that your Majesty had no occasion to make | companied by an escort. Another sent any reply to it. Meanwhile all the pro- off for Italy was obliged to return from clamations, all the expressions of your Turin without accomplishing the object Majesty, loudly attested the sincerity of of his mission. A third, destined for Beryour wishes for the maintenance of peace. lin and the North, was apprehended at It was my duty to inform the French po- Mentz and ill-treated by the Prussian litical agents, employed abroad by the Commandant. His dispatches were seized Royal Government, that their functions by the Austrian General who commands bad expired, and to apprise them that your in chief in that place. I have already Majesty intended to accredit new Lega- learned, that among the couriers dispatched tions immediately. In your desire to on the 5th instant, those destined for Gerleave no doubt respecting your real sen- many and Italy were unable to pass the timents, your Majesty ordered me to en- frontiers. I have no account of those join those agents to be the interpreters of who were sent off for the North and for them to the different Cabinets. I obeyed England. When an almost impenetrable that order by writing on the 30th of barrier is thus set up between the French March to the Ambassadors, Ministers, Ministry and its agents abroad, between and other agents, the subjoined letter. the Cabinet of your Majesty and those of Not content with this first step, your Ma- other Sovereigns, your Minister, Sire, has jesty determined, under these extraordi- no other means than the public acts of nary circumstances to give to the manifes- Foreign Governments of judging of their tation of your pacific dispositions a cha- intentions. racter still more authentic and solemn: you thought that you could not stamp more eclat upon the expression of them, than by stating them yourself in a letter to the foreign Sovereigns. You directed me at the same time, to make a similar declaration to their Ministers. These two letters, copies of which I annex, dispatched on the 5th inst. are a monument which must for ever attest the honour and integrity of the intentions of your Imperial Majesty. While the moments of your Majesty were thus occupied, and as it were absorbed by one single thought, what was the conduct of the different Powers? In all ages nations have taken a pleasure in promoting the mutual communications between their governments; and cabinets themselves have made a point of facilitating these communications. In time of peace the object of these relations is to prolong its duration; in war they tend to the restoration of peace; in both circumstances they are a bencfit to humanity. It was reserved for the present epoch to behold an association of Monarchs, forbidding simultaneously all connection with a great state, and closing the avenue to its amicable assurances. The couriers dispatched from Paris on the 30th of March, for the different courts, have not been able to reach the places of their destination. One could | proceed no farther than Strasburg, and the Austrian General who commands at Kehl refused to allow him a passage even upon condition of his consenting to be ac

ENGLAND. The Constitution of England imposes on the Monarch fixed obligations towards the nation which he governs. As it is not in his power to act without its concurrence, he is obliged to communicate to it, if not his formal, at least his probable resolutions. The message transmitted to Parliament on the 5th inst. by the Prince Regent, is not calculated to excite any very extensive confidence in the friends of peace. I have the honour to submit this piece to your Majesty.-A first remark must painfully affect those who are acquainted with the rights of na. tions, and are anxious to see them respected by kings. The only motive alleged by the Prince Regent to justify the measures which he announces the intention of adopting is, that events have occurred in France contrary to the engagements contracted by the Allied Powers with one another; and this Sovereign of a free nation seems not even to pay the least attention to the wishes of the great nation among whom these events have taken place. It seenis that in 1815, England and her Princes have no recollection of 1688! It seems that the Allied Powers, because they obtained a momentary advantage over the French people, have presumed, in regard to an internal act which most nearly concerns its whole existence, to stipulate for it, and without it, in contempt of the most sacred of its rights! The Prince Regent declares, that he is giving orders for the increase of the British forces both by

sity of covering his kingdom has obliged him to take up military positions in the Roman States.

