BOOK FOURTEENTH.

Project of a royal declaration proposed by the Senate to Louis XVIII.— His Refusal-He goes to live at St. Ouen-Deputation of the Senate -Speech of M. de Talleyrand-Declaration from St. Ouen-Entrance of Louis XVIII. into Paris-His cortège-He goes to the Cathedral -His arrival at the Tuileries-He appoints his Ministry-M. d'Ambray-The Abbé de Montesquiou-The Abbé Louis-M. Beugnot-General Dupont-M. Ferrand-M. de Talleyrand—M. de Blacas-Memoir of Fouché to Louis XVIII.-Creation of the Military Household of the King-Charter of 1814-Opposition of M. de Villele-Treaty of Paris-Departure of the Allies-Forination of the Chamber of Peers-Opening of the Chambers, June 4, 1814 -The King's Speech-Speeches of the Chancellor d'Ambray and of M. Ferrand Address of the Chamber of Peers and the Legislative Body-Ordonnance on the observation of Sunday-Project of Law on the Press-Speech of the Abbé Montesquiou-Report of M. Raynouard-The Law is adopted by the Legislative Body and the Chamber of Peers-Financial measures presented to the King by the Abbé Louis-Law for the restitution of incomes and property not sold-Exposé of M. Ferrand's motives-Report of M. BédochSpeeches of M. Lainé and of Marshal Macdonald-Adoption of the Law-General Excelmans and Marshal Soult-The Duke d'Orleans at the Palais Royal-The Duke and Duchess d'Angoulême in La Vendée-The Duke de Berry-The Count d'Artois-The Prince of Condé-The Duke de Bourbon-Return of France to the BourbonsSituation of Louis XVIII.-Departure of M. de Talleyrand for Vienna-Congress of Vienna.

I.

MEANWHILE the Emperor Alexander had returned to report in Paris the impression he had received of the firmness of Louis XVIII., and his refusals. The Senate trembled, hesitated, and drew back: M. de Talleyrand maintained his position, though losing ground every day, in the double part of confidential mediator, between the requirements of one side and the obstinacy of the other, deceiving both at the same

The King refuses to accept a Constitution from the Senate.

time. Plans of a constitution, softened and amended, vainly succeeded one another in the committees of the Luxemburg, and in the saloons of the minister; the diplomatist still preserving a tone of pleasantry with the puritans of the Senate, to prepare them for sacrifices by the doubts skilfully thrown beforehand into their council. "You are going," he said to them, "to have to do with a King who is a superior man. You may expect to see him discuss your constitution. You may prepare yourselves for the honour of entering into controversy with him."

The senators at length submitted to M. de Talleyrand a a project of a royal declaration, in which they made this prince promise to preserve the Senate, to whose intelligence he would acknowledge that he owed his return to his kingdom. M. de Talleyrand went to present it to the King at Compiègne, not doubting that it would be accepted; but the prince, as inflexible to the insinuations of the negociator as he had been to the summons of Alexander, replied haughtily to M. de Talleyrand, "If I accepted a constitution from my people, in the sitting where I should swear to observe it, you would be seated while I was standing!" This attitude alone of him who takes an oath before him who imposes it, appeared to the King the most energetic refutation of the subaltern part which the pretensions of the Senate wished to assign to the crown. But he meditated another part for royalty to play: he wished to mingle the majesty of a descendant of Louis XIV. with the prudence of a politician of the nineteenth century, coming to pacify a revolution without recognising it, with a wisdom emanating from the throne, not by suggestion but by inspiration. But his dread of the Emperor Alexander, and his desire to avail himself of the resistance of this prince by temporising, prevented him as yet from immediately entering his capital. He wished to make his approaches step by step, in order to increase the desires of the people by impatience. The royalists, who went to him from hour to hour, to report the feelings of the people, made the King hope that an irresistible movement of public opinion would burst forth, in spite of the Emperor of Russia, and in spite of the Senate on his approach, and that a general accla

He goes to the Chateau of St. Ouen,

mation would overturn those factitious barriers that they wished to erect between him and the nation. He therefore went to the isolated chateau of St. Ouen, an old residence of M. Necker, in the plain of St. Denis, near the gates of Paris; as if he had wished, by his choice of this place of conference, to recall to the nation the memory of a popular minister, whom he himself had formerly supported in the convocation of the States-general of the kingdom. The necessity of preparing his royal entry into Paris was the pretext of this inexplicable residence under the walls of his capital. The real motive was, however, a last negociation with Alexander, and with the resistance of opinion which contested with him the supreme power.

