The celebrated Maréchal Macdonald, a friend at once of monarchy and freedom, of France and the Bourbons, undertook to bring forward a plan for satisfying the emigrants, as far as the condition of the nation permitted; and giving, at the same time, some indemnity for the pensions assigned by Buonaparte to his veteran soldiers, which, during his reign, had been paid from countries beyond the verge of France, until after the retreat from Moscow, when they ceased to be paid at all. The maréchal's statement of the extent of the sale of the national domains, shows how formidable the task of undoing that extensive transference of property must necessarily have been; the number of persons directly or indirectly interested in the question of their security, amounting to nine or ten millions. "Against this Colossus," continued the maréchal, "whose height the eye cannot measure, some impotent efforts would affect to direct themselves; but the wisdom of the King has foreseen this danger, even for the sake of those imprudent persons who might have exposed themselves to it." He proceeded, in a very eloquent strain, to eulogize the conduct of the emigrants, to express respect for their persons, compassion for their misfortunes, honour for their fidelity, and proceeded to observe, that the existence of these old proprietors, as having claims on the estates which had been acquired by others, placed them in a situation which ought not to exist. He therefore proposed that the nation should satisfy the claims of these unfortunate gentlemen, if not in full, at least upon such terms of composition as had been applied to other national obligations. Upon this footing, he calculated that an annuity of twelve millions of livres yearly, would pay off the claims of the various emigrants of all descriptions. He next drew a picture of the distressed veteran soldiers; pensioners of the state who had been reduced to distress by the discontinuance of their pensions, bought with their blood in a thousand battles. Three millions more of livres he computed as necessary to discharge this sacred obligation.79
There was wisdom, manliness, and generosity in the plan of Maréchal Macdonald; and, could it have been carried into decisive execution, it would have greatly appeased the fears and jealousies of the proprietors of national domains, and shown an impartiality betwixt the claims of the emigrants and those of the army, which ought to have conciliated both. Unhappily, funds were awanting, and the royal government, so far from being able to incur a new expense of fifteen millions yearly, was not in a condition to discharge the various demands upon them, without continuing the oppressive tax of Les droits réunis.
It is, indeed, on the subject of finance and taxation, that almost all revolutions among civilized nations have been found to hinge; and there is scarce any judging how long actual oppression may be endured, so long as it spares the purse of individuals, or how early a heavy tax, even for the most necessary objects, will excite insurrection. Without the heavy taxation of the Spaniards, the Dutch would scarcely have rebelled against them; it was imposts which fired the blood of the Swiss against the Austrians; without the stamp-act the American Revolution might have been long postponed; and but for the disorder of the French finances, Louis XVI. need never have summoned together the National Assembly. France was now again agitated by one of those fever fits, which arise from the sensitiveness of the subject's purse.
FRENCH FINANCE
A report on the state of the public finances, by the Abbé de Montesquieu, had given a singular instance of Buonaparte's deceptive policy. Annual expositions of national receipt and expenditure had been periodically published since he assumed the reins of government, which were, to outward appearance, unchallengeably accurate; and as they seemed to balance each other, afforded the fair prospect that, the revenues of the state being realized, the expenses could not fall into arrear. But in reality, a number of extraordinary expenses were withheld from the view of the public, while, on the other hand, the produce of the taxes was over-estimated. Thus the two budgets of 1812, and 1813, upon close examination, exhibited a deficit of upwards of 312 millions of livres,80 or thirteen millions sterling. Buonaparte was not ignorant of this fact, but concealed it from the eyes of the nation, in hopes of replacing it, as in his more successful days, by foreign tribute, and, in the meantime, supplied himself by the anticipation of other funds; as an unfaithful book-keeper makes up a plausible balance to meet the eye of his master, and covers his peculations by his dexterity in the use of ciphers. Upon the whole, the debts of France appeared to have increased in the course of thirteen years to the extent of 1,645,469,000 francs, or more than sixty-eight millions and a half of sterling money.
