[1814-1815 A.D.] The barely promulgated charter was violated in its most essential principles. It guaranteed liberty to all religious cults, but as early as June 7th a famous law forbade Sunday labour. It granted liberty of the press, but the first law framed by the ministry re-established a censorship. Public irritation and mistrust came to a head at the spectacle of a cabinet minister, Ferrand, confirming all the fears which, with blind and culpable recklessness, were kept alive in the numerous body of purchasers of the national properties.

Four months from the date of the restoration of the Bourbons the evil done was almost irreparable. Public opinion had nothing to feed on but the unconstitutional acts of authority. The very army, for which sheer common sense claimed consideration—the army, still wet with its own blood and the blood of its enemies, was subjected to contemptible insults. It seemed as though men desired by dishonouring the army to dishonour not the emperor's person and reign alone, but the Revolution and the whole of new France. The reorganisation of the Hundred Swiss was a yet graver error. It seemed like a distinct and menacing protest against the Revolution. The charter having safeguarded the Legion of Honour, everything possible was done to bring discredit on that noble institution which committed the unpardonable sin of dating from the imperial régime. Princes and ministers gave away the honour wholesale.

THE GROWTH OF OPPOSITION

It was inevitable that such an accumulation of imprudences should sooner or later react on the contrivers. Weary as France was of wars and revolts, she could not suffer dishonour thus at the hands of debilitated and unreasonable authority which, existing only by virtue of its compromise with the spirit of the Revolution, seemed to deny that compromise and to lean solely on a clique of men with retrograde notions, intrepid only in insulting a past they had not known how either to appease or to resist. As early as the month of September everything was ripe for a revolution.g

The Napoleonic legend dates from this epoch. Constitutionals, liberals, carbonari, freemasons, the débris of the republic becoming the débris of the empire, the participators in the Hundred-Days, dismissed royalists, Orleanists-every party aided in its construction. There was no longer any question of the administrative despotism under which France had groaned, of the harvests of men mown down each year on all the fields of Europe, of the egotistical and unrestrained policy whose deceptions and mistakes were paid so dearly by the blood and treasure of France. Separated from the empire by an abyss, these platonic partisans set their hero upon a mighty pedestal; he became the modern Cæsar, the god of victory, Prometheus on his rock. The exaggerations of poetry became the daily language of controversy.

What was Bonapartism at this time? Barely a dream. The emperor was far away, his son, a child, languished under the guardianship of Austria; his brothers had neither partisans nor personal influence; the powers would not have tolerated a member of the Bonaparte family on the throne of France, not even Prince Eugène, although he was allied to one of the courts of the north. Still more, among so many people who glorified the empire, how many were really attached to it by recollection or office? The empire, set up again, would have scattered them, or, perhaps, they would not even have come forward to share in its power and honours. For the greater part, Bonapartism was only an instrument of opposition.

[1814-1815 A.D.]

A nation still heaving with so great a storm, with people embittered by the animosity of five-and-twenty years, with so many injuries to avenge on both sides, and such a total prostration of dignity and honour as the rapid alternation of success and defeat had produced, found it impossible to fulfil the conditions of the compact it had made between the past and the present. It could not satisfy the disinherited seigneur, nor dispossess the roturier of his lately purchased estate. "Seigneur," indeed, and "roturier," had lost their signification, but not their recollections. The seigneur remembered his rights and immunities—his donjon keep and gilded chair at court; the roturier, within a month of the publication of the charter, began to remember the little man in the gray riding-coat who had kept those harpies so gallantly from the land, and scowled with ill-concealed hatred as he saw the tents of the Tatars and Croats pitched all down the beautiful avenues of the Champs Élysées, and met long trains of priests and bishops going to return thanks to God for the humiliation of their country. Priests and bishops were busy in all directions. Over every death-bed hung a priest denouncing endless woes unless the sufferer restored his secularised lands to the church, or his government-guaranteed lands to their legitimate owners the refugees.

All this time there was an immense army of the allies to be maintained at France's cost, and an enormous war-contribution to indemnify the invaders against the expenses of their campaign. The taxes from ordinary sources were dried up; there was little commerce, and agriculture had come to a standstill from the uncertainty of political events. The returned exiles had no money, and the whole burden fell on the comparatively opulent middle class, who had saved some hard coin, and were now forced to bring it out from their depositories under the thatch or in the dry well of the orchard, and pour it into commissioners' hands for the enrichment of Prussians and Muscovites. Very slight were the hopes of amelioration from the congress which commenced its sittings at Vienna. There, scissors in hand, sat the delegates of the allied sovereigns, ready to clip off bits of territory, and round the national maps to their own satisfaction.

