed in the accents
of the speakers; while as yet no one dared to openly give utter-
ance to their feelings on beholding the scandal of such a restraint
exercised over a foreign lady, who was isolated, and deprived of
every means of defending, against force, her own liberty and
that of her child.
XXIII.
M. de Beausset, a gentleman from the south of France, of
a chivalrous character, and a heart full of respect for royalty,
full of pity for weakness, was the intendant of the palace, and
under this title attached to the court of the Empress.
The misfortunes and perplexities of this young woman
redoubled in him his official attachment. He hastened to her
on hearing the commotion, and, contrary to etiquette, entered
the ante-chamber of the room where the princess slept; and
from whence came the sounds. He learned, from the women
in waiting, that Cambaceres, Joseph, and Jerome Bonaparte
were with the Empress. He listened to the altercation with
anxiety, and endeavoured to guess the cause, when Marie-
Louise, in the disordered toilette of a woman who had been
unexpectedly disturbed from sleep, opened the door which
communicated between the two rooms, and ran towards M. de
Beausset. Her steps were hurried, her cheeks flushed with the
excitement of grief, her eyes full of tears, and her features hag-
gard. The violence of her feelings overcame her natural timidity.
* Monsieur de Beausset,” said she, in a trembling voice to
the intendant, “ of all the officers of the household of the
Emperor who are here, you were the first with whom I was
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 227
M. de Beausset undertakes to protect the Empress.
acquainted, for it was you who received me at Brumau on my
marriage, may I rely on your assistance? My two brothers.
in-law and Cambaceres are there,” added she in a low voice,
pointing to the adjoining room. “They have just told me that I
must instantly quit Blois, and that if I did not consent willingly
they would have me carried by force to my carriage with my son.”
“What is your Majesty's pleasure ?” demanded M. de
Beausset with firmness.
“To remain here,” replied the Empress, “and await letters
from the Emperor.”
“If such be your wish, Madame,” answered M. de Beausset,
“I dare answer that all the officers of your Majesty's household
and of your guard will think as I do, and that they will receive
no orders but from your Majesty. I will go and sound them.”
“Go, I beg of you,” in a low voice, murmured the timid but
resolute young woman. “Go, and return quickly to let me know
upon what I have to rely.”
XXIV.
M. de Beausset, on quitting the room, encountered General
Caffarelli, commander of the palace, and Count Haussonville,
one of the chamberlains of the court. They were highly indig-
nant, and rushing to the peristyle of the palace, in a loud voice
summoned the officers of the guard, who were dispersed about
the court. Scarcely were these brave soldiers informed of the
restraint imposed upon a woman confided to their protection,
than they with one voice protested against this violence, and
boldly demanded to be introduced into the presence of the
Empress, that they might express in person their devotion, and
their readiness with their swords to defend her majesty. M. de
Beausset preceded them to inform Marie-Louise of their wish.
“Enter,” said she on seeing him, “and repeat to the
princes what you have heard.”
“The officers of the household, and the guard of the
Empress,” said M. de Beausset to King Joseph, “have
declared it to be their firm intention to protect her Majesty
against all compulsion that may be attempted to oblige her to
quit Blois against her will.”
“Repeat the very words they made use of,” replied King
o 2
228 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 9.
\
The Empress quits Blois to join her father.
Joseph with an imperious obstimacy; “we must know the spirit
which animates them.”
“These words,” replied the intendant of the palace, “contain
nothing agreeable for you to hear, were I to repeat them. Hark!
listen to the tumult in the corridors and courts of the palace—
that murmur of indignation will tell you better than I can what
you desire to know.”
XXV.
Scarcely had M. de Beausset finished speaking, than groups
of officers of the palace and guard, pushed open the door, and
entered the room, expressing themselves to the Empress in
terms of marked devotion towards her person, and of subdued
anger against the oppressors of her liberty.
Joseph, then changing his tone and language, and turning
with apparent respect towards Marie-Louise, said, with feigned
conviction, “You had better remain, Madame ! That which I
proposed appeared to me most in accordance with your Majesty's
interests; but since your Majesty thinks otherwise, I repeat, you
had better remain.” The brothers of Napoleon did not dare to
renew the attempt. Despair had given this young princess cou-
rage. Indignation against such acts of violence had gained for
her all hearts. All abandoned themselves to fate, and awaited
at Blois the results of the negociations at Fontainebleau.
Some hours after this occurrence a Russian commissary with-
out escort, came in the name of the Sovereigns to convey away
Marie-Louise and her son. There was neither resistance nor
murmur. It was evident that the Empress had been prepared by
her father to surrender herself to his allies. If she must endure
captivity, she preferred that of her first family, and first country.
Herimperial courtimmediately broke up. Ministers, councillors,
of state, and courtiers all departed in haste, not towards Fontaine-
bleau but for Paris. This place was now the new field of fortune.
Even the minister of war merely sent his adieux to the Emperor,
and hastened to offer his services to the new master. *
XXVI.
The next day the Empress, under a Russian escort, was
conducted to Rambouillet, by Way of Orleans.
1814.] OF MONARCH Y IN FRANCE. 229
Napoleon's letters to the Empress, and his pompous ideas.
sº-w-
The Emperor continued to write to his wife, soliciting her
to join him on the road to the isle of Elba. He described to
her the place of his exile, fixed the number of chamberlains.
maids of honour, and female servants which she should bring
with her to this new residence. He had renounced none of the
pomps and puerilities of courts. It would almost seem as if
he had been born amidst these appendages of sovereignty, and
that they had been so implanted in his mature, that he had no
idea of any other than this artificial existence. He then asked
M. de Beausset, in confidence, what were the real intentions of
Marie-Louise with respect to rejoining him. Then he discussed
with her about adding territories to Lucca, Piombino, and
Carrara, which would be required to complete his states of
Parma. He recommended her to re-establish a household for
his son, the King of Rome, when she should arrive at Parma,
where, he observed, there were plenty of high-born women.
This pretension, (to clothe limself, as it were, with ancient
aristocracy, in which he wished himself and all that belonged
to him to participate,) he possessed even at his fall. The vanity
of the upstart outlived the fall of the sovereign. He then in-
quired the best way of passing through Lyons, and the other
great towns during the might, to avoid popular demonstrations,
which might be raised against him by public resentment. He
recommended her to bring several millions to establish herself
with becoming splendour in Elba. He caused to be abstracted
some of the diamonds of the crown which he claimed as private
property. He ordered his treasures, amounting to many
millions of gold, silver, and jewels, to be distributed in different
conveyances and carriages of the Empress, to avoid confiscation
or plunder from his enemies on the road from Paris to Italy.
He ordered to be sent to him three millions for personal expenses
during the journey that he was about to undertake. General
Cambronne was charged with the conveyance of this sum from
Blois to Fontainebleau. He opposed the idea of the Empress
sojourning at Rambouillet; he urged her to proceed to her
states in Italy, and evinced a lively apprehension at the idea
of an interview between the Emperor of Austria and Marie-
Louise. He evidently feared that paternal insinuations would
separate her from him for ever,
230 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Boor 9.
The Empress proceeds to Vienna.
Heforesaw the difficulties that the Sojourn of his wife and son,
as hostages in the hands of Austria, would offer to the restoration
of the Empire, about which he already had some confused idea.
XXVII.
With the exception of the orders concerning a portion of his
treasures, all these letters were the useless result of his idle
hours at Fontainebleau. Already the Empress, led as much
by inclination as by force to her father, at Rambouillet, joined
the Emperor of Austria in his residence, and placing her son
in the arms of his grandfather, took the road for Vienna under
an escort of the conquerors of her husband.
But while victory and indifference thus removed from him
the wife which policy had given him, but which Empire could
not attach to him, adversity brought back to him at Fontaine-
bleau a young and beautiful foreigner, whose love neither
defeat nor exile could extinguish. Among the numerous and
fugitive objects of his capricious and illegitimate attachments,
Napoleon had loved onee perhaps with a tender and durable
passion. At the summit of his success and glory, at a fête at
Warsaw, the beauty of a young Polish lady, intoxicated with
enthusiasm for his mame, had made a lively impression on him.
She was the young wife of a noble Sarmatian already advanced
in years. She shone, for the first time, amid the pomps of a court.
She adored in Napoleon—as what Pole them did not?—genius,
victory, and the fallacious hope of theindependence of her country.
Her countenance beamed with the adoration she internally
felt. Napoleon saw her, understood her, loved her. Long resist-
ance, violent struggles between passion and duty, and tears
fanned the flame into a passion. The Emperor carried off the
Countess Waleski from her husband, from her country. He
conveyed her to his camps, and to his conquered capitals. A
son was born,-the result of this attachment. A handsome
residence at Paris, often visited at might by Napoleon, concealed
from public view the ever-impassioned mother of this child.
XXVIII.
Adversity rendered her fault almost sacred, and his love
more dear to her. She wished, by devoting herself to the
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 231
Napoleon's amour with the Countess Waleski.
exile, to atone for her weakness for the conqueror of Europe.
She wrote to Napoleon to ask for an interview, and to offer to
accompany him wherever misfortune might lead him. He
consented to the interview, and the last night but one which
preceded the departure of the Emperor from Fontainebleau,
the young wife was introduced by a back staircase into the
room adjoining the bed-room of her lover. The confidential
valet announced to his master the arrival of her whom
he had consented to receive. Napoleon was plunged in that
kind of dreamy stupor which had overcome him since his fall.
He answered, that he would shortly call her who, on his
account, had braved modesty and adversity. The young
lady, in tears, waited in vain the greater part of the night.
He called her not. She heard him, nevertheless, walking in
his room. The attendant again reminded his master of his
visitor. “Wait a little longer,” said the Emperor. At
length the night having passed away, and day beginning to
dawn, there was some danger of the secret interview being
revealed; when the young woman, repulsed, dejected, and
offended, was re-conducted, in tears, to her carriage by the
confidential witness of her last adieux. Whether it was that
Napoleon had lost all sense of feeling in the agitation of his
mind, or that he was ashamed to appear as the cast-down
captive before her who had loved him as the victor and
sovereign of Europe, he evidently had no compassion for her
devotion. When the confidential servant entered his chamber
in the morning, and described the hopes, the fears, and shame
of the Countess Waleski, “Ah!” said he, “it is humiliating
for her as well as for myself; but the hours passed without my
being aware of them, I had something here,” he added,
touching his forehead with his finger. Despair, which softens
the hearts of other men, rendered his hard and frigid.
XXIX.
The next day he ordered Caulaincourt to be called, and
made some presents to his guards and the officers of his
household who had remained faithful to him up to that time.
“In a few days,” said he, addressing them, “I shall be
232 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 0.
f
His parting conversation with Caulaim court.
mºmºmº-º-º-º-º:
established in the isle of Elba. I long to breathe more air,
I am suffocated here. I had dreamt of great things for France;
but time failed me as well as man. The French nation can-
not support reverses. One year of disaster has made it obli-
vious of fifteen years of victory. France forsakes me, separates
me from my wife and child; but history will avenge me.”
He afterwards spoke, with apparent impartiality, of the
Bourbons. “Between those of olden time, and the people
renovated by revolutions, there is a vast abyss,” said he.
“The future is pregnant with events. We shall meet again,
my friends. To-morrow I shall bid farewell to my soldiers.”
XXX.
At length this morrow dawned. The commissaries, respect.
ful even in the performance of their duty, requested the Emperor
to name the hour for his departure. He had fixed mid-day.
All that remained to him of a court, that is to say, the
generals of his body guard, a few officers of his household,
Belliard, Gourgaud, Petit, Athalim, La Place, Fouler, and
a few servants, assembled at ten o'clock in the saloon be-
fore his cabinet, together with the foreign commissaries; a
poor and sorry train of attendants, in a palace formerly too
small to contain his courtly retinue. General Bertrand, grand
marshal of the palace, proud of a consciousness of fidelity
above the other exiles, announced the Emperor. He came
forth, with a countenance calm and composed. He passed
down the line of his last friends, bowing to right and left, and
extending his hand, which he withdrew moistened with tears.
Not a word broke that silence. The impression was too deep
for words to attempt to express. All the eloquence of that
“adieu,” gratitude, grief,-all was expressed by action.
That of the Emperor was worthy of the place—of his
rank, and of the occasion; it was natural, Sorrowful, and pen-
sive. It was evident that he respected his own banishment;
and it seemed as it his departure (rom the palace closed an
epoch of fifteen years of glory and of misfortune for France;
it was no longer the man but the Empire that departed. He
went forth with the majesty of a great evenſ
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 233
Preparations for his departure.
XXXI.
With measured step, and slow, followed by the guard and
by his friends, he passed through the long gallery of Francis I.
He stood for a moment on the landing of the grand staircase,
and looked around on the troops drawn up in the court of the
guard of honour, and on the innumerable multitudes, from
the surrounding country, which had assembled to witness this
grand historical event, that they might recount it to their
children. What contending feelings agitated the breasts of
that vast crowd, in which there were more accusers than de-
fenders. But the greatness of the fall in some, the sorrow
for misfortune in others, a regard to decorum in all, produced
an universal silence. Insult at such a moment would havé
been cowardly,–the cries of “Vive l'Empereur” a mockery.
The soldiers themselves experienced a feeling too solemn, of
too religious an awe, to think of acclamation ; they felt a deep
sense of honour in their conciousness of fidelity even in adverse
fortune, and felt that now the sun of their glory was about to
set, and with their chief to sink for ever behind the trees of
the forest, and the waters of the Mediterranean.
They envied the lot of those of their comrades whom fate
or choice had favoured by allowing them to be the companions
of their exiled Emperor. Their heads were bowed low, their
looks mournful, and tears rolled down the furrowed cheeks of
the warriors. Had the drums been covered with crape it
would have appeared like an army performing the obsequies of
their general. Napoleon, after casting a martial and penetrat-
ing glance at his battalions and squadrons, had in his counte-
mance an expression of tender regard unusual for him. What
days of battle, of glory, and of power did not the sight of that
army call to his mind? Where now were they who had com-
posed it, when it traversed with him the continents of Europe,
Africa, and Asia? How many now remained of those millions
in the remnant before his eyes? And yet those few were
faithful; and he was going to leave them for ever. The army
was himself. When he should no longer behold it, what would
234 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION ſnook 9,
His parting address to his gnard.
he be 2 He owed all to the sword, and with the sword he had
lost all. He hesitated a moment before descending, and
seemed as if about to re-enter the palace mechanically,
XXXII.
He rallied, however, and recovering himself descended the
stairs to approach his soldiers. The drums beat the salute.
With a gesture he imposed silence, and, advancing in front of
the battalions, he made a sign that he wished to speak. The
drums ceased, the arms were still ; and the almost breathless
silence allowed his voice, re-echoed by the high walls of the
palace, to be heard to the remotest ranks.
“Officers, subalterns, and soldiers of my old guard,” he
said, “I bid you farewell. For five-and-twenty years have I
ever found you walking in the path of honour and of glory.
In these latter times, as in those of our prosperity, you have
never ceased to be models of fidelity and of bravery.
“With men such as you, our cause would not have been
lost; but the war was interminable; it might have been a civil
war, and then it would have been worse for France. I have
therefore sacrificed our interests to those of the country. I
leave you. . . . . do you, my friends, continue to serve France;
her honour was my only thought; it shall ever be the object
of my most fervent prayers.
“Grieve not for my lot! If I have consented to outlive
myself, it is with the hope of still promoting your glory. I
trust to write the deeds we have achieved together. . . . Adieu,
my children; I would fain embrace you all. . . . . Let me at
least embrace your general and your colours ſ”
At these words the soldiers were deeply affected; a shudder
ran through the ranks, and their arms quivered. General
Petit, who commanded the old guard in the absence of the
marshals—a man of martial bearing but of sensitive feelings—
at a second signal from Napoleon advanced between the ranks
of the soldiers and their Emperor. Napoleon embraced him for
a long time, and the two chieftains sobbed aloud. At this
spectacle one stifled sob was heard through all the ranks.
Grenadiers brushed away the tear from their eyes with their
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 235
His affecting tarewell.—His depiuture for Elba.
left hands. “Bring me the eagles,” resumed the Emperor,
who desired to imprint upon his heart and on these standards
the memory of Caesar. Some grenadiers advanced, bearing
before him the eagles of the regiment. He grasped these
trophies so dear to the soldier; he pressed them to his breast,
and placing his lips to them, exclaimed, in a manly but broken
accent, “Dear eagle, may this last embrace vibrate for ever in
the hearts of all my faithful soldiers
“Farewell again, my old companions, farewell!” The
whole army burst into tears, and the only reply was one long-
continued groan.
An open carriage, in which General Bertrand awaited his
master and friend, received the Emperor, who hurried in, and
covered his eyes with both his hands. The carriage rolled
away towards the first stage of Napoleon's exile.
XXXIII.
The first Empire was at an end. Napoleon knew the
power of imagination over mankind. He well knew also the
part which the heart plays in history. In this scene, in the
face of France and of the world, he had made a solemn offer-
ing of his own, and of that of his troops. To his very enemies
this act appeared worthy of the greatest pages in the history of
nations. It had required fifteen years of victories and of
reverses to prepare the scene—an army and a hero to act it,
the world for a spectator, and an exile to render it touching.
This is the pathetic page in the Emperor's life. He had been
a Sovereign, never a man. In returning to nature, he again
found greatness. This “adieu" to his army gained for him the
admiration, the pity, and the heart of the people.
XXXIV.
Thus commenced the first exile of Napoleon. While he is
on his way towards that island to which Europe out of ven-
geance, and France from sheer weariness, had condemned him,
let us reflect a moment and judge.
History is not a mere drama; it is justice. Conquerors
and despots would have too great an advantage, if they were
only to be judged of, as has hitherto been the case with Napo-
236 HISTORY OF TITE RESTORATION ſ BOOK 9,
*
On the genus and character of Napoleon.
loon, by the sounds of a great name, or the dazzling lustre of
glory. There are flatterers of those who have gained renown,
as there are of the powerful, because fame is also a power, and
because, by placing themselves within the radiance of a great
name, people imagine that they participate in its magic in-
fluence, and may be able to crush all before them by the
authority of prejudice. It is the vac victis of the historian.
But this power of the renowned de facto is an evil power,
that we must have courage to resist to a just degree, for fear
that posterity should bow down to it, as did the age in which it
flourished; and that morality should be discouraged as indepen-
dence, and that virtue should not have the power of protesting,
or of being a witness.
XXXV.
Napoleon was a man of the school of Machiavel—not of that
of Plutarch. His object was neither virtue nor patriotism, but
an ardent thirst after power and renown. Favoured by cir-
cumstances which never fell to the lot of any other man, not
even Caesar, he sought to conquer and possess the world at any
cost—not to ameliorate it, but to aggrandize himself. This, the
sole aim of all the actions of his life, lowers and narrows them in
the eyes of all true statesmen. God never said to man, “Seekthy-
self thine own good; thou shalt become the centre of all human
things, and thou shalt make the world succumb to thy own pur-
poses.” On the contrary, he has said, “Thou shalt be, as far as
it is in thy power, a means, an instrument, a servant to mankind;
thou shalt devote thyself to the good of thy people; thou shalt
be great, not in thyself, insignificant and ephemeral being as thou
art, but in thy people, an universal being, whom thou shalt serve,
ennoble, and elevate. This is the prototype of true grandeur,
Sound policy and immortal fame are contained in this rule alone;
for it exhibits the true virtue of a statesman, not only accord-
ing to human history but in accordance with divine wisdom.
XXXVI.
Not so thought Napoleon; his views were just the reverse.
This plan of life was opposed, and in contradiction to the
plan of God with regard to humanity. Relying on this firm
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 237
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
truth, as on one's conscience, we may judge what has only
been celebrated, without any danger of being mistaken. We
feel within us the flexibility, not of the mind, but of the moral
principle, and that we follow.
We have spoken of the general plan of the life of Napoleon,
and we have also said that his scope was to possess the world
at any price. Let us explain ourselves. We mean by plan
of life, the general and continuous signification, or motives of
all the actions of a mam, who is the subject of history, the con-
stant tendency of his thought and instinct manifested by his
mode of acting. We do not attach to this expression the idea
of premeditation from the cradle, or of a systematic study,
under all circumstances, of every step, action, and word.
Man is not thus constituted. He is not an abstract idea, a
mathematical line—he is a man; that is, a compound of fickle-
ness and changeableness, a living inconsistency. The plan of
life of a man worthy of history is his character. It is
therefore in that character of Napoleon, which he most habi-
tually developed in his actions and his thoughts, that we
are to look for his morality or depravity, his littleness or his
greatness, with the less dazzled and more impartial eyes of
posterity. In a word, did his inspirations come habitually
from the world to him, or from him to the world, from devotion
to a cause, or from egotism, from above, or from below, from
God, or from himself? These are the points into which we
intend to inquire, by interrogating his memory, not to lessen
it, but to prevent its misleading posterity.
XXXVII.
Napoleon was born in Corsica, at a time when that island,
having lost its nationality, was struggling to retrieve its inde-
pendence. He declared against Paoli, the liberator of his
birth-place; he sought a country, and chose the one the most
agitated, France. He foresaw, with a precocious Sagacity of
instinct, that great risks of fortune would be, or were, the grand
movements of things or of ideas. The French Revolution broke
out; he threw himself in the midst of it. Did Jacobinism govern,
he extolled it, affected radical principles, and assumed all the
exaggerated manners of the demagogues, their language,
258 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 3.
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
their costume, their displeasure, and their popularity. The
“Souper de Beaucaire" a harangue fit for a club, he wrote in a
camp. The tide of the Revolution rose and fell in proportion
as the public of Paris was excited or calm. Napoleon rose and
fell with it, serving with equal zeal, at one time the conven-
tionalists of Toulon; at another, the Thermidorians of Paris.
Sometimes the Convention against the demagogues; at others,
Barras and the Directory against the royalists. '
He yielded all to circumstance, and nothing to principle.
With a foresight of who would be in power, he always joined
the successful, rising indifferently with any or against any.
As a youth, he was a true specimen of the race and times of
the Italian republicans, who engaged on hire their bravery
and their blood, to any faction, any cause, provided they did
but aggrandize themselves. As a soldier, he offered his skill
and his sword to the most daring or the most fortunate.
This and nought else is observable in all his rapid career
of fortune. The source of this fortune was no other than the
favour of the most influential of the Directory towards a beau-
tiful woman, who enjoyed the familiarity of the powerful of
the day. Barras gave Napoleon for dower the army of Italy.
He loved, it is true, and was beloved in return; but his love
was not disinterested; it was mixed with the alloy of satisfied
ambition. From this command dates the display of his genius.
He communicated its spirit to his troops; he diffused a
youthful ardour in the antiquated camps; he remodelled the
laws of military discipline, and introduced an entirely new
system of tactics ; he called into action the daring spirit—
that all-powerful genius of revolutionary wars; he accelerated
the movements of armies, and gained tenfold the time by his
marches; he disconcerted the prudence and slowness of the
pupils of a Frederic and a Landon. He conquered, made
peace, and ratified treaties. Some nations he extirpated, others
he respected; he negociated with those which, like Rome, had
made a deep impression on the popular mind; and without
pity, or a pretext, remorselessly swept from the face of the
earth others which, like Venice, were too weak for defence.
He usurped everything, in spite of authority, in spite of
diplomacy, and of the very principles of his own government.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 239
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
At one time he proclaimed, at another betrayed, and then
again sold the dogmas of the French Revolution just as
the opportunity presented itself, or the necessity for main-
taining his personal popularity in Italy and at Leoben required.
Here he re-establishes despotism, there he consecrates the
observance of theocracy; in another place he makes a traffic
of the independence of nations, while he sells liberty of con-
science. He is no longer the general of a revolution, the
negociator of a republic; he is a man who has created himself,
and himself alone, at the expense of all principle, of all the
revolutions, and of all the powers that had invested him with
authority. The labours of the human mind of the eighteenth
century, of modern philosophy, and of the French Revolution,
all alike disappeared. Bonaparte stood alone. It was no
longer the age that moved—’twas a man who played with the
age, and who substituted himself for an epoch. There was
no France, no Revolution, no Republic; 'twas he he alone !
and for ever he l
XXXVIII.
The heads of the Revolution, embarrassed by his presence,
sent him to Egypt, there to conquer or to die. Here we see
another continent, another man, but still the same want of con-
science. He announced himself as the regenerator of the
East, who brought with him all the blessings of European
liberty. At first he tried to persuade the people to allow
themselves to be conquered. Mahometam famaticism was an
obstacle to his dominion. Instead of combating that faith, he
simulated belief in it, declared for Mahomet, and denounced
the superstitions of Europe. He made religion the medium
of his policy and his conquests. The negociator, who had
bowed before the Pope at Milan, now bent his knee to the
prophet at Cairo. Distance gives an illusory effect to
exploits against an enervated race,—exploits exaggerated by
fame, but which remind one of the poetry of the Crusade. All
he there thought of, was to imitate Alexander, and to gain his
renown. No sooner, however, did he receive the first check at
240 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [pool; 9.
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
St. Jean d'Acre, than he at once abandoned all thoughts of
conquest, empire, and Asiatic dreams, and left his army,
without being recruited, and without the power of capitulating as
best it could. He put himself on board a swift-sailing vessel,
and quitting the imaginary, came where all was reality. He
preceded the rumours of his reverses, and took the popular
feeling by surprise. He glanced around on the Republic, and
Soon saw that the time of anarchical danger had passed over;
that its powers began to be regularly organised; that armies,
commanded by his rivals, were triumphant; that the demo-
cratic government, bought by the nation at so dear a price,
would soon become, if respected, an invincible obstacle to the
life of a soldier. With armed force he conspired against that
very government which had given him arms for its defence.
To open violence he united stratagem, bribed his comrades,
deceived the director, violated the laws of representation,
ordered the decrees to be torn down by his bayonets, and took
possession of his country. France before was a people, it was
then only a man; and that man was Bonaparte.
XXXIX.
Having perpetrated this anti-national, this anti-revolutionary
crime, it only remained to get it sanctioned by opinion. There
are two opinions, one republican and progressive, which bears
events down the current of truth, liberty, and civic virtue;
the other, counter-revolutionary and retrograde, that works
against the stream of improvement, and carries institutions
and the human understanding back, to the counter-current of
slavery, of prejudices, and of the vices of past ages. Napoleon
chose not truth, but force. He saw that truth was on the side
of liberty, but force went with the counter-revolution. To this
he clung, in the hope that it might prepare for him a throne.
He took advantage of inertness, bought the venal, intimidated
the cowardly, and favoured the apostasy of the age. By feeding
ambition, giving promotion, and raising to authority, he gained
over the least liberal of powers—the military government. At
length he prevailed over the country. The country disappeared
in its turn beneath a throne, and on this throne was Napoleon.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 2 : 1
on the genius and character of Napoleon.
XL.
To maintain this throne, he wanted some principle; and
here again he might choose. He might render his reign a
reign over the nascent germs of the new ideas of a more
enlightened reason, and might reconcile them to the new
world, and that world to them, through the benign influence
of a protecting monarchy. He might be to philosophy and to
the spirit of modern civilization, what Charlemagne was to
Christianity,+the armed initiator and organizer of the unarmed
nascent idea. On such conditions as these, the moral world,
if it had not altogether excused, would at least have compre-
hended this military usurpation. But from the first day he
repudiated the thought of acting the part of a beneficent
genius, the founder of an idea. He declared a war of exter-
mination against all ideas, save those that were obsolete. He
execrated thought in any form, spoken or written, as a revolt
of reason against fact. He exclaimed, “Thought is the great
evil; 'tis thought which does all the mischief;” and in this spirit
he imposed silence on the tribunals, the censorship on the
public journals; he devoted books to destruction, and writers to
adulation or a reign of terror. He blasphemed against the light
of intellect; he closed the lips against the slightest murmur of
a theory; he banished all who would not sell to him either their
eloquence or their pen. Of all the sciences he honoured only
that which does not think—the mathematics; and he would
have suppressed the alphabet if he could, so that figures alone
should exist, as a medium of communication, between men,
because letters express the human soul, and figures only mate-
rial powers. He became excited in his horror of philosophy
and liberty, even to the atheism of human intelligence. He
anticipated a revolt in every sigh, an obstacle in every thought,
a revenge in every truth. He refused the breath of freedom
even to conscience. He made a league with God, in whom he did
not believe, by renewing a treaty of church and empire with the
Sacerdotal power. He profaned religion in affecting to honoux
it. He turned the priest into a civil magistrate, and an in
P
-
24% HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION UBOOK 9.
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
strument of servitude charged with bending all hearts to his
will. He adopted the catechism of a state worship in the
Empire, and placed the Emperor by the side of God in that
catechism. He destroyed, one by one, all the civil truths
established and promulgated by the Constituent Assembly and
by the Republic,+equality by a new sort of feudalism, domes-
tic divisions of property by entail and the majorat, an equality
of manners by titles, democracy by an hereditary nobility,+
mational representation by a legislative body, silent and subor-
dinate, and by a Senate worthy of the Lower Empire, whose
duty it was to vote him the blood of the people,_and, finally,
the rights of nations by dynasties of his own family imposed
upon foreign thrones. He turned into derision, and tyran-
nized over, all the independent institutions of the people, whose
names he did not yet dare to efface. He renewed the past by
commencing with its vices, and he restored it entirely to his
adorers, on condition that this past should be solely comprised
in himself.
XLI.
Every reign, however, must have a propelling spirit; and
he accordingly sought one. Of all these principles, on which
the founder of an empire might firmly establish his institutions,
such as liberty, equality, progress, intelligence, conscience,
election, reasoning, discussion, religion, or public virtue, he
chose the most personal and the most immoral of all—glory, or
renown. Not caring to convince, to enlighten, to ameliorate,
or to improve the morals of his country, he said to himself: “I
shall dazzle it, and by the splendour I reflect upon it I shall
fascinate the noblest and the most easily seduced of all its
instincts—national glory, or vanity. I shall found my power
or my dynasty on a spell. Every nation is not possessed of
virtue, but all have pride. The pride of France shall consti-
tute my right.”
XLII.
This principle of glory instantly superinduces that of con-
quest; conquest commands war: and war produces dethrone-
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 243
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
ments and the overthrow of nations. Napoleon's reign was
nothing but a campaign, his empire a field of battle as extensive
as all Europe. He concentrated the rights of people and of kings
in his sword,—all morality in the number and strength of his
armies. Nothing which threatened him was innocent; nothing
which placed an obstacle in his way was sacred; nothing which
preceded him in date was worthy of respect. From himself
alone he wished Europe to date its epoch.
XLIII.
EHe swept away the Republic with the tread of his soldiers.
He trampled on the throne of the Bourbons in exile. Like a
murderer, in the darkness of the night, he seized upon the
bravest and most confiding of the military princes of this race,
the Duke d'Enghien, in a foreign country. He slew him in
the ditch of Vincennes by a singular presentiment of crime,
which showed him, in this youth, the only armed competitor of
the throne against him, or against his race. He conquered
Italy, which had been again lost, Germany, Prussia, Holland,
(reconquered after Pichegru), Spain, Naples, kingdoms, and
republics. He threatened England, and caressed Russia, in
order to lull her to sleep. He carved out the continent, made
a new distribution of nations, and raised up thrones for all his
family. He expended ten generations of France, to establish
a royal or imperial dynasty for each of the sons or daughters of
his mother. His fame, which grew incessantly in noise and
splendour, imparted to France and to Europe that vertigo of
glory which hides the immorality and the abyss of such a reign.
He created the attraction, and was followed even to the delirium
of the Russian campaign. He floated in a whirlwind of events
so vast and so rapid that even three years of errors did not
occasion his fall. Glory, which had elevated him, sustained
him over the vacuity of all the other principles which he had
despised. Spain devoured his armies; Russia served as a
sepulchre to 700,000 men; Dresden and Leipsic swallowed
up the rest. Germany, exasperated, deserted his cause. The
whole of Europe hemmed him in, and pursued him from the
Rhine to the Pyrenees, with a mighty tide of people. France.
P 2
244 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATIC N [Book 9.
- - - - 4t.
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
exhausted and disaffected, saw him combat and sink, without
raising an arm in his cause. Yet, when he had nothing
against the whole world but a handful of soldiers, he did not
fall. Everything was annihilated around his throne; but his
glory remained, still soaring above his head.
XLIV.
As a diplomatist, he was eminently shrewd, while he had
his ambition to serve, and his reign to establish. In his Italian
campaign he fought with one hand, and negociated with the
other. He daringly trifled with the instructions of the radical
republicanism of the Convention. He treated with conquered
Piedmont, which he had authority to destroy, and increased
the republican army against Austria with the contingents of a
monarchy. He negociated with the Pope, whom he was directed
to expel from Rome, and enlisted on his side the feelings,
the respect, and even the Superstitions of the people. He
treated with Modena for millions, and paid his soldiers with
the treasures of princes. He negociated with Tuscany and with
Naples, to divide his enemies, and to fight them, like the Horatius
of old, one after the other. He soothed Venice, while he required
her neutrality; but insulted, violated, and crushed her, when
he no longer feared her power. He relumed the fire of
revolutionary enthusiasm and independence in Milan; then
resold Venice to Austria; and thus purchased the shadow of
peace, with which he expected to make himself popular in France.
Thus far his diplomacy was that of Machiavel, but of a patriotic
Machiavel, who committed such treachery only as was useful
to his country.
XIV.
But he was no sooner on the throne than all his negoci-
ations became a series of maelstroms as fatal to himself as to the
solid greatness of his country. He threatened England, which
he could not reach either by sea or land; and he declared
himself her eternal though powerless antagonist. He thus
created the hatred of a Hannibal against his nation and his
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 245
-º-
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
dynasty, thus placing the continent in the pay of that power
and the commerce of the world under its flag.
He alienated the whole of independent Germany, by ter.
ritorial cupidity and family appanages, by which he multiplied
princes, without obtaining support. He refused to Russia the
Empire of the East, while he secured to himself that of the
West. He declared the incompatibility of any other power
whatever with that of his own, even at the extremity of the
earth. He also declared himself a candidate for universal
monarchy; that is to say, the common and universal enemy of
all thrones and all nationalities. Thus, with his own hands,
he combined England, Russia, Austria, Prussia, all the world,
in short, in the league of the human race against him.
He fought battles, and his fame and genius gave him
victory. He made treaties of peace, which were false, short,
precarious, and menacing for those he had but half conquered;—
treaties which allowed the parties to respire, but not to disarm.
In the expectation of a newly premeditated war with Russia, he
had the madness to throw the Ottoman Empire into the hands of
that power, and thus to deprive himself of the only great and
natural ally which remained to him for the day of struggle.
He conquered Vienna, and he re-established the Austrian
monarchy; but he saw Hungary sighing for independence, and
left it subservient to that power. .
He conquered Berlin, but he did not extinguish Prussia.
Hesaw Poland dismembered, palpitating with hope and patriotism
towards him. He could recall her to life with a wave of his
hand, make her the firm ally of France, the outpost of his
armies, the arbiter of the North and of Germany, the barrier of
Russia, and he sold her remains to the conquered powers, to
purchase the favours and consideration of the old races for his
dynasty of upstarts.
He saw Spain throw herself into his arms, accept his arbi-
trations, implore his guardianship, associate herself with France
in a compact, natural and eternal, of the South against the con-
quering races of the North; but he preferred rather to humble
than to attract her, and to conquer her for his brother, than to
have voluntary possession for the good of his country.
246 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 9.
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
Finally, he threw himself, with a million of men, into the
heart of Russia, to invade, by an unnatural contradiction, the
north by the south, and to possess himself of nothing but snow
and ashes. Germany, which he imprudently left, armed and
exasperated behind him, closed upon his steps, and he was
taken in a trap which he had prepared for himself. He seemed
to have had but one object in his policy for ten years past, viz.,
to unite all nations in a combination of shame and hatred
against him; and to render France the irreconcilable enemy of .
the human race. This was the genius of his foreign policy—
the genius of selfishness, which became, in his case, the genius
of ruin.
XLVI.
He at length capitulated, or rather France capitulated
without him, and he travelled alone, across his conquered coun-
try and his ravaged provinces, the route to his first exile, his
only cortège the resentments and the murmurs of his country.
What remains behind him of his long reign 2 for this is the
criterion by which God and men judge the political genius of
founders. All truth is fruitful, all falsehood barren. In
policy, whatever does not create has no existence. Life is
judged by what survives it. He left freedom chained, equality
compromised by posthumous institutions, feudalism parodied,
without power to exist, human conscience resold, philosophy
proscribed, prejudices encouraged, the human mind diminished,
instruction materialised and concentrated in the pure Sciences
alone, schools converted into barracks, literature degraded by
censorship or humbled by basemess, national representation
perverted, election abolished, the arts enslaved, commerce
destroyed, credit annihilated, navigation suppressed, interna
tional hatred revived, the people oppressed, or enrolled in the
army, paying in blood or taxes the ambition of an unequalled
soldier, but covering with the great name of France the con-
tradictions of the age, the miseries and degradation of the
country. This is the founder This is the man l—a man
instead of a revolution —a man instead of an epoch l—a
man instead of a country !—a man instead of a nation
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 247
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
Nothing after him nothing around him but his shadow,
making sterile the eighteenth century, absorbed and concen-
trated in himself alone. Personal glory will be always spoken
of as characterising the age of Napoleon; but it will never
merit the praise bestowed upon that of Augustus, of Charle-
magne, and of Louis XIV. There is no age; there is only a
name; and this name signifies nothing to humanity but himself.
XLVII.
False in institutions, for he retrograded; false in policy, for
he debased; false in morals, for he corrupted; false in civiliza-
tion, for he oppressed; false in diplomacy, for he isolated,—he
was only true in war; for he shed torrents of human blood.
But what can we them allow him 2 His individual genius was
great; but it was the genius of materialism. His intelligence
was vast and clear, but it was the intelligence of calculation.
He counted, he weighed, he measured; but he felt not; he
loved not; he sympathised with none; he was a statue rather
than a man. Therein lay his inferiority to Alexander and to
Caesar: he resembled more the Hannibal of the Aristocracy
Few men have thus been moulded, and moulded cold. All was
Solid, nothing gushed forth, in that mind nothing was moved.
His metallic nature was felt even in his style. He was, perhaps,
the greatest writer of human events since Machiavel. Much
Superior to Caesar in the account of his campaigns, his style is
not the written expression alone; it is the action. Every
sentence in his pages is, so to speak, the counter-part and
counter-impression of the fact. There is neither a letter, a
Sound, or a colour wasted between the fact and the word, and
the word is himself. His phrases concise, but struck off without
ornament, recall those times when Bajazet and Charlemagne,
not knowing how to write their names at the bottom of their
imperial acts, dipped their hands in ink or blood, and applied
them with all their articulations impressed upon the parchment.
It was not the signature; it was the hand itself of the hero thus
fixed eternally before the eyes; and such were the pages of his
campaigns dictated by Napoleon, –the very soul of movement,
of action, and of combat.
248 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION. [BOOK 9.
On the genius and character of Napoleon.
XLVIII.
This fame, which constituted his morality, his conscience,
and his principle, he merited, by his nature and his talents,
from war and from glory; and he has covered with it the name
of France, France, obliged to accept the odium of his tyranny
and his crimes, should also accept his glory with a serious grati-
tude. She cannot separate her name from his, without lessening
it; for it is equally incrusted with his greatness as with his
faults. She wished for renown, and he has given it to her; but
what she principally owes to him is the celebrity she has gained
in the world.
XLIX.
This celebrity, which will descend to posterity, and which is
improperly called glory, constituted his means and his end.
Let him therefore enjoy it. The noise he has made will resound
through distant ages; but let it not pervert posterity, or falsify
the judgment of mankind. This man, one of the greatest
creations of God, applied himself with greater power than any
other man ever possessed, to accumulate, therefrom, on his
route, revolutions and ameliorations of the human mind, as
if to check the march of ideas, and make all received truths
retrace their steps. But time has overleaped him, and truths
and ideas have resumed their ordinary current. He is admired
as a soldier; he is measured as a sovereign; he is judged as a
founder of nations; great in action, little in idea, nothing in
virtue;—such is the man!
D00K TENTI.
The Bourbons–-Louis XVIII.-His life at the Court of Louis XVI.-
His disposition—His understanding—His conduct during the Revo-
lution—His flight from Paris—His residence at Coblentz—Treaty
of Pilnitz—Manifesto of the French princes—Aspect of the Court
of the Count de Provence during the Emigration—His opinions—
His ampopularity with the Emigrants—Popularity of his brother the
Count d'Artois—Letter of the Count de Provence to Louis XV [..—
War against the Republic—The Count de Provence Regent—His
intrigues in France and in Vendée—His manifesto on the death of
Louis XVI.-His life at Verona—He quits Verona, and visits the
army of Condé–His negociations with Pichegru—He leaves the
army of Condé–His adventures and his life in Germany—He retires
to Mittau—-He is forced to quit it—His return to Mittau—He goes
to England—He is received by the Duke of Buckingham—He re-
tires to Hartwell—M. de Blacas—Life and meditations of Louis
XVIII, at Hartwell—England and Louis XVIII. in 1813.
I.
WHILE Napoleon was thus travelling towards his first exile,
whither we shall soon have to follow him, the princes of the
house of Bourbon were approaching Paris. They were coming
to occupy, or to form the circle round a throne which war had
bestowed upon them after having raised it for another, and of
which the Revolution and the counter-Revolution, then unani-
mous, were soon after to dispute the possession. These princes
were known to France only by mame.
Before we narrate the accession of the Bourbons, their
attempt at reigning, and their second fall, we shall introduce
the reader to the princes and princesses who composed this
royal family, and who had been proscribed equally for twenty
years from the memory and the soil. We shall also state the
feeling with which these members of the sovereign dynasty re-
turned to the kingdom of their sires, and the sentiments with
which France regarded them, and hailed their return.
Q
250 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 10.
Family of the Bourbons.
II.
The royal family was composed of seven princes and five
princesses:—The King, Louis XVIII. ; his brother, the Count
d'Artois; the two sons of this prince ; the Duke d'Angou-
lême, and the Duke de Berry; the Prince of Condé; his son,
the Duke de Bourbon, and the Duke d'Orleans.
The princesses were the Duchess d’Angoulême; the
Duchess d’Orleans, widow of Philip-Egalité; the Duchess
d'Orleans, wife of Louis Philippe ; Duke d'Orleans; Made-
moiselle d'Orleans, sister of Louis Philippe ; and finally, the
Duchess de Bourbon, and the children of Louis Philippe, Duke
d'Orleans; the Princess Louise, and the Duke de Chartres.
These were the personages whom exile had restored to
their country.
In this return to the common mother land of old France
(after so many years of adversity and Sorrow, after so many
mutilations from the royal trunk and its branches, by the revo-
lutionary axe, or by the assassination of Vincennes, in this
tardy reparation of proscriptions, in this astonishment of the
palace on receiving its ancient lords, in this joy of the servants
on seeing once more their old masters, in the unexpected
happiness of this family, in treading at length, amidst the
noise of acclamations and public rejoicings, the soil which
might have long before devoured them)—there was so much
heartfelt sympathy, foreign as well as French, for unmerited
misfortunes, and touching reparations,—such an effusion of
popular sensibility, associating itself with these royal impres-
sions; in fine, such a benignity in the aspect of the country,
that tenderness, astonishment, and family joy seemed, in some
measure, a national spirit, and the imagination of the people
appeared to participate in the adversities and in the felicities
of a recovered portion of the old royal stock. This is the
force of nature, when allowed to appear through political
science: it is the spell of bygone recollections, when it
mingles for a moment with future hopes; it is the awakening
of traditions in the heart, when these traditions are personified
{
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 251
Count de Provence (Louis XVIII.)
in a race returning from a lengthened exile; it is pity which
avenges itself, and a popular coronation of the restored exiles.
These were the only days they could call their own; but they
were delightful, as combining at once the past and the future.
The day after recommenced their difficulties and their perils;
for impossibilities were required of them;—the adoption of
interests and ideas repugnant to their hearts,<-that which
was and cannot be again, that which is to come, and that which
is gone,—the illusion and the reality, the past and the present.
But let us not anticipate these future trials of the royal family;
a glimpse of them only was visible in their return: they were
preceded by an immense favour—this was the power of feeling
III
Louis XVIII, was bordering on the sixtieth year of his
life; the age at which the understanding possesses all its
maturity, and at which the body has yet lost none of its
vigour in the powerful races of mankind. He was brother to
Louis XVI., the Charles I. of France His father was the
Dauphin, son of Louis XV., a prince who had had only a
glimpse of the throne, and who seemed destined to adorn it
with only obscure virtues. Louis XVIII., before the murder
of his brother Louis XVI., bore the title of Count de Pro-
vence, and had married, when young, Josephine of Savoy,
daughter of Victor Emmanuel III., King of Sardinia. He
never had any children; and had lost his wife during the
emigration. This prince, who has played with great good
fortune, one of the most difficult parts in history on the
throne, merits consideration. His understanding was equal to
the requirements of his destiny, if his character was inferior
to the work assigned him. He would have founded a dynasty,
had he known how to maintain it. Let us examine his life; it
will elucidate his reign
IV.
The Count de Provence, solitary and reserved at the court
of Louis XVI., had surrounded himself with a little court,
252 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10.
His life at the Court of Louis XVI.
distinct from that of his brother, which Suited his character,
which was studious, familiar, and somewhat feminine. Man-
, liness was wanting to his soul, as well as to his body; it only
displayed itself in his understanding. He possessed, though
very young, some portion of that sagacity and penetration
which distinguished the eunuchs, the sovereigns of their
sovereigns, in the Greek court of Byzantium : a Narses, born
on the steps of a throne, delighting like them in knotting and
untying the knots of policy in the mysterious intrigues of a
palace; conciliating within the favour of courts, and without
the popularity of public opinion; ambitious in desires, modest
and restrained in attitude; concealing their plots under the
rigour of ceremonial, and under the puerilities of etiquette;
surrounding themselves with philosophers, men of letters,
comedians, and artists; affecting even a passion for women,
but caring for nothing more than their suppleness, their grace,
and the malice of their wit; seeking the friendship of men in
the absence of love, and perpetually desirous of reposing their
souls on a favourite. Such was the natural disposition of the
Count de Provence
V.
He justly felt that he had a genius vory superior to that
of his brother Louis XVI., and to the superficial and unreflect-
ing mind of his other brother, the Count d'Artois. He left to
the first, with much external consideration, the enjoyment,
the respect, and the responsibilities of the throne: he affected
to conceal his superiority under a real devotion to him, and
under a feigned indifference to power. He would have dreaded
to overshadow with his merit by too much display, not Louis XVI,
who was incapable of umbrage or rivalship, but the young and
beautiful Marie-Antoinette, a princess of intense fascination,
at once jealous and incapable of domination. With greater
unwillingness, the Count de Provence left to his second
brother, the Count d'Artois, idol of the Queen, of the court,
and of the youth of France, the empire of grace, of volatility.
and of public favour. Unable to equal him or these points,
1789–1813.] CF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 2.jš
-T-
His genius and character.
he laboured to distinguish himself by a more solid superiority,
and played the part of a precocious sage, and censor in a
frivolous court, and an ill governed country He studied
history, political science, the theories of economy, and the
government of empires: he wrote much, and on all subjects;
and he even cultivated light literature after more serious
studies. He had an ambition for wit, and an appetite for
glory of all descriptions. He published some of his poetry in
the literary ammals of the time; and he had some of his dramas
represented in the popular theatres of Paris, under the names
of his sycophants or of his secretaries. He enjoyed, like the
Roman Emperor, his success upon the stage equally with his
proximity to the throne. He surrounded himself with phi-
losophers, theorists, and censors of government and religion.
He allowed them to divulge in public his criticisms on the
ministry, his ideas for reforming the kingdom, his accordance
in heart and soul with the general spirit of the nation, which
was evincing itself in complaints against the government, and
in outbursts of enthusiasm, the precursors of a revolution.
But he never permitted these murmurs and this enthusiasm to
pass the bounds of external respect for religion and the throme
Although a sceptic in religion, and revolutionary in polities, he
regarded the church and monarchy as two popular idols, whose
divinity might be contested without removing their images from
before the eyes of the people. There was etiquette and
ceremony even in his eonvictions; for he believed in the divine
right of established custom ; and all reform which extended to
his own dynasty appeared to him sacrilegious.
IIe foresaw a revolution, and thinking his brother unequal
to the struggle of the times, believed his weakness would
drive him to abdication; that the Count d'Artois would lose
himself in vain resistance to the progress of the world; and
that France, re-constituted on a new monarchical plan, would
take refuge under his own government. He did not conspire
to obtain, nor even desire this consummation; but he expected
all. Nevertheless, he loved the king, his brother, as much as
he was capable of loving any one ranking above him.
i
\
R
§
251 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION LBooſt 10.
Displays himself as a popular and reforming prince.
WI.
The embarrassments of the treasury, the dissipations of
the court, the refusal of the clergy and nobility to relieve the
financial necessities, the tendency of public opinion, expressed
by the public writers, the complaints of the people, and the
confiding faith of the king in the concurrence of the nation,
induced the convocation of the Assembly of Notables, or, in
other words, the friendly and officious grand council of the
nation, around its king. The Count de Provence here dis-
played himself to the people as a popular and reforming
prince; he ranged himself in opposition to the aristocracy, on
the side of the masses, and of justice and right. The position
he assumed, his votes and his language, promised at the same
time a tribune and a moderation of the Revolution; and the
popularity of his name was becoming formidable. This incense
of public favour he inhaled with transport, and would never
voluntarily give it up, so long as it only required from him the
sacrifice of opinions; but the Constituent Assembly soon came
to sap the ancient supports of the throne: and the church and
aristocracy crumbled away under the hands of the tiers átat, or
national majority. The Count de Provence had favoured the
supremacy of this numerical majority of the nation, by voting
that the people should have a representation proportioned, not
merely to its unity as an order of the State, but to its numbers
as a population. By this vote he nationalized himself still
more ; he declared himself on the side of Mirabeau, and
became popular, but wanted to remain a prince.
VII.
t
Direct insults to the throne soon warned the Count de
Provence that the Revolution threatened even the monarchy;
but he hoped it would at least respect the monarch. Still
relying on his own popularity, he censured all-premature emi-
gration; and while his brother, the Count d'Artois, flying from
Versailles, had left the country, and was hastening from Turin
4789–1813.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE 255
The anti-revolutionary conspiracy of the Marquis de Favras.
to Vienna and St. Petersburg, to rally the military nobles of
France and the European courts into a crusade against the
Revolution, he, more firm, more faithful, and more politic,
had followed his brother Louis XVI., when carried off from
Versailles by the insurrection of the 5th and 6th of October,
to Paris. The people respected, cheered, and surrounded him
with every mark of affection in his palace of the Luxembourg,
and he appeared in the light of a conciliator between the court
and the Revolution.
But he himself soon after became unpopular—the odium of
an anti-revolutionary conspiracy, concocted by one of the officers
of his military household, having fallen on him. This officer,
the Marquis de Favras, had been commissioned to negociate
considerable loans for his ancient master, and had at the same
time plotted, either with the tacit consent of the Count de
Provence, or unknown to him, a conspiracy, the object of which
was at once to destroy the three chiefs of the Revolution, viz.,
Lafayette, Necker, and Bailly,–to carry off the king from his
guardians, and conduct him to Peronne, and to elect the Count
de Provence regent of the kingdom. Favras was accused,
seized, and condemned to death, but died without betraying
his confederates, and carried with him to the grave the enigma
of the innocence or participation in guilt of the king's brother.
Before he expired, however, he broke forth into muttered
maledictions on the head of some powerful accomplice, who
thus abandoned him to his fate; and public opinion, whether
justly or unjustly, completed the revelation, and pointed out
the Count de Provence. The mystery was buried in the grave
of Favras; but the Count de Provence, fearing the conse-
quences of such an accusation, anticipated them by a justifica-
tion—at once timid and daring—before the council of the
Commune of Paris. He went thither in great state, and
spoke as one accused before the judges of the people. He
described the extent of his connection with Favras, and spe-
cified its nature, separating the financial interests, which that
gentleman had been authorised by him to forward, from any
anti-revolutionary enterprises which he might have conceived
on his own account.
256 HISTORY OF THE IRESTORATION [Book 10.
The Count de Provence addresses the Council of the Commune of Paris,
He spoke with the accent ofcandourand the persuasion of truth.
He did more: he loudly professed his revolutionary principles.
“Ever since the Assembly of Notables,” said he, “where
I voted in favour of the double representation of the people, I
have felt assured that a great revolution was about to take
place ; that the king, from his well-meaning disposition, his
virtues, and his exalted rank, should be the head of it; that
the royal authority should be the bulwark of the authority of
the nation I have a right to be believed on my word.”
The populace, proud to behold the brother of the king
recognise its jurisdiction and implore its acquittal, covered him
with applause, and reconducted him in triumph to his palace
But the pardon for Favras, which he had thus come to ask,
was not granted him.
VIII.
Dangers increased every day, and the princes of the house
of Condé and the king's aunts fled one by one from the soil of
France. A report was spread of the approaching departure of
the Count de Provence, and the people flocked to his palace to
assure themselves of his presence. He caused his doors to be
thrown open, and chatting familiarly with the women who
were at the head of the mob, swore that he never would leave
them. “But if the king should go?” asked one of the women.
“For a woman of understanding,” replied the prince, “you
have put a very silly question.” Thus eluding the answer, and
giving it to be very well understood by his tone that if his
brother should desert the throne, he, his successor, would not
be so destitute of ambition as not to mount it,
The whole conduct and genius of this prince were com-
prised in this sentence
IX.
He displayed, at one and the same time, obstinacy, reserve,
and courage, during the days of tumult, when the people
invaded the Tuileries, and insulted the king and queen, but
turned their anger from him to concentrate it upon the king.
He shielded and consoled his brother, reciting, in the midst of
1789–1813.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 257
Preparations for the flight of the Royal Family.
the tumult, those verses in which his favourite poet Horace
boasts of the tranquil serenity of the fields, in opposition to
the agitations of the palace and of public affairs. The mis-
fortunes of Marie-Antoinette had reconciled him with her; he
admired her from pity, and he won the confidence of his
brother and sister-in-law. While he feigned, in the eyes of
the people, the firm resolution not to desert his post, as a
citizen and the eventual heir of the throne, he was preparing
to save his head from the hands of the Revolution ; and even,
while putting the best face on the matter, to lull the alarm
and suspicions of the people, the door of emigration was
secretly opened behind him. Still more politic than brave,
his courage was less adventurous than his intellect. The king
confided to him his intended flight, which was fixed for the
20th of June; and the Count de Provence had so much sang-
froid on the occasion, that he even made some grammatical
corrections in the declaration which Louis XVI. had left upon
his table, to protest against all the acts of the nation made
during his absence. The fate of this King and his family is
known. Arrested at Varennes, and brought back a prisoner to
reign and die at Paris. More able, more fortunate, or less
pursued, the Count de Provence succeeded where his brother
failed. He has himself written an account of his flight with
a curious puerility of literary minuteness, rather than with
royal dignity. It is a somewhat grotesque commentary on
flight and fear; and one would be tempted to smile in reading
it, if the scaffold was not behind the fugitive. His measures had
been taken with cleverness and cunning—feminine virtues which
never failed this prince, in the embarrassments or perils that
surrounded him.
X.
His favourite, Madame de Balbi, a lady whose wit he liked
even more than her charms, and his friend Count d'Avaray,
were his sole confidants. Count d'Avaray made the pre-
parations for his flight. These being finished, the prince, as
usual, went to the Tuileries, affected a free and unembarrassed
air, remained till eleven o'clock with the king and queen;
258 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10.
Flight of the Count de Provence.
received the last farewell of the king, of the queen, and of his
sister, Madame Elizabeth, who restrained their tears for fear of
betraying themselves. He then returned with his courtiers to
his own palace, and even to his own bed-chamber, was undressed
by his valet-de-chambre, who slept in the same room, and
whom he distrusted. He went to bed, closed the curtains on
one side, got out at the other without noise, slipped into a
cabinet which communicated with a lobby of the palace, passed
from thence to a lodge, where Count d'Avaray was waiting for
him with a disguise; painted his eyebrows, assumed false hair
over his own, and placed on his round hat a large tri-coloured
cockade. He then descended into the court of the palace, where
a hackney-coach was waiting for him. On the quay he found a
travelling carriage with post-horses, got into it with his friend,
and with English names and passports, passed the barriers
without suspicion, and took the road to Soissons. There the
axletree of his carriage broke, and retarded his flight. He
affected an English accent, chatted with the idlers who sur-
rounded the carriage, deceived them, and dallied with his peril,
confiding, though by momeans credulous, in a miraculous image,
which had been given to him the evening before, by his pious
sister, Madame Elizabeth. On arriving at Maubeuge, the last
town in France on the Belgian frontier, he bribed the postilion
to pass round the town, and tearing the tri-coloured cockade off
his hat, he abandoned himself to joy on throwing away, at last,
this sign of his oppression and of his terror. When they
reached Mons, he pressed his deliverer Count d'Avaray in
his arms, and threw himself on his knees to thank heaven for
his safety. Then mingling his scenic and literary souvenirs
with his self-congratulations on his escape, he parodied some
verses of an opera, and applied their tragic meaning to the most
burlesque accidents of his disguise and journey. Alas! while,
he was thus revelling in the isolated joys of his own safety, his
wife, of whose fate he was ignorant, was running the same
dangers by another route; and the king, the queen, their
children, and his sister, overtaken on the road at Warennes,
were going to pay, with their liberty and their lives, for this
day which gave to him alone security on a foreign soil.
1789–1813.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 259
He takes refuge at Coblentz.
XI.
Madame de Balbi awaited him in the hotel at Mons, where
anxiety as to the fate of his family did not make him forget, in
his journal, the delicacies of the table or the goodness of the
wine. The following day he departed for Namur, making notes
as he went along, of the same puerilities of the table and the
lodging house; the childishness of princes preserving, even in
adversity, that worship of the person to which their courts have
accustomed them. At length, near Luxembourg, a new accident
retarded the progress of his carriage, and he seated himself,
like a caliph in disguise, upon the trunk of a tree at the door of
a cottage. Here he bestowed charity on a poor female cripple,
and on a pretty young girl worn with hunger and fatigue. His
liberality betrayed him ; and the women throwing themselves
at his feet, he recommended them to pray to heaven for the
King of France and for his brother. “Behold his brother!”
exclaimed Count d’Avaray, pointing the prince out to the
villagers. “And behold my deliverer!” cried the prince,
throwing himself into the arms of his confidant.
With this little theatrical scena, the Count de Provence
terminated his journey, and commenced, as he says, his
political career
XII.
He took refuge at Coblentz in the house of the elector of
Trêves, Wenceslaus Prince of Saxe, his mother's brother.
Coblentz, the centre of the emigration, became at once the
camp, the court, the congress of the princes and the nobility,
seeking to attach all Europe to their cause, and to deliver
Louis XVI. out of the clutches of the Revolution. This prince,
after being arrested at Varennes, and re-conducted to the
Tuileries, in a captivity decorated with constitutional respect,
was no longer anything but the passive instrument of the nation.
His brothers and his partisans, assembled at Coblentz, no
longer obeyed his public orders. They even acted in opposition
to his instructions, and against his will, taking counsel only of
200 HISTORY OF THE IRESTORATION [Boor 10.
The treaty of Pilnitz.
their own cause, and combining against revolutionary France all
the enmities and all the terrors they could excite and rally to-
gether in Germany “If we are addressed in your name, on
the part of your oppressors,” wrote the Count de Provence to
the captive monarch, “we shall listen to nothing. We shall,
if it comes direct from you, but we shall steadily pursue our own
course. Therefore, if those around you wish to send us com-
munications or orders, do not trouble yourself. Be satisfied as
to your safety. We only live to serve you. For this purpose
we are working with energy, and all goes on well. Even our
enemies have too much interest in your safety to commit a
useless crime, which would complete their ruin.”
XIII.
The Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the other
German soyereigns signed, under the eyes and at the instiga-
tion of the French princes, the treaty of Pilnitz, by which they
embraced, with arms in their hands, the cause of Louis XVI
as the cause of all crowned heads. The French princes,
believing themselves thenceforward the arbiters of France,
drew up and published a manifesto, which may be considered
as the ultimatum of the exiled aristocracy. They enjoined
Louis XVI. to refuse his sanction to the constitution which his
revolted subjects were desirous of forcing from him.
This manifesto, as powerless to save the King as to
intimidate the people, did not stop either Louis XVI or the
mation. “Hope for nothing but from abroad,” next wrote the
Count de Provence to his brother. “Thence only can you have
assistance. You are surrounded only by men resolved on
betraying or destroying you!” In accordance with these
words, two armies of French emigrants were formed upon our
frontiers; the one at Coblentz around the Count de Provence
and the Count d'Artois; the other at Worms under the three
military princes of the house of Condé. But the Count de
Provence, who was nothing of the soldier, but all the diplo-
matist, appeared from that period more calculated to reign
than to combat. Without taking as yet the title of regent of
1739–1813.] OF MONARCIIY IN FRANCE. 261
Character of the Count de Provence.
the kingdom, he in reality exercised its functions; while his
age and eventual claim to the crown conferred upon him this
position. His superiority of intellect over the Count d'Artois
made him the statesman, the negociator, and the publicist of
the emigration. The little fugitive court, which exile and
hatred of the Revolution had gathered around him, attracted
into his council all the writers of the exasperated aristocracy of
Trance and Europe. Their conversations, their writings, their
league against the new principles, soon quickened the very
active and very intelligent mind of the Count de Provence to
the systems and the polemics of the war of ideas. It was the
rendezvous and the origin of the monarchical, aristocratical,
and paradoxical school of the De Maistres, the D'Entragues,
the Bonalds, the Montlosiers, the Chateaubriands, and the
Burkes. Monarchy, still more assailed in the minds of the
people than on the field of battle, felt the necessity of inter-
rogating, of justifying, and of defending itself in speeches,
books, pamphlets, and journals It sometimes called rea-
son and tradition, sometimes Sophistry and prejudice, to its
assistance. Amongst the writers some deified the theocratical
form of government, and placed aristocracy, monarchy, and the
establishments and riches of the church in the rank of
dogmas. Others concentrated their monarchical faith in the
servile adoration of absolute and hereditary government, and
in the avowed contempt of the people. Others again threw
their eyes over the different systems of government which pre-
vail in Europe, and selecting from each of these governments
that which appeared analogous to their own thoughts, combined
these principles in a sort of general conciliation of interests
and castes, and presented the aristocratic, democratic, and
representative monarchy of England as the type of institutions.
The Count de Provence, from the nature of his situation and his.
intellect, inclined by turns to each of these theories, according
as they gained proselytes, or lent arguments and strength to
his cause,_a theocrat with the princes of the church, an aris-
tocrat with the nobility, and a constitutional and liberal with the
partisans of the English constitution. This prince, who had
only the etiquette of faith, lent himself without difficulty to all
202 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 10.
His unpopularity with the emigrants.
systems The only thing in which he profoundly believed
was himself, his blood, his tradition, his right, his necessity.
He adopted everything that could serve him. But at the bottom
his understanding was too prompt, and his judgment too well
exercised, not to know that a great revolution was accomplishing
in the human mind; that this revolution, after having trans-
formed ideas, was transforming things; and that the prince
who understood best the nature, the direction, and the regulation
of this movement in France, would be the inheritor of the coming
tempest, and the genius of the age. He ridiculed, in his own
mind, those prejudices of emigration which he was compelled,
by the part he had to play, to loudly applaud, and he was already
combining, in his thoughts and his conferences, the final and
various plans of a monarchical and constitutional Restoration,
which he might one day be called upon to attempt.
XIV
The emigrants, therefore, loved him but little, and they
distrusted him. They recalled to mind his popular temerities
at the Assembly of Notables, and at the States-general, and
paid him only the forced respect due to his rank, reserving their
enthusiasm for the Count d'Artois. This young prince had not
ideas enough to decide between several systems. An invincible
repugnance to all concessions from the throne, which he called
weaknesses, a brilliant and external parody of the ancient
chivalry, his age, his grace, his enthusiasm, his lively but un-
meaning language, his giddiness, and even his want of reflection,
constituted him the idol of the emigrants. He represented
them admirably by his prejudices, his confidence, his disdain
and his illusions; and they attached themselves to him as their
own proper image.
The Count de Provence entertained no jealousy of this
younger brother, more favoured than himself by the opinion of
the army of Coblentz. He knew of his fidelity and goodness
of heart, and he also foresaw that the shallowness of his mind
would appear but too soon through this surface of rash resolu-
tions. The tastes of the Count de Provence, his obesity, already
1789–1813.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE 2^3
His letter to Louis XVI.-War against the Republic.
irksome, and his premature infirmities prevented him from ever
pretending to the heroic part of a soldier in the cause of kings;
but he took greater umbrage at the extreme popularity of the
Prince de Condé, of the Duke de Bourbon, and of the Duke
d'Enghien, his grandson, with the army of Worms. These three
princes appeared to attract all the French nobility to their
camp. They belonged to a heroic race; they were brave; they
were born soldiers; they were closely allied to the throne.
Victories, too independent and too personal, might place France
and the monarchy under their names and sovereignty
XV.
The National Assembly having forced Louis XVI. to recall
his brothers and the princes of his family, whose presence,
amidst the counter-revolutionary armies, was offensive and
troublesome to the country, the Count de Provence replied in the
name of all : “I have read your letter,” said this prince to the
king, “with the respect I owe to the writing and the sign
manual of your majesty The order it contains to repair to
your majesty's presence is not the free expression of your will;
my honour, my duty, my affection even, equally forbid me to
obey.” He formed his guard, and gave the command of it to
Count d'Avaray, his friend, and the companion of his flight.
. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II., having decided on
defending the cause of the nobility and kings which her patron-
age of the philosophers had so much sapped, accredited an envoy
to the princes, and wrote to the emigrant nobility that she was
going to assist Louis XVI. as Elizabeth of England had assisted
Henry IV. “In embracing the cause of kings, in that of the
king of France,” she said, “I only follow the duty of the rank
I occupy on earth.” France replied to these demonstrations
and to these menaces of the princes, by declaring the Count de
Provence deposed from his right to the regency. The revolu-
tionary war then commenced.
The princes were removed from the immediate scene of
operations, and consigned to the rear of the army, to divest
hostilities of the character of a war of Ilestoration The cam-
ºš4 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 10,
The Count de Provence assumes the title of Regent.
paign was tame, undecisive, mingled with incomplete successes,
immense reverses, and shameful retreats. The princes of
Condé and their army alone took any active part in it. The
Count de Provence and the Count d'Artois continued to
forment the war in the courts; but they scarcely ever showed
themselves in the field. Dumouriez stopped them in the
defiles of Argonne; and the Duke of Brunswick, commander-
in-chief of the combined Prussian armies, fell back before
our battalions. A unanimous cry of indignation and of
treason rose from the army of the emigrants, and from the
council of the French princes on this retreat ; for it cut them
off from Paris, France, and the Restoration. This was the
first retrograde step of Europe before the revolutionary genius
of France. Dumouriez, victorious at Verdun by tactics, con-
quered at Jemmapes by valour; and the Count de Provence,
flying before the Belgian insurrection, repassed the Rhine, and
took shelter at Dusseldorf. He and his brother had negociated
a loan of some millions in Holland, which kept in pay their
household, their guard, and their court; and thence, with heavy
heart and moistened eye, they looked on at a distance, while
the funereal drama was accomplishing at Paris:—the 10th of
August, the imprisonment of the royal family in the Temple,
the proclamation of the Republic, the trial and execution of
Louis XVI. The Count de Provence then assumed the title
of Regent, which, until then, the emigrants themselves had
refused him. He acknowledged as king the child then a
captive, who was being slowly immolated in the Temple. He
gratified the friends of his brother, the Count d'Artois, by
appointing him lieutenant-general of the kingdom,--a painful
but politic division of that ideal authority which these two
princes were going to exercise in exile. Recognised by the
army of Condé, and by the Empress of Russia, he addressed
solemn proclamations to Europe and to the army of Condé,
at each tragic blow struck by the Convention against the
members of the royal family. He fomented, with all his
efforts, the troubles, the insurrections, the civil wars of the
South and of La Vendée. He received all the distinguished
negociators from France, and all political adventurers who
1789–1813.] OF MONAT&C11 Y IN FRANCE. 20:5
Styles himself King on the death of the Dampnin.
throw themselves between two causes, less to serve them than
to serve themselves. His court and his council were the per
petual focus of plans, of chimeras, of conspiracies, real or
imaginary, of the corruption of generals, of the venality of
the tribune, and movements of the people, with which the
men of intrigue amused the idleness, or flattered the import
ance, of the exiled courts. He there imbibed the feeling
and the taste for those secret reports, for that confidence in un-
derlings, for those intrigues of diplomacy, of police, of govern-
ment, for that domestic favouritism, and that personal labour
which afterwards distinguished him on the throne. He there
maintained that royal attitude, and that distance between him
and the crowd, which he never allowed to be violated, except
by a few confidants. He knew the prestige of distance for
men and for things, and constantly withdrew from events and
from observation, to maintain a more imposing attitude. He
assiduously studied there the history of his country and his
race, in order to personify in himself the power, the kings, and
the grandeur of his house, and to recall some day, in himself
alone, all the illustrious men, or at least all the mementoes
of his race. He prepared himself incessantly for the throne,
never doubting that he would be recalled to it, by the vicissi-
tudes of human affairs; and not wishing that his reign should
find him for a single day deficient in dignity. Little sought
after, and less beloved, but commanding respect from others
by the respect which he affected for himself, such was this
prince, from Coblentz to the end of his long exile.
XVI
This exile led him sometimes to Verona, sometimes to
Mittau, and finally to England, when he had been driven from
the continent by the victories of the French, and the terror felt
by other powers, in proportion as the Revolution occupied more
space on the soil of Europe, and kings felt more intimidated
at its progress. During these different halts of the emigrants,
Louis XVIII., then King himself by the death of the Dauphin,
frequently fancied he held in his hands the clue to a counter-
R
206 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 10.
His negociations with Pichegru.
revolution at Paris. His agents, his omissaries, his corre-
spondents flattered him incessantly, sometimes with bar-
gaining with Danton, sometimes with directing Robespierre,
sometimes with influencing Tallien, sometimes with brib-
ing the committee of Clichy, and placing the Republic in
the hands of a second Monk, Pichegru : sometimes with ne-
gociating with Barras to betray the Directory, and to re-esta-
blish royalty; sometimes, finally, with preparing Bonaparte
himself to recall the legitimate monarch, after having sub-
jected the monarchy to his own sword.
With the exception of Mirabeau, who sold not his conscience
but his services for a little gold, and with the exception, also,
of Pichegru, who permitted the presence of negociators of
treason, but perhaps never thought of accomplishing it him-
self, all these bargains, all these pretended negociations, had
no other existence than in the dreams of those officious inter-
meddlers of impossible venalities. They every day sold what
they could not deliver, and thus obtained confidence, missions,
titles, and money from the cabinet of Louis XVIII., and sub-
sidies, for the most part fraudulent, from the English govern-
ment. They feigned a traffic of opinion and conscience at
Paris, between them and the influential men of the Revolution;
but on searching closely into these negociations and corrup-
tions, elevated to the importance of political plots by their
authors, it is evident that they were really nothing more than
fraudulent and venal intrigues. Neither Danton, Tallien,
nor Barras ever listened seriously to these supposed inter-
meddlers between them and the exiled monarchy. Revolutions
are not sold like courts; they carry away the men who traffic
with them, instead of being carried away by them. These
great impassioned movements of opinions and masses exhaust
themselves sometimes, but never betray themselves. Nobody
possesses a revolution, but the revolution possesses all the
world One may look to the hour of their lassitude and decay,
but they can never be corrupted. And what purpose would it
scrve to corrupt the chiefs of the ringleaders? They them-
Selves have the prevailing opinion for their chief, and are
swept along by th torrent of the time. Mirabeau being dead,
1739-–1813.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 267
*
His correspondence with Charette.
Danton swallowed up, Robespierre guillotined, Tallien cast
aside, Pichegru transported, and Barras deposed, would the
revolution fall from their hands into the hands of the monarchy?
No ; these men in selling it would sell nothing to Louis XVIII.
but their own heads, their honour, and a shadow. La Vendée
alone revolted, but revolted of itself. It was neither the
emissaries of Louis XVIII. nor English gold, which stirred
up the peasants of Brittany; it was the double fanaticism of
their manners and of their faith : they died for their God, and
not for intrigues. The memoirs of these agents of intrigue
have in this respect deceived history. On a close examination,
it is evident that neither D'Entragues, nor the Marquis de la
Maisonfort, nor Fauche-Borel, nor Brottier, nor their corre-
spondents at Paris ever held in their hands the revolutionary
defections they pretended to hold, and with which they
were trafficking with the court.
XVII.
With greater reason the king attempted to correspond with
Charette, the hero of La Vendée, the Hannibal of the Republic;
but his letter itself attests that Charette had stirred up his
country without waiting for either the signal or the approbation
of royalty. “At length, Sir,” the King wrote to him with his
own hand, “I have found the opportunity I so much wished
for; I can communicate with you direct. I can speak to you
of my admiration, of my gratitude, of the ardent desire I have
to join you, to share your perils and your glory. I shall
accomplish it, should it cost me my blood; but in expec-
tation of this happy moment, the union between him whose
exploits make him the second founder of the monarchy, and
him whose birth calls him to govern it, will be of the greatest
importance. My voice should be heard in every place where
the people are armed for God and the King. Should this
letter reach you on the eve of a battle, give for the order of
attack the word Saint Louis! and for the order to rally, The
Ring! I shall begin to be amongst you the day on which my
name shall be associated with one of your triumphs!”
26S HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 10.
His letters to the Sovereigns of Europe.
The King, his brother, and the princes were, however,
never there but in name. The chiefs, divided amongst them.
selves by the absence of a superior authority which would
reduce their rivalship to a unity of action; the peasants, weary
of shedding their blood for King and princes always invisible,
tore one another to pieces, after having torn the country, and
were eventually conquered. No Restoration can be made by
arms, but on condition of having a hero for its chief; whereas
the Bourbons were only kings.
XVIII.
Louis XVIII. and his brother, always ready to fly to the
battle-field of La Vendée, where their partisans were dying for
them, fought, after all, only by their manifestoes and their
proclamations. Louis XVIII, excelled in this pacific talent.
His letters to the sovereigns of Europe, to reproach them with
their ingratitude and their cowardice towards his race, his
declarations to Europe in the great crisis of his exile, his
addresses to Bonaparte to demand of him the throne, and
promising him glory and gratitude in return; finally, his
addresses dated from exile to his people to recall their king,
by their style are worthy of his rank, of his dignity of soul,
and of his misfortunes. He thus took a pleasure in reigning,
at least, by correspondence with the world. None of the faith-
ful but mediocre courtiers, by whom he was surrounded, had
capacity enough to draw up these pieces. He wrote them
himself, with the double consideration for the part he was
playing before posterity, and for his talent as a literary man
before himself. No king, since Dionysius of Syracuse, or
Frederic of Prussia, has ever spoken or written better, whether
in exile or on the throne.
X jX
The manifesto that he published, on the occasion of the
death of the Dautphin, and of his own accession to the throne,
is an evidence of his style and of his views.-" In depriving
1780–1813.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. $. 269
His manifesto on the death of the Dauphin.
you,” said he to his people, “of a king who has only reigned
in fetters, but whose infancy promised a worthy successor to
the best of kings, the inscrutable decrees of Providence have
transmitted to us with the crown the necessity of snatching it
from the hands of revolt, and the duty of saving the country,
which a disastrous revolution has placed upon the declivity of
ruin. A terrible experience has but too well enlightened you
on your misfortunes and on their causes. Impious and factious
men, after having seduced you by lying declarations and by
deceitful promises, have drawn you into irreligion and revolt.
From that moment a deluge of calamities has poured upon you
from all parts You were unfaithful to the God of your
fathers; and this God, justly irritated, has made you feel the
weight of his anger. You were rebels to the authority that he
had established to govern you, and a frightful despotism, and
an anarchy not less cruel, succeeding each other by turns, have
torn you incessantly with a still increasing fury. Your property
became the prey of robbers the moment the throne became
the prey of usurpers. Servitude and tyranny invaded you,
when the royal authority ceased to cover you with its aegis.
Property, safety, and liberty, all disappeared with monarchical
government You must return to that holy religion which
had conferred upon France the blessings of Heaven. You must
re-establish that government which, during fourteen centuries.
was the glory of France, and the delight of the French nation,
which had made of your country the most flourishing of
kingdoms, and of yourselves the happiest of people. The im-
placable tyrants who keep you enslaved, alone retard this
happy moment. After having taken from you everything,
they paint us in your eyes as an exasperated avenger | But
learn to know the heart of your Ring, and repose upon us the
duty of saving you.
“We not only see no crimes in simple errors, but even the
crimes that simple errors may have caused shall obtain mercy
at our hands. All French people who, abjuring fatal opinions,
shall come and throw themselves at the foot of the throne, shall
be received by it. Those still under the influence of a cruel
obstimacy, who shall hasten to return to reason and duty, shall
s
70 HISTORY OF TTIE TRESTORATION ſix or 10.
IIIs letter to the Duke of Harcourt.
be our children | We are French This title the crimes
of villany shall not be sufficient to debase ! There are crimes,
however (why can they not be effaced from our memory, and
from the memory of men?), the atrocity of which has passed the
bounds of clemency, those of the regicides. Posterity will
not name these monsters without horror! France, universal
France, invokes upon their heads the sword of justice. The
feeling which now makes us restrain the vengeance of the laws
within such narrow bounds, is a certain plcdge to you that we
shall suffer no private revenge. Who will dare to avenge
himself when the King pardons?”
XX
After the treaty of Bâle, which disarmed Spain and Prussia,
he solicited the English government for assistance in men and
armaments, which might enable him, he said to re-conquer his
kingdom
He wrote to the Duke of Harcourt, his envoy in London,
an Ostensible letter, full at once of address and enthusiasm,
with the double intention of offering an excuse for not throwing .
himself into La Vendée, as he had promised Charette, and to
demand of England, in an ostentatious manner, an army,
which he very well knew would be refused him.
“My situation,” said he, “is like that of Iſenry IV.,
except that he had many advantages which l do not possess.
