_Buonaparte's attempts to conciliate Britain--Plot to carry off
Maria Louisa fails--State of feeling in France--The Army--The
Jacobins--The Constitutionalists--Fouché and Siêyes made
Peers--Freedom of the Press granted, and outraged--Independent
conduct of Comté, editor of Le Censeur--Disaffections among the
lower orders--Part of these assemble before the Tuileries, and
applaud the Emperor--Festival of the Federates--New Constitution--It
is received with dissatisfaction--Meeting of the Champ de Mai to
ratify it--Buonaparte's Address to the Chambers of Peers and
Deputies--The spirit of Jacobinism predominant in the latter._
[Sidenote: MARIA LOUISA.]
While Murat was struggling and sinking under his evil fate, Buonaparte
was actively preparing for the approaching contest. His first attempt,
as we have already seen, was to conciliate the allied powers. To satisfy
Great Britain, he passed an act abolishing the slave trade, and made
some regulations concerning national education, in which he spoke highly
of the systems of Bell and Lancaster. These measures were favourably
construed by some of our legislators; and that they were so, is a
complete proof that Buonaparte understood the temper of our nation. To
suppose that, during his ten months of retirement, his mind was actively
employed upon the miseries of the negroes, or the deplorable state of
ignorance to which his own measures, and the want of early instruction,
had reduced the youth of France, would argue but little acquaintance
with his habits of ambition. To believe, on the contrary, that he would,
at his first arrival in France, make any apparent sacrifices which might
attract the good-will of his powerful and dangerous neighbours, is more
consonant with his schemes, his interest, and his character. The path
which he chose to gain the esteem of Britain, was by no means
injudicious. The abolition of negro slavery, and the instruction of the
poor, have (to the honour of our legislature) been frequent and anxious
subjects of deliberation in the House of Commons; and to mankind,
whether individually or collectively, no species of flattery is more
pleasing than that of assent and imitation. It is not a little to the
credit of our country, that the most avowed enemy of Britain strove to
cultivate our good opinion, not by any offers of national advantage but
by appearing to concur in general measures of benevolence, and attention
to the benefit of society. Yet, upon the whole, the character of
Napoleon was too generally understood, and the purpose of his apparent
approximation to British sentiments, too obviously affected, for serving
to make any general or serious impression in his favour.
With Austria, Napoleon acted differently. He was aware that no
impression could be made on the Emperor Francis, or his minister
Metternich, and that it had become impossible, with their consent, that
he should fulfil his promise of presenting his wife and son to the
people on the Champ de Mai. Stratagem remained the only resource; and
some Frenchmen at Vienna, with those in Maria Louisa's train, formed a
scheme of carrying off the Empress of France and her child. The plot was
discovered and prevented, and the most public steps were immediately
taken, to show that Austria considered all ties with Buonaparte as
dissolved for ever. Maria Louisa, by her father's commands, laid aside
the arms and liveries of her husband, hitherto displayed by her
attendants and carriages, and assumed those of the house of Austria.
This decisive event put an end to every hope so long cherished by
Napoleon, that he might find some means of regaining the friendship of
his father-in-law.
Nor did the other powers in Europe show themselves more accessible to
his advances. He was, therefore, reduced to his own partisans in the
French nation, and those won over from other parties, whom he might be
able to add to them.
The army had sufficiently shown themselves to be his own, upon grounds
which are easily appreciated. The host of public official persons, to
whom the name under which they exercised their offices was indifferent,
provided the salary continued to be attached to them, formed a large and
influential body. And although we, who have never, by such mutations of
our political system, been put to the trial of either abandoning our
means of living, or submitting to a change of government, may, on
hearing quoted names of respectability and celebrity who adopted the
latter alternative, exclaim against French versatility, a glance at
Britain during the frequent changes of the 17th century, may induce us
to exchange the exclamation of poor France! for that of poor human
nature! The professors of Cromwell's days, who piously termed themselves
followers of Providence, because they complied with every change that
came uppermost; and the sect of time-servers, including the honest
patriot, who complained at the Restoration that he had complied with
seven forms of government during the year, but lost his office by being
too late of adhering to the last--would have made in their day a list
equally long, and as entertaining, as the celebrated _Dictionnaire de
Girouettes_. In matters dependent upon a sudden breeze of sentiment, the
mercurial Frenchman is more apt to tack about than the phlegmatic and
slowly-moved native of Britain; but when the steady trade-wind of
interest prevails for a long season, men in all nations and countries
show the same irresistible disposition to trim their sails by it; and in
politics as in morals, it will be well to pray against being led into
temptation.