These financial involvements accorded ill with the accomplishment of an unfortunate and hasty promise of Monsieur,81 that the severe and pressing taxes called les droits réunis should be abolished, which had been made when he first entered France, and while, betwixt hope and despair, he essayed every inducement for the purpose of drawing adherents to the royal cause. On the other hand, the King, upon ascending the throne, had engaged himself, with perhaps too much latitude, to pay all the engagements which the state had contracted under the preceding government. To redeem both these pledges was impossible, for without continuing this very obnoxious and oppressive tax, the crown could not have the means of discharging the national debt. A plan was in vain proposed by Jalabert to replace this oppressive excise by a duty on wines; the motion was referred to a committee of the Chamber of Representatives, but the substitution seems to have been found impossible. Louis naturally made the promise of his brother give way to his own more deliberate engagement. But it is not the less true, that by continuing to levy les droits réunis, many, not otherwise disinclined to the royal government than as it affected their purses, were enabled to charge the King with breach of faith towards his subjects, and would listen to no defence upon a topic on which few people are disposed to hear reason against their own interest.
THE PRESS
There remained yet another subject of alarm and dread, to excite the minds not only of those who were desirous of revolution, or, according to the Roman phrase, cupidi novarum rerum; but of others, who, devotedly attached to the welfare of France, desired to see her enjoy, under the sway of a legitimate monarch, the exercise of national liberty. They had the misfortune to see that liberty attacked in the point where it is most sensitive, namely, by imposing restraints upon the public press.
Buonaparte had made it part of his system to keep this powerful engine in his own iron hand, well aware that his system of despotism could not have subsisted for six months, if his actions had been exposed to the censure of the public, and his statements to contradiction and to argument. The Bourbons having unloosed the chain by which the liberty of the press was confined, the spirit of literary and political controversy rushed out with such demoniacal violence, as astonished and terrified those who had released it from confinement. The quantity of furious abuse poured out against the Bourbons, might have authorised the authors to use the words of Caliban —
"You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is – I know how to curse."82
Eager to repress the spirit which displayed itself so unequivocally, a motion was made on the 4th of July, 1814,83 for establishing a censorship upon pamphlets under a certain length, and placing all journals and newspapers under the direction of government.
This important subject was discussed with great manliness and talent in the Assembly; but it is one of the many political maxims which the British receive as theorems, that, without absolute freedom of the public press (to be exercised always on the peril of such as misuse it,) there can neither be enlightened patriotism nor liberal discussion; and that, although the forms of a free constitution may be preserved where this liberty is restricted, they will soon fail to have the necessary beneficial effects in protecting the rights of the community and the safety of individuals. The liberty of the press affords a channel through which the injured may challenge his oppressor at the bar of the nation; it is the means by which public men may, in case of misconduct, be arraigned before their own and succeeding ages; it is the only mode in which bold and undisguised truth can press its way into the cabinets of monarchs; and it is the privilege, by means of which he, who vainly lifts his voice against the corruptions or prejudices of his own time, may leave his counsels upon record as a legacy to impartial posterity. The cruelty which would deafen the ear and extinguish the sight of an individual, resembles, in some similar degree, his guilt, who, by restricting the freedom of the press, would reduce a nation to the deafness of prejudice, and the blindness of ignorance. The downfall of this species of freedom, as it is the first symptom of the decay of national liberty, has been in all ages followed by its total destruction, and it may be justly pronounced that they cannot exist separately; or, as the elegiac poet has said of his hero and the country to which he belonged —
"Ille tibi superesse negat; tu non potes illi."
