Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V

On the 7th of July, the Provisional Commission dissolved itself. The Chamber of Peers, when they heard the act of surrender, dispersed in silence; but that of the Representatives continued to sit, vote, and debate, for several hours. The president then prorogued the meeting till eight the next morning, in defiance of the cries of several members, who called on him to maintain the literal permanence of the sitting. The next morning, the members who attended found the hall sentinelled by the national guard, who refused them admittance, and heard the exclamations and complaints of the deputies with great disregard. Nay, the disappointed and indignant legislators were subjected to the ridicule of the idle spectators, who accompanied the arrival and retreat of each individual with laughter and acclamation, loud in proportion to the apparent excess of his mortification.

LOUIS RE-ENTERS PARIS

On the 8th of July, Louis re-entered his capital, attended by a very large body of the national guards and royal volunteers, as well as by his household troops. In the rear of these soldiers came a numerous état-major, among whom were distinguished the Maréchals Victor, Marmont, Macdonald, Oudinot, Gouvion, St. Cyr, Moncey, and Lefebvre. An immense concourse of citizens received, with acclamations, the legitimate monarch; and the females were observed to be particularly eager in their expressions of joy. Thus was Louis again installed in the palace of his ancestors, over which the white banner once more floated. Here, therefore, ended that short space, filled with so much that is wonderful, that period of an Hundred Days, in which the events of a century seemed to be contained. Before we proceed with the narrative, which must in future be the history of an individual, it may not be improper to cast a look back upon the events comprised within that extraordinary period, and offer a few remarks on their political nature and tendency.

It is unnecessary to remind the reader, that Napoleon's restoration to the throne was the combined work of two factions. One comprehended the army, who desired the recovery of their own honour, sullied by recent defeats, and the recalling of the Emperor to their head, that he might save them from being disbanded, and lead them to new victories. The other party was that which not only desired that the kingdom should possess a large share of practical freedom, but felt interested that the doctrines of the Revolution should be recognised, and particularly that which was held to entitle the people, or those who might contrive to assume the right of representing them, to alter the constitution of the government at pleasure, and to be, as was said of the great Earl of Warwick, the setters up and pullers down of kings. This party, availing themselves of some real errors of the reigning family, imagining more, and exciting a cloud of dark suspicions, had instigated a general feeling of dissatisfaction against the Bourbons. But though they probably might have had recourse to violence, nothing appears less probable than their success in totally overturning royalty, had they been unsupported by the soldiers. The army, which rose so readily at Buonaparte's summons, had no community of feeling with the Jacobins, as they were called; and but for his arrival upon the scene, would have acted, there can be little doubt, at the command of the maréchals, who were almost all attached to the royal family. It was, therefore, the attachment of the army to their ancient commander which gave success to the joint enterprise, which the Jacobinical party alone would have attempted in vain.

THE CHAMBERS

The Republican, or Jacobin party, closed with their powerful ally; their leaders accepted titles at his hands; undertook offices, and became members of a Chamber of Peers and of Representatives, summoned by his authority. They acknowledged him as their Emperor; received as his boon a new constitution; and swore in the face of all France the oath of fealty to it, and to him as their sovereign. On such terms the Emperor and his Legislative Body parted on the 7th of June. Suspicion there existed between them certainly, but, in all outward appearance, he departed a contented prince from a contented people. Eleven days brought the battle of Waterloo, with all its consequences. Policy of a sound and rational sort should have induced the Chambers to stand by the Emperor whom they had made, to arm him with the power which the occasion required, and avail themselves of his extraordinary military talent, to try some chance of arresting the invaders in their progress. Even shame might have prevented them from lending their shoulders to overthrow the tottering throne before which they had so lately kneeled. They determined otherwise. The instant he became unfortunate, Napoleon ceased to be their Emperor, the source of their power and authority. They could see nothing in him but the hurt deer, who is to be butted from the herd; the Jonas in the vessel, who is to be flung overboard. When Napoleon, therefore, talked to them of men and arms, they answered him, with "equality and the rights of man;" every chance of redeeming the consequences of Waterloo was lost, and the Emperor of their choice, if not ostensibly, was in effect at least arrested, and sent to the sea-coast, like a felon for deportation. Their conduct, however, went clearly to show, that Napoleon was not the free choice of the French people, and especially that he was not the choice of those who termed themselves exclusively the friends of freedom.