[Sidenote: STATE OF PARTIES.]
Besides those attached to him by mere interest, or from gratitude and
respect for his talents, Napoleon had now among his adherents, or rather
allies, not as a matter of choice, but of necessity, the Jacobin party,
who had been obliged, though unwillingly, to adopt him as the head of a
government, which they hoped to regenerate. To these were to be added a
much larger and more respectable body, who, far from encouraging his
attempt, had testified themselves anxious to oppose it to the last, but
who, conceiving the cause of the Bourbons entirely lost, were willing to
adhere to Buonaparte, on condition of obtaining a free constitution for
France. Many of these acted, of course, on mixed motives; but if we were
asked to form a definition of them, we should be induced to give the
same, which, laying aside party spirit, we should ascribe to a right
English Whig, whom we conceive to be a man of sense and moderation, a
lover of laws and liberty, whose chief regard to particular princes and
families is founded on what he apprehends to be the public good; and who
differs from a sensible Tory so little, that there is no great chance of
their disputing upon any important constitutional question, if it is
fairly stated to both. Such, we believe, is the difference betwixt
rational Constitutionalists and Royalists in France; and, undoubtedly,
while all the feelings of the latter induced them to eye with abhorrence
the domination of a usurper, there must have been many of the former,
who, fearing danger to the independence of France from the intervention
of foreign powers, conceived, that by advocating the cause of Napoleon,
they were in some degree making a virtue of necessity, and playing an
indifferent game with as much skill as the cards they held would permit.
Many patriotic and sensible men, who had retained a regard for liberty
during all the governments and all the anarchies which had subsisted for
twenty years, endeavoured now to frame a system of government, grounded
upon something like freedom, upon the difficulties of Buonaparte.
Pressed as he was from abroad, and unsupported at home, save by the
soldiery, he would, they conceived, be thrown by necessity under the
protection of the nation, and obliged to recruit his adherents by
complying with public opinion, and adopting a free government. Under
this persuasion a great number of such characters, more or less shaded
by attachment to a moderate and limited monarchy, were prepared to
acknowledge Buonaparte's re-established authority, in so far as he
should be found to deserve it, by concessions on his part.
The conduct and arguments of another portion of the friends of the
constitution, rather resembled that which might have been adopted in
England by moderate and intelligent Tories. Such men were not prepared
to resign the cause of their lawful monarch, because fortune had for a
time declared against him. They were of opinion, that to make a
constitution permanent, the monarch must have his rights ascertained and
vindicated, as well as those of the people; and that if a usurper were
to be acknowledged upon any terms, however plausible, so soon as he had
cut his way to success by his sword, the nation would be exposed to
perpetual revolutions. Louis, these men might argue, had committed no
crime whatever; he was only placed in circumstances which made some
persons suppose he might possibly be tempted to meditate changes on the
constitution, and on the charter which confirmed it. There was meanness
in deserting a good and peaceable king at the command of a revolted
army, and a discarded usurper. They regretted that their prince must be
replaced by foreign bayonets; yet it was perhaps better that a moderate
and peaceful government should be restored even thus, than that the
French nation should continue to suffer under the despotic tyranny of
their own soldiery. Those reasoners ridiculed the idea of a free
constitution, which was to be generated betwixt Buonaparte, who, in his
former reign, never allowed freedom of thought, word, or action, to
exist unrepressed, and the old Revolutionists, who, during their period
of power, could be satisfied with no degree of liberty until they
destroyed every compact which holds civil society together, and made the
country resemble one great bedlam, set on fire by the patients, who
remained dancing in the midst of the flames.
