disagreeable impression; but it soon vanished, and gave place to the
sensations, that this grand union of the nation excited. What in fact
could be more impressive, than the aspect of a people, threatened with
a tremendous war, forming peaceably a solemn compact with the
sovereign, of whom its enemies were desirous of depriving it; and
joining with him, to defend together the honour and independence of
its country, in life or death?
An altar was erected in the midst of the vast and superb enclosure of
the _Champ de Mars_; and the ceremony commenced with the invocation of
the Supreme Being. The homage paid to God in the presence of nature
seems more fully to inspire man with religion, confidence, and
respect. At the instant of the elevation of the host, this crowd of
citizens, soldiers, officers, magistrates, and princes, prostrated
themselves in the dust, and implored for France, with a tender and
religious emotion, the tutelary protection of the sovereign Arbiter of
kings and people. The Emperor himself, usually so absent, displayed a
great deal of inward devotion. All eyes were fixed on him: people
called to mind his victories and his disasters, his greatness and his
fall; they were softened by the fresh dangers, that accumulated round
his head; and they put up prayers, truly sincere prayers, that he
might triumph over his implacable enemies.
A deputation, composed of five hundred electors, advanced to the foot
of the throne; and one of them, in the name of the French people,
addressed him in the following terms:
"Sire,
"The French people had decreed you the crown; you laid it down,
without their consent their suffrages impose on you the duty of
resuming it.
"A new compact is formed between the nation and your Majesty.
"Assembled from all parts of the empire round the tables of the law,
on which we are come to inscribe the wish of the people, the wish that
constitutes the only legitimate source of power, it is impossible for
us, not to proclaim aloud the voice of France, of which we are the
immediate organs; and not to say, in the face of Europe, to the august
chief of the nation, what it expects of him, and what he has to expect
of it.
"Our words are as serious, as the circumstances by which they are
inspired.
"What means this league of allied kings, with that preparation for
war, with which it appals Europe, and grieves humanity?
"By what act, what transgression, have we provoked their vengeance, or
given cause for an attack?
"Have we attempted, to impose laws on them, since the peace? We only
wish, to make and follow such, as are adapted to our manners.
"We refuse the chief, whom our enemies choose for us; and we choose
him, whom they refuse us.
"They dare to proscribe you personally: you, sire, who, so many times
master of their capitals, had generously confirmed them on their
tottering thrones! This hatred of our enemies adds to our love of you:
were they to proscribe the most insignificant of our citizens, it
would be our duty, to defend him with the same energy; he would be,
like you, under the aegis of the laws and power of France.
"We are threatened with an invasion; yet, confined within frontiers,
which nature did not impose on us; and which victory, and even peace,
had extended, long before your reign; we have not overstepped this
narrow boundary, out of regard to treaties, which you did not sign,
yet have offered to respect.
"Do they demand only guarantees? They have them in our institutions;
and in the will of the French people, henceforward united with yours.
"Are they not afraid of reminding us of times, of a state of things,
but lately so different, and which may again return?
"It would not be the first time, that we have vanquished Europe in
arms against us.
"It is to the French nation, that they dare refuse a second time, in
the nineteenth century; in the face of the civilised world, those
sacred, imprescriptible rights, which the smallest tribe never
claimed in vain at the tribunal of history and justice.
"Because France resolves to be France, must it be degraded, torn to
pieces, dismembered and is the fate of Poland reserved for us? Vainly
would they conceal their fatal intentions, under the appearance of the
sole design of separating you from us, to give us to masters, with
whom we have no longer any thing in common, and who can no longer
understand us.
"The three branches of the legislature are about to enter into a state
of activity: one sentiment will animate them. Confiding in the
promises of your Majesty, we resign to you, we resign to our
representatives and to the chamber of peers, the care of revising,
consolidating, and perfecting in concert, without precipitancy,
without concussion, maturely, and with wisdom, our constitutional
system, and the institutions that must guaranty it.
