Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I | Page 7

had entered into with the nation. But now he was bound by an influence which he could not withstand. Ensnared by the machinations, the threats, and the fears of his emigrant court, and perhaps believing that the new order of things was incompatible with the stability of the Bourbon dynasty, the maxims of his government underwent a total change. He was taught to consider the equality of civil rights as a revolutionary conquest, the liberties of the nation as an usurpation of the authority of the throne, the new constitution as insulting the independence of the sovereign. It was therefore determined that all "dangerous characters[5]" should be led quietly out of all civil and military offices. The old trustworthy nobility of the old kingdom were again to become the sole depositaries of the power of the state: and by slow but sure degrees it was resolved to cancel the royal charter, and either by fair means or by foul, to place the nation again beneath the yoke of absolute power.
[Footnote 5: This expression was one of those of which the ministers made the worst use. If they were told that any magistrate, any officer, any functionary, whom they had turned out, had fulfilled his duties with honour and distinction, that he was loved and regretted by the people, they answered, "he is a dangerous character," and there was an end of the business.]
The government often appealed to the authority of the King's predecessor on the throne--of Bonaparte. Bonaparte, it was said, had acknowledged that it was dangerous to concede a representative government to the people, and that it was fit and proper to rule them despotically. But Napoleon, he who re-established the authority of royalty, morality, and religion--who had re-organized society--who had given tranquillity to France, at the same time that he rendered her formidable to the world--he had earned his authority by his services and his victories, and, if I may venture to use the expression, he had acquired a legitimate right of despotism, which neither belonged, nor could belong, to a Bourbon. Besides which, in spite of the real or pretended despotism of the imperial government, it was still a national government; a character wholly foreign to the Bourbon government, and which it had no tendency to acquire.
The prognostics of the re-action which the ministers intended to bring about were disclosed in all parts of the body politic. Alarm seized even the Chamber of Deputies: it hastened to become the organ of the uneasiness of the people, and to remind the King of the warranty which he had given to the nation.
In the address, or rather in the protest presented by the chamber on the 15th of June, the national representatives say, "The charter secures to the voice of truth every channel which leads to the throne, since it consecrates the liberty of the press, and the right of petition.
"Amongst the guarantees which it contains, the nation will attend to that which insures the responsibility of any minister who may betray the confidence reposed in him by your Majesty, by trespassing on the public or private rights insured by the constitutional charter.
"By virtue of this charter, nobility in all future times will only command the respect of the people as surrounded by proofs of honour and glory, which the recollections of feudality will not have the power of tarnishing.
"The principles of civil liberty are founded upon the independence of judicial authority, and the retention of trial by jury, that invaluable guarantee of all our rights."
If the King had known the truth, this energetic address would have attained its end. But the truth could not reach him. At first he intended to bestow his personal confidence upon the greater part of the leading "notables" of the revolution; but by means of remonstrances and recriminations, another party contrived to place his good sense again under the yoke of prejudice, and he surrounded himself with old nobility alone, with men who had refused to obey the constitution sanctioned by Louis XVI., because it destroyed their privileges; and who, for the same reason, had refused to acknowledge the new constitution, against which they had even dared to protest. His companions were so blinded, so besotted by their presumption, that they imagined that decrees and ordinances gave them the faculty of overturning the edifice which the nation had erected during five and twenty years of revolution. His confidents were those alone who, instead of wishing to reveal to their sovereign the object of the projects of the ministry, and of the faction which had rendered the ministry their tools, had become the accomplices of ministerial guilt, joint conspirators in the plot which was to destroy the royal charter.
The cabinet contained, however, some able and experienced statesmen. They were convinced that instead of teasing