It becomes my duty here to express my regret for an error which I ought to have endeavoured more urgently to prevent. In this reform, the opinion and situation of M. de Fontanes were not sufficiently estimated. As head of the Imperial University, he had rendered such eminent services to public instruction, that the title of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour was far from being a sufficient compensation for the retirement which the new system rendered, in his case, desirable and almost necessary.

But neither reform in public education, nor any other reform, excited much interest at that moment, when France was entirely given up to different considerations. Having scarcely entered on the new system, a sudden impression of alarm and mistrust began to rise and expand from day to day. This system was liberty, with its uncertainties, its contests, and its perils. No one was accustomed to liberty, and liberty contented no one. From the Restoration, the men of old France promised themselves the ascendency; from the Charter, new France expected security. Both were dissatisfied. They found themselves drawn up in presence of each other, with their opposing passions and pretensions. It was a sad disappointment for the Royalists to find the King victorious without their being included in the triumph; and it was a bitter necessity which reduced the men of the Revolution to the defensive after they had so long domineered. Both parties felt surprised and irritated at their position, as equally an insult to their dignity and an attack upon their rights. In their irritation, they gave themselves up, in words and projects, to all the fantasies and transports of their wishes and apprehensions. Amongst the rich and powerful of the old classes, many indulged, towards the influential members of the new, in menaces and insults. At the Court, in the drawing-rooms of Paris, and much more in the provinces, by newspapers, pamphlets, and conversation, and in the daily conduct of their private lives, the nobles and the citizens, the clergy and the laity, the emigrants and the purchasers of national property, allowed their animosities, their ill humour, their dreams of hope and fear, to exhibit themselves without disguise. This was nothing more than the natural and inevitable consequence of the extreme novelty of the system which the Charter, seriously interpreted and exercised, had suddenly introduced into France. During the Revolution there was contest; under the Empire silence; but the Restoration introduced liberty into the bosom of peace. In the general inexperience and susceptibility, the excitement and stir of freedom amounted to civil war on the eve of re-commencement.

To meet the difficulties of such a state of things, to preserve at the same time liberty and peace, to cure the wounds without restraining the blows, no Government could have been too strong or too able. Louis XVIII. and his advisers were unequal to the task. With regard to a liberal system, they were neither more experienced nor inured than France herself. Their acts appeared to be regulated by no steady conviction: they believed that the Charter would check the birth of discontent; but when discontent manifested itself rather vehemently, they hastened to calm it down by abandoning or modifying the measures through which it had been excited. The celebrated rescript of Count Beugnot,[7] on the observance of Sundays and religious festivals, ended in an abortive law which never came into operation. The offensive expressions of Count Ferrand, on introducing to the Chamber of Deputies the bill for the restitution of unsold estates to their old proprietors,[8] was loudly disavowed, not only in the speeches, but in the resolutions and conduct of the Government in that matter. In reality, the interests which imagined themselves threatened were in no danger whatever; and in the midst of the alarms and remonstrances of France, the King and his principal ministers were much more inclined to yield than to contend. But having performed this act of constitutional wisdom, they believed themselves emancipated from all care, and relapsed back into their old tastes and habits, desirous also to live in peace with their ancient and familiar friends. It was indeed but a modified power, which attached importance to its oaths, and conceived no formidable designs against the new rights and interests of the country; but it was also an authority without leading vigour, isolated and a stranger in its own kingdom, divided and embarrassed within itself, weak with its enemies, weak with its friends, seeking only for personal security in repose, and called upon hourly to deal with a stubborn and restless people, who had suddenly passed from the rugged shocks of revolution and war to the difficult exercise of liberty.

Under the prolonged influence of this liberty, such a Government, without obstinate prejudices, and disposed to follow public opinion when clearly expressed, might have corrected while strengthening itself, and from day to day have become more competent to its task. But this required time and the concurrence of the country. The country, discontented and unsettled, neither knew how to wait nor assist. Of all the knowledge necessary to a free people, the most essential point is to learn how to bear what displeases them, that they may preserve the advantages they possess, and acquire those they desire.

There has been much discussion as to what plots and conspirators overthrew the Bourbons, and brought back Napoleon, on the 20th of March, 1815,—a question of inferior importance, and interesting only as an historical curiosity. It is certain that from 1814 to 1815 there existed in the army and with the remnants of the Revolution, amongst generals and conventionalists, many plans and secret practices against the Restoration, and in favour of a new Government,—either the Empire, a regency, the Duke of Orleans, or a republic. Marshal Davoust promised his support to the Imperial party, and Fouche offered his to all. But if Napoleon had remained motionless at the island of Elba, these revolutionary projects would, in all probability, have successively failed, as did those of the Generals d'Erlon, Lallemand, and Lefevre Desnouettes, even so late as the month of March. The fatuity of the contrivers of conspiracy is incalculable; and when the event seems to justify them, they attribute to themselves the result which has been achieved by mightier and much more complicated causes than their machinations. It was Napoleon alone who dethroned the Bourbons in 1815, by calling up, in his own person, the fanatical devotion of the army, and the revolutionary instincts of the popular masses.

However tottering might be the monarchy lately restored, it required that great man and a combination of these great social powers to subvert it. Stupefied and intimidated, France left events to their course, without opposition or confidence. Napoleon adopted this opinion, with his admirable penetration:—"They allowed me to arrive," he said to Count Mollien, "as they permitted the others to depart."

Four times in less than half a century we have seen kings traverse their realms as fugitives. Different enemies have described, with evident pleasure, their helplessness and destitution in flight,—a mean and senseless gratification, which no one, in the present day, has a right to indulge. The retreats of Napoleon in 1814 and 1815 were neither more brilliant nor less bitter than those of Louis XVIII. on the 20th of March, 1815, of Charles X. in 1830, and of Louis Philippe in 1848. Each state of greatness endured the same degradation; every party has the same need of modesty and mutual respect. I myself, as much as any participator, was impressed, on the 20th of March, 1815, with the blindness, the hesitation, the imbecility, the misery of every description, to which that terrible explosion gave birth. It would afford me no pleasure, and would lead to no advantage, to repeat them. People are too much inclined at present to conceal their own weaknesses under a display of the deficiencies of royalty. I prefer recording that neither royal nor national dignity were wanting at that epoch in noble representatives. The Duchess d'Angouleme, at Bordeaux, evinced courage equal to her misfortunes, and M. Laine, as president of the Chamber of Deputies, protested fearlessly on the 28th of March, in the name of justice and liberty, against the event at that time fully accomplished, and which no longer encountered, through the wide extent of France, any resistance beyond the solitary accents of his voice.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Included in the "Historic Documents," are two letters addressed to me by the Abbe de Montesquiou in 1815 and 1816, which furnish an idea of my intimacy with him, and show the natural and amiable turn of his mind. (Historic Documents, No. IV.)]

[Footnote 5: 'Thoughts upon the Liberty of the Press,' 52 pages, 8vo, Paris, 1814. Amongst the "Historic Documents" at the end of this volume, some passages from this pamphlet are inserted, which indicate clearly its object and character. (Historic Documents, No. V.)]

[Footnote 6: Amongst the "Historic Documents" I include the text of this decree, and the report to the King which explains its object and bearing. (Historic Documents, No. VI.)]

[Footnote 7: June 7th, 1814.]

[Footnote 8: September 13th, 1814.]



CHAPTER III.

THE HUNDRED DAYS.

1815.

I IMMEDIATELY LEAVE THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR, TO RESUME MY LECTURES.—UNSETTLED FEELING OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES ON THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON.—ITS REAL CAUSES.—SENTIMENTS OF FOREIGN NATIONS AND GOVERNMENTS TOWARDS NAPOLEON.—APPARENT RECONCILIATION, BUT REAL STRUGGLE, BETWEEN NAPOLEON AND THE LIBERALS.—THE FEDERATES.—CARNOT AND FOUCHE.—DEMONSTRATION OF LIBERTY DURING THE HUNDRED DAYS, EVEN IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE.—LOUIS XVIII. AND HIS COUNCIL AT GHENT.—THE CONGRESS AND M. DE TALLEYRAND AT VIENNA.—I GO TO GHENT ON THE PART OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALIST COMMITTEE AT PARIS.—MY MOTIONS AND OPINIONS DURING THIS JOURNEY.—STATE OF PARTIES AT GHENT.—MY CONVERSATION WITH LOUIS XVIII.—M. DE BLACAS.—M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.—M. DE TALLEYRAND RETURNS FROM VIENNA.—LOUIS XVIII. RE-ENTERS FRANCE.—INTRIGUE PLANNED AT MONS AND DEFEATED AT CAMBRAY.—BLINDNESS AND IMBECILITY OF THE CHAMBER OF REPRESENTATIVES.—MY OPINION RESPECTING THE ADMISSION OF FOUCHE INTO THE KING'S CABINET.

The King having quitted, and the Emperor having re-entered Paris, I resumed my literary pursuits, determined to keep aloof from all secret intrigue, all useless agitation, and to occupy myself with my historical labours and studies, not without a lively regret that the political career which had scarcely opened to me, should be so suddenly closed.[9] It is true I did not believe that I was excluded beyond the possibility of return. Not but that the miraculous success of Napoleon had convinced me there was a power within him which, after witnessing his fall, I was far from believing. Never was personal greatness displayed with more astounding splendour; never had an act more audacious, or better calculated in its audacity, arrested the imagination of nations. Neither was external support wanting to the man who relied so much on himself, and on himself alone.

