Extract from John Cam Hobhouse, Letters from Paris by an Englishman at Paris during the last reign of the Emperor Napoleon
LETTER XXXVII. Thursday, July 20. [1815]
On the day the allies occupied the barriers, it was notified that Napoleon had passed through Niort on the morning of the 2nd of July, and three days afterwards it was known that he had reached Rochefort. Since that period no notice was taken of him in any of the public journals until the l6th, when the evening papers proclaimed the departure of Napoleon Bonaparte from Rochefort. This was not confirmed until the 18th, when the fact of his having surrendered himself to the Bellerophon, to which he was pursued by two royalist prefects, was announced in the Moniteur in the following terms:
“Des mesures avaient été prises pour prévenir l'évasion de Napoléon Bonaparte; on verra par l'extrait suivant d'une lettre du préfet maritime de Rochefort, à son excellence le ministre de la marine, que le résultat a été: tel qu'on avait lieu de l'espérer.
Rochefort, le 15 juillet, à dix heures du soir.
Pour exécuter les ordres de V. E., je me suis embarqué dans mon canot, accompagné de M. le baron Ricard, préfet de la Charente-Inferieure. Les rapports de la rade de la journée du 14 ne m'était point encore parvenus: il me fut rendu compte par le capitaine de vaisseau Philibert, commandant l'Amphitrite, que Bonaparte s'était embarqué sur le brick Epervier, armé en parlementaire, déterminé à se rendre à la croisière Anglaise.
“En effet, au point de jour nous le vîmes manoeuvrer pour s'approcher au vaisseau Anglais, le Bellerophon, commandé par le Capitaine Maitland qui, voyant que Bonaparte se dirigeait sur lui, avait arbore pavillon blanc au mât de misaine.
“Bonaparte a été reçu à bord du vaisseau anglais ainsi que les personnes de sa suite : l'officier que j'avais laissé en observation, m'avait informé de cette importante nouvelle, quand le General Becker arrivé peu de momens après, me l'a confirmé.
(Signé) BONNEFOUX,
Capitaine de vaisseau. “
Nothing but the entire oblivion into which he had before fallen could account for the very little notice taken, or importance attached by the people of Paris to this close of the most extraordinary life of modern times. Hardly any one I met mentioned the paragraph in the Moniteur; only one of his personal admirers told me that the Duke of ______ speaking to her of the fact, said, with the tears in his eyes, “he owed it to us not to have been taken by the English.” It is an honourable regret that drew this reflection from a faithful servant of France, who would have wished that a man, to whom is attached so brilliant, as well as so unfortunate a portion of the history of his country, should have terminated his career in a manner worthy of the author of so many stupendous events, so many wars, so many conquests, the founder and destroyer of states and statesmen, the rise and the ruin of so many kingdoms and crowns. You might have felt inclined to ask the above gentleman what the fugitive Emperor could have done in such an emergency, You would, I know, have had the answer of the dramatic hero — “Qu'il mourut” [“that he might have died”] You know my sentiments on that subject. I shall only add here, that if he is treated by the English in a way unworthy of them, the disgrace will fall not upon Napoleon, who will gain, from the manly support of severity, the only credit which can now attract the notice of mankind to the future portion of his life. 1
Even at this moment there are persons in Paris who affect to believe that some representative has been taken in his stead, and that the true man is at the head quarters behind the Loire; an absurd story, originating, most probably, with the malice of the royalists, who wish to represent the army as still devoted to Napoleon, and to excuse measures of extraordinary rigour against the imperial prisoner and his adherents. Our ministers will, doubtless, be entirely ignorant of the insignificance of the fallen monarch in France, and our intelligent journals will be filled with details and observations on an event which here makes not the least sensation, and passes, indeed, in a silence which sufficiently proves to me, that Napoleon might be permitted almost to remain in the heart of France, without the danger of an insurrection in his favour, unless the vengeance of the restored dynasty should give rise to a revolt that would, were the dethroned Emperor in China, find some rallying point. There is no inclination in the army to try him again; he has been sufficiently tried: there is much less inclination in the people to repeat the experiment, although the faults of the royalist system will call down cries of “Vive l'Empereur,” as being a more decisive anti-Bourbon exclamation than those of “liberty and the nation,” for which it is supplied. Our cabinet will believe the accounts of the royalists, as usual, and, instead of exhorting the court of Paris to secure itself by moderation, will endeavour to save it by the removal or detention of one individual, whose existence in this or that latitude they will wisely suppose as the sole point on which depends the attachment or aversion of all France to its reigning government. It was the intention, as you have seen, of Napoleon to retire to the United States of America. Notwithstanding he was placed under the protection of General Becker, the prefect Baron Ricard, and the maritime prefect Bonnefoux, had received orders from the court of Paris to prevent his escape, and did take measures to seize him. He gave himself up to the Bellerophon; he must therefore be considered as a prisoner of war, and should, doubtless, be treated as any other crowned head taken in the field. We have no right to look upon him in any other light than a monarch who has failed in an enterprise to extend his dominions, and has become our captive by the fortune of war: neither justice nor generosity can allow us to add to his detention any rigours or degradations, savouring of punishment; much less can it be permitted that we should give him up to the knives of the Chouans, and the Brularts of the Bourbon court. What would be his fate, in that case, may be collected from the paragraph which follows the annunciation of his capture, in the Moniteur. — ” And thus has ” terminated an enterprise, conceived by Buonaparte, and executed by help of Messieurs Labédoyère, Ney, Bassano, Lavalette, Savary, ” Bertrand, d'Erlon, Regnault de St. Jean ” d'Angely, Lefevre Desnouettes, Boulay de la Meurthe, Defermont, Etienne, and the Ladies Hortense, Souza, and Hamelin.”
