CHAPTER LXXXV.Various attempts to organise a defence for the Bourbons fail—Buonaparte, again reinstated on the throne of France, is desirous of continuing the peace with the Allies—but no answer is returned to his letters—Treaty of Vienna—Grievances alleged by Buonaparte in justification of the step he had taken—Debates in the British House of Commons, on the renewal of War—Murat occupies Rome with 50,000 men—his Proclamation summoningall Italians to arms—He advances against the Austrians—is repulsed at Occhio-Bello—defeated at Tolentino—flies to Naples, and thence, in disguise, to France—where Napoleon refuses to receive him.When Paris was lost, the bow of the Bourbons was effectually broken; and the attempts of individuals of the family to make a stand against the evil hour, was honourable indeed to their own gallantry, but of no advantage to their cause.The Duke d'Angoulême placed himself at the head of a considerable body of troops, raised by the town of Marseilles, and the royalists of Provence. But being surrounded by General Gilly, he was obliged to lay down his arms, on condition of amnesty to his followers, and free permission to himself to leave France. General Grouchy refused to confirm this capitulation, till Buonaparte's pleasure was known. But the restored Emperor, not displeased, it may be, to make a display of generosity, permitted the Duke d'Angoulême to depart by sea from Cette, only requiring his interference with Louis XVIII. for returning the crown jewels which the King had removed with him to Ghent.[108]The Duke of Bourbon had retired to La Vendée to raise the warlike royalists of that faithful province. But it had been previously occupied by soldiers attached to Buonaparte, so judiciously posted as to render an insurrection impossible; and the duke found himself obliged to escape by sea from Nantes.DUCHESS D'ANGOULÊME.The Duchess d'Angoulême, the only remaining daughter of Louis XVI., whose childhood and youth had suffered with patient firmness such storms of adversity, showed on this trying occasion that she had the active as well as passive courage becoming the descendant of a long line of princes. She threw herself into Bourdeaux, where the loyalty of Count Lynch, the mayor, and of the citizens in general, promised her determined aid, and the princess herself stood forth amongst them, like one of those heroic women of the age of chivalry, whose looks and words were able in moments of peril to give double edge to men's swords, and double constancy to their hearts. But unhappily there was a considerable garrison of troops of the line in Bourdeaux, who had caught the general spirit of revolt. General Clausel also advanced on the city with a force of the same description. The duchess made a last effort, assembled around her the officers, and laid their duty before them in the most touching and pathetic manner. But when she saw their coldness, and heard their faltering excuses, she turned from them in disdain:—"You fear," she said—"I pity you, and release you from your oaths." She embarked on board an English frigate, and Bourdeaux opened its gates to Clausel, and declared for the Emperor. Thus, notwithstanding the return of Napoleon was far from being acceptable to the Frenchuniversally, or even generally, all open opposition to his government ceased, and he was acknowledged as Emperor within about twenty days after he landed on the beach at Cannes, with a thousand followers.[109]But though he was thus replaced on the throne, Napoleon's seat was by no means secure, unless he could prevail upon the confederated sovereigns of Europe to acknowledge him in the capacity of which their united arms had so lately deprived him. It is true, he had indirectly promised war to his soldiers, by stigmatizing the cessions made by the Bourbons of what he called the territory of France. It is true, also, that then, and till his death's-day, he continued to entertain the rooted idea that Belgium, a possession which France had acquired within twenty years, was an integral portion of that kingdom. It is true, Antwerp and the five hundred sail of the line which were to be built there, continued through his whole life to be the very Delilah of his imagination. The cause of future war was, therefore, blazing in his bosom. But yet at present he felt it necessary for his interest to assure the people of France, that his return to the empire would not disturb the treaty of Paris, though it had given the Low Countries to Holland. He spared no device to spread reports of a pacific tendency.From the commencement of his march, it was affirmed by his creatures that he brought with him a treaty concluded with all the powers of Europe for twenty years. It was repeatedly averred, that Maria Louisa and her son were on the point of arriving in France, dismissed by her father as a pledge of reconciliation; and when she did not appear, it was insinuated that she was detained by the Emperor Francis, as a pledge that Buonaparte should observe his promise of giving the French a free constitution. To such bare-faced assertions he was reduced, rather than admit that his return was to be the signal for renewing hostilities with all Europe.Meantime, Napoleon hesitated not to offer to the allied ministers his willingness to acquiesce in the treaty of Paris; although, according to his uniform reasoning, it involved the humiliation and disgrace of France. He sent a letter to each of the sovereigns, expressing his desire to make peace on the same principles which had been arranged with the Bourbons. To these letters no answers were returned. The decision of the allies had already been adopted.DECLARATION AND TREATY OF VIENNA.The Congress at Vienna happened fortunately not to be dissolved, when the news of Buonaparte's escape from Elba was laid before them by Talleyrand, on the 11th March. The astonishing,as well as the sublime, approaches to the ludicrous, and it is a curious physiological fact, that the first news of an event which threatened to abolish all their labours, seemed so like a trick in a pantomime, that laughter was the first emotion it excited from almost every one. The merry mood did not last long; for the jest was neither a sound nor safe one. It was necessary for the Congress, by an unequivocal declaration, to express their sentiments, upon this extraordinary occasion. This declaration appeared on the 13th March, and after giving an account of the fact, bore the following denunciation:—"By thus breaking the convention which had established him in the island of Elba, Buonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence depended; and, by appearing again in France with projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has manifested to the universe, that there can be neither peace nor truce with him."The powers consequently declare, that Napoleon Buonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations, and that, as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance. They declare at the same time, that, firmly resolved to maintain entire the treaty of Paris of the 30th of May, 1814, and the dispositions sanctioned by that treaty, and those which they have resolved on, or shall hereafter resolve on, to complete and to consolidate it, they will employ all their means, and will unite all their efforts, that the general peace, the object of the wishes of Europe, and the constant purpose of their labours, may not again be troubled; and to provide against every attempt which shall threaten to replunge the world into the disorders of revolution."[110]This manifesto was instantly followed by a treaty betwixt Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, renewing and confirming the league entered into at Chaumont. The first article declared the resolution of the high contracting parties to maintain and enforce the treaty of Paris, which excluded Buonaparte from the throne of France, and to enforce the decree of outlawry issued against him as above mentioned. 2. Each of the contracting parties agreed to keep constantly in the field an army of 150,000 men complete, with the due proportion of cavalry and artillery. 3. They agreed not to lay down their arms but by common consent, until either the purpose of the war should have been attained, or Buonaparte should be rendered incapable of disturbing the peace of Europe. After other subordinate articles, the 7th provided, that the other powers of Europe should be invited to accede to the treaty; and the 8th, that the King of France should be particularly called upon to become a party to it. A separate article provided, that the King of Great Britain should have the option of furnishing his contingent in men, or of paying, instead, at the rate of L.30 sterling per annum for each cavalry soldier, and L.20 per annum for each infantry soldier, which should be wanting to make up his complement. To this treaty a declaration was subjoined, when it was ratified by the Prince Regent, referring to the eighth article of the treaty, and declaring that it should not be understood as binding his Britannic Majesty to prosecute thewar, with the view of forcibly imposing on France any particular government. The other contracting powers agreed to accept of the accession of his Royal Highness, under this explanation and limitation.[111]The treaty of Vienna may be considered in a double point of view, first, upon principle, and, secondly, as to its mode of expression; and it was commented upon in both respects in the British House of Commons. The expediency of the war was denied by several of the Opposition members, on account of the exhausted state of Great Britain, but they generally admitted that the escape of Buonaparte gave a just cause for the declaration of hostilities. The great statesman and jurisconsult, whom we have already quoted, delivered an opinion for himself, and those with whom he acted, couched in the most positive terms."Some insinuations," said Sir James Mackintosh, "had been thrown out, of differences of opinion on his side of the house, respecting the evils of this escape. He utterly denied them. All agreed in lamenting the occurrence which rendered the renewal of war so probable, not to say certain. All his friends, with whose sentiments he was acquainted, were of opinion, that, in the theory of public law, the assumption of power by Napoleon had given to the allies a just cause of war against France. It was perfectly obvious, that the abdication of Napoleon, and his perpetual renunciation of the supreme authority, was a condition, and the most important condition, on which the allies had granted peace to France. The convention of Fontainbleau, and the treaty of Paris, were equally parts of the great compact which re-established friendship between France and Europe. In consideration of the safer and more inoffensive state of France when separated from her terrible leader, confederated Europe had granted moderate and favourable terms of peace. As soon as France had violated this important condition, by again submitting to the authority of Napoleon, the allies were doubtless released from their part of the compact, and re-entered into their belligerent rights."[112]ALLEGED GRIEVANCES.The provocations pleaded by Buonaparte (which seem to have been entirely fanciful, so far as respects any design on his freedom,) were, first, the separation from his family. But this was a question with Austria exclusively; for what power was to compel the Emperor Francis to restore his daughter, after the fate of war had flung her again under his paternal protection? Napoleon's feelings in his situation were extremely natural, but those of the Emperor cannot be blamed, who considered his daughter's honour and happiness as interested in separating her from a man, who was capable of attempting to redeem his broken fortunes by the most desperate means. Much would depend upon the inclination of the illustrious person herself; but even if some degree of paternal restraint had been exerted, could Napoleon really feel himself justified in renewing a sort of Trojan war with all the powers in Europe, in order to recover his wife, or think, because he was separated from her society by a flinty-hearted father, that he was therefore warranted in invading and subduing the kingdom of France? The second article of provocation, and we admit it as a just one, was, that Napoleon was left to necessities to which he ought not to have been subjected, by France withholding hispension till the year should elapse. This was a ground of complaint, and a deep one; but against whom? Surely not against the allies, unless Buonaparte had called upon them to make good their treaty; and had stated, that France had failed to make good those obligations, for which he had their guarantee. England, who was only an accessory to the treaty, had nevertheless already interfered in Buonaparte's behalf, and there can be no doubt that redress would have been granted by the contracting parties, who could not in decency avoid enforcing a treaty, which had been of their own forming. That this guarantee gave Napoleon a right to appeal and to complain, cannot be denied; but that it gave him a right to proceed by violence, without any expostulation previously made, is contrary to all ideas of the law of nations, which enacts, that no aggression can constitute a legitimate cause of war, until redress has been refused. This, however, is all mere legal argument. Buonaparte didNOTinvade France, because she was deficient in paying his pension. He invaded her, because he saw a strong prospect of regaining the throne; nor do we believe that millions of gold would have prevailed on him to forego the opportunity.His more available ground of defence, however, was, that he was recalled by the general voice of the nation of France; but the whole facts of the case contradicted this statement. His league with the Revolutionists was made reluctantly on their part, nor did that party form any very considerable portion of the nation. "His election," according to Grattan, "was a military election; and when the army disposed of the civil government, it was the march of a military chief over a conquered nation. The nation did not rise to assist Louis, or resist Buonaparte, because the nation could not rise against the army. The mind of France, as well as her constitution, had completely lost, for the present, the power of resistance. They passively yielded to superior force."[113]In short, the opinion of the House of Commons was so unanimous on the disastrous consequences of Napoleon's quitting Elba, that the minority brought charges against Ministers for not having provided more effectual means to prevent his escape. To these charges it was replied, that Britain was not his keeper; that it was impossible to maintain a line of blockade around Elba; and if it had been otherwise, that Britain had no right to interfere with Buonaparte's motions, so far as concerned short expeditions unconnected with the purpose of escape; although it was avowed, that if a British vessel had detected him in the act of going to France with an armed force, for the purpose of invasion, the right of stopping his progress would have been exercised at every hazard. Still it was urged, they had no title either to establish a police upon the island, the object of which should be to watch its acknowledged Emperor, or to maintain a naval force around it,to apprehend him in case he should attempt an escape. Both would have been in direct contradiction of the treaty of Fontainbleau, to which Britain had acceded, though she was not of the contracting parties.[114]The style of the declaration of the allies was more generally censured in the British Parliament than its warlike tone. It was contended that, by declaring Napoleon an outlaw, it invoked against him the daggers of individuals, as well as the sword of justice. This charge of encouraging assassination was warmly repelled by the supporters of Ministry.[115]The purpose of the proclamation, it was said, was merely to point out Napoleon to the French nation, as a person who had forfeited his civil rights, by the act of resuming, contrary to treaty, a position in which, from his temper, habits, and talents, he must again become an object of suspicion and terror to all Europe. His inflexible resolution, his unbounded ambition, his own genius, his power over the mind of others—those great military talents, in short, which, so valuable in war, are in peace so dangerous, had afforded reasons for making the peace of Paris, by which Napoleon was personally excluded from the throne. When Napoleon broke that peace, solemnly concluded with Europe, he forfeited his political rights, and in that view alone the outlawry was to be construed. In consequence of these resolutions, adopted at Vienna and London, all Europe rang with the preparations for war; and the number of troops with which the allies proposed to invade France were rated at no less than one million and eleven thousand soldiers.