173 CHAPTER V. པ་ ༣ ་ལམ་ པ། Declaration of the Congress at Vienna:-Attempt to carry off the King of Rome.-Treaty of the 25th of March.-Preparations for War. THE representatives of the European powers assembled in Congress at Vienna had closed their deliberations. They had agreed on the several equivalents, compensations, and idemnities to which each was entitled, or, in other words, they had arranged the various territories on which each was to seize and annex to his dominions. The four principal powers had gained all that they wished, or, at least, as much as the jealousy or the policy of their neighbours would permit them to appropriate to themselves; and the sovereigns had announced their departure for their respective capitals, when the intelligence of the landing of Buonaparte at Frejus unexpectedly' burst upon them. To the undisguised astonishment with which every statesman was at first overwhelmed, succeeded apprehension and dismay. It is true that the force which he had brought with him from Elba was feeble and contemptible, but they knew not how soon the discontented soldiery of France might flock around his standard, and enable him once more to menace the peace of Europe. They knew nothing of his professed change of principles, his newly acquired moderation, and his renunciation of all those schemes of conquest and universal empire for which alone he seemed to live. They only knew that he had broken the treaty of Fontainebleau which they had pledged themselves to guarantee; that at the head of an armed force he was seeking to regain the throne which they had compelled him to abdicate, and they had reason to fear that, successful in this enterprise, he would disregard the treaties by which Lewis was bound, and which rendered France no longer an object of suspicion and terror to Europe, and that the result of all their deliberations would be endangered or destroyed. It was therefore necessary, by some prompt and unequivocal manifesto, to declare their resolution to oppose him with their united forces. The intelligence that he had quitted Elba arrived at Vienna on the 7th, and four days of anxiety and suspense passed over before they learned his real destination. On the 11th a despatch was re ceived by Talleyrand announcing his landing at Frejus, and on the 13th the following declaration was published. DECLARATION. "The powers who have signed the treaty of Paris, assembled at the congress of Vienna, being informed of the escape of Napoleon Buonaparte, and of his entrance into France with an armed force, owe it to their own dignity, and the interest of social order, to make a solemn declaration of the sentiments which this event has excited in them. By thus breaking the convention which had established him in the island of Elba, Buonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence depended; and, by appearing again in France, with projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has manifested to the universe that there can be neither peace nor truce with him. The powers consequently declare, That Napo leon Buonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations; and that, as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance. ...They declare at the same time, that, firmly resolved to maintain entire the treaty of Paris of the 30th of May, 1814, and the dispositions sanctioned by that treaty, and those which they have resolved on, or shall hereafter resolve on, to complete and to consolidate it, they will employ all their means, and will unite all their efforts that the general peace, the object of the wishes of Europe, and the constant purpose of their labours, may not again be troubled; and to provide against every attempt which shall threaten to replunge the world into the disorders and miseries of revo lutions. "And although entirely persuaded that all France, rallying round its legitimate sovereign, will immediately annihilate this last attempt of a criminal and impotent delirium, all the sovereigns of Europe, animated by the same sentiments, and guided by the same principles, declare, that if, contrary to all calculations, there should result from this event any real danger, they will be ready to give to the King of France and to the French nation, or to any other government that shall be attacked, as soon as they shall be called upon, all the assistance requisite to restore public tranquillity, and to make a common cause against all, those who should undertake to compromise it. "The present declaration, inserted in the register of the congress assembled at Vienna on the 13th of March, 1815, shall be made public. Done and attested by the plenipotentiaries of the high powers who signed the treaty of Paris, Vienna, March 13, 1815. Here follow the signature in the alphabetical order of the courts.→ Austria ......Prince Metternich ་ Baron Wissenberg France .... Prince Talleyrand The Duke of Dalberg Spain... ..P. Gomez Labrador Sweden ...... Laemenhelm. It were to be wished that this declaration had not been expressed in terms so rancorous and savage; terms which suited more an assembly of feudal chieftains than the polished statesmen of modern Europe-terms which plainly contained a provocation to assassination, and disgracefully leagued the stiletto of the bandit, with the unstained sword of the soldier. But the propriety of a declaration couched in the strongest terms which decency would warrant, cannot for a moment be doubted. The return of Buonaparte to France at the head of an armed force, had annulled all the rights which the treaty of Fontainebleau had given him, and had again placed him in a state of hostility with the coalesced powers, Until he had shewn that the treaty had been previously violated on N |