The army identified itself with him, with an enthusiastic and blind devotion. Amongst the popular masses, a revolutionary and warlike spirit, hatred of the old system and national pride, rose up at his appearance and rushed madly to his aid. Accompanied by fervent worshippers, he re-ascended a throne abandoned to him on his approach. But by the side of this overwhelming power, there appeared almost simultaneously a proportionate weakness. He who had traversed France in triumph, and who by personal influence had swept all with him, friends and enemies, re-entered Paris at night, exactly as Louis XVIII. had quitted that capital, his carriage surrounded by dragoons, and only encountering on his passage a scanty and moody populace. Enthusiasm had accompanied him throughout his journey; but at its termination he found coldness, doubt, widely disseminated mistrust, and cautious reserve; France divided, and Europe irrevocably hostile.

The upper, and particularly the middle classes, have often been reproached with their indifference and selfishness. It has been said that they think only of their personal interests, and are incapable of public principle and patriotism. I am amongst those who believe that nations, and the different classes that constitute nations—and, above all, nations that desire to be free—can only live in security and credit under a condition of moral perseverance and energy; with feelings of devotion to their cause, and with the power of opposing courage and self-sacrifice to danger. But devotion does not exclude sound sense, nor courage intelligence. It would be too convenient for ambitious pretenders, to have blind and fearless attachment ever ready at their command. It is often the case with popular feeling, that the multitude, army or people, ignorant, unreflecting, and short-sighted, become too frequently, from generous impulse, the instruments and dupes of individual selfishness, much more perverse and more indifferent to their fate than that of which the wealthy and enlightened orders are so readily accused. Napoleon, perhaps more than any other eminent leader of his class, has exacted from military and civil devotion the most trying proofs; and when, on the 21st of June, 1815, his brother Lucien, in the Chamber of Representatives, reproached France with not having upheld him with sufficient ardour and constancy, M. de la Fayette exclaimed, with justice: "By what right is the nation accused of want of devotion and energy towards the Emperor Napoleon? It has followed him to the burning sands of Egypt, and the icy deserts of Moscow; in fifty battle-fields, in disaster as well as in triumph, in the course of ten years, three millions of Frenchmen have perished in his service. We have done enough for him!"

Great and small, nobility, citizens, and peasants, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, generals and private soldiers, the French people in a mass had, at least, done and suffered enough in Napoleon's cause to give them the right of refusing to follow him blindly, without first examining whether he was leading them, to safety or to ruin.

The unsettled feeling of the middle classes in 1815 was a legitimate and patriotic disquietude. What they wanted, and what they had a right to demand, for the advantage of the entire nation as well as for their own peculiar interests, was that peace and liberty should be secured to them; but they had good reason to question the power of Napoleon to accomplish these objects.

Their doubts materially increased when they ascertained the Manifesto of the Allied Powers assembled at the Congress of Vienna, their declaration of March 13th, and their treaty of the 25th. Every reflecting mind of the present day must see, that unless the nation had obstinately closed its eyes, it could not delude itself as to the actual situation of the Emperor Napoleon, and his prospects for the future. Not only did the Allied Powers, in proclaiming him the enemy and disturber of the peace of the whole world, declare war against him to the last extremity, and engage themselves to unite their strength in this common cause, but they professed themselves ready to afford to the King of France and the French nation the assistance necessary to re-establish public tranquillity; and they expressly invited Louis XVIII. to give his adhesion to their treaty of March 25th. They laid it down also as a principle, that the work of general pacification and reconstruction accomplished in Paris by the treaty of the 30th of May, 1814, between the King of France and confederated Europe, was in no degree nullified by the violent outbreak which had recently burst forth; and that they should maintain it against Napoleon, whose return and sudden success—the fruit of military and revolutionary excitement—could establish no European right whatever, and could never be considered by them as the prevailing and true desire of France:—a solemn instance of the implacable judgments that, assisted by God and time, great errors draw down upon their authors!

The partisans of Napoleon might dispute the opinion of the Allied Powers as to the wishes of France; they might believe that, for the honour of her independence, she owed him her support; but they could not pretend that foreign nations should not also have their independence at heart, nor persuade them that, with Napoleon master of France, they could ever be secure. No promises, no treaties, no embarrassments, no reverses, could give them confidence in his future moderation. His character and his history deprived his word of all credit.

It was not alone governments, kings, and ministers who showed themselves thus firmly determined to oppose Napoleon's return; foreign nations were even more distrustful and more violent against him. He had not alone overwhelmed them with wars, taxes, invasions, and dismemberments; he had insulted as much as he had oppressed them. The Germans, especially, bore him undying hatred. They burned to revenge the injuries of the Queen of Prussia, and the contempt with which their entire race had been treated. The bitter taunts in which he had often indulged when speaking of them were repeated in every quarter, spread abroad and commented on, probably with exaggeration readily credited. After the campaign in Russia, the Emperor was conversing, one day, on the loss sustained by the French army during that terrible struggle. The Duke of Vicenza estimated it at 200,000 men. "No, no," interrupted Napoleon, "you are mistaken; it was not so much." But, after considering a moment, he continued, "And yet you can scarcely be wrong; but there were a great many Germans amongst them." The Duke of Vicenza himself related this contemptuous remark to me; and the Emperor Napoleon must have been pleased both with the calculation and reply, for on the 28th of June, 1813, at Dresden, in a conversation which has since become celebrated, he held the same language to the Prime Minister of the first of the German Powers, to M. de Metternich himself. Who can estimate the extent of indignation roused by such words and actions, in the souls not only of the heads of the government and army—- amongst the Steins, Gneisenaus, Bluechers, and Muefflings—but in those of the entire nation? The universal feeling of the people of Germany was as fully displayed at the Congress of Vienna as the foresight of their diplomatists and the will of their sovereigns.

Napoleon, in quitting Elba, deceived himself as to the disposition of Europe towards him. Did he entertain the hope of treating with and dividing the Coalition? This has been often asserted, and it may be true; for the strongest minds seldom recognize all the difficulties of their situation. But, once arrived at Paris, and informed of the proceedings of the Congress, he beheld his position in its true light, and his clear and comprehensive judgment at once grappled with it in all its bearings. His conversations with the thinking men who were then about him, M. Mole and the Duke of Vicenza, confirm this opinion. He sought still to keep the public in the uncertainty that he himself no longer felt. The Manifesto of the Congress of the 13th of March was not published in the 'Moniteur' until the 5th of April, and the treaty of the 25th of March only on the 3rd of May. Napoleon added long commentaries to these documents, to prove that it was impossible they could express the final intentions of Europe. At Vienna, both by solemnly official letters and secret emissaries, he made several attempts to renew former relations with the Emperor Francis, his father-in-law, to obtain the return of his wife and son, to promote disunion, or at least mistrust, between the Emperor Alexander and the sovereigns of England and Austria, and to bring back to his side Prince Metternich, and even M. de Talleyrand himself. He probably did not expect much from these advances, and felt little surprise at not finding, in family ties and feelings, a support against political interests and pledges. He understood and accepted without a sentiment of anger against any one, and perhaps without self-reproach, the situation to which the events of his past life had reduced him. It was that of a desperate gamester, who, though completely ruined, still plays on, alone, against a host of combined adversaries, a desperate game, with no other chance of success than one of those unforeseen strokes that the most consummate talent could never achieve, but that Fortune sometimes bestows upon her favourites.

It has been, pretended, even by some of his warmest admirers, that at this period the genius and energy of Napoleon had declined; and they sought in his tendency to corpulence, in his attacks of languor, in his long slumbers, the explanation of his ill fortune. I believe the reproach to be unfounded, and the pretext frivolous. I can discover in the mind or actions of Napoleon during the hundred days, no symptoms of infirmity; I find, in both, his accustomed superiority. The causes of his ultimate failure were of a deeper cast: he was not then, as he had long been, upheld and backed by general opinion, and the necessity of security and order felt throughout a great nation; he attempted, on the contrary, a mischievous work, a work inspired only by his own passions and personal wants, rejected by the morality and good sense, as well as by the true interests of France. He engaged in this utterly egotistical enterprise with contradictory means, and in an impossible position. From thence came the reverses he suffered, and the evil he produced.

It presented a strange spectacle to intelligent spectators, and one slightly tinged with the ridiculous, on both sides, to see Napoleon and the heads of the Liberal party arranged against each other, not to quarrel openly, but mutually to persuade, seduce, and control. A superficial glance sufficed to convince that there was little sincerity either in their dispute or reconciliation. Both well knew that the real struggle lay in other quarters, and that the question upon which their fate depended would be settled elsewhere than in these discussions.

If Napoleon had triumphed over Europe, assuredly he would not long have remained the rival of M. de La Fayette and the disciple of Benjamin Constant; but when he lost the day of Waterloo, M. de La Fayette and his friends set themselves to work to complete his overthrow.

From necessity and calculation, the true thoughts and passions of men are sometimes buried in the recesses of their hearts; but they quickly mount to the surface as soon as an opportunity occurs for their reappearing with success. Frequently did Napoleon resign himself, with infinite pliability, shrewdness, and perception, to the farce that he and the Liberals were playing together; at one moment gently, though obstinately, defending his old policy and real convictions; and at another yielding them up with good grace, but without positive renunciation, as if out of complaisance to opinions which he hesitated to acknowledge. But now and then, whether from premeditation or impatience, he violently resumed his natural character; and the despot, who was at once the child and conqueror of the Revolution, reappeared in complete individuality.