[116]Before proceeding farther, it is requisite to say a few words on the subject of Murat. He had been for some time agitated by fears naturally arising from the attack made upon his government at the Congress by Talleyrand. The effect had not, it was true, induced the other powers to decide against him; but he seems to have been conscious that the reports of General Nugent and Lord William Bentinck concurred in representing him as having acted in the last campaign rather the part of a trimmer betwixt two parties, than that of a confederate, sincere, as he professed to be, in favour of the allies. Perhaps his conscience acknowledged this truth, for it certainly seems as if Eugene might have been more hardly pressed, had Murat been disposed to act with energy in behalf of the allies. He felt, therefore, that the throne of Tancred tottered under him, and rashly determined that it was better to brave a danger than to allow time to see whether it might not pass away. Murat had held intercourse with the isle of Elba, and cannot but have known Buonaparte's purpose when he left it; but he ought, at the same time, to have considered, that if his brother-in-lawmet with any success, his own alliance would become essential to Austria, who had such anxiety to retain the north of Italy, and must have been purchased on his own terms.MURAT.Instead, however, of waiting for an opportunity of profiting by Napoleon's attempt, which could not have failed to arrive, Murat resolved to throw himself into the fray, and carve for himself. He placed himself at the head of an army of 50,000 men, and without explaining his intentions, occupied Rome, the Pope and cardinals flying before him; threatened the whole line of the Po, which the Austrian force was inadequate to maintain; and, on 31st of March, addressed a proclamation to all Italians, summoning them to rise in arms for the liberation of their country.[117]It seemed now clear, that the purpose of this son of a pastry-cook amounted to nothing else than the formation of Italy into one state, and the placing himself on the throne of the Cæsars. The proclamation was signed Joachim Napoleon, which last name, formerly laid aside, he reassumed at this critical period. The appeal to the Italians was in vain. The feuds among the petty states are so numerous, their pretensions so irreconcilable, and their weakness has made them so often the prey of successive conquerors, that they found little inviting in the proposal of union, little arousing in the sound of independence. The proclamation, therefore, had small effect, except upon some of the students at Bologna. Murat marched northward, however, and being much superior in numbers, defeated the Austrian general Bianchi, and occupied Modena and Florence.Murat's attitude was now an alarming one to Europe. If he should press forward into Lombardy, he might co-operate with Buonaparte, now restored to his crown, and would probably be reinforced by thousands of the veterans of the Viceroy Eugene's army. Austria, therefore, became desirous of peace, and offered to guarantee to him the possession of the kingdom of Naples, with an addition he had long coveted, the marches, namely, of the Roman See. Britain, at the same time, intimated, that having made truce with Joachim at the instance of Austria, it was to last no longer than his good intelligence with her ally. Murat refused the conditions of the one power, and neglected the remonstrances of the other. "It was too late," he said; "Italy deserves freedom, and she shall be free." Here closed all hopes of peace; Austria declared war against Murat, and expedited the reinforcements sent into Italy; and Britain prepared a descent upon his Neapolitan dominions, where Ferdinand still continued to have many adherents.[118]Murat's character as a tactician was far inferior to that which he deservedly bore as a soldier in the field of battle, and he was still a worse politician than a general. A repulse sustained in anattempt to pass the Po near Occhio-bello, seems to have disconcerted the plan of his whole campaign, nor did he find himself able to renew the negotiations which he had rashly broken off. He seemed to acknowledge, by his military movements, that he had attempted a scheme far beyond his strength and understanding. He retreated upon his whole line, abandoning Parma, Reggio, Modena, Florence, and all Tuscany, by which last movement he put the Austrians in possession of the best and shortest road to Rome. In consequence, he was pressed on his retreat in front and rear, and compelled to give battle near Tolentino. It was sustained for two days, (2d and 3d of May,) but the Neapolitans could not be brought into close action with the iron-nerved Austrians. It was in vain that Murat placed field-pieces in the rear of his attacking columns, with orders to fire grape on them should they retreat; in vain that he himself set the example of the most desperate courage. The Neapolitan army fled in dispersion and discomfiture. Their guns, ammunition, treasure, and baggage, became the spoil of the Austrians; and in traversing the mountains of Abruzzo, Murat lost half his army without stroke of sword.The defeated prince was pursued into his Neapolitan dominions, where he learned that the Calabrians were in insurrection, and that an English fleet, escorting an invading army from Sicily, had appeared in the Bay of Naples. His army, reduced to a handful by repeated skirmishes, in which he had behaved with such temerity as to make his followers think he desired death, was directed to throw itself into Capua. He himself, who had left Naples splendidly apparelled, according to his custom, and at the head of a gallant army, now entered its gates, attended only by four lancers, alighted at the palace, and appeared before the Queen, pale, haggard, dishevelled, with all the signs of extreme fatigue and dejection. His salutation was in the affecting words, "Madam, I have not been able to find death." He presently found, that remaining at Naples, which was about to fall into other hands, would compromise his liberty, perhaps his life. He took leave of his Queen, whom circumstances were about to deprive of that title, cut off his hair, and disguising himself in a grey frock, escaped to the little island of Ischia, and reached on 25th May, Cannes, which had received Napoleon a few weeks before. His wife, immediately afterwards, alarmed by the tendency of the Neapolitan mob to insurrection, surrendered herself to Commodore Campbell of the Tremendous, and was received on board his vessel.[119]A courier announced Murat's arrival in France to Buonaparte,who, instead of sending consolation to his unhappy relative, is said to have asked with bitter scorn, "Whether Naples and France had made peace since the war of 1814!" The answer seems to imply, that although the attempts of Joachim and Napoleon coincided in time, and in other circumstances, so punctually as to make it evident they had been undertaken in concert, yet that there had been no precise correspondence, far less any formal treaty, betwixt the adventurous brothers. Indeed, Napoleon at all times positively denied that he had the least accession to Murat's wildly-concerted project (levée des boucliers,) and affirmed that it was essentially injurious to him. Napoleon's account was, that when he retired to Elba, he took farewell of Murat by letter, forgiving all that had passed between them, and recommending to his brother-in-law to keep on good terms with the Austrians, and only to check them if he saw them likely to advance on France. He offered also to guarantee his kingdom. Murat returned an affectionate answer, engaging to prove himself, in his conduct towards Napoleon, more an object of pity than resentment, declining any other guarantee than the word of the Emperor, and declaring that the attachment of his future life was to make amends for the past defection. "But it was Murat's fate to ruin us every way," continued Napoleon; "once by declaring against us, and again by unadvisedly taking our part."[120]He encountered Austria without sufficient means, and being ruined, left her without any counterbalancing power in Italy. From that time it became impossible for Napoleon to negotiate with her.Receiving the Emperor's account as correct, and allowing that the brothers-in-law played each his own part, it was not to be supposed that they acted entirely without a mutual understanding. Each, indeed, was willing to rest on his own fortunes, well knowing that his claim to the other's assistance would depend chiefly upon his success, and unwilling, besides, to relinquish the privilege of making peace, should it be necessary, at the expense of disowning the kindred enterprise of his brother-in-law. Notwithstanding the splendid details which theMoniteurgave of Murat's undertaking, while it yet seemed to promise success, it is certain that Buonaparte endeavoured to propitiate Austria, by the offer of abandoning Murat; and that Murat, could his offers have obtained a hearing after the repulse of Occhio-bello, was ready once more to have deserted Napoleon, whose name he had so lately reassumed. Involved in this maze of selfish policy, Murat had now the mortification to find himself contemned by Napoleon, when he might, indeed, be a burden, but could afford him no aid. Had he arrived at Milan as a victor, and extended a friendly hand across the Alps, how different would have been his reception! But Buonaparte refused to see him in his distress, or to permit him to come to Paris, satisfied that the sightof his misery would be a bitter contradiction to the fables which the French journals had, for some time, published of his success. Fouché sent him a message, much like that which enjoined the dishonoured ambassadors of Solomon to tarry at Jericho till their beards grew. It recommended to Murat to remain in seclusion, till the recollection of his disgrace should be abated by newer objects of general interest.Buonaparte had sometimes entertained thoughts of bringing Murat to the army, but was afraid of shocking the French soldiers, who would have felt disgust and horror at seeing the man who had betrayed France. "I did not," he said to his followers at St. Helena, "think I could carry him through, and yet he might have gained us the victory; for there were moments during the battle (of Waterloo) when to have forced two or three of the English squares might have insured it, and Murat was just the man for the work. In leading a charge of cavalry, never was there an officer more determined, more brave, and more brilliant."[121]Murat was thus prohibited to come to the court of the Tuileries, where his defection might have been forgiven, but his defeat was an inexpiable offence. He remained in obscurity near Toulon, till his fate called him elsewhere, after the decisive battle of Waterloo.[122]From this episode, for such, however important, it is in the present history, we return to France and our immediate subject.
Various attempts to organise a defence for the Bourbons fail—Buonaparte, again reinstated on the throne of France, is desirous of continuing the peace with the Allies—but no answer is returned to his letters—Treaty of Vienna—Grievances alleged by Buonaparte in justification of the step he had taken—Debates in the British House of Commons, on the renewal of War—Murat occupies Rome with 50,000 men—his Proclamation summoningall Italians to arms—He advances against the Austrians—is repulsed at Occhio-Bello—defeated at Tolentino—flies to Naples, and thence, in disguise, to France—where Napoleon refuses to receive him.
Various attempts to organise a defence for the Bourbons fail—Buonaparte, again reinstated on the throne of France, is desirous of continuing the peace with the Allies—but no answer is returned to his letters—Treaty of Vienna—Grievances alleged by Buonaparte in justification of the step he had taken—Debates in the British House of Commons, on the renewal of War—Murat occupies Rome with 50,000 men—his Proclamation summoningall Italians to arms—He advances against the Austrians—is repulsed at Occhio-Bello—defeated at Tolentino—flies to Naples, and thence, in disguise, to France—where Napoleon refuses to receive him.
When Paris was lost, the bow of the Bourbons was effectually broken; and the attempts of individuals of the family to make a stand against the evil hour, was honourable indeed to their own gallantry, but of no advantage to their cause.
The Duke d'Angoulême placed himself at the head of a considerable body of troops, raised by the town of Marseilles, and the royalists of Provence. But being surrounded by General Gilly, he was obliged to lay down his arms, on condition of amnesty to his followers, and free permission to himself to leave France. General Grouchy refused to confirm this capitulation, till Buonaparte's pleasure was known. But the restored Emperor, not displeased, it may be, to make a display of generosity, permitted the Duke d'Angoulême to depart by sea from Cette, only requiring his interference with Louis XVIII. for returning the crown jewels which the King had removed with him to Ghent.[108]
The Duke of Bourbon had retired to La Vendée to raise the warlike royalists of that faithful province. But it had been previously occupied by soldiers attached to Buonaparte, so judiciously posted as to render an insurrection impossible; and the duke found himself obliged to escape by sea from Nantes.
DUCHESS D'ANGOULÊME.
The Duchess d'Angoulême, the only remaining daughter of Louis XVI., whose childhood and youth had suffered with patient firmness such storms of adversity, showed on this trying occasion that she had the active as well as passive courage becoming the descendant of a long line of princes. She threw herself into Bourdeaux, where the loyalty of Count Lynch, the mayor, and of the citizens in general, promised her determined aid, and the princess herself stood forth amongst them, like one of those heroic women of the age of chivalry, whose looks and words were able in moments of peril to give double edge to men's swords, and double constancy to their hearts. But unhappily there was a considerable garrison of troops of the line in Bourdeaux, who had caught the general spirit of revolt. General Clausel also advanced on the city with a force of the same description. The duchess made a last effort, assembled around her the officers, and laid their duty before them in the most touching and pathetic manner. But when she saw their coldness, and heard their faltering excuses, she turned from them in disdain:—"You fear," she said—"I pity you, and release you from your oaths." She embarked on board an English frigate, and Bourdeaux opened its gates to Clausel, and declared for the Emperor. Thus, notwithstanding the return of Napoleon was far from being acceptable to the Frenchuniversally, or even generally, all open opposition to his government ceased, and he was acknowledged as Emperor within about twenty days after he landed on the beach at Cannes, with a thousand followers.[109]
But though he was thus replaced on the throne, Napoleon's seat was by no means secure, unless he could prevail upon the confederated sovereigns of Europe to acknowledge him in the capacity of which their united arms had so lately deprived him. It is true, he had indirectly promised war to his soldiers, by stigmatizing the cessions made by the Bourbons of what he called the territory of France. It is true, also, that then, and till his death's-day, he continued to entertain the rooted idea that Belgium, a possession which France had acquired within twenty years, was an integral portion of that kingdom. It is true, Antwerp and the five hundred sail of the line which were to be built there, continued through his whole life to be the very Delilah of his imagination. The cause of future war was, therefore, blazing in his bosom. But yet at present he felt it necessary for his interest to assure the people of France, that his return to the empire would not disturb the treaty of Paris, though it had given the Low Countries to Holland. He spared no device to spread reports of a pacific tendency.
