larity obtained by this act of justice and policy was augmented by several alleviating regulations relative to the excise duties, and the droits reunis, of which the Bourbons had promised the remission, but had forgot their pledge. At the same time, another measure, highly beneficial to the people, was recommended in a memorial from Carnot to the emperor: in which he urged the necessity of general education, and eulogised the the plans adopted in England of Bell and Lancaster. "I do not speak," says he," of those forms of education which produce half philosophers, or men of the world, but such as will make good artizans and moral men, by affording the elements of indispensable knowledge, good habits, and respect for the

laws."

Napoleon immediately issued a decree, in which he descanted on the importance of education, directed the establishment of experimental schools, and promised to enforce those measures which should prove, from actual trial, best calculated to effect the important objects in view. To what extent these acts of wisdom, humanity, and beneficence, were the result of virtue, or the dictates of expedience, is only known to that searcher of hearts, to whom the secret motives and springs of human action are alone disclosed. The frail discrimination of human nature can only judge of the intentions of the individual by the acts themselves, or by their obvious policy. In the present instance, no other course than that which he pursued was adapted to the situation of Napoleon. To conciliate every class and party of the state, by the moderation of his proceedings, and his demeanour, was absolutely necessary to the permanence of his crown, and to effectual resistance against the return of the invaders. His personal deportment was now more courteous and condescending; he no longer indulged in bursts of passion, and his conversation with his visitors was distinguished by politeness and affability. He rose early, and was secluded during many hours of the day, attended the parade in the afternoon, and dined at eight o'clock with his ministers and generals. Between ten and eleven he retired to rest. A French journalist, who had frequent opportunities of observing him, de.

clares him to have been restless and unhappy. His behaviour at the council, though more condescending than formerly, was restrained. He often sighed deeply: his confidence and eloquence revived in the presence of his troops, and he was therefore partial to parades and reviews. As he passed along the ranks of his brave and faithful soldiers, he seemed to regain the power which was contested in the conferences of the councils.

He was often detected in shedding secret tears of shame, disappointment, and resentment. He contrasted the contempt with which he was now treated by the continental sovereigns with the affection which they had once expressed, and the humility with which others had thanked him for their forfeited crowns. Even the clemency and magnanimity with which he had treated the family and partizans of the Bourbon dynasty was repeated oft as an act of dangerous lenity, and he secretly formed a list of those who had most strenuously opposed his enterprise, or had insulted his calamities. It is creditable to the humanity and discretion of Fouché, that the proscriptions commanded in these intervals of passion, were suspended, by the forms of office, till the objects of punishment had intimation of their danger, and time to escape. To satisfy his master, the dead bodies of criminals, executed for atrocious crimes, were shewn to the agents of Napoleon as those of the intended victims: and, to the disgrace of human nature, the very persons whom he had thus preserved were the first, on the subsequent return of the Bourbons, to accuse him of treason, and to obtain his dismissal from the councils of the king.

On the 2d of April appeared the justificatory manifesto of Napoleon, or

ANSWER OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT TO THE DECLARATION OF THE ALLIES.

ceived in terms so strange, expresses ideas so anti-social, that the committee was ready to consider it as one of those forgeries by which despicable men seek to mislead the people, and produce a change in public opinion. But the verification of legal minutes drawn up at Metz and of the examinations of couriers, has left no ground for doubt that the transmission of this declaration was made by the members of the French legation at Vienna, and it must, therefore, be regarded as adopted and signed by them. It was in this first point of view that the committee thought it their duty to examine, in the first instance, this production, which is without precedent in the annals of diplomacy, and in which Frenchmen, men invested with a public character the most respectable, begin by a sort of placing without the law, or, to speak more precisely, by an incitement to the assassination of the emperor Napoleon We say with the minister of police that this declaration is the work of the French plenipotentiaries; because those of Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England, could not have signed a deed which the sovereigns and the nations to which they belong will hasten to disavow. For in the first place these plenipotentiaries, most of whom co-operated in the treaty of Paris, know that Napoleon was there recognised as retaining the title of emperor, and as sovereign of the isle of Elba: they would have designated him by these titles, nor would have departed, either in substance or form, from the respectful notice which they impose. They would have felt that, according to the law of nations, the prince least powerful from the extent or population of his states, enjoys, in regard to his political and civil character, the rights belonging to every sovereign prince equally with the most powerful monarch; and Napoleon, recognised under the title of emperor, and as a sovereign prince by all the powers, was no more than any one triable by the congress of Vienna. An oblivion of those principles, which it is impossible to ascribe to plenipotentiaries who weigh the rights of nations with deliberation and prudence, has in it nothing astonishing when it is displayed by some French ministers, whose consciences reproach them with more than one act of treason, in whom fear has