We must own, at the same time, that as no good comes to us unmixed with evil, the unlimited freedom of the press is attended with obvious inconveniencies, which, when a nation is in a certain state of excitation, render the exercise of it peculiarly dangerous. This is especially the case when a people, as then in France, are suddenly released from a state of bondage, and disposed, "like youthful colts broke loose," to make the most extravagant use of their liberty. With minds unprepared for discussion; with that degree of political misinformation which has done this age more dire mischief than absolute ignorance itself could have effected; subject to be influenced by the dashing pamphleteer, who soothes their prevailing passions, as the orations of their popular demagogues soothed those of the Athenians – it has been the opinion of many statesmen, that to withhold from such a nation the freedom of the press, is a measure justifiable alike by reason and necessity. "We proportion," say these reasoners, "liberty to the power of enjoying it. The considerate and the peaceful we suffer to walk at liberty, and armed, if their occasions require it; but we restrain the child, we withhold weapons from the ruffian, and we fetter the maniac. Why, therefore," they ask, "should a nation, when in a state of fever, be supplied, without restriction, with the indulgences which must necessarily increase the disorder?" Our answer is ready – that, granting the abuse of the liberty of the press to exist in the most fearful latitude (and we need not look to France for examples,) the advantages derived from it are so inestimable, that, to deprive us of them, would be as if an architect should shut up the windows which supply light and air to a mansion, because a certain proportion of cold, and perhaps of rain, may force their way in at the aperture. Besides, we acknowledge ourselves peculiarly jealous of the sentiments of the members of every government on this delicate subject. Their situation renders them doubtful friends to a privilege, through which alone they can be rendered amenable to the public for the abuse of their power, and through which also they often see their just and temperate exercise of authority maligned and misconstrued. To princes, also, the license of the press is, for many reasons distasteful. To put it under regulation, seems easy and desirable, and the hardship on the community not greater (in their account) than the enforcing of decent respect and subordination – of the sort of etiquette, in short, which is established in all courts, and which forbids the saving, under any pretext, what may be rude or disagreeable to a sovereign, or even unpleasing to be heard. Under these circumstances, and in the present state of France, men rather regretted than wondered that the ministers of Louis XVIII. were disposed to place restrictions on the freedom of the press, or that they effected their purpose of placing the light of nations under a censorial bushel.
But the victory thus obtained brought additional evils on the government. The law was evaded under various devices; the works which it was intended to intercept, acquired circulation and importance from the very circumstance of their being prohibited; while the whole tenor of the measure impressed many who had otherwise been friendly to the Bourbon family, with distrust respecting their designs upon the national liberty.84
Thus split into parties, oppressed with taxes, vexed with those nameless and mysterious jealousies and fears which form the most dangerous subjects of disagreement, because alike incapable of being explained and confuted, France was full of inflammable materials; and the next chapter will show that there was not wanting a torch to give kindling to them.
CHAPTER LXXXIV
Carnot's Memorial on Public Affairs – Fouché joins the Jacobins – Projects of that Party; which finally joins the Buonapartists – Active Intrigues – Congress of Vienna – Murat, alarmed at its proceedings, opens an intercourse with Napoleon – Plans of the Conspirators – Buonaparte's Escape from Elba – He lands at Cannes – Is joined at Grenoble, by 3000 Troops – Halts at Lyons, appoints a Ministry, and issues several Decrees – Dismay of the Government – Intrigues of Fouché – Treachery of Ney – Revolt of the Royal Army at Melun – The King leaves Paris and Buonaparte arrives there – His Reception.
Carnot has been repeatedly mentioned in this history as having been the associate and colleague of Robespierre during the whole Reign of Terror. His admirers pretend, that charging himself only with the conduct of the foreign war, he left to his brethren of the Committee of Public Safety the sole charge of those measures, for which no human language affords epithets of sufficient horror, through which they originally rose to power, and by which they maintained it. According to these fond advocates, their hero held his course through the Reign of Terror, unsullied by a bloody spot, as Arethusa rolled her waters through the ocean without mingling with its waves; and the faith of most readers will swallow the ancient miracle as easily as the modern. Carnot, however, had the independence of spirit to oppose Napoleon's seizure of the throne, and remained in obscurity until 1814, when he employed his talents as an engineer in defence of Antwerp. He gave in, late and reluctantly, his adherence to the restoration, and was confirmed in his rank of inspector-general of engineers. But this did not prevent him from being extremely active in conspiring the downfall of the monarch to whose allegiance he had submitted himself, and who afforded him subsistence and rank.