From the commencement of his march, it was affirmed by his creatures that he brought with him a treaty concluded with all the powers of Europe for twenty years. It was repeatedly averred, that Maria Louisa and her son were on the point of arriving in France, dismissed by her father as a pledge of reconciliation; and when she did not appear, it was insinuated that she was detained by the Emperor Francis, as a pledge that Buonaparte should observe his promise of giving the French a free constitution. To such bare-faced assertions he was reduced, rather than admit that his return was to be the signal for renewing hostilities with all Europe.
Meantime, Napoleon hesitated not to offer to the allied ministers his willingness to acquiesce in the treaty of Paris; although, according to his uniform reasoning, it involved the humiliation and disgrace of France. He sent a letter to each of the sovereigns, expressing his desire to make peace on the same principles which had been arranged with the Bourbons. To these letters no answers were returned. The decision of the allies had already been adopted.
DECLARATION AND TREATY OF VIENNA.
The Congress at Vienna happened fortunately not to be dissolved, when the news of Buonaparte's escape from Elba was laid before them by Talleyrand, on the 11th March. The astonishing,as well as the sublime, approaches to the ludicrous, and it is a curious physiological fact, that the first news of an event which threatened to abolish all their labours, seemed so like a trick in a pantomime, that laughter was the first emotion it excited from almost every one. The merry mood did not last long; for the jest was neither a sound nor safe one. It was necessary for the Congress, by an unequivocal declaration, to express their sentiments, upon this extraordinary occasion. This declaration appeared on the 13th March, and after giving an account of the fact, bore the following denunciation:—
"By thus breaking the convention which had established him in the island of Elba, Buonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence depended; and, by appearing again in France with projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has manifested to the universe, that there can be neither peace nor truce with him."The powers consequently declare, that Napoleon Buonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations, and that, as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance. They declare at the same time, that, firmly resolved to maintain entire the treaty of Paris of the 30th of May, 1814, and the dispositions sanctioned by that treaty, and those which they have resolved on, or shall hereafter resolve on, to complete and to consolidate it, they will employ all their means, and will unite all their efforts, that the general peace, the object of the wishes of Europe, and the constant purpose of their labours, may not again be troubled; and to provide against every attempt which shall threaten to replunge the world into the disorders of revolution."[110]
"By thus breaking the convention which had established him in the island of Elba, Buonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence depended; and, by appearing again in France with projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has manifested to the universe, that there can be neither peace nor truce with him.
"The powers consequently declare, that Napoleon Buonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations, and that, as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance. They declare at the same time, that, firmly resolved to maintain entire the treaty of Paris of the 30th of May, 1814, and the dispositions sanctioned by that treaty, and those which they have resolved on, or shall hereafter resolve on, to complete and to consolidate it, they will employ all their means, and will unite all their efforts, that the general peace, the object of the wishes of Europe, and the constant purpose of their labours, may not again be troubled; and to provide against every attempt which shall threaten to replunge the world into the disorders of revolution."[110]
This manifesto was instantly followed by a treaty betwixt Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, renewing and confirming the league entered into at Chaumont. The first article declared the resolution of the high contracting parties to maintain and enforce the treaty of Paris, which excluded Buonaparte from the throne of France, and to enforce the decree of outlawry issued against him as above mentioned. 2. Each of the contracting parties agreed to keep constantly in the field an army of 150,000 men complete, with the due proportion of cavalry and artillery. 3. They agreed not to lay down their arms but by common consent, until either the purpose of the war should have been attained, or Buonaparte should be rendered incapable of disturbing the peace of Europe. After other subordinate articles, the 7th provided, that the other powers of Europe should be invited to accede to the treaty; and the 8th, that the King of France should be particularly called upon to become a party to it. A separate article provided, that the King of Great Britain should have the option of furnishing his contingent in men, or of paying, instead, at the rate of L.30 sterling per annum for each cavalry soldier, and L.20 per annum for each infantry soldier, which should be wanting to make up his complement. To this treaty a declaration was subjoined, when it was ratified by the Prince Regent, referring to the eighth article of the treaty, and declaring that it should not be understood as binding his Britannic Majesty to prosecute thewar, with the view of forcibly imposing on France any particular government. The other contracting powers agreed to accept of the accession of his Royal Highness, under this explanation and limitation.[111]
The treaty of Vienna may be considered in a double point of view, first, upon principle, and, secondly, as to its mode of expression; and it was commented upon in both respects in the British House of Commons. The expediency of the war was denied by several of the Opposition members, on account of the exhausted state of Great Britain, but they generally admitted that the escape of Buonaparte gave a just cause for the declaration of hostilities. The great statesman and jurisconsult, whom we have already quoted, delivered an opinion for himself, and those with whom he acted, couched in the most positive terms.
"Some insinuations," said Sir James Mackintosh, "had been thrown out, of differences of opinion on his side of the house, respecting the evils of this escape. He utterly denied them. All agreed in lamenting the occurrence which rendered the renewal of war so probable, not to say certain. All his friends, with whose sentiments he was acquainted, were of opinion, that, in the theory of public law, the assumption of power by Napoleon had given to the allies a just cause of war against France. It was perfectly obvious, that the abdication of Napoleon, and his perpetual renunciation of the supreme authority, was a condition, and the most important condition, on which the allies had granted peace to France. The convention of Fontainbleau, and the treaty of Paris, were equally parts of the great compact which re-established friendship between France and Europe. In consideration of the safer and more inoffensive state of France when separated from her terrible leader, confederated Europe had granted moderate and favourable terms of peace. As soon as France had violated this important condition, by again submitting to the authority of Napoleon, the allies were doubtless released from their part of the compact, and re-entered into their belligerent rights."[112]
"Some insinuations," said Sir James Mackintosh, "had been thrown out, of differences of opinion on his side of the house, respecting the evils of this escape. He utterly denied them. All agreed in lamenting the occurrence which rendered the renewal of war so probable, not to say certain. All his friends, with whose sentiments he was acquainted, were of opinion, that, in the theory of public law, the assumption of power by Napoleon had given to the allies a just cause of war against France. It was perfectly obvious, that the abdication of Napoleon, and his perpetual renunciation of the supreme authority, was a condition, and the most important condition, on which the allies had granted peace to France. The convention of Fontainbleau, and the treaty of Paris, were equally parts of the great compact which re-established friendship between France and Europe. In consideration of the safer and more inoffensive state of France when separated from her terrible leader, confederated Europe had granted moderate and favourable terms of peace. As soon as France had violated this important condition, by again submitting to the authority of Napoleon, the allies were doubtless released from their part of the compact, and re-entered into their belligerent rights."[112]
ALLEGED GRIEVANCES.
The provocations pleaded by Buonaparte (which seem to have been entirely fanciful, so far as respects any design on his freedom,) were, first, the separation from his family. But this was a question with Austria exclusively; for what power was to compel the Emperor Francis to restore his daughter, after the fate of war had flung her again under his paternal protection? Napoleon's feelings in his situation were extremely natural, but those of the Emperor cannot be blamed, who considered his daughter's honour and happiness as interested in separating her from a man, who was capable of attempting to redeem his broken fortunes by the most desperate means. Much would depend upon the inclination of the illustrious person herself; but even if some degree of paternal restraint had been exerted, could Napoleon really feel himself justified in renewing a sort of Trojan war with all the powers in Europe, in order to recover his wife, or think, because he was separated from her society by a flinty-hearted father, that he was therefore warranted in invading and subduing the kingdom of France? The second article of provocation, and we admit it as a just one, was, that Napoleon was left to necessities to which he ought not to have been subjected, by France withholding hispension till the year should elapse. This was a ground of complaint, and a deep one; but against whom? Surely not against the allies, unless Buonaparte had called upon them to make good their treaty; and had stated, that France had failed to make good those obligations, for which he had their guarantee. England, who was only an accessory to the treaty, had nevertheless already interfered in Buonaparte's behalf, and there can be no doubt that redress would have been granted by the contracting parties, who could not in decency avoid enforcing a treaty, which had been of their own forming. That this guarantee gave Napoleon a right to appeal and to complain, cannot be denied; but that it gave him a right to proceed by violence, without any expostulation previously made, is contrary to all ideas of the law of nations, which enacts, that no aggression can constitute a legitimate cause of war, until redress has been refused. This, however, is all mere legal argument. Buonaparte didNOTinvade France, because she was deficient in paying his pension. He invaded her, because he saw a strong prospect of regaining the throne; nor do we believe that millions of gold would have prevailed on him to forego the opportunity.
His more available ground of defence, however, was, that he was recalled by the general voice of the nation of France; but the whole facts of the case contradicted this statement. His league with the Revolutionists was made reluctantly on their part, nor did that party form any very considerable portion of the nation. "His election," according to Grattan, "was a military election; and when the army disposed of the civil government, it was the march of a military chief over a conquered nation. The nation did not rise to assist Louis, or resist Buonaparte, because the nation could not rise against the army. The mind of France, as well as her constitution, had completely lost, for the present, the power of resistance. They passively yielded to superior force."[113]
In short, the opinion of the House of Commons was so unanimous on the disastrous consequences of Napoleon's quitting Elba, that the minority brought charges against Ministers for not having provided more effectual means to prevent his escape. To these charges it was replied, that Britain was not his keeper; that it was impossible to maintain a line of blockade around Elba; and if it had been otherwise, that Britain had no right to interfere with Buonaparte's motions, so far as concerned short expeditions unconnected with the purpose of escape; although it was avowed, that if a British vessel had detected him in the act of going to France with an armed force, for the purpose of invasion, the right of stopping his progress would have been exercised at every hazard. Still it was urged, they had no title either to establish a police upon the island, the object of which should be to watch its acknowledged Emperor, or to maintain a naval force around it,to apprehend him in case he should attempt an escape. Both would have been in direct contradiction of the treaty of Fontainbleau, to which Britain had acceded, though she was not of the contracting parties.[114]
The style of the declaration of the allies was more generally censured in the British Parliament than its warlike tone. It was contended that, by declaring Napoleon an outlaw, it invoked against him the daggers of individuals, as well as the sword of justice. This charge of encouraging assassination was warmly repelled by the supporters of Ministry.[115]The purpose of the proclamation, it was said, was merely to point out Napoleon to the French nation, as a person who had forfeited his civil rights, by the act of resuming, contrary to treaty, a position in which, from his temper, habits, and talents, he must again become an object of suspicion and terror to all Europe. His inflexible resolution, his unbounded ambition, his own genius, his power over the mind of others—those great military talents, in short, which, so valuable in war, are in peace so dangerous, had afforded reasons for making the peace of Paris, by which Napoleon was personally excluded from the throne. When Napoleon broke that peace, solemnly concluded with Europe, he forfeited his political rights, and in that view alone the outlawry was to be construed. In consequence of these resolutions, adopted at Vienna and London, all Europe rang with the preparations for war; and the number of troops with which the allies proposed to invade France were rated at no less than one million and eleven thousand soldiers.[116]
Before proceeding farther, it is requisite to say a few words on the subject of Murat. He had been for some time agitated by fears naturally arising from the attack made upon his government at the Congress by Talleyrand. The effect had not, it was true, induced the other powers to decide against him; but he seems to have been conscious that the reports of General Nugent and Lord William Bentinck concurred in representing him as having acted in the last campaign rather the part of a trimmer betwixt two parties, than that of a confederate, sincere, as he professed to be, in favour of the allies. Perhaps his conscience acknowledged this truth, for it certainly seems as if Eugene might have been more hardly pressed, had Murat been disposed to act with energy in behalf of the allies. He felt, therefore, that the throne of Tancred tottered under him, and rashly determined that it was better to brave a danger than to allow time to see whether it might not pass away. Murat had held intercourse with the isle of Elba, and cannot but have known Buonaparte's purpose when he left it; but he ought, at the same time, to have considered, that if his brother-in-lawmet with any success, his own alliance would become essential to Austria, who had such anxiety to retain the north of Italy, and must have been purchased on his own terms.
MURAT.
