M. Lainé, Deputy of Bourdeaux.

XIV.

The choice of the Legislative Assembly indicated a different spirit. Opinion, still in subjection, not daring to express itself in words, evinced itself at least by the ballot. This ballot for the first time struck off all the notoriously servile names. The habitual flatterers trembled with indignation at being excluded, and went full of complaints to Cambaceres and to the Duke of Rovigo, the minions of the Emperor. M. Lainé, Raynouard, Gallois, Maine de Biran and Flaugergues were chosen by an immense majority. These names, which would have been a pledge of wisdom and strength in the eyes of a temperate government, appeared like a menace against the court of the Emperor. They were independent, and therefore the champions of revolt.

M. Lainé was deputy from Bordeaux. Worthy by his eloquence of the forum, made illustrious by Vergniaud, he had the same greatness of soul as the Girondist orator; but he had neither his indolence nor his weakness. Born in the Landes, leading a rural life, living in a stoical mediocrity, in the midst of his fields, and far from the baseness of courts, absorbed in the contemplation of great events, elevated by the spectacle of nature to the adoration of the type divine, deeply read in history, steeped in the precepts of the Stoics, and in the contempt of Tacitus for the vices of his time,-M. Lainé had all his pride without any of his bitterness. He was the orator and the philosopher of antiquity, transplanted, with the mild spirit of the Christian, into the midst of modern events. His courage was never the boiling of angry passions, but the intrepidity of duty. Nature had made this man, and kept him in reserve, to strike the first blow at despotism. He did not belong to the party of the Bourbons; he was a Republican by nature and inclination. Reason alone called him at a later period to the service of kings. To induce him to condescend to approach the court it was essential that his conscience should convince him that his country existed in the throne. This was the culminating member of the committee: I do not flatter

B

M. Raynouard.-M. de Fontanes.

his tomb,-I venerate it; for it encloses a great vestige of humanity.

XV.

M. Raynouard was deputy from Toulouse.

His name was

made illustrious rather late in life by the celebrated tragedy of "The Templars." He was an austere and studious poet, but somewhat rude. His verses displayed the rigidity of his character: his character had the naïveté, the simplicity, and the elevation of his talent. He made no distinction between genius and virtue. With a rugged aspect, but little formed to please, incapable of flattery, he nourished against the despotism of Napoleon the hidden but bitter hatred which arises from respect for the dignity of a nation. Despotism appeared to him less an oppression than an insult to human nature. Esteemed by his colleagues, he spoke with a masculine liberty, but he wrote with a savage rudeness of expression.

The other three members of the committee were men of a calm and philosophical opposition, as became an opposition without a tribune, without orators, and without journals.

XVI.

M. de Fontanes, at once confidant of the Emperor and reporter of the Senate, satisfied the throne and the public opinion, by one of those phrases in which the public found the word peace, and the Emperor found ample authority for war. "Peace," said the Senate, "is what France and humanity require. If the enemy persists in refusing it, then, indeed, we shall fight for our country amidst the tombs of our fathers and the cradles of our children!" When such words are only ratified by a defection two months after they were uttered, they are preserved in the history of nations, not as oaths but as perjuries of eloquence.

The Legislative Assembly was slower in its proceedings. Dissatisfaction was desirous of finding vent; but there was hazard in effecting it. It broke out at length, however, in spite of the menaces of Monsieur de Regnier, Duke de Massa, and the caresses of Cambaceres. A silent member of the Conven.

The Arch-chancellor Cambaceres.

