The ink was hardly dry upon the Charter before Louis XVIII. began to
break its conditions. It had served its purpose, he had ridden into
office upon it: what further use had he for it? Why should he trammel
his actions by treaty when the other kings of Europe were freeing
themselves from such fetters? To the south of him was Spain, where
the liberals had framed a constitution which Ferdinand, released
by Napoleon early in 1814, had sworn to respect, and which he had
set aside the moment he had taken again into his hands the reins
of power. Instead of reform and limited monarchy on the peninsula,
there was now a full restoration of the Old Order, feudalism, tithes,
local tyrannies, clerical and royal absolutism, the jails full of
democrats, and the Inquisition hungry for heretics. Nobles and priests
struck their ancient bargain, mastered a willing king, and with the
resistless strength of self-interest, class-prejudice, and corporate
unity of purpose, acting upon the ignorance, the superstition, and the
cultivated hatreds of the people, carried Spain back with a rush to the
good old times of Bourbon and Roman absolutism.
Not only in the south was counter-revolution triumphant; in the north
it was equally so. In Jerome Bonaparte’s kingdom of Westphalia,
where the people had driven out the system of Napoleon, and called
in their former rulers, old laws and customs rattled back to their
rusty grooves; the Code Napoléon vanished; equality of civil right was
seen no more, feudalism fell like a chain upon the astounded peasant,
purchasers of state lands were ousted without compensation, special
privilege and tax exemptions again gladdened the elect, aristocracy
and clericalism swept away every vestige of Jerome’s brief rule,
the torture chamber again rang with the shrieks of victims, and the
punishment of death by breaking upon the wheel emphasized the desperate
efforts nobles and priests were making to stem the torrent of modern
liberalism.
And the Holy Father at Rome, loosed by Napoleon from Fontainebleau at
about the same time that Ferdinand of Spain had been released from
Valençay, had wended his way back to Italy as Ferdinand had to Spain,
and, seated again in St. Peter’s chair, had laid his pious hands to the
same work in Rome which Ferdinand was busy with in Madrid.
With absolutism and feudalism triumphing all around him, why should
not Louis XVIII. follow the glorious examples? Did he not owe it to
God and the ancient Bourbon kings to cast out from France the devil
of democracy which had rended her, and to clothe her once more in
her right mind--in the docile obedience to kingly word and clerical
admonition? Apparently he did; and apparently he believed that the
quicker he set about it the better.
He had guaranteed freedom of the press in his Charter; but this was a
promise he could not venture to keep. He meant to violate the Charter
and to restore the Old Order; and he knew that this could not be done
if the press remained free. He had lived in England where he may have
heard Richard Brinsley Sheridan when he thrilled the House of Commons
with that famous burst of eloquence, “Give them a corrupt House of
Lords, give them a venal House of Commons, give them a tyrannical
Prince, give them a truckling Court, and let me have but an unfettered
Press, I will defy them to encroach a hair’s-breadth upon the liberties
of England!” Therefore, one of his first acts was to gag the press with
a censorship. With indecent haste, this royal ordinance breaching the
Charter was published just six days after the official publication of
the Charter itself.
Unbridled criticism by those organs which in our modern system control
public opinion being thus made impossible, other measures of similar
tendency followed swiftly.
Loudly condemning Napoleon’s toleration of heretics, Jews, and
non-believers, the clericals induced the King to compel Frenchmen of
all creeds and races to suspend business not only on the Christian
Sabbath, but on the festival days of the Catholic Church.
Not satisfied with a grand religious ceremony to “purify” the spot upon
which Louis XVI. had been guillotined, nor with having dug up bones
supposed to be his and given them magnificent sepulture, Louis solemnly
devoted France to the Virgin Mary, and her image was borne through the
streets in formal procession, wherein the great dignitaries ambled
along with lighted candles in their hands.
By the Charter, the army had been specially protected. Napoleon’s
soldiers still had guns in their hands and rage in their hearts when
Talleyrand was writing out the pledges with which the returning
Bourbons were to be fettered. It was highly important to soothe these
troops, or to remove their fear that the Bourbons would deal with them
unjustly. Hence the sixty-ninth article of the Charter, which declared
that soldiers in active service, the officers and soldiers in retreat,
the widows, the officers and soldiers on the pension list, should
preserve their rank, honors, and pensions.
By royal ordinance (December 16, 1814) this clause of the Charter was
violated.