Instead, however, of waiting for an opportunity of profiting by Napoleon's attempt, which could not have failed to arrive, Murat resolved to throw himself into the fray, and carve for himself. He placed himself at the head of an army of 50,000 men, and without explaining his intentions, occupied Rome, the Pope and cardinals flying before him; threatened the whole line of the Po, which the Austrian force was inadequate to maintain; and, on 31st of March, addressed a proclamation to all Italians, summoning them to rise in arms for the liberation of their country.[117]It seemed now clear, that the purpose of this son of a pastry-cook amounted to nothing else than the formation of Italy into one state, and the placing himself on the throne of the Cæsars. The proclamation was signed Joachim Napoleon, which last name, formerly laid aside, he reassumed at this critical period. The appeal to the Italians was in vain. The feuds among the petty states are so numerous, their pretensions so irreconcilable, and their weakness has made them so often the prey of successive conquerors, that they found little inviting in the proposal of union, little arousing in the sound of independence. The proclamation, therefore, had small effect, except upon some of the students at Bologna. Murat marched northward, however, and being much superior in numbers, defeated the Austrian general Bianchi, and occupied Modena and Florence.
Murat's attitude was now an alarming one to Europe. If he should press forward into Lombardy, he might co-operate with Buonaparte, now restored to his crown, and would probably be reinforced by thousands of the veterans of the Viceroy Eugene's army. Austria, therefore, became desirous of peace, and offered to guarantee to him the possession of the kingdom of Naples, with an addition he had long coveted, the marches, namely, of the Roman See. Britain, at the same time, intimated, that having made truce with Joachim at the instance of Austria, it was to last no longer than his good intelligence with her ally. Murat refused the conditions of the one power, and neglected the remonstrances of the other. "It was too late," he said; "Italy deserves freedom, and she shall be free." Here closed all hopes of peace; Austria declared war against Murat, and expedited the reinforcements sent into Italy; and Britain prepared a descent upon his Neapolitan dominions, where Ferdinand still continued to have many adherents.[118]
Murat's character as a tactician was far inferior to that which he deservedly bore as a soldier in the field of battle, and he was still a worse politician than a general. A repulse sustained in anattempt to pass the Po near Occhio-bello, seems to have disconcerted the plan of his whole campaign, nor did he find himself able to renew the negotiations which he had rashly broken off. He seemed to acknowledge, by his military movements, that he had attempted a scheme far beyond his strength and understanding. He retreated upon his whole line, abandoning Parma, Reggio, Modena, Florence, and all Tuscany, by which last movement he put the Austrians in possession of the best and shortest road to Rome. In consequence, he was pressed on his retreat in front and rear, and compelled to give battle near Tolentino. It was sustained for two days, (2d and 3d of May,) but the Neapolitans could not be brought into close action with the iron-nerved Austrians. It was in vain that Murat placed field-pieces in the rear of his attacking columns, with orders to fire grape on them should they retreat; in vain that he himself set the example of the most desperate courage. The Neapolitan army fled in dispersion and discomfiture. Their guns, ammunition, treasure, and baggage, became the spoil of the Austrians; and in traversing the mountains of Abruzzo, Murat lost half his army without stroke of sword.
The defeated prince was pursued into his Neapolitan dominions, where he learned that the Calabrians were in insurrection, and that an English fleet, escorting an invading army from Sicily, had appeared in the Bay of Naples. His army, reduced to a handful by repeated skirmishes, in which he had behaved with such temerity as to make his followers think he desired death, was directed to throw itself into Capua. He himself, who had left Naples splendidly apparelled, according to his custom, and at the head of a gallant army, now entered its gates, attended only by four lancers, alighted at the palace, and appeared before the Queen, pale, haggard, dishevelled, with all the signs of extreme fatigue and dejection. His salutation was in the affecting words, "Madam, I have not been able to find death." He presently found, that remaining at Naples, which was about to fall into other hands, would compromise his liberty, perhaps his life. He took leave of his Queen, whom circumstances were about to deprive of that title, cut off his hair, and disguising himself in a grey frock, escaped to the little island of Ischia, and reached on 25th May, Cannes, which had received Napoleon a few weeks before. His wife, immediately afterwards, alarmed by the tendency of the Neapolitan mob to insurrection, surrendered herself to Commodore Campbell of the Tremendous, and was received on board his vessel.[119]
A courier announced Murat's arrival in France to Buonaparte,who, instead of sending consolation to his unhappy relative, is said to have asked with bitter scorn, "Whether Naples and France had made peace since the war of 1814!" The answer seems to imply, that although the attempts of Joachim and Napoleon coincided in time, and in other circumstances, so punctually as to make it evident they had been undertaken in concert, yet that there had been no precise correspondence, far less any formal treaty, betwixt the adventurous brothers. Indeed, Napoleon at all times positively denied that he had the least accession to Murat's wildly-concerted project (levée des boucliers,) and affirmed that it was essentially injurious to him. Napoleon's account was, that when he retired to Elba, he took farewell of Murat by letter, forgiving all that had passed between them, and recommending to his brother-in-law to keep on good terms with the Austrians, and only to check them if he saw them likely to advance on France. He offered also to guarantee his kingdom. Murat returned an affectionate answer, engaging to prove himself, in his conduct towards Napoleon, more an object of pity than resentment, declining any other guarantee than the word of the Emperor, and declaring that the attachment of his future life was to make amends for the past defection. "But it was Murat's fate to ruin us every way," continued Napoleon; "once by declaring against us, and again by unadvisedly taking our part."[120]He encountered Austria without sufficient means, and being ruined, left her without any counterbalancing power in Italy. From that time it became impossible for Napoleon to negotiate with her.
Receiving the Emperor's account as correct, and allowing that the brothers-in-law played each his own part, it was not to be supposed that they acted entirely without a mutual understanding. Each, indeed, was willing to rest on his own fortunes, well knowing that his claim to the other's assistance would depend chiefly upon his success, and unwilling, besides, to relinquish the privilege of making peace, should it be necessary, at the expense of disowning the kindred enterprise of his brother-in-law. Notwithstanding the splendid details which theMoniteurgave of Murat's undertaking, while it yet seemed to promise success, it is certain that Buonaparte endeavoured to propitiate Austria, by the offer of abandoning Murat; and that Murat, could his offers have obtained a hearing after the repulse of Occhio-bello, was ready once more to have deserted Napoleon, whose name he had so lately reassumed. Involved in this maze of selfish policy, Murat had now the mortification to find himself contemned by Napoleon, when he might, indeed, be a burden, but could afford him no aid. Had he arrived at Milan as a victor, and extended a friendly hand across the Alps, how different would have been his reception! But Buonaparte refused to see him in his distress, or to permit him to come to Paris, satisfied that the sightof his misery would be a bitter contradiction to the fables which the French journals had, for some time, published of his success. Fouché sent him a message, much like that which enjoined the dishonoured ambassadors of Solomon to tarry at Jericho till their beards grew. It recommended to Murat to remain in seclusion, till the recollection of his disgrace should be abated by newer objects of general interest.
Buonaparte had sometimes entertained thoughts of bringing Murat to the army, but was afraid of shocking the French soldiers, who would have felt disgust and horror at seeing the man who had betrayed France. "I did not," he said to his followers at St. Helena, "think I could carry him through, and yet he might have gained us the victory; for there were moments during the battle (of Waterloo) when to have forced two or three of the English squares might have insured it, and Murat was just the man for the work. In leading a charge of cavalry, never was there an officer more determined, more brave, and more brilliant."[121]
Murat was thus prohibited to come to the court of the Tuileries, where his defection might have been forgiven, but his defeat was an inexpiable offence. He remained in obscurity near Toulon, till his fate called him elsewhere, after the decisive battle of Waterloo.[122]From this episode, for such, however important, it is in the present history, we return to France and our immediate subject.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.Buonaparte's attempts to conciliate Britain—Plot to carry off Maria Louisa fails—State of feeling in France—The Army—The Jacobins—The Constitutionalists—Fouché and Siêyes made Peers—Freedom of the Press granted, and outraged—Independentconduct of Comté, editor of Le Censeur—Disaffections among the lower orders—Part of these assemble before the Tuileries, and applaud the Emperor—Festival of the Federates—New Constitution—It is received with dissatisfaction—Meeting of the Champ de Mai to ratify it—Buonaparte's Address to the Chambers of Peers and Deputies—The spirit of Jacobinism predominant in the latter.MARIA LOUISA.While Murat was struggling and sinking under his evil fate, Buonaparte was actively preparing for the approaching contest. His first attempt, as we have already seen, was to conciliate the allied powers. To satisfy Great Britain, he passed an act abolishing the slave trade, and made some regulations concerning national education, in which he spoke highly of the systems of Bell and Lancaster. These measures were favourably construed by some of our legislators; and that they were so, is a complete proof that Buonaparte understood the temper of our nation. To suppose that, during his ten months of retirement, his mind was actively employed upon the miseries of the negroes, or the deplorable state of ignorance to which his own measures, and the want of early instruction, had reduced the youth of France, would argue but little acquaintance with his habits of ambition. To believe, on the contrary, that he would, at his first arrival in France, make any apparent sacrifices which might attract the good-will of his powerful and dangerous neighbours, is more consonant with his schemes, his interest, and his character. The path which he chose to gain the esteem of Britain, was by no means injudicious. The abolition of negro slavery, and the instruction of the poor, have (to the honour of our legislature) been frequent and anxious subjects of deliberation in the House of Commons; and to mankind, whether individually or collectively, no species of flattery is more pleasing than that of assent and imitation. It is not a little to the credit of our country, that the most avowed enemy of Britain strove to cultivate our good opinion, not by any offers of national advantage but by appearing to concur in general measures of benevolence, and attention to the benefit of society. Yet, upon the whole, the character of Napoleon was too generally understood, and the purpose of his apparent approximation to British sentiments, too obviously affected, for serving to make any general or serious impression in his favour.With Austria, Napoleon acted differently. He was aware that no impression could be made on the Emperor Francis, or his minister Metternich, and that it had become impossible, with their consent, that he should fulfil his promise of presenting his wife and son to the people on the Champ de Mai. Stratagem remained the only resource; and some Frenchmen at Vienna, with those in Maria Louisa's train, formed a scheme of carrying off the Empress of France and her child. The plot was discovered andprevented, and the most public steps were immediately taken, to show that Austria considered all ties with Buonaparte as dissolved for ever. Maria Louisa, by her father's commands, laid aside the arms and liveries of her husband, hitherto displayed by her attendants and carriages, and assumed those of the house of Austria. This decisive event put an end to every hope so long cherished by Napoleon, that he might find some means of regaining the friendship of his father-in-law.Nor did the other powers in Europe show themselves more accessible to his advances. He was, therefore, reduced to his own partisans in the French nation, and those won over from other parties, whom he might be able to add to them.The army had sufficiently shown themselves to be his own, upon grounds which are easily appreciated. The host of public official persons, to whom the name under which they exercised their offices was indifferent, provided the salary continued to be attached to them, formed a large and influential body. And although we, who have never, by such mutations of our political system, been put to the trial of either abandoning our means of living, or submitting to a change of government, may, on hearing quoted names of respectability and celebrity who adopted the latter alternative, exclaim against French versatility, a glance at Britain during the frequent changes of the 17th century, may induce us to exchange the exclamation of poor France! for that of poor human nature! The professors of Cromwell's days, who piously termed themselves followers of Providence, because they complied with every change that came uppermost; and the sect of time-servers, including the honest patriot, who complained at the Restoration that he had complied with seven forms of government during the year, but lost his office by being too late of adhering to the last—would have made in their day a list equally long, and as entertaining, as the celebratedDictionnaire de Girouettes. In matters dependent upon a sudden breeze of sentiment, the mercurial Frenchman is more apt to tack about than the phlegmatic and slowly-moved native of Britain; but when the steady trade-wind of interest prevails for a long season, men in all nations and countries show the same irresistible disposition to trim their sails by it; and in politics as in morals, it will be well to pray against being led into temptation.STATE OF PARTIES.Besides those attached to him by mere interest, or from gratitude and respect for his talents, Napoleon had now among his adherents, or rather allies, not as a matter of choice, but of necessity, the Jacobin party, who had been obliged, though unwillingly, to adopt him as the head of a government, which they hoped to regenerate. To these were to be added a much larger and more respectable body, who, far from encouraging his attempt, had testified themselves anxious to oppose it to the last, but who, conceiving the cause of the Bourbons entirely lost, were willing to adhere to Buonaparte, on condition of obtaining a free constitutionfor France. Many of these acted, of course, on mixed motives; but if we were asked to form a definition of them, we should be induced to give the same, which, laying aside party spirit, we should ascribe to a right English Whig, whom we conceive to be a man of sense and moderation, a lover of laws and liberty, whose chief regard to particular princes and families is founded on what he apprehends to be the public good; and who differs from a sensible Tory so little, that there is no great chance of their disputing upon any