Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815 Volume I Part 2

A judicial blindness had fallen upon the ministers. All warnings, all lessons, all reproaches, were lost upon them. Far from being awed by public opinion, they thought they deserved high honour for defying it.

The ministers had made up their mind. Deceived by the opinions which they had formed respecting the preponderance of their faction, they miscalculated the influence and resources of the partizans of the revolution. Confiding in their power, and in the fear inspired by their power, they thought it useless to maintain any further reserve; and that they could charge onwards to the end of the career which they had in view. Intoxicated by their ignorant enthusiasm, they insulted the nation in the person of each individual, whilst they encroached upon the rights which he valued most, and insulted him both in his interests and his feelings. The imperial guard was removed from Paris: the emigrants grudged the renown of these troops, and feared their patriotism. It was given out that the discontent evinced by the guard when the king came in, was the cause of the punishment which they received[8].--But had not the government called forth this discontent? Surely it was ungenerous to compel those heroes to walk as attendants in the triumph of a new master. Their grief and fidelity deserved not to be thus insulted. I then saw these honoured warriors.

Haggard looks and sullen silence revealed their feelings. Absorbed by grief, they appeared to be insensible to the outward world. "Vive la Garde Imperiale" was the shout of the pitying Parisians, who wished to cheer them. These salutations, which, perhaps, they despised, were unheeded. Submissive to their superiors, they obeyed the word of command which told them that they must march: they marched, and that was all.

[Footnote 8: The accusation that a spirit of mutiny prevailed amongst them cannot be refuted more effectually than by quoting the expressions used by M. de Montesquiou on the 14th of March. "In the last two months," said he, "not _one_ of the soldiers or officers belonging to the corps of the old guard composing the garrison of Metz, has been _once_ reprimanded."]

Troops of the line replaced the imperial guards, who were drafted out of the capital with great expedition. Little time elapsed before the dissatisfaction of the new troops became manifest. The regiments were wholly disorganized; officers were thrust upon the soldiers, amongst whom they stood as complete strangers. In consequence of these changes the troops were put out of temper; and they became disgusted with service, because they were wearied by endless parades and reviews which took place, not to perfect them in their discipline, but for the instruction of their raw commanders. The government broke their spirit by affronting them: they were compelled to present arms to the king's body guard, whom they detested. The re-establishment of the "Maison du Roi" was opposed by the general feeling of the nation, and it particularly tended to rouse the jealousy and discontent of the garrison of Paris. The troops of the line and the national guards who were on duty at the Tuileries could not submit to acknowledge the "gardes du corps" as their superiors, and refused to present arms to them. The "gardes du corps" complained, and it was ordered that the troops of the line should salute them with military honours, or be punished. After this victory, the young "gardes du corps," who were proud of it, used to walk up and down before the sentinels, in order to force the latter to wors.h.i.+p their epaulettes. It may easily be imagined how such childish insults, which were never checked, must have mortified the old soldiers of Napoleon: and we all know that the self-love of a Frenchman is not to be offended with impunity.

Self-love is the medium through which the soldier ascends into glory.

When Napoleon earned immortal fame in Italy, he nourished and dignified this pa.s.sion by addressing his soldiers in language breathing the lofty spirit of the heroic age, he rekindled the courage of his army, and every man became a conqueror. But the royalist officers sought to destroy all warlike sentiment by expressing their contempt for our national victories, by displaying the puffed insolence of birth and rank; and they lost the confidence and the esteem of the army which they were appointed to command.

Widely different, indeed, was the example which was set by the most exalted and most formidable of our enemies. It is needless to name him. This sovereign never tried to undervalue our glory: he was only happy when he could bear testimony again and again to the talents and the courage of the French nation. When he received our officers he did not treat them with that ill-concealed disdain, so often lavished on the conquered, but with the honest esteem inspired by valour; and with that delicacy, I would almost say respect, which is due to honourable misfortune. The subject of his discourse sometimes compelled him to allude to our reverses; but he never failed to allay the smart by lavis.h.i.+ng his praises on the efforts which we had made to deprive him of victory. He seemed to be astonished that he had been able to withstand us.

