Вальтер Скотт
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V
Other apprehensions agitated Buonaparte's mind. He feared the Algerine pirates, and requested the interference of England in his behalf. He believed, or affected to believe, that Brulart, the governor of Corsica, who had been a captain of Chouans, the friend of Georges, Pichegru, &c., was sent thither by Louis XVIII.th's administration for the purpose of having him assassinated, and that fitting agents were despatched from Corsica to Elba for that purpose.71 Above all, he pretended to be informed of a design to dispense with the treaty of Fontainbleau, and to remove him from his place of refuge, to be imprisoned at St. Helena, or St. Lucie. It is not impossible that these fears were not altogether feigned; for though there is not an iota of evidence tending to show that there was reason for believing the allies entertained such an unworthy thought, yet the report was spread very generally through France, Italy, and the Mediterranean, and was encouraged, doubtless, by those who desired once more to place Buonaparte in action.72 He certainly expressed great anxiety on the subject, sometimes declaring he would defend his batteries to the last; sometimes affecting to believe that he was to be sent to reside in England, a prospect which he pretended not to dislike personally, while he held out sufficient reasons to prevent the course from being adopted. "He concluded," he said, "he should have personal liberty, and the means of removing prejudices entertained against his character, which had not yet been fully cleared up;" but ended with the insinuation, that, by residing in England he would have easier communication with France, where there were four of his party to every single Bourbonist. And when he had exhausted these topics, he returned to the complaints of the hardship and cruelty of depriving him of the society of his wife and child.
While Buonaparte, chafed by poverty, and these other subjects of complaint, tormented too by the restlessness of a mind impatient of restraint, gave vent to expressions which excited suspicion, and ought to have recommended precaution, his court began to assume a very singular appearance, quite the opposite of that usually exhibited in the courts of petty sovereigns upon the continent. In the latter there is an air of antiquated gravity, which pervades the whole establishment, and endeavours to supply the want of splendour, and of real power. The heavy apparatus designed for the government of an independent state, is applied to the management of a fortune not equal to that of many private gentlemen; the whole course of business goes slowly and cumbrously on, and so that appearances are maintained in the old style of formal grandeur, the sovereign and his counsellors dream neither of expeditions, conquest, nor any other political object.
The Court of Porto Ferrajo was the reverse of all this. Indeed, the whole place was, in one sense, deserving of the name of Cosmopoli, which Napoleon wished to impose on it. It was like the court of a great barrack, filled with military, gendarmes, police officers of all sorts, refugees of every nation, expectants and dependents upon the court, domestics and adventurers, all connected with Buonaparte, and holding or expecting some benefit at his hand. Rumours of every kind were buzzed about through this miscellaneous crowd, as thick as motes in the sunshine. Suspicious characters appeared and disappeared again, without affording any trace of their journey or object. The port was filled with ships from all parts of Italy. This indeed was necessary to supply the island with provisions, when crowded with such an unusual degree of population; and, besides, vessels of all nations visited Porto Ferrajo, from the various motives of curiosity or speculation, or being compelled by contrary winds. The four armed vessels of Napoleon, and seventeen belonging to the service of the miners, were constantly engaged in voyages to every part of Italy, and brought over or returned to the continent, Italians, Sicilians, Frenchmen, and Greeks, who seemed all active, yet gave no reason for their coming or departure. Dominico Ettori, a monk who had escaped from his convent, and one Theologos, a Greek, were considered as agents of some consequence among this group.
The situation of Sir Niel Campbell was now very embarrassing. Napoleon, affecting to be more tenacious than ever of his dignity, not only excluded the British envoy from his own presence, but even threw obstacles in the way of his visiting his mother and sister. It was, therefore, only from interviews with Napoleon himself that he could hope to get any information, and to obtain these Sir Niel was, as already noticed, obliged to absent himself from the island of Elba occasionally, which gave him an opportunity of desiring an audience, as he went away and returned. At such times as he remained on the island he was discountenanced, and all attention withdrawn from him; but in a way so artful, as to render it impossible for him to make a formal complaint, especially as he had no avowed official character, and was something in the situation of a guest, whose uninvited intrusion has placed him at his landlord's mercy.