Fourteen thousand officers and sergeants were dismissed on half-pay;
and the places of these battle-scarred heroes of the Empire were filled
by five thousand nobles who had never seen service save with the
enemies of France. Naval officers who had deserted the ships of their
own country, and had served against their native land, were put back
into the French navy, and given the rank they had won abroad. Veterans
who had fought for the French Republic and the French Empire, from
Valmy and Jemappes to Laon and Montmirail, found themselves officered
by insolent little noblemen who had never smelt gunpowder. General
Dupont, known principally for his capitulation at Baylen, was made
minister of war. The tricolor flag which French soldiers had borne
victoriously into every capital on the Continent was put away. Many of
the bullet-shredded banners were destroyed--they and their splendid
memories being hateful to the Bourbon soul.
The white flag of the old monarchy--a flag which living French soldiers
knew only as the rallying-point of treason and rebellion in La
Vendée--was made the national standard. The numbers of the regiments
were changed, and the veterans of a dozen historic campaigns lost the
names by which they were known, and which they had made glorious in the
arduous test of battle. The Imperial Guard was banished from Paris; the
Swiss were again enrolled to defend the palace, and clad in the uniform
of 1792; a Bourbon military household was organized, filled with young
nobles who had never fired a shot, who were paid fancy salaries, and
decked out in a livery which made all Paris titter. To complete the
burlesque, they resurrected and made chief officer of the palace the
old Marquis of Chansenets, who had been Governor of the Tuileries on
August 10, 1792, and had escaped massacre that day by hiding under
piles of dead.
The young Bourbon dukes, Berry and Angoulême, knew nothing whatever of
war, practically or otherwise; yet they were put in highest military
command; and they gave themselves airs which neither Wellington,
Blücher, or Napoleon ever assumed. These young princes of the
blood-royal told French veterans on parade that their twenty years of
service under the Republic and under the Empire were but twenty years
of brigandage. When Napoleon’s Old Guard failed to manœuvre as the
youthful Duke of Angoulême would have them do, they were sneeringly
advised to go to England to learn their drill. Does a colonel so
displease the Duke of Berry that he must be cashiered, disgraced?
The haughty Bourbon tears off the epaulets with his own hand! At
another time the same doughty warrior strikes a soldier on parade.
Word goes out that a monument is to be raised to the invading émigrés
whom English vessels had landed at Quiberon in 1795, and whom the
republicans had slaughtered there. Honors to these being granted,
Pichegru and Georges Cadoudal were not forgotten. Their names were
mentioned with honor, masses recited for the repose of their souls, and
a patent of nobility granted to Cadoudal’s family.
By the Charter, laws were to be made by king, peers, and deputies
acting together. In actual practice the King made his own laws.
From the mouths of such men as Lainé, whom Napoleon had thoroughly
understood and denounced, the gospel of non-resistance was heard in all
its ancient simplicity, “If the King wills it, the law wills it.”
Incredible as it may seem, the members of the old Parliament of Paris
met at a private house, and drew up a protest against the Charter.
With one accord nobles and priests began to speak of the return of
feudalism, of seignorial rights, of tithes, of benefices, of exclusive
chase, and of the confiscated lands. The clergy of Paris, in their
address to the King (August, 1814), expressed their earnest desire
for the restoration of “that old France, in which were intermingled,
without distinction, in every heart, those two sacred names,--God and
King.”
At least one sermon was preached in which those citizens who did not
restore to the nobles and the Church the lands which the Revolution
had taken away were threatened with the doom of Jezebel--_and they
should be devoured by dogs_. Three hundred petitions were found at one
time lying upon the table of the Bourbon minister of the interior,
sent there by distressed Catholics who declared that their priests
refused them absolution on account of their being owners of national
properties. To the trembling devotee, the poor slave of superstition,
the priest said, “Surrender to Church and nobles the land you bought
and paid for, else the gates of heaven shall remain shut to you!” Under
the spell of clerical duress many a middle-class and peasant proprietor
swapped good land for a verbal free passage to the new Jerusalem. Many
nobles, imitating a king who had mentally abolished all changes since
1789, began to claim forgotten dues and to exercise offensive feudal
privileges. The Duke of Wellington himself acted the _grand seigneur_
of the Old Régime; and with a cavalcade of friends and a pack of hounds
went charging at his pleasure over the crops of the farmers around
Paris, trampling their young grain with serene disregard of peasant
rights. These nobles of old France, who had fled from the dangers of
the Revolution, and who had been restored by Napoleon, or by foreign
bayonets, were as proud, as intolerant, as though they had accomplished
the Bourbon restoration by themselves. They regarded the nobles of
Napoleon’s creation with unconcealed contempt. The wives of men whose
fathers had been ennobled for shady services to shadier Bourbon kings,
looked with lofty scorn upon the ladies of such men as Marshal Ney,
whom Napoleon had ennobled for service as gallant as any soldier
ever rendered to France. To mark beyond all mistake the dividing
line between the old nobility and the new, the military schools were
reëstablished, in which a hundred years of nobility were necessary for
admission--another violation of the Charter.
