1815.

BOOK XIV. character, never to lay down their arms till the irrevocable destruction of his, pernicious power. CHAP. IX. Louis next proceeds to state, that the allies had in fact acknowledged him as the only legitimate sovereign of France, by sending their ambassadors to reside where he was, and by requiring his accession to the new compact which they had signed. He next again adverts to his love of the French, and to his devotion to their cause and happiness: "He would at this moment sacrifice himself for you, did not his sacrifice, instead of securing your peace, leave you exposed to a more terrible war: a foreign invasion would be substituted for a foreign support. Europe has resolved upon the destruction of a power incompatible with European society. And bow, in such a conflict, would foreigners, if left to themselves, distinguish among you the-victims of tyranny from its accomplices?-But let France will it, and France will have only friends in a league in which her king has been requested to take part, and in which he has taken part.

"Frenchmen, the king, who has always been near you, will always be with you. His majesty, the day on which he shall set foot on his territory again, will make known to you in detail his salutary intentions, and all his measures of order, justice, and wisdom.

"Frenchmen, whom Louis XVIII. is about to reconcile a second time with Europe; inhabitants of those good cities, whose affecting wishes daily reach the king, and encourage him to accomplish them; Parisians, who now grow pale at the sight of that very palace whose walls alone so lately spread serenity on your countenances; who, every morning, during a year, came thither to salute Louis XVIII. with the name of father, not with voices subjugated by terror or sold to falsehood, but with the cry of your hearts and your consciences: national-guards, who on the 12th of March swore to him with so much ardour to live and die for him and the constitution; you who have preserved him in your hearts; you who would have seen him in your ranks, had treason permitted those ranks to be formed,prepare all of you for the day when the voice of your prince and of your country shall summon you to the duty of aiding the one and saving the other."

The manifesto concludes with adverting to the elections going on in France. It says, "Doubtless, if it were possible for these elections to be national, the scrutinisers faithful, and the voices free, the new Champ de Mai would make the illegality of its principle disappear in the loyalty of its wishes. Its first cry would be a new consecration of that alliance sworn nine centuries ago, between the nation of the Franks and the royal house of France, and perpetuated for nine centuries between the posterity of those Franks

and the posterity of their kings: the true French nation would never wish either to perjure its ancestors, nor to perjure itself. But what can you expect from an usurper, or from those who have ensanguined or defiled all that they have ever touched; who have made objects of derision or horror every thing that ought to be the object of veneration and love; who would disgrace, were it possible, even the names of country, liberty, the constitution, laws, honor, and virtue ?”

On this manifesto we shall offer only two remarks. In the first place, it is very strikingly observable, that the language of all addresses to the French nation, whether proceeding from Bonaparte or Louis, are deeply tinctured with the same faults: their language is pompous and inflated; their statements exaggerated; little is addressed to cool reason and sober judgment; almost the whole to feeling or passion. In the second place, Louis, by so frequently and strikingly dwelling on the charter, and on the inviolability of property, evidently is sensible, that he had not been acting during his reign as he ought to have acted, with respect to these points.

This manifesto was probably drawn up by the Viscount Chateaubriand: it has all the faults and all the excellencies of his style and manner. He also drew up about the same time a report on the state of France. This report is important and interesting, as exhibiting a strong contrast with the report laid before Bonaparte. The first head of this report relates to the acts and decrees for the interior. Under this head the reporter contrasts the benedictions that followed the king on his departure with the gloom that was caused by the return of Bonaparte :-he remarks on the system of official lying: the proclamations of Bonaparte, promising the return of the golden age, &c. If Bonaparte abolishes the excise, he only undoes his own work;-by what right, among a free people, does he alter the mode of levying the taxes prescribed by the law?

On the decree for calling out the nationalguards are the following remarks:

"You, sire, abolished the conscription, and thought you had for ever delivered your people and the world from that scourge. Bonaparte bas just restored it only under another shape, and avoiding its odious name. His decree, as to the national-guards, is one of the most frightful and monstrous things which the revolution up to this moment has produced: 3,130 battalions are designated at the rate of 720 men each; they form a total of 2,253,600. As yet, indeed, only 240 battalions, chosen from the grenadiers and lightinfantry, have been rendered moveable, representing 172,800 men. He is not yet strong enough to cause the rest to march, but it will come in time, with the aid of the grand machine of the Champ de Mai.