How deeply were our warriors affected when they contrasted his chivalrous magnanimity with the endeavours of their royalist masters, who tried incessantly to poison the fond recollection of their former triumphs, and to deprive them of the only consolation which remained to them in the hour of affliction.

Whatever discontent might prevail amongst the troops, yet the greater part of the staff and regimental officers had transferred themselves to the Bourbons with cordial sincerity. Perhaps a few, who were less confident than the rest, still appeared distrustful and lukewarm; but they might have been easily won over, either by those sugared and alluring phrases which sound so sweetly when p.r.o.nounced by royalty, or even by merely leaving them quiet until their resentment could cool of itself.

When Henry IV. recovered his throne, the bigoted partisans of the league, whom he had pardoned, continued still to threaten and revile him. It was suggested that he should punish them; but Henry said, "No,--we must wait, they are yet vexed." Those who were constantly invoking the memory of good king Henry, never sought to imitate his conduct. Instead of allowing time to our generals to get over their vexation, they embittered their temper by daily insults. Our officers were treated like ruffian bandits; they were branded as rebels, who were too happy if they obtained a pardon. Praise and favour fell only to the share of the army of Conde, the Vendeans, and the Chouans. The triumphal arches destined to eternize the exploits of our armies were menaced with sacrilegious ruin; and it was solemnly proposed to erect a monument to the memory of the Vendeans and the emigrants who fell at Quiberon.

Certainly our deluded brethren deserved to be regretted and mourned.

Yet they had turned their weapons against the sacred bosom of their country. They were either the auxiliaries or the hirelings of our implacable enemies the English, and if honours were paid to them as ill.u.s.trious victims, it was equivalent to a declaration that their conquerors were their murderers.

Our warriors had been graced with t.i.tles of n.o.bility, bought with the blood which they had shed in the defence of the country. Their honours were treated with insolent scorn, and the ghost of Georges Cadoudal, a murderer in effect, and a traitor in intent, was enn.o.bled by the gracious patent which was bestowed upon his father.

Georges in attempting the life of Napoleon had committed an act against all law, whether human or divine. If such a crime was decked out as a virtue, if signal rewards were allotted to the memory of the criminal, the government abetted a.s.sa.s.sination and regicide. The safety of Louis XVIII. and of every other monarch was compromised, and a sanction was given to the dangerous and antisocial doctrine which teaches that any individual may sit in judgment on the legitimacy of the t.i.tle of the occupier of the throne, and then determine to murder his sovereign if he doubts the validity of his rights.

Other affronts exactly of the same complexion were offered to France and to the army. t.i.tles, military commissions, and pensions, were showered, in La Vendee, upon the heads of such of the Chouans as were most celebrated for their cruelty[9], and these marks of favour were distributed amongst them in the presence of the victims of their rapine and ferocity.

[Footnote 9: The Chouans never allowed the opportunity of committing murder to escape them.

They carried their muskets as they walked by the side of the plough, and the furrows which they trod were frequently sprinkled with blood. The priests who had taken the oaths, and the purchasers of national domains, were particularly the objects of the refinements of their cruelty. They seldom entered a town without plundering the inhabitants, and without slaughtering those who had been pointed out to their vengeance.--_Lacretelle, Precis de la Revolution._]

The members of the ruling faction thought that they had not done enough in endeavouring to honour the French enemies of France at the expense of her defenders, and therefore they compa.s.sed the degradation and destruction of the inst.i.tutions which reminded the people of the praises and the glory of our national armies.

In despite of the most solemn engagements the government robbed the legion of honour of its prerogatives. Then the ministerial papers hinted that henceforward the order of St. Louis was to be the only military order; and that the legion of honour was to be the reward of civil merit. The blow was aimed at the heart; the army shuddered, our marshals burned with indignation. The government was compelled to disclaim and abandon its intent.

Yet one sure method of debasing the legion of honour was completely in the power of government; they could make it cheap, and to this plan they resorted. Under Napoleon the Cross was never granted until it had been long and truly deserved: now it became the prey of meanness. The order was prost.i.tuted and cast to favourite underlings and intriguers, to whom it was distributed by caprice or bribery.