Such we conceive to have been the principles on which wise and moderate
men on either side acted during this distracted period. It is easy to
suppose, that their opinions must have been varied by many more and less
minute shades, arising from temperament, predilections, prejudices,
passions, and feelings of self-interest, and that they were on either
side liable to be pushed into exaggeration, or, according to the word
which was formed to express that exaggeration--into Ultraism.
Meantime, Napoleon did all that was possible to conciliate the people's
affection, and to show himself sincerely desirous of giving France the
free constitution which he had promised. He used the advice of Carnot,
Siêyes, and Fouché, and certainly profited by several of their lessons.
He made it, notwithstanding, a condition, that Carnot and Siêyes should
accept each a title and a seat in his House of Peers, to show that they
were completely reconciled to the Imperial government; and both the
ancient republicans condescended to exchange the _bonnet rouge_, for a
coronet, which, considering their former opinions, sate somewhat
awkwardly upon their brows.
But although the union of the Imperialists and popular party had been
cemented by mutual hatred of the Bourbons, and was still kept together
by apprehension of the King's adherents within, and his allies on the
exterior, seeds of discord were soon visible between the Emperor and the
popular leaders. While the former was eager once more to wield with full
energy the sceptre he had recovered, the latter were continually
reminding him, that he had only assumed it in a limited and restricted
capacity, as the head of a free government, exercising, indeed, its
executive power, but under the restraint of a popular constitution.
Napoleon, in the frequent disputes which arose on these important
points, was obliged to concede to the demagogues the principles which
they insisted upon. But then, for the safety of the state, involved in
foreign and domestic dangers, he contended it was necessary to invest
the chief magistrate with a vigour beyond the law, a dictatorial
authority, temporary in its duration, but nearly absolute in its extent,
as had been the manner in the free states of antiquity, when the
republic was in imminent danger. Carnot and Fouché, on the other hand,
considered, that although it seemed natural, and might be easy, to
confer such power at the present moment, the resumption of it by the
nation, when it was once vested in the hands of Buonaparte, would be a
hopeless experiment. The Emperor, therefore, and his ministers,
proceeded to their mutual tasks with no mutual confidence; but, on the
contrary, with jealousy, thinly veiled by an affectation of deference on
the side of Buonaparte, and respect on that of his counsellors.
[Sidenote: LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.]
The very first sacrifice which the Emperor gave to freedom proved an
inconvenient one to his government. This was nothing less than the
freedom of the press. It is true, that the influence of his minister of
police managed by indirect means to get possession of most of the
journals; so that of sixty writers, employed generally, if not
constantly, in periodical composition, five only were now found friendly
to the royal cause. The other pens, which a few days before described
Napoleon as a species of Ogre, who had devoured the youth of France, now
wrote him down a hero and a liberator. Still, when the liberty of the
press was once established, it was soon found impossible to prevent it
from asserting its right of utterance; and there were found authors to
advocate the cause of the Bourbons, from principle, from caprice, from
the love of contradiction.
Napoleon, who always showed himself sensitively alive to the public
censure, established inspectors of the booksellers. The minister of
police, a friend of liberty, but, as Compte, the editor of _Le Censeur_,
neatly observed, only of liberty after the fashion of M. Fouché, used
every art in his power to prevent the contagion of freedom from
spreading too widely. This M. Compte was a loud, and probably a sincere
advocate of freedom, and had been a promoter of Buonaparte's return, as
likely to advance the good cause. Seeing the prevailing influence of the
military, he published some severe remarks on the undue weight the army
assumed in public affairs, which, he hesitated not to say, was bringing
France to the condition of Rome, when the empire was disposed of by the
Prætorian guards. This stung to the quick--the journal was seized by the
police, and the minister endeavoured to palliate the fact in the
_Moniteur_, by saying, that, though seized, it had been instantly
restored. But Compte was not a man to be so silenced; he published a
contradiction of the official statement, and declared that his journal
had not been restored. He was summoned the next day before the prefect,
alternately threatened and wheedled, upbraided at one moment with
ungrateful resistance to the cause of the Emperor, and requested at the
next to think of something in which government might serve him. Steeled
against every proffer and entreaty, Compte only required to be permitted
to profit by the restored liberty of the press; nor could the worthy
magistrate make him rightly understand that when the Emperor gave all
men liberty to publish what pleased themselves, it was under the tacit
condition that it should also please the prefect and minister of police.
