Authentic Memoirs of the Public Life of M. Fouché, Duke of Otranto: Comprising Various Letters Addressed to the Emperor Napoleon, King Joachim, the Comte D'Artois, the Duke of Wellington, Prince Blucher, Louis XVIII, Count de Blacass, &c. &c

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H. Colburn, 1818 - France - 168 pages

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Page 18 - My head and heart thus flowing thro' my quill, Verse-man or prose-man, term me which you will, Papist or Protestant, or both between, Like good Erasmus in an honest mean, In moderation placing all my glory, While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.
Page 32 - NOT discovered to the king the names of the royalists whoi declared against his authority, and negociated with Napoleon. I wished not to lift my veil; those whose honor has been saved may return to virtue. There were only two means of serving the king — the increasing of his physical or his moral power. If a physical power is sometimes necessary to suppress disorders, it is not sufficient to establish a, durable order of things.
Page 110 - ... representatives of the nation are incessantly employed on a civil compact, of which the component powers, separated but not divided, all contribute by their reciprocal action to harmony and unity. From the moment this compact shall be signed by the Prince called to reign over us, the sovereign shall receive the sceptre and the crown from the hands of the nation.
Page 68 - Europe does not become your own ; and the title of sovereign of a few acres of land still less becomes him who possessed an immense empire. I beseech you to weigh these two considerations, and you will feel how well they are founded. The island of Elba lies at a short distance from Africa, Greece, and Spain. It almost touches the coasts of Italy and France. From that island the sea, the winds, and a small felucca may rapidly convey you to every country exposed to movements, dissensions, and revolutions.
Page 57 - When a man has the misfortune to be celebrated, the place which is the least known receives eclat, when he wishes to retire to it. I wished at least to escape from calumny, by the simplicity, by the obscurity, and by the happiness of my domestic life. Some are astonished, that, in quitting the ministry, I did not enter the Chamber of Deputies, to which several electoral colleges, especially that of Paris, had called me. Could I have struggled with advantage against the...
Page 53 - Tell the emperor," replied the ex-minister, " that for fiveand-twenty years I have been accustomed to sleep with my head on the block ; that I know his power, but do not fear it ; and that he may make a Strafford of me if he pleases.
Page 45 - The tranquillity of the state is intimately connected with the moral dispositions of the laborious classes, of which the people is composed, and which form the basis of the social edifice. A good police judges not of these dispositions by the applauses which men the most vile and the most wicked ever obtain during the period they are in power.
Page 21 - Whither has their obstinacy to apeak and ad as absolute masters, and to punish all resistance, conducted them? they have paved the way to the throne for the Prince of Orange, who, to maintain himself there, needed only to use his power with moderation, to dissipate alarm, and to diffuse security.
Page 43 - This is the police of a courtier who is desirous of pleasing, or of a subaltern who is in need of such means of making his merit be seen: it is not ours. A minister must calculate well on the indulgence or on the .weakness of...
Page 59 - XVIII. from nominating him his minister, nor the Allied Sovereigns from bestowing on him marks of consideration, could become, at this day, a subject of proscription ? If this were possible, it would not be the proscribed person whom we had reason to pity.

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