The History of the Restoration of Monarchy in France

Retrospective view of Napoleon's reign-Napoleon in 1813-His return to Paris-The Allied Armies on the Rhine-Convocation of the State Council, the 11th of November-A Conscription of 300,000 men decreed-Military condition of France-Opening of the Legislative Assembly-The Emperor's speech-Proposals from Frankfort-Projected Congress at Manheim-Choice of Commissioners by the Senate and the Legislative Assembly to examine and report upon this negociation-Hostile choice of the Legislative Assembly -M. Lainé-M. Raynouard-Address of M. de Fontanes-Cambaceres-M. Lainé's Protest-Napoleon's indignation-SavarySuppression of the Address of the Legislative Assembly-Its Dissolution-Grand reception of the 1st of January, 1814-The Emperor's speech to the Legislative Assembly-Reconstitution of the National Guard of Paris-Presentation of Marie-Louise and her son to the officers of the National Guard-Allocution of NapoleonMarie-Louise-Departure of Napoleon for the Army, 23rd January -Schwartzenburg and Blucher pass the Rhine, 31st DecemberLassitude of France-Arrival of Napoleon at Chalons, 25th January.

It may

THE reign of Napoleon was drawing to a crisis. be defined in few words. The old world renovated by a new man, plastering up, so to speak, decrepit ages with modern glory. His genius was posthumous. The first of soldiers, not of statesmen, he was clear-sighted as to the past, but blind to the future. If this judgment is thought too harsh, its justice may be proved by a retrospective glance.

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Retrospective view of Napoleon's reign.

Men should be judged not by their fortune, but by their deeds. Napoleon held in his grasp the largest share of power ever confided by Providence to a mortal hand for the purpose of creating civilization and nationality. What has he left behind him? Nothing but a conquered country, and an im

mortal name.

He was the sophist of the counter-revolution. The world called for a renovator,-Napoleon Bonaparte became its conqueror. France looked for the spirit of reformation, and he imposed upon her despotism and discipline. To liberty of conscience (the great aspiration of his age), he replied by a papal coronation—a simonial treaty with Romethe Concordat.

Impiety lurked beneath the official pomp of public worship. Instead of seeking to revive true faith by liberty of conscience, Napoleon, at a distance of ten centuries, enacted a parody upon Charlemagne, without having the faith of the neophyte, or the heroic sincerity of this Constantine of Gaul and Germany. To the desire for equality of rights, Napoleon replied by creating a military aristocracy and a feudality of the sword; to the desire for liberty of thought, he replied by the censorship and the monopoly of the public press; to the desire for freedom of discussion, he replied by silent tribunes surrounded by a mute assembly, whose only remaining privilege was to listen to and applaud the official organs of the imperial will.

Thus human intellect languished, literature was degraded, the arts were enslaved, and the public mind withered beneath a despotic rule. Victory alone could retard the explosion of national independence,-of human intelligence. The day she ceased to gild this universal yoke, it would appear in its true light,-glory for one only, humiliation for all, a reproach upon the dignity of the nation, an appeal to continental insurrection. Victory at length forsook him.

The smothered genius of the Revolution burst forth in the spirit of popular independence. The remorseful feelings of insulted nations, the pride of humiliated sovereigns, recoiled against the vanquished conqueror of the world, and tracked his steps through each succeeding defeat far beyond the Rhine,

The last years of Napoleon's reign.

wresting from his grasp, not only Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, Germany, Switzerland, and Savoy, but even France herself-France, so long the means of his glory, now fated to be the battle-field of the last struggle of her hero.

II.

During the last years of his domination, Napoleon had yielded to the temptations of fortune. His intelligence and activity diminished in proportion as his empire extended. Separated from his fellow men by the servile court he had gathered around him, and always clothed in the drapery of empire, as if apprehensive of confessing to himself that the upstart of genius, circumvented by etiquette and adulation-the Emperor,-in short, had disparaged the man. His Spanish campaign had resembled those of Darius, or of Louis XIV., looking on at a distance, commanding by signs, doing nothing but by his lieutenants. His Russian campaign had embraced the world without the power of restraining it. He had conducted it with effeminacy, pursued it with blindness, finished it recklessly, and atoned for it with insensibility. There was not an officer of his army who would not have better conducted, or better managed, the retreat of 700,000 men,-worthy of another Xenophon. He came post from the Beresina to the Tuileries without casting a single look behind him. He seemed to have given up everything to fortune, from the day she refused him the universe, like the gamester who had played against the continent, and thrown up the game on losing the first important cast. His diplomacy had been no less blind and undecided than his campaign. In venturing his legions, under the menace of a Russian winter, as far as Moscow, he had calculated at once upon war and peace;-on war, to force a peace from the Emperor Alexander, and on peace, to rescue his army from the dangers into which his temerity had plunged it. Accustomed to the enervated people of the East and South, whom he had easily subdued, he was astonished at finding a nation resolved to set their dwellings in a blaze rather than own subjection to a foreign master. He

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The History of the Restoration of Monarchy in France, Volume 1