CARNOT'S MEMORIAL
Carnot gave his opinion upon public affairs in a "Memorial to his most Christian Majesty," made public in October, 1814, which was at once an apology for the Jacobin party, and a direct attack on the reigning dynasty. This document we must necessarily consider at some length, as it conveys the ostensible reasons on which the author, and many thousands besides, having in their anxious consideration the interests of the freedom of France, thought these interests would be best provided for by destroying the sway of a mild and somewhat feeble monarch, whose reign was identified with peace and tranquillity, in order to recall to the throne an absolute sovereign, ruling on military principles only, and whose first step under the canopy of state must necessarily be followed by war with all Europe.
In this singular, and, as it proved, too effective production, every fault committed by the restored family is exaggerated; and they, with the nobles, their personal adherents, are, under a thin and contemptuous veil of assumed respect towards the King, treated alike as fools, who did not understand how to govern France, and as villains, who meditated her ruin. The murder of the King is, with irony as envenomed as unjust, stated to have been occasioned, not by the violence and cruelty of his persecutors, but by the pusillanimity of his nobility, who first provoked the resentment of the nation, and then fled from the kingdom, when, if they had loved their sovereign, they should have rallied around him.85 This plea, in the mouth of a regicide, is as if one of a band of robbers should impute an assassination not to their own guilty violence, but to the cowardice of the domestics of the murdered, by whom that violence might have been resisted.
No one also knew better than Carnot by what arts Louis XVI. was induced by degrees to abandon all means of defence which his situation afforded him, and to throw himself upon the sworn faith and allegiance of those by whom he was condemned to death. As whimsical and unlogical were the examples and arguments referred to by Carnot in support of the condemnation of Louis. Cicero, it seems, says in his Offices, "We hate all those we fear, and we wish for the death of those we hate." On this comprehensive ground, Carnot vindicates the orator's approbation of the death of Cæsar, notwithstanding the clemency of the usurper; "and Cato, indeed" (continues the colleague of Robespierre,) "went farther, and did not think it possible there should be a good king." Of course, not Louis XVI. alone, but all monarchs, might be justly put to death in Carnot's estimation; because they are naturally the objects of fear to their subjects – because we hate those we fear – and because, according to the kindred authority of Shylock, no man "hates the thing he would not kill."86 The doctrine of regicide is said to be confirmed in the Old Testament; families were massacred – monarchs proscribed – intolerance promulgated, by the ministers of a merciful deity: Wherefore, then, should not the Jacobins put Louis XVI. to death? If it was alleged, that the persons of Kings were inviolable by the laws of all civil governments, those of usurpers certainly were not so protected; and what means were there, said Carnot, for positively distinguishing between an usurper and a legitimate king? – The difficulty of making such a distinction was no doubt a sufficient vindication of the judges of Louis XVI.
Trash like this had scarce been written since the club-room of the Jacobins was closed. But the object of Carnot's pamphlet was not to excuse a deed (which he would probably have rather boasted of as laudable,) but by the exaggerations of his eloquence, and the weight of his influence with the public, to animate the fury of the other parties against the Bourbons and their adherents. The King was charged with having been ungrateful to the call of the nation – (a call which assuredly he would never have heard but for the cannon of the allies,) – with having termed himself King by the grace of God – with resigning Belgium when Carnot was actually governor of Antwerp – with preferring Chouans, Vendéans, emigrants, Cossacks, or Englishmen, to the soldiers whose victories had kept him in exile, and in consequence of whose defeat alone he had regained the throne of his fathers. The emigrants are represented as an exasperated, yet a contemptible faction. The people, it is said, care little about the right of their rulers – about their quarrels – their private life, or even their political crimes, unless as they affect themselves. All government, of course, has its basis in popular opinion; but, alas! in actual history, "the people are only regarded," says M. Carnot, "as the victims of their chiefs; we witness nothing but the contest of subjects for the private interest of their princes – kings, who are themselves regicides and parricides – and priests who incite mankind to mutual slaughter. The eye can but repose on the generous efforts of some brave men who consecrate themselves to the deliverance of their fellow-countrymen; if they succeed, they are called heroes – if they fail, they are traitors and demagogues." In this and other passages, the author plainly intimated what spirits were at work, and what was the object of their machinations. The whole pamphlet was designed as a manifesto to the French public, darkly, yet distinctly, announcing the existence of a formidable conspiracy, the principles on which its members proceeded, and their grounds for expecting success.