Louis XVIII. was not devoid of talent, nor of worldly wisdom; but
he was not the man to contrast favorably with Napoleon. It was his
misfortune to be personally repulsive. Like his brother, Louis XVI.
he was swinish in tastes and habits. So fat that he could not mount a
horse, so unwieldy that he could only waddle about in velvet gaiters,
he was no man’s hero--nor woman’s either. Those who loved the ancient
system were compelled to use him, not because they loved _him_, but
because they adored the system.
Gifted with small talent for governing, how could he bring order out
of the chaos Napoleon’s fall had left? How could he reconcile the
intemperate greed of the partisans of the Old Order with the advocates
of liberal ideas in France? How could he harmonize emancipated peasants
with lords of Church and State who were clamorous to reënslave them?
How could he restore prosperity to the French manufacturer suddenly
ruined by the flood of English goods, which flood Napoleon had so long
dammed with his Continental system? And when the curé of St. Roch
refused holy burial to an actress, how could the feeble Louis control
either arrogant priest or indignant, riotous friends of the actress?
And how could he prevent all France from remembering that once before
when this same priest had refused Christian burial to an opera dancer,
the iron hand of Napoleon Bonaparte had fallen upon the unchristian
curé, inflicting chastisement, and the reproof that “Jesus Christ
commanded us to pray even for our enemies”?
No wonder, then, that when Carnot published a memorial, arraigning
the government for its breaches of faith, and pointing out its rapid
progress to absolutism, the book had a vast circulation. Chateaubriand
was brought forward to write a reply, and he wrote it; but even
Chateaubriand could not slay facts with a pen, though the courtiers at
the palace seem to have believed that he had done so.
Such was the Bourbon restoration. Undoing much of the work of the
Revolution, it menaced all. Apparently it was only a question of time
when France would be clothed again in the political and religious garb
of 1789. Those who had flattered themselves that they were getting
constitutional monarchy in exchange of Napoleon’s despotism, soon
realized that the Bourbon system had most of Napoleon’s vices and
none of his virtues. Talleyrand, Fouché, and Company had expected to
rule the kingdom as constitutional ministers. They found that their
influence was nothing when opposed by such royalist courtiers as the
empty-headed Blacas. Three months did not elapse after Talleyrand and
Fouché had plotted the downfall of Napoleon before they were plotting
the overthrow of Louis XVIII.
* * * * *
At length the Congress of Nations assembled at Vienna (September,
1814), and a very grand gathering of notabilities it was. The Czar
of Russia, the kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Würtemberg,
the Emperor Francis of Austria, were present in person; the kings of
England and France were represented by Lord Castlereagh and Prince
Talleyrand, respectively; Saxony, Naples, and other small states were
represented by delegations more or less official, and more or less
recognized.
Statesmen of many countries, diplomats, envoys, agents, male and
female, attended in great numbers; and in fêtes, banquets, balls,
excursions, and miscellaneous amusements some $50,000 each day were
gayly consumed.
Faithless in their dealings with Napoleon, the allied kings had been
distrustful of each other; behind public treaties secret agreements had
lurked, and now at the Congress of Vienna these underhand dealings
began to crop out. Ostensibly Napoleon had been overthrown by a grand,
brotherly coöperation of all the European monarchs. Ostensibly the
motive of this grand, brotherly coöperation had been to liberate the
people of Europe from the grinding tyranny of Napoleonic government.