When an attempt was made to induce him to insert, in the Additional Act to the Constitutions of the Empire, the abolition of the confiscation proclaimed by the Charter of Louis XVIII., he exclaimed passionately, "They drive me into a path that is not my own; they enfeeble and enchain me. France will seek, and find me no longer. Her opinion of me was once excellent; it is now execrable. France demands what has become of the old arm of the Emperor, the arm which she requires to control Europe. Why talk to me of innate virtue, of abstract justice, of natural laws? The first law is necessity; the first principle of justice is public safety ... Every day has its evil, every circumstance its law, every man his own nature; mine is not that of an angel. When peace is made, we shall see." On another occasion, on this same question of preparing the Additional Act, and with reference to the institution of an hereditary peerage, he yielded to the excursive rapidity of his mind, taking the subject by turns under different aspects, and giving unlimited vent to contradictory observations and opinions. "Hereditary peerage," said he, "is opposed to the present state of public opinion; it will wound the pride of the army, deceive the expectations of the partisans of equality, and raise against myself a thousand individual claims. Where do you wish me to look for the elements of that aristocracy which the peerage demands?... Nevertheless a constitution without an aristocracy resembles a balloon lost in the air. A ship is guided because there are two powers which balance each other; the helm finds a fulcrum. But a balloon is the sport of a single power; it has no fulcrum. The wind carries it where it will, and control is impossible."

When the question of principle was decided, and the nomination of his hereditary house of peers came under consideration, Napoleon was anxious to include many names from amongst the old Royalists; but after mature reflection, he renounced this idea, "not," says Benjamin Constant, "without regret," and exclaimed, "We must have them sooner or later; but memories are too recent. Let us wait until after the battle—they will be with me if I prove the strongest."

He would thus willingly have deferred all questions, and have done nothing until he came back a conqueror; but with the Restoration liberty once more re-entered France, and he himself had again woke up the Revolution. He found himself in conflict with these two forces, constrained to tolerate, and endeavouring to make use of them, until the moment should arrive when he might conquer both.

He had no sooner adopted all the pledges of liberty that the Additional Act borrowed from the Charter, than he found he had still to deal with another ardent desire, another article of faith, of the Liberals, still more repugnant to his nature. They demanded an entirely new constitution, which should confer on him the Imperial crown by the will of the nation, and on the conditions which that will prescribed. This was, in fact, an attempt to remodel, in the name of the sovereign people, the entire form of government, institutional and dynastic; an arrogant and chimerical mania which, a year before, had possessed the Imperial Senate when they recalled Louis XVIII., and which has vitiated in their source nearly all the political theories of our time.

Napoleon, while incessantly proclaiming the supremacy of the people, viewed it in a totally different light. "You want to deprive me of my past," said he, to his physicians; "I desire to preserve it. What becomes then of my reign of eleven years? I think I have some right to call it mine; and Europe knows that I have. The new constitution must be joined to the old one; it will thus acquire the sanction of many years of glory and success."

He was right: the abdication demanded of him was more humiliating than that of Fontainebleau; for, in restoring the throne to him, they at the same time compelled him to deny himself and his immortal history. By refusing this, he performed an act of rational pride; and in the preamble as well as in the name of the Additional Act, he upheld the old Empire, while he consented to modified reforms. When the day of promulgation arrived, on the 1st of June, at the Champ de Mai, his fidelity to the Imperial traditions was less impressive and less dignified. He chose to appear before the people with all the outward pomp of royalty, surrounded by the princes of his family arrayed in garments of white taffeta, by the great dignitaries, in orange-coloured mantles, by his chamberlains and pages:—a childish attachment to palatial splendour, which accorded ill with the state of public affairs, and deeply disgusted public feeling, when, in the midst of this glittering pageant, twenty thousand soldiers were seen to march past and salute the Emperor, on their road to death.

A few days before, a very different ceremony had revealed another embarrassing inconsistency in the revived Empire. While discussing with the Liberal aristocracy his new constitution, Napoleon endeavoured to win over and subdue, while he flattered, the revolutionary democrats. The population of the Faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marceau became excited, and conceived the idea of forming themselves into a federation, as their fathers had done, and of demanding from the Emperor leaders and arms. They obtained their desire; but they were no longer Federates, as in 1792; they were now called Confederates, in the hope that, by a small alteration of name, earlier reminiscences might be effaced. A police regulation minutely settled the order of their progress through the streets, provided against confusion, and arranged the ceremonial of their introduction to the Emperor, in the courtyard of the Tuileries. They presented an address, which was long and heavy to extreme tediousness. He thanked them by the name of "federated soldiers" (soldats federes), carefully impressing upon them, himself, the character in which it suited him to regard them. The next morning, the 'Journal de l'Empire' contained the following paragraph:—"The most perfect order was maintained, from the departure of the Confederates until their return; but in several places we heard with pain the Emperor's name mingled with songs which recall a too memorable epoch." This was being rather severely scrupulous on such an occasion.

Some days later, I happened to pass through the garden of the Tuileries. A hundred of these Federates, shabby enough in appearance, had assembled under one of the balconies of the palace, shouting, "Long live the Emperor!" and trying to induce him to show himself. It was long before he complied; but at length a window opened, the Emperor came forward, and waved his hand to them; but almost instantly the window was re-closed, and I distinctly saw Napoleon retire, shrugging his shoulders; vexed, no doubt, at being obliged to lend himself to demonstrations so repugnant in their nature, and so unsatisfactory in their limited extent.

He was desirous of giving more than one pledge to the revolutionary party. Before reviewing their battalions in the court of his palace, he had taken into council the oldest and most celebrated of their leaders; but I scarcely think he expected from them any warm co-operation. Carnot, an able officer, a sincere republican, and as honest a man as an idle fanatic can possibly be, could not fail to make a bad Minister of the Interior; for he possessed neither of the two qualities essential to this important post,—knowledge of men, and the power of inspiring and directing them otherwise than by general maxims and routine.

Napoleon knew better than anybody else how Fouche regulated the police,—for himself first, and for his own personal power; next for the authority that employed him, and just as long as he found greater security or advantage in serving than in betraying that authority. I only met the Duke of Otranto twice, and had but two short conversations with him. No man ever so thoroughly gave me the idea of fearless, ironical, cynical indifference, of imperturbable self-possession combined with an inordinate love of action and prominence, and of a fixed resolution to stop at nothing that might promote success, not from any settled design, but according to the plan or chance of the moment. He had acquired from his long associations as a Jacobin proconsul, a kind of audacious independence; and remained a hardened pupil of the Revolution, while, at the same time, he became an unscrupulous implement of the Government and the Court. Napoleon assuredly placed no confidence in such a man, and knew well that, in selecting him as a minister, he would have to watch more than he could employ him. But it was necessary that the revolutionary flag should float clearly over the Empire under its proper name; and he therefore preferred to endure the presence of Carnot and Fouche in his cabinet, rather than to leave them without, to murmur or conspire with certain sections of his enemies. At the moment of his return, and during the first weeks of the resuscitated Empire, he probably reaped from this double selection the advantage that he anticipated; but when the dangers and difficulties of his situation manifested themselves, when he came to action with the distrustful Liberals within, and with Europe without,—Carnot and Fouche became additional dangers and difficulties in his path. Carnot, without absolute treachery, served him clumsily and coldly; for in nearly all emergencies and questions he inclined much more to the Opposition than to the Emperor; but Fouche betrayed him indefinitely, whispering and arguing in an under tone, of his approaching downfall, with all who might by any possible chance happen to be his successors; just as an indifferent physician discourses by the bedside of a patient who has been given over.

Even amongst his most trusted and most devoted adherents, Napoleon no longer found, as formerly, implicit faith and obedient temperaments, ready to act when and how he might please to direct. Independence of mind and a feeling of personal responsibility had resumed, even in his nearest circle, their scruples and their predominance. Fifteen days after his arrival in Paris, he summoned his Grand Marshal, General Bertrand, and presented to him, for his counter-signature, the decree dated from Lyons, in which he ordered the trials and sequestration of property of the Prince de Talleyrand, the Duke of Ragusa, the Abbe de Montesquiou, M. Bellard, and nine other persons, who in 1814, before the abdication, had contributed to his fall. General Bertrand refused. "I am astonished," said the Emperor, "at your making such objections; this severity is necessary for the good of the State." "I do not believe it, Sire." "But I do, and I alone have the right to judge. I have not asked your concurrence, but your signature, which is a mere matter of form, and cannot compromise you in the least." "Sire, a minister who countersigns the decree of his sovereign becomes morally responsible. Your Majesty has declared by proclamation that you granted a general amnesty. I countersigned that with all my heart; I will not countersign the decree which revokes it."

Napoleon urged and cajoled in vain; Bertrand remained inflexible, the decree appeared without his signature: and Napoleon might, even on the instant, have convinced himself that the Grand Marshal was not the only dissentient; for, as he crossed the apartment in which his aides-de-camp were assembled, M. de La Bedoyere said, loud enough to be overheard, "If the reign of proscriptions and sequestrations recommences, all will soon be at an end."

When liberty reaches this point in the interior of the palace, it may be presumed that it reigns predominantly without. After several weeks of stupor, it became, in fact, singularly bold and universal. Not only did civil war spring up in the western departments, not only were flagrant acts of resistance or hostility committed in several parts of the country, and in important towns, by men of consequence,—but everywhere, and particularly in Paris, people thought, and uttered their thoughts without reserve; in public places as well as in private drawing-rooms, they went to and fro, expressing hopes and engaging in hostile plots, as if they were lawful and certain of success; journals and pamphlets, increased daily in number and virulence, and were circulated almost without opposition or restraint. The warm friends and attached servants of the Emperor testified their surprise and indignation.

