[1814 A.D.]

in a circle in the court of honour at the château of Fontainebleau and addressed to them his farewells. "Soldiers," said he, "one mission is left to me, and it is to fulfil that that I consent to live. It is to relate to posterity the great things which we have done together." Would to God that he had kept his word and had done nothing else! He kissed the flag of the old guard. These brave soldiers, who saw in him only the man who had led them so many times to victory, burst into tears. Seven or eight hundred of them were to form the army left to the man who had disposed of a million soldiers, the army of the sovereign of Elba. They had left in advance and Napoleon started without other escort than the generals Drouot and Bertrand, and the four foreign commissioners with their suites.

In the first departments they traversed, from the Seine-et-Marne to Allier, the people who had seen the invasion from close at hand forgot the evil Napoleon had done, and saw in him only the defender of the land. They cried: "Vive l'empereur! Down with the strangers!" Beyond Lyons where the people had not seen the enemy the population became hostile. The old royalist and Catholic passions were aroused in proportion as they advanced towards the south, the crowd cried: "Vive le roi! Down with the tyrant!" Some groups screamed, " Vivent les alliés!" At Avignon and at Orgon, a furious populace assailed the carriages, clamouring to have the tyrant delivered up to them to hang or to throw into the Rhone. This man, who had lived with indifference in the midst of bullets and balls, quailed before these ignoble perils. He masqueraded in a foreign uniform and without this disguise the commissioners of the allies could not perhaps have succeeded in saving his life at Orgon.

This sad journey ended at the gulf of St. Raphael on the coast of Provence at Fréjus, precisely the same point where General Bonaparte had landed on his return from Egypt. An English frigate was waiting for him and carried him to the isle of Elba. He landed the 4th of May at the port of Porto Ferrajo.

While the empire was completing its ruin at Essonne and at Fontainebleau, and the fallen emperor was on his way into exile, the new government was working laboriously at the task of establishing itself at Paris.b

War is the condition of this world. From man to the smallest insect all are at strife, and the glory of arms, which cannot be obtained without the exercise of honour, fortitude, courage, obedience, modesty, and temperance, excites the brave man's patriotism and is a chastening corrective for the rich man's pride. It is yet no security for power. Napoleon, the greatest man of whom history makes mention - Napoleon, the most wonderful commander, the most sagacious politician, the most profound statesman, lost by arms Poland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France. Fortune, that name for the unknown combinations of infinite power, was wanting to him, and without her aid the designs of man are as bubbles on a troubled ocean. - NAPIER.b

ROYALISM was struggling with the party representing national sovereignty in the commission charged by the senate with preparing a constitution. The abbé de Montesquiou, the confidential man of the pretendant, did not succeed in causing the principle of a sovereign right superior to the will of the nation to be admitted. The formula adopted was the following: "The French people voluntarily calls to the throne of France, Louis Stanislas Xavier of France, brother of the last king, and, after him the members of the house of Bourbon."

The reign was not to commence until the day when he took oath to the constitution. Executive power was conferred on the king, who shared the legislative power with the senate and a chamber of deputies. The constitution sanctioned individual freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the sale of national lands, the public debt, and proclaimed forgetfulness of all acts committed since the commencement of the Revolution. The principles of '89 were preserved; in the sad position in which France was placed there was no better course than to rally around this constitution which was voted by the senate on the 6th of April and accepted by the legislative body.

The bourgeoisie received the prince well and he was gracious to them. He was conducted to Notre Dame, then to the Tuileries. It had been twentytwo years since his unfortunate brother Louis XVI had made his exit, and twenty-five since he himself had fled from France after the taking of the Bastille. Talleyrand and his circle feared that the public might remember

[1814 A.D.]

the counter-revolutionary ardour of the prince who had been the leader of the émigrés. They thought it necessary to give some pledge that the old régime would not be brought back and in the Moniteur of the next day a happy expression was attributed to the count of Artois: "Nothing is changed in France, there is only one Frenchman more!" The count of Artois did not disown this invention of a clever man, the count Beugnot, but he held firmly to his desire of being recognised unconditionally as lieutenant-general of the kingdom just

as he had entered Paris unconditionally. The emperor of Russia intervened and signified to the count of Artois that the allies were pledged to the senate and to the nation. The count of Artois had to yield.

