Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

XLIV.

former strenuously seconded the demand. The Arch- CHAP. duke Charles was to found a new kingdom of Lorraine. Austria acquiesced of course. The English plenipotentiaries alone protested loudly, insisted that the French would never bear such spoliation, and that a renewal of the war would ensue. All depended upon Alexander, who conveyed to Louis the Eighteenth the hint, that Russia would support him on one condition, the removal of Talleyrand. Louis could not but consent. And when the prime minister waited on him with the demand to support his cabinet against the Count d'Artois, the monarch hesitated. "In that case I must resign," said the Prince. "If so," rejoined the King, coolly, "I must charge some one else to form a Cabinet."* Talleyrand was thunderstruck at a conclusive consequence so natural, yet so new to him. And the King forthwith entrusted the formation of a ministry to the late Russian governor of Odessa, the Duke de Richelieu. Fouché's successor in the police was M. Decazes, who had at first the gift of pleasing everyone. The names of the other ministers are not worth recording, the court and King being too jealous of the little talent that the royalists could boast. M. de Chateaubriand was for this thrust aside. Though somewhat annoyed at the removal of Prince Talleyrand, the English plenipotentiaries gave their full support to the Duke de Richelieu, as of course did Alexander, who came completely over to their advice, in setting aside the exorbitant demands of the German Powers, and granting to the restored monarch the conditions of the peace of 1814, slightly modified. On the northern frontier the French were deprived of Landau, Sarre Louis, Phillippeville; and Marienburg and Charleroi were also taken from them. The war contribution was fixed at 700,000,000 of livres, and the military occupation to be four years, not so

Memoirs of Vitrolles, Duvergier d'Hauranne, &c.

СНАР.
XLIV.

severe as at first proposed. The Duke de Richelieu could scarcely be induced to sign what he considered so disgraceful a treaty, but consoled himself with the reflection, that "no other minister could have obtained so much." When he poured forth his complaints to his old master Alexander, the latter showed him a map with the Prussian and Austrian demands upon it, reducing France to the line of the Vosges, and mulcting it of Lille and Nancy. The Richelieu family keep the

[blocks in formation]

If Russia had associated itself with England in the aim of being wisely generous and conciliatory to France, England had waived its objections to the Czar's appropriation of Poland. The powers renewed the old antiGallican treaty of Chaumont, in view of any future outburst of France. At the same time, the three powers which had divided Poland felt the necessity of a more intimate pact between them for the preservation of their gains. All three saw that they grasped each of them a new and vast empire, without consulting the wishes of populations, or the natural affection and repugnance of

All in consequence acknowledged their insecurity, and saw the facilities which each might have in fanning popular movements amongst their neighbours. To obviate and preclude this, Alexander imagined the Holy Alliance, which preached that the despots were to show themselves fathers of their people, and brethren of one another in other words, that they should rule with the strong hand, and instead of opposing each other, lend mutual aid in the great and necessary task of universal subjection. This was the Holy Alliance.

Lamartine characterises the Chamber of Deputies, which met in 1815, as completely representing the sentiments of the country, its weariness and disgust of Bonapartism, and its sanguine hopes of happiness and freedom

*Lamartine.

under the Bourbons. If for country he would substitute
the upper class, not merely the old aristocracy of birth
but the new aristocracy of intellect, wealth, and function-
ism, the observation may be correct.
be correct. The Bonapartists
and those attached to the revolution took no part in the
vote, and had no voice in the new legislature. It was
composed of new men. So it may be said was the
celebrated Assemblée Constituante. But this assembly
brought together all the thinkers and politicians of the
kingdom, men who had studied its wants, meditated
upon reforms, and shaped out in their minds the course
to be taken by an emancipated people. It was only
a proof that the ancien régime, however theoretically,
and at times practically, despotic, did not or could
not altogether paralyse the national mind. This had
been at work for half a century, and had elaborated
ideas, laws, projects. Napoleon had, on the contrary,
kept the national mind fettered. He had allowed neither
time nor liberty for thought. There was scant educa-
tion, no press, and no intellectual society. The conse-
quence was that the representatives or legislators who
came together in 1814 and 1815 were ignorant as
children and vengeful as savages. They had a new
edifice to build, but they knew not how to set about
hewing the corner-stone. Their whole thoughts were
bent upon immolating victims to inaugurate their work.
The ministers whom Louis the Eighteenth had
chosen, however royalist, were far from going the length
of the Chamber. The responsibilities of power were
alone sufficient to apprise them of the danger of a
vindictive policy. They therefore sought to satisfy the
passions of the ultra-Royalists by introducing a group of
laws conferring upon the government and the tribunals
the fullest power for suppressing sedition and the sedi-
tious, whilst not concealing the hope and the assurance
that the throats they had cut would be sufficient to deter
and to prevent rebellion. The first of these laws gave

