Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Volume 14

This etext was produced by David Widger
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
1891
CONTENTS: CHAPTER VII. to CHAPTER X. 1815
1815.
Napoleon at Paris—Political manoeuvres—The meeting of the Champ- de-Mai—Napoleon, the Liberals, and the moderate Constitutionalists —His love of arbitrary power as strong as ever—Paris during the Cent Jours—Preparations for his last campaign—The Emperor leaves Paris to join the army—State of Brussels—Proclamation of Napoleon to the Belgians—Effective strength of the French and Allied armies —The Emperor's proclamation to the French army.
Napoleon was scarcely reseated on his throne when he found he could not resume that absolute power he had possessed before his abdication at Fontainebleau. He was obliged to submit to the curb of a representative government, but we may well believe that he only yielded, with a mental reservation that as soon as victory should return to his standards and his army be reorganised he would send the representatives of the people back to their departments, and make himself as absolute as he had ever been. His temporary submission was indeed obligatory.
The Republicans and Constitutionalists who had assisted, or not opposed his return, with Carnot, Fouche, Benjamin Constant, and his own brother Lucien (a lover of constitutional liberty) at their head, would support him only on condition of his reigning as a constitutional sovereign; he therefore proclaimed a constitution under the title of Acte additionnel aux Constitutions de l'Empire, which greatly resembled the charter granted by Louis XVIII. the year before. An hereditary Chamber of Peers was to be appointed by the Emperor, a Chamber of Representatives chosen by the Electoral Colleges, to be renewed every five years, by which all taxes were to be voted, ministers were to be responsible, judges irremovable, the right of petition was acknowledged, and property was declared inviolable. Lastly, the French nation was made to declare that they would never recall the Bourbons.