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As a first step to fasten the good-will of these easy believers, he, immediately on arriving in Paris, proclaimed the freedom of the press; but he soon repented of this concession. In spite of all the watchfulness, and all the briberies of his police, he could never bend to his own service the whole of this power. The pure republicans-even the pure royalists continued to have their organs; and the daily appeals of either to the reason and the passions of a people so long strange to the exercise of such influence, otherwise than in subservience to the government of the time, whatever that might be, produced such effects, that almost from the time in which he bestowed the boon, he was occupied with devising pretexts for its recall. He ere long caused, perhaps, more resentment by some efforts to thwart the conduct of the press, than would have resulted from the absolute prolongation of its slavery. Some even of the decrees of Lyons were hard to be reconciled with the professions of one who disclaimed any wish to interfere with the sacred right of the nation to frame its constitution for itself. But in almost every act of his government after he reached Paris, he furnished additional evidence how imperfectly his mind had divested itself of the ancient maxims. Even the edict emancipating the press from all control was an assumption on his part of the complete power of legislation. The same might be said of another decree, abolishing negro slavery and the slave trade, which he published shortly after; but this second measure exposed him to other comments. Who could seriously believe that at that moment of tumult, ere France was even in semblance entirely his, and while all Europe was openly arming against him, he had leisure for the affairs of the negroes? This display of philanthropy was set down universally for a stage-trick; and men quickened their eyes, lest such unsubstantial shows in the distant horizon might be designed to withdraw their attention from the foreground.

The great assemblage of Champ-de-Mai had been originally announced for the 10th of May; and its principal business as the formation of a new constitution. The meeting did not take place so early; and the task of proposing a constitutional scheme for its consideration, proved far more difficult than the emperor had contemplated. He had the assistance, in this labour, of Carnot and Sieyes, whose names would have carried great weight with the republican party, had not both of these old jacobins and regicides accepted, on entering the emperor's service, high rank in his peerage-a proceeding in direct violation of all the professions of their lives. He was farther favoured with the aid of his brother Lucien, who, in spite of all previous misunderstandings, returned on this occasion to Paris; influenced, probably, by the same egregious vanity which made him fancy himself a poet, and hoping, under existing circumstances, to impress Napoleon with such a sense of his value as might secure him henceforth a commanding influence in the government of France. The Abbé Sieyes, and Lucien also, had had some experience ere now of Napoleon in the character of a constitution-maker. He was no longer so powerful as he had been when they formerly toiled together upon such a task: disputes arose; and the emperor, to cut these short, and give a decisive proof of his regard for freedom of debate, soon broke up the discussion, retired from the Tuilleries to the small palace called the Elysée, and there drew up the scheme which pleased himself, and which was forthwith published under the title of "Act Additional to the Constitutions of the Empire."

This title gave great offence, because it seemed to recognise many anterior enactments, wholly irreconcilable with the tenour of the document itself; and the mode of its promulgation furnished even more serious ground of objection. This constitution was, on the face of it, not a compact between the prince and the people, but the record of boons

conceded by the former to the latter. In a word, all they that had condemned Louis XVIII. for his royal charter, were compelled to acknowledge that their own imperial champion of freedom was beginning his new career by a precisely similar display of presumption.

The substance of the "additional act" disappointed all those who hankered after the formal exposition of first principles: but it must be allowed that its provisions seem to include whatever is needful for the arrangement of a free representative constitution; hereditary monarchy; an hereditary peerage; a house of representatives, chosen by the people, at least once within every five years; yearly taxes, levied only by the whole legislature; responsible ministers; irremoveable judges; and, in all criminal cases whatever, the trial by jury. The act, however, was published; the electoral colleges accepted of it, as they had done of all its predecessors; and it by degrees came out that the business of the Champ-de-Mai was to be-not even the discussion of the imperial scheme, but only to swear submission to its regulations, and witness a solemn distribution of eagles to those haughty bands who acknowledged no law but that of the sword.

This promised assemblage was preceded by one of the rabble of Paris, convoked in front of the Tuilleries on the 17th of May, and there feasted and harangued by Napoleon-a condescension which excited lively displeasure among his soldiery. He himself looked and spoke as one thoroughly ashamed of what he had done and was doing. It had been his desire to stimulate among these people something of the old zeal of the revolutionary period, in case Paris should be once more threatened by a foreign enemy; but he had the double mortification to find that the army considered their touch as contamination, and that among themselves the name of Louis was almost as popular as his own. Even the Dames des halles, so conspicuous in the revolu

tionary tumults, screamed royalist ditties in his ear as they drank his wine; and the only hearty cheers were those of the day-labourers, who had profited by his resumption of some great public works suspended by the king's government.

The Champ-de-Mai itself, which, despite its name, fell on the 1st of June, turned out hardly a more successful exhibition. Napoleon, his brothers, and the great civil functionaries appeared, in theatric dresses, in the midst of an enormous amphitheatre, where the deputies, sent from the departments to swear allegiance to the emperor and the additional act, were almost lost in the military among whom the eagles were to be distributed. The enthusiasm was confined to these. The same ominous silence which prevailed at the coronation of 1804 was preserved among the people. The sun shone bright, and the roar of cannon filled every pause of the martial music. It was a brilliant spectacle; but Napoleon retired from it in visible dejection.

Three days after, the two houses met; and while that of the peers, composed of persons who all owed their rank, and most of them much besides, to Napoleon, showed every disposition to regulate their conduct by his pleasure, there appeared from the beginning a marked spirit of independence in a considerable proportion of the representative body. The emperor's address to both was moderate and manly. He requested their support in the war which circumstances had rendered unavoidable, and professed his desire that they should consider the "additional act" and all other subjects of national interest, and suggest whatever alterations might appear to them improvements. Some debates, by no means gratifying to Napoleon, ensued; but he had no leisure for witnessing much of their proceedings. It was now needful that he should appear once more in his own element.

CHAPTER XL.

Napoleon heads his Army on the Belgian Frontier-Passes the Sambre at Charleroi-Defeats Blucher at Ligny-Battle of Quatrebras-The English fall back on Waterloo-THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO-Napoleon returns to Paris.

NAPOLEON had now, among other preparations, strongly fortified Paris and all the positions in advance of it on the Seine, the Marne, and the Aube, and among the passes of the Vosgesian hills. Lyons also had been guarded by very formidable outworks. Massena, at Metz, and Suchet, on the Swiss frontier, commanded divisions which the emperor judged sufficient to restrain Schwartzenberg for some time on the upper Rhine: should he drive them in, the fortresses behind could hardly fail to detain him much longer. Meantime, the emperor himself had resolved to attack the most alert of his enemies, the Prussians and the English, beyond the Sambre-while the Austrians were thus held in check on the upper Rhine, and ere the armies of the north could debouche upon Manheim, to co-operate by their right with Wellington and Blucher, and by their left with Schwartzenberg. Of the Belgian army, and even of the Belgian people, he believed himself to possess the secret good-will, and that one victory would place the allies in a hostile country. By some daring battle, and some such splendid success, he yet hoped to shatter the confidence of the European confederacy; nor-even had he entertained little hope of this kind-was the situation of affairs in Paris such as to recommend another protracted defensive warfare within France. The fatal example of 1814 was too near: it behooved Na

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