"And if, however, we be compelled to fight, let one sole voice resound
from every heart. Let us march against the enemy, that would treat us
as the lowest of nations. Let us all press around the throne, on which
is seated the father and chief of the people and of the army.
"Sire, nothing is impossible: nothing shall be spared, to ensure our
honour and independence, possessions dearer than life: every thing
shall be attempted, every thing done, to repel an ignominious yoke. We
say it to the nations, may their rulers hear us! if they accept your
offers of peace, the French people will expect from your strong,
liberal, and paternal government, motives of consolation for the
sacrifices, which the peace has cost them: but if they leave us no
other alternative, than war or disgrace, the whole nation is for war;
it is ready to absolve you from the offers, perhaps too moderate, that
you have made, in order to spare Europe fresh convulsions. Every
Frenchman is a soldier: victory will follow your eagles; and our
enemies, who have reckoned on a division, will soon regret their
having provoked us."
This speech being ended, the result of the votes[21] was proclaimed,
and the acceptance of the constitutional act.
[Footnote 21:
Votes, Affirmative 1,288,357
Negative 4,207
Armies, Affirmative 222,000
Negative 320
Navy, Affirmative 22,000
Negative 275
Eleven departments did not send their registers in time.
A great number of soldiers, unable to write their names,
did not vote; and the registers of fourteen regiments
did not arrive, till the votes had been summed up.]
The Emperor then, turning toward the electors, said:
"Gentlemen, electors of the colleges of departments and circles;
"Gentlemen, deputies of the armies by sea and land to the _Champ de
Mai_:
"Emperor, consul, soldier, I hold every thing from the people. In
prosperity, in adversity; on the field of battle, in the council
chamber; on the throne, and in exile; France has been the sole and
constant object of my thoughts, and of my actions.
"Like the King of Athens, I sacrificed myself for my people, in the
hope of seeing the promise realized, that had been given, to preserve
to France its natural integrity, its honours, and its rights.
"Indignation at seeing these sacred rights, acquired by five and
twenty years of victory, disregarded, and lost for ever; the cry
raised by, French honour disgraced; and the wishes of the nation;
have brought me back to the throne, which is dear to me, because it is
the palladium of the independence, the honour, and the rights of the
people.
"Frenchmen, from the public joy, amid which I traversed the different
provinces of the empire, to arrive at my capital, I could not but
reckon on a long peace; for nations are bound by the treaties
concluded with their governments, be these what they may.
"My thoughts were then turned wholly on the means of establishing our
liberty by a constitution conformable to the will and the interests of
the people. I convened the _Champ de Mai_.
"It was not long before I learned, that the princes, who have
disregarded all principles, and wounded the opinions and dearest
interests of so many nations, resolved to make war on us. They
purpose, to enlarge the kingdom of the Netherlands, to give it for
barriers all our strong places on the North, and to reconcile the
differences, which still keep them at variance, by dividing among them
Lorraine and Alsace.
"It was necessary, to prepare for war.
"However, before incurring personally the dangers of battle, my first
care necessarily was, to consult the nation without delay. The people
has accepted the act I have laid before it.
"Frenchmen, when we have repelled these unjust aggressions, and Europe
is convinced of what is due to the rights and independence of
twenty-eight millions of Frenchmen, a solemn law, made according to
the forms willed by the constitutional act, shall combine the
different arrangements of our constitutions, that are at present
scattered.
"Frenchmen, you are about to return to your departments. Tell the
citizens, that the present circumstances are important! That with
union, energy, and perseverance, we shall rise victorious from this
struggle of a great people against its oppressors; that generations to
come will severely scrutinize our conduct; and that a nation has lost
every thing, when it has lost its independence. Tell them, that the
foreign kings, whom I raised to a throne, or who are indebted to me
for the preservation of their crowns; all of whom, in the days of my
prosperity, courted my alliance, and the protection of the French
people; now direct their blows against my person. Did I not see, that
it is our country at which they really aim, I would place at their
mercy this life, against which they appear so exasperated. But tell
the citizens also, that, as long as the French retain for me those
sentiments of affection, of which they have given me so many
testimonies, this rage of our enemies will prove impotent.
