MY DEAR SIR,

LETTER XIV.

Paris, March 30th, 1820.

It is still a question in France, whether the Liberals, after they discovered all opposition to the Emperor was over, should have retired from all active agency in the affairs of the new government, or have glided off to the frontiers after the king, as the suspected auxiliaries, "Cortege dedaignée" of the royal faction; or whether they should have rallied round Napoleon, in order to mitigate the severity of his government, and protect their country from invasion or dismemberment? With whatever difficulties, however, venal and subtle politicians may here choose to invest this question, posterity will, I presume, be of but one opinion on it; for, if I mistake not, the time is approaching when civilized nations will be of accord, that allegiance is due to one's country rather than to an individual man. The embankments of habit and authority may yet hold out for a time against the surges of reason and truth; but the sea of common sense is perpetually swelling; its waves rise higher and higher every day on the strand of error, and they render every hour some of the old inscriptions of prejudice less legible.

The support of Napoleon, when the independence of France became inseparable from the maintenance of his throne, did not necessarily imply an affection for his person, nor an approbation of his principles. The true wisdom of a patriot does not consist in the pursuit of that which is most beautiful in the visions of theory, but of that which is best in the actual condition of circumstances in which his country is placed. The choice between the probable loss of civil liberty, and the certain loss of national independence, is a cruel option to one who loves his country; but I presume there is no man, that has the soul of a man, who would hesitate in his election on such an occasion. This alternative must

have presented itself to every reflecting mind during the hundred days; for whatever might have been the liberality of Napoleon's professions the moment he emerged so gloriously out of the winter of his adversity, it was but natural that the French should apprehend his relapse into tyranny.

When the king was gone-the chambers dissolved, and the emperor in the Tuileries, a gang of subjects, who had boasted to the Bourbons, of the cunning dexterity with which they had served Bonaparte, in order to betray him, re-appeared at the palace, and after outraging decency a second time, by proclaiming their new perfidy, advised Napoleon to adopt his old tyrannical system of government. In this state of things, whilst surrounded by those base politicians, "qui n'inspirent aux rois que des mœurs tyranniques," he might have hesitated a moment what course of policy to pursue. His nature, and twelve years habit inclined him to despotism; but he remembered that in his former prosperity he had relied in vain on terror, and that the popularity of the Bourbons had daily declined, after they began to substitute force for principle. Hence he concluded, that the best means of rousing the enthusiasm of his subjects, would be to profess a respect for their rights. But such was the natural repulsion between his character and liberty, that no hearty union could exist between them. The coalition, which followed, was kneaded together by the leaven of necessity, and hence there was so much of distrust in it, that the bone of public confidence may be said to have been calcined from the very beginning. During every hour of the hundred days, the exfoliations from it grew more alarming. The momentary enthusiasm which was kindled by his sublime exploit, and by those liberal proclamations which charmed France into submission, does not controvert the correctness of this position; although it might have caused him in the end, to relapse earlier into the heresies of his former life, as he mistook the approbation of his promises for an attachment to his person. When the constitution he had ordered to be drafted, was prepared in such a manner as to fill up the gaps and flaws which had yawned so offensively on the nation, in the late charter, he hesitated and refused to accept it, and thus betrayed the hopes he had awakened. He demanded that the arches of absolute power, which had supported his government before, should support it again; and in his

"additional act to the constitutions of the empire," submitted only to such modifications as fell short of public expectation, threw a damp on public confidence, and caused the wave of popularity which was buoying up his throne to retire from around it. Hence the French supported him with less zeal than he expected, and he found himself wanting in the balance against his enemies. Nor ought he to have expected more, for as he had chosen to divorce affection from duty in the hearts of his subjects, he might have foreseen the oscitant submission which followed his defeat. "La nation française n'attaque point son governement; mais elle s'ecarte et il tombe."

At the same time, however, that "the additional act" of Napoleon deserves our censure, for the suspicion it awakened of the sincerity of his respect for representative government, it must be acknowledged to have approached nearer to the liberal system which the French deserve and desire, than the royal charter. It made the Peers hereditary, and more than doubled the chamber of Deputies, whilst it made the members eligible at 25, and gave it the appointment of its own president. It made the session of each chamber public, and gave each the right of proposing laws, as well as of interrogating ministers on the course of their policy. It declared the judges irremoveable; abolished the censorship of the press, and secured the right of petition to the subject. These and a few other concessions might have satisfied France, if Napoleon had not been impolitic enough to revive certain parts of the imperial government which were remembered with displeasure. As soon as his chamber of Deputies met he perceived this, for they resolved immediately on the revision of his "act," which provoked him so violently, that if, in that critical state of affairs, when rebellion was threatening him from within, and invasion from without, he had dared to usurp absolute power, he would have taught them a lesson of obedience. But he then saw the necessity of temporizing, and in a fortnight he was brought, by destiny, to the condition of a private man.