Although the Moniteur has resigned its official character to the court gazette, yet it is still in the hands of the government, and this paragraph may be considered a decided denunciation, and the names given a list of proscribed. — If M. de Vitrolles is the author of this article, he has forgotten that his life was saved at the intercession of the Princess Hortense, just as the Bourbons would forget that the Duke of Angouleme was released by Napoleon. The royalists are determined still to believe, and make the world believe, that Napoleon was brought back by the schemes of traitors, not b y their own indiscretion ; and at last have ventured to designate, by name, the persons actually concerned in that preconcerted project: nothing more is wanting to show the total absurdity of such an imputation, which will be found to apply to each of the individuals here named, as much as to M. Etienne, the writer for the theatre, who has published the following letter to the editor of the Independent:
“SIR,
An article of the Moniteur, of this day, designating me as one of the authors of the conspiracy which has brought back Napoleon Buonaparte into France, and tending to provoke against me the heaviest penalties; I beg you to inform the public, that it is my intention to prosecute, for slander, the author of that article.
I have the honour to be, &c. Etienne.”
Not only the fifteen persons named in the Moniteur, but the vast majority of twenty-eight millions of Frenchmen, are guilty of supporting that man when brought back; but I re-assert, that it is my fixed opinion, that no proof will ever be found of a previous conspiracy to restore him; — what was done by the military men here named was done openly, and in consequence of the appearance of Napoleon in France, not of a pre-concerted plot. The king may shoot them, as well as all the individuals who joined Napoleon, before he himself quitted Lille, if he can; but we shall see what proofs their trials, if trials they have, will, bring of a previous conspiracy. 2
It is not at all unnatural that the restored dynasty should wish to punish those who signalized themselves, in the great national attempt to exclude them from the throne: and if the five or six military men of rank, who were the first to declare for Napoleon upon his advance from Cannes, shall be taken to the plain of Crenelle, there will be nothing unusual in the vengeance, nor, it may be said, unjust. Want of success in enterprises of this nature has always been so rewarded.
Et si le sceau de la victoire
N'eut consacré ces demi-dieux,
Alexander, aux yeux du vulgaire,
N'aurait été qu'un téméraire,
Et César un séditieux.
It does not follow that an entire oblivion of offences would not be more politic, as well as more generous. If the king be strong enough to pardon, it appears to me that he had better not make a sad exception against half a dozen, or half a hundred culpables, in a crime, of which nearly his whole nation might be convicted, namely of having joined in the revolution, by which they expected to attain, not the personal benefits of the new monarch, for those could allure and reach but a small number of individuals, but a real national representation, a division of power, the responsibility of ministers, the freedom of the press, the liberty of conscience, and the practical results of those political institutions, which they conceived the restored dynasty would dare to destroy openly or secretly contrive to counteract. The soldiers differed from the nation at large only inasmuch as they were called, and qualified by their habits of life, to be the foremost champions of the cause, in which all their fellow countrymen were equally interested and engaged with themselves. They represented the power of the nation to defend its inclinations, just as the members of the institute would be the arm employed to uphold their pretensions in literature and the arts. This right-hand of France has offended the Bourbons sorely, and willingly would they cut it off; they are the hearty associates of the crime for which the Labédoyeres and the Neys may fall, and they would likewise fall, but “defendit numerus.” His majesty has accepted, it may be presumed, the unconditional submission, brought by the Generals Gerard, Haxo, and Valmy; but it will be necessary that this acceptance should be followed up by measures of the utmost lenience, or rather of compliance with the feelings of the armed portion of the people; each individual of which must go through a long course of favour before he forgets that the hand, now employed to soothe him, was that which tore from him all the trophies of his glory and his gain.