Am I, like him, in my own kingdom? Am I at the head of an
army obedient to my voice 2 Have I gained the battle of Cou-
tras? No; I am shut up in a corner of Europe. A great num-
ber of those who are fighting for me have never seen me. My
forced inactivity gives my enemies occasion to calumniate me :
it even subjects me to unfavourable opinions on the part of
those who remain faithful to me. Can I thus conquer my
kingdom? You will be told that the victories of my brother,
the Count d'Artois, who is permitted to make a descent upon
Drittany, are decisive, and that I shall be restored to my king-
dom. Heaven is my witness, and you know it, my dear Duke,
you who know the very bottom of my heart, that I shall listen
1789–1813.] OF MONARC HY IN TRANCE - 27]
He solicits assistance from England.
with pleasure to the cry of the Israelites, ‘Saul has killed his
thousands, and David his tens of thousands ! But my joy as a
brother will not save my glory as tº king and I repeat, that if
I do not acquire personal glory, my reign may be tranquil, from
the effect of the general apathy, but I cannot raise a durable
edifice. Do not imagine it is the blood of Henry IV which
runs in my veins, that prompts me to speak in this manner
No, I have deeply reflected. My life is not indispensable to
the monarchy. I have a brother, and nephews of an age to
reign after me. If I were killed, far from my faithful subjects
being discouraged by my death, my vestments, stained with my
blood, would be the most attractive standard I am removed
from the army of Condé, which is now inactive. What remains
for me 2 La Vendée. Who can conduct me thither ? The
Ring of England. Say to his ministers, in my name, that I
demand of them my throme and my tomb l’’
XXI.
This language, solemn and theatrical, was admirably calcu-
lated to impress upon the Vendéans the conviction of a heroic
desire to fight along with them, and to set off in the eyes of
che world, by language becoming his position, a state of inac-
tivity which must appear to be forced, that it might not seem
to be voluntary. There was nothing at that time to prevent a
desperate prince from flying to that field to which the humblest
gentleman in his kingdom repaired without difficulty. La
Vendée was still in the brightest flame of its enthusiasm, and
England was at that very moment throwing subsidies into it by
millions, and sending thither squadrons, reinforcements, and
munitions of war. But Louis XVIII. had nothing of Henry IV
about him but his subtle and eloquent intellect. He had nei-
ther been created nor brought up for the adventures, the perils,
and the privations of civil war. A consummate politician, the
throne, study, and the delicacies of life were his camps, and the
pen his sword. He excused himself, in throwing all upon
fortune, for that absence from fields of battle, which suited the
effeminacy of his tastes.
272 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10.
The habits of Louis XVIII., when at Verona.
XXII.
He bore at that time the title of Count de Lisle. Confining
himself to his residence with five or six courtiers, chosen from
friendship rather than merit, he sat from morning till night in
full dress, and girt with his sword, in all the formality of royal
etiquette. He passed his mornings alone, occupied in reading
his voluminous correspondence, or in writing to his agents in
all the courts. He took a pleasure in deceiving himself as to
the inanity of his occupations by the appearance of a govern-
ment. He gave audiences in the middle of the day; he
charmed his visitors, and, above all, men of letters, by the
grace and the solidity of his conversation. He was as careful
of his fame as of his person. He hid himself in his retreat
from the eyes of the people, and he surrounded himself with
mystery, which prevents the disrespectfulness of public opinion.
He rarely went out, and then always in a carriage. In the evening
he enclosed himself within his familiar circle, and he either had
read to him, or he read himself, the remarkable works of the
age and the journals of the day. Count d'Avaray, an affection-
ate and disinterested gentleman, governed his house. The
King had lost his wife during his exile, and he had united his
miece, the daughter of Louis XVI., to his nephew, the Duke
d’Angoulême. He treated her like a beloved child. He
adorned his ideal reign, and sweetened his real adversity with
this victim of the throne, and this orphan of regicide. He even
arranged his misfortunes with majesty. He lived on a small
pension of 20,000 francs per month, conferred upon him by
the Bourbons of Spain, of which he distributed the greater part
in salaries to his friends and to his servants. He had pre-
served the habit of royal alms-giving even amidst this indi-
gence; for he thought that the hand of a king should never
show itself to his people without conferring a benefit, however
trifling might be the gift. He thus preserved, with lofty sus-
ceptibility of manners and language, the dignity of his blood
and of his rank.
1789–1813.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE, 273
He quits Verona.—His letter to Pichegru.
XXIII.
The Venetians, intimidated by Bonaparte, having hinted
to the King, their guest, that he should leave Verona, a town
belonging to the Venetian States on the main land:—“I will
leave,” he replied, with disdain and indignation, “to the
envoys commissioned to convey to him this order, I will
leave but on two conditions: the first is, that you present to
me the golden book in which the name of my family is
inscribed, that I may with my own hand efface that name from
it for ever; the second is, that you will return to me the
armour of which my ancestor Henry IV., in his friendship,
made a present to your Republic.”
Expelled from Venice, he again visited, for a short time,
the army of Condé, and reviewed the army of his own gentle-
men. He also wrote to Pichegru, general of the army of the
Republic, with whom his agents had led him to believe that
negociations had been concluded to regain him to his cause.
“History,” said he to this general, “has already placed you in
the rank of great generals, and posterity will confirm the
judgment which Europe has already pronounced upon your
victories and your virtues. From the earliest hour you have
known bow to combine the bravery of Marshal Saxe with the
disinterestedness of Turenne and the modesty of Catinat. You
have ever been connected in my mind with these names so
glorious in our annals, and your glory will eclipse theirs; so
confident am I that you will accomplish the high destinies
that await you. The Prince of Condé has testified to you how
deeply I have been gratified by the proofs of devotion which
you have given me; but that which it has been impossible to
convey to you, is the impatience which I feel to set forth your
services, and bestow on you the most brilliant marks of my
confidence. Should circumstances ever oblige you to leave
your country, your place is assigned between the Prince of
Condé and myself.”
This negociation with Pichegru was in fact merely an
attempt at corruption on the part of certain agents, whose
27.4 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 10,
*** *- :
His assassimation attempted at Dillingen.
interest it was to make themselves appear of importance, and
to take advantage of the credulity of the exiled court.
Pichegru, in all probability, made use of these agents himself
to ascertain and anticipate the movements of the enemy's
generals; for he never pledged himself in any way, never wrote
anything, and never entered into any of the combined measures
with the Prince of Condé, as reported by these agents. The
means of restoration which were proposed to him, through the
defeat of his own troops and the ruin ºf his own glory, were as
impotent as they were ridiculous, and could only have been
conceived by a madman. Pichegru was in a state of hesitation
and disaffection to the Convention; but he possessed ability,
and was prudent. In his guarded conversations with the
officious agents of the princes, he allowed certain inclinations
to transpire—whether real or feigned—favourable to royalty;
but with no less vigour did he combat with his would-be friends,
and disperse their army and that of the Austrians; and if he
contemplated the part of a Monk, he performed that of a
general of the Republic. Genuine history should destroy these
pages of fiction; for, on applying after a number of years to
the evidence of facts, it will always be found in the end that
probability is in all things the best symptom of the truth.
XXIV.
After a sham campaign, made during a few days with the
army of Condé, and confined to a few marches in advance and
retreat in the neighbourhood of Fribourg, on the banks of the
Rhine, the King made a pretext of this retreat, and the
danger of being surrounded by Pichegru, to leave the army
abruptly. Arriving at Dillingen, a small town in the electorate
of Trèves, on the Danube, he was, according to the writers of
emigration, the victim of a mysterious attempt at assassination.
The ball of a musket, fired either by chance or with a criminal
intention, grazed his head as he breathed the fresh night-air,
on the balcony of a hotel, surrounded by his courtiers. This
unaccountable attempt, in a German town belonging to the
states of his uncle, where no one had either interest or pre-
1789–1813.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 275
His miniature court at Blankenbourg.
judice against a fugitive prince (who, in the event of his death,
would be replaced by six other princes of the same blood, in
succession,) gave occasion for a royal joke which showed the
self-possession of the prince. The Count d'Avaray and the
Duke de Grammont, hastening round the King—with every
expression of horror at the ball having touched so near a vital
part—“Well, my friends,” said the prince, smilingly, “if the
ball had struck an inch lower the King of France would now
be called Charles X.” The circumstances of this attempted
crime, and the remarks and self-possession of the King, were
reported throughout the army of the emigrants. “What
pleasure,” wrote the King to the Prince of Condé–“what plea-
sure this wound would have given me on the field of battle of
Frisenheim Say, on my part, to my brave companions in
arms, that I am equally affected and astonished at this feeling
they have evinced on hearing of my accident. At all times
and places, and under all circumstances, in me they shall have
a father l’” The King was too much in want of a pretext, and
this assassination was too necessary to give a motive to his
removal by the feeling of his personal danger, not to be open
to suspicion. It imparted an interest and a tragic air to the
ever-theatrical drama of royalty
XXV
This little interlude furnished him with an opportunity of
advancing still further into Germany, to Blankenbourg, a
little town in the mountains of the Duchy of Brunswick.
There, in the modest house of a brewer—narrowly accom-
modated as the guest of a day, surrounded by his two young
nephews, the Dukes d'Angoulême and Berry, his niece, his
ministers, his great officers, his courtiers, his friends, his
captain of the guards, the Dukes de Villequier and Fleury,
Count d’Avaray, Count de Cossé, commandant of his Swiss
guard, the Marquis de Jaucourt, the Duke de Vauguyon,
Marshal de Castres, by his gentlemen, his almoners, and by all
the appendages of the church and the court which he included
in his suite—he still represented in miniature the showy
276 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOR 10.
H is abortive intrigues.
royalty of Versailles. Differing from Dionysius of Syracuse,
who taught children at Corinth, he only knew the business of
a king, which he exerciscd even amongst the peasants of
Brunswick. It might be said, that this long exile was only
the rehearsal of a reign. The same Solemnity presided at every
act and every step he made. The ceremonies of worship, the
levées, the councils, the public dinners, the assemblies, the
play, were all assigned to their respective hours with the
uniform etiquette of the palace. From thence he conferred
powers on his commissioners in the provinces, and withdrew
them, as he thought fit, reigning in idea over the map of his
dominions, which always lay open before him. He encouraged
the armies at a distance by proclamations, and the chiefs by a
smart saying. He wrote to Marshal Broglie in a style full of
epic allusions about his som, who had distinguished himself on
the Rhine: “Ancient chronicles inform us that the Cid was
the last of the sons of Don Diego de Bivar, and that he sur-
passed him in the opinion of all Spain. Adieu, my marshal.”
XXVI.
Discouraged in the hope of restoration by arms, the King
thought himself on the point of restoration by intrigue. An
anti-republican re-action broke out in France; and Pichegru,
who had become a member of the representation, but was
always a soldier, promised, against the Directory, a general
to the anti-revolutionary committee of Clichy. The King and
his friends did not doubt that the overthrow of the republican
power by the conspirators would be the signal of the Resto-
ration. He did not see the people and the army between
France and himself; he only saw the Directory. Barras, by a
sudden and resolute movement, baffled the conspirators, and
with the aid of the republicans sent them all into exile. The
coup-d'état of the 18th Fructidor, which was justifiable because
it was defensive, saved the Republic, and deferred the hopes of
the King to an indefinite period. Barras could not give a more
violent disavowal of the ambition and the venality by which the
lying agents of Louis XVIII. pretended they had bound him;
1789–1833.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 277
The Emperor Paul affords him an asylum at Mittau.
for he seized, tried, and shot the most active of these ring-
leaders. The King, as if he could only have attributed these
reverses, arising from the force of events, to the incapacity of
his secretary for foreign affairs, the Duke de Vauguyon, had a
change of ministry, and gave his confidence to Marshal de Castres
and to M. de Saint-Priest. One may judge how much opinions
in France, the government at Paris, and the manoeuvres of our
armies on the continent were influenced by the changing of the
two ministers of the obscure reign in the house of the brewer of
Blankenbourg. The King, however, did not the less pursue
his ideal policy, affecting to play his imperceptible part of
sovereign of France in the affairs of Europe, which hardly
knew even the place of his retreat. This was a long dream of
royalty.
XXVII.
He affected to believe that all the Deputies proscribed by
the 18th Fructidor, at Paris, were victims devoted to his cause.
“If you know the place,” he wrote to one of his agents at
Iyons, “to which some of your worthy colleagues have retired,
be my interpreter to them. Tell them that they have a share
in the sentiments that I have expressed towards you. Add
that this new reverse has not subdued my unshaken constancy,
any more than my tender affection for them ; and that I have
a pleasing and firm confidence that their courageous devotion
to the true principles of the monarchy will not be any more
shaken by it than mine.”
The victories of France in Italy, and the treaty of peace
between the Republic and Austria at Campo-Formio, having
forced Germany to refuse, in a dastardly manner, further hos-
pitality to the fugitive court of the King, Russia offered it an
asylum at Mittau, the capital of Courland, where the prince was
received like a monarch. The Emperor Paul, at that time
exasperated against France, avenged himself by crowning, un-
assisted by others, the sovereign who had been rejected by his
own subjects, and betrayed by the rest of Europe. He under-
took the payment of his guard, surrounded him with becoming
ceremonial, built him a palaee, and assured him of his friend-
278 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10.
His letter to Pope Pius VII.
ship and constant alliance. The palace, situated outside the
city, on the bank of a river, on the road to Russia, was a me-
lancholy asylum, but majestic and suitable to banished royalty.
A subsidy of 600,000f. offered to the King by the hospitality
of Paul (added to the subsidy, nearly equal, from the court of
Spain) permitted him to increase his court, and to resume the
pomp of sovereignty. Deputations from La Vendée, and
royalist committees, real or pretended, from the south and from
Paris, flocked to receive his orders. He bore a verbal part in
all the transactions of the time; and, above all, he affected, out
of regard for the religious character of his partizans in the
west of France, to mix up his cause with that of the Church,
and to vindicate the title and the sentiments of the most Chris-
tian King. When Pope Pius VII. was carried away from the
Vatican by the French, and shut up by them in La Chartreuse
of Florence, the king wrote him a letter which he had published
in France and in Europe. “Permit the tender and respectful
voice of a son,” said the King to the persecuted Pontiff, “to
raise itself, and express what I feel in my own breast. My
sorrow would be less profound, if the attempts made against
your Holiness had been by any others than the French. But,
most holy Father, they are children gone astray. They denyin
me their proper father, and we are not consequently to wonder
that they also should deny the common Father of the faithful.
Deign, therefore, not to accuse them, and still less to lay the
blame on France. That is and always will be the most
Christian kingdom, as your Holiness will always be the suc
cessor of Saint Peter. The only guilty ones are the tyrants
who oppress my people. Do not confound their victims with
them; and direct your prayers to Heaven, more agreeable than
ever to God in these days of grief and trial, in favour of this
nation, which experiences, in so terrible a manner, the effects of
Heaven's displeasure.”
This was at the moment when France, collecting all the
forces that had sprang from the Revolution, in an effort of
foreign conquest, had subjugated western Italy, was in posses-
sion of Rome, had dethroned the sovereign of Naples, had
conquered Belgium and Holland, dictated peace to Prussia and
1789–1813. ] OF MONARC HY IN FIRAN CE. 279
The increasing ascendancy of Napoleon.
Austria, formed an alliance with Spain, and was everywhere
prosperous and victorious. The King alone protested, in the
name of the past, against the fortune of France.
Suwarrow, on his march past Mittau to fight the French
in Italy, presented himself to Louis XVIII., and swore to him
that he would conquer or die in his cause. But Trebbia and
Zurich falsified these promises of the Savage lieutenant of the
Emperor Paul.
XXVIII.
Nevertheless, everything escaped him again in France;
everything yielded in Europe to the ascendant which Bona.
parte inherited from the Tevolution. La Vendée was pacified.
Georges, one of its last combatants, went to Paris, and had a
private audience of Bonaparte. “You cannot remain in the
Morbihan,” the first Consul said to him; “but I offer you the
rank of General in my army.” “You would cease to esteem
me, if I accepted it,” replied Georges. “I have sworn fidelity
to the house of Bourbon, and I shall never violate my oath.”
He departed for England, after this refusal, with M. Hyde de
Neuville, whose fidelity was proof against death, but not
capable of crime. Happy would it have been, if Georges had
never returned to dishonour his devotion by Jnterprises un-
worthy of a soldier.
XXIX.
The plains of Marengo had become for Bonaparte the
plains of Pharsalia; and he had returned from it. like Caesar,
the conqueror of the enemy and the master of his own country.
Louis XVIII. wrote to him through the Abbé de Montesquiou
to tempt him with the part in the great drama of the restorer
of royalty. Bonaparte replved by the establishment of his own
throne, and by the conquest of Europe. Nay, more, he
accused Paul of the crime of hospitality to the Bourbons;
and the Emperor of Russia yielding to the enthusiasm for
Bonaparte, or to tho terror of his arm , Louis XVI II. was
expelled, in the midst of winter, from his residence at Mittau,
and suffered, during a long and painful jºurney, all the intem-
280 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10,
Louis XVIII. is forced to quit Mittau.
perance of these frozen climates, and all the severities of fate.
His niece, the Duchess d’Angoulême, was obliged to sell her
diamonds to relieve the indigence of her uncle. Prussia
received him at Warsaw; but very soon, at the imperious
solicitation of Bonaparte, the King of Prussia proposed to his
majesty to renounce the throne of France, in exchange for a
considerable territorial indemnity in Italy.
“I do not confound M. Bonaparte,” nobly replied Louis
XVIII., “with those who have preceded him. I esteem his
valour and his military talents. I owe him much good will
for several acts of administration; for the good that is done to
my people shall be always dear to me: but he deceives himself,
if he thinks to induce me to compromise my rights. Far from
that, his very proposition would go to establish those rights, if
they were at all questionable.
“I am ignorant what may be the design of Providence
with respect to me and my race; but I know the obligations it
has imposed upon me by the rank to which I have been born.
As a Christian I shall fulfil these obligations to my last breath.
As a descendant of Saint Louis I shall, after his example,
make myself respected even in fetters; and, as the successor
of Francis I., I hope, at least, to be able to say with him, “We
have lost every thing but honour!’”
XXX.
Misfortune could not be honoured with firmer language; it
was, at once, a feeling and a vengeance; for it plainly told the
kings who had abandoned him, that his adversity was less
cowardly than their power.
It was in vain that he was menaccd with indigence and
European proscription; “I do not fear poverty,” he replied;
“if necessary I can eat black bread with my family and my
faithful servants. But I shall never be reduced to that. I
have another resource, which I do not think it right to make
use of so long as I have powerful friends; it is to make known
my situation in France, and to hold out my hand, not to the
usurping government, which I shall never do, but to those
1789–1813.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 281
His indignant protest against the acts of Napoleon.
whose hearts are faithful to me in France, and I shall very
soon be richer than I am I.’”
Bonaparte replied to these acts and to this language by the
murder of the Duke d'Enghien. Louis XVIII. protested
against the Empire. “This new act requires that I should
confirm my rights,” he wrote in a public declaration. “Ac-
countable for my conduct to all crowned heads, whose thrones
are shaken by the same principles; accountable to France, to
my family, and to my own honour, I should only destroy the
common cause by keeping silence on this occasion.”
He sent back to the Spanish Court, which had recognised
the Emperor, the insignia of his orders, and the subsidy that
he had received up to that time from that part of his family,
still in possession of their crowns. “It is with regret,” he
wrote to the King of Spain, “that I send you back the Golden
Fleece, which your father, of glorious memory, had conferred
upon me. There can be nothing in common between me and
the great criminal whom audacity and fortune have placed
upon my throne ; since he has had the barbarity to stain it
with the innocent blood of a Bourbon, the Duke d'Enghien.
Religion may induce me to pardon an assassim ; but the
tyrant of my people must always be my enemy. In such an
age as the present, it is a greater happiness to merit a sceptre
than to bear one. Providence, for reasons incomprehensible
to our understandings, may condemn me to finish my days in
exile; but neither posterity nor my contemporaries ean say
that, in the days of adversity, I have shown myself un-
worthy to occupy, even to my latest breath, the throne of my
ancestors.”
XXXI.
The only answer vouchsafed to language so truly royal,
was the imprisonment, in a Prussian fortress, of one of the
King's councillors, Imbert Colomès, and of the Count de
Précy, the intrepid defender of Lyons against the National
Convention. The King of Sweden, alone in all Europe, cal-
culated on the right, not the power of thrones. Louis XVIII.
and his brother, the Count d'Artois, went to confer with this
S
282 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 10.
His return to Mittau.
prince, the chivalrous but powerless avenger of kings, in his
dominions at Calmar. After this interview he drew up a new
declaration to his people, in which he at length admitted a
political compromise between the absolute power of legitimate
sovereigns, and the right of representation of the people.
This declaration had two objects: to negotiate with the spirit
of an age which alienated public opinion far from the pre-
judices of the right divine of monarchies, and to conciliate the
favour of public opinion in England, which could only take up
arms for constitutional monarchies.
XXXII.
The assassination of the Emperor Paul, and the accession
of the Emperor Alexander to the throne of Russia, restored for
a short time to Louis XVIII. the asylum of Mittau. From
thence he again disseminated, through his agents in France,
complaints of his misfortunes, and also the new principle which
he intended to introduce as the soul of his government. “What
further would you have me say to my people?” he wrote to his
secret emissaries at Paris. “It is thought in Europe that
nothing can be done for me. My friends in France, on the
other hand, accuse me of abandoning everything, Placed
between the two parties, I speak to them in vain. What in-
structions can I give? I am called upon to speak anew. To
whom? and in what language 2 Is not everything comprised
in my declaration from Calmar 2 Should the object be to re.
' assure the military? their rank shall be confirmed; they shall
have promotion in proportion to their services, and an abolition
of the privilege of the mobility to the rank of officers; for the
civil service, continued employment; for the people, abolition
of the conscription, and of personal impost. Is the question
about the new proprietary of national estates? I declare myself
the protector of the rights and interests of all. Has it reference
to guilty persons, I forbid prosecutions, I declare amnesties, I
open the door of repentance to all. If I ever find myself like
Henry IV., in a condition to redeem my kingdom, I shall then
give powers; but at this moment what can I do?”
1789–1813.] Of MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 283
His interview with the Emperor Alexander, and departure for England.
XXXIII.
The youthful monarch Alexander, on departing for the
campaign of Jena, paid a visit to his guest at Mittau. The two
sovereigns mutually presented their friends to each other, and
they conversed in confidence a long time together. The age
and infirmities of Louis XVIII., his experience of misfortune,
and his superior intellect, imparted to the exiled King the atti-
tude of a father giving counsel to his son. Alexander was
moved, and promised to serve with his arms the cause abandoned
by the world, and taking shelter in his dominions. Victory,
however, turning against him, changed his thoughts, and made
him wish to be relieved from the embarrassment of a hospitality
which excited the suspicions of Napoleon. The feeling of this
abandonment weighed thenceforward on the soul of Alexander
He blushed at his weakness, and the remorse he unconsciously
felt for it made him abandon the cause of the old monarchies,
and devote himself entirely to the friendship of Napoleon
From this day the Emperor of Russia felt more repugnance to,
than pleasure in, the restoration of the Bourbons.
XXXHW.
The King understood his position, and removed from an
asylum where hospitality was no longer honoured by friendship
The King of Sweden lent him a frigate, his last movement to
take him to England. He disembarked there with all his suite ;
but the British government, tired of the intrigues of the emi-
grants, and the assistance, always useless, that it had given to
their enterprises in La Vendée, saw with regret the arrival of
the King. It was apprehensive of engaging in his cause beyond
its own interests and its political views on the continent. It
wished to consign him to Scotland, to the old palace of Holy-
rood, that Saint-Germain of un-crowned sovereigns. The King,
who had arrived at Yarmouth, declared that he would return
to brave all the exiles of the continent rather than consent to
this forced residence at Holyrood. He claimed the simple
right of all private citizens on the free soil of England.
*
2S4 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10.
#
Establishes himself at Hartwell in Buckinghamshire.
*-
The Marquis of Buckingham offered him his residence of
Gosfield Hall, in the county of Essex, and he lived there as
'an independent guest of the English aristocracy, without the
government embracing his cause, or recognizing his title of
King: Study, his family, and rural pleasures there softened
down his longings for the throne, and he became less impa-
tient at the good fortune of Bonaparte. It discouraged hope;
but it did not wear out the peaceable obstimacy of Louis XVIII.,
in believing that he should eventually return. This fortune
at length began to break down with its own weight; and the
IXing, foreseeing that its decay would be as rapid as its eleva-
tion, drew nearer to London to exercise a closer observation on
forthcoming political movements. He established himself in
Buckinghamshire, at Hartwell, a rural and modest residence
belonging to Mr. Lee, a private gentleman. The fortune of
the prince, diminished by the Spanish and Russian subsidies,
nobly returned by him, did not now exceed the income of a
simple country gentleman. His almost indigent court spared
from its luxuries the means of alleviating the miseries of
its exiled companions in England. It became the obscure
centre of all the proscribed princes of the house of Bourbon.
The King was unknown in England, and forgotten in
France; all his communications with his partisans being
cut off by the war, or discovered by Bonaparte's police.
His friend, Count d’Avaray, obliged by bad health to seek
a milder air at Madeira, had left his place, in the heart
and government of the IWing, to the Count de Blacas.
This prince, when in prosperity, required a favourite; not
because nature had endowed him with sensibility, but be-
cause he was born with a theatrical disposition, and wished a
distance to be preserved between the public and his person;
and in adversity he required a confidant, because he was inces-
Santly contriving some political scheme, and wanted a hand to
tie and untie the knot of his negociations. He was, moreover,
faithful and persevering in his friendships: with him they settled
into fixed habit, and these friendships became so dear and tender,
that he even imposed them on his court and family. He
wished every one to respect and submit to his own authority
1789–1813.) OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 285
Count d'Avaray.—Count de Blacas.
in that of his favourites. Count d’Avaray, a man of a gentle
disposition, of modesty, and retiring manners, had tempered
this inward reign of the favourite by the grace of his un-
assuming disposition. The Count de Blacas felt more strongly
the pride of the rank to which the king's friendship had
elevated him, and made the weight of it be still more felt by
others.
The part he was called upon to play in the Restoration,
requires a more lengthened notice of his character and antece-
dents.
XXXV
Count de Blacas was a member of a family formerly
sovereign in the South but whose name, long forgotten, was
confounded with the names of poor noble families of Provence,
whose original lustre had not been revived. He was an
emigrant, idly passing his time in Germany, when he was
brought into contact with Louis XVIII by Count d'Avaray,
his protector. Gifted with a handsome countenance—a neces-
sary advantage near the person of a prince who judged of
persons by his eyes, implacable against a revolution in which
he only saw the insolence of the people against the nobility,
and a sacrilege of the age against kings, the Count de Blacas
was employed by the King in some confidential negociations at
foreign courts. On his return he naturalized himself in the
house of the exiled prince, assisting M d'Avaray in his
service and his labours in the cause of his master The death
of M d'Avaray, to whom he succeeded, naturally left him
charged with his functions, and promoted to his rank of
minister. He had won the familiarity and confidence, and
very soon possessed the umbounded friendship of his master;
which he only merited by his honour and his fidelity:—inwardly
devoted, but possessing a proud exterior; seeing everything in
the king, and nothing in France; of conceited intellect, but
mediocre, without cultivation, hermetically closed against
the ideas, which for an age had been operating upon
the world; incapable of comprehending the age by its in-
telligence, or of bending to it by inflexibility of character;
2S6 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10.
Life and meditations of Louis XVIII. at Hartwell.
earrying with him into an obscure exile, and into a reign of
compromise, all the pride and haughtiness of the old absolute
courts; a courtier of Louis XIV. after a revolution, presenting
the sceptre to a new people, as the yoke is presented to the
vanquished; equally a stranger to the manners and sentiments
of revolutionary France, as this France itself was a stranger
to its posthumous aristocracy; harsh to the immediate servants
of the King, onerous and hostile to his family, having all the
ſidelity but all the selfishness of jealous favouritism; allowing
no one to approach or to love his master; loaded with his
titles, his gifts, his munificence; building up for himself a
splendid fortune with his favours, but redeeming all these
vices of situation by a fanatical attachment to the monarchy,
and by his constancy to misfortune:—such was this favourite,
so agreeable to Louis XVIII in his retreat of Hartwell, and so
fatal to him in his palace.
XXXVI.
Louis XVIII., following with his mind's eye at Hartwell
the shocks and reverses of Napoleon, suspended every active
manoeuvre during the last year of the Empire, allowing the
ambition of Napoleon to act, and the vengeance of outraged
mations to flow back upon France. He merely read the
French journals with an intelligence, sharpened by age and
patience, which enabled him to discern, under the adulation of
the press (sold to the police of the Empire), the symptoms of
ruin and disaffection. The more he was certain of the fall
the less he seemed in a hurry to precipitate it. He did not
hide from himself any of the weakness of victorious Europe,
disposed to the last moment to sacrifice the cause of the
Bourbons to peace. Neither did he dissemble the difficulties
of his own reign; but the faith he had in the indispensable
mecessity of a Restoration, made a religion of his ambition.
The re-establishment of a Bourbon on the throne of France
appeared to him to be a duty of the Deity himself, and he
awaited the hour as a justification of Providence. That hour
was at length about to strike “His brother, the Count
1789–1813.] OT MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 287
England and Louis XVIII. in 1813.
d'Artois, contested with and almost devoured him,” he said,
“for the attainment of this reign, even before it was assured
to either.’
XXXVII.
Age and exile, the lessons of experience, the light of
study, the silent experience in little affairs and great designs,
his residence in England, that soil of political science, above
all had increased, matured, and consummated this intelligence.
In this country of free people, of liberal aristocracy, and
debatable monarchy, one respires political science with the air.
Louis XVIII. was impregnated with it. His ideas were
modified: they had returned, after the lengthened wanderings
of Coblentz, of Verona, of Mittau, of absolutism, of theocracy,
and of emigration, to their starting post of 1789. He had
learned that, to trample upon the conquest and the despotism
of Napoleon, it required the refluence of Europe; but that,
to extinguish the Revolution, liberty was essential: only he had
measured it in his own mind with reference to concessions
restrained and always revocable, made by authority royal,
superior, and anterior, and placed as a dogma above the sphere
of storms and of discussions.
At this epoch of 1813, England almost unanimously con-
firmed the King in these thoughts. Indignation against the
Reign of Terror, pity for its victims, the murder of the princes
and their wives, the long anarchy, the doctrines of Jacobinism;
finally, the struggle with despairing forces against Bonaparte,
had thrown the public opinion of England into the hands of
the Tories; that is to say, the monarchy and the aristocracy
leagued with the great mass of the people against the excesses
and the despotism of the Revolution. The British spirit was
the soul of Europe excited against the tyranny of France.
Mr. Pitt, in his long and celebrated administration, had been
the minister of this anti-revolutionary reaction,-the Hannibal
of the anti-French European patriotism. His party survived
him, and the statesmen of England have frequently prided
themselves on carrying out his political principles in
288 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 10.
State of political parties in England.
succeeding administrations. The monarchical principle pres
vailed throughout London over that of the popular party, and
this unanimity of opinion encouraged the Bourbons to believe
in the sacredness of their legitimacy. The Whig or popular
party was repudiated as the fomenter of the continental disorders,
and as preparing for England itself the anarchy and revo-
lutionary mania of France. Mr. Fox and his friends, con-
nected, without choice and without measure, with the
democrats, and even with the demagogues of Paris of 1792
and 1793, had frightened and scandalized their country, by
their eloquent but excessive praises of men, and of acts the most
revolting to the conscience of the English people. They had
made of the French Revolution, in its most sinister periods,
an element of popularity, and a theme of parliamentary
eloquence; in fact they had Jacobinised the popular party of
Great Britain; but they had also, by that means, weakened
and contracted it. It is a peculiarity of the English orators
and political parties, to interest themselves, without sufficiently
understanding them, in the national and political affairs of
the continënt. Mr. Fox, in so long advocating the Jacobinism
of Paris, had injured for a long period the cause of con-
stitutional and republican revolution. The abilities of this
orator were over-rated on the continent; for he had nothing of
the statesman but the eloquence. A leader of opposition and a
seeker of popularity, above all things, a feeble echo of
Mirabeau, misplaced in an English Parliament, a powerless
rival of Mr. Pitt, the true impersonation of the opinions and
interests of his country, he had wearied without conquering
him. The good sense of England had supported Mr. Pitt
against the opposition of Fox, the champion of ultra-popularity,
and the idol of the clubs; and this temporary exultation of
the liberalism of England, at the moment that Louis XVIII.
was meditating his approaching government in the gardens of
Hartwell, was eminently calculated to deceive him as to the
disposition of Europe, and to inspire him with an exaggerated
faith in the monarchical principle with which he was imbued,
but which Europe would not long share with him.
1789–1813.] of MONARCHY IN FRANCE 2S9
Character and personal appearance of Louis XVIII.
XXXVIII.
Nevertheless, these ideas far transcended the ordinary
range of thought inspired by solitude. Being a man of
reflection, and divested of those prejudices of birth and
education which influenced his brother, his nephews, and his
courtiers, he had an extent of thought on a level with the
horizon which was opening before him. Had he been more
alone, he would have had greater freedom and strength of
opinion; but the circle in which he lived cramped his
thoughts; and he was obliged to feign, out of complaisance
and indulgence for his household, more hatred and contempt.
for the Revolution than he really felt. He was in reality
very well inclined to pardon a Revolution which would bestow
upon him a throne, and would co-operate with him for its con-
solidation by the influence of the new political spirit. His
mind had been regenerated by reflection, in proportion as his
body had grown old in years; he was a king of the past, but a
man of the present time : his memory was one of routine,
and his presentiment that of genius. Providence seemed to have
formed and reserved him with the design of connecting the
past and the future, to conceive a Restoration, and to fail in it,
not from a want of understanding, but from the fault of his
118.1]16,
He exhibited to observation, in his external appearance,
this struggle of two nations and two tendencies in his mind.
His costume was that of the old regime, absurdly modified by
the alterations which time had introduced in the habits of men.
He wore velvet boots, reaching up above the knees, that the
rubbing of the leather should not hurt his legs (frequently
suffering from gout), and to preserve at the same time the
military costume of kings on horseback. His sword never left
his side, even when sitting in his easy chair, a sign of the
nobility and superiority of arms, which he wished always to
present to the notice of the gentlemen of his kingdom. His
orders of chivalry covered his breast, and were suspended with
broad blue ribands over his white Waistcoat. His coat of blue
290 IIISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Door; 10.
His costume and personal appearance.
cloth participated by its cut in the two epochs, whose costumes
were united in him, half court, half city. Two little gold
epaulettes shome upon his shoulders, to recall the general by
birth in the king. His hair, artistically turned up, and curled
by the implement of the hair dresser on his temples, was tied
behind with a black silk riband, floating on his collar. It
was powdered in the old fashion, and thus concealed the
whiteness of age under the artificial snow of the toilet. A
three-cornered hat, decorated with a cockade and a white
plume, reposed on his knees, or in his hand. He seemed
desirous of preserving upon all his person the impression and
public notice of his origin and of his time, that in seeing him
the present age might look up, with material glance as well as
with the eye of thought, to the foot of the throne, and that
ceremonial should command respect through astonishment.
He generally continued in a sitting posture, and only walked
occasionally, supported on the arm of a courtier or a servant.
XXXIX
But if his antique costume, and the infirmities of the lower
part of his body, recalled the decay of the past century, and
the debilitating advance of age, it was not the same with re-
spect to his general aspect. The serenity of his countenance
was astonishing; the beauty, the nobility, and the grace of his
features attracted the regard of all. It might be said that
time, exile, fatigue, infirmity, and his natural corpulence had
only attached themselves to his feet and his trunk, the better
to display the perpetual and vigorous youth of his countenance.
The observer in studying never got tired of admiring it. His
high forehead was a little too much inclined to the rear, like a
subsiding wall; but the light of intelligence played upon its
broad convexity. His eyes were large and of azure blue,
prominent in their oval orbits, luminous, sparkling, humid,
and expressive of frankness. His nose, like that of all the
Bourbons, was aquiline, his mouth partly open, smiling, and
finely formed. The outline of his cheeks was full, but not so
much as to efface the delicacy of form and the supplemess of
1789–1813.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 29 I
*-
His personal appearance.
muscle. The healthy tint and the lively freshness of youth
were spread over his countenance. He had the features of
Louis XV. in all their beauty, lit up with an intelligence more
expanded and a reflection more concentrated, wherein majesty
itself was not wanting. His looks alternately spoke, interro-
gated, replied, and reigned, pointing inwards, as it were, and
displaying the thoughts and sentiments of his soul. The im-
pression of these looks was, like a thousand others, engraved
in the memory, and there was no occasion for speech to make
them easily recognised. At any expression displayed upon his
countenance, at once pensive and serene, abstracted and pre-
sent, commanding and gentle, severe and attractive, no one
could say, “This is a Sage, a philosopher, a politician, a pontiff,
a legislator, or a conqueror;” for the repose of nature and the
majesty of quietude removed all resemblance to these profes-
sions, which wrinkle and make pallid the features; but one
would say, “’Tis a king !” but 'tis a king who has not yet
experienced the cares and lassitude of the throne; 'tis a king
who is preparing to reign, and who anticipates nothing but
pleasure from the throne, the future, and mankind in general.
Such was the King at Hartwell, the eve of the day on which
Providence sought him in his exile to restore him to royalty.
B00K ELEWENTH.
The Count d'Artois — His character — His position at Court and in
France in 1789—His flight from Versailles—His travels in Belgium,
Italy, Germany, and Russia—The Count d’Artois and the Count de
Provence at Coblentz—Their respective positions during the emigra-
tion—War against France—The Count d’Artois retires to England
—His intrigues—He leaves England to make a descent upon Brit-
tany—He stops at l'Isle Dieu-His return to London—Letter from
Charette—Attempt of the Emigrants of London against the life of
the First Consul—Death of Madame de Polastron—Grief of the
Count d’Artois — Influence of this death upon the character and
politics of the Count d'Artois—The Duke d’Angoulême—The Duke
de Berry—The Duchess d’Angoulême-Her life in the prison of the
Temple—Death of her brother—She is released from prison, and goes
into Germany — Her marriage at Mittau — The Duke d’Orleans—
The Prince de Condé–The Duke de Bourbon—The Duke d'Enghien
—His character—His love—His life at Ettenheim–Napoleon has
him watched—The kidnapping of the Duke d'Enghien—He is con-
ducted to Strasbourg—His letter to the Princess Charlotte—His
diary—He is taken to Paris, and imprisoned at Vincennes.
I.
THE Count d'Artois was younger in point of age than his
brother Louis XVIII. ; but had he lived a century he would
always have been inferior in intellect. His was one of those
natures that never come to maturity, because they only possess
the qualities and defects of youth. In his adolescence the
Count d'Artois had been the idol of his family, of the court,
and of Paris. His handsome person, his gracefulness, the
thoughtlessness of his character, even the frivolity of his mind,
the better corresponded with the mediocrity surrounding him.
He had an open and good heart, a prodigal liberality, an integrity
of disposition, and chivalric fidelity to his word. His passion
for the fair sex—a vice considered excusable, and often honour-
ed in heroes, the appearance rather than the reality of mili.
1789–1804.] RESTORATION OF MONARCHY. 293
—r-—
Character of the Count d'Artois.
tary taste—a quick and ready wit in repartee—that fertility which
his flatterers called the genius of the French—had rendered
this young prince popular amongst the aristocratic party; and
they had held him up in contrast to his brother, the Count de
Provence. The more the Count de Provence had shown hum-
self favourable to the reforms of the kingdom and the popular
inclinations of Louis XVI., the more had the Count d'Artois
declared himself the disdainful opponent of all concessions, and
the determined conservative of the vices and rottenness of the
government. He affected to look upon the impending Revolu-
tion as one of those transient commotions of the lower orders
which should be suppressed and not discussed. None of those
ideas which then filled the rest of the world had ever entered
into his soul ; for these ideas pre-supposed intelligence, and he
never reflected. t * *
II.
Spoiled by the court, flattered by a circle of the young
aristocracy, as frivolous and unreflecting as himself, held forth
to the army and nobility as the prince who would shortly rally
them around the standard of absolute monarchy, and who was to
dissipate, with the point of his sword, all the liberal dreams of the
nation, and all the cowardly concessions of the throne,—this
prince was blind to the Revolution. IIe went on hunting, acting,
loving, finding fault with the court, feeding on the air of anti-
revolutionary opinion, and recommending to Louis XVI. Such
violent or daring measures as his counsellors suggested to him.
The Revolution, which had long ascertained the impotence of
this senile foolery in a young prince, treated it with contempt,
while it forgave him his antipathy to itself, not fearing him
sufficiently to hate him, and either forgetting him, or considering
him of secondary importance. Mirabeau, the Duke d'Orleans,
Barnave, the constitutional party, and the Jacobins were all
satisfied that there was to be found, in this young prince, neither
resource for the government nor serious danger for the Revolu-
tion. He was looked upon with indifference. The Queen
alone, and those of her own court, such as the Polignacs, the
Bezenvals, Lamballes, Vaudreuils, Coignys, Adhémars, and
294 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Door; 11.
!
His flight from Versailles in 1789.
Fersens, secretly fomented the imaginary heroisms of the Count
d'Artois and the young noblemen who surrounded him. The
Ring loved but never consulted him. The Count de Provence
pitied his boastings, and both wished he would quit the court,
and thereby remove the unpopularity which he drew upon the
Ring his brother; while the party most opposed to innovation
desired still more strongly to constitute this young prince the
ambassador of absolute monarchy and the French aristocracy in
Europe, to collect around him the emigrants on the frontiers,
and establish him, as he had already established himself, the
heroic liberator of the throne, and its avenger on the audacity
of the nation,
III.
The antipathy which the people of Paris felt towards him,
the first popular disturbances, the sitting of the Jeu de Paume,
the taking of the Bastile, the ministry of Necker, who had been
forced upon the crown, as a foretaste of the dangers and insults
the court would be subject to, soon decided him on adopting
the last resource of emigration and war against his country.
He fled from Versailles at the end of 1789, went to Brussels,
and from thence to Irwin, to his wife's family, where he soli-
cited succours and subsidies from the court of Sardinia, collected
around him some few members of the discontented Trench
nobility at Chambéry, on the extreme frontier, dispatched some
agents to Lyons and through the South of France to agitate in his
behalf, failed everywhere, re-crossed the Alps, had some confer-
ences at Mantua with the Emperor of Austria, to induce him
to form one of a league of the sovereigns against his country,
obtained nothing but promises, met with nothing but tardiness,
and at last went to St. Petersburg to Catherine II. This
princess, who saw at a glance the bearing of the insurrectionary
principles of the Revolution on all nations, was in search of a
hero to oppose to the popular leaders. All that had been told
her of the Count d'Artois, of his opinions, of his ardour and im-
patience for the combat, led the Empress to hope that he would
prove to be the Maccabeus of thrones. She received him as the
future restorer of monarchy in the west, bestowed oil him sub-
1789–1804.] () };" MIT) NARC IHY IN FRAN C F. 295
He visits all the Courts of Europe.
sidies and encouragements, and prepared for him contingents of
troops for the Coalition, in which she wished to induce Prussia
and Austria to join. She presented him with a sword studded
with diamonds, and addressed him in words that enhanced the
value of this gift, signifying a declaration of war with France;
but she was not long in discovering that the young prince was pos
sessed only of the heart and outward appearance of a hero, and
that his intelligence, dissipated by a court life, and enervated
by the adulations of his flatterers, would be wasted in unsatis-
factory attempts and empty boasts, unprofitable to the common
cause ; and having thus seen him she no longer hoped for
anything from his efforts.
IV.
The Count d'Artois visited in this manner all the courts
of Europe, leaving behind him everywhere a favourable im-
pression as to his agreeable manners, his vivacity, and homesty
of purpose; but at the same time, a conviction of his insuffi-
ciency; and then returning to the banks of the Rhine, he
became the hero of Coblentz. The emigration, increased by
terror at each fresh attack of the Revolution, and now become
almost a fashion amongst the nobility in the court and in the
army, had gathered around him with all its fears, its threats,
and its imbecilities. He was the prince that suited its fallacies,
while he reigned over it by right of self-delusion and short-
sightedness, and possessed that popularity which is derived
from community of cause and of folly. He drew around him
all those unpopular persons and professors of doctrines, whom
a sense of their incompatibility with the state of the nation
obliged to desert their native land ; his was a court composed
of the aged and the youthful. The old emigrants talked,
wrote, and intrigued for him ; the young ones devotedly
proffered him their arms and their lives. This little fugitive
France in a strange land imagined itself sufficiently strong to
combat, hand to hand, with the Revolution, and to subjigate
revolted France to their young Coriolanus.
296 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 11.
His intrigues and denanciations against the French Government,
W.
The intrigues and threats of the Count d'Artois compro-
mised Louis XVI. in the eyes of his people, and immensely
aggravated his embarrassment and his danger in Paris. The
young prince was inciting all the powers of the North, and of
the German Empire, to war; at the same time that the king,
a hostage to France, in the Tuileries, was negociating peace.
This unfortunate monarch knew too well that the war, demanded
by the Jacobins and Girondists with cunning obstinacy, would
give a decisive impetus to the slumbering Revolution, and
that the first reverses which France suffered would be the
signal for all sorts of accusations and outrages against his
family and himself. Robespierre was the only one at this
time who, with more policy than the Jacobins and more
honesty than the Girondists, opposed the universal impulse in
favour of war, and seemed to second the king in his efforts to
preserve peace. The fact was, that Robespierre had a theory
to work out, and the Jacobins and Girondists nothing but
interest and ambition to gratify. The determined tribune,
which was destined later to make such criminal use of the axe,
was at this time in dread of the sword. He felt, with all the
accuracy of instinct, that if the war was unsuccessful, it would
crush the Revolution; and that, if it was successful, it would
quickly turn the army against the National Assembly, create
an armed populace, which is the worst of all for a de-
mocracy, and cause arms to dominate over ideas. But the
Ring and Robespierre, by themselves, could not control the
Count d'Artois, the emigrants, the Jacobins, and the Girondists,
who all believed their interest lay in a war, to which they all
sacrificed the King, and war accordingly broke forth,
WI.
The Count d'Artois left the conduct of the war to the
Prince de Condé, the Duke de Bourbon, and the young Duke
d'Enghien, who was born a soldier. He had been rejoined at
1789–1801.J OIF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 297
He retires to England.
Coblentz by the Count de Provence, who was older, graver,
and more experienced than he ; and these two princes, who dis-
trusted one another, and neither of whom would give way to
the other before their partisans, divided between them, in
almost equal parts, their claims and the authority they arrogated
to themselves abroad, in the name of Louis XVI. Each of
them had his court—his policy—sometimes in common, but
more frequently separate, his agents, and his intrigues in
France and the various courts; and from that time forward,
when the Restoration was but a distant dream, the friends,
publicists, and envoys of the Count d'Artois distinguished them-
selves from those of the Count de Provence by a display of more
incurable prejudice against the spirit of the time, and irreconcil-
able hatred against all popular principles, and all concessions to
the Revolution.
VII.
The war was tame on the part of the emigrants. After the
attempt of Prussia to invade France, the retreat of the Duke of
Brunswick, the victories of Dumouriez, the 10th of August, and
the imprisonment and death of Louis XVI., the Count d'Artois
was disheartened, and lost all hope on the continent. Not
wishing to remain subordinate to his brother, he continued to
wander through Europe, and at last withdrew to England with
the empty title of Lieutenant-general of the kingdom, which
Louis XVIII. had conferred upon him, to gratify his ambition,
and satisfy his apparent desire for activity in affairs. From
that time forward, surrounded by the same friends that had so
badly advised his youth, he continued incessantly to hatch
plots for the restoration of royalty, in La Vendée, Brittany,
and Normandy; but his friends would never allow him to make
a descent himself. Almost an eye witness of the insurrections,
the devotion, the prodigies of valour of Charette, La Roche-
jaquelein, Lescure, and their intrepid and undaunted soldiers,
he contented himself with forwarding them, from time to time,
arms, subsidies, proclamations, and emissaries. Another Henri
Quatre, or a French Gustavus Vasa, might then have given aunity
of purpose and impetus to such an enthusiasm for war against
T *
298 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11,
*–
He leaves England to make a descent upon Brittany.
the worn-out and exhausted Convention, from which, if the
Restoration had not conquered, the monarchy would at least
have fallen gloriously.
VIII.
At last the English government, which had been vilely
calumniated by the emigrants, as to the unlimited assistance
which it had lent to them, consented to land the Count d'Artois
on the coast of France, with a squadron and regular forces
worthy of a Pretender. The bravery and genius of General
Hoche, however, disconcerted and destroyed the debarcation
of the advanced guard of this expedition at Quiberon. The
Count d'Artois was called upon by the royalist armies of
Brittany to join them; but, after having passed several weeks
in sight of the coast, or at l'Isle Dieu he seemed to dread the
soil that had invited him. He allowed himself to be carried
away, with a show of pretended violence done to his courage
by the English Admiral, and arrived in London, without
having put a foot on that land of France which he had been
menacing with his presence for so many years. The emigrants,
on their return, broke out into invectives against the English
government, which they accused of a wish to deliver them into
the hands of the republicans. The truth was for some time
obscured by ingratitude, but it appeared at last. The prince
had shown either a want of prudence, in soliciting an invading
expedition, or of resolution in not landing to join Charette and
the Vendéan armies. Charette, who was indignant, disdained
to conceal his anger; and he wrote to say that he knew how to
die even for those who were afraid to fight.
The following is the letter, in which he put to the blush
the timid counsellors of the Count d'Artois for their desertion.
In civil war cowardice is an additional crime.
“Sire,
“The cowardice of your brother has ruined all. He could
only appear upon the coast to lose or to save all. His return
9 England has decided our fate. In a short time nothing
more will be left me but to perish uselessly in your service.
“I am, with respect, your Majesty's, &c.”
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 299
Plots for assassinating Bonaparte.
IX.
Other attempts, equally unfortunate, were made at the
instigation of this little court, after the fall of the Directory
and the accession of Bonaparte to power. These attempts, in
which Georges and Pichegru, and their respective friends
took part, and which deprived the young Polignacs of their
liberty, had nothing more than the desperate and isolated
character of forlorn hopes. The honour and piety of the
Count d'Artois shielded him from even the shadow of com-
plicity in the concoction of the infernal machine, and in the
forcible abduction of the First Consul, which Georges was
planning at Paris. But if the suite of the Count d'Artois had
no concern with assassins, they had some connection with the
brave adventurers of Restoration, who, being unable to conquer
France, attempted to take it by Surprise.
X.
This prince, wearied with frustrated hopes on earth, had
some time past taken refuge in the hopes of heaven,—a cruel
loss, bitterly felt, having entirely detached him from this
mundane sphere. The motive, the energy, and the perseverance
of his change of life, discovered in him a force of passion and
a constancy of resolution that the world did not expect under
the effeminacy and the inconsistency of his character. He
proved that if he had been better directed by those who sur-
rounded him, he might have displayed political heroism, as
powerfully as he developed the heroism of love and piety
The young prince, in the society of the Queen, had become
attached to the sister-in-law of the Countess Jules de Polignac,
the favourite of that princess. This young lady, possessed of
beauty that rivalled that of the Countess de Polignac, had
married the Count de Polastron, and her amour with the Count .
d'Artois, which had commenced in the fêtes at Trianon, was
resumed and continued in foreign lands. The Count d'Artois,
consoled and intoxicated by the chalms and the tenderness of
300 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Death of Madame de Polastron.
this accomplished woman, had renounced, in his passion and
fidelity for her, all the trifling liaisons which his personal
beauty had formed around him in his youth. He only lived
in future for Madame Polastrom, who was for him the model of
living tenderness, and the adored souvenir of his youth, of the
court, and of his country. A decline, aggravated by the humid
climate of England, seized on Madame Polastron, and she beheld
death slowly approaching her, in all the freshness of her charms,
and all the delights of a mutual flame. Religion, however,
consoled her, as it had consoled La Vallière, and she wished to
impart its consolation and its immortality to her lover. He
became a convert, at the voice of that love which had so often
and so delightfully dissipated his serious thoughts. One of his
almoners, who has since become Cardinal Latil, received, even
in the chamber of the repentant beauty, the confession and the
remorse of the two lovers. “Swear to me,” said Madame de
Polastron to the young prince, “that I shall be your last fault
and your last love upon earth, and that after me you will love
only the object of whom I cannot be jealous— God himself.”
The prince took the oath with his heart and his lips, and
Madame Polastrom, thus consoled, carried with her last embrace
his oath to heaven. The Count d’Artois, kneeling at the bed-
side of his mistress, repeated his oath to her shade; and he
kept it, although young, handsome, a prince, and a king, still
beloved, through a long life even to the tomb.
From this day he was an altered man.
XI.
But that probity of heart which he found in love, and that
piety which he drew from death, only changed the nature of
his weaknesses. His new virtues had from that day, for him,
the effect of his ancient faults. They contracted his under-
standing without elevating his courage. They delivered him
over entirely to ecclesiastical influences, which piously took
advantage of his conscience, as others had done of his levities.
His policy was nothing more than a blind devotion to the tem-
poral restoration of the church, in whose eyes the Revolution
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 30 I
Altered character of the Count d'Artois on the death of Madame de Polastron.
was no less culpable than in those of the throne and the aris-
tocracy. He wished to redeem the unbelief of his youth by
services to the faith in his mature age. With all his heart
he devoted his future reign to that one object, and he retained
near his person, as experienced councillors, the emigrant
bishops of his court, who had been the witnesses of his grief,
and who had blessed his adieux to the woman that he had given
them. M. de Latil and M. de Couzée, the one a future car-
dimal, and the other already bishop of Amiens, the Abbé de
Bouvans, and other members of the clergy, refugees at London,
inspired more and more his policy. His intimacy with them
recalled the exiled and devout court of James II. at St. Ger-
mains. The throne and the altar were the two countersigns of
his councils and of his agents. He thought that the divine
protection, which the sincerity of his faith and the holiness of
his designs would assure to his cause from on high, would dis-
pense with all human sagacity, and give the triumph by miracles
to the policy of the King, now identical with that of God. The
worldly thoughts and earthly policy of his brother Louis XVIII.
appeared to him almost a concession to the impiety of the times,
and a fatal acceptation of the philosophical and revolutionary
doctrines of the eighteenth century. He separated more than
ever from him, and lived in London in a sphere devoted to
private friendship, pious offices, and anticipated opposition to
the future reign. He looked out eagerly for the moment when
the Empire should fall to pieces, to be the first to enter France,
through the breach made by the allied armies, to outstrip his
brother there, to justify his reputation as a military and adven-
turous prince, and to take there, under the title of Lieutenant
general of the kingdom, an initiative, a part, and a party
which would ensure him a great influence on the Restoration.
The circumspect and serious character of his brother, the infirmi-
ties which condemned him to inaction, the title of King which,
forbade him to expose himself in camps, left to the Count
d'Artois and his sons this advantage, if they wished to take it,
over the court of Hartwell. His manly youth, his noble and
elastic figure, and his royal countenance, at once recalled to
mind Francis I., Henri IV., and Louis XIV. His handsome
302 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Booſt 11.
The Duke d'Angoulême.
features, his readily extended hand, his frank and martial tone,
and his graceful horsemanship, eminently calculated him for
engaging the attention of the people, and forming the living
programme of a Restoration.
XII.
This prince had two sons, the Dukes d'Angoulême and
Berry. The Duke d'Angoulême was one of those men of
ordinary minds, excellent hearts, modest pretensions, and cool
courage, of whom nothing would ever be remarked but their
virtues, if they were not pushed forward by their birth into
positions too elevated for their obscure qualities. He had never
known the pleasures of youth. Recalled from the camps of
the emigrants by his uncle Louis XVIII. to marry the
daughter of Louis XVI. he had always lived under the eyes of
the Count de Provence, and under the dominion of his wife, who
was more intelligent and more energetic than himself. He
had readily admitted these two superior qualities; and bowing
with all his heart to the magisterial wisdom of the King, and
to the ardent piety of his wife, he had thought through the
one, and acted through the other. He was only fitted by
nature for the part of an obedient disciple of a master whom
he admired, and the faithful husband of a woman who had been
his first and only love. Louis XVIII. took a pleasure in
forming him for the throne, which he was one day to occupy.
He was the Telemachus given by exile to this sage, out of
whom he wished to fashion a king; but Nature did not second
his efforts, for she had only given the Duke d'Angoulême
the materials of an honest man. Even his external appearance
unfortunately belied his character as an hereditary prince,
destined to raise the hopes of the people around the thronc
of an old man. Being the son of a princess of the house of
Savoy, he bore in his features and in his demeanour the im-
press of those rough-hewn and unintelligent natures that are
to be found in the high valleys of the Alps. This false
aspect was not, however, the real expression of his mind,
which was, on the contrary, Sound, reflective, and studious;
1789–1804.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 303
The Duke de Berry.
but it was the misfortune of his physiognomy. His eyes
blinked in looking at an object, as if they dreaded the light;
his mouth displayed convulsive smiles, not in accordance with
his thoughts ; his head shook, as if badly balanced on his
shoulders; and he walked with a waddling gait, keeping his
eyes fixed on the points of his toes. He stammered in
speaking, and was intimidated at everything except a sword;
for he was as brave as if born a soldier. He loved the camp;
but the camp could not love him, until he was thoroughly
known in it. He lived at Hartwell, docile to his wife and to
the King. His opinions were constitutional.
XIII.
The Duke de Berry, his brother, was altogether different
in his nature, his character, and his tastes. He had all the
impetuosity, the turbulence, and the roughness of a vigorous
prince, abandoned to his own exuberance and juvenile errors:
all the vivacity and headlong qualities of youth, increased by
premature independence, and by the flattery of his father's
courtiers. He had signalized himself, when a mere child, in
the army of the princes, by a rash and headlong bravery, which
had won him the love of the young emigrant nobility. Idleness
had thrown him into London, where he lived amidst all the
pleasures and the amours of his race and of his age. He had
nothing of the reflection of the Duke d'Angoulême, nothing of
the political doctrines of his uncle, and nothing of the devotion
of his father. Surrounded by friends and mistresses, he
recalled rather the youth of Charles II., mingling frivolity and
voluptuousness with the adventures of exile; but he had neither
the seductive manners nor the grace of that prince. Short in
stature, corpulent, with broad shoulders, like Du Guesclin, a
short neck, a large head, flat features, a jerking gait, his large
blue, and intelligent eyes alone recalled the Bourbon race, and
his smile their goodness. His mind was uncultivated, but he
Was prompt in lively sallies, those fire flashes of the soul.
His rudeness and his temper were repaired by his generosity.
He wounded, but he quickly healed the wounds he made. He
304 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 11
The Duchess d’Angoulême.
was born a soldier; he loved arms, horses, and troops; but
these he knew not how to win. His hand, in all things,
was like his spirit, too rough and too rude; but his bravery
was impetuous. He was born to shed his blood, for a throne
and for a country, elsewhere than under the porch of a theatre,
and by the poignard of an assassin.
XIV
The Duchess d’Angoulême was the connecting link between
the court of the Count d'Artois and the rigid court of Hart-
well. She was the daughter of Louis XVI., the orphan aban-
doned in the dungeons of the Temple, after the murder of all
her family, and after the long sufferings of her young brother, the
infant king, and martyred Louis XVII. There has never been,
either in ancient or modern times, so tragical a destiny as the
life of this princess displays. I have delineated it in the
“History of the Girondists,” from her cradle at Versailles to the
execution of her aunt, Madame Elizabeth, to whom her mother,
Marie-Antoinette, had bequeathed her, on quitting her prison
to mount the scaffold. I resume her history from that time, to
follow her rapidly to the period when she was drawing nigh to
the throne. The pity of France and of Europe had not lost
sight of her since her separation from it. The misfortunes, the
dungeons, the mournings, the executions, the tears of this young
princess, suffering for the wrongs of her race, of which she was
innocent (the victim of a revolution which immolated her father,
her mother, her brother, her aunt, and left her alone in the
vaults of a prison crowded by their shades,) had all made
a deep impression on the memory and the feelings which con-
nected the imagination of France with the absent Bourbons.
It seemed to all generous hearts as if a deep remorse weighed
upon the country at her name, and that the French people
owed her a secret expiation. When outraged nature speaks so
loudly in the souls of men, of women, of mothers, daughters,
and young generations, nature resumes her place in national
policy. The Duchess d’Angoulême was the feeling that
influenced the cause of the Restoration.
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 305
Her imprisonment in the Temple.
XV.
The day after that on which her aunt, Madame Elizabeth,
the young sister of Louis XVI., had suffered on the scaffold, in
the twenty-ninth year of her age, amidst the respect of the forty
companions of her execution, who kissed her hand before they
offered their necks to the executioner, the young princess, then
under fifteen years of age, inquired of all the gaolers for her
mother and her aunt, without the least suspicion that she
was separated from them by death. She thought they were
in another prison, or detained by the interrogatories of a
tribunal. She was in hopes that the door of the tower of the
Temple, on opening, would restore them to her solitude and to
her tenderness. The gaolers were not cruel enough to unde
ceive her. Time alone and prolonged absence revealed to her
the dreadful truth. She asked permission to send to them the
clothes and linen which the two victims had left in the press of
their chambers; the gaolers were affected, and held their
tongues. The poor child was astonished, and began to suspect
that her mother and her aunt had no further occasion for their
prison clothes in this world. She melted into tears, without,
however, entirely despairing of their return. This hope sub-
siding, day after day and month after month, in addition to the
melancholy faces of the gaolers, at length convinced her that
she must hope no more.
Her mother and her aunt, on leaving the prison, had said
to her, “If we do not return you must ask the Commune of
Paris for a woman to assist you in the dungeon, that you may
not be alone amongst all these mem.” She obeyed out of
deference to them, she says, but without any hope that her
request would be granted by her hardened masters. They told
her, in fact, that she had no occasion for a woman to dress her
before those walls. They affected to think that her loneliness
and despair would drive her to suicide, which the piety of the
young girl looked upon as the greatest of crimes. They accord-
ingly took away from her those little knives which were at that
time in use to remove the powder from the foreheads of ladies,
306 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Imprisonment of the Dauphin in the Temple.
her Scissors, her needles, a bodkin, and even the most harm-
less implements of iron or steel requisite for female work, by
which she might have relieved the idleness of her solitude, or
mended her clothes, which were now in rags. They took
from her even the flint and steel, with which she could occasion-
ally dispel the darkness, and cheer her long sleepless nights;
but even light seemed a luxury of heaven too great for the
young captive, and she was forbidden to light the stove which
warmed her prison.
XVI.
The only consolations she enjoyed were sleep, the sight of
heaven by day through the bars of her prison window, and a
few visits to the Dauphin, her brother, a captive in a neigh-
bouring dungeon, already reduced by sickness and the ferocity
of his guardians. The turnkeys who conducted her in these
visits were sometimes moved to pity, and were merciful, but
often inebriated and brutal. The appearance and conversation
of her brother only served to increase her consternation.
This child, eleven years of age (auspiciously born, and,
when he entered the prison, beautiful as his mother,) was
reduced, fallen away, and prematurely faded. He had been
torn at too juvenile an age from the care of his mother and the
affection of his father, and delivered over to paid fanatics, to
kill in him what they called the Young Wolf of the throne. He
had been taught obscene songs, and popular insults against his
own family; his innocent hand had even been forced to sign an
incestuous deposition against his own mother, the impious
meaning of which he did not comprehend. They had brutal-
ized him, not only to dethrone him, but to deprive him even of
his childish innocence and human intelligence.
“This poor child,” wrote his sister, “lay wallowing in his
infected dungeon, amidst filth and rags. It was swept out
only once a month. His sense of feeling was obliterated; he
had a horror of the place, and lived like an unclean reptile in
a common sewer. Nobody came near, but at the hour they
brought him his nourishment: some bread, lentils, and a mor-
sel of dried meat in an éarthen porringer, but never fruit or
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 307
His cruel treatment.
wine. Such was the food of the child in his lonely cell. After
the death of Robespierre these brutalities were softened in some
degree, but they were still frightful
XVII.
“We found him,” said Harmand, representative for La
Meuse, “in a little dungeon, without any other furniture than
an earthen stove, which communicated with the next room.
In this place was his bed. The prince was sitting before a
little square table, on which were scattered some playing-cards;
Some bent into the forms of boxes and little chests; others
piled up in castles. He was amusing himself with these cards
when we entered; but he did not give up his play. He was
dressed in a sailor's jacket of slate-coloured cloth; his head was
bare. There was a truckle-bed near his, on which slept his
keeper, Simon, a cobbler, whom the municipality of Paris, before
the death of Robespierre, had placed in charge of him. It is
well known that this Simon played cruel tricks with the sleep
of his prisoner. Without any regard for an age when sleep is
So imperative a want, he repeatedly called him up in the course
of the night. “Here I am, citizen,” would the poor child
reply, bathed in perspiration, or shivering with cold. ‘Come
here, and let me touch you,' Simon would exclaim; and
when the hapless captive approached him, the brutal gaoler
would sometimes give him a kick, and stretch him on the
ground, crying out, “Get to bed, you young wolf!”
“I approached the prince; but our movements seemed to
make no impression upon him. We begged him to walk, to
talk, to amuse himself, to reply to the doctor whom the Con-
vention had sent to see him; but he listened with indifference,
Seeming to understand, yet making no reply. We were told
that since the day when the Commissioners of the Commune
had obtained from his ignorance infamous depositions against
his parents, and when he understood the nature of the crimes
and the calamities of which he had been thus made the un-
thinking instrument, he had come to a resolution never to speak
again, for fear they should take advantage of him. “I have
308 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
His reduced and miserable condition.
the honour to ask you, Sir,’ repeated Harmand to him, “if
you wish for a dog, a horse, some birds, or one or two com-
panions of your own age whom we will send to you? Would you
like to go down now to the garden, or go up on the towers?’
Not a word, not a sign, not a gesture did he return, although
his face was turned towards me, and he was looking at me with
astonished attention.” “This look of his,” added the commis-
sioners, “had such a character of resignation and indifference,
that it seemed to say to us:—‘After having made me depose
against my mother, you no doubt think of making me depose
against my sister. For two years you have been killing me,
and now that my life is gone, of what use are your caresses?
finish your victim ' ' We begged him to stand up; his legs
were long and small, his arms slender, his bust short, his chest
sunk in, his shoulders high and narrow; his head alone was very
beautiful in all its details, the skin white but without firmness,
with long, curling, flaxen hair. He could walk with difficulty, and
sat down after taking a few steps, remaining in his chair, and rest-
ing his elbows on the table. The dinner which was brought to
him, in a red earthen porringer, consisted of some pulse and
six roasted chesnuts, a tin plate, with no knife and no wine.
We ordered him better treatment, and had some fruit brought
in to improve his meal. We asked him if he was satisfied
with this fruit, and if he liked grapes, but received no answer:
he ate without speaking. When he had eaten the grapes
we asked him if he would like more, but he preserved the same
silence. We demanded if this obstinate silence had been
really preserved since the day when that monstrous deposition
against his mother had been violently forced from him : they
assured us that ever since that day the poor child had ceased
to speak. Remorse had prostrated his understanding.”
XVIII.
The young princess, whose prison adjoined that of her
brother, got a glimpse of him sometimes by the indulgence of
her gaolers. She saw him perishing, and was herself dying
with a double agony. Thus early was the hapless child
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 309
His treatment alleviated.
slowly travelling towards death, like a plant drooping without
sun and air.
“The Convention,” she said, “on hearing of his approach-
ing dissolution, sent a deputation to ascertain his condition.
The commissioners took pity on him, and ordered him better
treatment. Laurent, a more humane man than Simon the
cobbler, whom he had succeeded, took down a bed from my
room into the hole occupied by my brother, his own being full
of insects. They bathed the poor fellow, and purified him from
the vermin with which he was covered; but they still left him
In total solitude. I begged of Laurent to acquaint me with the
fate of my mother and my aunt, of whose death I was ignorant,
and to let me know when we should meet again; but he replied,
with an air of mystery and compassion, that he had no informa
tion to give me on that subject.
“The following day some men in Scarfs, who came to see
me, and to whom 1 put the same question, replied only by the
same ºftence. They added that I was wrong in asking to re-
Join my parents, since I was very well where I was, ‘Is it not
frightful,' I said to them, ‘to be separated for twelve months
from my mother and my aunt, without hearing any news of
them?’ ‘You are not ill?' said these men. “No,' I replied;
“but can there be a worse malady than that of the heart?’
“Hope,” they said to me on going away, ‘in the justice and
the goodness of the French people !’”
Was this pity, or was it irony?
XIX.
Thus passed away days, months, and years for the captive
of sixteen, in the tower of the Temple. At the beginning of
November, the Convention, in a moment of mercy, sent a man
with a kind heart to Laurent, to take care of the child. His
name was Gonin, and he acted towards him as a father. The
poor fellow was at last allowed to have a light in the evening
in his prison, and Gonin passed whole hours with him to amuse
him. He took him down sometimes into a saloon on the first
floor of the tower, the windows of which having no shutters,
310 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Death of the Dauphin in June 1795.
allowed the sun to enter, and permitted him to see the leaves;
and occasionally he took him into the garden to recover the use
of his legs. But the stroke of death had been given. Gonin
might retard his dissolution; but he could not renew the spark
of life in this hapless victim of four years Solitude and desti-
tution. The winter passed by in this manner, with tolerable
uniformity; the princess having been allowed fire in her prison,
and being also supplied with the books she named, that she
might, at least, converse with the dead and with her God. She was
only debarred from all information as to the fate of her parents.
At the commencement of spring she was permitted, from
time to time, to ascend to the platform of the tower, whence
she could see the horizon of Paris, and even some of the sur-
rounding country. What were her feelings, on perceiving the
roofs of the Louvre, the Tuileries, the cathedrals, and the
palaces of her ancestors? Her unfortunate brother, the
Dauphin, was now rapidly dying, but the young princess was
not permitted to attend upon, or even to see him. She only
learned from his gaolers the progress of the disease, which was
consuming this poor child, and from whom she was only
separated by a partition.
XX.
He died at length without pain, but without uttering a
word, on the 9th June 1795, in the middle of the day. The
doctors who attended him in his last moments had never seen
him until the final hour. They could, therefore, only state one
fact in their report to the Convention, namely, that a sick child
had been presented to them, under the name of the son of
Louis XVI., and that this child had died in their presence. It
does not appear that the young princess had been admitted to
see her brother during the last period of his existence, nor
during his illness, nor after his death. Hence suppositions
and conjectures have arisen, which have neither been verified
nor contradicted, on the substitution of a silent and suffering
child for another in the tower of the Temple, on the escape of
the real son of Louis XVI., and on the existence of a legitimate
but unknown king These suppositions, for a long time, in-
1789–1804.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 3]. I
Conjectures as to his death and identity. *
flamed the imaginations of the lovers of the marvellous; and
though they were very improbable, they were, nevertheless, suffi-
ciently possible to encourage credulity and fiction. It may be ad-
mitted that some influential members of the National Conven-
tion, wishing to secure, for a future day, a title to the gratitude of
thrones, or that devoted partisans of the royal family, concealed
under the uniform of guardians of the Temple, might have
succeeded in replacing in prison one child by another, and con-
signing their pious substitution to the grave. But that the
child thus delivered from fetters, at an age when memory im-
presses everything so deeply on the heart,-should never have
recalled the circumstances of his early years, and his escape
from prison, that the agents of this substitution should never
have claimed the merit of their devotion,--that the young
princess (to whom this brother, again found, could have given a
thousand unquestionable testimonies of his identity by his
features, by his memory, by the confidence of a life of eleven
years mingled with the life of his sister) should never have
spoken, these would indeed be miracles of silence, of discre-
tion, and of moral impossibility, more astomishing even than
the miracle of escape itself.
The silence of so many agents connected with this deliver-
ance, and the silence of the delivered child himself, belie this
supposition. To admit it, we must admit other improbabilities,
still more unlikely than the deliverance itself. It must have
happened that the instruments of this substitution had all died
before the hour of revelation had sounded for them. It must
have happened that when dying they had not confided their
precious secret to any member of their family, or even to a
friend. It must have happened that the child delivered, had
himself died before he had spoken a word about his previous
existence: and it must have happened that the persons to whose
care this child would have been confided, whether in France or
elsewhere, had never themselves whispered to the world the secret
of this mysterious deposit. All this is possible, no doubt, but
of a possibility so extreme and so contrary to nature, that the
existence of Louis XVII. may serve as food for the imagination,
and as a text for fancy, but never for the serious research of
312 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Booſt 11
Public commiseration for the Duchess d’Angoulême.
history. It is one of those enigmas that men are eternally pro
posing, and which are not to be solved but by probability or by
Providence.
XXI.
The princess blessed this death as she wept for it, for God
at length had delivered her brother and her king from his long
punishment, and she bore hers in silence. From the day that
the Convention had nothing more to apprehend from a Pretender
in the Temple, public pity was permitted to approach her.
Nine days after the death of Louis XVII., the city of Orleans,
formerly saved by a young heroic girl, dared to intercede for
the innocent young daughter of Louis XVI., and sent deputies
to the Convention to pray for the deliverance of the young
princess, and her restoration to the bosom of her family. “For
who amongst us,” said the deputies from Orleans, “would wish
to condemn her to inhabit a place still reeking with the blood
of her family 2” Nantes followed this example; and Charette
had also demanded, in the name of La Vendée, as a condition
of the pacification of these provinces, that the daughter of
Louis XVI. should be restored to her relations. The Com-
mittee of General Safety, composed, since the fall of Robespierre,
of men glutted, or disgusted with proscriptions, ordered the
guardians of the Temple to allow her to go down for the first
time into the garden. She walked there, followed by the only
companion of her four years' imprisonment, the dog of her father,
Louis XVI., which that prince had given into her charge when
he went to the scaffold. Ladies of the old court, attached to the
princess before her misfortunes, and who had escaped themselves
the scaffolds and dungeons of the Revolution, Madame de Chante-
reine, Madame de Mackau, Madame de Tourzel, and her
daughter Mademoiselle Pauline de Tourzel, companion of the
earliest days of the princess, were authorised to visit her
Misfortune, in the tender breast of these ladies, had added pity
to respect: while the windows of the houses which surrounded
the garden of the prison were opened, as during the first days
of the king's captivity, filled with friendly faces, and poured forth
flowers and verses at the feet of the young captive. The pam.
1789–1804.] OF MON AIRC HY IN FRANCE. 3.13
Treatment of the Duchess d'Angoulême.
phlets and journals of the day descanted on this moving theme
to their softened or repentant readers. “The daughter of
Louis XVI. is at length free,” said these periodicals, “to walk
in the courts of the Temple. Two commissioners watch over
her steps, and only approach her with civility. They treat her
with the respectinspired by the memory of what she was, and the
melancholy sight of what she is at present. A goat, which she
has been permitted to rear, occupies her attention, and the tame
animal follows her with fidelity. A dog is, above all, the in-
separable companion of the young prisoner, and appears to be
very much attached to her. 'Tis the king's dog, at present
without a master, and which still appears to love him in his
child.”
XXII.
M. Hue, an old servant of the king's, hired one of the
windows which overlooked the garden, where he used to sing,
like Blondel, the servant of another royal captive, consolatory
lays to the daughter of his sovereign. By means of signals he
succeeded in putting her in possession of a letter from her
uncle, Louis XVIII., to which the princess sent a reply by
the connivance of the commissioners, who shut their eyes on
the occasion. Charette, also, transmitted her, through this
medium, the wishes and the devotion of his army. Everything,
in short, announced the approaching termination of her cap-
tivity. The 30th of July, the Convention, on the report of
the Committee of Public Health and General Safety, decreed
that the daughter of Louis XVI. should be exchanged with
Austria, for the representatives and the ministers whom
Dumouriez had given up to the Prince of Cobourg, at the
time of his defection, – Drouet, Semonville, Maret, and other
prisoners of importance in the hands of Austria. She left no
other trace of her captivity and tears in her prison than
these two lines, engraved by herself on the stone sill of her
window, during the long idleness of her seclusion:—
“O my father watch over me from heaven!
O my God! pardon the murderers of my father t”
U
§ 14 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Her liberation from prison.
XXIII.
At midnight, on the 19th December, 1795, which was her
birth-day, she was released from prison; and the Minister of
the Interior, Benesech, to prevent any commotion of the
populace, conducted her on foot from the Temple to a neigh-
bouring street, where his carriage awaited her. The carriage
proceeded by deserted roads, at that time scarcely formed, on
the outskirts of the Boulevard, and stopped on a vacant piece
of ground behind the Porte Saint-Martin. There a post-
chaise, occupied by Madame de Soucy, under-governess of the
royal children of France, and by an officer of gendarmerie,
received the princess. The minister enhanced the value of
restored liberty by the respect and pity he evinced in language
and manner; to which the young princess could only reply by
her tears. She left behind her, in addition to the four years
of her youth spent in the gloom of a dungeon, the bodies of
her father, of her mother, of her aunt, of the Princess de
Lamballe, of her brother, of princesses of the court; of all,
in short, that she had known and loved from her cradle. The
wheels of the carriage never appeared to her to be rapid
enough, to fly from a soil which had drunk so much blood,
devoured so many victims, widows, wives, and children—so much
innocence and virtue, for the crime of loyalty. The long agony
of the son of Louis XVI., the execution of his sister, and the
captivity of his daughter, will be eternal remorse in the hearts
of the people, and funereal stains upon the Revolution. It has
taken fifty years and a purer revolution to restore to liberty its
innocence. These unmerited executions, these decapitations
of women, the protracted immolation of a child, and of a young
girl, for four years enduring agonies worse than the axe itself,
under the eyes of a nation renowned for its generosity, make
the hand which recounts them to tremble. Can it be true that
extreme civilization, amidst these human sacrifices, loses itself
in extreme barbarism? No, certainly, the people were emerging
from a long ignorance, and avenged themselves on innocent
objects. They had not yet learned that vengeance springs
1780–1804.] OF MION AIXCIHY IN FIRAN CE. {}} 5
*
She leaves France, and goes to Germany.
from vengeance, and that God never grants a durable liberty
but to the justice and magnanimity of the people.
XXIV.
The name of Sophie concealed her real name, but did not
hide her features. The resemblance of this young girl to the
image of Marie-Antoinette, engraved in the minds of the
people, caused her to be suspected, or recognised, three or
four times on the road. But there were no longer, as at
Varennes, national guards to take her back to captivity; there
were only humid eyes to admire, and friendly hands to applaud
her deliverance.
XXV.
