Fouché's warning and assistance to the proscribed.

generals, marshals, agents of his police, and executors of his orders, were comprised in it; Lanjuinais, Diesbach, Flaugergues, Carnot, and Caulincourt, closed the list. He had sacrificed himself liberally; there only wanted his own

name.

The King and his ministers had only to soften down the rigours of Fouché, and to strike out names which innocence, indulgence, or favour recommended to pardon. Louis XVIII. erased with his own hand that of Benjamin Constant, and the Emperor Alexander that of Caulaincourt. The list thus limited to the names most notoriously compromised, was at first reduced to eighty, and afterwards to thirty-seven. During this ballotting, which continued for several days, Fouché, authorised by the King and by his own repugnance, to seize those whom he had marked out, sent them warning, saw personally a great number of them, and distributed to, or offered them disguises, passports, the means of escaping, and even the sums necessary for their residence abroad. Five or six hundred thousand francs, from the treasury of the police, were distributed by him to those whom he rather wished to save than proscribe. The most obstinate, or the most foolhardy, alone fell subsequently into the hands of the executors of these orders.

The word proscription had been written for state reasons alone by the King and the minister. The real object of the council was the removal of the proscribed persons, to give satis faction not to vengeance, but to public clamour. The King did not wish for victims, Europe did not ask for blood

XLI.

The act of proscription ran as follows:

"Desirous, by the punishment of an attempt without example, but graduating the penalty, and limiting the number of the guilty-of conciliating the interest of our subjects, the dignity of our crown, and the tranquillity of Europe, with what we owe to justice and to the full security of all other citizens.

The act of proscription.

without distinction, we have declared, and do declare, have ordered, and do order as follows:

"Art. I. The generals and officers who have betrayed the King before the 23rd of March, or who have attacked France and the government by force of arms, and those who by violence have possessed themselves of power, shall be seized and brought before the competent courts-martial in their respective divisions; viz. Ney, Labédoyère, Lallemand senior, Lallemand junior, Drouet d'Erlon, Lefebvre, Desnouettes, Ameil, Brayer, Gilly, Mouton-Duvernet, Grouchy, Clausel, Laborde, Debelle, Bertrand, Drouot, Cambronne, Lavalette, and Rovigo.

66

'Art. II. The individuals whose names here follow: viz. Soult, Alix, Excelmans, Bassano, Marbot, Felix Lepelletier, Boulay de la Meurthe, Méhée, Freissinet, Thibeaudeau, Carnot, Vandamme, General Lamarque, Lobau, Harel, Piré, Barrère, Arnault, Pommereul, Regnault de St. Jean d'Angely, Arrighi de Padoue, Dejean jun., Garrau, Réal, Bouvier, Dumolard, Merlin (de Douai), Durback, Dirat, Defermon, Bory de St-Vincent, Félix Desportes, Garnier (de Saintes), Hullin, Mellinet, Cluys, Courtin, Forbin-Janson jun., Lelorgne d'Ideville,-shall quit Paris in three days, and shall retire to the interior of France, to the places which will be indicated by our minister of general police, and where they shall remain under his superintendence, until the Chambers shall declare which of them are to quit the kingdom, or to be sent for trial before the tribunals.

66 'Art. III. Those individuals who shall be condemned to quit the kingdom shall have the power of selling their estates and property, within the term of one year; to dispose of and transport the produce out of France, and to receive during this period the revenue thereof in foreign countries, on condition, however, of furnishing the proof of their obedience to the present ordinance.

66

Art. IV. The lists of all the individuals to whom Articles I and II may be applicable, are and shall remain closed by the names designated in these articles, and can never be extended to others for any cause or pretext whatsoever, other

Causes of the proscription.

wise than in the forms and according to the constitutional laws; from which deviation is only made for this special case.

Thus was begun in France, in spite of the King, and in spite of the minister, but under the presentiment of the Chamber which was about to assemble full of vengeance, the era of proscription of 1815; fatal concessions, not of the heart but of the weakness of the monarch, who, with the spirit and the will of clemency, gave himself the appearance of rigour. Louis XVIII., did not sufficiently feel, under the circumstances, his power against the foreign princes, against his own party, and against his brother, as he had not suffi ciently felt it at Arnouville when prostituting the royal authority to Fouché. He was the man essential to Europe, to France, and to the royalists themselves. He ought to have known this; and, to demonstrate it to all, he had merely to refuse concessions which lowered him as a man, without strengthening him as a King.

In conceding the nomination of Fouché, that he might enter Paris in favour with the revolution, he had lessened his personal dignity in the eyes of the royalists; in conceding this beginning of a proscription, against his will, to his party and to the allied powers at the commencement of his reign, he lessened his popularity as a royal peace-maker and mediator, in the eyes of the revolution. His character yielded to both sides in the course of a few weeks. He had furnished both parties with the secret of his weakness. The royalists and the liberals were going to draw him on successively farther than he wished to go He had not marked with sufficient

Their impolicy.

resolution the fixed points at which it became him to maintain his character and his reign, the dignity of his race, the impartiality of his mind, the sovereign umpirage of his heart between the parties. A restoration can never be anything but an amnesty. Pardon is not its virtue only, it is its law.

BOOK THIRTY-FIRST.

Murat-His flight from Naples-Arrival at the Isle of Ischia-His aide. de-camp, the Duke of Rocca Romana-His departure for FranceHe lands at Cannes-Offers his services to the Emperor-Refusal of Napoleon-Terror in the South-Murat quits the neighbourhood of Toulon and conceals himself-Asks an asylum from Louis XVIII.It is granted to him in Austria-Attempts at flight-He failsAdventures-His retreat-Dangers-He embarks for Corsica-Perils of the passage-Incidents-He is picked up at sea-His arrival in Corsica-He retires to the mountains-Political situation of Corsica -Murat is summoned to surrender by the governor of the islandHis refusal-The governor sends a body of soldiers to arrest himTheir failure-Projects of Murat-He departs on an expedition to Naples-His march towards Ajaccio-Entry into the City-Arrival of Macirone-He sends him the passport for Austria-Murat's letter -His departure for Naples-Passage-Desertion of one of his vessels -Incidents-He disembarks at the port of Pizzo-Endeavours to raise the population-His arrest-Last moments-CondemnationDeath-Review of his life.

I.

But before we enter upon a narrative of those proscriptions, of those assassinations, of those trials, and those executions, which were to strike with dismay the second return of the King-sinister pages which the friends of the restoration would wish to tear from its history-let us first return to one of its most illustrious outlaws, whom the events of the hundred days led on to his ruin; and whose flight, last attempt, and death, commenced this period of vicissitudes, of vengeance, and of blood, We speak of Murat, whose life, like that of Napoleon, was not terminated by his first fall from the throne, and by the surrender of his kingdom to the Bourbons of Naples. It seemed to be the destiny of this satellite of Napoleon to rise with him, to fall with him,