Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I | Page 9

or overwhelm us again with the wretchedness and slavery from which we had been delivered by the revolution.
The absolute necessity of rising in opposition to these nefarious attempts was felt by the entire country. Not a man would remain neuter.
During the earliest period of the reign of Louis, the emigrant faction comprehended nothing but the party composed of the relics of the ancient privileged cast. The parvenus of the imperial government alone constituted the so called Bonapartists. Considering their private gratification and profit as of greater importance than the public cause, each party had hitherto only wrangled for place and power. Their war was a matter of calculation and selfishness. But soon their disputes involved the fate of the main interests created by the revolution the emigrants directed their attacks not only against individuals but also against principles, and the people, who had hitherto only looked on, now shared the quarrel, and all France was divided into two great hostile parties[7].
[Footnote 7: I speak only of acting and thinking beings. In all countries there is to be found a class of cyphers, who are so careless, stupid, or selfish, that they belong to no party, and indeed to no nation.]
The court, the courtiers, and the ministry appeared as the central phalanx of the pure royalists. As their auxiliaries, they had the old nobility,--the priesthood,--a certain number of apostates who had skulked away from the imperial government,--and lastly, all those who had been disqualified by their incapacity and disloyalty from obtaining employment under Napoleon. It was the undisguised wish of this party to wash out every stain of the revolution, and to effect a full and unqualified restoration of the ancien r��gime in all its parts, and to all intents and purposes.
On the other side were arrayed the party designated as that of the Bonapartists, led on by our most honourable and most virtuous citizens, and numbering within its ranks the great body of the people; this party strove to withstand the impending resuscitation of the privileges and abuses of the old government, and which was to be effected only by the total subversion of our existing institutions.
The pure royalists endeavoured to annihilate the charter, which their opponents defended, and thus a strange contradiction took place. The royal charter had the royalists for its enemies, whilst its defenders were only found amongst those who were stigmatized as the adherents of Bonaparte.
Abortive attempts were made by the pure royalists to palliate the treachery of the government. They tried to persuade the people that the tranquillity and welfare of the nation depended but on the re-establishment of an absolute monarch, of a feudal aristocracy, and of all the trumpery of superstition. Such was the tendency of the publications which issued from the ministerial press, owing their birth to writers who had either sold themselves to the government, or who had denationalized themselves by their political intolerance. But it must not be supposed that liberty could remain in need of advocates.
Each of the earliest stages of the growth of the young government of royalty had been marked by obscure yet decisive symptoms of bad faith, not the less mischievous because they were restricted to signs, and symbols, and phrases. Instead of the constitution voted by the senate, and which the king had engaged to accept and ratify, he graciously granted and conceded a charter, by which he gave a new form to the government; and which, according to its tenor, emanated from the sovereign in the full and free exercise of his royal authority. The tricoloured cockade worn by Louis XVI. and which our armies had rendered illustrious, was exchanged for the white, though to the mind's eye the latter was seen drenched in the blood of the people. Louis took the title of Louis XVIII. King of France and Navarre, and he dated his proclamations and ordinances in the 19th year of his reign, and thus it was to be inferred, that the nation had been in a state of rebellion during five and twenty years. He had disdained to receive his crown from the will of the people, and rather chose to hold it by divine right and the good offices of the Prince Regent. These ungracious affronts wounded the national feelings, but no notice was taken of them at the time, because it was apprehended that angry recriminations might endanger the profit which had resulted from the important sacrifices to which we had consented for the public good. But when the government unveiled its deformity, the silence of the patriotic party was at end, and they attacked the government most unrelentingly. The editors of the Censeur were most conspicuous. Every abuse of power, every violation of the charter, was proclaimed to France by these young tribunes of the people; and the