Fouche pointed out the mischief, in his official reports to Napoleon, and requested his concurrence in taking measures of repression. The 'Moniteur' published these reports; and the measures were decreed. Several arrests and prosecutions took place, but without vigour or efficacy. From high to low, the greater portion of the agents of government had neither zeal in their cause, nor confidence in their strength. Napoleon was aware of this, and submitted, as to a necessity of the moment, to the unlicensed freedom of his opponents, maintaining, without doubt, in his own heart, the opinion he had declared aloud on a previous occasion,—"I shall have them all with me if I prove the strongest."

I question whether he appreciated justly, and at its true value, one of the causes, a hidden but powerful one, of the feebleness that immediately succeeded his great success. Notwithstanding the widely-spread discontent, uneasiness, mistrust, and anger that the Government of the Restoration had excited, a universal feeling soon sprang up, that there was not enough to justify a revolution, the opposition of an armed force against authority legally established, or the involvement of the country in the dangers to which it was exposed. The army had been drawn towards its old chief by a strong sentiment of attachment and generous devotion, rather than from views of personal interest; the army, too, was national and popular; but nothing could change the nature of acts or the meaning of words. The violation of an oath, desertion with arms in their hands, the sudden passing over from one camp to another, have always been condemned by honour as well as duty, civil or military, and denominated treason. Individuals, nations, or armies, men under the influence of a controlling passion, may contemn, at the first moment, or perhaps do not feel the moral impression which naturally attaches itself to their deeds; but it never fails to present itself, and, when seconded by the warnings of prudence or the blows of misfortune, it soon regains its empire.

It was the evil destiny of the Government of the Hundred Days that the influence of moral opinion ranged itself on the side of its adversaries the Royalists; and that the conscience of the nation, clearly or obscurely, spontaneously or reluctantly, justified the severe judgments to which its origin had given rise.

I and my friends attentively watched the progress of the Emperor's affairs and of the public temper. We soon satisfied ourselves that Napoleon would fall, and that Louis XVIII. would re-ascend the throne. While this was our impression of the future, we felt hourly more convinced that, from the deplorable state into which the enterprise of the Hundred Days had plunged France, abroad and at home, the return of Louis XVIII. would afford her the best prospect of restoring a regular government within, peace without, and the reassumption of her proper rank in Europe. In public life, duty and reason equally dictate to us to encourage no self-delusion as to what produces evil; but to adopt the remedy firmly, however bitter it may be, and at whatever sacrifice it may demand. I had taken no active part in the first Restoration; but I concurred, without hesitation, in the attempts of my friends to establish the second under the most favourable conditions for preserving the dignity, liberty, and repose of France.

Our tidings from Ghent gave us much uneasiness. Acts and institutions, all the problems of principle or expediency which we flattered ourselves had been solved in 1814, were again brought forward. The struggle had recommenced between the Constitutional Royalists and the partisans of absolute power, between the Charter and the old system. We often smile ourselves, and seek to make others smile, when we revert to the discussions, rival pretensions, projects, hopes, and fears which agitated this small knot of exiles, gathered round an impotent and throneless monarch. Such an indulgence is neither rational nor dignified. What matters it whether the theatre be great or small, whether the actors fail or succeed, or whether the casualties of human life are displayed with imposing grandeur or contemptible meanness? The true measurement lies in the subjects discussed and the future destinies prepared. The question in debate at Ghent was how France should be governed when this aged King, without state or army, should be called on a second time to interpose between her and Europe. The problem and the solution in perspective were sufficiently important to occupy the minds of reflecting men and honest citizens.

The intelligence from Vienna was no less momentous. Not that in reality there was either doubt or hesitation in the plans or union of the Allied Powers. Fouche, who had for some time been in friendly correspondence with Prince Metternich, made many overtures to him which the Chancellor of Austria did not absolutely reject. Every possible modification which promised a government to France was permitted to suggest itself. All were discussed in the cabinets or drawing-rooms of the Ministers, and even in the conferences of the Congress. In these questions were included, Napoleon II. and a Regency, the Duke of Orleans, and the Prince of Orange. The English Ministry, speaking with the authority of Parliament, announced that they had no intention of carrying on war merely for the purpose of imposing any particular form of government or dynasty on France; and the Austrian Cabinet seconded this declaration. But these were only personal reserves, or an apparent compliance with circumstances, or methods of obtaining correct knowledge, or mere topics of conversation, or the anticipation of extreme cases to which the leaders of European politics never expected to be reduced. Diplomacy abounds in acts and propositions of little moment or value, which it neither denies nor acknowledges; but they exercise no real influence on the true convictions, intents, and labours of the directors of government.

Without wishing to proclaim it aloud, or to commit themselves by formal and public declarations, the leading kingdoms of Europe, from principle, interest, or honour, looked upon their cause at this period as allied, in France, with that of the House of Bourbon. It was near Louis XVIII. in his exile, that their ambassadors continued to reside; and with all the European Governments, the diplomatic agents of Louis XVIII. represented France. By the example and under the guidance of M. de Talleyrand, all these agents, in 1815, remained firm to the Royal cause, either from fidelity or foresight, and satisfied themselves, with him, that in that cause lay final success.

But, side by side with this general disposition of Europe in favour of the House of Bourbon, a balancing danger presented itself,—an apprehension that the sovereigns and diplomatists assembled at Vienna had become convinced that the Bourbons were incapable of governing France. They had all, for twenty years, treated with and known France such as the Revolution and the Empire had made her. They still feared her, and deeply pondered over her position. The more uneasy they became at her leaning towards anarchy and war, the more they judged it indispensable that the ruling power should be placed in the hands of considerate, able, and prudent men, capable of understanding their functions, and of making themselves understood in their turn. For a considerable time they had ceased to retain any confidence in the companions of exile and courtiers of Louis XVIII.; and late experience had redoubled their mistrust. They looked upon the old Royalist party as infinitely more capable of ruining kings than of governing states.

A personal witness to these conflicting doubts of the foreign Powers as to the future they were tracing themselves, M. de Talleyrand, at Vienna, had also his own misgivings. Amidst all the varied transformations of his life and politics, and although the last change had made him the representative of the ancient royalty, he did not desire, and never had desired, to separate himself entirely from the Revolution; he was linked to it by too many decided acts, and had acknowledged and served it under too many different forms, not to feel himself defeated when the Revolution was subdued. Without being revolutionary either by nature or inclination, it was in that camp that he had grown up and prospered, and he could not desert it with safety. There are certain defections which skilful egotism takes care to avoid; but the existing state of public affairs, and his own particular position, pressed conjointly and weightily upon him at this juncture. What would become of the revolutionary cause and its partisans under the second Restoration, now imminently approaching? What would even be the fate of this second Restoration if it could not govern and uphold itself better than its predecessor? Under the second, as under the first, M. de Talleyrand played a distinguished part, and rendered important services to the Royal cause. What would be the fruit of this as regarded himself? Would his advice be taken, and his co-operation be accepted? Would the Abbe de Montesquiou and M. de Blacas still be his rivals? I do not believe he would have hesitated, at this epoch, as to which cause he should espouse; but feeling his own power, and knowing that the Bourbons could scarcely dispense with him, he allowed his predilections for the past and his doubts for the future to betray themselves.

Well informed of all these facts, and of the dispositions of the principal actors, the Constitutional Royalists who were then gathered round M. Royer-Collard, considered it their duty to lay before Louis XVIII., without reserve, their opinions of the state of affairs, and of the line of conduct it behoved him to adopt. It was not only desirable to impress on him the necessity of perseverance in a system of constitutional government, and in the frank acknowledgment of the state of social feeling in France, such as the new times had made it; but it was also essential to enter into the question of persons, and to tell the King that the presence of M. de Blacas near him would militate strongly against his cause; to request the dismissal of that favourite, and to call for some explicit act or public declaration, clearly indicating the intentions of the monarch on the eve of re-assuming possession of his kingdom; and finally to induce him to attach much weight to the opinions and influence of M. de Talleyrand, with whom it must be observed that, at this period, none of those who gave this advice had any personal connection, and to the greater part of whom he was decidedly objectionable.

Being the youngest and most available of this small assembly, I was called on to undertake a mission not very agreeable in itself. I accepted the duty without hesitation. Although I had then little experience of political animosities and their blind extremes, I could not avoid perceiving which party of opponents would one day be likely to turn on me for taking this step; but I should feel ashamed of myself if fear of responsibility and apprehensions for the future could hold me back when circumstances call upon me to act, within the limits of duty and conviction, as the good of my country demands.

I left Paris on the 23rd of May. One circumstance alone is worthy of notice in my journey—the facility with which I accomplished it. It is true there were many police restrictions on the roads and along the frontier; but the greater part of the agents were neither zealous nor particular in enforcing them. Their speech, their silence, and their looks, implied a kind of understood permission and tacit connivance. More than one official face appeared to say to the unknown traveller, "Pass on quickly," as if they dreaded making a mistake, or damaging a useful work by interfering with its supposed design. Having arrived at Ghent, I called first on the men I knew, and whose views corresponded with my own, MM. de Jaucourt, Louis, Beugnot, de Lally-Tolendal, and Mounier. I found them all faithful to the cause of the Constitution, but sad as exiles, and anxious as advisers without repose in banishment; for they had to combat incessantly with the odious or absurd passions and plans of the spirit of reaction.