"This immense haul embraces the whole population of France, and comprehends what the levies in mass and the conscriptions never included. In 1793 the convention dared to take only seven years, the men between eighteen and twenty-five. They now march all from twenty to sixty, discharged or not discharged; married or unmarried; those with substitutes or those without; guards of honor, volunteers,-all, in short, are enveloped in this general proscription. Bonaparte, tired of decimating the French people, means to exterminate them at one blow. It is hoped, by the terror of the police, to compel the citizens to enrol themselves. Happily, sire, material facts and moral influence contribute to diminish the danger of this disastrous conscription. There remains but very few muskets in the arsenals of France in consequence of the invasion of last year, several manufactories of arms were dismanled or destroyed. Pikes are capable of being fabricated speedily enough to be put into the hands of the multitude; but this arm furnishes little resource. As to that valor which, with Frenchmen, supplies the place of all arms, it is certain that the national-guards will not employ it against your majesty. All the moral force of France and the torrent of public opinion are absolutely for the king. In niany departments, the national guards will not rise at all, or will only form with extreme difficulty in fiue, the citizen, oppressed by the soldier, will less readily submit to be subjugated if arms are given him; and Bomaparte, instead of pouring a people who hate him into an army which he has seduced, will perhaps lose a devoted soldiery in a hostile population."

:

The second head relates to the exterior. Under this head are stated the attempts made by Bonaparte to deceive foreign powers by the hopes of peace, while, at the very same time, he was flattering his army with the recovery of Belgium, the natural boundary of the Rhine and Italy. The question of foreign interference is also stated and argued under this head.

The third head of the report relates to reproaches made to the royal government. Under this head the reporter shows the reproaches concerning the lavish expenditure to be wholly groundless; and endeavours to justify the nonpayment of Bonaparte's allowance in Elba, because he had immense debts in France.-The Bourbons are accused of having wished to lessen the glory of the army; and yet foreigners have accused the emigrants of being proud of those very victories which prevented them from returning to their own country.

The last head of the report relates to the spirit of Bonaparte's government.

The reporter shows the embarrassments of Bonaparte, the collision of parties, none of them.

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strong enough to establish a separate authority, BOOK XIV. and bound together only as long as their common interests require it; while Bonaparte flatters CHAP IX. all by turns, and prepares the grand manoeuvre of the Champ de Mai. He deduces the inference that both the army and the people will soon become sensible that they have been equally betrayed; that the strength of Bonaparte diminishes as that of the king increases; and that the latter will shortly return to this country, will carry back happiness with him; and that all his subjects, both innocent and guilty, will find their salvation by throwing themselves into his arms or at his feet.

"But, sire, while I am endeavouring to lay before you majesty a picture of the internal state of France, the picture is no longer the same; to-morrow it will change again, however rapidly I might sketch it, and it would be impossible for me to follow the convulsive emotions of a man agitated by his own passions and by those which he has so foolishly excited. The publication of the additional act has deprived him of his remaining accomplices; attacked on all sides he retreats, he withdraws from his extraordinary commissioners the nomination of the mayors of the communes, and gives it to the people. Frightened by the multiplicity of negative votes he abandons the dictatorship, and convokes the representatives by virtue of this very additional act, which is not yet accepted. Thus driven from shoal to shoal, he turns himself a hundred different ways to elude his engagements, and to seize again the power which is escaping from him; scarcely delivered from one danger, he meets a new one. These sudden changes, this strange confusion of all things, announce what we may call the dying agonies of despotism: tyranny worn out, and on its decline, still retains, the inclination to do evil, but it seems to have lost its power."

Such were the employments of Louis and his ministers during his exile at Ghent. But though in his manifesto, and in the official report, he represented the majority of the French nation (or rather the whole French nation, with the exception of the army and a very few individuals,) as hostile to Bonaparte and warmly attached to himself; yet it was evident that he looked for his re-establishment on the throne to his allies alone, not to his subjects.

Before we proceed any further in the affairs of France, it will be proper to interpose a few of the parallel proceedings of that sovereign who owed to Bonaparte his crown, and had never ceased to participate in his councils. It was observed in Book. XIII. of this history, that the King of Naples, Joachim Murat, appeared to be placed in a pecuTiarly critical situation.. His retention of that crown was obviously an anomaly in the politicak

1815.

