"THE thirty-first day of March, 1814! a day," says the Archbishop of Malines, in his Congress of Vienna, "which will be memorable to eternity. Similar to the condition of a man relieved of a most oppressive load, Europe began to breathe." America might well have been included in this remark; for we, too, had suffered from the Genius of evil, by whose overthrow this day is in some part hallowed. We had shared, if not largely in the distresses, in many of the solicitudes and fears, of Europe, and could appreciate, although we might not so directly feel, the importance of the revolution which it seemed to complete. In rejoicing at the downfal of Bonaparte-this "chief monster who has plagued the nations yet," we were not insensible to the magnanimity of the victors, and were ready to join in the European chorus of admiration, at the generosity with which France was treated.* The allies proved by the

"I had formed, from other information, the most favourable opinion of the virtues of the emperor Alexander. The magnanimity of his conduct in the first capture of Paris still magnified VOL. I.

sequel, that the primary object of their union and military operations was to repossess the real dignity, religion, and morality of France of the means of their natural influence, and thus afforded an example of self-command, moderation, rectitude, and concord, unparalleled as well in the degree as in the circumstances.

There was, indeed, a grand spectacle; a magnificent stage effect! a dénouement which appealed with equal force to the fancy and the heart. It is not, that we were over-sanguine with respect to the benefits of the change; that we supposed the millenium at hand; or, that the cabinets of Europe had acquired a fixed character of heroic forbearance and enlarged wisdom. But a death-blow appeared to be given to the hydraheaded anarchy of France, of which the spirit and convulsions were so

every thing we had believed of him. That the sufferings which France had inflicted on other countries justified severe reprisals cannot be questioned. We were safe ourselves from Bonaparte, because he had not the British fleets at his command."- -Mr. Jef ferson's letter to Dr. Logan, of Octo ber 18, 1815.

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eminently pernicious to mankind. | We expected to see revived, with many correctives, the old politics, manners and opinions of Europe, which, however perverse and unnatural, were, as experience had shewn, much less at war with the happiness and morality of the world, than those of the new school of France. The long roll of grim and sanguinary maxims which formed the code of French despotism, unaccompanied by temperaments or consolations of any` description, was to be discarded, and give place to an order of things in which the softer and kindly propensities of our nature might find, at least some share of relief and gratification. The system of Bonaparte was an omniverous ambition in a new shape; one more horrible and formidable than any in which this destructive passion had ever appeared, or is, for a considerable period, likely again to appear. The empire of the seas, the monopoly of commerce sought by England, the gigantic grasp and insatiable cupidity of the Russian cabinet, every other scheme or menace of dominion, against which we would now invoke the earliest precaution," was as nothing, until the subversion of a system, superior in mischief and malignity, to almost every other possible organization of force and fraud.

A brighter page will not be found in the volume of history than that, which records the condition in which France was left, after the unexampled provocations she had given to the wildest revenge, and the unexampled efforts made to shake off her iron yoke: The France of 1792, maintained and guaranteed by an equal treaty; her colonies and captive forces restored; her treasures of art, her invidious monuments, her resources

of every description held inviolate; a universal amnesty on one condition alone the abandonment of her tyrant. The beauty of modern civilization was never more forcibly illustrated, than it is in the following introductory paragraph of the Analysis of the labours of the first class of the French Institute, by Cuvier, the perpetual secretary of that body. "The memorable events of which this capital (Paris) has been the theatre, so far from disturbing scientific research, have yielded new proofs of the respect which the sciences inspire, and of the fortunate influence which they have obtained over all nations and classes. Innumerable armies drawn from the extremities of Europe have visited our monuments, have surveyed our collections, have examined each object with a curious eye, without doing the smallest injury, or even committing an imprudence. Lovers of the sciences enrolled in the great crusade undertaken in part, for the re-establishment of the liberty of thinking and writing, had scarcely laid aside their arms, when they sought to be informed of our labours, and co-operating in them to acquaint us with what had been done amongst themselves. The foreign sovereigns have, as it were, emulously contended, who should give the most striking proofs of interest in the progress of knowledge, and who should best evince that their cause was that of light and humanity.”

If the allies had signed and published, previous to their entrance into France, a liberal treaty of peace with Louis the 18th, to be in force when he should be acknowledged by the French people; or abstained wholly from negotiation with an enemy, whose character they must have thoroughly un

derstood, their object might, perhaps, have been more easily accomplished, and still greater credit be given them for unity and boldness of design. But allowance is to be made for the peculiar situation of Austria with respect to Napoleon; for the political relations in which all the continental powers, especially Russia, had stood towards the imperial crown of France; and the laudable desire of ascertaining the real dispositions of the French people. They made amends, however, to the Bourbons for this tardy assertion of their claims, and so many years of contemptuous dereliction. They proclaimed their cause as that of peace and indemnity; they ushered them in as redeemers and propitiators; they presented them to, and

* M. de Caulincourt, was the representative of Bonaparte at the conferences of Chatillon. The following letter to Caulincourt, from the French Secretary of State, the duke de Bassano (Maret) fell into the hands of the allies: the original, in the hand-writing of Maret, is deposited in the state registry of Vienna.

19th March, 1814. "The emperor desires that you should make no positive engagement as to the delivery of the fortresses of Antwerp, Mayence, and Alexandria; that you should keep constantly in mind, that, although he should sign the cession of these provinces, it is not his intention to deliver up these three keys of France, in case military events upon which he means always to count, should allow him not to do it. In one word, his majesty wishes to be, after the treaty, still in a situation, to take advantage of circumstances up to the last moment. The emperor recommends it to you, to burn this letter as soon as you have read it."

Lord Castlereagh justly remarked in his speech of the 20th April, 1814,

that this letter furnished proof of a system of perfidy unheard of in the transactions of civilized nations.

received them back from the nation as pledges of future moderation and candour; they disclaimed, in their favour, both the style and the privileges of conquest.

The deportment of Louis the 18th, was in the same spirit towards his subjects, as that of his auxiliaries. The majority of the people welcomed him with open arms, and the liveliest expressions of delight. He met them with an assurance of total oblivion of the past, of perfect security to all without exception, in their persons, property, honours and places. He practised not a single act of rigour or of vengeance; but maintained in their posts most of the functionaries of the imperial government; kept near his person and loaded with new favours many of the confidential favourites and devoted servants of his predecessor. "Let us cast our eyes about us," says Chateaubriand at the end of 1814, in his "Reflections on the political writings of the day:" " By whom is nearly the totality of the great and small places of government occupied? Is it by Vendeans, emigrants? or, is it by men who had served the other order of things? The fact is notorious. Have those who say they are proscribed, lost a hair of their heads; or a particle of their estates, or their personal liberty?" Never was there, in fact, an occasion, on which the following wellknown passage of the latin historian might, with more propriety, be used."

At qui sunt hi, qui rempublicam occupavêre? homines sceleratissimi, cruentis manibus, immani avaritiâ, nocentissimi, iidemque superbissimi; quibus fides, decus, pietas, postremo honesta atque in

* Even Carnot admits this. See his Justificatory Memoir.