Having thus shown how easily they could get rid of the monarch who had called them into political existence, the Chambers applied to the allies, inviting them to give their concurrence to the election of another sovereign, and assist them to build another throne on the quicksand which had just swallowed that of Napoleon. In one respect they were not unreasonably tenacious. They cared little who the sovereign should be, whether Orleans or Orange, the Englishman Wellington or the Cossack Platoff, providing only he should derive no right from any one but themselves; and that they should be at liberty to recall that right when it might please them to do so. And there can be little doubt, that any new sovereign and constitution which could have been made by the assistance of such men, would have again occasioned the commencement of the wild dance of revolution, till like so many mad Dervises, dizzy with the whirl, the French nation would once more have sunk to rest under the iron sway of despotism.

The allied sovereigns viewed these proposals with an evil eye, both in respect to their nature, and to those by whom they were proposed. Of the authorities, the most prudent was the Duke of Otranto, and he had been Fouché of Nantes. Carnot's name was to be found at all the bloody rescripts of Robespierre, in which the conscience of the old decemvir and young count had never found any thing to boggle at. There were many others, distinguished in the Revolutionary days. The language which they held was already assuming the cant of democracy, and though there was among them a large proportion of good and able men, it was not to be forgotten how many of such existed in the first Assembly, for no purpose but to seal the moderation and rationality of their political opinions with their blood. It was a matter of imperious necessity to avoid whatever might give occasion to renew those scenes of shameful recollections, and the sovereigns saw a guarantee against their return, in insisting that Louis XVIII. should remount the throne as its legitimate owner.

LEGITIMACY

The right of legitimacy, or the right of succession, a regulation adopted into the common law of most monarchical constitutions, is borrowed from the analogy of private life, where the eldest son becomes naturally the head and protector of the family upon the decease of the father. While states, indeed, are small – before laws are settled – and when much depends on the personal ability and talents of the monarch – the power, which, for aught we know, may exist among the abstract rights of man, of choosing each chief magistrate after the death of his predecessor, or perhaps more frequently, may be exercised without much inconvenience. But as states become extended, and their constitutions circumscribed and bounded by laws, which leaves less scope and less necessity for the exercise of the sovereign's magisterial functions, men become glad to exchange the licentious privilege of a Tartarian couroultai, or a Polish diet, for the principle of legitimacy; because the chance of a hereditary successor's proving adequate to the duties of his situation, is at least equal to that of a popular election lighting upon a worthy candidate; and because, in the former case, the nation is spared the convulsions occasioned by previous competition and solicitation, and succeeding heart-burnings, factions, civil war, and ruin, uniformly found at last to attend elective monarchies.

The doctrine of legitimacy is peculiarly valuable in a limited monarchy, because it affords a degree of stability otherwise unattainable. The principle of hereditary monarchy, joined to that which declares that the King can do no wrong, provides for the permanence of the executive government, and represses that ambition which would animate so many bosoms, were there a prospect of the supreme sway becoming vacant, or subject to election from time to time. The King's ministers, on the other hand, being responsible for his actions, remain a check, for their own sakes, upon the exercise of his power; and thus provision is made for the correction of all ordinary evils of administration, since, to use an expressive, though vulgar simile, it is better to rectify any occasional deviation from the regular course by changing the driver, than by overturning the carriage.

