Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V. Walter Scott
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state paper or political statement which Buonaparte had permitted to be published, rankled even in generous and honourable minds; and so prejudiced are the views of passion, that by mistaking each other's national feelings, there were many Frenchmen induced to believe that the superiority attained by Great Britain was to a certain degree an insult and degradation to France.
Every thing, indeed, which ought to have soothed and gratified the French people, was at last, by irritated feelings and artful misrepresentation, converted into a subject of complaint and grievance.
The government of Napoleon had been as completely despotic as it could be rendered in a civilized country like France, where public opinion forbade its being carried to barbaric extreme. On the contrary, in the charter, France was endowed with most of the elementary principles of a free and liberal constitution. The King had adopted, in all points of a general and national tendency, the principles proposed in the rejected constitutional act of the Senate.
The Chamber of Peers and Chamber of Deputies were the titles applied to the aristocratical and popular branches of the constitution, instead of the Senate and Legislative body. Their public duties were divided something like those of the Houses of Peers and Commons in England. The independence of the judicial order was recognised, and the military were confirmed in their rank and revenues. The Chamber of Peers was to be nominated by the King, with power to his Majesty to create its members for life, or hereditary, at his pleasure. The income of the suppressed Senate was resumed, and vested in the crown, excepting confiscated property, which was restored to the lawful owners. The Catholic religion was declared to be that of the State, but all other Christian sects were to be protected. The King's authority was recognised as head of the army, and the power of making peace and war was vested in him exclusively. The liberty of the press was established, but under certain restraints. The conscription was abolished – the responsibility of ministers recognised; and it may be said, in general, that a constitution was traced out, good so far as it went, and susceptible of receiving the farther improvements which time and experience might recommend. The charter74 was presented to the Legislative Body by the King in person, [June 4,] with a speech, which announced, that the principles which it recognised were such as had been adopted in the will of his unfortunate brother, Louis XVI.75
Yet, though this charter contained a free surrender of great part of the royal rights which the old race of Bourbons had enjoyed, as well as of all the arbitrary power which Napoleon had usurped, we have seen that it was unacceptable to an active and influential party in the state, who disdained to accept security for property and freedom under the ancient forms of a feudal charter, and contended that it ought to have emanated directly from the will of the Sovereign People. We have no hesitation in saying, that this was as reasonable as the conduct of a spoiled child, who refuses what is given to him, because he is not suffered to take it; or the wisdom of an hungry man, who should quarrel with his dinner, because he does not admire the shape of the dish in which it is served up.
This is the common-sense view of the subject. If the constitution contained the necessary guarantees of political freedom and security of life and property; if it was to be looked to as the permanent settlement and bulwark of the liberties of France, and considered as a final and decided arrangement, liable indeed to be improved by the joint consent of the sovereign, and the legal representatives of the subject, but not to be destroyed by any or all of these authorities, it was a matter of utter unimportance, whether the system was constructed in the form of a charter granted by the King, or that of conditions dictated to him by the subject. But if there was to be a retrospect to the ephemeral existence of all the French constitutions hitherto, excepting that under which Buonaparte had enthralled the people, then perhaps the question might be entertained, whether the feudal or the revolutionary form was most likely to be innovated; or, in other words, whether the conditions attached to the plan of government now adopted, was most likely to be innovated upon by the King, or by the body who represented the people.
Assuming the fatal doctrine, that the party in whose name the conditions of the constitution are expressed, is entitled to suspend, alter, or recall them, sound policy dictated, that the apparent power of granting should be ascribed to the party least able and willing to recall or innovate upon the grant which he had made. In this view of the case, it might be reckoned upon that the King, unsupported, unless by the Royalists, who were few in number, unpopular from circumstances, and for the present divested, excepting nominally, of the great instrument of achieving despotic power, the undisputed command, namely, of the army, would be naturally unwilling to risk the continuance of his authority by any attempt to innovate upon those conditions, which he had by his own charter assured to the people. On the contrary, conditions formed and decreed by the Senate of Buonaparte, might on the popular party's resuming the ascendency, be altered or recalled by the chambers with the same levity and fickleness which the people of France, or at least those acting as their representatives, had so often displayed. To give permanence to the constitution, therefore, it was best it should emanate from the party most interested in preserving it, and least able to infringe it; and that undoubtedly, as France stood at the time, was the sovereign. In Great Britain, the constitution is accounted more secure, because the King is the source of law, of honour, and of all ministerial and executive power; whilst he is responsible to the nation through his ministers, for the manner in which that power is exercised. An arrangement of a different kind would expose the branches of the legislature to a discordant struggle, which ought never to be contemplated as possible.
The zealous liberalists of France were induced, however, to mutiny against the name under which their free constitution was assigned them, and to call back Buonaparte, who had abolished the very semblance of freedom, rather than to accept at the hands of a peaceful monarch, the degree of liberty which they themselves had acquired. The advantages which they gained will appear in the sequel.
Thus setting out with varying and contradictory opinions of the nature and origin of the new constitution, the parties in the state regarded it rather as a fortress to be attacked and defended, than as a temple in which all men were called to worship.
The French of this period might be divided into three distinct and active parties – Royalists; Liberals of every shade, down to Republicans; and Buonapartists. And it becomes our duty to say a few words concerning each of these.
The Royalists, while they added little real strength to the King by their numbers, attracted much jealous observation from their high birth and equally high pretensions; embroiled his affairs by their imprudent zeal; embittered his peace by their just and natural complaints; and drew suspicion on his government at every effort which he made to serve and relieve them. They consisted chiefly of the emigrant nobles and clergy.
The former class were greatly reduced in number by war and exile; insomuch, that to the House of Peers, consisting of one hundred and seventy, and upwards, the ancient nobles of France supplied only thirty. The rest were the fortunate maréchals and generals, whom the wars of the Revolution had raised to rank and wealth; and the statesmen, many of whom had attained the same station by less honourable means of elevation. The old noblesse, after their youth had been exhausted, their fortunes destroyed, and their spirits broken, while following through foreign countries the adverse fortunes of the exiled Bourbons, beheld the restoration, indeed, of the monarchy, but were themselves recalled to France only to see their estates occupied, and their hereditary offices around the person of the monarch filled, by the fortunate children of the Revolution. Like the disappointed English cavaliers, they might well complain that though none had wished more earnestly for the return of the legitimate prince, yet none had shared so little in the benefits attending it. By a natural, and yet a perverse mode of reasoning, the very injuries which the nobility had sustained, rendered them the objects of suspicion to the other ranks and parties of the state. They had been the companions of the King's exile, were connected with him by the ties of friendship, and had near access to his person by the right of blood. Could it be in nature, it was asked, that Louis could see their sufferings without attempting to relieve them; and how could he do so in the present state of France, unless at the expense of those who occupied or aspired to civil and military preferment, or of those who had acquired during the Revolution the national domains which those nobles once possessed? Yet the alarm was founded rather
See Annual Register, vol. lvi., p. 420.
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