Compte had the spirit to publish the whole affair.
In the meanwhile, proclamations of Louis, forbidding the payment of
taxes, and announcing the arrival of 1,200,000 men under the walls of
Paris, covered these walls every night in spite of the police. A
newspaper, called the _Lily_, was also secretly, but generally
circulated, which advocated the royal cause. In the better classes of
society, where Buonaparte was feared and hated, lampoons, satires,
pasquinades, glided from hand to hand, turning his person, ministers,
and government, into the most bitter ridicule. Others attacked him with
eloquent invective, and demanded what he had in common with the word
Liberty, which he now pretended to connect with his reign. He was, they
said, the sworn enemy of liberty, the assassin of the Republic, the
destroyer of French freedom, which had been so dearly bought; the show
of liberty which he held, was a trick of legerdemain, executed under
protection of his bayonets. Such was his notion of liberty when it
destroyed the national representation at St. Cloud--Such was the freedom
he gave when he established an Oriental despotism in the enlightened
kingdom at France. Such, when abolishing all free communication of
sentiments among citizens, and proscribing every liberal and
philosophical idea under the nickname of Ideology. "Can it be
forgotten," they continued, "that Heaven and Hell are not more
irreconcilable ideas, than Buonaparte and Liberty?--The very word
Freedom," they said, "was proscribed under his iron reign, and only
first gladdened the ears of Frenchmen after twelve years of humiliation
and despair, on the happy restoration of Louis XVIII.--Ah, miserable
impostor!" they exclaimed, "when would he have spoke of liberty, had not
the return of Louis familiarized us with freedom and peace." The spirit
of disaffection spread among certain classes of the lower ranks. The
market-women (_dames des halles_,) so formidable during the time of the
Fronde, and in the early years of the Revolution, for their opposition
to the court, were now royalists, and, of course, clamorous on the side
of the party they espoused. They invented, or some loyal rhymer composed
for them, a song,[123] the burden of which demanded back the King, as
their father of Ghent. They ridiculed, scolded, and mobbed the
commissaries of police, who endeavoured to stop these musical
expressions of disaffection; surrounded the chief of their number,
danced around him, and chanted the obnoxious burden, until Fouché being
ashamed to belie the new doctrines of liberty of thought, speech, and
publication, his agents were instructed to leave these Amazons
undisturbed on account of their political sentiments.
While Buonaparte was unable to form an interest in the saloons, and
found that even the _dames des halles_ were becoming discontented, he
had upon his side the militia of the suburbs; those columns of pikemen
so famous in the Revolution, whose furious and rude character added to
the terrors, if not to the dignity, of his reign. Let us not be accused
of a wish to depreciate honest industry, or hold up to contempt the
miseries of poverty. It is not the poverty, but the ignorance and the
vice of the rabble of great cities, which render them always
disagreeable, and sometimes terrible. They are entitled to protection
from the laws, and kindness from the government; but he who would use
them as political engines, invokes the assistance of a blatant beast
with a thousand heads, well furnished with fangs to tear and throats to
roar, but devoid of tongues to speak reason, ears to hear it, eyes to
see it, or judgment to comprehend it.
For a little time after Buonaparte's return, crowds of artisans of the
lowest order assembled under the windows of the Tuileries, and demanded
to see the Emperor, whom, on his appearance, they greeted with shouts,
as _le Grand Entrepreneur_, or general employer of the class of
artisans, in language where the coarse phraseology of their rank was
adorned with such flowers of rhetoric as the times of terror had coined.
Latterly, the numbers of this assembly were maintained by a distribution
of a few _sous_ to the shouters.
However disgusted with these degrading exhibitions, Buonaparte felt he
could not dispense with this species of force, and was compelled to
institute a day of procession, and a solemn festival, in favour of this
description of persons, who, from the mode in which they were enrolled,
were termed Federates.
