rectly; of bringing within their own dominions a single article which did not of right, at the period of their conquest, belong either to their respective family collections, or to, the countries over which they now actually reign. Whatever value the Prince Regent might attach to such exquisite specimens of the fine arts, if otherwise acquired, he has no wish to become possessed of them at the expence of France, or rather of the countries to which they of right belong, more especially by following up a principle in war which he considers as a reproach to the nation by which it has been adopted; and so far from wishing to take advantage of the occasion to purchase from the rightful owners any articles they might, from pecuniary considerations, be disposed to part with, his royal highness would, on the contrary, be disposed rather to afford the means of replacing them in those very temples and galleries, of which they were so long the ornaments. Were it possible that his royal highness's sentiments towards the person and cause of Louis XVIII. could be brought into doubt, or that the position of his most Christian majesty would be injured in the eyes of his own people, the Prince Regent would not come to this conclusion without the most painful reluctance; but, on the contrary, his royal highness really believes that his majesty will rise in the love and respect of his own subjects, in proportion as he separates himself from these remembrances of revolutionary warfare. These spoils, which impede a moral reconciliation between France and the countries she has invaded, are not necessary to record the exploits of her armies, which, notwithstanding the cause in which they were achieved, must ever make the arms of the nation respected abroad. But whilst these objects remain at Paris, constituting, as it were, the title-deeds of the countries which have been given up, the sentiments of re-uniting these countries again to France will never be altogether extinct; nor will the genius of the French people ever completely associate itself with the more limited exist ence assigned to the nation under the Bourbons. Neither is this opinion given with any dis position, on the part of the Prince Regent, to humiliate the French nation. His royal highness's general policy, the demeanour of his troops in France, his having seized the first moment of Buonaparte's surrender to restore to France the freedom of her commerce, and, above all, the desire he has recently evinced to preserve ultimately to France her territorial integrity, with certain modifications essential to the security of neighbouring states, are the best proofs that, consideration of justice to others, a desire to heal the wounds inflicted by the revolution, and not any illiberal sentiment towards France, have alone dictated this decision. The whole question resolves itself into this :-Are the powers of Europe now forming in sincerity a permanent settlement with the king? And if so, upon what principles shall it be concluded? shall it be concluded? Shall it be upon the conservation or the abandonment of revolutionary spoliations? Can the king feel his own dignity exalted, or his title improved, on being surrounded by monuments of art, which record not less the sufferings of his own illustrious house, than of other nations of Europe? If the French people be desirous of treading back their steps, can they rationally desire to preserve this source of animosity between them and all other nations; and, if they are not, is it politic to flatter their vanity, and to keep alive the hopes which the contemplation of these trophies are calculated to excite? Can even the army reasonably desire it? The recollection of their campaigns can never perish. They are recorded in the military annals of Europe. They are emblazoned on the public monuments of their own country: why is it necessary to associate their glory in the field with a system of plunder, by the adoption of which, in contravention of the law of modern war, the chief that led them to battle, in fact, tarnished the lustre of their arms? If we are really to return to peace and to ancient maxims, it cannot be wise to preserve just so much of the abuses of the past; nor can the king desire, out of the wrecks of the revolution, of which his family has been one of the chief victims, to perpetuate in his house this odious monopoly of the arts. The splendid collection which France possessed previous to the revolution, augmented by the Borghese collection, which has since been purchased (one of the finest in the world), will afford to the king ample means of ornamenting, in its fair proportion, the capital of his empire: and his majesty may divest himself of this tainted source of distinction, without prejudice to the due elevation of the arts in France. In applying a remedy to the offensive evil, it does not appear that any middle line can be adopted, which does not go to recognize a variety of spoliations, under the cover of treaties, if possible more flagrant in their character than the acts of undisguised rapine by which these remains were in general brought together. The principle of property, regulated by the claims of the territories from whence these works were taken, is the surest and only guide to justice; and perhaps there is nothing which would more tend to settle the public mind of Europe at this day, than such