Beauty had triumphed over sorrow and seclusion, and the
physical superiority of the Bourbons had developed her charms
amidst the gloom of the Temple. Waving tresses, a flexible
neck, a graceful figure, blue eyes, features at once majestic
and delicate, the tint of adolescence on a countenance matured
beyond its years by solitude, the pride that springs from blood,
the sadness that arises from memory, the soul in mourning on
a face all radiant in youthful beauty, fixed and enchanted every
eye. No one could look on her without seeing, in her intelli-
gent expression, all the evils that had crossed her destiny, and
all that still beset her path. It was the tragic apparition of
the Revolution flying from the executioner's axe, with feet
stained with parental blood, and seeking in exile refuge from
death. She was everywhere received with this impression.
People knelt to her in Germany, on her passage, as though
they beheld a resurrection from the tombs.
The Emperor of Austria, her uncle, had prepared an apart-
ment for her; and all the imperial family crowded to receive
her at the door of the palace, where she was treated in every
respect as an archduchess. She was now seventeen years of
age, and the Emperor proposed to give her in marriage to his
brother the Archduke Charles, the hero of Austria; but she
recollected that her father, Louis XVI, had destined her for
316 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 11.
A-
Her marriage with the Duke d'Angoulême at Mittau.
her cousin the Duke d'Angoulême, eldest son of the Count
d’Artois, and she wished to obey his last will. She left
Vienna for Mittau, whither the king, her uncle, called her for
this family union. She threw herself at his feet, and
embraced them, as if in him she had again found her father.
The prince presented to her the Duke d'Angoulême, as one
who was affianced to her in heaven: he then conducted her to
the Abbé Edgeworth, who had received the last prayers and
the last confession of Louis XVI., and who only quitted him
on the scaffold. A few days after this venerable ecclesiastic,
sanctified in her eyes by the recollections he recalled, per-
formed her marriage ceremony with the young prince. This
union was not blessed with a family. The axe by its terror,
and captivity by its torture, had stricken the posterity of the
throne even in this last surviving branch.
The Duchess d’Angouleme followed the exiles, the changes
of country, and the fortunes of her uncle in all his vicissitudes.
This prince loved her from feeling as well as from policy, and
prided himself on her beauty, her youth, and the sympathy
she excited in the eyes of Europe. He called her his Anti-
gone, and he exhibited himself, supported on the arm of his
niece, as royalty protected from on high by the angel of
sorrow. She resided along with him at Hartwell, remem-
bering France with bitterness, but the throne and her country
with pride and the innate majesty of her blood.
XXVI.
The Duke of Orleans, son of Philippe-Egalité, had sepa-
rated his cause and life from the elder branch of the
Bourbons. Devoted to the Revolution from his father, and
brought up and trained to war by Dumouriez, he had fought
with that general at Jemappes against the emigrants; he had
followed his chief in his defection and treachery to the Conven-
tion, and had passed over with Dumouriez and his staff to the
enemy. Though an emigrant now in his turn, his name and
supposed opinions had prevented him from seeking an asylum
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 317
The Duke of Orleans.
in the camp of the princes or in the courts of the sovereigns,
and he had vegetated in obscurity in Switzerland and America,
under an assumed name, and in the pursuit of ordinary occu-
pations. His mind, which was of the common order, but
sagacious, had become sharpened by the difficulties of life; he
had conquered the obstacles that his birth and antecedents
opposed to his fortune, by dint of caution and temporising. At
one time a prince, and at another a citizen, he had rendered
himself equally acceptable to the cause of liberty and to the
crown. During the reign of Bonaparte, he had effected a re-
conciliation with the Bourbons, and disclaimed the defections
and votes of his father, and during the war of independence
he had gone into Spain, and, like Moreau, offered his sword
against Napoleon; but the Bourbons and the Spanish Cortés
were afraid of accepting service from a prince of their blood,
which would pledge them too deeply to gratitude towards a
future pretender to the crown. The Duke d'Orleans had then
gone to Sicily, where the patronage of the English, and the
relationship of the kings, had obtained for him the hand of a
princess of the house of Naples. A young family grew up
around him, and he appeared to have forgotten France, when
the fall of Bonaparte and the secret hope of taking some partin
the Restoration recalled him. His opinions, hidden as his soul
and his ambiguous origin, rendered him as likely to aid in as
to compete with a Restoration.
Louis XVIII. and the Count d'Artois, since his visit to
London, looked upon the Duke of Orleans as nothing more
than a worthy gentleman, entirely devoted to the cares of a
family. They imagined that, by restoring to him his rank of
first prince of the blood, with his immense fortune, they could
attach him without danger to a monarchy which had so much
to forgive to his name; but appearances deceived the shrewd-
ness of Louis XVIII. himself. The Duke of Orleans was
more upright in his actions than honest in his pretended self-
denial. It was not his part to conspire, but to await his oppor.
tunity; and to await, in certain cases, is equivalent to con-
Spiracy.
3 18 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
The Princes of Condé.
XXVII.
The Prince of Condé, and the Duke of Bourbon, his son,
although not much in favour with Louis XVIII., and more
liked in the camp than at the court, lived in London, and
assumed the attitude of first soldiers of the monarchy.
Since the great Condé and Rocroy, the heroism of the
blood of the Bourbons seemed to have been perpetuated in this
line, and it was the only branch of the family which devoted
itself exclusively to the sword. The military glory of their
ancestor was to them a second nobility, which they preferred
even to their connection with the throne.
The Prince of Condé, an old warrior of the School of
Frederic II., had taken part against that prince in the scien-
tific seven years' war, and even our reverses had been a source
of glory to him. Our cannon, saved by him at Rosbach, orna-
mented his magnificent gardens at Chantilly. Louis XV is
said to have loved, amongst many other ladies, the Princess of
Hesse, mother of the Prince of Condé, and the favour he
always showed the son led to the belief of a more close and
dearer consanguinity than the mere relationship of family
This prince, from the first, had pledged his fidelity and pride
to concede nothing to the views of the Revolution. It seemed
to him unworthy of his race to address a people otherwise than
sword in hand. In 1789, he had emigrated with his son, the
Duke of Bourbon, and his grandson, the Duke d'Enghien, and
had planted the standard of monarchy on the banks of the
Rhine. The French nobility had joined him as their chief,
Germany had adopted him; his army had taken his name, and
become the camp of the aristocracy armed in a foreign land,
and endeavouring to reconquer its native country, with the aid
of the armies of Prussia and Austria.
After the campaigns of 1792 and 1793, so unfortunate for
the Coalition, the army of the Princes of Condé had passed
into the pay of England, and remained still united, but inactive,
before the armies of the Republic, watching the course of the
civil War, to take part in it, and that of foreign war, to turn it
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 3 || 9
The Duke of Bourbon.
to their advantage. Courageous, but undisciplined and inex-
perienced, and under the command of three intrepid chiefs,
the army of Condé had yet been unable to achieve any decisive
results. The renown of the Condés had increased, but the
anti-revolutionists had not gained one step on our frontiers.
This kind of life was greatly to the taste of the Prince of
Condé. He treated with the German courts, tried to tamper
with Pichegru, addressed the Republic on terms of equality,
counter-balanced, by his renown and popularity in the emigra
tion, the rank and title of the Count of Provence, and of the
Count d'Artois; and, for the maintenance of his noble military
display, he is said to have drawn largely on the subsidies fur-
mished by Russia, Spain, Germany, and England, for the sup-
port of his soldiery.
Germany once conquered, this army passed into the pay of
the British government, was dispersed through Spain, La Ven-
dée, Russia, and indeed everywhere, while some returned beg.
gared and dispossessed of their property, to France. The
Prince of Condé and his son withdrew to England, and retired
to a magnificent country seat, where they gave themselves up
to the pursuit of the hereditary passion of their family for the
chase, and where the prince at last married the beautiful
Princess de Monaco, whom he had loved and carried off by force
before the emigration; thus, like the great Condé, blending love
with war and exile.
XXVIII.
The Duke of Bourbon, his son and his lieutenant in the
army, equalled him in intrepidity. This prince, at fifteen
years of age, falling in love with his cousin, sister of the Duke
of Orleans, had carried her off from the convent in which the
princess was shut up ; and the Duke d'Enghien, his son, was
the fruit of these precocious amours. The Duchess of Bour-
bon, his wife, had since separated from him, and was residing
in England in a state of profane liberty mingled with evange-
lical piety. The Duke of Bourbon had astonished the repub-
lican army, in the campaign of 1792, by acts of temerity and
daring exploits in the vanguard, which constituted him the
320 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOIK 11.
The Duke d'Enghien.
Roland or the Murat of the emigration. Ever since the assas-
sination of his som, the Duke d'Enghien, this prince, losing all
hope for his house in the future, had given himself up to a
state of inactivity and melancholy listlessness, from which he
was only to be aroused by the sound of the hunting horn in the
English forests. Even glory seemed to him no longer worthy
of an effort, since that glory must die with his name.
The two Condés had lost, in their son and grandson the
Duke d'Enghien, the memorial of the past, and the hope of
the future. Two generations mourned the death of this young
prince, who had escaped the dangers of the Revolution and
the battle-field, to perish the victim of ambition.
It now remains to be told by what catastrophe this prince
was cut off from the Restoration, otherwise nearly complete, of
the Bourbons, who had been emigrants since 1789; for his
absence made a more vivid impression on the imagination and
heart of Europe than his presence could have done. The
sensation which was caused by the crime to which he fell a
victim created, in a great measure, the interest felt for his
family, and the antipathy which reflected on his murderer.
God has so formed the human heart that a single spot of crime
will obscure the brightest halo of glory, and justice ever
avenge itself in an unconquerable feeling of compassion for the
victim.
XXIX.
The Duke d'Enghien, as we have already said, was the
first and only fruit of the amours of the Duke of Bourbon, then
fifteen years of age, and his cousin Bathilde d'Orleans. This
princess had been carried off by him from the convent after
marriage, in spite of the families of both, who wished to sepa-
rate the lovers. Poetry, in the course of time, availed itself of
this court drama, and rendered it popular on the stage in music
and in verse. But this too premature union had not continued
long a happy one. The Duchess of Bourbon had become
the object of a new love, upon the occasion of a formal duel
between her husband and the Count d'Artois, for an impro-
priety at a bal masqué.
1789–1804.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE, 32 I.
The Duke d Enghien.
The Duke of Bourbon adored his son, and brought him up
to war from the earliest age, as a child of the camp, under the
tents and in the campaigns of the emigrants. Nature had
fitted the young prince in every way for a soldier; he was born
a soldier, and breathed nothing but heroism; he wished to pur.
chase with his sword, and by the shedding of his blood
alone, his rank in the army of his grandfather, whose aide-de-
camp he was, and the esteem of his companions-in-arms and
in exile. His handsome features, in which were blended the
feminine grace of the Orleans family and the martial enthusiasm
of the Condés, his blue eyes, his aquiline nose, and the Spanish
ovality of his face, the expression of frankness on his lips and
in his gestures, the youthful bloom of his cheeks, his affable
and friendly disposition towards the young men of his age, his
graceful horsemanship, his tall stature when on foot, his bravery
in battle, and his ardour in the pursuit of pleasure, had
made him the favourite of the army. In vain did his grand-
father and father, in the skirmishes of the outposts, recommend
him to the care of the veterans; they could not restrain him.
He was impatient to spill his blood for the cause in which he
had been nurtured, and already it had been shed on three
occasions by the bullets or the sabres of the Republicans. At
the age of twenty-two the Duke d'Enghien possessed the
practised instincts of war, and the coup d'oeil of a general.
At that early age he already commanded the cavalry of the
army.
XXX.
On the disbanding of the army of Condé, he conducted a
detachment of it into Russia, and the young Princess Charlotte
de Rohan, whom he loved, and whom he voluntarily carried with
him through all the chances of war, followed him on this jour-
ney, and returned with him. The love which he cherished for
her, and his passion for war, prevented him from following his
grandfather and father to their retreat ir, London. He wished
to remain in retirement, far away from courts, but always in
sight of France, and near the scene of war, should it again
break out. He travelled through Switzerland with the com.
322 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION BOOK 11.
*====#
The Duke d'Enghien.
panion of his youth, and returned to settle with her at Etten-
heim,-a village in the territory of Baden. He here reposed
in obscurity, in love, and in rustic employments, after the
seven years of fighting and activity which had matured him at
so early an age. Several friends of his house, left behind by
his father, and some of the aides-de-camps of his wars, lived
retired in the same village, and shared his simple and innocent
amusementS.
XXXI.
Ashamed of his inactivity, he at one time was possessed
of the idea of entering into the service of one of the Eu-
ropean powers; but his father wrote to him to recall him to a
sense of his dignity: “Such is not your destiny, my dear son,”
said the Duke of Bourbon to him; “never has any one of the
Bourbons taken such a course. All the revolutions in the
world will never prevent you being, to the end of your days,
what you are, and what God made you. Rest assured of this.
At the commencement of the war, which I believe I carried
through with credit, I refused to accept any rank in a foreign
service; and it is thus that you also should act. Any other
conduct may perhaps render you the ally of the rebels of
France, and may oblige you to fight against the cause of your
king!—As it is, you will lead an obscure life in your retire-
ment, awaiting the accomplishment of your glory. Adieu ! I
embrace you.”
XXXII.
The prince had obeyed his father. Being a stranger to
all intrigue, and believing himself free from all danger in the
states of the Grand Duke of Baden, he gave himself up, in the
forests of that prince, to the pleasures of the chase, for which
he had such a predilection. It is said that, carried away by
the imprudence of his youth, a feeling of his innocence, and
that instinct of exile which gives a zest even to the danger
with which he treads his native soil, he sometimes crossed the
Rhine, and came to witness, incognito, the performances at the
theatre of Strasbourg; but this report, disseminated without
1789–1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 323
The Duke d'Enghien.
any proofs by his murderers as an excuse, was contradicted
after his death by his friends, who never quitted him.
However this may have been, his grandfather, the Prince
of Condé, became alarmed at this thoughtlessness, the report
of which had even reached him in London.—“I am told,” he
wrote to his grandson, “that you have been making an excur-
sion to Paris, some say only to Strasbourg. It must be
allowed that this is risking your life or your liberty somewhat
uselessly; for as to your principles I feel perfectly easy, being
assured that they are graven as deeply on your heart as on
ours. It appears to me that you may now confide to us what
is past, and tell us, if the report is true, what you have ob-
served on your journey. Touching your safety, which is so
dear to us all,—you are very near France. Take care; do not
neglect any precaution necessary to enable you to effect your
retreat speedily, in case it should enter the Consul's head to
have you carried off! Do not imagine that there is any courage
in braving everything on this point. It would be an unpardon-
able imprudence in the eyes of the world, and would have the
most dreadful consequences. Therefore, I repeat to you, take
care of yourself, and re-assure us by replying that you are per-
fectly aware of the necessity for the precautions we conjure you
to take, that we may be easy on your account.”
XXXIII.
“Assuredly, my dear papa,” replied the Duke d'Enghien,
“they must know very little of me who have said, or sought to
make others believe, that I have placed my foot on republican
ground, otherwise than with the rank and in the position in
which chance caused me to be born. I am too proud to basely
bow my head. The First Consul may perhaps succeedin killing
me, but he shall never make me humiliate myself. I may
travel unknown amidst the glaciers of Switzerland as I did last
season; but when I re-enter France I shall have no occasion
to hide myself. I can therefore give you my most sacred word
of honour, that such an idea never did and never will enter my
head. I embrace you, my dear papa, and beg you will never
entertain a doubt of me or of my love.”
824 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Plots against Napoleon's life.
XXXIV
A short time afterwards, the plots of Georges, of Pichegru,
and the trial of Moreau, strewed with suspicions and with blood
the first steps of Napoleon towards empire. His life seemed
to be threatened by the triple complicity of the Jacobins, of the
emigrants, and of his rivals in glory, Moreau and Pichegru,
who were impelled to crime by jealousy of his increasing power.
This was the time when members of the police, who were sold,
and traitors at once to both parties, engaged, in London, in
secret conspiracies, and exaggerated them by falsehoods, in
order to resell them at a dearer rate in Paris. All was a
whispered rumour, Snares, concealed or suspected, distrust,
arrests, sentences of death and executions around the future
Emperor. This reign, usurped from monarchy and from
liberty at the same time, was surrounding itself with those
terrors which it apprehended itself, from wishing to prevent
assassination by execution. The soul of Napoleon, who had
not displayed at Saint Cloud that civil courage to the same
degree as the military courage he had exhibited on the bridges
of Lodi and Arcola, betrayed the ferocity of his ambition. He
evidently wished to dig behind him such an abyss between the
sovereign power and his deposition, that neither the people nor
Europe at large could doubt of his determination to reign or
to die. His resolution took in him the character of irrevocable
fatality. Of this he wished the world to be convinced at every
sacrifice, to discourage his enemies and his rivals from the
thought of ever making an attempt against his future dynasty.
This was the true state of Napoleon's mind, when police
reports, badly drawn up and badly interpreted, made him sup-
pose that the Duke d'Enghien and General Dumouriez were
reviving against him, at Ettenheim, the conferences of Georges,
of Pichegru, and of Moreau at Paris; and that the peaceful
residence of the Duke was a nucleus of plots and premeditated
murders against him. He instantly ordered his police, by an
espionage on the spot, to clear up these suspicions which no-
thing whatever justified. He seemed eager to surprise the
1804.1 OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 325
Suspicions against the Duke d'Enghien.
name of a Bourbon in a crime, and to dishonour the house,
whose place and inheritance he wished to assume on the throne
of his country. Of all the princes who had taken refuge in
foreign countries, perhaps there was only one alone who, by
his passion for arms, his popularity in the camps, his nature,
and his heroic extraction, could make him dread, in the future,
a competitor or an avenger. Fortune, in pointing out the young
prince under the present circumstances, seemed to be co-
operating with the interests, the forethought, and the suspicions
of Napoleon.
It is said, and nothing either confirms or belies the rumour,
that M. de Talleyrand, then his minister for foreign affairs,
flattering his terrors, as he had flattered his courage, urged
him not to be guilty of cruelty, but to surprise the pretended
conspiracy, and to violate boldly the rights of nations and of
peace, by carrying off the prince from a foreign territory. M.
de Talleyrand has never evinced, during his long life, a re-
prehensible indifference to blood, or that he was influenced by
cruel passions. His vices were of another nature, too Supple
to be inflexible, but also too servile to resist. We may suppose
that he displayed, for the safety of the First Consul, a zeal
which knew no scruples; but we cannot admit that he insinu-
ated crime and death. Altogether irreconcilable with the
church on account of his character and of his marriage, and
with the Bourbons in consequence of his services to their
enemies, it was natural for him to urge his master to break
irrevocably with princes from whom he himself never ex-
pected any pardon. There, doubtless, ends all his complicity
Napoleon at Saint Helena throws all the blame upon him ;
sometimes he refers it to others; then he reclaims it for himself,
in a manner more cruel than the assassination itself. But
aberration is the character of remorse. When crime weighs
heavily we throw it, at hazard, upon other heads; and when
the truth gives it back again, and we are compelled to keep it,
we them reclaim it, and strive to make it a fit subject of pride.
This is the last subterfuge of conscience,—the last evolution
of crime.
320 HISTORY OF I.I.I.E RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
His residence at Ettenheim.
XXXV.
From this day the Consul, by means of his police, formed
a circle of information, superintendence, and ambush, round
the residence of the prince, within which he purposed inclosing
him. On the 4th of March, 1804, the prefect of Strasbourg, by
order of Réal, prefet of police at Paris, conferred with Colonel
Charlot, commandant of gendarmerie, with a view of ascertain-
ing the best method of penetrating the obscurity which still
hung over the Prince's circle at Ettenheim. These two officers
cast their eyes on an intelligent subaltern, named Lamothe,
who was trained to this species of explorations, by his habits of
spying out and pursuing criminals.
Lamothe, having been born in Alsatia, spoke German, and
repaired to Ettenheim under pretext of some traffic or other
He knew the place, the roads, the little Gothic chateau inha-
bited by the prince, and the retired house in the village, where
the Princess Charlotte resided with her father, the Prince de
Rohan. Having entered into conversation with the inhabitants
of the country, and spoken about his pretended commerce, he
interrogated the peasants, with apparent indifference, about the
Duke d'Enghien and his suite, the sort of life he led in this
retreat, and the French refugees who lived with him or around
him ; and, finally, as to the communications, more or less fre-
quent, that he kept up with persons, who were strangers in the
Country.
XXXVI.
Lamothe returned the following day to Strasbourg, and
made his report to Colonel Charlot, which stated as follows:–
“I first went to the village of Capel, at a certain distance from
Ettenheim. There, in chatting with the postmaster, I learned
that the Duke d'Enghien was still at Ettenheim with General
Dumouriez and Colonel Granstein, recently arrived from
London. When I got to Ettenheim I was confirmed in my
intelligence of the residence of the prince and of General
Dumouriez in the village. I was told that the prince lived in
1304 ) OIF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 327
Preparations for seizing his person.
the chateau near the village, and that he passed his time in
field sports; that he had only one secretary with him ; that
Dumouriez and Colonel Granstein lived in separate lodgings
in different houses; and that the correspondence of the prince
was more active than usual, and that he was adored in the
country; that there was no talk of his going to London, nor of
a journey that the prince had made to London. Night was
now approaching, and my mission terminated.” The remainder
of the report concerned other information which Lamothe was
ordered to collect in passing, with respect to the Baroness de
Reisch, and the emigrants of the little neighbouring town of
Offenbourg, a nucleus of intrigues and correspondence of the
French refugees on the banks of the Rhine.
XXXVII.
This report, so exact in its details, of the life and residence
of the prince, was inaccurate as to the names. The German
accent of the peasant of Ettenheim had altered the pronuncia-
tion of the name of Colonel Thomery, a French emigrant, aide-
de-camp of the prince, which he had pronounced as if that of
General Dumouriez, who was then at Hambourg. The prince
never had the slightest connection with this officer then a
refugee in London; for he looked upon him as a traitor both
to his house and the cause of the Republic. Colonel Charlot,
however, hastened to send off the report of his spy to General
Moncey, chief commandant of gendarmerie at Paris, through
the agency of this corps. The correspondence was carried
on from brigade to brigade with a greater rapidity at that
time than the post itself.
Moncey presented this report to the First Consul, before
the prefect of police, Réal, had himself received the letters of
the prefect of Strasbourg, containing the same information
Bonaparte, on seeing the name of Dumouriez, cried out; for
he thought he had the clue of the plot with which he felt he
was enveloped. He immediately summoned Réal, the chief of
the police : “How is this?” he exclaimed in a reproachful
tone, on seeing him enter; “you keep me in ignorance that
328 HISTORY OF THE RES TORATION . [Book ; i.
Capture of Georges in Paris.
Dumouriez is at Ettenheim with the Duke d'Enghien, and
that both of them are organising military plots at four leagues
from the frontier '''
Réal excused himself by the delay in the correspondence
of the prefect of Strasbourg; but in the evening, having received
the letter confirming the report of Charlot, he communicated
it to the First Consul, and to M. de Talleyrand, who was pre-
sent at the interview. All three, being convinced of the
authenticity of the information, and knowing the importance,
the audacity, and the agitating genius of Dumouriez, were
astonished and indignant at the silence of the authorities in
the neighbourhood of the Rhine, and of Massias, the Envoy
of the Republic at Baden. “We must,” said M. de Talley-
rand, “allow the emigrant conspirators to concentrate in this
focus of the Rhine, and there seize upon them.”
The opinion of the complicity of the Duke d'Enghien in
the conspiracies which them secretly agitated Paris, was thus
more and more confirmed in the minds of the First Consul, of
his minister, and of his police. A thousand coincidences con-
tributed to convince and to exasperate him still further.
XXXVIII
Georges, who had been vainly sought after for three weeks
in Paris, was discovered and surprised on the evening of the
9th of March. On leaving his retreat, and getting into the
cabriolet of Léridant, one of his accomplices, he perceived that
he was followed by four police agents. He instantly took the
reins from the hands of Léridant, and pushed his horse full
gallop through the streets leading from the Luxembourg
towards the Seine. With breathless speed the police agents
ran headlong in pursuit; but Georges looking out of the win
dow in the hood of the cabriolet, and seeing himself on the
point of being captured, threw asido the reins, cocked his
pistols, and fired on the two first that approached. One of
these he shot dead, and mortally wounded the other. Then
armed with his poniard he defended himself against the two
others, and against those who assisted the police in disarming
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 329
Count Jules de Polignac.
him. He was at length knocked down by a hatter 11amed
Thomas ; and being surrounded by a crowd he was bound hand
and foot, and conveyed to prison. On being interrogated by
Réal, he avowed that he had come to Paris to carry off the
First Consul by main force, but not to assassinate him; that
he had been connected with St. Réjant, the plotter of the
attempt at assassination in the Rue St. Nicaise ; but that St.
Réjant, in constructing the infernal machine, had exceeded his
instructions, which merely required him to recruit a number of
determined horsemen—to attack Bonaparte's escort during one
of his excursions out of the city, and take the dictator prisoner
to London; that nothing was yet ready for this enterprise;
and that they awaited the expected arrival of a prince in Paris,
for its consummation.
XXXIX.
This prince, in the imagination of Bonaparte and of the
police, could be none other than the Duke d'Enghien, and
another deposition of Léridant confirmed this erroneous con-
clusion. This conspirator, a friend of Georges, said that he had
seen at Chaillot, in the house where Georges lived incognito, a
young man, whose name was kept secret, and who was elegantly
dressed, of handsome features and aristocratic manners; and
that he had imagined this young man to be the prince expected
by the conspirators. It was not known, until long afterwards,
that this young man, whose exterior and whose mysterious
appearance had struck Léridant, was that same Count Jules de
Polignac, the confidant of the Count d'Artois, whose fatal devo-
tion to his master continued to influence him ever since the ruin
of the monarchy.
The confidants and the ministers of the First Consul en-
couraged his resentment at these ill-founded discoveries, and
urged him to retaliate on a war of ambuscades, and a system of
murder, by adopting a similar species of warfare. This was
anticipating his feelings of indignation, and aiding his intentions;
and he took his counsellors at their word.
V
330 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Napoleon's deliberations for effecting the seizure of the Duke d'Enghien.
XL.
On the 10th of March he convened a private council, to
which were summoned Cambaceres, Lebrun, his two colleagues
in the Consulate, M. de Talleyrand, Fouché, and Regnier,
minister of justice. Regnier laid the matter before them, basing
his arguments on the false supposition of the participation of
the Duke d'Enghien in the entirely distinct schemes of Georges,
of Pichegru, Moreau, St. Réjant, Count Jules de Polignac, of
the agents of the princes in London, and of the equally false
supposition of the presence of General Dumouriez at Ettenheim.
To fear, suspicion is everything, and everything a proof to
suspicion.
“There has been attributed to the First Consul,” said
Regnier, “the design of a personal participation in the plots
contrived against him, and they have attributed to him the
contemplation of the part of Monk. He must give the lie to
these conspirators in the most striking manner. Both he and
the Republic are menaced with destruction. The government
must counteract these conspiracies, and destroy them wherever
they may arise. The Grand Duke of Baden cannot complain of
the violation of his territory, if he knowingly lends himself to
these attempts against the safety of France; and if it be other-
wise, he cannot but applaud the exercise of justice, which
prevents a crime hatching in his states.”
Cambaceres, with more regard to national usages, opposed
the violation of a foreign territory. “If it is true that the
prince often comes to Strasbourg, in flagrant violation of his
banishment, why not have him watched and seized, and this
without infringing on the right of nations?” Regnier, minister
of justice, although he had read the report, supported the legal
and moderate advice of Cambaceres, in opposition to that
report. M. de Talleyrand replied, that this manner of pro-
ceeding would be attended with two serious objections: the
first, that time would thus be given for the resolves of govern-
ment to be known, and the conspirators be thus warned against
the danger of returning to Strasbourg; and the second, that
1804.] O F MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 331
Generals Caulaincourt and Ordener.
they would not be enabled to seize their papers at Ettenheim,
which were of more importance than their persons; inasmuch
as these papers would give a key to the most secret and
dangerous conspiracies against France. This opinion prevailed
over all the others; and the expedition to Ettenheim was re-
solved on. At the same time a simultaneous expedition to
Offembourg of a like nature was concerted; this place being
supposed to be another focus for similar conspiracies, on the
banks of the Rhine.
XLI.
Bonaparte, on his return to his apartments, cast his eye on
two individuals amongst those around him, to whose sagacity
and firmness he might entrust this twofold adventure, and
with perfect reliance on their devotion and intrepidity. He
selected General Caulaincourt, his aide-de-camp, for the expe-
dition to Offembourg, and General Ordener, commandant of
horse grenadiers of the Consul's guard, for the one to Etten-
heim.
Caulaincourt, a gentleman of Picardy, was the son of the
Marquis de Caulaincourt, lieutenant-general of the armies of
the King before the Revolution, and his mother was attached
to the court of the Countess d'Artois. Young Caulaincourt,
at the age of sixteen, having been deprived, on account of his
nobility, of his first steps in the army of the Republic, had
volunteered as a private soldier, to enable him to continue the
profession of arms. This devotion to the army and to his
country had not sheltered him from the persecutions of the
Reign of Terror towards even second-rate aristocracy. He had
languished for some months in prison, from whence an old
servant of his family had assisted him to escape. He ought
therefore to have known, better than others, the value of liberty,
and shown a proper repugnance to the mission about to be
imposed upon him by the fatal confidence of the First Consul.
Brave as well as diplomatic, he had speedily regained his steps
on the battle-fields of Germany and Italy, and Bonaparte,
having remarked his name, his courage, and his intelligence,
332 PHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 11.
M. Menneval, the Secretary of the First Consul.
had removed him, for a short time, from the camp, to send
him on a mission to Russia, and on his return had appointed
him one of his aides-de-camp.
Ordener was simply one of those private soldiers of 1792,
who had risen step by step, and from one exploit to another,
to the highest rank of the army. Bonaparte having been
witness of his determination and energy in an action, had
given him the command of the mounted grenadiers of his
body-guard. He was one of those men whom a sense of
discipline bends to any order implying a military duty, and
who never reason before obeying; while, in his case, no family
prejudice, or memory of his childhood, could cause any hesi-
tation about the arrest of a Bourbon.
XLII.
At ten o'clock at night, after this council, Bonaparte sent
for Caulaincourt and Ordener, and while waiting for them,
also caused his private secretary, Menneval, to be summoned.
This young man was thoroughly acquainted with all the
thoughts of his master. He was possessed of a gentle soul,
an honest heart, and a firm hand. From scruples of conscience
he has himself given a detailed account of that night, in which
each person present or absent, every syllable uttered, and
every hour marked on the dial of the clock, bore testimony for
or against the actors in the dark drama, which was soon to be
disclosed to posterity.
“They came to call me at ten o'clock at night,” said
Menneval, “to go to the First Consul. On entering, I found
him in a room adjoining his cabinet, with several maps, which
he had thrown on the floor, lying at his feet, and looking for
another map of the course of the Rhine. Having found it, he
opened and spread it out on a table, and commenced dictating
to me instructions for Berthier, the minister of war. While I
was writing, Berthier himself was announced, and soon after
him, General Caulaincourt. The First Consul made Berthier
take the pen, and continuing to trace on the map the route
which must be taken to reach Offembourg and Ettenheim,
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 333
s =s="
Bonaparte's instructions for seizing the Duke d'Enghien.
finished dictating to him his instructions, which were to the
following effect:—
** TO THE MINISTER OF WAR.
“Paris, 10th of March, 1804.
“You will have the goodness, citizen general, to order
General Ordener, whom I place at your disposal, to go by post,
during the night, to Strasbourg. He must travel under an
assumed name.
“The object of his mission is to march upon Ettenheim, to
surround the town, and to carry off from it the Duke d'Enghien,
Dumouriez, and an English colonel. The general of division
of Strasbourg, the quartermaster who has been to reconnoitre
Ettenheim, as also the commissary of police, will give him all
necessary information. He will send from Schelestadt 300
dragoons of the 26th regiment, who will travel post to Rheinau.
Independently of the ferry boats, they must arrange that there
shall be five large boats there, capable of carrying across in
one passage the 300 horses. The troops will take with them
rations for four days, and will be provided with ammunition.
They will take with them thirty gendarmes.
As soon as General Ordemer shall have crossed the Rhine,
he will proceed direct to Ettenheim, and march straight to
the house of the Duke and to that of Dumouriez. After his
expedition he will return to Strasbourg.”
Bonaparte here dictated the most minute instructions with
regard to the precautions which General Ordener was to take
not to miss his prey, and to bring him securely and secretly to
Paris. He then turned to Caulaincourt.
XLIII.
“You will give orders,” he wrote to the minister of war,
“that on the same day, at the same hour, 200 men of the 26th
regiment of dragoons, under the orders of General Caulaincourt,
shall go to Offembourg, to surround the town, and carry off
from it the Baroness de Reisch, and other agents of the
English government.
334 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Bonaparte's instructions for seizing the Duke d'Enghien.
“From Offembourg, General Caulaincourt will direct patrols
on Ettenheim, until he shall have learnt that General Ordener
has succeeded; and they will mutually assist each other.
“At the same time the general who commands at Strasbourg
will send across the Rhine 300 cavalry and four pieces of light
artillery, which will occupy the intermediate space between the
two roads to Offembourg and Ettenheim.
“General Caulaincourt will have with him thirty gendarmes;
and for the arrangement of other matters the general of the
division, General Ordener, and General Caulaincourt, will hold
council together."
Thus the two expeditions, although distinct, were simulta-
neous, and combined in such a way that each of the generals
charged with their execution was aware of the expedition of his
colleague, and could afford him support and co-operation in
case of need.
The instructions having been written down, Ordener
arrived, and Bonaparte caused these general arrangements to
be read to him, in order to impress upon him the purport of
his mission. He then gave him the letters for General Leval
of the division of Strasbourg, a passport under a false name,
and an order on his treasurer for 12,000 francs. The letter to
General Leval was merely a repetition, in more explicit terms,
of the instructions which had just been read, and laying great
stress on the council to be held by the three generals, the
better to combine their distinct yet common expedition.
“General Ordener,” said this latter, “is apprized that General
Caulaincourt is to set out and act in conjunction with him, and
I have delivered to him 12,000 francs for himself and General
Caulaincourt.”
XLIV.
Ordener set out on the same night, that of the 10th and
11th of March, and arrived on the 12th at Strasbourg. He
held a council on his arrival with General Leval, Charlot, the
colonel of gendarmes, and the commissary of police, and they
resolved to precede and facilitate the nocturnal expedition by a
minute reconnoitring of the scene of action. An agent of
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. §35
Stratagems for effecting the Duke's capture.
police, named Stahl, and a non-commissioned officer of gen-
darmerie, named Pfersdoff, both born on the German bank of
the Rhine, were dispatched on the instant, and marching all
night, arrived at eight o'clock in the morning at Ettenheim.
They strolled, with an affectation of indifference, which ill-
concealed their curiosity, about the house of the prince, in
order to make themselves well acquainted with the approaches
to it; but their faces, which were unknown to the duke's ser-
vants, their walk for no apparent purpose, and their scrutinizing
looks, awakened suspicion, as if by a presentiment. The
prince's valet-de-chambre, concealed behind a window, observed
these two strangers walking round the walls, and intently noting
the objects of their mission. He called another of the servants
of the house, named Cannone, and communicated his anxieties
to him. Cannone was an old soldier and companion of the
prince from his earliest infancy. He had fought with him in
all his campaigns, and had saved his life in Poland, by covering
him with his sabre and his person. He fancied that he remem-
bered having somewhere seen the face of Pfersdoff, and thought
he recognised in him a gendarme in disguise. He hastened
to inform the prince of the suspicious appearance of these two
observers, and of the conjectures which he had formed on the
features of Pfersdoff; but the prince, with the thoughtlessness
of his age, disdained to pay any attention to these symptoms
of espionage. Nevertheless, an officer of his army, named
Schmidt, who was then with him, went out and accosted Stahl
and Pfersdoff, and questioned them with an appearance of un-
concern, pretending that he was going their way, and accom-
panied them for more than a league; but at last seeing them
take a road which led into the interior of Germany, instead of
returning towards the Rhine, he felt reassured, and returned
to tranquillize the servants and retainers at Ettenheim.
But the anxieties of love are not so easily set at rest as
those of friendship. The Princess Charlotte de Rohan, in-
formed in the morning of the suspicious appearance of these
prowlers around the house of the prince, was filled with a pre-
sentiment of danger, and begged he would take warning from
these indications, and absent himself for a few days from a
336 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [1300R 11.
Caulaincourt and Ordeneral rive at Ettenheim.
residence where he was so evidently watched, and possibly with
a criminal intention. Out of affection for her, rather than from
uneasiness on his own account, the duke consented to absent
himself for two or three days, and it was settled that he should
set out, the third morning after, on a long hunting excursion in
the forests of the Grand Duke of Baden, during which the
suspicions of his betrothed would be either dissipated or verified;
but it was fated that the third morning should not dawn on
lim in Germany.
XLV
Caulaincourt, who had left Paris some hours after Ordener,
arrived at Strasbourg on the 14th of March. It is not known
what passed between Ordener, Leval, and him in that town, or
whether the instructions commanded by the First Consul took
place; but, however this may have been, all the orders relating
to the separate missions of the two generals scht from Paris,
were executed with that uniformity of time and place peculiar
to the administration or military arrangements necessary to
ensure their accomplishment.
On the evening of the 14th, General Ordener, accompanied
by General Fririon, chief of General Leval's staff, and by
Charlot, colonel of gendarmes, set out in the dark towards the
ferry of Rheinau on the Rhine, and found there, at the appointed
hour, the 300 dragoons of the 26th, fifteen ferrymen, the five
large boats; and, lastly, the thirty mounted gendarmes destined
to be employed in the violation of dwellings and seizure of
persons, in an expedition more worthy of lictors than of soldiers.
The Rhine was crossed in silence at midnight, and the column,
unperceived during the sleep of the German peasants on the
right bank, and guided by different roads, arrived, as the day
was breaking, at Ettenheim. The spies, whom Ordener and
Charlot had brought with them, pointed out to the gendarmes
the houses which were to be invested. Colonel Charlot first
caused to be surrounded that which was supposed to be inhabited
by Dumouriez, but which was really inhabited by the emigrant
General de Thomery; and then hastened, with another detach-
ment of troops, to encircle and attack the house which con-
1804.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 337
The Duke d'Enghien's house surrounded by French troops.
tained the principal prey marked out at Paris. Ordener, with
his dragoons, had formed a belt of cavalry around the town and
the paths that environed it; so that no attempt at escape or
resistance should succeed in thwarting the vengeance of the
First Consul.
XLVI.
The Duke d'Enghien, who had spent the evening before at
the house of the prince of Rohan-Rochefort, with the Princess
Charlotte, had promised her to absent himself for a few days,
to allow time for the plots against his safety, of which she was
apprehensive, either to evaporate or be unravelled. He was
accordingly about to start at Sun-rise, with Colonel Grunstein,
one of his friends, on this hunting excursion for several days.
He had already left his bed, and was dressing himself, and pre-
paring his arms. Grunstein, contrary to his usual custom, had
slept under the same roof with the prince, that he might be
the sooner ready to escort him. This companion of his on the
battle-field and in the chase, was also half dressed, when the
tramp of horses and the sight of the dragoons and gendarmes
made the rest of the household start from their sleep,
Féron, the most familiar servant of the prince, flew to the
chamber of his young master, and announced to him that the
courtyards and garden were surrounded at every outlet by
French soldiers, and that the officer commanding them was
loudly calling on the servants to open the doors, declaring that in
case of refusal he would have them broken open with hatchets.
“Well them, we must defend ourselves,” exclaimed the un-
daunted young man, and saying these words he seized his
double-barrelled fowling-piece, ready loaded with ball for the
chase, while Cannone, his other servant, animated by the same
determination as his master, possessed himself of another loaded
fowling-piece, and Grunstein entering the chamber at that mo-
ment, armed in a like manner, the whole them darted to the
windows to fire. The prince levelled at Colonel Charlot, who
threatened the door, and was about to stretch him dead on the
threshold, when Grunstein, perceiving on all sides a host of
helmets and Sabres, and seeing another detachment of gem-
338 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK il.
He is seized and disarmed.
darmes already masters of one of the wings of the chateau,
seized the barrel of the prince's fowling-piece, and throwing
the gun upwards, showed the Duke d'Enghien, by signs, the
uselessness of resistance against such overwhelming numbers,
and prevented his firing.
“My lord,” said he, “have you in any way committed your-
self?” “No,” replied the duke. “Well then, that being
the case, do not attempt a hopeless struggle. We are hemmed
in by a complete wall of troops. See how their bayonets glisten
on every side.”
XLVII.
The prince was turning round to reply to these words,
when he beheld Pfersdoff, whom he recognised as the spy of
the day before, accompanied by gendarmes with presented car-
bines, rush into his room. He was followed by Colonel Char-
lot, who, with his soldiers, seized and disarmed the prince,
together with Grunstein, Féron, and Cannone. The duke, as
we have seen, was ready to set out, and was thus lost only by
the delay of a few moments. He was dressed in the costume
of a Tyrolean hunter, wearing a handsome gold-laced cap, with
long gaiters of chamois skin buckled at the knees; and the
manly beauty and dauntless expression of his features, height-
ened by the excitement of the surprise, and determination to
resist, struck the Soldiers with astonishment. *
In the midst of the tumult of such a scene, and the tramp
of feet and clatter of arms in the house, the sound of a dis-
turbance without for a moment inspired the prince and his
followers with a hope of deliverance. Loud cries of fire issued
from the village, and these cries were re-echoed from house to
house, like a tocsin of human voices. Windows were thrown
open, and doorways filled with the inhabitants aroused by the
invasion of the French. Half-naked mechanics were seen
running to the steeple to ring the bells, and summon the
peasants to vengeance. Colonel Charlot, however, had them
seized, and also arrested the master of the hounds of the Duke
of Baden, who, on hearing the disturbance, was hastening to the
house of the prince, and who was told by Charlot that what
1804.] Of MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 339
Arrest of M. de Thoméry and Chevalier Jaques.
was taking place had been mutually agreed upon by the First
Consul and his sovereign. On hearing this falsehood, the ex-
citement of the inhabitants subsided, and they submitted, with
looks of sorrow and expressions of grief, to the misfortune of a
young man who had rendered himself an object of the deepest
regard.
XLVIII.
The cries of alarm proceeded, in the first instance, from the
inhabitants of the house in which the gendarmes were look-
ing for Dumouriez, and where they had only found General
de Thoméry, aide-de-camp of the prince. Colonel Charlot, now
convinced of the probable mistake of persons through a simi-
larity of names, questioned the people of the house, with the
intention of ascertaining whether General Dumouriez had really
ever come into the country at any period whatever; and on this
point, according to the uniform information of all parties, he
was undeceived. Dumouriez was as unknown to everybody
there as he was to the prince himself, whose accomplice, it was
asserted, he was on the German bank of the Rhine.
Charlot then returned to the chateau with M. de Thoméry,
and also arrested the Chevalier Jacques, secretary of the prince,
although not mentioned in his orders; he seized, packed up, and
sealed all the papers which he found in the different apart-
ments, and sent to apprize General Ordener that everything
was accomplished; that nothing more remained to be done
than to relieve the dragoons from their posts of observation
around Ettenheim, to re-form the column, and regain the ferry
of the Rhine.
LXIX.
The prince was dragged away from his residence, without
being permitted to take a last farewell of her whom he left
swooning and in tears. While Ordener withdrew, and mustered
his dragoons, the Duke d'Enghien, with his companions in
captivity, was secured at a short distance from the village in
a mill called La Tuilerie, behind which flowed a deep, broad,
and rapid rivulet. The secretary of the duke, Chevalier Jacques,
340 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11,
The Duke d'Enghien carried off.
had sometimes taken shelter in this mill from the rain, and now
remembered that a door, which was unperceived in the chamber
in which the prisoners were mixed up pell-mell with the
gendarmes, opened on the mill-dam that separated the house
from a meadow and neighbouring forest. With a glamce of his
eye he called his master to his side, and leaning carelessly
towards him, whispered in his ear,<-“Open that door, cross the
torrent, draw the plank after you. I will bar the door with my
person, while you escape, and you will be saved.”
The prince accordingly, by degrees, drew near the door
pointed out to him, placed his hand rapidly on the latch, and
pushed violently in the direction from whence he heard the
noise of the mill-wheel and the water. But Providence was not
willing that he should thus escape; for the miller's son,
frightened at the sight of the soldiers entering his father's
house, had but a moment before fled by this door; and, fearful
lest the gendarmes should pursue him, had bolted it after him.
The officer in command, warned by the attempt of the prince,
immediately placed two sentinels at the door.
L.
Seating himself sorrowfully in the hut, the duke then asked
to be allowed to send one of his people back to the chateau, to
bring him his dog, his clothes, and his linen. This request
was granted, and his servants were told that those who wished
to leave him were at liberty to return to Ettenheim ; but they
all begged the gendarmes to allow them to remain with their
master, and share his fate, whatever it might be. Charlot and
Ordener, anxious to recross the Rhine with their prey, before
the country, on hearing of the abduction, could become aroused,
and start in pursuit of them, allowed no time for the people of
Ettenheim to procure a carriage for the prince ; but placing
him and his two officers in a peasant's cart, surrounded by
a platoon of gendarmes, made them start in advance of the
dragoons, who were to rejoin them on the road at a gallop.
During the journey the friends of the prisoner remarked the
significant looks of one of the officers of their escort, and
1804.] OF MON AT&C HY IN FRANCE. 34 |
His journey to Strasbourg.
fancied that he indicated to them the passage over the Rhine in
a boat, as an opportunity for escape, by jumping into and Swim-
ming down the current of the river; but both opportunity and
daring failed this unknown friend.
LI.
On reaching the river, the Duke d'Enghien was placed in
the same boat with General Ordener, and being informed by
one of the passengers that this general was the head of the ex-
pedition, he endeavoured to enter into conversation with him,
to learn the motives for his abduction. He even reminded
him, with the view of enlisting in his favour the fellow-feeling
of the soldier for their mutual profession of arms, that they
had fought against one another at the time when Ordener was
but a colonel of the 10th regiment of chasseurs à cheval ; but
the general, either feeling embarrassed by a sense of their then
very different positions, or fearful of being moved by such
recollections, pretended to have no remembrance of this cir-
cumstance, and cut the conversation short by his silence.
LII
On getting out of the boat, General Ordener left the prince
in the care of Colonel Charlot, and started alone for Stras-
bourg, where he in person informed General Leval and the
prefect of the success of the expedition of the night before;
while the Duke d'Enghien followed him on foot in the midst of
the gendarmes, like a common criminal on his way to gaol.
He was allowed to stop at the village of Pfosheim, where he
breakfasted. During the repast horses were put to a carriage
which had been prepared, and brought to this halting-place
beforehand. Colonel Charlot and the non-commissioned officer
Pfersdoff, the two evil genii of the duke—the eye of the one
having directed, and the hand of the other effected, his seizure—
both got into it with him, and carried him rapidly towards
Strasbourg.
On the road, the prince attempted to renew the conver
342 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
His arrival at Strasbourg.
sation which had been interrupted by the silence of Ordener,
and to ascertain the reason of his abduction. Colonel Charlot
told him that, in his opinion, the First Consul considered that
he was an accomplice in the plots of Georges, Pichegru, and
Moreau. “What an infamous supposition,” exclaimed the
prince, “and how foreign are such plots to my thoughts and
feelings | No one can have a greater horror of such means
than I have. Personally, I admire the genius and glory of
General Bonaparte, although in my position, as a prince of the
house of Bourbon, I owe it to my honour and my duty to fight
against him with honourable arms.
“What do you think they will do with me?” added he,
addressing the colonel of gendarmes. “If they mean to
imprison me, I would a thousand times prefer instant death.”
Reminding the colonel that he had been on the point of firing
at him, when the soldiers entered to seize him : “If I was
condemned to a long captivity,” he said, “I should regret that
I had not defended myself, and that I had not decided my
own fate with arms in my hand.” The conversation having
turned upon Dumouriez, and the officer having asked bis
prisoner if it was true that he had had, or was to have, con-
nection with that general:—“Dumouriez has never put his foot
in Ettenheim,” said the prince; “but, as I might have received
communications, from one moment to another, from England,
it is possible that the British government may have chosen
Dumouriez to bring them unknown to me. But I would not
have received him, because it does not suit either my name or
my character to have anything to do with such persons !”
LIII.
Colonel Charlot arrived with his prisoner, at five o'clock
in the afternoon, at Strasbourg. While waiting till superior
orders should have decided on the destination to be assigned
to the prince, and until they had prepared a chamber for him
in the citadel, Charlot received the Duke d'Enghien in his
own lodging. The duke, availing himself of a moment when
they were alone, dropt some words to Colonel Charlot to induce
1804.] OF MON AIRCHY IN FRANCE. b45
Journal of his imprisonment in the Citadel.
him to favour his escape; but Charlot pretended not to under.
stand what he meant, and shut both his ears and his heart
against the prayers of his prisoner. A moment after a hackney-
coach drove up to the door, in which the duke was conducted
to the citadel.
Caulaincourt and Ordener, having both also returned to
Strasbourg, gave information to the minister of war and foreign
affairs of the circumstances and success of both operations. As
soon as Caulaimcourt was informed of the arrest of the Duke
d'Enghien, he addressed to the Grand Duke of Baden the
demand of extradition which Monsieur de Talleyrand had sent
to him, in order that the violation of the territory of this prince
might appear to be only the effect of precipitation, and not
premeditated hostility and contempt for Germany.
LIV.
The Duke d'Enghien entered the citadel at seven o'clock in
the evening. A journal of his acts and thoughts, punctually
kept by this hapless prince, and found in his possession at the
time of his death (afterwards destroyed but copied by the depo-
sitories), makes us acquainted hour by hour, from this moment,
with the secrets of his prison.—“Major Méchin, commandant
of the citadel, received him,” he says, “with the consideration
due to misfortune and to rank. This was,” he adds, “a military
man of polite and gentle manners.”—The major not having
time to prepare a proper lodging for the duke, offered him his
best room, and had mattresses laid on the floor for his prisoner
and his attendants. The prince, worn out with fatigue and the
anxieties of his journey, wrote a few lines in his journal, and
threw himself, dressed as he was, on one of the beds. His
friend Grunstein placed himself on the mattress nearest to him,
and, still apprehensive that the accusation might find some
foundation in the papers seized at Ettenheim, he asked the
prince, in a low voice, if there was anything in those papers
that might give them a handle against him. “No,” replied
the prisoner aloud; “those papers contain nothing but what
every one knows of my name and my situation. They show
344 HISTORY OF THE IRESTORATION [BOOK 11.
He writes to the Princess Charlotte de Rohan.
that I have fought well for eight years past, and that I am
ready to fight again. I do not think that they wish for my
death. They'll throw me into some fortress, perhaps as a
hostage. I shall have some difficulty, after the liberty I have
enjoyed, in accustoming myself to such a life.”
LV.
Sleep at length put an end to the conversation and the
thoughts of the prince, and he slept with the calmness of youth
and the confidence of courage. The following day, the 16th
of March, at sunrise, the commandant came to see his prisoner,
and have some conversation with him. The prince again pro-
tested to his host, that he was an entire stranger to any con-
spiracy against the life of the First Consul, and that his honour
and his conscience had always held such projects in abhorrence.
“Soldiers of my race fight,” he said, “but do not assassinate.”
The commandant, who seemed pleased at the innocence of his
young prisoner, assured him that this being the case he did not
doubt that his captivity would be only for a few days.
The Duke d'Enghien encouraged by the good nature of
this officer, and thinking of the anxieties which the young lady
by whom he was beloved must feel as to his fate, solicited
permission from Méchin the commandant, to write to the
Princess Charlotte de Rohan at Ettenheim. The major
replied that he could not promise to send the letter himself to
its address, but that he would give it to his chief, General
Leval, the commandant of the division; and that if it contained
nothing more than an account of his journey and communica-
tions of affection, he did not doubt that General Leval would
forward the letter to its destination. With this hope the prince
wrote the following long letter, in which he alternately poured
forth and restrained in covered séntences, to meet the eyes of
indifference or enmity, the secret tenderness which filled his
heart since his abduction, rather than from any fears as to his
own fate.
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 345
Letter from the Duke d'Enghien to the Princess Charlotte.
LVI.
“AT THE CITADEL OF STRASBOURG.
“Friday, March 16, 1804.
“I am promised that this letter shall be faithfully delivered
to you. I have not, until this moment, been able to obtain
permission to re-assure you as to my fate, and I lose not an
instant in doing so, and begging you, at the same time, to
tranquillize all those in your neighbourhood who are attached
to me. My only fear is, that this letter may not find you at
Ettenheim, and that you may be on your way here; for the
happiness I should feel at seeing you, would fall far short of the
dread I should have of involving you in my fate. Continue to
preserve for me your friendship and your interest, for it may be of
great service to me, as you may influence persons of consequence
in my misfortune. I already imagined that perhaps you had set
out. You have learnt from the good Baron d'Ischterlzheim the
way in which I was carried off, and may judge of the number
of people employed in the act, and that all resistance would
have been useless; for nothing can be effected against superior
force. I was conducted by Rheinau and the road of the Rhine.
I am treated with attention and politeness, and may say that,
with the single exception of liberty (for I cannot leave my
chamber), I am as comfortable as possible. At my request the
gentlemen of my household have been permitted to sleep in my
room. We occupy part of the commandant's apartments, and
another is preparing for me, which I shall take possession of
this morning, and where I shall be still more comfortable.
The papers which were taken from me, and sealed on the spot
with my seal, are to be examined this morning in my presence;
and, as well as I can tell, they will be found to consist of letters
from my relatives and from the king, and several copies of my
own. All these, as you well know, cannot compromise me in
any way more than my name and my opinions have done
during the course of the Revolution. I believe the papers will
all be sent to Paris, and I am assured that, if it proves to be as
W
340 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11,
Letter from the Duke d'Enghien to the Princess Charlotte.
I have said, it is thought I shall be set at liberty very shortly.
God grant it may be so ! Dumouriez was searched for, being
supposed to be in our neighbourhood, and it is evidently
believed that we had had conferences together, and that he is
implicated in the conspiracy against the life of the First
Consul. My complete ignorance of all this, leads me to hope
that I may recover my liberty; but let us not flatter ourselves
to O SOOn.
“If any of my gentlemen are set at liberty before me, it will
give me very great pleasure to send them back to you, while
looking forward to a still greater happiness. The attachment
of my people to me brings tears into my eyes every moment.
They might have escaped, and were not obliged to follow me,
which, however, they would do. I have Féron, Joseph, and
Poulaix with me, and the good Mylof has never quitted me
for an instant. I have not as yet seen anybody this morning
but the commandant, a man who appears to me to be courteous
and charitable, at the same time that he is strict in the
fulfilment of his duties. I expect the colonel of gendarmerie,
who arrested me, and who is to open my papers before me. I
beg you will ask the baron to take care of my property for me,
and if I have to remain much longer here, I shall send for
more of my things. I also trust that the landlords of my
gentlemen will take care of their property. The poor Abbé
Wembern and Michel form part of our conscription, and have
travelled with us,
“Pray present my affectionate regards to your father, and if
I can obtain permission one of these days to send some person,
which I am most desirous of doing, and which I shall solicit,
he will make you acquainted with all the details of our
melancholy position. Let us hope and wait patiently, and if
you are so good as to come and see me, do not come until
after you have been, as you proposed, to Carlsruhe. Alas !
besides your own affairs and the unsupportable delays that
attend these arrangements, you will now have to speak of
mine; but do not, for mercy's Sake, on that account neglect
your own
‘ Adieu' princess; you have long known my tender and
1804,] OF MIONARC HY IN FRANCE. 347
His imprisonment at Strasbourg.
sincere attachment for you, and either in freedom or as a
prisoner, it shall always be the same.
“Have you sent the news of our disaster to Madame
d'Ecguevilly?
“(Signed) L. A. H. DE BourºBON.”
LVII.
The prince delivered this letter open to the commandant;
and a few moments afterwards, General Leval, commanding
the division, and General Fririon, the chief of his staff, entered.
Fririon, who had assisted in person at the abduction from
Ettenheim, was recognised by the prisoner. The duke was
now informed that another apartment was preparing for him in
the citadel. The conversation was short, serious, and sterm :
and the cold demeanour of the generals prevented the prince
from speaking to them of the letter which he had written, and
which he so much desired to have conveyed to the object of his
affections.
He was conducted, with his companions to the part of the
citadel appropriated to him; his new chamber communicating
with that of MM. de Thoméry, Jacques, and Schmidt; but
Grunstein, his intimate friend, whose energy and enterprise
appeared to be more feared, was removed from him, and lodged
in another wing of the building, separated from that in which
the prisoner was located.
Colonel Charlot and the commissary-general of police
examined his papers, classified them, and sent them to Paris
by a special courier; and if these evidences of his life had
only been read, and proofs of his innocence desired, they would
have been found therein.
After this proceeding he was left alone, and wrote in his
journal as follows:—
“I must then languish here for weeks and perhaps months
to come ! My grief increases, the more I reflect on the cruelty
of my position. If this continues, I believe that I shall be
seized with despair. It is eleven o'clock. I am going to
bed; but I am agitated, and cannot sleep. Major Méchin has
348 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
His Diary.
come to see me after I am in bed, and endeavours to console
me with kind words.”
“Friday, March 16.
“ # * * Stopped at the commandant's house, lodged
in his drawing-room for the might, on mattresses on the floor.
The gendarmes in the ante-room; two sentinels in the room—
one at the door;—slept badly.
“My lodging is to be changed. I shall have to pay for
my maintenance, and probably for firing and lights. General
Leval and General Fririon came to see me, –their manners
very cold. I am transferred to another pavilion on the right
of the square coming from the town. I can communicate with
Thomery, Jacques, and Schmidt; but neither I nor my people
can go out. I am, however, told that I shall be permitted to
walk in a little garden which is in a yard behind my pavilion.
A guard of twelve men and an officer is at my door. After
having dined I am separated from Grunstein, who is lodged by
himself on the other side of the yard. This separation adds
still more to my unhappiness. I have written this morning to
the princess, have sent my letter through the commandant
to General Leval, and have received no answer. I have asked
him to allow me to send one of my people to Ettenheim.
Doubtless everything will be refused me. The greatest pre-
cautions are taken on every hand to prevent my communicating
with anybody whatsoever. If this continues I believe I shall be
seized with despair. At half-past four o'clock they came to
examine my papers, read them superficially, and made separate
parcels of them. I was given to understand that they would
be sent to Paris. I must then languish here for weeks,—
perhaps for months! The more I reflect on my situation, the
more my grief increases.”
Arising from his bed, on Saturday, the 17th of March (his
thoughts always reverting, whether on retiring to rest or
awaking from sleep, to that heart which beat for him so
anxiously at Ettenheim), he says:—
“I hear nothing about my letter. I tremble for the health
of the princess. A word from my hand would tranquillize her
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 349
General Ordener's report to the First Consul.
Ah, how miserable I am They have come to make me sign
the procès verbal of the opening of my papers. I demand and
obtain leave to add a note which proves that I have never had
any other intention than that of being employed in and making
war in an honourable manner.”
This note, afterwards remembered by those who read it,
said that he had never been concerned in any conspiracy, which
was the truth, against the life of Bonaparte ; he adored France,
and admired the genius of the First Consul; and that he could
not believe that it would be considered as a crime in him—a
prince who had left France at the age of fourteen, with his
grandfather and his father, and knowing no other duty but
those of a son, grandson, soldier, and member of the family of
Bourbon,--to have maintained, with arms in his hand, the
rights of his race and of his blood.
LVIII.
While the prince was writing these noble lines, the com
missary-general of police, Popp, who had opened his papers,
was, on his side, writing to the government to claim, in promo
tion and rank, the price of zeal and successful enterprise, for
Charlot and for Pfersdoff, strongly representing the danger
they had incurred under the fire of the Duke d'Enghien, which
had been directed on them the moment they were forcing open
his doors at Ettenheim.
General Ordener also wrote thus to the First Consul:—
“I transmit to you the procès verbal and the papers of the
Duke d'Enghien. As those of other individuals shall be
verified, General Caulaincourt will forward them to you.
Although my mission is fulfilled, I shall wait here your orders
to return to Paris.”
The prince, satisfied on learning that his papers, which
contained no indication of any crime, were at length sent before
him to Paris, wrote on the evening of the 17th in his journal:
“This evening I have been promised permission to walk
in the garden, and even in the court, with the officer of the
guard and with my companions in misfortune; and being assured
350 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
The Duke is suddenly carried off to Paris.
that my papers have been sent to Paris by a courier extraordi-
nary, I shall sup and go to bed better satisfied.”
While his heart was thus pouring out its confidence, the
telegraph of Paris replied to the Strasbourg telegraph which
had announced the abduction of the prince to Bonaparte; and
a courier extraordinary, despatched from the Tuileries, ordered
Generals Leval and Caulaincourt to send posthaste, immediately,
the principal prisoner to Paris. The others were to be sent in
succession by the public conveyances.
LIX
Colonel Charlot, who executed this order, presented him-
self with a post coach in the middle of the night at the citadel.
The prince, who was suddenly called up at one o'clock in the
morning, and conducted alone to the carriage, was astonished
and alarmed at this sudden departure, of which they did not
even explain to him the object. During the day he made the
following entry in his note-book :
“Sunday, March 18.
“I have been carried off at one o'clock this morning, hav-
ing only been given sufficient time to dress. I embraced my
people—my unfortunate companions. I set off alone with two
officers of gendarmerie and two gendarmes. Colonel Charlot
told me that we were going to the house of the general of
division, Leval, who had received orders from Paris. Beyond
that I found a carriage with six post-horses on the church
square. I was pushed into it, and Lieutenant Peterman
mounted beside me. Quartermaster Blitendoff ascended on
the coach box, and two gendarmes were placed, one inside and
one out.”
The duke did not know his native country. He was igno-
rant of the names of the gates of Strasbourg, and the direction
of the roads by which they were taking him. His guards
were silent. In the morning Lieutenant Peterman told him
at length that they were going to Paris, at which he was
extremely glad. “Ah!” he said to the lieutenant, “I don't
1804.) OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 351
He arrives at Paris.
doubt that the First Consul wishes to see me. A quarter of an
hour's conversation with him, and all will be explaimed.” He
returned to this idea several times, and felt himself so free
from the crimes of which they suspected him, that he doubted
not the feeling of his innocence would be instantly communi-
cated to every one who could read his soul. Moreover, he was
young, in love, and a soldier, and supposed every one had the
same generosity that he himself possessed. His looks wan,
dered everywhere delighted on the road, and it seemed as if he
could not satiate them with the aspect of his country. His
joy and his gratitude towards Peterman were so lively, that he
took off one of the rings he wore, and begged his guardian to
accept it as a souvenir of this journey. Peterman did not dare
to afflict him by a refusal.
Escorted from post to post by gendarmes at full gallop, the
carriage, travelling day and might, arrived on the 20th March,
at three o'clock in the afternoon, at the gates of Paris, near
the Barrier de la Villette. Not to excite any emotion in the city,
at the appearance of a carriage so escorted and so mysterious,
they went round by the deserted Boulevards which encircle
Paris externally. He was then conducted by the Rue de
Sevres, across the faubourg Saint Germain, into the court of
the Office of Foreign Affairs, which was then situated at the
hotel Galefoy, at the corner of the Rue du Bac and the Rue
de Grenelle. The carriage door opened, and the prisoner was
going to jump out into the court, when he was stopped by a
counter-order on the step. He was put back into the carriage,
the door was shut, the postilion received an order not to un-
harness the horses, and to wait for orders, which were sent
for, no one knew whither. Doubtless M. de Talleyrand was
himself going to the Tuileries to announce the arrival of the
prisoner, and to ask for these orders; for a hackney coach was
brought up to the door of the hotel, and went out with some
person who had descended the steps. After waiting half-am-
hour in silence, the postilions, who had remained on horseback,
received an order to proceed still by the external Boulevards to
Vincennes. The carriage, which had been expected, passed
the drawbridge of that fortress, and stopped in the court at
352 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 11.
Is committed to the prison of Vincenncs.
the door of the chef de bataillon, Harel, the commandant of
the castle of Vincennes.
LX.
The commandant Harel was formerly a serjeant in the
French guards, and an old protégé of the Jacobins, who had
promoted him. He was reduced on the 18th Brumaire, by
the First Consul, and became discontented with the Consular
government. He was therefore tempted, by the conspirators
Cerachi, Arena, and Demerville, but he rejected their offers,
and denounced their projects; for which he received, as a
ſeparation for his former treatment, the command of this
state prison.
The First Consul, in planning the drama of which Win-
cennes was about to become the theatre, had wished to assure
himself of the safety of the walls and the fidelity of the gaol-
ers. A note, written by his order to Harel on the 16th March,
immediately after the abduction of Ettenheim was known at
Paris, with these two words in the margin in haste and private,
had demanded of him the state of the quarters, of the troops,
of the workmen, of the inhabitants allowed to live in the
castle, and even of the servants, and precise information re-
specting each. Réal had further written to Harel on the 20th,
“The Duke d'Enghien will arrive to-night: the First Consul
has ordered that his name, and everything about him, should
ke kept a profound secret.” Finally, on the same day, a few
moments later, Réal, in another letter, said to Harel, “An
individual whose name must not be known is to be conducted
to the castle. The intention of the government is, that no
questions shall be put to him as to who he is or the motives
of his detention; you yourself must even be ignorant who he
is. You alone are to communicate with him, and you will
allow no person whatever to see him. It is probable that he
will arrive this night.”
LXI.
Harel had scarcely read this last letter, when the carriage,
which he had not expected till night, having outstripped, by its
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 353
His treatment in prison.
rapidity, the nocturnal hour which it was intended should
conceal its entrance into Vincennes, stopped before the quar-
ters of the commandant. The prince descended from the
carriage, shivering with cold and the rainy weather. Harei,
feeling for his situation, asked him to walk up into his apart-
ment to warm himself by the fire. “With pleasure,” said the
prince as he thanked him; “I shall look on a fire with great
satisfaction; I shall also be glad to have something to eat, for
I have taken nothing during the whole day.”
A poor woman belonging to a religious order, who educated
the children of Madame Harel, and who lived outside the
castle, was coming down the staircase from the commandant's
quarters at the moment the prisoner was going up with his
guardian. She heard the dialogue, and drew aside to let the
young man pass. “He was pale,” she says, “and appeared
very much fatigued; he was tall, and his appearance was noble
and distinguished. He was dressed in a long uniform riding
coat of blue cloth, with a cloth cap ornamented with gold
lace.”
Harel allowed the prince to warm himself before the fire.
One of his old comrades of the French guards named Aufort,
and who at that time commanded the brigade of gendarmerie
of the village of Vincennes, lived on his old familiar footing
with Harel. He came in and saw the prince, and assisted
Harel in preparing a quarter for him. He also went to the
village inn to order supper for the prisoner. These preparations
being made, and the prince re-animated by the warmth of the
commandant's fire, Harel conducted him to his own quarter
It was a room in a pavilion called the King's Pavilion. A fire
had been lighted in it, and some furniture put in hastily; a
bed, a table, and some chairs. The bare walls, and some
panes of glass broken by the swallows of the towers, sufficiently
attested the precipitation of a furnishing which there had not
been time to finish.
LXII.
The prince being thus treated with politeness and good
nature by Harel, did not appear to be cast down, or to have
354 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOR 11.
His treatment in prison.
any unpleasant presentiment on establishing himself in his new
quarters. He rather displayed a serenity of countenance, lively
and almost joyous. He chatted with the commandant with a
free and undisturbed mind. He told him that in his childhood,
a short time before the Revolution, he had been with the
Prince de Condé, his grandfather, to visit the castle of Vin-
cennes; that he never dreamt at that time that he would one
day be amongst the number of those poor prisoners whom he
had then pitied so much ; that he even thought he could
recollect the chamber he was then in, and recognise it as one
of the rooms he had run through. Then looking out of the
window over the tops of the oaks, and on the roads losing
themselves in distance through the forest which surrounds the
fortress, he was in ecstacy at the beautiful view. He spoke of
his passion for field sports, and said that if he was allowed to
hunt freely, during his imprisonment in these woods, he would
give his parole not to escape. Beyond this he did not appear
in any way pre-occupied with the result of his captivity, and
repeated to Harel what he had said to Peterman:-‘This can
be only an affair of a few days' detention;–the time only to
recognise an error and my innocence.”
LXIII.
During these conversations of a traveller in a state of repos-
rather than of a prisoner bewailing his fate, a little boy name,
Turquin, who served in the hotel of Vincennes, brought th
supper ordered by Aufort. The prince approached the table
and was going to sit down, when, perceiving on the table-clot
tin covers unpolished and rough instead of silver plate, h
appeared to be seized with an involuntary repugnance; and,
without making any observation, he returned towards the win-
dow, and walked up and down the room without looking at the
supper. Harel perceived this movement, and hastened to
his quarters for proper covers. The duke then sat down, and
appeared to regain his appetite. His dog, which he had kept
at his feet or by his side during the whole route, rested his
head on his master's knees. He gave a part of the supper
18)4.] O F MO. WARCHY IN FRANCE.
8
5
5
- **ms smºsºmº tº *-
Writes to the Princess Charlotte.
that was on the table to the poor animal, and looking at Harel,
“I presume,” he said to him, “that there is no indiscretion in
giving my portion of the Supper to my dog.”
Having finished his supper, the prince wrote a letter to the
Princess Charlotte, and concealed it in his clothes to prepare
for what might happen.
He then lay down, and slept profoundly, like a man who is
sure to awake, and who confides in a happy morrow.
B 00 K TWELFT H.
Napoleon at Malmaison—His preparations for the death of the Duke
d'Enghien—Examination of the Duke d'Enghien—His Trial—His
Condemnation—His Execution—'Arrival of the Princess Charlotte
at Paris—Remarks on the conduct of Napoleon.
T.
BUT sleep had fled from the chateau of Malmaison, where
the First Consul, to enjoy his thoughts, his leisure, and the
budding beauties of spring, had been in retirement for the last
eight days. These days and nights were filled with agitation,
with anger, with councils, with despatches to generals and
ministers, revoked by other despatches; with night working,
with going and coming of couriers and confidants, from Paris
to this retreat, and from this retreat to Paris. It was evident
that some tragical resolutions were concocting there, some
state precaution, Some terror to Europe, some superlative
warning to the numerous conspirators, some vengeance, per-
haps a crime, to be followed by a remorse.
It was here, where he seemed to expect an event still
unknown to all, that Napoleon received by telegraph, on the
evening of the 15th March, the news of the actual abduction
His thoughts, until then on the rack of anger, began to waver,
and he felt as if embarrassed with his success and with his
prey. He instantly wrote to Réal: “Come this evening atten
o'clock,--a carriage will be in waiting for you on the bridge of
Neuilly, to bring you the quicker.”
The following day, the 16th, after his first interviews with
his councillors, thinking himself certain then of furnishing
proofs to public opinion of undoubted criminality, he turned
over in his mind the idea of having the prince tried in open
day, by a high national tribunal, with all the guarantees of
defence and publicity He then fixed on the idea of a great
1804.] RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY. 357
The First Consul at Malmaison.
military tribunal, to be composed of the principal generals
sitting in the Senate. Murat, the brother-in-law of the First
Consul, and governor of Paris, seems to have been charged with
some opening preliminaries of this plan. Of a soldier-like but
heroic disposition, bewailing with his young wife an arrest
which must soil with blood the rising and till then stainless
power of his brother-in-law, Murat would at least have inclined
to the most magnanimous mode of execution. We say execution
and not trial; for all trial supposes in the judges the right of
trying, whereas no Frenchman had any right to try a prince
who had not committed a crime in France; who resided, from
the age of fourteen, in foreign countries, and whose abduction
was a European illegality,–a crime against natural right and
the rights of nations.
II.
Murat summoned Colonel Préval, a young military man,
already famous for his talent as a military judge-advocate, and
who commanded the 2nd regiment of Cuirassiers, in garrison at
St. Germain, at the gates of Paris. He informed him that the
First Consul had made choice of him for judge-advocate in an
affair of State, in which a great criminal was implicated.
Colonel Préval having asked the name of this great culprit,
and Murat having confidentially pronounced the name of the
Duke d'Enghien, Préval declined, with a noble instinct of
propriety, the functions which were imposed upon him by such
a process. “I made my first campaigns before the Revolution,”
he said, “in the regiment of the young prince. My father and
my uncles served before me under the orders of the Condés.
To act the part of public prosecutor towards their son and their
grandson, would cut me to the heart, and dishonour my sword.”
Murat comprehended and felt with the young officer. He
could not blame in another a repugnance which he would have
respected in himself. He communicated the refusal to the
First Consul, and the idea of the grand military tribunal of
State was dropt. The fear of too deeply agitating royalist
opinion, roused by the slowness and the solemnity of long
debates resounding through La Vendée, the presentiment of
358 Ił ISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 12.
He receives intelligence of the capture of the Duke d'Enghien.
the impassioned interest which would soon attach itself to a
young prince, torn away by violence from his asylum, and
who had been forcibly brought back to his country only to
make it his tomb, had doubtless its influence also on the mode
of trial. Promptitude, Secrecy, silence, a gag put on all
defence, a veil thrown over the victim, a blow struck without
noise, and only making a noise afterwards, when it would be
too late to ask for pardon, were required. All these requisites
of a political crime would be found in a trial by court-martial,
without formality, without publicity, without delay, nocturnal,
rapid, instantaneous, judging and executing as it were in one
word, under the vaults and in the ditch of a state prison.
Bonaparte decided on this mode, in conformity with the
vengeance and the State precautions of the Council of Ten,
and the Venetian dungeons without echo. The tragic genius
of the Italian breathed in full vigour in this tribunal, in this
judge, and in this execution by night; only that Venice judged
no one in this manner but its own citizens, and did not send to
carry off its victims, without respect to the inviolability of a
foreign asylum,
III.
On the 17th, the First Consul received at Malmaison the
circumstantial details of the double expedition of Ordener and
of Caulaincourt. He thus learned that the presence of
Dumouriez at Ettenheim was a chimera, which Colonel Char-
lot's report explicitly affirmed. This officer explained the con-
fusion between the names of Thomery and Dumouriez. No
well-grounded suspicion on this point could, therefore, any
longer exist in the mind of the First Consul.
On the 18th, M. de Talleyrand received the report of Cau-
laincourt on his parallel mission to Offembourg, and on his
diplomatic communication to the Court of Baden. The papers
seized at the residence of the Duke d'Enghien arrived by the
same courier, and M. de Talleyrand took them to Malmaison.
The prince could not be very long in following these couriers,
these reports, and these documents (so explanatory of his pre
tended plot) which preceded his arrival in Paris,
1804.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 359
Gives orders for his immediate trial.
On the evening of the 15th, Bonaparte had ordered his
officers at Strasbourg to send off the Duke d'Enghien imme-
diately to Paris. The order, which arrived by the telegraph, had
been executed, as we have seen, in the night; but from that
moment the foggy atmosphere on the mountains of Alsatia pre:
vented the telegraph from announcing at Malmaison the actual
departure of the prisoner. It was only calculated by conjec-
ture that he would arrive on the evening, or during the night
of the 20th March.
The First Consul, with this expectation, prepared every-
thing in the morning of this ill-omened day, that the trial and
execution should await the victim at a fixed hour at Vincennes.
The rapid succession of deliberations, of messages, and of acts
recorded at this date, on the morning of the 20th of March,
proves that the thoughts of Bonaparte were bent with a fever-
ish impatience and punctuality towards the most prompt and
most tragic denouement of the following night.
It may be said that he was afraid of having the remorse of
reflection, and that having decided on not repenting he would
not give himself time to deliberate.
IV.
Everything was pressed forward to this date and these
hours. He first wrote to the minister of war to charge
Murat, governor of Paris, with the choice of the members of a
military commission to try the Duke d'Enghien. He made
Réal draw up a report on the pretended conspiracies with which
the prince was insidiously mixed up, by the lying revelations of
the police explorers on the Rhine and in London. He caused
these conjectural accusations to be summed up in an act of
government, which affirms that the prince was a party to the
plots concocted in England, against the external and internal
safety of the Republic. He made Réal, director of the secret
police, write twice during the day, first to Murat, and after-
wards to Harel, that the prince should be conducted to and
be received at Vincennes.
360 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOR 12.
Various conferences on the subject.
At twelve o'clock he received M. de Talleyrand at Malmai.
son, and conversed with that minister in his gardens.
His brother, Joseph Bonaparte, alarmed at the current
rumours, arrived at Malmaison from Morfontaine. The First
Consul's wife, Josephine, received him first, informed him of
the arrest of the young prince, told him she dreaded the coun-
sels of that miserable cripple (M. de Talleyrand); conjured her
brother-in-law to speak to her husband, and to beg him to be
indulgent; but on no account to let him know that she had
given him any information, in order that his opinion might not
appear to be influenced by the sensibility of a woman.
Joseph, well disposed in his own heart, and through his
friends and guests of Morfontaine, Madame de Stael, Matthew
de Montmorency, and M. de Jaucourt, went down to the garden
and interrupted the conversation of the Consul and M. de Tal-
leyrand; upon which the latter withdrew. Bonaparte confided
to Joseph his resolution to bring the duke to trial as an accom-
plice of the conspiracies against him. Joseph endeavoured to
turn him from it. He supplicated his brother to recollect that
the Prince of Condé, who was governor of Burgundy during
their childhood, had protected and assisted him with his
patronage at the College of Autun, and that he was indebted
to him for his admission to the artillery school. “Who would
have told us then,” added Joseph, moved at the recollection,
“that we should one day have to deliberate on the life or death
of his grandson and sole heir of his name?”
But Bonaparte was inflexible, and replied, that the Duke
d'Enghien was one of the chiefs of Georges' conspiracy against
his life, and that there was no inviolability in acting against
Bourbons who came to conspire so near the frontiers. He
broke off the conversation to read a telegraphic despatch from
Strasbourg, which at length announced, through the aid of a
clear atmosphere, the departure of the prince for Paris. At
four o'clock a new despatch from Paris acquainted him with
the arrival of the prisoner at the office of foreign affairs.