[Sidenote: FESTIVAL OF THE FEDERATES.]
On 14th May, the motley and ill-arranged ranks which assembled on this
memorable occasion, exhibited, in the eyes of the disgusted and
frightened spectators, all that is degraded by habitual vice, and
hardened by stupidity and profligacy. The portentous procession moved on
along the Boulevards to the court of the Tuileries, with shouts, in
which the praises of the Emperor were mingled with imprecations, and
with the Revolutionary songs (long silenced in Paris,)--the Marseilloise
Hymn, the Carmagnole, and the Day of Departure. The appearance of the
men, the refuse of manufactories, of work-houses, of jails; their rags,
their filth, their drunkenness; their ecstacies of blasphemous rage, and
no less blasphemous joy, stamped them with the character of the willing
perpetrators of the worst horrors of the Revolution. Buonaparte himself
was judged, by close observers, to shrink with abhorrence from the
assembly he himself had convoked. His guards were under arms, and the
field artillery loaded, and turned on the Place de Carrousel, filled
with the motley crowd, who, from the contrasted colour of the corn
porters and charcoal-men, distinguished in the group, were facetiously
called his Grey and Black Mousquetaires. He hasted to dismiss his
hideous minions, with a sufficient distribution of praises and of
liquor. The national guards conceived themselves insulted on this
occasion, because compelled to give their attendance along with the
Federates. The troops of the line felt for the degraded character of the
Emperor. The haughty character of the French soldiers had kept them from
fraternizing with the rabble, even in the cause of Napoleon. They had
been observed, on the march from Cannes, to cease their cries of _Vive
l'Empereur_, when, upon entering any considerable town, the shout was
taken up by the mob of the place, and to suspend their acclamations,
rather than mingle them with those of the _pequins_, whom they despised.
They now muttered to each other, on seeing the court which Buonaparte
seemed compelled to bestow on these degraded artisans, that the
conqueror of Marengo and Wagram had sunk into the mere captain of a
rabble. In short, the disgraceful character of the alliance thus formed
between Buonaparte and the lees of the people, was of a nature incapable
of being glossed over even in the flattering pages of the _Moniteur_,
which, amidst a flourishing description of this memorable procession,
was compelled to admit, that, in some places, the name of the Emperor
was incongruously mingled with expressions and songs, which recalled an
era _unfortunately too famous_.
Fretted by external dangers, and internal disturbances, and by the
degrading necessity of appearing every night before a mob, who
familiarly hailed him as _Père le Violette_, and, above all, galled by
the suggestions of his philosophical counsellors, who, among other
innovations, wished him to lay aside the style of Emperor for that of
President, or Grand General of the Republic, Napoleon, to rid himself at
once of occupations offensive to his haughty disposition, withdrew from
the Tuileries to the more retired palace of the Elysée Bourbon, and
seemed on a sudden to become once more the Emperor he had been before
his abdication. Here he took into his own hands, with the assistance of
Benjamin Constant, and other statesmen, the construction of a new
constitution. Their system included all those checks and regulations
which are understood to form the essence of a free government, and
greatly resembled that granted by the Royal Charter.[124] Nevertheless,
it was extremely ill received by all parties, but especially by those
who expected from Napoleon a constitution more free than that which they
had dissolved by driving Louis XVIII. from the throne. There were other
grave exceptions stated against the scheme of government.
First, The same objection was stated against this Imperial grant which
had been urged with so much vehemence against the royal charter, namely,
that it was not a compact between the people and the sovereign, in which
the former called the latter to the throne under certain conditions, but
a recognition by the sovereign of the liberties of the people. The
meeting of the Champ de Mai had indeed been summoned, (as intimated in
the decrees from Lyons,) chiefly with the purpose of forming and
adopting the new constitution; but, according to the present system,
they were only to have the choice of adopting or rejecting that which
Napoleon had prepared for them. The disappointment was great among those
philosophers who desired "better bread than is made of wheat;" and could
not enjoy liberty itself, unless it emanated directly from the will of
the people, and was sanctioned by popular discussion. But Napoleon was
determined that the convention of the 10th May should have no other
concern in the constitution, save to accept it when offered. He would
not intrust such an assembly with the revision of the laws by which he
was to govern.