CARNOT'S MEMORIAL – FOUCHÉ
Carnot himself affected to say, that the Memorial was only designed for circulation among his private connexions.87 But it would not have answered the intended purpose had it not been printed and dispersed with the most uncommon assiduity. Small carts traversed the boulevards, from which it was hawked about among the people, in order to avoid the penalties which booksellers and stationers might have incurred by dealing in an article so inflammatory. Notwithstanding these evasions, the printers and retailers of this diatribe were prosecuted by government; but the Cour d'Instruction refused to confirm the bill of indictment, and this failure served to encourage the Jacobin faction. The official proceedings, by which the ministers endeavoured to suppress the publication, irritated rather than intimidated those who took interest in it. It argued, they said, at once a timorous and a vindictive spirit to oppress the inferior agents in an alleged libel, while the ministers dared not bring to trial the avowed author.88 In this unquestionably they argued justly; for the measures corresponded with that paltry policy, which would rather assail the liberty of the press, than bring to fair trial and open punishment those by whom it is misused.
It would have been as impossible for Fouché to have lived amid such a complicated scene of political intrigue, without mingling in it, as for the sparks to resist flying upwards. He was, however, ill-placed for the character he desired to act. After having lent Buonaparte his aid to betray and dethrone the Directors, he had long meditated how to dethrone and betray Buonaparte, and substitute in his place a regency, or some form of government under which he might expect to act as prime minister. In this undertaking, he more than once ran the peril of life, and was glad to escape with an honourable exile. We have already stated that he had missed the most favourable opportunity for availing himself of his political knowledge, by his absence from Paris when it was taken by the allies. Fouché endeavoured, however, to obtain the notice of the restored monarch and his government, and to render his services acceptable to Louis. When the celebrated Revolutionist appeared in the antechamber on his first attendance at court, he observed a sneer on the countenance of some Royalists who were in waiting, and took the hint to read them a lesson, showing, that a minister of police, even when he has lost his office, is not a person to be jested with. "You, sir," said he to a gentleman, "seem proud of the lilies with which you are adorned. Do you recollect the language you held respecting the Bourbon family some time since in such a company? – And you, madam," he continued, addressing a lady, "to whom I gave a passport to England, may perhaps wish to be reminded of what then passed betwixt us on the subject of Louis XVIII." The laughers were conscience-struck, and Fouché was introduced into the cabinet.
The plan which Fouché recommended to the King was, as might have been expected, astucious and artificial in a high degree. He advised the King to assume the national cockade and three-coloured flag; to occupy the situation of chief of the Revolution. This, he said, would be the same sacrifice by Louis XVIII. as the attending on the mass by Henry IV. – He might have added, it was the sacrifice actually made by Louis XVI., who lost his life in requital. – What Fouché aimed at by this action is evident. He desired to place the King in a situation where he must have relied exclusively on the men of the Revolution, with whom he could not have communicated save by the medium of the Duc d'Otranto, who thus would become prime minister at the first step. But in every other point of view, the following that advice must have placed the King in a mean and hypocritical attitude, which must have disgusted even those whom it was adopted to conciliate.
