A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 24

In comparison with the reaction in the Spanish Peninsula the reaction in France was sober and dignified. Louis XVIII. was at least a scholar and a man of the world. In the old days, among companions whose names were now almost forgotten, he had revelled in Voltaire and dallied with the fashionable Liberalism of the time. In his exile he had played the king with some dignity; he was even believed to have learnt some political wisdom by his six years' residence in England. If he had not character, [203] he had at least some tact and some sense of humour; and if not a profound philosopher, he was at least an accomplished epicurean. He hated the zealotry of his brother, the Count of Artois. He was more inclined to quiz the emigrants than to sacrifice anything on their behalf; and the whole bent of his mind made him but an insincere ally of the priesthood, who indeed could hardly expect to enjoy such an orgy in France as their brethren were celebrating in Spain. The King, however, was unable to impart his own indifference to the emigrants who returned with him, nor had he imagination enough to identify himself, as King of France, with the military glories of the nation and with the democratic army that had won them. Louis held high notions of the royal prerogative: this would not in itself have prevented him from being a successful ruler, if he had been capable of governing in the interest of the nation at large. There were few Republicans remaining in France; the centralised inst.i.tutions of the Empire remained in full vigour; and although the last months of Napoleon's rule had excited among the educated cla.s.ses a strong spirit of const.i.tutional opposition, an able and patriotic Bourbon accepting his new position, and wielding power for the benefit of the people and not of a cla.s.s, might perhaps have exercised an authority not much inferior to that possessed by the Crown before 1789. But Louis, though rational, was inexperienced and supine. He was ready enough to admit into his Ministry and to retain in administrative posts throughout the country men who had served under Napoleon; but when the emigrants and the n.o.bles, led by the Count of Artois, pushed themselves to the front of the public service, and treated the restoration of the Bourbons as the victory of their own order, the King offered but a faint resistance, and allowed the narrowest cla.s.s-interests to discredit a monarchy whose own better traditions identified it not with an aristocracy but with the State.

[The Charta.]

The Const.i.tution promulgated by King Louis XVIII. on the 4th of June, 1814, and known as the Charta, [204] was well received by the French nation.

Though far less liberal than the Const.i.tution accepted by Louis XVI. in 1791, it gave to the French a measure of representative government to which they had been strangers under Napoleon. It created two legislative chambers, the Upper House consisting of peers who were nominated by the Crown at its pleasure, whether for life-peerages or hereditary dignity; the Lower House formed by national election, but by election restricted by so high a property-qualification [205] that not one person in two hundred possessed a vote. The Crown reserved to itself the sole power of proposing laws. In spite of this serious limitation of the competence of the two houses, the Lower Chamber possessed, in its right of refusing taxes and of discussing and rejecting all measures laid before it, a reality of power such as no representative body had possessed in France since the beginning of the Consulate. The Napoleonic n.o.bility was placed on an equality with the old n.o.blesse of France, though neither enjoyed, as n.o.bles, anything more than a t.i.tular distinction. [206] Purchasers of landed property sold by the State since the beginning of the Revolution were guaranteed in their possessions. The principles of religious freedom, of equality before the law, and of the admissibility of all cla.s.ses to public employment, which had taken such deep root during the Republic and the Empire, were declared to form part of the public law of France; and by the side of these deeply-cherished rights the Charta of King Louis XVIII. placed, though in a qualified form, the long-forgotten principle of the freedom of the Press.

[Encroachments of n.o.bles.]