important constitutional question, if it is fairly stated to both. Such, we believe, is the difference betwixt rational Constitutionalists and Royalists in France; and, undoubtedly, while all the feelings of the latter induced them to eye with abhorrence the domination of a usurper, there must have been many of the former, who, fearing danger to the independence of France from the intervention of foreign powers, conceived, that by advocating the cause of Napoleon, they were in some degree making a virtue of necessity, and playing an indifferent game with as much skill as the cards they held would permit. Many patriotic and sensible men, who had retained a regard for liberty during all the governments and all the anarchies which had subsisted for twenty years, endeavoured now to frame a system of government, grounded upon something like freedom, upon the difficulties of Buonaparte. Pressed as he was from abroad, and unsupported at home, save by the soldiery, he would, they conceived, be thrown by necessity under the protection of the nation, and obliged to recruit his adherents by complying with public opinion, and adopting a free government. Under this persuasion a great number of such characters, more or less shaded by attachment to a moderate and limited monarchy, were prepared to acknowledge Buonaparte's re-established authority, in so far as he should be found to deserve it, by concessions on his part.The conduct and arguments of another portion of the friends of the constitution, rather resembled that which might have been adopted in England by moderate and intelligent Tories. Such men were not prepared to resign the cause of their lawful monarch, because fortune had for a time declared against him. They were of opinion, that to make a constitution permanent, the monarch must have his rights ascertained and vindicated, as well as those of the people; and that if a usurper were to be acknowledged upon any terms, however plausible, so soon as he had cut his way to success by his sword, the nation would be exposed to perpetual revolutions. Louis, these men might argue, had committed no crime whatever; he was only placed in circumstances which made some persons suppose he might possibly be tempted to meditate changes on the constitution, and on the charter which confirmed it. There was meanness in deserting a good and peaceable king at the command of a revolted army, and a discarded usurper. They regretted that their prince must be replaced byforeign bayonets; yet it was perhaps better that a moderate and peaceful government should be restored even thus, than that the French nation should continue to suffer under the despotic tyranny of their own soldiery. Those reasoners ridiculed the idea of a free constitution, which was to be generated betwixt Buonaparte, who, in his former reign, never allowed freedom of thought, word, or action, to exist unrepressed, and the old Revolutionists, who, during their period of power, could be satisfied with no degree of liberty until they destroyed every compact which holds civil society together, and made the country resemble one great bedlam, set on fire by the patients, who remained dancing in the midst of the flames.Such we conceive to have been the principles on which wise and moderate men on either side acted during this distracted period. It is easy to suppose, that their opinions must have been varied by many more and less minute shades, arising from temperament, predilections, prejudices, passions, and feelings of self-interest, and that they were on either side liable to be pushed into exaggeration, or, according to the word which was formed to express that exaggeration—into Ultraism.Meantime, Napoleon did all that was possible to conciliate the people's affection, and to show himself sincerely desirous of giving France the free constitution which he had promised. He used the advice of Carnot, Siêyes, and Fouché, and certainly profited by several of their lessons. He made it, notwithstanding, a condition, that Carnot and Siêyes should accept each a title and a seat in his House of Peers, to show that they were completely reconciled to the Imperial government; and both the ancient republicans condescended to exchange thebonnet rouge, for a coronet, which, considering their former opinions, sate somewhat awkwardly upon their brows.But although the union of the Imperialists and popular party had been cemented by mutual hatred of the Bourbons, and was still kept together by apprehension of the King's adherents within, and his allies on the exterior, seeds of discord were soon visible between the Emperor and the popular leaders. While the former was eager once more to wield with full energy the sceptre he had recovered, the latter were continually reminding him, that he had only assumed it in a limited and restricted capacity, as the head of a free government, exercising, indeed, its executive power, but under the restraint of a popular constitution. Napoleon, in the frequent disputes which arose on these important points, was obliged to concede to the demagogues the principles which they insisted upon. But then, for the safety of the state, involved in foreign and domestic dangers, he contended it was necessary to invest the chief magistrate with a vigour beyond the law, a dictatorial authority, temporary in its duration, but nearly absolute in its extent, as had been the manner in the free states of antiquity, when the republic was in imminent danger. Carnotand Fouché, on the other hand, considered, that although it seemed natural, and might be easy, to confer such power at the present moment, the resumption of it by the nation, when it was once vested in the hands of Buonaparte, would be a hopeless experiment. The Emperor, therefore, and his ministers, proceeded to their mutual tasks with no mutual confidence; but, on the contrary, with jealousy, thinly veiled by an affectation of deference on the side of Buonaparte, and respect on that of his counsellors.LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.The very first sacrifice which the Emperor gave to freedom proved an inconvenient one to his government. This was nothing less than the freedom of the press. It is true, that the influence of his minister of police managed by indirect means to get possession of most of the journals; so that of sixty writers, employed generally, if not constantly, in periodical composition, five only were now found friendly to the royal cause. The other pens, which a few days before described Napoleon as a species of Ogre, who had devoured the youth of France, now wrote him down a hero and a liberator. Still, when the liberty of the press was once established, it was soon found impossible to prevent it from asserting its right of utterance; and there were found authors to advocate the cause of the Bourbons, from principle, from caprice, from the love of contradiction.Napoleon, who always showed himself sensitively alive to the public censure, established inspectors of the booksellers. The minister of police, a friend of liberty, but, as Compte, the editor ofLe Censeur, neatly observed, only of liberty after the fashion of M. Fouché, used every art in his power to prevent the contagion of freedom from spreading too widely. This M. Compte was a loud, and probably a sincere advocate of freedom, and had been a promoter of Buonaparte's return, as likely to advance the good cause. Seeing the prevailing influence of the military, he published some severe remarks on the undue weight the army assumed in public affairs, which, he hesitated not to say, was bringing France to the condition of Rome, when the empire was disposed of by the Prætorian guards. This stung to the quick—the journal was seized by the police, and the minister endeavoured to palliate the fact in theMoniteur, by saying, that, though seized, it had been instantly restored. But Compte was not a man to be so silenced; he published a contradiction of the official statement, and declared that his journal had not been restored. He was summoned the next day before the prefect, alternately threatened and wheedled, upbraided at one moment with ungrateful resistance to the cause of the Emperor, and requested at the next to think of something in which government might serve him. Steeled against every proffer and entreaty, Compte only required to be permitted to profit by the restored liberty of the press; nor could the worthy magistrate make him rightly understand that when the Emperor gave all men liberty to publish what pleased themselves,it was under the tacit condition that it should also please the prefect and minister of police. Compte had the spirit to publish the whole affair.In the meanwhile, proclamations of Louis, forbidding the payment of taxes, and announcing the arrival of 1,200,000 men under the walls of Paris, covered these walls every night in spite of the police. A newspaper, called theLily, was also secretly, but generally circulated, which advocated the royal cause. In the better classes of society, where Buonaparte was feared and hated, lampoons, satires, pasquinades, glided from hand to hand, turning his person, ministers, and government, into the most bitter ridicule. Others attacked him with eloquent invective, and demanded what he had in common with the word Liberty, which he now pretended to connect with his reign. He was, they said, the sworn enemy of liberty, the assassin of the Republic, the destroyer of French freedom, which had been so dearly bought; the show of liberty which he held, was a trick of legerdemain, executed under protection of his bayonets. Such was his notion of liberty when it destroyed the national representation at St. Cloud—Such was the freedom he gave when he established an Oriental despotism in the enlightened kingdom at France. Such, when abolishing all free communication of sentiments among citizens, and proscribing every liberal and philosophical idea under the nickname of Ideology. "Can it be forgotten," they continued, "that Heaven and Hell are not more irreconcilable ideas, than Buonaparte and Liberty?—The very word Freedom," they said, "was proscribed under his iron reign, and only first gladdened the ears of Frenchmen after twelve years of humiliation and despair, on the happy restoration of Louis XVIII.—Ah, miserable impostor!" they exclaimed, "when would he have spoke of liberty, had not the return of Louis familiarized us with freedom and peace." The spirit of disaffection spread among certain classes of the lower ranks. The market-women (dames des halles,) so formidable during the time of the Fronde, and in the early years of the Revolution, for their opposition to the court, were now royalists, and, of course, clamorous on the side of the party they espoused. They invented, or some loyal rhymer composed for them, a song,[123]the burden of which demanded back the King, as their father of Ghent. They ridiculed, scolded, and mobbed the commissaries of police, who endeavoured to stop these musical expressions of disaffection; surrounded the chief of their number, danced around him, and chanted the obnoxious burden, until Fouché being ashamed to belie the new doctrines of liberty of thought, speech, and publication, his agents were instructed to leave these Amazons undisturbed on account of their political sentiments.While Buonaparte was unable to form an interest in the saloons,and found that even thedames des halleswere becoming discontented, he had upon his side the militia of the suburbs; those columns of pikemen so famous in the Revolution, whose furious and rude character added to the terrors, if not to the dignity, of his reign. Let us not be accused of a wish to depreciate honest industry, or hold up to contempt the miseries of poverty. It is not the poverty, but the ignorance and the vice of the rabble of great cities, which render them always disagreeable, and sometimes terrible. They are entitled to protection from the laws, and kindness from the government; but he who would use them as political engines, invokes the assistance of a blatant beast with a thousand heads, well furnished with fangs to tear and throats to roar, but devoid of tongues to speak reason, ears to hear it, eyes to see it, or judgment to comprehend it.For a little time after Buonaparte's return, crowds of artisans of the lowest order assembled under the windows of the Tuileries, and demanded to see the Emperor, whom, on his appearance, they greeted with shouts, asle Grand Entrepreneur, or general employer of the class of artisans, in language where the coarse phraseology of their rank was adorned with such flowers of rhetoric as the times of terror had coined. Latterly, the numbers of this assembly were maintained by a distribution of a fewsousto the shouters.However disgusted with these degrading exhibitions, Buonaparte felt he could not dispense with this species of force, and was compelled to institute a day of procession, and a solemn festival, in favour of this description of persons, who, from the mode in which they were enrolled, were termed Federates.FESTIVAL OF THE FEDERATES.On 14th May, the motley and ill-arranged ranks which assembled on this memorable occasion, exhibited, in the eyes of the disgusted and frightened spectators, all that is degraded by habitual vice, and hardened by stupidity and profligacy. The portentous procession moved on along the Boulevards to the court of the Tuileries, with shouts, in which the praises of the Emperor were mingled with imprecations, and with the Revolutionary songs (long silenced in Paris,)—the Marseilloise Hymn, the Carmagnole, and the Day of Departure. The appearance of the men, the refuse of manufactories, of work-houses, of jails; their rags, their filth, their drunkenness; their ecstacies of blasphemous rage, and no less blasphemous joy, stamped them with the character of the willing perpetrators of the worst horrors of the Revolution. Buonaparte himself was judged, by close observers, to shrink with abhorrence from the assembly he himself had convoked. His guards were under arms, and the field artillery loaded, and turned on the Place de Carrousel, filled with the motley crowd, who, from the contrasted colour of the corn porters and charcoal-men, distinguished in the group, were facetiously called his Grey and Black Mousquetaires. He hasted to dismiss his hideous minions, with a sufficient distribution of praises and of liquor. The nationalguards conceived themselves insulted on this occasion, because compelled to give their attendance along with the Federates. The troops of the line felt for the degraded character of the Emperor. The haughty character of the French soldiers had kept them from fraternizing with the rabble, even in the cause of Napoleon. They had been observed, on the march from Cannes, to cease their cries ofVive l'Empereur, when, upon entering any considerable town, the shout was taken up by the mob of the place, and to suspend their acclamations, rather than mingle them with those of thepequins, whom they despised. They now muttered to each other, on seeing the court which Buonaparte seemed compelled to bestow on these degraded artisans, that the conqueror of Marengo and Wagram had sunk into the mere captain of a rabble. In short, the disgraceful character of the alliance thus formed between Buonaparte and the lees of the people, was of a nature incapable of being glossed over even in the flattering pages of theMoniteur, which, amidst a flourishing description of this memorable procession, was compelled to admit, that, in some places, the name of the Emperor was incongruously mingled with expressions and songs, which recalled an eraunfortunately too famous.Fretted by external dangers, and internal disturbances, and by the degrading necessity of appearing every night before a mob, who familiarly hailed him asPère le Violette, and, above all, galled by the suggestions of his philosophical counsellors, who, among other innovations, wished him to lay aside the style of Emperor for that of President, or Grand General of the Republic, Napoleon, to rid himself at once of occupations offensive to his haughty disposition, withdrew from the Tuileries to the more retired palace of the Elysée Bourbon, and seemed on a sudden to become once more the Emperor he had been before his abdication. Here he took into his own hands, with the assistance of Benjamin Constant, and other statesmen, the construction of a new constitution. Their system included all those checks and regulations which are understood to form the essence of a free government, and greatly resembled that granted by the Royal Charter.