produced rage, and whom remorse deprives of reason. Such persons might have risked the fabrication, the publication of a document like the pretended declaration of the 13th of March, in the hope of stopping the progress of Napoleon, and misleading the French people as to the true principles of foreign powers. But such men are not qualified, like the latter, to judge of the merit of a nation which they have misconceived, betrayed, delivered up to the arms of foreigners. That nation, brave and generous, revolts against every thing bearing the character of baseness and oppression; its affections become enthusiastic when their object is threatened or attacked by a great injustice; and the assassination to which the declaration of the 13th of March incites, will find an arm for its execution neither among the 25 millions of Frenchmen, the majority of whom followed, guarded, protected Napoleon from the Mediterranean to the capital, nor among the 18 millions of Italians, the 6 millions of Belgians and Rhenish, nor the numerous nations of Germany, who, at this solemn crisis, have not pronounced his name but with respectful recollections; nor amidst the indignant English nation, whose honourable sentiments disavow the language which has been audaciously put into the mouths of sovereigns.— The nations of Europe are enlightened; they judge the rights of the allied princes, and those of the Bourbons. They know that the convention of Fontainbleau was a treaty among sovereigns; its violation, the entrance of Napoleon on the French territory, like every infraction of a diplomatic act, like every hostile invasion, could only lead to an ordinary war, the result of which can only be, in respect of persons, that of being conqueror or conquered, free, or a prisoner of war; in respect of possessions, that of being either preserved or lost, increased or diminished; and that every thought, every threat, every attempt against the life of a prince at war with another, is a thing unheard of in the history of nations and the cabinets of Europe.

In the violence, the rage, the oblivion of principles, which characterise the declaration of the 13th of March, we recognise the envoys of the same prince, the organs of the same councils, which, by the ordinance of the

9th of March, also placed Napoleon without the law, also invited against him the poniards of assassins, and promised a reward to the bringer of his head. What, however, did Napoleon do? He did honour, by his confidence, to the men of all nations, insulted by the infamous mission to which it was wished to invite them; he shewed himself moderate, generous, the protector even of those who had devoted him to death. When he spoke to general Excelmans, marching towards the column which closely followed Louis Stanislaus Xavier; to count d'Erlon, who had to receive him at Lille; to general Clausel, who went to Bourdeaux, where was the duchess d'Angouleme; to general Grouchy, dispatched to put a period to the civil dissensions excited by the duke d'Angouleme every where, in short, orders were given by the emperor that persons should be protected and sheltered from every attack, every danger, every violence, while on the French territory, and when they quitted it. Nations and posterity will judge on which side, at this great conjuncture, has been respect for the rights of the people and of sovereigns, for the laws of war, the principles of civilization, the maxims of law, civil and religious. They will decide between Napoleon and the house of Bourbon.

"If, after having examined the pretended declaration of the congress under this first view, it is discussed in its relations to diplo matic conventions, and to the treaty of Fontainbleau of the 11th of April, 1814, ratified by the French government, it will be found that its violation is only imputable to the very persons who reproach Napoleon therewith. The treaty of Fontainbleau has been violated by the allied powers, and the house of Bourbon, in what regards the emperor Napoleon and his family, in what regards the interests and the rights of the French nation.

"First-The empress Maria Louisa and Maria Louisa and her son ought to have obtained passports, and an escort to repair to the emperor; and far from executing this promise, they separated violently the wife from the husband, the son from the father, and that during distressing circumstances, when the firmest soul has need of looking for consolation and sup

port to the bosom of its family, and domestic affections.