Under such a Const.i.tution there was little room for the old n.o.blesse to arrogate to itself any legal superiority over the ma.s.s of the French nation. What was wanting in law might, however, in the opinion of the Count of Artois and his friends, be effected by administration. Of all the inst.i.tutions of France the most thoroughly national and the most thoroughly democratic was the army; it was accordingly against the army that the n.o.blesse directed its first efforts. Financial difficulties made a large reduction in the forces necessary. Fourteen thousand officers and sergeants were accordingly dismissed on half-pay; but no sooner had this measure of economy been effected than a mult.i.tude of emigrants who had served against the Republic in the army of the Prince of Conde or in La Vendee were rewarded with all degrees of military rank. Naval officers who had quitted the service of France and entered that of its enemies were reinstated with the rank which they had held in foreign navies. [207] The tricolor, under which every battle of France had been fought from Jemappes to Montmartre, was superseded by the white flag of the House of Bourbon, under which no living soldier had marched to victory. General Dupont, known only by his capitulation at Baylen in 1808, was appointed Minister of War. The Imperial Guard was removed from service at the Palace, and the so-called Military Household of the old Bourbon monarchy revived, with the privileges and the insignia belonging to the period before 1775. Young n.o.bles who had never seen a shot fired crowded into this favoured corps, where the musketeer and the trooper held the rank and the pay of a lieutenant in the army. While in every village of France some battered soldier of Napoleon cursed the Government that had driven him from his comrades, the Court revived at Paris all the details of military ceremonial that could be gathered from old almanacks, from the records of court-tailors, and from the memories of decayed gallants. As if to convince the public that nothing had happened during the last twenty-two years, the aged Marquis de Chansenets, who had been Governor of the Tuileries on the 10th of August, 1792, and had then escaped by hiding among the bodies of the dead, [208] resumed his place at the head of the officers of the Palace.

[Encroachments of the clergy.]

[Growing hostility to the Bourbons.]

These were but petty triumphs for the emigrants and n.o.bles, but they were sufficient to make the restored monarchy unpopular. Equally injurious was their behaviour in insulting the families of Napoleon's generals, in persecuting men who had taken part in the great movement of 1789, and in intimidating the peasant-owners of land that had been confiscated and sold by the State. Nor were the priesthood backward in discrediting the Government of Louis XVIII. in the service of their own order. It might be vain to think of recovering the Churchlands, or of introducing the Inquisition into France, but the Court might at least be brought to invest itself with the odour of sanct.i.ty, and the parish-priest might be made as formidable a person within his own village as the mayor or the agent of the police-minister. Louis XVIII. was himself sceptical and self-indulgent.

This, however, did not prevent him from publishing a letter to the Bishops placing his kingdom under the especial protection of the Virgin Mary, and from escorting the image of the patron-saint through the streets of Paris in a procession in which Marshal Soult and other regenerate Jacobins of the Court braved the ridicule of the populace by acting as candle-bearers.

Another sign of the King's submission to the clergy was the publication of an edict which forbade buying and selling on Sundays and festivals.

Whatever the benefits of a freely-observed day of rest, this enactment, which was not submitted to the Chambers, pa.s.sed for an arrogant piece of interference on the part of the clergy with national habits; and while it caused no inconvenience to the rich, it inflicted substantial loss upon a numerous and voluble cla.s.s of petty traders. The wrongs done to the French nation by the priests and emigrants who rose to power in 1814 were indeed the merest trifle in comparison with the wrongs which it had uncomplainingly borne at the hands of Napoleon. But the glory of the Empire, the strength and genius of its absolute rule, were gone. In its place there was a family which had been dissociated from France during twenty years, which had returned only to ally itself with an unpopular and dreaded caste, and to prove that even the unexpected warmth with which it had been welcomed home could not prevent it from becoming, at the end of a few months, utterly alien and uninteresting. The indifference of the nation would not have endangered the Bourbon monarchy if the army had been won over by the King. But here the Court had excited the bitterest enmity. The accord which for a moment had seemed possible even to Republicans of the type of Carnot had vanished at a touch. [209]

Rumours of military conspiracies grew stronger with every month.

Wellington, now British Amba.s.sador at Paris, warned his Government of the changed feeling of the capital, of the gatherings of disbanded officers, of possible attacks upon the Tuileries. "The truth is," he wrote, "that the King of France without the army is no King." Wellington saw the more immediate danger: [210] he failed to see the depth and universality of the movement pa.s.sing over France, which before the end of the year 1814 had destroyed the hold of the Bourbon monarchy except in those provinces where it had always found support, and prepared the nation at large to welcome back the ruler who so lately seemed to have fallen for ever.

[Congress of Vienna, Sept., 1814.]

Paris and Madrid divided for some months after the conclusion of peace the attention of the political world. At the end of September the centre of European interest pa.s.sed to Vienna. The great council of the Powers, so long delayed, was at length a.s.sembled. The Czar of Russia, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg, and nearly all the statesmen of eminence in Europe, gathered round the Emperor Francis and his Minister, Metternich, to whom by common consent the presidency of the Congress was offered. Lord Castlereagh represented England, and Talleyrand France.