The same facts furnish to different parties the most opposite conclusions and arguments; the catastrophe, which again attached some more firmly than ever to the principles and politics of the Charter, was to others the sentence of the Charter; and a convincing proof that nothing but a return to the old system could save the monarchy. I need not repeat the details, given to me by my friends, of the advice with which the counter-revolutionists and partisans of absolutism beset the King; for in the idleness that succeeds misfortune, men give themselves up to dreams, and helpless passion engenders folly. The King stood firm, and agreed with his constitutional advisers. The Report on the state of France presented to him by M. de Chateaubriand a few days before we arrived, in the name of the whole Council, and which had just been published in the 'Moniteur of Ghent,' contained an eloquent exposition of the liberal policy acknowledged by the monarch. But the party thus rejected were not disposed to yield; they surrounded the King they were unable to control, and found their strongest roots in his own family and bosom friends. The Count d'Artois was their ostensible chief, and M. de Blacas their discreet but steady ally. Through them they hoped to gain a victory as necessary as it was difficult.

I requested the Duke de Duras to demand for me a private audience of the King. The King received me the next day, June 1st, and detained me nearly an hour. I have no turn for the minute and settled parade of such interviews; I shall therefore only relate of this, and of the impressions which it produced on me, what still appears to be worthy of remembrance.

Two points have remained strongly imprinted upon my memory—the impotence and dignity of the King. There was in the aspect and attitude of this old man, seated immovably and as if nailed to his arm-chair, a haughty serenity, and, in the midst of his feebleness, a tranquil confidence in the power of his name and rights, which surprised and touched me. What I had to say could not fail to be displeasing to him; and from respect, not calculation, I began with what was agreeable: I spoke of the royalist feeling which day by day exhibited itself more vehemently in Paris. I then related to him several anecdotes and couplets of songs, in corroboration of this. Such light passages entertained and pleased him, as men are gratified with humorous recitals, who have no sources of gaiety within themselves.

I told him that the hope of his return was general. "But what is grievous, Sire, is that, while believing in the re-establishment of the monarchy, there is no confidence in its duration." "Why is this?" I continued; "when the great artisan of revolution is no longer there, monarchy will become permanent; it is clear that, if Bonaparte returns to Elba, it will only be to break out again; but let him be disposed of, and there will be an end to revolutions also.—People cannot thus flatter themselves, Sire; they fear something beyond Bonaparte, they dread the weakness of the royal government; its wavering between old and new ideas, between past and present interests, and they fear the disunion, or at least the incoherence of its ministers."

The King made no reply. I persisted, and mentioned M. de Blacas. I said that I was expressly charged by men whom the King knew to be old, faithful, and intelligent servants, to represent to him the mistrust which attached itself to that name, and the evil that would result from it to himself. "I will fulfil all that I have promised in the Charter; names are not concerned with that; France has nothing to do with the friends I entertain in my palace, provided no act emanates from them injurious to the country? Speak to me of more serious causes of uneasiness." I entered into some details, and touched on various points of party intrigues and menaces. I also spoke to the King, of the Protestants in the south, of their alarms, of the violence even of which, in some instances, they had already been the objects. "This is very bad," said he: "I will do all I can to stop it; but I cannot prevent everything,—I cannot, at the same time, be a liberal and an absolute king." He questioned me upon several recent occurrences, and respecting some members of the Imperial Administration. "There are two, Sire, who, knowing that I was about to seek an audience of the King, have requested me to mention their names, and to assure him of their devotion." "Who are they?"—"The Arch-chancellor and M. Mole." "For M. Mole, I rely upon him, and am glad of his support; I know his worth. As to M. Cambaceres, he is one of those whom I neither ought nor wish to hear named." I paused there. I was not ignorant that at that time the King was in communication with Fouche, a much more objectionable regicide than Cambaceres; but I was a little surprised that the secret relations caused by pressing emergency did not prevent him from maintaining aloud, and as a general theory, a line of conduct most natural under his circumstances. He was certainly far from foreseeing the disgust that would ensue from his connection with the Duke of Otranto. He dismissed me with some commonplace words of kindness, leaving on me the impression of a sensible and liberal mind, outwardly imposing, shrewd with individuals, careful of appearances, thinking little, and not profoundly informed, and almost as incapable of the errors which destroy, as of the great strokes which establish the future of royal dynasties.

I then visited M. de Blacas. He had evinced some prepossession against me. "What brings this young man here?" said he to Baron d'Eckstein, Commissary-General of Police to the King of the Netherlands, at Ghent. "He comes from I know not who, with some mission that I am ignorant of, to the King." He was fully acquainted both with my mission and my friends. However, he received me with perfect civility, and I must add with honourable frankness, inquiring what they said at Paris, and why they were so incensed against him. He spoke to me even of his differences with the Abbe de Montesquiou, complaining of the sallies and whims which had embroiled them to the detriment of the King's service. I replied with equal candour; and his bearing during the whole of our interview was dignified, with a slight degree of reserve, expressing more surprise than irritation. I find in some notes written after I left him, this sentence:—"I am much mistaken if his mistakes do not chiefly proceed from the mediocrity of his intellect."

The situation of M. de Chateaubriand at Ghent was singular. A member of the King's Council, he brilliantly exposed its policy in official publications, and defended them in the 'Moniteur of Ghent' with the same attractive power; but he was dissatisfied with everybody, and no one placed much confidence in him. I believe that neither then nor later did the King or the different Cabinets understand M. de Chateaubriand, or sufficiently appreciate his concurrence or hostility. He was, I admit, a troublesome ally; for he aspired to all things, and complained of all. On a level with the rarest spirits and most exalted imaginations, it was his chimera to fancy himself equal to the greatest masters in the art of government, and to feel bitterly hurt if he were not looked upon as the rival of Napoleon as well as of Milton. Prudent men did not lend themselves to this complaisant idolatry; but they forgot too much what, either as friend or enemy, he to whom they refused it was worth. They might, by paying homage to his genius and satisfying his vanity, have lulled to rest his ambitious dreams; and if they had not the means of contenting him, they ought in either case, from prudence as well as from gratitude, not only to have humoured, but to have gained him over completely to their side. He was one of those towards whom ingratitude was as dangerous as unjust; for they resent passionately, and know how to revenge without treachery. He lived at Ghent in great intimacy with M. Bertin, and assumed thenceforward that influence over the 'Journal des Debats' which he afterwards so powerfully employed. Notwithstanding the cordiality of our first acquaintance, there had been for some time a considerable coolness between us. In 1814 he was discontented with, and spoke ill of the Abbe de Montesquiou and his friends. I was nevertheless equally surprised at and sorry for the injustice and error committed in thinking so little of one they used so much, and I regretted not meeting him oftener, and on a more amicable footing.

In the midst of these discussions, not only of principles and parties, but of private interests and coteries, we waited, at a distance from France, and scarcely knowing how to occupy our minds or time, the issue of the struggle between Napoleon and Europe;—a most painful situation, which I endured to serve the cause I believed and have never ceased to believe just, though I hourly felt its complicated vexations. I shall not linger here to describe them; nothing is more repugnant to my nature than to volunteer a display of my own feelings, especially when I am well aware that many, who listen, cannot or will not understand or believe me. I care little for mistake or invective; either is the natural condition of public life: but I do not feel called upon to enter into useless controversies in my own defence; I know how to wait for justice without demanding it.

The battle of Waterloo terminated our passive anxiety. The King quitted Ghent on the 22nd of June, urged by his trustiest friends, and by his own judgment, not to lose a moment in placing himself between divided France and foreign invasion. I set out the next day with M. Mounier, and on the same evening we rejoined the King at Mons, where he had paused in his journey.

Then burst forth, through the agency of new actors, and by contrivances still unexplained, the denoument that I had been despatched to accomplish—the fall of M. de Blacas. I am not disposed to discuss the various accounts given by several who were witnesses of or interested in the event; I shall simply relate what I myself saw on the spot, as I find it detailed in a letter written at Cambray, six days afterwards,[10] to the person to whom, in the absence of immediate communication, I had the pleasure of relating all that occurred:—

"As we entered Mons (M. Mounier and I), we were told that M. de Blacas had been dismissed, and was going as ambassador to Naples; but our surprise was great when we also learned that M. de Talleyrand, who had lately left Vienna for Brussels, to be within reach of coming events, and had arrived at Mons a few hours after the King, had at the same time tendered his resignation; that the King, while refusing to accept it, had received M. de Talleyrand himself coldly, and that he had set out again for Brussels, while, contrary to his advice, the King repaired to Cateau-Cambresis, at that moment the head-quarters of the English army. We understood nothing whatever of these conflicting incidents, and our uneasiness equalled our surprise. We have since been everywhere, we have seen everybody,—those of our friends who preceded us to Mons, and the foreign ministers who followed the King—MM. de Jaucourt, Louis, Beugnot, de Chateaubriand, Pozzo di Borgo, de Vincent;—and, between half confidences, restrained anger, deceptive smiles, and sincere regrets, we have arrived at last at a tolerably clear understanding of the whole matter. The little court of the Count d'Artois, knowing that M. de Talleyrand advised the King not to hurry, and that the Duke of Wellington, on the contrary, recommended him to advance rapidly into France, thought nothing could be better than to drive away both M. de Blacas and M. de Talleyrand, and to separate the King from his constitutional advisers, as well as from his favourite, by inducing him to set out quickly for the head-quarters of the English army, surrounded only by the partisans of Monsieur, from whom they hoped he would select his ministers.