CHAP.

XLIV.

CHAP.
XLIV.

the government liberty to imprison as long as they pleased without bringing those arrested before any tribunal. Another, which punished seditious cries with terms of imprisonment, was met by loud cries of protest from the ultra-Royalists. Death was the least they would accord to the hoisting of Bonapartist colours. This was followed by the establishment of prevotal courts, in other words, drumhead courts-martial, for the summary punishment of conspirators.

Amidst the shouts of approbation which hailed these measures, proposed, not as exceptions, but as permanent laws, M. d'Argenson ventured to hint that there were other parties than Royalists which demanded protection; the Protestants, for example, were massacred in numberless towns of the south, and government was powerless to prevent it. His too true denunciation raised a storm, and were it in the power of the ultras they would have instantly applied to M. d'Argenson the penalty of having uttered seditious cries. They denied, but would not discuss his facts, had him called to order, and silenced. The Royalists entertained no objections to massacres if wreaked merely on Protestants and Bonapartists. When the laws of repression passed, M. Decazes, in a circular to his personal subordinates, recommended a moderate rather than a rigid execution of them. as soon as it became known, created at once a schism between the young minister and the ultra-Royalists of the Chamber, a schism which placed them soon in hostility, not merely to De Cazes and to the whole ministry, but to the King himself.

This,

The ultra-Royalists in a short time came to perceive that laws of repression were of little use, unless they had ministers and judges of their way of thinking. They therefore set to work to overthrow M. Marbois, minister of justice, in which they succeeded at the close of the session, and at the same time to suspend, in order to change, the entire bench of judges. This bold attempt was only

defeated by the Chamber of Peers. With the bill for the suppression of seditious cries, ministers had introduced an amendment, including amongst seditious cries any proposal to recover the sold property of the émigrés. It certainly was a dangerous clamour, though it was difficult to descry any guilt in it. On this subject, as well as on the removal of judges, and the punishment of the seditious, many of the Royalist orators distinguished themselves. La Bourdonnaye, says M. Guizot, was the spokesman of the passions of the party; whilst Villèle defended its interests, and Bonald expounded its philosophy. M. Guizot omits Chateaubriand, who at this time abetted that fierce and vindictive ultra-Royalism which he afterwards turned against and combated. Bonald preached counter-revolution as one of the consequences of divine right.*

The debates of the legislature were, however, thrown into the shade by those of the tribunals. Labedoyère had been condemned and executed previous to the opening of the Chambers. Lavalette, whose crime was to have seized and filled the functions of Post Master during the Hundred Days, had been arrested about the same time. But as a civilian he could not be sent before a court-martial. He was brought before a court of assize on the 20th of November. A jury made part of this court, but as the list was concocted at the prefecture, the jury of those days was little better than a government commission. Lavalette did not deny his having assumed the office of Post Director. He was condemned in consequence. His wife, led by Marmont, flung herself at the King's feet and at those of the Duchess D'Angou

* A recent critic makes merry with the utter ignorance of the politicians and philosophers of the Restoration. M. Renan represents Chateaubriand, Bonald, and De Maitre the first as too ignorant to write history, the secon 1 discoursing VOL. V.

T

on philosophy without having read
any author more original than De-
gerando, and the third, as never
having got further than the phi-
lology of the Jesuits.-Renan on
Lamennais.

CHAP.

XLIV.

« AnteriorContinuar »