BOOK XIV. system of restoring the former state of things in Europe; and although the services he had renCHAP. IX. dered to Austria, by a powerful aid at the time it was engaged in a hard contest with the French armies in the north of Italy, had been returned by a treaty of friendship and alliance with the Austrian emperor, yet the terms on which he stood with the other powers were far from satisfactory. The Bourbon sovereigns had a family in terest to replace the crown of Naples on the head of the King of Sicily; and the court of Great Britain, in close alliance with the latter, had never recognized the title of King Joachim, and had only agreed to a suspension of hostilities against him, when his co-operation was of advantage to the common cause. The British cabinet did, indeed, consider that this was preliminary to a treaty with him, but it was upon the condition that a compensation should elsewhere be found for the King of Sicily. Joachim was long in anxious expectation of the signature of such a treaty by the English minister; and, on the 29th of December, 1814, his ministers at Vienna delivered to Lord Castlereagh a memorial, requesting the speedy conclusion of a defiuitive treaty of peace between the two crowns.

Long before this time, however, Murat had become an object of suspicion; and Lord William Bentinck, who had closely observed him, gave, in a letter to Lord Castlereagh, dated the 7th of January, 1815, the following, among other remarks, on the subject:-"There can be no doubt that all the advantages contemplated in the alliance with Murat, by Austria and the allies, would have been realized, if he had embarked honestly and cordially in the cause; but his policy was to save his crown, and to do this he must always be on the side of the conqueror. His first agents were sent to me after his return from Leipsic. He then thought Napoleon's affairs desperate. His language was plain and sincere. He said, 'Give me an armistice, and I will march with the whole of the army against the French. Give me the friendship of England, and I care not for Austria, or the rest of the world!' Subsequently, when Austria came to seek his alliance, he naturally discovered both his own importance, and the uncertain issue of the contest. He then began to entertain views of aggrandisement; and, by possessing himself of the whole south of Italy, he seemed to think he could render himself independent, whatever might be the event of the war. His lordship proceeds to speak of the counsels by which Murat was governed. He describes him as equally remarkable for his courage in the field, and his indecision in the cabinet, which disposition was worked upon by two contending parties in his court, the French and the Neapolitans. His attachment was manifestly to the former; and he was anxious to keep with him his

French officers, who were continually magnifying the success of the French army, and endeavour. ing to fix him in alliance with their country. It further appears, that Lord W. Bentinck entertained strong suspicions of the good faith of Murat even whilst acting with the allies, and that he had a serious difference with him on that account; and also that the Austrian general, Bellegarde, was fully of the same opinion. Anxious, however, to secure the friendship of England, the Neapolitan ministers at Vienna presented the following note to Lord Castlereagh, on the 11th of February:

"The undersigned ministers-plenipotentiaries of his majesty the King of Naples, have had the honor of addressing to his excellency my Lord Viscount Castlereagh, principal secretary of state of his Britannic majesty for foreign affairs, an official note, dated the 29th of December last, soliciting the conclusion of the definitive peace be tween the crowns of Naples and Great Britain. His excellency my Lord Castlereagh was so good as to assure the undersigned, first pleni potentiary of his Neapolitan majesty, that he would occupy himself with the object of that note. It has, nevertheless, remained to this day without any result. Although the king cannot but be keenly affected by this silence, from the eagerness with which he is desirous of enter ing into more intimate relations with England, he has too much dependance on the sincerity and justice of the English government, to allow him to doubt for a moment of its fidelity in fulfilling the engagements which it has contracted towards him. If all those reasons which the undersigned urged in their note of the 29th of December last required to be corroborated by others still more powerful, they might recal to his excellency my Lord Castlereagh the convention which he proposed at Troyes, with the three other principal coalesced powers, by which the Britannic govern ment, recognising the political existence of the King of Naples, solicited an indemnity in favor of the King of Sicily, as an indemnification for the kingdom of Naples. Austria, Russia, and Prussia adhered by separate acts of accession, stipulated at Troyes, the 15th of February, 1814, to that convention, which has irrevocably conse crated the principle of the political existence of the King of Naples. It belonged next to the powers in whose hands were all the disposable countries conquered from the enemy, to find and to proportion the indemnity to be given to the King of Sicily. His Neapolitan majesty could concur no otherwise in this than by his good offices; and he has fulfilled on this point the e gagements which he contracted by his treaty of alliance of the 11th of January, 1814, the undersigned having declared by the note which they have had the Lonor of addressing to his excellency