It seems, however, that the allies, in search of their reasonable guarantees, and finding the perverse disposition of subjugated France, demand certain sacrifices of Louis, in return for the throne which they have recovered, and which by those sacrifices alone they pretend is to be secured. At a meeting of the king's ministers, and those of the allied sovereigns, the latter demanded what security could be given, by the cabinet of the Tuilleries [sic], against the three following obstacles to the peace of Europe.1. Napoleon Buonaparte. 2. The French army. 3. The French Jacobins. It is pretended that M. de Talleyrand answered, “as for the first, that obstacle is now a prisoner in England; we have nothing to do with a guarantee now in your own hands. The army shall be entirely dissolved, which we hope will be considered satisfactory, for we can do no more. The Jacobins, by which we suppose are meant those distinguished by their opposition to the 'present family; those, to be sure, it is not so easy to take measures against, when it is considered how large a portion they are of all France.” Here the other party asserted, that there might be means of putting the most noxious and prominent out of action, hors de combat. There was sufficient excuse for punishment; and deportation, as well as death, had often been tried before in France. Still the French ministers retorted the difficulty of designating and selecting the persons to be punished, out of so vast a multitude; but a list as at last made out of 200, it is said, marked for a greater or less degree of punishment; which number was reduced, at the instance of Fouché, to about 130. It is added, that the Duke of Otranto avowed, that if blood was to be spilt, he would retire to Siberia rather than retain his authority. The allied sovereigns, it is asserted, are determined upon making some examples of the danger of attempting to set aside a dethroned dynasty for a more popular prince; and to visit with the last vengeance the crime of having submitted to that man, at whose feet every one of them, by turns, and all together, gave the most convincing proof of the necessity of yielding to circumstances, and of the pride that can lick the dust shaken from the shoes of a conqueror. The magnanimous Alexander is not so magnanimous as he was last year; he finds the folly of throwing away his favours upon a people insensible of the benefits of being beaten, and the advantages of a Cossack conquest. Whether the Bourbons are playing off the allies against their own ministry, in order to take the odium of revenge from themselves, or whether they are inclined really to reconcile themselves to their subjects, their future conduct will show; but at present they allow the agents of the liberators of Europe to be the ministers of severity. The Princess Hortense received, a day or two ago, an order from Muffling to quit Paris within the twenty-four hours, and to retire from France with all convenient speed: on the other hand, some measures of the same nature have been undertaken by the government; and sentence of banishment, signed by M. Talleyrand, have been transmitted to some of his ancient associates and commensals. If this treatment be considered a mitigation of punishment, it may be defended; but, in any other point of view, sems [sic] a strange beginning for a constitutional reign. 3
The certain guarantee of the intentions of Louis to act up to his declaration, and the spirit of his charter, would be the convocation of a legislative assembly, freely and fairly chosen; but what has he done in this respect? By his ordonnance of the 13th, he has called together the electoral colleges under such regulations, and prescribed such conditions to the eligibility of the deputies, as are sufficiently indicative of the system intended to be pursued by the court. The number of representatives is reduced to 396; the qualification necessary for a candidate is enacted to be the payment of 1000 francs of contribution, a condition totally exclusive, in some departments, of any suitable appointment; and such presidents are named to the electoral colleges as must shut out all hope against any but a court candidate; take, for example, M. Kergorlay, the denouncer of Napoleon, who complained of the commencement of the reign of terror in terms, which, if there had been any cause for his complaint, would have cost him his head, and would have been considered an overt act of treason in our own country. The court seems determined to employ only one set of agents, namely those of the ancient regime. Nearly the whole of the new prefects are nobles, and other appointments have been made in the same spirit. The certainty of support has given to the partisans of the restored family an audacity which characterises the victory of a weak and prejudiced minority: already have accounts arrived that the massacre of the protestants has begun in the south — a strange contrast, when proceeding from the presumed friends of order, and of the ancient social system, with the forbearance and tranquillity that marked, on the return of Napoleon, the conduct of all the abettors of anarchy in those protestant provinces, in which the imprudence of the privileged classes, during the first reign of Louis XVIII, might have been expected to have laid up some vengeance in store for the day of triumph.