[124]Nevertheless, it was extremely ill received by all parties, but especially by thosewho expected from Napoleon a constitution more free than that which they had dissolved by driving Louis XVIII. from the throne. There were other grave exceptions stated against the scheme of government.First, The same objection was stated against this Imperial grant which had been urged with so much vehemence against the royal charter, namely, that it was not a compact between the people and the sovereign, in which the former called the latter to the throne under certain conditions, but a recognition by the sovereign of the liberties of the people. The meeting of the Champ de Mai had indeed been summoned, (as intimated in the decrees from Lyons,) chiefly with the purpose of forming and adopting the new constitution; but, according to the present system, they were only to have the choice of adopting or rejecting that which Napoleon had prepared for them. The disappointment was great among those philosophers who desired "better bread than is made of wheat;" and could not enjoy liberty itself, unless it emanated directly from the will of the people, and was sanctioned by popular discussion. But Napoleon was determined that the convention of the 10th May should have no other concern in the constitution, save to accept it when offered. He would not intrust such an assembly with the revision of the laws by which he was to govern.ADDITIONAL ACT.Secondly, This new constitution, though presenting an entirely new basis of government, was published under the singular title of an "Additional[125]Act to the Constitutions of the Emperor," and thereby constituted a sort of appendix to a huge mass of unrepealed organic laws, many of them inconsistent with the Additional Act in tenor and in spirit.Those who had enjoyed the direct confidence of the Emperor while the treaty was framing, endeavoured to persuade themselves that Napoleon meant fairly by France, yet confessed they had found it difficult to enlighten his ideas on the subject of a limited monarchy. They felt, that though the Emperor might be induced to contract his authority, yet what remained in his own hand would be wielded as arbitrarily as ever; and likewise that he would never regard his ministers otherwise than as the immediate executors of his pleasure, and responsible to himself alone. He would still continue to transport his whole chancery at his stirrup, and transmit sealed orders to be executed by a minister whom he had not consulted on their import.[126]The Royalists triumphed on the publication of this Additional Act: "Was it for this," they said, "you broke your oaths, andbanished your monarch, to get the same, or nearly similar laws, imposed on you by a Russian ukase or a Turkish firman, which you heretofore enjoyed by charter, in the same manner as your ancestors, called freemen by excellence, held their rights from their limited sovereigns; and for this have you exchanged a peaceful prince, whose very weakness was your security, for an ambitious warrior, whose strength is your weakness? For this have you a second time gone to war with all Europe—for the Additional Act and the Champ de Mai?"The more determined Republicans, besides their particular objections to an Upper House, which the Emperor could fill with his own minions, so as effectually to control the representatives of the people, found the proposed constitution utterly devoid of the salt which should savour it. There was no acknowledgment of abstract principles; no dissertation concerning the rights of government and the governed; no metaphysical discussions on the origin of laws; and they were as much mortified and disappointed as the zealot who hears a discourse on practical morality, when he expected a sermon on the doctrinal points of theology. The unfortunate Additional Act became the subject of attack and raillery on all sides; and was esteemed to possess in so slight a degree the principles of durability, that a bookseller being asked for a copy by a customer, replied, He did not deal inperiodical publications.[127]Under these auspices the Champ de Mai was opened, and that it might be in all respects incongruous, it was held on the 1st of June.[128]Deputies were supposed to attend from all departments, not, as it had been latterly arranged, to canvass the new constitution, but to swear to observe it; and not to receive the Empress Maria Louisa and her son as the pledge of twenty years peace, but to behold the fatal eagles, the signal of instant and bloody war, distributed by the Emperor to the soldiers.Napoleon and his brothers, whom he had once more collected around him, figured, in quaint and fantastic robes, in the Champ de Mai; he as Emperor, and they as princes of the blood—another subject of discontent to the Republicans. The report of the votes was made, the electors swore to the Additional Act, the drums rolled, the trumpets flourished, the cannon thundered. But the acclamations were few and forced. The Emperor seemed to view the scene as an empty pageant, until he was summoned to the delivery of the eagles to the various new-raised regiments; and then, amid the emblems of past, and, as might be hoped, the auguries of future victories, he was himself again. But, on the whole, the Champ de Mai, was, in the language of Paris,une pièce tombée,a condemned farce, which was soon to be succeeded by a bloody tragedy.CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.The meeting of the Chambers was the next subject of interest. The Chamber of Peers did not present, like the corresponding assembly in Britain, members of long descent, ample fortunes, independence of principle, and education corresponding to their rank of hereditary legislators. It consisted in the princes of Napoleon's blood royal, to whom was added Lucien, long estranged from his brother's councils, but who now, instigated by fraternal affection, or tired of literary leisure, having presented his epic poem to a thankless and regardless public, endeavoured to save his brother in his present difficulties, as by his courage and presence of mind he had assisted him during the revolution of Brumaire. There were about one hundred other dignitaries, more than one half of whom were military men, including two or three old Jacobins, such as Siêyes and Carnot, who had taken titles, decorations, and rank, inconsistently with the tenor of their whole life. The rest had been the creatures of Buonaparte's former reign, with some men of letters devoted to his cause, and recently ennobled. This body, which could have no other will than that of the Emperor, was regarded by the Republicans and Constitutionalists with jealousy, and by the citizens with contempt. Buonaparte himself expressed his opinion of it with something approaching the latter sentiment. He had scarce formed his tools, before he seems to have been convinced of their inefficacy, and of the little influence which they could exercise on the public mind.[129]It was very different with the second Chamber, in which were posted the ancient men of the Revolution, and their newer associates, who looked forward with hope that Buonaparte might yet assume the character of a patriot sovereign, and by his military talents save France for her sake, not for his own. The latter class comprehended many men, not only of talent, but of virtue and public spirit; with too large a proportion, certainly, of those who vainly desired a system of Republican liberty, which so many years of bloody and fruitless experiment should have led even the most extravagant to abandon, as inconsistent with the situation of the country, and the genius of the French nation.The disputes of the Chamber of Representatives with the executive government commenced on June 4th, the first day of their sitting; and, like those of their predecessors, upon points of idle etiquette. They chose Lanjuinais for their president; a preferment which, alighting on one who had been the defender of Louis XVI., the active and determined resister of the power of Robespierre, and especially, the statesman who drew up the list of crimes in consequence of which Napoleon's forfeiture had beendeclared in 1814, could not be acceptable to the Emperor. Napoleon being applied to for confirmation of the election, referred the committee for his answer to the chamberlain, who, he stated, would deliver it the next day by the page in waiting. The Chamber took fire, and Napoleon was compelled to return an immediate though reluctant approval of their choice. The next remarkable indication of the temper of the Chamber, was theextemporeeffusion of a deputy named Sibuet, against the use of the epithets of duke, count, and other titles of honour, in the Chamber of Representatives. Being observed to read his invective from notes, which was contrary to the form of the Chamber, Sibuet was silenced for the moment as out of order; but the next day, or soon afterwards, having got his speech by heart, the Chamber was under the necessity of listening to him, and his motion was got rid of with difficulty.[130]On the same day, a list of the persons appointed to the peerage was demanded from Carnot, in his capacity of minister, which he declined to render till the session had commenced. This also occasioned much uproar and violence, which the president could scarce silence by the incessant peal of his bell. The oath to be taken by the deputies was next severely scrutinized, and the Imperialists carried with difficulty a resolution, that it should be taken to the Emperor and the constitution, without mention of the nation.The second meeting, on June 7th, was as tumultuous as the first. A motion was made by Felix Lepelletier, that the Chamber should decree to Napoleon the title of Saviour of his Country. This was resisted on the satisfactory ground, that the country was not yet saved; and the Chamber passed to the order of the day by acclamation.[131]Notwithstanding these open intimations of the reviving spirit of Jacobinism, or at least of opposition to the Imperial sway, Napoleon's situation obliged him for the time to address the unruly spirits which he had called together, with the confidence which it was said necromancers found it needful to use towards the dangerous fiends whom they had evoked. His address to both Chambers was sensible, manly, and becoming his situation. He surrendered, in their presence, all his pretensions to absolute power, and professed himself a friend to liberty; demanded the assistance of the Chambers in matters of finance, intimated a desire of some regulations to check the license of the press, and required from the representatives an example of confidence, energy, and patriotism, to encounter the dangers to which the country was exposed. The Peers replied in corresponding terms. Not so the second Chamber; for, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the Imperialists, their reply bore a strong tincture of the sentiments of the opposite party. The Chamber promised, indeed, their unanimous support in repelling the foreign enemy;but they announced their intention to take under their consideration the constitution, as recognised by the Additional Act, and to point out its defects and imperfections, with the necessary remedies. They also added a moderating hint, directed against the fervour of Napoleon's ambition. "The nation," they said, "nourishes no plans of aggrandisement. Not even the will of a victorious prince will lead them beyond the boundaries of self-defence." In his rejoinder, Napoleon did not suffer these obnoxious hints to escape his notice. He endeavoured to school this refractory assembly into veneration for the constitution, which he declared to be "the pole-star in the tempest;" and judiciously observed, "there was little cause to provide against the intoxications of triumph, when they were about to contend for existence. He stated the crisis to be imminent, and cautioned the Chamber to avoid the conduct of the Roman people in the latter ages of the empire, who could not resist the temptation of engaging furiously in abstract discussions, even while the battering-rams of the common enemy were shaking the gates of the capitol."Thus parted Buonaparte and his Chambers of Legislature; he to try his fortune in the field of battle, they to their task of altering and modifying the laws, and inspiring a more popular spirit and air into the enactments he had made, in hopes that the dictatorship of the Jacobins might be once again substituted for the dictatorship of the Emperor. All men saw that the Imperialists and Republicans only waited till the field was won, that they might contend for the booty; and so little was the nation disposed to sympathize with the active, turbulent, and bustling demagogues by whom the contest was to be maintained against the Emperor, that almost all predicted with great unconcern their probable expulsion, either by the sword of Buonaparte or the Bourbons.
Buonaparte's attempts to conciliate Britain—Plot to carry off Maria Louisa fails—State of feeling in France—The Army—The Jacobins—The Constitutionalists—Fouché and Siêyes made Peers—Freedom of the Press granted, and outraged—Independentconduct of Comté, editor of Le Censeur—Disaffections among the lower orders—Part of these assemble before the Tuileries, and applaud the Emperor—Festival of the Federates—New Constitution—It is received with dissatisfaction—Meeting of the Champ de Mai to ratify it—Buonaparte's Address to the Chambers of Peers and Deputies—The spirit of Jacobinism predominant in the latter.
Buonaparte's attempts to conciliate Britain—Plot to carry off Maria Louisa fails—State of feeling in France—The Army—The Jacobins—The Constitutionalists—Fouché and Siêyes made Peers—Freedom of the Press granted, and outraged—Independentconduct of Comté, editor of Le Censeur—Disaffections among the lower orders—Part of these assemble before the Tuileries, and applaud the Emperor—Festival of the Federates—New Constitution—It is received with dissatisfaction—Meeting of the Champ de Mai to ratify it—Buonaparte's Address to the Chambers of Peers and Deputies—The spirit of Jacobinism predominant in the latter.
MARIA LOUISA.
While Murat was struggling and sinking under his evil fate, Buonaparte was actively preparing for the approaching contest. His first attempt, as we have already seen, was to conciliate the allied powers. To satisfy Great Britain, he passed an act abolishing the slave trade, and made some regulations concerning national education, in which he spoke highly of the systems of Bell and Lancaster. These measures were favourably construed by some of our legislators; and that they were so, is a complete proof that Buonaparte understood the temper of our nation. To suppose that, during his ten months of retirement, his mind was actively employed upon the miseries of the negroes, or the deplorable state of ignorance to which his own measures, and the want of early instruction, had reduced the youth of France, would argue but little acquaintance with his habits of ambition. To believe, on the contrary, that he would, at his first arrival in France, make any apparent sacrifices which might attract the good-will of his powerful and dangerous neighbours, is more consonant with his schemes, his interest, and his character. The path which he chose to gain the esteem of Britain, was by no means injudicious. The abolition of negro slavery, and the instruction of the poor, have (to the honour of our legislature) been frequent and anxious subjects of deliberation in the House of Commons; and to mankind, whether individually or collectively, no species of flattery is more pleasing than that of assent and imitation. It is not a little to the credit of our country, that the most avowed enemy of Britain strove to cultivate our good opinion, not by any offers of national advantage but by appearing to concur in general measures of benevolence, and attention to the benefit of society. Yet, upon the whole, the character of Napoleon was too generally understood, and the purpose of his apparent approximation to British sentiments, too obviously affected, for serving to make any general or serious impression in his favour.