Symptoms of some approaching catastrophe could not, however, be concealed from the British resident. Napoleon had interviews with his mother, after which she appeared deeply distressed. She was heard also to talk of three deputations which he had received from France. It was besides accounted a circumstance of strong suspicion, that discharges and furloughs were granted to two or three hundred of Napoleon's Old Guard, by the medium of whom, as was too late discovered, the allegiance of the military in France was corrupted and seduced, and their minds prepared for what was to ensue. We cannot suppose that such a number of persons were positively intrusted with the secret; but every one of them was prepared to sound forth the praises of the Emperor in his exile, and all entertained and disseminated the persuasion, that he would soon appear to reclaim his rights.
At length Mariotti, the French consul at Leghorn, and Spannoki, the Tuscan governor of that town, informed Sir Niel Campbell that it was certainly determined at Elba, that Buonaparte, with his guards, should embark for the continent. Sir Niel was at Leghorn when he received this intelligence, and had left the Partridge sloop of war to cruize round Elba. It was naturally concluded that Italy was the object of Napoleon, to join with his brother-in-law Murat, who was at that time, fatally for himself, raising his banner.
ESCAPES FROM ELBA
On the 25th of February [1815,] the Partridge having come to Leghorn, and fetched off Sir Niel Campbell, the appearance, as the vessel approached Porto Ferrajo on her return, of the national guard on the batteries, instead of the crested grenadiers of the Imperial guard, at once apprized the British resident of what had happened. When he landed, he found the mother and sister of Buonaparte in a well-assumed agony of anxiety about the fate of their Emperor, of whom they affected to know nothing, except that he had steered towards the coast of Barbary. They appeared extremely desirous to detain Sir Niel Campbell on shore. Resisting their entreaties, and repelling the more pressing arguments of the governor, who seemed somewhat disposed to use force to prevent him from re-embarking, the British envoy regained his vessel, and set sail in pursuit of the adventurer. But it was too late; the Partridge only obtained a distant sight of the flotilla, after Buonaparte and his forces had landed.
The changes which had taken place in France, and had encouraged the present most daring action, form the subject of the next chapter.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
Retrospect – Restoration of the Bourbons displeasing to the Soldiery, but satisfactory to the People – Terms favourable to France granted by the Allies – Discontent about the manner of conceding the Charter – Other grounds of dissatisfaction – Apprehensions lest the Church and Crown Lands should be resumed – Resuscitation of the Jacobin faction – Increased Dissatisfaction in the Army – The Claims of the Emigrants mooted in the Chamber of Delegates – Maréchal Macdonald's Proposal – Financial Difficulties – Restriction on the Press – Reflections on this subject.
We must now look back to the re-establishment of the Bourbons upon the throne in 1814, an event which took place under circumstances so uncommon as to excite extravagant expectations of national felicity; expectations, which, like a premature and profuse display of blossom, diminished the chance of the fruit ripening, and exasperated the disappointment of over sanguine hopes. For a certain time all had been gay and rose-coloured. The French possess more than other nations the art of enjoying the present, without looking back with regret on the past, or forward to the future with unfavourable anticipations. Louis XVIII., respectable for his literary acquirements, and the practice of domestic virtues, amiable also from a mixture of bonhommie, and a talent for saying witty things, was received in the capital of his kingdom with acclamations, in which the soldiers alone did not cordially join. They indeed appeared with gloomy, sullen, and discontented looks. The late imperial, now royal guard, seemed, from the dark ferocity of their aspect, to consider themselves rather as the captives who were led in triumph, than the soldiers who partook of it.