Meanwhile, Murat, according to his orders of the preceding
evening, had nominated the military commission. He had
not picked out the judges with the partiality of a man who re-
1804.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE 361
Selection of the Court Martia.
quires of them a condemnation. Chance and their respective
grades had designated them. They were Hullin, commanding
the grenadier infantry of the Consul's guard, president; Guitton,
colonel of the 1st regiment of cuirassiers; Bazancourt, of the
4th; Ravier, of the 18th; Barrois, of the 96th; Rabbe, of the mu-
cipal guard, all officers of the garrison of Paris. The major
of gendarmerie d'élite, d'Autencourt, was judge-advocate. Mu-
rat's misfortune was, that he had to choose the judges from
the ranks where no one discusses the law of obedience, but all
obey an order to try a prisoner as they would obey an order to
die, and where no one knows how to distinguish between a trial
and a sentence.
As soon as these judges of an exile who had not voluntarily
broken any act of banishment, and whom force alone had brought
within their jurisdiction, were designated by the governor of
Paris, the First Consul ordered them to be summoned to the
residence of Murat, there to receive instructions for their
mission.
He ordered the minister of war to assemble (at the Barrière
Saint Antoine, the nearest point to Vincennes,) a brigade of
infantry, in barracks at that faubourg. This brigade, an im-
posing force, out of proportion to all ordinary circumstances,
was further to join a legion of gendarmerie d'élite, of whom
General Savary, aide-de-camp of the Consul, was colonel.
Savary, a sure and principal actor in the tragedy—the eye and
the hand of the First Consul in the affair—was, during the
short period of the trial, to command in chief the brigade of
troops of the line, the legion, and the fortress itself. Harel
disappeared before this supreme executioner of his master's
designs. Savary received an order in the evening to present
himself at the residence of the governor of Paris, and to give
him preliminary information of the measures concerted at Mal-
maison, and at the war office, for the military dispositions which
concerned him in the general plan of the night.
Maret, who was returning from Malmaison to Paris, re-
ceived, from the hands of the First Consul, copies of the same
dispositions for the chief of police, Réal; who was also, it is
said, to have gone to interrogate the prisoner on his arrival at
X
362 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 12,
Bonaparte's instructions to Savary.
Vincennes. On the order which was given to Réal, and the
accidental and improbable circumstances which might have
prevented it from taking effect, a system of excuse, or extenua-
tion of the crime, has been founded, which we shall expose at a
later period. All these measures being taken, might came on,
and Malmaison awaited the result.
V.
Savary, who left Malmaison at five o'clock, had received
from Bonaparte in his cabinet, and from his own hand, the
sealed letter containing the instructions he was sending by
Savary to Murat. On arriving at Murat's residence, Savary
met M. de Talleyrand in the court-yard, as he was leaving the
hotel. He then entered to see the governor of Paris. Whether
Murat was really ill on that day, or whether he was repugnant,
as well as his wife, to the odious act which was known before.
hand to them both; or whether he did not wish to incur the
future responsibility of any direct and active intervention in an
act of cruelty capable of one day tarnishing his fame, he attri-
buted to illness, real or feigned, his immobility in the transac-
tion. He seemed to be unable to stand or superintend per-
sonally the execution of the military orders. He contented
himself with saying to Savary, whom he did not like, “You
must know the orders you have received: execute them as far
as you are concerned.”
Savary went away, and going to the barracks of the legion
of gendarmerie d’élite, of which he was colonel, he paraded
them, directed them to march on Vincennes, and then pro-
ceeded to the Barrière Saint Antoine, to assume there, in virtue
of the Consul's orders, the command of the brigade of infantry,
which had been given to him Malmaison. He arrived at
Vincennes with these forces at eight o'clock in the evening:
he drew up his brigade of infantry of the line on the esplanade
which faces the forest, and he marched his legion of gen-
darmerie into the court, placing guards of gendarmes at all the
entrances, with orders to intercept all communication from
without, under any pretext whatever. This arrangement suffi.
1S04.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 363
Preparations for the Duke d'Enghien's trial.
ciently indicates that no counter-orders were expected from
Paris or from Malmaison.
VI.
At the same time Hullin, president of the court-martial,
attended the summons of the governor of Paris, as also the
judge-advocate and the members of the court, at the residence
of Murat, there to receive their instructions. Murat ordered
them to proceed to Vincennes, and he gave them the official
order which constituted them a tribunal. The last paragraph
of this decree directed: “That they should assemble immediately
at Vincennes, to try there, without leaving the spot, the ac-
cused, on the charges set forth in the act of the govern-
ment.” These officers set off in succession for Vincennes.
Their assembling at Murat's residence, the drawing up of
the orders, their leaving Paris, and the journey from the
Barrière Saint Antoine to the chateau, had taken some hours;
and night was advancing when they were all assembled in the
quarters of the commandant Harel. This functionary prepared
the same saloon where he had bestowed his hospitality on the
prince, as a tribunal to try him; and the president Hullin dis-
tributed to his colleagues the documents connected with the
accusation. According to the usual form he ordered the com-
mandant Harel to go and conduct the prisoner into the chamber
adjoining the saloon, to be examined by the judge-advocate of
the court martial, d'Autencourt. The judges conversed together
round the fire, while waiting for the completion of these forma-
lities. Savary and some other inhabitants of the castle were
moving about on the staircases, in the commandant's rooms,
and even within the saloon, soon to be changed into a court of
military judgment: all was melancholy and silent.
When we thus see in one glance, and at a distance, the
picture reversed of a murder, the judge who trembles and the
victim who sleeps, do we not naturally in thought exchange
the parts? And would we not a thousand times rather have
been the condemned than the executioner? But in times ripe
for servitude instruments are to be found for any atrocity.
364 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 12.
He is summoned before the Judge-advocate.
VII.
While these hasty preparations for the death of the Duke
d'Enghien were making at Malmaison, at Paris, and so near
him at Vincennes, the prisoner had gone to bed with the
fullest confidence, and was enjoying the profound sleep of wea-
riness, of youth, and of innocence, by the side of his judges,
who were already seated to condemn him. Savary had posted
in his anti-chamber a lieutenant and two gendarmes d'élite;
and he sent them an order to bring their prisoner before the
council, assembled in the chamber of the commandant of the
chateau.
It was eleven o'clock at night, when the lieutenant Noirot
and the two gendarmes, Thersis and Lerva, entered the room
where the young prince was asleep. These men had tender
hearts under the rude uniform of their profession ; and they
have since avowed how much it cost them to interrupt thus, by
the summons of death, the only happiness which a captive can
taste, and how gladly they would have prolonged, at least for
some minutes, the repose or the dreams of the prince, who
was a soldier like themselves. But the tribunal and Savary
were waiting.
They awoke the prince without precipitation, and without
harshness of word or gesture, and he could perceive pity in
their eyes and in their accents. He dressed himself in the
same clothes as the evening before. He buttoned his gaiters,
and put on his travelling cap, uncertain whether they had
called him to make an appearance or to depart, and he per-
mitted his dog which had slept at his feet to follow him. He
them went with the lieutenant and the two gendarmes through
the staircases, the corridors, and the courts, and was intro-
duced into the chamber adjoining the saloon of Harel, where
he found himself in the presence of the judge-advocate d'Au-
tencourt. It was then midnight, as it appears by the date
of the examination. The commander of the squadron of gen-
darmes, Jaquin, accompanied him.
1804.] OF MON ARCHIY IN FRANCE, 365
The Duke's replies to the interrogatories proposed.
VIII.
To the questions proposed by the judge-advocate, he replied,
that his name was Louis-Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Duke
d'Enghien, born at Chantilly, the Versailles of the Condés:—
that he had quitted France at a period which he scarcely
recollected, under the guidance of the Prince de Condé, his
grandfather, and of his father the Duke de Bourbon:—that he
had wandered about Europe with his family; then entered
into the army of his grandfather, and served during the war:—
that this army having been disbanded he had inhabited for
his amusement the mountains of the Tyrol, visited Switzerland
as a traveller; and that, finally, having demanded of the Prince
de Rohan permission to reside on his estates of the Duchy of
Baden, he had fixed himself at Ettenheim : —that he had
never been in England ; but that, nevertheless, he subsisted
on the subsidy which that power made to the refugee princes,
and that he had nothing to live on but that pension :-that
private reasons, and his passion for field sports, were the
principal motives of his preference for Ettenheim :—that he
naturally corresponded with his father and his grandfather—
the only ties he had upon foreign ground:—that he had the
rank of commandant of the advance-guard of the army of Condé
in 1796:—that he never had the least connection with General
Pichegru :—that this general had expressed a wish to see
him:-that he congratulated himself, and made it his pride
not to have seen him, after the base means which this general
had been accused of employing, presuming that that accusation
was true :-that neither did he know Dumouriez :—that he had
sometimes written to France to old comrades, friends, and
companions in arms, who were still attached to him ; but that
his correspondence was not of the mature of those which could
be incriminated. The prince, after these replies, modest,
distinct and frank as his own soul, had to sign the interroga-
tories, in the presence of the officers and the gendarmes. But
addressing himself to the judge-advocate d'Autencourt, he
expressed a desire to him to have an interview with the First
366 FIISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 12.
He entreats an interview with the First Consul.
Consul. We have seen that, from the first moment of his
arrest, he had constantly turned over this thought in his mind.
He did not believe that a suspicion could subsist between the
look of the hero and that of the soldier, and that they would
understand one another in their first meeting. D'Autencourt
recommended him to write this with with his own hand at the
bottom of the interrogatories, since that document would be
submitted to the court-martial. The prince took the pen, and
wrote as follows:—
“Before I sign the present proceedings I entreat permis-
sion to have a private audience with the First Consul. My
name, my rank, my habits of thought, and the horror of my
situation, lead me to hope that he will not refuse my demand.”
IX.
The judge-advocate, leaving the duke alone with his
guardians, carried the document to the court. The judges
read it, received from it the impressions which they seem to
have been ordered to receive, by the artificial position of the
questions drawn up by the act of government, and conversed
briefly together about the wish expressed by the accused to see
the First Consul. Some of the members were of opinion that
judgment should be deferred until this wish had been trans-
mitted to Malmaison. One hour, and a mounted gendarme
would suffice for this; and death, if it were necessary to pro-
nounce it after, might still be inflicted before day-break. The
man who was supposed to be in possession of the private wishes
of the governmelit, said, that this respite and this appeal to a
direct communication with Bonaparte did not seem to him to
enter into the views of the First Consul. The court therefore
rejected the wish of the prince, and declared that he should be
immediately tried.
X.
The door was opened, and he found himself suddenly in the
presence of his judges. To fulfil the letter of the law, which
rendered a false appearance of publicity necessary, the tribunal
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 367
Is brought before the military tribunal.
which sat in judgment at night, guarded by a legion of gen-
darmerie, and under the roof of a state prison, allowed a few
officers and inhabitants of the chateau to be present in the hall
and its approaches. These spectators were deeply moved at
the youthfulness, the modesty, the firm dignity, and, above all,
the undaunted attitude of the prisoner; and the last hour of the
Duke d'Enghien was recorded in their memory to the honour
of his race and the justice of posterity.
The president Hullin was a man of soldier-like stature and
physiognomy. Born in the mountains of Switzerland, he had
come to Paris as an artisan before the Revolution, entered the
service of the Marquis de Conflans, taken a part in the revo
lutionary scenes of the 14th of July, was one of the populace
who took the Bastile, and was afterwards, as a volunteer,
distinguished in our camp by his intrepidity. This officer
being devoted to his profession, and of a passive character, was
well chosen as the chief of such an impassible tribunal. He
added nothing to the rigour of such a mission by any harshness
of his own, nor did he retrench anything from it by indulgence.
It was painful to him to give judgment; but he did so without
asking himself from whence came the person before him, or
whether an abduction in a foreign territory justified this accu-
sation, according to conscience and humanity, or according to
the law.
He addressed to the accused, one by one, the same questions
that had been put and replied to in the examination, and the
prince answered them with the same precision and sincerity;
repelling, with homest indignation, the bare supposition of his
plotting against the life of the First Consul, and of his partici-
pation with the conspirators Georges, Pichegru, and others.
He revolted, with all the loftimess of his soul, against a species
of warfare which would give victory the appearance of crime;
and the energy and sincerity of his manner carried conviction
to the hearts of his hearers, as did the evidence to their minds.
“But nevertheless, Sir,” said Hullim to him, “how will
you persuade us that you were so completely ignorant, as you
say you were, of what was passing in France, when the whole
world was informed thereof; and that with your rank and
868 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION ſBOOK 12.
Trial of the Duke dB’nghien.
birth, of which you take so much care to remind us, you can
have remained indifferent to events of such weighty importance,
and the results of which must have been to your advantage 2
By the way in which you answer us, you appear to misappre-
hend your position. Take care; this may become serious, and
military commissions judge without appeal.”
Were these words prompted by the impatience of the judge
seeking the pretext of an avowal to appease conscience? or
were they a warning to the accused to change his mode of
defence and appeal, not to justice, but to mercy 2 as Hullin has
since pretended, but which nothing then revealed. The trial
by night, the hurry of the proceedings, the neglect of formalities,
the sham publicity, the number and aspect of the troops under
arms, and the hints of Savary not to insist on an interview with
the First Consul, sufficiently indicated a predetermination of
speedy and irrevocable execution. The prince, by confessing
any imaginary conspiracy, would have violated both his truth
and his innocence without gaining a single hour of life from
those already numbered at Malmaison.
XI.
With his hands over his eyes, he meditated for a moment,
no doubt, on what had been demanded of him ; and then said,
—“I can only, Sir, repeat to you what I have already said.
Hearing that war had been declared, I applied for a commission
to serve in the armies of England. The English government
replied that they could not give me one; but that I should
remain on the banks of the Rhine, where I should very soon
have a part to play, and I waited accordingly. This, Sir, is
all that I can tell you.”
Hullin relates that the judges several times endeavoured
indirectly to make the accused deviate from this course of
sincerity, which, according to them, prevented their absolving
him, and to lead him into confessions or perversions of the
truth and excuses to which he would not have recourse. “I
perceive, with feelings of gratitude,” said the prince, who was
sensible of these indications of clemency, “the honourable in
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. . 369
His conden.nation.
tentions of the members of the commission; but I cannot
make use of the means which they seem to offer me. I am
aware of my danger, but will not avoid it by any unworthy
subterfuge. I only request an interview with the First Com-
sul.” This terminated the defence.
Hullin then ordered the accused to be withdrawn, and
Savary, the officers of the legion of gendarmerie and of the
line, and the spectators also retired to allow the judges to deli-
berate in silence and secrecy. Their deliberation lasted no
longer than was required by decency to give the judges an
appearance of having reflected, when with a unanimous voice,
they pronounced him guilty, awarded the penalty, and con-
demned him to death.
“Let it go forth,” said the president of this tribunal, “to the
times in which we live, that, having been appointed judges, we
have been compelled to give judgment under the penalty of
being judged ourselves 1’’
They forgot, however, that they could not be judges without
a culprit, and that he who was brought before them was not
amenable to their tribunal, but was an exile dragged before his
enemies with the bayonet at his throat. They also forgot that
they would indeed be judged by the equity of the world, by
their own conscience, and by the Almighty.
The prince had had no advocate. Hullin laid the blame of
thus depriving the accused of an advocate, which was allowed
him by all civilized laws, to the negligence of the judge-advo-
cate d'Autencourt and not one of the judges had reminded
the president of this duty. The prince either disdained to ask
for one, or did not know that the law allowed him to have one.
XII.
As soon as the judgment was pronounced, and even before
it was drawn up, Hullin sent to inform Savary and the judge-
advocate of the sentence of death, in order that they might
take their measures for its execution. It seemed as if the
time was equally pressing to the tribunal as to those who
awaited their decision, and as if an invisible genius was hurry-
370 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Booſt 12.
Preparations for his execution.
ing along the acts, formalities, and hours, in order that the
morning's sun might not witness the deeds of the night.
Hullin and his colleagues remained in the hall of council, and
drew up at random the judgment they had just given; and this
short and unskilfully prepared document (summing up a whole
examination in two questions and two answers) terminated with
the order to execute the sentence forthwith.
XIII.
Savary had not waited for this order to be written before he
prepared for its execution, and had already marked out the
spot. The court and the esplanade being encumbered with
troops, by the presence of the brigade of infantry, and the
legion of gendarmes d'élite, no safe place could be found there
in which the fire of a platoon did not run the risk of striking
a soldier or a spectator. No doubt it was also feared that too
great publicity would thus be given to the murder in the midst
of an army; that the scene of the execution was too distant
from the place of sepulture; and that feelings of pity and
horror would pervade the ranks at the sight of this young man's
mangled corpse. The moat of the chateau, however, offered
the means of avoiding all these dangers, as it would conceal
the murder as well as the victim. This place was accordingly
chosen.
Harel received orders to give up the keys of the steps and
iron gateways, which descended from the towers, and opened
on the foundations of the chateau, to point out the different
outlets and sites, and to procure a gravedigger to commence
digging a grave while the man for whom it was intended still
breathed. A poor working gardener of the chateau, mamed
Bontemps, was awakened, and his work pointed out to him.
He was furnished with a lantern to guide him through the
labyrinth of the moat, and light him while he dug it up.
Bontemps descended with his shovel and pickaxe to the bottom
of the moat, and finding the ground all about dry and hard, he
recollected that they had begun to dig a trench the evening
before, at the foot of the Queen's Pavilion, in the angle formed
1804.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 3.71
His conversation with Lieutenant Noiret.
by the tower and a little wall breast high, for the purpose, it
was said, of depositing rubbish in it. He accordingly went to
the foot of the tower, marked out in paces the measure of 0
man's body extended at length, and dug in the earth, that had
been already moved, a grave for the corpse they were preparing
for it. The Duke d'Enghien could have heard from his win-
dow, over the humming noise of the troops below, the dull and
regular sound of the pickaxe which was digging his last couch.
Savary, at the same time, marched down and arranged
slowly in the moat the detachments of troops who were to wit-
ness this military death, and ordered the firing party to load
their muskets.
XIV.
The prince was far from suspecting either so much rigour
or so much haste on the part of his judges. He did not doubt
that even a sentence of death, if awarded by the commission,
would give occasion for an exhibition of magnanimity on the
part of the First Consul. He had granted an amnesty to
emigrants taken with arms in their hands; how could it be
doubted then that he who pardoned obscure and culpable exiles
would not honour himself by an act of justice, or clemency,
towards an illustrious prince, beloved by all Europe, and inno-
cent of all crime 2
He had been taken back, after his interrogatories and his
appearance before the military commission, into the room
where he had slept. He entered it without exhibiting any of
that fright which prisoners experience in the anxiety and
uncertainty of their sentence. With a serene countenance and
unoccupied mind, he conversed with his gendarmes, and played
with his dog. Lieutenant Noirot, who was on guard over him,
had formerly served in a regiment of cavalry commanded by a
colonel who was a friend of the prince of Condé. He had also
seen the Duke d'Enghien, when a child, sometimes accompany
his father to reviews and field days of the regiment; and he
reminded the prince of that period and these circumstances of
his youth. The duke Smiled at these reminiscences, and
renewed them himself by other recollections of his infancy,
372 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATI JN [BOOR 12,
Preparations for the execution of the Duke d'Enghien.
which mingled with those of Noirot. He inquired, with a
curiosity full of interest, about the career of this officer since
that epoch, of the campaigns he had made, of the battles in
which he had been engaged, of the promotion he had received,
of his present rank, his expectations, and his partiality for the
service. He seemed to find a lively pleasure in this conver-
sation on the past with a brave officer, who spoke to him with
the accent and the heart of a man who would gladly indulge
in pity, were it not for the severity of duty.
XV.
A noise of footsteps, advancing slowly towards the chamber,
interrupted this agreeable and last indulgence of captivity. It
was the commandant of Vincennes, Harel, accompanied by
the brigadier of the gendarmerie of the village Aufort. This
friend of Harel's had been permitted to remain in one of the
commandant's rooms, after having ordered the prince's Supper,
and from thence he had heard or seen all the events of the
night. Harel, agitated and trembling at the mission he had
to fulfil, had permitted Aufort to follow and assist him in his
message to the prisoner.
They saluted the prince respectfully; but neither of them
had the firmness to acquaint him with the truth. The dejected
attitude and trembling voice of Harel alone revealed to the
eye and to the heart of the prince a fatal presentiment of the
rigour of his judges. He thought they now came for him
only to hear his sentence read. Harel desired him, on the
part of the tribunal, to follow him, and he went before with a
lantern in his hand, through the corridors, the passages, and
the courts it was necessary to cross, to arrive at the building
called the “Devil's Tower.” The interior of this tower con-
tained the only staircase and the only door descending to, and
opening into, the lowest moat. The prince appeared to hesitate
two or three times on going into this suspicious tower, like a
victim which smells the blood, and which resists and turns
back its head on crossing the threshold of a slaughter house.
Savary, while waiting till the prisoner had descended to
1804.] OF MON ARC HY IN FIAN CE. 373
Preparations for the execution of the Duke d'Enghien.
the place of execution, and till the detachments and firing
party had been drawn up on the ground, was warming himself,
standing by Harel's fire, in the hall where the trial had taken
place. Hullin, after having sent off his proces verbal of con-
demnation, was sitting at the table, with his back turned
towards Savary. Hoping that the sentence would be commuted
by the power and clemency of the First Consul, he began
reading, in his own name and in the name of all his colleagues,
a letter to Bonaparte, to communicate to him the desire that
the accused had expressed of obtaining an audience of him,
and to supplicate him to remit a punishment, which the rigour
of their functions alone had forced them to award. “What
are you doing?” said the man after Bonaparte's heart, approach-
ing Hullin. “I am writing to the First Consul,” said the
president, “to acquaint him with the request of the condemned,
and the wishes of the council.” But Savary, taking the pen
from the hands of the president, said to him, “Your business
is done; all the rest concerns me.”
Hullin yielded to the authority of the general, who had
the superior command of the castle, and arose mortified at
being deprived of the privilege of recommending a prisoner
to mercy, which is inherent in all tribunals and military com-
missions. He thought that Savary claimed this privilege for
himself; and he complained to his colleagues of a despotism
which left the remorse more heavy on their consciences. He
then prepared to return with them to Paris.
XVI.
Harel and Aufort preceded the duke in silence down the
steps of the narrow winding staircase, which descended to a
postern through the massy walls of this tower. The prince,
with an instinctive horror of the place, and of the depth beneath
the soil to which the steps were leading him, began to think
they were not conducting him before the judges, but into the
hands of murderers, or to the gloom of a dungeon. He trembled
in all his limbs, and convulsively drew back his foot, as he
addressed his guides in front:—“Where are you conducting
37.4 |HIS TORY OF THE RESTORATION TBOOK 12.
The sentence of death communicated to him.
me?” he demanded with a stifled voice. “If it is to bury me
alive in a dungeon I would rather die this instant.”
“Sir,” replied Harel, turning round, “follow me, and
summon up all your courage.”
The prince partly comprehended him, and followed.
XVII.
They at length issued from the winding staircase through a
low postern, which opened on the bottom of the moat, and
continued walking for some time in the dark, along the foot of
the lofty walls of the fortress, as far as the basement of the
Queen's Pavilion. When they had turned the angle of this
pavilion, which had concealed another part of the moat behind
its walls, the prince suddenly found himself in front of the
detachment of the troops drawn up to witness his death. The
firing party, selected for the execution, was separated from the
rest; and the barrels of their muskets, reflecting the dull light
of Some lanterns carried by a few of the attendants, threw a
sinister glare on the moat, the massy walls, and the newly dug
grave. The prince stopped at a sign from his guides, within a
few paces of the firing party. He saw his fate at a glance; but
he neither trembled nor turned pale. A slight and chilling rain
was falling from a gloomy sky, and a melancholy silence reigned
throughout the moat. Nothing disturbed the horror of the
scene but the whispering and shuffling feet of a few groups of
officers and soldiers who had collected upon the parapets above,
and on the drawbridge which led into the forest of Vincennes.
XVIII.
Adjutant Pellé, who commanded the detachment, advanced,
with his eyes lowered, towards the prince. He held in his
hand the sentence of the military commission, which he read
in a low dull voice, but perfectly intelligible. The prince
listened, without making an observation or losing his firmness.
He seemed to have collected in an instant all his courage, and
all the military heroism of his race, to show his enemies that
1804.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 375
-*
His last moments.
he knew how to die. Two feelings alone seemed to occupy
him during the moment of intense silence which followed the
reading of his sentence; one was to invoke the aid of religion
to sooth his last struggle, and the other to communicate his
dying thoughts to her he was going to leave desolate on the
earth.
He accordingly asked if he could have the assistance of a
priest, but there was none in the castle; and though a few
minutes would suffice to call the curé of Vincennes, they were
too much pressed for time, and too anxious to avail themselves
of the night, which was to cover every thing. The officers
nearest to him made a sign that he must renounce this conso
lation; and one brutal fellow, from the midst of a group,
called out, in a tone of irony, “Do you wish then to die like
a Capuchin?”
The prince raised his head with an air of indignation, and
turning towards the group of officers and gendarmes who had
accompanied him to the ground, he asked, in a loud voice, if
there was any one amongst them willing to do him one last
service. Lieutenant Noirot advanced from the group, and
approached him, thus sufficiently evincing his intention. The
prince said a few words to him in a low voice, and Noirot,
turning towards the side occupied by the troops, said:—“Gen-
darmes, have any of you got a pair of Scissors about you?”
The gendarmes searched their cartridge boxes, and a pair of
Scissors was passed from hand to hand to the prince. He took
off his cap, cut off one of the locks of his hair, drew a letter
from his pocket, and a ring from his finger; then folding the
hair, the letter, and the ring in a sheet of paper, he gave the
little packet, his sole inheritance, to Lieutenant Noirot, charg-
ing him, in the name of pity for his situation and his death,
to send them to the young Princess Charlotte de Rohan, at
Ettenheim.
This love message being thus confided, he collected himself
for a moment, with his hands joined, to offer up a last prayer,
and in a low voice recommended his soul to God. He then
made five or six paces to place himself in front of the firing
party, whose loaded muskets he saw glimmering at a sho “
376 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 12
His execution and interment.
distance. The light of a large lantern, containing several
candles, placed upon the little wall that stood over the open
grave, gleamed full upon him, and lighted the aim of the
soldiers. The firing party retired a few paces to a proper
distance, the adjutant gave the word to fire, and the young
prince, as if struck by a thunderbolt, fell upon the earth,
without a cry and without a struggle. At that moment the
clock of the castle struck the hour of three.
Hullin and his colleagues were waiting in the vestibule of
Harel's quarters for their carriage to convey them back to
Paris, and were talking with some bitterness of Savary's
refusal to transmit their letter to his master, when an unex-
pected explosion, resounding from the moat of the forest
gate, made them start and tremble, and taught them that
judges should never reckon upon anything but justice and their
own conscience. This still small voice pursued them through
their lives. The Duke d'Enghien was no more.
His dog, which had followed him into the moat, yelled
when he saw him fall, and threw himself on the body of his
master. It was with difficulty the poor animal could be torn
away from the spot, and given to one of the prince's servants,
who took him to the Princess Charlotte, the only messenger
from that tomb where slept the hapless victim whom she nover
ceased to deplore.
XIX.
They placed him, dressed as he was, in the grave dug under
the wall; and they buried with him his money, his watch, his
rings, his trinkets, and a chain that he wore round his neck.
They took nothing from the pocket of his coat but the diary of
his journey, which Hullin put under cover, and addressed to
Réal for the First Consul.
Savary marched back his troops to Paris before day, and
Murat's aide-de-camp, General Brunet, an unwilling and hor.
ror-struck witness of the scenes of the night, went to make his
report to the governor of Paris. Murat shed some tears. He
seemed to have a presentiment of a similar fate which awaited
himself, equally brave but less innocent, on the beach of the
1804.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 377
Guilt of Napoleon in executing the Duke d'Enghien.
bay of Naples. Savary, on the march back to Paris, met Réal,
who was going, he said, to Vincennes, to interrogate the Duke
d'Enghien, and who seemed to be confounded at so prompt
an execution. They both proceeded rapidly, without going
through Paris, to Malmaison, to acquaint the First Consul with
the event.
There has since been grounded—upon this hypothesis of
Réal going too late to Vincennes, owing to a fatally prolonged
sleep, and to a confusion of orders imperfectly understood—a
system of excuses which would throw upon chance the whole
crime of such a death. It is impossible to argue such a point,
or to believe it. This system may exonerate Réal, but it
cannot absolve the First Consul. How could they have made
so many preparations, and crowded so many instruments of
judgment and of execution into one single night, if the con-
demnation and death of the prince had not been determined
upon ? Was the life or death of the last of the Condés (car-
ried off by an armed force, and murdered in a ditch,) which was
to astonish and agitate all Europe, so trifling an event in the
fame and the political career of Bonaparte, on the point of
ascending a throne, that he should permit an aide-de-camp like
Savary to deceive with impunity either his justice or his cle-
mency? Was Bonaparte a man likely to permit others to shed,
unknown to him, the blood of such a person? And if they had
done so, would he have accepted the odious responsibility of it?
Would he have tolerated and rewarded the authors of such
a crime 2 No! everything indicates that he hastened the
execution with a concealed hand; and that he only wished to
leave floating over the transaction a species of uncertain chance,
which might have disconcerted his clemency, in order to enjoy,
at the same time, the advantages of the death and the popu-
larity of the pardon.
Savary first arrived at Malmaison. The First Consul, who
was not a man of early habits, had passed a sleepless might of
anxiety, and perhaps of remorse. He was already in his cabi-
het, with his secretary Menneval, at daybreak. Savary made
his report of the night's proceedings, and mentioned his tardy
meeting with Réal on his return. Réal then entered, and in
Y
378 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 12.
Arrival of the Princess Charlotte at Vincennes.
his history recounted the misunderstanding, whether accidental
or intentional, which had prevented him from arriving in time
at Vincennes. Instead of the explosion of reproaches, of in-
dignation and of anger, that such an execution should call
forth from such a soul, on learning that they had stained his
memory and annihilated his virtue, the First Consul listened
to them in silence, without any sign of emotion or sorrow, and
only said, “'Tis well !” From that time he extended his
favours, and never ceased to load them with wealth and
honours.
XX.
The following day, at the moment when the commandant
Harel was passing over the drawbridge of the castle, to settle
the account of the inn-keeper of Vincennes, who had supplied
the supper of the Duke d'Enghien, a post-coach with four
horses, in which were a young lady and an old gentleman,
stopped at the inn door, where they inquired if a prisoner of
distinction had not been shut up the evening before in the
fortress. On a reply in the affirmative, from the boy who
had served the supper of the prince, but who was ignorant of
his name, the young lady and her companion got out of the
carriage, and looked for a long time, with moistened eyes, upon
the donjon and towers of the castle. A rumour afterwards
spread about that it was the Princess Charlotte, hastening
from the borders of the Rhine to implore a pardon for him
that she loved, or to share with him his prison. She only.
arived in Paris in time to learn his death, and to mourn their
eternal separation. t
XXI.
The First Consul had said, “”Tis well !” But conscience,
equity, and humanity protest alike against this satisfaction of a
murderer who applauds himself. He claimed this crime to
himself alone, in his revelations at Saint Helena. Let him
then keep it all to himself He has mowed down millions of
men by the hand of war; and mad humanity, partial against
itself for what it calls glory, has pardoned him. He has slain
1804.] OF MONARC HY IN Trºr ANCE, 379
Reflections on Napoleon and the murder of the Duke d'Enghien.
one alone cruelly, like a coward, in the dark, by the consciences
of prevaricating judges, and by the balls of mercenary execu-
tioners, without risking his own breast, not as a warrior, but
even as a murderer. Neither mankind nor history will ever
pardon him this spilling of blood. A tomb has been raised to
him under the dome built by Louis XIV. at the palace of the
Invalids, where the statues of twelve victories, hewn out from
one single block of granite, harmonizing with the massy pillars
which support the lofty edifice, seem to stand the sentinels of
ages around the urn of porphyry which contains his bones.
But there is in the shade, and seated on his sepulchre, an invi-
sible statue which tarnishes and blights all the others, the
statue of a young man, torn by hired nocturnal assassins, from
the arms of her he loved, from the inviolable asylum in which
he confided, and slaughtered by the light of a lantern at the
foot of the palace of his sires. People go to visit, with a cold
curiosity, the battle-fields of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Wa-
gram, of Leipsic, and of Waterloo; they walk over them with
dry eyes; then they are shown, at the angle of a wall, round
the foundations of Vincennes, at the bottom of a trench, a
place covered with nettles and marshmallows, and they ex-
claim—“It is there !” With a cry of indigmation they carry
from the spot an eternal pity for the victim, and an implacable
resentment against the assassin
This resentment is a vengeance for the past; but it is also
a lesson for the future. Let the ambitious, whether soldiers,
tribunes, or kings, reflect, that if there are mercenary soldiers
to serve them, and flatterers to excuse them while they reign,
there is the conscience of humanity afterwards, to judge them,
and pity to detest them. The murderer has but his hour,
the victim has all eternity
B 00 K THIRTEENTH.
The Bourbons quit England–Indifference of the French and the Allies
towards the Bourbons in January, 1814—The Count d’Artois enters
France—His situation in the midst of the Allies—The Duke d'An-
goulême disembarks in Spain—His proclamations—Order of the day
of Marshal Soult—Attitude of Wellington—Royalist conspiracy at
Bordeaux—The Duke d’Angoulême enters Bordeaux—The Duke de
Berry at Jersey—State of the Royalist parties at Paris—Discussions
between the Senate and the Abbé de Montesquiou, Commissioner of
Louis XVIII.-Recognition of Louis XVIII. as King of France by
the Senate, April 6, 1814—Departure of the Count d’Artois from Nancy
—His entry into Paris—The Senate recognises him as Lieutenant-
general of the kingdom—Reception of the Senate and the Legislative
Body by the Count d’Artois—He nominates a Council of government
—M. de Vitrolles—Convention of 23rd of April—Deputation of the
Count de Bruges and of Pozzo di Borgo to Louis XVIII.-Departure
of Louis XVIII. from Hartwell, 18th April—His entry into London
—His arrival at Dover—His speech to the Prince Regent—He sails
for France, and disembarks at Calais—He passes through Boulogne,
Montreuil, Abbeville, and Amiens—His halt at Compiègne—Depu-
tation of the Marshals of Napoleon—Speech of Berthier—Deputation
of the Legislative Body—Conference of Louis XVIII. with the
Emperor Alexander—The Emperor of Austria and the King of
Prussia arrive at Compiègne—Dinner of the Sovereigns.
I.
SUCH was the family of the Bourbons, with its old men, its
men of mature age, its young princes, all who were present,
and all who were absent; its victims and its souvenirs consti-
tuting a portion of its name, in the thoughts and in the memory
of Europe, at the moment Napoleon was taking leave of
Fontainebleau.
The symptoms of his decline, and the hopes of his ruin
had not left the members of this family indifferent, or inactive,
during the campaign of Paris. The policy of Louis XVIII, at
1813.] RESTORATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 38]
Policy of Louis XVIII.
Hartwell was prepared to dispute and to gather the inheritance
of the throne which the Empire was going to leave vacant.
This enlightened prince, at once patient and solicitous for the
reign that was approaching him, did not wish that his dynasty
should attempt on the continent adventures disproportioned to
its strength. He knew that his power lay in his name, and in
the hereditary principle of that power, which victorious Europe
would be induced to uphold, to found something analogous to
itself in France. He considered himself as a dogma, and not
as a Pretender. The word legitimacy, which so well expressed
this principle and this dogma, had been adapted and made
popular by M. de Talleyrand; but it had been invented by
Louis XVIII. at Hartwell. The impatience of the Count
d'Artois, and of his little court of chivalry, could not reconcile
itself to these slow proceedings. This prince and his friends
ardently desired to throw themselves into the midst of events
and the midst of the allies in France, to take advantage of
circumstances, to form again in the interior, if possible, an
army of princes, to invite the cabinets of the coalesced sove-
reigns to the object of their wishes, to prevent a peace with
Napoleon and, above all, to substitute themselves, by some
explosion of royalist opinion, to the regency of Marie-Louise,
to the proclamation of a second Empire on the head of Napo-
leon II., or to the republican enterprises of the Senate, which,
after having sold its ambition to despotism, might attempt to
perpetuate it by selling it to the Republic.
II.
Louis XVIII., who equally dreaded the levity and the
ardour to reign, or self-importance of his brother, had retarded,
as much as he could with decency, the impatience to proceed
to the continent, which devoured the soul of the Count d'Artois.
This was a wise thought. The Bourbons, to be powerful and
popular in France, in the event of a Restoration, should have
been called by the nation as saviours after the conquest, and
not presented, patronised, or imposed by the hands of the con-
querors. This would be a stain which would extend over all
382 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 13.
z—
Policy and views of the Bourbon family.
their reigns, and which would entirely falsify their position.
Mixed up by the nation with its reverses and with the foreign
armies, these princes would thus unjustly appear to make a
part of its sorrows and its humiliations. But thoughts so pro-
vident and so wise did not enter into the precipitate and super-
ficial councils of the Count d'Artois. The policy of these two
brothers was already as opposite in the land of their exile as it
was to be on their native soil. Louis XVIII. appeared to the
Count d'Artois a pedagogue, sedentary and pedantic, badly
cured of the philosophical and revolutionary doctrines of 1789,
a sort of crowned Jacobin. The Count d'Artois, in the eyes of
Louis XVIII., was still the theatrical hero of Coblentz, with a
good heart, a weak understanding, an age advanced without
maturity, youth and giddiness under grey hairs, a policy of pre-
judices, a brother, in short, compromising and dangerous. But
the common cause and hopes united them, and forced them to
an appearance of acting in concert. Louis XVIII. could,
therefore, only employ over his brother the influence of title, of
age, and of counsel, without constraining him by an authority
which would have wounded and divided the family, before the
royalist emigrants, and in the face of Europe.
Amongst the young princes, the Duke de Berry, his father's
favourite, appeared to follow the premature and adventurous
policy of the Count d'Artois; the other, the Duke d'Angou-
lême, with a modest spirit, reflective and subordinate, was
obedient to the inspirations of his uncle Louis XVIII. The
Duchess d’Angoulême, equally venerated by both courts, of
London and of Hartwell, the victim of the Revolution, had no
other policy than her tears and her resentment against the
persecutors of her father. Everything which dated from his
Scaffold appeared to her either madness or crime. No one
could blame those prejudices which were, so to speak, sanctified
in her by filial piety and by the blood of her family. But this
princess had, more than any member of her family, that manli-
ness of heart, and that intrepidity of resolution which she had
received from the veins of Maria. Theresa. She did all in her
power to infuse their heroism into the mind of her husband.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 383
Indifference of the French and the Allies to their claims.
III.
Louis XVIII. yielded then, rather than agreed from con-
viction, to the entreaties of the Count d'Artois and of his
nephews, that they should quit England, and risk themselves
on the continent in the mêlée of events which the Coalition
was about to produce in France. The British Government
granted a passage to these princes on the 14th of January,
1814, on board English ships of war. They sailed with the
vague hope of finding a throne under the wrecks with which
war and policy were about to overwhelm their country; but
they were not summoned thither by any party. La Vendée
was torpid, the south was waiting the march of events, public
opinion looked on, the centre was arming, the army was fight-
ing. Paris, ruled by the Imperial court, by the functionaries,
by the police, and by the national guard—that armed citizen-
ship, indifferent about quarrels for the throne, but devoted to
patriotism and good order—offered no handle for explosions of
sentiment in favour of a forgotten dynasty. A murmur alone
was beginning to rise here and there, for the name of that
banished race which had ruled over our forefathers, and which
appeared, in the rear of threatening events, like a resurrection,
or an ultimate possibility of Providence. Some timid corre-
spondents of Louis XVIII. Scarcely ventured to give him,
from time to time, some general information on the state of the
public mind. Some Parisian Saloons, and some chateaux flat-
tered themselves mysteriously with the hope of a restoration
of the dynasty of their hearts. Some light threads of royalist
plots became visible, more like a chimera than a reality, in-
trigues rather than conspiracies, dreams rather than enter-
prises, exaggerated by the self-importance and vanity of some
speculators in public opinion. This was the state of France in
January, 1814. The armies of the allies presented no greater
opening and no greater handle to the designs of the three
princes of the house of Bourbon. They were, however, about
to try their chance.
384 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13,
The Duke d'Artois enters France.
IV
The Count d'Artois and his two sons divided amongst them
the continent and the different frontiers of France. The
Count resolved to throw himself into the midst of the
Russian, Austrian, and Prussian armies, which were entering
upon the north and east of France. He sent his eldest son,
the Duke d'Angoulême, to Spain, to precede or to follow the
great Anglo-Spanish army, which was advancing on the south
and on the west. The Duke de Berry, his second son, the
most rash in his resolutions, went to the island of Jersey, to
go from thence in a vessel and land in Normandy, where the
most puerile and the most perfidious information of the royalist
agents of Hartwell, flattered him that he would be surrounded,
on disembarking, by an army of 50,000 men, already organ-
ized under the drapeau blanc. Foreign lands always make
Pretenders credulous, because the hope of once more seeing
their country always goes for half in the illusions which in-
terested agents make them conceive.
V.
The Count d’Artois disembarked in Holland, with a small
court, which increased on the road—M. De Trogoff, De Wals,
D'Escars, De Polignac, De Bruges, and his most assiduous
counsellor, the Abbé de Latil. From Holland they ascended
the Rhime on the German side, and entered France by Switz-
erland. He did not in any part precede the Austrian invasion,
and the generals of this army gave him neither obstacle nor
assistance. They allowed him to enter unperceived, like a
simple emigrant, into the towns they occupied. The people,
intimidated by the foreign occupation, did not move upon his
passage. A few gentlemen, in small numbers, and with
extreme circumspection, arrived only one by one, from the neigh-
bouring towns and provinces, to present him with their fidelity,
and submit to him a revival of the Coblentz plans, with
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 385
His situation in the midst of the Allies.
-*—
imaginary populations, indifferent until then about his name.
After a short residence at Pontarlier he went to Vesoul. The
recollection of the reported intrigues between Fouché, Borel,
and Pichegru made him think that these departments of
Franche Comté would rise on his approach, with the double
famaticism of Spanish catholicism and emigrant royalty. The
prince was sadly undeceived at the first step. They saw him
pass with indifference. The Austrian commandants refused
to open the gates of Vesoul to him, and would not allow him
to enter but as a simple traveller. He was forbidden to assume
any title which might prejudice the question of the throne in
France. Some visits, received in a hotel of the city, were the
only reception he got from the populace. The congress of
Chatillon, which was still negociating with the plenipotentiaries
of Napoleon, chilled the souls of the people, and made a
solitude around a prince who might be a king to-day and
proscribed to-morrow.
WI.
But he hoped better things from the Russian armies, which
occupied Lorraine. He demanded of them open protection
and support for his cause; but the Russian generals harshly
eluded his request. They authorized him, however, to go to
Nancy, but alone, without cockade, without decoration, without
any other political title than his name, and on condition that
he would not lodge in any public edifice. The Count d'Artois,
thus denationalized, repaired to Nancy, where he received
the hospitality of a simple citizen. He there established a
little centre of secret negociations with the generals of the
allied powers, and still more misty manoeuvres with the ambi-
tious malcontents of the party of M. de Talleyrand, and with
some royalists of Paris. The Baron de Vitrolles was the most
active, the most insinuating, and the most intrepid agent of
this wandering court. He penetrated even to the Emperor
Alexander, and made this prince believe in an immense
royalist cause which only existed in his wishes; he dispelled
from his mind, and the minds of his ministers, the idea of the
boundless power of Napoleon over the hearts of the French;
386 *IISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Activity of M. de Vitrolles.
he flew from Paris to Nancy, from Nancy to Saint Dizier,
from the Count d'Artois to M. de Talleyrand, from M. de
Talleyrand to Fouché, from Fouché to the royalists, and from
the royalists to the republicans, insinuating to this one a
mission, forcing a word from another, here interpreting silence,
there language, risking his liberty and his life on the high
roads between the two armies. Importunate at first, very soon
useful, and at once necessary to all, he thus combined, almost
in himself, the threads of a triple royalist negociation, of
which he had taken the initiative in his rash and agitating
disposition
WII.
The Count d'Artois, discouraged and nearly surrounded at
Nancy, by the reflux of the French army, and fearing the fate of
the Duke d'Enghien, prepared to fly again from Lorraine,
when M. de Vitrolles came to beg of him not to do violence to
his fortune by such a step, but to maintain himself, even at
the price of some dangers and some mortifications, on the line
of events. He communicated to the prince the bold and
decisive resolution which his counsels and those of Pozzo di
Borgo had induced the Emperor Alexander and Blucher to
take, to march at all hazards directly upon Paris. Might
not the prince, he said, expect everything from a capitulation
of Paris, forced in the absence of the Emperor, from the
embarrassment of the Sovereigns in proclaiming a government
in France, from the zeal of his friends, from the clever con-
nivance of M. de Talleyrand, from the complicity of Fouché,
from the weariness of the country, from the impatience for
vengeance of the republican party, ready to compound for a
liberal constitution, and, finally, from the movements in France.
VIII.
The Count d'Artois accordingly remained, and approached
the capital step by step, in proportion as the foreigners opened
the road for him. M. de Vitrolles, arrested for a moment by
the French troops, then escaped, returned to Paris, and did
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN TRANCE, 387
The Duke d'Angoulême disembarks in Spain.
not cease to keep his new master acquainted with the secret
manoeuvres which he was brewing for his cause, with the
familiars of M. de Talleyrand, with the republicans, and with
the royalists of the high aristocracy of the faubourg Saint
Germain. M. de Vitrolles had the art to make the army of
the allies believe that he was the representative of an irre-
sistible force in the interior, and to make the different parties
of the capital believe that he had the promise of the allied
powers in favour of the Bourbons. He was the frequent
concoctor and intermediate agent, by himself, of three or four
conspiracies. He conceived them; he planned and combined
them in his head; and after he had thus persuaded them all
that they were really in existence, he gave them up to events
which could not fail to serve them. It was like the conspiracy
of Malet, with the armies of Europe behind it, to give reality
to the imagination of the night, when three men, from the
depth of a prison, had engulfed the Empire, and created a
government in imagination. - -
IX.
The Duke d'Angoulême found himself nearly in the same
perplexity on the frontiers of Spain. He had disembarked at
Saint Jean-de-Luz with some aides-de-camp, and he followed
the retreats and advances of the English army, without re-
ceiving either power or encouragement from Lord Wellington.
From the head quarters of this army, the young prince scattered
royalist proclamations amongst the Pyrenees, and on the shores
of the ocean. “I am come,” said he ; “I am in France; I
come to break your chains; I come to display the drapeau
blanc. Rally round me, Frenchmen Let us march together
to the overthrow of tyranny. My hopes will not be deceived.
I am the son of your kings, and you are Frenchmen?”
Marshal Soult, who commanded the French army opposed
to that of Wellington, replied to this seduction of his troops,
by addresses to his own soldiers, who repulsed with indignant
insults these incentives to the defection of the army.
“Soldiers!” said the still faithful lieutenant of Napoleon,
388 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Marshal Soult's address to his troops.
“the general who commands the army, against which we are
fighting every day, has the impudence to provoke you to sedition.
He speaks of peace, and calls you to a civil war ! They have
the infamy to excite you to betray your oaths to the Emperor.
This offence can only be avenged in blood. To arms | Let us
devote to public opprobrium and execration all those French
who would favour the insidious projects of our enemies. Let
us fight to the last the enemies of our august Emperor and of
our country ! Hatred to all traitors' War to the death to
those who would attempt to divide us! Let us contemplate
the prodigious efforts of our great Emperor, and his signal
victories, and let us die with arms in our hands rather than
survive our honour !"
X.
These reproaches of Soult against Wellington were unjust.
The English general remained inflexible to the solicitations of
the friends of the Duke d'Angoulême, and refused, with a
prudent and blunt fidelity, all encouragement to the cause of
the Bourbons, lest he might have to abandon after he had
compromised it. The secret correspondence of this general
with his government, with the conspirators of Bordeaux, and
with the Duke d'Angoulême himself, since published, attest
a probity of character and a reserve in promising, which do
honour to his command. Wellington was, on the Southern
frontier, the general of the British government, which, of all
others, was the one that had the fewest measures to keep with
the Emperor. The insurrection of the Pyrenees, of Bordeaux,
and of Toulouse, might essentially assist his military operations.
The drapeau blanc, displayed in the provinces on the faith of
the support of England to that cause, might carry off whole
departments and corps d'armée from the standard of Soult:
but Wellington would not purchase these advantages at the
price of falsehood, or even of the concealment of his real
intentions. He did not wish to expose the royalists to temp-
tations, to insurrection without acknowledgment, which would
deliver them afterwards to the vengeance of Bonaparte. He
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 389
Attitude of the Duke of Wellington.
wrote constantly to his government to deter it from these
incitements to royalty.
“Twenty years have elapsed,” he wrote to the prime
minister, “since the princes of the house of Bourbon have
quitted France. They are less known in France than the
princes of any other royal house of Europe. It is necessary,
doubtless, for the peace of the world, that Europe should expel
Bonaparte; but that he should be replaced by a prince of the
house of Bourbon, or by any other prince of royal lineage, is of
little consequence.”
He wrote with equal frankness and severity to the Duke
d’Angoulême, to reproach him, or to interdict him from using
any language which might represent to the French people that
he was supported by the Duke of Wellington.
XI.
For five whole months the Duke of Wellington persisted in
the same coldness, and the Duke d'Angoulême lingered at the
outposts under the same discouragement. The English army
regulated its advance upon Bordeaux according to the progress
which the armies of Alexander and of Blucher were making in
the north. The infallible genius of Wellington, everywhere
and at all times, was prudence. To advance a little, never
to fall back, but rather to die in the position taken up, and to
leave nothing to fortune but its chances,—this is the greatness
of the English Hannibal. Bordeaux called to him in vain; he
did not listen.
This great city was impatient to throw off the yoke of
Napoleon. Bordeaux was at once the city of the Girondists
and of the Vendéans; revolutionary, liberal, and intelligent as
the friends of Vergniaud; royal, enthusiastic, and daring as
Charette and La Rochejaquelein; and the connecting tie of
the west and the south. Bordeaux was, moreover, a commer-
cial city, the great port of our colonies, and the harbour of our
merchant navy, at that time stagnating in its waters, instead
of exporting to London and the Baltic the wines of Gironde,
and bringing from St. Domingo the rich cargoes of our sugars
390 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Royalist conspiracy at Bordeaux.
and our coffees. Under all these titles Bordeaux was the city
of opposition to the government of Bonaparte. This govern-
ment of war and of despotism had annihilated thought, branded
eloquence as a crime, mutilated liberty, sold Louisiana, dis-
dained or lost the colonies, blocked up the seas, destroyed
maritime commerce, and reduced Bordeaux to penury and
humiliation. Every class of the population, Sailors, merchants,
advocates, farmers, all opinions, revolution or royalism, were
mingled together in one universal hatred of the iron regime of
Napoleon. Bordeaux longed for the fall of his despotism, as
insuring its own resurrection. No city, therefore, could be
better chosen for the centre of a secret conspiracy, and the
focus of a decisive explosion, against an Empire which weighed
heavily on the affections in La Vendée, on opinions in the
Gironde, and on the interests of the whole of this blockaded
shore of the ocean.
XII.
This conspiracy had been organized there since the Russian
disasters, between a small number of the inhabitants of Bor-
deaux of all classes, and some gentlemen of La Vendée. These
open conspirators had no occasion to confide their secret views
to the multitude; for they were certain to follow on the very
day when the conspiracy should be ripe for exploding. The
hearts of the crowd were almost unanimous for the conspi-
rators, and the national war had only to change its colours
to be the army of an insurrection. The municipal authorities
of the city, and M. Linch, mayor of Bordeaux, came to an un-
derstanding with M. de la Rochejaquelein, brother to the hero
of La Vendée, and with the emissaries of the Duke d'Angou
lême. Strange to say, it was the English general himself who
restrained the explosion of Bordeaux. The royalist committee
of this city had sent him several deputations, soliciting him to
advance with confidence, and occupy the city; but this he
declined doing. General Lord Beresford, who commanded the
advance-guard, at length received orders to approach the city;
but, at the same time, he received an order from Lord Wel-
lington to abstain rigidly from exciting any insurrection against
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 391
Reception of the Duke d'Angoulême by the inhalitants of Bordeaux
the imperial government, and from entering into any engage-
ment with the speculative cause of the Bourbons. Lord
Beresford, more strongly influenced than his general by the
entreaties of the Duke d’Angoulême and by the enthusiasm
of Bordeaux, advanced on the city with 15,000 men, and tole-
rated the presence of the Duke d’Angoulême at his head
quarters. On his approach the conspiracy broke out. The
commissioner of Louis XVIII., M. de Saint Germain, went to
the Hotel de Ville, accompanied by all the royalist youth of the
country, confirmed the mayor, M. Linch, and the municipal
council in their functions, who became Supreme on the flight
of the imperial authorities. M. de Saint Germain administered
to them the oath of fidelity to the King.
On the following day, the 12th March, the whole city
accompanied their magistrates to meet the Duke d'Angoulême,
who was advancing with the English army. The authorities,
on seeing him, tore off the symbols of the Empire, which they
had till then worn, threw them in the dust, and hoisted the
white cockade. “Take care,” said Beresford to them; “per-
haps you ruin yourselves the moment you repudiate Napoleon.
The allied powers are still negociating with him at the congress
of Chatillon. However, you are your own masters. Your
resolutions do not concern me. I take possession of your city,
in the name of the belligerent powers.”
XIII.
The Duke d'Angoulême marched alone, at a certain dis-
tance from the English columns, surrounded by the youth of
Bourdeaux and of LaVendée. This cortège, with cries of “Vive
le Roi!” carried with it the excited populace ; and the duke
responded to the acclamations of the people by promises which
resounded joyfully in the heart of the country: “No more
war ! no more conscription no more duty on wines 1’’ The
drapeau blanc was suddenly unfolded on all the public edifices,
and, floating from the windows of all the houses, saluted the
return of the exiled dynasty. M. Lainé, whose courage and
the anger of Bonaparte had pointed out to the esteem and
$92 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13
Wellington's letter to the Duke d'Angoulême.
popularity of La Gironde—a man who pleased the republicans
by his opinions, the royalists by his horror of tyranny, and all
by his eloquence and his virtue—was invested with Supreme
authority, in the name of the consummated revolution. This
stroke convulsed the south, and produced corresponding move
ments in the centre of the Empire,
XIV.
But it did not affect Iord Wellington. This general,
tempted in vain by M. Linch, by the Duke d’Angoulême, and
by the royalists of the two provinces, refused to go to the
extremity of taking on his own responsibility the revolutionary
movements which he was entreated to support, by sending
some troops into the rising provinces. He reprimanded Lord
Beresford for having shown the least public preference for the
royalist cause, and he repulsed, with inflexibility, the demands
of the Duke d'Angoulême.
“It is against my advice and my opinion,” he replied to
this prince, after the 12th of March, “that certain persons of
the city of Bordeaux have thought proper to proclaim King
Louis XVIII. These persons have not given themselves any
trouble; they have not furnished one farthing, nor levied a
single soldier to sustain their cause; and now, because they
have incurred some danger, they accuse me of not supporting
them with my troops. I don't know if I am not going beyond
the line of my duty in lending your cause the least protection
or the slightest support. The public must know the truth.
If within ten days more you do not contradict the proclamation
of the Mayor of Bordeaux, which assigns to me the duty of
protecting the Bordeaux royalists, I shall publicly falsify it
myself.”
But while Lord Wellington was thus rigidly keeping him-
self in reserve, the course of events at Paris was leading
France and the allies to the complete overthrow of the
Empire.
With respect to the Duke de Berry being speedily unde-
ceived as to the pretended insurrection in Normandy, which
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 393
The Duke de Berry at Jersey.—State of Paris.
was to receive him on the shore, and to conduct him in triumph
to the very gates of Paris, he remained in the island of Jersey
in sight of France, apprehending a snare of the police of
Bonaparte, in every new proposal of a landing which he re-
ceived from the west. He still, however, maintained some
insignificant correspondence with the subaltern agents of roy-
alism in Paris; and he did not leave the island for that city
until after the revolution had been completed, and quietly
secured on the throne with his uncle Louis XVIII.
XV.
We have left Paris, after the entrance of the allies, fluc-
tuating between the different parties which the irretrievable
downfall of Napoleon, now universally hailed, left in France.
We have beheld the small number of royalists issuing from the
noble families, or the literary and liberal clubs of the capital,
meet together, the day of the entry of the sovereigns, on the
Boulevards, declare themselves for the return of the Bourbons,
and endeavour (without opposition, although without support
from the populace who were equally disaffected towards the
Empire) to deceive the eyes of the strangers, as to their
strength, by the energy of their enthusiasm. Every succeed-
ing hour had given them more stability and more audacity.
Paris and all France were in one of those periods of prostration
and fluctuation, frequent in the history of nations, when a few
active, bold, and well-concerted bands are sufficient to give an
unexpected and general current to affairs.
M. de Talleyrand, the Abbé Louis, the Abbé de Pradt,
Archbishop of Malines, chaplain of the Emperor—first the
flatterer and then the insulter of his fortunes, (a man whose
nature was intellectual but turbulent, and disrespectful of itself
in its versatility); M. de Vitrolles, the Duke d'Alberg, M. de
Jaucourt, the proprietors of the Journal des Débats, Laborie,
who was inveterate in plotting, and furious in intrigues; the
two Bertins, friends of M. de Chateaubriand (hackmeyed since
1789 in revolutionary matters, and possessing a superiority of
tactics and of intellect which constituted them true statesmen
Z.
394 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Bool: 13.
The Royalist parties at Paris.
of public opinion); the Abbé de Montesquiou, M. de Chateau.
briand himself, a single page of whose writing then bent destiny
to his opinions; Matthew de Montmorency, a great name and a
great soul; Sosthène de la Rochefoucault, his son-in-law, whose
devotedness was a passion; all Madame de Staël's party; a few
of the heads of the republican party, who had outlived tyranny
in the Senate ; the young aristocracy and the young literati,
in a hurry to rush, with the impetuosity of youthful blood, into
novelty, under antique names; and, lastly, the ever foremost
party of those who veer with the wind, and who seize the
opportunity of the first hours of a reign to occupy the avenues
to favour and power;-such were the prime agents of the agi-
tation which led to the movements of the Restoration.
Nevertheless, two camps were already visibly marked out
in the royalist party; those who wished to recall the Bourbons
as masters, and those who wanted to admit them on conditions,
and oblige them to associate with their reign the men of the
Empire, the Senate, and constitutional principles, in order that
their return might neither be the ruin of their political fortunes,
nor an apostasy from the Revolution.
XVI.
This latter party, which was under the especial direction of
M. de Talleyrand, and into which he succeeded in drawing the
Bmperor Alexander, purposely retarded the current of royalist
opinion, and negociated, sometimes in secret, sometimes openly,
with Louis XVIII., still at Hartwell, to obtain from him pledges
and concessions, relying on the shadow of that Senate which
was already ruined in the minds of the nation, and vainly en-
deavoured to regain a little esteem by interposing, as the
representatives of the liberties it had sold, between the king
and the people; but it was too evident that it represented
nothing but its own cupidity and all the shameful servilities of
the reign of Napoleon. The hypocrisy of the Senate, at this
critical juncture, was another act of baseness, which rather de-
graded than popularized it in the estimation of the country.
The constitution which it demanded, as a condition of its recall
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 395
Discussions between the Senate and the Abbé de Montesquiou.
of the Bourbons, was nothing more than a stipulation for its own
endowments and honours. It had once sold liberty, and wanted
to sell it again; but the people were not to be deceived. Four
or five great characters alone out of this body had escaped the
general corruption, and sought to discover, among the ruins of
the Empire, some of the foundations of ancient liberty.
XVII.
The Senate, in several meetings of the committee, proposed
the basis of the declaration of principles which it would re-
quire any government to accept as a preliminary. It did not yet
name the Bourbons; as it desired, before naming them, that
Louis XVIII. should explain himself, and declare by what right,
and on what conditions, he re-claimed the throne. The Abbé
de Montesquiou, the confidential agent of this prince with the
Senate and in the provisional government, insisted that the
Senators should, in the first instance, recognise the authority of
the Ring. M. de Talleyrand, complaisant to all, wavered
between both parties, advising both, prompting resistance on the
one hand and concessions on the other. He was in daily con-
versation with the senators; maintaining secret correspondence
with Hartwell, and still more guarded relations with the court
of Artois at Nancy, through M. de Vitrolles; intimate with the
Emperor Alexander, with Pozzo di Borgo, M. de Nesselrode,
and M. de Metternich; guided by circumstances, changing
every hour, and faithful to one interest alone—that of his own
importance and future prospects.
To give an account of the events which transpired in Paris,
between the downfall of Napoleon and the entry of the Bourbons,
would be only to describe the fluctuations of this long and
tiresome intrigue, to make the Bourbons believe that the Senate
had the power of awarding the Empire, and to make the
Senate believe that the Bourbons feared and wished to compound
with it. The Bourbons, without doubt, had to Compromise, for
sake of their security, with the spirit of the time, which had
sprung youthful and impatient from the ruins of fallen despo.
tism; but from this time forward an irresistible movement
*
396 HISTORY OIF I H E RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Public feeling in favour of the Restoration.
impelled France towards them by a sense of their necessity, and
it was not in the power of the Senate to retard this movement,
any more than it was in the power of M. de Talleyrand to
accelerate it. Napoleon was the antipathy of Europe, the
Republic was the terror of the aristocracies and thrones, and the
regency of Marie-Louise was but the guardianship of Austria;
while the Duke d'Orleans, then unknown, was a description of
family usurpation, the most suspicious and dangerous to dynas-
ties; and the division of France was a crime against nationality,
and therefore impossible. The necessity of peace, the impa-
tience to free the country from foreign occupation, the disgust
of glory, the exhaustion of wealth and of population, the influ-
ence of foreign cabinets who could find no solid pledge of
reconciliation except in the legitimate princes, the impossibility
of leaving a conquered people longer in suspense, together
with recollections, fears and hopes, all drove the political
feelings of France to the Restoration. Even the army did not
resist, and its chiefs hastened to welcome the new princes.
Men arrogate to themselves the work of God, when they
pretend to have created such movements as these; yet they in
reality but follow them ; all individual acts being lost in these
great instinctive impulses of epochs and of people. Bonaparte
called himself the man of Destiny, and the Bourbons, in 1814,
might have called themselves the men of Providence; for they
returned, in spite of all men, with the reflux of a Revolution that
had completed its round of vicissitude and devastation,
XVIII.
The discussions of M. de Montesquiou and the senators, on
a compact between the nation and the Bourbons, were but the
dogmatic puerilities of a body which did not represent any-
thing, and a minister who represented nothing but shadows,
and turned on the preamble of a constitution, whether it should
declare that it was the work of the nation, or that it was the
gift of royalty. They, however, agreed in the nature of the
institutions which should surround the new monarchy. The
representative system, divided into two chambers, and all the
1814.] OF MONAHCHY IN FRANCE. 397
Recognition of Louis XVIII. as King of France.
liberties of religion, of opinion, and of discussion, to become
the common right of the constitutional kingdom, were equally
admitted by both parties, each giving way a little, not in prin-
ciples but in terms, and veiling by vagueness or omissions the
articles on which they differed. By the assistance of these
mutual compositions of M. de Montesquiou and of the Senate,
this body, on the 6th of April, called “to the throne of France
Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, of France, brother of the last king,
and, after him, the other members of the family of the Bour-
bons in the ancient order.”
But, in the very letter that M. de Montesquiou addressed
to Hartwell, to announce to the King this act of the Senate, he
prepared that prince against the obligatory character of the
constitution obtruded on him.
“This constitution need not embarrass you,” said he to his
master. “Where is the authority ? and where the mandate
of the Senate 2 On entering France, publish a royal edict,
and give privileges to the nation yourself. Do not treat with
this despised Senate, but with some few of its members,
accessible to all promises of personal advantage. The nation
wishes for the old regime.”
XIX.
Louis XVIII., with the circumspection which characterised
his policy, wisely left these impotent intrigues in Paris to wear
themselves out, secure beforehand of reaping the benefit of
the general apathy, and of dictating conditions which his pre-
mature presence would have obliged him to submit to. He
waited, reflected, and debated within himself and with his
favourites, dallying with the accomplishment of his ambition.
Sure of the throne, he seemed to enjoy it in perspective, with-
out hurrying to approach it, and caused himself to be wished
for as the solution of a difficulty, and hoped for as a mystery,
knowing that the impatience of each succeeding day increased
his strength, and that the enthusiasm of the nation towards
him would be proportioned to the perplexity under which it
was wasting away
398 HIS'I'ORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13,
Political principles of the Duke d'Artois.
XX.
The Count d'Artois was entirely opposed to these senti.
ments. This prince believed it was necessary to surprise the
nation, not to make them wait, and, less intelligent than his
brother, imagined that the movement of France towards the
Bourbons was the result of affection, and not of reason. He
flattered himself that his presence would carry this affection
to a pitch of frenzy; and that he would conquer France by a
single look. His familiars about him, and his correspondents
in Paris, encouraged him in this illusion. Beholding in him
the representative of aristocracy and of royalty after their own
hearts, the prince of their youth, the Charles II. of their
dreams, and the firm opposer of all innovation, they looked
upon Louis XVIII. merely as a beginning. In their eyes the
Count d'Artois was the Restoration in himself, and they intox-
icated him with the idea of his future popularity.
This prince, deluded by these adulations of the aristocratic
party, which had influenced him from his youth, assumed more
authority and importance than was proper in a prince of the
second rank. He had taken to himself, as a revival of his old
position during the emigration, the title of lieutenant-general
of the kingdom, which Louis XVIII. left him on sufferance,
but which he had not given to him. This title, thus half
usurped and half conceded, ascribed to the Count d'Artois all
the royal functions and powers in the absence of his brother.
Louis XVIII. did not see this unlimited power exercised in
his name, and without his authority, either without umbrage
or inquietude. He was afraid that interested and ambitious
counsels might make the Count d'Artois affect an authority
over public opinion, which might trouble, at a later period, the
authority of his own reign. He apprehended that his brother
might, beforehand, render unpopular his own return by some
acts, or by some expressions calculated to hurt the new spirit
of the people. He confided in his conscience; but he did not
confide either in his understanding or his solidity. What he
feared most of all was the submission of the Count d'Artois to
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 399
His departure from Nancy.
ecclesiastical influence, and his infatuation for the emigrant
nobility. Louis XVIII. knew France well enough to under-
stand that the freedom of worship and equality of conditions
were the two passions of the Revolution, which had survived
the Reign of Terror as well as the Despotism ; and that to
present to France the royalty of the House of Bourbon,
between a bishop claiming the rights of his altars, and a
nobleman claiming the privileges of his birth, was to throw
two fatal shadows upon the first steps of the Restoration.
XXI.
Uncertain of the reception which awaited him in Paris, the
Count d'Artois had remained up to this period at Nancy. M.
de Talleyrand seeing that the premeditated indecision of the
provisional government could not continue much longer, and
that public opinion began to reproach him with sacrificing the
interests of France to those of the Senate, secretly abandoned
the lost cause of this body; and he wrote at length, through
M. de Vitrolles to the Count d'Artois, to beg of him to come
and take the government in quality of lieutenant governor of
his brother. The prince immediately departed, and travelled
through Lorraine and Champagne, amidst the enthusiasm of
their respective inhabitants (who saw in him a liberator), and
with cries of peace, and abolition of conscription and taxes.
He received on his journey the plan of a Constitution, voted by
the Senate as a condition of the acknowledgment of his power.
He disdained to reply to this act, or to discuss it; for he
thought, and with reason, that the discredited voice of the
Senate would be stifled on his entrance into Paris by the accla-
mations of a people who would recognise in him the heir of a
throne anterior to the date of their authority.
When he had arrived at the chateau de Livry, at the gates
of Paris, the residence of Count Charles de Damas, one of his
officers, he received there the visit of M. de Choiseul Gouffier,
sent to him by M. de Talleyrand, and charged by the latter
with a note from the provisional government, which indicated
400 £IISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
His arrival at Paris.
to the prince under what title he would be invested with power,
on entering the palace of his fathers. “The pretensions of the
Senate are inadmissible,” said M. de Talleyrand; “the brother
and representative of the King cannot share his authority with
a commission of the Senate. The exercise, pure and simple,
of the authority of lieutenant-general is dangerous. The
government therefore proposes that the King's brother be
named, by a decree of the Senate, Chief of the Provisional
Government.”
The prince did not stop at this compromise any more than
the other; nor did he reply to it. The impatience of Paris,
excited by the royalists, and shared by the people, who never
comprehend any but simple ideas, opened the gates in spite of
the Senate, and in defiance of the scruples of the provisional
government. The multitude flew towards Livry to meet the
prince. M. de Talleyrand, the government, the authorities,
the constituted bodies, and the marshals, allowed themselves
also to be drawn thither, by one of those outbursts which no
policy can quell or retard. The president of the provisional
government received the prince at the Barrière de Bondy, and
some words were exchanged between him and M. de Talley-
rand, as vague and insignificant as congratulations usually are
They decided nothing as to the conditions proposed, rejected,
or consented to between the prince and the people. The Count
d'Artois was received in his quality of a Bourbon, and com-
ducted to the Tuileries, as the mansion of his forefathers.
XXII.
All the high nobility, and all the principal citizens of Paris,
had proceeded to the Barrière on horseback to form a cortège
for the King's brother. The Damas, the Luxembourgs, the
Crillons, the Mortements, the Rohans, the Montmorencys
(mingled with the great officers and marshals of the Empire,
Ney, Marmont, Oudinot, Moncey, Kellerman, and Nansouty),
either preceded, or followed the prince:—some, already deco-
rated with the white cockade, like the Count d'Artois himself,
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 401
The enthusiasm of his reception.
and others still wearing the tri-colour cockade, under which they
had, up to that period, fought against the Restoration. The
mounted national guard, who had turned out spontaneously,
had decorated themselves, the evening before, with the symbol
so agreeable to the eyes of Bourbons. They brandished their
sabres over the heads of the populace, shouting and spreading
everywhere around them the cry of Vive le roi! The Count
d'Artois was the object of attraction for every eye, and for the
universal enthusiasm. This prince rode gracefully, mounted
on a magnificent horse; he preserved, under the maturity of
years, and under the traces of long exile, that serene beauty
of countenance, that mild haughtiness of expression, that ele-
gance of figure, and that appearance of manly youth, which
recalled to the memory of all the idol of the court, and the
external model of the aristocracy. He had all those natural
gifts which attract the eye and touch the heart of a multitude.
The Restoration of exiled royalty could not be personified
under features more graceful and imposing. The name of Bour-
bon, the sorrows of exile, the joys of return, and the shade of
Louis XVI., his brother, surrounded him with a respect, a
prestige, and a feeling for the past which bowed all heads before
him. His friends circulated in the crowd a saying which was
not his, but which was admirably invented to open all hearts to
him, and to prepare for him universal plaudits:—“I see my
country again, and I am happy. There is nothing changed in
France; there is only one Frenchman the more l’
He directed his course through the multitude towards the
cathedral, to offer up his thanks there to the God of his fathers,
before he should again cross the threshold of their palace. The
whole population of Paris formed his cortège to the Tuileries;
and at the moment he dismounted at the entrance, an immense
white standard was unrolled to the breeze on the summit of
the edifice. The prince saw once more, with a mixture of joy
and tears, those apartments and those gardens, full to his eyes
of the grandeurs of his race, the graces of the queen, the
anguish, the captivity, and the death of Louis XVI., of the
tumults of the Convention, and of the trophies of the Empire.
On seeing again the paternal dwelling, he found it empty of
J.02 IIISTORY OF TIHF. RESTO IRA'ſ ION [BOOK 13.
-** ****
Meeting of the Emperor Alexander and the Count d'Artois.
all his relatives, and full of the difficulties, the perils, and the
catastrophes of the throne. Between such a return, and an
eternal exile, we cannot say which the heart of an ordinary
man would have preferred; but the heart of a prince was there
soon distracted from nature by the teasing of parties, by the
cares of government, by the opposing counsels of revolution
and counter-revolution face to face, and by the perspective of
personal ambition.
XXIII,
The Emperor Alexander, who until then had inhabited the
hotel of M. de Talleyrand, and pronounced, without appeal, on
the measures of the provisional government, immediately
quitted this seat of government, and went to reside, as a simple
foreign general, in the palace de l'Elysée. He paid a visit to
the Count d'Artois at the Tuileries, and both princes conversed
together without witnesses. The Emperor Alexander, already
circumvented by M. de Talleyrand, and by the men of the
Empire, counselled the prince to constitutional measures,
which alone could render a Restoration popular and durable.
The Senate, conquered by popular enthusiasm, presented them-
selves at the palace, and recognised his title of Lieutenant-
general of the kingdom. The Count d'Artois responded by
vague promises of Constitution, but without too formally en-
gaging the King, his brother. Nevertheless, the speech which
he read to the deputation of the Senate, drawn up by Fouché
at the hotel of M. de Talleyrand, and obtruded by the Emperor
Alexander, comprised the text of all the liberties and of all the
national guarantees claimed by the republican party, which had
now become the liberal one.
He received, on the same day, the members of the legislative
body present in Paris. The president of this assembly, Felix
Faulcon, omitted, in his speech to the prince, everything that
could resemble a summons, or even a condition of constitutional
pledges. The Count d'Artois, though cold towards the Senate,
was cordial with the legislative body. He affected to see, in
these members of the national representation, the veritable
organs of the country.
1814 J OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 403
The Count nominates a Council of Government.—M. de Vitrolles.
XXIV.
Three days after this, the Count d'Artois constituted his
government. It was a prolongation of the provisional govern-
ment, and took the form of a great council of state, assembled
around the prince, to assist him with its advice, and to administer
in his name. This council of government was composed of
M. de Talleyrand, Marshal Moncey, Marshal Oudinot, the
Duke d'Alberg, the Count de Jaucourt, General de Beurnonville,
General Dessoles, and the Abbé de Montesquiou. The Baron
de Vitrolles, until then the officious mediator between the
prince and the dominant parties at Paris, was appointed secre-
tary of the council, with the title of secretary of state. Lodged
at the Tuileries, near the person of the prince—the veritable
confidential minister of the Count d'Artois in the midst of his
unknown or suspected ministers—M. de Vitrolles (useful to
the prince in the council, and to the council when with his
master; dwelling sometimes on his services to royalty, as an
active agent of the Restoration, sometimes on his previous
connections with Talleyrand and Fouché,) played for some days
the part of a useful man. Having obtained power by some
months' intermeddling in events, M. de Vitrolles at once
established himself in the confidence of the prince by his
devotion, of the zealots of the constitution by his secret con-
nection with them, and of the royalists by his fervour. A man
of action rather than of reflection, without any firm footing
among any of the parties, and obliged to flatter them all to
induce them to accept his domination, M. de Vitrolles was a
good scout for the ambushes into which a new prince might
fall on arriving in an unknown region; but he was a bad
counsellor to trace for him a political line on a grand scale.
A servant rather than a minister, too devoted to be independent,
and too much in want of everybody to dominate over any one,
he made the mind of his master waver during some weeks
between imperialism, liberalism, and absolutism. He then
drew him, out of spite, into that underhand opposition, and into
those hidden manoeuvres which falsified the political life of the
404 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Commissioners-general appointed.—Convention with the Allies.
* * =
Count d'Artois, embarrassed the reign of his brother, and
fatally prejudiced his own,
XXV.
The lieutenant-general of the kingdom hastened to nomi-
nate commissioners-general, with a mission to procure the
authority of the King to be recognised in all the provinces. The
majority of these commissioners were chosen amongst men who
were familiar with the prince, some of them amongst the
marshals and generals who had been first to court the favour of
the new reign. They no where experienced any resistance.
The whole of France, with the enthusiasm of hope, hailed the
return of the Bourbons. The army alone continued mute and
melancholy; but its distraction never broke out into sedition.
It passed from the Emperor to the King with the decency of
its regret, but with the unanimity and the discipline of its pa-
triotism. It felt that the nation had paid too dearly for its glory,
and that it ought to retire from the scene, to make way for the
establishment of peace. The orders of the government removed
it from the provinces occupied by the foreign troops, and for the
time sent it away beyond the Loire.
XXVI.
Ten days after the departure of Napoleon from Fontaine-
bleau, M. de Talleyrand concluded with the allied powers a
suspension of hostilities, by which he entirely disarmed France.
The fortified places, and all they contained, in arms, munition,
and artillery, were ceded to the allies. It was the complete
capitulation of a conquered country. Without prejudice to any
of the ulterior conditions of the peace which was to be executed,
the sovereigns promised, on their side, that their troops should
evacuate the frontiers of France, such as they existed in 1792,
as soon as the French troops should have vacated the places
and the territories which they still occupied on the soil of
lºurope.
A general murmur greeted this capitulation of France, which
1814.] OF MONAHC HY IN FRANCE, 405
Terms of capitulation entered into by M. de Talleyrand.
was signed, as the first act of his accession, by the Count
d'Artois. His counsellers thus made of him the executioner of
the rigours of invasion and the humiliations of conquest.
There is no doubt that a nation whose capital was occupied
by 200,000 men, would not argue freely with its conquerors
on the conditions of peace; but it could have refused to ratify
them, so spoliating and shameful as they were, by the hands of
its own government. Had the Count d'Artois been better
counselled, he ought not to have entered Paris except to relieve
France, and not to ratify, in the name of a Bourbon, those
severities, ruin, and disarmaments, which to him would be an
eternal reproach. People thought they saw in this act the
genius of Coblemtz, giving the hand to a stranger, and selling
France to re-purchase the throne. It was mothing but thought-
lessness and haste; but the discontented part of the nation
affected to see a complicity in it. This act, in a few days,
rendered the prince umpopular, as well as his counsellors and
his government. All eyes were therefore turned towards
Louis XVIII. ; and the prudence of this prince was acknow-
ledged, who had allowed his brother to commit this folly, but was
coming after him to protest against such weak precipitation.
M. de Talleyrand could have given better counsel to the prince;
but he had, above all things, on his own part, to give pledges.
He was suspected by the emigrants, odious to the bishops who
surrounded the Count d'Artois, and, though useful, disliked by
the count. It was therefore necessary for him to purchase,
by great diplomatic concessions, the support which he so much
required in the council of the allied sovereigns. It may be
supposed that he did not haggle with Europe for that favour
which made him so necessary to the Tuilerics.
XXVII.