Such is the principle of legitimacy which was invoked by Louis XVIII., and recognised by the allied sovereigns. But it must not be confounded with the slavish doctrine, that the right thus vested is, by divine origin, indefeasible. The heir-at-law in private life may dissipate by his folly, or forfeit by his crimes, the patrimony which the law conveys to him; and the legitimate monarch may most unquestionably, by departing from the principles of the constitution under which he is called to reign, forfeit for himself, and for his heirs if the legislature shall judge it proper, that crown, which the principle of legitimacy bestowed on him as his birth-right. The penalty of forfeiture is an extreme case, provided, not in virtue of the constitution, which recognises no possible delinquency in the sovereign, but because the constitution has been attacked and infringed upon by the monarch, and therefore can no longer be permitted to afford him shelter. The crimes by which this high punishment is justly incurred, must therefore be of an extraordinary nature, and beyond the reach of those correctives for which the constitution provides, by the punishment of ministers and counsellors. The constitutional buckler of impeccability covers the monarch (personally) for all blameworthy use of his power, providing it is exercised within the limits of the constitution; it is when he stirs beyond it, and not sooner, that it affords no defence for the bosom of a tyrant. A King of Britain, for example, may wage a rash war, or make a disgraceful peace, in the lawful, though injudicious and blameworthy exercise of the power vested in him by the constitution. His advisers, not he himself, shall be called in such a case, to their responsibility. But if, like James II., the sovereign infringes upon, or endeavours to destroy, the constitution itself, it is then that resistance becomes lawful and honourable; and the King is justly held to have forfeited the right which descended to him from his forefathers, by his attempt to encroach on the rights of the subjects.

The principles of hereditary monarchy, of the inviolability of the person of the King, and of the responsibility of ministers, were recognised by the constitutional charter of France. Louis XVIII. was therefore, during the year previous to Buonaparte's return, the lawful sovereign of France, and it remains to be shown by what act of treason to the constitution he had forfeited his right of legitimacy. If the reader will turn back to vol. iv., p. 86, (and we are not conscious of having spared the conduct of the Bourbons,) he will probably be of opinion with us, that the errors of the restored King's government were not only fewer than might have been expected in circumstances so new and difficult, but were of such a nature as an honest, well-meaning, and upright Opposition would soon have checked; he will find that not one of them could be personally attributed to Louis XVIII., and that, far from having incurred the forfeiture of his legitimate rights, he had, during these few months, laid a strong claim to the love, veneration, and gratitude of his subjects. He had fallen a sacrifice, in some degree, to the humours and rashness of persons connected with his family and household – still more to causeless jealousies and unproved doubts, the water-colours which insurrection never lacks to paint her cause with; to the fickleness of the French people, who became tired of his simple, orderly, and peaceful government; but, above all, to the dissatisfaction of a licentious and licensed soldiery, and of clubs of moody banditti, panting for a time of pell-mell havoc and confusion. The forcible expulsion of Louis XVIII., arising from such motives, could not break the solemn compact entered into by France with all Europe, when she received her legitimate monarch from the hand of her clement conquerors, and with him, and for his sake, obtained such conditions of peace as she was in no condition to demand, and would never otherwise have been granted. The King's misfortune, as it arose from no fault of his own, could infer no forfeiture of his vested right. Europe, the virtual guarantee of the treaty of Paris, had also a title, leading back the lawful King in her armed and victorious hand, to require of France his reinstatement in his rights; and the termination which she thus offered to the war was as just and equitable as the conduct of the sovereigns during this brief campaign had been honourable and successful.

