_Retrospect--Restoration of the Bourbons displeasing to the
Soldiery, but satisfactory to the People--Terms favourable to France
granted by the Allies--Discontent about the manner of conceding the
Charter--Other grounds of dissatisfaction--Apprehensions lest the
Church and Crown Lands should be resumed--Resuscitation of the
Jacobin faction--Increased Dissatisfaction in the Army--The Claims
of the Emigrants mooted in the Chamber of Delegates--Maréchal
Macdonald's Proposal--Financial Difficulties--Restriction on the
Press--Reflections on this subject._
We must now look back to the re-establishment of the Bourbons upon the
throne in 1814, an event which took place under circumstances so
uncommon as to excite extravagant expectations of national felicity;
expectations, which, like a premature and profuse display of blossom,
diminished the chance of the fruit ripening, and exasperated the
disappointment of over sanguine hopes. For a certain time all had been
gay and rose-coloured. The French possess more than other nations the
art of enjoying the present, without looking back with regret on the
past, or forward to the future with unfavourable anticipations. Louis
XVIII., respectable for his literary acquirements, and the practice of
domestic virtues, amiable also from a mixture of _bonhommie_, and a
talent for saying witty things, was received in the capital of his
kingdom with acclamations, in which the soldiers alone did not cordially
join. They indeed appeared with gloomy, sullen, and discontented looks.
The late imperial, now royal guard, seemed, from the dark ferocity of
their aspect, to consider themselves rather as the captives who were led
in triumph, than the soldiers who partook of it.
But the higher and middling classes in general, excepting those who were
direct losers by the dethronement of Napoleon, hailed with sincere
satisfaction the prospect of peace, tranquillity, and freedom from
vexatious exactions. If they had not, as they could hardly be supposed
to have, any personal zeal for the representatives of a family so long
strangers to France, it was fondly hoped the absence of this might be
supplied by the unwonted prospect of ease and security which their
accession promised. The allied monarchs, on their part, did every thing
to favour the Bourbon family, and relaxed most of the harsh and
unpalatable conditions which they had annexed to their proposed treaty
with Buonaparte; as if to allow the legitimate heir the credit with his
people of having at once saved their honour, and obtained for them the
most advantageous terms.
The French readily caught at these indulgences, and, with the aptitude
they possess of accommodating their feelings to the moment, for a time
seemed to intimate that they were sensible of the full advantage of the
change, and were desirous to make as much of it as they possibly could.
There is a story of a French soldier in former times, who, having
insulted his general in a fit of intoxication, was brought before him
next morning, and interrogated, whether he was the person who had
committed the offence. The accused replied _he_ was not, for that the
impudent rascal had gone away before four in the morning--at which hour
the culprit had awaked in a state of sobriety. The French people, like
the arch rogue in question, drew distinctions between their present and
former selves, and seemed very willing to deny their identity. They were
no longer, they said, either the Republican French, who had committed so
many atrocities in their own country, or the Imperial French, who had
made such devastation in other nations; and God forbid that the sins of
either should be visited upon the present regenerate race of royalist
Frenchmen, loyal to their native princes, and faithful to their allies,
who desired only to enjoy peace abroad and tranquillity at home.
These professions, which were probably serious for the time, backed by
the natural anxiety of the monarch to make, through his interest with
the allied powers, the best terms he could for his country, were
received as current without strict examination. It seemed that
Buonaparte on his retirement to Elba, had carried away with him all the
offences of the French people, like the scapegoat, which the Levitical
law directed to be driven into the wilderness, loaded with the sins of
the children of Israel. There was, in all the proceedings of the allied
powers, not only moderation, but a studied delicacy, observed towards
the feelings of the French, which almost savoured of romantic
generosity. They seemed as desirous to disguise their conquest, as the
Parisians were to conceal their defeat. The treasures of art, those
spoils of foreign countries, which justice loudly demanded should be
restored to their true owners, were confirmed to the French nation, in
order to gratify the vanity of the metropolis. By a boon yet more fatal,
announced to the public in one of those moments of romantic, and more
than questionable generosity, which we have alluded to, the whole French
prisoners of war in the mass, and without inquiry concerning their
principles, or the part they were likely to take in future internal
divisions, were at once restored to the bosom of their country. This was
in fact treating the French nation as a heedless nurse does a spoiled
child, when she puts into its hands the knife which it cries for. The
fatal consequences of this improvident indulgence appeared early in the
subsequent year.
[Sidenote: THE RESTORATION.]
The Senate of Napoleon, when they called the Bourbons to the throne, had
not done so without making stipulations on the part of the nation, and
also upon their own. For the first purpose they framed a decree, under
which they "called to the throne Louis Stanislaus Xavier, brother of the
last King," but upon condition of his accepting a constitution of their
framing. This assumed right of dictating a constitution, and naming a
king for the nation, was accompanied by another provision, declaring the
Senate hereditary, and confirming to themselves, and their heirs for
ever, the rank, honours, and emoluments, which in Napoleon's time they
only enjoyed for life.
The King refused to acknowledge the right of the Senate, either to
dictate the terms on which he should ascend a throne, his own by
hereditary descent, and to which he had never forfeited his claim; or to
engross, as their own exclusive property, the endowments provided to
their order by Buonaparte. He, therefore, assumed the crown as the
lineal and true representative of him by whom it was last worn; and
issued his own constitutional charter as a concession which the spirit
of the times demanded, and which he had himself no desire to withhold.
The objections to this mode of proceeding were, practically speaking, of
no consequence. It signified nothing to the people of France, whether
the constitution was proposed to the King by the national
representatives, or by the King to them, so that it contained, in an
irrevocable form, a full ratification of the national liberties. But for
the King to have acknowledged himself the creature of the Senate's
election would have been at once to recognise every ephemeral tyranny
which had started up and fretted its part on the revolutionary stage;
and to have sanctioned all subsequent attempts at innovation, since they
who make kings and authorities must have the inherent right to dethrone
and annul them. It should not be forgotten how the British nation acted
on the great occasions of the Restoration and Revolution; recognising,
at either crisis, the right of blood to succeed to the crown, whether
vacant by the murder of Charles I., or the abdication of James II. In
principle, too, it may be observed, that in all modern European nations,
the king is nominally the source both of law and justice; and that
statutes are promulgated, and sentences executed in his name, without
inferring that he has the despotic right either to make the one, or to
alter the other. Although, therefore, the constitution of France
emanated in the usual form of a royal charter, the King was no more
empowered to recall or innovate its provisions, than King John to
abrogate those of the English Magna Charta. Monsieur, the King's
brother, had promised in his name, upon his solemn entrance to Paris,
that Louis would recognise the basis of the constitution prepared by the
Senate. This pledge was fully redeemed by the charter, and wise men
would have been more anxious to secure the benefits which it bestowed,
than scrupulously to cavil on the mode in which they had been conferred.