I account for this difference in the same position in the conduct of men, to whom measures exactly the contrary to their real actions have been and are still imputed by all the friends of all old systems in every country and in every age, not from supposing, with Algernon Sydney, that there is something in the cause of pure monarchical institutions which has a worse influence on the passions of mankind than the adoption of principles more inclined to popular governments can produce; but from the circumstance of the pure royalists striving, at this time, against opinion, whilst the constitutionalists are but following the direction of the stream. The agitations of the former must necessarily be the most violent of the two, whether they make head against, or are borne backwards by, the current. It is dangerous to carry a simile or metaphor so far as to give to the thing likened all the properties of the thing applied; but Mirabeau followed up this popular phrase by denouncing drowning against the mad attempt to swim up the torrent. Who is there now in Paris or France, I would ask it of my fifty thousand countrymen in this capital, who does not conceive that this obstinacy of the Bourbonists will prove that there was nothing forced or outrageous in the comparison? The excesses of that party who dared to wear the ensigns of gladness at the battle of Waterloo, and who continue still to congratulate themselves on the success of those arms which now watch in the antechamber of their monarch, and, whilst they run over with delight at the triumph of their personal passions, have not a sigh for France, — the excesses of these men, the old emigrants and the young nobles, are such as have already consigned them to the contempt of every unprejudiced foreigner. A party of the latter description ended a compotation dedicated to the victories of their allies, by demolishing the looking-glasses and lustres of a coffee-house, the temple of republicanism and Napoleon. These worthy warriors, the heroes, as the Nain Jaune says, not of Mont St. Jean, but Montansier, have been active also in avenging themselves on the emblems, either real or suspected, of patriotism; and having made successful war on the violets, have now attacked the pinks. An order of the day, just issued from General Desolles, forbids the wearing of red pinks, which are to be extracted with all due form and legality at the guardhouse, but not forcibly torn away in the open streets by the unofficial hands of individual zeal, a measure which has already cost the lives of two or three body guards in the boulevards and coffee-houses. The hyacinth of the Duke of Orleans is equally proscribed. Are we in the circus of Constantinople and in the 6th century? Mlle. Mars has also succeeded to the hisses of Mlle. Bourgoign, and the theatres are now in occupation of the friends of the lilies, as they were before held by the enemies of that fatal flower. The great majority of the actors and artists are more than suspected admirers of the Emperor, and proceedings may he anticipated against the Institute as well as the play-houses. The arts must be punished for their alliance with usurpation. At one of the minor theatres, an actor, who had distinguished himself in the short defence of Paris, near St, Denis, as a rifleman of the national guard, was ordered, a night or two ago, upon some trifling occasion, to ask pardon on his knees before the audience. You will not believe that I attribute the excesses or follies of the royalists to the king — by no means; I only speak of the spirit and character of the party — I only wish to show you what is the complexion of the conduct adopted to reconcile disgrace and despotism to France. You may guess at the effect — Paris is in a state of disturbance which the days of the siege never exceeded — far from diminishing the measures of precaution, and laying aside the armed attitude of distrust, the allies have found it necessary to place double guards at the palaces, play-houses, and places of public resort; cannon enfilade the streets, but every menace is scarce sufficient to preserve the tranquillity of the Palais Royal and the Tuilleries [sic].
It is clear that Louis cannot at present trust himself alone in his capital — nay, scarcely out of his palace, in a city, where, if any where, he has a majority of the armed force in his favour. The accounts from the provinces represent them in a state of disquiet more violent than that of Paris. The population on the eastern frontiers is still in arms — many garrisons still hold out; General Clausel has published an order of the day at Bordeaux, on the 15th, forbidding the authorities to receive orders from Paris, that city being in the hands of the enemy, or from any but the Prince of Eckmülh. At Lyons a monument has been raised to the warriors who died for their independence at Waterloo. The regret will be a perpetual censure of the royalists. The vast force of the allies will, doubtless, succeed in subjugating the provinces as it captured the capital, and the French must consent to be treated as a conquered people; they would consent, if one of the conditions were not too humiliating even for the vanquished, and its consequences more perpetual than the modern privileges of conquest seem to them to allow. The king's ostensible ministers, at least M. Fouché, would endeavour to reconcile the people to their monarch, by showing them that, although his majesty returned by force, he intends to remain amongst them by mildness; and to make persuasion finish what fear began. Hence the convocation of the chamber, which some royalists affected to say would not be called together, the king having found the nation not good enough to be entrusted with the representative system. To the opposite influence must we attribute the provisions of the proclamation before noticed, by which many of the beneficial consequences of appealing to the people appear to be sacrificed to the apprehensions of the court. That people are happy to hear of a parliament chosen from amongst themselves, but they are sorry to hear that only 396 members are to have that distinction: they are flattered by being called to participate in the government, but they are disgusted at being told, that a certain degree of wealth, the portion only of a comparatively small minority, is to be an indispensable requisite for legislation, and the sole presumption of honesty and talent, and that thus some departments will actually have no representative; and also, that, by giving the arrondissements a choice only of candidates, not of deputies, many local interests must be disregarded or misunderstood. The army is pleased that the legion of honour is preserved in the electoral colleges of departments; but it is equally dissatisfied at finding that a member, who does not pay 300 francs of contribution, although he should be a principal dignitary of that order, will be excluded from his privileges. Every patriot congratulates himself that certain articles of the constitutional charter are to be revised; but he represses his joy when he recollects how the chamber, to whom is to be entrusted the liberties of himself and his posterity, will be composed, in the midst of whose bayonets it will sit, and who are to be its assistants in the other chamber, formed of men nominated by the court, and, at least, a majority of them previously secured. On the whole, then, the promise of a new national representation has gained the king no friends; but has rather renewed the charge of treachery and deceit, which the royalists take care to justify by hinting, that the chambers will enter fully into the views of the court, or will be finally dismissed.