"Our friends were much excited, and the foreigners greatly displeased. The latter demanded in whom they could have confidence with regard to the French question, and with whom they should treat in such a crisis? M. de Talleyrand had returned from Vienna with a great reputation for ability and success; in the eyes of Europe he represented France and the King. The Austrian Minister had just said to him at Brussels, 'I am ordered to consult you on every occasion, and to be guided entirely by your advice.' He himself haughtily maintained his discontent, and sharply repulsed those who would have persuaded him to rejoin the King. After six hours of rather stormy conversation, it was agreed that Pozzo di Borgo should repair to Cateau, and persuade the Duke of Wellington to take some step which should put an end to this strange misunderstanding; and that MM. de Jaucourt, Louis, and Beugnot should at the same time say to the King, that the men in whom he appeared to confide entertained ideas and projects so diametrically opposed to theirs, that it was impossible they could serve him usefully, and therefore requested permission to retire. It is probable that reflections and measures in conformity with these resolutions had already taken place at Cateau; for on the morning of the 25th, at the same time that we received news of the occurrences at Paris, the abdication of Napoleon, and the embassy of the Commissioners to the Allied Sovereigns, a letter arrived at Mons, from the Duke of Wellington to M. de Talleyrand, couched, as I have been assured, in these exact terms:—

"'I regret much that you have not accompanied the King to this place; it is I who have earnestly requested him to enter France at the same time with ourselves. If I could have told you the motives which sway me in this matter, I have no doubt that you would have given the King the same advice. I trust that you will come to hear them.' M. de Talleyrand decided upon setting out instantly; and we determined to accompany him. We rejoined the King here on the 26th. It was high time; for already a proclamation, dated from Cateau, drawn up, it is said, by M. Dambray, gave a false colouring to the re-entrance of his Majesty. We have hastened to substitute another, of which M. Beugnot is the principal author, and which prognosticates a wholesome policy. The King signed it without hesitation. It appeared yesterday, to the great satisfaction of the public of Cambray. I hope it may produce a similar effect in all other quarters."

We indeed hoped and believed that the end of the great crisis which had overthrown France, as well as the smaller one which had agitated the immediate circle of royalty, was at hand. On all sides affairs appeared to tend towards the same issue. The King was in France; a moderate and national line of policy prevailed in his councils, and animated his words. A feeling of loyalty displayed itself everywhere during his progress, not only with his old party, but amongst the masses; every hand was raised towards him, as to a plank of safety in a shipwreck. The people care little for consistency. At this time I saw, in the northern departments, the same popularity surround the exiled King and the vanquished army. Napoleon had abdicated in Paris, and, notwithstanding a few unworthy alternations of dejection and feverish excitement, of resignation and momentary energy, he was evidently incapable of renewing the struggle. The Chamber of Representatives, which, from its first institution, had shown itself unfavourable to the Imperial system, and opposed to revolutionary excesses, appeared to be earnestly occupied in threading a perilous defile, by avoiding all violence and every irrevocable engagement. Popular passion sometimes murmured, but suffered itself to be easily restrained, and even stopped voluntarily, as if unaccustomed to action or dominion. The army, the scattered corps of which had successively re-united round Paris, had given itself up to patriotic fervour, and, together with France, had plunged into an abyss to prove its devotion and avenge its injuries: but amongst its oldest and most illustrious chiefs, some—such as Gouvion St. Cyr, Macdonald, and Oudinot—had refused to join Napoleon, and openly espoused the Royal cause; others—like Ney, Davoust, Soult, and Massena—protested with stern candour against fatal delusions, considering that their well-tried courage entitled them to utter melancholy truths, to offer sage advice, and to repress, even by the sacrifice of party credit, military excitement or popular disorder; others, in fine, like Drouot, with an influence conferred by true courage and virtue, maintained discipline in the army in the midst of the mortifications of the retreat behind the Loire, and secured its obedience to the authority of a detested civil power. After so many mistakes and misfortunes, and in the midst of all differences of opinion and situation, there existed still a spontaneous desire and a general effort to preserve France from irreparable errors and total ruin.

But tardy wisdom does not avail, and, even when they wish to become prudent, political genius is wanting to those nations who are not accustomed to decide their own affairs or their own destiny. In the deplorable state into which the enterprise of an heroic and chimerical egotism had thrown France, there was evidently only one line of conduct to pursue,—to recognize Louis XVIII., to accept his liberal concessions, and to act in concert with him while treating with the foreign Powers. This was absolutely necessary; for the most limited mind could foresee that the return of the House of Bourbon was an inevitable, and all but an accomplished fact. Such a course became also a duty, to promote peace and to afford the best means of counteracting the evils of invasion; for Louis XVIII. could alone repel them with any show of authority. An auspicious future was thus opened to liberty; for reason whispered, and experience demonstrated, that, after what had passed in France since 1789, despotism could never more be attempted by the princes of the House of Bourbon—an insurmountable necessity compelled them to adopt defined and constitutional government,—if they resorted to extremes, their strength would prove unequal to success. To accept without hesitation or delay the second restoration, and to place the King, of his own accord, between France and the rest of Europe, became the self-evident dictate of patriotism and sound policy.

Not only was this left undone, but every endeavour was used to make it appear that the Restoration was exclusively the work of foreign interference, and to bring upon France, in addition to her military defeat, a political and diplomatic overthrow. It was not independence of the Empire, or good intentions towards the country, that were wanting in the Chamber of the Hundred Days, but intelligence and resolution. It neither lent itself to imperial despotism nor revolutionary violence; it was not the instrument of either of the extreme parties,—it applied itself honestly to preserve France, on the brink of that abyss towards which they had driven her; but it could only pursue a line of negative policy, it tacked timidly about before the harbour, instead of boldly entering,—closing its eyes when it approached the narrow channel, submitting, not from confidence, but from imbecility, to the blindness or infatuation of the old or new enemies by whom the King was surrounded, and appearing sometimes, from weakness itself, to consent to combinations which in reality it tried to elude;—at one moment proclaiming Napoleon II., and at another any monarch whom the sovereign people might please to select.

To this fruitless vacillation of the only existing public authority, one of the most fatally celebrated actors of the worst times of the Revolution, Fouche, owed his importance and ephemeral success.

When honest men fail to understand or execute the designs of Providence, dishonesty undertakes the task. Under the pressure of circumstances, and in the midst of general weakness, corrupt, sagacious, and daring spirits are ever at hand, who perceive at once what may happen, or what may be attempted, and make themselves the instruments of a triumph to which they have no natural claim, but of which they assume the credit, to appropriate the fruits. Such a man was the Duke of Otranto during the Hundred Days,—a revolutionist transformed into a grandee; and desirous of being consecrated in this double character by the ancient royalty of France, he employed, to accomplish his end, all the cleverness and audacity of a reckless intriguer more clear-sighted and sensible than his associates. Perhaps also—for justice ought to retain its scruples even towards those who have none themselves—perhaps a desire to save his country from violence and useless suffering may have had some share in the series of treasons and imperturbable changes of side, by means of which, while deceiving and playing alternately with Napoleon, La Fayette, and Carnot, the Empire, the Republic, and the regicidal Convention, Fouche gained the time that he required to open for himself the doors of the King's cabinet, while he opened the gates of Paris to the King.

Louis XVIII. offered some resistance, but, notwithstanding what he had said to me at Ghent respecting Cambaceres, I doubt whether he objected strongly. He was one of those who are dignified from habit and decorum rather than from a real and powerful emotion of the soul; and propriety disappeared before emergency. He had, as vouchers for the necessities of the case, two authorities who were the best calculated to influence his decision and uphold his honour; the Duke of Wellington and the Count d'Artois both urged him to accept Fouche as a minister:—Wellington, to secure an easy return for the King, and also that he himself, and England with him, might remain the principal author of the Restoration by promptly terminating the war before Paris, where he feared to be compromised through the violent hatred of the Prussians; the Count d'Artois, with impatient levity, always ready to promise and agree, and already entangled through his most active confidant, M. de Vitrolles, in the snare which Fouche had spread for the Royalists on every side.

I do not believe in the necessity which they urged upon the King. Fouche had no control over Paris; the army had retired; the Federates were more noisy than powerful; the Chamber of Representatives consoled themselves, by discussing a constitution, for not having dared or known how to form a government; no party was either able or disposed to arrest effectually the tide which carried the King along. A little less eagerness, and a little more determination, would have spared him a sad dishonour. By waiting a few days he would have incurred the risk, not of fatal resolutions or violence, but merely of the temporary continuance of disorder and alarm. Necessity presses upon people as well as on kings: that with which Fouche armed himself to become minister to Louis XVIII. was factitious and ephemeral; that which brought Louis XVIII. back to the Tuileries was real, and became hourly more urgent. There was no occasion for him to receive the Duke of Otranto into his cabinet at Arnouville; he might have remained there patiently, for they would soon have sought him. I thought thus at the time, after having passed two days in Paris, where I arrived on the 3rd of July, when the manoeuvres of Fouche were following their course. All that I subsequently saw and heard tended to confirm me in this opinion.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: I owe it to myself to repeat here the retractation of an error (I am not disposed to use any other word) entertained in regard to my connection with the Hundred Days, and the part I took at that period. This retractation, which appeared thirteen years ago in the 'Moniteur Universel' of the 4th of February, 1844, is couched in the following terms:—"Several journals have recently said or implied that M. Guizot, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was Secretary-General to the Ministry of the Interior in 1814 and 1815, had retained his office during the Hundred Days, under General Count Carnot, appointed Minister of the Interior by the Imperial decree of the 20th of March, 1815; that he had signed the Additional Act, and that he had been subsequently dismissed. One of these journals has invoked the testimony of the 'Moniteur.' These assertions are utterly false. M. Guizot, now Minister of Foreign Affairs, had, on the 20th of March, 1815, quitted the department of the Interior; and by an Imperial decree of the 23rd of the same month, his office of Secretary-General was conferred upon Baron Basset de Chateaubourg, formerly Prefect (see the 'Bulletin des Lois,' no. v. p. 34). The notice in the 'Moniteur' of the 14th of May, 1815, page 546, did not refer to M. Francois Guizot, but to M. Jean-Jacques Guizot, head-clerk at that time in the Ministry of the Interior, who was actually dismissed from his office in the course of May 1815."