In fact, Louis had adopted not only the form most consonant to ancient
usage, but that which he thought most likely to satisfy both the
royalists and the revolutionary party. He ascended the throne as his
natural right; and, having done so, he willingly granted to the people,
in an irrevocable form, the substantial principles of a free
constitution. But both parties were rather displeased at what they
considered as lost, than gratified at what they gained by this
arrangement. The royalists regarded the constitution, with its
concessions, as a voluntary abandonment of the royal prerogative; while
the revolutionary party exclaimed, that the receiving the charter from
the King as an act of his will was in itself a badge of servitude; and
that the same royal prerogative which had granted these privileges,
might, if recognised, be supposed to reserve the power of diminishing or
resuming them at pleasure. And thus it is, that folly, party-spirit,
pride, and passion, can misrepresent the best measures, and so far
poison the public mind, that the very granting the object of their
desires shall be made the subject of new complaints.
[Sidenote: MINISTRY OF LOUIS XVIII.]
The formation of the ministry gave rise to more serious grounds of
apprehension and censure. The various offices of administration were,
upon the restoration, left in possession of persons selected from those
who had been named by the Provisional Government. All the members of the
Provisional State Council were called to be royal ministers of the
State. Many of these, though possessed of reputed talents, were men
hackneyed in the changes of the Revolution; and were not, and could not
be, intrusted with the King's confidence beyond the bounds of the
province which each administered.
Talleyrand, minister for foreign affairs, whose talents and experience
might have given him claim to the situation of prime minister, was
unpopular from his political versatility; and it was judged, after a
time, most expedient to send him to the Congress at Vienna, that his
diplomatic skill might be employed in arranging the exterior relations
of France with the other powers of Europe. Yet the absence of this
consummate statesman was of great prejudice to the King's affairs. His
having preserved life, distinction, and frequently power, during so many
revolutionary changes, proved, according to the phrase of the old Earl
of Pembroke, that "he was born of the willow, not of the oak." But it
was the opinion of the wisest men in France, that it was not fair,
considering the times in which he lived, to speak of his attachment to,
or defection from, individuals; but to consider the general conduct and
maxims which he recommended relative to the interests of France. It has
been truly said, that, after the first errors and ebullitions of
republican zeal, if he were measured by this standard, he must be judged
favourably. The councils which he gave to Napoleon were all calculated,
it was said, for the good of the nation, and so were the measures which
he recommended to the King. Much of this is really true; yet, when we
think of the political consistency of the Prince of Beneventum, we
cannot help recollecting the personal virtue of a female follower of the
camp, which consisted in strict fidelity to the grenadier company.
Dupont was promoted to the situation of minister at war, owing, perhaps,
to the persecution he had undergone from Buonaparte, in consequence of
his surrender at Baylen to the Spaniards. Soult was afterwards called to
this important office; how recommended, it would be vain to inquire.
When Napoleon heard of his appointment from the English resident, he
observed that it would be a wise and good one, if no _patriotic_ party
should show itself in France; but, if such should arise, he intimated
plainly that there would be no room for the Bourbons to rest faith upon
Soult's adherence to their cause; and so it proved.
To add still farther to the inconveniences of this state of
administration, Louis XVIII. had a favourite, although he had no prime
minister. Count Blacas d'Aulps, minister of the household, an ancient
and confidential attendant on the royal person during his exile, was
understood to be the channel through which the King's wishes were
communicated to the other ministers; and his protection was supposed to
afford the surest access to the favours of the crown.
Without doing his master the service of a premier, or holding either the
power or the responsibility of that high situation, De Blacas had the
full share of odium usually attached to it. The royalists, who pressed
on him for grants which were in the departments of other ministers,
resented his declining to interfere in their favour, as if, having
satisfied his own ambition, he had become indifferent to the interest of
those with whom he had been a joint sufferer during the emigration. The
opposite party, on the other hand, represented Count Blacas as an
absolute minister, an emigrant himself, and the patron of emigrants; a
royalist of the highest class, and an enemy, of course, to all the
constitutional stipulations in favour of liberty. Thus far it is
certain, that the unpopularity of M. de Blacas, with all ranks and
parties in the state, had the worst possible influence on the King's
affairs; and as his credit was ascribed to a blind as well as an
obstinate attachment on the part of Louis, the monarch was of course
involved in the unpopularity of the minister of the household.
[Sidenote: TERMS OF THE TREATY.]
The terms of the peace, as we have already hinted, had been studiously
calculated to recommend it to the feelings of the French people. France
was, indeed, stripped of that extended sway which rendered her dangerous
to the independence of other European nations, and reduced, generally
speaking, to the boundaries which she occupied on the 1st of January
1792. Still the bargain was not harshly driven. Several small additions
were left with her on the side of Germany and the Netherlands, and on
that of Savoy she had the considerable towns of Chamberri, Annecy,
Avignon, with the Venaisson and Mont Belliard, included in her
territories.[73] But these concessions availed little; and looking upon
what they had lost, many of the French people, after the recollections
had subsided of their escape from a dreadful war, were naturally,
however unreasonably, disposed to murmur against the reduction of their
territories, and to insist that Belgium, at least, should have remained
with them. This opinion was encouraged and pressed by the Buonapartists,
who considered the cession of that country with the more evil eye,
because it was understood to have been a point urged by England.
Yet if England played a proud, it was also a generous part. She had
nothing to stipulate, nothing of which to demand restitution, for she
had sustained no territorial loss during the whole period of
hostilities. The war, which had nearly ruined most other nations, had
put Britain in possession of all the colonies of France, and left the
latter country neither a ship nor a port in the East or West Indies;
and, to sum the whole, it was not in the power of united Europe to take
from England by force any one of the conquests which she had thus made.
The question therefore, only was, what Britain was voluntarily to cede
to an enemy who could give her no equivalent, excepting the pledge to
adopt better principles, and to act no longer as the disturber of
Europe. The cessions were such in number and amount, as to show that
England was far above the mean and selfish purpose of seeking a colonial
monopoly, or desiring to destroy the possibility of commercial rivalry.
All was restored to France, excepting only Tobago and the Mauritius.
These sacrifices, made in the spirit of peace and moderation, were not
made in vain. They secured to Britain the gratitude and respect of other
states, and, giving to her councils that character of justice and
impartiality which constitutes the best national strength, they placed
her in a situation of more influence and eminence in the civilized world
than the uncontrolled possession of all the cotton-fields and
sugar-islands of the east and west could ever have raised her to. Still,
with respect to France in particular, the peace was not recommended by
the eminence to which it had raised England. The rivalry, so long termed
national, and which had been so carefully fostered by every state paper
or political statement which Buonaparte had permitted to be published,
rankled even in generous and honourable minds; and so prejudiced are the
views of passion, that by mistaking each other's national feelings,
there were many Frenchmen induced to believe that the superiority
attained by Great Britain was to a certain degree an insult and
degradation to France.