"Frenchmen, my will is that of the people: my rights are its rights;
my honour, my glory, my happiness, can be no others than the honour,
the glory, and the happiness of France."
These words of Napoleon, pronounced with a strong and emphatic voice,
produced the most lively sensation. A cry of "Long live the Emperor!"
resounded in an instant throughout the immense space of the Champ de
Mars, and was repeated from one to another in the places around.
The Emperor, after having sworn on the Gospels, to observe, and cause
to be observed, the constitutions of the empire, made the
archchancellor proclaim the oath of fealty of the French people,
represented by the electors. This oath was spontaneously repeated by
thousands and thousands of voices.
The ministers of war and of the navy, in the name of the armies by
land and sea, and at the head of their deputations; the minister of
the interior, in the name of the national guards of France, and at
the head of the electors; the staff of the imperial guard, and that of
the national guard; afterwards advanced to take the oath, and receive
from the hands of the Emperor the eagles intended for them.
This ceremony ended, the troops, making about fifty thousand men,
filed off before Napoleon and the festival concluded, as it had
commenced, amid the acclamations of the people, the soldiers, and the
majority of the electors: but to the discontent of a certain number of
them, who complained, and with reason, that the Emperor had
substituted a steril distribution of colours, instead of the grand
national congress, which he had convened.
The parties too, that already began to pullulate, were not better
satisfied with the issue of the _Champ de Mai_.
The old revolutionists would have wished Napoleon, to have abolished
the empire, and re-established a republic.
The partisans of the regency reproached him for not having proclaimed
Napoleon II.
And the liberals maintained, that he ought to have laid down the
crown, and left to the sovereign nation the right of restoring it to
him, or offering it to the most worthy.
Were these different pretensions well founded? No.
The re-establishment of the republic would have ruined France.
The abdication in favour of Napoleon II. would not have saved it. The
allies had explained their intentions at Bâle: they would not have
laid down their arms, till the Emperor had consented, to deliver
himself up. "A circumstance, that, being to a prince the greatest of
misfortunes, can never form a condition of peace[22]?"
[Footnote 22: Montesquieu. Greatness and Decline of the
Romans.]
As to the latter proposition, I confess, that Napoleon, if on the 21st
of March, or the 12th of April[23], he had returned into the hands of
the French the sceptre, which he had just torn from those of the
Bourbons, would have stamped a character completely heroic on the
revolution of the 20th of March. He would have disconcerted the
foreign powers, augmented his popularity, centuplicated his forces:
but on the first of June it was too late: the additional act had
appeared.
[Footnote 23: The day on which the Act of Congress
appeared.]
Unhappily for himself, therefore, Napoleon could do nothing better at
the _Champ de Mai_, than what he did: namely, to endeavour to conceal
the emptiness of the day under the pomp of a religious and military
solemnity, calculated to move the heart, and strengthen by fresh bands
the union, already subsisting between him, the people, and the army.
The Emperor had not been able to deliver with his own hands to the
electors the eagles of their departments. It had not been concealed
from him, that some among them appeared dissatisfied; and he wished to
attempt to dissipate their ill-humour, and revive their zeal. Ten
thousand persons were assembled in the vast galleries of the Louvre;
on one side were seen the deputies and electors of the nation; on the
other, its glorious defenders. The eagle of each department, and that
of each deputation from the armies, were placed at the head of groups
of citizens or warriors; and nothing could exhibit a more animated,
and more impressive picture, than this confused assembly of Frenchmen,
of all the orders of the state, crowding mutually around the standards
and the hero, that were to conduct them to victory and to peace.
The Emperor was polite, affectionate, amiable: with infinite art he
accommodated his manners to every body, and almost every body was
enchanted with him. He was convinced of the mischief he had done
himself by the additional act: and, in order to regain the good
opinion of the public, he repeated to satiety, to the representatives
and electors, that he would employ himself in concurrence with the two
chambers, to collect together those provisions of the constitutional
laws, that were not abrogated, and form the whole into one sole
constitution, that should become the fundamental law of the nation.