Meanwhile a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers had returned to France two hundred thousand more were scattered through the villages and farms. They found their fields neglected and their cottages in disrepair, but the object of their indignation was changed. They no longer blamed the conscription for the want they saw around them, but the foreigner who had trod their soil, and the wretched poltroons who, in their absence beyond the Rhine, allowed the tricolour to be trampled in the dust. "If we had been there," they said "if the Little Corporal had had the men of Marengo and Eylau at his side, this would not have happened." And everywhere, shortly after this, there were whispers about great things that would occur when the violet appeared in the spring. Ladies wore violets in their bonnets, and little sketches were circulated, in which the figure of a violet was so disposed that the interval between the leaves formed the well-known countenance of the emperor, with his plain gray riding-coat and little cocked hat. He was talked of as "Corporal Violet ; and the tedious winter wore away. It did not seem that the bursting forth of that pretty but common flower excited much attention in Elba. The island was guarded by English cruisers, and commissioners from various nations were resident to watch that the newly appointed monarch of the Elbese territories did not leave his domains. There appeared no wish on the part of that somewhat petty potentate to withdraw his paternal care from the empire across which he could ride in a

[1815 A.D.]

couple of hours; and he was busy making roads, building bridges, and calculating the expense of a better pier to his imperial city of Porto Ferrajo. His only relaxations were scientific discussions with his friends, and quiet evening-parties at the house of his sister Pauline.

NAPOLEON LEAVES ELBA

It chanced, on the 26th of February, 1815, that the ball at Pauline's was deprived of much of its usual brilliancy. The captain of the English cruiser had taken his ship for a few days to Leghorn; the commissioners of the allied powers were absent on leave or otherwise engaged; and at ten o'clock at night a small cannon discharged on the rampart did not interfere with the enjoyment of the supper that followed the dance. The report, however, had great effect in other quarters. Six hundred men of the Old Guard marched silently down to the harbour; there they were joined by four hundred Poles and Corsicans; and the whole force embarked in a brig called The Inconstant. Just before the sails were hoisted, the men caught sight of the gray riding-coat and cocked hat as the wearer stepped upon the deck. Not a word was said; the anchor was raised, no obstruction was offered; the little vessel left the lights of the town behind it. Three tedious days were passed upon the voyage; English frigates were swarming everywhere, and some one or two passed in sight of The Inconstant. At length French soil was seen, and the invading army landed in the gulf of Juan, near the town of Cannes. The few inhabitants of that district were too remote from public affairs, and too ignorant, to be much moved by the strange apparition of a thousand men disembarking from a brig from some unknown region beyond the sea.

It was only on the 8th of March that the Parisians read in the Moniteur that Napoleon was in France. By this time he was in Lyons at the head of a considerable army. All the forces hitherto sent to oppose him had gone over at sight of the tricolour. At Grenoble he had been met by a regiment of seven hundred men, who prepared to resist his advance. He walked slowly forward to the front line, and said, "My friends, if there is one among you who wishes to kill his emperor his general- he has it in his power!" He unbuttoned the little gray coat to receive the ball, and shouts arose of "Vive l'empereur!" while he continued his march with an addition of seven hundred men. The same enthusiasm arose among the soldiers wherever he appeared the ranks rushed into each other's arms, and the officers shook hands. Ney, "the bravest of the brave," was sent to arrest the audacious madman, and promised largely 1 before he took leave of the king; but when he came within sight of his ancient chief — when he saw the colours he had fought under, and heard the shouts of the men he had so often led to battleabove all, when he saw the sorrowful but benignant countenance of his friend and master- all his old love and reverence returned: he put his sword into its sheath, and was again the Ney of former days-the sword of France and follower of Napoleon. There was no longer either the power or the will to resist.

The congress was still pursuing its labours at Vienna; discussions were going on about the boundaries and populations of newly constituted states, when, on the 25th of March, the duke of Wellington entered the council chamber, and informed the plenipotentiaries that their work was all to do over again, for the emperor was in Paris, and the grand army as numerous and enthusiastic as ever.d

[1 Ney had volunteered to bring Napoleon back to Paris in a cage.]

[1815 A.D.]

HOW LOUIS XVIII LEFT PARIS AND NAPOLEON CAME BACK

About midnight of March 19th, in fearful weather, to the sound of wind and heavy rain, Louis XVIII, walking with difficulty and leaning on M. de Blacas and the duke de Duras, first gentleman of the chamber, descended the grand staircase of the Tuileries, by the light of torches carried before him by an usher. The bodyguards, the national guards on service in the palace, the court servants, knelt as he passed and kissed his hands, with signs of the greatest grief. He himself appeared deeply moved, and was unable to say more than, "My children, your devotion touches me, but I need rest; I shall see you again." An hour later, the count of Artois and the duke de Berri took the road to Flanders. The ministers, public functionaries, and all who thought themselves in any danger, also left during the night. The secretary of the council, Vitrolles, started for the south of France, charged with all the powers of the king. Such was the hurry of departure that Blacas left important papers in his cabinet, which were even compromising for some people. But they had remembered to take away the crown jewels.