Rasumoffsky and other Russian diplomatists acted under the immediate directions of their master, who on some occasions even entered into personal correspondence with the Ministers of the other Powers.

Hardenberg stood in a somewhat freer relation to King Frederick William; Stein was present, but without official place. The subordinate envoys and attaches of the greater Courts, added to a host of petty princes and the representatives who came from the minor Powers, or from communities which had ceased to possess any political existence at all, crowded Vienna. In order to relieve the antagonisms which had already come too clearly into view, Metternich determined to entertain his visitors in the most magnificent fashion; and although the Austrian State was bankrupt, and in some districts the people were severely suffering, a sum of about 10,000 a day was for some time devoted to this purpose. The splendour and the gaieties of Metternich were emulated by his guests; and the guardians of Europe enjoyed or endured for months together a succession of fetes, banquets, dances, and excursions, varied, through the zeal of Talleyrand to ingratiate himself with his new master, by a Ma.s.s of great solemnity on the anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI. [211] One incident lights the faded and insipid record of vanished pageants and defunct gallantries. Beethoven was in Vienna. The Government placed the great a.s.sembly-rooms at his disposal, and enabled the composer to gratify a harmless humour by sending invitations in his own name to each of the Sovereigns and grandees then in Vienna. Much personal homage, some substantial kindness from these gaudy creatures of the hour, made the period of the Congress a bright page in that wayward and afflicted life whose poverty has enriched mankind with such immortal gifts.

[Talleyrand and the four Powers.]

The Congress had need of its distractions, for the difficulties which faced it were so great that, even after the arrival of the Sovereigns, it was found necessary to postpone the opening of the regular sittings until November. By the secret articles of the Peace of Paris, the Allies had reserved to themselves the disposal of all vacant territory, although their conclusions required to be formally sanctioned by the Congress at large.

The Ministers of Austria, England, Prussia, and Russia accordingly determined at the outset to decide upon all territorial questions among themselves, and only after their decisions were completely formed to submit them to France and the other Powers. [212] Talleyrand, on hearing of this arrangement, protested that France itself was now one of the Allies, and demanded that the whole body of European States should at once meet in open Congress. The four Courts held to their determination, and began their preliminary sittings without Talleyrand. But the French statesman had, under the form of a paradox, really stated the true political situation.

The greater Powers were so deeply divided in their aims that their old bond of common interest, the interest of union against France, was now less powerful than the impulse that made them seek the support of France against one another. Two men had come to the Congress with a definite aim: Alexander had resolved to gain the Duchy of Warsaw, and to form it, with or without some part of Russian Poland, into a Polish kingdom, attached to his own crown: Talleyrand had determined, either on the question of Poland, or on the question of Saxony, which arose out of it, to break allied Europe into halves, and to range France by the side of two of the great Powers against the two others. The course of events favoured for a while the design of the Minister: Talleyrand himself prosecuted his plan with an ability which, but for the untimely return of Napoleon from Elba, would have left France, without a war, the arbiter and the leading Power of Europe.

[Polish question.]

Since the Russian victories of 1812, the Emperor Alexander had made no secret of his intention to restore a Polish Kingdom and a Polish nationality. [213] Like many other designs of this prince, the project combined a keen desire for personal glorification with a real generosity of feeling. Alexander was thoroughly sincere in his wish not only to make the Poles again a people, but to give them a Parliament and a free Const.i.tution. The King of Poland, however, was to be no independent prince, but Alexander himself: although the Duchy of Warsaw, the chief if not the sole component of the proposed new kingdom, had belonged to Austria and Prussia after the last part.i.tion of Poland, and extended into the heart of the Prussian monarchy. Alexander insisted on his anxiety to atone for the crime of Catherine in dismembering Poland: the atonement, however, was to be made at the sole cost of those whom Catherine had allowed to share the booty. Among the other Governments, the Ministry of Great Britain would gladly have seen a Polish State established in a really independent form; [214] failing this, it desired that the Duchy of Warsaw should be divided, as formerly, between Austria and Prussia. Metternich was anxious that the fortress of Cracow, at any rate, should not fall into the hands of the Czar. Stein and Hardenberg, and even Alexander's own Russian counsellors, earnestly opposed the Czar's project, not only on account of the claims of Prussia on Warsaw, but from dread of the agitation likely to be produced by a Polish Parliament among all Poles outside the new State. King Frederick William, however, was unaccustomed to dispute the wishes of his ally; and the Czar's offer of Saxony in subst.i.tution for Warsaw gave to the Prussian Ministers, who were more in earnest than their master, at least the prospect of receiving a valuable equivalent for what they might surrender.