Secondly-The safety of Napoleon, of his imperial family, and of their attendants, was guaranteed (14th article of treaty), by all the powers; and bands of assasins have been organised in France, under the eyes of the French government, and even by its orders, as will soon be proved by the solemn process against the Sieur Demontbreuil, for the purpose of attacking the emperor and his brothers, and their wives: in default of the suc cess which was expected from this first branch of the plot, a commotion had been planned at Orgon, on the emperor's road, to attempt an attack on his life by the hands of some brigands: they sent as governor to Corsica an assassin of George's, the Sieur Brulart, raised purposely to the rank of marshal-decamp, known in Brittany, in Anjou, in Normandy, in La Vendee, in all England, by the blood which he had shed, that he might prepare and make sure the crime and in fact several isolated assassins attempted, in the isle of Elba, to gain by the murder of Napoleon the guilty and disgraceful salary which was promised to them.

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Thirdly-The duchies of Parma and Placentia were given in full property to Maria Louisa, for herself, her son, and her descendants; and after long refusals to put her in possession, they gave the finish to their injustice by an absolute spoliation, under the delusive pretext of a change without valuation, without proportion, without sovereignty, without consent: and documents existing in the foreign office, which have been submitted to us, prove that it was on the solicitations, at the instance, and by the intrigues of the prince of Benevente, that Maria Louisa and her son have been plundered.

"Fourthly-There should have been given to the prince Eugene, adopted son of the emperor, who has done honour to France, which gave him birth, and who has conquered the affection of Italy, which adopted him, a suitable establishment out of France, and he has obtained nothing.

"Fifthly-The emperor had (art. 9, of the treaty) stipulated in favour of the heroes of the army, for the preservation of their endowments on the Monte Napoleone: he had re

served on the extraordinary domains, and on the funds of the civil list, means of recompensing his servants, of paying the soldiers who attached themselves to his destiny: all was carried away and kept back by the ministers of the Bourbons. An agent for the French military, M. Bresson, went in vain to Vienna, to claim for them the most sacred of properties-the price of their courage and their blood.

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Sixthly-The preservation of the goods, moveable and immoveable, of the family of the emperor, is stipulated by the same treaty (art. 6.): and they have been plundered of one and of the other; that is to say, by main force in France, by commissioned brigands; in Italy, by the violence of the military chiefs; in the two countries, by sequestrations, and by seizures solemnly decreed.

Seventhly-The emperor Napoleon was to have received 2,000,000, and his family 2,500,000 francs per annum, according to the arrangement established in the 6th article of the treaty and the French government has constantly refused to fulfil this engagement, and Napoleon would soon have been reduced to dismiss his faithful guard for want of means to secure their pay, if he had not found in the grateful recollections of the bankers, and merchants of Genoa and of Italy, the honourable resource of a loan of 12 millions which was offered to him.

Eighthly-In short, it was not without a reason that they wished by all means to separate from Napoleon those companions of his glory, models of devotedness and constancy, the unshaken guarantees of his safety and of his life. The island of Elba was secured to him in full property (art. 3, of the treaty) and the resolution to spoil him of it, which was desired by the Bourbons, and solicited by their agents, had been taken at the congress.

"And if Providence had not in its justice provided for him, Europe would have seen an attack made on the person on the liberty of Napoleon, banished for the future to the mercy of his enemies, far from his family, and separated from his servants, either to St. Lucia, or St. Helena, which was intended for his prison. And when the allied powers, yielding to the imprudent wishes, to the cruel

importunities of the house of Bourbon, had condescended to violate the solemn contract, on the faith of which Napoleon had released the French nation from its oaths: when himself and the members of his family saw themselves threatened, attacked in their persons, in their property, in their affections, in the rights stipulated in their favour, as princes, even in those rights secured by the laws to simple citizens, what could Napoleon do? Ought he, after having endured so many affronts, supported so many injuries, to have consented to the complete violation of the engagements made with him, and resigning himself personally to the lot which was prepared for him, abandon once more his wife, his son, his family, his faithful servants, to their frightful destiny? Such a resolution appears above human strength; and yet Napoleon would have taken it, if peace and the happiness of France had been the price of this new sacrifice. He would have devoted himself again for the French people, of whom, as he wishes to declare to Europe, he makes it his glory to hold every thing, to whom he wishes to ascribe every thing, to whom alone he wishes to answer for all his actions, and to devote his life. It was for France alone, and to avert from it the misfortune of civil war, that he abdicated the crown in 1814. He restored to the French people the rights which he held of them: he left it free to choose for itself a new monarch, and to establish its liberty and its happiness on institutions which might protect both. He hoped for the nation the preservation of all which he had acquired by 25 years of combats and of glory, the exercise of its sovereignty in the choice of a dynasty, and in the stipulation of the conditions on which it would be called upon to reign. He expected from the new government respect for the glory of the armies, the rights of the brave, the guarantee of all the new interests, of those interests which had arisen and been maintained for a quarter of a century, resulting from all the laws political and civil, observed, revered during this period, because they were identified with the manners, the habits, the wants of the nation. Far from that, all idea of the sovereignty of the people was discarded.-The principle on which all legislation, politi

