first reverse of fortune. The sovereigns of Germany fought with the intrepidity of soldiers; and it seemed as if the Prussians and their warlike king were animated by the remembrance of the personal insult offered some years before by Buonaparte to their beautiful and virtuous queen. The liberation of Germany had long been the object of the wishes of the emperor of Russia. When the French were repulsed from his country, he devoted himself to this cause, not only as a sovereign, but as a general; and he several times exposed his life, not in the character of a monarch guarded by his courtiers, but in that of an intrepid soldier. Holland welcomed her deliverers, and recalled that house of Orange, whose princes are now, as heretofore, the defenders of independence, and the magistrates of liberty. Whatever was the influence at this period of the English victories in Spain, we shall speak elsewhere of lord Wellington; for we must pause at that name; we cannot take an incidental notice of it. Buonaparte returned to Paris; and even at this moment France might have been saved. Five members of the Legislative Assembly, Gallois, Raynouard, Flaugergues, Maine de Biran, and Lainé, asked for peace at the peril of their lives. Each of those persons might be designated by his particular merit; and the last I have named, Lainé, perpetuates every day by his conduct and talents the remembrance of an action which alone would suffice to honour any character. If the Senate had joined with the five members of the legislative body, and the generals had supported the Senate, France would have been the disposer of her own fate; and whatever course she had taken, she would have remained France. But fifteen years of tyranny subvert every idea, and change every sentiment; the very men who would expose so nobly their lives in war, are not aware that the same courage, and the same honour, command resistance in the civil career to the enemy of all despotism. Buonaparte answered the deputation of the Legislative Body with a kind of concentrated fury; he expressed himself ill, but his pride was seen to pierce through his confused language. He said "that France wanted him more than he wanted France;" forgetting that it was himself who had reduced her to that state. He added, "that a throne was but a piece of wood, upon which a carpet was spread, and that all depended on the person by whom it was occupied." In short, he continued to appear intoxicated with himself. A singular anecdote, however, might lead us to believe that he was already struck with that stupor which seems to have taken possession of his character during the last crisis of his political life. A person worthy of credit told me, that, conversing with him alone, the day before his departure for the army, in the month of January, 1814, when the allies had already entered France, Buonaparte confessed in this private interview that he did not possess the means of resisting; they discussed the question, and Buonaparte showed him, without reserve, the worst side of things; and, what will scarcely be believed, he fell asleep while talking on such a subject, without any preceding fatigue that could explain so singular an apathy. This did not prevent his displaying an extreme activity in his campaign of 1814; he suffered himself, no doubt, to be misled by a presumptuous confidence; and, on the other hand, physical existence, through enjoyments and facilities of all kinds, had gained possession of this man, formerly so intellectual. His soul seemed in some sort to have become gross along with his body. His genius now pierced only at intervals through that covering of egotism which a long habit of being considered every thing had made him acquire. He sunk under the weight of prosperity, before he was overthrown by misfortune. No, never shall I forget the moment when I learned from one of my friends, on the morning of the 6th of March, 1815, that Buonaparte had disembarked on the coast of France: I had the misfortune to foresee instantly the consequences of that event, such as they have since taken place, and I thought that the earth was about to open under my feet. For several days after the success of this man, the aid of prayer failed me entirely, and, in my trouble, it seemed to me that the Deity had withdrawn from the earth, and would no longer communicate with the beings whom he had placed there. I suffered in the bottom of my heart from personal circumstances; but the situation of France absorbed every other thought. I said to M. de Lavalette, whom I met almost at the hour when this news was resounding around us: "There is an end of liberty, if Buonaparté triumph, and of national independence, if he be defeated." The event has, I think, but too much justified this sad prediction. It was impossible to avoid an inexpressible irritation before the return, and during the progress of Buonaparte. For a month back, all those who have any acquaintance with revolutions felt the air charged with storms; repeated notice of this was given to persons connected with government; but many among them regarded the disquieted friends of liberty as relapsing, and as still believing in the influence of the people, in the power of revolutions. The most moderate among the aristocrats thought that public affairs regarded government only, and that it was indiscreet to interfere with them. They could not be made to understand, that to be acquainted with what is passing in a country where the spirit of liberty ferments, men in office should neglect no intelligence, be indifferent to no circumstance, and multiply their numbers by activity, instead of wrapping themselves up in a mysterious silence. The partisans of Buonaparte were a thousand times better informed on every thing than the servants of the king; for the Buonapartists, as well as their master, were aware of what importance every individual can be in a time of trouble. Formerly every thing depended on men in office; office; at present those who are out of office act more on public opinion than government itself, and have consequently a better foresight into the future. A continual dread had taken possession of my soul several weeks before the disembarkation of Buonaparte. In the evening, when the beautiful buildings of the town were displayed by the rays of the moon, it seemed to me that I saw my happiness and that of France, like a sick friend, whose smile is the more amiable, because he is on the eve of leaving us. When told that this terrible man was at Cannes, I shrunk before the certainty as before a poignard; but when it was no longer possible to escape that certainty, I was but too well assured that he would be at Paris in a fortnight. The royalists made a mockery of this terror; it was strange to hear them say that this event was the most fortunate thing possible, because we should then be relieved from Buonaparté, because the two chambers would feel the necessity of giving the king absolute power, as if absolute power was a thing to be given?