of Napoleon, hailed with sincere satisfaction the prospect of peace, tranquillity, and freedom from vexatious exactions. If they had not, as they could hardly be supposed to have, any personal zeal for the representatives of a family so long strangers to France, it was fondly hoped the absence of this might be supplied by the unwonted prospect of ease and security which their accession promised. The allied monarchs, on their part, did every thing to favour the Bourbon family, and relaxed most of the harsh and unpalatable conditions which they had annexed to their proposed treaty with Buonaparte; as if to allow the legitimate heir the credit with his people of having at once saved their honour, and obtained for them the most advantageous terms.
The French readily caught at these indulgences, and, with the aptitude they possess of accommodating their feelings to the moment, for a time seemed to intimate that they were sensible of the full advantage of the change, and were desirous to make as much of it as they possibly could. There is a story of a French soldier in former times, who, having insulted his general in a fit of intoxication, was brought before him next morning, and interrogated, whether he was the person who had committed the offence. The accused replied he was not, for that the impudent rascal had gone away before four in the morning – at which hour the culprit had awaked in a state of sobriety. The French people, like the arch rogue in question, drew distinctions between their present and former selves, and seemed very willing to deny their identity. They were no longer, they said, either the Republican French, who had committed so many atrocities in their own country, or the Imperial French, who had made such devastation in other nations; and God forbid that the sins of either should be visited upon the present regenerate race of royalist Frenchmen, loyal to their native princes, and faithful to their allies, who desired only to enjoy peace abroad and tranquillity at home.
These professions, which were probably serious for the time, backed by the natural anxiety of the monarch to make, through his interest with the allied powers, the best terms he could for his country, were received as current without strict examination. It seemed that Buonaparte on his retirement to Elba, had carried away with him all the offences of the French people, like the scapegoat, which the Levitical law directed to be driven into the wilderness, loaded with the sins of the children of Israel. There was, in all the proceedings of the allied powers, not only moderation, but a studied delicacy, observed towards the feelings of the French, which almost savoured of romantic generosity. They seemed as desirous to disguise their conquest, as the Parisians were to conceal their defeat. The treasures of art, those spoils of foreign countries, which justice loudly demanded should be restored to their true owners, were confirmed to the French nation, in order to gratify the vanity of the metropolis. By a boon yet more fatal, announced to the public in one of those moments of romantic, and more than questionable generosity, which we have alluded to, the whole French prisoners of war in the mass, and without inquiry concerning their principles, or the part they were likely to take in future internal divisions, were at once restored to the bosom of their country. This was in fact treating the French nation as a heedless nurse does a spoiled child, when she puts into its hands the knife which it cries for. The fatal consequences of this improvident indulgence appeared early in the subsequent year.
The Senate of Napoleon, when they called the Bourbons to the throne, had not done so without making stipulations on the part of the nation, and also upon their own. For the first purpose they framed a decree, under which they "called to the throne Louis Stanislaus Xavier, brother of the last King," but upon condition of his accepting a constitution of their framing. This assumed right of dictating a constitution, and naming a king for the nation, was accompanied by another provision, declaring the Senate hereditary, and confirming to themselves, and their heirs for ever, the rank, honours, and emoluments, which in Napoleon's time they only enjoyed for life.
The King refused to acknowledge the right of the Senate, either to dictate the terms on which he should ascend a throne, his own by hereditary descent, and to which he had never forfeited his claim; or to engross, as their own exclusive property, the endowments provided to their order by Buonaparte. He, therefore, assumed the crown as the lineal and true representative of him by whom it was last worn; and issued his own constitutional charter as a concession which the spirit of the times demanded, and which he had himself no desire to withhold.
The objections to this mode of proceeding were, practically speaking, of no consequence. It signified nothing to the people of France, whether the constitution was proposed to the King by the national representatives, or by the King to them, so that it contained, in an irrevocable form, a full ratification of the national liberties. But for the King to have acknowledged himself the creature of the Senate's election would have been at once to recognise every ephemeral tyranny which had started up and fretted its part on the revolutionary stage; and to have sanctioned all subsequent attempts at innovation, since they who make kings and authorities must have the inherent right to dethrone and annul them. It should not be forgotten how the British nation acted on the great occasions of the Restoration and Revolution; recognising, at either crisis, the right of blood to succeed to the crown, whether vacant by the murder of Charles I., or the abdication of James II. In principle, too, it may be observed, that in all modern European nations, the king is nominally the source both of law and justice; and that statutes are promulgated, and sentences executed in his name, without inferring that he has the despotic right either to make the one, or to alter the other. Although, therefore, the constitution of France emanated in the usual form of a royal charter, the King was no more empowered to recall or innovate its provisions, than King John to abrogate those of the English Magna Charta. Monsieur, the King's brother, had promised in his name, upon his solemn entrance to Paris, that Louis would recognise the basis of the constitution prepared by the Senate. This pledge was fully redeemed by the charter, and wise men would have been more anxious to secure the benefits which it bestowed, than scrupulously to cavil on the mode in which they had been conferred.
In fact, Louis had adopted not only the form most consonant to ancient usage, but that which he thought most likely to satisfy both the royalists and the revolutionary party. He ascended the throne as his natural right; and, having done so, he willingly granted to the people, in an irrevocable form, the substantial principles of a free constitution. But both parties were rather displeased at what they considered as lost, than gratified at what they gained by this arrangement. The royalists regarded the constitution, with its concessions, as a voluntary abandonment of the royal prerogative; while the revolutionary party exclaimed, that the receiving the charter from the King as an act of his will was in itself a badge of servitude; and that the same royal prerogative which had granted these privileges, might, if recognised, be supposed to reserve the power of diminishing or resuming them at pleasure. And thus it is, that folly, party-spirit, pride, and passion, can misrepresent the best measures, and so far poison the public mind, that the very granting the object of their desires shall be made the subject of new complaints.
The formation of the ministry gave rise to more serious grounds of apprehension and censure. The various offices of administration were, upon the restoration, left in possession of persons selected from those who had been named by the Provisional Government. All the members of the Provisional State Council were called to be royal ministers of the State. Many of these, though possessed of reputed talents, were men hackneyed in the changes of the Revolution; and were not, and could not be, intrusted with the King's confidence beyond the bounds of the province which each administered.
Talleyrand, minister for foreign affairs, whose talents and experience might have given him claim to the situation of prime minister, was unpopular from his political versatility; and it was judged, after a time, most expedient to send him to the Congress at Vienna, that his diplomatic skill might be employed in arranging the exterior relations of France with the other powers of Europe. Yet the absence of this consummate statesman was of great prejudice to the King's affairs. His having preserved life, distinction, and frequently power, during so many revolutionary changes, proved, according to the phrase of the old Earl of Pembroke, that "he was born of the willow, not of the oak." But it was the opinion of the wisest men in France, that it was not fair, considering the times in which he lived, to speak of his attachment to, or defection from, individuals; but to consider the general