But the higher and middling classes in general, excepting those who were direct losers by the dethronement of Napoleon, hailed with sincere satisfaction the prospect of peace, tranquillity, and freedom from vexatious exactions. If they had not, as they could hardly be supposed to have, any personal zeal for the representatives of a family so long strangers to France, it was fondly hoped the absence of this might be supplied by the unwonted prospect of ease and security which their accession promised. The allied monarchs, on their part, did every thing to favour the Bourbon family, and relaxed most of the harsh and unpalatable conditions which they had annexed to their proposed treaty with Buonaparte; as if to allow the legitimate heir the credit with his people of having at once saved their honour, and obtained for them the most advantageous terms.
The French readily caught at these indulgences, and, with the aptitude they possess of accommodating their feelings to the moment, for a time seemed to intimate that they were sensible of the full advantage of the change, and were desirous to make as much of it as they possibly could. There is a story of a French soldier in former times, who, having insulted his general in a fit of intoxication, was brought before him next morning, and interrogated, whether he was the person who had committed the offence. The accused replied he was not, for that the impudent rascal had gone away before four in the morning – at which hour the culprit had awaked in a state of sobriety. The French people, like the arch rogue in question, drew distinctions between their present and former selves, and seemed very willing to deny their identity. They were no longer, they said, either the Republican French, who had committed so many atrocities in their own country, or the Imperial French, who had made such devastation in other nations; and God forbid that the sins of either should be visited upon the present regenerate race of royalist Frenchmen, loyal to their native princes, and faithful to their allies, who desired only to enjoy peace abroad and tranquillity at home.
These professions, which were probably serious for the time, backed by the natural anxiety of the monarch to make, through his interest with the allied powers, the best terms he could for his country, were received as current without strict examination. It seemed that Buonaparte on his retirement to Elba, had carried away with him all the offences of the French people, like the scapegoat, which the Levitical law directed to be driven into the wilderness, loaded with the sins of the children of Israel. There was, in all the proceedings of the allied powers, not only moderation, but a studied delicacy, observed towards the feelings of the French, which almost savoured of romantic generosity. They seemed as desirous to disguise their conquest, as the Parisians were to conceal their defeat. The treasures of art, those spoils of foreign countries, which justice loudly demanded should be restored to their true owners, were confirmed to the French nation, in order to gratify the vanity of the metropolis. By a boon yet more fatal, announced to the public in one of those moments of romantic, and more than questionable generosity, which we have alluded to, the whole French prisoners of war in the mass, and without inquiry concerning their principles, or the part they were likely to take in future internal divisions, were at once restored to the bosom of their country. This was in fact treating the French nation as a heedless nurse does a spoiled child, when she puts into its hands the knife which it cries for. The fatal consequences of this improvident indulgence appeared early in the subsequent year.
THE RESTORATION
The Senate of Napoleon, when they called the Bourbons to the throne, had not done so without making stipulations on the part of the nation, and also upon their own. For the first purpose they framed a decree, under which they "called to the throne Louis Stanislaus Xavier, brother of the last King," but upon condition of his accepting a constitution of their framing. This assumed right of dictating a constitution, and naming a king for the nation, was accompanied by another provision, declaring the Senate hereditary, and confirming to themselves, and their heirs for ever, the rank, honours, and emoluments, which in Napoleon's time they only enjoyed for life.
The King refused to acknowledge the right of the Senate, either to dictate the terms on which he should ascend a throne, his own by hereditary descent, and to which he had never forfeited his claim; or to engross, as their own exclusive property, the endowments provided to their order by Buonaparte. He, therefore, assumed the crown as the lineal and true representative of him by whom it was last worn; and issued his own constitutional charter as a concession which the spirit of the times demanded, and which he had himself no desire to withhold.
