286 RESTORATION OF MONARCHY IN FRANCE. [BOOK 33. obedient to the resentments of their party, instead of mingling all parties, even the guilty ones, in the impartiality of their pardon, and forgetting that after intestine struggles, especially when they are complicated by patriotic struggles against foreign powers, and when errors are excused by illustrious exploits and great glory, there is but one justice-amnesty. BOOK THIRTY-FOURTH. Trial of Lavalette-His condemnation and escape-Fury of the Chamber at the news-Arrest of Marshal Ney-He is sent to Paris and brought before a court martial-Noble conduct of Marshal Moncey-The Court declares itself incompetent-He is brought before the Chamber of Peers-Implacability of the ministers-Debates and divers incidents--Evidence of Bourmont-M. Bellart's address to the court for the prosecution-Quibbles of the defence-Attitude of the Marshal— His condemnation-Vindictive intrigues of the royalists-Magnanimous intercession of Madame Hutchinson-Ney in his prison-His last moments. His interview with his family-His execution-Reaction of public opinion in his favour and against the Bourbons. I. THERE are times and seasons of a cruel tendency, even when men are disposed to clemency. Vengeance is a vice so natural to the human species that the triumphant opinions of the moment seem spontaneously bent on avenging themselves at the very time that governments are inclined to pardon. Those govern ments which resist this base passion of the human heart, and refuse this gratification to the anger of the times, merit well at the hands of public morality and of posterity. Those, on the contrary, which yield up victims to the pressure of circumstances, tarnish themselves for ever by this severity, or this complaisance; and for the short and wretched popularity of the moment they renounce that which alone is durable—the popularity of the human heart. They are accountable to history not only for the blood they themselves demand, but also for that which they grant to the resentment of their party. At this day when opinions which were burning in 1815 have cooled down-through the remoteness of the events which had inflamed them-when the conquerors and the conquered. Louis XVIII., Charles X.. the Dauphin, the Duchess of Angoulême, the Duke Trial of Lavalette. de Berry, the Richelieus, the Lainés, the Talleyrands, the Fouchés, the Neys, the Labédoyères, the Lavalettes, the most insatiable members in their rage for justice of the Chambers and the Senates of 1815, sleep together in the same dust, what politician of that period would now arise with the same hatreds and the same fanaticism which inflamed him then? What friend of the Bourbons still living that would not redeem at the price of his blood, the stains and reproaches of which these executions have left the impress on the name, and on the cause of the second restoration? Those executions were not merely rigours, they were faults; and these faults not only retarded the reconciliation of the country with itself, its divisions being envenomed and perpetuated by political punishments, but they made of the Bourbons the interested executioners of the national anger, instead of making them the arbitrators and peacemakers of all parties. They did more, they clouded the futurity of a reign whose destiny was to be accepted as an asylum even by those who had struggled against it. They mixed up with the griefs and the resentments of the relatiors, the friends, and the partisans of the victims, the name of the King and of his family, who could only recover and perpetuate their legitimacy in the benedictions of the nation. All governments fall; but none are more sure of recovering themselves than those which fall in their innocence, or in their magnanimity. II. The trial of M. Lavalette immediately followed the execution > Labédoyère. M. de Lavalette was an old aide-de-camp of Bonaparte in Italy and Egypt, who had quitted the army for a civil government employ. Under the Empire he was director of the post office, a confidential place, during a reign when the most secret transactions of the citizens were spied into, as symptoms of public opinions and elements of government. It will be remembered that on the morning of the 20th March, during the interregnum at Paris, M. de Lavalette had gone to take possession of the administration of the post-office, and Attempts to save Lavalette. had sent couriers to the Emperor, and to the departments, announcing the retreat of the King, and the pretended enthusiasm of the capital. After the abdication of Napoleon and the dispersion of his partisans, M. de Lavalette had been arrested. Though indirectly warned beforehand, by a voluntary indiscretion of the numerous friends he had in the King's cabinet, he had not ayailed himself of the information. The police were obliged, though with reluctance, to obey the court. M. Pasquier, then minister of justice, with the inten tion of giving time to the prisoner, and to soften by this delay the irritation against him, had withdrawn Lavalette from trial by court martial, and left him, intentionally forgotten, in his prison, to await the assembly of the civil jury, a tribunal still more harsh and arbitrary. They would have gladly forgotten him altogether, but the chamber had scarcely re-assembled when the name of M. de Lavalette excited the enthusiastic members of this body so fervent in their zeal, who loudly demanded those deeds of vengeance which they called acts of justice. After two months suspense, Lavalette was condemned to death. Being a man much liked and inoffensive, he inspired with a generous interest those even who had not shared in his fault. The Princess de Vaudemont, a lady of influence over the court and political parties, by her connections with both sides-M de Vitrolles, a man of ardent zeal, but of a merciful disposition to the vanquished-M. de Talleyrand-Fouché-M. Decazes, himself, a rigorous minister but an indulgent man—were desirous of saving the condemned from the execution of a sentence which had not even the excuse of an important victim. M. Pasquier, who was no longer minister at the time of trial, had done himself honour by a courageous deposition in favour of the accused. The Duke de Richelieu, by the simple impulse of his nature, revolted against this execution for the crime, not of treason, but of the fidelity of an old friend to his general. He solicited from Louis XVIII. the pardon of Lavalette; but though the King was desirous of indulgence he did not dare to grant it. Urged on between the raging anger of the assembly and the underhand vengeance of his court, Lavalette is 66 Marmont's attempts to save Lavalette. 66 guilty," he replied to M. de Richelieu, "the Chamber demands examples; I incline to pardon, and I shall not refuse you the life of Lavalette; but rest assured that the day following that on which they hear you have obtained this act from me, you will be defeated by the majority, and I shall be compelled to sacrifice yourself." M. Decazes, who had more influence with the King, interceded also for pardon: Find some means of appeasing the Assembly, and stopping the voiciferations of its ringleaders," replied the King, "and you shall have the pardon." "I can only see one," said M. Decazes, "which is that the Duchess d'Angoulême, so influential with the royalists of the Assembly, should herself intercede with your majesty, and thus prevent the murmurs of her own party," The Duchess d'Angoulême being solicited to this intercession by the Duke de Richelieu, was moved and shed tears She promised to intercede; she remembered the Temple Madame de Lavalette was informed of this favourable disposition of the princess. Marshal Marmont, who commanded the palace-guard, always eager to redeem his faults towards the Emperor by services to his old companions-in-arms, undertook to conduct the wife of Lavalette into the palace, in violation of all the orders which would yield before his rank. But while this generous plot was concocting between the King, the ministers, Marmont, and the princess herself, some evil coun sellers got round the Duchess d'Angoulême, induced her to repent of her virtuous intentions, and closed her heart against all magnanimity, in the name of those reasons of state which are the ordinary sophisms of the irritated passions. When Marmont appeared, with the weeping young wife of the condemned victim leaning on his arm, the Duchess turned away her eyes from the suppliant, and casting an angry look on the marshal disappeared, like the last deceitful hope of the dying. There now remained only one resource, the escape of the prisoner. The Princess de Vaudemont superintended all the preparations for the enterprise, and it may fairly be supposed that the ministers, disposed as they themselves were to clemency, and also being friends of the princess, closed their eyes at least to a plot which so well answered their own wishes |