Notwithstanding this official refutation, founded on official acts, and published in 1844 in the 'Moniteur,' where the error had originated, the same mis-statement appeared in 1847, in the 'History of the Two Restorations,' by M. Vaulabelle (2nd edition, vol. ii. p. 276), and again in 1851, in the 'History of the Restoration,' by M. de Lamartine (vol. iv. p. 15).]

[Footnote 10: June 29th, 1815.]



CHAPTER IV.

THE CHAMBER OF 1815.

1815-1816.

FALL OF M. DE TALLEYRAND AND FOUCHE.—FORMATION OF THE DUKE DE RICHELIEU'S CABINET.—MY CONNECTION AS SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE WITH M. DE MARBOIS, KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL.—MEETING AND ASPECT OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—INTENTIONS AND ATTITUDE OF THE OLD ROYALIST FACTION.—FORMATION AND COMPOSITION OF A NEW ROYALIST PARTY.—STRUGGLE OF CLASSES UNDER THE CLOAK OF PARTIES.—PROVISIONAL LAWS.—BILL OF AMNESTY.—THE CENTRE BECOMES THE GOVERNMENT PARTY, AND THE RIGHT THE OPPOSITION.—QUESTIONS UPON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE STATE AND THE CHURCH.—STATE OF THE GOVERNMENT BEYOND THE CHAMBERS.—INSUFFICIENCY OF ITS RESISTANCE TO THE SPIRIT OF REACTION.—THE DUKE OF FELTRI AND GENERAL BERNARD.—TRIAL OF MARSHAL NEY.—CONTROVERSY BETWEEN M. DE VITROLLES AND ME.—CLOSING OF THE SESSION.—MORTIFICATIONS IN THE CABINET.—M. LAINE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.—I LEAVE THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE AND ENTER THE STATE COUNCIL AS MASTER OF REQUESTS.—THE CABINET ENTERS INTO CONTESTS WITH THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.—M. DECAZES.—POSITION OF MESSRS. ROYER-COLLARD AND DE SERRE.—OPPOSITION OF M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.—THE COUNTRY RISES AGAINST THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—EFFORTS OF M. DECAZES TO BRING ABOUT A DISSOLUTION.—THE KING DETERMINES ON IT.—DECREE OF THE 5TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1816.

Three months had scarcely elapsed and neither Fouche nor M. de Talleyrand were any longer in the Ministry. They had fallen, not under the pressure of any new or unforeseen event, but by the evils connected with their personal situation, and their inaptitude for the parts they had undertaken to play. M. de Talleyrand had effected a miracle at Vienna; by the treaty of alliance concluded on the 3rd January, 1815, between France, England, and Austria, he had put an end to the coalition formed against us in 1813, and separated Europe into two parties, to the advantage of France. But the event of the 20th of March had destroyed his work; the European coalition was again formed against the Emperor and against France, who had made herself, or had permitted herself to be made, the instrument of Napoleon. There was no longer a chance of breaking up this formidable alliance. The same feeling of uneasiness and mistrust of our faith, the same desire for a firm and lasting union, animated the sovereigns and the nations. They had speedily arranged at Vienna the questions which had threatened to divide them. In this fortified hostility against France the Emperor Alexander participated, with extreme irritation towards the House of Bourbon and M. de Talleyrand, who had sought to deprive him of his allies. The second Restoration was no longer like the first, the personal glory and work of M. de Talleyrand; the honour was chiefly due to England and the Duke of Wellington. Instigated by self-love and policy, the Emperor Alexander arrived at Paris on the 10th of July, 1815, stern and angrily disposed towards the King and his advisers.

France and the King stood, nevertheless, in serious need of the goodwill of the Russian Emperor, encompassed as they were by the rancorous and eager ambition of Germany. Her diplomatists drew up the geographical chart of our territory, leaving out the provinces of which they desired to deprive us. Her generals undermined, to blow into the air, the monuments which recalled their defeats in the midst of their victories. Louis XVIII. resisted with much dignity these acts of foreign barbarism; he threatened to place his chair of state upon the bridge of Jena, and said publicly to the Duke of Wellington, "Do you think, my Lord, that your Government would consent to receive me if I were again to solicit a refuge?" Wellington restrained to the utmost of his power the violence of Bluecher, and remonstrated with him by arguments equally urgent and politic; but neither the dignity of the King, nor the amicable intervention of England were sufficient to curb the overweening pretensions of Germany. The Emperor Alexander alone could keep them within bounds. M. de Talleyrand sought to conciliate him by personal concessions. In forming his cabinet, he named the Duke de Richelieu, who was still absent, Minister of the Royal Household, while the Ministry of the Interior was held in reserve for Pozzo di Borgo, who would willingly have left the official service of Russia to take part in the Government of France. M. de Talleyrand placed much faith in the power of temptations; but, in this instance, they were of no avail. The Duke de Richelieu, probably in concert with the King himself, refused; Pozzo di Borgo did not obtain, or dared not to solicit, the permission of his master to become, once more, a Frenchman. I saw him frequently, and that mind, at once quick and decisive, bold and restless, felt keenly its doubtful situation, and with difficulty concealed its perplexities. The Emperor Alexander maintained his cold reserve, leaving M. de Talleyrand powerless and embarrassed in this arena of negotiation, ordinarily the theatre of his success.

The weakness of Fouche was different, and sprang from other causes. It was not that the foreign sovereigns and their ministers regarded him more favourably than they did M. de Talleyrand, for his admission into the King's cabinet had greatly scandalized monarchical Europe; the Duke of Wellington alone persisted in still upholding him; but none amongst the foreigners either attacked him or appeared anxious for his downfall. It was from within that the storm was raised against him. With a strangely frivolous presumption, he had determined to deliver up the Revolution to the King, and the King to the Revolution, relying upon his dexterity and boldness to assist him in passing and repassing from camp to camp, and in governing one by the other, while alternately betraying both. The elections which took place at this period throughout France, signally falsified his hopes. In vain did he profusely employ agents, and circular addresses; neither obtained for him the slightest influence; the decided Royalists prevailed in nearly every quarter, almost without a struggle. It is our misfortune and our weakness, that in every great crisis the vanquished become as the dead. The Chamber of 1815 as yet appeared only in the distance, and already the Duke of Otranto trembled as though thunderstruck by the side of the tottering M. de Talleyrand. In this opposite and unequal peril, but critical for both, the conduct of these two men was very different. M. de Talleyrand proclaimed himself the patron of constitutional monarchy, boldly and greatly organized as in England. Modifications conformable to the views of the Liberal party were in some instances immediately acceded to, and in others promised by the Charter. Young men were permitted to enter the Chamber of Deputies. Fourteen Articles relative to the constitution of this Chamber were submitted for the inspection of the next Legislative Assembly. The Peerage was made hereditary. The censorship, to which works under twenty printed sheets had been subjected, was abolished. A grand Privy Council, on important occasions, united the principal men of every party. It was neither the urgent necessity of the moment, nor prevailing public opinion, that imposed on restored royalty these important reforms: they were enacted by the Cabinet from a desire of encouraging free institutions, and of giving satisfaction to the party,—I ought rather to say to the small section of enlightened and impatient spirits.

The real intentions and measures of Fouche were of a more personal nature. Violently menaced by the reaction in favour of royalty, he at first endeavoured to appease by feeding it. He consented to make himself the instrument of proscription against the very men who, but a short time before, were his agents, his confederates, his accomplices, his colleagues, and his friends. At the same time that he published memorials and circulars showing the necessity of clemency and forgetfulness of the past, he placed before the Royal Council a list of one hundred and ten names, to be excluded from all amnesty; and when strict inquiry had reduced this number to eighteen, subject to courts-martial, and to thirty-eight provisionally banished, he countersigned without hesitation the decree which condemned them. A few days afterwards, and upon his request, another edict revoked all the privileges hitherto accorded to the daily papers, imposed upon them the necessity of a new license, and subjected them to the censorship of a commission, in which several of the principal royalist writers, amongst others Messieurs Auger and Fievee, refused to sit under his patronage. As little did the justice or national utility of his acts affect the Duke of Otranto in 1815, as in 1793; he was always ready to become, no matter at what cost, the agent of expediency. But when he saw that his severe measures did not protect himself, and perceived the rapidly approaching danger, he changed his tactics; the minister of the monarchical reaction became again the factious revolutionist. He caused to be secretly published and circulated, "Reports to the King," and the "Notes to the Foreign Ministers," less calculated to enlighten the authorities he addressed, than to prepare for himself arms and allies against the Government and the party, from which he saw that he was about to be excluded. He was of the number of those who try to make themselves feared, by striving to injure when they are no longer permitted to serve.