II..

But even this approximation was a menace to which the Senate, at once pressed and withheld by M. de Talleyrand, did not resist. The King was hardly established at St. Ouen, when the general enthusiasm carried towards that residence all the royalists, or all those who pretended to be of that category. The people themselves flocked out in multitudes to the fields and the roads which led to Saint Ouen; towards which Paris overflowed with impatience, emotion, and curiosity. The Senate hastened to send thither a deputation, and confided to M. de Talleyrand himself the expression of their sentiments on the occasion. The speech prepared for this purpose, which had no other object than to save appearances, was intended to be as flexible and as agreeable to the King, as it was reserved and dignified for the Senate but it betrayed a resistance that was becoming weary, and pretensions that capitulated with power by taking refuge in sentiment.

"Sire," said M. de Talleyrand, speaking for the deputation from the Senate, "all hearts feel that this blessing can only be due to yourself; they therefore hasten to present you with their homage. There are joys which cannot be feigned; that of which you now hear the transports is a joy truly national.

"The Senate profoundly moved at this touching spectacle, happy in mingling their sentiments with those of the people,

Talleyrand's address to the King in the name of the Senate.

come like them to offer, at the foot of the throne, their testimonials of respect and affection.

"Sire, innumerable calamities have desolated the kingdom of your fathers. Your glory has taken refuge in our camps; the army has saved the honour of France. In re-ascending the throne you succeed to twenty years of ruin and misfortune.

"This inheritance might alarm the ordinary virtue of men; the reparation of such immense disorder requires the devotion of great courage; prodigies are demanded to heal the wounds of the country; but we are your children, and these prodigies are referred to your paternal care.

"The more difficult the circumstances, the more powerful and revered should be the royal authority. In speaking to the imagination with all the éclat of ancient recollections, it will know how to conciliate all the wishes of modern reason, by borrowing from it the wisest political theories.

"A constitutional charter will unite all interests with that of the throne, and fortify the principal will by the concurrence of all the others.

"You know better than we do, Sire, that such institutions, as is well proved by a neighbouring nation, present supports and not barriers to monarchs who are friends of the laws and fathers of their people.

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Yes, Sire, the nation and the Senate, full of confidence in the great intelligence and maganimous sentiments of your Majesty, desire, equally with you, that France should be free in order that the King may be powerful."

The King, affecting a majestic silence, as if exhibiting a mind that no longer deliberated, contented himself with replying in one of those vague expressions of thanks which leaves every thing to hope, and everything to fear. He made no allusion to the ambiguous and politic terms in which M. de Talleyrand had enveloped the expiring pretensions of the Senate. This silence sufficiently indicated his disdain; and, as if he wished to brave or to defy them still further, he caused to be published, some hours after, the famous declaration of Saint Quen, the ultimatum of royalty to revolution. This declaration fully recalled that of Louis XVI., when that prince wished to defer

BB

The royal declaration of principles.

the States-general, by forestalling them with concessions to the age. But Louis XVI. spoke alone, and without power, on the eve of a revolution which would wait no longer. Louis XVIII., on the contrary, spoke from amidst one million of European bayonets, masters of the conquered soil of the country, to the heart of a people, fatigued with twenty-five years strug gles and on the ruins of an empire, who asked from royalty not liberty but life. The Emperor Alexander, to whom this project of a declaration had been communicated in the morning, had required, in imperative language, the modification of some of the articles.

The declaration was thus expressed :—

"Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre, to all who shall see these presents, greeting.

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Recalled by the love of our people to the throne of our ancestors, enlightened by the misfortunes of the nation that we are called on to govern, our first thought is to invoke that mutual confidence so necessary to our repose and to our happiness.

"After having attentively read the plan of a constitution proposed by the Senate in its sitting of the 6th April last, we have recognised the basis to be good, but that a great many of the articles, bearing the impress of the haste with which they have been drawn up, cannot, in their present form, become fundamental laws of the State.

"Resolved to adopt a liberal Constitution, and wishing that it should be wisely combined, but not being able to accept one which it is indispensable to rectify, we convoke, for the 10th of the month of June of the present year, the Senate and the legislative body, engaging ourselves to submit to their inspection the work that we shall have prepared with a commission chosen from those two bodies, and to give, for a basis to this constitution, the following guarantees :—

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The representative government shall be retained as it exists at present, divided into two bodies, viz. the Senate and the Chamber of deputies of the Departments.

"The impost shall be freely acquiesced in

, Public and private property secured.