187 CHAP. V. ; - Appointment of a Provisional Government ;-Hesitation of the Peers to proclaim Napoleon II Indignation of Buonaparte ;-Disposition of the Federates;-Indecision of Buonaparte ;-Napoleon II acknowledged by the Deputies;-Exami nation of the Propriety of this;-Retreat of Buonaparte to Malmaison ;-New Tumults at Paris ;-Departure of Buonaparte for Rochfort;-Commissioners sent from the Chambers to treat for Peace. The nation was left without a government by the abdication of Napoleon. The first care of the chambers was to appoint a committee who should provisionally assume the chief command. Three were appointed by the lower house, and two by the Peers. They consisted of Fouché, the Duke of Otranto, the Minister of Police,* * Fouché is the son of a biscuit baker at Nantes. He received his first educatiou at an Oratoire, and as soon as he arrived at the proper age, entered into holy orders. His distinguished talents soon raised him to the honours of a professorship. In the early period of the revolution, and in the public agitation which pre Caulincourt, the Duke of Vicenza, Minister for Foreign affairs, † Carnot Minister of the Interior, ceded it, Fouché became an active partisan of the popular party, and imprudently mingling too much political discussion with his theological lectures, he was reprimanded, suspended, and imprisoned by his superiors. This persecution increased rather than repressed his zeal, and such was his influence over the minds of his pupils, that, early in 1788, most of them quitted Nantes and joined the revolutionary standard at Rennes. When all monastic institutions were abolished by the national assembly, Fouché renounced his profession, and sealed his abjuration by marrying. In 1789, the Jacobin Club was established at Nantes. Fouché was one of its earliest and most violent members. He was immediately elected secretary to the club, and soon afterwards president. In 1792 he was elected a member of the national convention for his native town. He had no sooner taken his seat in that chamber than he allied himself to the most violent party, and recommended or supported all the bloody acts which disgraced that dreadful scene of the revolution. He made his debut by seconding the motion of Marat, who demanded the trial of the unfortunate Lewis and his Queen. He was soon afterwards sent with the infamous Collot d'Herbois to Lyons which had resisted the conventional authority. The atrocities which he there committed were disgraceful to human nature, and not even the services which he has since rendered France and Europe can efface the foul and hideous blot. The murderous Guillotine was too slow in its office. Hundreds of persons who were merely suspected of incivism, or whose property was desirable to the assassins, were huddled together in some open field, and swept down by the discharge of cannon. Sometimes the relatives of the condemned were compelled to dig the graves which were to contain the wretched re General Grenier, and M. Quinettet. They opened their proceedings by the following proclamation. mains of those whom they loved. The destined victims were then placed on the edge of the grave, and the musket or cannon of the demons in human shape precipitated them into the pit. The relatives of those who had been murdered were again dragged forward, and compelled to throw the earth over the mangled and still quivering bodies of their nearest and best friends. Three hundred were sometimes thus destroyed in one day. A letter from Fouché and his worthy colleague would be deemed too ferocious for any but cannibals, were not its authenticity beyond dispute. The following is an extract from it. "We listen only to the voice of the nation, which demands that the blood of the citizens which the rebels have spilled should be avenged at once in the most summary and dreadful manner. We are convinced that this infamous city contains not one innocent person; we are therefore steeled against the tears of repentance, and nothing shall or can disarm the terrors of our severity. We will respect your decree for the annihilation of the city of Lyons. Little has yet been done to execute it. The ordinary mode of destruction is too slow. Republican impatience demands more speedy and effectual measures. The explosion of the mine and the devouring activity of fire, can alone express the omnipotence of the people." From Lyons, Fouché proceeded to Toulon. He thence writes to his former sanguinary companion in terms which make my blood curdle while I translate them :-" And we likewise, my friend, have contributed to the surrender of Toulon, by spreading terror amongst the traitors who had entered the town, and by exposing to their view the dead bodies of thousands of their accomplices. Let us shew ourselves terrible; let us annihilate in our anger, and at one single blow, every conspirator, every traitor, that we may not feel the pain, the long torture of punishing them as kings "Frenchmen! Within the period of a few days glorious successes and a dreadful reverse have agitated your destinies. would do. Let the perfidious and ferocious English be assailed from every quarter; Let the whole republic turn into a volcano, end pour forth the devouring lava upon them. May the infamous island that produced these monsters, who no longer belong to the human species, be buried for ever in the waves. Farewell, my friend, !-tears of joy run from my eyes, and overflow my heart. P.S. We have but one way of celebrating our victory, we shall send two hundred and thirteen rebels this evening to the place of execution; our loaded cannon are ready to salute them.” In a letter from La Vendée his language is even more horrible. "The day before yesterday, I had the happiness to see eight hundred dwellings of the brigands destroyed by fire; to day I have witnessed the shooting of nine hundred of these brigands; and for to-morrow I have prepared a civic baptism (drowning) of one thousand two hundred women and children, mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, or sons of the accursed brigands from La Vendée. In two days, three impure generations of rebels and fanatics have ceased to be any more." Soon afterwards the monster Robespierre met his fate; when accusations pouring in from all quarters against this the most sanguinary of all the instruments of his cruelty, Fouché was expelled from the convention as a disgrace to any assembly of which he might be a member. In 1797 he again appeared in public life as a commissary; in the following year was appointed ambassador to Holland; and in 1799 he was made minister of police, which situation he retained until 1802. The disgrace he suffered by his expulsion from the convention had a salutary effect upon his mind. To Fouché the minister of police, many unjust proceedings have been attributed, but his A great sacrifice appeared necessary to your peace, and that of the world, and Napoleon worst enemies have acknowledged that his character was altogether changed. He was no longer the submissive or the willing agent of cruelty and murder, but seemed to wish to atone for the atrocities that he had formerly committed, by endeavouring to save from destruction the devoted victims of as sanguinary a monster as the detested Robespierre. He was the uniform, the intrepid, and often the successful opponent of every ryrannical and oppressive measure of Napoleon. It is well known that he expressed his detestation of the murder of the Duke of Enghein, in terms so strong that they were never forgiven by the tyrant. The virtuous Moreau found in him a constant and fearless advocate, and it was by his means that that illustrious general escaped an ignominious death. The perfidious expedition against Spain was vehemently reprobated by him. It was not merely in public life that his character and conduct appeared to be changed. In his domestic circle he was beloved and idolized. His charities were boundless, though not ostentatious; and nearly two thousand louis were distributed every year from his private purse, among those who had suffered, either from his own former crimes, or the tyranny of his present master. His opposition to Napoleon's injustice became at length so systematic and incorrigible, that he was dismissed from his office in 1802. But the vast machine of the French police could only be managed but by him who had first arranged its complicated parts, and in 1805 he was re-instated in his former situation. The perfection to which the police of France was brought by Fouché was admirable. It is supposed that more than three hundred thousand persons were employed by him,-none of whom were known to each other, and from whom he received weekly, and almost daily accounts of the actions, and most private conversation of nearly every individual in the empire, |