[Saxon question.]

By the Treaty of Kalisch, made when Prussia united its arms with those of Russia against Napoleon (Feb. 27th, 1813), the Czar had undertaken to restore the Prussian monarchy to an extent equal to that which it had possessed in 1805. It was known before the opening of the Congress that the Czar proposed to do this by handing over to King Frederick William the whole of Saxony, whose Sovereign, unlike his colleagues in the Rhenish Confederacy, had supported Napoleon up to his final overthrow at Leipzig.

Since that time the King of Saxony had been held a prisoner, and his dominions had been occupied by the Allies. The Saxon question had thus already gained the attention of all the European Governments, and each of the Ministers now at Vienna brought with him some more or less distinct view upon the subject. Castlereagh, who was instructed to foster the union of Prussia and Austria against Alexander's threatening ambition, was willing that Prussia should annex Saxony if in return it would a.s.sist him in keeping Russia out of Warsaw: [215] Metternich disliked the annexation, but offered no serious objection, provided that in Western Germany Prussia would keep to the north of the Main: Talleyrand alone made the defence of the King of Saxony the very centre of his policy, and subordinated all other aims to this. His instructions, like those of Castlereagh, gave priority to the Polish question; [216] but Talleyrand saw that Saxony, not Poland, was the lever by which he could throw half of Europe on to the side of France; and before the four Allied Courts had come to any single conclusion, the French statesman had succeeded, on what at first pa.s.sed for a subordinate point, in breaking up their concert.

[Talleyrand's action on Saxony.]

For a while the Ministers of Austria, Prussia, and England appeared to be acting in harmony; and throughout the month of October all three endeavoured to shake the purpose of Alexander regarding Warsaw. [217]

Talleyrand, however, foresaw that the efforts of Prussia in this direction would not last very long, and he wrote to Louis XVIII. asking for his permission to make a definite offer of armed a.s.sistance to Austria in case of need. Events took the turn which Talleyrand expected. Early in November the King of Prussia completely yielded to Alexander, and ordered Hardenberg to withdraw his opposition to the Russian project. Metternich thus found himself abandoned on the Polish question by Prussia; and at the same moment the answer of King Louis XVIII. arrived, and enabled Talleyrand to a.s.sure the Austrian Minister that, if resistance to Russia and Prussia should become necessary, he might count on the support of a French army.

Metternich now completely changed his position on the Saxon question, and wrote to Hardenberg (Dec. 10) stating that, inasmuch as Prussia had chosen to sacrifice Warsaw, the Emperor Francis absolutely forbade the annexation of more than a fifth part of the kingdom of Saxony. Castlereagh, disgusted with the obstinacy of Russia and the subserviency of King Frederick William, forgave Talleyrand for not supporting him earlier, and cordially entered into this new plan for thwarting the Northern Powers. The leading member of the late Rhenish Confederacy, the King of Bavaria, threw himself with eagerness into the struggle against Prussia and against German unity.

In proportion as Stein and the patriots of 1813 urged the claims of German nationality under Prussian leadership against the forfeited rights of a Court which had always served on Napoleon's side, the politicians of the Rhenish Confederacy declaimed against the ambition and the Jacobinism of Prussia, and called upon Europe to defend the united principles of hereditary right and of national independence in the person of the King of Saxony.

[Theory of Legitimacy.]

Talleyrand's object was attained. He had isolated Russia and Prussia, and had drawn to his own side not only England and Austria but the whole body of the minor German States. Nothing was wanting but a phrase, or an idea, which should consecrate the new league in the opinion of Europe as a league of principle, and bind the Allies, in matters still remaining open, to the support of the interests of the House of Bourbon. Talleyrand had made his theory ready. In notes to Castlereagh and Metternich, [218] he declared that the whole drama of the last twenty years had been one great struggle between revolution and established right, a struggle at first between Republicanism and Monarchy, afterwards between usurping dynasties and legitimate dynasties. The overthrow of Napoleon had been the victory of the principle of legitimacy; the task of England and Austria was now to extend the work of rest.i.tution to all Europe, and to defend the principle against new threatened aggressions. In the note to Castlereagh, Talleyrand added a practical corollary. "To finish the revolution, the principle of legitimacy must triumph without exception. The kingdom of Saxony must be preserved; the kingdom of Naples must return to its legitimate king."

