The return from Elba, the Chancellor states in his _Mémoires_, so far
from being desired by the nation at large, was viewed with terror; and
the unpopularity of the government of the Bourbons, after their return
to power, he ascribes to the very poor opinion that it caused to be
entertained "of its strength and of its capacity." Of its gross
violation of law and justice, one of the most striking instances was
that of the execution of Marshal Ney, after Waterloo, and the Duc de
Richelieu, Louis XVIII's minister of foreign affairs,--whom the latest
historical researches seem to combine to elevate, and of whom even
Pasquier was an admirer,--here appears in the ignoble _rôle_ of judge
and accuser combined. Scarcely was he settled in the Tuileries again
when the new king proceeded to draw up a list of eighteen citizens and
eighteen superior officers to be proscribed, though in so doing he
formally violated the articles of the capitulation of Paris, which
provided that no citizen or soldier was to be prosecuted for having
taken part in the preceding events. The presidency of the council of war
which was to try, and condemn, "the bravest of the brave," was offered
to the eldest of the marshals, Moncey, Duc de Conegliano. He declined
it, in an indignant letter to the king, as "sanctioning an
assassination," and was imprisoned for three months in a fortress for
disobedience of orders. By a majority of five votes against two, the
council, in fact, declared itself incompetent, and Ney, with a sigh of
relief, exclaimed: "You see, _ces b ... là_ would have shot me like a
rabbit."
He rejoiced too soon; the Duc de Richelieu made a furious speech before
the Chamber of Peers in which he openly demanded the condemnation of the
marshal; in the _acte d'accusation_, read before this new court, "the
truth was so outrageously abused and mutilated that it was justly
characterized as a masterpiece of hatred." In vain his defenders
demonstrated that this prosecution was a violation of the solemn
engagements made by the Allies _in the name of the king_; Davout and his
chief-of-staff, General Guilleminot, deposed that they would have
"delivered battle," instead of capitulating, had it not been for article
12 of this capitulation, in which an amnesty for all persons was
expressly stipulated; they were peremptorily silenced, and at nine
o'clock the next morning the marshal was shot by his old comrades in
arms in the grand alley of the garden of the Luxembourg. A recent
monograph by M. Henri Leyret, from which we draw these details, quotes
the remark of a foreigner who was present at this execution: "The French
act as if they had neither history nor posterity."
During the ten years of the Empire, the aspect of Paris had greatly
changed, no less than one hundred and two million of francs having been
spent on the embellishment of the capital. Among the minor details of
these architectural changes may be cited the regulation of the numbering
of the houses in 1805, and in 1808 a serious attempt to provide some
sidewalks in the principal streets. Curiously enough, this latter
measure met with considerable opposition on the grounds of its
impracticability because of the numerous portes cochères. But it was not
till 1825 that the use of these pavements for foot-passengers became
general.
M. Duruy's summing-up of the reign of Napoleon may be compared with that
he gives of the epoch of Louis XIV: "Victories gained by the superiority
of genius and not by that of numbers, immense works accomplished,
industry awakened, agriculture encouraged by the security given to the
acquirers of the _biens nationaux_, an administration enlightened,
vigilant, and quick to act, the unity of the nation consolidated and its
grandeur surpassing all imaginations,--this is what will plead always
for him before posterity and to the heart of France."
The new Bourbon styled himself "king by the grace of God," without any
mention of the national will or of the foreign enemy to whom he owed his
crown; he replaced the tricolor by the white flag, and dated his
accession from the death of his nephew Louis XVII, the dauphin,
considering 1814 as the nineteenth year of his reign. So far was this
fable pushed that in certain school histories of the Restoration the
victories of the campaign in Italy were stated to have been gained by
"M. de Buonaparte, lieutenant-general of the king." In a recent review
of this reign, however, it is stated that when Blucher was mining the
bridge of Jéna, during the occupation of the capital, and refused to be
dissuaded from his purpose of blowing it up, Louis XVIII declared his
intention of stationing himself on the bridge and perishing with it. The
intervention of the Russian Emperor, Alexander, however, had probably
more to do with the preservation of the structure; and a recent
biography of the Duc de Richelieu asserts that the Czar's affection for
this minister, who had been at one time governor of Odessa, brought
about the evacuation of French territory by the allied armies at a date
earlier by two years than that fixed by the treaty of November 20, 1815.
Notwithstanding the liberal provisions of the _Charte constitutionelle_,
drawn up on the 27th of May, 1814, the restored monarchy returned so
promptly to all its old abuses that in ten months it had exhausted the
public patience and brought about the return from Elba. On the second
restoration, after the Hundred Days, it was so vindictive, as we have
seen, adding even religious persecution to political, that it also has
been given in history its reign of terror, _la Terreur blanche_. In 1824
the king was succeeded by the Comte d'Artois, under the title of Charles
X, a typical Bourbon, who had "learned nothing, forgotten nothing," who
considered himself called to revive all the powers and privileges of the
ancient monarchy, and who did not hesitate to violate the prescriptions
of the Charte when he found them in his way. Consequently, the nation,
with Paris at its head, at the end of its patience and finding its
constitutional opposition about to be encountered with a _coup d'État_,
got up the bloody revolution of July, 1830, in the streets of the
capital, and the last of the Bourbon kings took the road to permanent
exile,--let us hope.
The Chamber of Deputies replaced him by the head of the younger branch
of the Bourbons, the Duc d'Orléans, who assumed the title of Louis
Philippe I, Roi des Français. The new monarch affected certain airs of
bourgeois simplicity, not unmixed with bourgeois prudence. He declined
to take up his lodging in the Tuileries until all traces of the
devastation attending the exit of the late tenant had disappeared, and
not even then until the windows opening on the garden had been protected
by a ditch, bordered with lilacs and with an iron railing. "I do not
wish," he said, "that my wife should be exposed to the risk of hearing
all the horrors that Marie-Antoinette heard there for the space of three
years." "The new royalty," writes M. de Saint-Amand, "adopted a
demi-etiquette which occupied a position half-way between the customs of
absolute power and those of democracy. The sovereign assumed the uniform
of a general of the National Guard. He had neither écuyers, nor
chamberlain, nor préfet of the palace, but there were aides-de-camp and
_officiers d'ordonnance_. The bourgeois element increased greatly in the
fêtes of the Tuileries. Nevertheless, for those who observed this court
of the July monarchy, there was a sensible tendency to return to the
methods of the past."
[Illustration: THE FRENCH DANCES THROUGHOUT THE AGES. DECORATION FOR THE
GRANDE SALLE DE FÊTES IN THE NEW HOTEL DE VILLE.