land and sea. Thus the French nation, of which he takes so little account, must be upon its guard on all sides: it has to fear a continental aggression, and at the PRUSSIA. The movements of Prussia same time must watch the whole extent of are not less active. Every where the corps its coasts against the possibility of a de-are completing. Officers on half-pay are scent. It is, says the Prince Regent, to ordered to join their corps: to accelerate render the security of Europe permanent, their march, they grant them free posting; that he claims the support of the English and this sacrifice, slight in appearance, nation. And how can he have occasion but made by a calculating government, is for this support when that security is not not a small proof of the interest which it threatened? For the rest, the relations attaches to the rapidity of its preparations. between the two countries have not suf

country. I am informed that a convoy of will know how to defend it? It will then be 120 men and 12 officers, French prisoners to restore, to return upon us,a family which from Russia, has been stopped on the side belongs neither to our age nor our manof Turlemont. In waiting to derive cor- ners; which know neither how to apprerect information on this point, and to de-ciate the elevation of our souls, nor to mand, if necessary, redress for such a comprehend the extent of our rights; it proceeding, I contine myself now to the will be to replace on our necks the triple statement of it to your Majesty, consider-yoke of absolute monarchy, fanaticism ing the importance which it receives from its connection with other circumstances which are developed around us.

and feudality, that all Europe would ap pear to give itself up to an immense rising? One would say, that France, confined Upon all parts of Europe at once, they within its ancient limits, while the limits of are arming or marching, or ready to march. other powers have been prodigiously exAnd against whom are these armaments tended,-that France, free, rich only in directed? Sire, it is your Majesty they the great character which its revolutions name, but it is France that is threatened. have left, still holds too much space in the The east favourable peace that the Powers map of the world! Yes, if, contrary to ever dared to offer you, is that with the dearest wish of your Majesty, foreign which your Majesty contents yourself. Powers give the signal of a new war, it is Why do they not now wish what they sti- France herself, it is the whole nation whom pulated at Chaumont,-what they ratified they mean to attack, though they pretend at Paris? It is not then against the only to attack its Sovereign, though they Monarch, it is against the French na- affect to separate the nation from the Emtion, against the independence of the peror. The contract of France with your people, against all that is dear to us, all Majesty is closer than any that ever united that we have acquired after twenty-five a nation to its Prince. The people and years of suffering and of glory, against our the monarch can only have the same liberties, our institutions, that hostile pas- friends and the same enemies. Is the sions wish to make war: a part of the question one of mere personal provoca. Bourbon family, and some men who have tion between one Sovereign and anolong ceased to be French, endeavour again ther? That can be nothing else but an to raise all the nations of Germany and the ordinary duel. What did Francis I. in North, in the hope of returning a second his rage against Charles V.? He sent time by force of arms on the soil which him a challenge. But to distinguish the disclaims and wishes no longer to receive chief of a nation from the nation itself, to them. The same appeal has resounded protest that nothing is meant but against for a moment in some countries of the the person of the Prince, and to march South, and it is from Spanish troops that against him alone a million of men, is some people are redemanding the crown playing too much with the cruelty of France: it is a family again become pri- of nations. The sole, the real object vate and solitary which thus implores the which the foreign powers can propose to assistance of foreigners. Where are the themselves on the hypothesis of a new coa public functionaries, the troops of the line, lition, must be the exhaustion, the degra the national guards, the private inhabi- dation of France; and to attain that obtants, who have accompanied it in its flight ject, the surest means in their view of it beyond our frontiers? To mean to re-es- will be to impose upon it a government tablish the Bourbons once more, would be without force and without energy. to declare war on the whole French popu- policy on their part, is not, besides, a new lation. When your Majesty entered Paris policy; the example has been given them with an escort of a few men; when Bor-by great masters. Thus the Romans prodeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles, and all the scribed such men as Mithridates and NiSouth are disentangling themselves in one comedes, while they covered with their day from the snares laid for them, it is a mi-haughty protection the Attaluses and the litary movement that work these miracles; Prusiases, who priding themselves in the or rather, is it not a national movement, a title of their freed-men, acknowledged movement common to all French hearts, that they only held from them their states which mixes in one feeling the love of and their crown. Thus the French nacountry and the love of the Monarch who tion would be assimilated to those Asiatic

