French people, and the character of the individual at the head of the government, demonstrated that surrounding nations could not be at peace. The restless ambition and thirst of foreign conquest, and the disregard for the rights and independence of other states, which had characterized Napoleon and his army, exposed the whole of Europe to renewed scenes of devastation and blood. His destruction, as a ruler, was therefore required, not only as an expiation of former crimes, but as a necessary measure of precaution and security. The unbounded influence which he had hitherto exerted over a people so vain-glorious, so volatile, and so demoralized as the French, and the calamities in which, by these means, he had involved every surrounding country, not only justified those countries in uniting, but imperiously called upon them to unite, and prohibit France from again placing herself at the disposal of a man in whose hands she must ever be an object of alarm and terror. Candour requires the acknowledgment, that some enlightened men, who had the best opportunity for observing him, and who would not be easily imposed upon, were persuaded that the intentions of Nopoleon were honest. They imagined that he had seen the folly of his conduct; that he wished to atone for his errors; and that he had determined to respect the liberties of France and the peace of Europe. His conduct in the trying scenes that succeeded the battle of Waterloo, when he steadfastly refused to assume the dictatorship, when no entreaties of his misguided friends, or even of his brothers, could induce him to violate the rights of the legislature, favors this supposition. Carnot was of this opinion. Others, with some degree of plausibility, reasoned thus: The ruling passion of Napoleon is ambition. That passion is not, never can be, extinct. To excite the admiration of his cotemporaries, and to become the hero of future annals, is the grand aim of all his actions, the only end for which he appears to live; for this he will commit erime without malignant intention, and practise virtue without merit.

The same passion which formerly suggested the romantic plan of universal empire, will now direct and constrain him to adopt an opposite course. Public opinion, on which he so much depends, and which is so necessary to his existence, repels with horror the chains of despotism, even though fabricated of gold, and the palms of victory if stained with blood. Opinion, the mistress of the masters of the world, now exacts from him peace and liberty; peace founded on justice and cemented by good faith, and liberty protected and supported by the laws. At this price she promises him glory and immortality, and at this price be will purchase the objects of his most ardent wishes.

This reasoning, however plausible, however in- BOOK XIV teresting, would not heal the yet bleeding wounds which Russia, Prussia, and Austria, had received CHAP.VIII. at Friedland, Jena, and Austerlitz. The allies could not trust him. He had no pledges to give, and 1815. without sufficient pledges they were not justified in compromising the peace and security of Europe. During fifteen years he had unceasingly aimed at the subjugation of Europe. It had been the object of his daily meditations, and his nightly dreams. "In five years," said he to one of his ministers, at a time when he was at peace with every continental power except Spain, "in five years I shall be master of the world. Russia alone will remain; but I will crush it," added he, with a most expressive gesture. "Paris shall reach to St. Cloud. I will build fifty vessels every year; but I will not send one of them to sea till I have 500. I shall then be master of the ocean as well as the land." It was a favorite expression with him at that time, that in five years he should be master of the world, and that Paris would reach to St. Cloud.

A strong attachment to royalty and the Bourbons still subsisted in Britany and La Vendée; and the royalists in those parts at this time took up arms in defence of the Bourbon cause, and became masters of the country which they inhabited; but they were not able to extend themselves towards Paris. There was, indeed, a want of concert and combination in all the efforts of the Bourbonists, which rendered them desultory and ineffectual; and they had little influence in diverting the attention of the French government from the means to resist the foreign storm which was rising against it. This danger was so imminent, that it was become absolutely necessary no longer to conceal it from the nation, which was to be prepared for exerting all its powers of resistance. On the 14th of April, a long report from the minister of foreign affairs to the emperor was published at Paris. As this document gives a clear and correct view of the state of Europe, and of the preparations of the allies at this period, we shall present it to the reader.

Report to the Emperor.

Sire,-If prudence makes it my duty not to present indiscreetly to your majesty a phantom of chimerical dangers, it is for me an obligation not less sacred, not to suffer that vigilance to be lulled into a deceitful security, which is prescribed to me by the care for the preservation of peace, that great interest of France, that primary object of the wishes of your majesty. To see danger where none exists, is sometimes to provoke it, and to cause it to spring up from another side; to shut our eyes against the indications which may be the forerunners of it, would be an act of inexcusable infatuation.