[Alliance against Russia and Prussia, Jan. 3, 1815.]

As an historical summary of the Napoleonic wars, Talleyrand's doctrine was baseless. No one but Pitt had cared about the fate of the Bourbons; no one would have hesitated to make peace with Napoleon, if Napoleon would have accepted terms of peace. The manifesto was not, however, intended to meet a scientific criticism. In the English Foreign Office it was correctly described as a piece of drollery; and Metternich was too familiar with the language of principles himself to attach much meaning to it in the mouth of anyone else. Talleyrand, however, kept a grave countenance. With inimitable composure the old Minister of the Directory wrote to Louis XVIII. lamenting that Castlereagh did not appear to care much about the principle of legitimacy, and in fact did not quite comprehend it; [219] and he added his fear that this moral dimness on the part of the English Minister arose from the dealing of his countrymen with Tippoo Sahib. But for Europe at large,--for the English Liberal party, who looked upon the Saxons and the Prussians as two distinct nations, and for the Tories, who forgot that Napoleon had made the Elector of Saxony a king; for the Emperor of Austria, who had no wish to see the Prussian frontier brought nearer to Prague; above all, for the minor German courts who dreaded every approach towards German unity,--Talleyrand's watchword was the best that could have been invented. His counsel prospered. On the 3rd of January, 1815, after a rash threat of war uttered by Hardenberg, a secret treaty [220] was signed by the representatives of France, England, and Austria, pledging these Powers to take the field, if necessary, against Russia and Prussia in defence of the principles of the Peace of Paris. The plan of the campaign was drawn up, the number of the forces fixed. Bavaria had already armed; Piedmont, Hanover, and even the Ottoman Porte, were named as future members of the alliance.

[Compromise on Polish and Saxon questions.]

[Prussia gains Rhenish Provinces.]

It would perhaps be unfair to the French Minister to believe that he actually desired to kindle a war on this gigantic scale. Talleyrand had not, like Napoleon, a love for war for its own sake. His object was rather to raise France from its position as a conquered and isolated Power; to surround it with allies; to make the House of Bourbon the representatives of a policy interesting to a great part of Europe; and, having thus undone the worst results of Napoleon's rule, to trust to some future complication for the recovery of Belgium and the frontier of the Rhine. Nor was Talleyrand's German policy adopted solely as the instrument of a pa.s.sing intrigue. He appears to have had a true sense of the capacity of Prussia to transform Germany into a great military nation; and the policy of alliance with Austria and protection of the minor States which he pursued in 1814 was that which he had advocated throughout his career. The conclusion of the secret treaty of January 3rd marked the definite success of his plans.

France was forthwith admitted into the council hitherto known as that of the Four Courts, and from this time its influence visibly affected the action of Russia and Prussia, reports of the secret treaty having reached the Czar immediately after its signature. [221] The spirit of compromise now began to animate the Congress. Alexander had already won a virtual decision in his favour on the Polish question, but he abated something of his claims, and while gaining the lion's share of the Duchy of Warsaw, he ultimately consented that Cracow, which threatened the Austrian frontier, should be formed into an independent Republic, and that Prussia should receive the fortresses of Dantzic and Thorn on the Vistula, with the district lying between Thorn and the border of Silesia. [222] This was little for Alexander to abandon; on the Saxon question the allies of Talleyrand gained most that they demanded. The King of Saxony was restored to his throne, and permitted to retain Dresden and about half of his dominions. Prussia received the remainder. In lieu of a further expansion in Saxony, Prussia was awarded territory on the left bank of the Rhine, which, with its recovered Westphalian provinces, restored the monarchy to an area and population equal to that which it had possessed in 1805. But the dominion given to Prussia beyond the Rhine, though considered at the time to be a poor equivalent for the second half of Saxony, was in reality a gift of far greater value. It made Prussia, in defence of its own soil, the guardian and bulwark of Germany against France. It brought an element into the life of the State in striking contrast with the aristocratic and Protestant type predominant in the older Prussian provinces,--a Catholic population, liberal in its political opinions, and habituated by twenty years' union with France to the democratic tendencies of French social life. It gave to Prussia something more in common with Bavaria and the South, and qualified it, as it had not been qualified before, for its future task of uniting Germany under its own leadership.