[Sidenote: ADDITIONAL ACT.]
Secondly, This new constitution, though presenting an entirely new basis
of government, was published under the singular title of an
"Additional[125] Act to the Constitutions of the Emperor," and thereby
constituted a sort of appendix to a huge mass of unrepealed organic
laws, many of them inconsistent with the Additional Act in tenor and in
spirit.
Those who had enjoyed the direct confidence of the Emperor while the
treaty was framing, endeavoured to persuade themselves that Napoleon
meant fairly by France, yet confessed they had found it difficult to
enlighten his ideas on the subject of a limited monarchy. They felt,
that though the Emperor might be induced to contract his authority, yet
what remained in his own hand would be wielded as arbitrarily as ever;
and likewise that he would never regard his ministers otherwise than as
the immediate executors of his pleasure, and responsible to himself
alone. He would still continue to transport his whole chancery at his
stirrup, and transmit sealed orders to be executed by a minister whom he
had not consulted on their import.[126]
The Royalists triumphed on the publication of this Additional Act: "Was
it for this," they said, "you broke your oaths, and banished your
monarch, to get the same, or nearly similar laws, imposed on you by a
Russian ukase or a Turkish firman, which you heretofore enjoyed by
charter, in the same manner as your ancestors, called freemen by
excellence, held their rights from their limited sovereigns; and for
this have you exchanged a peaceful prince, whose very weakness was your
security, for an ambitious warrior, whose strength is your weakness? For
this have you a second time gone to war with all Europe--for the
Additional Act and the Champ de Mai?"
The more determined Republicans, besides their particular objections to
an Upper House, which the Emperor could fill with his own minions, so as
effectually to control the representatives of the people, found the
proposed constitution utterly devoid of the salt which should savour it.
There was no acknowledgment of abstract principles; no dissertation
concerning the rights of government and the governed; no metaphysical
discussions on the origin of laws; and they were as much mortified and
disappointed as the zealot who hears a discourse on practical morality,
when he expected a sermon on the doctrinal points of theology. The
unfortunate Additional Act became the subject of attack and raillery on
all sides; and was esteemed to possess in so slight a degree the
principles of durability, that a bookseller being asked for a copy by a
customer, replied, He did not deal in _periodical publications_.[127]
Under these auspices the Champ de Mai was opened, and that it might be
in all respects incongruous, it was held on the 1st of June.[128]
Deputies were supposed to attend from all departments, not, as it had
been latterly arranged, to canvass the new constitution, but to swear to
observe it; and not to receive the Empress Maria Louisa and her son as
the pledge of twenty years peace, but to behold the fatal eagles, the
signal of instant and bloody war, distributed by the Emperor to the
soldiers.
Napoleon and his brothers, whom he had once more collected around him,
figured, in quaint and fantastic robes, in the Champ de Mai; he as
Emperor, and they as princes of the blood--another subject of discontent
to the Republicans. The report of the votes was made, the electors swore
to the Additional Act, the drums rolled, the trumpets flourished, the
cannon thundered. But the acclamations were few and forced. The Emperor
seemed to view the scene as an empty pageant, until he was summoned to
the delivery of the eagles to the various new-raised regiments; and
then, amid the emblems of past, and, as might be hoped, the auguries of
future victories, he was himself again. But, on the whole, the Champ de
Mai, was, in the language of Paris, _une pièce tombée_, a condemned
farce, which was soon to be succeeded by a bloody tragedy.
[Sidenote: CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.]