-despotism, like liberty, is assumed, it is never granted. I am not sure that among the enemies, of every constitution, there may not have been some who rejoiced at the convulsion which might recall foreigners and induce them to impose an absolute government on France. Three days were passed in the inconsiderate hopes of the royalist party. At last, on the 9th of March, we were told that nothing was known of the Lyons telegraph because a cloud had prevented reading the communica tion. I was at no loss to understand what this cloud was. I went in the evening to the Tuileries to attend the king's levee; on seeing him, it seemed to me that, with a great deal of courage, he had an expression of sadness, and nothing was more affecting than his noble resignation at such a moment. On going out, I perceived on the walls of the apartment, the eagles of Napoleon which had not yet been removed, and they seemed to me to have re-assumed their threatening look. In the evening, in a party, one of those young ladies who, with so many others, had contributed to the spirit of frivolity which it was attempted to oppose to the spirit of faction, as if the one could contend against the other; one of these young ladies, I say, came up to me, and began jesting on that anxiety which I could not conceal: "What, Madam," said she to me, "can you apprehend that the French will not fight for their legitimate king against a usurper? How, without committing one's self, could one answer a phrase so adroitly turned? But, after twenty-five years of revolution, ought one to flatter one's self that legitimacy, an idea respectable but abstract, would have more ascendency over the soldiers than all the recollections of their long wars? In fact, none of them contended against the supernatural ascendency of the genius of the African isles; they called for the tyrant in the name of liberty: they rejected in its name the constitutional monarch; they brought six hundred thousand foreigners into the bosom of France, to efface efface the humiliation of having seen them there during a few weeks; and this frightful day of the 1st of March, the day when Buonaparte again set foot on the soil of France, was more fertile in disasters than any epoch of history. I will not launch out, as has been but too much done, into declamations of every kind against Napoleon. He did what it was natural to do in endeavouring to regain the throne he had lost, and his progress from Cannes to Paris is one of the greatest conceptions of audacity that can be cited in history. But what shall we say of the enlightened men who did not see the misfortunes of France and of the world in the possibility of his return? A great general, it will be said, was wanted to avenge the reverses experienced by the French army. In that case, Buonaparte ought not to have proclaimed the treaty of Paris; for if he was unable to re-conquer the barrier of the Rhine sacrificed by that treaty, what purpose did it answer to expose that which France was possessing in peace? But, it will be answered, the secret intention of Buonaparte was to restore to France her natural barriers. But was it not clear that Europe would penetrate that intention, that she would form a coalition to resist it, and that, particularly at the time in question, France was unable to resist united Europe? The congress was still assembled; and although a great deal of discontent was produced by several of their resolutions, was it possible that the nations would make choice of Buonaparte for their defender? Was it he who had oppressed them whom they could oppose to the faults of their princes? The people were more violent than the sovereigns in the war against Buonaparte; and France, on taking him back for herself the hatred both of goher ruler, necessarily brought on vernments and nations. Will it be pretended that it was for the interest of liberty that they recalled the man who had, during fifteen years, shown himself most dextrous in the art of being master-a man equally violent and deceitful? People spoke of his conversion, and there were not wanting believers in this miracle: less faith certainly was required for the miracles of Mahomet. The friends of liberty have been able to see in Buonaparte only the counter-revolution of despotism, and the revival of an old regime more recent, but for the nation was still comon that account more formidable; pletely fashioned to tyranny, and neither principles nor public virtue had had time to take Personal interests only, and not opinions, conspired for the return of Buonaparté, and of those mad interests which were blinded and accounted the fate of France in regard to their own danger, as nothing. root. [From King's Anecdotes of his the pernicious habit of drinking cian, cian, though it is visible to all his acquaintance. Pope and I, with my lord Orrery and Sir Harry Bedingfield, dined with the late earl of Burlington. After the first course Pope grew sick, and went out of the room. When dinner was ended, and the cloth removed, my lord Burlington said he would go out, and see what was become of Pope. And soon after they returned together. But Pope, who had been casting up his dinner, looked very pale, and complained much. My lord asked him if he would have some mulled wine or a glass of old sack, which Pope refused. I told my lord Burlington that he wanted a dram. Upon which the little man expressed some resentment against me, and said he would not taste any spirits, and that he abhorred drams as much as I did. However I persisted, and assured my lord Burlington that he could not oblige our friend more at that instant than by ordering a large glass of cherry-brandy to be set before him. This was done, and in less than half an hour, while my lord was acquainting us with an affair which engaged our attention, Pope had sipped up all the brandy. Pope's frame of body did not promise long life; but he certainly hastened his death by feeding much on highseasoned dishes, and drinking spirits. SWIFT. [From King's Anecdotes.] The last time I dined with Dean Swift, which was about three years before he fell into that distemper which totally de prived him of his understanding, I observed, that he was affected by the wine which he drank, about a pint of claret. The next morning, as we were walking together in his garden, he complained much of his head, when I took the liberty to tell him (for I most sincerely loved him) that I was afraid he drank too much wine. He was a little startled, and answered, "that as to his drinking he had always looked on himself as a very temperate man; for he never exceeded the quantity which his physician had allowed and prescribed him." Now his physician never drank less than two bottles of claret after his dinner. Doctor Swift was always persuaded that the archbishop of York had made impressions on Queen Anne to his disadvantage, and by that means had obstructed his preferment in England; and he has hinted this in his apology for the Tale of the Tub, and in other parts of his works; and yet my lord Bolingbroke, who must have been well informed of this particular, told me that he had been assured by the queen herself, that she never had received any unfavourable character of Dr. Swift, nor had the archbishop, or any other person, endeavoured to lessen him in her esteem. My lord Bolingbroke added, that this tale was invented by the earl of Oxford to deceive Swift, and make him contented with his deanery in Ireland; which, although his native country, he always looked on as a place of banishment. If lord Bolingbroke had hated the earl of Oxford less, I should have been readily inclined to believe him. THE |