Every thing, indeed, which ought to have soothed and gratified the
French people, was at last, by irritated feelings and artful
misrepresentation, converted into a subject of complaint and grievance.
The government of Napoleon had been as completely despotic as it could
be rendered in a civilized country like France, where public opinion
forbade its being carried to barbaric extreme. On the contrary, in the
charter, France was endowed with most of the elementary principles of a
free and liberal constitution. The King had adopted, in all points of a
general and national tendency, the principles proposed in the rejected
constitutional act of the Senate.
The Chamber of Peers and Chamber of Deputies were the titles applied to
the aristocratical and popular branches of the constitution, instead of
the Senate and Legislative body. Their public duties were divided
something like those of the Houses of Peers and Commons in England. The
independence of the judicial order was recognised, and the military were
confirmed in their rank and revenues. The Chamber of Peers was to be
nominated by the King, with power to his Majesty to create its members
for life, or hereditary, at his pleasure. The income of the suppressed
Senate was resumed, and vested in the crown, excepting confiscated
property, which was restored to the lawful owners. The Catholic religion
was declared to be that of the State, but all other Christian sects
were to be protected. The King's authority was recognised as head of the
army, and the power of making peace and war was vested in him
exclusively. The liberty of the press was established, but under certain
restraints. The conscription was abolished--the responsibility of
ministers recognised; and it may be said, in general, that a
constitution was traced out, good so far as it went, and susceptible of
receiving the farther improvements which time and experience might
recommend. The charter[74] was presented to the Legislative Body by the
King in person, [June 4,] with a speech, which announced, that the
principles which it recognised were such as had been adopted in the will
of his unfortunate brother, Louis XVI.[75]
Yet, though this charter contained a free surrender of great part of the
royal rights which the old race of Bourbons had enjoyed, as well as of
all the arbitrary power which Napoleon had usurped, we have seen that it
was unacceptable to an active and influential party in the state, who
disdained to accept security for property and freedom under the ancient
forms of a feudal charter, and contended that it ought to have emanated
directly from the will of the Sovereign People. We have no hesitation in
saying, that this was as reasonable as the conduct of a spoiled child,
who refuses what is _given_ to him, because he is not suffered to _take_
it; or the wisdom of an hungry man, who should quarrel with his dinner,
because he does not admire the shape of the dish in which it is served
up.
This is the common-sense view of the subject. If the constitution
contained the necessary guarantees of political freedom and security of
life and property; if it was to be looked to as the permanent settlement
and bulwark of the liberties of France, and considered as a final and
decided arrangement, liable indeed to be improved by the joint consent
of the sovereign, and the legal representatives of the subject, but not
to be destroyed by any or all of these authorities, it was a matter of
utter unimportance, whether the system was constructed in the form of a
charter granted by the King, or that of conditions dictated to him by
the subject. But if there was to be a retrospect to the ephemeral
existence of all the French constitutions hitherto, excepting that under
which Buonaparte had enthralled the people, then perhaps the question
might be entertained, whether the feudal or the revolutionary form was
most likely to be innovated; or, in other words, whether the conditions
attached to the plan of government now adopted, was most likely to be
innovated upon by the King, or by the body who represented the people.
Assuming the fatal doctrine, that the party in whose name the conditions
of the constitution are expressed, is entitled to suspend, alter, or
recall them, sound policy dictated, that the apparent power of granting
should be ascribed to the party least able and willing to recall or
innovate upon the grant which he had made. In this view of the case, it
might be reckoned upon that the King, unsupported, unless by the
Royalists, who were few in number, unpopular from circumstances, and for
the present divested, excepting nominally, of the great instrument of
achieving despotic power, the undisputed command, namely, of the army,
would be naturally unwilling to risk the continuance of his authority by
any attempt to innovate upon those conditions, which he had by his own
charter assured to the people. On the contrary, conditions formed and
decreed by the Senate of Buonaparte, might on the popular party's
resuming the ascendency, be altered or recalled by the chambers with the
same levity and fickleness which the people of France, or at least those
acting as their representatives, had so often displayed. To give
permanence to the constitution, therefore, it was best it should emanate
from the party most interested in preserving it, and least able to
infringe it; and that undoubtedly, as France stood at the time, was the
sovereign. In Great Britain, the constitution is accounted more secure,
because the King is the source of law, of honour, and of all ministerial
and executive power; whilst he is responsible to the nation through his
ministers, for the manner in which that power is exercised. An
arrangement of a different kind would expose the branches of the
legislature to a discordant struggle, which ought never to be
contemplated as possible.
The zealous liberalists of France were induced, however, to mutiny
against the name under which their free constitution was assigned them,
and to call back Buonaparte, who had abolished the very semblance of
freedom, rather than to accept at the hands of a peaceful monarch, the
degree of liberty which they themselves had acquired. The advantages
which they gained will appear in the sequel.
Thus setting out with varying and contradictory opinions of the nature
and origin of the new constitution, the parties in the state regarded it
rather as a fortress to be attacked and defended, than as a temple in
which all men were called to worship.
[Sidenote: PARTIES IN FRANCE.]
The French of this period might be divided into three distinct and
active parties--Royalists; Liberals of every shade, down to Republicans;
and Buonapartists. And it becomes our duty to say a few words concerning
each of these.
The ROYALISTS, while they added little real strength to the King by
their numbers, attracted much jealous observation from their high birth
and equally high pretensions; embroiled his affairs by their imprudent
zeal; embittered his peace by their just and natural complaints; and
drew suspicion on his government at every effort which he made to serve
and relieve them. They consisted chiefly of the emigrant nobles and
clergy.
The former class were greatly reduced in number by war and exile;
insomuch, that to the House of Peers, consisting of one hundred and
seventy, and upwards, the ancient nobles of France supplied only thirty.