The objections to this mode of proceeding were, practically speaking, of no consequence. It signified nothing to the people of France, whether the constitution was proposed to the King by the national representatives, or by the King to them, so that it contained, in an irrevocable form, a full ratification of the national liberties. But for the King to have acknowledged himself the creature of the Senate's election would have been at once to recognise every ephemeral tyranny which had started up and fretted its part on the revolutionary stage; and to have sanctioned all subsequent attempts at innovation, since they who make kings and authorities must have the inherent right to dethrone and annul them. It should not be forgotten how the British nation acted on the great occasions of the Restoration and Revolution; recognising, at either crisis, the right of blood to succeed to the crown, whether vacant by the murder of Charles I., or the abdication of James II. In principle, too, it may be observed, that in all modern European nations, the king is nominally the source both of law and justice; and that statutes are promulgated, and sentences executed in his name, without inferring that he has the despotic right either to make the one, or to alter the other. Although, therefore, the constitution of France emanated in the usual form of a royal charter, the King was no more empowered to recall or innovate its provisions, than King John to abrogate those of the English Magna Charta. Monsieur, the King's brother, had promised in his name, upon his solemn entrance to Paris, that Louis would recognise the basis of the constitution prepared by the Senate. This pledge was fully redeemed by the charter, and wise men would have been more anxious to secure the benefits which it bestowed, than scrupulously to cavil on the mode in which they had been conferred.
In fact, Louis had adopted not only the form most consonant to ancient usage, but that which he thought most likely to satisfy both the royalists and the revolutionary party. He ascended the throne as his natural right; and, having done so, he willingly granted to the people, in an irrevocable form, the substantial principles of a free constitution. But both parties were rather displeased at what they considered as lost, than gratified at what they gained by this arrangement. The royalists regarded the constitution, with its concessions, as a voluntary abandonment of the royal prerogative; while the revolutionary party exclaimed, that the receiving the charter from the King as an act of his will was in itself a badge of servitude; and that the same royal prerogative which had granted these privileges, might, if recognised, be supposed to reserve the power of diminishing or resuming them at pleasure. And thus it is, that folly, party-spirit, pride, and passion, can misrepresent the best measures, and so far poison the public mind, that the very granting the object of their desires shall be made the subject of new complaints.
MINISTRY OF LOUIS XVIII
The formation of the ministry gave rise to more serious grounds of apprehension and censure. The various offices of administration were, upon the restoration, left in possession of persons selected from those who had been named by the Provisional Government. All the members of the Provisional State Council were called to be royal ministers of the State. Many of these, though possessed of reputed talents, were men hackneyed in the changes of the Revolution; and were not, and could not be, intrusted with the King's confidence beyond the bounds of the province which each administered.
Talleyrand, minister for foreign affairs, whose talents and experience might have given him claim to the situation of prime minister, was unpopular from his political versatility; and it was judged, after a time, most expedient to send him to the Congress at Vienna, that his diplomatic skill might be employed in arranging the exterior relations of France with the other powers of Europe. Yet the absence of this consummate statesman was of great prejudice to the King's affairs. His having preserved life, distinction, and frequently power, during so many revolutionary changes, proved, according to the phrase of the old Earl of Pembroke, that "he was born of the willow, not of the oak." But it was the opinion of the wisest men in France, that it was not fair, considering the times in which he lived, to speak of his attachment to, or defection from, individuals; but to consider the general conduct and maxims which he recommended relative to the interests of France. It has been truly said, that, after the first errors and ebullitions of republican zeal, if he were measured by this standard, he must be judged favourably. The councils which he gave to Napoleon were all calculated, it was said, for the good of the nation, and so were the measures which he recommended to the King. Much of this is really true; yet, when we think of the political consistency of the Prince of Beneventum, we cannot help recollecting the personal virtue of a female follower of the camp, which consisted in strict fidelity to the grenadier company.
Dupont was promoted to the situation of minister at war, owing, perhaps, to the persecution he had undergone from Buonaparte, in consequence of his surrender at Baylen to the Spaniards. Soult was afterwards called to this important office; how recommended, it would be vain to inquire. When Napoleon heard of his appointment from the English resident, he observed that it would be a wise and good one, if no patriotic party should show itself in France; but, if such should arise, he intimated plainly that there would be no room for the Bourbons to rest faith upon Soult's adherence to their cause; and so it proved.