His correspondence with Hartwell was daily contracting,
At Paris he had made use of the pretensions of the Senate,
till public opinion turned against this body; and he was not
the man to struggle vainly against opinion. He now therefore
prepared the way for the King, and was desirous of securing
406 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Political character of Talleyrand.
claims on his gratitude. Constitutional requirements were be
coming weaker every day in the general anxiety for a settle.
ment; and he had served with too much suppleness both
counter-revolution and despotism under the hand of Napoleon,
to be at all diffident in giving pledges of liberty. The best
constitution would be that which would best guarantee to him
his ascendant over the new princes, his fortune, and his dignity.
Louis XVIII. had known him before the Revolution, and
having kept his eye upon him during the Directory and during
the Empire, he did not apprehend any obstacle in him, but,
on the contrary, a willing instrument of his government. He
knew that restorations have more occasion for supple men
than any other sort of revolutions; because, in preserving the
principles, they only change the instruments of government.
Versatility and ingratitude are virtues of emergency in ministers
who wish to belong to two reigns. M. de Talleyrand had
boldly assumed this part, and nobody possessed at once more
finesse, more boldness, and more suppleness to play it out.
He belonged to the old regime by his birth, to the Revolution
by his repudiated priesthood, to the Empire by his dignities,
to Europe by his defection from the Empire, to the Restoration
by his complicity in the manoeuvres which had roused up the
Senate against Napoleon, and to all parties by his flexibility to
every passing wind. He was the type of change, the model
and the instrument of those inconstancies that a restored
sovereign must expect from the characters, the laws, and the
manners of a subdued revolution. Louis XVIII. therefore
caressed M. de Talleyrand at a distance; he neither esteemed
nor loved, but he understood him. M. de Talleyrand was in
his eyes the precious gambler of circumstances, and a com-
pendium of all those talents which are useful in making a
nation pass by graduated tints from one principle to another,
a man destined by his nature to be found quite apropos, on
the threshold of the Tuileries, to bow out the fallen dynasty,
and to introduce the new one:—an antique for the ancients, a
new man for the parvenus, -a pledge for the conquered, and
an accomplice for the conquerors, -the man for all !
1814. I O E MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 407
Variety of opinions on the future government of France.
XXVIII.
Louis XVIII., from the depth of his retreat at Hartwell,
listened to all the different voices which thus came to him
from France ; some invoking the principle of the sovereignty
of the people, others demanding the re-establishment of classes
and the States-general, some, the old constitution, as if in
France there had ever existed any other than custom, modified
by chance, and given by the power and the will of the King ;
and, finally, some others demanded free despotism, sanctified
by the right of birth, by tradition, and by religion. All, how-
ever, in this diversity of plans, recognised the convenience or
the necessity of having the Bourbons.
“What!” exclaimed M——, a publicist, at that time
obtruding the right divine on all, who were for making condi-
tions for the King's return—“what will you come then with
your bit of paper in your hand, to inform us that the prince
who is coming is not our King 2"
“We must secure the future,” replied Fouché, in an address
to the Count d'Artois, “the heavens and the earth resound
with acclamations. The transports of universal joy are really
the expression of all hearts. We must have pledges for all
opinions, guarantees for all interests. A legislator of antiquity,
and one of the most famous for his wisdom, Solon, after long
agitations, wished that the city of Minervashould be thoroughly
purified, like a temple of which it was necessary to wash the
marble. He caused the statues of the gods to be carried
through all the streets and all the squares; and he placed
reconciliation and public peace under the guarantee of Heaven.
The King will not follow the example of Charles II., who,
after having promised a general amnesty, pardoned nobody, but
mixed the spectacle of the scaffold with that of rejoicing, and
thus prepared a new dethronement for the family of the
Stuarts. I think I know the spirit of France; France is
entirely disposed to rally round the throne of the Bourbons,
if a royal and national constitution guarantees all our rights.”
4.
t)
S
HISTORY OF THE RESTORATI () N [BOOR 13.
sº-º-º-º:
Abbé de Montesquious advice to Louis XVIII.
The pure royalists replied that the best constitution was the
soul of a good king.
XXIX,
The Abbé de Montesquiou was the confidential minister of
Louis XVIII, and a member of the provisional government.
He was connected with M. de Talleyrand in policy, and with
the royalists in feeling. Placed in the centre of this tumult of
different opinions, and trying to disentangle the general spirit
in the midst of these opposing counsels, he thus wrote to
Hartwell:—
“My advice, and that of M. de Talleyrand, is, that the
Ring on entering France should simply publish a royal edict,
by which he should declare his own sovereignty, without allow-
ing himself to be clogged beforehand by a constitution null and
void. Then let the King afterwards proclaim the rights that
he will acknowledge in the nation, and the assembly of the
legislative body. The state of the finances,” he added, “decides
me to this.” &
The Count d'Artois, evidently embarrassed by the conces-
sions that he had made in his haste to enter Paris, and to
enjoy the first fruits of the government, gave neither intelli-
gence nor advice to the King his brother. He seemed afraid
of engaging himself by counsels which might have been dis-
pleasing at Hartwell, and which might be brought against him-
self at a later period, when, in the course of nature, he might
be called upon to oppose concessions. He contented himself
with sending to the King the Count de Bruges, one of his
most familiar aides-de-camp, to induce his brother to come at
length, and take the crown. The Count de Bruges expressed
to the King the real and secret thoughts of the Count d'Artois.
They were those of the emigrants and publicists of the old
regime, who looked upon all acknowledgment of the rights of
a nation and of revolutionary proceedings as a partial abdica-
tion, and as an anticipated degradation of the mystery of
royalty by right divine. The King himself, was secretly inclined
to this dogma, not by the conviction of his mind, but by
the habit of birth, wild from respect for his race; but through
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN TRANCH, 4.09
Pozzo di Borgo visits Louis XVIII. at Hartwell.
policy he leant towards an apparent compromise between the
rights of the people and the right of his sovereignty. He
only wished that this acknowledgment should be conceded, and
not forced from him by circumstances; and that the royal
origin, and the sovereign terms of this compromise between
the throne and the people should be such that the whole should
appear a gift of royalty, and that this conditional gift could be
suspended, or withdrawn, if the nation should ever pretend to
put itself on an equality with or above the throne.
At the same time that the Count de Bruges visited Hart-
well, to deliver to the IXing the rash and absolute opinions of
his brother, Pozzo di Borgo, aide-de-camp of the Emperor
Alexander, and the friend of M. Talleyrand, arrived there also
in the name of the allied powers, to induce the King to adopt
the constitutional opinions which prevailed in the council of
sovereigns and diplomatists at Paris Louis XVIII. had then
to decide in a foreign land between the two great principles
which were already contending against each other in France,
and which would doubtless be at variance during the whole of
his reign. Prudent and reflective, a negociator and temporiser,
like a prince grown old in intrigues, and in the vacillations of
a long exile, Louis XVIII, listened, and inclined by turns to
both parties. He gave hopes, and meditated oracular phrases
of deep and double meaning; but he did not decide, with an
irrevocable frankness, for either of the two parties. His own
good sense carried him to an accommodation with the times
and with public opinion; but M. de Blacas and the Duchess
d’Angoulême, the one dilatory and narrow-minded, the other
an embittered and emergetic princess—retained him still in the
prejudices of his sovereignty,
It was in this disposition of mind that he at length quitted
his country retreat at Hartwell the 18th of April, and passed
through London to return to his kingdom.
XXX.
England generally seemed to look upon the Restoration of
the Bourbons as a national triumph long preparing, and long
A. A -
4 l () HISTORY O F THE IR ESTOI&ATION [1}OOK 13.
Entry of the King of France into London.
expected by the people of Great Britain. The English nation,
moved at the voice of Burke and other orators, on the tragical
deaths of Louis XVI., of the Queen, and of the royal family,
and a witness, indignant and compassionate, of the execution of
so many victims immolated in the Reign of Terror, was consti-
tutional from instinct, and royalist from pity. The history of
the French Revolution, continually recounted and commented
on in London by emigrant royalists, was there become an epic
poem of misfortune, of crime, of the throne, and of the scaffold.
The people of England had been generous, prodigal, and hospi-
table towards the French nobility, who at that time were
emigrants, and grateful for the favours received. The English
government had contemplated at a distance the prodigies of
intrepidity of the royalist heroes and adventurers of La Vendée;
and it had assisted them with its subsidies and its squadrons.
It had afterwards fought for ten years against the usurpation of
the continent by Napoleon, in Portugal, Spain, Germany and
Sicily. It was proud of the deliverance of the world, accom-
plished by the perseverance of its policy, of its treasures, and
its armies. The fall of Napoleon and the succession to the
throne of France of a brother of Louis XVI., appeared to
the English people one of the greatest works in their history.
Their hearts were elated with joy and pride, on seeing this
sage, so long their guest, now a King, quitting his obscure
residence in the midst of their island, to go and receive from
their hands the throne of his fathers, and again to take his
place at the head of the old crowned races. The city of London,
through its whole extent, was dressed out in flags, and the
populace crowded all the roads and all the streets, through
which Louis XVIII. and the Duchess d’Angoulême passed,
from the garden door of Hartwell to the palace of the Prince
Regent. The entry of the King into London was as solemn and
as royal as his entry into his own capital. The joy of the
people was even more complete, because it was unmixed with
mortification for a country in the occupation of foreign troops,
or secret presentiments of the division of parties. The Prince
Regent went to receive the King of France on his entry into
London, and accompanied him the following day as far as Dover,
IS1 1.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 41 J
His acknowledgments to the Prince Regent on leaving England.
to bid him a royal farewell on his departure from the shores of
IEngland.
“I beg your Royal Highness,” replied the King to the
congratulations of the Prince Regent, “to accept my most
lively and most sincere thanks for the felicitations you have
addressed to me. I offer them particularly for the continued
attentions I have received, as well from your Royal Highness
as from all the members of your illustrious house. It is to
the-counsels of your Royal Highness, to this glorious country,
and to the constancy of its inhabitants, that I shall always
attribute, under Divine Providence, the re-establishment of our
house upon the throne of our ancestors, and this happy state of
affairs, which permits us to heal the wounds, to calm the passions,
and to bestow peace, repose, and happiness upon all nations.”
These words, inspired by the gratitude of the exile, but
which the dignity of the IKing of France forbade to his lips,
were at a later period the remorse of his reign, and the re-
proach of patriotism against his house. France was not only
forgotten in them, but humiliated.
3.
XXXI.
I.ouis XVIII. embarked at Dover on the 24th April, on board
the Royal Sovereign, escorted by the Jason frigate, under
salutes of artillery from the shore and from the fleet, which
saluted, from the sea and from the harbour, the departure of
this exiled dynasty going in search of a family, a people, and
a throne. The Straits were crowded with boats and vessels
dressed out in flags, forming a cortège for the ship which was
bearing the old monarchy to France. The drapeau blanc was
flying at all the masts, and the applauses and huzzas were re-
newed every moment. A calm sea, a gentle wind, and a
Serene sky favoured this manifestation of the joy of two
nations, impatient to renew the peace through a king who
seemed to be its symbol. The happiness which must have
reigned in the bosom of the exile seemed to be spread through
every heart in England, which was proud of having preserved
and restored this sovereign to his country.
4.
2
HISTORY OF 'I'HE IRESTOIRA TION [[:COI, 13.
His reception on the French coast.
Half way across, the vessel that bore the King passed from
the naval escort of the English into the midst of the cor.
tège of French boats and vessels. He found his country ad-
vancing towards him on the waves, and he entered in triumph
into the harbour of Calais. The guns of the French coast had
been answering from daylight the guns of Dover. The downs,
the capes, the jetties, the tongues of earth running into the
sea, the walls and the towers of Calais, were all covered with
a people who awaited the King as a salvation and a hope. No
division existed at that moment, either in the mind or the
hearts of the French people : and those who had neither
souvenir nor affection for the old monarchy had, at least, no
repugnance. Manifestations of joy arose from the crowd which
flocked forth from their houses. The earth itself, and the
walls, by the sound of bells and cannons, seemed to partici-
pate in this emotion of the human kind. Louis XVIII.
melted to tears, and shrewd in calculating even his sincere im-
pressions, scattered about him, to all the deputations and to
all the spectators, which surrounded his vessel, those happy
expressions in which the sentiment springs from the circum-
stance, to fly from mouth to mouth. He possessed himself of
his new country by the felicity of his answers, and fixed the
enthusiasm of others in expressing his own. Nature seemed
to have created him for such moments as this. He was the
natural genius of such Solemnities.
XXXII.
Standing on the elevated prow of the vessel, supported by
the faithful companions of his proscription, surrounded by
young France which had come forth to meet him, he extended
his arms towards the shore, and closed them upon his breast,
while raising his eyes to heaven, as if to embrace his country.
He showed at one side Madame the Duchess d’Angoulême,
that daughter of Louis XVI. to whom France was indebted in
love and in pity for the blood of her father, of her mother, and
of her aunt ; and on the other, the Prince de Condé and the
Duke de Bourbon, upon whose countenances the memory of
1814.] OF MON ARCIIY IN FRANCE. 4 13
The enthusiasm of the French in favour of Louis XVIII.
the Duke d'Enghien, their son and grandson, threw a deep
shade of sorrow, and rendered their return an event of melan
choly interest. The people, excited with the liveliest emotion,
responded to every gesture by tears and acclamations.
The King, on first touching his native soil, was desirous,
according to ancient custom, of giving thanks to the God of
his fathers, to impress a more religious character on the em-
braces of the people and their sovereign. Seated in an open
carriage, by the side of the Duchess d’Angoulême, he passed
slowly through the bending crowd to repair to the church of
Calais, where he offered up his prayers, in a pious attitude, at
the altar of his sires. The remainder of the day was consumed
in the receptions and ceremonies of his return. The popula-
tion of the north of France crowded, by deputations, upon all the
roads and into all the principal places of Calais. This country,
cold, reflective, and sensible, had guarded, better than the
lighter portions of France, the memory of the monarchy, and
their piety for the royal family. General Maison, commanding
the army of the North, an officer who had distinguished himself
in the last war by a most determined energy and patriotism,
had hastened from Lille with a part of his troops to present to
the King the first bayonets and the first homage of the army.
The following day he escorted him on his departure from
Calais. The King received this representative of the French
army and his soldiers, as if they had been serving his own
cause in serving that of his country under another chief. He
evinced for the officers and the troops that confidence which
inspires loyalty, and those expressions which efface all other
reminiscences but those of glory. He found, on the whole
route to Paris, at Boulogne, at Montreuil, at Abbeville, and at
Amiens, the same people, the same sympathising expression
of countenance, the same enthusiasm of the populace, and the
same unanimity of hope. He felt, in the spontaneous and
universal trembling of joy of his country, that he was the mas.
ter of his people, and that no one would seriously haggle with
him about his reign at Paris. It was evident to him and to
all, that if the country, confiding and changeable, had been
alone in presence of its king, he might have dictated, in an
414 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 13.
He stops at the Chateau of Compiègne.
arbitrary manner, and without obstacles, the conditions of the
new compact between the throne and the people. The
Emperor Alexander was stipulating more for liberty, than,
at this moment, liberty was inclined to stipulate for herself.
XXXIII.
Couriers from Paris joined the King every hour upon his
route, bringing him news, with the public impressions and
dispositions by confidential messages from the Abbé de Mon.
tesquiou and M. de Talleyrand. At every post the require-
ments of M. de Talleyrand seemed to relax; his counsels, at
first rigorously constitutional, became more supple and more
accommodating. However, he still begged him not to enter
Paris before he had addressed a royal proclamation to the
notion, re-assuring it for the past, and of a nature to determine
and to fix public opinion and the oath of the army. The King
followed this counsel, and decided on making a halt at the
chateau of Compiègne before he entered his capital,—either to
give himself time for reflection, or to combine his acts and
language with those of M. de Talleyrand; or else to give, even
by the slowness of his proceeding, more dignity and more
solemnity to his return, and to increase the impatience of his
capital by the apparent hesitation in his own mind. Perhaps,
also, the feelings of the individual prevailed over those of
the sovereign, and the prince wished to gratify his eyes and
his heart in the ancient residence and the old forests of this
domain of his ancestors—so dear to his youth—by resting his
eyes, for some days, on the trees, the waters, and the towers
where he had passed his early years, before he should plunge
into the turmoil of the Tuileries, which was full of the
anxieties of government, and reminiscent of tears and blood.
XXXIV.
The marshals of Napoleon, and those most intimate with
him, had hastened to meet the King before his arrival at Com-
piègne, to secure to themselves his earliest regards, and be
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE,. 4 lº
Meets a deputation of the Marshals of France.
the first to gain the confidence of the future reign. There was
Marshal Berthier, who for twelve years had not quitted the tent
or the cabinet of the Emperor; and Marshal Ney, his most in-
trepid lieutenant on the field of battle, of whom the Emperor had
said, “I have three hundred millions in gold in the vaults of
my palace, and I would give them all to ransom the life of
such a man.” These showed themselves the most eager in
the presence of his successor. Marshal Ney, on horseback
with his colleagues round the royal coach, flourished his sword
over his head, and cried aloud, as he showed the King to the
people, “Wive le Roi! There he is, my friends,-the legitimate
King ! the real King of France l’
These military men, so brave under fire, too frequently
show themselves weak-hearted before the changes incidental to
events. The people were astonished at so much versatility in
so much heroism ; and they began to suspect (what they have
since had so many occasions to acknowledge) that the habit of
obeying all governments does not create constancy in the
hearts of military men, and that the revolutions which have
to fight against them one day, have not the most obsequious
servants on the next.
The King pretended to esteem this inconstant class, who
did not, however, deceive his sagacity To encourage the
others, he loaded their adulations with honour, and he judged
of the country by the representatives of the army; but in this
he was mistaken. The men of the 18th Brumaire and of the
Empire had lost the right of bargaining for liberty, which
remained with the citizens in the civil and obscure ranks of
the population.
Marshal Berthier, in virtue of his title of chief of the
general staff, and the oldest of the marshals present, addressed
a speech to the King. One might have thought it was a voice
of the ancient monarchy yielding the homage of inviolable
fidelity to the inheritor, in an uninterrupted line of the ancient
race. “Your armies,” Sire, said he, “ of which your marshals
are now the representatives, feel happy in offering you this
day their devotion.” He then presented all Napoleon's
lieutenants, repeating to the King the names which that prince
4 16 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Receives a deputation of the Legislative body
had long been accustomed to hear mentioned as those of
inveterate supporters of the hostile cause.
The King, who was prepared for their reception, and had
arranged in his memory the principal warlike actions in which
these companions of the Emperor had distinguished themselves,
addressed each in words which recalled recollections the best
calculated to flatter their vanity, and thus captivated, by feed-
ing their pride, those who were satisfied simply to be the oljects
of his favour. At the end of the audience, he pretended to
faint under the weight of his age and infirmities, and his
familiars advancing to support him, he put them aside with a
gesture, and leaning on the arms of the marshals with an
affectation of unreserved confidence and reliance, full of
cunning and condescension: “It is on you, gentlemen,” he
said, smiling, “that I intend for the future to rely for supportſ
Draw near, and surround me: you have always been good
Frenchmen : I hope France may no more require your swords;
but if ever we should be forced to draw them, which God forbid
we should, Infirm as I am I will march with you !”
These words, and the gestures which accompanied them,
affected to enthusiasm men who only required to be excited, in
order to justify the suddenness of their interested adhesion with
the appearance of an in pulse of the heart.
XXXV.
A deputation of the legislative body had also met the King
at Compiègne. The president and orator of this deputation
was M. Bruys de Charly, deputy for Saone-et-Loire. He was
a man of commanding appearance, and possessed of a royalist
heart, judiciously though traditionally devoted to the blood of
the Bourbons and the principles of a temperate monarchy.
“Yes,” said he to the King, in a voice weakened by emotion;
“come, thou descendant of so many kings ascend the throne
on which our fathers, in former times, placed your august an-
cestors, and which we are happy to see you this day occupying.
All that we hoped for, in vain, when far from you, your Majesty
now brings us. You come to dry all tears, and to heal all
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 4 || 7
Effect of these deputations on the mind of the King.
wounds. We shall owe to you even more; for this return is
about to cement the basis of a wisely and carefully balanced
government. Your Majesty only wishes to return to the exer-
cise of those rights which suffice for the royal authority; and
the execution of the general feeling, confided to your paternal
hands, will become the more respected and assured.”
The King was aware, from his correspondence and the
newspapers, that the mation, which looked upon the Senate as
the supporters of the repudiated despotism of the Empire,
lavished the greater favour on the members of the legislative
body, from which the voices of independence had first issued,
He had the presence of mind, therefore, from his first words,
to lay great stress on the merits of the legislative body, to the
prejudice of the absent Senate. In his reply, he formally re-
cognised the members of the legislative power as the repre-
sentatives of the nation, and was not afraid of pledging his
prerogative, by speaking to them of the necessary union of his
power with the deputies of the country to secure the force of
the laws and the public happiness.
XXXVI.
The effect produced by this first meeting of the sovereign
with representatives of the army and the chosen representatives
of the people, the emotion which pervaded all ranks, the adula-
tion which bowed all heads, the counsels and the encouragement
of those old and new friends who now surrounded him, appeared
sufficient to the Ring to enable him to set at defiance the ex-
actions of that half submissive and half rebellious Senate,
which had neither sent words of greeting or a deputation to the
new master. Louis XVIII. decided on taking possession of
his throne, without entering into any conditions or stipulations
whatever with this feeble, and, at the same time, exacting and
hated power. The Emperor Alexander, more than ever in-
fluenced by the men of the Imperial court and heads of the
Senate, and who wished to preserve for himself this pledge of
security and influence in the new reign, yielded to their en-
treaties, and set out for Compiègne, for the purpose of himself
4 i8 II IS’ſ O l?Y OF THE IRESTORATION [BOOK 13.
Meeting of Louis XVIII. and the Czar of Russia.
communicating with Louis XVIII., and advancing, with his
all-powerful support, the claims of the Senate.
Louis XVIII. looked on the arrival of Alexander with a
feeling of displeasure. He knew that the popularity, with which
in Paris he was intoxicated by the Imperialists, had warped
his judgment, and that he assumed in that capital the position
of an imperious negociator between the nation and the Bourbons.
He was not ignorant of the repugnance that the young Emperor
had shown during the first days to the restoration of his family, and
he remembered that this sovereign had laid claim to and boasted
with pride and affectation of the friendship of Napoleon. In
short, he expected either imperious solicitations or a humiliating
patronage at the hands of Alexander: and his policy and pride
were equally alarmed. This was indeed the secret cause of
his hesitating to go to Paris, as also of his little progress in so
many days, and of his prolonged halt at Compiègne. But a
proper sense of his dignity, and the recollection of his royal
descent, inspired him with courage to go through the principal
task of resisting a crowned negociator, and refusing an act of
obsequiousness to one who restored to him a throme. Thus
from the first day he proved himself a king.
XXXVII.
Louis XVIII. received the Czar coldly. On the usual cour-
tesies being over, they retired to the interior of the chateau by
themselves, and had a long and earnest conversation together.
Alexander strongly endeavoured to persuade the King, that the
traditional rights of his blood, and the mystery of the divine
right of the crown, were now seen through and repudiated by
public opinion ; that it would be advisable to reign by virtue of
a new title, and by a voluntary appeal to the nation, made
through the medium of the Senate, in return for a constitution
accepted from the hands of that power of the State; that the date
of the reign of the Bourbons should be renewed and blended with
the date of the fall of the Empire; that necessity and prudence
required the King to recognise, at least in fact, the existence of
the governments which had ruled in France for the last twenty-
lS14.] OF MON AIRC HY IN FRANCE. 4 19
The spirited declaration of the King to the Emperor Alexander.
five years; and that if intrigues existed in royal families they
were unknown to nations. Finally, he exaggerated beyond
measure, to the eyes of the princely exile, the importance of this
little group of ambitious men, by whom he was himself sur-
rounded in Paris; and who, according to him, held public
opinion and the crown in their hands, offering him the with
drawal of a constitution dictated by them, in exchange for a
constitution emanating from the monarch. In a word, he
seemed to place the throne and the entrance to Paris at the
price of certain compliances (some just, and others timid and
impolitic) which he proposed to the King.
XXXVIII
Louis XVIII. listened to him with impatience, interrupted
him freely, and replied to him with imperturbable firmness, “I
am astonished that I have to remind an Emperor of Russia,”
he said, “that the crown does not belong to the subjects. By
what title can a Senate, the instrument and accomplice of all
the violence and of all the madness of a usurper, filled up
with his most servile and most criminal creatures, dispose of
the crown of France? Does it belong to them 2 And if it
really did belong to them, is it to a Bourbon they would freely
offer it? Are there not amongst them men drenched in the
Revolution of 1793, and stained with the blood of a murdered
Bourbon? I am too enlightened to attach to the right divine
the signification which religious or popular superstitions for.
merly attached to it; but this divine right, which is nothing
more for me as well for you than a law of good sense passed in
unchangeable policy for the hereditary transmission of the right
of sovereignty, has also become the law of the nation, violated
for ten years, but followed for ten centuries The death of
my brother and that of my nephew have transmitted this
right to me. It is in virtue of this title alone that I am here,
and that Europe has called me to re-establish in my person, not a
man, not a race, but a principle. I have no other, I want no
other, to present to France and to the world. The acceptation
of any other title would annihilate this in me. I am a king but
{20 HISTORY OF THE RESTORA TION [BOOK 13.
The spirited declaration of the King to the Emperor Alexander.
I should be begging for a throne ! And what other right
should I have besides the right which blood causes to flow in
my veins? What am I? An infirm old man, an unfortunate
exile, reduced for a long time to beg for a country and bread
in foreign lands. Such was I still a few days back; but
this old man, this exile, was King of France, and this is the
reason that your Majesty is here ; this is the reason that a
whole mation, who only know me by name, have recalled me to
the throne of my fathers. I return at their voice; but I
return as King of France, or I am still nothing more than an
exile. “You, yourself,” he added, looking at Alexander with a
glance that conveyed a silent reproach for his want of consider-
ation,-‘‘ by virtue of what title do you command those mil-
lions of men, whose armies you have led hither for the deli-
verance of my throne and my country 2”
Alexander acknowledged the force of this interrogatory,
and contented himself with alleging the all-powerful nature of
accomplished facts, and the imperative counsel of circumstances.
But Louis XVIII, did not yield to his reasons, which, in his
opinion, broke in advance his sceptre in his hands, and placed
it at the disposition and mercy of a body obedient one day and
seditious another. “No,” said he, “I shall not tarnish by an
act of cowardice the name that I bear, for the few days longer
I may have to live. I shall not purchase a fleeting favour of
public opinion at the price of a sacred right of mine, of my
house, and of my principle. I know that I am indebted to
your victorious arms for the deliverance of my people; but if
these important services are to place at your disposition the
honour of my crown, I shall appeal to France against it, and
return to my banishment.”
XXXIX.
France at that time would have almost unanimously replied
to this appeal of the King by a new proclamation of his royalty.
The departure of Louis XVIII. would have been the signal
for new embarrassments, and serious agitation for the allies.
Alexander was intimidated in his turn, and only recalled to
1814.] OF MON AIRC HY IN FRANCE 42
Arrival of the Emperor of Austria and King of Prussia at Compiègne.
the King the engagements half agreed to by the Count d’Artois,
his brother, on his entrance into Paris. Louis XVIII. did not
contradict them, but he pretended to satisfy them by the pro-
mise of a declaration, or of an edict, which would confirm
them by his full and free authority, instead of accepting them
as a law of the allies, and as a condition of the people.
Alexander came out of this conference vanquished and
astonished. He had expected to find an old man of an affable
disposition, eager for the throne, and too happy to recover it at
any price. He had, on the contrary, found a man of superior
understanding, with an obstimate faith, a majestic eloquence,
and an inflexible character; a King whom they might again
reject, but who, if once upon the throne, would place himself
by his legitimacy on a level with and even above his liberators.
The Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia arrived
later at Compiegne, and did not renew upon Louis XVIII. the
attempts of Alexander. These sovereigns, less influenced by
the young courtiers of the Empire, and by the old wrecks of
the Revolution, were more disposed by their nature and by
their ministers, to support the personal authority of the King,
than to weaken it by timid concessions. Alexander was sus-
pected by them, if not of complicity in the Revolution, at
least of youthful weakness for the revolutionary portion of the
people. The same table that day united the four sovereigns
and their principal lieutenants; and Bernadotte, Ring of
Sweden, an old Jacobin parvenu, who fought against his coun-
try to merit his crown, also joined the banquet. One of this
august party having, in the freedom of the conversation, spoken
to Louis XVIII of that French fickleness which, with equal
facility threw the people into it.Surrection or into servitude.
“Make yourself dreaded, Sire,” said Bernadotte to him, “and
they will love you. Only save lionour and appearances with
them. Wear a velvet glove upon a hand of iron.” This sen-
tence has become a dogma for the ambitious.
B() () K FOURTEENTH.
Project of a royal declaration proposed by the Senate to Touis XVIII.-
His Refusal—He goes to live at St. Ouen — Deputation of the Senate
—Speech of M. de Talleyrand–Declaration from St. Ouen—Entrance
of Louis XVIII, into Paris—His cortège—He goes to the Cathedral
—His arrival at the Tuileries—He appoints his Ministry—M.
d'Ambray—The Abbé de Montesquiou—The Abbé Louis—M.
Beugnot—General Dupont—M. Ferrand—M. de Talleyrand—M.
de Blacas—Memoir of Fouché to Louis XVIII.—Creation of
the Military Household of the King—Charter of 1814—Opposition
of M. de Villele—Treaty of Paris—Departure of the Allies—Forma-
tion of the Chamber of Peers—Opening of the Chambers, June 4, 1814
—The King's Speech—Speeches of the Chancellor d'Ambray and
of M. Ferrand—Address of the Chamber of Peers and the Legislative
Body—Ordonnance on the observation of Sunday—Project of Law
on the Press—Speech of the Abbé Montesquiou—Report of M.
Raynouard—The Law is adopted by the Legislative Body and the
Chamber of Peers—Financial measures presented to the King by the
Abbé Louis—Law for the restitution of incomes and property not
sold—Exposé of M. Ferrand's motives—Report of M. Bédoch—
Speeches of M. Lainé and of Marshal Macdonald—Adoption of the
Law—General Excelmans and Marshal Soult—The Duke d’Orleans
at the Palais Royal—The Duke and Duchess d’Angoulême in La
Vendée—The Duke de Berry—The Count d'Artois—The Prince of
Condé–The [Xuke de Bourbon—Return of France to the Bourbons—
Situation of Louis XVIII.-Departule of M. de Talleyrand for
Vienna—Congress of Vienna.
I.
MEANWHILE the Frnperor Alexander had returned to report
in Paris the impression he had received of the firmness of
Louis XVIII., and his refusals. The Senate trembled,
hesitated, and drew back: M. de Talleyrand maintained his
position, though losing ground every day, in the double part of
confidential mediator, between the requirements of one side
and the obstinacy of the other, deceiving both at the same
| 31 1.] REST ORATION OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 42:
The King refuses to accept a Constitution from the Senate.
time. Plans of a constitution, softened and amended, vainly
succeeded one another in the committees of the Luxemburg,
and in the saloons of the minister; the diplomatist still pre-
serving a tone of pleasantry with the puritans of the Senate, to
prepare them for sacrifices by the doubts skilfully thrown
beforehand into their council. “You are going,” he said to
them, “to have to do with a King who is a superior man. You
may expect to see him discuss your constitution. You may
prepare yourselves for the houour of entering into controversy
with him.”
The senators at length submitted to M. de Talleyrand a
a project of a royal declaration, in which they made this prince
promise to preserve the Senate, to whose intelligence he would
acknowledge that he owed his return to his kingdom. M. de
Talleyrand went to present it to the King at Compiègne, net
doubting that it would be accepted ; but the prince, as inflexible
to the insinuations of the negociator as he had been to the
summons of Alexander, replied haughtily to M. de Talleyrand,
“If I accepted a constitution from my people, in the sitting
where I should swear to observe it, you would be seated while
I was standing !” This attitude alone of him who takes an
oath before him who imposes it, appeared to the King the most
energetic refutation of the subaltern part which the pretensions
of the Senate wished to assign to the crown. But he meditated
another part for royalty to play: he wished to mingle the ma-
jesty of a descendant of Louis XIV. with the prudence of a
politician of the nineteenth century, coming to pacify a revolu-
tion without recognising it, with a wisdom emanating from the
throne, not by suggestion but by inspiration. Dut his dread
of the Emperor Alexander, and his desire to avail himself of
the resistance of this prince by temporising, prevented him as
yet from immediately entering his capital. He wished to make
his approaches step by step, in order to increase the desires of
the people by impatience. The royalists, who went to him
from hour to hour, to report the feelings of the people, made
the King hope that an irresistible movement of public opinion
would burst forth, in spite of the Emperor of Russia, and in
spite of the Senate on his approach, and that a general accla,
424 HISTORY OF THE HESTORATION ſpook 14
He goes to the Chateau of St. Ouen.
mation would overturn those factitious barriers that they wished
to erect between him and the nation. He therefore went to
the isolated chateau of St. Ouen, an old residence of M.
Necker, in the plain of St. Denis, near the gates of Paris; as if
he had wished, by his choice of this place of conference, to
recall to the nation the memory of a popular minister, whom
he himself had formerly supported in the convocation of the
States-general of the kingdom. The necessity of preparing
his royal entry into Paris was the pretext of this inexplicable
residence under the walls of his capital. The real motive was,
however, a last negociation with Alexander, and with the
resistance of opinion which contested with him the supreme
power.
II.
But even this approximation was a menace to which the
Senate, at once pressed and withheld by M. de Talleyrand,
did not resist. The King was hardly established at St. Ouen,
when the general enthusiasm carried towards that residence all
the royalists, or all those who pretended to be of that category.
The people themselves flocked out in multitudes to the fields
and the roads which led to Saint Ouen ; towards which Paris
overflowed with impatience, emotion, and curiosity. The
Senate hastened to send thither a deputation, and confided to
M. de Talleyrand himself the expression of their sentiments
on the occasion. The speech prepared for this purpose, which
had no other object than to save appearances, was intended to
be as flexible and as agreeable to the King, as it was reserved
and dignified for the Senate : but it betrayed a resistance that
was becoming weary, and pretensions that capitulated with power
by taking refuge in Sentiment.
“Sire,” said M. de Talleyrand, speaking for the deputation
from the Senate, “all hearts feel that this blessing can only be
due to yourself; they therefore hasten to present you with
their homage. There are joys which cannot be feigned; that
of which you now hear the transports is a joy truly national.
“The Senate profoundly moved at this touching spectacle,
happy in mingling their sentiments with those of the prople
1814.] OF MON A R CHY IN FRANCE. 425
Talleyrand's address to the King in the name of the Senate.
come like them to offer, at the foot of the throne, their testi-
monials of respect and affection.
“Sire, innumerable calamities have desolated the kingdom
of your fathers. Your glory has taken refuge in our camps;
the army has saved the honour of France. In re-ascending the
throne you succeed to twenty years of ruin and misfortune.
“This inheritance might alarm the ordinary virtue of men;
the reparation of such immense disorder requires the devotion
of great courage; prodigies are demanded to heal the wounds
of the country; but we are your children, and these prodigies
are referred to your paternal care.
“The more difficult the circumstances, the more powerful
and revered should be the royal authority. In speaking to the
imagination with all the éclat of ancient recollections, it will
know how to conciliate all the wishes of modern reason, by
borrowing from it the wisest political theories.
“A constitutional charter will unite all interests with that
of the throne, and fortify the principal will by the concurrence
of all the others.
“You know better than we do, Sire, that such institutions,
as is well proved by a neighbouring nation, present supports
and not barriers to monarchs who are friends of the laws and
fathers of their people.
“Yes, Sire, the nation and the Senate, full of confidence
in the great intelligence and maganimous sentiments of your
Majesty, desire, equally with you, that France should be free
in order that the King may be powerful.”
The King, affecting a majestic silence, as if exhibiting a mind
that no longer deliberated, contented himself with replying in .
one of those vague expressions of thanks which leaves every
thing to hope, and everything to fear. He made no allusion
to the ambiguous and politic terms in which M. de Talleyrand
had enveloped the expiring pretensions of the Senate, This
silence sufficiently indicated his disdain ; and, as if he wished
to brave or to defy them still further, he caused to be pub-
lished, some hours after, the famous declaration of Saint Quen,
the ultimatum of royalty to revolution. This declaration fully
recalled that of Louis XVI., when that prince wished to defer
B 13
426 HISTORY OF THE IRESTORATION [BOOR 14
- - - - - -
The royal declaration of principles.
the States-general, by forestalling them with concessions to
the age. But Louis XVI. spoke alone, and without power, on
the eve of a revolution which would wait no longer. Louis
XVIII., on the contrary, spoke from amidst one million of Eu-
ropean bayonets, masters of the conquered soil of the country,
to the heart of a people, fatigued with twenty-five years strug-
gles and on the ruins of an empire, who asked from royalty mot
liberty but life. The Emperor Alexander, to whom this pro-
ject of a declaration had been communicated in the morning,
had required, in imperative language, the modification of some
of the articles.
The declaration was thus expressed :—
“Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre,
to all who shall see these presents, greeting.
“Recalled by the love of our people to the throne of our
ancestors, enlightened by the misfortunes of the nation that we
are called on to govern, our first thought is to invoke that
mutual confidence so necessary to our repose and to our
happiness.
“After having attentively read the plan of a constitution
proposed by the Senate in its sitting of the 6th April last, we
have recognised the basis to be good, but that a great many of
the articles, bearing the impress of the haste with which they
have been drawn up, cannot, in their present form, become
fundamental laws of the State.
“Resolved to adopt a liberal Constitution, and wishing that
it should be wisely combined, but not being able to accept one
which it is indispensable to rectify, we convoke, for the 10th
of the month of June of the present year, the Senate and the
legislative body, engaging ourselves to submit to their in-
spection the work that we shall have prepared with a commis-
sion chosen from those two bodies, and to give, for a basis to
this constitution, the following guarantees:—
“The representative government shall be retained as
it exists at present, divided into two bodies, viz. the Senate
and the Chamber of deputies of the Departments.
“The impost shall be freely acquiesced in
, Public and private property secured.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 427
Its enthusiastic reception by the people.
_-
“The liberty of the press respected; with the reservation
of precautions necessary to public tranquillity.
“Liberty of worship guaranteed.
“Property shall be inviolable and sacred; the sale of
national estates remaining irrevocable.
“Ministers, who are removeable, may be impeached by one
of the legislative chambers, and judged by the other.
“The judges shall be irremoveable, and the judicial power
independent.
“The public debt shall be guaranteed. Pensions, rank, and
military honours shall be preserved, as well as the old and new
nobility.
“The Legion of Honour, of which we shall determine the
decoration, shall be maintained.
All Frenchmen shall be admissible to civil and military
employment.
“Finally, no individual shall be disturbed for his votes or
opinions.”
III.
Loud acclamations of the people hailed this declaration of
principles, which was posted with great profusion on all the walls
of Paris, as a preamble of the coming reign. It was the legi-
timate revolution by royalty, the treaty of pacification between
the past and the future, the mutual amnesty of the King
to the people, and the people to the King. No one contested
the source whence emanated this negociation of the Revolution;
for it mattered little to the nation at this moment whether such
a constitution fell from the throne, or arose from the people,
provided it guaranteed its conquests to the age, and its interests
to the country. The popularity of Louis XVIII. drew every-
thing into the current of public joy. The royalists alone, who
had preserved in their exile the sophistry, the systems, or the
Superstitions of uncontrolled royalty, murmured secretly against
a wisdom which they designated in an under tone as cowardice.
But even these murmurs of some who were behind the progress
of the age only served to increase public favour towards the
King. The more thcse courtiers, obstimate in by-gone errors,
42S HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14,
Preparations for the King's entry into 2aris.
repudiated the prince, the more he was taken into favour by his
newly-recovered people.
The King availed himself with ability of this impassioned
movement of astonishment and enthusiasm, to make his entrance
into the city and the palace of his ancestors. The whole popula-
tion were on foot to meet him, or receive him there.
IV.
On the 3rd of May, 1814, the plain of St. Ouen, the hills
of Montmartre, the avenues of Paris, and the banks of the
Seine, were covered, like the seats of an amphitheatre, with the
population of Paris, its faubourgs and the neighbouring villages,
and with the troops, to witness the entrance of the King into
his capital. A splendid sky, a brilliant sun, the verdure of
spring seemed to associate mature herself with the vast
assemblage, to solemnize and restore to serenity one of the
most astonishing epochs in the history of a nation—the first
interview of a people with their sovereign, the reconciliation of
proscribed royalty, and a pacified revolution, the liberation,
in fine, of the soil of the country, by the hand of a disarmed
Sage.
At eleven o'clock the King quitted the gardens of St.
Ouen, in which he left a memento of his residence, the traces
of his meditations, and of which he made, at a later period, a
monumental homage to a favourite of friendship. An immense
and sumptuous cortège of cavaliers, formed of the princes of
his house and the celebrated men of both epochs, emigrants,
soldiers of the Republic, courtiers of Hartwell and of the
Tuileries, foreign generals, marshals of the Empire, men of con-
sular fame, of all dates of the history of our thirty last years,
illustrious names of the ancient monarchy, ministers, adminis-
trators, diplomatists, writers and celebrated orators, mingled
in impartial groups by the confluence of circumstances, and the
miracle of events, preceded, followed, and surrounded the open
carriage of the King, which was drawn by eight cream-coloured
horses from the Emperor's stables. The uniforms and cos-
tumes of this suite of all dates, of all reigns, and of all armies,
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 42ſ)
Preparations for the King's entry into Paris.
attested the assemblage of a whole people and of all Europe.
in this unanimous reception of a sovereign so long absent, who
had returned to represent, to mingle, and to unite two different
ages. No prince was better calculated than Louis XVIII. to
personify this conciliation, and to represent paternally the past
era by making himself acceptable to the present.
His age was imposing by the maturity of years, without yet
offering any other sign of decay than his grey hair, the sem-
blance of wisdom on a countenance still young; while the in-
firmity of his legs was concealed from the crowd by his cloak,
which was thrown over his knees. But this King in his sitting
posture, whose sufferings and forced sedentary life were well
known, was a symbol of reflection and of peace. Even his in-
firmities, exciting an interest for the old monarch, seemed to
offer a pledge of repose, the unanimous passion at this time
in France. His countenance, impressed with a fine intelligence,
the spirit and firmness of his glance, beaming from on high
upon the crowd, like that of a mind accustomed to regard its
subjects without being dazzled; the matural curiosity and asto-
mishment expressed in his eyes, as they endeavoured to recognise,
through the changes of twenty-five years, the views, the country,
the walls and the monuments of his youth; the inquiries which
he addressed, from time to time, to those persons of his suite
who had been more happy than himself in never having quitted
their country; the mingled joy and sorrow of his return,
sharing in his features with the dignity of a triumphal entry;
even his foreign costume recalling the days of exile. That
princess also at his side, the Duchess d’Angoulême, to whom
her repentant country could only restore a name, but not a
family, swept away in the tempest; the involuntary tears whic
struggled with her happiness in the eyes of this orphan of the
scaffold ; the old Prince of Condé, the veteran of monarchical
wars, worn in body by nearly an age of combats, weakened in
inderstanding and memory by exile, and looking round with
childish gaze on the pomp of which he was the object, and which
he seemed scarcely to comprehend ; the Duke de Bourbon, his
son, his face and heart in mourning, as if following the funeral
cortège of the Duke d'Enghien, instead of the triumph of
430 Hl Sºl U18 Y OF THE RESTORATION LBOOK 14.
His entry into Paris.
royalty; the Count d'Artois, the delight and chivalric popularity
of the dynasty, riding at the carriage door of the King, and
appearing to present his brother to the people, and the people
to his brother; the Duke d’Angoulême and the Duke de Berry,
his two sons, future heirs of the throne; the one modest and
reflective, the other affecting the martial rudeness of the officers
of the Empire; the splendour of the arms, the motions of the
horses, the waving of plumes, the living hedge of people and of
soldiers which bordered the fields and the avenues of the plain;
the houses crowded to the roof-tops with women and children;
the windows dressed out with white flags; the clapping of
hands, the prolonged acclamations, now dying away, now swelling
out again at every turn of the wheel of the royal carriage; the
showers of bouquets descending from the balconies and strew-
ing the pavements; the flourishes of instruments, the rolling
of the drums, the discharges of cannon from Montmartre and
the Invalides, breaking the short silence of the crowds, and
giving a rebound to the emotions of a million of men;–all
these aspects, all these considerations, all these noises, all
these astonishments, all these feelings of the crowd, gave to the
entrance of Louis XVIII, into Paris a character of pathos and
sensibility which effaced even the pomp of a triumphal entry.
Nature had a still greater share in it than ceremonial. There
was a father in the King, filial piety in the people, and sincere
tears between them. They saw one another again, after a long
separation. They mutually endeavoured to recognise each
other, to ascertain each others sentiments; they hoped in each
other; they wished to love each other. The heart of a king
and the heart of a people never, perhaps, beat nearer to one
another. Monarchical tradition was recovering a throne, exile
a country, revolution a consecration, the past forgetfulness, the
future a pledge, ideas an arbiter, the country independence, and
the world a peace.
At the Porte Saint Denis, the King received the keys of
Paris, from the hands of M. de Chabrol, prefect under Napo-
leon. He returned them to him with an expression of con-
fidence, as if to impress upon his government a signification
of amnesty, for all the services rendered to another flag, and to
1814. J OTE MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 43
Enthusiasm of his reception.
give a pledge of permanency to all the functionaries of the king.
dom. From thence the cortège advanced by the most populous
quarters of Paris towards the cathedral. The King was received,
as his ancestors had been, at the door of this temple of the old
worship and the old dynasty, by the clergy, who presented him
with the lustral water and the symbols of sovereignty. “As a
descendant of Saint Louis,” said he to the priests who received
him in the sanctuary, “I shall imitate his virtues.” He also
attributed the termination of the misfortunes of his race to the
protection of the Saviour and his mother, as if to revive from
the outset the pious customs of Louis XIII., and the ceremonies
dear to the credulity of an ancient people. Politic with poli-
ticians, credulous with believers, and a King of two ages and
two races, who met and mingled in him under the arches of this
sacred edifice.
After the hymns of joy, which the Church consecrates to the
victories or the happiness of nations, the King and the princes
re-entered their carriages, and proceeded, amidst the moving
masses of people, through the streets and the quays which
separate the cathedral from the Louvre The countenances of
the King and of the Duchess d’Angoulême were overcast on
approaching the Tuileries, where their residence had been pre-
pared. The King had never seen the palace since the day that
Louis XVI. and the Queen had left it for Warennes, the eve
of their captivity and long suffering; nor the Duchess d’An-
goulême, since the morning of the 10th of August, when she
fled, holding her father's hand, on the moise of the assault
which demolished the doors, and over the bodies of their brave
defenders. The acclamations of this crowd, which seemed to
make her a reparation for her immolated family, mingled in her
memory with the clamours of the great seditions which had
formerly besieged her infancy in these same courts. In passing
before the ancient palace of Saint Louis, the Conciergerie, she
could not see, without shuddering, the air-holes and gratings of
her mother's dungeon; and on alighting from her carriage, at
the entrance of the Tuileries, she fainted in the arms of her
servants. They bore her half dead to her apartments, where
she shut herself up, for the remainder of the day, with God and
4.32 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION **ook 14.
Enthusiasm of his reception,
the memory of her slaughtered family. Solitude and prayer
were mecessary to inure her to those grandeurs of which she
had experienced the reverse, and to those triumphs in which
she had a misgiving of a change.
W.
The King passed through the newly embellished halls of
the palace, still full of all the luxury and all the military pomp
of the Empire. There had not been sufficient time to efface
from the walls the crowned representations of Napoleon; nor
to remove the statues, the pictures, and the portraits in which,
during ten years, he had contemplated his image and his glory.
Louis XVIII. felt himself sufficiently strong, and sufficiently
glorious in his ancestors, to look without anger and without
envy, on these vestiges of a parvenu of victory. He therefore
seemed to adopt all that had decorated France, even against
himself. This magnanimous consciousness of his right re-assured
and touched the warriors of the court of Napoleon, who were
introducing him into the palace of their chief. They appeared
proud themselves of being adopted by this monarchy of past
ages, which seemed to give an air of antiquity to their new titles
They humbled themselves, as it were, before time, that time
might hasten to mingle their recent names with the old titles
of the monarchy. Two courts, rivalling each other in assiduity
and flattery—the one natural, the other servile—were thus
mixed up together, to receive the King and his family in the
palace of royalty, Louis XVIII. seemed on that day to forget
his old adherents, and occupy himself solely with his new ones.
His heart was with the emigrants; but his smiles were for the
Empire and the Revolution. The statue of his ancestor,
Henry IV., which had been set up in his route over the Pont-
Neuf, and which he had saluted on crossing the river, seemed to
have inspired him with his smile and his language. Admirable
inconsistency of sovereigns reconciled with their subjects, who
sacrifice their friends to conciliate their enemies!
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 43.3
He constitutes his Ministry.—M. d'Ambray.
VI.
As soon as the night had scattered the crowd of courtiers,
and the multitude intoxicated with hope, the King detained M.
de Talleyrand with him, and composed his ministry. Time did
not permit him to lose an hour in reigning; for France was
conquered, and it was necessary to treat in its name for its
ransom and its deliverance. The public mind was wavering
and uncertain as to the nature of the new government, and it
was necessary to fix it. The work was a difficult one ; for a
single act, or a single name, might change enthusiasm into dis-
affection. If stormy Revolution and discontented Imperialism
had their requirements, royalist opinion had its fits of passion,
emigration its susceptibilities and its ambitions, the Duchess
d'Angoulême her repugnances, the Count d'Artois and his court
their pretensions, and their anti-revolutionary audacity. The
Ring, in concert with M. de Talleyrand, searched out names
which had been buried for many years in obscurity and retreat;
whose merit was a mystery, whose opinions were a secret, whose
presumed wisdom and impartiality disarmed all envy, having,
at least, the advantage of being unknown. The majority of
these names were borrowed from the old parliamentary magis-
tracy; as if the King, in choosing these intermediate men, be-
tween the plebeians and the patricians, wished to re-assure both
the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, and also to leave his favour
undecided between the new and the old mobility. He appointed
M. d’Ambray, Chancellor of France and Minister of Justice.
This gentleman, formerly Advocate-general of the Parliament
of Paris, had distinguished himself there before the Revolution,
in the exercise of his functions, by talent which had been
enlarged by reflection and long retirement. He had not
emigrated. Persecution and the Revolution had spared him,
in his retreat in Normandy, as one of those men who beud
sufficiently to circumstances, and who hold back so much from
political changes as to be respected and tolerated by all parties.
His claim to the functions of chancellor, with which the King
invested him, arose from his being son-in-law to the ancient
434 HISTORY OF THE RF STORATION [BOOK 14.
The Abbé de Montesquiou,
chancellor of Louis XVI, M. de Barentin, a sort of heredi-
tary succession to the high offices of the crown, to which Louis
XVIII. was rigidly attached, as to one of the sacred traditions
of the kingdom. But M. d’Ambray was behind his age;
calculated only to honour justice by personal virtues, and
incapable of raising functions to a level with a political system
adapted to a transition of genius between two reigns. To
follow the forms, and countersign the orders of the court, was
all his aptitude, and the acmé of his devotion. He is said to
have carried on, as well as his father-in-law, M. de Barentin, a
secret correspondence with Hartwell during the reign of Napo-
leon. This sort of correspondence, which was known to and
tolerated by the police of the Emperor, as an evaporation,
without danger, of royalist opinions, and which revealed to Na-
poleon himself the harmless ideas of the most devoted partisans
of the Bourbons, was, nevertheless, a title to the gratitude of
the King, of which he acquitted himself on his accession to the
throne. This devotion appeared to him meritorious, though it
produced no results. It gave him, at least, an opportunity of
making France and Europe believe, that he did not owe every-
thing to the force of events, but that his able and secret nego-
ciations at Hartwell went for something in his restoration.
He therefore recompensed more fidelity than he really believed
to exist.
VII.
The Abbé de Montesquiou, another of his intimate corre-
spondents, and his real negociator between him and public
opinion, was appointed Minister of the Interior. Better calcu-
lated for the court than for business, and for negociations
than for administration, the Abbé de Montesquiou had too
much monchalance for a statesman. Constantly tacking between
two ideas and two epochs, without satisfying or exasperating
either, he had the mere quality of wavering minds,-the merit
of his weakness.
The Abbé Louis, a man of consummate ability in finance,
and impassioned against the Imperial despotism, devoted to
M. de Talleyrand by analogy of clerical origin, and of repudia.
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 435
M. Ferrand.
tion of the priesthood, was called to the Finance department
Bonaparte had left the treasury in a state of exhaustion,
drained in taxes, and plundered by the invasion. Genius,
activity, boldness, and a beginning were therefore wanted; and
the Abbé Louis, who had studied in the schools of Mirabeau,
Necker, and Calomne, the mysteries of credit, and the miracles
of confidence, brought to it a firm mind and a bold hand. He
was daring enough not to despair of an empty treasury, in the
face of insatiable requirements from the foreigners and the
emigrants. He invoked, from the midst of these ruins, the
true genius of finance—the integrity of government; and he
found riches in the prodigality of reimbursement.
M. Beugnot received the Direction-general of the police,—
the true ministry of public opinion, the most important of all
for a new prince, who ought to be well acquainted with the spirit
of parties, in order to treat with them. M. Beugnot, a man
whose mind was diffused over all, and of a flexibility full of
grace, seemed to be formed by nature and his antecedents
for these difficult functions; but he disappointed all hopes.
He was too superficial to see thoroughly, too devoted to advise
well, and too supple to resist the caprices of the court.
VIII.
M. Ferrand, a man enveloped in one of those mysterious
reputations which hide a great deal of nullity under much con-
sideration, was entrusted with the Post-office. This was, at
that period, a second ministry of police, formed for the espion-
mage of opinions by the Emperor. M. Ferrand, an old par.
liamentarian, like M. de Barentin and M. Ambray, had
emigrated; but becoming weary of exile he had returned to
France at the commencement of the Empire. Men of this
description gave Napoleon no inquietude. As adorers and
wrecks of the old regime, he easily pardoned their feelings in
favour of their dogmas. These men, such as M. de Fontanes,
De Montlosier, Molé, Ferrand, and De Bonald, constituted the
theory of his despotism. He raised them in public opinion,
when he could not attach them to his throne. They were allies
436 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 14.
M. de Talleyrand.— M. de Blacas.
that he respected and caressed in the camp of the Bourbons.
M. Ferrand had written a book entitled, “The Spirit of His-
tory; ” a long and fastidious paradox against all the novelties
and the liberties of the human mind. This book, adopted
by the university of the Empire, as a catechism of rational
slavery, and exalted by the nobility and clergy as a deification
of the past, had produced for its author one of those veiled
glories which nobody thinks of uncovering, and before which
every one bows on the word of the author. Louis XVIII.
affected to share in this worship for the authority of M. Fer-
rand. He was the Montesquieu of the juncture whom he in-
troduced into his council, and directed to meditate on the
constitution.
Finally, M. de Talleyrand, as the essential man of the
double tradition, revolutionary and monarchical, received the
department of foreign affairs, and the presidency of the council
of ministers. His graceful manner, his carelessness, his negli-
gence, which left everything fluctuating except his fortune; his
words of double meaning, his smiles of two opinions, his de-
ference for the King, his credit with Alexander, made him the
accepted centre, the auxiliary and hope of all the council.
IX.
The King reserved only one place—the most humble in
appearance, the most important in reality—for friendship.
This was the ministry of the king's household,—a true mayor-
alty of the palace, succeeding to the grand marshalate of the
Empire, instituted by Napoleon in favour of his most intimate
adherents, a ministry of favouritism under a prince who could
not exist without a friend. This ministry, overlooked or con-
ceded by M. de Talleyrand, was given to M. de Blacas, suc-
cessor to Count d'Avaray in the heart of the King. It was the
intimacy of Hartwell, transported and transformed into politi-
cal power at the Tuileries. This minister, who kept shut or
open the door of the King's cabinet, who received the other
ministers, who alone made a summary of their rank, who ex-
amined their communications to the prince, who had the ear of
1814.j OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 437
Count d'Antois.-Fouché.
and transmitted all conversation to the King, was not long in
absorbing everything. Responsibility and constitution drew
back before habit and nature. Truth no longer entered without
a passport from M. de Blacas. Imbued with a superstitious
fidelity for his master, a stranger in the country, new in affairs,
disdainful of opinion, all liberty and all severity of language
would have appeared to him am attempt at high treason against
the sovereign. -
The Count d'Artois, humbled at the levities he had com-
mitted, in engaging his brother's word towards the Senate, and
in giving up the strong places to the allies, withdrew himself
into the pavilion of the Tuileries, which had been appropriated
to him, with his sons and his little court of agitating emigrants,
implacable bishops, and new adventurers of the old regime,
all bad counsellors of his weakness. The IXing loaded him
with almost regal honours, munificence, credit, and guards:—
almost a king by the pomp of his household, but respectfully
ejected from the government, of which the King knew that he
was ambitious, and at the same time incapable. The favourites
of this brother of the monarch began, from this day, to circum-
vent the government with opposition, discontent, and intrigues
against the pacific system of the crown ; and to agitate, under-
hand, the palace, the government, and the royal family. Two
spirits seemed to have entered with one family into the Tui-
leries, as if they were already dividing the nation.
X.
Fouché, eager to signalise himself in the eyes of the new
royalty, and to wash off the blood of Louis XVI. by services
audaciously offered, caused a memoir to be presented to the
Ring, in which he traced, to this prince, from the very cony-
mencement, the way in which he would be, he said, followed
by the nation. His title of ancient minister of police, the
ambiguity of the part he played during the last years of the
Empire, his disgrace and banishment to Italy, his treason even,
rendered his counsels precious to the King and to M. de Blacas.
The confidential minister and the prince read them with atteu-
438 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [DOOR 14.
Memoir of Fouché to Louis XVIII.
tion, and made them the line of their political principles.
The audacity and the rudeness of these counsels gave them the
greater authority over the mind of the King. He thought he
could confide in a man who disdained in appearance to please,
and who was not afraid to flatter, flattery the worst of all,
which masks servility under insolence, and seasons ambition
with truths
“We wish in good faith,” said Fouché in this memoir,
which Louis XVIII. found on the table of his cabinet on
awaking, “we wish in good faith, and with a good heart, for
the re-establishment of the Bourbons. We all know that their
reign will not be either so hard, nor so expensive, nor so
fatiguing as that of Bonaparte. We are persuaded that they
will govern with wisdom, justice, and moderation, and that they
will heal a part of our wounds. We have some infidelities to
expiate with respect to them ; but such is the confidence that
we have in their hereditary goodness;—such is the repentance
that brings us back towards them—that no one, either in his
own vicinity or at a distance, has sought for competitors against
them ; and that they have peacefully re-ascended the throne of
their ancestors, without the Shedding of a drop of blood, or even
of a tear.
“It is because we wish with good faith that the Bourbons
should re-establish themselves upon the throne of France, that
we wish them not to listen to stupid or perfidious counsellors,
who would induce them to be the soul of a party rather than
the fathers of the whole nation, to demolish the work they find
done, and to attack the ideas they find established; at the risk
of re-lighting the passions, of inflaming and embittering self.
love, and of spreading through all minds a general distrust, the
consequences of which would be incalculable.
“It will certainly be the fault of these men if the nation
should once more be led astray, excited, and pushed into
trouble: and it will not be their fault, if this misfortune does
not speedily happen. The shops are hung with their libels
and their constitutions. Bonaparte, who was not more liberal
than another in point of concessions, had, however, left us two
little bits of consolation—the jury and national representation;
75
1814.] OF MON A R CHY IN FRANCE. 439
Memoir of Fouché to Louis XVIII.
but our present purists will have no such thing. Happily the
King will be less a royalist than these people. His mind is
too highly cultivated, and his soul too exalted : his studies, his
taste for literature and science have brought him in contact
with too many men of learning, to allow us to apprehend that
his reign will have a tendency to cause the nineteenth century
to retrograde. The war. that should be made in our time
against liberal ideas would certainly cost France dearer than
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and, at all events, it
would be more dangerous for those who should declare it, than
for those who would have to sustain it.
“Besides the 600,000 citizens, who have returned to their
families, after having gloriously served in the army, we have
500,000 more under arms. Several other millions of men
have participated more or less, by their opinions, their writings,
or their employments, in the events of the Revolution, and in
the reign of Bonaparte ; almost all of whom possess energy
and elevation of character. None of these men, who feel they
have become greater by the events and the ideas of their age,
will suffer any one to tamper or trifle with what they have
done. They will not censure those who have followed other
routes, any more than they will suffer themselves to be censured.
“The family of the Bourbons re-ascend the throme under
the most favourable circumstances. The calamity of war had
become unsupportable to us, and we had an ardent thirst for
peace. The preservation of 400,000 men, who would also
have perished this year, is due to the return of these princes,
but beware of a rock which the stupidity and levity of our
libellists have not permitted them to see. Bonaparte still
thinks himself a colossus in his island of Elba. Our rivals
keep him in reserve as a bugbear, which wonderfully assists
their policy, and which they well know how to apply against
us, if we have the imprudence to be disunited amongst our-
selves, and to allow them to discover a portion of us which was
inot ranged in battle order around the throme We have but
one means of effectually preventing this, and of disappointing
the calculations of those who treat him with such considera-
tion, and hold him in so much regard. It is to stiſle amongst
440 HISTORY OF THE RESTOIRATION [1200R 14.
Creation of the military houshold of the King.
ourselves all the seeds of civil war; it is to amalgamate all
the interests, all the self-loves, all descriptions of service, all
the titles of glory and distinction; it is to shun discontents,
hatreds, vengeances, and religious and political quarrels; it is
to act as if there had been no revolution in France, and never
to lose sight of this, that Bonaparte would be the matural
refuge and soul of all the parties which should detach them-
selves from the cause of the IXing.”
XI.
While Louis XVIII. was revolving in his mind these
opinions of Fouché, which he held in common with M. de
Talleyrand and the Emperor Alexander, the enthusiasm of the
old royalist party (which, on finding its natural chief again
upon the throme, thought it ought also to find again the whole
ancient order of things) became excited to phrenzy, and began
to press heavily on the wisdom of the King. This prince him-
self, so enlightened and practised in the theory of government,
was under the influence of his traditions and his ancient habits.
He could see no throne without a nobility, and no restoration
of the monarchy without those privileged corps of gentlemen
from whom the long wars of the Republic and the Empire had
removed their exclusive army rank, but to whom he wished to
give at least the guard of his person, and the ranks of his
military household. Napoleon himself had given these ex.
amples, and this pretext to the IXing, by the formation of his
imperial guard, the pretorians of the Empire, the privileged
sons of victory by whom he was surrounded. The first thought
of Louis XVIII. had been to confide himself to this élite of
the French army, and to give up his throne, his person, and his
family to the loyalty of these brave soldiers; but he was dis-
suaded from this. The gloomy frigidity of some regiments of
the imperial guard, drawn up in the line of his entrance into
Paris, appeared a sign of discontent, and a presage of seditions
or of treasons. These regiments, without being disbanded,
were, accordingly, very soon marched into the northern depart-
ments of France, and it was proposed to replace them by a
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 44 l
Military Household of the King.
personal force of the King's. It was further requisite to fulfil
the promises made during the emigration to the courtier com-
panions in adversity of the prince. Rank or subsidies were
also to be given to the numerous officers and soldiers of the
army of Condé, or the army of the princes, who had returned
indigent to their country, where they had found their property
sold, and their houses occupied by the purchasers of national
domains. Finally, it was essential, in reserving the high civil
dignities of the courts for the great names of the monarchy,
to create for the marshals and generals, the assiduous refugees
of the Empire, a certain number of military dignities, which
would give them, near the person of the new master, the
honours and the salaries of that high service of the palace which
they had preferred to their fidelity,
The military household of the King of France was esta-
blished in conformity with all these exigencies.
XII.
The King re-established his military household, such as it
had existed since the days of Louis XIV , and before the reforms
which the paternal economy of Louis XVI. had made in this
armed luxury of the court, consisting of gardes du corps, chevau-
légers, mousquetaires, hallebardiers, cent-Suisses, gardes-de-la-porte,
and gardes de Monsieur, comte d'Artois. The rank of officer in
the army, held by each private soldier of these corps, their
privileges of garrison, of court and of palace, their led horses;
rich uniforms, and residence exclusively in the capital or in the
neighbouring towns, the pay of a private guardsman being equal
to that of a lieutenant of cavalry, the daily familiarity of the
King and the princes, the hunting parties, journeys, and grand
military ceremonies,—in short, the hope of seeing, in the course
of time, all the officers and chiefs of the new army of the
monarchy chosen from this nursery of young noblemen; and,
above all, it must be acknowledged, the eagerness for novelty
and disinterested enthusiasm of the royalist youth for the
royalty of the princes who had reigned over their fathers, by
an irresistible impulse, in a few days carried thousands of young
C C
4 42 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14.
Military Household of the King.
men, of the noble and rich families throughout all France, to
Paris, for the purpose of enrolling themselves. There was not
one illustrious house of ancient aristocracy, not a hotel of the
faubourg Saint Germain, not a chateau of the most remote
province, not a fireside of honourable citizenship in the towns
of the various departments, that did not furnish a son to this
voluntary recruiting of the King's guard. In a few weeks,
these corps were completed, mounted, armed, disciplined, and
exercised. They astonished Paris by the elegance of their
costume, the splendour of their arms, and the insolence of their
bearing. The taste for arms and hereditary personal valour
(usual in the nobility of the provinces, and transmitted from
father to son), and the beauty and vigour of these military and
chivalric races, at once transformed this élite of the aristocracy
into a pretorian guard of royalty. Admired by Paris, envied
by the army, often rallied and frequently challenged by the
disbanded officers of Napoleon, these young men rivalled in
insolence and bravado the veterans who taunted them on ac-
count of their privileges, their opinions, their youth. As well
practised in small sword combats as the others were in battles
and victories, they every day had numerous encounters with
the soldiers of the Empire; and killing or wounding a great
number of their adversaries, they soon caused their swords to be
respected. But this germ of preference and of division between
the two classes and the two armies, from the first day, diffused
discord between them, and spread disaffection through the
old army. The necessity for economy, to maintain the court
and new military corps, weighed heavily on the immense list of
Napoleon's officers, already disproportioned to the requirements
of peace, and the now restricted recruiting of France within its
limits. Fifteen or sixteen thousand officers, of every rank, re-
duced to half-pay, carried into all the towns and villages, their
feelings of dissatisfaction at the interruption of their career,
and the complaints of their diminished means of existence.
Being placed in more direct connection with the people than
the nobility, these half-pay officers, who had sprung from the
the humblest families, and were now mingled with all the
rural populations, first inspired the unpopularity of the Bour-
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 443
Military Household of the King.
bons, and became the active germ of a secret military and popu
lar conspiracy, in which democracy and despotism were to unite
against the Restoration and against liberty.
The chiefs of the household troops of the King, were chosen,
with a politic impartiality, by Louis XVIII., from amongst the
marshals of the Empire and the great names of the ancient
monarchy. Marshal Berthier and Marshal Marmont were ap-
pointed captains of the guards, together with the Dukes de
Luxembourg and the Duke d'Havre. The musketeers and
light-horse were also commanded by generals of the Imperial
epoch. The Count d'Artois, the Prince de Condé, and the
Duke d'Orleans re-assumed the ancient titles of heads of their
houses, and of colonel-general of the Swiss, of the infantry,
the dragoons, and of the hussars. The army became remoulded
with all the traditions of the antique military state of France,
and with all the officers of the emigration, of the army of
Condé, or of the navy, which the Revolution, banishment, dis-
gust or old age had driven from the ranks during the last
twenty years. Rank, pensions, and military decorations retro-
verted a quarter of a century, to recompense, in past times,
doubtful services, questionable fidelities, ridiculous incapacities,
and claims which were in some way justifiable and in others
false. Titles, honours, and the public money were all at the
mercy of the veterans of the Restoration, and Paris presented
the odd spectacle of an exhumed century starting from oblivion,
with its names, its opinions, and costumes, to come and snatch
away or beg the favours of another century. Ridicule began
to get the better of the respect of the people, on beholding this
retinue of decay, of fidelity, and of beggary at the doors of the
ministers and of the palace of the Bourbons. The King him-
self laughed at it, but commanded his ministers to lavish on
them every compensation and all substantial or honorary favours,
So as to put a stop to all complaints of ingratitude from the
royalists around him, and thus have it in his power to refuse
them his politics, by giving up to them his treasures and his
toys.
General Dupont, whom the King had retained as minister
of war, to execute the severities of the disbanding, reduced the
444 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14,
Commissioners appointed to determine the basis of a Constitution.
army to 200,000 men. This was quite enough for a country,
which at that moment supported 800,000 foreign soldiers, and
was negociating for peace as eagerly as if seeking terms of
capitulation. But the transition from an universal monarchy
which kept in pay and recruited a million of men, to a limited'
and pacific monarchy, which had also to make good the arrears
of its conquest and the indemnities of its glory, weighed
fatally on the nation ; and this burden was unjustly brought to
bear on the new Government, which was innocent of the ambi-
tion of Napoleon and of the penury of France.
XIII.
Even peace, the first promise of the King, was so retarded,
and met with so many difficulties, that the public began to lose
all patience. The provinces under military occupation were
ground down, levied upon, and exhausted by the foreign troops
cantoned on the soil, and Paris was humilitated by the presence
of the armies of the North, which were encamped in its gar-
dens and parks. But the Bonapartist and Senatorial faction,
which had gradually gained on the ear of Alexander, made him
impose, as the first condition of peace, the proclamation of a
constitutional charter, which was to constitute a guarantee for
the past and a pledge for the future.
The King at last decided on appointing commissioners,
chosen in almost equal proportions from amongst those in his
private confidence, the members of the legislative body, and
the ancient senators, to determine the basis of the constitution,
and deliberate on the terms of its construction. These were
the Abbé de Montesquiou, his private and confidential minister;
M. Ferrand, his doctrinal theoretician, and the upholder of his
absolute prerogative ; M. Beugnot, the negociator of his con
cessions; to whom he added MM. Barthélemy, Barbé Marbois,
}oissy d'Anglas, Fontanes, Garnier, Pastoret, Semonville,
Marshal Serrurier, Blancart de Bailleul, Bois Savary, Cha-
baud Latour, Clausel de Coussergues, Duchesne, Duhamel,
Faget de Baure, Felix Faulcon, Lainé, and d'Ambray, cham-
cellor of France, the greater part being pure royalists, some of
1814 | OF MO NARCIIY IN FRANCE. 4-4 )
The Constitutional Charter of 1814.
them, men of the Fructidor, proscribed for their premature
royalism, or for their heroic opposition to the revºlutionary ex-
cesses; and also others, such as Lainé and his colleagues, the
zealous advocates of liberty and moderation under the ancient
forms of royalty; all enemies of the Imperial form of govern.
ment, and favourably disposed to the reconciliation of the
nation with the family of the Bourbons. This was a sort of
diplomatic conference, commissioned to prepare the preli-
minaries of the grand treaty of pacification, between the races
and ideas, which had been at war for the last thirty years; or,
in other words, the grand council of royalty and modern
liberty. But the King reserved to himself the right to allow
or to reject, to sign or to expunge, the clauses of this treaty,
and wished the charter to remain subject to his will, even after
he should have promulgated it.
A few sittings, hurried on by the imperative instigation of
the Emperor Alexander, who declared that his troops should
not quit Paris until after the promulgation of the charter,
sufficed for the discussion and drawing up of this document,
and the King signed it, with the formal and repeated reserva-
tion, that this right of the people, was a gift and concession of
the throne, thus reserving the power, as he had done at Com-
piègne, to restore to its original extent the absolute authority
of which he now abandoned a part.
The following is the treaty of peace between the Bourbons
and the nation, of which no one then contested the wisdom,
which every one thought irrevocable, which was sufficient for
the authority of the throne as well as the liberty of the time,
which served as the moral foundation for the firm establish-
ment of traditional and of temporary monarchy, and which
would have supported the government much longer, based as
it was on two different rights and two epochs, if the impatience
of the King with the agitations of the people had not sapped
the foundations of his own monarchy.
PUBLIC RIGHT OF THE FRENCH.
“The French are all equals in the presence of the law,
whatever may be their rank or titles elsewhere.
446 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14,
The Constitutional Charter of 1814.
“They contribute without distinction, in proportion to their
property, to the expenses of the State.
“They are all equally eligible for civil and military em-
ployment.
“Their individual liberty is likewise guaranteed; and no
person can be prosecuted or arrested, except in the cases pro-
vided for by law, and in the form which it prescribes.
“Every one may profess his religion with equal liberty, and
have the same protection for his form of worship.
“Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic and apostolic religion
is the religion of the State.
“The ministers of the Roman Catholic and apostolic
religion, and those of the other Christian forms of worship,
shall alone receive salaries from the royal treasury.
“The French have the right to print and publish their
opinions, conforming to the laws, which are framed to repress
the abuse of this liberty.
“All properties are inviolable, without excepting those
which are called national ; the law allowing no difference
between them.
“The State may require the sacrifice of a property, on
account of the public interest, legally proved, but with a
previous indemnification.
“All inquiry as to the opinions or votes given, up to the
time of the Restoration, is interdicted. The same oblivion is
commanded in the courts of justice, and required of the
citizens.
“Conscription is abolished. The mode of recruiting the
army of the land and of the sea is determined by a law.” }
IPORMS OF Tli E GOVERNMENT OF THE RING.
“The person of the King is inviolable and sacred. The
ministers are responsible. To the King alone belongs the
executive power.
“The King is the supreme head of the State, commands
the forces by land and by sea, declares war, makes the treaties
of peace, of alliance and of commerce, makes all appointments
to the offices of public administration, and makes incccssary
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FTANCE. 4.17
The Constitutional Charter of 1814.
regulations and ordinances for the execution of the laws, and
the safety of the State.
“The legislative power is exercised collectively, by the
Ring, the Chamber of Peers, and the Chamber of the Deputies
of the departments.
“The King proposes the law.
“The proposition of the law is carried, at the pleasure of
the King, to the Chamber of Peers, or to that of the Deputies,
except the law of taxes, which must first be addressed to the
Chamber of the Deputies.
“Every law must be freely discussed and voted for by the
majority of each of the two Chambers.
“The Chambers have power to entreat the King to propose
a law on any subject whatsoever, and to indicate to him what-
ever may appear to them advisable that the law shall contain.
“This demand may be made by each of the two Chambers;
but after having been discussed in private committee, it shall
not be sent to the other Chamber by the one which shall have
proposed it, until after a delay of ten days.
“If the proposition is adopted by the other Chamber, it
shall be placed before the eyes of the King. If it is rejected,
it cannot be brought forward again during the same session.
“The King alone sanctions and promulgates the laws.
“The civil list is fixed for the whole duration of the reign
by the first Assembly of the Legislature since the accession of
the King.”
OF THE CHAMBER OF PEERS.
“The Chamber of Peers is an essential portion of the
legislative power.
“It is convoked by the King at the same time as the
Chamber of Deputies of the departments. The session of the
one commences and terminates at the same time as that of the
other.
“Every assembly of the Chamber of Peers, which shall be
held out of the period of the session of the Chamber of
Deputies, or which shall not be ordered by the King, is illegal
and null in every respect.
448 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [1200R 14.
The Constitutional Charter of 1814,
“The nomination of the peers of France belongs to the
King. Their number is unlimited. He can vary their digni.
ties, appoint them for life, or make them hereditary according
to his will.
The peers take their seats in the Chamber at twenty-five
years of age, but cannot take a part in the deliberations till
thirty
“The Chancellor of France is the president of the Chamber
of Peers, and in his absence a peer nominated by the King.
“The members of the royal family, and the princes of the
blood, are peers by right of birth; they sit immediately after the
President, but take no part in the deliberations till the age of
twenty-five.
“The princes cannot take their seats in the Chamber but
by order of the King, expressed every session by a message,
under pain of nullifying everything which has been done in
their presence.
“All the deliberations of the Chamber of Peers shall be
held in private.
“The Chamber of Peers have cognizance of the crimes of
high treason, and attempts against the safety of the state, which
shall be defined by law.
“No peer can be arrested but by the authority of the
Chamber, nor tried but by it in criminal matters.”
OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES OF THE DEPARTMENTS.
“The Chamber of Deputies shall be composed of deputies
elected by the Electoral Colleges, the organization of which will
be determined by the laws.
“Each department will have the same number of deputies
that it has had up to the present time. -
“The deputies shall be elected for five years, in such
manner that the Chamber shall be renewed every year by
one fifth.
“No deputy can be admitted into the Chamber who is
not forty years of age, and unless he pays, in direct taxes, the
amount of one thousand francs,
“The electors who concur in the nomination of deputies
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE, 449
The Constitutional Charter of 1814.
cannot have the right of suffrage, unless they pay a direct con-
tribution of three hundred francs, and unless they are thirty
years of age.
“The presidents of the electoral colleges shall be nominated
by the King, and from law members of the college.
“One half at least of the deputies shall be chosen from
amongst eligible persons who are politically domiciled in the
department.
“The president of the Chamber of Deputies is nominated
by the King, from a list of five members presented by the
Chamber.
“The sittings of the Chamber are public; but the requi-
sition of five members will suffice to constitute a committee of
the whole house.
“No amendment can be made to a law, unless it has been
proposed, or agreed to, by the King, and sent back and discussed
in committee.
“The Chamber of Deputies receives all propositions of tax-
ation; and it is only after these propositions have been admitted,
that they can be laid before the Chamber of Peers.
“No tax can be established, or collected, unless it has been
agreed to by both Chambers, and sanctioned by the King.
“The land tax is only agreed to from year to year. The
indirect taxes may be agreed to for several years.
“The King convokes both Chambers every year. He pro-
rogues them, and may dissolve that of the deputies of depart-
ments; but in this case he must convoke another within the
space of three months.
“No arrest of person can be exercised against a member of
the Chamber during the session, and for six weeks before
and after.
“No member of the Chamber can, during the session, be
prosecuted or arrested on a criminal charge, except in case of
flagranti delicto, until the permission of the Chamber has been
first obtained.
“No petition to either of the Chambers can be made and
presented except in writing. The law forbids the petitioner to
present in person and at the bar.”