One or two journals continue to speak the general sense of the nation on this subject. The Independent, edited by M. Jay, and under the influence, it is supposed, of M. Fouché, has not been silent; but its tone, in this as well as every other instance, is towards the king most respectful, and consonant with all it has hitherto said to reconcile the French to their monarch, and to make one more effort for constitutional independence by an oblivion of differences, and by that union of loyalty and patriotism which alone can suit with the circumstances of the times.
CONCLUDING NOTE.
The Independent has been suppressed — we need not want a better proof of the real system which is intended to be pursued: one or two other journals have shared the same fate, and amongst them the Nain Jaune, for joking with the battle of Montansier. The principles of the Independent had subjected it to the attacks of the Napoleonists, or, rather, of those who thought the royalist government ought to be abandoned; or, according to a vulgar phrase, “given rope.” It was guilty of no other indiscretion than telling the ministry how they might save the king. It need not be said that the liberty of the press is not now even a word. Those whom Mr. Cobbett calls, with great reason, whatever may be said of his phraseology, the base-souled editors of our court journals, blamed M. Fouché for his keeping the French papers in subjection, and for not suffering the truth to be told against himself and his friends; whereas the suppression of the Independent was no work of his, nor could have been so, as it was the organ of his own opinions. It was the other part of the police that stopped the voice of common sense. M. Fouché only prevented, and that but partially, the insertion in the court journals, edited by priests and nobles, of articles wholly inflammatory, and tending to encourage the civil discord which wanted not the fuel of denunciation and proscription. Our journalists were, at first, angry at the restrictions of the press; they then found out, after some Frenchman had found it out first, that the liberty of the press in the last reign had occasioned the fall of Napoleon. It may be recollected that, in the time of that Emperor, the same well-informed persons said there was no liberty of the press, and that the Courier asserted, that any person found reading that paper, or the Times, was fined 100 Napoleons. They now find the liberty of the press too good for Frenchmen, to whom they deny every other good thing — and have pushed their folly so far as to sing paeans over the suspension of the French habeas corpus act. The appointment of M. Lainé to the chair of the lower chamber, of him who “would not shut the door against the “hopes of the emigrants' of him who identified the will of the king with the law, shows how much is to be hoped from the new national representation, which, as far as I hear, is more base, and less representative of the people, than the other chamber, where certain intelligent members, appointed to preserve forms, maintain a respectable minority. The name of Count Lanjuinais will not be forgotten in the record destined to preserve the memories of those men who have deserved well of their country in the days of her trouble. He does not despair; his repulsed patriotism is indefatigable. In the mean time every measure of the court seems directed by the fatality which crowned the last enterprise of Napoleon. The whole of France appears now convinced of the truth of that, of which the neighbours of the Tuilleries were apprized in July, namely, the perilous position of the king. The atrocious murderers of the south condemn the forbearance which does not sharpen, instead of merely permitting, the use of their knives. The priests and royalist rabble of these countries regret the pious furies of the Angoulemes, and call for a Charles the Tenth. The association must make most dear to them the numerical successor of Charles the Ninth, and the rival of that wretched Vendome who was supported by the fanatics of the league. The same faction indulges in the same complaints at Paris, and in every other department, where the breach between them and the vanquished majority is daily widening, and must finally split the kingdom into two countries, one of which will be the desolate abode of nobles and priests, served by the people whom the immediate presence of the allied armies shall be able, for a time, to repress; and the other composed of the portion of rebels more or less active, as the same foreign force shall be employed in their constraint. We do not know but that, at this moment, the high roads of the country, whose internal policy an Alfred might have admired, are just as impassable as the wilds of Curdistan [sic]. The patriots, of course, despair of extracting any real or permanent advantages from the forms of freedom granted by the king. The most moderate amongst them only continue to be inactive. I reckon for nothing the disturbances occasioned by the removal of the treasures of the Louvre, and defacing the monuments of the capital, which as many royalists as others, doubtless, joined to inflame. The departments will care little about these injuries, which, though a severe wound to the vanity of the French, are no otherwise to be regarded than as they add to the conviction of the impotence of the king, who, with other advisers, might, perhaps, have managed to awaken a sentiment of pity for his inability to protect his capital from despoliation. But his cabinet either cannot, or will not, identify his sufferings with those of the people, who reckon the commencement of their calamities from the date of his triumphant return. Voltaire, in his essay on the manners and spirit of nations, says, “that only three ways of subjugating a people have been ever, as yet, discovered; the first method, of civilizing by legislation, he reckons at least suspicious — the second, of religious conversion, has