With Austria, Napoleon acted differently. He was aware that no impression could be made on the Emperor Francis, or his minister Metternich, and that it had become impossible, with their consent, that he should fulfil his promise of presenting his wife and son to the people on the Champ de Mai. Stratagem remained the only resource; and some Frenchmen at Vienna, with those in Maria Louisa's train, formed a scheme of carrying off the Empress of France and her child. The plot was discovered andprevented, and the most public steps were immediately taken, to show that Austria considered all ties with Buonaparte as dissolved for ever. Maria Louisa, by her father's commands, laid aside the arms and liveries of her husband, hitherto displayed by her attendants and carriages, and assumed those of the house of Austria. This decisive event put an end to every hope so long cherished by Napoleon, that he might find some means of regaining the friendship of his father-in-law.
Nor did the other powers in Europe show themselves more accessible to his advances. He was, therefore, reduced to his own partisans in the French nation, and those won over from other parties, whom he might be able to add to them.
The army had sufficiently shown themselves to be his own, upon grounds which are easily appreciated. The host of public official persons, to whom the name under which they exercised their offices was indifferent, provided the salary continued to be attached to them, formed a large and influential body. And although we, who have never, by such mutations of our political system, been put to the trial of either abandoning our means of living, or submitting to a change of government, may, on hearing quoted names of respectability and celebrity who adopted the latter alternative, exclaim against French versatility, a glance at Britain during the frequent changes of the 17th century, may induce us to exchange the exclamation of poor France! for that of poor human nature! The professors of Cromwell's days, who piously termed themselves followers of Providence, because they complied with every change that came uppermost; and the sect of time-servers, including the honest patriot, who complained at the Restoration that he had complied with seven forms of government during the year, but lost his office by being too late of adhering to the last—would have made in their day a list equally long, and as entertaining, as the celebratedDictionnaire de Girouettes. In matters dependent upon a sudden breeze of sentiment, the mercurial Frenchman is more apt to tack about than the phlegmatic and slowly-moved native of Britain; but when the steady trade-wind of interest prevails for a long season, men in all nations and countries show the same irresistible disposition to trim their sails by it; and in politics as in morals, it will be well to pray against being led into temptation.
STATE OF PARTIES.
Besides those attached to him by mere interest, or from gratitude and respect for his talents, Napoleon had now among his adherents, or rather allies, not as a matter of choice, but of necessity, the Jacobin party, who had been obliged, though unwillingly, to adopt him as the head of a government, which they hoped to regenerate. To these were to be added a much larger and more respectable body, who, far from encouraging his attempt, had testified themselves anxious to oppose it to the last, but who, conceiving the cause of the Bourbons entirely lost, were willing to adhere to Buonaparte, on condition of obtaining a free constitutionfor France. Many of these acted, of course, on mixed motives; but if we were asked to form a definition of them, we should be induced to give the same, which, laying aside party spirit, we should ascribe to a right English Whig, whom we conceive to be a man of sense and moderation, a lover of laws and liberty, whose chief regard to particular princes and families is founded on what he apprehends to be the public good; and who differs from a sensible Tory so little, that there is no great chance of their disputing upon any important constitutional question, if it is fairly stated to both. Such, we believe, is the difference betwixt rational Constitutionalists and Royalists in France; and, undoubtedly, while all the feelings of the latter induced them to eye with abhorrence the domination of a usurper, there must have been many of the former, who, fearing danger to the independence of France from the intervention of foreign powers, conceived, that by advocating the cause of Napoleon, they were in some degree making a virtue of necessity, and playing an indifferent game with as much skill as the cards they held would permit. Many patriotic and sensible men, who had retained a regard for liberty during all the governments and all the anarchies which had subsisted for twenty years, endeavoured now to frame a system of government, grounded upon something like freedom, upon the difficulties of Buonaparte. Pressed as he was from abroad, and unsupported at home, save by the soldiery, he would, they conceived, be thrown by necessity under the protection of the nation, and obliged to recruit his adherents by complying with public opinion, and adopting a free government. Under this persuasion a great number of such characters, more or less shaded by attachment to a moderate and limited monarchy, were prepared to acknowledge Buonaparte's re-established authority, in so far as he should be found to deserve it, by concessions on his part.
The conduct and arguments of another portion of the friends of the constitution, rather resembled that which might have been adopted in England by moderate and intelligent Tories. Such men were not prepared to resign the cause of their lawful monarch, because fortune had for a time declared against him. They were of opinion, that to make a constitution permanent, the monarch must have his rights ascertained and vindicated, as well as those of the people; and that if a usurper were to be acknowledged upon any terms, however plausible, so soon as he had cut his way to success by his sword, the nation would be exposed to perpetual revolutions. Louis, these men might argue, had committed no crime whatever; he was only placed in circumstances which made some persons suppose he might possibly be tempted to meditate changes on the constitution, and on the charter which confirmed it. There was meanness in deserting a good and peaceable king at the command of a revolted army, and a discarded usurper. They regretted that their prince must be replaced byforeign bayonets; yet it was perhaps better that a moderate and peaceful government should be restored even thus, than that the French nation should continue to suffer under the despotic tyranny of their own soldiery. Those reasoners ridiculed the idea of a free constitution, which was to be generated betwixt Buonaparte, who, in his former reign, never allowed freedom of thought, word, or action, to exist unrepressed, and the old Revolutionists, who, during their period of power, could be satisfied with no degree of liberty until they destroyed every compact which holds civil society together, and made the country resemble one great bedlam, set on fire by the patients, who remained dancing in the midst of the flames.
Such we conceive to have been the principles on which wise and moderate men on either side acted during this distracted period. It is easy to suppose, that their opinions must have been varied by many more and less minute shades, arising from temperament, predilections, prejudices, passions, and feelings of self-interest, and that they were on either side liable to be pushed into exaggeration, or, according to the word which was formed to express that exaggeration—into Ultraism.
Meantime, Napoleon did all that was possible to conciliate the people's affection, and to show himself sincerely desirous of giving France the free constitution which he had promised. He used the advice of Carnot, Siêyes, and Fouché, and certainly profited by several of their lessons. He made it, notwithstanding, a condition, that Carnot and Siêyes should accept each a title and a seat in his House of Peers, to show that they were completely reconciled to the Imperial government; and both the ancient republicans condescended to exchange thebonnet rouge, for a coronet, which, considering their former opinions, sate somewhat awkwardly upon their brows.
But although the union of the Imperialists and popular party had been cemented by mutual hatred of the Bourbons, and was still kept together by apprehension of the King's adherents within, and his allies on the exterior, seeds of discord were soon visible between the Emperor and the popular leaders. While the former was eager once more to wield with full energy the sceptre he had recovered, the latter were continually reminding him, that he had only assumed it in a limited and restricted capacity, as the head of a free government, exercising, indeed, its executive power, but under the restraint of a popular constitution. Napoleon, in the frequent disputes which arose on these important points, was obliged to concede to the demagogues the principles which they insisted upon. But then, for the safety of the state, involved in foreign and domestic dangers, he contended it was necessary to invest the chief magistrate with a vigour beyond the law, a dictatorial authority, temporary in its duration, but nearly absolute in its extent, as had been the manner in the free states of antiquity, when the republic was in imminent danger. Carnotand Fouché, on the other hand, considered, that although it seemed natural, and might be easy, to confer such power at the present moment, the resumption of it by the nation, when it was once vested in the hands of Buonaparte, would be a hopeless experiment. The Emperor, therefore, and his ministers, proceeded to their mutual tasks with no mutual confidence; but, on the contrary, with jealousy, thinly veiled by an affectation of deference on the side of Buonaparte, and respect on that of his counsellors.
LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.
The very first sacrifice which the Emperor gave to freedom proved an inconvenient one to his government. This was nothing less than the freedom of the press. It is true, that the influence of his minister of police managed by indirect means to get possession of most of the journals; so that of sixty writers, employed generally, if not constantly, in periodical composition, five only were now found friendly to the royal cause. The other pens, which a few days before described Napoleon as a species of Ogre, who had devoured the youth of France, now wrote him down a hero and a liberator. Still, when the liberty of the press was once established, it was soon found impossible to prevent it from asserting its right of utterance; and there were found authors to advocate the cause of the Bourbons, from principle, from caprice, from the love of contradiction.
Napoleon, who always showed himself sensitively alive to the public censure, established inspectors of the booksellers. The minister of police, a friend of liberty, but, as Compte, the editor ofLe Censeur, neatly observed, only of liberty after the fashion of M. Fouché, used every art in his power to prevent the contagion of freedom from spreading too widely. This M. Compte was a loud, and probably a sincere advocate of freedom, and had been a promoter of Buonaparte's return, as likely to advance the good cause. Seeing the prevailing influence of the military, he published some severe remarks on the undue weight the army assumed in public affairs, which, he hesitated not to say, was bringing France to the condition of Rome, when the empire was disposed of by the Prætorian guards. This stung to the quick—the journal was seized by the police, and the minister endeavoured to palliate the fact in theMoniteur, by saying, that, though seized, it had been instantly restored. But Compte was not a man to be so silenced; he published a contradiction of the official statement, and declared that his journal had not been restored. He was summoned the next day before the prefect, alternately threatened and wheedled, upbraided at one moment with ungrateful resistance to the cause of the Emperor, and requested at the next to think of something in which government might serve him. Steeled against every proffer and entreaty, Compte only required to be permitted to profit by the restored liberty of the press; nor could the worthy magistrate make him rightly understand that when the Emperor gave all men liberty to publish what pleased themselves,it was under the tacit condition that it should also please the prefect and minister of police. Compte had the spirit to publish the whole affair.
In the meanwhile, proclamations of Louis, forbidding the payment of taxes, and announcing the arrival of 1,200,000 men under the walls of Paris, covered these walls every night in spite of the police. A newspaper, called theLily, was also secretly, but generally circulated, which advocated the royal cause. In the better classes of society, where Buonaparte was feared and hated, lampoons, satires, pasquinades, glided from hand to hand, turning his person, ministers, and government, into the most bitter ridicule. Others attacked him with eloquent invective, and demanded what he had in common with the word Liberty, which he now pretended to connect with his reign. He was, they said, the sworn enemy of liberty, the assassin of the Republic, the destroyer of French freedom, which had been so dearly bought; the show of liberty which he held, was a trick of legerdemain, executed under protection of his bayonets. Such was his notion of liberty when it destroyed the national representation at St. Cloud—Such was the freedom he gave when he established an Oriental despotism in the enlightened kingdom at France. Such, when abolishing all free communication of sentiments among citizens, and proscribing every liberal and philosophical idea under the nickname of Ideology. "Can it be forgotten," they continued, "that Heaven and Hell are not more irreconcilable ideas, than Buonaparte and Liberty?—The very word Freedom," they said, "was proscribed under his iron reign, and only first gladdened the ears of Frenchmen after twelve years of humiliation and despair, on the happy restoration of Louis XVIII.—Ah, miserable impostor!" they exclaimed, "when would he have spoke of liberty, had not the return of Louis familiarized us with freedom and peace." The spirit of disaffection spread among certain classes of the lower ranks. The market-women (dames des halles,) so formidable during the time of the Fronde, and in the early years of the Revolution, for their opposition to the court, were now royalists, and, of course, clamorous on the side of the party they espoused. They invented, or some loyal rhymer composed for them, a song,[123]the burden of which demanded back the King, as their father of Ghent. They ridiculed, scolded, and mobbed the commissaries of police, who endeavoured to stop these musical expressions of disaffection; surrounded the chief of their number, danced around him, and chanted the obnoxious burden, until Fouché being ashamed to belie the new doctrines of liberty of thought, speech, and publication, his agents were instructed to leave these Amazons undisturbed on account of their political sentiments.
While Buonaparte was unable to form an interest in the saloons,and found that even thedames des halleswere becoming discontented, he had upon his side the militia of the suburbs; those columns of pikemen so famous in the Revolution, whose furious and rude character added to the terrors, if not to the dignity, of his reign. Let us not be accused of a wish to depreciate honest industry, or hold up to contempt the miseries of poverty. It is not the poverty, but the ignorance and the vice of the rabble of great cities, which render them always disagreeable, and sometimes terrible. They are entitled to protection from the laws, and kindness from the government; but he who would use them as political engines, invokes the assistance of a blatant beast with a thousand heads, well furnished with fangs to tear and throats to roar, but devoid of tongues to speak reason, ears to hear it, eyes to see it, or judgment to comprehend it.
For a little time after Buonaparte's return, crowds of artisans of the lowest order assembled under the windows of the Tuileries, and demanded to see the Emperor, whom, on his appearance, they greeted with shouts, asle Grand Entrepreneur, or general employer of the class of artisans, in language where the coarse phraseology of their rank was adorned with such flowers of rhetoric as the times of terror had coined. Latterly, the numbers of this assembly were maintained by a distribution of a fewsousto the shouters.
However disgusted with these degrading exhibitions, Buonaparte felt he could not dispense with this species of force, and was compelled to institute a day of procession, and a solemn festival, in favour of this description of persons, who, from the mode in which they were enrolled, were termed Federates.
FESTIVAL OF THE FEDERATES.