BOOK XIV.

1815.

I ought not to dissemble, sire, that though no positive information confirms up to this day, on CRAP. VIII. the part of foreign powers, a resolution formally adopted, which should lead us to presume upon a speedy war; yet appearances sufficiently authorise a just inquietude-alarming symptoms are manifested on all sides at once. In vain do you oppose the composure of reason to the tumult of the passions. The voice of your majesty has not yet been able to make itself heard-an incomprehensible system threatens to prevail with the powers, that of preparing for combat without admitting any preliminary explanation with the nation which they seem determined to fight. By whatever pretext they pretend to justify so unheard-of a proceeding, the conduct of your majesty is its best refutation. The facts speak for themselves; they are simple, precise, incontestible; and from the mere statement which I am about to give of these facts, the councils of all the sovereigns of Europe, the governments and the nations, may alike pronounce judgment in this important cause.

Some days since, sire, I found it necessary to call your attention to the preparations of the different foreign governments; but the germs of disturbance, which for a moment sprang upon some points of our southern provinces, rendered our situation complicated. Perhaps that very natural feeling which causes us to wish above all things for the repression of every principle of interual dissension, would have prevented me, in spite of myself, from considering in so serious a light the menacing dispositions which are manifested abroad. The rapid dispersion of the enemies of our domestic tranquillity relieves me from all delicacy of that kind. The French nation has a right to hear the truth from its government; and never could its government have, as now, so strong a wish, or so powerful an interest, to tell it the whole truth.

You resumed your crown, sire, on the 1st of March. There are events so far beyond the calculations of human reason, that they escape the foresight of kings and the sagacity of their ministers. On the first report of your arrival on the shores of Provence, the monarchs assembled at Vienna still considered your majesty as no more than the sovereign of the isle of Elba, when you already reigned again over the French empire. It was only in the palace of the Thuilleries that your majesty learned the existence of their declaration. The persons who signed that unaccountable document, already understood of themselves, that your majesty had no occasion to make any reply to it.

Meanwhile all the proclamations, all the expressions of your majesty, loudly attested the sincerity of your wishes for the maintenance of peace. It was my duty to inform the French

your

political agents, "employed abroad by the royal government, that their functions had expired, and to apprise them that your majesty intended to accredit new legations immediately. In desire to leave no doubt respecting your real sentiments, your majesty ordered me to enjoin those agents to be the interpreters of them to the dif ferent cabinets. I obeyed that order, by writ ing, on the 30th of March, to the ambassadors, ministers, and other agents, the subjoined

letter. Not content with this first step, your majesty determined, under these extraordinary circumstances, to give to the manifestation of your pacific dispositions a character 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 instant, are a monument which must for ever attest the honor 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 goverments; 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 benefit 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 pas sage, even upon condition of his consenting to be accompanied by an escort. Another sent off for Italy, was obliged to return from Turin, without accomplishing the object of his mission. A third, destined for Berlin and the North, was appre hended at Mentz, and ill-treated by the Prussian commandant. His dispatches were seized by the Austrian general who commands in chief in that place.

I hereto subjoin the documents relative to the refusals of a passage which these couriers met with in their different directions.

I have already learned, that among the cou riers dispatched on the 5th instant, those destined

for Germany and Italy were unable to pass the frontiers. I have no account of those who were sent off for the North and for England.

When an almost impenetrable barrier is thus set up between the French ministry and its agents abroad, between the cabinet of your majesty and those of other sovereigns, your minister, sire, has no other means than the public acts of foreign governments of judging of their intentions. 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 instant, by the prince-regent, is not calculated to excite any very extensive confidence in the friends of peace. I have the honor to submit this piece to your majesty.

A first remark must painfully affect those who are acquainted with the rights of nations, 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 occured 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 seems 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 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 same time must watch the whole extent of its coast against the possibility of a descent. It is, says the prince-regent, to render the security of Europe permanent, that he claims the support of the English nation. And how can he have occasion for this support when that security is not threatened?