This retraction was the consequence of the remonstrances of his
ministers, and particularly of M. Carnot. "Sire," he was incessantly
repeating to him, "do not strive, I conjure you, against public
opinion. Your additional act has displeased the nation. Promise it,
that you will modify it, and render it conformable to its wishes. I
repeat to you, Sire, I have never deceived you; your safety and ours
depend on your deference to the national will. This is not all, Sire;
the French are become a free people. The appellation of 'subject,'
which you are continually giving them, wounds and humbles them. Call
them citizens, or your children. Neither suffer your ministers, your
marshals, your great officers, to be called '_monseigneur_:' there is
no _seigneur_ in a country, where equality forms the basis of the
laws; there are none but citizens."
The Emperor, however, did not see the opening of the chambers
approach, without a certain degree of apprehension. His intention was,
frankly to submit to the principles and consequences of a
representative government; in the first place, because he wished to
reign, and was convinced, that he could not retain the throne, unless
he governed as the nation demanded.
In the second place, because he was persuaded, that the nation now
placed its ideas of happiness on a representative government; and
because, greedy of every kind of celebrity, he found, as he told me at
Lyons, that it was glorious, to render a great people happy. But,
whatever were the sentiments and good inclinations of Napoleon, he had
not had time, to divest himself completely of his old notions and
ancient prejudices. The remembrance of our preceding assemblies
besieged him still in spite of himself: and he appeared to fear, that
the French had too much warmth of imagination, instability of will,
and propensity to abuse their rights, to be capable of enjoying on a
sudden, without any preparation, the benefits of absolute liberty. He
feared, too, that the opposition inherent in representative
governments would not be rightly comprehended in France, and would
make a bad impression; that it would degenerate into resistance; and
that it would clog the action of the sovereign power, take from it its
illusion, its moral strength, and make of it nothing but an instrument
of oppression[24].
[Footnote 24: At the time of the discussion of the
additional act, M. de Bassano, conversing with the
Emperor on the chamber of deputies, said to him, that
the muteness of the legislative body, was one of the
things, that had contributed most to discredit the
imperial government. "My mute legislative body,"
answered Napoleon, with a smile, "was never well
understood. It was a grand legislative jury. If it be
thought right, that twelve jurymen shall pronounce on
the life and honour of their fellow citizens by a simple
yes, or no; why deem it strange or tyrannical, that five
hundred jurymen, selected from the most eminent men in
the nation, should pronounce in a similar manner on the
simple interests of society?"]
Independently of these general considerations, Napoleon had still
other motives, to dread the approaching assembly of the chambers. They
were going to meet under circumstances, in which it was indispensable,
that the chief of the state should govern without contradiction: yet
he foresaw, that the representatives, misled by their ardent love of
liberty, and by the fear of despotism, would seek to fetter his
exercise of authority, instead of seconding its full display.
"When a war has commenced," said he one day, "the presence of a
deliberative body is as embarrassing, as it is fatal. _It must have
victories._ If the monarch meet with any check, fear seizes the timid,
and renders them unconsciously the instruments and accomplices of the
audacious. The apprehension of danger, and the desire of withdrawing
from it, derange every head. Reason has no longer any sway: _physical
feelings are everything_. The turbulent, the ambitious, greedy of
rule, of popularity, of making a noise, erect themselves of their own
authority into advocates of the people, and advisers of the prince:
they want to know all, regulate all, direct all. If no regard be paid
to their counsels, from advisers they become censors, from censors
factionaries, and from factionaries rebels. The necessary consequence
then is, that the prince must either submit to their yoke, or expel
them; and in either case he almost always compromises his crown and
the state."
Napoleon, tormented by the anxiety, which the sudden and inconsiderate
application of the popular system, and the dispositions of the
deputies, inspired, rested all his security on the chamber of peers.