The rest were the fortunate maréchals and generals, whom the wars of the
Revolution had raised to rank and wealth; and the statesmen, many of
whom had attained the same station by less honourable means of
elevation. The old noblesse, after their youth had been exhausted, their
fortunes destroyed, and their spirits broken, while following through
foreign countries the adverse fortunes of the exiled Bourbons, beheld
the restoration, indeed, of the monarchy, but were themselves recalled
to France only to see their estates occupied, and their hereditary
offices around the person of the monarch filled, by the fortunate
children of the Revolution. Like the disappointed English cavaliers,
they might well complain that though none had wished more earnestly for
the return of the legitimate prince, yet none had shared so little in
the benefits attending it. By a natural, and yet a perverse mode of
reasoning, the very injuries which the nobility had sustained, rendered
them the objects of suspicion to the other ranks and parties of the
state. They had been the companions of the King's exile, were connected
with him by the ties of friendship, and had near access to his person by
the right of blood. Could it be in nature, it was asked, that Louis
could see their sufferings without attempting to relieve them; and how
could he do so in the present state of France, unless at the expense of
those who occupied or aspired to civil and military preferment, or of
those who had acquired during the Revolution the national domains which
those nobles once possessed? Yet the alarm was founded rather on
suspicion than on facts. Of the preferment of emigrants in the army, we
shall speak hereafter; but in the civil departments of the state, few of
the old noblesse obtained office. To take a single example, in the
course of eleven months there were thirty-seven prefects nominated to
the departments, and the list did not comprehend a single one of those
emigrants who returned to France with Louis; and but very few of those
whose exile had terminated more early. The nobles felt this exclusion
from royal favour, and expressed their complaints, which some, yet more
imprudently, mingled with threatening hints, that their day of triumph
might yet arrive. This language, as well as the air of exclusive dignity
and distance which they affected, as if, the distinction of their birth
being all that they had left to them, they were determined to enforce
the most punctilious deference to that, was carefully remarked and
recorded against the King.
The noblesse were supposed to receive particular encouragement from the
princes of the blood, while, upon the whole, they were rather
discouraged than brought forward or distinguished by Louis, who, as many
of them spared not to say, was disposed to act upon the ungenerous maxim
of courting his enemies, and neglecting those who could not upon
principle become any thing save his friends. They did not, perhaps, make
sufficient allowance for the great difficulties which the King incurred
in governing France at so critical a period.
[Sidenote: THE CLERGY.]
The state of the Clergy is next to be considered. They were, generally
speaking, sincerely attached to the King; and had they been in
possession of their revenues, and of their natural influence upon the
public mind, their attachment would have been of the utmost consequence.
But without this influence, and without the wealth, or at least the
independence, on which it partly rests, they were as useless,
politically speaking, as a key which does not fit the lock to which it
is applied. This state of things, unfortunate in many respects, flowed
from a maxim adopted during the Revolution, and followed by Buonaparte,
who had his reasons for fearing the influence of the clergy. "We will
not put down the ecclesiastical establishment by force; we will starve
it to death." Accordingly, all grants and bequests to the Church had
been limited and qualified by so many conditions and restrictions, as to
intercept that mode of acquisition so fruitful in a Catholic country;
while, on the other hand, the salary allowed by the State to each
officiating curate was only five hundred livres (£26, 16s. 8d.) yearly.
No doubt each community were permitted to subscribe what they pleased in
addition to this miserable pittance; but in France, when the number of
those who care for no religion at all, and of those whose zeal will not
lead them the length of paying for it, is deduced, the remainder will
afford but a small list of subscribers. The consequence was, that at the
period of the restoration, many parishes were, and had been for years,
without any public worship. Ignorance had increased in an incalculable
degree. "We are informed," was the communication from Buonaparte to one
of his prefects, "that dangerous books are distributed in your
department."--"Were the roads sown with them," was the answer returned
by the prefect, "your Majesty need not fear their influence; we have not
a man who would or could read them."--When we add to this the relaxed
state of public morals, the pains taken in the beginning of the
Revolution to eradicate the sentiments of religion, and render its
professors ridiculous, and the prevalence of the military character, so
conspicuous through France, and so unfavourable to devotion; and when it
is further remembered that all the wealth of the Church had fallen into
the hands of the laity, which were fast clenched to retain it, and
trembling at the same time lest it should be wrested from them--the
reader may, from all these causes, form some notion of the low ebb of
religion and of the Church in France.
The disposition of the King and Royal Family to restore the formal
observances of the Romish Church, as well as to provide the suitable
means of educating in future those designed for the ministry, and other
religious institutions, excited among the Parisians a feeling of hatred
and contempt. It must be owned, also, that though the abstract motive
was excellent, there was little wisdom in attempting to bring back the
nation to all those mummeries of Popish ceremonial, which, long before
the Revolution, only subsisted through inveterate custom, having lost
all influence on the public mind.
This general feeling was increased by particular events. Alarming
tumults took place, on the subject of enforcing a rule unworthy of
Christianity and civilisation, by which theatrical performers are
declared in a constant state of excommunication. The rites of sepulture
being refused to Mademoiselle Raucour, an actress, but a person of
decent character and morals, occasioned a species of insurrection, which
compelled from the government an order for interring her with the usual
forms.[76]
The enforcing of the more regular observation of the Sabbath, an order
warranted alike by religion and good morals, gave also great offence to
the inhabitants of the capital. The solemn obsequies performed for the
death of Louis XVI. and his unfortunate queen, when their remains were
transferred from their hasty grave to the royal mausoleum at Saint
Denis, a fraternal action, and connected with the forms of the Catholic
Church--was also construed to the King's prejudice, as if, by the honour
paid to these poor relics, he had intended to mark his hatred of the
Revolution, and his recollection of the injuries he had sustained from
it.[77] Some honours and attention bestowed on the few surviving chiefs
of La Vendée, were equally the subject of misrepresentation. In short,
whatever Louis XVIII. did, which had the least appearance of gratifying
those who had lost all for his sake, was accounted an act of treason
against freedom and the principles of the Revolution.
None of the circumstances we have noticed had, however, so much effect
upon the public feeling as the fear which prevailed, that Louis, in his
veneration for religion and its members, might be led to form some
scheme of resuming the Church lands, which, having been confiscated by
the decrees of the National Assembly, were now occupied by a host of
proprietors, who watched, with vigilant jealousy, incipient measures,
which they feared might end in resumption of their property. Imprudent
priests added to this distrust and jealousy, by denunciations against
those who held Church lands, and by refusing to grant them absolution
unless they made restitution or compensation for them. This distrust
spread far wider than among the actual proprietors of national domains.
For if these were threatened with resumption of the property they had
acquired under authority of the existing government for the time, it was
most probable that the divine right of the clergy to a tithe of the
produce of the earth, might next have been brought forward--a claim
involving the interest of every landholder and farmer in France to a
degree almost incalculable.
It is plain, from what we have stated, that the Royalist party, whether
lay or clerical, were so little in a condition to be effectually
serviceable to the King in the event of a struggle, that while their
adherence and their sufferings claimed his attachment and gratitude,
every mark which he afforded them of those feelings was calculated to
render his government suspected and unpopular.
[Sidenote: THE JACOBINS.]