tion during the Reign of Terror, Cambaceres had left in an ambiguity, favourable to his character, his vote on the trial of Louis XVI. After the Convention he had devoted himself to Bonaparte with that presentiment of weakness which seeks for support. Bonaparte esteemed his capacity, and feared nothing from his courage. No one knew better than Cambaceres how to conform himself to second-class duties; he thus removed all jealousy from first-rate actors. Napoleon had elevated him as high as he possibly could, without fcaring his too near approach. Subordination of character, on the part of Cambaceres, played the game of flattery. There was something of the Alcibiades grown old in this prince of a new date. He was Arch-chancellor of the Empire, a sort of civil-viceroy, whom the sovereign left at Paris during his distant campaigns, to represent him at the head of the Council of State, and to be answerable to him for France. Cambaceres affected some ridiculous peculiarities by way of pledges to the Emperor of his lacking ambition. A man, thus making himself a butt to the railleries of the court and the laughter of the people, might be useful, but could never be dangerous. Cambaceres accepted, and even seemed to look for this ridicule. He walked every evening in the old court costume, accompanied by two grotesque chamberlains, with head bare, periwigged and powdered, like our grandfathers in the galleries of the Palais Royal. Women of the town, children, and strangers followed this group with their gaze and hootings. He sought for the celebrity of Apicius; he exacted etiquette, obeisances, and titles from the oldest aristocracies around him. He was the superannuated genius of ceremonial in a monarchy of upstarts. He was an essay on the costumes of the Empire. But under these futilities of the courtier, Cambaceres concealed an honest heart, a humane disposition, profound science, and a firm spirit of government. He was laughed at, but he was

esteemed. Such was the Arch-chancellor

XVII.

He did not attempt, in the secret discussions of the Legislative Assembly, to deny the apathy of the nation, but to deaden

the expression of it in the Address. The spectre of the revolu tion had driven him back even to degradation, and to adoration of despotism. He dreaded every thing that bore a resemblance to sincerity, for fear of giving birth to liberty. He conjured the deputies to think in silence. He admitted the general desire for peace, but he contested with the committee the right of raising their voices, even to give expression to the sufferings of the people.

XVIII.

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The attitude of M. Lainé, which was modest and reflective, resembled his character. His quiet and restrained gesture, as he placed his hands on his breast, seemed to attest the honest convictions of his mind. His head, which was slightly bowed, had nothing of the defiance of the tribune. His voice pos sessed the gravity and the nervous sensibility of his thoughts. He was indignant at the submission required of the represen tatives of a people by order of its master. No," he exclaimed, in sorrowful accents; "no, the legislative body, so long depressed, must be elevated; the cry of the people for peace must be heard; their groaning under oppression must at length break forth!" With the exception of about fifty deputies, riveted to despotism by its dignities, or trembling with cowardice under the anger of the Emperor, all hearts echoed the sentiments of M. Lainé. He was commissioned

to draw up the Report, which was adopted. It was, in guarded language, a revival of the constitution,—a timid insurrection of hearts against the excess of servitude,—the right of complaint, the last right of a nation, claimed, at least, by its representatives,-a faint recollection of the Assembly of the Jeu de Paume at Versailles, but under the sceptre of an armed master and in a palace surrounded by Pretorian Guards.

M. Lainé ventured to say, in the name of the Legislative Body,- Amidst the disasters of war, a ray of hope is felt on hearing kings and nations alike manifest a desire for peace. The declarations of the great powers agree in fact, gentlemen, with the universal wish of Europe for peace; and also with

His energetic address.

the wish so generally expressed to us by our respective constituencies, of which the legislative body is the natural organ.

"What then can retard the blessings of this peace? We have, as the first guarantee of the Emperor's pacific designs, adversity—that unerring counsellor of kings. The means proposed to us for repulsing the enemy and obtaining peace will be effectual, if the French people are convinced that their blood will be no longer shed, except to defend their country and its guardian laws.

66

'But the words 'Peace and Country' would resound in vain, if we had no guarantee for those institutions which create the one and maintain the other.

66

Your committee think it indispensable, that while the government is proposing the promptest measures for the safety of the state, the Emperor should be supplicated to maintain the full and unquestionable execution of the laws which guarantee to the people of France the rights of liberty, of safety, of property; and to the nation the free exercise of its political rights and privileges. This guarantee appears to your committee to be the most effectual means of inspiring the French people with the necessary energy for their own defence.

"We are anxious to connect the throne with the nation, so as to ensure their united efforts against anarchy, arbitrary power, and the enemies of the country.

66

If the first wish of the Emperor on this pressing occasion has been to call around the throne the Deputies of the nation, does it not also become our paramount duty to acquaint the monarch with the truth, and the universal wish of the people for peace?"

This expression of Deputies of the nation was a revolution in itself. The 18th Brumaire re-appeared, and avenged itself in a single phrase.

XIX.

This was the first time that Napoleon had encountered a single soul in revolt against his sovereign will, since the day he had beaten down all beneath his sceptre. It would have been better, doubtless, that this reproach, embodied in a