Neither the liberal reforms of M. de Talleyrand, nor the revolutionary menaces of the Duke of Otranto, warded off the danger which pressed on them. Notwithstanding their extraordinary abilities and long experience, both mistook the new aspect of the times, either not seeing, or not wishing to see, how little they were in unison with the contests which the Hundred Days had revived. The election of a Chamber decidedly Royalist, surprised them as an unexpected phenomenon; they both fell at its approach, and within a few days of each other; left, nevertheless, after their common downfall, in opposite positions. M. de Talleyrand retained credit; the King and his new Cabinet loaded him with gifts and royal favours; his colleagues during his short administration, Messieurs de Jaucourt, Pasquier, Louis and Gouvion St. Cyr, received signal marks of royal esteem, and retired from the scene of action as if destined to return. Having accepted the trifling and distant embassy to Dresden, Fouche hastened to depart, and left Paris under a disguise which he only changed when he reached the frontier, fearful of being seen in his native land, which he was fated never again to behold.

The Cabinet of the Duke de Richelieu entered upon office warmly welcomed by the King, and even by the party which had gained the ascendency through the present elections. It was indeed a new and thoroughly royalist Ministry. Its head, recently arrived in France, honoured by all Europe, and beloved by the Emperor Alexander, was to King Louis XVIII. what the king himself was to France, the pledge of a more advantageous peace. Two of his colleagues, Messieurs Decazes and Dubouchage, had taken no part in public affairs previous to the Restoration. The four others, Messieurs Barbe-Marbois, de Vaublanc, Coretto, and the Duke of Feltri, had recently given proofs of strong attachment to the regal cause. Their union inspired hope without suspicion, in the public mind, as well as in that of the triumphant party. I was intimately acquainted with M. de Marbois; I had frequently met him at the houses of Madame de Rumford and Madame Suard. He belonged to that old France which, in a spirit of generous liberality, had adopted and upheld, with enlightened moderation, the principles most cherished by the France of the day. I held under him, in the capacity of a confidential friend, the post of Secretary-General to the Ministry of Justice, to which M. Pasquier, then keeper of the great seal, had nominated me under the Cabinet of M. de Talleyrand. Hardly was the new minister installed in office, when the Chamber of Deputies assembled, and in its turn established itself. It was almost exclusively Royalist. With considerable difficulty, a few men, members of other parties, had obtained entrance into its ranks. They found themselves in a state of perpetual discomfort, isolated and ill at ease, as though they were strangers of suspicious character; and when they endeavoured to declare themselves and explain their sentiments, they were roughly driven back into impotent silence. On the 23rd of October, 1815, in the debate on the Bill presented by M. Decazes for the temporary suspension of personal liberty, M. d'Argenson spoke of the reports which had been spread abroad respecting the massacre of Protestants in the south. A violent tumult arose in contradiction of his statements; he explained himself with great reserve. "I name no facts," replied he, "I bring forward no charges; I merely say that vague and contradictory rumours have reached me; ... the very vagueness of these rumours calls for a report from the minister, on the state of the kingdom." M. d'Argenson was not only defeated in his object, and interrupted in his speech, but he was expressly called to order for having alluded to facts unfortunately too certain, but which the Government wished to smother up by silencing all debate on the question.

For the first time in five-and-twenty years, the Royalists saw themselves in the ascendant. Thoroughly believing that they had obtained a legitimate triumph, they indulged unreservedly in the enjoyment of power, with a mixture of aristocratic arrogance and new-born zeal, as men do when little accustomed to victory, and doubtful of the strength they are so eager to display.

Very opposite causes plunged the Chamber of 1815 into the extreme reaction which has stamped its historical character. In the first place, and above all others, may be named, the good and evil passions of the Royalists, their moral convictions and personal resentments, their love of order and thirst for vengeance, their pride in the past and their apprehensions for the future, their determination to re-establish honour and respect for holy observances, their old attachments, their sworn pledges, and the gratification of lording it over their conquerors. To the violence of passion was joined a prudent calculation of advantage. To strengthen their party, and to advance individual fortunes, it was essential for the new rulers of France to possess themselves everywhere of place and power; therein lay the field to be worked, and the territory to be occupied, in order to reap the entire fruits of victory. Finally must be added, the empire of ideas, more influential than is commonly supposed, and often exercising more power over men, without their being conscious of it, than prejudice or interest. After so many years of extraordinary events and disputes, the Royalists had, on all political and social questions, systematic views to realize, historical reminiscences to act upon, requirements of the mind to satisfy. They hastened to apply their hands to the work, believing the day at last arrived when they could, once more, assume in their own land, morally as well as physically, in thought and deed, the superiority which had so long been wrested from them.

As it happens in every great crisis of human associations, these opposing principles in the reaction of 1815, had each its special and exclusively effective representative in the ranks of the Royalists. The party had their fighting champion, their political advocate, and their philosopher. M. de la Bourdonnaye led their passions, M. de Villele their interests, and M. de Bonald their ideas; three men well suited to their parts, for they excelled respectively, the first in fiery attack, the second in prudent and patient manoeuvring, and the third in specious, subtle, and elevated exposition; and all three, although unconnected by any previous intimacy, applied their varied talents with unflinching perseverance to the common cause.

And what, after all, was the cause? What was, in reality, the end which the leaders of the party, apparently on the very verge of success, proposed to themselves? Had they been inclined to speak sincerely, they would have found it very difficult to answer the question. It has been said and believed by many, and probably a great portion of the Royalists imagined, in 1815, that their object was to abolish the Charter, and restore the old system: a commonplace supposition of puerile credulity; the battle-cry of the enemies, whether able or blind, of the Restoration. In the height of its most sanguine hopes, the Chamber of 1815 had formed no idea so extreme or audacious. Replaced as conquerors upon the field, not by themselves, but by the errors of their adversaries and the course of European events, the old Royalist party expected that the reverses of the Revolution and the Empire would bring them enormous advantages, and restitution; but they were yet undecided as to the use they should make of victory in the government of France, when they found themselves in the undisturbed possession of power. Their views were as unsettled and confused as their passions were violent; above all things, they coveted victory, for the haughty pleasure of triumph itself, for the definitive establishment of the Restoration, and for their own predominance, by holding power at the centre of government, and throughout the departments by administration.

But in those social shocks there are deeper questions involved than the actors are aware of. The Hundred Days inflicted on France a much heavier evil than the waste of blood and treasure it had cost her; they lit up again the old quarrel which the Empire had stifled and the Charter was intended to extinguish,—the quarrel between old and new France, between the emigrants and the revolutionists. It was not alone between two political parties, but between two rival classes, that the struggle recommenced in 1815, as it originally exploded in 1789.

An unfavourable position for founding a Government, and, above all, a free Government. A certain degree of excitement and emulation invariably exists between the people and the political parties, which constitutes the very life of the social body, and encourages its energetic and wholesome development. But if this agitation is not confined to questions of legislature and the conduct of public affairs,—if it attacks society in its very basis,—if, instead of emulation between parties, there arises hostility amongst classes, the movement ceases to be healthy, and changes to a destroying malady, which leads on to the most lamentable disorders, and may end in the dissolution of the State. The undue ascendency of one class over another, whether of the aristocracy or the people, becomes tyranny. The bitter and continued struggle of either to obtain the upper hand, is in fact revolution, imminently impending or absolutely declared. The world has witnessed, in two great examples, the diametrically opposite results to which this formidable fact may lead. The contest between the Patricians and Plebeians held Rome for ages between the cruel alternations of despotism and anarchy, which had no variety but war. As long as either party retained public virtue, the republic found grandeur, if not social peace, in their quarrel; but when Patricians and Plebeians became corrupted by dissension, without agreeing on any fixed principle of liberty, Rome could only escape from ruin by falling under the despotism and lingering decline of the Empire. England presents to modern Europe a different spectacle. In England also, the opposing parties of nobles and democrats long contended for the supremacy; but, by a happy combination of fortune and wisdom, they came to a mutual compromise, and united in the common exercise of power: and England has found, in this amicable understanding between the different classes, in this communion of their rights and mutual influence, internal peace with greatness, and stability with freedom.

I looked forward to an analogous result for my own country, from the form of government established by the Charter. I have been accused of desiring to model France upon the example of England. In 1815, my thoughts were not turned towards England; at that time I had not seriously studied her institutions or her history. I was entirely occupied with France, her destinies, her civilization, her laws, her literature, and her great men. I lived in the heart of a society exclusively French, more deeply impregnated with French tastes and sentiments than any other. I was immediately associated with that reconciliation, blending, and intercourse of different classes, and even of parties, which seemed to me the natural condition of our new and liberal system. People of every origin, rank, and calling, I may almost say of every variety of opinion,—great noblemen, magistrates, advocates, ecclesiastics, men of letters, fashion, or business, members of the old aristocracy, of the Constituent Assembly, of the Convention, of the Empire,—lived in easy and hospitable intercourse, adopting without hesitation their altered positions and views, and all apparently disposed to act together in goodwill for the advantage of their country. A strange contradiction in our habits and manners! When social relations, applicable to mental or worldly pleasures, are alone involved, there are no longer distinctions of classes, or contests; differences of situation and opinion cease to exist; we have no thought but to enjoy and contribute in common our mutual possessions, pretensions, and recommendations. But let political questions and the positive interests of life once more spring up,—let us be called upon, not merely to assemble for enjoyment or recreation, but to assume each his part in the rights, the affairs, the honours, the advantages, and the burdens of the social system,—on the instant, all dissensions re-appear; all pretences, prejudices, susceptibilities, and oppositions revive; and that society which had seemed so single and united, resumes all its former divisions and differences.