On 14th May, the motley and ill-arranged ranks which assembled on this memorable occasion, exhibited, in the eyes of the disgusted and frightened spectators, all that is degraded by habitual vice, and hardened by stupidity and profligacy. The portentous procession moved on along the Boulevards to the court of the Tuileries, with shouts, in which the praises of the Emperor were mingled with imprecations, and with the Revolutionary songs (long silenced in Paris,)—the Marseilloise Hymn, the Carmagnole, and the Day of Departure. The appearance of the men, the refuse of manufactories, of work-houses, of jails; their rags, their filth, their drunkenness; their ecstacies of blasphemous rage, and no less blasphemous joy, stamped them with the character of the willing perpetrators of the worst horrors of the Revolution. Buonaparte himself was judged, by close observers, to shrink with abhorrence from the assembly he himself had convoked. His guards were under arms, and the field artillery loaded, and turned on the Place de Carrousel, filled with the motley crowd, who, from the contrasted colour of the corn porters and charcoal-men, distinguished in the group, were facetiously called his Grey and Black Mousquetaires. He hasted to dismiss his hideous minions, with a sufficient distribution of praises and of liquor. The nationalguards conceived themselves insulted on this occasion, because compelled to give their attendance along with the Federates. The troops of the line felt for the degraded character of the Emperor. The haughty character of the French soldiers had kept them from fraternizing with the rabble, even in the cause of Napoleon. They had been observed, on the march from Cannes, to cease their cries ofVive l'Empereur, when, upon entering any considerable town, the shout was taken up by the mob of the place, and to suspend their acclamations, rather than mingle them with those of thepequins, whom they despised. They now muttered to each other, on seeing the court which Buonaparte seemed compelled to bestow on these degraded artisans, that the conqueror of Marengo and Wagram had sunk into the mere captain of a rabble. In short, the disgraceful character of the alliance thus formed between Buonaparte and the lees of the people, was of a nature incapable of being glossed over even in the flattering pages of theMoniteur, which, amidst a flourishing description of this memorable procession, was compelled to admit, that, in some places, the name of the Emperor was incongruously mingled with expressions and songs, which recalled an eraunfortunately too famous.
Fretted by external dangers, and internal disturbances, and by the degrading necessity of appearing every night before a mob, who familiarly hailed him asPère le Violette, and, above all, galled by the suggestions of his philosophical counsellors, who, among other innovations, wished him to lay aside the style of Emperor for that of President, or Grand General of the Republic, Napoleon, to rid himself at once of occupations offensive to his haughty disposition, withdrew from the Tuileries to the more retired palace of the Elysée Bourbon, and seemed on a sudden to become once more the Emperor he had been before his abdication. Here he took into his own hands, with the assistance of Benjamin Constant, and other statesmen, the construction of a new constitution. Their system included all those checks and regulations which are understood to form the essence of a free government, and greatly resembled that granted by the Royal Charter.[124]Nevertheless, it was extremely ill received by all parties, but especially by thosewho expected from Napoleon a constitution more free than that which they had dissolved by driving Louis XVIII. from the throne. There were other grave exceptions stated against the scheme of government.
First, The same objection was stated against this Imperial grant which had been urged with so much vehemence against the royal charter, namely, that it was not a compact between the people and the sovereign, in which the former called the latter to the throne under certain conditions, but a recognition by the sovereign of the liberties of the people. The meeting of the Champ de Mai had indeed been summoned, (as intimated in the decrees from Lyons,) chiefly with the purpose of forming and adopting the new constitution; but, according to the present system, they were only to have the choice of adopting or rejecting that which Napoleon had prepared for them. The disappointment was great among those philosophers who desired "better bread than is made of wheat;" and could not enjoy liberty itself, unless it emanated directly from the will of the people, and was sanctioned by popular discussion. But Napoleon was determined that the convention of the 10th May should have no other concern in the constitution, save to accept it when offered. He would not intrust such an assembly with the revision of the laws by which he was to govern.
ADDITIONAL ACT.
Secondly, This new constitution, though presenting an entirely new basis of government, was published under the singular title of an "Additional[125]Act to the Constitutions of the Emperor," and thereby constituted a sort of appendix to a huge mass of unrepealed organic laws, many of them inconsistent with the Additional Act in tenor and in spirit.
Those who had enjoyed the direct confidence of the Emperor while the treaty was framing, endeavoured to persuade themselves that Napoleon meant fairly by France, yet confessed they had found it difficult to enlighten his ideas on the subject of a limited monarchy. They felt, that though the Emperor might be induced to contract his authority, yet what remained in his own hand would be wielded as arbitrarily as ever; and likewise that he would never regard his ministers otherwise than as the immediate executors of his pleasure, and responsible to himself alone. He would still continue to transport his whole chancery at his stirrup, and transmit sealed orders to be executed by a minister whom he had not consulted on their import.[126]
The Royalists triumphed on the publication of this Additional Act: "Was it for this," they said, "you broke your oaths, andbanished your monarch, to get the same, or nearly similar laws, imposed on you by a Russian ukase or a Turkish firman, which you heretofore enjoyed by charter, in the same manner as your ancestors, called freemen by excellence, held their rights from their limited sovereigns; and for this have you exchanged a peaceful prince, whose very weakness was your security, for an ambitious warrior, whose strength is your weakness? For this have you a second time gone to war with all Europe—for the Additional Act and the Champ de Mai?"
The more determined Republicans, besides their particular objections to an Upper House, which the Emperor could fill with his own minions, so as effectually to control the representatives of the people, found the proposed constitution utterly devoid of the salt which should savour it. There was no acknowledgment of abstract principles; no dissertation concerning the rights of government and the governed; no metaphysical discussions on the origin of laws; and they were as much mortified and disappointed as the zealot who hears a discourse on practical morality, when he expected a sermon on the doctrinal points of theology. The unfortunate Additional Act became the subject of attack and raillery on all sides; and was esteemed to possess in so slight a degree the principles of durability, that a bookseller being asked for a copy by a customer, replied, He did not deal inperiodical publications.[127]
Under these auspices the Champ de Mai was opened, and that it might be in all respects incongruous, it was held on the 1st of June.[128]Deputies were supposed to attend from all departments, not, as it had been latterly arranged, to canvass the new constitution, but to swear to observe it; and not to receive the Empress Maria Louisa and her son as the pledge of twenty years peace, but to behold the fatal eagles, the signal of instant and bloody war, distributed by the Emperor to the soldiers.
Napoleon and his brothers, whom he had once more collected around him, figured, in quaint and fantastic robes, in the Champ de Mai; he as Emperor, and they as princes of the blood—another subject of discontent to the Republicans. The report of the votes was made, the electors swore to the Additional Act, the drums rolled, the trumpets flourished, the cannon thundered. But the acclamations were few and forced. The Emperor seemed to view the scene as an empty pageant, until he was summoned to the delivery of the eagles to the various new-raised regiments; and then, amid the emblems of past, and, as might be hoped, the auguries of future victories, he was himself again. But, on the whole, the Champ de Mai, was, in the language of Paris,une pièce tombée,a condemned farce, which was soon to be succeeded by a bloody tragedy.
CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.
The meeting of the Chambers was the next subject of interest. The Chamber of Peers did not present, like the corresponding assembly in Britain, members of long descent, ample fortunes, independence of principle, and education corresponding to their rank of hereditary legislators. It consisted in the princes of Napoleon's blood royal, to whom was added Lucien, long estranged from his brother's councils, but who now, instigated by fraternal affection, or tired of literary leisure, having presented his epic poem to a thankless and regardless public, endeavoured to save his brother in his present difficulties, as by his courage and presence of mind he had assisted him during the revolution of Brumaire. There were about one hundred other dignitaries, more than one half of whom were military men, including two or three old Jacobins, such as Siêyes and Carnot, who had taken titles, decorations, and rank, inconsistently with the tenor of their whole life. The rest had been the creatures of Buonaparte's former reign, with some men of letters devoted to his cause, and recently ennobled. This body, which could have no other will than that of the Emperor, was regarded by the Republicans and Constitutionalists with jealousy, and by the citizens with contempt. Buonaparte himself expressed his opinion of it with something approaching the latter sentiment. He had scarce formed his tools, before he seems to have been convinced of their inefficacy, and of the little influence which they could exercise on the public mind.[129]
It was very different with the second Chamber, in which were posted the ancient men of the Revolution, and their newer associates, who looked forward with hope that Buonaparte might yet assume the character of a patriot sovereign, and by his military talents save France for her sake, not for his own. The latter class comprehended many men, not only of talent, but of virtue and public spirit; with too large a proportion, certainly, of those who vainly desired a system of Republican liberty, which so many years of bloody and fruitless experiment should have led even the most extravagant to abandon, as inconsistent with the situation of the country, and the genius of the French nation.
The disputes of the Chamber of Representatives with the executive government commenced on June 4th, the first day of their sitting; and, like those of their predecessors, upon points of idle etiquette. They chose Lanjuinais for their president; a preferment which, alighting on one who had been the defender of Louis XVI., the active and determined resister of the power of Robespierre, and especially, the statesman who drew up the list of crimes in consequence of which Napoleon's forfeiture had beendeclared in 1814, could not be acceptable to the Emperor. Napoleon being applied to for confirmation of the election, referred the committee for his answer to the chamberlain, who, he stated, would deliver it the next day by the page in waiting. The Chamber took fire, and Napoleon was compelled to return an immediate though reluctant approval of their choice. The next remarkable indication of the temper of the Chamber, was theextemporeeffusion of a deputy named Sibuet, against the use of the epithets of duke, count, and other titles of honour, in the Chamber of Representatives. Being observed to read his invective from notes, which was contrary to the form of the Chamber, Sibuet was silenced for the moment as out of order; but the next day, or soon afterwards, having got his speech by heart, the Chamber was under the necessity of listening to him, and his motion was got rid of with difficulty.[130]On the same day, a list of the persons appointed to the peerage was demanded from Carnot, in his capacity of minister, which he declined to render till the session had commenced. This also occasioned much uproar and violence, which the president could scarce silence by the incessant peal of his bell. The oath to be taken by the deputies was next severely scrutinized, and the Imperialists carried with difficulty a resolution, that it should be taken to the Emperor and the constitution, without mention of the nation.
The second meeting, on June 7th, was as tumultuous as the first. A motion was made by Felix Lepelletier, that the Chamber should decree to Napoleon the title of Saviour of his Country. This was resisted on the satisfactory ground, that the country was not yet saved; and the Chamber passed to the order of the day by acclamation.[131]
Notwithstanding these open intimations of the reviving spirit of Jacobinism, or at least of opposition to the Imperial sway, Napoleon's situation obliged him for the time to address the unruly spirits which he had called together, with the confidence which it was said necromancers found it needful to use towards the dangerous fiends whom they had evoked. His address to both Chambers was sensible, manly, and becoming his situation. He surrendered, in their presence, all his pretensions to absolute power, and professed himself a friend to liberty; demanded the assistance of the Chambers in matters of finance, intimated a desire of some regulations to check the license of the press, and required from the representatives an example of confidence, energy, and patriotism, to encounter the dangers to which the country was exposed. The Peers replied in corresponding terms. Not so the second Chamber; for, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the Imperialists, their reply bore a strong tincture of the sentiments of the opposite party. The Chamber promised, indeed, their unanimous support in repelling the foreign enemy;but they announced their intention to take under their consideration the constitution, as recognised by the Additional Act, and to point out its defects and imperfections, with the necessary remedies. They also added a moderating hint, directed against the fervour of Napoleon's ambition. "The nation," they said, "nourishes no plans of aggrandisement. Not even the will of a victorious prince will lead them beyond the boundaries of self-defence." In his rejoinder, Napoleon did not suffer these obnoxious hints to escape his notice. He endeavoured to school this refractory assembly into veneration for the constitution, which he declared to be "the pole-star in the tempest;" and judiciously observed, "there was little cause to provide against the intoxications of triumph, when they were about to contend for existence. He stated the crisis to be imminent, and cautioned the Chamber to avoid the conduct of the Roman people in the latter ages of the empire, who could not resist the temptation of engaging furiously in abstract discussions, even while the battering-rams of the common enemy were shaking the gates of the capitol."
Thus parted Buonaparte and his Chambers of Legislature; he to try his fortune in the field of battle, they to their task of altering and modifying the laws, and inspiring a more popular spirit and air into the enactments he had made, in hopes that the dictatorship of the Jacobins might be once again substituted for the dictatorship of the Emperor. All men saw that the Imperialists and Republicans only waited till the field was won, that they might contend for the booty; and so little was the nation disposed to sympathize with the active, turbulent, and bustling demagogues by whom the contest was to be maintained against the Emperor, that almost all predicted with great unconcern their probable expulsion, either by the sword of Buonaparte or the Bourbons.