By assuming the colours of the Revolution, the King of France must necessarily have stained himself with the variation of each of its numerous changes. It is true that the Revolution had produced many excellent improvements in France, affecting both the theory and the practice of government. These the sovereign was bound carefully to preserve for the advantage of the nation. But while we are grateful for the advantages of increased health and fertility that may follow a tornado, and treasure up the valuable things which an angry ocean may cast upon the shore, none but a blinded heathen worships the tempest, or sacrifices to the furious waves. The King, courting the murderers of his brother, could inspire, even in them, nothing save disgust at his hypocrisy, while it would justly have forfeited the esteem and affection, not of the royalists alone, but of all honest men.
Further to recommend himself to the Bourbons, Fouché addressed a singular epistle to Napoleon, in which he endeavoured to convince him, that the title of sovereign, in the paltry islet of Elba, did not become him who had possessed an immense empire. He remarked to Napoleon, that the situation of the island was not suitable to his purpose of retirement, being near so many points where his presence might produce dangerous agitation. He observed that he might be accused, although he was not criminal, and do evil without intending it, by spreading alarm. He hinted that the King of France, however determined to act with justice, yet might be instigated by the passions of others to break through that rule. He told the Ex-Emperor of France, that the titles which he retained were only calculated to augment his regret for the loss of real sovereignty. Nay, that they were attended with positive danger, since it might be thought they were retained only to keep alive his pretensions. Lastly, he exhorted Napoleon to assume the character of a private individual, and retire to the United States of America, the country of Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson.89
Fouché could scarcely expect that this monitory epistle should have much effect upon his once imperial master; he knew human nature and Buonaparte too well. But as it might tell to advantage with the royal family, he sent a copy of it to Monsieur, with a corresponding commentary, the object of which was to point out (what, indeed, circumstances had made evident,) that the tranquillity of the countries and sovereigns of Europe could never be secured while Napoleon remained in his present condition, and that his residence in the isle of Elba was to France what Vesuvius is to Naples.90 The practical inference to be derived from this was, that a gentle degree of violence to remove the person of Napoleon would have been a stroke of state policy, in case the Ex-Emperor of France should not himself have the patriotic virtue to remove himself to America. The honourable and generous prince, to whom Fouché had addressed himself, had too noble a mind to adopt the hint; and this attempt to ingratiate himself with the Bourbon family entirely failed. But plotting was Fouché's element; and it seems to have signified little to him whom he had for partners, providing he had a stake in the political game. He retired to his country-house, and engaged himself with his old friends of the Jacobin party, who were not a little glad to avail themselves of his extensive acquaintance with all the ramifications of political intrigue.
PROJECTS OF THE JACOBINS
It was the policy of this party to insist upon the faults of the royal family, and enlarge on their prejudices against the men and measures of that period when France was successful in foreign war, against the statesman who directed, and the soldiers who achieved her gigantic enterprises. The King, they said, had suffered misfortune without having learned wisdom; he was incapable of stepping beyond the circle of his Gothic prejudices; France had received him from the hand of foreign conquerors, surrounded by an emaciated group of mendicant nobles, whose pretensions were as antiquated and absurd as their decorations and manners. His government went to divide, they alleged, the French into two classes, opposed to each other in merits as in interests; – the emigrants, who alone were regarded by Louis as faithful and willing subjects; and the rest of the nation, in whom the Bourbons saw, at best, but repentant rebels. They asserted, that, too timid as yet to strike an open blow, the King and his ministers sought every means to disqualify and displace all who had taken any active share in the events of the Revolution, and to evade the general promise of amnesty. Under pretext of national economy, they were disbanding the army, and removing the officers of government – depriving thus the military and civil servants of France of the provision which their long services had earned. Louis, they said, had insulted the glory of France, and humiliated her heroes, by renouncing the colours and symbols under which twenty-five years had seen her victorious; he had rudely refused a crown offered to him by the people, and snatched it as his own right by inheritance, as if the dominion of men could be transferred from father to son like the property of a flock of sheep. The right of Frenchmen to choose their own ruler was hereditary and imprescriptible; and the nation, they said, must assert it, or sink to be the contempt, instead of being the pride at once and dread of Europe.