Whilst the Royalists rather sapped and encumbered than supported the
throne to which they adhered, their errors were carefully pointed out,
circulated, and exaggerated, by the Jacobin, or as they called
themselves, the Patriotic party. This faction, small in numbers, but
formidable from their audacity, their union, and the dreadful
recollection of their former power and principles, consisted of
ex-generals, whose laurels had faded with the Republic; ex-ministers and
functionaries, whose appointments and influence had not survived the
downfall of the Directory; men of letters, who hoped again to rule the
state by means of proclamations and journals; and philosophers, to whose
vanity or enthusiasm abstract principles of unattainable liberty, and
undesirable equality, were dearer than all the oceans of blood, and
extent of guilt and misery, which they had already cost, and were likely
again to occasion. It cannot be denied, that, in the discussion of the
original rights of humanity, and constitutions of society, several of
this party showed distinguished talent, and that their labours were
calculated to keep up a general love of liberty, and to promote inquiry
into the principles upon which it is founded. Unfortunately, however,
their theoretical labours in framing constitutions diverted their
attention from the essential points of government, to its mere external
form, and led them, for example, to prefer a republic, where every
species of violence was practised by the little dictator of the day, to
a limited monarchy, under which life, person, and property, were
protected. The chiefs of this party were men of that presumptuous and
undoubting class, who, after having failed repeatedly in political
experiments, were as ready as ever again to undertake them, with the
same unhesitating and self-deceptive confidence of success. They were
never satisfied even with what they themselves had done; for as there is
no end of aiming at an ideal perfection in any human establishment, they
proceeded with alterations on their own work, as if what Butler says of
religion had been true in politics, and that a form of government
"was intended
For nothing else but to be mended."
Danger did not appal the sages of this school. Many of them had been
familiar with, and hardened to the perils of the most desperate
revolutionary intrigues, by their familiar acquaintance with the springs
which set each in motion, and were ready to recommence their desperate
labours with as little forethought as belongs to the labourers in a
powder-mill, which has exploded ten times during their remembrance, and
destroyed the greater number of their comrades. In the character of
these self-entitled philosophers and busy agitators, vanity as well as
egotism were leading principles. The one quality persuaded them, that
they might be able, by dint of management, to avert danger from
themselves; and the other rendered them indifferent respecting the
safety of others.
During the government of Buonaparte, this Jacobinical party was
repressed by a strong hand. He knew, by experience of every sort, their
restless, intriguing, and dangerous disposition. They also knew and
feared his strength, and his unscrupulous use of it. The return of the
Bourbons called them into life, like the sun which thaws the frozen
adder; but it was only to show how they hated the beams which revived
them. The Bourbon dynasty, with all the remembrances it combined, seemed
to this faction the very opposite to their favourite Revolution; and
they studied with malignant assiduity the degree of liberty afforded by
the national charter, not in order to defend or to enjoy it, but to
discover how it might be made the vantage-ground for overthrowing both
the throne and the constitution.
Carnot and Fouché, formidable names, and revolutionists from their youth
upward, were the ostensible leaders of this active party, and most of
the surviving revolutionists rallied under their standards. These
agitators had preserved some influence over the lees of the people, and
were sure to find the means of augmenting it in the moment of popular
commotion. The rabble of a great town is democratical and revolutionary
by nature; for their vanity is captivated with such phrases as the
sovereignty of the people, their sense of poverty and licentious fury
tempted by occasion for uproar, and they regard the restraints of laws
and good order as their constant and natural enemies. It is upon this
envenomed and corrupted mass of evil passions that the experimental
philosophers of the Revolution have always exercised their chemical
skill. Of late, however, the intercourse between the philosophers of the
Revolution and this class of apt and docile scholars had been
considerably interrupted. Buonaparte, as we have hinted, restrained with
a strong hand the teachers of the Revolutionary school; while, by the
eclat of his victories, his largesses, and his expensive undertakings,
in which many workmen were employed, he debauched from them great part
of their popular disciples, who may be said, with the inconsequence and
mutability belonging to their habits, principles, and temper, to have
turned imperialists, without losing their natural aptitude to become
Jacobins again on the next tempting opportunity.
[Sidenote: BUONAPARTISTS--THE ARMY.]
The party of Imperialists or Buonapartists, if we lay the army out of
view, was small and unimportant. The public functionaries, whom the King
had displaced from the situations of emolument which they held under the
Emperor--courtiers, prefects, commissioners, clerks, and
commissaries--whose present means and future hopes were cut off, were of
course disobliged and discontented men, who looked with a languishing
eye towards the island of Elba. The immediate family connexions,
favourites, and ministers of the late Emperor, confident in the wealth
which most of them had acquired, and resenting the insignificance to
which they were reduced by the restoration of the Bourbons, lent to this
party the activity which money, and the habit of political intrigue, can
at all times communicate. But the real and tremendous strength of the
Buonapartists lay in the attachment of the existing army to its
abdicated general. This was the more formidable, as the circumstances of
the times, and the prevailing military character of the French nation,
had raised the soldiers from their proper and natural character of
servants of the state, into a distinct deliberative body, having
interests of their own, which were in their nature incompatible with
those of the commonwealth; since the very profession of arms implies an
aptitude to a state of war, which, to all other ranks in the state, the
army itself excepted, may indeed be a necessary and unavoidable evil,
but never can be a real advantage.
The King could not be accused of neglecting to cultivate the affections,
soothe the prejudices, and gratify the wishes of the army. The fact is,
that the unprecedented difficulties of his situation forced him to study
how to manage by flattery, and by the most imprudent indulgences and
favours, the only part of his subjects, who, according to the rules of
all well-governed states, ought to be subjected to absolute authority.
Every effort was made to gratify the feelings of the troops, and the
utmost exertions were made to remount, re-establish, and re-clothe them.
Their ranks were augmented by upwards of 150,000 prisoners of war, whose
minds were in general actuated by the desire of avenging the dishonour
and hardship of their defeat and captivity, and whose presence greatly
increased the discontent as well as the strength of the French army.
While the King cultivated the affections of the common soldiers with
very imperfect success, he was more fortunate in attaching to himself
the maréchals, whom he treated with the utmost respect and kindness.
They were gratified by his attentions, and, having most of them some
recent reason to complain of Napoleon, it is possible, that had they
possessed absolute, or even very extensive interest with the army, that
disturbance in the state of the nation which ensued, could not possibly
have taken place. But while Napoleon had preserved towards the maréchals
the distance at which a sovereign keeps subjects, he was often familiar
with the inferior officers and soldiers, and took care to keep himself
in their eye, and occupy their attention personally. He desired that his
generals should resemble the hilt of the sword, which may be changed at
pleasure, while the army was the blade itself, and retained the same
temper, notwithstanding such partial alteration. Thus, the direct and
personal interest of the Emperor superseded, in the soldier's bosom, all
attachment to his lieutenants.
[Sidenote: THE ARMY--STATE OF PARTIES.]
It would be wasting time to show reasons, why the French army should
have been attached to Napoleon. They could not be supposed to forget the
long career of success which they had pursued under his banner, the
pensions granted in foreign countries which were now retrenched, and the
licensed plunder of their Emperor's unceasing campaigns. At present,
they conceived the King proposed to reduce their numbers so soon as he
could with safety, and imagined their very existence was about to be at
stake.
