Protest of Lafayette.

of which they should close against the deputies in the name of the King's government.

This order was executed with the zeal which public opinion and the coming triumph of a new-born government always impart to its partisans in France. The deputies, on arriving at daybreak the next morning at the gates of their palace, found them closed against them, and ́all entrance forbidden. They retired murmuring, some to save appearances, others from honourable feeling, and a few for the cause of freedom. The people, who no longer recognised in them either Napoleon, or the Republic, or the country, but a few orators, mad for aímless discussion upon ruins, only responded to their murmurs by the most perfect indifference.

XXXI.

Lafayette owed to his name and his past career a more personal and striking protest. This he endeavoured to make by extending his arms and haranguing the people in front of the railing. The people, who knew him no longer, were as deaf to his voice as the gates. Everything was shut against him during this short aspiration for a great part which he had attempted to resume. After having detested Napoleon, been one of the first to welcome the return of the Bourbons in 1814, and to salute the Count d'Artois at the Tuileries, he had abandoned those princes on the 20th of March, and been a candidate for election to the Chamber of Representatives. Suspicious of Napoleon, though he had allowed him to take the sceptre and the sword after the 20th of March, he had exasperated the Chamber against the dictator, and watched for the moment of his weakness to assist in dragging him down. Waterloo afforded him this opportunity, and he had seized upon it with a bitterness of hatred which did not sufficiently respect misfortune. Disappointed since the abdication in his hope of directing the new government, and of being the arbiter between a restoration and liberty, he had been equally disappointed in his attempt at negociation in the name of the Chamber with the allied sovereigns. On returning to Paris

Fouché and Carnot.

he asserted that Sebastiani and himself had obtained from the allies the free choice of a monarch who should be agreeable to France. He had a longing, it is said, for the Duke of Orleans, as an additional deviation from the monarchical principle, and as an additional degradation of royalty, which he had all his life endeavoured to weaken, without having the frankness and the energy to suppress it. The allies gave the lie effectually to this pretended negociation by sweeping away the Chamber, and unanimously installing the Bourbons in the Tuileries. Lafayette finding no echo amongst the people, silently mingled with the crowd, and witnessed in the evening, obscure and unperceived, the expulsion of a representative body which he had agitated, and the ruin of a cause which he had disarmed in disarming Napoleon.

Fouché alone triumphed of all those men who had disappeared, some amidst their conspiracies, others in their fanaticism-the latter in their ambition, the former in their incon sistency, but all in their incapacity. Nothing remained to them but murmurs, which Fouché braved; for, having no conscience, he had no remorse.

Carnot, on hearing that Fouché was minister of police to Louis XVIII., and that he was directed to draw up with his own hand lists of exile against his accomplices and colleagues, presented himself at his audience. He bestowed on him a look in which was fully expressed the contempt of a sincere heart for the success of political knavery, and making use of that rough old revolutionary familiar style of which these two Republicans had contracted the habit in the convention, Where am I to go to, traitor?" he demanded of him. Where thou wilt, fool!" replied Fouché. He probably respected' Carnot sufficiently, or despised him too much, to include him in the list of proscriptions.

66

It

This little dialogue, true or false, is at least historical admirably qualified a government composed of an able and cunning man, and one simple and deceived. Fouché was tarnished-Carnot was judged.

BOOK THIRTIETH.

Review of the Hundred Days-Entrance of Louis XVIII. into ParisSpeech of M. de Chabrol-Answer of Louis XVIII.-Louis XVili. at Paris-Acclamations of the populace-Political position of the King-Attitude of Fouché-Ordinances for the re-organization of the Peerage, and for the convocation of the Chamber of Deputies→→→→ The Army of the Loire-Orders of the day of Marshal DavoustSubmission of the Army to Louis XVIII.-The Army adopts the White-flag-Blucher wishes to blow up the Bridge of Jena-Devastation of the Museum and the Libraries-Violence of the Prussians

Requisitions-Removal of the Prefects-War Imposts-Occupation of Paris and France by the Allied Armies-Disbanding of the Army of the Loire-Marshal Davoust superseded by Marshal Macdonald Diplomatic Negociations at the residence of Lord Castlereagh-Ultimatum of the Allied Powers-Aversion of Louis XVIII. for M. de Talleyrand-Court of Louis XVIII.-His family -Favour of M. Decazes--M. Decazes-His portrait-Retrospect of his life His interview with the King-Fouché's report – Proscriptions-Weakness of the King.