This

nations, to whom the caprice of Rome gave for Kings, Princes whose submission and dependence were secure! In this view, the efforts which the Allied Powers may now attempt to make, would not have for their precise object to bring us back under a dynasty rejected by public opinion. It would not be the Bourbons in particular whom they would wish to protect; for a long time past, their cause, abandoned by themselves, has been so by all Europe; and that unfortunate family has every where been subjected to a disdain but too cruel. The choice of the monarch whom they should place on the throne of France would be of little importance to the Allies, provided they saw there seated with him weakness and pusillanimity: this would be the most sensible outrage that could be done to the honour of a magnanimous and generous nation. It is that which has already most deeply wounded French hearts, and of which the renewal would be the most insupportable. Although in the latter months of 1813, that famous Declaration was published at Frankfort, by which it was solemnly announced that they wished France to be great, happy, and free, what was the result of those pompous assurances? At the same moment they violated the Swiss noutrality. When, in short, on the French soil, in order to cool patriotism and to disorganise the interior, they continued to promise to France an existence and liberal laws, the events soon shewed what confidence was due to such engagements Enlightened by experience, France has its eyes opened; there is not one of its citizens who does not observe and judge what passes around it: inclosed within its ancient frontier, when it cannot give offence to other governments, every attack against its own sovereign is a tendency to ceased to recall the Sovereign of its choice, the only Prince who can guarantee to it the conser interfere in its internal affairs, and will vation of its liberty and independence. The appear only an attempt to divide its Emperor appeared, and the royal government no strength by civil war, and to complete its longer exists At the sight of the universal ruin and dismemberment. However, Sire, movement which carried both the people and the army towards their legitimate Monarch, the even to this day, all is menace, and as yet family of the Bourbons perceived that there rethere is no hostility. Your Majesty will mained no other course for them but to take not wish that incidents proceeding from refuge in a foreign country. They have quitted the individual dispositions of particular the French soil, without a single musket having commanders, either little scrupulous ob- fence. The military household which accompa servers of the orders of their court, or too nied them has collected at Bethune, where it ready to anticipate their supposed inten- declared its submission to the orders of the Emtions, should be considered as acts spring-peror. It has given up its horses and arms; ing from the will of those powers, and as having broke the state of peace. No offi

cial act has proved the determination of a rupture. We are reduced to vague conjectures, to reports perhaps false. It appears certain that on the 26th of March a new agreement was signed, in which the powers consecrated the former alliance of Chaumont. If the object of it is defensive, it enters into the views of your Majesty yourself, and France has no cause to complain; if it were otherwise, it is the independence of the French nation which would be attacked, and France would know how to repel an agression so odious. The Prince Regent of England declares that he wishes, before he acts, to come to an understanding with the other powers. All those powers are armed, and they deliberate. France, excluded from these deliberations of which it is the principal object; France alone deliberates, and is not yet armed. In circumstances so important, in the midst of those uncertainties as to the real dispositions of foreign powers, dispositions whose exterior acts are of a nature to authorise just alarms, the sentiments and wishes of your Majesty for the maintenance of peace, and of the treaty of Paris, ought not to prevent legitimate precautions. I therefore think it my duty to call the attention of your Majesty, and the reflections of your Council, to the measures which the preservation of her rights, the safety of her territory, and the defence of the national honour, ought to dictate to France.

(Signed)

CAULINCOURT, Duke of Vicenza.

CIRCULAR ADDRESSED ΤΟ AMBASSADORS,
MINISTERS, AND OTHER AGENTS OF
FRANCE ABROAD.

Paris, March 30, 1815.
SIR. The wishes of the French nation never

been fired, or a drop of blood shed in their de

more than half of it has entered our ranks; the rest, few in number, are retiring to their homes, happy to find an asylum in the generosity of