For the rest, the relations between the two countries have not suffered any alteration worthy of notice. On some points, particular facts prove that the English are solicitous to maintain the relations established by the peace. On others, different circumstances would lead to a contrary belief. Letters from Rochefort, of the 7th inst., mention some incidents which would be of an

and if not explained in a satisfactory manner; BOOK XIV. but our present accounts exhibit no character which would lead us to attach much importance CHAP. VIII. to those incidents. 1815,

In Austria, in Russia, in Prussia, in all parts of Germany, in Italy, in short every where, is to be seen a general arming.

Austria.-At Vienna, the recal of the landwehr, lately disbanded, the opening of a new loan, the daily increasing progression of the discredit of the paper-money, all announce the intention or the fear of war.

Strong Austrian columns are on their march to reinforce the numerous corps already assembled in Italy. It may be doubted whether they are destined for aggressive operations, or are merely intended to keep in obedience Piedmont, Genoa, and the other parts of the Italian territory, where the clashing of interests may excite apprehensions of discontent.

Naples.-Amidst these preparations of Austria on the side of Italy, the King of Naples could not remain motionless. This prince, whose assistance the allies had on a preceding occasion invoked, whose legitimacy they had acknowledged, and whose existence they had guaranteed, could not be ignorant that their policy, since modified by different circumstances, would have endangered his throne, if, too intelligent to trust to their promises, he had not known how to strengthen himself on better foundations. Prudence has enjoined him to advance a few steps, to watch events more closely, and the necessity of covering his kingdom has obliged him to take up military positions in the Roman states.

Prussia. The movements of Prussia are not less active. Every where the corps are completing. Officers on half-pay are ordered to join their corps to accelerate their march they grant them free posting; and this sacrifice, slight in appearance, but made by a calculating government, is not a small proof of the interest which it attaches to the rapidity of its preparations.

Sardinia. The first moment after your majesty's return, a commandant of the British troops, in concert with the governor of the county of Nice, took possession of Monaco. By ancient treaties, renewed by the treaty of Paris, France alone has a right to place a garrison in that fortress. The time of this occupation by the commandant of the English troops, sufficiently shows that he did this of himself, and without previous instructions from his government. France must demand satisfaction for this affair from the courts of London and Turin. She must require the evacuation of Monaco, and its being given up to a French garrison conformably to treaties; but your majesty will, doubtless, be of opinion, that this affair can only become a subject of explana

BOOK XIV. Sardinian governor, and especially that of the English commandant, have been accidental, and a sudden effect of the alarm occasioned by extraordinary movements.

CHAP. VIII. 1815.

i

Spain.-News from Spain, and an official letter from M. de Laval, of the 28th March, state, that an army is to proceed to the line of the Pyrenees. The strength of that army will necessarily depend upon the internal situation of that monarch, and its ulterior movements upon the determinations of the other states. France will remark that these orders were given upon the demand of the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme. Thus, in 1815, as in 1793, it is the French princes that invite foreigners into our territories.

The Netherlands.-The assembling of troops of different nations in the new kingdom of the Netherlands, and the numerous debarkations of English troops are known to your majesty; a particular fact is added to the doubts which these assemblages may give rise to, relative to the dispositions of the sovereign of that country. I am informed that a convoy of 120 men and twelve of ficers, French prisoners from Russia, has been stopped on the side of Turlemont. In waiting to derive correct information on this point, and to demand, if necessary, redress for such a proceeding, I confine myself now to the statement of it to your majesty, considering the importance which it receives from its connection with other circumstances which are developed around us.

Upon all parts of Europe at once, they are arming or marching, or ready to march. And against whom are these armaments directed? Sire, it is your majesty they name, but it is France that is threatened. The least favorable peace that the powers ever dared to offer you is that with which your majesty contents yourself. Why do they not now wish what they stipulated at Chaumont,-what they ratified at Paris? It is not then against the monarch, it is against the French nation, against the independence of the people, against all that is dear to us, all that we have acquired after twenty-five years of suffering and of glory, against our liberties, our institutions, that hostile passions wish to make war: a part of the Bourbon family, and some men who have long ceased to be French, endeavour again to raise all the nations of Germany and the North, in the hope of returning a second time by force of arms on the soil which disclaims and wishes no