No sooner had eminently wise heads begun to wag at this congress,
loosening eminently sage tongues, than it appeared that Russia,
Prussia, Austria, and England had made a secret bargain, quite a while
ago, to divide at their own pleasure the territories of which they had
stripped the too ambitious Emperor of the French. Consequently, the
representatives of these four Christian powers began to hold little
meetings of their own, to readjust the map of Europe, shutting the door
in the face of the eminent Talleyrand and lesser lights who had come
there to wield influence on a variety of subjects. This concert of the
four Christian powers, to the utter ignoring of other powers, likewise
Christian, would have resulted in a new map of Europe, just suited to
their own views but for one thing. In reaching their secret agreement
to shut out the other powers, they had failed to come to an agreement
among themselves.
If four royal and Christian victors secretly agree to monopolize the
spoils, it is obviously of the utmost importance that they should
not fall out while dividing the loot. Russia, Austria, Prussia, and
England were in harmony so far as agreeing that those four should take
everything which Napoleon had lost; but the Congress of Vienna had
barely passed the stage of mutual congratulations, and a solemn return
of thanks to God, before the row between the four robber powers began.
The Czar demanded all of Poland; Prussia all of Saxony; Austria’s
eager eyes were fixed upon Italy, and England stiffened her grip on
colonies generally.
A great deal has been said in praise of the masterly manner in which
Talleyrand forced open the door, and led France again to the council
board of nations. His boasted diplomacy seems to have amounted to no
more than this: the four powers mentioned quarrelled among themselves,
and France found her opportunity to take sides. Talleyrand made good
the opening thus offered, but surely he was not the only Frenchman who
could have done so. France had not been obliterated: she was still the
France of 1792, which had successfully resisted all Europe. If the four
great powers found themselves about to fight, two against two, was it
owing to Talleyrand’s genius alone that France was courted by one party
to the feud? Surely not. It was owing to the greatness of France--not
the greatness of Talleyrand.
Louis XVIII. could have brought into the field not only the remnants
of Napoleon’s army in the late campaign, but also the army with which
Soult had fought Wellington, as well as the troops which the Treaty of
Paris had released from northern prisons and garrison towns.
In a war which enlisted the support of the French people, half a
million men could easily have been armed; hence we can readily
understand why Austria and England, enraged by the greed of Russia and
Prussia, signed a secret treaty with France in January 1815.
However, the spirit of compromise worked with the Congress of Vienna;
and to avoid such a dreadful war as was on the eve of breaking out
among the allied kings, the Czar was allowed to take nearly all of
Poland; and Prussia had her way with Saxony; for while they gave her
only half of Saxony itself, they made up for the other half by giving
her more than an equivalent on the Rhine.
Juggling with the doctrine of “legitimacy,” and claiming that all
thrones must be restored to princes who were rulers “by the grace of
God,” and not by the choice of the people, Talleyrand seems to have
brought the powers to agree that Murat should be ousted from Naples,
and the Bourbons restored. Bernadotte could not be treated likewise,
because he was the adopted son of the legitimate King of Sweden!
He was not only confirmed in his high office, but the English fleet had
been sent to aid him in seizing the prey which had been promised him
as the price of his waging war upon his mother-country. Norway, which
Napoleon had refused to promise him, and which the Czar had promised,
was torn from Denmark by force, and handed over to Sweden, in spite of
all the Norwegians themselves could do.
* * * * *
Informed of all that was passing in France, in Italy, and at the Vienna
Congress, Napoleon prepared to make a bold dash for his throne. He
communicated secretly with Murat, with various Italian friends, with
various friends in France. Vague rumors began to circulate among his
old soldiers that he would reappear in the spring.
Did he make a secret treaty with Austria, detaching her from the
European alliance? There is some reason to believe that he did. He
repeatedly declared at St. Helena that such a treaty had been made;
and the author of the _Private Memoirs of the Court of Louis XVIII._
corroborates him. In that curious, interesting book a copy of the
alleged treaty is given.
Napoleon himself is reported to have said that the conspiracy which
Fouché had been organizing among the army officers forced him to leave
Elba three months earlier than he had intended. This is important,
if true, for it is conceded that had he waited three months longer
his chances of success would have been immensely improved--provided
that he had not in the meantime been seized as a prisoner of war or
assassinated.
Concealing his design to the last moment, Napoleon gathered up his
little army of eleven hundred men, went on board a small flotilla at
Porto Ferrajo, February 15, 1815, and set sail for France. His mother
and his sister looked on in tears while the troops were embarking, and
the Emperor himself was deeply affected. As he embraced his mother and
bade her farewell, he said, “I must go now, or I shall never go.”