an homage, on the part of the king of France, to a principle of virtue, conciliation, and in conference; and the subject was taken into consideration repeatedly, with a view to discover a mode of doing justice to the claimants of the specimens of the arts in the museums, without injuring the feelings of the king of France. In the meantime, the Prussians had obtained from his majesty not only the really Prussian pictures, but those belonging to the Prussian territories on the left of the Rhine, and the pictures, &c. belonging to all the allies of his Prussian majesty; and the subject pressed for an early decision; and your lordship wrote your note of the 11th instant, in which it was fully discussed. The minister of the king of the Netherlands still having no satisfactory answer from the French government, appealed to me, as the general in chief of the army of the king of the Netherlands, to know whether I had any objection to employ his majesty's troops to obtain possession of what was his undoubted property. I referred this application again to the ministers of the allied courts, and no objection having been stated, considered it my duty to take the necessary measures to obtain what was his right. I I accordingly spoke to the prince de Talleyrand upon the subject; explained to him what had passed in conference, and the TON TO VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH, DATED grounds I had for thinking that the king of PARIS, SEPTEMBER 23, 1815. My Dear Lord, There has been a good deal of dissension here lately respecting the measures which I have been under the necessity of adopting, in order to get for the king of the Netherlands his pictures, &c. from the museums; and, lest these reports should reach the Prince Regent, I wish to trouble you, for his royal highness's information, with the following statement of what has passed: Shortly after the arrival of the sovereigns at Paris, the minister of the king of the Netherlands claimed the pictures, &c. belonging to his sovereign, equally with those of other powers; and, as far as I could learn, never could get any satisfactory reply from the French government. After several conver sations with me, he addressed your lordship an official note, which was laid before the ministers of the allied sovereigns assembled the Netherlands had a right to the pictures; and begged him to state the case to the king, and to ask his majesty to do me the favour to point out the mode of effecting the object of the king of the Netherlands which should be least offensive to his majesty. The prince, de Talleyrand promised me an answer on the following evening; which not having received, I called upon him at night, and had another discussion with him upon the subject, in which he informed me that the king could give no order upon it; that I might act as I thought proper; and that I might communicate with Monsieur Denon. I sent my aide-de-camp, lieutenant-colonel Freemantle, to Monsieur Denon, in the morning, who informed him that he had no orders to give any pictures out of the gallery, and that he could give none without the use of force. I then sent colonel Freemantle to the prince de Talleyrand, to inform him of this answer, and to acquaint him that the troops would go the next morning, at twelve o'clock, to take possession of the king of the Netherland's pictures; and to point out, that if any disturbance resulted from this measure, the king's ministers, and not I, were responsible. Colonel Freemantle likewise informed Monsieur Denon that the same measures would be adopted. I stated this circumstance to the French commissioners, and they then offered to adopt the article, with an exception of the Prussian pictures. To this offer, I answered, that I stood there as an ally of all the nations in Europe, and any thing that was granted to Prussia I must claim for other nations. I added, that I had no instructions regarding the museum, nor no grounds on which to form a judgment how the sovereigns would It was not necessary, however, to send the act; that they certainly would insist upon troops, as a Prussian guard had always re- the king's performing his engagements, and mained in possession of the gallery, and the that I recommended that the article should pictures were taken without the necessity of be omitted altogether, and that the question calling for those of the army under my com- should be reserved for the decision of the mand, excepting as a working party, to assist sovereigns when they should arrive. in taking them down and packing them. It has been stated, that in being the instrument of removing the pictures belonging to the king of the Netherlands, from the gallery of the Thuilleries, I had been guilty of a breach of a treaty which I had myself made; and as there is no mention of the museum in the treaty of the 25th of March, and it now appears that the treaty meant is the military convention of Paris, it is necessary to shew how that convention affects the museum. It is not now necessary to discuss the question, whether the allies were or not at war with France; there is no doubt what ever that their armies entered Paris under a military convention concluded with an officer of the government, the prefect of the department of the Seine, and an officer of the army, being a representation of each of the authorities existing at Paris at the moment, and