promised to "respect the persons and property of individuals in the capital," and not molest anyone for his conduct or opinions during the late usurpation. This guarantee, they afterwards alleged, concerned but themselves, and not either Louis the Eighteenth or his brother allies. The Chamber and the Provisional Government, with Fouché and Lafayette as their advisers, seemed to have taken it for their task to deceive others and themselves. They were untrue to the nation as well as to Napoleon, attained no one desirable object, and betrayed the cause and the persons that they undertook to defend.* Fouché is represented as the great Mephistopheles of the epoch, who betrayed everyone. But in truth everyone betrayed their own cause and themselves. The Imperialists, such as Caulaincourt, Ney, Davoust, dethroned the Emperor first, and soon abandoned even the name of his son. Lafayette and the Constitutionalists, so fierce towards Napoleon, gave up the country as well as its liberties to the invader. Honest Carnot was helpless, his conduct making one fear that the contemptuous epithets bestowed upon him by Guizot and by Fouché are not so wrong. Fouché Fouché gave himself a great deal of trouble to deceive those who wished to be deceived, and was merely adroit enough to get credit for doing that which must have occurred and been accomplished without his aid. The Duke of Wellington and the Count D'Artois entertained a high opinion of Fouché, and considered him the leader of a revolutionary party which he could persuade and dispose of. They are scarcely to be excused for making the same mistake as Napoleon. The Duke thought that Talleyrand and Fouché together could best manage France. And no doubt they could have proved very able ministers of a despotic prince. The most perfect appreciation found in M. Guizot's Mémoires, of the conduct of the Chamber and chap. iii. of placemen in general, is to be CHAP. XLIV. СНАР. But the same personages compelled Louis the Eighteenth to come forward as a constitutional one, to serve him in which capacity Talleyrand and Fouché were utterly incapable. The Duke put them both into the same carriage at Neuilly, and sent them to Louis the Eighteenth at St. Denis, who, finding Fouché pressed upon him, not only by the English duke and Talleyrand, but by his brother and the Faubourg St. Germain,* waived his prejudices and his natural distrust for the moment, and appointed them both his ministers of foreign affairs and police. M. de Talleyrand completed his ministry at St. Denis. Baron Louis resumed the finance. Marshal Gouvion de St. Cyr became minister of war. The most remarkable appointments were those of the Duke de Richelieu to replace M. de Blacas in the household, and Count Pozzo di Borgo to the home office. These personages were in the service of the Emperor Alexander, who refused them permission to accept office under Talleyrand. The Czar was incensed with that diplomatist for his conduct at Vienna, and the triple alliance which he had planned. The prefecture of police having been offered in vain to several persons, Baron Louis recommended for the post a young man who had been secretary to the mother of Napoleon, and subsequently appointed judge. As such he had refused the oath of allegiance to Napoleon on his return. This was M. Decazes. The first act which devolved upon him was to get rid of the Chamber of Deputies. This he did by locking the door and placing a guard behind the grille. Lafayette was one of the first who came to demand entrance. "No one admitted!" cried the sentry through the grating. On the following day, the th of July, whilst Napoleon was embarking on board a French frigate in the Charente, Louis the Eighteenth re-entered his capital. He did so in The Royalists of the Faubourg St. Germain sent the Bailly de Crussol as their representative to recom mend Fouché, who had protected them, to Louis the Eighteenth.Beugnot. XLIV. a close carriage, with the blinds down. Yet it was not CHAP. from the population that he was in any danger of insult, but from his allies the Prussians, who were at the time mining the bridge of Jena, for the purpose of blowing it up next day. Louis threatened to get himself transported to the bridge and placed upon it in his armchair.