PERIOD THE SECOND.-1815 To 1830.

CHAPTER I.

THE WORLD AT PEACE THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPE BY THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA-FRANCEHOLLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS--RUSSIA AND PRUSSIA-THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION-SPAIN AND PORTUGAL-SWITZERLAND-ITALY-SICILY AND NAPLES-THE SPIRIT AND WORKING OF THE RESTORED REGIME.

"THE world was at peace"-that is, kings were no longer in open hostility with kings. They were feasting at each other's boards, while their armies were plodding homeward and their people remingling like parted waters. The secret treaty of February was suppressed. Nothing remained but to carry out the principles of that of June-to settle Europe, and to govern its respective states, in the spirit of that famous Alexandrine declaration which we have already listened to with astonished incredulity. The twenty years' war of nations had ceased-that of classes, opinions, interests, was at once resumed.

That we may pursue without interruption the troubled stream of our own English politics, let us observe here, with careful distinctness, the arrangements effected in pursuance of the treaty of the Congress of Vienna.

First, as to France. "Indemnities for the past and securities for the future," was the principle on which she was treated by the allies. Seven hundred millions of francs were exacted by the great powers as her penalty for having put them a second time to the trouble of enthroning the Bourbons; and about as much more in separate compensations to the lesser states. Large as the amount sounds, it was less than half the sum which our Chancellor of the Exchequer raised by loan and extra taxes in 1814-15: victory was far more expensive to us than crushing defeat to France. An army of occupation—a hundred and fifty thousand strong-the command of which was given to Wellington, was to garrison her fortresses, and be maintained at her expense, for five years. No further cession of territory was claimed; the indemnity was to be paid by instalments; but the works of art taken from Italy and Germany were to be returned: so that, altogether, her terms were rather degrading than burdensome. She was still a noble kingdom. Thirty millions of subjects were left to her, of the fifty or sixty millions over whom Napoleon dominated.

There were then thirty-two millions of people to be provided by the Congress with new boundaries and new governments. The five millions inhabit

ing Holland and the Low Countries were compacted into the kingdom of the Netherlands, under William of Orange; in spite of the fact that they were two races, with ineradicable differences, which forced in 1830 the recognition of Belgic independence. But it was wanted to establish a strong frontier between France and North Germany; so the Flemings were consolidated with the Dutch, and England gave up her share of the indemnity (four or five millions sterling) that the Prince of Orange might repair his ruined fortresses.

The provinces on the left of the Rhine, which France had taken from the German empire under her First Consul, were given to Prussia, with those which she surrendered at the peace of Tilsit, half of Saxony, and a share of the Duchy of Warsaw, containing a million of Polish subjects—the remainder Russia annexed, with the gift of a constitution that was not made to live. Russia also gained Finland, to compensate Sweden for which she was confirmed in the possession of Norway, to which she had forced Denmark to agree in the early part of the previous year.

The re-distribution of the German states it is difficult to make intelligible. The petty princes and counts" mediatized" by Napoleon were permitted to retain their status. The Rhenish Confederation was also maintained, instead of reviving the old Germanic empire. Thirty-nine states constituted this celebrated pact-Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Wurtemburg, Baden, the Electorate of Hesse, Darmstadt, Holstein (represented by its Duke, the King of Denmark, who was permitted to retain Schleswig, though closely connected, socially with Holstein, and as eager to join the Confederation; whence the struggle that is pending while we write), Luxembourg (giving a place among the German princes to its Duke, the King of the Netherlands), with a number of petty dukedoms, and the free towns of Lubeck, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Bremen, and Hamburg. In the Diet, or parliament of the representatives of these states, which was to sit in permanence at Frankfort, the eleven states we have mentioned were to have one vote each; the secondary states a half or a fourth of a vote each; all the free towns, one-making in all seventeen votes. On constitutional questions a new arrangement, called the plenum, was to prevail— the six states of the highest rank were to have four votes each, three dukedoms two each, and all the remaining princes one each; thus further increasing the influence of the great powers. Austria, besides, was to be permanent president of the Diet. On fundamental matters, unanimity was required. The members of the Confederation bound themselves to form no foreign alliances against the body, or against any one or more of its members. The fortresses of Luxembourg, Mayence, and Landau, were taken possession of as the common property of the Confederation, and garrisoned by its troops.