authorised by those authorities to treat and conclude for them. The article of the convention which it is supposed has been broken, is the 11th, which relates to public property. I positively deny that this article referred at all to the museums or galleries of pictures. The French commissioners, in the original projet, proposed an article to provide for the security of this description of property.Prince Blucher would not consent to it, as he said there were pictures in the gallery which had been taken from Prussia, which his majesty Louis XVIII. had promised to restore; but which have never been restored. Thus the question regarding the museum stands under the treaties. The convention of Paris is silent upon it, and there was a communication upon the subject which reserved the decision for the sovereigns. Supposing the silence of the treaty of Paris, of May 1814, regarding the museum, gave the French government an undisputed claim to its contents upon all future occasions, it will not be denied that this claim was shaken by this transaction. Those who acted for the French government at the time, considered that the successful army had a right to, and would touch the contents of the museum; and they made an attempt to save them by an article in the military convention. This article was rejected, and the claim of the allies to their pictures was broadly advanced by the negociators on their part; and this was stated as the ground for rejecting the article. Not only then the military convention did not in itself guarantee the possession, but the transaction above recited tended to weaken the claim to the possession by the French go vernment, which is founded upon the silence of the treaty of Paris, of May 1814. The allies then having the contents of the museum justly in their power, could not do otherwise than restore them to the countries. from which, contrary to the practice of civilised warfare, they had been torn, during the disastrous period of the French revolution, and the tyranny of Buonaparte. The conduct of the allies, regarding the museum, at the period of the treaty of Paris, might be fairly attributed to their desire to conciliate the French army, and to consolidate the reconciliation with Europe, which the army at that period manifested a disposition to effect. But the circumstances are now entirely different. The army disappointed the reasonable expectations of the world, and seized the earliest opportunity of rebelling against their sovereign, and of giving their services to the common enemy of mankind, with a view to the revival of the disastrous period which had passed, and of the scenes of plunder which the world had made such gigantic efforts to get rid of. This army having been defeated by the armies of Europe, they have been disbanded by the united council of the sovereigns, and no reason can exist why the powers of Europe should do injustice to their own subjects, with a view to conciliate them again. Neither has it ever appeared to me to be necessary, that the allied sovereigns should omit this opportunity to do justice, and to gratify their own subjects, in order to gratify the people of France. The feelings of the people of France, upon this subject, must be one of national vanity only. It must be a desire to retain these specimens of the arts, not because Paris is the fittest depository for them (as, upon that subject, artists, connoisseurs, and all who have written upon it, agree that the whole ought to be removed to their ancient seat), but because they were obtained by military successes, of which they are the trophies. The same feelings which induce the people of France to wish to retain the pictures and statues of other nations, would naturally induce other nations to wish, now that success is on their side, that the property should be returned to their rightful owners, and the allied sovereigns must feel a desire to gratify thein. It is, besides, on many accounts, desirable, as well for their happiness, as for that of the world, that the people of France, if they do not already feel that Europe is too strong for them, should be made sensible of it, and that whatever may be the extent, at any time, of their momentary and partial success against any one, or any number of individual powers in Europe, the day of retribution must come. Not only then, would it, in my opinion, be unjust in the sovereigns to gratify the people of France on this subject, at the expence of their own people, but the sacrifice they would make would be impolitic, as it would deprive them of the opportunity of giving the people of France a great moral lesson. I have the honour to be, My dear Lord, your's, most faithfully, WELLINGTON. Those to whom the statements of the English ministry were known considered them as made in compliance with a feeling of national jealousy, rather than of justice; and the order of the English cabinet was attributed to the under secretary, Mr. Hamilton, a gentleman known in the literary world, and highly interested in the restoration or the works of art. In answer to the note of lord Castlereagh, another note was given in by M. de Nesselrode, on the part of the emperor Alexander. It represented the painful situation in which it placed Louis XVIII. with regard to the public, and that, if the allies, in the last year, forbore retaking their property in the museum, from their respect