* The Duke of Wellington's interference had more effect. After one explosion, Blücher was persuaded to await the arrival of Alexander, who came on the 10th, and saved the bridge, as well as the column of the Place Vendôme, whence only the statue was lowered. Louis the Eighteenth was not so fortunate in preserving the integrity of the Louvre. The omission to restore the captured works of art had been source of comment and regret amongst the allies in 1814. The Prussians proceeded at once to take the few works of art belonging to their provinces. The government of the Low Countries redemanded its Rubens and Rembrandts. The Duke of Wellington, as well as Lord Castlereagh, were opposed to the spoliation of the Louvre, but Lord Liverpool and the Prince Regent strongly insisted on the work of retaliation. The Duke could not resist, and supported the Dutch in their demands. The Italian requisition was more serious. The French still blame Canova for having presided over the commission charged with selecting the chefs-d'œuvre that had appertained to Italy. Can an Italian be censured for restoring his country's works of art to their own capital? Nothing more strongly shows the softening and civilising effects of large social intercourse than the conduct of different men at this crisis. Wellington and Castlereagh were probably of no very opposite character from Lord Liverpool and the Prince Regent. Yet the former, who had been abroad in foreign capitals and congresses, had grown mild and generous, * If Louis did not say this, Beugnot said it for him. XLIV. CHAP whilst those who had never ceased to be surrounded by their insular prejudices were barbarous in their resentments. Blücher breathed nothing but vengeance. And even Alexander, so philosophic in 1814, would no longer listen to the same men and the same observations which had pleased him then.* Yet the French showed much submission. Although the provinces were occupied and ravaged by a million and a half of invaders, the civil authorities bullied and some of them sent off to Russia or to Prussia for not complying with rude orders, still every head bowed. The army behind the Loire, after having in vain tried to make some terms, submitted and assumed the white cockade. This in nowise abated the desire of vengeance, which animated the allies even more than the French Royalists. They insisted on examples. It may be imagined what was urged by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, when the British press, with the exception of its Whig organ, clamoured for French victims, and even published lists of Frenchmen who deserved to be hanged on the Place de Grève. Fouché, seeking to satisfy this thirst, chiefly of the foreigner, for proscription, drew up a list of some twenty persons to be arrested and tried, and treble that number to be exiled. The minister no doubt hoped that those threatened would escape, and that the exile of the others would be but temporary. Unfortunately, Labedoyère came to Paris, and exposed himself to capture, as Marshal Ney did later, when it was found impossible to stop the vengeance of the reactionists in any other way than by their death. Davoust, after having procured the submission of the Loire and its adoption of the white cockade, was astounded to see several of his generals on the fatal list, nay, to perceive the name of one who had not even served during the Hundred Days. He immediately sent in his resignation, and was replaced by Macdonald. St. Cyr had a difficult position at the war office. He insisted on Louis the Eighteenth not repeating the mistake of appointing household troops, and a privileged guard, to the exclusion of the old soldiers. Instead of listening to him, the court organised the guard, and M. de Vitrolles sent St. Cyr a list of the colonels. The latter declared that he was no longer war minister, since Vitrolles exercised the office. It was with difficulty that Talleyrand persuaded St. Cyr to retain his ministry. His and Macdonald's countenance and co-operation were indeed indispensable to accomplish another exigency of the allied sovereigns, the dissolution of the army behind the Loire. Ministers consoled themselves for the compulsory performance of these unpopular acts by the hope that, as passions settled down, moderation might prevail, and that a new chamber freely representing the national mind. would support a king and his government by checking reaction and entering upon a policy of conciliation. Never was hope more vain. The country was a volcano in whose depths boiled all the passions both of the revolution and of the class which had been its victims. Those of the revolution were much the strongest, but their force had been for the moment exhausted, whilst a million and a half of foreign soldiers pressed upon the soil. Royalist passions were thus alone allowed an issue, and they showed themselves as ruthless and sanguinary, and far more bigoted, than even those which had outraged humanity under the convention. No part of France had more eagerly welcomed and more powerfully impelled the revolution than the south. It imbrued its hands in the blood of priests and nobles. The population afterwards found reason to regret its handywork. The south owed its prosperity and even its food supply to Mediterranean trade. This was for CHAP. XLIV. |