* * * * *
At the Tuileries on the night of March 2, 1815, a curious scene was
witnessed in the saloon of the Abbé d’André, director-general of the
royal police.
Quite a number of people being present, conversation fell upon certain
ugly rumors concerning Elba. A gentleman just from Italy spoke of the
active movements of Napoleon’s agents. It was said that the Emperor
was engaged in some hostile preparations. The gentleman from Italy
evidently made an impression upon the company, and created a feeling
of uneasiness. The mere thought of Napoleon Bonaparte breaking loose
from Elba, and landing in France, was enough of itself to materially
increase the chilliness of a night in March to the Bourbon group.
But the Abbé d’André was equal to the emergency. As director-general of
police it was his business to know what Napoleon was doing, and he knew.
Rising from his chair, and striding to the fireplace, he faced the
company, and harangued them thus:--
“It is certainly a very extraordinary thing that right-thinking
people should be the first to find fault with the government. For
heaven’s sake, ladies and gentlemen, do give the ministers credit for
common sense! If you think them indifferent to passing events, you
are strangely mistaken. They watch everything, see everything, and
take precautions against everything. Do not be alarmed about Elba.
Every step Bonaparte takes is carefully noted. Elba is surrounded by
numerous cruisers. All who come and all who go are carefully examined.
Government receives a daily report of all that takes place there. Now,
to convince you that your alarms are silly, I will read you the report
we received yesterday.”
With this the complacent police minister drew from his pocket the
official bulletin, and read it. His agent represented that Napoleon
was reduced to a very low state of health, that he had the scurvy, and
was assailed by the infirmities of premature old age; that he rarely
went out, and that he would sometimes be seen on the seashore amusing
himself by tossing pebbles into the sea--a sure sign of approaching
lunacy. And so forth.
Having read this valuable report, d’André looked down upon his
auditors with a glance of triumph. He had demonstrated to his complete
satisfaction that Napoleon was not only in Elba, but that he was
pitching idle pebbles into a listless sea, and was on the direct route
to the lunatic asylum.
This was March 2; on the day previous Napoleon had landed at Cannes,
and was marching upon Paris!
The shock which Europe felt when the signal telegraph flashed the news
that the lion was loose again, was such as Europe had probably never
felt before, and will probably never feel again. It paralyzed the
King and the court at the Tuileries; it created consternation among
the kings and statesmen at the Congress of Vienna. The royalist lady
who wrote the _Memoirs of the Court of Louis XVIII._, declares that
the King’s ministers looked like men who had seen a ghost. They were
frightened into such imbecility that they were incapable of forming any
plan or giving any sane advice.
On the other hand, Wellington’s belief was that Napoleon had acted
on false information, and that the King would “destroy him without
difficulty, and in a short time.”
How Wellington ever managed to conjure up the mental picture of
Napoleon being destroyed by Louis XVIII. is one of the psychological
mysteries.
The man who, of all men, best knew that Louis XVIII. could never
stand his ground against Napoleon was Louis himself; and he began to
arrange to go out at one gate while Napoleon came in at the other.
Proclamations he issued, but no man read them. A price he set on
Napoleon’s head, but no man was eager to earn it. Generals and troops
he sent to stop the daring intruder, but the troops cried “Live
the Emperor!” and the officers had to flee, or join the Napoleonic
procession. The Duchess of Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI., exhorted
the soldiers at Bordeaux, but even her appeals fell flat. The Count
of Artois and Marshal Macdonald were equally unsuccessful at Lyons;
their troops deserted them, and they were forced to gallop away.
Marshal Ney was quite sure that he could manage the soldiers committed
to him, and that he could cage the monster from Elba. Pledging his
word to the quaking King, he set forth upon his errand, drew up his
troops, harangued them, and proposed the capture of Napoleon. They
laughed at him, drowned his voice in cries of “Live the Emperor!” and
the inconstant Ney fell into the current, surrendered to his men,
proclaimed his adherence to the man he had been sent to capture, and
went in person to lay his offer of service at the feet of his old
master!
Sadly Louis XVIII. turned to Blacas upon whom he had too trustfully
leaned for guidance and counsel. “Blacas, you are a good fellow, but I
was grievously deceived when I mistook your devotedness for talent.”
With nobody to fight for him, it was time he was leaving; and on the
night of March 19 he left. With him on his doleful way to the frontier
went a terror-stricken renegade, who dreaded of all things that
Napoleon should lay hands upon him,--Marmont, the Arnold of France.