Our soldiers, who had purchased this distinction with their blood,--the magistrates, the functionaries, the learned, the manufacturers, who had received it as the reward of the services which they had rendered to the state, to the arts, to useful industry,--all were filled with consternation when they found themselves elbowed by a mean and worthless mob. Yielding to their honest pride, the greater part of our old legionaries refused to wear the insignia, which, instead of conferring distinction, could only confound them with men whom public opinion had branded and proscribed.

Success encouraged the government, and they did not stop. Richly endowed asylums for the daughters of the deceased members of the legion had been founded by the Emperor. Under the pretext of economy, of saving the annual sum of forty thousand francs, the ministers took the King by surprise, and hurried the Sovereign into the signature of an order for turning the orphans out of doors. Marshal Macdonald declared in vain that the old leaders of the army would never abandon the children of their companions, and that they were ready to defray the expense which was falsely a.s.signed as the motive of the expulsion of the girls. Equally fruitless was the generosity of Madame Delchan, the matron of the establishment of Paris, who offered to continue its management without any a.s.sistance from the government, and to expend her entire fortune in the support of her pupils. Nor did the ministers pay the least attention to those who stated that the greater part of the children had neither friends nor relations, and that if they were thrown dest.i.tute upon the world, they would be inevitably consigned to misery or vice. No consideration could move the pity of the ministry.

But at length the indignation of the public found a voice in the Lower House, and the representatives of the people were about to remonstrate with the Sovereign. Ministers were disconcerted and abashed, and they abandoned their profligate enterprise.

This check, however, did not amend them. A few days afterwards they dissolved the military academies of St. Cyr and St. Germain, alleging that they were superfluous; and at the same moment the "ecole Royale Militaire" was re-established, "in order that the n.o.bility of the kingdom might enjoy the advantages secured to them by the edict of January 1757."

By this impudent violation of the principles of the charter our representatives were again roused, and the ministers were again obliged to recede.

Irritated by these defeats, they sought revenge and actuated by an ill-judged hope of weakening the resisting obstacles, they dismissed a countless mult.i.tude of military officers, who were turned out of the army upon half pay, though their full pay had been formally guarantied. It must be acknowledged that the number of the officers of the imperial army was much greater than was required by the strength of the royal army; but as it was alleged that they were useless and expensive, it was not right to insult them in their misfortunes by ministerial profusion; for, at the same time, they saw the government granting rank and pay to a number of emigrants who were good for nothing in the army. The government raised six thousand "gardes du corps," troops of musketeers and light horse, "gendarmes de la garde,"

&c. who scandalized Paris, and disgusted the army by their new epaulettes, and their sumptuous and splendid uniforms. Lastly, the government, led on by its innovating madness, did not respect those veterans whom Death had spared on the field of battle. Without pitying age or infirmities, the ministers, using their accustomed pretext of economy, withdrew the benefactions which a grateful nation had bestowed upon two thousand five hundred of these objects of compa.s.sion.

Since the ministers did not dread giving public offence to the army, and in matters where the offence would be felt most acutely,--since they refused to recognize both its services and its rights, it may be easily supposed that the military were disgusted and oppressed when they appeared before the ministry as individuals. It is not intended to detail the complaints and accusations which then justly abounded; but one fact may be stated as giving a double ill.u.s.tration of the spirit which prevailed.

General Milhaud had distinguished himself in the course of our national wars, by success and bravery. At the time when France was invaded by the allies, he "covered himself with glory" at the head of a handful of dragoons, who cut a considerable corps of the enemy's troops entirely to pieces. This officer, in consequence of his rank, his standing, and his services, had been appointed a chevalier de St.

Louis as a matter of right; but at the moment of his reception, the cross was taken from him with ignominy, because he had been so unfortunate as to vote for the death of the King twenty years before.