[Napoleon leaves Elba, Feb. 26.]

[Lands in France, March 1.]

The Polish and Saxon difficulties, which had threatened the peace of Europe, were virtually settled before the end of the month of January.

Early in February Lord Castlereagh left Vienna, to give an account of his labours and to justify his policy before the English House of Commons. His place at the Congress was taken by the Duke of Wellington. There remained the question of Naples, the formation of a Federal Const.i.tution for Germany, and several matters of minor political importance, none of which endangered the good understanding of the Powers. Suddenly the action of the Congress was interrupted by the most startling intelligence. On the night of March 6th Metternich was roused from sleep to receive a despatch informing him that Napoleon had quitted Elba. The news had taken eight days to reach Vienna. Napoleon had set sail on the 26th of February. In the silence of his exile he had watched the progress of events in France: he had convinced himself of the strength of the popular reaction against the priests and emigrants; and the latest intelligence which he had received from Vienna led him to believe that the Congress itself was on the point of breaking up. There was at least some chance of success in an attempt to regain his throne; and, the decision once formed, Napoleon executed it with characteristic audacity and despatch. Talleyrand, on hearing that Napoleon had left Elba, declared that he would only cross into Italy and there raise the standard of Italian independence: instead of doing this, Napoleon made straight for France, with the whole of his guard, eleven hundred in number, embarked on a little flotilla of seven ships. The voyage lasted three days: no French or English vessels capable of offering resistance met the squadron. On the 1st of March Napoleon landed at the bay of Jouan, three miles to the west of Antibes. A detachment of his guards called upon the commandant of Antibes to deliver up the town to the Emperor; the commandant refused, and the troops bivouacked that evening, with Napoleon among them, in the olive-woods by the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean.

[Moves on Gren.o.ble.]

[Troops at La Mure.]

Before daybreak began the march that was to end in Paris. Instead of following the coast road of Provence, which would have brought him to Toulon and Ma.r.s.eilles, where most of the population were fiercely Royalist, [223] and where Ma.s.sena and other great officers might have offered resistance, Napoleon struck northwards into the mountains, intending to descend upon Lyons by way of Gren.o.ble. There were few troops in this district, and no generals capable of influencing them. The peasantry of Dauphine were in great part holders of land that had been taken from the Church and the n.o.bles: they were exasperated against the Bourbons, and, like the peasantry of France generally, they identified the glory of the country which they loved with the name and the person of Napoleon. As the little band penetrated into the mountains the villagers thronged around them, and by offering their carts and horses enabled Napoleon to march continuously over steep and snowy roads at the rate of forty miles a day.

No troops appeared to dispute these mountain pa.s.sages: it was not until the close of the fifth day's march that Napoleon's mounted guard, pressing on in front of the marching column, encountered, in the village of La Mure, twenty miles south of Gren.o.ble, a regiment of infantry wearing the white c.o.c.kade of the House of Bourbon. The two bodies of troops mingled and conversed in the street: the officer commanding the royal infantry fearing the effect on his men, led them back on the road towards Gren.o.ble.

Napoleon's lancers also retired, and the night pa.s.sed without further communication. At noon on the following day the lancers, again advancing towards Gren.o.ble, found the infantry drawn up to defend the road. They called out that Napoleon was at hand, and begged the infantry not to fire.

Presently Napoleon's column came in sight; one of his _aides-de-camp_ rode to the front of the royal troops, addressed them, and pointed out Napoleon. The regiment was already wavering, the officer commanding had already given the order of retreat, when the men saw their Emperor advancing towards them. They saw his face, they heard his voice: in another moment the ranks were broken, and the soldiers were pressing with shouts and tears round the leader whom nature had created with such transcendent capacity for evil, and endowed with such surpa.s.sing power of attracting love.

[Enters Gren.o.ble, March 7.]

[Declaration of his purpose.]