Spain and Portugal were restored to their former monarchs, without change of boundary, and with the addition of constitutions. Switzerland remained a confederation of twenty-two cantons; regaining with her lost members, Jesuitism and oligarchy. Austria reassumed the iron crown of Lombardy, with the added gem of long-coveted Venice; besides Dalmatia, the Tyrol, and all that she had lost by successive treaties with Napoleon. Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and Placentia, were restored to the different scions of the House of Hapsburg. The kingdom of Sardinia reappeared, enlarged and strengthened by the annexation of the ancient republic of Genoa. To complete the dissipation of the vision of Italian independence, Naples was restored to its Bourbon king, Ferdinand. For some years that royal voluptuary, and his fury of a wife, the sister of Maria Antoinette, with their children and son-in-law, Louis Philippe, had reigned in Sicily alone; and there only by the protection of British forces, and the aid of an annual British subsidy of three or four hundred thousand pounds. In 1811, Lord William Bentinck was sent as envoy extraordinary and commander-in-chief to this court of Palermo; and it was discovered that her Sicilian Majesty, Carolina, was plotting with Napoleon for the surrender of the British forces. Her subsidy was stopped, a number of her agents seized, and eventually a constitution, modelled with ludicrous exactness upon our own, imposed upon the royal family; as much to restrain the treachery of the Queen as to gratify the patriotic and popular demands. Louis Philippe, after playing fast and loose with the Sicilian liberals for some time, took himself off; and Ferdinand had no sooner got rid of his unwelcome protectors, than he revoked the constitution by a decree, and permitted Carolina to glut her womanly vengeance; which obliged us English to interfere, and insist on her retirement. Still Murat held Naples, and it would have been difficult to dislodge him, had he not struck, with premature impetuosity, on behalf of his old master, on learning the escape from Elba. Then his banner of L'Independenza dell' Italia" was unfurled in vain. Lord William Bentinck had hoisted the same delusive flag; but, alas for his sincerity! hoisted it beside the black banner of Austrian despotism. Ferdinand was restored to his double kingdom; and the Pope being re-seated in St. Peter's chair, Italy was again prostrate beneath the feet of king and priest.

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As was, indeed, all Europe. The arrangement we have thus explained was the completest restoration of despotism conceivable; and the most monstrous wrong ever perpetrated by a conspiracy of rulers upon their subjects. There was not a popular interest consulted-not a promise redeemed—not a race liberated—in this famous settlement. The people of the continent-the landwehr of Prussia, the students of Germany, the Tyrolese, the Lithuanian peasants, the patriots of the peninsula and of Italy-who had risen when they found that Napoleon, the chastiser of