To these arguments, an unprejudiced eye could scarcely see any answer; yet the popular party endeavoured to found a pleading against the second restoration of Louis, upon the declaration of the allies. This manifesto had announced, they said, that the purpose of the war was directed against Buonaparte personally, and that it was the intention of the allied sovereigns, when he should be dethroned, to leave the French the free exercise of choice respecting their own internal government.173 The Prince Regent's declaration, in particular, was referred to, as announcing that the treaty of Vienna, which resolved on the dethronement of Napoleon, should not bind the British government to insist upon the restoration of the Bourbon family as an indispensable condition of peace.174 Those who urged this objection did not, or would not consider the nature of the treaty which this explanatory clause referred to. That treaty of Vienna had for its express object the restoration of Louis XVIII., and the Prince Regent adhered to it with the same purpose of making every exertion for bringing about that event. The restrictive clause was only introduced, because his Royal Highness did not intend to bind himself to make that restoration alone the cause of continuing the war to extremity. Many things might have happened to render an absolute engagement of this nature highly inexpedient; but, since none of these did happen, and since the re-establishment of the throne of the Bourbons was, in consequence of the victory of Waterloo, a measure which could be easily accomplished, it necessarily followed, that it was to be accomplished according to the tenor of the treaty of Vienna.

But, even had the sovereigns positively announced in their manifestoes, that the will of the French people should be consulted exclusively, what right had the Legislative Body, assembled by Buonaparte, to assume the character of the French people? They had neither weight nor influence with any party in the state, except by the momentary possession of an authority, which was hardly acknowledged on any side. The fact, that Napoleon's power had ceased to exist, did not legitimate them. On the contrary, flowing from his commission, it must be held as having fallen with his authority. They were either the Chambers summoned by Napoleon, and bound to him as far as oaths and professions could bind them, or they were a body without any pretension whatever to a political character.

La Fayette, indeed, contended that the present representatives of France stood in the same situation as the convention parliaments of England, and the army encamped in Hounslow-heath, at the time of the English Revolution. To have rendered this parallel apt, it required all the peculiar circumstances of justice which attended the great event of 1688. The French should have been able to vindicate the reason of their proceedings by the aggressions of their exiled monarch, and by the will of the nation generally, nay, almost unanimously, expressed in consequence thereof. This, we need not say, they were wholly unable to do. But the English history did afford one example of an assembly, exactly resembling their own, in absence of right, and exuberance of pretension; and that precedent existed when the Rump Parliament contrived to shuffle the cards out of the hands of Richard Cromwell, as the Provisional Commissioners at Paris were endeavouring by legerdemain to convey the authority from Napoleon II. This Rump Parliament also sat for a little time as a government, and endeavoured to settle the constitution upon their own plan, in despite of the whole people of England, who were longing for the restoration of their lawful monarch, as speedily was shown to be the case, when Monk, with an armed force, appeared to protect them in the declaration of their real sentiments. This was the most exact parallel afforded by English history to the situation of the Provisional Commissioners of France; and both they and the Rump Parliament being equally intrusive occupants of the supreme authority, were alike justly deprived of it by the return of the legitimate monarch.

SECOND RESTORATION

While the allied powers were thus desirous that the King of France should obtain possession of a throne which he had never forfeited, they, and England in particular, saw at once the justice and the policy of securing to France every accession of well-regulated freedom, which she had obtained by and through the Revolution, as well as such additional improvements upon her constitution as experience had shown to be desirable. These were pointed out and stipulated for by the celebrated Fouché, who, on this occasion, did much service to his country. Yet he struggled hard, that while the King acknowledged, which he was ready to do, the several benefits, both in point of public feeling and public advantage, which France had derived from the Revolution, the sovereign should make some steps to acknowledge the Revolution itself.175 He contended for the three-coloured banners being adopted, as a matter of the last importance; – in that, somewhat resembling the archfiend in the legends of necromancy, who, when the unhappy persons with whom he deals decline to make over their souls and bodies according to his first request, is humble enough to ask and accept the most petty sacrifices – the paring of the nails, or a single lock of hair, providing it is offered in symbol of homage and devotion. But Louis XVIII. was not thus to be drawn into an incidental and equivocal homologation, as civilians term it, of all the wild work of a period so horrible, which must have been by implication a species of ratification even of the death of his innocent and murdered brother. To preserve and cherish the good which had flowed from the Revolution, was a very different thing from a ratification of the Revolution itself. A tempest may cast rich treasures upon the beach, a tornado may clear the air; but while these benefits are suitably prized and enjoyed, it is surely not requisite that, like ignorant Indians, we should worship the wild surge, and erect altars to the howling of the wind.

