ce sont des marechales: the expression is nearly untranslateable.)

ed,-no sooner had the charter assumed form, and been reduced to a state fit for carrying its provisions into effeet,- -no sooner had this taken place, ders-or, perhaps, we ought to use a From this rapid review of the blunthan every one of those individuals who were known to enjoy the royal misfortunes-of the Bourbon governmore qualified phrase, and say, the confidence set themselves to vitupe- ment previously to the landing of Narate its provisions, and to compare the poleon from Elba, it will be seen what happy combination of royal preroga- grounds of dissatisfaction prevailed,‐ tive, and civil rights which it displays, how the differences were exasperated aux ordonnances des rois de France by the prodigious follies of the Ultradans les temps de la Feodalite." Ex- Royalists, and how those who sought pressions were foisted into the pream- only repose and security were driven, bles of laws, unfavourable to the stability of the sales of national property Emperor, by the caprice, tyranny, inas it were, into the cause of the Ex-See the preamble of the laws rela solence, and Punic faith of the minitive to the unsold property of emi-stry or government of 1814. It would grants, already referred to,)—and the be difficult to refuse assent to the folprovisions of the liberty of the press lowing admirable observations, though destroyed by the law of censorship. these have the effect to present the errors which we have been contemplating in a still stronger and more vivid point of view.

Against these grievous backslidings the natural good sense of the Kingwho, by all accounts, appears to have had a more accurate perception of his true interest than any of his most zealous adherents-would have provided a remedy, and counteracted their mischievous and most pernicious tendency, had he possessed the necessary. vigour to have given effect to his own better and sounder views. "But the Ultra-Royalists set themselves invariably to protest against the efforts of his wisdom." Were any proof required of the strange infatuation of these men, the following fact would be conclusive:

"When the King engaged M. de Chateaubriand, in order to calm the ferment of men's minds, to publish the necessity of a rigid adherence to the charter, and that he gave it his public and most unqualified approbation, they affectedly professed their dissent, and intimated their disapprobation of the royal conduct." p. 34.

To these public sins were added the exasperation of private insolence. The nobility of the ancien régime regarded the upstart noblesse of Napoleon with the most marked and insufferable contempt, and were at no pains to conceal their sentiments on this subject.

"What pity,' said a duke of the old regime, with an air of commiseration, to one of the most admired of our warriors, rehat pity that you want that which we possess, and which cannot be given! We do not know these females,' said a lady of the Court to Lady Jersey, who had asked the name of a duchess of recent creation, 'these are marshalesses,""—(in French,

"A nation is never willingly turbulent. The majority, in all countries, seek only repose, because that is the condition most favourable to the exercise of their rights In order to create a disposition to disturb and the developement of their industry. public order, oppressions must have been exercised and alarm spread by those invested with authority, or at least by those who consider themselves protected by it. dread of an imaginary evil may, in its consequences, prove no less fatal than the existence of a real one.

The

For these consequences those vested with public authority are responsible. If such a panic spread, it is because peaceably-disposed citizens have not received sufficient assurance of the loyalty and energy of public functionaries. Whenever we find a people thrown into a state of ferment, we may decide boldly, without even waiting to investigate the catalogue of their grievances, not that the people are in the right, but that the government is in the wrong." p. 44.

M. Lainé, the President of the first Bourbon Chamber of Deputies, and the most enlightened man, perhaps, of all the Royalist party in France, admitted that errors had been committed; but, unluckily, the admission ready appeared on the French soil. came too late, for Buonaparte had alThat, as the President said, was not indeed the time to repair and atone for errors and faults, nor was it prudent to concede to fear what policy had spontaneously withheld; but it was rather unfortunate for the Royalists that men have but little faith in

promised and prospective amendment, by the Royal government. Even those who had purchased national property, though they must have seen, with some degree of satisfaction, the return of a man "who represented, under one relation, the interests of the Revolution," yet feared the dangers and the privations to which his system of continual war would necessarily expose the nation. But, what is most remarkable, it was not even in the army, says our author, that Buonaparte found his most devoted and zealous adherents.

A large class, however, among whom Buonaparte was decidedly popular, consisted of those engaged in the manufactures peculiar to the country. How ever hostile to the fundamental principles of political philosophy may have been the Burning Decrees, and the rigorous exclusion from France of British and foreign manufactures and produce, and however vexatious and harassing to those engaged in foreign commerce, they had, nevertheless, the effect to give great encouragement to native industry. What people cannot find among their neighbours, they must endeavour to furnish for themselves. The régime prohibitif of Napoleon gave a new and powerful stimulus to French industry. A greater quantity of capital was attracted to certain employments by an increase of demand. Manufactures were thus extended and improved; fortunes were realized in professions which formerly yielded a bare subsistence; and France saw that she possessed within herself greater resources than her most sanguine friends had divined, and that nothing was wanting but an effectual demand, and a consequent reward for exertion, in order to bring the ingenuity of her people into successful competition with foreigners, and to ensure the extension of national wealth and power. This lesson was taught by the rigorous system of Napoleon. All those, therefore, connected, directly or indirectly, with the manufactures of the country, were enthusiastically devoted to his cause, thus identified with their own interests, and were ready to make very considerable sacrifices in his support; for be it remarked, that, while the return of the Emperor inflicted a mortal blow on distant commercial speculations, it was regarded, and justly, as an index of approaching prosperity to the internal manufactures of France. And, when we recollect that the foreign merchants, even in a country decidedly commercial, like our own, are few in number, in comparison of those who are engaged in the manufacture of raw material, we shall have some notion of the importance of the class of individuals just mentioned, when cast into the scale against the inefficiency of the Bourbon Government.