To add still farther to the inconveniences of this state of administration, Louis XVIII. had a favourite, although he had no prime minister. Count Blacas d'Aulps, minister of the household, an ancient and confidential attendant on the royal person during his exile, was understood to be the channel through which the King's wishes were communicated to the other ministers; and his protection was supposed to afford the surest access to the favours of the crown.
Without doing his master the service of a premier, or holding either the power or the responsibility of that high situation, De Blacas had the full share of odium usually attached to it. The royalists, who pressed on him for grants which were in the departments of other ministers, resented his declining to interfere in their favour, as if, having satisfied his own ambition, he had become indifferent to the interest of those with whom he had been a joint sufferer during the emigration. The opposite party, on the other hand, represented Count Blacas as an absolute minister, an emigrant himself, and the patron of emigrants; a royalist of the highest class, and an enemy, of course, to all the constitutional stipulations in favour of liberty. Thus far it is certain, that the unpopularity of M. de Blacas, with all ranks and parties in the state, had the worst possible influence on the King's affairs; and as his credit was ascribed to a blind as well as an obstinate attachment on the part of Louis, the monarch was of course involved in the unpopularity of the minister of the household.
TERMS OF THE TREATY
The terms of the peace, as we have already hinted, had been studiously calculated to recommend it to the feelings of the French people. France was, indeed, stripped of that extended sway which rendered her dangerous to the independence of other European nations, and reduced, generally speaking, to the boundaries which she occupied on the 1st of January 1792. Still the bargain was not harshly driven. Several small additions were left with her on the side of Germany and the Netherlands, and on that of Savoy she had the considerable towns of Chamberri, Annecy, Avignon, with the Venaisson and Mont Belliard, included in her territories.73 But these concessions availed little; and looking upon what they had lost, many of the French people, after the recollections had subsided of their escape from a dreadful war, were naturally, however unreasonably, disposed to murmur against the reduction of their territories, and to insist that Belgium, at least, should have remained with them. This opinion was encouraged and pressed by the Buonapartists, who considered the cession of that country with the more evil eye, because it was understood to have been a point urged by England.
Yet if England played a proud, it was also a generous part. She had nothing to stipulate, nothing of which to demand restitution, for she had sustained no territorial loss during the whole period of hostilities. The war, which had nearly ruined most other nations, had put Britain in possession of all the colonies of France, and left the latter country neither a ship nor a port in the East or West Indies; and, to sum the whole, it was not in the power of united Europe to take from England by force any one of the conquests which she had thus made. The question therefore, only was, what Britain was voluntarily to cede to an enemy who could give her no equivalent, excepting the pledge to adopt better principles, and to act no longer as the disturber of Europe. The cessions were such in number and amount, as to show that England was far above the mean and selfish purpose of seeking a colonial monopoly, or desiring to destroy the possibility of commercial rivalry. All was restored to France, excepting only Tobago and the Mauritius.
These sacrifices, made in the spirit of peace and moderation, were not made in vain. They secured to Britain the gratitude and respect of other states, and, giving to her councils that character of justice and impartiality which constitutes the best national strength, they placed her in a situation of more influence and eminence in the civilized world than the uncontrolled possession of all the cotton-fields and sugar-islands of the east and west could ever have raised her to. Still, with respect to France in particular, the peace was not recommended by the eminence to which it had raised England. The rivalry, so long termed national, and which had been so carefully fostered by every state paper or political statement which Buonaparte had permitted to be published, rankled even in generous and honourable minds; and so prejudiced are the views of passion, that by mistaking each other's national feelings, there were many Frenchmen induced to believe that the superiority attained by Great Britain was to a certain degree an insult and degradation to France.
Every thing, indeed, which ought to have soothed and gratified the French people, was at last, by irritated feelings and artful misrepresentation, converted into a subject of complaint and grievance.
The government of Napoleon had been as completely despotic as it could be rendered in a civilized country like France, where public opinion forbade its being carried to barbaric extreme. On the contrary, in the charter, France was endowed with most of the elementary principles of a free and liberal constitution. The King had adopted, in all points of a general and national tendency, the principles proposed in the rejected constitutional act of the Senate.