cal and civil, since the revolution, had rested, was equally discarded. France has been treated by the Bourbons like a revolted country, re-conquered by the arms of its ancient masters, and subjected anew to a feudal dominion. Louis Stanislaus Xavier did not recognise the treaty, which alone made the throne of France vacant, and the abdication which alone permitted him to ascend it. He pretended to have reigned 19 years, thus insulting both the governments which had been established in this period, and the people who had consecrated them by its suffrages, and the army which had defended them, and even the sovereigns who had recognised them in their numerous treaties. A charter digested by the senate, all imperfect as it was, was thrown into oblivion. There was imposed on France a pretended constitutional law, as easy to elude as to revoke, and in the form of simple royal decrees, without consulting the nation, without hearing even those bodies, become illegal-phantoms of the national representation. And as the Bourbons passed ordinances without right, and promised without guarantee, they eluded without good faith, and executed without fidelity. The violation of the pretended charter was restrained only by the timidity of their government; the extent of the abuses of power was only confined by its weakness. The dislocation of the army, the dispersion of its officers, the exile of many of them, the degradation of the soldiers, the suppression of their endowments, their deprivation of pay and half-pay, the reduction of the salaries of legionaries, their being stripped of their honours, the pre-eminence of the decorations of the feudal monarchy, the contempt of citizens, designated anew by the Third Estate, the prepared and already commenced spoliation of the purchasers of national property, the actual depreciation of that which they were obliged to sell, the return of feudality in its titles, its privileges, its lucrative rights, the re-establishment of ultramontane principles, the abolition of the liberties of the Gallican church, the annihilation of the concordat, the restoration of tithes, the intolerance arising from an exclusive religion, the domination of a handful of nobles over a people accustomed to equality,-such was

what the Bourbons either did or wished to do for France. It was under such circumstances that the emperor Napoleon quitted the isle of Elba; such were the motives of the determination which he took, and not the consideration of his personal interests, so weak with him, compared with the interests of the nation to which he has consecrated his existence. He did not bring war into the bosom of France; on the contrary, he extinguished the war which the proprietors of national property, forming four-fifths of French landholders, would have been compelled to make on their spoilers; the war which the citizens, oppressed, degraded, humiliated by nobles, would have been compelled to declare against their oppressors; the war which Protestants, Jews, men of various religions, would have been compelled to sustain against their persecutors. He came to deliver France, and was received as a deliverer. He arrived almost alone; he traversed 220 leagues without opposition, without combats, and resumed without resistance, amidst the capital and the acclamations of an immense majority of the citizens, the throne deserted by the Bourbons, who, in the army, in their household, among the national guards, were unable to arm an individual to attempt to maintain them there. And yet, replaced at the head of the nation, which had already chosen him thrice, which has just designated him a fourth time by the reception it gave him in his rapid and triumphant march and arrival,-of that nation by which, and for the interest of which, he means to reign, what is the wish of Napoleon? That which the French people wish

the independence of France, internal peace, peace with all nations, the execution of the treaty of Paris of the 30th of May, 1814. What is there then changed in the state of Europe, and in the hope of repose it had promised itself? What voice is raised to de mand that succour which, according to the declaration, should be only given when claimed? There has been nothing changed,

should the allied powers return, as we are bound to expect they will, to just and mo derate sentiments, if they admit that the existence of France in a respectable and independent situation, as far removed from conquering as from being conquered, from domi