He hoped, that this chamber would influence the representatives by its
example, or check them by its firmness.
The ministers received orders, each to present to him a list of
candidates.
M. Delavalette, in whom the Emperor had particular confidence, was
also desired to furnish him with a list.
Formerly an aide-de-camp of Napoleon, and connected with him by
marriage[25], M. Delavalette had vowed to him an attachment proof
against all temptations. Phocion said to Antipater, "I cannot be at
once thy flatterer, and thy friend:" and M. Delavalette, thinking like
Phocion, had abjured every kind of flattery, to adhere to the rigid
language of friendship. Endowed with a cool head, and sound judgment,
he appreciated events with skill and sagacity. Reserved in the world,
frank and open with Napoleon, he avowed his opinions to him with the
freedom of an affectionate, pure, and upright heart. Accordingly
Napoleon set much value on his advice; and confessed with noble
candour, that he had frequently had to congratulate himself for
having followed it.
[Footnote 25: He had married a Miss Beauharnais, since
so celebrated for her generously risking her own life to
save his.]
The lists presented to the Emperor exhibited a complete assortment of
ancient nobles, senators, generals, land-holders, and merchants[26].
The Emperor, it is right to say, had only the trouble of choosing, but
this was great.
[Footnote 26: It was the Duke of Vicenza, who first
conceived the idea of conferring the peerage on great
land-holders, and distinguished merchants. He was not of
opinion, that the peerage should be hereditary, and that
the choice of peers should be left exclusively to the
crown. He would have wished, that men of great landed
property, manufacturers, merchants of the first rank,
the men of letters, civilians, and lawyers, who had
acquired a great name, should be allowed to propose a
list of candidates, out of which the Emperor should be
at liberty to choose a certain number of peers.]
On the one hand he could have wished, both from self-love and a spirit
of conciliation, to have had in the chamber of peers some of those
great names, that sound so gratefully to the ear. On the other hand he
was desirous, as I have said above, that this chamber should hold the
deputies in check; and he could not conceal from himself, that, if he
introduced into it any of the ancient nobility, it would have no
influence over that of the representatives, and probably be on very
bad terms with it.
He decided, therefore, to sacrifice his inclinations to the good of
the cause; and, instead of granting the peerage to that crowd of
parchment nobles, who had humbly solicited it, he conferred it only on
a few of them, noted for their patriotism, and their attachment to
liberal principles. Many of these illustrious solicitors have since
boasted of having refused it. This is very natural, but is it true? I
leave it to their own hearts, their own consciences, to answer the
question.
The Emperor, fearful of refusals, had taken the precaution to have the
inclinations of the doubtful candidates previously sounded. Some
hesitated; others plainly refused. Of all these refusals, direct and
indirect, which amounted but to five or six at most, no one more
painfully disappointed Napoleon, than that of Marshal Macdonald. He
had not forgotten the noble fidelity that the Marshal preserved
towards him in 1814, to the last moment; and he regretted, that his
scruples deprived him of a dignity, to which he was called by his
rank, his services, and the public esteem.
The 3d of June being come, the chamber of representatives assembled in
the ancient palace of the legislative body, and formed itself
provisionally under the presidency of the oldest of its members.
The constitution had left to the representatives the right of choosing
their president. The Emperor hoped, that their suffrages would be
given in favour of his brother Lucien; and in this hope he did not
publish immediately the list of peers, that he might retain the power
of comprising this prince in it, or not, according as he should or
should not be appointed to the _presidency_[27]. But the chamber,
notwithstanding the esteem and confidence, with which the principles
and character of Prince Lucien inspired it, thought, that his election
would be considered as a deference to the will of the Emperor; and
resolved therefore, to make a different choice, in order to prove to
France, and to the foreign powers, that it was, and would remain, free
and independent. M. Lanjuinais was elected: and Napoleon, who knew
that M. Lanjuinais, a malecontent by nature, had never been able to
agree with any government[28], was doubly vexed, that Prince Lucien
had been rejected, and that such a successor had been given him.