longer to receive them. The same appeal has resounded for a moment in some countries of the south, and it is from Spanish troops that some people are re-demanding the crown of France: it is a family again become private and solitary which thus implores the assistance of foreigners. Where are the public functionaries, the troops of the line, the national-guards, the private inha bitants, who have accompanied it in its flight be

yond our frontiers? To mean to re-establish the Bourbons once more, would be to declare war on the whole French population. When your majesty entered Paris with an escort of a few men ; when Bourdeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles, and all the south are disentangling themselves in one day from the snares laid for them, is it a military movement that works these miracles; or rather, is it not a national movement, a movement common to all French hearts, which mixes in one feeling the love of country and the love of the monarch who will know how to defend it? It will then be to restore, to return upon us, a family which belongs neither to our age nor our manners; which know neither how to appreciate the elevation of our souls, nor to comprehend the extent of our rights; it will be to replace on our necks the triple yoke of absolute monarchy, fanaticism, and feudality, that all Europe would appear to give itself up to an immense rising! One would say, that France, confined within its ancient limits, while the limits of other powers have been prodigiously extended,-that France, free, rich, only in the great characters which its revolutions have left it, still holds too much space in the map of the world!

Yes, if, contrary to the dearest wish of your majesty, foreign powers give the signal of a new war, it is France herself, it is the whole nation whom they mean to attack, though they pretend only to attack its sovereign, though they affect to separate the nation from the emperor. The contract of France with your majesty is closer than any that ever united a nation to its prince. The people and the monarch can only have the same friends and the same enemies. Is the question one of mere personal provocation between one sovereign and another? That can be nothing else but an ordinary duel. What did Francis I. in his rage against Charles V.? He sent him a challenge. But to distinguish the chief of a nation from the nation itself, to protest that nothing is meant but against the person of the prince, and to march against him alone a million of men, is playing too much with the cruelty of nations. The sole, the real object which the foreign powers can propose to themselves on the hypothesis of a new coalition, must be the exhaustion, the degradation of France; and to attain that object, the surest means in their view of it will be to impose upon it a government without force and without energy. This policy, on their part, is not, besides, a new policy; the example has been given them by great masters. Thus the Romans prescribed such men as Mithridates and Nicomedes, while they covered with their haughty protection the Attaluses and the Prusiases, who priding themselves in the title of their freed-men, acknowledged that they only held from them their states and their crown. Thus the French

nation would be assimilated to those Asiatic 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 honor 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 neutrality. When, in short, on the French soil, in in order to cool patriotism, and to disorganise the interior, they continued to promise to France an existence and liberal laws, the events soou 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 interfere in its internal affairs, and will appear only an attempt to divide its strength by civil war, and to complete its ruin and dismember

ment.

However, sire, even to this day, all is menace, and as yet there is no hostility. Your majesty will not wish that incidents proceeding from the individual dispositions of particular commanders, either little scrupulous observers of the orders of their court, or too ready to anticipate their supposed intentions, should be considered as acts springing from the will of those powers, and as having broke the state of peace. No official act has proved the determination of a rupture. We are reduced to vague conjectures, to reports perhaps false. It appears certain, that on the 25th 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 Frauce has no cause to complain; if it were BOOK XIV. otherwise, it is the independence of the French nation which would be attacked, and France CHAP VIII. would know how to repel an aggression 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 honor, ought to dictate to France.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs,
(Signed) CAULINCOURT, Duke of Vicenza.

Every effort was now made to increase the regular army, and the following energetic proclamation was published.

"You earnestly wished for your emperor. He is arrived. You have supported him with all your efforts. Rally with all possible dispatch around your standards, that you may be ready to defend your country against enemies who are desirous of regulating our national colours, imposing sovereigns upon us, and dictating constitutions. Under these circumstances, it is the duty of every Frenchman, already accustomed to war, to join the imperial standard. Let us present a frontier of brass to our enemies, and prove to them that we are always the same.

"Soldiers!-Whether you have obtained unlimited or limited furloughs, or whether you have received your discharge, if your wounds are healed, and you are in a state fit to serve, comẻ and join the army! Honor, your country, your emperor invites you! With what reproaches would you not have cause to overwhelm me, were our fine country again to be ravaged by those soldiers whom you so often vanquished, and were the foreigner to invade and obliterate France from the map of Europe.

(Signed) "The Prince of ECKMUHL."

1815.