Louis XVIII., when he returned to France, had promised that he would not inquire into the votes which had been given against his august brother. This promise, which had been demanded from him, and which he ratified by his charter, could not be otherwise than a painful victory over the feelings of his heart. He must have grieved when he found himself under the necessity of admitting those judges into his court, who had condemned Louis XVI. to the scaffold, and to present them to the daughter of the murdered monarch. But still he had sworn not to avenge his death, and the oaths by which a monarch binds himself to his people should be inviolable.

All resentment was to be repressed. The voters had been pardoned, and therefore the government could not be justified in reviving the memory of their crime, and in bringing down vengeance and death upon their heads. A funeral veil ought to have been drawn over that period of our revolution, during which we were all equally misled or guilty.

Besides, we must state plainly and distinctly, that the grief excited by the murder of Louis XVI., was not the true cause of the invectives with which the regicides were a.s.sailed by the emigrants. Unfortunately the effect produced at Coblentz by the trial and execution of the king, is too well known. If the errors of some of the men of the revolution were hunted out with so much malignant zeal, it was only for the purpose of coming to this result--that as the revolution was the work of crime, it was necessary to root out every thing which had proceeded from the revolution.

The insult to which General Milhaud was subjected, was therefore rather a political movement, than a punishment inflicted on an individual. In selecting Milhaud as the object of the first a.s.sault against the regicides, the government gave a proof of their want of tact; for if they wanted to render the regicides contemptible or odious, they should have avoided attacking an officer who had long since washed away the stains of the blood of his King, by imbruing himself in the blood of our enemies!

But whilst the military, from the highest to the lowest, were exposed to the persecution and tyranny of the prevailing faction, the magistracy, and the civil functionaries of the state, suffered no less from ill treatment and injustice. Commissioners had been despatched into the departments, even at the beginning of the new reign, "in order to consolidate the royal government, and to examine into the conduct of the public functionaries under existing circ.u.mstances;"

that is to say, at the moment of the restoration of the Bourbons.

Such was the confidence which the nation placed in the promises of the King, that no jealousy was excited by this measure. On the contrary, people expected that great good would result from it, that party heat would be allayed, and public interest and opinion become more speedily united to the throne.

This pleasing illusion was soon dispelled. A great number of emigrants, who had just come in again, were appointed commissioners.

Instead of listening to cool and experienced advisers, they gave themselves up to the priests and n.o.bles who beset them, and who were neither moderate nor enlightened.

The middling cla.s.ses, who, from their habitual intercourse with the lower orders, possess so great an influence over the body of the people, were considered by the commissioners as a rabble mult.i.tude of upstart "_roturiers_." They treated the middling cla.s.s with disdain and contempt. Deceived by the recollection of the excesses of the revolution, they fancied, that whoever could win the populace, became the ruler of the country. When money is not to be had, the surest way of getting over the mult.i.tude, is by appealing to its pa.s.sions. They therefore announced, that they were sent to do justice to the people, to listen to their complaints, to reform abuses, and to abolish the "_droits reunis_," and the conscription.

Meetings were announced in the villages and in the country towns. All persons of respectability kept away; but the populace, who are always delighted with uproar and novelty, crowded in. There was no end to the preposterous charges which were preferred against the magistrates, the prefects, the under-prefects, the mayors, the administrators of public affairs, the officers of revenue; in short, none of the depositaries of public authority were spared.

Instead of despising such accusations, or submitting them to an impartial inquiry, the commissioners hailed the popular clamour with transport. They triumphed in the tumult; they were overflowing with happiness at the fancied success of their efforts; they continued exclaiming with increasing joy, "that is right, Good People; the King is your father; these fellows are nothing but _canaille_; upon our word of honour, we will kick them out."

These promises were kept. The public officers and functionaries of all cla.s.ses were gradually dismissed, and their places given to informers, or to the old n.o.bility. As the common people cooled, they became undeceived, and it was found that they had gained neither in riches nor in loyalty. The commissioners, instead of adding as they expected to the popularity of the government, only helped to cry it down. The cause of royalty was compromised by the scenes of riot which they encouraged, and they degraded it by acts of injustice and oppression.

The non-emigrant commissioners acted far otherwise. They knew how to value the lying declamations of the n.o.bles, and of the mob whom the n.o.bles had set on. From the different conduct pursued by each party, effects resulted which exhibited the most striking contrast. In one department the public functionaries retained their situations, in another they were disgraced and vituperated.