If the Allies had let him alone, he might have yielded to public opinion; but after they had made a movement against him, it was all over with liberty in this country; for if he had succeeded in beating them, he was ready the moment he felt himself firm on the pedestal of victory to exclaim, "by my sword I won my

authority, and with my sword I will maintain it " That such would have been his conduct in the event of success, is I think pretty clear, not only from his nature, but from his evident willingness to digrace liberty by patronizing such liberticide scoundrels as Fouché, and Merlin, and Barrere, &c. If he had never favoured these hyenas, during the period of his ascendant felicity, one might be disposed to admit that the perilous condition of his affairs, extenuated, although it could not excuse their present employment. The seeming reform of his political opinions would have been more clearly evinced by the rejection of those slippery jacobins, and he ought therefore to have avoided them, as their coalition with him, only served to revive the recollection of his past obliquities.

When he discovered war to be inevitable, his wisest policy would have been to resign his sceptre; for when France was full of intestine discord, and her whole circumference encircled by foreign bayonets, a terrible energy was necessary, and this he had so abused before, that as emperor he could never hope to excite it again. As dictator he might have done more, for the contest might then have appeared national in the eyes of the multitude. But Bonaparte was not a man from whom such a sacrifice to patriotism could have been expected. "Les habitudes du despotisme ne se perdent guere." In his early life he had disdained the illustrious example of Washington, and I fear it is a law of our nature, to grow less generous with age. I have heard one who knew him in his prosperous days, and who continued personally devoted to him in exile and adversity, observe, that although he had no doubt Napoleon would, notwithstanding the arbitrariness of his temper, have submitted to legislative control, if the allies had not attacked him, he would scarcely have done so after being victorious over them. I must beg leave however to suggest that this suspicion stands contradicted by the most respectable testimony. Men of infinite acuteness and unquestionable veracity, and who were habitually inimical to him in his great career, were of a different opinion. "I believed and I still believe,” said Carnot, (whilst the vengeance of the Bourbons was yet suspended over him,) "that Napoleon came back with the sincere desire of preserving peace, and of governing in such a manner as would have closed the train of our calamities, by suffering the resources of

the state to be turned to the encouragement of industry, the assuaging the condition of the indigent and the perfecting a system of national education." M. Constant, whose political abilities are of the first order, and who had been formerly exiled by Napoleon, for the rectitude of his free principles, states that the emperor, in a conference with him in April, neither attempted any deception, as to the nature of his intentions, or the condition; "of his affairs.→ He says, that Napoleon spoke to him with that grandeur of expression, and large disdain of petty artifice, which might have been expected from one whose victories were unparalleled, and whose brows were shaded by immortal laurels. Without laying any claim to the merit of conversion to new principles by the lessons of adversity, or to the honour of fostering liberty from inclination, he inquired rapidly, but with all the impartiality of philosophical indifference, into what might best suit his interests. He observed, that although the nation had seemingly resumed a taste for constitutions and harangues, it was evident from the precipitate joy, with which they hailed his return, that they wanted nothing but him; and that as for the noblesse, he had always seen them wince when his saddle pricked them, and considered their attachment to him as the fidelity of expedience. That the people on the contrary loved him from congeniality, and detested the nobles so bitterly, that they had never wanted more than a signal from him to annihilate them. "I never hated liberty, said he, but put her aside because she obstructed my views. I never oppressed the nation from pleasure, but from great designs. I wished the empire of the civilized world, and absolute power was necessary to me to secure it. But since I cannot be an universal conqueror I desire peace; and am convinced that for the government of France alone, a constitution may suit better, both the public and my son. I owe my sovereignty to the people, and must gratify their caprices. As I cannot make France the mistress of the world, I will make her the fairest portion of it. If I am to struggle with Europe for existence, nothing but liberty will tempt the French to support me. They shall have it then. "Des discussions publiques, des elections libres, des ministres responsables, la liberté de la presse-Je veux tout cela!"

The talents of Bonaparte were so superior to those of any other man, that it was difficult for him to bring himself to submit to con