"and by a law of the legislature." This good person's notions of the new liberties of Francè were a little confused, but convinced us that the 'constitution had not been thrown away upon his countrymen. Baron Baude, the prefect at Bourg, treated us with the utmost civility, and offered to dispatch our letter to Marshal Suchet by an estafette, on the condition that we should remain in the town until the arrival of his answer. We preferred taking this step to returning at once to Paris; and the prefect informed us, that the whole country being at present in arms, we were liable, through ignorance or some little informality in our passports, to be detained at any post, should we attempt to proceed towards Chamberri. Here then we have remained. Moniteurs up to the 20th have arrived regularly, and you may easily conceive the eagerness with which they are perused. That of the 14th contains no other intelligence than that Napoleon was at Soissons at ten in the morning of the 12th, and at Laon at four in the afternoon, where he visited the works before he continued his journey. The Moniteur of the 15th gives the report of the minister of the interior, which was read to the chamber of representatives by Mr. Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely, in the sitting of the 13th.

The

chamber, on the 14th, heard some short discussion relative to its internal regulation, and the provision for the president and members of the assembly. That paper contains no news from the army. The number of the 16th is equally silent; but the details of the sitting of the representatives on the 15th are interesting. A Mr. Malleville proposed the presentation of a project in form of a law to the Emperor, relative to seditious provocations and the abuse of the liberty of the press. The cries of Vive le Roi! Vivent les Bourbons! Vive Louis XVIII! were included in the first. It was moved to adjourn the question until the hearing of the report of the minister of police the next day; and also on the ground, that previously to deciding on the abuse of the liberty of the press, some regulations should be made touching the jury selected to try that crime. The present jury is formed by the government, although the offence is always against the government. It was decided that Mr. Malleville should be heard on Saturday. Mr. Legueval, deputy for Morbihan, proposed a project relative to crimes committed by armed outlaws, and was heard patiently, until he came to an article which put all revolters, their ascendants and descendants, out of the protection of the law,

when the orator was interrupted by loud cries of disapprobation, and of the order of the day, some voices adding, avec la censure. I beg you to remark the feeling of moderation which has more than once displayed itself in this Jacobin parliament. Mr. Pouilly named the next day for a proposition relative to the suspension of the constitutional laws in the insurgent departments. Mr. Dupin proposed Monday for discussing a proposition which he should offer to the house, tending to form a committee of twenty-one members, chargée de reunir nos constitutions, de les refondre et de les co-ordonner dans un projet de loi general. Mr. Marques proposed that the Emperor should be invited to name a commission; and also the chamber of peers a certain number of members to assist the labours of the representatives in framing this constitution. The question was deferred till Monday. Mr. Malleville then proposed, that in no discussion the wish, the presumed intention, or an expression of the monarch, should be quoted to the house; but this important regulation was on the point of being laid aside, because the orator twice introduced the expression" in England," an example which present feeling makes it more advisable to follow than to cite.

"in

The Moniteur of the 17th is taken up with the voluminous report of the Duke of Vicenza, which contains a remonstrance against the conduct of the allies, accompanied with documents such as the chamber of representatives seemed to demand in their address to the Emperor, and tending to prove that Napoleon has done all in his power to maintain the peace of Europe, and has been forced at last into a war, which, indeed, has already been begun on the part of the enemy, and required, therefore, his immediate presence to conduct. "The English," says the Duke," the Prussians, the Austrians, are in line. "The Russians are in full march-the head "of their first column passed Nurenberg on the 19th of May, and is now on the banks of the "Rhine. The Emperor of Russia and the King "of Prussia quitted Vienna on the 26th of May, and the Emperor of Austria on the

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27th. These sovereigns are at this moment at the head of their armies, and your majesty "is yet at Paris . Sire, all farther hesita"tion must conpromise the interests of our "country."

Indeed I should presume, that neither in France nor England will Napoleon want any excuse for having struck the first blow, except Mr. Grattan should, in his riot, have doomed

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him to bleed without resistance. The Moniteur contains a short bulletin, dated Charleroy, June -15, nine in the evening, couched in these words "The army has forced the Sambre, taken "Charleroy, and driven the advanced posts half way from Charleroy to Namur, and from. Charleroy to Brussels. We have made fifteen "hundred prisoners, and taken six pieces of 66 cannon. Four Prussian regiments have been "cut to pieces. The Emperor's army has suf"fered but little; but he has experienced a sen"sible loss in the death of General Letort, his "aide-de-camp, who was killed on the heights "of Fleurus, leading a charge of cavalry. The "enthusiasm of the inhabitants of Charleroy, and "of all the countries which we traverse, cannot "be described."

The paper of the 18th gives at last the official detail of this first action, and also the Emperor's address to the army, dated Avesues, June 14th, conceived in his usual terms, telling his soldiers that he addresses them on the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland*. A dispatch inentions the affair of Montmellian by Marshal Suchet. The Emperor, in a letter of the 16th, has written with his own hand-"Letort is

*See Appendix-No. 21.