450 t FHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1 1.
The Constitutional Charter of 1814,
OF THE MINISTERS.
“The Ministers may be members of the Chamber of Peers,
or the Chamber of Deputies. They have, further, admission to
both Chambers equally, and must be heard when they demand it.
“The Chamber of Deputies has the right of impeaching
the ministers of the crown, and of arraigning them before the
Chamber of Peers, which alone is competent to try them.
“They can only be impeached on a charge of high treason,
or of peculation.”
OF THE ORDER OF JUSTICE.
“All justice emanates from the King: it is administered
in his name by judges nominated and instituted by him.
“The judges appointed by the King are irremoveable.
“The ordinary courts and tribunals actually in existence
are preserved. Nothing connected with them shall be changed
but by virtue of a law.
“The actual institution of the judges of commerce is pre-
served.
“The justice of peace is also preserved. The justices of
peace, although nominated by the King, are not irremoveable.
“No one can be deprived of his natural judges. Conse-
quently there can be no creation of extraordinary commissioners
and tribunals. Under this denomination are not comprised
the courts of High Commission, should their re-establishment
be thought necessary.
“Pleadings in criminal matters shall be public, unless
this publicity should be dangerous to good order and public
morals: in which case the tribunal will declare it by a
judgment.
“The institution of juries is preserved. Such changes as
a longer experience may render necessary can only be effected
by a law.
“The penalty of confiscation is abolished, and cannot be
re established. -
“The King has the prerogative of pardon, and also of com:
muting punishment.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 451
The Constitutional Charter of 1814.
“The civil code, and the laws actually in existence, which
are not contrary to the present Charter, shall remain in force,
until it shall be legally derogated from.”
PRIVATE IRIGHTS GUARANTEED BY THE STATE.
“Military men on active service, retired officers and
Soldiers, widows, officers, and soldiers enjoying pensions, shall
preserve their ranks, honours, and pensions.
“The public debt is guaranteed. Every sort of engage-
ment made by the State with its creditors is inviolable.
“The ancient nobility will resume their titles, and the
new will preserve theirs. The King creates noblemen at his
own will: but he only grants them rank and honors, without
any exemption from the burthens and duties of society.
“The Legion of Honour is maintained. The King will
determine its interior regulations and decoration.
“The colonies will be governed by special laws and regu
lations.
“The King and his successors will swear, at the solemnity
of their coronation, faithfully to observe the present Constitu-
tional Charter.
“Given at Paris, 4th June, year of grace 1814, and the
19th of our reign.
“(Signed) LOUIS.
And lower down,
“The Minister Secretary of State,
“(Signed) THE ABBE DE MonTESQUIou.”
XIV.
Erom this act may be said to date those political truths
which then first began to operate between the spirit of the
people and the pretensions of kings. With the exception of
the sincere and serious liberty of conscience, irreconcilable
with a state religion, which pays one or two forms of worship
and proscribes the others, all the constitutional liberties were
therein proclaimed and guaranteed. It was the act of birth of
the new regime, baptized in blood on the scaffold, and on the
452 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14,
Opposition of M. de Villele.
field of battle, for twenty-five years past, in contrast with the
old regime which fell to pieces in 1789. It was a second
Henri IV, repudiating his old faith upon a throne, and con-
fessing the dogmas of a new one. Royalty triumphant in
appearance was subjugated even by its return to power; and
adopted the manners, the rights, the language, and the institu-
tions of the vanquished. &
This act satisfied France; only two murmurs being heard
against it, which were, however, stifled in the general joy.
One of these murmurs arose from the old royalists, and was
expressed by a man who since then has become celebrated and
important, M. de Villele, a gentleman of Toulouse, imbued
with the feudal and absolute spirit of the south. The other
was from Carnot, Fouché, some friends of Madame de Staël,
and some dismissed courtiers of Imperial despotism ; some of
them sincere in their shadowy liberalism, and the others
affecting to throw themselves into the most ultra-constitutional
doctrines, to avenge themselves on their lost despotism.
XV.
Mons, de Villele dared to write:—“The general exhaus-
tion will, perhaps, allow this work of selfishness and short-
sightedness to make progress for some time; but on the first
shock it will crumble, and we shall return to revolution.
“Let us keep the institutions that are most suitable to us;
let us have the wisdom and the noble pride to believe that
they are equally good for us as those of our neighbours are for
them, and let us not think that we are any more compelled
than they are to look to foreign countries for a model of our
constitution.
“Intelligence has made great progress in France. Richés
and instruction are there spread amongst all classes. The wish
to see merit turn to the glory and the profit of our country is
engraved in every heart. Let us make in the regime under
which we live the changes indicated by time. let us re-estab-
lish all that is susceptible of being re-established. Let us be
moderate in our innovations. The declaration of the Ring,
1814.] OF M C N A IK C #. Y IN FRANCE, 458
Treaty of peace between the Allied Sovereigns and the French government.
which now occupies us, is almost entirely formed upon the con,
stitution already proposed by the Senate. This work is not
then the work of the King; but that of a body which, as all
France knows, had not the capacity to do it
“Have they not made experiments enough upon us, those
men by whom we have allowed ourselves to be directed too long 2
Have we not sacrificed, in maintaining the fatal ideas of these
empirics, wealth and generations enough 2 What has resulted
from their science, and from the confidence we have had in
their promises? The devastation of the World and the inva-
sion of our country ! Political institutions are not thrown into
a mould, and cannot be founded upon theories of this we have
had sufficiently long experience. Let us return to the consti-
tution of our fathers, to that which is comformable to our
national character, which is in accordance with our opinions,
which is engraved in indelible traces in the hearts of all
Frenchmen. The parts of our ancient organization which have
suffered, will cost us less to repair than the new institutions
would cost us to establish. Experience and public opinion
command the first of these measures, and combine to cause
the rejection of the others.”
XVI.
These murmurs were lost in the general impatience to see
the soil of the country evacuated by the foreign armies. On
the 30th of May the cannon of the Invalides announced to
France that the preliminary treaty of Paris, between the allied
Sovereigns and the government of the King, was signed. The
Count d'Artois had prejudged it too hastily by the convention
of the 23rd of April. This prince had given all the pledges
of a more favourable negociation into the hands of France and
Iouis XVIII., and M. de Talleyrand had only to ratify this
hurried act. He forestalled the approaching treaties of Vienna,
where anti-French and monarchical Europe was going to recom-
stitute itself, with arms in its hands, and where France, in
appearance more independent and more respected, would only
lave the honour of deliberating on its own abasement.
454 HISTORY OF THE RESTOIRATION [BOOK 14.
The Treaty of Paris.
This treaty of Paris declared:—
“That there will be perpetual peace and amity between the
King of France, the Emperor of Austria, and his allies.
“That France will return within its limits of January 1st,
1792, with the exception of some changes on its frontiers, in
the departments of the North, of Sambre and Meuse, of La
Moselle, of La Sarre, and of the Lower Rhine; excepting also
the conservation of Mulhouse, Avignon, Montbéliard, and the
Sous-prefecture of Chambéry.
“That the free navigation of the Rhine, guaranteed to all
by the States bordering on the river, would be regulated by the
future congress. *
“That Holland, placed under the sovereignty of the House
of Orange, would receive an increase of territory.
“That all the States of Germany would be independent,
and united by a federal alliance.
“That Switzerland would remain independent.
“That Italy, exclusive of the part belonging to Austria,
would be composed of sovereign States.
“That the island of Malta and its dependencies would
become British possessions.
“That France should recover her ancient colonies, except
the islands of Tobago, Saint Lucie, the Isle of France, Ro
drigues, and the Lechelles, which she would give up to Eng-
land, as well as all the forts and establishments depending
thereon.
“That France should refrain from every sort of fortification
in the territories she would recover in India, and should only
keep on foot there a number of soldiers necessary to maintain
the police.
“That the right of fishing, on the great bank, and on the
coasts of Newfoundland, as well as in the Gulf of Saint
Lawrence, should be restored to France.
“That France would divide with the allied powers, all the
ships and vessels, armed and unarmed, which were in the
maritime places ceded by her.
“That this division would take place in the proportion of
one third for the powers whose property those places should
1814.] OF MON ARCIHY IN FRANCE. 45.5
Treaty of Paris–Objections to its conditions.
become, and two thirds for France, which would further
renounce all right to the fleet in the Texel.
“That no individual belonging to the countries ceded or
restored could be prosecuted for his acts or his opinions
anterior to this treaty.”
The treaty of Paris further declared, in additional articles
the annulment of two treaties of l805 and 1809, in favour of
Austria; the concurrence of France with England in the abo-
lition of Negro slavery; the payment of the debts of our pri-
soners of war; the replevy of sequestrations placed, since 1792,
on the real and personal property of the subjects of the two
governments, the promise of an approaching convention of
commerce, the annulment, in favour of Prussia, of engage-
ments, public or private, entered into by that power, towards
France since the peace of Bâle; and as regards Russia, the
nomination of a commission charged with the examination and
liquidation of the pecuniary claims of the Duchy of Warsaw
on the government of France.
The treaty also contained five secret articles, by which
France bound herself to recognise in advance the distribution
which the allies might make amongst themselves of the terri-
tories given up by France; and consented that an increase of
territory should be given to the King of Sardinia, and to the
free navigation of the Rhine and the Scheldt.
XVII.
A cry arose, which has been prolonged to this day, against
those concessions of France, in ceding a trifling portion of her
colonies, refraining from an armed competition with the English
in India, and, finally, consenting to give up Malta, this bulwark
of the Mediterranean, to England. This was forgetting the
actual situation of France, disarmed, prostrated, and con-
quered, before a million of victorious invaders. It was requiring
from defeat more than would have been required from victory;
it was reproaching Louis XVIII, with the fatal and imperious
expiation of the faults of the Emperor. What could he have
done, and what could France have done without him? In
456 II ISTORY OF THE IRESTORATION [BOOK 14,
Conditions of the treaty.
what respect did his presence on the throne of his ancestors aggra
vate the ransom of his country, that an ambition, of which he was
innocent, had delivered, bound hand and foot, into the hands of
Europe? Had Louis XVIII, not been at Paris, would France
have been more free and more powerful to discuss her con-
ditions? Would the sovereigns and their armies have granted
to France without a chief, or to France under the guardianship
of an Austrian regency, or to France fighting behind the Loire,
and on the plateau of her central mountains, with her last
remains of an army, conditions more favourable than they
granted her to a king deriving his blood and origin from her,
and the restorer of a moderate monarchy? Had not Napoleon
himself, when his power and glory were in the ascendant, ceded
his colonies, sold the immense empire of Louisiana, bartered
Venice with Austria, guaranteed the dismemberment of Poland
to Austria and Russia, and left this same island of Malta and
Sicily to the English 7 Bonapartism, the only culpable party
in all these reverses, iniquitously cast them on the Bourbons.
I.iberalism repeated these reproaches without comprehending
them. The opposition to the Restoration commenced on that
day, as all systematic oppositions do, by ingratitude and bad
faith.
XVIII.
In virtue of this treaty, the Ionian islands, Hamburg, and
Magdeburg, still occupied by 60,000 French troops, were
released from blockade, and restored to the allied powers.
The troops returned from these useless fortresses, where the
short-sighted indecision of Napoleon had left them shut up,
while he was vainly demanding new battalions from the ex-
hausted soil to defend the mother country. M. de Talleyrand,
who wished to furnish an authority in his own favour, at a
later period, for the diplomatic allowances assigned by usage to
the negociators of treaties of territory, distributed six or eight
millions, in ransom, to the European diplomatists who signed
the treaty of Paris. Prince Mettermich, the Austrian minister,
Lord Castlereagh, plenipotentiary of the British government,
M. de Nesselrode and M. de Hardenberg, the one especially in
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 457
Departure of the Allied Armies—Opening of the Chambers.
the name of Russia, the other in the name of Prussia, received
each a million. The ministers of secondary powers received
considerable sums, proportioned to the importance of the courts
they represented. This ransom, offered and accepted as the
price of peace, produced it more promptly, but made it more
humiliating. As a precedent, it was shameful; as a bargain, it
was advantageous to the country; for every day of continued
occupation cost France more than eight millions.
XIX.
The allied sovereigns quitted Paris, and gave orders to
their armies to evacuate that city the day after the signature
of the treaty. The Emperor Alexander went to enjoy his
triumphal popularity in London, before his return to Russia.
The King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria repassed the
Rhine. Bernadotte, King of Sweden, who had for some time
nourished the absurd hope of succeeding Napoleon, through
the favour of Alexander, as the price of his part in the
hostilities against his own country, had already retired as a
conqueror, but with feelings of compunction, before the re.
proaches of his own conscience, and the reprobation of his old
friends. Moreau and Bernadotte had been differently punished
for their crimes against their country, one by death, the othe:
by victory, both by the reprobation of patriotism,
XX.
The king prepared himself for the first act of his constitu-
tional reign, the opening of the Chambers.
The silence of the Charter, with respect to the Senate, had
erased that body from the list of public powers; and the
senators, feeling uneasy or dismayed individually, entreated
the favour of being called to the Chamber of Peers, from
which fifty-four of them were excluded by the decision of the
King, in remembrance of certain acts or opinions for which he
had promised oblivion, but not favour. The principal of these
were Cambaceres, Chaptal, Chasset, Fouché, whom private
D D
458 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOR 14.
Leading members of the Chamber of Peers.
favour could not shield openly from the responsibility of
regicide; the uncle of the emperor, Cardinal Fesch; François
de Neufchâteau, a too precocious poet during the last years of
the reign of Louis XVI., punished for his enthusiasm for the
Republic, and them for the despotism of the empire; Garat,
who had delivered Louis XVI. to the executioner, even while
affecting to lament and shed tears over him ; Gregoire,
who denied all participation in the death of Louis, but who
avowed his persevering adhesion to the Republic; Roederer,
the intrepid supporter of the constitutional throne on the 10th
of August, but whose name was unjustly proscribed in the
badly transmitted memorials of that day, and in the complaints
against the commune of Paris; and, lastly, Sieyes, the first
prophet of the revolution of 1789, the legislator who had
yielded the head of a king to the fury of the people, the
director who had plotted his own fall with the ambition of
l3onaparte, and preferred despotism as an antidote of anarchy.
All these men withdrew themselves for a while into the shade,
but with such titles, honours, and salaries as left them nothing
to complain of but oblivion. Amongst the marshals the King
excluded none but those whose standing dated more particu-
larly from the Revolution and the Republic;-Brune, whom an
unjust and odious report accused of having assisted in the
massacres of September, and the decapitation of the Princess
de Lamballe, that favourite of the queen, who had returned to
meet death for friendship's sake; Davoust, a gentleman cf
ancient family, who had repudiated his descent, and taken his
rank in the plebeian army of 1792 : Jourdan, the conqueror of
Fleurus, who remained a republican from conviction, and out
of respect for his own exploits; Soult, the most consummate
of Napoleon's lieutenants, suspected of a personal ambition,
reaching even to the throne, and who had prolonged the
struggle at Toulouse, by a battle fought, it was said, more for
his own popularity than for the country; and, lastly, Victor,
who had risen from the lowest ranks of the army, and who,
though now slighted by the Bourbons, was destined soon to
avenge this injustice by an act of fidelity,+the true vengeance
of the brave.
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 459
Leading members of the Chamber of Peers.
XXI.
The clergy and high nobility returned a large proportion,
through their politics and the privilege of the Church and of
birth, to the ranks of the peerage. All the great dignitaries,
all the great episcopal sees, and all the great names of the
ancient court and of the ancient aristocracy, obtained their
hereditary restoration in this body of the estate, and from this
indirect and constitutional regeneration of the illustrious
names of the nation, by the fresh ennobling of venerable and
historical farmilies; among which were recognised, with a
certain patriotic pride, the names of the Perigords, the
Luzernes, the Clermont-Tonnerres, as bishops of the princi-
pal sees of France; and, as distinguished for antiquity or
renown, the names of the d'Elbeufs, the Montbazons, the La .
Tremouilles, the Chevreuses, the Brissacs, the Richelieus, the
Rohans, the Luxembourgs, the Gramonts, the Montemarts,
the Noailles, the Saint-Aignans, the d'Aramonts, the D'Har-
courts, the Fitz-James, the Brancas, the Duras, the La
Vauguyons, the Choiseuls, the Coignys, the La Rochefoucaulds,
the Croys, the Montmorencys, the Lévis, the Maillés, the La
Forces, the Saulx-Tavannes, the De Sèzes; together with the
Neys, the Berthiers, the Suchets, the Massénas, the Oudinots,
the Seruriers, the Mortiers, the Perignons; and of those men
who had revived the civil or military glory of France.
XXHI.
Had the legislative body been suddenly convoked, such as
it stood, it would have needed no purifying. The only regi.
cide who then formed part of this national representation,
subordinate to the suggestions of the prefects of the Empire,
retired of his own accord, and from motives of decency, from
the presence of the brother of Louis XVI., that no sinister
recollection might sadden the ears or the eyes of the new
sovereign. The whole of France was then possessed of this
same feeling. It did not disclaim the deeds of its Revolution;
3 (; () HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION . [BOOK 14.
Opening of the Chambers.
but wished to efface from the soil, and from the pages of history,
the traces of its dissensions and its vengeances; so that its
peace might not be disturbed by any phantom issuing from its
graves.
The opening session of the Chambers was fixed for the 4th
of June 1814; and Louis XVIII., accompanied by all the
princes of his house, repaired thither, in all the pomp of the
successors of Louis XIV. The more he condescended to hold
converse with this national Parliament, the more he wished the
majesty of the crown to shine resplendent in the midst of arms,
and at an inordinate height of grandeur above the representa-
tion of the people.
The minds of all being dazzled, as well as their hearts
touched, they were inclined to hail in him the possession of
this prestige, and responded to the feeling which rallied the
nation around this aged legislator. The Emperor had feasted
all eyes with the pomp of arms, and they were now glad to
hail the majesty of the laws. An immense crowd, equal in
extent to that which had welcomed royalty on the day of its entry
into Paris, thronged both banks of the Seine to see the proces-
sion of the royal cortège, and to bless the King for the insti-
tutions which he was going to ratify. The tribunes of the
legislative body were full of the élite of France and of Europe.
The peers and the members of the legislative body were col-
lected together, and crowded into the same place. A throne was
prepared for the king. He appeared, and the vaulted roof of the
palace resounded with unanimous acclamations; some hailing the
re-establishment of royalty, and others anxiously awaiting from
his lips the first consecration of liberty. The King, raising his
attitude on that day to the haughty standard of the centuries
of majesty represented by his name, and illuming the whole
group of the royal family, and of the dignitaries who surrounded
him, with the real and predominant brilliancy of his intellect,
seated himself on his throne, and, evidently affected, bowed
with dignity before the acclamations of the legislators, who
remained standing. Tears flowed from the aged men and the
ladies in the tribunes, the companions of his long exile, whom
they had followed when Wandering and dethroned, at the sight
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE, 46 l
The King's Speech on the opening of the Chambers.
of this first coronation of the King, and all political dissent
vanish before ul.animity of feeling,
XXIII.
Louis XVIII. was desirous of writing by himself, and
without the assistance or concurrence of any of his ministers,
the speech he had to make to the Chambers; and, as a literary
man, he found with equal pride and happiness, on this solemn
occasion, an opportunity, rare for a king, of displaying the talent
with which mature and study had endowed him. More than
this, he knew that the heart is the true source of eloquence :
his was moved, affected by the past, and confidant in the
future. None of his ministers or official writers could have
found in their reflections the pathetic, true, and elevated tone
which the brother of Louis XVI. found in his own soul. The
king had studied his words ; but he allowed his feelings to
speak. His white hairs, his looks at once mild and majestie,
his gesture temperate and paternal, his enunciation full of in-
flexions which seemed to spring from the heart, the sound of
his voice grave and vibrating, exciting the souls of others be-
cause he was himself excited, engraved his language in the ear
and in the memory. A constrained silence seemed to anticipate
the words as they fell from his lips; and it might be said, that a
whole people awaited the revelation of their fate in every sen.
tence he uttered.
XXIV.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “when, for the first time, I find
myself surrounded in this edifice by the great bodies of the
State, the representatives of a nation which ceases not to lavish
upon me the most affecting marks of regard, I congratulate
myself on having become the dispenser of the benefits which
Divine Providence has deigned to accord to my people,
“I have made a peace with Russia, Austria, England, and
Prussia, in which are comprised their allies, that is to say,
every prince in Christendom. The war was universal, and the
reconciliation is equally so.
462 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14.
The Ring's Speech on the opening of the Chambers.
“The rank which France has always occupied amongst
nations, has not been transferred to any other, and remains
undividedly its own. All the security acquired by the other
states equally increases that of France, and consequently adds
to her real power. What she does not retain of her con-
quered territories ought not to be considered as abstracted from
her actual strength.
“The glory of the French armies has met with no disgrace;
the monuments of their valour exist; and the chef-d'oeuvres of
the arts belong to us henceforward by rights more solid and
more sacred than those of victory.
“The avenues of commerce, so long closed, will soon be
free. The markets of France will no longer be open exclusively
to the productions of her own soil and industry. Those of which
habit has constituted a want, or which are necessary to the
arts we exercise, will be furnished to us by the possessions we
shall recover. France will therefore be no longer obliged to
deprive herself of them, or to obtain them on ruinous condi-
tions. Our manufactures are about to reflourish ; our maritime
cities again to resuscitate; and everything promises that long
tranquillity abroad, and a durable felicity within, will be the
happy results of the peace.
“A melancholy recollection, however, comes to interrupt
my joy. I was born, I had flattered myself, to continue all
my life the most faithful subject of the best of kings, and to-
day I occupy his place | But at least he is not altogether
dead; for he survives in this testament, which he destined for
the instruction of the august and unfortunate child whom I was
destined to succeed . It was with my eyes fixed upon this
immortal work, penetrated with the feelings by which it was
dictated, guided by the experience and seconded by the
councils of several amongst you, that I have drawn up the
Constitutional Charter, which you are about to hear read, and
which establishes, upon a solid basis, the prosperity of the State.’
XXV
The King's voice was broken at this last paragraph of his
speech. These allusions to a brother who had perished in the
1814] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 463
Speech of the Chancellor d'Ambray.
child-birth of liberty, on which he had smiled, and which had
sacrificed him, as if to punish him for his virtue, to a Queen,
and to a child, the heir of so many thrones, and of so many
scaffolds of his race,—this resurrection of royalty, coming out
of banishment as from a sepulchre, in the persons of relations
the nearest to the victims, this evangelical testament of
Louis XVI. elevated by the hand of the King, his brother, and
his avenger, like a flag of peace between the two parties, this
pardon descending from Heaven in the last will of a martyr of
the people to inspire them with confidence, as well as pardon
to his dynasty,+this throne on which it might be supposed
they saw two Kings, the one to inspire and the other to reign,
—this orphan princess, the Duchess d’Angoulême, witnessing
from one of the tribunes these reparations of Providence,
bathing with her tears the veil with which she endeavoured to
dry her eyes, and with difficulty stifling her sobs,-all these
recollections—all these scenes—all these emotions added
to the eloquence of speech the eloquence of the eyes, of
the memory, of the past, of the feelings, and of the sensations
of the auditors. Finally, a pledge of liberty issued forth, sanc-
tioned by royalty, hailed by the people, purchased by kingly
blood, and bedeved with the tears of a scene at once tragic,
politic, and holy, the actors in which were a people and a King.
A long silence, full of reflections, of joys, and of sorrows, suc-
ceeded to the applauses which had greeted the last words of the
King.
The Chancellor d'Ambray addressed the Assembly in turn,
exhorting them to read a discourse introductory to the Charter,
containing his own comments on that document. The natural
motion which had been so deeply roused them began to subside,
and political susceptibilities promptly assumed the place of
feeling. This discourse was dull, dogmatic, and paradoxical :
full of awkward reserves in the concessions; drawing back to
the crown with one hand what was apparently given to liberty
with the other; wounding through the Revolution; distrustful
and provoking ; vainly endeavouring to reconcile the absolute
dogmas of the ancient feudal monarchy with the rational doc-
trines of the monarchy established by national consent; effacing
464 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Boof: 14
*-* →
Speeches of the Chancellor d'Ambray and M. Ferrand.
twenty-five years of our history; assuming that the country
had emigrated with the throne; dating the reign of the Bour
boms, not from the recall of the King of France, but from the
death of Louis XVII. in the dungeons of the Temple; ex-
citing, in short, controversy on an occasion where it ought to
have been stifled by the unanimity of the reconciliation ; and,
under the mingled rights of two epochs and two principles,
thus chilling all hearts, drying up the tears, exasperating the
minds, and exciting the shudders and the murmurs of the
audience. These feelings ran through the Assembly; and when
the Chancellor awkwardly designated the Charter as a simple
ordinance of reforms, they gave ominous warning to the King, in
spite of the respect and good feeling which all wished to evince.
They redoubled when he characterised, as culpable errors and
theories, the persevering efforts of a nation to create a new
order of things, in conformity with the development of ideas,
and the rights of a more perfect civilization. They arose and
continued still more sensibly, when M. d’Ambray (retroverting
in thought even beyond the States-general of 1789) called the
peers and representatives of the present day the NoTABLEs of
the kingdom. The king from this might see the approaching
and inevitable struggle of two principles, between which his
personal wisdom had wished to interpose, but which the impru-
dent provocation of the theorists of ancient royalty had recalled
into existence. These expressions had been introduced as con-
cessions to his brother the Count d'Artois and the journalists
of the emigration, who were ambitious to reconquer, on behalf
of the imperishable and infallible right of the throne, a peo-
ple by whom, on the contrary, Louis XVIII. was himself to be
reconquered.
XXVI.
Mons. Ferrand, one of these theorists, the most imperious
and the least intelligent, spoke also in his turn before he read
the Charter. He descanted on the fatal errors that had inter-
rupted the chain of time; he called the Charter a gift and not
a right, a concession and not a conquest of the age; he offended,
he disturbed, he grieved those souls which had been ready to
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRAN C F. 465
Dissatisfaction excited by their speeches.
expand with joy. But the reading of the Charter itself, and
the announcement of the principles and the institutions which
were thenceforward to direct the relations between the throne
aud the people, effaced all these fugitive irritations, and gave
to all a full security for the possession of liberty. Those
awkward expressions, which endeavoured to withhold while
giving, up were attributed to obstinate and stupid councillors.
To the King alone were ascribed the wisdom and the con-
secration of the principles of the Charter. Every one found
therein one of those truths to which he had devoted either his
intelligence or his blood. This symbol of the new age, medi-
tated, written, and adopted by a prince without prejudices and
without resentment, attracted towards him all the love which
the people bore to those principles themselves. Louis XVIII.,
on quitting the palace of the Chambers, was really a king from
conviction as well as from feeling. The acclamations and
benedictions of two ages were concentred on his head. They
followed him even to his palace, and resounded until night in
the courts and gardens of the Tuileries. He had conquered
France, by presenting it with its own image in this code of
new institutions.
“My crown is there !” said he, as he contemplated, from the
balcony of the Tuileries, the people who manifested their joy
on finding the King imbued with their own ideas:—“Henry IV.
conquered them with his arms, but I have conquered them by
my meditations at Hartwell. I have also gained my battle
of Ivry !”
XXVII.
The murmurs which had broken out in the opening of the
Chambers at the speeches of Mons. d’Ambray and Mons. Fer-
rand, who spoke of restricting the royal concessions, slightly
agitated the first meetings of the two Assemblies. The two
addresses, however, which these bodies deliberated upon, in
reply to the speech from the throne, only made slight allusions
to them. They seemed afraid of disturbing the harmony which
the whole of France desired to witness between the represent-
atives of the country and the hereditary representative of the
466 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14.
Addresses of the Chamber of Peers and the legislative body.
royal authority. They mystified the various conflicting opinions
on the origin and revocability of the Charter, with ambiguous
circumlocutions, which left a vacuity between the pretensions
of the people and the rights of the throne.
- “Sire,” said the Chamber of Peers, “your Majesty's faith-
ful subjects come to depose, at the foot of your throne, the
tribute of the most lively gratitude for the double and inesti.
mable benefit of a peace glorious for France, and of a regenera-
tive constitution. The great Charter, which your Majesty has
just promulgated, consecrates anew the ancient constitutional
principle of the French monarchy, which establishes on the
same foundation, and by an admirable accord, the power of the
king and the liberty of the people. The form which your
Majesty has given to the application of this unalterable prim-
ciple is a striking proof of your profound wisdom, and of your
love for the French. It is thus that the strength of the
monarchy will develope itself, and increase more and more,
like the personal glory of your Majesty; and after we shall
have the happiness of being a long time governed by your
Majesty, posterity will hasten to unite the name of Louis
XVIII. to those of his most illustrious predecessors.”
The deputies maintained the same reserve, and did not
exhibit any enthusiasm, or any anticipative adulation of the
King.
“Sire,” said the legislators, “the Constitutiºnal Charter
promises to France the enjoyment of that political liberty
which, in elevating the nation gives greater splendour to the
throne itself, and the benefits of that civil liberty which, by
making the royal authority beloved by all classes, renders
obedience at once more agreeable and certain. The duration
of these benefits, it would appear, must be unalterable, coming
as they do at a moment when Heaven has at length granted
peace to France. The army which has fought for our country
and for honour, and the people whom it has defended, acknow-
ledge with pleasure that this peace, signed the first month of
your Majesty's return to the capital, is due to the august House
of Bourbon, round which the great French family rallies to a
man, in the hope of repairing our misfortunes.
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 4.67
M. Lainé nominated President of the legislative body.
“Yes, Sire, all interests, all rights, all hopes, mingle to.
gether under the protection of the crown. We shall see
nothing more in France but true citizens, only looking back to
the past to draw from it useful lessons for the future, and dis-
posed to make the sacrifice of their opposing pretensions and
resentments. The French, equally filled with love for their
country and their king, will never separate these noble senti-
ments in their hearts; and the King whom Providence has
given them, uniting these two great sources of prosperity—
the ancient and modern States—will conduct his subjects, free
and reconciled, to the true glory and happiness for which they
are indebted to Louis the Desired.”
XXVIII.
M Lainé, who raised the first voice for liberty, and was
the first precursor of a constitutional Restoration, was nomi-
nated president of the legislative body. This choice expressed,
in a single name, the double thought which animated the
Chamber of Deputies, the will of a free government, and the
acceptation of the Bourbons. The labours of both Chambers
commenced, but they displayed the inexperience and hesitation
of a people who had lost the practice of political discussions,
and who, not knowing either their rights or their limits, in-
curred the risk of compromising or outstepping them. The
Ring, attentive and not quite satisfied as to the privileges
he had pretended to concede to the two Chambers, surveyed
from his cabinet these first debates with anxious solicitude.
The courtiers frightened him with the first stammerings of the
opposition; while the royalists, full of recollections and of
terrors, had never been able to comprehend this division of
sovereignty, the oscillation of which between a king and a
people, constitutes the mixed and representative government of
lºngland. Every independent expression seemed to them an
insult; every national right a revolt; and every speech an
indication of lèze-majesty. The King, more practised and
more firm, re-assured them, and exerted himself to moderate
the boldness of the one side, and the fears on the other, of
468 IHISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14.
M. de Talleyrand–M. Beugnot—M. Guizot
this new mode of government. But none of his ministers
was capable, by his sagacity or his eloquence, to habituate the
tribune and the council to the working of the representative
system. M. d'Ambray and M. Ferrand were mere superannuated
rhetoricians; M. de Talleyrand, a man of the cabinet, the
lobby, and the saloon, had not in his nature either the manly
courage which struggles under the influence of strong con-
victions against the tumult of a popular assembly, or that
overwhelming brilliancy of intellect which subdues it, or that
tone of voice which is the dominating power of the political
orator. A silent friend of Mirabeau's, he had always kept
himself in the shadow of this great debater in the Constituent
Assembly. He had never become great in public opinion
until the tribune had been demolished by despotism, and
political fame was acquired, not in the open day, but by the
artifice and mystery of court intrigue. He affected to despise
this noisy vanity of public discussion, and to hold the clues to
the conscience and ambition of some members of both Chambers.
He forgot, and he made the King forget, that in one day, by
the promulgation of the Charter, France had passed from the
government of silence to the government of opinion.
Under his orders, M. Beugnot, a man of a similar nature,
bestowed on the police the prerogatives of justice and of law.
The previous censorship of journals and books, the legacy of
the Empire, was exercised by M. Beugnot, under the inspiration
of the Abbé de Montesquiou. A young man, who has since
become celebrated under several reigns, M. Guizot, directed at
the home department this branch of the administration, and
commenced, by the arbitrary superintendence of thought, a
life of publicity and parliamentary discussion, which contradicted
the occupations of his early years. One of the first collisions
between the government and public opinion was imprudently
caused by M. Beugnot, on the subject of a police regulation on
the obligatory and fastidious observation of Sunday. The
King thought he owed this first homage to the clergy, whose
restoration he maintained to have resulted from the restoration
of his own throne. He forgot that the Revolution was still
more religious than political in the minds of the people, whose
1814.] OF MONAHCF/Y IN FRANCE, 46.9
*
Proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies.
consciences, more susceptible than their opinions, ardently
desired the restoration of the Catholic Church in its freedom,
as their opinions wished for the restoration of the throne in its
constitutional character; but an act of repression, or com-
pression of consciences, looked like a symptom of the domination
of one sole privileged form of worship, and an outrage against
the reason and the toleration of the age. A cry of indignation
accordingly rose from the multitude, which served as a check
to the ministers and a warning to the King; and the regu-
lation, despised and unexecuted, fell into desuetude from the
very day of its promulgation. This attempt of M. Beugnot's,
though it vanished in a shower of ridicule, was sufficient, how-
ever, to irritate the nation against the Church, and to throw
into the growing opposition a ferment of discontent and agi-
tation, which rendered royalty a little unpopular.
The Chamber of Deputies threatened to call for laws to
guarantee freedom of conscience, of opinion, and of discussion,
through the liberty of the press. The government, warmed
and intimidated by these propositions, hastened to present a
law for the regulation of thought, lest the Chamber should
decree its absolute freedom. The ministers, specially charged
to present and to defend this law, sufficiently indicated by their
names what the nature of it would be. These were the mem-
bers of the council most decidedly opposed to all intellectual
liberty, M. Beugnot, who seized on the printers; M. Ferrand,
who amathematized all printing; and M. de Blacas, who saw
revolt in every independent expression of judgment. M. de
Talleyrand seemed to have played upon his colleagues, in
sending them to sustain, with such unequal forces, before
jealous and eloquent assemblies, the struggle of court spirit
against the spirit of liberty.
The Abbé de Montesquiou, minister of the interior, less
unpractised than the others in the discussions of deliberative
assemblies, read a discourse which gave an ample presage of
the nature of the law. It had been concocted by M. Royer-
Collard, a statesman still undecided in his politics with refer.
ence to the past and the future, and was drawn up by-
£70 HIST ORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14.
Address of the Abbé de Montesquiou against the liberty &f the press.
M. Guizot, an eager servant of a government where he
wished by his services to open a field for his talents.
“Gentlemen,” said M. de Montesquiou, “You very well
know it is no vain subtlety but the result of sorrowful experi-
ence, that the liberty of the press, often proclaimed in France
for the last twenty-five years, has itself become her greatest
enemy. The cause, we shall be told, was in the effervescence
of popular passiens, in the facility with which people were led
astray, who were as yet incapable of judging of the tendency of
writings, and foreseeing their consequences. But have these
causes yet disappeared? May we flatter ourselves that they will
not operate again hereafter ? We dare not hope it. The silent
servitude which has succeeded to the turbulence of the first
years of the Revolution, has not prepared us any better for
liberty. Those passions, which have not manifested themselves
during this interval, might break forth to day, strengthened
with new energy. What should we have to oppose to their
violence? Almost as much inexperience, and more weakness.
Such is the nature of liberty, that to know how to make use of
it, it must be enjoyed. Give it, therefore, all the expansion
necessary to show the nation how to use it properly; but oppose
some barriers against its undue excess.
“The law that is about to be proposed to you is based upon
these principles; and the articles it comprises are but their
development. In asking you to assign some limits to the
liberty of the press, you are not required to violate a principle,
but to apply it as may be suitable to our manners. The King
proposes nothing to you which does not appear to him rigidly
necessary for the safety of the national institutions, and for
the progress of government. What is particularly necessary to
be put a stop to, is the publication of writing in small volumes,
which being more easily clºculated, and more calculated to be
read with avidity, more decidedly threaten to interrupt public
tranquillity.
“All writings of more than thirty sheets for each impres-
sion may be published freely, and without the previous exa-
mination of the censorship.
1814.] OF MONARC HY IN FRANCE. 47 l.
Address of the Abbé de Montesquiou against the liberty of the press.
“Whatever may be the number of sheets, the same will
apply to writings in the dead or foreign languages, mandates,
pastoral letters, catechisms, books of prayer, or memoirs on
trials at law, signed by an advocate of the courts and tribunals.
“If two censors at least judge that the writing is a de-
famatory libel, or that it may trouble the public tranquillity, or
that it is contrary to Article XI. of the Charter, or that it
offends against morality, the director-general of publications
may order the impression to be prohibited
“A commission of the two Chambers shall be formed at the
commencement of each session, to be composed of three peers
and three deputies, elected by their respective Chambers, and
three royal commissioners.
“No one is to follow the business of printer or bookseller,
unless licensed by the King, and sworm. Clandestine printing
offices shall be destroyed, and the proprietors and conductors
punished by a fine of 10,000 francs, and an imprisonment of
six months.
“In deſaulu of declaration before impression, and of deposit
before publication, each party shall be punished by a fine of
1000 francs for the first offence, and 2000 francs for the
second. The indication of a false name, or a false residence,
shall be punished by a fine of 6000 francs, without prejudice
to the imprisonment pronounced by the penal code.
“Every bookseller, at whose house shall be found a work
without the name of the printer, shall be condemned to a fine
of 2000 francs, the said fine to be reduced to 1000 francs, if
the bookseller makes the printer known. Finally, the law
should be revised in three years, to make such modifications in
it as experience may judge necessary.”
XXIX.
This law, made for the occasion, that belied, on the very
first day, one of the promises held out in the Charter which
was most dear to the nation, looked like an attempt on the
Charter itself, of which the liberty of thinking and writing was
the only guarantee. The prerogative of opinion would expire
J. 72 IIISTORY OF THE RESTORATION TDOOR 14.
Report of M. de Laynouard in favour of the press.
in the prerogative of the police. The chamber and the country
with difficulty rest aimed their indignation Journals and
pamphlets, setting the police at defiance, circulated everywhere
murmurs, irony, anger, and contempt against the ministers.
The most moderato writers and the most favourable to the
Bourbons, Dussault, Benjamin Constant, and Suard, discussed
before the tribune the severities and the madness of the law.
The Chamber of Deputies appointed M. Raynouard to report
upon it. He was a royalist and liberal writer, the friend and
accomplice of M. Lainé in his revolt against Imperial despotism.
An immense crowd, which sufficiently evinced the public
exasperation, besieged the entrance and the interior of the
Chamber of Deputies, the day on which M. Raynouard was to
present his report for discussion to the Chamber. The troops
were obliged to interfere to clear the galleries; and the crowd
and tumult were so great that the sitting was adjourned to the
following day.
XXX.
An imposing force secured, on this occasion, the assembling
of the deputies and the calmness of their deliberations. M.
Raynouard read his report, which was worthy of that excellent
man. He knew how to Sacrifice to his opinions even the
inclinations of his heart for the Bourbons. He spoke in the
midst of a silence, which attested the anxiety and attention of
the public. After a wise and powerful dissertation on liberty,
as regulated by the first of human faculties—thought, and on
the first of political prerogatives—freedom of discussion, M.
Raynouard moved the rejection of the law of censure and of
suppression: his speech being received with immense applause.
The discussion opened with an impatience of opinions which
would neither wait for victory or defeat, and it continued for
four days. Everything was said on the advantages and the
dangers of unshackled liberty, o' liberty restrained by thought,
at the termination of a revolution which had excited unbounded
resentments, and which was still in a state of ebullition. The
whole assembly trembled before the power they were going to
unchain. That assembly of men, worn out with revolutions,
I814 | OF MON A R C IH Y IN FRANCE 473
I}oissy d'Anglas and Lamjuinais.- The national fini. 11, e3.
timid in their ideas, uncertain in their doctrines, moulded by
long silence to habits of despotism, and who had never risen
against it but on the day it had threatened to crush them, had
neither intelligence nor boldness, nor the character of an
Assembly which had been long free. An immense majority
yielded to the reasons of prudence alleged by M. de Montes.
quiou. Eighty members only, amongst whom were all the
great men of the Revolution and of literature, Dupont (del'Eure)
Dumolard, Durbach, Raynouard, Gallois, and Lainé, protested
against this cowardice and this suspension of free opinion.
The law, however, was adopted.
Boissy d'Anglas and Lanjuínais, in the Chamber of Peers,
combated with energy and with eloquence this servile law.
These two veterans of the tribune, who had been the most in-
trepid against the demagogues, and against the popular tyranny
of the people at the Convention, were the most inflexible against
this excess of arbitrary power, in the presence of the royalty
they loved. M. de Talleyrand kept silence before them,--
whether it was that he felt his weakness in the tribune, or
whether he wished, in the uncertainty of the result and the un
popularity of the law, to remain undecided himself, and emig
matical and free, to sacrifice his colleagues, if public opinion
required it. The men of the court and the emigration main
tained the doctrines they had imbibed in their infancy, and
cursed the liberty of thought as the cause of their ruin and cf
their exile. The law was carried by a feeble majority; an in
stance of independence that gave to the Chamber of Peers a
popularity which the Senate had lost.
XXXI.
The attention of the Chambers was next directed to the
finances, involved in debt a thousand millions by the wars of
Napoleon. The Abbé Louis, a minister of ability and coolness,
dared to invoke public credit, which saves all when all is lost.
He sounded public opinion as to the creation of a sinking fund
for the national debt, a measure puerile in itself, but deceptive
for the imagination of lenders. He prepared, without troubling
474 £HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14
ºr Financial measures presented to the King.
himself about the enormity of the sacrifices, not only the means
of meeting the expenses of the army, of the administration, and
of the court, but also the liquidation, prompt, and in full, of the
compensations and indemnities which the Emperor left to be
paid, as the ransom of his glory and his reverses, by the nation.
This minister had boldly proposed to the King the sale of
300,000 hectares of national forests, the remains of the enor.
mous spoils of a proprietary and dispossessed clergy. The
Church had usurped three times, in thirteen centuries, the pro-
perty of the entire soil of France. Louis XVIII., in the com-
mencement of the Revolution, had applauded the redemption of
their land thus invaded by this feudalism of consciences. He
thought with Mirabeau, and with the opinions of 1789, that cor-
porations immortal, in a state of celibacy, and always increasing,
ought not to possess more than state Salaries proportioned to
their services, or free and private salaries voluntarily offered by
the piety of the faithful; and that the property in the soil ought to
be reserved for families, the source and reservoir of the population.
But Louis XVIII., influenced during his exile by his brother, and
by the bishops composing the court of the Count d'Artois,
yielded then to scruples of policy more than of conscience, which
he was far from having in 1789 He wished, for the interest
of his reign, to re-establish, as much as the Revolution would
permit him to do, an ecclesiastical establishment. Above all, he
did not wish that his brother, the Duchess of Angoulême, the
returned bishops, and the puritan theorists of the old regime,
with whom his court was filled, should have to reproach him
with his part in the spoliation and profanation of what remained
of the property of the Church. It was in vain that M. de
Talleyrand and the Abbé Louis pressed him to consent to the
sale of the 300,000 hectares of forests. He affected not to hear.
and only replied by silence. It was evident that he wished to
be compelled, in appearance at least, by the Chambers. At
length one of his confidants having one day renewed the en-
treaties of his cabinet, to obtain from him a formal avowal of
this measure —“Never, Sir,” said the King to him with a
tone of high displeasure; “never shall they obtain this avowal
from me The sale of the goods of the Church is not only a
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 475
Munificent grants to the Royal Family.
spoliation,--it is a sacrilege " A more propitious moment was
therefore waited for, to obtain from him a consent which was in
his heart, but would not pass his lips
XXXII.
The nation became prodigal of compensations, indemnities,
and endowments to the crown and the princes. A spontaneous
and unanimous vote of the Chambers appropriated the sum of
thirty-three millions, for the maintenance of the King, and the
regal splendour of his household, besides paying thirty millions
in debts, which he had contracted during his exile, as also the
debts of the Count d'Artois and the princes, and restoring to
him the crown lands.
The King felt ashamed at being the only one who recovered
so splendid an establishment for himself and his family, while
the emigrants, proscribed and plundered for their fidelity to his
cause, beheld the houses and lands of their families transferred
into the hands of the purchasers of national domains. The
poverty of these defenders of the throne was a reproach to that
throne which had risen on their ruins; and he fervently de-
sired to arrange this dispute between the former possessors and
the present. He had yielded to the necessity of the times,
even during his emigration, by promising, in his royal procla-
mation, that he would never interfere with the validity of these
contracts between the purchasers of the property of the church
and of the emigrants, and by casting the veil of policy over the
past; but yet he justly desired to restore to the proscribed
families at least so much of their inheritance as remained unap-
propriated in the hands of the nation. It appeared to him
odious that the public treasury should desire benefit, under the
reign of a Bourbon, from the revenues and forests of these
families, which had been confiscated for the crime of fidelity to
the Bourbons; and this sense of what was proper, politic, and
just, was shared in by all the world, with the exception of the
suspicious body of recent purchasers, who trembled at the very
mention of the emigrants, and who saw that the establishment
of the principle of the inalienable nature of the property of the
476 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 14.
Lands and propºnty confiscated by the nation.
exiles must at once invalidate their right to retain possession of
the confiscated lands. These purchasers were rich, numerous,
and dispersed over the whole face of the country; the nature of
their property had attached them more devotedly than the
other classes to the principles, and even to the shocks, of the
Revolution, which gave them their only right of tenure. They
had afterwards adhered to the Empire with the whole influence
of those estates so shamefully acquired by them at ridiculous
prices, but for the preservation of which the absence of the
IBourbons appeared to them the only guarantee. They agitated
the country beforehand with their anxieties; they bribed the
newspapers; endeavoured to interest the people in their
grievances; spread alarm everywhere; and conjured up the
phantom of a counter-revolution. A word was sufficient to
throw them into a panic, and from a panic into a phrenzy; and,
according to them, to meddle with their cause, was to meddle
with the cause of the Revolution. The people, who had be-
held their rapid and often discreditable enrichment, had but
little regard for them. The stamp of proscription and of blood,
which was still evident on their fields and in their houses,
marked them out for unpopularity in the country, and the
ancient hearths occupied by them recalled to mind their ancient
masters, with the voice of recollection, of habit, and of nature,
which consecrate property by feeling. But their cause, although
unpopular, was so involved in that of the rights of the Revolu-
tion and of patriotism, that the opinion of the masses, though
highly unfavourable to the purchasers, protected the principle
of their possession. Moreover, these properties had almost
all changed masters by hereditary transmission within the
last twenty-five years, and what had been originally unjust, had
now become legalized by time.
XXXIII.
The King took advantage of the enthusiasm for reconcilia-
tion which had seized upon France, to obtain from the Chambers
the portion of compensation due to the proscribed families that
had returned with him, and caused to be presented a law which
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 477
Law proposed for the restitution of property not sold.
was to restore to the former proprietors the revenues and unsold
estates then remaining in the hands of the nation. This law,
had it been properly worded, would not have given rise to a
single murmur : on the contrary, it would have reassured the
new purchasers, by confirming, with legal provisions, the
amnesty of time on their properties; but the unskilfulness, the
ambiguity, and the omissions of M. Ferrand, the framer of the
details of the law, spread alarm, controversy, and irritation,
through all minds. The workman had spoiled the work which
another and more politic and skilful hand, that of M. de Villèle,
was destined, at a later period, to take up and complete, to the
honour of the nation. and the advantage of the public wealth,
as well as the rights of the emigrant families.
When, after having experienced the storms of a Revolu-
tion of which history affords no example,” said M. Ferrand,
“a great nation at last returns into the harbour of a wise and
paternal government, the general happiness which it feels
may still, for a length of time, be intermixed with individual
misfortunes. This is one of the consequences of the incon-
veniences which are too often connected with the legislation
which succeeds the revolutionary laws. They cannot have the
unique and pure stamp of a rigid and positive equity. Con-
templated according to principles, and drawn up according to
circumstances, they are sometimes influenced by the latter,
when they would not desire to deviate from the former. The
sovereign who resigns himself to such great sacrifices can alone
know what they cost him, and one thought only can alleviate
them, which is, that by identifying himself with all the
subjects who have been given back to him, he has destroyed
all the revolutionary sects which had divided the great family,
These are the maxims that the King has constantly followed
since his return. It is well known at present that the natives
who remained, like those faithful French thrown momentarily
into foreign countries, prayed with all their hearts for a happy
change, even when they did not dare to hope for it. From
the effects of agitations and misfortunes, all, therefore, found
themselves at the same point. Some had reached it by
following the direct line, without ever deviating from it, and
478 HISTORY OF THE RESTOIRATION [Book 14.
M. Bedoch's report on the Ministerial proposition.
others, after having passed through the revolutionary phases,
in the midst of which they found themselves. The law which
we present to you, gentlemen, recognises a right of property
which at all times existed, and it authorises the re-instatement;
but in this re-instatement the King wishes to use great re-
serve.”
This controversy, so rashly raised between the two parties,
the two patriotisms, the two properties, lit up a blaze in public
opinion. The Chamber of Deputies replied to the imprudent
minister, who had put forth doctrines so extreme, based on
considerations extreme in another sense. M. Bedoch, a mode-
rate deputy, was nominated to draw up the report on the
ministerial proposition, in which the rashness and insults of
M. Ferrand were spurned with disdain and anger.
“Your committee,” said M. Bedoch, “will not embark in
the imprudent discussion of reciprocal sacrifices and losses,
of common faults and errors. What purpose could it answer
to recognise the relations that exist between events the most
opposite in appearance; and to discover, for instance, that the
greatest criminal attempts have been only the necessary con-
sequences of first and imprudent resistance 2 The King has
not, and cannot have, at the bottom of his heart, any other
than a firm desire to fulfil his promises. He has declared that
all property is inviolable; and that rights acquired of a third
person were to be maintained. We cannot, therefore, hope to
see a period arrive which will permit a diminution of the
exceptions contained in the project of law before us. Of what
use is it to give hopes to some which can never be realized,
and to inspire others with ill-founded fears? No; the exposé
made by M. Ferrand is not the expression of the king's
will ; let us frankly Say at once that the minister has substi-
tuted the bitterness of his own private feelings for the real
feelings of the monarch.
“But, gentlemen, this is dwelling quite long enough on
the speech of M. Ferrand. In laying before you the re-
flections of your committee, I have done everything in my
power to reconcile the respect due to the character of a
minister of state with the wishes firmly and formally expressed
1814.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 479
Speech of M. Lainé.
by your committees, some of which even demanded the sup-
pression of a speech so menacing to the public safety.”
The discussion was provoking on the side of the emigrants,
hard and cruel on that of the men of the Revolution: the first
disputing the right inherent in the country, and the other the
indemnities and consolations due to misfortune. The debate
was becoming more envenomed, when a person who always
tempered justice with feeling, and whose heart enlarged his
understanding, M. Lainé, roused from his president's chair
by the emotion of an honest man, appeared at the tribune, and
exclaimed, with all the impartiality of history: “Does your
committee, in refusing to recognise the right of indemnity and
compensation, think that it adds anything to the security of
the present holders of property? Secured already by time, by
long possession, and still more by the royal promise, are they
not also secured by the constitutional charter, which has, so to
speak, borrowed terms from religion, in saying that property,
formerly national, would hereafter be sacred and inviolable 2
Would you now beforehand interdict yourselves, and also
interdict your successors, from the possibility of being just,
from the right of being charitable? Why have the majority
amongst you (for I think I can read your hearts) refused, up to
this moment, this trifling indemnity, the last resource of the
unfortunate, who returns to his country, and who until now
has been supported by foreigners? It is owing to the indi-
gence of the country. Well them, if our country should be
one day in a more prosperous condition, if the activity of
commerce, the reunion of the French people, the progress of
industry should augment our resources, how could it be that
this numerous class of men, who thought they were at once
defending their country and their prince, should find no
assistance 2 From this tribune some one yesterday pronounced
a sinister augury of a possible war. If the enemy should ever
attack us, the emigrants will unite with us, as their children
will with ours, to defend our threatened territory. Neverthe-
less, the greater part of them, those to whom nothing is given,
will have nothing else to defend but the King and the
possessors of their domains. After having fought, after having
480 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION ſBOOK 14.
Speech of Marshal Macdonald.
shed their blood for their King, for their country, and for the
new proprietors of their estates, they will doubtless ask
nothing from you; but if you think proper, in consideration of
their indigence and their misfortunes, to listen to humanity,
and then to gratitude, could you suffer a declaration to exist
in that law, which interdicts not only yourselves, but your
successors, from entertaining these sentiments? No, gentle.
men, I do not dread that the Assembly has exhausted, for the
present, and still less for the future, the treasury of justice,
and I will further say, the treasury of national charity.”
These words re-established for a while serenity with justice
and pity in the souls of his auditors. Eloquence swept away that
load of hatred in a moment of enthusiasm. The Chamber rose
in a body, relieved from those controversies without soul, and
voted almost unanimously that act to which M. Lainé had
restored its only character, magnanimity.
XXXIV
Marshal Macdonald, the most faithful, though the most in-
dependent of the republican generals and lieutenants of the
Emperor, went still further in the Chamber of Peers; he con-
ceived the first idea, and was the first who had the boldness to
bring forward a great measure of compensation, which would
for ever extinguish this civil war of property between the French
of two periods. His opinion considered and written in concert
with the politic and clear-sighted royalists of both Chambers,
enlarged the horizon of indemnity, on which M. Lainé had
thrown a ray of light.
“The faithful defenders of the monarchy re appear amongst
you,” said the marshal, “protected by old age and misfortune.
They are the modern crusaders, as it were, who have followed
the oriflamb in foreign lands, and now recount to us the long
vicissitudes, the storms, the tempests which have at length
driven them into the port which they had lost all hope of
reaching. Who amongst us can refrain from giving them a
haud in token of perpetual alliance?
“But what changes have taken place in that France so long
1814.] OF MON AI.CIHY IN FRANCE. 48]
---
Speech of Marshal Macdonald.
wished for What destruction consummated what ancient
monuments overturned what new ones erected with their
ruins ! what flattering dreams vanished in a day, after having
been for so many nights the consolations of the exile ! Let us
enter into our own hearts, gentlemen, to judge our fellow beings.
Let us in thought place ourselves in the position that I describe,
and instead of participating in vulgar complaints on the recep-
tion of brothers who have been restored to us, let us recognise
them as Frenchmen by the calm disinterestedness of the greater
part amongst them, and by the nobility of their attitude.
“Does it concern public tranquillity that they should change
that attitude 2 Then it is necessary to change their positions,
otherwise our fields will be sown with secret agitations, unlimited
for those who will experience them, and involuntary for those who
will be their cause. Should the return of a single exiled family
become, in any part of the country, an object of curiosity and
domestic conversation, the following day it will become the
motive of some one's affections; the day after, the cause of alarm
to several others. Narratives, insinuations, suppositions, will
fly from mouth to mouth. When once the interests of property,
or of public esteem, are brought into play, the passions will be
appealed to ; they will be thrown into a state of effervescence,
whether an old man has cast a melancholy look upon his ancient
domain, or whether he has affected to turn away his eyes from
it. And in this picture, gentlemen, you perceive that I have
mot introduced imprudent demands and provocations; I do not
suppose either resentments or fears to be the origin, but I
contend that both the one and the other will spring from a fact
that is beyond your authority and that of the King.
“I maintain that this fact will have, if it has not already
had, the most disastrous consequences on the public tranquillity.
Now, as this fact (the existence of the old proprietors in presence
of the purchasers) cannot and ought not to cease, I have drawn
from it this necessary consequence, that it is essential to dis-
place the difficulty instead of vainly attempting to conquer it,
to change the present state for a new one; in a word, to dare
to make known the abyss opened before us; to clear it, and
throw ourselves, armed with all the generosity and all the power
of the nation, into a vast system of indemnities. If it is possible,
482 Af
HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14,
Speech of Marshal Macdonald.
it will be adopted. I have a guarantee for it in the heart of the
Ring, in our own hearts, in those of all France, and in the only
glory which remains for us to conquer, that of the union of all
our citizens.
“I am not afraid to proclaim it, I have found nothing in
the bill before the Chamber which tends to efface the memory
of those great calamities that have shaken society, scattered
families, displaced property, and altered even the national cha-
racter of the French. No, gentlemen, the bill before us does
not attain this desirable object, and, if I am permitted to
express myself with the frankness of a soldier, the discussions
provoked in the Chamber of Deputies, and which have re-
sounded throughout all France, have still further removed us
from 1t. What, on the contrary, should be dome to accomplish
this object? Two operations quite distinct: by the first give
to the families, whose property has been sequestered or confis-
cated, all the unsold property existing in kind in the hands of
the government. This measure results from the law. Decla-
matory discussions were not necessary to obtain it. Justice
alone spoke on the subject. The second operation has not even
been indicated in the bill; but it is expected from your wisdom.
Humanity, justice, the safety of France, the wishes of her
King, commanded that all her wounds should be closed.
They have been re-opened by imprudent speeches! Yes, cer-
tainly, several millions of purchasers of national property are
alarmed at the direction which some individuals seek to give to
public opinion, and their alarm has given pleasure in some
quarters; these enjoy the chimerical hope that fears cleverly
instilled into the minds of the purchasers would produce again
those dislodgments against which had foundered all the power
of the strongest government of which history has yet made
mention. Well, then l are the spectators of its rapid fall
still so stupefied by the catastrophe as not to have meditated
upon its causes 2 are they ignorant of the fact that neither
constitutions, nor laws, nor length of years can defend govern-
ments against the mass of social interests 2 are they ignorant
of this, that when their interests are in imminent peril the
governments are the first to feel the calamity ?
“Far be it from me to concur in aggravating the public
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 483
A copulou of the law for the restitution of prºperty not sold.
burthens for the purpose of satisfying some dispositions with a
larger proportion. I may be permitted, without fear of being
disavowed, to be the interpreter here of my companions in
arms. They all with me will call upon your justice for the
rights and the necessities of these brave men, but no one will
solicit the return of those munificences, the excess or alienation
of which has so often menaced their duration. It is not to us
that the memories of past fortune should belong. We shall
be happy when the King, when the companions of his mis-
fortunes, defended here by their respectable chief; when those
of our long and memorable labours shall have no more regrets
to ontertain, nor privations to suffer; we shall be happy, as
much as we are faithful and devoted, when our seniors in the
art of war shall associate themselves with the glory that we
have maintained for their colours; when we shall be able to
press them in our arms as fathers whose worthy pupils we have
been ; when our provinces tranquil, and our cities free from all
political dissensions, shall present nothing more to the eyes of
the King than Frenchmen satisfied with the present, forgetful
of the past, and rich for the future. Such are, gentlemen, our
most ardent wishes. You, doubtless, participate in them ; and
it is because I am assured of it, that I have ventured to apply
myself to a work which is foreign to my habits.
“And if, after having given to this sketch the support of
your intelligence, you make it worthy of becoming the object
of a proposition to the King, you will for ever be surrounded
with the national gratitude for having consecrated the insepa-
rable alliance of glory with the noblest misfortunes, justice with
generosity, and public peace with the felicity of the monarch.”
The proposition of Marshal Macdonald, was received with
applause, and unanimously approved by the Chamber; but it
gave rise to no motion. It was a trial of public opinion. The
marshal only wished to offer it to the meditations of parties, as a
germ of peace which ought to ripen. The ministerial measure
was carried, as having a tendency to a more complete indemnity,
XXXV.
This discussion had diverted and calmed for a moment the
reviving excitement between the men of the emigration and
484 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14,
General Excelmans and Marshal Soult.
the men of the Revolution. An accidental circumstance unex-
pectedly relumed this fire, and confounded, in one and the
same cause, the Republic and the Empire, the revolutionary
animus and the Bonapartist opposition,-the susceptibilities of
glory, and the irritations of liberty. It was the first symptom
of that fusion which a common hatred was going to effect
between the liberals and the Bonapartists. A loyal and gallant
officer, whose name was dear to the army and the people, dis.
tinguished by recent exploits, was the involuntary occasion of
it. This was General Excelmans He had been the com-
panion in arms and grand equerry to Murat, King of Naples.
Faithful to friendship and to gratitude, he had written, when
at Paris, without any intention hostile to the Bourbons, a letter
of congratulation to his old friend, on the preservation of his
throne. This letter, which expressed sentiments not of hatred
to the new government, but natural regrets for the past,
so dear to military men, was seized on the person of a traveller
M. de Blacas delivered it to the King, who saw nothing more
in it than the impropriety of a secret correspondence between
an officer of rank and a foreign King, the enemy of his house.
He did not condemn this levity more than it deserved, but
simply charged General Dupont, then minister of war, to
recommend to General Excelmans more reserve for the future
in his connections. The affair seemed hushed by this indul.
gence, which affected the noble and generous heart of Excel-
1118,1].S.
A few days later, Marshal Soult, who had been appointed
minister of war by the King, in reward for his victory of Tou-
louse, his authority in the army, and his sudden and zealous
devotion to the new court, wished, by an example, to show the
army the vigour of his hand, and the terror of his discipline.
He hoped to carry the spirit of the camp into the military
administration, and to teach the generals that there was no
constitution in presence of the sceptre, and in opposition to the
sword. He exiled General Excelmans, by his ministerial
authority, to a country town, and Excelmans at first did not
resist by any act of insubordination He contented himself
with representing to the King and to the minister, that he had
no other residence than Paris, or the camp; that his wife, who
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN IFRANCE, 48.j
Attempted arrest of General Excelmans.
was near her confinement, could not follow him ; and that he
requested some days to prepare himself for his banishment.
This respectful application (in which Marshal Soult, enriched
by the war, had seen offensive allusions to himself, even in the
affectation with which Excelmans had exhibited his own
poverty) still more irritated the minister. He did not wish
that this first attempt of unpunished resistance to an arbitrary
order should encourage other similar acts of independence in
the army; and he therefore ordered General Maison, governor
of Paris, to arrest Excelmans. Maison obeyed ; but Excel-
mans shut his doors, defied the soldiers sent to force his resi-
dence, armed himself with the law and with his sword, and
declared that he would shoot with his pistols the first officer or
soldier who should lay a hand upon him. The detachment of
troops and gendarmes sent to seize him hesitated before this
rash intrepidity of a soldier beloved and celebrated for his head.
long bravery. Excelmans, passing through the ranks, took
refuge in the house of a friend, to brave from thence the anger
of the court.
The act of this military Sidney had a lively effect on Paris
and the country in general. He wrote to the Chamber of De-
puties to place his menaced person, his violated domicile, and
his wife guarded by soldiers, under the protection of the law,
and of the deputies of his country. This was the first appeal
to the constitution ; and public opinion responded to it with
enthusiasm, but the Chamber with weakness. The habit of
servility contracted by the deputies under the Empire made them
still hesitate to recognise and to exercise their rights, in oppo-
sition to the wishes of the court. A body which has been sub-
servient to despotism is never calculated to inaugurate liberty,
Its past acts are a reproach to its present independence, and
the recollection of its obsequiousness is too strong to admit of
its rising into dignity. Such was this imperial legislative
body, misplaced in a representative monarchy. The King de-
spised it, the royalists hated it, and the liberals scarcely
trusted it. Used up before it was called into active existence,
it was prorogued in the course of November 1814, to the month
of May 1815. The nation, more attentive to the court than
486 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14.
The Duke d'Orleans at the Palais Royal.
the parliament, scarcely perceived this interregnum in its re-
presentation
XXXVI.
While this session was indulging in harangues, and drawing
its labours to a close, amidst public indifference, Louis XVIII.
was installing himself more and more in the traditional splen-
dours of the ancient court. With great magnanimity he buried
the past in oblivion, and declared an amnesty to every branch
of the royal family, by restoring to the Duke d'Orleans, son of
Philip-Egalité, the immense domains of his house, which had
been united to those of the crown. He was less anxious to
increase the pomp and possessions of the reigning branch of the
family, than to prevent rivalships of the throne. The genius,
at once supple for the court and caressing for popularity, of
the Duke d'Orleans, his origin, the complicity of his name in
the most reprobated acts of the Revolution, his connections
easily renewed with what remained of the friends of his father,
the danger of adding to all these the means of candidature to
the crown, the unlimited power of corruption and patronage,
which an ambitious prince would draw from such unbounded
possessions, had not stopped Louis XVIII. He believed in
the sincerity and the repentance of the Duke d'Orleans. He
recollected the homage which this prince had paid in London
to the elder branch, from his retreat at Twickenham, on the
banks of the Thames. He thought that a man of his name and
character would never be dangerous in France during his reign;
that his name alone would weigh heavily on him ; and that he
would bear it into the obscure occupations of a father of a
family, between the reproaches of the royalists and the distrust
of the republicans. His children after him would share his
inheritance, and this fortune, divided into several parts, would
cease to be dangerous to the crown. But the Duke d'Orleans
had scarcely arrived in France, when he belied these anticipa
tions of the King. Over the other princes of the royal family,
and of the house of Condé, he had had the advantage of the
double part assigned to him by his name and his position. At
the Tuileries, he was a prince enjoying the respect which the
1814.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE. 487
The Duke and Duchess d’Angoulême in La Vendée.
blood royal assured him; at the Palais-Royal, a popular man,
availing himself of the preference of public opinion which turned
instinctively towards him. He was reserved in his attitude, a
courtier of the King, and, above all, of liberal opinion, express-
ing himself only in half sentences, but in his omissions allow.
ing a glimpse to be obtained of a secret disdain for the court,
and favourable reminiscences for all that breathed of the Revo-
lution. He associated himself even, by an adroit flattery, with
the regrets and glories of the army, choosing his military
household amongst the young generals of Napoleon. His in-
timate society was amongst the writers and orators of liberty.
He was irreproachable in appearance towards the court, and
gracious and attractive towards the rising opposition. This
opposition seemed to spring up in the very palace of Orleans,
where the Revolution had its birth.
XXXVII.
The other princes were travelling through France, to show
themselves to the army and the people, and on their passage
were calling forth the enthusiasm of the old emigration and of
the young royalist nobility. The Duke and Duchess d’Angou-
lême were at Bordeaux. They bore towards that city, which
had been the first to raise the standard of their cause before
the capitulation of Paris, the gratitude of their family. They
made a hasty journey through La Vendée, in the midst of its
heroic population, all on foot to salute the daughter of Louis
XVI. The respect which this unfortunate princess called
forth in that part of France, was more allied to worship than
royalism. The martyrdom of the father had beatified his child.
But silent and timid, expressing herself only by tears, con-
Quering, as a weakness in her elevated rank, all external
outbursts of sensibility in public, the Duchess was striking
without being attractive. Her husband, a modest and studious
prince, but devoid of those graces which give popularity to the
heirs of the throne, promised nothing to the country but
wisdom and meditation. These virtues, which were wanting
in eclat, won him esteem but never enthusiasm Nevertheless,
48S HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 1 k
The Duke de Berry.
his modesty was pleasing to the army. He spoke to it with
that serious respect which encourages troops that are humbled
by reverses. He bore himself, in the presence of the officers,
like a man who came to receive lessons and not to give them
to these masters in the art of war, and as one who desired to
be adopted by the brave and unfortunate. *
The Duke de Berry, a prince of a more turbulent and
lively impetuosity, recalled the youth of Charles II., with-
out exhibiting his graces and attractions. He affected to
imitate the manner and the tone of the Emperor in presence
of the troops, his familiarity with the soldiers, and his rudeness
with the generals. He thought he was flattering the young
army in taking its defects for a model and for glory. He sur-
rounded himself with the most frivolous and insolent officers
of Napoleon's staff, and mingled with some friends of his
childhood who had returned with him from exile. Unbecoming
language, violent scenes, rude and often offensive gestures;
perpetual reviews, gone through with all the severity of a pupil
of Frederick II., and with the contempt of an old soldier for
raw troops; repartees more brutal than soldierlike, levities of
conduct, amours which might be pardoned in Henry IV., but
censurable in a prince whose glory did not cover his weakness;
and a perpetual agitation, and without any other object than to
attract public attention, rendered this prince, though good-
natured, brave and generous, a subject of raillery, of popular
antipathy, and military disaffection between public opinion and
the Bourbons. Nevertheless he possessed virtues of the heart,
promptness of intellect, the courage of his ancestors, a passion
for glory, the frankness of a soldier, magnanimous and spon-
taneous in his returns for offences he had committed, fidelity
in friendship, prodigality in love, and taste and intelligence for
the fine arts. He would have satisfied the French, if he had
been less eager to please, and have pleased the army, if he had
affected less the follies of the soldier. Impatience, roughness,
soldierlike bluntness, and superior rank too much paraded
amongst the general officers, his masters, spoiled everything
He had to repair every day the faults of the preceding evening.
In each of his tours of inspection to the garrisons, and of his
1814.] of MonARCHY IN FRANCE. 489
The Count d'Artois.
reviews. in Paris, he gained fresh unpopularity for his house
and his cause.
XXXVIII.
The Count d'Artois, the father of these two princes, was
still the same at Paris as he had been at Versailles in 1790, and
as he had continued to be in England—the centre and hope of
the counter-revolution. Surrounded by all the dignitaries of
the church, by all the emigrants, and by all the mobility, his
was the court of the past, discontented and unreasonable,
compared with the politic and conciliating court of his brother.
He seemed to be preparing himself to inherit the faults which
Louis XVIII. would leave him to repair. He, nevertheless,
did not manifest openly any very formal opposition to the
government; being satisfied with having therein an eye and
a hand in the person of M. de Vitrolles, whom he had got
nominated secretary of state to the council of ministers.
But the intimate influence of M. de Blacas, and the external
influence of M. de Talleyrand, had promptly annulled M. de
Vitrolles' share of public affairs. A cavilling spirit, under.
hand intrigues, mysterious connections with Fouché and
Barras, to learn from the Revolution the secret of muzzling
the revolutionary spirit, police espionage, eventual plans of
government, leagues of journals, ultra-royalist encouragements
and writings, court subsidies devoured by flattering and starving
writers, formed the whole policy of the King's brother. The
Duchess d’Angoulême, who, like most women, had mere
political instinct, inclined to the side of the Count d'Artois,
She was too pious to be desirous of vengeance; but she had
suffered and wept too much not to have a secret horror of
everything that recalled to her memory the blood of her father
and her mother. She would gladly pardom the Revolution,
but she did not like to behold it. She pitied the King her
uncle, who was obliged to employ those men, suspected or
branded in her eyes, who had belonged to the Republic and
the Empire. She understood its necessity, but she could not
compel herself to smile upon them; she therefore took refuga
with her father-in-law, the Count d'Artois, or else, when she
F F
490 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 14,
The Prince of Condé and the Duke of Bourbon
appeared at the King's palace, she enveloped herself in her
dignity and her icy silence. People took that for pride which
was only memory and grief; and she thus alienated hearts,
which were not just enough to pardon her aversions.
XXXIX.
The old Prince of Condé vegetated at the Palais-Bourbon,
in the midst of an antiquated court of ancient followers and old
soldiers of his army, who formed a strong contrast with the
new army, and who appropriated to themselves all the military
appointments and court favours, and all the prodigalities of the
treasury. His son, the Duke of Bourbon, surrounded by a few
ladies, and some friends, the companions of his misfortunes,
had taken refuge in the chateau of Chantilly, where he shook
off the thoughts of his unhappiness by devoting himself
unceasingly to the chase, in the bosom of his native forests.
It may thus be seen that, with the exception of the King,
not one of these princes who had returned to the house of
Bourbon had been formed by nature, or fashioned by educa-
tion, to regain the heart of France by the ascendancy of popu-
larity; and whatever the Duke d'Orleans regained in the
background, was not regained for the Bourbons; for he already
separated his cause from that of the dynasty. He was pre-
meditating a brilliant future, but for himself alone.
XL.
France nevertheless showed no aversion to the royal
family. The recent reverses had crushed all opinions, and all
were content to draw their breath freely for a moment between
two storms, to staunch their wounds, and rest from their
agitations, all adapting themselves with facility to the times,
hoping the best from the future, elated with the idea of a long
peace, proud of the liberty restored to the parliaments, and of
the right of discussion judiciously allowed to the newspapers.
The imperialists shared the court, the great military com-
mands, the magistracies and the prefectures, in common with
1814.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 49 |
The return of France to the Bourbons.
the great names of the ancient nobility. The republicans were
gratified by the downfall of the long tyranny of the Cromwell
of French liberty, and required no more from the Bourbons
than it was natural for old republicans to require from a king.
The royalists surrounded and busied themselves with memorials,
acts of royal piety, legends of the Temple, of the Conciergerie,
and the scaffold, of the king and the queen, and in expiatory
ceremonies dedicated to the memory of the victims of the royal
cause, Louis XVI., the queen, Louis XVII., Madame Elizabeth.
Pichegru, and Moreau, purposely included in the same honours
paid to their memory, in order that public opinion should
regard as partisans of the Bourbons all those who had con-
spired against the tyranny of Napoleon. They exhumed from
the cemetery of La Madeleine, the common burial-place of
executed criminals, the remains of the king and of Marie-
Antoinotte, which were half consumed by the quick-lime, to
perform royal obsequies to them at Saint Denis.
The generals and the marshals, the dignitaries of the
Empire, the constituted bodies, the universities, writers, and
poets, thronged in crowds to these ceremonies, invoking
curses on the crimes of which they were the consequence, and
exculpating the army and nation from any share therein ; thus
flattering, with their imprecations and their tears, a royal line
whose cause they had forgotten for twenty-five years, and
uniting with the ancient aristocracy and the emigration in
these solemnities, that they might also participate in the
favours which were to repay them. To all appearance, it
might have been supposed that there no longer existed a
single individual of the nation, of the assemblies, of the
Republic, or of the Empire, who had witnessed the times, the
wars, the tribunals, or the immolations of the Revolution.
The whole of France seemed to date from the return of the
Bourbons; and the regioides themselves attributed to terror,
and the misfortunes of the time, their votes of death in the
judgment of Louis XVI., and in that of the Duke d'Enghien,
which every one of them endeavoured to disclaim or explain
away. They were not content with the amnesty, but even
solicited the attention and favour of the Ring, and wished to
492 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION LBOOK 14.
Situation of Louis XVIII.
force an entrance to the Tuileries, there to seek, from the
returned princes, their reward for the doubtful services which
they had rendered to Napoleon, or for their participation in
the odium attached to the most sinister names of the Republic.
XLI.
Louis XVIII. had only to moderate the zeal of his old
friends, and the impatience of his new ones; for he had no
opposition to contend with, and his only difficulty at that time
consisted in distributing his favours and his smiles in his
palace, with sufficient impartiality and propriety between the
old and new court; in order that the discontent of a wounded
vanity should not give one of these courts an undue advantage
over the other, and that both should feel themselves equally flat-
tered by his reception, and believe themselves equally possessed
of his confidence, and to this end he displayed consummate
art and diplomacy. The new men felt that they were necessary
to him, while the old ones were conscious of his preference.
The ladies alone, more jealous and hasty than the men,
complained bitterly, on the one hand, of being mixed up with
upstarts of the Revolution and the Empire, and, on the other,
of being treated with disdain by the frequenters of the ancient
courts. The latter could not reconcile themselves to a Resto-
ration which recalled them to a sense of their recent elevation
to the ranks of the nobility, and the former despised a policy
which humiliated them, and compelled them to treat as equals
rivals in title and rank, whom they only condescended to
recognise out of regard for the King; while both parties, in
their usual intercourse, maintained their respective feelings of
ancient pride, and of rage at their humiliations. Thus, although
opinion was pacified, vanity renewed the spirit of party.
XLII.
The preliminary treaty of Paris was but a sketch of the
general peace, and the circumstantial arrangement of the rela-
tions of France with the other European powers. A congress
1814.] OF MONARCIHY IN FRANCE. 493
M. de Talleyrand s departure for the Congress of Vienna.
at Vienna was to settle the definitive relations between all the
nations, and, so to say, to re-construct the map of Europe. M.
de Talleyrand seemed to be in a hurry to leave to others the
embarassments and responsibilities of the government of the
interior, which he had been gradually relieved of, ever since the
King had been drawing all upon himself, by the imperious hand
of M. de Blacas and the indolent disposition of M. de Montes-
quiou, and took his departure for Vienna. The part which he
had just played in the Restoration—his influence with the
Emperor Alexander—his intimacy with the principal European
diplomatists—his high renown for political ability—and, lastly,
the confidence of Louis XVIII, with his mandate to represent,
before all the crowned heads of Europe, the independence and
dignity of that ancient throme, which the sovereigns could not
desire to see disgraced, since they had desired its re-establish-
ment;-all these circumstances gave M. de Talleyrand one of
the most exalted positions that the plenipotentiary of a con-
quered people had ever been able to take before their conquerors.
The knowledge of his character, his taste for intrigue, his am-
bition, his birth, his connections as a revolutionist with the new
princes, and asarestorer of legitimacy with the legitimate princes,
the supposed corruptibility of his character (which, if it did
not positively render him liable to be seduced by the gold
of courts, is said to have rendered him subservient to their
seductions, and accessible to their recompenses in the form of
titles, possessions, and endowments for himself and his family)—
all these tended to constitute M. de Talleyrand at Vienna, the
prime mover and arbitrator of the re-modelling of Europe.
Never, since the days of Charlemagne, had the whole of Europe
been placed so completely at the mercy of an assemblage of
princes and of statesmen. Its imperious ruler was overthrown,
and the fragments which had fallen from his hands lay on the table
of the congress, whose resolutions a million of armed men still
remained prepared to execute, while the people, who, for the
last quarter of a century, had been tossed about from one form
of government to another, and whose nationality was thus com-
pletely shattered, awaited in silence the decision of their fate.
The congress could, at its pleasure, either re-establish ancient
494 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [B00R 14.
Congress of Vienna.
Europe, or create it anew. The former course was evidently
more in conformity with the spirit of a league of princes, armed
for the purpose of protesting against the convulsions of a revolu-
tion, and against the encroachments of an universal monarchy;
and it was also more inconformity with the interestof these princes
who could not preserve sacred the legitimacy of their crowns with-
out at the same time confirming the legitimacy of nationalities.