their kings, had become also their own enemy-these brave and generous people were everywhere the subject of profound and bitter disappointment. They, and the lands from which they had chased the conqueror, were lotted out among the members of two or three families; and for the one great despot, who might have ruled them well, was substituted a multitude of little tyrants. One's pen seems to grow hot with indignation as it traces the results of this gigantic imposition. To descend to particulars.-France seemed delivered over to little and evil souls. Talleyrand was displaced from the cabinet of the sovereign he had raised from degradation, to make room for a Russian nominee. The personal clemency of Louis did not restrain the vengeance of his relatives. Ney, Labédoyére, and Lavalette, were the principal of those marked for death. The latter escaped through the heroism of his wife, and the chivalry of two British officers. Labédoyére and Ney were shot-in spite of the appeal made by the latter to the military convention for the surrender of Paris, and to the personal generosity of Wellington; on whose fame it is an indelible blot, that that appeal was made in vain. The charter, substantially the constitution of 1789, was accepted by the King, and observed with tolerable fidelity. The foreign aspect of his reign was such, that at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, held in the autumn of 1818, the allied powers withdrew their army of occupation, though only three out of the five years had expired.-In Spain, Ferdinand entered with such malignant alacrity upon his work of revenge, suppressing the Cortes, and imprisoning its members, that Wellington interfered to secure a modified constitution, though not to prevent the re-establishment of the Inquisition.-In Italy, Murat fell a victim to his own wrong-headedness, and the fury of his successful enemies. Madly attempting the recovery of his kingdom, he was fallen upon, stabbed, shot, and tortured by his captors, and executed by order of Ferdinand of Naples. Liberals received even worse treatment than Bonapartists. Whoever were suspected of desiring a constitution-even though they had invited the return of Ferdinand-were subjected to surveillance, exile, imprisonment, or death. The Carbonari-an extensive secret association, aiming at the independence of Italy, or at least its constitutional government-it was determined to suppress; but in proportion to the tyranny exercised, the more widely did they extend, under different names, and affiliated with the secret association of the Guelphs, in the Papal states.-One of the articles of the German Confederation expressly declared, "each of the Confederated States will grant a constitution to the people ;" another, placed all Christian sects on an equality; and a third, guaranteed the freedom of the press. These solemn engagements were flagrantly violated. Austria and Prussia, it need scarcely be said, gave no constitution. The lesser states delayed as long as possible,

or promulgated systems which might be characterised, as was that of Nassau, as 66 a model of despotism under a constitutional form." This was granted as early as September, 1814. That of the Netherlands was established in 1815, and conferred such privileges upon the Dutch as at once estranged the Belgians. The King of Wurtemburg proffered, in the same year, a charter which the Estates rejected, and the struggle that ensued was protracted till 1819. William of Hesse Cassel returned to his ancestral dominion with the saying, "I have slept during the last seven years;" and, true to the avowal, insisted on replacing everything on its ancient footing, even to the wearing of hair-powder and queues. His avarice was yet greater than his arbitrariness; and having resold the lands disposed of by King Jerome, without compensating the holders, and compelled his subjects to pay the debts of his son (of whom more anon) to the amount of two hundred thousand rix-dollars, he offered to sell a constitution to the Estates for four million rix-dollars. These are but specimens of the working of the federal system. They indicate what prevailed throughout central Europe up to 1819 and '20, when the Congress of Verona re-edited the work of 1814 and '15. Everywhere a war of extermination was carried on against the patriotic party. The statesmen who possessed popular confidence, were superseded by men of the old régime. Every newspaper of a democratic tendency was silenced-even the "Rhenish Mercury," which had been the trumpet tongue of Teutonic resistance to French autocracy. The Universities and the "Tubengund," or "League of Virtue”—a society similar to the Carbonari-of which Körner and Lutzlow were members. among whom, says Richter, lay "the idea of the war-a universal enthusiasm elevated to a noble self-consciousness-the conviction that in the nature of things, no power merely military, no cunning of the most refined despotism, can, in the long run, triumph over native freedom of thought and tried force of will"-these noble institutions, comprising the venerable and the youthful genius of Germany, were mercilessly attacked. Many who had distinguished themselves in patriotic song and fight, were immured in dungeons as traitors and rebels. The students held great gatherings in October, 1817, to celebrate the third centenary of the Reformation; committed to the flames, as Luther did the Pope's bull, a number of servile works, "filled with anger that the same reformation required of the Church by Luther should be sanctioned, but at the same time refused, by the State;" and hoisted for the first time the German tricolor-black, red, and yellow-which we shall see hereafter uplifted by kings, and again proscribed as a traitorous symbol. These proceedings were made the subject of formal complaint to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, by the Czar's minister. Kotzebue, the Russian literateur, resident at Mannheim, published a weekly paper, filled with ridicule and denunciation of the patriotic spirit, and kept up secret