LETTER X.

Paris, May.

THE truth of what is stated in my last, that Napoleon did not remount the throne by virtue of his previous popularity, is shewn by the many measures which he has adopted to gain that popularity since his return. He has taken especial care to recognize the sovereignty of the people as the only source of legitimate power. The new council of state, in its first meeting, recognized que la souverainete reside dans le peuple, seule source legitime du pouvoir. The avowal of these principles might have been expected from the Carnots and the Benjamin de Constants, whose appointment to the places which they occupy is a guarantee of the intentions of the government, and of the confidence, which, for the present at least, it seems calculated to inspire in the true well wishers of France. The nomination of Fouché, who cannot be suspected of any private inclination for the Emperor, is considered, even by the royalists themselves, as a protection against the renewal of the arbitrary measures, in which consisted what Napoleon, after the fashion of other tyrants, chose to regard as the vigour of the imperial government. Napoleon cannot but see, that if he does reign, it must be by the title on which he has founded his right: for since the few weeks of his present power, he has experienced the force of public opinion, (to which he made originally so successful an appeal) in instances too decisive to admit of more than one interpretation even by the self-love of a sovereign. A decree of the 24th of March abolished the censorship, still leaving a supervisor attached to each of the daily papers, and subjecting the printers and booksellers to a limitation as to their number, to a certain form of oath, to the necessity of declaring all works previously to printing them, and of depositing a certain number of copies at the police before publication. The editors of the Censor, who had distinguished themselves by their courage during the days of doubt, in one of the articles of their fifth volume, just published, seem inclined to admit, that the time-serving character of the chief part of the journalists is more owing to their own baseness, than to any arbitrary measures taken by the government. Upon this sup

* That the sovereignty resided in the people, the only legitimate source of power.

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position they dare to say in one article, “un mouvement de troupes, approuvé ou non par le vœu secret des citoyens, force les Bour"bons a sortir de France, et disperse les elemens de notre consti"tution politique; cette opération militaire ne présente en elle"même aucun caractére legal." And in another place, mais "l'expulsion des Bourbons ne peut pas donner naissance à des "droits en faveur d'un autre; et de quelque manière qu'on en"visage les choses, on ne peut s'empécher de convenir que le gou"vernement actuel n'est qu'un gouvernement provisoire, ou que "le peuple Français est la propriete du premier occupant..... "Et peu importe que Napoleon ait été proclamé empereur par "l'armee et par les habitans des pays où il a passe; peu importe que les puissances coalisées aient ou non tenu les conventions qu'elles avaient faites avec lui. La France n'appartient ni aux "soldats, ni aux habitans qui se sont trouvées sur la route de "Cannes à Paris, ni aux armées coalisees."* The article ends by saying, that, for the present, the government ought to be obeyed, when it commands in the name of the laws; but that nothing can save France finally, except an assembly of the people freely chosen, and deliberating freely. The same volume contains, besides, many direct attacks on the conduct of Napoleon. Now it must be owned, that our notion of the liberty of the press does not extend to the publication of opinions relative to the present rights of actual monarchs; and that, if no previous prevention of such discussion is admitted by our law, the circumstances of our monarchy render them so very unlikely ever to be called into play, and the subsequent punishment of opinions, similar to those above quoted, would be so severe, that the Englishman who held such a pen in one hand should hold a sword in the other. According to the laws restored by the imperial decree of the 24th, this volume of the Censor was announced, and a certain number of copies deposited at the police. After what you have read, are you astonished that the whole impression was seized? and do you not think such a seizure preferable, if not in principle, at least in practice, to the English penalties of libel? However, a con

* That a movement of the troops-whether approved or not by the secret wish of the citizens, forced the Bourbons out of France, and scattered the elements of our political constitution: such a military operation does not in itself present any legal character." And in another place," but the expulsion of the Bourbons can by no means create any rights in favour of another; and in whatever point we may view the subject, we can hardly help being convinced, that the actual government is only provisional, or that the people of France are the property of the first occupant.. And it is of little importance that Napoleon has been proclaimed Emperor by the army and by the inhabitants of the country through which he passed of as little consequence is it, whether the Allied powers have, or have not, observed the conventions which they have made with him. France belongs neither to the soldiers→→→ nor to the allied armies-nor to the people who live on the route between Cannes Paris." pp. 182--3.

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siderable commotion was excited by this measure: the saloons, the gardens of the Tuilleries, and the Palais Royal, were loud in their murmurs. A report was spread, that the publication was delayed by the editors themselves; but these gentlemen immediately sent a circular letter to their subscribers, stating, in strong terms, that the rumour was fabricated, was false entirely, and that the truth was, the whole impression had been stopped by the police. This determination on the part of Messrs. Comte and Dunoyer had its effect: the Censor was re-delivered to them, and appeared on the 26th of April, not only with all the offensive matter in it, but also with additional hints as to the influence "de la moustache sur le raisonnement, et de la neces"site du sabre dans l'administration.”* It inserted besides a solemn retraction of that article before mentioned, relative to the liberty of the press. No notice was taken of the printers or authors of these articles, which would have called down hard words, and perhaps hanging, in the court of a Tresilyan, or a Page.