Nor was it only the selfish interests of the army which rendered them
discontented. The sense of honour, as it was called, or rather the
vanity of military ascendency and national aggrandisement, had been
inspired by Buonaparte into all classes of his subjects, though they
were chiefly cherished by his companions in arms. According to their
opinion, the glory of France had risen with Buonaparte, and sunk with
him for ever; not, as they fondly contended, through the superior force
of the enemy, but by the treachery of Marmont, and the other generals
whom Napoleon trusted. This sentiment passed from the ranks of the
soldiers into other classes of society, all of which are in France
deeply susceptible of what is represented to them as national glory; and
it was again echoed back to the soldiers from fields, from workshops,
from manufactories. All began to agree, that they had received the
Bourbons from the hands of foreign conquerors; and that the King's reign
had only commenced, because France had been conquered, and Paris
surrendered. They remembered that the allies had declared the
restoration of the ancient family was combined with the restriction of
France within the ancient limits; and that, accordingly, the first act
of Monsieur, as lieutenant of the kingdom, had been to order the
surrender of upwards of fifty fortresses beyond the frontiers, which
Buonaparte, it was supposed, would have rendered the means of
re-acquiring the conquests, of which fortune or treachery had for a time
bereft him. The meanest follower of the camp affected to feel his share
in the national disgrace of losing provinces, to which France had no
title save that of military usurpation. The hope that the government
would at least endeavour to reconquer Belgium, so convenient for France,
and which, as they contended, fell within her natural boundaries, served
for a time to combat these feelings; but when it was perceived plainly
that the government of France neither could nor would engage in external
war, for this or any other object, the discontent of the army became
universal, and they might be pronounced ripe for any desperate
enterprise.
Among the soldiers, the late Imperial Guards were distinguished for
their sullen enmity to the new order of things, and deemed themselves
insulted at the guard of the King's person being committed to a body of
household troops, selected as approved loyalists. The army were also
much disgusted, that the decorations of the Legion of Honour had been
distributed with a profusion, which seemed intended to diminish its
value. But the course of promotion was the deepest source of discontent.
The princes of the blood-royal had been early declared colonels-general
by the King; and the army soon discovered, or supposed they discovered,
that under their auspices the superior ranks of the army were likely to
be filled by the emigrant nobility, whose military service was
considered as having been continued, while they were in attendance upon
the King during his exile. The most indecent competition was thus
excited between those whose claims were founded on their devoted
attachment to the House of Bourbon, and those who had borne arms against
that family, but still in the service of France. The truth is, that the
derangement of the finances, and the jealousy of the ministers, each of
whom claimed the exclusive patronage of his own department, left the
King no means so ready for discharging his debts of gratitude, and
affording the means of subsistence to his ancient friends and adherents,
as by providing for them in the army. The measure, though perhaps
unavoidable, was in many respects undesirable. Old men, past the age of
service, or young men who had never known it, were, in virtue of these
claims, placed in situations, to which the actual warriors conceived
they had bought a title by their laurels and their scars. The appearance
of the superannuated emigrants, who were thus promoted to situations
ill-suited to age and infirmity, raised the ridicule and contempt of
Buonaparte's soldiers, while the patrician haughtiness, and youthful
presumption, of the younger nobles, excited their indignation. The
agents and friends of Buonaparte suffered not these passions to cool.
"There is a plot of the royalists against you," was incessantly repeated
to the regiments upon which these new officers were imposed. "The
Bourbons cannot think themselves safe while those who shared the
triumphs of Napoleon have either honour or existence. Your ranks are
subjected to the command of dotards, who have never drawn a sword in
battle, or who have served only in the emigrant bands of Condé, or among
the insurgent Chouans and Vendéans. What security have you against being
disbanded on a day's notice? And if the obligations of the government to
you bind them, as it would seem, so slightly, will you consider yours to
them as of a stricter description?" Such insinuations, and such
reasoning, inflamed the prejudices of the army. Disaffection spread
generally through their ranks; and, long before the bold attempt of
Napoleon, his former soldiery were almost universally prepared to aid
him in the recovery of his power.
The state of active political parties in France, we have thus described;
but, as is usual, the mass of the population were somewhat indifferent
to their principles, unless in moments of excitation. Parties in a
state are to the people at large what the winds are to the ocean. That
which predominates for the time, rolls the tide in its own direction;
the next day it is hushed, and the waves are under a different
influence. The people of France at large were averse to the Republicans
or Jacobins. They retained too awful an impression of the horrors of the
tyranny exercised by these political fanatics, to regard them otherwise
than with terror. They were as little Buonapartists; because they
dreaded the restless temper of him who gave name to this faction, and
saw that while he was at the head of the French government, the state of
war must be perpetual. They could not be termed Royalists, for they
comprehended many with whom the name of Bourbon had lost its charms; and
a very large proportion of the country had their fortune and prosperity
so intimately connected with the Revolution, that they were not disposed
to afford any countenance to the re-establishment of the monarchy on its
ancient footing.
Upon the whole, this class of Frenchmen who may be called moderates, or
constitutionalists, and who contained the great bulk of the men of
property, substance, and education, hoped well of the King's government.
His good sense, humanity, love of justice, moderation, and other
valuable qualities, recommended him to their esteem, and they thought
his restoration might be considered as the guarantee of a lasting peace
with the other nations of Europe. But they dreaded and deprecated that
counter revolutionary _reaction_, as the established phrase was, which
was regarded as the object of the princes of the blood, the nobility,
and the clergy. The property of many of the constitutionalists was
vested in national domains, and they watched with doubt and fear every
step which the emigrant nobility and clergy seemed disposed to take for
recovery of their former rights.
On this subject the moderate party were sensitively jealous, and the
proceedings which took place in the Chamber of Deputies threw striking
light on the state of the public mind. We must, therefore, turn the
reader's attention in that direction.
A petty riot, concerning precedence, had arisen in a church called
Durnac, between the seigneur of the parish, and the mayor of the
commune. The mayor brought the affair before the Chamber of Deputies by
a violent petition, in which he generalized his complaint against the
whole body of emigrants, whom he accused of desiring to place themselves
above the constituted authorities, and to treat France as a conquered
country. The Chamber, 20th November, 1814, treated the language of the
petition as calumnious, and the squabble as unworthy of their notice.
But the debate called forth expressions which intimated a suspicion that
there existed a dark and secret system, which tended to sow the seeds of
discord and anarchy among the citizens, and to resuscitate pretensions
incompatible with the laws. "It was," said the member[78] who made this
statement, "important to impress every class of Frenchmen with the
great idea, that there was no safety for France, for the King, for every
member of society, but in the maintenance of those constitutional
principles on which were founded the laws for protecting the whole."
