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

them not, and repulsed them harshly. The Doge of
Genoa, speaking of Louis XIV, said, "his majesty steals our hearts by
his amiability, but his ministers give them back again to us." The
apophthegm of the Doge might have been pertinently applied to Louis
XVIII. by the people.
Hitherto the government appeared to adhere to the resolution of dealing
out impartial justice to both parties, and of performing the covenant
which the new monarch 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