I put this down as the first proof of the force of opinion, which has given to the press of Paris an actual license beyond what the most ardent friend to freedom can admire, and which indeed the government, if it stands, cannot permit. It is allowable, that the author of a journal called the Old Republican should take upon himself periodically to remind Napoleon, that the people have made him a monarch, and that to their interests and wishes he must be subservient. It is but reasonable, that objections should be made to the form and substance of the new constitutions, even in the most poignant style; but it cannot be expected, that sheets should be allowed to fly about the Tuilleries, in which one Louis Florian Paul de Kergorlay states, as a motive for voting against the new constitution, "je suis convaincu que le rétablissement de cette dynastie sur le trone est le seul moyen de rendre le bonheur aux Français." I beg you will tell your friend Mr. Perry, that two hundred of these were distributed gratis a few days ago. This, as well as a Memoire justificatif of the Duke of Ragusa, in which Napoleon is treated with no sort of ceremony, may be a sufficient answer to the absurd and monstrous falsities of his brother journalists, by whom, however, I fear that a sufficient number of our worthy countrymen are led to action. The journals, which are overlooked, do not contro

"Of mustachios upon argumentation, and of the necessity of the broadsword in the administration." *See Appendix-No. 42.

I am convinced, that the re-establishment of that dynasty on the throne is the only means of promoting the welfare of France.

The same person, a bold, and most probably an honest, man, published afterwards a sheet on the decree of the 9th of March, relative to the efforts of the Bour

vert the right of the Emperor, nor can such opposition be expected or tolerated under any government in modern times, where the power of the pen is such, that scribere est agere; but the articles of foreign news, even the very proclamations of the allied sovereigns, and of Louis himself, which appear in them, shew that they partake in no way of their former character of servility and subjection. The Moniteur itself, which, though it has ceased to carry its official pre-eminence on the face of it, is still edited under the eye of the Duke of Bassano, admits a freedom of discussion and liberality in its extracts and translations, which our Courier and Times must find irreconcileable with their assertions of the renovated slavery of France. Here follows a second more decided proof of the power of public opinion.

The sketch of the new constitution appeared in the Moniteur of Sunday, April the 23d. It was said to be principally the work of Mr. Benjamin de Constant, a name invariably joined with the Lanjuinais, the Raynouards, the Bedochs, the Flaugergues, the Durbachs, and all those who had distinguished themselves as the patrons of liberty, during the reign of eleven months-therefore was it expected that the utmost concession would be made to the people, and that the democratic spirit would prevail throughout every article. Those acquainted with the French character were not astonished to hear the pleasantries launched against this tenth trial of their modern Numas, even before its promulgation; but the friends of the Emperor wore an aspect of the most settled concern and alarm, when they found the proposal, on its appearance, attacked on every side by serious as well as playful assailants. I never recollect, in my life, to have experienced such a change in that which a man is apt to call public opinion, that is, the opinion of those amongst whom he lives and moves, and the voice of ephemeral publications, as took place at Paris at the appearance of the Acte Additionnel aux Constitutions de l'Empire. Both royalists and republicans, as well even as some of those who are supposed more attached to the Emperor, flew upon it at once. They began by the beginning the very title was offensive.-The "Additional "Act to the Constitutions of the Empire," and the "Napoleon "by the Grace of God and the Constitutions Emperor of the "French," showed, said they, that Napoleon considered the old system of despotism, the empire, as again in activity; that he skipped over the charter of Louis, and his own abdication, all

bonists in France, in which the imperial government was treated without reserve as a cruel usurpation: for this Dentu the printer and publisher was arrested. I leave the lawyers to say what would have awaited him in England.

which annulled these constitutions, as if they had never happened; and that he was Emperor by the grace of God, and without any interval, after the fashion of the monarch whose nineteen years of reign he had himself so fairly derided.

The pure constitutionalists thought they saw, even in the renewal of these pretensions and forms, an annihilation of all their hopes that Napoleon was changed: they, as well as the royalists, exclaimed, that it would have been better to take for the basis of the constitution that charter of Louis which the patriots themselves admitted to be, on the whole, an excellent guarantee for public freedom; that the said charter, although octroyée, was virtually accepted by the representatives of the people; and that it was unwise to have recourse to the scheme, so often tried, of sending a constitution for acceptation to the people, the greatest number of whose votes had notoriously been given to the worst possible and most despotic form of government-the imperial, and to the worst constitution that of the year 8. They added, that to pretend the king had not reigned at all, and that none of his acts were to be considered as valid, was to destroy the principle of the sovereignty of the people, who had, for a certain time, eagerly admitted and virtually approved of his authority, even by the confession of Mr. Carnot himself.

The articles of the constitution were attacked in detail by a thousand pamphlets. Those to which the principal objection was made were, the initiation of all the laws by the government, which was one of the faults of the royal charter, and the establishment of hereditary peers, which seemed a contradiction of the decree of the 10th of April, abolishing the nobility and feudal titles. This was accused as a recurrence to the principle of nobility, without any of the pretence and respect which such names as Montmorency, Grammont, and others associated with the glory of France, might be able to command. The wish to create this nobility was attributed to the personal vanity and egotism of the Emperor, who, not content with the plainer forms of democratic governments, wished to add to the pomp as well as the props of his throne: it was said to be a continuation of those monarchical institutions, the renewal of which had already been the ruin of the country. When Napoleon came to the throne, the French were an individual people, a republic, glo. rious partly by his victories, and consolidated by his ambition; the nobles were without honour, as they were without titles; no one thought of them or of their ancient dynasty: Napoleon's counts, and marshals, and court ceremonies, by awakening all the ancient prejudices in favour of birth and rank, revived their pre