But the long wars of the Republic and of the Empire, the pri-
vate treaties between Napoleon and the powers that he had over-
thrown, the concessions of territory made to some at the expense
of others, the necessity of recompensing the services rendered
by Sweden or by Naples, and of punishing the infidelities of
some of the German states, such as that of Saxony, of gratifying
the desire for the aggrandisement of Russia in Poland, and of
paying off the subsidies of England, which had gradually acquired
importance and influence on the continent, or on the seas, all
these circumstances made the congress lean to the second course.
A fresh distribution of territory, calculated as much as possible
on the old limits, and consecrated by the old sovereignties re-
stored, but without regard or scruple for the lesser powers
already effaced from the map, and for the difference of popula-
tions and territories, arbitrarily taken away from, or given to
the great and secondary powers, to establish not a justice based
upon rights, but an approximative equilibrium, founded upon na-
tural frontiers, and on the numerical balance of subjects, all
these formed the general spirit of the Congress of Vienna.
M. de Talleyrand has been very unjustly reproached for not
having obtained there for the Restoration anything more than
its liberation, our ancient limits, and the addition of Savoy, a
new and important frontier, which completed France on the
side of Switzerland and Italy. This reproach was ridiculous
in the mouths of Bonapartists, who had themselves capitulated
at Paris, and had drawn upon the country the invasion of
Europe. Was it in right of their lost conquests, of France
invaded, of the Empire fallen to pieces, of a territory exhausted
of men and money, that a negociator, in the 11ame of the
Bourbons, could claim in favour of France a portion of the
spoils of the world? And in virtuc of what right, and in the
1814–15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 495
Congress of Vienna.
name of what power, could M. de Talleyrand thus dictate the
law to victorious Europe? The Emperor was fettered to the
Isle of Elba, the army vanished, France bleeding at every
pore, Europe armed and exasperated. It was a great deal for
the Restoration to obtain, in the name of the Bourbons, an
entrance into the council of the sovereigns, the free and
imposing discussion of its interests, the evacuation of the soil,
peace without shame, the frontiers of Louis XIV. and a pro-
vince in addition, taken away by the allied powers from the
house of Savoy, to increase and strengthen France. This was
the work of the Bourbons, and the merit of M. de Talleyrand.
If the treaty of Vienna weighs heavily on France, historical
justice should throw the burthen of it, not on the weakness of
the Bourbons, but on the ambition of the Emperor.
XLIII.
This congress was prolonged during the whole winter of
1814-15. Its long internal debates have no interest at pre-
sent, except for their results. Already, amidst the general
concord of the allied powers, had arisen secret struggles,
repulsions, affinities, and preferences, which grouped Europe
in natural alliances, to counterbalance other alliances of situa-
tion. M. de Talleyrand, who from his youngest days had, like
Mirabeau, foreseen the happy fatality of an alliance between
France and England, for the independence of the continent,
and for the cause of the increasing principle of liberty in the
world, added to this natural alliance that of Austria, an
alliance less required and less permanent for France. He
signed, on the 2rd of January, a private treaty, offensive and
defensive, between these powers. The secret condition of this
treaty was the dethronement of Murat, and the restitution of the
throne of Naples to the house of Bourbon, which the English
had sustained in Sicily, which the house of Austria would pre-
fer to a warlike and Bonapartist sovereignty in Italy, and
which Louis XVIII., as chief of the house of Bourbon, ought
naturally to desire at Naples as a portion of his own restoration.
Satisfied with this result, which strengthened by a family
496 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION. [Book 14.
.*, *.
Congress of Vienna.
* - *** -- ~~ ------ (* 9.
success his credit with Louis XVIII., M. de Talleyrand
readily conceded to the congress the abasement of Saxony, the
third division of Poland, and the dissolution of the Confedera.
tion of the Rhine,—a dream that had vanished with the
universal power of the Empire, which alone could give it a
shadow of reality. He felt with justice that the most compro-
mising and most illusory alliance for us would be this league
of France with five or six little German powers, who would
incessantly involve us in their impotent quarrels amongst them-
selves, and with the great states of Germany, without ever
being able to lend us a force real and preponderating for the
accomplishment of our own designs. Alliances are not worthy
except between equal powers, and they are not useful but with
states of importance. All others are not alliances, but bur-
thensome protections. M. de Talleyrand showed, in this con-
tempt for what are called the secondary states of Germany, a
coup-d'oeil beyond the vulgar and the serious genius of a nego-
ciator. His correspondence with Louis XVIII. attests at
once, during this period of his life, the instinctive Superiority
and the freedom of his mind.
All the questions submitted to the treaty of Vienna being
settled, the sovereigns prepared to return to their states, and
to disband their troops. The last days of winter were con-
sumed in fetes at Vienna, and everything seemed to promise a
long period of peace. Murat alone trembled on his throne, and
prepared in silence to dispute it with England, with Austria,
and with the house of Bourbon,
BOOK FIFTEENTH.
Revival of literature, of philosophy, of history, of the press—Madane de
Staël—M. de Chateaubriand—M. de Bonald—M. de Fontanes—M.
de Maistre—M. de Lamennais—M. Cousin—The saloons of Paris—
The King's cabinet—M. de Talleyrand—Madame de Staël—Madame
de Duras—Madame de la Trémouille—Madame de Broglie—Madame
de Saint-Aulaire—Madame de Montcalm–M. Casimir Périer—
M. Laffitte—Béranger—The Journals—Queen Hortense—Carnot's
pamphlet—Letter of Fouché—Intercourse of Louis XVIII, with
Barras.
T.
FRANCE was so exhausted with twenty years' war, and so
overwhelmed with unknown problems to solve by the forced
reconciliation of the Revolution and the Restoration, that the
peace, although so recent, began already to reanimate thought,
genius, and the arts, stifled by the long despotism, and reviving
with the same breath that gave life to liberty.
This epoch was an awaking of the human mind. At this
period of the Restoration, many men, of whom we are about to
speak, had not yet written their works, and gained their fame.
We shall not, however, limit ourselves to the literary history
of this moment; we shall follow it through the lapse of time
to give all possible scope to this revival of thought.
The eighteenth century had been interrupted in its thoughts,
in 1ts works, and in its arts, by a catastrophe which had dispersed
its philosophers, its poets, its orators, and its writers. The
emigration, the Reign of Terror, and the scaffold had decimated
the intelligence of the country. Condorcet and Champfort had
put themselves to death; André Chénier and Roucher had
fallen under the axe. Mirabeau had died of fatigue of the
Revolution, and perhaps of anguish at the perspective before
him, which could not escape his penetrating genius. Vergniaud
had disappeared in the tempest, happy to escape from the
498 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 15,
Despotism of Napoleon over the human mind.
spectacle of crime by the martyrdom of eloquence to which he
aspired. Delille flew far away from his country, and had sung
for the exiles in Poland and in England. The Abbé Raynal
had grown old in repentance, and in the disappointment of his
hopes. Parny had travestied his loves into cynicism, and had
taken the wages of the extortioners. Philosophy and literature
in France, at the end of Napoleon's reign, had been condemned
to silence, or disciplined and drilled as paid battalions under
the sabre. Nature had exhausted herself of great men at the
beginning of the century, to prepare and accomplish the Revo.
lution. The Revolution being accomplished, thought, which
had made it, seemed to have been frightened at herself, on
seeing that she would be annihilated in the child.
Bonaparte, who was aspiring to the tyranny, and who hated
thought, because it is the liberty of the soul, had availed him-
self of this exhaustion and of this lassitude of the human mind,
to muzzle, or to enervate all literature. He had only favoured
the mathematical Sciences, because figures ineasure, count, and
do not think. Of the human faculties he only honoured those
of which he could make docile instruments. Geometricians
were the men for him; but writers made him tremble. It was
the age of the compass. He only tolerated that light and
futile literature which amuses the people and offers incense to
tyranny. He would have swept away, by his police, every
voice, the manly accent of which might have touched one of
the grave chords of the human heart. He permitted those
rhymes which stunned the ear, but not the poetry which exalts
the soul. Young Charles Nodier having written, on the moun-
tains of the Jura, an ode which breathed too high a tone for the
servility of the time, the poet was obliged to proscribe himself,
to forestall the proscription that was on the watch for him.
II.
The tyranny of Napoleon must have been bitter indeed,
since the return of the old regime was necessary to restore
liberty and breath to the soul. Of this there is no doubt, for
scarcely was the Empire overturned, when people began to
1814-15.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE, 499
Bevival of literature, philosophy, and the press.
think, to write, and to sing again in France. The Bourbons,
contemporaries of our literature, made it their glory to bring it
back with them. The constitutional regime gave liberty of
speech to two houses of parliament; and, in spite of some pre-
ventive or repressive laws, the liberty of the press gave respi-
ration to letters. All that had hitherto been silent now began
to speak. The mind humbled by compression, Society famished
for ideas, youth impatient for intellectual glory, avenged them-
selves for their long silence by a sudden and almost a continuous
explosion of philosophy, history, poetry, polemics, memoirs,
dramas, and works of art and imagination. The age of Francis I.
is full of originality, and that of Louis XIV. is full of glory;
but neither the one nor the other had more of enthusiasm and
animation than the first years of the Restoration. Servitude
had been accumulating in the souls of all during twenty years;
and they now overflowed in their fulness. History owes its
pages to them; and they are not merely the annals of wars and
of courts, but of the human mind.
III.
Great minds were ripening during these years of oppression;
and they now re-appeared in all their liberty and splendour.
Madame de Staël and M. de Chateaubriand had partaken dur-
ing twenty years of the admiration of Europe and the perse-
cution of Napoleon.
Madame de Staël, daughter of M. Necker, a precocious
genius, nurtured in the saloon of her father by reading and by
the conversation of the orators, philosophers, and poets of the
eighteenth century, had inhaled the Revolution even in her cra-
dle. A daughter of Helvetia, transplanted into courts, her
soul and her style participated in this double origin. She was
republican in imagination, and an aristocrat in manners, partak-
ing of the nature of Rousseau and Mirabeau, fanciful as the one,
and eloquent as the other. Her real party in politics we
that of the Girondists. Greater in talent and more generous in
soul than Madame Roland, she may be compared to an illus-
trious man with the passions of a woman. But these passions,
500 HISTORY OF THE RESTO1&ATION [Book 15.
-
- *-
Madame de Staël.
powerful and tender, imparted to her talent the qualities of
her soul, the accent, the warmth, and the heroism of sentiment.
Napoleon considered her more dangerous to his tyranny than
La Fayette, and had banished her far from Paris. This os-
tracism had made her house, situated on the shores of the lake
of Geneva, the last focus of liberty. The writings of Madame
de Staël, sometimes poetical, sometimes political, although
proscribed or mutilated by the police, had aided in diffusing,
through Erance and Europe, during the reign of the Empire,
the hidden fires of the heart, the enthusiasm of the spirit, the
aspirations of liberty, and the holy hatred of brutish stupidity
and of servitude. This woman would have been the last
of the Romans under the modern Caesar, who dared not strike,
and could not abuse her. Faithful and generous friends
of both sexes—Matthew de Montmorency, Madame Récamier,
the German philosophers, the poets of Italy, and the liberal
statesmen of England—continued attached to her. During the
last years of Napoleon's reign, in which his accelerated fall had
made him more implacable, Madame de Staël had fled to the
North, where she roused the insurrection of courts and of
people against the oppressor of the human mind. On his fall
she re-appeared in Paris, triumphant on the ruins of her
enemy. The armed world had avenged her without wishing
for it. She herself desired that this victory of nations over
conquest should also be the victory of liberty over despotism.
Matured by years and by the experience of human affairs, she
had lost the ruggedness of those republican ideas which had
inflamed her youth in 1791 and 1792. She had benevolent
reminiscences for the Bourbons; and she formed the highest
expectations from a Restoration, tested, as it had been, by the
scaffold and by exile, and which around the throne would re-
concile representative liberty with the traditions of national
feeling. Her saloon at Paris was one of the geniuses of the
Restoration. Her eloquence converted the old republicans,
the young liberals, and the souls that were wavering, to a
constitutional system, copied from that of England, which
would give independence to opinions, a scope to parliamentary
eloquence, and consign the government to intellect. Louis
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 501
Madame de Staël.
XVIII., by the elevation of his mind, by his literary taste, and
by the grace of his admiration for her, consoled her for the
disdain and the brutalities of Napoleon. He treated Madame
de Staël as an ally of his crown, because she was the repre-
sentative of European opinion.
IV.
She was then as happy in her heart, as she was glorious in
her genius. She had two children: a son who did not display
the eclat of his mother, but who promised to have all the solid
and modest qualities of a patriot and a good man ; and also a
daughter, since married to the Duke de Broglie, who resem-
bled the purest and most beautiful thought of her mother,
incarnate in an angelic form, to elevate the mind to heaven,
and to represent holiness in beauty. While scarcely yet in
the middle age of life, and blooming with that second youth
which renews the imagination, that essence of love, Madame
de Staël had married the dearest idol of her sensibility. She
loved, and she was beloved. She prepared herself to publish her
“Considerations on the Revolution,” which she had so closely
observed ; and the personal and impassioned narrative of her
“Ten Years of Exile.” Finally, a book on the genius of
Germany (in which she had poured out, and, as it were, filtered
drop by drop all the springs of her soul, of her imagination,
and of her religion), appeared at the same time in France and
England, and excited the attention of all Europe. Her style,
especially in the work on Germany, without lacking the splen-
dour of her youth, seemed to be imbued with lights more lofty
and more eternal, in approaching the evening of life and the
mysterious shrine of thought. It was no longer painting, nor
merely poetry: it was perfect adoration; the incense of a soul
was inhaled from its pages; it was “Corinne " become a
priestess, and catching a glimpse from the verge of life of the
unknown Deity, in the remotest horizon of humanity. About
this period she died in Paris, leaving a bright resplendence in
the heart of her age. She was the Jean-Jaques Rousseau of
women, but more tender, more sensitive, and more capable of
502 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 15.
M. de Chateaubriand.
great actions than he was—a genius of two sexes, one for
thought, and one for love;—the most impassioned of women
and the most masculine of writers in the same being. Her name
will live as long as the literature and history of her country,
V.
M. de Chateaubriand was at that time the only man who
could compete with the fame of Madame de Staël, and as
decided an enemy as she was to Bonaparte, because there is a
natural war between the genius of thought and the genius of
oppression The fall of this soldier, who threw all others into
shade, permitted the re-appearance of these two great writers.
M. de Chateaubriand, a gentleman of Brittany, born on the
shores of the ocean, and cradled by the murmurs of the winds
and waves of his country, was the Ossian of France. He had
been thrown by the accident of birth more than by his uncer-
tain opinions into the wandering camps of the emigrants,
then into the forests of America, and finally into the fogs of
London. He had, in his imagination, the vagueness of that
northern bard, the colouring, the immensity, the cries, the
wailings and the infinity. His name was an Eolian harp,
producing sounds which ravish the ear and agitate the heart,
but which the mind cannot define ; the poet of instincts rather
than of ideas, the souvenir and the presentiment of the unde-
finable, the mysterious murmur of the elements. This writer
had resounded in the souls of all, and gained an immense
empire, not over the reason but the imagination of the age.
WI.
Like all men of great talents, he made himself. Alone,
idle, and miserable in London, during the last years of the
Republic, he had written a book sceptical as his own thoughts,
and as the ruins with which the crumbling of the church and
the throne had strewn the world. But some one said to him,
“This is not the thing; the world wishes to doubt no more, for
it has occasion to hope; give it back its faith.” Young, melan-
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 503
M. de Chateaubriand.
choly, inclined to belief, indifferent to the nature of emotions,
provided they brought him glory and applause, after they had
excited himself, he burnt his book, and wrote another on the
subject; but this time it was the “Genius of Christianity.” Phi-
losophy had conquered, and in its name the Revolution had
undermined and immolated. The philosophers were accused of
all the calamities of the time; and had become unpopular, as
the demolishers are cursed by the faithful, whose temple they
have ruined. M. de Chateaubriand undertook the labour of
reconstructing it in imagination. He wished to be the Esdras
of the church destroyed, and the worshippers dispersed.
VII.
A pious philosopher would have had a beautiful and holy
work to accomplish on such a plan. A religious and luminous
philosophy had progressed from age to age, penetrating ray by
ray into the shadows of the temples. It had scared supersti-
tion, banished idols, and let in more light, more reason, and
consequently more divinity, upon the altars. An impious,
cynical, and material philosophy had mingled with the work in
latter days, and had vitiated and perverted it by the admixture.
To remount to the sources of Christianity, to purify hearts,
and to show to the men of our time what holiness, what virtue,
and what efficacy God had infused into the doctrines of Chris-
tianity, and what Superstitions, what idolatry, what vices and
corruptions had been mingled with them by ignorance, power,
fraud, and barbarism; to give unto God that which belonged
to God, and to men that which belonged to men, to the past
what ought to die with it, and to the future what ought to re-
main and vivify the human soul, in making it respire a purer
idea of the divinity, and through it impregnating the worship,
the legislation, the philosophy, and all the social works of
humanity with a more perfect holiness, this would have been
a work of sound reason, vivid imagination, and great piety, re-
moving with a respectful but a free hand the ruins of the
ancient sanctuary, to construct the new. M. de Chateau-
briand was endowed with a sufficiently enlightened reason to
504 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION | BOOK 15
M. de Chateaubriand.
undertake it. Christianity would have had its Montesquieu,
with the additional inspiration of poetry.
VIII
But, in place of such a work as this, M. de Chateau-
briand, like Ovid, had written a book on the Fasti of religion,
He had exhumed, not the genius but the mythology and cere-
monial of Christianity, and had chanted, without selection and
without discrimination, its dogmas and its superstitions, its
faith and its credulities, its virtues and its vices. He had
written the poem of all its popular worn-out vestiges, and all
its deposed institutions (from the political domination of con-
sciences by the Sword, to the temporal riches of the church,
from the aberrations of ascetic monkery, to its beatified igno-
rance, and to the pious frauds of popular prodigies, invented by
the zeal and perpetrated by the routine of the rural clergy), to
seduce the imagination, instead of Sanctifying the spirit of
nations. M. de Chateaubriand had defied everything. His
book was the reliquary of human credulity.
IX.
It had, however, immense success; for which there were two
reasons, the genius of the writer and the bias of public opinion.
The Revolution had shaken and led astray the human under-
standing. Earthquakes cause giddiness, and the people, seeing
the throne, the altar, and society crumbling all at the same
time, had thought the world was coming to an end. The
temples had been ravaged by fire and sword; impiety had per-
secuted faith; the axe had struck the priesthood; conscience
and prayer had been obliged to hide themselves as crimes; the
domestic God had become a secret between the parents and the
children; persecution had softened the minds of the people
towards the priesthood; blood had sanctified the martyrs; the
ruins of churches strewed the ground, and seemed to accuse
the earth of atheism. Moreover, the people, as after all great
commotions, were melancholy. A gloomy disquiet had seized
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 505
- - -
M. de Chateaubriand.
upon the imagination, and an oracle was sought for to display the
future to the human race. M. de Chateaubriand then ex
hibited the ancient altar, the religion of the cradle, prayer on
bended knees before a mother, old priests made grey by pro-
scription, returning to wander over the tombs of their fore-
fathers, bringing back to the cottages their exiled God, the
sound of the bell of infancy, the hymn of incense, mystery,
hope, consolation, and pardon. The heart was on his side, and it
accepted for a prophet of the future the poet who embroidered,
with so many Sacred flowers, and so many holy tears, the wind-
ing-sheet of the past. Poetry had never before made such a
conversion of hearts, by the magic of imagination and by the
elegance of feeling. This book, like a voice issuing from the
tomb, astonished all the world. People admired it, remembered
it, wept, prayed, but reasoned no more. France had been
convinced by the heart; and from this day M. de Chateau-
briand was become the man necessary for all restorations. He
had restored Christianity and God in all hearts, why should
he not therefore restore monarchy and kings in their palace 2
Dear to the church which he had revived with his tears; dear
to the aristocracy whose proscription he had sanctified; dear to
the women by the tenderness of his poems, in which religion
only struggled against love to deify the passions; dear to youth,
who heard for the first time in this poetry notes in which nature
and God resounded like new chords added to the lyrical instru-
ment of the heart of man; his name reigned in the sanctuary,
on the domestic hearth, over the cradle of infancy, on the
tombs of the fathers, on the village parsonage, in the country
chateau, over the marriage bed, and over the dream of the young
man. Poetry had lost itself in atheism, and he had found it
in God. Poetry will be one of the real powers of this world so
long as imagination shall constitute the half of human nature.
X.
M. de Chateaubriand had entered freely into France, to
publish his book there. Bonaparte, who was also the poet of the
past in action, wished for a hand rich enough in colouring to
G. G. w?
506 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK I5.
M. de Chateaubriand.
gild his institutions,—the prejudices upon which he founded
his power. His vast but not creative genius was nothing else
than the genius itself of restorations. He hoped in himself
to revive Charlemagne, the creator of one period at the end of
another—the tenth century at the end of the eighteenth. He
made a mistake in date, and was carrying back the human
mind ten centuries. M. de Chateaubriand suited him, and he
ought to have suited M. de Chateaubriand Their ideas were
the same; M. de Chateaubriand was the Napoleon of literature.
XI.
The writer did not resist the advances of the conqueror.
He was nominated secretary of embassy at Rome, the capital
of restored catholicism, where Bonaparte's uncle, the Cardinal
Fesch, was ambassador. This subordinate position did not
long satisfy the man of genius, who, by his talent, reigned
over his country; and by paltry quarrels he at length broke
with the ambassador, a man of a rude and simple spirit.
Napoleon distrusted all natural greatness which was not exclu-
sively dependent upon himself. He affected to treat M. de
Chateaubriand as an inferior man, by nominating him minister
plenipotentiary at Sion, a small town of the Valais, buried
in the midst of the Alps. Favour and irony appeared at
once in such a mission, and in such a residence assigned to
such a man. It was Ovid amongst the Sarmatians. It may
therefore be believed, that M. de Chateaubriand resented it.
The assassination of the Duke d'Enghien, which excited
the indignation of Europe at this epoch, furnished him with a
noble vengeance. He sent in the resignation of his functions
to the all-powerful murderer. This was a declaration of war
on the part of honour against crime; but the resignation had
nothing insulting in it except the date. Henceforward M.
de Chateaubriand stepped aside before the fortune of Bonaparte:
nevertheless he did not refuse him some flattering phrases, at
the period of his election to the French Academy, as an ad-
vance to reconciliation. The Emperor inhaled the incense, but
still withheld all favours. Distracted by the war he forgot the
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 507
M. de Bonald.
great writer, who on his side appeared to shelter himself
exclusively in literature. M. de Fontanes, his friend, and one
of the familiars of the Emperor, shielded him against all real
persecution. Thanks to this mediator, the two great rivals of
fame could always renew their alliance with one another.
The symptoms of Napoleon's decline, made more inevitable
by the excess even of his tyranny, attracting the notice of M.
de Chateaubriand, he prepared in silence the last weapon with
which he wished to strike him effectually. This was the libel
entitled, “Of Bonaparte and the Bourbons.” He carried it
about him for several months, as a poniard, sewed up in the
lining of his coat, though, if discovered, it might have been
his sentence of death; for it was more than a conspiracy, it
was an insult. This book, powerful but odious, since it calum-
niated the man in striking the tyrant, had elevated M. de
Chateaubriand to the rank of the most trustworthy favourite
of the Restoration. He had become the consular man of all
the royalist parties. Through the journals, subservient to his
interest, he sometimes breathed forth implacable royalism,
sometimes wheedling liberalism; at other times the old regime,
without counterpoise; and sometimes captious conciliation,
having for an echo the Journal des Debats and the Conser-
wateur; for a school the young aristocracy, and for a motive
power a capricious ambition and immense self-love; at one
time conquered, at another a conqueror, but always sure to
recover public favour by affecting to be persecuted, and by en-
shrouding himself in his genius.
XII.
M. de Bonald, a man of inferior talent, but of a character
much superior to M. de Chateaubriand, possessed at this period
an equal reputation; but his mysterious popularity did not
exceed the limits of a certain school and sect. He was the
religious legislation of the past, enclosed in the sanctuary of
time, delivering oracles for the believers, but not going forth
among the people.
M. de Bonald was the most noble and most genuine repre-
sentative that the old regime could hold forth to the new. A
G G 2
608 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 15
M. de Bonald.
provincial gentleman, Christian in faith, patriot in heart, royalist
in principle, and a true Bourbonist in honour and fidelity, he
had borne his part in proscription and indigence during the
emigration. He had wandered from camp to camp, and from
town to town, through foreign lands, with his wife and children,
whom he supported by his industry; and he had studied the
history, the customs, the religions, and the revolutions of the
different people in their very fury and upon the spot, -writing
and calculating like Archimedes in the midst of the onslaught
of men, and of the conflagration of Europe. His religion was
sincere and subdued, as if in obedience to an order received
from on high and undisputed. He borrowed all his philosophy
from the sacred volume. He believed in political as well as in
Christian revelation, and always ascending, step by step, to
God, the primary oracle. His theocracy admitted neither doubt
nor rebellion; but, being sincere and disinterested in every
faith, there was in him neither excess nor violence. He was
indulgent and mild, like those men who believe themselves as
certainly and infallibly possessed of the truth. He compounded
with the times, the manners, opinions, and circumstances, but
never with authority; his character was marked by moderation,
and by confinement within the bounds of possibility; and he
would have been the well-advised minister of a patient, prudent,
and cautious Restoration. He was master of the wisdom of his
opinions. The habit of meditating and of writing had deprived
him of oratorical powers; and he was too lofty and placid in
temperament to be a parliamentary or popular orator. He there-
fore did not speak, but reflected in the tribune. Yet his books
and his written opinions were considered as doctrinal truths by
the religious and monarchical party. His simple and matured
style, flowing along without either foam or roughness, was the
reflex of his mind. It displayed the honesty and candour
of his disposition, and excited the same interest as a pleasant
and confidential conversation; while his hearers, though refusing
conviction to his opinions, were carried away, by the charm of
its good faith, into error, and, by its simple nature, into truth,
His conversation was particularly engaging. It was the confi.
dence of a good man; for M. de Bonald was not only at that
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 509
~ Marm.
time a great publicist of France, but also a pontiff of religion
and monarchy.
XIII.
M. de Fontanes, since the death of the Abbé Delille, was
considered as the only surviving poet of the antique school
of the 17th century. His name had an immense authority
and renown, which he sheltered beneath a great deal
of mystery; and everybody talked of his poems, which he
never would publish. M. de Chateaubriand, who at the time
when he had need of a patron, was his protégé and after-
wards his friend, professed to feel that admiration for M. de
Fontames, which he refused to the crowd of poets of the day.
A few elegant fragments were all that was known of this
poet's works; and these in style were pure and didactic, with-
out originality and without warmth, but also without blemish,_
a talent which disarmed criticism, but which did not kindle
enthusiasm. M. de Fontanes excelled most in that ostenta-
tious eloquence which Napoleon gave him an opportunity of
displaying in the grand ceremonies of his reign and the pomps
of the Empire. He had been the court orator and the poet of
the crown from the Consulate down to the Restoration, and
had embraced the cause of the new reign with more ardour
than decency. A poet amongst politicians, and a politician
amongst poets, he had been raised by the favour of two reigns
to the highest dignities of the government, and enjoyed a large
proportion of present consideration and future glory. En-
veloped in his prestige, he was impregnable to criticism,
agreeable to the court, and caressed by statesmen,_revealing,
from time to time, his talent, and showing his verses, as an
act of complaisance or a favour, to the academies and chosen
men of letters.
XIV.
The philosophy of the 18th century had but a few old
adepts remaining, who had survived the Revolution.
The Catholic philosophy was represented by two men of
powerful style and genius. Although of different ages and
510 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 15,
Count Joseph de Maistre.
countries, they appeared together and at the same moment on
the horizon of the new century.
One of them, Count Joseph de Maistre, was a Savoyard gen-
tleman, an emigrant like M. de Bonald, who had passed the long
years of the Revolution in Russia. He was already advanced
in life, when the fall of Napoleon opened his country for his re-
ception. He returned to it with the same ideas that he had
carried away twenty years before. The political convulsions of
Europe, which he had contemplated from the tranquil depths of
his retreat, only appeared to him as the divine vengeance, and
merited expiation for the abandonment of the ancient doctrines
or the new philosophy. He did not argue like M. de Bonald;
he did not poetize like M. de Chateaubriand; he prophesied
with his grey hairs, and with all the authority and austerity of
a man who grasped in his hand the light and the thunders of
heaven. His rich and powerful mature had marvellously fitted
him for this task; or rather, it was not a task, it was a faith.
He firmly believed all that he said. He was more a man of
the old Testament than of Revelation; and displayed all the
boldness of imagery, the lightnings, and the thunders of the
oracles of Jehovah. He recoiled before no paradox, not even
before the executioner and the stake. He wished the authority
of God over the human mind to be armed like the authority of
thrones over the race of man. His doctrine was to coerce in
order to save; to amputate, in order to make wholesome ; and
to impose the tyranny of faith by lictors and the sword. This
was the doctrine he ventured to broach to a world enervated by
scepticism, and become tolerant at least, from uncertainty of the
truth. The scandal of this defiance to the human mind, from
an absolute philosopher, attracted the public attention to his
works; and the natural genius of his style caused them to be
read even by those who did not approve of them. This style,
which had not been formed by any contact with the effeminate
literature of the last century, had all the rashness, the grandeur,
and the wild beauty of a primitive element: it recalled to
memory the “Essays of Montaigne;” but it was a Montaigne
intoxicated with faith, instead of wavering in doubt, knowing
but little of the affairs of his own times, and finding even
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 5] 1
M. de Lamennais.
in this ignorance the simplicity of his dogmas and the violence
of his conviction. The “Evenings of St. Petersburg,” the
first book of this Plato of the Alps, astonished the men of
letters, and charmed the men of faith. It was never imagined,
at that time, that a religious sect would take seriously the
boldness of Count Joseph de Maistre (a man as gentle and as
tolerant personally as his images were terrible), and make of
his book the code of a doctrine of terror.
XV.
The fellow-labourer of the Count de Maistre was M. de
Lamennais, a young priest, until then unknown in the world.
He was born in Brittany, and brought up in solitude and
reverie. Thrown into the sanctuary of the Church, for the
mortification of his passions, and from the infinite impetuosity
of his desires, he wished to participate in the spirit of his age,
by the force of persuasion, at the foot of the same altars where
he himself thought he had found faith and peace. But he had
found there neither the one nor the other, and his life was
destined to become, at a later period, the long pilgrimage of
his soul in the worship of a thousand other ideas. But he was,
at that time, ardent and implacable, and his zeal devoured him
under the form of his genius. This genius recalled, at the
same time, Bossuet and Jean-Jacques Rousseau: a logician
like the one, and a dreamer like the other, but more polished
and more poignant than both. His “Essay on Indifference in
matters of Religion,” was one of the most eloquent appeals
that could issue from the Church, to convoke young people to
its shrine by reason and sentiment. His pages were eagerly
sought after, as if they had fallen from above, upon an age
that was led astray and wandering from the road to Heaven.
M. de Lamennais was at that time more than a writer; he was
a young apostle who received and restored a wavering faith.
XVI.
Another school of philosophy arose by the side of that of
the sacred philosophers: it was the modern Platonic doctrine
5 12 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 15,
M. Cousin.—The French historians.
of that revelation from nature and reason, which Jean Jacques
Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Ballanche, Jouffroy,
Kératry, Royer-Collard, and Aimé-Martin (the pious disciple
and follower of the author of “Studies from Nature"), had
substituted, by little and little, for that materialism allied to
atheism, crime, shame, and despair of the human mind. The
German and Scotch philosophers had raised it on the wings of
northern imagination to the pinnacle of contemplation and
mystery. A young man, an orator and a political writer, nur-
tured in and impassioned by these natural revelations, began to
evulgate them to the young people of his time. This was
M. Cousin. A grave and mystic eloquence (confidential, and
as if whispering the secrets of another world) gathered around
him minds that were eager to believe, after having so long
doubted. His language was always promising. It was the
perpetual twilight of an important truth which fostered inces-
sant hopes that it would blaze forth more visibly in his speeches,
or in his pages. Imagination finished what philosophy had
sketched. A crowd equal to that which had formerly sur-
rounded Abelard besieged the porticoes of his schools, from
which they came out, not enlightened, but intoxicated with his
eloquence. The philosopher had not unveiled the mysteries
which God alone reveals by turns to the reverential intelligence
of humanity; but he had accomplished the only object of phi-
losophy on earth,--he had elevated the soul of the rising
generation, and turned its thoughts towards God. The peo-
ple were already far beyond the cynicism and brutalized ideas
of the Empire. t
XVII.
History is the spirit which follows in the rear of nations in
a state of repose. It was now engaged in important works.
M. Augustine Thierry, the Homeric Benedictime, created a
restoration in history. In his narrative he caused the revival
of the manners and figures of our ancient races; and the
origin, the legends, and the manumission of the tiers 6tat. M.
de Ségur recounted, in an epic style, the “Campaign of Napo-
leon in Russia,” and that sepulture of 700,000 men in the
1814-15.] OF MON ARC HY IN FRANCE 518
The literati of France
snow. M. Thiers produced the “Annals of the French
Revolution,” in which his luminous mind drew from and poured
out again the light of events. M. Guizot sent forth the
dogmas which bent facts to theories; M. Michaud brought
forth the “Crusades,”—the epic poem of Christian famaticism.
M. de Barante produced his “Chronicles,” which revived in
France the naïveté of the early ages; M. Michelet, the first
pages of his “Narratives,” full at that time of the candour and
credulity of youth (the poetical graces of the historian); M.
Daru, the “Greatness and the Fall of Venice ;” and Lacretelle,
all the period of the 18th century, which he had witnessed,
moderated, and purified.
XVIII.
The Empire, which imposed silence or baseness on public
writers, had nevertheless left a great number of eminent or
notable men in the several ranks of literature. The aged
Ducis was still alive, and brought back to the Bourbons the
fidelity of his ancient reminiscences, which had outlived his
republicanism. Inflexible against the favours of the Empire,
he accepted those of Louis XVIII.-his first patron. Ray-
shouard, the friend of M. Lainé, possessing a disinterested
Soul, a free heart, and an independent voice, added some tra-
gedies in a severe style to his fine production of the “Templars.”
Chénier, constant amidst the general inconstancy, contended,
in energetic verse, for philosophy and liberty. He had been
accused of the murder of his brother during the Reign of
Terror; but he washed away with tears of indignation this
calumny on his affections. Lemercier, a fantastic spirit, joined
to a noble and upright heart, preserved also his fidelity to the
Republic, which he never prostituted to the Empire. Briffault,
after having successfully attempted the French drama by plays
cast on the model of Voltaire, renounced the austere labours of
tragedy, for the lighter glory of the saloons; and, like Boufflers,
Sowed his grace and spirit on the winds. Casimir Delavigne
Sang, in Greek and Latin strophes, the reverses of his country
in the “Messéniennes,”—those preludes of his poetic life.
Hugo, still a child, already stammered out strophes, which
514 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 15
The literati of France.
—l-—
silenced the old chords of traditional poetry. Soumet, as
tender in elegy as André Chénier, and harmonious as Racine
in epic poetry, wavered between both these schools. Millevoye
died with a divine song on his lips. Wigny meditated, while
he listened to his own recitation, those works of contemplation
and originality, which have no class, because they only recall a
soul solitary as his talent. Saint-Beuve conversed in tender
and careless terms with the friends of his youth, whom he was
to criticise at a later period, while he bewailed them. Andrieux,
Guiraud, Etienne, Duval, Parseval-Grandmaison, Viennet, Es-
ménard, Saint-Victor, Campenon, Baour-Lormian, Michaud,
Pongerville, Jules Lefèvre, Emile Deschamps, Berchoux, Charles
Nodier, Senancourt, Xavier de Maistre (the Sterne of the
Alps, brother of the philosopher Montlosier), Genoude, M. de
Frayssinous (the lecturer), Feletz, Madame Dufrênoy, Madame
Desbordes-Valmore, Madame Cottin, Madame Tastu, Madame
de Genlis, Mademoiselle Delphine Gay (since Madame de
Girardin, whose talent illustrated both names), and several
others, who were disappearing or beginning to dawn in this
century;—thus witnessed the decline of the Empire, and the
beginning of the Restoration. Nature, which had appeared
sterile, because it was distracted by the Revolution, by the war,
and by despotism, showed itself still more productive than ever.
It was the vegetation of a new sap, long compressed,—the
revival of thought in all forms of modern art. A new era of
poetry, of policy, and of religion, was soaring upwards from
that furnace, the flames of which had been revived by liberty
and peace. France was recognised as at the moment when
she was vanquished by the ambitious frenzy of her chief; and
she resumed the sceptre of cultivated intelligence and opinion
in the world.
XIX.
The return of the Bourbon family and of an aristocracy
which had always patronised, honoured, and cultivated litera-
ture and the arts, powerfully contributed to this movement of
intelligence. French society found all its dispersed centres of
attraction in the Saloons of Paris. This society is to the
1814-15.j OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 515
The saloons of Paris.-The King's cabinet.
human mind what the approximation of animatid bodies is to
warmth. Conversation in France is what it was at Athens, a
part of the genius of the people; it exists with liberty and
leisure. The catastrophes of the Revolution first, the pro-
scriptions, the prisons, the scaffolds; then the endless war, the
dispersion of the French aristocracy in foreign countries, and
in its own provinces and chateaux, and, finally, the inquisitorial
police of the gloomy despotism of Napoleon, had either killed
or deadened it for twenty years. Public misfortunes were the
only subjects talked about during the last years of the Empire;
but conversation once more came back with the Restoration,
with the court, with the nobility, with the emigrants, with
leisure and with liberty. The constitutional regime, which
furnished a continual text for party controversies, the security
of opinions, the animation and the liberty of speeches, even the
novelty of that political system, which permitted people to
think and speak aloud in a country which had been subjected
to ten years' silence, accelerated, more than at any other epoch
of our history, this current of ideas, and this regular and living
murmur of the society of Paris. Its principal focuses were in
the rich quarters of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and of the
Chaussée d'Antin.
XX.
The first centre of this reviving society was in the cabinet
of the King himself. Louis XVIII. had lived, before the emi-
gration, in familiar intercourse with the serious or frivolous
writers of his youth. The long leisure of the emigration, the
indolent and studious life to which the infirmity of his limbs
condemned him, had increased in him the taste for conversation.
It is the sedentary pleasure of those who cannot go in search
of the movement of ideas abroad, and which compels them to
retain it near themselves. He was a fire-side king. Nature
had endowed, and reading had enriched him with all the gifts
of conversation which were also natural to his race. He had
as much understanding as any statesman, or any man of letters
of his Empire. M. de Talleyrand himself, so famous for his
politeness and finesse, did not surpass him in Smart sayings,
516 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book J5.
**
Social and conversational talents of the King.
any more than the politicians did in eloquence, the poets in
quotations, or the men of learning in memory. He felt a
pleasure in giving every morning long and friendly audiences
to the most eminent men of his councils, of his academies, of
his Parliament, of his diplomatic body, and to remarkable
strangers who were travelling in France. Illustrious and cele
brated women were also admitted and sought for there; and
there it was that this prince in reality enjoyed his throne. He
descended, to appear still greater, to all the familiarities of
social chat; and he displayed a mind equal in conversation to
the first men of his time. He took a pleasure in astonishing
and charming those with whom he was discoursing; he reigned
through attraction, he felt himself, and he made himself felt
by others, to be the man of understanding par excellence of his
Empire. This was his personal sceptre, and he would not
have exchanged it for that of his birth. His handsome counte-
nance, his luminous glance, the grave and well-modulated sound
of his voice, his gesture of welcome and candour, his dignity
respectful towards himself as towards others; even the interest
excited by the precocious infirmity of a prince, young in his
features and his bust, an old man only in his feet; the easy
chair rolled by pages, the necessity for a borrowed arm for the
least movement in his saloon ; the happiness of lengthened
conversations visible in his features; all impressed upon the
souls of those who were admitted to his presence, a sentiment
of respect for the prince, and of sincere admiration for the
man. Familiarity and understanding had mounted the throne,
and descended from it again with him. In the evening, at the
official receptions of his court, he was full of gestures, smiles,
and words for every one; but all was royal, just, and delicate
in these gestures, in these smiles, and in these words. The
presence of the heart was equal to the presence of the mind.
He represented admirably ancient royalty amongst a new
people; he studied to mingle two dates, and he succeeded;
he liked to appear the man of the new France, as well as the
king of the old; and he won a pardon for the superiority of
his rank by the superiority of his grace and of his spirit.
1814-15.] OF MON ARCHY IN FRANCE. 517
Genius and character of Talleyrand.
XXI.
M. de Talleyrand united at his residence the diplomatists,
the eminent men of the Revolution and the Empire, who had
followed his footsteps to the new reign, the young orators, or
the young writers whom he desired to win over to his cause,
and who came to study from afar, under this reserved and
consummate courtier, the finesse which foresees events, the
manoeuvres which prepare them, and the audacity which
seizes upon them to turn them to his ambition. M. de
Talleyrand, like all men who are superior to their work, had
always abundant time for pleasure, for play, and for conver-
sation. He feared he loved, and he paid attention to literature
the midst of the tumult of affairs. No one could foresee sooner
than he did the genius of men still unknown. This minister
who was thought to be absorbed in the cares of the court, and
in the details of the administration, treated everything, even
the most important affairs, with negligence, left much to be
done by chance, which is always at work, and passed whole
nights in reading a poet, in listening to an article, or in
amusing himself with the conversation of men and women,
unoccupied with everything except wit. He had a quick glance
for every man and every thing, and was abstracted and atten-
tive at the same moment. His conversation was concise, but
perfect, his ideas filtered by drops from his lips, but every
word comprised a great meaning. A taste for epigrams and
lively sallies has been attributed to him, which, however, he did
not possess. His conversation had neither the malice nor the
flight which the vulgar were pleased to cite, and to admire, in
the borrowed repartees made in his name. He was, on the
contrary, slow, careless, natural, somewhat idle in expression,
but always infallible in precision. He had too much under-
standing to have occasion to make any display of it: his
sentences were not flashes of light, but condensed reflections
in a few words
518 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [BOOK 15,
*º
The saloon of Madame de Staël.
XXII.
Madame de Staël attracted round her all those men who
had not brought back from the emigration a horror of 1789,
and an antipathy against the name of her father. Her society
was composed of some few republicans, pure and constant
survivors of the Gironde, or of Clichy, of wrecks of the consti-
tutional party of the Constituent Assembly, of new royalists, of
philosophers, of orators, of poets, of writers, of journalists, of all
dates. She was the focus of all these opinions and all these
talents, neutralised in her saloon by the goodness of her soul
and by the tolerance of her genius. She loved all, because she
comprehended all. She was also universally beloved, because
her opinions had never been hatred, but enthusiasm, which was
the natural temperature of her heart and of her word. Her
conversation was a never-ending ode, and people pressed around
her to witness this eternal explosion of lofty ideas and magna
nimous sentiments, expressed in the inoffensive eloquence of a
woman. On retiring, their hearts were impassioned against
tyranny, and in favour of liberty, genius, and unlimited per-
spectives of imagination. The genial hearth of this saloon
warmed up all Europe again. Madame de Staël was the
Mirabeau of conversation and of literature. In her extempo-
rising she not only excited the revolution of France, but the
revolution of the human imagination. A sublime and enwrapt
delirium seized upon her auditors. The modern world had not
seen, since the Sybils, the incarnation of masculine genius under
the features of a woman. She was the Sybil of two centuries
at once, the eighteenth and nineteenth, of the Revolution in
her cradle, and of the Revolution near her tomb.
XXIII.
Another woman, the daughter of an heroic Girondist, the
Duchess of Duras, opened her saloon more exclusively to the
royalists, to the men of the court, to the women of wit and
beauty of the time, and to the writers and politicians of the
1814–15 I OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE, 5] }
Saloons of the Duchess de Duras, and of the Princess de la Tremouille.
monarchical school. This saloon was consecrated, above all, by
the enthusiasm of Madame de Duras, and of M. de Cha-
teaubriand, her oracle and her friend. She assembled around
him and for him all the adorers of his talent, and all the
servants of his political ambition. Literature was there
mingled with state intrigues, and verses and rumours with
speeches. It was at once a cabal and an academy. This
saloon recalled those of the Fronde, where love and poetry,
women and ambitious statesmen, entered into the plots and
intrigues of the court. Madame de Duras herself wrote with
taste and passion. She had intellect enough to recognise and
to adore genius in others. Mademoiselle Delphine Gay, a
child in all the flower of beauty, and in all the freshness of
her poetry, read her first verses there.
XXIV.
In the Faubourg St. Germain, the hotel of the Princess
de la Tremouille, formerly Princess of Tarente, was the centre
of union of ancient policy and of ancient literature, returned,
as it were, from exile with the high aristocracy of the court.
No one was tolerated there who had been connected with the
times; and even Louis XVIII. was suspected of a mésalliance
with the ideas and men of the Revolution. It was there
that M. de Feletz, M. de Bonald, M. Ferrand, M. de
Maistre, M. Bergasse, and the writers who were impla-
cable against innovations, had their centre of union. It
was there also that the orators of ultra royalty and irreconcil-
able emigration came to concert their opposition, to rail at the
Tuileries, and to long for the reign of the Count d'Artois, the
anticipated king of the old regime.
Two other saloons, better attended with youthful company,
were opened in the same quarter to literary and parliamentary
men, who met or sought for one another again to enhance their
distinction, and to increase their popularity. But their great
attraction lay in the charms of their young and lovely hostesses,
the Duchess de Broglie and Madame de Saint-Aulaire, who
were united together by similarity of age and taste for intel-
520 HISTORY OF THE I,ESTORATION [BOOK 15.
Saloon of the Duchess de Broglie,
lectual matters, by the same circle of friends, by political opi.
nions, and by friendship.
XXV.
The Duchess de Broglie was the daughter of Madame de
Stael, who had been brought up by her mother with enthusiasm
for genius. But her enthusiasm, more pious than that of Łer
mother, was eminently virtuous. Piety Sanctified the melan-
choly beauty of her features. She was like the hymn of a pure
soul embodied in an angelic figure of thought. Her husband,
the Duke de Broglie, an aristocrat by birth, an Imperialist by
education, and possessing a liberal spirit, had all the qualities
of importance in a reign and an epoch which participated in
these three classes of opinion. He could not fail of being
sought after by the three parties who aspired to popularity,
through his name and his merit. An eloquent opposition,
under a parliamentary government, was the part best suited to
his position,-the attitude of the Greys, the Hollands, and
the Foxes,—those great patrician families, tempered and dis-
ciplined in the cause of the people.
This saloon also united the friends of Madame de Staël,
strangers of high birth, or great distinction, the orators of the
opposition in both Chambers, the writers and publicists of the
young generation, and some theoretical republicans, who accom-
modated themselves to the times, and consented to defer their
hopes. M. de la Fayette, a temporiser, and patient as a
wreck and a stepping-stone, frequented this saloon. It was an
atmosphere of discontent without anger, having more the atti
tude than the bitterness of opposition. M. Guizot prepared
himself there for the tribune by political pamphlets, which
dogmatised too much to move the feelings. He had the
silence of premeditation on his lips, and the ardour of volition
in his eyes: his appearance excited a presentiment of his
future career. M de Villemain, the Fontenelle of the age,
made dissertations there with careless scepticism, which is the
indifference of superiority. M. de Montlosier adapted there
his aristocratical paradoxes to the passions of the democracy.
A great toleration reigned throughout. A due consideration
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 52]
Saloon of Madame de Saint-Aulaire,
for men and opinions, for youth, the long perspective of future
events and ideas, literature, eloquence, poetry, and graceful
manners, soared over and tempered all. It resembled the
dawning illusions of youthful rulers, or a Saloon of Girondists
before their triumph and their destruction. Many men, des-
tined for ambition, for glory, or for misfortune, elbowed each
other there before they separated to pursue their differen
routes. It might be called the halt before a battle. r
XXVI. * . . . . ~~
The same men and women met again at the residence of
Madame de Saint-Aulaire, the friend of the Duchess de Broglie,
and like her, in the splendour of life, of beauty, and of wit.
But this saloon, less political, admitted all persons of acquired
superiority, or great promise in literature and art. Party
politics were obliterated on entering it. High birth and roy-
alist opinions mingled there with recent distinction and liberal
doctrines; and nothing was courted but personal eminence and
elegance of ideas. It was the congress of national wit, neu-
tralised in a Parisian mansion by the charms of a distinguished
woman. M. de Talleyrand, the Duchess de Dino, his niece,
a favourite stranger, beautiful and depressed, like a star of the
sky of Ossian; M. de Barante, M. de Guizot, M. Villemain,
M. de Saint-Aulaire, M. de Forbin, M. Beugnot, a man of eru-
dition, anecdotic and diffusive ; the Bertins, men of reserved
and scrutinising intellect ; the Cousins, the Sismondis, with
many others, philosphers, historians, poets, publicists—there
perpetually exchanged with one another applause and emula.
tion—those preludes of glory which youth inhale in murmurs
from the lips of beautiful women. It carried back the imagi.
nation to the second birth of a 17th century, still more en-
larged and ennobled by the breath of liberty
XXVII.
Another woman, remarkable for attractive charms and for
serious gracefulness of mind, Madame de Montcalm, sister of
H. H.
522 IIISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 15.
Madame de Montcalm—M. Casimer Périer-M. Lafitte.
the Duke of Richelieu, united in smaller numbers, and more ex-
clusively, the political men and writers of the moderate party
of the Restoration. Her saloon was frequented by M. Lainé,
a man of antique candour, and by M Pozzo di Borgo, the orator,
warrior, and diplomatist,-the true Athenian Alcibiades, long ex-
iled in the domains of Prussia, and returning to his native soil, to
combine in himself the double part of ambassador of aforeign sove-
reign and citizen of his own country; also by Capo d'Istria, des-
tined, by the charm and elevation of his mind, to seduce Europe
to the cause of Greece, and to die in the attempt to restore her to
liberty. Marshal Marmont mingled with the party, bearing on
his handsome features the gloom of a defection from duty and
friendship—from what he had thought a duty superior to all
friendship and all gratitude—humanity; and who had said to
Louis XVIII, when he asked of him the life of Marshal Ney,
his companion in arms, “You owe it to me, for I have given
you more than life.” Then there were M. Hyde de Neuville, a
liberal royalist, making efforts to retain, in equal love, liberty,
and chivalry—that chivalry of nations which he succeeded in
imitating only in his own heart; M. Molé, who might have sat
to Van Dycke for the portrait of a statesman, young and pensive,
but who bore upon his lips too many smiles for too many for-
tunes; M. Pasquier, of parliamentary birth, of cultivated mind,
universal aptitude, fluent language, full convictions, faithful
only to the elegances of wit and to the aristocracy of sentiments;
M. Mounier, Son of the celebrated constituent of that name, a
long time private Secretary of Napoleon, always respectful to his
memory, who had joined the Bourbons, because they constituted
the government required by the country,–just in his under-
standing, studious, modest, and indefatigable, having the
warmth of friendship and gratitude in his heart, the Socratic
raillery in his smile, and the serious graces of a statesman in
his conversation. This assembly, where literature mingled
every evening with politics, was the School for statesmen.
XXVIII,
M. Casimir Périer, M. Laffitte, and some other new men,
rich and influential, received, in their mansions on the other
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 523
M. Beranger, Casimer Delavigne, and other poets of France.
side of the Seine, the remains of the Republic and of the Empire.
Disappointed ambition and irreconcilable discontent began to
form there the nucleus of that bitter opposition, in which regret
for fallen despotism and longing for the Republic, by a contra-
diction which human nature explains, mingled together under
the name of liberalism, in their animosity against the aris-
tocracy and the Bourbons. There first began to unfold itself
the fame, veiled in the commencement, but soon become popu-
lar, of one of the strangest phenomena of French literature,
Beranger, a tuneful tribune. Like all independent minds,
Beranger had felt the weight of the tyranny, and he had pro-
tested in verse, the soul of the poet, against oppression. His
genius, eminently of plebian accent, though of aristocratical ele-
gance, was equally republican as his heart. The Empire ought
to have roused his indigmation as the great apostacy of the
republican army; but Beranger, still a greater patriot than
republican, and more affected at the ruin of his country, than
the ruin of his opinions, had only seen the blood of the brave,
and the burning of the cabins of his country. During the in-
vasion, his pity and his anger had conquered his repugnance to
the Empire; he forgot the tyrant of a people, and only saw in
him the chief of a warlike nation. And besides, with generous
hearts, the fall absolved everything. The deposition of Napo.
leon had obtained for him the pardon of the poet. Chateaubriand
was worth an army to the Bourbons; Beranger was to be worth
a whole people to Bonapartism. Rouget to Lisle, in 1789, had
impelled battalions to the frontiers by the “Marseillaise;”
Beranger was destined to incite thousands of Souls to opposition
by his poetical ballads.
XXIX.
Casimir Delavigne, Etienne, Jouy, Benjamin Constant,
Lemercier, Arnault, all the poets, all the disciplined writers,
endowed, patented with glory through the empire, and all those
who disliked the Bourbons and the aristocracy, frequented these
plebian saloons. Young men of talent were already noticed there,
who paid court to their opinions, and who had predestined them-
selves to become the writers, the orators, and the consular men
624 HISTORY Of THE RESTORATION [Booſt 15.
The journals of Paris—Queen Hortense.
of the commonalty under the sceptre of the Duke d'Orleans.
In this number M. Thiers and M. Mignet, two young men
from the South, united by friendship and by hope, began to
signalise themselves by clever historical and political sketches.
They went back to the old Revolution, the better to steer their
course in the direction of new ones.
Numerous journals were struggling with one another under
the banners of the two great parties which began to divide
France; but these combats were at that time far from having
the bitterness, the anger, and the insult, which they contracted,
a few months later, in the Minerva, a Menippean satire of the
Testoration, and in the Conservateur, the focus of all the sor-
rows, all the resentment, and all the exaggerations of the
royalists. Public opinion, as yet mild and conciliating, de-
manded, equally with the censorship, a certain moderation, and
a certain elegance, even in the hostilities of the two parties.
The only arms they at this time used were epigrams, which
they were speedily to change for weapons of vengeance.
XXX.
It was not the republican, but the Napoleon and military
faction which began the war with the precipitation, the impru-
dence, and the animosity of a party which would not acknow-
ledge its defeat. at
The divorced Empress Josephine lived retired and honoured
at Malmaison, a stranger, not to the tears, but to the impla.
cable bitterness of her fallen grandeur. The Queen Hortense,
daughter of this Empress and of the Marquis de Beauharnais,
could not reconcile herself to the retirement and obscurity to
which she was condemned by the repudiation of her mother,
the separation from her husband, Louis, brother of Napoleon,
and King of Holland, and finally the fall of Napoleon, sole
author of all these fortunes, which he was destined to drag
down with himself. Accustomed to the adoration of the im:
perial court, which her title of the Emperor's step-daughter,
and the sovereign's paternal favour, assured to her, Queen
Hortense was desirous of enjoying it even after his abdication,
1814-15.j Of MONARCHY IN fºr ANCE. b25
Meetings at the residence of Queen Hortense.
She had employed the magic of her name, the prestige of her
souvenirs, and the influence of her graces on the Emperor
Alexander, to induce this prince to obtain, or require in her
favour, from Louis XVIII., the title of Duchess of Saint-Leu,
the preservation of her riches, and her residence at Paris, or in
her royal retreat of Saint-Leu. She had become, for the mili-
tary youth of the Empire, the tolerated idol of Napoleonism,
still further adored under the features of a woman, beautiful,
young, intellectual, and impassioned. All the young officers
of the Emperor's military household,—all the poets, all the
writers who continued faithful to this glory, or who wished to
devote themselves to the worship of a greatness rather eclipsed
than altogether banished, assembled at the residence of Queen
Hortense. It was from thence that were showered upon the
Bourbons, and their superannuated servants, those popular
songs and elegies of glory, those railleries, epigrams, caricatures,
and sayings, struck off like medals of scorn and hatred, which
were circulated amongst the populace and the army to propa
gate there the conspiracy of contempt. It was from thence also
that emanated the last sighs of the filial passion of a young
woman for him who had created her grandeur and her power,
and the first hints of his return,--to reach Napoleon in the
Isle of Elba, and to carry him the symptoms of the military
conspiracy which was hatching for him under the semblance of
an affection purely filial. In this guest-chamber of the imperial
worship, love, literature, poetry, the arts, the intimacy of so-
ciety, conversational confidence, reminiscences of the past, and
wanderings of memory, leant still less to literature than to
conspiracy.
XXXI.
But while this opposition of family, of women, of young
officers, and of courtiers without masters, was thus forming
in the residence of Queen Hortense at Saint-Leu, court
against court, an opposition more reserved, more patriotic, and
more national, showed itself at Paris in the popular writings of
Carnot and of Fouché, which were circulated in profusion
amongst the people. -
626 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION [Book 15.
Carnot's pamphlet.
Carnot, a republican of the old times, the more firm
because he was more moderate and more patient in his views,
had scowled on the reign of Napoleon with an opposition cold
and austere. He had not offered to return to the service, till
the last moment when the despotism was tottering to its fall,
and when the cause of his country might be mixed up through
the peril of invasion with the cause of the Emperor. He had
defended Antwerp as the bulwark of Belgium and the north of
France which was menaced. Having returned to Paris with a
modest glory, he had formed an estimate of the reverses and
the dangers likely to be incurred by France; and even in these
reverses he had seen some hope of the revival of a constitutional
liberty. He had forgotten his own party interests to welcome
a Restoration with justice if not with favour. No doubt Carnot
bore on his name the indelible stain, in the eyes of the brother
of Louis XVI., of his vote for death in the sentence of the
King; and the still more ineffaceable stain of his nominal
responsibility in the sanguinary proscriptions of the Committee
of Public Safety. He had sat there by the side of Robespierre
and of Saint-Just; but every one knew in France that this
apparent complicity of Carnot had concealed a deep enmity
against his sanguinary colleagues, and that in this committee of
government he had held not the axe of the Convention, but
the sword which defended the frontiers of the kingdom. It
was still further recollected that Carnot, some months later, had
been proscribed as a partisan of revolutionary moderation, and
even was suspected of complicity with those who conspired for
the re-establishment of a constitutional sovereignty. He had
only escaped the hatred of the extreme men of the Convention,
by flight and voluntary exile from his country, and he had never
consented to bend under Bonaparte. From all these considera-
‘tions Carnot enjoyed, at that time, an ascendancy over all parties
—indulgence from the royalists, the esteem of the moderates,
and popularity with the republicans. His voice was an oracle.
XXXII.
He ventured to make it heard, with a manly liberty which
charmed some, and with a boldness of defiance that roused the
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE 527
- - -* *-- - -
Carnot's pamphlet.
indignation of others. He dared, in his manifesto, to reproach
with the murder of Louis XVI., not the republicans, but the
royalists.
“The inviolability of the royal person,” he said, “could
not stop the judges. Louis XVI. was no longer the King of
France when he was sentenced. Besides, should not this
inviolability have limits? Should it equally protect the legiti-
mate sovereign and the usurper? Shall we look upon those
princes as sacred and inviolable to whom nothing is inviolable
or sacred? It is power that decides everything; and it is not,
therefore, to be wondered at that the Jacobins should have
been in the right at first, the Directory afterwards, then Bona-
parte, and, finally, the Bourbons, whose family had been
already in the right once before during nine centuries. But
since it is acknowledged that there is no real right without
power, we must act in such a manner that the Bourbons
shall not lose theirs, and still more that one part of this force
shall not be turned against the other.
“To pardon all, to leave to every one his employments and
his honours, to continue in the Senate men who would not
flatter, not to exclude from secondary employments those who
may have been led astray by an excessive love for liberty; to
honour the military, and not to have the air of pardoning them
their impious victories, this is what ought to be done. And
what has been done? Of all that bears the name of patriot
they have made an antagonist population, in the midst of
another to which they have indiscreetly given a splendid pre-
ference. If you would now appear at the court with distinction,
take care you do not say that you are one of those twenty-five
millions of citizens who have defended their country with some
courage against the invasion of the enemy, because you will be
told that these twenty-five millions of pretended citizens are
twenty-five millions of rebels, and that these pretended enemies
have always been friends. Say, on the contrary, that you have
had the honour of being a Chouan, or a Vendéen, or a refugee,
or a Cossack, or an Englishman; or, finally, that having
remained in France, you have only solicited places under the
528 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION LBOOK 15.
Letters of Fouché.
ephemeral governments which have preceded the Restoration,
in order the better to betray them, and the sooner to pull
them down. Then, indeed, your fidelity will be lauded to the
skies; you will receive the warmest felicitations, decorations,
and affectionate answers, from all the royal family.” -
XXXIII.
Fouché was desirous, in imitation of Carnot, but with other
views, to possess himself once more of a species of police minis-
try over public opinion. He accordingly circulated, some in
manuscript, and some printed, a series of letters menacing for
the Bourbons. He addressed the King as plenipotentiary of
the Revolution, treating, as between equals, with the crown,
disdaining, accusing, and insulting the members of the court of
Louis XVIII., pouring forth the threats of a second Reign of
Terror, fawning upon the king alone, and offering to strike a
bargain with the Restoration.
These letters of Fouché had a different, but still an immense
effect upon public opinion. Carnot was esteemed, and Fouché
was despised; but people were prejudiced in favour of his pro-
found ability. He was thought to be the secret dictator of the
revolutionary party, because he boldly assumed the tone and
attitude. He was known still to hold the strings by which
the old police were moved, and which had never been entirely
broken even in his exile. No one thought he would speak
so boldly, if he did not feel himself so strong; and this
strength was estimated according to his boldness. It was fur-
ther known that he had private conferences and political inti-
macies with some men who enjoyed the hidden familiarity of
the Count d'Artois, and with M. de Blacas himself. He
began also to practise on the Bonapartists. This triple part
he was playing, and which could only be explained by the im-
portance which these different parties attached to him, made
Fouché's letters a Scandal to Some, to others an enigma, but
an event to all.
1814-15.] OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. 529
Intercourse of Louis XVIII. with Barras.
XXXIV.
The King did not vex himself about these symptoms: he
listened without anger, and looked without prejudice, on the
men of the republican party the most compromised. He did
not consider them as irreconcilable with the re-establishment
of his house in France. He accepted, and he even sought
for the opportunity, on all occasions, to enter into confidential
relations with them, and appeared to lend, not only at-
tention, but credit to their counsels. These men, on their
side, called to mind a certain complicity of ideas between the
prince and themselves at the commencement of the Revolution.
Seeking to confirm in his heart the political ammesty that he
owed them, through a certain private and personal favour, they
drew nigh to him in secret, and did not cease to answer to him
for the Revolution, if he only consented to let himself be
directed, or only enlightened by them.
XXXV.
Barras was one of these ; one of the most noted wrecks of
the Republic, and of the heroes of the 9th Thermidor, the
saviour of the Convention against the Jacobins of Robespierre,
a preponderating member of the executive Directory, and the
author of Bonaparte's fortune, which was overturned by this
soldier whom he had elevated, who had become the enemy of
the usurper of the Republic and of the throme; but he was still
a regicide, and by this title odious, though necessary to the
Bourbons. The instinct of a common hatred against Bonaparte,
and of a common defence against the party of the exiled
Emperor, ought to unite the court and Barras. This old
director was of illustrious birth; and a noble origin always
leaves a certain relationship of the heart between a gentleman
and the throne even that he has overturned. Blood struggles
against opinions, and sometimes triumphs over them; but, at
all events, it brings one back to the recollections of early life.
Louis XVIII. and the Count d'Artois had, through M. de
I I
530 HISTORY OF THE RESTORATION. [BOOK 15
Barras—Blacas-M. de Bruges-Fouché–Napoleon.
Blacas and M. de Bruges, indirect conferences with Barras.
These old revolutionists and these old emigrants endeavoured,
in good faith, to come to an understanding; but they spoke not
the same language ; they could not comprehend each other.
These conferences between the court, Fouché, and Barras
remained without result on the government. The negociators
reciprocally offered what no longer belonged to them,-Fouché
and Barras, the Revolution, which had long before escaped out of
their hands; the King and M. de Blacas, the emigration, and
the counter-revolution, which it was no longer possible for them
to command. A silent, instinctive, and general movement was
already sweeping away each of these powerless parties from
its place. One party alone deep-rooted, was springing up
between the two, and was going to submerge them under the
most sudden and the most irresistible military revolution that
the ammals of the world had ever displayed; for when Caesar
passed the Rubicon to go and destroy the Republic, he con-
ducted 200,000 Romans against Rome; but Napoleon only
brought his name and the shadow of his victories to overturn
the work of Europe, and to re-conquer his country.
We shall defer this narrative to another volume, to con.
centrate its grandeur and interest in one limited drama.
FNT) OF THE FIRST VOLUMä.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS,
CA 7.4/.OGUAE OF
AOA/AW'S LABRA RIAES.
736 Volumes, £158 9s.
The Publishers are now issuing the Zīāraries in a WE W AND
MORE A TTRACTIVE STYLE OF BINDING. The original
bindings endeared to many book-lovers by association will still be
Åept in stock, but henceforth all orders will be executed in the AVew
binding, unless the contrary is expressly stated.
New Volumes of Standard Works in the various branches of
Aiterature are constantly being added to this Series, which is
already unsurpassed in respect to the number, variety, and cheapness
of the Works contained in it. The Publishers beg to announce the
following Volumes as recently issued or now in preparation —
Johnson's Lives of the Poets. Edited by Mrs. Napier. 3 Vols. [See A. 6.
The Works of Flavius Josephus. Whiston’s Translation. Revised by
Rev. A. R. Shilleto, M.A. With Topographical and Geographical Notes by Colonel
Sir C. W. Wilson, K.C.B. 5 volumes. [See A. 6.
North's Lives of the Norths. Edited by Rev. Dr. Jessopp. 3 vols.
[See A. 7.
Goethe's Faust. Part I. The Original Text, with Hayward’s Translation
and Notes, carefully revised, with an Introduction and Bibliography, by C. A. Buch-
heim, Ph.D., Prefessor of German Language and Literature at King's College,
London. [In the Press.
Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland. Edited by A. W. Hutton, Librarian,
National Liberal Club. [Preparing.
Ricardo on the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Edited
with Notes by E. C. K. Gonner, M.A., Lecturer, University College, Liverpool.
[In the press.
Schopenhauer's Essays. Selected and Translated. By E. Belfort Bax.
[In the Aress.
Edgeworth's Stories for Children. With 8 Illustrations by L. Speed.
[See A. 4.
Racine's Plays. Second and Concluding Volume. Translated by R. B.
Boswell. [See A. 7.
Hoffmann's Works. Translated by Lieut.-Colonel Ewing. Vol. II.
[In the Aress.
Bohn's Handbooks of Games. New enlarged edition. In 2 vols.
See A. 21.
Vol. I.-Table Games, by Major-General Drayson, R.A., R. F. Green, and ‘Berkeley.’
II.—Card Games, by Dr. W. Pole, F.R.S., R. F. Green, “Berkeley, and Baxter-
ray.
Bohn's Handbooks of Athletic Sports. *
3 zºo/s, ready. See A. 21.
By Hon. and Rev. E. Lyttelton, H. W. Wilbel force, Julian Marshall, Major Spens,
Rev. J. A. Arman Tait, W. T. Linskill, W. B. Woodgate, E. F. Knight, Martin
Cobbett, Douglas Adams, Harry Vassall, C. W. Alcock, E. T. Sachs, H. H. Griffin,
R. G. Allanson-Winn, Walter Armstrong, H. A. Colmore Dunn, C. Phillipps-Wolley,
F. S. Creswell, A. F. Jenkin.
*—
For BOHAVS SEZECT LIBRARY, see A. 23.
February, 1891.
B O H N'S Ll B R A R E.S.
STANDARD LIBRARY.
336 Vols, at 3s. 6d, each, excepting those marked otherwise.
ADDISON'S Works. Notes of Bishop
Hurd. Short Memoir, Portrait, and 8
Plates of Medals. 6 vols. -
This is the most complete edition of
Addison's Works issued.
AL FIERI'S Tragedies. In English
Verse. With Notes, Arguments, and In-
troduction, by E. A. Bowring, C.B. 2 vols.
AMERICAN POETRY. — See Poetry
of Azterica.
BAC ON'S Moral and Historical
Works, including Essays, Apophthegms,
Wisdom of the Ancients, New Atlantis,
Henry VII., Henry VIII., Elizabeth,
Henry Prince of Wales, History of Great
Britain, Julius Caesar, and Augustus Caesar.
With Critical and º Introduc-
tion and Notes by J. Devey, M.A. Por-
trait.
— See also Philosophical Library.
BALL ADS AND SONGS of the Pea-
santry of England, from Oral Recitation,
§§ MSS., Broadsides, &c. Edit. by
• Dells
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Selections. With Notes and Introduction
by Leigh Hunt.
BECKMANN (J.) History of Inven-
tions, , Discoveries, and Origins. With
ºils of Beckmann and James Watt.
2 VOAS,
BELL (Robert).-See Ballads, Chaucer,
Żºłęż,
BOSWELL’S Life of Johnson, with
the TOUR in the HEBRIDES and
JOHNSONIANA., New Edition, with
Notes and Appendices, by the Rev. A.
Napier, M.A., . Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, Vicar of Holkham, Editor of the
Cambridge Edition of the ‘Theological
Works of Barrow.' With Frontispiece to
each vol. 6 vols.
BREMER'S - (Frederika) Works.
Trans. by M. Howitt. Portrait. 4 vols.
(591. Ios. 6d.)
BRINK (B. ten). Early English
Literature (to Wiclif). By Bernhard ten
Brink. Trans. by Prof. H. M. Kennedy.
BROWNE'S (Sir Thomas) Works.
Edit. by S. Wilkin, with Dr. Johnson's
Life of Browne. Portrait. 3 vols.
BURRE'S Works, 6 vols.
— Speeches on the Impeachment
of Warren Hastings; and Letters. 2 vols.
— Life. By Sir J. Prior. Portrait.
BURNS (Robert). Life of. By J. G.
Lockhart, D.C.L. A new and enlarged
edition. With Notes and Appendices by
W. Scott Douglas. Portrait.
BUTLER'S (BP.) Analogy of Reli-
gion, Natural and Revealed, to the Con-
stitution and Course of Nature ; with Two
Dissertations on Identity and Virtue, and
Fifteen Sermons. With Introductions,
Notes, and Memoir. Portrait.
CAMIOEN'S Lusia.d.; or the Discovery
of India. An Epic Poem. Trans, from
the Portuguese, with Dissertation, His-
torical Sketch, and Life, by W. J. Mickle.
5th edition.
CARAFAS (The) of Maddaloni.
Naples under Spanish Dominion. Trans.
from the German of Alfred de Reumont.
Portrait of Massaniello.
CARREL. The Counter-Revolution
in England for the Re-establishment of
Popery under Charles II. and James II.,
by Armand Carrel; with Fox's History of
James II. and Lord Lonsdale's Memoir of
James II. Portrait of Carrel.
CARRUTHERS. – See Pope, in Illus-
trated Library.
CARY'S Dante. The Vision of Hell,
Purgatory, and Paladise. Trans. by Rev.
H. F. Cary, M.A. With Life, Chronolo-
gical View of his Age, Notes, and Index
of Proper Names. Portrait.
This is the authentic edition, containing
Mr. Cary's last corrections, with additional
In OteS,
4 AOHAV’S Z/BRARIES.
CELLINI (Benvenuto). Memoirs of,
by himself. With Notes of G. P. Carpani.
Trans. by T. Roscoe. Portrait.
CERVANTIES” Galatea. A Pastoral
Romance. Trans. by G. W. J. Gyll.
— Exemplary Novels. Trans. by
W. K. Kelly.
— Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Motteux's Translation revised. With Lock-
hart's Life and Notes. 2 vols.
CELAUCER’S Poetical Works. With
Poems formerly attributed to bim. With a
Memoir, Introduction, Notes, and a Glos-
sary, by R. Bell. Improved edition, with
Preliminary Essay by Rev. W. W. Skeat,
M.A. Portrait. 4 vols.
CLASSIC TALES, containing Rasselas,
Vicar of Wakefield, Gulliver's Travels, and
The Sentimental Journey.
COLERIDGE'S (S.T.) Friend. A Series
of Essays on Morals, Politics, and Reli-
gion. Portrait.
— Aids to Reflection. Confessions
of an Inquiring Spirit; and Essays on
Faith and the Common Prayer-book. New
Edition, revised.
— Table-Talk and Omniana. By
T. Ashe, B.A
— Lectures on Shakespeare and
other Poets. Edit., by T. Ashe, B.A.
Containing the lectures taken down in
1811-12 by J. P. Collier, and those de-
livered at Bristol in 1813.
— Biographia Literaria; or, Bio-
graphical Sketches of my Literary Life
and Opinions; with Two Lay Sermons.
— Miscellanies, Æsthetic and
Literary; to which is added, THE THEory
of LIFE. Collected and arranged by
T. Ashe, B.A.
COMMINES.—See Philia.
CONDE'S History of the Dominion
of the Arabs in Spain. Trans. by Mrs.
Foster. Portrait of Abderahmen ben
Moavia. 3 vols.
CQWPER'S Complete Works, Poems,
Correspondence, and Translations. Edit.
with Memoir by R. Southey, 45 En-
gravings. 8 vols.
C OX1B'S Memoirs of the Duke of
Marlborough. With his original Corre-
spondence, from family records at Blen-
heim. Revised edition. Portraits. 3 vols.
*** An Atlas of the plans of Marl-
borough's campaigns, 4to. Ios. 6d.
CQXE'S History of the House of
Austria. From the Foundation of the
Monarchy by Rhodolph of Hapsburgh to
the Death of Leopold II., 1218–1792. By
Archdn. Coxe. . . With Continuation from
the Accession of Francis I. to the Revoid.
tion of 1848. 4 Portraits. 4 vols.
CUNNINGHAM's Lives of the most
Eminent British Painters. With Notes
and 16 fresh Lives by Mrs. Heaton. 3 vols.
DEFQE's Novels and Miscellaneou
Works. With Prefaces and Notes, º
cluding those attributed to Sir W. Scott.
Portrait. 7 vols.
IDE I-9LMES. Constitution of Eng-
land, in which it is compared both with the
Republican form of Government and the
other Monarchies of Europe. Edit., with
Life and Notes, by J. Macgregor.
DUNIOP'S History of Fiction. New
Edition, revised. By Henry Wilson.
2 vols., 5s. each.
EDGEWORTH'S Stories for chil-
dren. With 8 Illustrations by L. Speed.
ELZE'S Shakespeare.—Sce Shakespeare
EMERSON'S Works. 3 vols.
Vol. I.-Essays, Lectures, and Poems.
Vol. II.-English Traits, Nature, and
Conduct of Life. --
Vol. III-Society and Solitude—Letters
and Social Aims—Miscellaneous Papers
(hitherto uncollected)—May-Day, &c.
FOSTER'S (John) Life and Corre-
spondence. Edit. by J. E. Ryland. ' Por.
trait. 2 vols.
— Lectures at Broadmead Chapel.
Edit. by J. E. Ryland. 2 vols.
— Critical Essays contributed to
the ‘Eclectic Review,’ Edit. by J. E.
Ryland. 2 vols.
Essays: On Decision of Charac-
ter; on a Man's writing Memoirs of Him-
self; on the epithet Romantic ; on the
aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical
Religion.
— Essays on the Evils of Popular
Ignorance, and a Discourse on the Propa-
gation of Christianity in India.
— Essay on the Improvemen of
Time, with Notes of Sermons and other
Pieces.
— Fosteriana : selected from periodical
papers, edit. by H. G. Bohn.
FOX (Rt. Hon. C. J.)—See Carrel.
SZTAM/XA RZO ZZBA&A R P. 5
GIBBON'S Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire. Complete and unabridged,
with variorum Notes; including those of
Guizot, Wenck, Niebuhr, Hugo, Neander,
and others. 7 vols. 2 Maps and Portrait.
GOETHE'S Works. Trans. into English
by E. A. Bowring, C.B., Anna Swanwick,
Sir Walter Scott, &c. &c. 14 vols.
Vols. I. and II.-Autobiography and An-
nals. Portrait,
Vol. III.-Faust. Complete.
Vol. IV.-Novels and Tales: containing
Elective Affinities, Sorrows of Werther,
The German Emigrants, The Good Wo-
men, and a Nouvelette.
º!. V.—Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice-
Ship.
Vol. VI.-Conversations with Eckerman
and Soret.
Vol. VII.-Poems and Ballads in the ori-
ginal Metres, including Hermann and
Dorothea.
Vol. VIII.- Götz von Berlichingen, Tor-
uato Tasso, Egmont, Iphigenia, Clavigo,
ayward Lover, and Fellow Culprits.
Vol. IX. — Wilhelm Meister's Travels.
Complete Edition.
Vol. X. — Tour in Italy. Two Parts.
And Second Residence in Rome.
Vol. XI.-Miscellaneous Travels, Letters
from Switzerland, Campaign in France,
Siege of Mainz, and Rhine Tour.
Vol. XII.-Early and Miscellaneous
Letters, including Letters to his Mother,
with Biography and Notes.
Vol. XIII.-Correspondence with Zelter.
Vol. XIV.- Reineke Fox, West-Eastern
IDivan and Achilleid. Translated in
original metres by A. Rogers.
— Correspondence with Schiller.
2 vols.—See Schiller.
— Faust.—See Coſ/giate Sey'ſſes.
GOLDSMITH'S Works. 5 vols.
Vol. I.-Life, Vicar of Wakefield, Essays,
and Letters.
Vol. II.-Poems, Plays, Bee, Cock Lane
Ghost.
Vol. III.-The Citizen of the World,
Polite Learning in Europe.
Vol. IV.-Biographies, Criticisms, Later
Essays.
Vol. V. — Prefaces, Natural History,
Letters, Goody Two-Shoes, Index.
GREENE, IVIA RI, OWE, and BEN
jöğöğ (Poems of). with Notes and
Memoirs by R. Bell.
GREGORY'S (Dr.) The Evidences,
Doctrines, and Duties of the Christian Re-
ligion.
GRIMM’s Household Tales. With the
Original Notes. Trans. by Mrs. A. Hunt.