only been the lot of a very few;” the third, which employs one portion of a nation to cut the throats of the other, he attributes to the rightful pretenders to this merit, to Charlemagne, Clovis, Alboin, and other respectable monsters. No one will deny that Louis has still to conquer France, which is scarcely more his own, at this time, than it was at the battle of Waterloo. The allies have conquered the French, and have so used their triumph, as a gentleman in France said to a friend of mine in October last, as to have left them nothing but their eyes to weep with. Now, His Majesty, of these three methods, seems resolved to adopt either the second or the third; but whether he can pretend to the virtues of the above heroes, or whether his party will be strong enough to slaughter the remainder of the nation, will admit only of one answer. In the efforts he has made towards the propagation of a new religion, for such the Christianity of the court may be said absolutely to be in the eyes of the French of this day, his failure has been most complete — I judge him out of the mouths of the very chambermaids of Paris, one of whom said to the same person just mentioned, “On est trop éclairé pour tout ça.”4 The religion of Louis and his family will hardly have many charms for the French, nor reconcile them to the God whom the Duchess of Angouleme, and other enthusiasts more savage, in return, perhaps, for being made after his image, have made after their own — vengeful — passionate — unjust. It is the laughter of Paris, as it is the horror of the Cevennes. The times do not allow Louis to endeavour to be the Charondas of France, but if he cannot invent himself, he may adopt the inventions of others; and, of the three schemes, the attempt at the establishment of a liberal constitution seems the only one that gives him the least chance of accomplishing the requisite conquest over the prejudices of his countrymen. It is the only one lie has neglected, or, at least, abandoned. The allies have allowed him five years to prepare his means of defence, at the end of which period his ministers may, perhaps, wish to continue their protection, and to try a fourth method of subjugation, which Voltaire was unable to discover, namely, the perpetual employment of a foreign force, and of extending the old resource of tyranny, a foreign body guard, to the preservation, not only of his person, but of his prerogatives, not only of his palace, but of his provinces.
In the mean time it is not impossible, that some of our refractory spirits at home will begin to compute the gains of the war, and to inquire into the real advantage and honour obtained by England, and her victorious allies, with the kings against the peoples of the continent. There is not an unprejudiced man in the country who does not perceive that the ministers deceived, either wittingly or not, the parliament and the nation, in assuring them that Napoleon being only seconded by the army, and a few seditious traitors, the overthrow of that army would be followed by the peaceable restoration of Louis, and the consequent tranquillity of France and all Europe. We went to war, we were told, to prevent the continuation of an armed peace, and because we knew that war must be the final consequence of any peace with Napoleon, as if it was not the consequence of a peace with any sovereign. Every one enquires, what is our peace at this moment, and what is it certain to be for five years, according to our own treaty? Is it any thing but an armed peace? and as for the end to be obtained by tranquillizing the state of feeling in France, and reducing it to the temperament which will associate the French to the great European union, and identify their interests and characters with those of their contiguous nations, do not the transactions of every moment make it more apparent, that this people is alienated by every measure so kindly and judiciously undertaken to ensure their happiness? What, is it supposed, will follow, when the military occupation of France has ceased, and the foreign garrisons are withdrawn? The question has in some measure received an answer, as far as respects the internal feeling of the country. If it shall be found, that five years of bondage have not been sufficient to change the character of the French nation, will the English cabinet consent to prolong the experiment? will Lord Clancarty's reasonable guarantees be judged unattainable, except by the continued or perhaps perpetual retention of the rights of conquest? A combination of all the powers of civilised Europe against one nation, unprecedented as it was, (for the union against the republic of Venice is hardly a parallel), can be accounted for by the strange concurrence of circumstances from which it arose; but the continuation of that combination is so far inconsistent with all former experience and record of those follies, jealousies, envies, and other momentary whims of courts and kings, — in which, as Sully says, the greatest, the most important and serious state affairs have their origin, rather than in any well digested counsels, or any consideration of honour, glory, and good faith, — that it would be an eccentricity too ridiculous, even in our ephemeral statesmen, who see no farther forward than backward, to expect such an improbable concurrence. They cannot seriously promise themselves the permanence of the alliance, and the continued consent of all the courts of congress to perpetuate the present subjection of France, and to retain the destinies of her millions for ever in the hands of a board of political projectors of all nations and tongues, who may shift their sittings with the season to this or that capital, now try the waters of Pyrmont, now take the baths of Vienna, and, séance tenante, tighten or relax the cords of their captive hydra, just as their couriers may report that the many-headed monster has given symptoms of patience or discontent.