These scandalous proceedings excited the general indignation of the country. The government was universally blamed. The important task of inst.i.tuting inquiries, which were to affect the honour and the civil existence of the most respectable characters, had been entrusted to emigrants who had lived amongst strangers during the best part of their lives. And these men, who knew nothing of the forms, the principles, or even the faults of the imperial government, were consequently wholly unable to appreciate the conduct, whether praiseworthy or blameable, of the depositaries of public authority.

The people discovered that they had been cheated, and that this measure, disguised by specious representations, was in truth adopted only for the purpose of more effectually displacing the old functionaries of the nation. And, lastly, it was evident that this general dismission would carry off those authorities who were the natural guardians of every individual who had taken a part in the revolution. And that all who were thus affected would be placed beneath the sway of their sworn enemies, the n.o.bles, the priests, and their adherents.

Indications were given by the government that a "purification" of the courts of justice was in contemplation; and the public apprehension increased. The independence and immovability of the judges had been guaranteed to the nation, and this guarantee was certainly the most valuable of the rights which we had gained. But on account of its importance, the government were the more desirous of violating it.

When the proposed "purification" became known, our national magistrates trembled in their chairs, and they foresaw that they would be plucked out for the purpose of making way for the antiquated survivors of the courts of parliament.

The nation was alarmed, and protested against the measure. But the "purification" was not to be stopped in its swoop. The process began in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the Court of Ca.s.sation. And, to remove all doubts respecting the ulterior object of the government, it was officially announced that the _elimination_, disguised under the name of the "installation royale," had been deferred only for the purpose of "obtaining the information which was necessary to direct or decide the choice of the judges, and that it would take place successively in all the courts and tribunals of the kingdom."

The "installation" was felt to be not only a breach of faith, but an open conspiracy against the security of the person and property of the subject. We knew that the tribunals would now be filled with magistrates whose prejudices, principles, and interest, must be in perpetual hostility against our national laws, and that the new men would seek to elude or crush our juridical system. The royal magistrates, as it was but too evident, would be the relations, the friends, or the creatures of the n.o.bility, the emigrants, and of all who claimed to be restored to their rights and privileges. Nor could we hope that judges so const.i.tuted would deal out impartial justice between the ci-devant privileged tribes, whom they would naturally consider as the victims of revolutionary principles, and the children of the revolution, who, according to the same mode of reasoning, they could not fail to consider as the oppressors and robbers of the privileged tribes.

The owners of national property were most alarmed by the approaching expulsion of the revolutionary judges. By the charter, the inviolability of their property had been guaranteed to them. But they had not forgotten that a violent debate arose on the "redaction" of this article; and that the ministers had been already accused on account of the obscurity of the clause, which they refused to correct into such words as might prevent all future quibbling and special pleading.

If the emigrants, the priesthood, and the n.o.bility, did not scruple to express their hopes aloud that the sales of the national domains might be declared null and void, it was equally well known to the public that certain Great Personages entertained the same hopes in secret.

Doubts respecting the legality, and, consequently, of the validity of the sales, were expressed in the ministerial journals; and various publications were industriously disseminated, in which the purchases were directly impugned. The authors of these works were favoured and protected[10]; and it was whispered that the Great Personages, to whom we have already alluded, had deliberated on the means of realizing their hopes. All these tokens of the times united in giving too reasonable a ground for the apprehensions entertained by the proprietors of the confiscated lands; and the disorganization of the tribunals was considered as a national calamity.

[Footnote 10: M.M. David and Falconnet. In order to appease the public indignation, a summons was issued against these writers, it being stated in the process that they had endeavoured to excite civil war. There was no difficulty in guessing that this proceeding was a farce, and that by overcharging the crime it was the intention of the government to favour the acquittal of the accused; and accordingly they were acquitted.]

It is calculated that the individuals who are interested directly or indirectly either in the purchases of the national domains, or in the rights and liabilities arising out of them, amount in number to somewhat between nine and ten millions.