I..

THUS finished the hundred days of Bonaparte's second Empire, commenced by an armed descent, in profound peace, upon the shores of his country; triumphing by the seduction and by the sedition of the army; tarnished by the treason of some chiefs; prosecuted through the humiliating submission of the nation to the army; weakened by the indifference, the disaffection, or the indignation of all good citizens; ruined by the defeat of Waterloo, and the annihilation of that heroic but culpable army; finished by the indecision of Napoleon, and by his abdication, yielded too soon, or too late to the eagerness of the Chambers; made use of and sold to the Bourbons, without conditions for liberty, by the ambition of Fouché, and the inaction of his colleagues; finally dishonoured

Review of the Hundred Days.

by a second invasion of Europe, and by the temporary subjection of the soil of the country by foreign powers.

The

Such was this second Empire, a short and deplorable parody on the first. Such for France was the result of this attempt of its ancient chief against its repose, its independence, and its safety. In undertaking it, Napoleon showed but little solicitude for his country, which had only to risk itself for his cause, little care for his fame, which could only.. suffer, and little acquaintance with history, which never begins again. His landing at Cannes was a crime against his country; his march upon Paris was a heroism and a triumph, but it was the heroism of selfishness, and the triumph of sedition. The preparations for war were indolent, undecided, and em barrassed by that hesitation between the part of a dictator and that of a constitutional prince, the restorer of the people's sovereignty. The campaign was a bold one, the battle desperate but successive, piecemeal, without unity, and devoid of the light of genius. By not risking all, as Ney and the aspect of the battle urged him to do, he lost all. Defeat dethroned him at once at the frontier and in his capital. menaces in the Assembly of Representatives were rash; his concessions forced; his resignation of the Empire humiliating; his retreat to Malmaison inexplicable in a man who knew what fortune was; his offers of service puerile; his flight to the seacoast tardy; his embarkation, suspended to await impossibilities with one foot on the ocean, was chimerical. His surrender on board an enemy's vessel, without having made conditions, was madness; his captivity, written beforehand. Every thing with him, during this period of his life, is marked with symptoms of decay and blindness, except his march on Paris, the most intrepid and the most personal of all his campaigns. He rushed forward, without looking before or behind him, towards the throne. But from the moment he had attained it he staggered at the difficulties he had dared, and he precipitated himself in order to descend from them. This caprice of ennui, of heroism, and of ambition on the part of Napoleon, cost France more than two thousand millions of francs, in arma ments, tributes, and war indemnities to Europe; the insur

The consequence to France of Napoleon's attempt.

rection-first and fatal example of her army against the laws, the honour of her generals and of her marshals-forgetting their oaths to their country in their reluctant concession to the military popularity of oue man, the last veteran army which remained to her from the invasion of 1814, her fame as a nation invincible on the field of battle-the spell of her glory, her frontiers restricted by the sword of the conquerors, her soil invaded, her cities at the mercy of foreigners, her capital pro faned, her monuments despoiled by reprisals, her provinces and strongholds occupied for three years until the liquidation of her ransom, and finally, the disarming and disbanding of the remains of Waterloo! It cost, in addition, the government of the Bourbons which had the succession of these disasters, the independence, the freedom, and the popularity of the throne, which has been unjustly accused of the consequences of the crime of this second invasion. The King must have had great courage, or a great thirst of dominion, to accept a throne and a people buried under so many ruins.

There never was, perhaps, an epoch in the history of France more desperate, more humiliating, and more grievous for the country, than these hundred days, and the period that immediately followed them. Country, monarchy, liberty, honour of the army, patriotism of the people, character of the Chambers, public finances, and glory of arms-all suffered, even to the national honour. A terrible lesson to the soldiery who dare all, and still more terrible to the people who allow every thing to be dared against them by these tribunes of glory. France had not made herself respected by her army on the 20th March, and both France and the army paid for their fault; the one by the loss of its blood, and of its domination, the other by the loss of its dignity, and of its independence.

II.

It was under these melancholy circumstances that the King again entered Paris. Therefore, whether out of shame for his people, or the apprehension of his ministers of exciting a desperate commotion and of subjecting the. King to personal