for the king, this motive ought to operate with double force at the present period. It was for a short time believed that this Rus sian note had produced some effect, but whether the emperor Alexander relaxed in the energy of his representations, or because the Russian troops had withdrawn from the capital, this hope was delusive. Further observations were made to the French government by lord Castlereagh, and some irritation excited by the silence with which they were received, but still more by a severe note from M. Talleyrand. The war of diplomacy then ceased-sentence was passed on the gallery--and the attack on the mu seum began. It had been shut up, but was opened on the requisition of an Englishcolonel, who demanded, with authority, the surrender of the objects which had belonged to the Belgic provinces. to the Belgic provinces. English troops were placed on guard at the Louvre. The king ordered the gates to be opened: but that, on no pretence, any assistance should be given to the invaders. A kind of custom-house was established at the gate, to ascertain what should be taken. Sentinels were posted along the gallery of the museum, at every twenty paces, but this circumstance did not entirely prevent fraud. The Belgic amateurs, aided by the English soldiery, performed their duties in conjunction. The turn of the Austrians came next, who, though always tardy in their operations, never swerve from their purpose. Paris was in an uproar. Curses louder and longer than those heaped on the head of Obadiah, in Tristram Shandy, were poured on the allies by the enraged Parisians. They forgot all other miseries. The project of blowing up bridges, pillage, spoliations, massacres, war-taxes, the dismemberment of the empire, were obliterated from their minds by the loss of the monuments of art. They thought no more of the cession of fortresses, and the fate of the constitutional charter. All principles, feelings, hopes, and fears, were absorbed in this one great and hateful humiliation. The violence of their resentment, their despair at the removal of the master-pieces of art, denote the feelings of a people arrived at a very high degree of civilization. The Parisians, while they had supported with equanimity the most signal calamities, and endured with cheerfulness the most cruel privations, deplored with sensibility the loss of objects which, far from being necessary to the wants of ordinary life, are only fitted to charm and embellish its highest state of refinement. They asserted that, amidst the rapid revolutions of our times, a possession of some years gives as great a right to property as would have been acquired formerly by the lapse of ages. They remarked, with a kind of spiteful sarcasm, that the doctrine of justice, so ostentatiously preached by the allies, and so severely practised in behalf of statues and pictures, had been less rigidly observed towards human beings; and that, while they established with such grave austerity the rights of inanimate objects, it would have been well if, in the treaties respecting Genoa and Venice, at the late congress, the rulers of the globe had never lost sight of the rights of men, and the principles of liberty. Europe, after having been shaken to its. foundation, had scarcely enjoyed one moment of repose, one hope of stability, when a cry of terror spread itself abroad-" The reign of religious persecution is begun." The astonishment produced by this new calamity surpassed, if possible, even the horror it inspired. Amidst all the various phases of the French revolution, the star of religious liberty had moved calmly in its majestic orbit, and cheered despairing humanity with a ray of celestial radiance. Amidst the violation of every other principle, the domain of conscience appeared to be consecrated ground, where tyranny feared to tread.Heaven had pleased to rain on France all other afflictions; but religious persecution seemed an obsolete evil, which the continent had no more reason to fear than the return of trials by ordeal, or the burning of sorcerers. During the phrenzy of the time of Robespierre, the catholic priests had indeed been persecuted; but that paroxysm of madness, when churches were profaned by impious rites, and abandoned females personified the goddesses of heaven, had long elapsed; an unprecedented but fleeting horror, that, like the shock of an earthquake, was no sooner felt than gone. The Frenchy protestants had, during a long succession of years, been admitted to the court, the army, the legislature, and the senate; holding, in every ceremonial of state, their equal rank with their catholic brethren. In a single moment the scene was changed. The catholics profiting by the return of the Bourbons, and stimulated by enthusiasm dispersed themselves in various provinces of the country, and proposed the alternative— repent or perish; become catholics or we kill you. They proceeded at once to execution. Their victims were marked, and they plundered and murdered, as their fury directed, wherever they found protestant property, or persons professing the protestant faith. The citizens of opulent towns, and their populous vicinities, became the martyrs. Nismes was the centre of this desolation; it spread to the country round, and even menaced the citadel of protestantism in France, the mountains of the Cevennes. From whatever cause this violence pro |