The meeting of the Chambers was the next subject of interest. The
Chamber of Peers did not present, like the corresponding assembly in
Britain, members of long descent, ample fortunes, independence of
principle, and education corresponding to their rank of hereditary
legislators. It consisted in the princes of Napoleon's blood royal, to
whom was added Lucien, long estranged from his brother's councils, but
who now, instigated by fraternal affection, or tired of literary
leisure, having presented his epic poem to a thankless and regardless
public, endeavoured to save his brother in his present difficulties, as
by his courage and presence of mind he had assisted him during the
revolution of Brumaire. There were about one hundred other dignitaries,
more than one half of whom were military men, including two or three old
Jacobins, such as Siêyes and Carnot, who had taken titles, decorations,
and rank, inconsistently with the tenor of their whole life. The rest
had been the creatures of Buonaparte's former reign, with some men of
letters devoted to his cause, and recently ennobled. This body, which
could have no other will than that of the Emperor, was regarded by the
Republicans and Constitutionalists with jealousy, and by the citizens
with contempt. Buonaparte himself expressed his opinion of it with
something approaching the latter sentiment. He had scarce formed his
tools, before he seems to have been convinced of their inefficacy, and
of the little influence which they could exercise on the public
mind.[129]
It was very different with the second Chamber, in which were posted the
ancient men of the Revolution, and their newer associates, who looked
forward with hope that Buonaparte might yet assume the character of a
patriot sovereign, and by his military talents save France for her sake,
not for his own. The latter class comprehended many men, not only of
talent, but of virtue and public spirit; with too large a proportion,
certainly, of those who vainly desired a system of Republican liberty,
which so many years of bloody and fruitless experiment should have led
even the most extravagant to abandon, as inconsistent with the situation
of the country, and the genius of the French nation.
The disputes of the Chamber of Representatives with the executive
government commenced on June 4th, the first day of their sitting; and,
like those of their predecessors, upon points of idle etiquette. They
chose Lanjuinais for their president; a preferment which, alighting on
one who had been the defender of Louis XVI., the active and determined
resister of the power of Robespierre, and especially, the statesman who
drew up the list of crimes in consequence of which Napoleon's forfeiture
had been declared in 1814, could not be acceptable to the Emperor.
Napoleon being applied to for confirmation of the election, referred the
committee for his answer to the chamberlain, who, he stated, would
deliver it the next day by the page in waiting. The Chamber took fire,
and Napoleon was compelled to return an immediate though reluctant
approval of their choice. The next remarkable indication of the temper
of the Chamber, was the _extempore_ effusion of a deputy named Sibuet,
against the use of the epithets of duke, count, and other titles of
honour, in the Chamber of Representatives. Being observed to read his
invective from notes, which was contrary to the form of the Chamber,
Sibuet was silenced for the moment as out of order; but the next day, or
soon afterwards, having got his speech by heart, the Chamber was under
the necessity of listening to him, and his motion was got rid of with
difficulty.[130] On the same day, a list of the persons appointed to the
peerage was demanded from Carnot, in his capacity of minister, which he
declined to render till the session had commenced. This also occasioned
much uproar and violence, which the president could scarce silence by
the incessant peal of his bell. The oath to be taken by the deputies was
next severely scrutinized, and the Imperialists carried with difficulty
a resolution, that it should be taken to the Emperor and the
constitution, without mention of the nation.
The second meeting, on June 7th, was as tumultuous as the first. A
motion was made by Felix Lepelletier, that the Chamber should decree to
Napoleon the title of Saviour of his Country. This was resisted on the
satisfactory ground, that the country was not yet saved; and the Chamber
passed to the order of the day by acclamation.[131]
Notwithstanding these open intimations of the reviving spirit of
Jacobinism, or at least of opposition to the Imperial sway, Napoleon's
situation obliged him for the time to address the unruly spirits which
he had called together, with the confidence which it was said
necromancers found it needful to use towards the dangerous fiends whom
they had evoked. His address to both Chambers was sensible, manly, and
becoming his situation. He surrendered, in their presence, all his
pretensions to absolute power, and professed himself a friend to
liberty; demanded the assistance of the Chambers in matters of finance,
intimated a desire of some regulations to check the license of the
press, and required from the representatives an example of confidence,
energy, and patriotism, to encounter the dangers to which the country
was exposed. The Peers replied in corresponding terms. Not so the second
Chamber; for, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the Imperialists,
their reply bore a strong tincture of the sentiments of the opposite
party. The Chamber promised, indeed, their unanimous support in
repelling the foreign enemy; but they announced their intention to take
under their consideration the constitution, as recognised by the
Additional Act, and to point out its defects and imperfections, with the
necessary remedies. They also added a moderating hint, directed against
the fervour of Napoleon's ambition. "The nation," they said, "nourishes
no plans of aggrandisement. Not even the will of a victorious prince
will lead them beyond the boundaries of self-defence." In his rejoinder,
Napoleon did not suffer these obnoxious hints to escape his notice. He
endeavoured to school this refractory assembly into veneration for the
constitution, which he declared to be "the pole-star in the tempest;"
and judiciously observed, "there was little cause to provide against the
intoxications of triumph, when they were about to contend for existence.