[Sidenote: EMIGRANT-CLAIMS.]
The claims of the emigrants for restoration of their forfeited property,
were, abstractedly, as just and indubitable as that of the King to the
throne. But the political considerations in which they were involved,
rendered any general attempt to enforce those claims the sure signal of
civil war; a civil war almost certain to end in a second expatriation,
both of the royal family and their followers. In this dilemma,
government seems to have looked anxiously for some means of compromise
which might afford relief to the emigrants, without innovating on that
article of the charter which ratified the sale of national domains. M.
Ferrand brought forward in the Chamber of Delegates, a motion [Dec. 3]
for the restoration of such estates of emigrants as yet remained unsold.
But this involved a question respecting the rights of the much more
numerous class whose property had been seized upon by the state, and
disposed of to third parties, to whom it was guaranteed by the charter.
Since these gentlemen could not be restored _ex jure_, to their estates,
as was proposed towards their more fortunate brethren, they had at least
a title to the price which had been surrogated in place of the property,
of which price the nation had still possession.
These proposals called forward M. Durbach, who charged Ferrand with the
fatal purpose of opening the door on the vast subject of national
domains. "Already," continued the orator, "the two extremities of the
kingdom have resounded with the words of the minister, as with the claps
which precede the thunderbolt. The effect which they have produced has
been so rapid and so general, that all civil transactions have been at
once suspended. A general distrust and excessive fear have caused a
stagnation, the effects of which even the royal treasury has felt. The
proprietors of national property can no longer sell or mortgage their
estates. They are suddenly reduced to poverty in the very bosom of
wealth. Whence arises this calamity? The cause of it is the declaration
of the minister, that the property they possess does not legally belong
to them. For this is, in fact, the consequence of his assertion, that
'the law recognises in the emigrants a right to property which always
existed.'"
The celebrated Maréchal Macdonald, a friend at once of monarchy and
freedom, of France and the Bourbons, undertook to bring forward a plan
for satisfying the emigrants, as far as the condition of the nation
permitted; and giving, at the same time, some indemnity for the pensions
assigned by Buonaparte to his veteran soldiers, which, during his reign,
had been paid from countries beyond the verge of France, until after the
retreat from Moscow, when they ceased to be paid at all. The maréchal's
statement of the extent of the sale of the national domains, shows how
formidable the task of undoing that extensive transference of property
must necessarily have been; the number of persons directly or indirectly
interested in the question of their security, amounting to nine or ten
millions. "Against this Colossus," continued the maréchal, "whose height
the eye cannot measure, some impotent efforts would affect to direct
themselves; but the wisdom of the King has foreseen this danger, even
for the sake of those imprudent persons who might have exposed
themselves to it." He proceeded, in a very eloquent strain, to eulogize
the conduct of the emigrants, to express respect for their persons,
compassion for their misfortunes, honour for their fidelity, and
proceeded to observe, that the existence of these old proprietors, as
having claims on the estates which had been acquired by others, placed
them in a situation which ought not to exist. He therefore proposed that
the nation should satisfy the claims of these unfortunate gentlemen, if
not in full, at least upon such terms of composition as had been applied
to other national obligations. Upon this footing, he calculated that an
annuity of twelve millions of livres yearly, would pay off the claims of
the various emigrants of all descriptions. He next drew a picture of the
distressed veteran soldiers; pensioners of the state who had been
reduced to distress by the discontinuance of their pensions, bought with
their blood in a thousand battles. Three millions more of livres he
computed as necessary to discharge this sacred obligation.[79]
There was wisdom, manliness, and generosity in the plan of Maréchal
Macdonald; and, could it have been carried into decisive execution, it
would have greatly appeased the fears and jealousies of the proprietors
of national domains, and shown an impartiality betwixt the claims of the
emigrants and those of the army, which ought to have conciliated both.
Unhappily, funds were awanting, and the royal government, so far from
being able to incur a new expense of fifteen millions yearly, was not in
a condition to discharge the various demands upon them, without
continuing the oppressive tax of _Les droits réunis_.
It is, indeed, on the subject of finance and taxation, that almost all
revolutions among civilized nations have been found to hinge; and there
is scarce any judging how long actual oppression may be endured, so long
as it spares the purse of individuals, or how early a heavy tax, even
for the most necessary objects, will excite insurrection. Without the
heavy taxation of the Spaniards, the Dutch would scarcely have rebelled
against them; it was imposts which fired the blood of the Swiss against
the Austrians; without the stamp-act the American Revolution might have
been long postponed; and but for the disorder of the French finances,
Louis XVI. need never have summoned together the National Assembly.
France was now again agitated by one of those fever fits, which arise
from the sensitiveness of the subject's purse.
[Sidenote: FRENCH FINANCE.]
A report on the state of the public finances, by the Abbé de
Montesquieu, had given a singular instance of Buonaparte's deceptive
policy. Annual expositions of national receipt and expenditure had been
periodically published since he assumed the reins of government, which
were, to outward appearance, unchallengeably accurate; and as they
seemed to balance each other, afforded the fair prospect that, the
revenues of the state being realized, the expenses could not fall into
arrear. But in reality, a number of extraordinary expenses were withheld
from the view of the public, while, on the other hand, the produce of
the taxes was over-estimated. Thus the two budgets of 1812, and 1813,
upon close examination, exhibited a deficit of upwards of 312 millions
of livres,[80] or thirteen millions sterling. Buonaparte was not
ignorant of this fact, but concealed it from the eyes of the nation, in
hopes of replacing it, as in his more successful days, by foreign
tribute, and, in the meantime, supplied himself by the anticipation of
other funds; as an unfaithful book-keeper makes up a plausible balance
to meet the eye of his master, and covers his peculations by his
dexterity in the use of ciphers. Upon the whole, the debts of France
appeared to have increased in the course of thirteen years to the extent
of 1,645,469,000 francs, or more than sixty-eight millions and a half of
sterling money.
These financial involvements accorded ill with the accomplishment of an
unfortunate and hasty promise of Monsieur,[81] that the severe and
pressing taxes called _les droits réunis_ should be abolished, which had
been made when he first entered France, and while, betwixt hope and
despair, he essayed every inducement for the purpose of drawing
adherents to the royal cause. On the other hand, the King, upon
ascending the throne, had engaged himself, with perhaps too much
latitude, to pay all the engagements which the state had contracted
under the preceding government. To redeem both these pledges was
impossible, for without continuing this very obnoxious and oppressive
tax, the crown could not have the means of discharging the national
debt. A plan was in vain proposed by Jalabert to replace this oppressive
excise by a duty on wines; the motion was referred to a committee of the
Chamber of Representatives, but the substitution seems to have been
found impossible. Louis naturally made the promise of his brother give
way to his own more deliberate engagement. But it is not the less true,
that by continuing to levy _les droits réunis_, many, not otherwise
disinclined to the royal government than as it affected their purses,
were enabled to charge the King with breach of faith towards his
subjects, and would listen to no defence upon a topic on which few
people are disposed to hear reason against their own interest.