ºduction by Andrew Lang, M.A. 2
WOIS,
GUIZOT'S History of Representative
gºment in Europe. Trans. by A. R.
CODIC.
— English Revolution of 1640. From
the Accession of Charles I. to his Death.
Trans. by W. Hazlitt. Portrait.
— History of Civilisation. From the
Roman Empire to the French Revolution.
Trans. by W. Hazlitt. Portraits. 3 vols.
HALL'S (Rev. Robert) Works and
Remains. Memoir by Dr. Gregory and
Essay by J. Foster. Portrait.
HAUFFS Tales. The Caravan — The
Sheikh of Alexandria—The Inn in the
Spessart. Translated by Prof. S. Mendel.
HAWTHORNE'S Tales. 3 vols.
Vol. I.-Twice-told Tales, and the Snow
Image.
Vol. II.-Scarlet Letter, and the House
with Seven Gables.
Vol. III. — Transformation, and Blithe-
dale Romance.
HAZLITT'S (W.) Works. 7 vols.
— Table-Talk.
— The Literature of the Age of
Elizabeth and Characters of Shakespeare's
Plays.
— English Poets and English Comic
Writers.
— The Plain Speaker. Opinions on
Books, Men, and Things.
— Round Table. Conversations of
James Northcote, R.A.; Characteristics.
— Sketches and Essays, and Winter-
slow.
— Spirit of the Age ; or, Contem-
porary Portraits. New Edition, by W.
Carew Hazlitt.
HEINE'S Poems. Translated in the
original Metres, with Life by E. A. Bow-
ring, C.B
— Travel-Pictures. The Tour in the
Harz, Norderney, and Book, of Ideas, to-
gether with the Romantic School. Trans.
by F. Storr. With Maps and Appendices.
HOFFMANN’S Works. The Serapion
Brethren. Vol. I. Trans. by Lt.-Col.
Ewing. [Vol. II. in the £ress.
HOOPER'S (G.) . Waterloo : The
Downfall of the First Napoleon : a His-
tory of the Campaign of 1815. By George
Hooper. With Maps and Plans. New
Edition, revised.
- 6 BOHN'S LAB RARIES.
HUGO's (Victor) Dramatic Works:
Hernani-Ruy Blas—The King's Diversion:
Translated by Mrs. Newton Crosland and
F. L. Slous.
— Poems, chiefly Lyrical.
H. L. Williams.
HUNGARY: its History and Revo-
lution, with Memoir of Kossuth. Portrait.
HUTCHINSON (Colonel). Memoirs
of. By his Widow, with her Autobio-
graphy, and the Siege of Lathom House.
Portrail.
IRWINGPS (Washington) Complete
Works. 15 vols.
— Life and Letters. By his Nephew,
Pierre E. Irving. With Index and a
Portrait.
JAMES'S (G. P. R.) Life of Richard
Coeur de Lion. Portraits of Richard and
Collected by
2 vols.
Philip Augustus. 2 vols.
— Louis XIV. Portraits. 2 vols.
JAMES ON (Mrs.) Shakespeare's
Heroines. Characteristics of Women. By
Mrs. Jameson.
JEAN PAUL.—See Richter.
JOHNSON'S LiveS of the PoetS.
Edited, with Notes, by Mrs. Alexander
Napier. And an Introduction by Pro-
fessor J. W. Hales, M.A. 3 vols.
JONSON (Ben). Poems of.-See Greene.
JOSEPHUS (Flavius), The Works of.
Whiston's Translation. Revised by Rev.
A. R. Shilleto, M.A. With Topographical
and Geographical Notes by, Colonel Sir
C. W. Wilson, K.C.B. 5 vols.
JUNITU S'S Letters. With Woodfall's
. Notes. An Essay on the Authorship. Fac-
similes of Handwriting. 2 vols.
LA FONTAINE'S Fables. . In English
Verse, with Essay on the Fabulists. By
Elizur Wright.
LAIMARTINE'S The Girondists, or
Personal Memoirs of the Patriots º: the
French Revolution. Trans. by H. T.
Ryde. Portraits of Robespierre, Madam
Roland, and Charlotte Corday. 3 vols.
— The Restoration of Monarchy
in France (a Sequel to The Girondists).
5 Portraits. 4 vols.
— The French Revolution of 1848.
Portraits.
I-AMB'S (Charles) Elia and Eliana.
Complete Edition. Portrait.
LAMB'S (Charles) Specimens of
English Dramatic Poets of the time of
Elizabeth. With Notes and the Extracts
from the Garrick Plays.
— Talfourd’s Letters of Charles
Lamb. New Edition, by W. Carew
Hazlitt. 2 vols.
LAN ZI'S History of Painting in
Italy, from the Period of the Revival of
the Fine Arts to the End of the 18th
Century. With Memoir and Portraits.
Trans. by T. Roscoe. 3 vols.
LAPPENBERG'S England under the
Anglo-Saxon Kings. Trans. by B. Thorpe,
F.S.A. 2 vols.
LESSING'S Dramatic Works. Com-
plete. By E. Bell, M.A. With Memoir
by H. Zimmern. Portrait. 2 vols.
— Laokoon, Dramatic Notes, and
Representation of Death by the Ancients.
Trans. by E. C. Beasley and Helen
Zimmern. Frontispiece. -

LOCKE'S Philosophical Works, con-
taining Human Understanding,Controversy
with Bishop of Worcester, Malebranche's
Opinions, Natural Philosophy, Reading
and Study. With Introduction, Analysis,
and Sotes. by J. A. St. John. Portrait.
2 VOIS,
— Life and Letters, with Extracts from
his Common-place Books. By Lord King.
LOCKHART (J. G.)—See Burns.
LUTHER'S Table-Talk. Trans, by W.
Hazlitt. With Life by A. Chalmers, and
LUTHER's CATECHISM. Portrait after
Cranach.
— Autobiography.—See Michelet.
MACHIAVELLI's History of Flo-
rence, THE PRINCE, Savonarola, Historical
Tracts, and Memoir. Portrait.
MARLOWE. Poems of.-See Greezze.
MARTINEAU'S (Harriet) History
of England (including History of the Peace)
from 1800-1846. 5 vols.
MENZEL'S History of Germany,
from the Earliest Period to the Crimean
War. Portraits. 3 vols.
MICHELET'S Autobiography of
§. Trans. by W. Hazlitt. With
OteS.
— The French Revolution to the
Flight of the King in 1791. Frontispiece.
MIGNET’S The French Revolution,
from 1789 to 1814. Portrait of Napoleon.
STAAVOARD Z/BRAR V. 7
MILTON'S 1Frose Works. With Pre-
face, Preliminary Remarks by J. A. St.
John, and Index. 5 vols. Portraits.
— Poetical Works. With 12o Wood
Engravings, 2 vols.
MIT FORD’S (Miss) Our Village.
Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery.
2 Engravings. 2 vols.
MOLIERE'S Dramatic Works. In
English Prose, by C. H. Wall. With a
Life and a Portrait. 3 vols.
‘It is not too much to say that we have
here probably as good a translation of
Molière as can be given.'—Academy.
MONTAGU. Letters and Works of
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Lord
Wharncliffe's Third Edition. Edited by
W. Moy Thomas. New and revised
tiºn. With steel plates. 2 vols. 5s.
€aCIl,
MONTESQUIEU'S Spirit of Laws.
Revised Edition, with D'Alembert's Analy-
sis, Notes, and Memoir. 2 vols.
NEANDER (Dr. A.) History of the
Christian Religion and Church. Trans. by
J. Torrey. With Short Memoir. To vols.
— Life of Jesus Christ, in its His-
torical Connexion and Development.
— The Planting and Training of
the Christian Church by the Apostles.
With the Antignosticus, or Spirit of Ter-
tullian. Trans, by J. E. Ryland. 2 vols.
— Lectures on the History of
Christian Dogmas. Trans. by J. E. Ry-
land. 2 vols.
— Memorials of Christian Life in
the Early and Middle Ages; including
Light in Dark Places. Trans. by J. E.
Ryland.
NORTH'S Lives of the Right Hon.
Francis North, Baron Guildford, the Hon.
Sir I)udley North, and the Hon. and Rev.
Dr. John North. By the Hon. Roger
North. Edited by A. Jessopp, D.D. With
3 Portraits. 3 vols. 3s. 6d. each.
‘Lovers of good literature will rejoice at
the appearance of a new, handy, and com-
plete edition of So justly famous a book,
and will congratulate themselves that it
has found so competent and skilful an
editor as Dr. Jessopp.'—Times.
OCKLEY (S.) History of the Sara-
cens and their Conquests in Syria, Persia,
and Egypt. Comprising the Lives of
Mohammed and his Successors to the
Death of Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph.
By Simon Ockley, B.D., Portrait of Mo-
hammed.
PASCAL’S Thoughts. Translated from
the Text of M. Auguste Molinier by
C. Kegan Paul. 3rd edition.
PERCY'S Reliques of Ancient Eng-
lish Poetry, consisting of Ballads, Songs,
and other Pieces of our earlier Poets, wi
some few of later date. With Essay on
Ancient Minstrels, and Glossary. 2 vols.
PHILIP DE COMIMINES. Memoſrg
of. Containing the Histories of Louis XI.
and Charles VIII., and Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy. With the History of
Louis XI., by Jean de Troyes. Trans-
lated, with a Life and Notes, by A. R.
Scoble. Portraits. 2 vols.
PLUTARCH'S LIVES. Translated, with
Notes and Life, by A. Stewart, M.A.,
late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
and G. Long, M.A. 4 vols.
POETRY OF AMERICA. Selections
from One Hundred Poets, from 1776 to
1876. With Introductory Review, and
Specimens of Negro Melody, by W. J.
Linton. Portrait of W. Whitman.
RACINE'S (Jean) Dramatic Works.
A metrical English version, with Bio-
graphical notice. By R. Bruce Boswell,
M.A. Oxon. 2 vols.
RANKE (L.) History of the Popes,
their Church and State, and their Conflicts
with Protestantism in the 16th and ryth
Centuries. Trans. by E. Foster. Portraits.
3 vols.
— History of Servia. Trans. by Mrs.
Kerr. To which is added, The Slave Pro-
vinces of Turkey, by Cyprien Robert.
— History of the Latin and Teu-
tonic Nations. 1494–1514. Trans. by
P. A. Ashworth, translator of Dr. Gneist's
*History of the English Constitution.’
REUIMONT (Alfred de). —See Caraſas.
REYNOLDS” (Sir J.) Literary Works.
With Memoir and Remarks by H. W.
Beechy. 2 vols.
RICHTER (Jean Paul). Levana,
a Treatise on Education ; together with the
Autobiography, and a short Memoir.
— Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces,
or the Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage
of Siebenkaes. Translated by Alex. Ewing.
The only complete English translation.
ROSCOE'S (W.) Life of Leo X., with
Notes, Historical Documents, and Disser-
tation on Lucretia Borgia. 3 Portraits.
2 vols.
— Lorenzo de' Medici, called “The
Magnificent,’ with Copyright Notes,
Poems, Letters, &c. With Memoir of
Roscoe and Portrait of Lorenzo.
R USSIA, . History of, from the
earliest Period to the Crimean War. By
W. K. Kelly. 3 Portraits. 2 vols.
8 BO HAV'S LAB RAAEME.S.
SCHILLER'S Works. 7 vols.
Vol. I.-History of the Thirty Years' War.
Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A. Portrait.
Vol. II.-History of the Revolt in the
Netherlands, the Trials of Counts Egmont
and Horn, the Siege of Antwerp, and the
Disturbance of France preceding the Reign
of Henry IV. Translated by Rev. A. J. W.
Morrison and L. Dora Schmitz.
Vol. III.-Don Carlos. R. D. Boylan
—Mary Stuart. Mellish — Maid of Or-
leans. Anna Swanwick—Bride of Mes-
sina. A. Lodge, M.A. Together with the
Use of the Chorus in Tragedy (a short
Essay). Engravings.
These Dramas are all translated in metre.
Vol. IV.-Robbers—Flesco—Love and
Intrigue—Demetrius—Ghost Seer—Sport
of Divinity.
The Dramas in this volume are in prose.
Vol. V.-Poems. E. A. Bowring, C.B.
Vol. VI.-Essays, AEsthetical and Philo-
sophical, including the Dissertation on the
Connexion between the Animal and Spiri-
tual in Man.
Vol. VII. — Wallenstein's Camp. J.
Churchill. — Piccolomini and Death of
Wallenstein. S. T. Coleridge.—William
Tell. Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B., LL.D.
SCHILLER and GOETHE. Corre-
spondence between, from A.D. 1794-1805.
Trans. by L. Dora Schmitz. 2 vols.
SCHLEGEL (F.) Lectures on the
Philosophy of Life and the Philosophy of
Language. Trans. by A. J. W. Morrison.
— The History of Literature, Ancient
and Modern.
— The Philosophy of History. With
Memoir and Portrait. Trans. by J. B.
Robertson.
— Modern History, with the Lectures
entitled Caesar and Álexander, and The
Beginning of our History. Translated by
- L. Purce]] and R. H. Whitelock.
— AEsthetic and Miscellaneous
Works, containing Letters on Christian
Art, Essay on Gothic Architecture, Re-
marks on the Romance Poetry of the Mid-
dle Ages, on Shakspeare, the Limits of the
Beautiful, and on §: Language and Wis-
dom of the Indians. By E. J. Millington.
SCHLEGEL (A. W.) Dramatic Art
and Literature. By J. Black. With Me-
moir by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison. Portrait.
SCHUMANN (Robert), His Life and
Works. By A. Reissmann. Trans. by
A. L. Alger.
— Early Letters. Translated by May
Herbert. With I?reſace by Sir G. Grove.
SHAKE SPEARE'S Dramatic Art.
The History and Character of Shakspeare's
Plays. By Dr. H. Ulrici. Trans. by L.
Dora Schmitz. 2 vols.
SHAKE SPEARE (William). A
Literary Biography by Karl Elze, Ph.D.,
LL.D. Translated by L. Dora Schmitz. 5s.
SHERIDAN’S Dramatic Works. With
Memoir. Portrait (after Reynolds).
SKEAT (Rev. W. W.)—See Chamacer,
SISMONDI’S History of the Litera-
ture of the South of Europe. Trans. by
T. Roscoe. Portraits. 2 vols.
SMITH'S (Adam) Theory of Moral
Sentiments; with Essay on the First For-
mation of Languages, and Critical Memoir
by Dugald Stewart.
Sec Economic Library,
SMYTHPS (Professor) Lectures on
Modern History; from the Irruption of the
Northern Nations to the close of the Ameri-
can Revolution. 2 vols.
— Lectures on the French Revolu-
tion. With Index. 2 vols.
SOUTHEY.—See Cowper, Wesley, and
(Illustrated Library) Welson.
STU RIM'S Morning Communings
with God, or Devotional Meditations for
Every Day. Trans. by W. Johnstone, M.A.
SULLY. Memoirs of the Duke of,
Prime Minister to Henry the Great. With
Notes and Historical Introduction. 4 Por-
traits. 4 vols.
TAYLOR'S (Bishop Jeremy) Holy
Living and Dying, with Prayers, contain-
ing the Whole Duty of a Christian and the
arts of Devotion fitted to all Occasions.
Ortrait.
TEN BRINK.—Sec J37-2/1/.
THIERRY'S Conquest of England by
the Normans; its Causes, and its Conse-
quences in England and the Continent.
By W. Hazlitt. With short Memoir. 2 Por-
traits. 2 vols.
ULRICI (Dr.)—See Shakespeare.
VASARI. Lives of the most Eminent
Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. By
Mrs. J. foster, with selected Notes. Por-
trait. 6 vols., Vol. VI. being an additional
Volume of Notes by Dr. J. P. Richter.
WERNER'S Templars in Cyprus.
Trans, by E. A. M. Lewis.
WESLEY, the Life of, and the Rise
and Progress of Methºdism. By Robert
Southey. Portrait. 5s.
WHEAT LEY. A Rational Illustra-
tion of the Book of Common Prayer, being
the Substance of everything Liturgical in
all former Ritualist Commentators upon the
subject. Frontispiece.
YOUNG (Arthur) Travels in France.
Edited by Miss Betham Edwards. With
a Portrait.
FISTOR/CAM, AAWD FAZLOSOPHYCA/C LAB RARZAZ.S.
9
HISTORICAL LIBRARY.
22 Volumes at 5s. each.
EVELYN'S Diary and Correspond-
dence, with the Private Correspondence of
Charles I. and Sir Edward Nicholas, and
between Sir Edward Hyde (Earl of Claren-
don) and Sir Richard Browne. Edited from
the Original MSS. by W. Bray, F.A.S.
4 vols. 45 Engravings (after Vandyke,
Lely, Kneller, and Jamieson, &c.).
N.B.-This edition contains 130 letters
from Evelyn and his wife, printed by per-
Imission, and contained in no other edition.
PEPYS' Diary and Correspondence.
With Life and Notes, by Lord Braybrooke.
4 vols. With Appendix containing ad-
ditional Letters, an Index, and 31 En-
#. (after Vandyke, Sir P. Lely,
olbein, Kneller, &c.).
N.B.-This is a reprint of Lord Bray-
brooke's fourth and last edition, containing
all his latest notes and corrections, the
copyright of the publishers.
(5l. Ios. per set.)
JESSE'S Memoirs of the Court of
England under the Stuarts, including the
Protectorate. 3 vols. With Index and 42
Portraits (after Vandyke, Lely, &c.).
— Memoirs of the Pretenders and
their Adherents. 6 Portraits.
NU GENT'S (Lord) Memorials of
Hampden, his Party and Times. With
emoir. 12 Portraits (after Vandyke
and others).
STRICKLAND’S (Agnes) Lives of the
Queens of England from the Norman
Conquest. From authentic Documents,
public and private. 6 Portraits. 6 vols.
— Life of Mary Queen of Scots.
2 Portraits, 2 vols.
— Lives of the Tudor and Stuart
Princesses. With 2 Portraits.
PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY.
16 Vols, at 5s, each, excepting those marked otherwise. (3!. I4s. Aer set.)
BACON'S Novum Organum and Ad-
vancement of Learning. With Notes by
J. Devey, M.A
BAX. A Handbook of the History
of Philosophy, for the use of Students.
By E. Belfort Bax, Editor of Kant’s
‘Prolegomena.”
COMTE'S Philosophy of the Sciences.
An Exposition of the Principles of the
Cozers de Philosophie Positive. By G. H.
Lewes, Author of ‘The Life of Goethe.”
DRAPER (Dr. J. W.) A History of
the intellectual Development of Europe.
2 VOIS,
HEGEL’S Philosophy of History. By
J. Sibree, M.A.
KANT'S Critique of Pure Reason.
By J. M. D. Meiklejohn.
— Prolegomena and Metaphysical
Foundations of Natural Science, with Bio-
aphy and Memoir by E. Belfort Bax.
Ortrait.
LOGIC, or the Science of Inference.
A Popular Manual. By J. Devey.
MILLER (Professor). History Philo-
sophically Illustrated, from the Fall of the
Roman Empire to the French Revolution.
With Memoir. 4 vols. 3s. 6d. each.
SCHOPENHAUER on the Fourfold
Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason,
and on the Will in Nature. Trans. from
the German.
— Essays. Selected and Translated by
E. Belfort Bax. [/n thc Aress.
SPINOZA'S Chief Works. Trans, with
Introduction by R. H. M. Elwes. 2 vols.
Vol. I.-Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
—Political Treatise.
Vol. II.- Improvement othe Under-
standing—Ethics–Letters.
IO BOAAW'S ZIBRARIES.
THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.
15 Vols, at 5s. each (except Ch;7/ing Wor//, 3s. 6d.).
BLEEK. Introduction to the Old
Testament. By Friedrich Bleek. Trans.
under the supervision of Rev. E. Venables,
Residentiary Canon of Lincoln. 2 vols.
CHILLINGWORTH'S Religion of
Protestants. 3s. 6d.
EUSEBIUS. Ecclesiastical History
of Eusebius Pamphilius, Bishop of Caesarea.
Trans. by Rev. C. F. Cruse, M.A. With
Notes, Life, and Chronological Tables.
EVAGRIUS. History of the Church.
—See Theodoret.
HARDWICK. History of the Articles
of Religion; to which is added a Series of
Documents from A.D. 1536 to A.D. 1615.
Ed. by Rev. F. Proctor.
HENRY'S (Matthew) Exposition of
the Book of Psalms. Numerous Woodcuts.
PEARSON (John, D.D.) Exposition
of the Creed. Edit. by E. Walford, M.A.
With Notes, Analysis, and Indexes.
(31. I3s.6d. per set.)
PHILO-JUDAEUS, Works of. The
Contemporary of Josephus. Trans. by
C. D. Yonge. 4 vols.
PHILOST OR GIU S. Ecclesiastical
History of.-See Sozomen.
SOCRATES' Ecclesiastical History,
Comprising a History of the Church from
Constantine, A.D. 305, to the 38th year of
Theodosius II. With Short Account of
the Author, and selected Notes.
SOZOMEN'S Ecclesiastical History.
A.D. 324-440. With Notes, Prefatory Re-
marks by Walesius, and Short Memoir.
Together with the EcclesiasticAL HIS
TORY OF PHILOSTORGIUs, as epitomised by
Photius. Trans. by Rev. #. Walford, M.A.
With Notes and brief Life.
THEODORET and EVAGRIUS. His-
tories of the Church from A.D. 332 to the
Death of Theodore of Mopsuestia, A.D.
427; and from A.D. 431 to A.D. 544. With
Memoirs.
WIESELER'S (Karl) Chronological
Synopsis of the Four Gospels. Trans. by
Rev. Canon Venables.
ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARY.
35 Vols. at 5s, each.
ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. — See
Bede.
ASSER'S Life of Alfred.—See Sir O. E.
Chrozzicles.
BEDE'S (Venerable) Ecclesiastical
History of England. Together with the
ANGLO-SAxon CHRONICLE. With Notes,
Short Life, Analysis, and Map. Edit. by
J. A. Giles, D.C.L.
BOETHIUS’S Consolation of Philo-
sophy. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Ver-
sion of. With an English Translation on
opposite pages, Notes, Introduction, and
Glossary, by Rev. S. Fox, M.A. To
which is added the Anglo-Saxon Version of
the METREs of BoETHIUs, with a free
Translation by Martin F. Tupper, D.C.L.
BRAND’S Popular Antiquities of
England, Scotland, and Ireland. Illus-
trating the Origin of our Vulgar and Pro-
vincial Customs, Ceremonies, and Super-
stitions. By Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S,
Frontispiece. 3 vols.
(8l. 15s. per set.)
CHRONICLES Of the CRUSADES,
Contemporary Narratives of Richard Coeur
de Lion, by Richard of Devizes and Geof.
frey de Vinsauf; and of the Crusade, at
Saint Louis, by Lord John de Joinville.
With Short Notes. Illuminated Frontis-
piece from an old MS.
DYER'S (T. F. T.) British Popular
Customs, Present and Past. An Account
of the various Games and Customs asso-
ciated with different Days of the Year in
the British Isles, arranged according to the
Calendar. By the Rev. T. F. Thiselton
Dyer, M.A.
EARLY TRAVELS IN PALESTINE,
Comprising the Narratives of Arculf,
Willibald, Bernard, Saewulf, Sigurd, Ben-
jamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville,
De la Brocquière, and Maundrell ; all un-
abridged. With Introduction and Notes
by Thomas Wright. Map of Jerusalem,
ANZYQUARZAM LIBRARY,
II.
ELLIS (G.) Specimens of Early En-
glish Metrical Romances, relating to
Arthur, Merlin, Guy of Warwick, Richard
Coeur de Lion, Charlemagne, Roland, &c.
&c. With Historical Introduction by J. O.
Halliwell, F.R.S. Illuminated Frontis-
piece from an old MS.
ETHELWERD, Chronicle of. — See
Six O. E. Chronicles.
FI, O RIE N C E OF WORCESTER’S
Chronicle, with the Two Continuations:
comprising Annals of English History
from the Departure of the Romans to the
Reign of Edward I. Trans., with Notes,
by Thomas Forester, M.A.
G E O FF REY OF IMION MIO U TIH.
Chronicle of.-See Six O. E. Chronicles.
GESTA ROMANORUM, or Enter-
taining Moral Stories invented , by the
Monks. Trans. with Notes by the Rev.
Charles Swan. Edit. by W. Hooper, M.A.
GILDAS. Chronicle of.-See Six O. E.
Chronicles.
GIRALDUS CAMIBIRENSIS". Histori-
cal Works. Containing Topography of
Ireland, and History of the Conquest of
Ireland, by Th. Forester, M.A. Itinerary
through Wales, and Description of Wales,
by Sir R. Colt Hoare.
HENRY OF HUNTINGDON'S His-
tory of the English, from the Roman In-
vasion to the Accession of Henry II. ;
with the Acts of King Stephen, and the
Letter to Walter. By T. Forester, M.A.
Frontispiece from an old M.S.
INGULPH'S Chronicles of the Abbey
of Croyland, with the Continuation b
Peter of Blois and others. Trans. wit
Notes by H. T. Riley, B.A.
KEIGHTLEY'S (Thomas) Fairy My-
thology, illustrative of the Romance and
Superstition of Various Countries. Frontis-
piece by Cruikshank.
LEPSIUS'S Letters from Egypt,
Ethiopia, and the Peninsula of Sinai; to
which are added, Extracts from his
Chronology of the Egyptians, with refer-
ence to the Exodus of the Israelites. By
L. and J. B. Horner. Maps and Coloured
View of Mount Barkal.
MALLET’S Northern Antiquities, or
an Historical Account of the Manners,
Customs, Religions, and Literature of the
Ancient Scandinavians. Trans. by Bishop
Percy. With Translation of the PROSE
EDDA, and Notes by J. A. Blackwell.
Also an Abstract of the ‘Eyrbyggia Saga'
by Sir Walter Scott. With Glossary
and Coloured Frontispiece.
MARCO POLO’S Travels; with Notes
and Introduction. Edit. by T. Wright.
MATTHEW PARIS's English His-
tory, from 1235 to 1273. . By Rev. J. A.
Giles, D.C.L. With Frontispiece. 3 vols.-
See also Roger of Wendozer.
: MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER'S
Flowers of History, especially such as re-
late to the affairs of Britain, from the be-
§§ of the World to A.D. 1307. By
C. D. Yonge. 2 vols.
NENNIUS. Chronicle of.- See Six
O. E. Chronicles.
ORDERICU'S VITALIS’ Ecclesiastical
History of England and Normandy. With
Notes, Introduction of Guizot, and the
Critical Notice of M. Delille, by T.
Forester, M.A. To which is added the
CHRONICLE of St. Evroul.T. With Gene-
ral and Chronological Indexes. 4 vols.
PAULI's (Dr. R.) Life of Alfred the
* Great. To which is appended Alfred's
ANGLo-SAxon VERSION of ORosius. With
literal Translation interpaged, Notes, and
an ANGLO-SAXON GRAMMAR and Glossary,
by B. Thorpe. Frontispiece.
RICHARD OF CIREN C E STER,
Chronicle of.—See Six O. E. Chronicles.
ROGER DE HOVEDENPS Annals of
English History, comprising the History
of England and of other Countries of Eu-
rope from A.D. 732 to A.D. 12or. With
Notes by H. T. Riley, B.A. 2 vols.
§
ROGER OF WENDOVER'S FIOWers
of History, comprising the History of
England from the Descent of the Saxons to
A.D. 1235, formerly ascribed to Matthew
Paris. With Notes and Index by J. A.
Giles, D.C.L. 2 vols.
SIX OLD ENGLISH CHRONICLES :
viz., Asser's Life of Alfred and the Chroni-
cles of Ethelwerd, Gildas, Nennius, Geof-
frey of Monmouth, and Richard of Ciren-
cester. Edit., with Notes, by J. A. Giles,
D.C.L. Portrait of Alfred.
| WII, LIAM OF MIAI, MESBURY'S
Chronicle of the Kings of England, from
the Earliest Period to King Stephen. By
Rev. J. Sharpe. With Notes by J. A.
Giles, D.C.L. Frontispiece.
YULE-TIDE STORIES. A Collection
of Scandinavian and North-German Popu-
lar Tales and Traditions, from the Swedish,
panish, and German #dit by B. Thorpe.
I2
BOAZW'.S Z/BR4 RAE.S.
ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY.
80 Vols. at 5s. each, excepting those wearéed otherwise.
ALLEN'S (Joseph, R.N.) Battles of
the British Navy. Revised edition, wit
Indexes of Names and Events, and 57 Por-
traits and Plans. 2 vols.
ANDERSEN'S Danish Fairy Tales.
By Caroline Peachey. With Short Life
and 120 Wood Engravings.
ARIOSTO'S Orlando Furioso. In
English Verse by W. S. Rose. With Notes
and Short Memoir. Portrait after Titian,
and 24 Steel Engravings. 2 vols.
BECHSTEIN'S Cage and Chamber
Birds: their Natural History, Habits, &c.
Together with Sweet’s BRITISH wº.
BLERs. 43 Coloured Plates and Woodcuts.
BONOMI’S Nineveh and its Palaces.
The Discoveries of Botta and Layard
applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ.
7 Plates and 294 Woodcuts.
BUTLER'S Hudibras, with Variorum
Notes and Biography. Portrait and 28
Illustrations.
CATTERMOLE'S Evenings at Had-
don Hall. Romantic Tales of the Olden
Times. With 24 Steel Engravings after
Cattermole.
CHINA, Pictorial, Descriptive, and
Historical, with some account of Ava and
the Burmese, Siam, and Anam, Map, and
nearly roo Illustrations.
CRAIK'S (G. L.) Pursuit of Know-
ledge under Difficulties. Illustrated by
Anecdotes and Memoirs. Numerous Wood-
cut Portraits.
CRUIKSHANK’S Three Courses and
a Dessert; comprising three Sets of Tales,
West Country, Irish, and Legal ; and a
Mººse. With 50 Illustrations by Cruik-
Sila Ilk.
— Punch and Judy. The Dialogue of
the Puppet Show; an Account of its Origin,
&c. 24. Illustrations and Coloured Plates
by Cruikshank,
DANTE, in English Verse, by I. C. Wright,
M.A. ith Introduction and Memoir.
Portrait and 34 Steel Engravings after
Flaxman.
(197. I7s. 6d. per set.)
DIDRON'S Christian Iconography;
a History of Christian Art in the Middle
Ages. By the late A. N. Didren. Trans.
by E.J. Millington, and completed, with
Additions and Appendices, by Margaret
Stokes. 2 vols. With numerous Illustrations.
Vol. I. The History of the Nimbus, the
Aureole, and the Glory; Representations
of the Persons of the Trinity.
Wol. II. The Trinity; Angels; Devils
#: Soul; The Christian Scheme. Appen
CèS.
DYER (Dr. T. H.) Pompeii: its Build-
ings and Antiquities. An Account of the
City, with full Description of the Remains
and Recent Excavations, and an Itinerary
for Visitors. By T. H. Dyer, LL.D.
Nearly 300 Wood Engravings, Map, and
Plan. 7s. 6d.
— Rome: History of the City, with
Introduction on recent Excavations.
Engravings, Frontispiece, and 2 Maps.
G.I.L. B.I.A.S. The Adventures of.
From the French of Lesage by Smollett.
24 Engravings after Smirke, and Io Etch-
ings by Cruikshank. 612 pages. 6s.
GRIMM'S Gammer Grethel; or, Ger.
man Fairy Tales and Popular Stories,
containing 42 Fairy Tales. By Edgar
Taylor. Numerous Woodcuts after Cruik-
shank and Ludwig Grimm. 3s.6d.
HOLBEIN'S Dance of Death and
Bible Cuts. Upwards of 15o Subjects, en-
graved in facsimile, with Introduction and
Descriptions by the late Francis Douce
and Dr. Dibdin.
INDIA, Pictorial, Descriptive, and
Historical, from the Earliest Times, roo
Engravings on Wood and Map.
JESSE'S Anecdotes of Dogs. With
4o Woodcuts after Harvey, Bewick, and
others; and 34 Steel Engravings after
Cooper and Landseer.
KING'S (C. W.) Natural History of
Precious Stones and Metals. Illustra-
tions. 6s.
KRUMMACHER'S Parables. 4o lhus-
trations.
AZZUSTRATED WABA’AR Y. I3
Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious
Personages of Great Britain, with Bio-
graphical and Historical_Memoirs. 24o
Portraits engraved, on Steel, with , the
respective Biographies unabridged. Com-
plete in 8 vols.
LONGFELLOW’S Poetical Works,
including his Translations and Notes. 2
full-page Woodcuts by Birket Foster an
others, and a Portrait.
— Without the Illustrations, 3s. 6d.
-— Prose Works. With 16 full-page
Woodcuts by Birket Foster and others.
Loudon's (Mrs.) Entertaining Na:
turalist. Popular Descriptions, Tales, and
Anecdotes, of more than 500 Animals.
Numerous Woodcuts.
AIARRYAT'S (Capt., R.N.), Master-
man Ready; or, the Wreck of the Pacific.
(Written for Young People.) With 93
Woodcuts. 3s.6d.
s — Mission; or, Scenes in Africa:
(Written for Young People.) Illustrated
by Gilbert and Dalziel. 3s. 6d.
— Pirate and Three Cutters. (Writ-
ten for Young People.) With a Memoir.
8 Steel Engravings after Clarkson Stan-
field, R.A. 3s. 6d.
— Privateersman. Adventures by Sea
and Land One Hundred Years Ago.
(Written for Young People.) 8 Steel En-
gravings. 3s. 6d.
— Settlers in Canada. (Written for
Young People.) Yo Engravings by Gilbert
‘and Dalziel. 3s.6d.
— Poor Jack. (Written for Young
People.) With 16 Illustrations after Clark-
son Stanfield, R.A. 3s. 6d.
— Midshipman Easy.
page Illustrations. Small post 8vo. 3s. 6d.
— Peter Simple. With 8 full-page Illus-
trations. Small post 8vo. 3s.6d.
MAXWELL’S Victories of Welling-
ton and the British Armies. Frontispiece
and 4 Portraits.
MICHAEL ANGELO and RAPHAEL,
Their Lives and Works. By Duppa and
Quatremère de Quincy. Portraits and
Engravings, including the Last Judgment,
and Cartoons.
MILLER'S History of the Anglo-
T Saxons, from the Earliest Period to the
Norman Conquest. Portrait of Alfred, Map
of Saxon Britain, and 12 Steel Engravings.
MUDIE'S History of British Birds.
Revised by W. C. L. Martin. 52 Figures of
º: and 7 coloured Plates of Eggs.
2 VOIS,
With 8 full-
NAVAI, and IMILITARY HEROES
of Great Britain ; a Record of British
Valour on every Day in the year, from
William the Conqueror to the Battle of
Inkermann. By Major Johns, R.M., and
Lieut. P. H. Nicolas, R.M. Indexes. 24
Portraits after Holbein, Reynolds, &c. 6s.
NICOLINI's History of the Jesuits:
their Origin, Progress, Doctrines, and De-
signs. 8 Portraits.
PETRARCH'S Sonnets, Triumphs,
and other Poems, in English Verse. With
Life by Thomas Campbell. Portrait and
15 Steel Engravings.
PICKERING'S History of the Races
of Man, and their Geographical Distribu-
tion ; with AN ANALYTICAL SYNOPSIS OF
THE NATURAL. History of MAN. By Dr.
#. Map of the World and 12 coloured
teS.
PICTO RIAI, EIAN D B O OFK OF
Modern Geography on a Popular Plan.
Compiled from the best Authorities, English
and Foreign, by H. G. Bohn. 150 Wood-
cuts and 51 coloured Maps,
— Without the Maps, 3s. 6d.
POPE'S Poetical Works, including
Translations. Edit., with Notes, by R.
thers. 2 vols.
— Homer's Iliad, with Introduction
and Notes by Rev. J. S. Watson, M.A.
With Flaxman's Designs.
— Homer's Odyssey, with the BATTLE
of Frogs AND MICE, Hymns, &c., by
other translators including Chapman. In-
troduction and Notes by J. S. Watson,
M.A. With Flaxman's Designs.
— Life, including many of his Letters.
By R. Carruthers. Numerous Illustrations.
POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, and
other objects of Vertu. Comprising an
Illustrated Catalogue of the Bernal Col-
lection, with the prices and names of the
Possessors. Also an Introductory Lecture
on Pottery and Porcelain, and an Engraved
List of all Marks and Monograms. By
H. G. Bohn. Numerous Woodcuts.
— With coloured Illustrations, ros. 6d.
PROUT'S (Father) Reliques. Edited
by Rev. F. Mahony. Copyright edition,
with the Author's last corrections and
additions. 21. Etchings by D. Maclise,
R.A. Nearly 6oo pages.
RECREATIONS IN SHOOTING. With
some Account of the Game found in the
British Isles, and Directions for the Manage-
ment of Dog and Gun. By ‘Craven.' 62
Woodcuts and 9 Steel Engravings after
A. Cooper, R.A.
I4
BOEM’S ZIP3RAAEAES.
RENNIE. Insect Architecture. Re-
vised by Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A. 186
Woodcuts.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. With Memoir of
Defoe, 12 Steel Engravings and 74 Wood-
cuts after Stothard and Harvey.
— Without the Engravings, 3s. 6d.
ROME IN THE NINETEENTH CEN-
tury. An Account in 1817 of the Ruins cf
the Ancient City, and Monuments of Modern
Times. By C. A. Eaton. 34 Steel En-
gravings. 2 vols.
SHARPE (S.). The History of Egypt,
from the Earliest Times till the Conquest
by the Arabs, A.D. 64o. 2 Maps and up-
wards of 400 Woodcuts. 2 vols.
SOUTHEY'S Life of Nelson. With
Additional Notes, Facsimiles of Nelson's
Writing, Portraits, Plans, and 5o Engrav-
ings, after Birket Foster, &c.
STARLING'S (Miss) Noble Deeds of
Women ; or, Examples of Female Courage,
Fortitude, and Virtue. With 14 Steel Por-
traits.
STUART and REVETT'S Antiquities
of Athens, and other Monuments of Greece;
with Glossary of Terms used in Grecian
Architecture. 71 Steel Plates and numerous
Woodcuts.
SWEET'S British Warblers. 5s.—See
Bechstein.
TALES OF THE GENII; or, the
Delightful Lessons of Horam, the Śon of
Asmar. Trans, by Sir C. Morrell. Numer-
ous Woodcuts.
TASSO’S Jerusalem Delivered. In
English Spenserian Verse, with Life, by
. H. Wiffen. With 8 Engravings and 24
oodcuts.
WALKER'S Manly Exercises; con-
taining Skating, Riding, Driving, Hunting,
Shooting, Sailing, Rowing, Swimming, &c.
44 Engravings and numerous Woodcuts.
WALTON'S Complete Angler, or the
Contemplative Man's Recreation, by Izaak
Walton and Charles Cotton. With Me-
moirs and Notes by E. Jesse. Also an
Account of Fishing Stations, Tackle, &c.,
by H. G. Bohn. Portrait and 203 Wood-
cuts, and 26 Engravings on Steel.
—Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker,
&c., with Notes. A New £ditiºn, re-
vised by A. H. Bullen, with a Memoir
of Izaak Walton by William Dowling. 6
Portraits, 6 Autograph Signatures, &c.
WELLINGTON, Life of. From the
Materials of Maxwell. 18 Steel En-
gravings.
— Victories of.-See Maxwell.
WESTROPP (H. M.) A Handbook of
Archaeology, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan,
Roman. By H. M. Westropp. Numerous
Illustrations.
white's Natural History of Sel-
i borne, with Observations on various Parts
of Nature, and the Naturalists' Calendar.
Sir W. Jardine. Edit., with Notes and
Memoir, by E. Jesse. 4o Portraits and
coloured Plates.
CLASSICAL LIBRARY.
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK AND LATIN.
103 Vols. at 5s, each, excepting those marked otherwise.
ACHILLES
Rozſtances.
AESCHYLUS, The Dramas , of.
English Verse by Anna Swanwick.
edition.
— The Tragedies of. In Prose, with
Notes and Introduction, by T. A. Buckley,
B.A. Portrait. 3s. 6.
AMIMIANU'S MARCELLINUS. His-
tory of Rome during the Reigns of Con-
stantius, Julian, Jovianus, Valentinian, and
Valens, by C. D. Yonge, B.A. Double
volume. 7s. 6d.
TATIUS. — See Greek
In
4th
(25l. 4s. 6d. per set.)
ANTONINUS (M. Aurelius), The
Thoughts of . Translated, with Notes.
Biographical Sketch, and Essay on the
Philosophy, by George Long, , M.A.
3s.6d. Fine Paper edition on hand-made
} paper. 6s,
APOLLONIUS RHODIUS. ‘The Ar-
gonautica.’ Translated by E. P. Coleridge.
; APULEIUS, The Works of Com-
rising the Golden Ass, God of Socrates,
É. and Discourse of Magic, &c.
Frontispiece.
CZASS/CA/C LZB RAA’ \'. IS
ARISTOPHANES’ Comedies. Trans.,
with Notes and Extracts from Frere's and
other Metrical Versions, by W. J. Hickie.
Portrait, 2 vols.
ARISTOTLE'S Nicomachean Ethics.
Trans., with Notes, Analytical Introduc-
tion, and Questions for Students, by Wen.
Archdn. Browne.
• — Politics and Economics. Trans,
with Notes, Analyses, and Index, by E.
Walford, M.A., and an Essay and Life by
Dr. Gillies.
— Metaphysics. Trans., with. Notes,
Analysis, and Examination Questions, b
Rev. John H. M'Mahon, M.A. º:
— History of Animals. In Ten Books.
Trans., with Notes and Index, by R.
Cresswell, M.A.
— Organon; or, Logical Treatises, and
the Introduction of Porphyry. With Notes,
Analysis, and Introduction, by Rev. O
F. Owen, M.A. 2 vols. 3s.6d, each.
— Rhetoric and Poetics. Trans., with
Hobbes' Analysis, Exam. Questions, and
Notes, by T. §uckley, B.A. Portrait.
ATHENAEUS. The Deipnosophists.
Trans. by C. D. Yonge, B.A. With an
Appendix of Poetical Fragments. 3 vols.
ATLAS of Classical Geography. 22
large Coloured Maps. With a complete
Index. Imp. 8vo. 7s.6d.
BION.—See Theocritics.
CAE SAR. Commentaries on the
Gallic and Civil Wars, with the Supple-
mentary Books attributed to Hirtius, in-
cluding the complete Alexandrian, African,
and Spanish Wars. Portrait.
CATULLUS, Tibullus, and the Vigil
of Venus. Trans. with Notes and Bio-
graphical Introduction. To which are
added, Metrical Versions by Lamb,
Grainger, and others. Frontispiece.
CICERO'S Orations. Trans, by C. D.
Yonge, B.A. 4 vols.
— On Oratory and Orators. With
Letters to Quintus and Brutus. Trans.,
with Notes, by Rev. J. S. Watson, M.A.
— On the Nature of the Gods, Divi-
nation, Fate, Laws, a Republic, Consul-
ship. Trans. by C. D. Yonge, B.A.
— Academics, De Finibus, and Tuscu-
lan Questions. By C. D. Yonge, B.A.
With Sketch of the Greek Philosophers
mentioned by Cicero.
CICERO’S Works.-Conférezzed.
— Offices; or, Moral Duties. ... Cata
Major, an #ssay on Old Age; Laelius, an
Essay on Friendship; Scipio's Dream ;
Paradoxes; Letter to Quintus on Magis-
trates. Trans., with Notes, by C. R. Ed-
monds. Portrait. 3s. 6d.
DEMOSTHENES’ Orations. Trans.,
with Notes, Arguments, a Chronological
Abstract, and Appendices, by C. Rann
Kennedy. 5 vols. (One, 3s.6d. ; four, 5s.)
IDICTIONARY Of LATIN and GREEK
Quotations; including Proverbs, Maxims,
Mottoes, Law Terms and Phrases. With
the Quantities marked, and English Trans-
lations. With Index Verborum (622 pages).
— Index Verborum to the above, with the
Quantities and Accents marked (56 pages),
limp cloth. Is.
DIOGENES LAERTIUS. Lives and
Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers.
Trans., with Notes, by C. D. Yonge, B.A.
EPICTETUS. The Discourses of.
With the Encheiridion and 'Fragments.
With Notes, Life, and View of his Philo-
sophy, by George Long, M.A
EURIPIDES. Trans. by T. A. Buckley,
B.A. Portrait. 2 vols.
GREEK ANTHOLOGY. In English
Prose by G. Burges, M.A. With Metrical
Versions by Bland, Merivale, and others.
GREEK ROMANCES of Heliodorus,
Longus, and Achilles Tatius; viz., Thé
Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea ;
Amours of Daphnis and Chloe; and Loves
of Clitopho and Leucippe. Trans., with
Notes, by Rev. R. Smith, M.A.
HELIODORUS.–Sce Greek Rozyazıces.
HERODOTUS. Literally trans. by Rev.
Henry Cary, M.A. Portrait.
HESIOD, CALLIMACHUS, and
Theognis. In Prose, with Notes and
Biographical Notices by Rev. J. Banks,
M.A. Together with the Metrical Ver-
sions of Hesiod, by Elton ; Callimachus,
by Tytler; and Theognis, by Frere.
HOMER'S Iliad. In English Prose, with
Notes by T. A. Buckley, B.A. Portrait.
— Odyssey, Hymns, Epigrams, and
Batºfºrº'Mºngº,
Prose, with Notes and Memoir by T. A.
Buckley, B.A.
HORACE. In Prose by Smart, with Notes
selected by T. A. Buckley, B.A. Por-
trait. 3s. 6d.
JULIAN THE EMPEROR. Containing
Gregory Mazianzen's Two Invectives and
Libanus' Monody, with Julian's Theosophi-
cal Works. By the Rev. C. W. King, M.A.
16 BOAAW'S LAB RAFIES.
JUSTIN, CORNELIUS NEPos, and
Eutropius. Trans., with Notes, by Rev.
J. S. Watson, M.A.
JUVENAI, PERSIUS, SULPICIA,
and Lucilius. In Prose, with Notes,
Chronological Tables, Arguments, by L.
Evans, M.A. To which is added the Me-
trical Version of Juvenal and Persius by
Gifford. Frontispiece.
LIVY. The History of Rome. Trans.
by Dr. Spillan and others. 4 vols. Portrait.
LoNGUS. Daphnis and Chloe.—SecCreek
Romances.
LU CAN’S Pharsalia.
Notes by H. T. Riley.
LUCIAN'S Dialogues of the Gods,
of the Sea Gods, and of the Dead. Trans.
by Howard Williams, M.A.
LUCRETIUS. - In Prose, with Notes and
Biographical Introduction by Rev. J. S.
Watson, M.A. To which is added the
Metrical Version by J. M. Good.
IMARTIAL’S Epigrams, complete. In
Prose, with Verse Translations selected
from English Poets, and other sources.
Dble. vol. (670 pages). 7s.6d.
MOSCHUS.—See Theocritzas.
OVID'S Works, complete. In Prose,
with Notes and Introduction. 3 vols.
PAUSANIAS' Description of Greece.
Trans., with Notes and Index, by Rev.
A. R. Shilleto, M.A., sometime Scholar of
Trinity College, Cambridge. 2 vols.
PHALARIS. Bentley’s Dissertations
upon the Epistles of Phalaris, Themisto-
cles, Socrates, Euripides, and the Fables
of AEsop. With Introduction and Notes
by Prof. W. Wagner, Ph.D.
PINDAR. In Prose, with Introduction
and Notes by Dawson W. Turner. To-
gether with the Metrical Version by Abra-
ham Moore. Portrait.
PLATO'S Works. Trans. by Rev. H.
Cary, H. Davis, and G. Burges. 6 vols.
— Dialogues. A Summary and Analysis
of. With Analytical Index to the Greek
text of modern editions and to the above
translations, by A. Day, LL.D.
PLAUTUS'S Comedies. In Prose, with
Notes by H. T. Riley, B.A. 2 vols.
PLINY'S Natural History. Trans.,
with Notes, by J. Bostock, M.D., F.R.S.,
and H. T. Riley, B.A. 6 vols.
PLINY. The Letters of Pliny the
Younger. Melmoth’s Translation, revised,
with Notes and short Life, by Rev. F. C.
T. Bosanquet, M.A.
In Prose, with
PLUTARCH'S Morals. Theosophical
Essays. Trans. by Rev. C. W. King, M.A.
— Ethical Essays.
A. R. Shilleto, M.A.
— Lives. See Aage 7.
PROPERTIUS, The Elegies of.
Notes, translated by Rev. P.
Gantillon, M.A., with metrical versions
of §ect Elegies by Nott and Elton.
3.S. O&.
QUINTILIAN'S Institutes of Oratory.
º by Rev. J. S. Watson, M.A.
2 VOIS,
SALLUST, FLORUS, and VELLEIUS
Paterculus. Trans., with Notes and Bio-
graphical Notices, by J. S. Watson, M.A.
SENECA IXIE BENEFICIIS.
lated by Aubrey Stewart, M.A.
SENECA’S Minor Essays.
by A. Stewart, M.A.
SOPHOCLES. The Tragedies of. In
Prose, with Notes, Arguments, and Intro
duction. Portrait.
STRABO'S Geography. Trans., with
Notes, by W. Falconer, M.A., and H. C.
Hamilton. Copious Index, giving Ancient
and Modern Names. 3 vols.
SUETONIUS’ Lives of the Twelve
Caesars and Lives of the Grammarians.
The Translation of Thomson, revised, with
Notes, by T. Forester.
Trans. by Rev.
With
. F.
Trans-
3s. 6d.
Translated
TACITUS. The Works of. Trans.,
with Notes. 2 vols.
TERENCE and PHAEDRUS. In Eng-
lish Prose, with Notes and Arguments, by
H. T. Riley, B.A. To which is added
Smart's Metrical Version of Phaedrus.
With Frontispiece.
THEocRITUS, BION, MoscHUS,
and Tyrtaeus. In Prose, with Notes and
Arguments, by Rev. J. Banks, M.A...To
which are appended the METRICAL VER-
stons of Chapman. Portrait of Theocritus.
THUCYDIDES. The Peloponnesian
War. Trans., with Notes, by Rev. H.
Dale. Portrait. 2 vols. 3s. 6d. each.
TYRTAEU.S.—See Theocritzas.
VIRGIL. The Works of. In Prose,
with Notes by Davidson. Revised, with
additional Notes and Biographical Notice,
by T. A. Buckley, B.A. Portrait. 3s.6d.
XENOPHON'S Works. Trans., with
Notes, by J. S. Watson, M.A., and Rev.
H. Dale. Portrait. In 3 vols.
COLLEGATE SERIES AAWD SCIENTIFIC LIBRAR P. 17
C O L L E G IATE SERIES.
Io Vols, at 5s. each.
DANTE. The Inferno. Prose Trans.,
with the Text of the Original on the same
page, and Explanatory. Notes, by John
A. Carlyle, M.D. Portrait.
— The Purgatorio. Prose Trans., with
the Original on the same page, and Ex-
planatory Notes, by W. S. Dugdale.
DOBREE's Adversaria. (Notes on the
Greek and Latin Classics.) Edited by the
late Prof. Wagner. 2 vols.
DONALDSON. (Dr.) The Theatre of
the Greeks. With Supplementary Treatise
on the Language, Metres, and Prosody of
the Greek Dramatists. Wumerous iſſus.
trations and 3 Plans. By J. W. Donald-
son, D.D.
GOETHE'S Faust. Part I. German Text,
with Hayward’s Prose Translation and
Notes. Revised, with Introduction and
Bibliography, by Dr. C. A. Buchheim.
[In the Press.
KEIGHTLEY'S (Thomas) Mythology
of Ancient Greece and Italy. Revised by
Dr. Leonhard Schmitz. 12 Plates.
(2l. Ios. per set.)
HERODOTUS, Notes on. Original
and Selected from the best Commentators.
By D. W. Turner, M.A. Coloured Map.
— Analysis, and Summary of, with
a Synchronistical Table of Events—Tables
of Weights, Measures, Money, and Dis-
tances — an Outline of the History and
Geography—and the Dates completed from
Gaisford, Baehr, &c. By J. T. Wheeler.

NEW TESTAMENT (The) in Greek.
Griesbach's Text, with the Readings of
Mill and Scholz, and Parallel References.
Also a Critical Introduction and Chrono-
logical Tables. Two Fac-similes of Greek
Manuscripts. 650 pages. 3s. 6d.
— or bound up with a Greek and English
Lexicon to the New Testament (250 pages
additional, making in all goo). 5s.
The Lexicon separately, 2s.
THUCYDIDES. An Analysis and
Summary of. With Chronological Table
of Events, &c., by J. T. Wheeler.
SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY.
50 Vols. at 5s. each, excepting those marked otherwise.
AGASSIZ and GOULD. Outline of
Comparative Physiology. Enlarged by
Dr. Wright. With Index and 3oo Illus-
trative Woodcuts.
BOI, I, EY'S Manual of Technical
Analysis; a Guide for the Testing and
Valuation of the various Natural and
Artificial Substances employed in the Arts
and Domestic Economy, founded on the
work of Dr. Bolley. Edit. by Dr. Paul.
1oo Woodcuts.
BRIDGEWATER TREATISES,
— Bell (Sir Charles) on the Hand;
its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as
evincing Desi Preceded by an Account
of the Author's Discoveries in the Nervous
System by A. Shaw. Numerous Woodcuts.
— Kirby on the History, Habits,
and Instincts of Animals. With Notes by
T. Rymer Jones. Ioo Woodcuts. 2 vols.
— Buckland's Geology and Miner-
alogy. With Additions by Prof. Owen,
Prof. Phillips, and R. Brown. Memoir of
Buckland. Porirait. 2 vols. 15s. Vol. I.
Text. Vol. II. 9o large plates with letter-
press.
(132.6s. Od. Aer set.)
BRIE) G. E.W. A. T E R TREATISES.
Continued.
— Chalmers on the Adaptation of
External Nature to the Moral and Intel-
lectual Constitution of Man. With Memoir
by Rev. Dr. Cumming. Portrait.
— Prout's Treatise on Chemistry,
Meteorology, and the Function of Diges-
tion, with reference to Natural Theology
Edit. by Dr. J. W. Griffith. 2 Maps.
— Roget's Animal and Vegetable
Fºology. 463 Woodcuts. 2 vols. 6s
©a Cºl.
— Kidd on the Adaptation of Ex-
ternal Nature to the Physical Condition of
Man. 3s. 6d.
CARPENTER'S (Dr. W. B.) Zoology.
A Systematic View of the Structure, Ha-
bits, Instincts, and Uses of the principal
Families of the Animal Kingdom, and of
the chief Forms of Fossil Remains. Re-
vised by W. S. Dallas, F.L.S. Numerous
Woodcuts. 2 vols. 6s. each.
— Mechanical Philosophy; Astro-
nomy, and Horology. A #ia: Expo-
sition. 181 Woodcuts.
I3 FOAAW'S Z/BRARYES,
CARPENTER'S Works,—Continued.
— Vegetable Physiology and Sys-
tematic Botany. A complete Introduction
to the Knowledge of Plants. Revised by
E. Lankester, M.D., &c. Numerous
Woodcuts. 6s.
— Animal Physiology. Revised Edi-
tion. 3oo Woodcuts. 6s.
CHEVREUI, on Colour. Containing
the Principles of Harmony, and Contrast
of Colours, and their Application to the
Arts ; including Painting,. Decoration,
Tapestries, Carpets, . Mosaics; Glazing,
Staining, Calico Printing, Letterpress
Printing, Map Colouring, Dress, Land-
scape and Flower Gardening, &c. Trans.
by C. Martel. Several Plates.
— With an additional series of 16 Plates
in Colours, 7s. 6d.
ENNEMOSER'S History of Magic.
Trans. by W. Howitt. With an Appendix
of the most remarkable and best authenti-
cated Stories of Apparitions, Dreams,
Second Sight, Table-Turning, and Spirit-
Rapping, #. 2 vols. º
EIIND’S Introduction to Astronomy.
With Vocabulary of the Terms in present
use. Numerous Woodcuts. 3s. 6d.
HOGG's (Jabez) Elements of Experi-
mental and Natural Philosophy. Being
an Easy Introduction to the Study of
Mechanics, Pneumatics, Hydrostatics,
Hydraulics, Acoustics, Optics, Caloric,
Electricity, Voltaism, and Magnetism.
4oo Woodcuts.
HUMBOLDT'S Cosmos; or, Sketch
of a Physical Description of the Universe.
Trans. by E. C. Otté, B. H. Paul, and
W. S. Dallas, F.L.S. Portrait, 5 vols.
3s. 6d. each, excepting vol. v., 5s.
— Personal Marrative of his Travels
in America during the years 1799-1804.
Trans., with Notes, by T. Ross. 3 vols.
— Views of Nature; or, Contem-
plations of the Sublime. Phenomena of
Creation, with Scientific Illustrations.
Trans. by E. C. Otté.
HUNT'S (Robert) Poetry of Science;
or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of
Nature. By Robert Hunt, Professor at
the School of Mines.
JOY CE'S Scientific Dialogues. A
Familiar Introduction to the Arts and
Sciences. For Schools and Young People.
Numerous Woodcuts.
JOY CE'S Introduction to the Arts
and Sciences, for Schools and Young
People. Divided into Lessons with Ex-
amination Questions. Woodcuts. 3s.6d.
JUKES-BROWNE'S Student's Hand-
book of Physical Geology. By A. J.
H.” of the Geological Survey of
ngland. With numerous Diagrams and
Illustrations, 6s.
— The Student’s Handbook of
Historical Geology. By A. J. Jukes-
Brown, B.A., F.G.S., of the Geological
Survey of England and Wales. With
numerous Diagrams and Illustrations. 6s.
— The Building of the British
Islands. A Study in Geographical Evolu-
...'. By A. J. Jukes-Browne, F.G.S.
7s. 6d.
KNIGHT’S (Charles) Knowledge is
Power. A Popular Manual of Political
Economy.
LILLY. Introduction to Astrology.
With a Grammar of Astrology and Tables
for calculating Nativities, by Zadkiel.
MANTELL'S (Dr.) Geological Ex-
cursions through the Isle of Wight and
along the Dorset Coast. Numerous Wood-
cuts and Geological Map.
— Petrifactions and their Teach-
ings. Handbook to the Organic Remains
in the British Museum. Numerous Wood-
cuts. 6s.
— Wonders of Geology; or, a
Familiar Exposition of Geological Pheno-
mena. A coloured Geological Map of
England, Plates, and 200 Woodcuts. 2
vols. 7s. 6d, each.
SCHOUW's Earth, Plants, and Man.
Popular Pictures of Nature. And Ko-
bell's Sketches from the Mineral Kingdom.
Trans. by A. Henfrey, F.R.S. Coloured
Map of the Geography of Plants.
SMITH'S (Pye) Geology and Scrip-
ture; or, the Relation between the Scriptures
and Geological Science. With Memoir.
STANLEY'S Classified Synopsis of
the Principal Painters of the Dutch and
Flemish Schools, including an Account of
some of the early German Masters. By
George Stanley.
STAUNTON'S Chess Works. – See
Aage 2 I.
STOCKHARD T'S Experimental
Chemistry. A Handbook for the Study
of the Science by simple E iments.
Edit. by C. W. Heaton, F.C.S. Nu-
merous Woodcuts.
URE'S (Dr. A.) Cotton Manufacture
of Great Britain, systematically investi-
gated ; with an Introductory View of its
Comparative State in Foreign Countries.
Revised by P. L. Simmonds. 150 Illus-
trations, 2 vols.
— Philosophy of Manufactures,
or an Exposition of the Scientific, Moral,
and Commercial Economy of the Factory
System of Great Britain. Revised by
P. L. Simmonds. Numerous Figures,
8oo pages. 7s.6d.
A&EFEREAVCE A/BRA R Y. I9
ECONOMICS AND FINANCE.
GILBART'S History, º sº *:::: of Fººs.
COtland. Ortrait of Gi t.
A. S. Michie, of the Royal Bank o
Revised to 1881 b
2 vols. ros. *
RICARDO on the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Edited
by E.
SMITH (Adam).
Causes of. Edited by E. Belfort Bax.
C. K. Gonner, M.A., Lecturer, University College, Liverpool.
The Wealth of Nations.
[In the Aress.
An Inquiry into the Nature and
2 vols. 7s.
REFERENCE LIBRARY.
(8l. 18s. per set.)
32 Volumes at Various Prices.
BL AIR'S Chronological Tables.
Comprehending the Chronology and His-
tory of the World, from the Earliest Times
to the Russian Treaty of Peace, April 1856.
By J. W. Rosse. 8oo pages. Ios.
— Index of Dates. Comprehending
the principal Facts in the Chronology and
History of the World, from the Earliest to
the Present, alphabetically arranged; being
a complete Index to the foregoing. By
J. W. Rosse. 2 vols. 5s. each.
BOHN'S Dictionary of Quotations
from the English Poets. 4th and cheaper
Edition. 6s.
BOND'S Handy-book of Rules and
Tables for Verifying Dates with the Chris-
tian Era. 4th Edition. 5s.
BUCHANAN'S Dictionary of Science
and Technical Terms used in Philosophy,
Literature, Professions, Commerce, Arts,
and Trades. By W. H. Buchanan, with
Supplement. Edited by Jas. A. Smith. 6s.
CHRONICLES OF THE TOMIBS. A
Select Collection of Epitaphs, with Essay
on Epitaphs and Observations on Sepul-
chral Antiquities. By T. J. Pettigrew,
F.R.S., F.S.A. 5s.
CLARK'S (Hugh) Introduction to
Heraldry. Revised by J. R. Planché. 5s.
950 Illustrations.
- With the Illustrations coloured, 15s.
COINS, Manual of.-See Humphreys.
COOPER'S Biographical Dictionary,
Containing concise notices of upwards of
15,000 eminent persons of all ages and
countries. 2 vols. 5s. each.
DATES, Index of.-See Blair'
DICTIONARY of Obsolete and Pro-
vincial English. Containing Words from
English Writers previous to the 19th
Century. By Thomas Wright, M.A.,
F.S.A., &c. 2 vols. 5s. each.
EPIGRAMMIATISTS (The). A selec-
tion from the Epigrammatic Literature ef
Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Times.
With Introduction, Notes, Observations,
Illustrations, an Appendix on Works con-
nected with Epigrammatic Literature,
by Rev. H. Dodd, M.A. 6s.
GAMES, Handbook of. Edited by
Henry G. Bohn. Numerous Diagrams.
5s. (See also fage 21.)
HEN FREY'S Guide to English
oins. Revised Edition, by C. F. Keary,
M.A., F.S.A. With an Historical Intro-
duction. 6s.
HUMPHREYS." Coin Collectors’
Manual. An Historical Account of the
Progress of Coinage from the Earliest
Time, by H. N. Humphreys. 140 Illus-
trations. 2 vols. 5s. each.
LOWNDES' Bibliographer's Marnual
of English Literature. Containing an Ac-
count of Rare and Curious Books pub-
lished in or relating to Great Britain and
Ireland, from the Invention of Printing,
with Hºl. Notices and Prices,
by W. T. Lowndes. Parts I.-X. (A to Z),
3s. 6d. each. Part XI. (Appendix Wol.),
5s. Or the II parts in 4 vols... half
ºcco. 22, 2s. Also in 6 vols, cloth, 5s.
& 3.Cll.
MEDICINE, Handbook of Domestic,
Popularly Arranged. By Dr. H. Davies.
7oo pages. 5S.
NOTED NAMES OF FICTION.
Dictionary of. Including also Familiar
Pseudonyms, Surnames bestowed on Emi-
nent Men, &c. By W. A. Wheeler, M.A. 5s.
POLITICAL CYCLOPAEDIA. A
Dictionary of Political, Constitutional,
Statistical, and Forensic Knowledge ;
forming a Work of Reference on subjects
of Civil Administration, Political Economy,
Finance, Commerce, Laws, and Social
Relations. 4 vols. 3s. 6d. each.
2O BO HAV'S LABA&A RAAES.
PROVERBS, Handbook of. Con-
taining an entire Republication of Ray's
Collection, with Additions from Foreign
Languages , and Sayings, Sentences,
Maxims, and Phrases. 5s.
— A Polyglot of Foreign. Com-
ising French, Italian, German, Dutch,
panish, Portuguese, and Danish. With
English Translations. 5s.
SYNoNYMS and . ANTONYMs; or,
Kindred Words and their Opposites, Col-
lected and Contrasted by Ven. C. J.
Smith, M.A. 5s.
WRIGHT (Th.)—See Dictionary.
NOVELISTS’
LIBRARY.
13 Volumes at 3s.6d, each, excepting those marked otherwise. (21.8s. 6d. per set.)
IBJORNSON'S Arne and the Fisher
Lassie. Translated from the Norse with
an Introduction by W. H. Low, M.A.
BURNEY'S Evelina; or, a Young
Lady's Entrance into the World. By F.
Burney (Mme. D'Arblay). With Intro-
duction and Notes by A. R. Ellis, Author
of “Sylvestra,’ &c.
— Cecilia. With Introduction and
Notes by A. R. Ellis. 2 vols.
DE STABL. Corinne or Italy.
By Madame de Staël. Translated by
Emily Baldwin and Paulina Driver.
EBERS’ Egyptian Princess.
by Emma Buchheim.
Trans.
FIELDINGPS Joseph Andrews and
his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. With
Roscoe's Biography. Cruikshank's Illus-
trations.
- Amelia. Roscoe's Edition, revised.
Cruikshank's Illustrations. 5s.
- History of Tom Jones, a Found-
ling. Roscoe's Edition, Cruikshank’s
Illustrations. 2 vols.
GROSSI’S Marco Visconti. Trans.
by A. F. D.
MANZONI. The Betrothed :
a Translation of “I Promessi
Numerous Woodcuts. I vol. 5s.
STOWE (Mrs. H. B.) Uncle Tom's
Cabin ; or, Life among the Lowly. 8 full-
page Illustrations.
bein
Sposi.
ARTISTS'
LIBRARY.
(2l. 8s. 6d. per set.)
9 Volumes at Various Arices.
BELL (Sir Charles). The Anatomy
and Philosophy of Expression, as Con-
nected with the Fine Arts. 5s. Illustrated.
DEMIMIN. History of Arms and
Armour from the Earliest Period. By
Auguste Demmin. Trans. by C. C.
Black, M.A., Assistant Keeper, S. K.
Museum. 190o Illustrations. 7s. 6d.
FAIRHOLT'S Costume in England.
Third Edition. Enlarged and Revised by
the Hon. H. A. Dillon, F.S.A. With
more than 700 Engravings. 2 vols. 5s.
each.
Vol. I. History. Vol. II. Glossary.
FLAXMLAN. Lectures on Sculpture.
With 1 hree Addresses to the R.A. by Sir
R. Westmacott, R.A., and Memoir of
Flaxman. Portrait and 53 Plates. 6s.
HEATON'S Concise History of
Painting. , New Edition, revised by
W. Cosmo Monkhouse. 5s.
LECTURES ON PAINTING by the
Royal Academicians, Barry, Opie, Fuseli.
With Introductory Essay and Notes by
R. Wornum. Portrait of Fuseli. 5s.
LEONARDO D.A. VINCI’S Treatise
on Painting. Trans. by J. F. Rigaud, R.A.
ith a Life and an Account of his Works
by J. W. Brown. Numerous Plates. 5s.
PI, AIN CIHE'S History of British
Costume, from the Earliest Time to the
13th Century. By J. R. Planché. i. 4oo
Illustrations, 5s.
2 I
LIBRARY OF SPORTS AND GAMES.
Io Volumes at 3s. 6d. and 5s. each.
BOHN'S Handbooks of Athletic
Sports. With numerous Illustrations. In
7 vols. 3s. 6d. each.
Vol. I.-Cricket, by Hon. and Rev. E.
Lyttelton ; Lawn Tennis, by H. W. W.
Wilberforce; Tennis, Rackets, and Fives,
by Julian Marshall, Major Spens, and J. A.
Tait: Golf, by W. T. Linskill; Hockey,
by F. S. Cresweil.
Vol. II.-Rowing and Sculling, by W.
B. Woodgate ; Sailing, by E. F. Knight;
Swimming, by M. and J. R. Cobbett.
Vol. III.-Boxing, by R. G. Allanson-
Winn; Single Stick and Sword Exercise,
by R. G. Allanson-Winn and C. Phillipps-
Wolley : Wrestling, by Walter Armstrong;
Fencing, by H. A. Colmore Dunn.
Vol. IV.-Skating, by Douglas Adams;
Rugby Football, by Harry Vassall ; Asso-
ciation Football, by C. W. Alcock.
[I7, the A7-ess.
Vol. V. — Cycling and Athletics, by
H. H. Griſſin ; Rounders, Field Ball, Base-
ball, Bowls, Quoits, Skittles, &c., by J. M.
Walker, M.A., Assistant Master Bedford
Grammar School. [In the £7:css.
Vol. VI.-Gymnastics, by A. F. Jenkin;
Clubs and Dumb-bells, by G. T. B. Cobbett
and A. F. Jenkin. [In the £2 ess.
Vol. VII.-Riding, Driving, and Stable
Management. 13y W. A. Kerr, V.C., and
other writers. [Prefaring.
BOHN’S Handbooks of Games. New
Edition, entirely rewritten. 2 volumes.
3s.6d, each.
Vol. I. TABLE GAMEs.
Contents:—Billiards, with Pool, Pyra-
m ds, and Snooker, by Major-Gen. A. W.
Drayson, F.R.A.S., with a preface by
W. J. Peall—Bagatelle, by ‘Berkeley’—
Chess, by R. F. Green—Draughts, Back-
gammon, Dominoes, Solitaire, Reversi,
{
!
t
|
º
(27. 6s. Od, fez set.)
Go Bang, Rouge et noir, Roulette, E.O.,
Hazard, Fare, by ‘Berkeley.’
Vol. II. CARD GAMEs.
Contents:—Whist, by Dr. William Pole,
F.R.S., Author of ‘The Philosophy of
Whist, &c.”—Solo Whist, by R. F. Green;
Piquet, Ecarté, Euchre, Bézique, and
Cribbage, by ‘Berkeley; ' Poker, Loo,
Vingt-et-un, Napoleon, Newmarket, Rouge
et Noir, Pope Joan, Speculation, &c. &c.,
by Baxter-Wray.
CHESS CONGRESS of 1862. A coſ-
lection of the games played. Edited by
J. Löwenthal. New edition, 5s.
MORPHY'S Games of Chess, being
the Matches and best Games played by the
American Champion, with explanatory and
analytical Notes by J. Löwenthal. With
short Memoir and Portrait of Morphy. 5s.
STAUNTON'S Chess-Player's Hand-
book. A Popular and Scientific Intro-
duction to the Game, with numerous Dia-
gram S. 5S.
— Chess Praxis. A Supplement to the
Chess-player's Handbook. Containing the
most important modern Improvements in
the Openings; Code of Chess Laws ; and
a Selection of Morphy's Games. Annotated.
636 pages. Diagrams. 5s.
— Chess - Player’s Companion.
Comprising a Treatise on Odds, Collection
of Match Games, including the French
Match with M. St. Amant, and a Selection
of Original Problems. Diagrams and Co-
loured Frontispiece. 5s.
— Chess Tournament of 1851.
A Collection of Games played at this cele-
brated assemblage. With Introduction
and Notes. Numerous Diagrams. 5s.
BOHN'S CHEAP SERIES.
Price Is. each.
A Series of Complete Stories or Æssays, mostly reprinted from Vols. in
Bohn's Zibraries, and meat/y bound in stiff paper cozer, 207th
cut edges, suitable for A'ai/way A'eading.
ASCHAM (Roger).
By Professor Mayor.
CARPENTER (Dr. W. B.). Physi-
ology of Temperance and Total Abstinence.
BMERSON. England and English
Characteristics. Lectures on the Race,
Ability, Manners, Truth, Character,
Wealth, Religion. &c. &c.
— Nature : An Essay. To which are
added Orations, Lectures, and Addresses.
— Representative Men : Seven Lec-
tures on PLATO, SweDENBoRG, Mon-
TAIGNE, SHAKESPEARE, NAPOLEoN, and
Goethe.
— Twenty Essays on Various Sub-
jects.
— The Conduct of Life.
FRANKLIN (Benjamin).
graphy. Edited by J. Sparks.
HAWTHORNE (Nathaniel). Twice-
told Tales. Two Vols. in One.
— Snow Image, and Other Tales.
— Scarlet Letter.
— House with the Seven Gables.
— Transformation ; or the Marble
Fawn. Two Parts.
Scholemaster.
Autobio-
HAZLITT (W.). Table-talk: Essays
on Men and Manners. Three Parts.
— Plain speaker: Opinions on Books,
Men, and Things. Three Parts.
IRVING (Washington). Lives of
Successors of Mohammed.
— Life of Goldsmith.
— Sketch-book.
— Tales of a Traveller.
— Tour on the Prairies.
— Conquests of Granada and
Spain. Two Parts.
— Life and Voyages of Columbus.
Two Parts.
Companions of Columbus: Their
Voyages and Discoveries.
— Adventures of Captain Bonne—
ville in the Rocky Mountains and the Far
West.
— Rnickerbocker’s History of New
York, from the beginning of the World to
the End of the Dutch Dynasty.
— Tales of the Alhambra.
— Conquest of Florida under Her-
mando de Soto.
— Abbotsford & Newstead Abbey.
— Salmagundi ; or, The Whim-Whams
and Opinions of LAUNCELoT LANGSTAFF,
Esq.
— Bracebridge Hall
mourists.
— Astoria ; or, Anecdotes of an Enter-
prise beyond the Rocky Mountains.
— Wolfert's Roost, and other Tales.
; or, The Hu-
– Lectures on the English Comic
Writers.
- Lectures on the English Poets.
— Lectures on the Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays.
— Lectures on the Literature of
the Age of Elizabeth, chiefly Dramatic.
LAMB (Charles).
With a Portrait.
— Last Essays of Elia.
— Eliana. With Biographical Sketch.
Essays of Elia.
Pirate and
IVIARRYAT ºtai),
ith a Memoir of
the Three Cutters,
the Author,
( 23 )
Bohn's Select Library of Standard Works.
I
3.
I4.
16.
I7.
I8.
I9.
2O.
2 I.
22
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
3O.
O © O Q @ O.
Price Is. in paper covers, and Is. 6d. in cloth.
BACON'S ESSAYS. With Introduction and Notes.
. LESSING's LAOKOON. Beasley's Translation, revised, with Intro-
duction, Notes, &c., by Edward Bell, M.A. With Frontispiece.
. DANTE's INFERNO. Translated, with Notes, by Rev. H. F. Cary.
. GOETHE's FAUST. Part I. Translated, with Introduction, by
Anna Swanwick.
. GOETHE's Boy HooD. Being Part I. of the Autobiography.
Translated by J. Oxenford.
SCHILLER'S MARY STUART and THE MAID OF ORLEANS. Trans-
lated by J. Mellish and Anna Swanwick.
. THE QUEEN’s ENGLISH. By the late Dean Alford.
. LIFE AND LABOURS OF THE LATE THOMAS BRASSEY. By Sir
A. Helps, K.C.B
PLATO's DIALOGUES: The Apology—Crito—Phaedo—Protagoras.
With Introductions.
. MOLIERE's PLAYS : The Miser–Tartuffe—The Shopkeeper turned
Gentleman. Translated by C. H. Walt, M.A. With brief Memoir.
. GOETHE's REINEKE Fox, in English Hexameters. By A. Rogers.
. OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S PLAYS.
LESSING's PLAYS : Nathan the Wise—Minna von Barnhelm.
PLAUTUS's COMEDIES : Trinummus — Menaechmi – Aulularia —
Captivi.
. WATERLOO DAys. By C. A. Eaton. With Preface and Notes by
Edward Bell.
DEMOSTHENES-ON THE CROWN. Translated by C. Rann
Kennedy.
THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
OLIVER CROMWELL. By Dr. Reinhold Pauli.
THE PERFECT LIFE. By Dr. Channing. Edited by his nephew,
Rev. W. H. Channing.
LADIES IN PARLIAMENT, HORACE AT ATHENS, and other pieces,
by Sir George Otto Trevelyan, Bart.
DEFOE’S THE PLAGUE IN LONDON.
IRVING'S LIFE OF MAHOMET.
HORACE’s ODES, by various hands. [Ozet of Prinſ.
BURKE'S ESSAY ON “THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.” With
Short Memoir.
HAUFF'S CARAVAN.
SHERIDAN's PLAYS.
DANTE's PURGATORIO. Translated by Cary.
HARVEY'S TREATISE ON THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD
CICERO's FRIENDSHIP AND OLD AGE.
DANTE's PARADISO. Translated by Cary.
THE NEW WEBSTER,
AN EN 7/REZY AWA W. ED/7”/OM,
Thoroughly Revised, considerað/y Enlarged, and
7:eset in new type from beginning to end.
INTERNATIONAL ]
DICTIONARY/
2118 PAGES. 3500 ILLUSTRATIONS.
PRICES: C/o/h, 4 I I Is. 6d., Sheep, 4, 2 2s.,
Half Æussia, 42 5s. Calſ, 42 8s.
Editorial work upon this revision has been in active progress for over 10 years.
Not less than 100 editorial labourers have been engaged upon it.
Over 60,000l. was expended in its preparation before the first copy was printed.
Webster is the Standard in our Postal Telegraph Department.
Webster is the Standard in the U.S. Government Printing Office.
The Times said of the last edition : ‘It has all along kept a leading position.'
The Quarterly Review said : “Certainly the best practical dictionary extant.'
The Lord Chief Justice of England said: ‘I have looked, so that I may not go
Yº." WEBSTER’s DictionARY, a work of the greatest learning, research, and
ability. -
The Chief Justice of the U.S.A. said: ‘I have used and relied on WEBSTER's
UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY for many years, and entirely concur in the general
commendation it has received.’
The only Authorised and Complete Edition.
LONDON : GEORGE BELL AND SONS.
N


DATE DUE
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
AUG 31 1999
Y;



3 9015 04185 1711
-r
|

：：،ſº ：§§
： ：· * * . ：:§ 3， e ºſºšºšº.
∞ √° * * * * * * · * * *
----！ 8[×
štº
， ！Ř
! 9 ！！！-* * * * * • • • • • • • • 8.ſ.ºwºsº，， ！ſ.r.º.， s.s.）º.º., † • •∞→ ∞， ∞