Upon the supposition that France will be completely crushed, and all fears of her retaliation for ever laid aside, it may be conjectured that some other nation will succeed to the hatreds and jealousies at present centered in her alone. Will another alliance be formed? will another congress be made the depositary of these united passions, and individual or national ambition again meet with its reward? If such suspicions, (unreasonable they must be of course), should be attached to England herself, so as to furnish a pretext for transferring the dread of the armies of France to her fleets; and reasonable guarantees should be required against her further interference, and the undue extension of her influence in continental affairs: — the success of one general alliance might be a mighty incentive to a second effort, and the combined court of conscience might pass sentence upon our future intentions, as it did upon those of Napoleon and his armies. Whether England be that predominant power which, in all times, seems to have existed with more or less prominency in modern Europe, or whether some other state be placed on that bad eminence, the same application of a general alliance would, it may be presumed, be the corrective employed by the inventors or disciples of the new congress system; so that each of the states of Europe might be successively proscribed, and successively ruined, and ourselves and our posterity ensured the perpetual recurrence of wars, with trifling intervals, upon that same magnificent scale which has already filled our cotemporaries with wonder and delight. The highways might again be covered with couriers, whole cabinets travel post, and monarchs themselves fly from court to courts crosses and ribbons be the common courtesies of correspondence, and the ordinary population of ball-rooms and saloons be nothing less than ministers and kings. This, the dignified repose, or royal relaxation, of the combined dominations, would only be indulged long enough to give a relish for the more serious occupations of their calling; then would the ready armies again begin to march from all the quarters of the earth, and, rushing upon the devoted offender, accomplish, amidst the shouts and groans of nations, the purpose of the grand European police. Lord Castlereagh or his brother, notwithstanding the refreshment necessary for his memory, on the trifling topics of our own history, may have placed before his eyes the imputed contrivance of Henry IV. between whose court of fifteen and the congress there is only one difference, namely, that the grand purpose of the one scheme was to prevent wars, whereas the present union has commenced operations by a national massacre, and, as far as can be conjectured, has sown the seeds of perpetual quarrel and commotion in every country of Europe. One of the indispensable ingredients of the present union, and of all other previous alliances, has been the money of England, the contribution of which, it appears, has been already so plentiful as to preclude the possibility of a continuance of this sort of support. The other powers, it must be owned, have all been considerable gainers by the late successes. Whatever men they have lost can be supplied, and not one of them has failed to obtain an accession of population. It is not so with the money of England, which cannot be supplied, and the want of which must be more fatal to us than any other want; or even than that want would be to any other power whose credit is not commercial, and whose government is supported by the bayonet. The king of England cannot imitate the emperor of Austria, and reduce the bank paper to a fifth of its value, by an edict. The ministers and their parliamentary majority affect, doubtless, to consider that the battle of Waterloo has set the seal to their political, reputation, and for ever silenced their opponents. So, far from the question being in the slightest degree altered, or the balance being at all inclined to their favour, by that victory and its consequences, their condemnation, by every impartial judge, appears only the more inevitable, and only the more apparent, since, with the accomplishment of their main design, even beyond their warmest wishes, they still leave the nation involved in difficulties apparently inextricable — damnantur votis. — What is the whole amount of our enormous fame? We have proved that English intrepidity is more than a match for French impetuosity; and that the Duke of Wellington employing the one, is superior to Napoleon disposing of the other quality, in a manner so decisive as to admit of no farther controversy. The first point hardly wanted confirmation, the second could net interest a sufficient number amongst us to make the question national. But beyond the glory gained by this general, who should be himself too great and generous a man to think that too high a price could not be paid for it, is there one single object obtained by these great military successes, or is England, in anyone point, in a better position than she was three months previous to the victory? The warmest advocates of the war, crowned as they are with conquest, may be defied to show how England could have been in a worse condition in any way, by keeping at peace with Napoleon, than she will be now that she has dethroned him in one battle, and conquered France. The friends of “the ancient social system” may here interpose, and declare no sacrifice of blood or treasure too great for the extinction of the revolutionary spirit; but these gentlemen must see, or they will see, that they have scotched the snake of Jacobinism, not killed it. They may have the consolation of concluding, that they have blasted by one vast unnatural effort the best promise of rational freedom that the imperfection of humanity could admit of being displayed in France, or any other country. But if this their triumph were lasting, are we to partake of their joy, or participate in their fatal success in a bad cause, so blindly as not to see and shudder at the ruin that stares us in the face? In the glare and crash of victory, our eyes and ears are shut against the suggestions of prudence. The magnificent titles, arbiters of Europe, preservers of thrones, masters of the seas, and disposers of the land, ring round our heads, and exert with us the power with which the universal charm enchants all bosoms, but mostly such as are formed of better clay. We have before us an example more complete than the fullness of fortune ever before furnished, of the reverses in store for those who are ravished with the whistling of a name, and yet if any one should dare to raise his voice and implore a moment's reflection upon the real value, and the actual price, paid and unpaid, of our late successes, no terms would be judged sufficiently pointed, or too harsh, to characterise and condemn the intrusion of such a calculator, who would, besides presumption, be charged with no little malignity, and not less ignorance. The nation is no less averse than Goldsmith's squire to being snubbed, when in spirits, nor will bear those dirty speculations of finance, and those dull details, which prove as clearly as uncontroverted facts can carry conviction, that no system of taxation can be adopted which can give any hopes that the country will be able, for any protracted period, to supply the payment of the national debt, and the expenses of the national establishment. Without pretending to have strayed amongst the columns of calculation by which the chancellor of the exchequer proved that his regulations would enable him to entrench upon the sinking fund without affecting the forty years result of that provision, I may still venture to say, that Mr. Vansittart has not, by the magic of his numbers, moved either the fields, or the beasts of the fields, to incline a willing ear to his moving appeal in favour of the renewal of that tax, which, in very many cases, will be the only portion of the landed rent paid for the current year. It is not necessary to be versed in the lucid lucubrations of this gentleman, or other political arithmeticians, to assert, that the financial schemes hitherto adopted have been proved to be inconsistent with the very existence of the landed interest, and that unless some means be adopted to relieve its unexampled depression, not only that, but every other interest dependent and founded upon that staple source of prosperity and power must either fall to the ground, or rise in opposition to the government, and, pulling down the pillars of the state, be crushed themselves, and crush the nation beneath their ruins.