[Sidenote: THE PRESS.]
There remained yet another subject of alarm and dread, to excite the
minds not only of those who were desirous of revolution, or, according
to the Roman phrase, _cupidi novarum rerum_; but of others, who,
devotedly attached to the welfare of France, desired to see her enjoy,
under the sway of a legitimate monarch, the exercise of national
liberty. They had the misfortune to see that liberty attacked in the
point where it is most sensitive, namely, by imposing restraints upon
the public press.
Buonaparte had made it part of his system to keep this powerful engine
in his own iron hand, well aware that his system of despotism could not
have subsisted for six months, if his actions had been exposed to the
censure of the public, and his statements to contradiction and to
argument. The Bourbons having unloosed the chain by which the liberty of
the press was confined, the spirit of literary and political controversy
rushed out with such demoniacal violence, as astonished and terrified
those who had released it from confinement. The quantity of furious
abuse poured out against the Bourbons, might have authorised the authors
to use the words of Caliban--
"You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is--I know how to curse."[82]
Eager to repress the spirit which displayed itself so unequivocally, a
motion was made on the 4th of July, 1814,[83] for establishing a
censorship upon pamphlets under a certain length, and placing all
journals and newspapers under the direction of government.
This important subject was discussed with great manliness and talent in
the Assembly; but it is one of the many political maxims which the
British receive as theorems, that, without absolute freedom of the
public press (to be exercised always on the peril of such as misuse it,)
there can neither be enlightened patriotism nor liberal discussion; and
that, although the forms of a free constitution may be preserved where
this liberty is restricted, they will soon fail to have the necessary
beneficial effects in protecting the rights of the community and the
safety of individuals. The liberty of the press affords a channel
through which the injured may challenge his oppressor at the bar of the
nation; it is the means by which public men may, in case of misconduct,
be arraigned before their own and succeeding ages; it is the only mode
in which bold and undisguised truth can press its way into the cabinets
of monarchs; and it is the privilege, by means of which he, who vainly
lifts his voice against the corruptions or prejudices of his own time,
may leave his counsels upon record as a legacy to impartial posterity.
The cruelty which would deafen the ear and extinguish the sight of an
individual, resembles, in some similar degree, his guilt, who, by
restricting the freedom of the press, would reduce a nation to the
deafness of prejudice, and the blindness of ignorance. The downfall of
this species of freedom, as it is the first symptom of the decay of
national liberty, has been in all ages followed by its total
destruction, and it may be justly pronounced that they cannot exist
separately; or, as the elegiac poet has said of his hero and the country
to which he belonged--
"Ille tibi superesse negat; tu non potes illi."
We must own, at the same time, that as no good comes to us unmixed with
evil, the unlimited freedom of the press is attended with obvious
inconveniencies, which, when a nation is in a certain state of
excitation, render the exercise of it peculiarly dangerous. This is
especially the case when a people, as then in France, are suddenly
released from a state of bondage, and disposed, "like youthful colts
broke loose," to make the most extravagant use of their liberty. With
minds unprepared for discussion; with that degree of political
misinformation which has done this age more dire mischief than absolute
ignorance itself could have effected; subject to be influenced by the
dashing pamphleteer, who soothes their prevailing passions, as the
orations of their popular demagogues soothed those of the Athenians--it
has been the opinion of many statesmen, that to withhold from such a
nation the freedom of the press, is a measure justifiable alike by
reason and necessity. "We proportion," say these reasoners, "liberty to
the power of enjoying it. The considerate and the peaceful we suffer to
walk at liberty, and armed, if their occasions require it; but we
restrain the child, we withhold weapons from the ruffian, and we fetter
the maniac. Why, therefore," they ask, "should a nation, when in a state
of fever, be supplied, without restriction, with the indulgences which
must necessarily increase the disorder?" Our answer is ready--that,
granting the abuse of the liberty of the press to exist in the most
fearful latitude (and we need not look to France for examples,) the
advantages derived from it are so inestimable, that, to deprive us of
them, would be as if an architect should shut up the windows which
supply light and air to a mansion, because a certain proportion of cold,
and perhaps of rain, may force their way in at the aperture. Besides, we
acknowledge ourselves peculiarly jealous of the sentiments of the
members of every government on this delicate subject. Their situation
renders them doubtful friends to a privilege, through which alone they
can be rendered amenable to the public for the abuse of their power, and
through which also they often see their just and temperate exercise of
authority maligned and misconstrued. To princes, also, the license of
the press is, for many reasons distasteful. To put it under regulation,
seems easy and desirable, and the hardship on the community not greater
(in their account) than the enforcing of decent respect and
subordination--of the sort of etiquette, in short, which is established
in all courts, and which forbids the saving, under any pretext, what may
be rude or disagreeable to a sovereign, or even unpleasing to be heard.
Under these circumstances, and in the present state of France, men
rather regretted than wondered that the ministers of Louis XVIII. were
disposed to place restrictions on the freedom of the press, or that they
effected their purpose of placing the light of nations under a censorial
bushel.
But the victory thus obtained brought additional evils on the
government. The law was evaded under various devices; the works which it
was intended to intercept, acquired circulation and importance from the
very circumstance of their being prohibited; while the whole tenor of
the measure impressed many who had otherwise been friendly to the
Bourbon family, with distrust respecting their designs upon the national
liberty.[84]
Thus split into parties, oppressed with taxes, vexed with those nameless
and mysterious jealousies and fears which form the most dangerous
subjects of disagreement, because alike incapable of being explained and
confuted, France was full of inflammable materials; and the next chapter
will show that there was not wanting a torch to give kindling to them.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] See Treaty of Paris, Art. III. Parl. Debates, vol. xxviii., p. 178.
[74] See Annual Register, vol. lvi., p. 420.
[75] See _ante_, vol. i., p. 255.
[76] Savary, tom. iv., p. 235.
[77] Annual Register, vol. lvi., p. 51.
[78] M. Dumolard. See Moniteur, Nov. 24.
[79] Moniteur, Dec. 7 and 10; Montgaillard, tom. viii., p. 84; Annual
Register, vol. lvi., p. 63.
[80] Moniteur, July 13; Montgaillard, tom. viii., p. 52.
[81] "No conqueror, no war, no conscription, no consolidated
taxes!"--_Proclamation on entering France._
[82] Tempest, act i., scene ii.
[83] Moniteur, July 6; Annual Register, vol. lxvi., p. 56.
[84] Montgaillard, tom. viii., pp. 65, 79; Mad. de Staël, tom. iii., p.
70.