my Lord Castlereagh, under date of the 29th of December last, that they were ready to concur in the arrangement which might be proposed for that effect. Thus, under whatever point of view the Britannic government wish to view its position with regard to the King of Naples, it can only consider as just and reasonable the demand which the undersigned are charged with reiterating to his excellency my Lord Castlereagh, of proceeding to the prompt conclusion of a defini. tive treaty of peace between the two crowns. No person can be better qualified than my Lord Castlereagh to enlighten the English governmeut with respect to the affairs of Naples. Having concurred in the negociation which preceded and which followed the accession of his Neapolitan majesty to the coalition, he was the organ of the engagements entered into by the English government towards the court of Naples; and his character for justice and probity is too well known to allow the undersigned to suppose that his political conduct will vary in any manner; and they are certain that he will support in London the engagements which he contracted in the name of his government towards the King of Naples, as well as the promises and verbal declarations made by him during the last campaign of the coalesced armies, and principally at Chaumont and Dijon. The undersigned beseech his excellency my Lord Castlereagh to accept the assurances of their very high consideration.

(Signed) "The Duke of CAMPOCHIARO.
"The Prince de CARIATI."

In the latter part of the preceding year, Murat had put in motion a considerable body of troops, with the apparent intention of occupying an additional share of the territories of the church; and, at the end of January, a Neapolitan army, consisting of about 25,000 men, was posted near Rome, so as in a manner to blockade it on the side of Naples. The Pope, who had sent a memorial of his complaints to the Austrian court, remained in the city with his cardinals, trusting to the sanctity of his character for his sole defence. About this period, the Neapolitan minister at the Congress presented a note to Prince Metternich, in which, after representing that his sovereign considered himself as included in the peace of Paris, among the allies of the coalesced powers, he complained of the delay of his most christian majesty to recognize him, and urged the Emperor of Austria to exert his influence with the court of France, in order to procure him this justice. That the French cabinet had before this time formed the design of obliging Murat to resign the crown of Naples to King Ferdinand, was rendered apparent by the following letter from the Prince of Benevente (Talleyrand) to Lord

CHAP. IX.

1815.

"MY LORD.-You desire me to make known to BOOK XIV. you in what manner I conceive the affair of Naples ought to be settled in Congress; for as there is a necessity of settling it, it is a point upon which there ought not to be one moment of uncertainty in a mind like your's. It would be for ever a subject of reproach, and I will say, even an eternal subject of shame,, if the right of sovereignty over an ancient and fine kingdom, like that of Naples, being contested, Europe united for the first time (and probably for the last) in general Congress should leave undecided a question of this nature, and sanctioning in some degree usurpation by its silence, should give ground for the opinion, that the only source of right is force. I have not at the same time to convince your excellency of the rights of Ferdinand IV. England has never ceased to recognize them. In the war in which he lost Naples, England was his ally. She has been since, and is so still. Never has she recognized the title that the person who now governs at Naples assumes, nor the right which this title supposes; therefore, in concurring to assure the rights of King Ferdinand, England has only one plain thing to do—which is to declare in Congress what she has always recognized, that Ferdinand IV. is the legitimate sovereign of the kingdom of Naples.

"Perhaps England, heretofore the ally of Ferdinand IV., desires still to be so. Perhaps she may believe her honor demands that she should assist, if need be, with her forces, for his regaining the crown of which he has been recognized the sovereign; but this is not an obligation that can flow from a pure and simple acknowledgement of the rights of this prince, because the recognition of a right does not naturally carry with it any other obligation, than that of doing nothing that may be contrary to such right, and of not supporting any pretension that may be set up against it. It does not carry with it the obligation of fighting in his defence.

"It may be that I deceive myself; but it appears to me infinitely probable, that a frank and unanimous declaration of the powers of Europe, and the certitude of the person who now governs at Naples, that he would not be supported by any one, would render useless the employment of force; but if the contrary should happen, those only of the allies of King Ferdinand would be necessary who should think proper to lend him their support.

"Is it feared that in this case the war should. spread beyond the limits of the kingdom of Naples, and that the tranquillity of Italy should again be interrupted? Is it feared that foreign troops should again traverse Italy? These fears may be obviated by stipulating that the kingdom of Naples should not be attacked by the Italian