We have at last arrived at the certitude, that there is no connection between the accomplishment and success of any system of ministerial foreign policy, and the internal prosperity of the country. The political preponderance of England is, or ought to be, at a greater height than it has ever before attained — it can be only equalled by her individual distress. The bloated body occupies no less, or perhaps greater, space than a sound frame. I would not be thought to join in the lament of those who deplore the loss or the decay of all those characteristics by which the Englishman was supposed to be distinguished from his continental cotemporaries. It does appear that the principles of the revolution have lost some of that salutary influence amongst our politicians, which is the surest safeguard against despotism. But the individual honour of private character is still intact; our social institutions are still inviolate; our establishments, our virtues, domestic and national, to the man of whatever country, who is willing, and has had the opportunity to appreciate the comparative qualities of peoples, must still raise us far above our rivals, or our associates, in the scale of humanity. The majority even of our prevailing statesmen are not tainted with any of the baser vices, nor with a settled design against the constitution, and may be acquitted of every delinquency not included in prejudice, presumption, and obstinacy. A pamphlet, with the title de Angleterre et les Anglais by M. T. [sic] B. Say, which was in considerable vogue during the latter part of my stay at Paris, attempted to show the exceeding degeneracy and distress of England; but as the author's complaint or pity was chiefly directed towards us because we had given a pension to the family of Nelson, an admiral killed in battle; because there were no workmen desoeuvrés to be seen in our coffee-houses; because the studies at Oxford were un peu Gothiques, and books were getting so dear that few could read; because there were no people in Great Britain idle by profession; and, lastly, because we drank bad port, I thought Mr. Say might have as well have confined himself to the copious quotations he made from Hamilton on the Public Debt, and, accordingly, took occasion to tell him so in a short answer to his pamphlet, written for one of the French journals. Certainly, books are too dear, and our port wine is very bad; but these evils hardly deserve to be put by the side of our great national calamity, which promises certain destruction.
So many predictions have been falsified, so many periods assigned for a general bankruptcy have passed harmless and unnoticed, that the prevalent persuasion has, until lately, been, that a resisting power resides in the public purse, which is augmented by, and will perpetually reply to increased pressure. The affluence of the country has appeared inexhaustible, since, whatever draughts are drawn from this reservoir, the source, like the end of Odin's horn, is sunk into the sea. When our financiers found that the sum beyond which even Mr. Pitt had considered an extension of the debt totally impracticable had been exceeded by two hundred millions, they saw no end to the credit of the government, nor to the principle of supply. The facility with which their loans are always negotiable must have aided the delusion; and the occasional success of a scheme of taxation, as it flattered their vanity, so it increased their hopes, until at last they were bold enough to adduce the length to which they had already stretched the rope, as a proof that it would bear farther tension; although, to the uninstructed capacity of common men, all former experiments reduced, rather than increased, the chance of future resistance. Now, however, that it seems decided, that not only we cannot bear more because we have borne so much, but that what we now bear can be no longer borne, we begin to question the merit of that system pursued for so many years, which has terminated in advantages of a doubtful nature, but in an evil unquestionable, weighing upon all, and coming home to every apprehension, and to all classes of society. At least one half of those who have ever turned to political reflections, either as a study or an amusement, are disinclined to the establishment of Lord Castlereagh's ancient social system, and conceive all our blood and treasure to have been squandered in a cause which, notwithstanding its apparent success, neither can be able, nor ought, finally, to triumph. Whilst not one individual amongst us, no, not Lord Castlereagh himself, can deny, that the sacrifices, indispensable perhaps with the perseverance of such a system, have brought us to the verge of a gulf which has swallowed up many other states and nations, and may therefore be expected to be fatal to our own. Our military glory may illustrate but not prevent our fall; and ruin may follow upon victory no less certainly than disgrace has been the companion of defeat.
Κλαιει νικηθεις οδε νικησας απολωλεν
Extract from John Cam Hobhouse, Letters from Paris, or the Substance of some letters, written by an Englishman resident at Paris during the last reign of the Emperor Napoleon.