The king had ordered the closing of the session of the chambers, charged the members to separate immediately, to reassemble as soon as possible at the place which he would indicate as the provisional seat of his government, and declared null and illegal all meetings of either chamber which should take place elsewhere without his authorisation.

The greater part of the troops had received orders to retire to St. Denis. With the exception of the Swiss regiments who went immediately, they received the announcement of this movement with signs of the greatest discontent. They had, however, started in the morning but, at the first halt, an infantry regiment revolted, and a second soon followed the example; the other corps did not fail to imitate it. Soldiers, drunk with joy and wine, went through the streets flourishing their swords, and shouting in a manner which seemed to menace France with the odious and humiliating rule of the soldiery; at nightfall fatigue and the bad weather began to thin the ranks of this multitude without completely dispersing it. And yet Napoleon did not appear. He had been at Fontainebleau since four o'clock in the morning. At two o'clock in the afternoon he left for Paris, but the crowds of villagers who thronged the route and saluted him with acclamations, the bodies of troops, the generals who came to meet him and to whose congratulations he was forced to listen, only permitted him to advance slowly; it was eight o'clock in the evening when he entered his capital. His carriage, preceded by a group of generals, was escorted by only a hundred horsemen. He reached the Tuileries by the quays. It was only with great difficulty that he was able to cross the gates of the court, obstructed by a mass of officers and soldiers, who almost threw themselves under the horses' feet. Seized by vigorous arms, he was literally carried to the foot of the grand staircase, which he slowly mounted, with his eyes shut, his arms stretched out in front of him, like a blind man, and only expressing his happiness by a smile. He found already assembled in the throne-room with his sistersin-law, Julie and Hortense, the wives of his brothers Joseph and Louis, several of his former ministers, his intimate servitors, the ladies of the empress' palace, and princesses, giving way to all the joy of so unexpected a return of fortune. The excitement was such that they kissed his hands and even his clothes. He himself appeared gay, moved, and excited. They say, however, that with him a certain anxiety mingled with the joy of his

[1815 A.D.]

triumph. The reception of the Parisians had not come up to his expectations. Tearing himself from the homage and admiration of the courtiers, he occupied himself with the formation of his ministry.j

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND A NEW WAR

In spite of the extreme rapidity and apparent facility of this revolution, France showed that it was stupefied. War was imminent, and the immediate consequence of this war would be despotism. Napoleon would always be the same; his dream of glory and ambition had become a fixed idea, and he flung to Europe a defiance more daring than those of 1813 and 1814. The coalition, the "holy alliance," still existed, and on the 13th of March the Vienna congress declared that the usurper whom it delivered over to public vengeance should be a second time overthrown. But finances, an army, fortresses-all had to be reconstructed to carry on again such a gigantic struggle.

In vain had Napoleon announced at Grenoble that he would have a representative government, and at Lyons that he did not seek conquests. Such declarations were too contrary to his own nature to be believed. His first acts before arriving in Paris were the proclamation of an amnesty, with exceptions, the dissolution of the chambers, and convocation of the electoral colleges of the departments to a champ de mai, this being in reality an appeal to the sovereignty of the people. Scarcely was he reinstated at the Tuileries when he constituted his ministry with Cambacérès and Maret, the inevitable Fouché, willing to serve everybody, and Carnot, who in a widely-circulated pamphlet had put himself forward as the revolutionary advocate against the Bourbons. He sequestered the goods of these latter; ordered the state council to annul the act of dethronement; abolished the old nobility; expelled all émigrés from the army, and published a list of a score of persons not included in the amnesty. In spite of this exhumation of the empire, there were few Bonapartists except those in the army.

Napoleon, who did not want to convoke a constituent assembly and who, moreover, had not time to do so, sent for Benjamin Constant, although he was a declared enemy, and charged him to draw up what he chose to call "a supplementary act to the imperial constitutions," for he did not want, any more than the Bourbons, to deny his past. Benjamin Constant applied himself to the work, and drew up a constitution both wide and liberal, conforming to the greater number of the principles of the charter. Napoleon accepted everything save an article abolishing confiscation, which he declared necessary to every government. He was anxious also, as was Louis XVIII, that the act should emanate from his will only, so as not to be fettered by wills which were foreign to him.

Finally this act was submitted to the people for sanction, and in the various mayoralties received the assent of 1,300,000 voters [against 4,206 negative votes]. The number of non-voters was very high. In fact, the public showed much indifference. Napoleon named four ministers of state to superintend parliamentary discussions, but he himself took little interest in home affairs. All his thoughts were of war. The great question was for him to conquer, for he was fully aware that as conqueror alone would he be really master.i Now all Europe was hurrying to battle and besides foreign war there was civil war. The allied sovereigns in congress at Vienna declared: "Napoleon had placed himself outside the pale of civil and social relations, and as enemy and disturber of the peace of the world he is delivered to public ven