The national tricolour cockade, at the moment when it was being abandoned in Paris for the white, was still honoured by numerous French soldiers from the banks of the Garonne to those of the Elbe and many deeds of war distinguished the last efforts of French arms even after Napoleon had laid down his sword. Carnot, at Antwerp, had shielded the city and fleet from the attacks of the English. At Bergenop-Zoom the English lost 4,000 men in an attack which for them resulted in disaster. The allies were also rudely driven back at Maubeuge. Suchet, obliged by Napoleon to send the best part of his forces against Lyons, had re-entered France with the rest, trying to rejoin Soult. The latter had retreated upon Toulouse with 36,000 men, followed by Wellington, who had 60,000. Towards evening he abandoned Toulouse and retired on Carcassonne where he was certain of being rejoined by Suchet. An emissary of the provisional government finally arrived, too late to prevent the carnage of Toulouse; but too early in the opinion of the old French soldiers of Spain, who were hoping for a revenge.

The armistice was gradually established everywhere: it was now a question of fixing the conditions of peace. They were sure to be grievous in

any case.

Talleyrand, the sceptical egotist who held the direction of foreign affairs in his hands, thought only of making himself popular for a few days by concluding as quickly as possible an agreement for the departure of the foreigners. He had a compact signed by the count of Artois on the 23rd of April, in accordance with which "all hostilities on land or sea were suspended between the allied powers and France," until the treaty of peace, which should be concluded as soon as possible. The foreign powers promised to leave French territory as it had been the 1st of January, 1792, as soon as the places without these limits still occupied by French troops should be

[1814 A.D.]

evacuated and returned to the allies. was to be effected by the 1st of June.

The total restoration of these places

On seeing the feebleness and incapacity of the count of Artois from near at hand, everybody was looking forward to the arrival of the new king, in whom people tried to hope. On the 20th of April he left his retreat at Hartwell in the environs of London, where he had resided since he had left Russia, and made a solemn entry into London. The English, intoxicated with pride at having overturned Ñapoleon and having made a king of France, welcomed him with the white cockade in their hats. The new king, escorted by an English squadron, crossed that strait which Napoleon had for so long dreamed of crossing at the head of a victorious French fleet. He landed at Calais, the 24th of April, and was received with the acclamations which always greet a new power and which the satisfaction over a return to peace at that moment made sincere. From there he proceeded slowly to Paris.c

THE RETURN AND MISTAKES OF THE BOURBONS

The Parisians were somewhat disappointed when they saw in the person of their legitimate king an old man of prodigious obesity, with heavy brooding features and perpetual gout. Sitting by his side, however, was another resuscitation of the past, which awoke more painful feelings still. It was the duchess d'Angoulême, the unfortunate daughter of Louis XVI, and so long a prisoner in the Temple. She now advanced with withered countenance along the same road, covered with arches of triumph, leading to the Tuileries, over which her mother had been so pitilessly dragged to the scaffold. Now old names began to be heard again which had had a great sound before the Revolution, the possessors of which were only bent on making up, by insolence and superiority, for their humble position and scanty fare in Leicester square and other haunts of expatriated men. More respectable while submitting to their fate, and teaching languages or dancing to the citizens of London or Vienna, than when they tried to exert their ancient privileges over a people who had ceased to remember the old order of affairs, they quickly converted the compassion their protectors had felt for their sufferings into dislike. They reclaimed estates which had passed through great numbers of hands since they were confiscated in 1793. Houses had been built upon their lands, canals dug between their villages; rents had been paid to the intrusive proprietors, and Monsieur le Marquis would not be satisfied without a full and free restoration of all he had been defrauded of so long. And Louis XVIII was scarcely in a position to resist his claims, for he himself was playing, on a still greater scale, the same game.d