Everything was decided by this first encounter. "In six days," said Napoleon, "we shall be in the Tuileries." The next pledge of victory came swiftly. Colonel Labedoyere, commander of the 7th Regiment of the Line, had openly declared for Napoleon in Gren.o.ble, and appeared on the road at the head of his men a few hours after the meeting at La Mure. Napoleon reached Gren.o.ble the same evening. The town had been in tumult all day. The Prefet fled: the general in command sent part of his troops away, and closed the gates. On Napoleon's approach the population thronged the ramparts with torches; the gates were burst open; Napoleon was borne through the town in triumph by a wild and intermingled crowd of soldiers and workpeople. The whole ma.s.s of the poorer cla.s.ses of the town welcomed him with enthusiasm: the middle cla.s.ses, though hostile to the Church and the Bourbons, saw too clearly the dangers to France involved in Napoleon's return to feel the same joy. [224] They remained in the background, neither welcoming Napoleon nor interfering with the welcome offered him by others. Thus the night pa.s.sed. On the morning of the next day Napoleon received the magistrates and princ.i.p.al inhabitants of the town, and addressed them in terms which formed the substance of every subsequent declaration of his policy. "He had come," he said, "to save France from the outrages of the returning n.o.bles; to secure to the peasant the possession of his land; to uphold the rights won in 1789 against a minority which sought to re-establish the privileges of caste and the feudal burdens of the last century. France had made trial of the Bourbons: it had done well to do so; but the experiment had failed.

The Bourbon monarchy had proved incapable of detaching itself from its worst supports, the priests and n.o.bles: only the dynasty which owed its throne to the Revolution could maintain the social work of the Revolution.

As for himself, he had learnt wisdom by misfortune. He renounced conquest.

He should give France peace without and liberty within. He accepted the Treaty of Paris and the frontiers of 1792. Freed from the necessities which had forced him in earlier days to found a military Empire, he recognised and bowed to the desire of the French nation for const.i.tutional government.

He should henceforth govern only as a const.i.tutional sovereign, and seek only to leave a const.i.tutional crown to his son."

[Feeling of the various cla.s.ses.]

[Napoleon enters Lyons, March 10.]

This language was excellently chosen. It satisfied the peasants and the workmen, who wished to see the n.o.bles crushed, and it showed at least a comprehension of the feelings uppermost in the minds of the wealthier and more educated middle cla.s.ses, the longing for peace, and the aspiration towards political liberty. It was also calculated to temper the unwelcome impression that an exiled ruler was being forced upon France by the soldiery. The military movement was indeed overwhelmingly decisive, yet the popular movement was scarcely less so. The Royalists were furious, but impotent to act; thoughtful men in all cla.s.ses held back, with sad apprehensions of returning war and calamity; [225] but from the time when Napoleon left Gren.o.ble, the nation at large was on his side. There was nowhere an effective centre of resistance. The Prefets and other civil officers appointed under the Empire still for the most part held their posts; they knew themselves to be threatened by the Bourbonist reaction, but they had not yet been displaced; their professions of loyalty to Louis XVIII. were forced, their instincts of obedience to their old master, even if they wished to have done with him, profound. From this cla.s.s, whose cowardice and servility find too many parallels in history, [226] Napoleon had little to fear. Among the marshals and higher officers charged with the defence of the monarchy, those who sincerely desired to serve the Bourbons found themselves powerless in the midst of their troops. Macdonald, who commanded at Lyons, had to fly from his men, in order to escape being made a prisoner. The Count of Artois, who had come to join him, discovered that the only service he could render to the cause of his family was to take himself out of sight. Napoleon entered Lyons on the 10th of March, and now formally resumed his rank and functions as Emperor. His first edicts renewed that appeal to the ideas and pa.s.sions of the Revolution which had been the key-note of every one of his public utterances since leaving Elba.

Treating the episode of Bourbon restoration as null and void, the edicts of Lyons expelled from France every emigrant who had returned without the permission of the Republic or the Emperor; they drove from the army the whole ma.s.s of officers intruded by the Government of Louis XVIII.; they invalidated every appointment and every dismissal made in the magistracy since the 1st of April, 1814; and, reverting to the law of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly of 1789, abolished all n.o.bility except that which had been conferred by the Emperor himself.