it laws, to intermeddle with its internal us to presume upon a speedy war; yet affairs, to assign it a form of government, appearances sufficiently authorise a just to give it masters in conformity to the in- inquietude-alarming symptoms are materests or the passions of its neighbours. nifested on all sides at once. In vain do There is nothing changed,-if while you oppose the composure of reason to France is occupied in preparing the new the tumult of the passions. The voice of social compact which shall guarantee the your Majesty has not yet been able to liberty of its citizens, the triumph of the make itself heard-an incomprehensible liberal ideas which prevail in Europe, and system threatens to prevail with the powers, can no longer be stifled, it be not forced that of preparing for combat without adto withdraw itself, in order to combat, mitting any preliminary explanation with from those pacific meditations and means the nation which they secn determined to of internal prosperity to which the people fight. By whatever pretext they pretend and their head wish to devote themselves to justify so unheard of a proceeding, the in happy accordance. There has been conduct of your Majesty is its best refutanothing changed,-if, when the French tion. The facts speak for themselves; nation asks only to remain at peace with they are simple, precise, incontestable; all Europe, an unjust coalition do not and from the mere statement which I am compel it, as it did in 1792, to defend its about to give of these facts, the Councils will and its rights, its independence, and of all the Sovereigns of Europe, the gothe sovereign of its choice. vernments and the nations, may alike pro (Signed) The Minister of State, Pre-nounce judgment in this important cause. sident of the Section of the Finances, 66 "The Count DEFERMON. "The Count REGNAUD de ST. JEAN "The Count BOULAY. (Certified conform.) "The Minister Secretary of State, "The Duke de BASSANO." REPORT TO THE EMPEROR. 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 internal 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 Sire-If prudence makes it my duty its Government; and never could its Gonot to present indiscreetly to your Ma- vernment have, as now, so strong a wish, jesty a phantom of chimerical dangers, it or so powerful an interest, to tell it the is for me an obligation not less sacred, not whole truth. You resumed your crown, to suffer that vigilance to be lulled into a Sire, on the 1st of March. There are deceitful security which is prescribed to events so far beyond the calculations of me by the care for the preservation of human reason, that they escape the forepeace, that great interest of France, that sight of Kings and the sagacity of their primary object of the wishes of your Ma- Ministers. On the first report of your jesty. To see danger where none exists, arrival on the shores of Provence, the is sometimes to provoke it, and to cause it Monarchs assembled at Vienna still conto spring up from another side; to shut sidered your Majesty as no more than the our eyes against the indications which sovereign of the Isle of Elba, when you may be the forerunners of it, would be an already reigned again over the French act of inexcusable infatuation. I ought empire. It was only in the palace of the not to dissemble, Sire, that though no po- Thuilleries that your Majesty learned the sitive information confirms, up to this day, existence of their Declaration. The peron the part of foreign Powers, a resolu- sons who signed that unaccountable docution formally adopted, which should leadment already understood of themselves companied 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 apprehended 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 have already learned, that among the couriers dispatched on the 5th instant, those destined for Germany and Italy were unable to pass the 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. 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 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 your desire to leave no doubt respecting your real sentiments, your Majesty ordered me to en-frontiers. I have no account of those join those agents to be the interpreters of them to the different Cabinets. I obeyed that order by writing 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 inst. are a monument which must for ever attest the honour 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 governments; 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 passage even upon condition of his consenting to be ac 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 inst. by the Prince Regent, is not calculated to excite any very extensive confidence in the friends of peace. I have the honour 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 occurred 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. 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 PRUSSIA. The movements of Prussia same time must watch the whole extent of are not less active Every where the corps its coasts against the possibility of a de-are completing. Officers on half-pay are scent. It is, says the Prince Regent, to ordered to join their corps: to accelerate render the security of Europe permanent, their march, they grant them free posting; that he claims the support of the English and this sacrifice, slight in appearance, nation. And how can he have occasion but made by a calculating government, is for this support when that security is not not a small proof of the interest which it threatened? For the rest, the relations attaches to the rapidity of its preparations. 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 unfavourable omen if they were to be confirmed, and if not explained in a satisfactory manner: but our present accounts exhibit no character which would lead us to attach much importance to those incidents. In Austria, in Russia, in Prussia, in all parts of Germany, in Italy, in short every where, is to be seen a general arming. Thus the French nation, | sity of covering his kingdom has obliged him to take up military positions in the Roman States. AUSTRIA.