The new monarch- who called himself "king by the grace of God"1 without making mention of the national will, who tore down the tricolour flag to replace it by the white flag which the French soldiers no longer recognised, who finally dated his accession from the death of his nephew, Louis XVII, and who called 1814 the nineteenth year of his reign-was but little disposed to make concessions. The czar did not love the Bourbons and already realised that the revolutions of France would not be finished nor the east of Europe established except by liberal institutions strong

[1 The legal title with which Louis ascended the throne is very contradictory. "Through God's grace he became king of France and Navarre". "by the love of the people he was recalled to the throne." The word of the Russian Alexander was proved good when he said that "the Bourbons did not improve themselves and could not be improved," or in other terms that they forgot nothing and learned nothing. — KAISER.√]

[1814 A.D.]

enough to render impossible the return of the old régime. He sustained the constitutional proposals drawn up by Talleyrand and the commission of senators and deputies. The king was obliged before entering Paris to make the declaration of St. Ouen, May 2nd, which promised a representative government and the maintenance of the first conquests of the Revolution. This declaration was replaced by the constitutional charter, "taken under advisement" May 27th, and "conceded" on the 4th of June.

These are its principal clauses: an hereditary royalty; two chambers, one electoral, the other-that of the peers-chosen by the king, both chambers having the vote on taxation and the discussion of laws; public and individual liberty; liberty of the press and of religion; the inviolability of property, even of the national properties that had been sold; responsibility of ministers; the permanence of the judges; the guaranty of the public debt; the maintenance of the pensions, ranks, and military honours of the old and of the new nobility, as well as of the Legion of Honour, whose cross should bear the image of Henry IV in place of that of Napoleon; the free admissibility of all Frenchmen to all offices, civil and military; the maintenance of the great institutions of the empire.

The czar Alexander had been unwilling to depart before the constitutional act was drawn up. When he knew it to be adopted, he and his allies signed the treaty of peace on the conditions accepted by Talleyrand, April 23rd, and the evacuation of France by the hostile troops began May 30th.

The charter specified the middle class. Since the empire had fallen, it was consoled for the glory and the power that had been lost by the hope of at least having found peace and freedom. But with the Bourbons came back the émigrés, who threatened the new interests gained by the Revolution. For minister of war General Dupont was chosen, though his name was attached to the disgrace of the first reverse, the capitulation of Baylen. Public honours were rendered to the memory of George Cadoudal and of Moreau, both notoriously culpable, the one for an attempt at assassination, the other for treason. The king closed his ordinances with the old formula of Louis XIV: "Since this is our good pleasure." Ranks and honours were lavished upon the émigrés, while 14,000 officers who had gained their epaulettes in the face of the enemy were reduced to half pay. Soldiers of army of Condé and even men who had never worn a sword were made generals. Officers of the marine were restored with the rank immediately above that they had held the day of their emigration. Those who had served on the British fleet kept the rank which the English admiralty had given them. Campaigns of war made against France counted as "vacation" (ordinances of May 25th).e

the

One of the great errors of the Bourbons, an error that even the catastrophe of 1815 could not cure them of, was a belief in the existence of a numerous and powerful party that had never ceased to desire their return or to work efficaciously for it. These illusions might have been sanctified by history itself if the Bourbons had known how to reign and to justify, even imperfectly, public confidence. But this confidence soon took flight. Each day was marked by a fresh mistake. To make a clean sweep of the workers and works of the Revolution, to restore, as the saying was, "the continuity of the ages, interrupted by unhappy digressions," that is to say, to reconstruct, or rather parody the old régime-such was from the very beginning the ostensible and almost openly avowed aim of the ministers of Louis XVIII, and of the princes of his house, whom no law limited from meddling in the affairs of the state.