The King of France having steadily refused all proposals which went to assign to the government an authority founded on the Revolution, the constitution of France is to be recognised as that of a hereditary monarchy, limited by the Royal Charter, and by the principles of freedom. It thus affords to the other existing monarchies of Europe a guarantee against sudden and dangerous commotion; while in favour of the subject, it extends all the necessary checks against arbitrary sway, and all the suitable provisions for ameliorating and extending the advantages of liberal institutions, as opportunity shall offer, and the expanding light of information shall recommend.

The allies, though their treaty with France was not made in the same humour of romantic generosity which dictated that of 1814, insisted upon no articles which could be considered as dishonourable to that nation. The disjoining from her empire three or four border fortresses was stipulated, in order to render a rapid and successful invasion of Germany or the Netherlands more difficult in future. Large sums of money were also exacted in recompense of the heavy expenses of the allies; but they were not beyond what the wealth of France could readily discharge. A part of her fortresses were also detained by the allies as a species of pledge for the peaceable behaviour of the kingdom; but these were to be restored after a season, and the armies of Europe, which for a time remained within the French territories, were at the same time to be withdrawn. Finally, that splendid Museum, which the right of conquest had collected by the stripping of so many states, was transferred by the same right of conquest, not to those of the allies who had great armies in the field, but to the poor and small states, who had resigned their property to the French under the influence of terror, and received it back from the confederates with wonder and gratitude.

These circumstances were indeed galling to France for the moment; but they were the necessary consequence of the position in which, perhaps rather passively than actively, she had been placed by the Revolution of the Hundred Days. All the prophecies which had been circulated to animate the people against the allies, of their seeking selfish and vindictive objects, or endeavouring to destroy the high national rank which that fair kingdom ought to hold in Europe, were proved to be utterly fallacious. The conquered provinces, as they are called, the acquisitions of Louis XIV., were not rent from the French empire – their colonies were left as at the peace of Paris. The English did not impose on them an unfavourable treaty of commerce, which Napoleon affirmed was their design, and the omission to insist on which he afterwards considered as a culpable neglect of British interests by the English ministers. France was left, as she ought to be, altogether independent, and splendidly powerful.

Neither were the predictions concerning the stability of the new royal government less false than had been the vaticinations respecting the purposes of the allies. Numbers prophesied the downfall of the Bourbon dynasty. It was with difficulty that the political augurs would allow that it might last as long as the life of Louis XVIII. He now sleeps with his fathers; and his successor, generally beloved for his courteous manners, and respected for his integrity and honour, reigns over a free and flourishing people. Time, that grand pacificator, is daily abating the rancour of party, and removing from the scene those of all sides, who, unaccustomed to the general and impartial exercise of the laws, were ready to improve every advantage, and debate every political question, sword in hand, or, as they themselves express it, par voie du fait. The guarantee for the permanence of their freedom, is the only subject on which reasonable Frenchmen of the present day are anxious. We trust there is no occasion for their solicitude. Fatal indeed would be the advice which should induce the French Government to give the slightest subject for just complaints. The ultra Royalist, the Jacobin enragé, are gradually cooled by age, or fate has removed them from the scene. Those who succeed, having never seen the sword drawn, will be less apt to hurry into civil strife; and the able and well-intentioned on either side, while they find room in the Chambers for expressing their difference of opinion, will acquire the habit of enduring contradiction with candour and good-humour, and be led to entertain the wholesome doubt, whether, in the imperfect state of the human intellect, it is possible for one class of statesmen to be absolutely and uniformly right, and their opponents, in all instances, decidedly wrong. The French will learn, that it is from freedom of debate – from an appeal, not to the arms, but to the understandings of the people – by the collision of intellect, not the strife of brutal violence, that the political institutions of this ingenious people are in future to be improved.