--At Vienna, the recall 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 neces 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 frem 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 garri❤ son conformably to treaties; but your Majesty will, doubtless, be of opinion, that this affair can only become a subject of explanation, considering that the determination of the Sardinian Governor, and especially that of the English Commandant, have been accidental, and a sudden effect of the alarm occasioned by extraordinary movements. 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 determination 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 debarcations 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 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 man. ners; 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 country. I am informed that a convoy of 120 men and 12 officers, 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 contine myself now to the statement of it to your Majesty, consider-yoke of absolute monarchy, fanaticism ing the importance which it receives from its connection with other circumstances which are developed around us. 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 character which its revolutions have left, 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 provoca tion 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 yiew 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 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 favourable 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 some countries of the South, and it is from Spanish troops that some people are redemanding the crown of France: it is a family again become priwate and solitary which thus implores the assistance of foreigners. Where are the public functionaries, the troops of the line, the national guards, the private inhabitants, who have accompanied it in its flight beyond 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 Bor-by great masters. Thus the Romans prodeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles, and all the South are disentangling themselves in one day from the snares laid for them, it is a military movement that work 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 scribed 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 | cial act has proved the determination of a gave for Kings, Princes whose submission rupture. We are reduced to vague conand dependence were secure! In this jectures, to reports perhaps false. It apview, the efforts which the Allied Powers pears certain that on the 26th of March a may now attempt to make, would not new agreement was signed, in which the have for their precise object to bring us powers consecrated the former alliance of back under a dynasty rejected by public Chaumont. If the object of it is defenopinion. It would not be the Bourbons sive, it enters into the views of your Main particular whom they would wish to jesty yourself, and France has no cause to protect; for a long time past, their cause, complain; if it were otherwise, it is the abandoned by themselves, has been so by independence of the French nation which all Europe; and that unfortunate family would be attacked, and France would has every where been subjected to a dis- know how to repel an agression so odious. dain but too cruel. The choice of the The Prince Regent of England declares monarch whom they should place on the that he wishes, before he acts, to come to throne of France would be of little im- an understanding with the other powers. portance to the Allies, provided they saw All those powers are armed, and they dethere seated with him weakness and pusil- liberate. France, excluded from these lanimity this would be the most sensible deliberations of which it is the principal outrage that could be done to the honour object; France alone deliberates, and is of a magnanimous and generous nation. not yet armed. In circumstances so imIt is that which has already most deeply portant, in the midst of those uncertainties wounded French hearts, and of which the as to the real dispositions of foreign powrenewal would be the most insupportable. ers, dispositions whose exterior acts are of Although in the latter months of 1813, a nature to authorise just alarms, the senthat famous Declaration was published at timents and wishes of your Majesty for Frankfort, by which it was solemnly an- the maintenance of peace, and of the treaty nounced that they wished France to be of Paris, ought not to prevent legitimate great, happy, and free, what was the re- precautions. I therefore think it my duty sult of those pompous assurances? At the to call the attention of your Majesty, and same moment they violated the Swiss neu- the reflections of your Council, to the trality. When, in short, on the French measures which the preservation of her soil, in order to cool patriotism and to dis- rights, the safety of her territory, and the organise the interior, they continued to defence of the national honour, ought to promise to France an existence and liberal dictate to France. laws, the events soon shewed what confidence was due to such engagements lightened 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 dismemberment. 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 offi En (Signed) CAULINCOURT, Duke of Vicenza. CIRCULAR ADDRESSED TO AMBASSADORS, Paris, March 30, 1815. ceased to recall the Sovereign of its choice, the vation of its liberty and independence. The only Prince who can guarantee to it the conser. Emperor appeared, and the royal government no longer exists. At the sight of the universal movement which carried both the people and the army towards their legitimate Monarch, the family of the Bourbons perceived that there remained no other course for them but to take refuge in a foreign country. They have quitted the French soil, without a single musket having fence. The military household which accompa been fired, or a drop of blood shed in their de nied them has collected at Bethune, where it declared its submission to the orders of the Emperor. It has given up its horses and arms: more than half of it has entered our ranks; the rest, few in number, are retiring to their homes, happy to find an asylum in the generosity of |