The Chamber of Peers and Chamber of Deputies were the titles applied to the aristocratical and popular branches of the constitution, instead of the Senate and Legislative body. Their public duties were divided something like those of the Houses of Peers and Commons in England. The independence of the judicial order was recognised, and the military were confirmed in their rank and revenues. The Chamber of Peers was to be nominated by the King, with power to his Majesty to create its members for life, or hereditary, at his pleasure. The income of the suppressed Senate was resumed, and vested in the crown, excepting confiscated property, which was restored to the lawful owners. The Catholic religion was declared to be that of the State, but all other Christian sects were to be protected. The King's authority was recognised as head of the army, and the power of making peace and war was vested in him exclusively. The liberty of the press was established, but under certain restraints. The conscription was abolished – the responsibility of ministers recognised; and it may be said, in general, that a constitution was traced out, good so far as it went, and susceptible of receiving the farther improvements which time and experience might recommend. The charter74 was presented to the Legislative Body by the King in person, [June 4,] with a speech, which announced, that the principles which it recognised were such as had been adopted in the will of his unfortunate brother, Louis XVI.75
Yet, though this charter contained a free surrender of great part of the royal rights which the old race of Bourbons had enjoyed, as well as of all the arbitrary power which Napoleon had usurped, we have seen that it was unacceptable to an active and influential party in the state, who disdained to accept security for property and freedom under the ancient forms of a feudal charter, and contended that it ought to have emanated directly from the will of the Sovereign People. We have no hesitation in saying, that this was as reasonable as the conduct of a spoiled child, who refuses what is given to him, because he is not suffered to take it; or the wisdom of an hungry man, who should quarrel with his dinner, because he does not admire the shape of the dish in which it is served up.
This is the common-sense view of the subject. If the constitution contained the necessary guarantees of political freedom and security of life and property; if it was to be looked to as the permanent settlement and bulwark of the liberties of France, and considered as a final and decided arrangement, liable indeed to be improved by the joint consent of the sovereign, and the legal representatives of the subject, but not to be destroyed by any or all of these authorities, it was a matter of utter unimportance, whether the system was constructed in the form of a charter granted by the King, or that of conditions dictated to him by the subject. But if there was to be a retrospect to the ephemeral existence of all the French constitutions hitherto, excepting that under which Buonaparte had enthralled the people, then perhaps the question might be entertained, whether the feudal or the revolutionary form was most likely to be innovated; or, in other words, whether the conditions attached to the plan of government now adopted, was most likely to be innovated upon by the King, or by the body who represented the people.
Assuming the fatal doctrine, that the party in whose name the conditions of the constitution are expressed, is entitled to suspend, alter, or recall them, sound policy dictated, that the apparent power of granting should be ascribed to the party least able and willing to recall or innovate upon the grant which he had made. In this view of the case, it might be reckoned upon that the King, unsupported, unless by the Royalists, who were few in number, unpopular from circumstances, and for the present divested, excepting nominally, of the great instrument of achieving despotic power, the undisputed command, namely, of the army, would be naturally unwilling to risk the continuance of his authority by any attempt to innovate upon those conditions, which he had by his own charter assured to the people. On the contrary, conditions formed and decreed by the Senate of Buonaparte, might on the popular party's resuming the ascendency, be altered or recalled by the chambers with the same levity and fickleness which the people of France, or at least those acting as their representatives, had so often displayed. To give permanence to the constitution, therefore, it was best it should emanate from the party most interested in preserving it, and least able to infringe it; and that undoubtedly, as France stood at the time, was the sovereign. In Great Britain, the constitution is accounted more secure, because the King is the source of law, of honour, and of all ministerial and executive power; whilst he is responsible to the nation through his ministers, for the manner in which that power is exercised. An arrangement of a different kind would expose the branches of the legislature to a discordant struggle, which ought never to be contemplated as possible.