But, if Buonaparte might calculate on the support of this class, there were others who had still better reason to give

him their countenance, but who, nevertheless, were among the foremost to desert him, and, even when they joined him, were never hearty in his cause. Of these the most remarkable was the ancienne noblesse, at least that portion who had accepted the invitations of Napoleon, and gathered round his person, when his power was at the height, and his throne apparently placed beyond the reach of accident. But we must, on this part of the subject, borrow the words of our author.

"The relations subsisting between the head of the empire and the old nobility had, at all times, been sufficiently awkward. In the author of the 18th Brumaire, the peculiar instinct of this body had led them to discover an enemy of liberty; they accordingly rallied round him; at first applauding every thing, in his measures, which resembled despotism; then lending their full sanction to his power by accepting of those titles, places, and salaries, of which he had the entire disposal. They thus, in a great degree, contributed to the consolidation of his power, by affording him, in France, the benefit of the mode, and, in the eyes of Europe, by surrounding him with that traditional and chivalrous splendour which, for the continental courts, has still so many attractions. They had, so to speak, invested the person who had supplanted the Bourbons with that peculiar quality which they denominate exclusive legitimacy; for, how is it possible to conceive any illegiti macy about a man who was surrounded by those families which had encircled and served sixty-six kings? However, the union between the master sprung from the new régime, and the servants borrowed from the old, had never been complete. Was it that they felt any regrets, which, if they did, they knew marvellously well how to conceal ?-Was it that the creation of another noblesse annoyed them, because the extension of the privilege destroyed the monopoly? From whatever cause it proceeded the fact is certain that the fall of Buonaparte was hailed by the old nobility with the most rapturous acclamations. Remaining in the palace, by birth right, they believed themselves purified; and the contempt which they expressed for past favours, to which they pretended only to have resigned themselves, served to merit and obtain present rewards. The return of the parvenu, whose livery they had so long worn, awakened a painful recollection of that flexibility which they had laboured so hard to consign to oblivion; and as, in attaching them to his triumphal car, Buonaparte, who, in his prosperous days, humbled all, had also humbled them, they cursed his apparition, and were, perhaps, a little puzzled with the secret reflection, that,

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And here it is not to be denied, that a man who had governed France for fourteen years, who had created so many functionaries and offices,—who had expended such treasures, and to whom so many hopes were attached,must, in spite of his faults and reverses, have preserved a great and power-Of eighty-three prefects in office on ful influence. Nor is it to be doubt the 20th March," says the Moniteur ed that he had many correspondents of Ghent," and whose fidelity had in France, from whom he received not been brought under suspicion, regular information of the state of par- twenty-three only remained in office ties in that country. Nay, our author under the usurper." And yet the asserts, that he derived the most valu- reader will observe, that these officers able information from the ministers had all been appointed by Napoleon. of the great continental powers, whom What answer can be given to this he had formerly corrupted, and who fact? It is singular that not a tittle of had no great disinclination to finger a correspondence between a single prefew more napoleons. But all this fect, or mayor, and Napoleon, was did not amount to a regularly-orga- ever detected. Of all the counsellors nised conspiracy. In fact, such a thing of state, retained in 1814, three only was morally, if not physically, impos- continued to sit under Buonaparte; sible. Among the millions who must and of these three two have, since the have been in the secret, would there 8th of July last, been called to form not have been found one traitor? How part of the present ministry. It is comes it that the conspiracy was not true Labédoyère and Ney were tried so much as breathed till long after it and shot for passing over to Napohad taken effect? How does it happen leon; but what proof of a conspiracy that no fears had been excited, and appeared on their trials? In fact, no precautions taken to ensure safety? neither of these men was accused as a Individuals and small parties of men conspirator. The case of Lavalette may conspire, but there is no example certainly involved the question of in all history of a whole nation con- conspiracy, but the jury did not find spiring. When we look back into that part of the case proved. The acthe records of past events, how few quittal of General Drouet, tried on a conspiracies have succeeded? A man charge of a similar description, is dewho has once become a traitor, has but cisive of this point. In the subselittle way to go, and scarcely deepens quent trials of Generals Bertrand and the enormity of his crime by super- Cambrone, the question of conspiracy adding the guilt of an informer. The was abandoned by the Attorney-Gemachinations of Cataline were no se- neral, and the accusation restricted to cret to Cicero, long before the plot an attack on the government. If the was ripe for execution; and even the proclamations posterior to the landing gunpowder treason, the darkest, most at Frejus, and the occupation of the formidable, and longest concealed con- departments, be held as a proof of conspiracy that ever existed, was never- spiracy, then the greatest of all contheless betrayed. Of all countries spirators must have been the Mayor of Germany, from the peculiar habits of Lyons, who, on the 10th of March, cethe people, is the country most fa- lebrated the arrival of Buonaparte in vourable to secret institutions and terms full of enthusiasm;-yet, strange conspiracies, and yet the celebrated to tell, the "royalistes exagérés" numTugenbund was well known to the bered him in their ranks in 1815;— French to have existed in the Prus- he sat in the "Chambre Introuvasian dominions, notwithstanding their ble;-continued Mayor of Lyons till inability to extirpate it. The small his death;-received his share of resistance made to the progress of merit on account of the events of Buonaparte is no proof of anterior 1817;-and is now generally esteemed conspiracy. Countries have, from to have been "trés bon royaliste." In different causes, been conquered with- fine, we may be allowed, on this head, out the loss of a man, where there to cite no less an authority than that never existed the smallest suspicion of Buonaparte himself, who had no

of treason. In the next place, the prefects, mayors, and other officers of Buonaparte, contributed so little to the success of his enterprise, that even the royalists have admitted that, on his arrival, he was abandoned by nearly the whole of these functionaries.

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