He stated the crisis to be imminent, and cautioned the Chamber to avoid
the conduct of the Roman people in the latter ages of the empire, who
could not resist the temptation of engaging furiously in abstract
discussions, even while the battering-rams of the common enemy were
shaking the gates of the capitol."
Thus parted Buonaparte and his Chambers of Legislature; he to try his
fortune in the field of battle, they to their task of altering and
modifying the laws, and inspiring a more popular spirit and air into the
enactments he had made, in hopes that the dictatorship of the Jacobins
might be once again substituted for the dictatorship of the Emperor. All
men saw that the Imperialists and Republicans only waited till the field
was won, that they might contend for the booty; and so little was the
nation disposed to sympathize with the active, turbulent, and bustling
demagogues by whom the contest was to be maintained against the Emperor,
that almost all predicted with great unconcern their probable expulsion,
either by the sword of Buonaparte or the Bourbons.
FOOTNOTES:
[123] _Donnez nous nôtre paire de gants_, equivalent in pronunciation to
_nôtre Père de Ghent_.--S.
[124] The following is an abridgment of its declarations:--The
legislative power resides in the Emperor and two Chambers. The Chamber
of Peers is hereditary, and the Emperor names them. Their number is
unlimited. The Second Chamber is elected by the people, and is to
consist of 629 members--none are to be under twenty-five years. The
President is appointed by the members, but approved of by the Emperor.
Members to be paid at the rate settled by the Constituent Assembly. It
is to be renewed every five years. The Emperor may prorogue, adjourn, or
dissolve the House of Representatives. Sittings to be public. The
Electoral Colleges are maintained. Land-tax and direct taxes to be voted
only for a year; indirect may be for several years. No levy of men for
the army, nor any exchange of territory, but by a law. Taxes to be
proposed by the Chamber of Representatives. Ministers to be responsible.
Judges to be irremovable. Juries to be established. Right of petition is
established--freedom of worship--inviolability of property. The last
article says, that "the French people declare that they do not mean to
delegate the power of restoring the Bourbons, or any prince of that
family, even in case of the exclusion of the Imperial dynasty."--S.
[125] "The word _additional_ disenchanted the friends of liberty. They
recognised in it the ill-disguised continuation of the chief
institutions created in favour of absolute power. From that moment
Napoleon to their view became an incurable despot, and I, for my part,
regarded him in the light of a madman delivered, bound hand and foot, to
the mercy of Europe."--FOUCHÉ, tom. ii., p. 276.
[126] Letters from Paris, written during the last reign of Napoleon,
vol. i., p. 197 [By John Cam Hobhouse, Esq.; now Sir J. C. Hobhouse.]
[127] It was subjected, notwithstanding, with the usual success, to the
electoral bodies, whose good-nature never refused a constitution which
was recommended by the existing government. The number of those who gave
their votes were more than a million; being scarce a tenth part,
however, of those who had qualifications.
[128] Moniteur, June 2; Savary, tom. iv., p. 34; Fouché, tom. ii., p.
277.
[129] The punsters of Paris selected Labédoyère, Drouot, Ney, and
L'Allemand, as the _Quatre pairs fides (perfides.)_ while Vandamme and
others were termed the _Pairs sifflés_.--S.
[130] See Moniteur, June 6.
[131] Moniteur, June 9.