And with how vast a genius must he have been endowed! he, who, occupied by the torments of ambition, military calculations, political schemes, and the anxieties inspired by the enemies of his crown and of his life, still found sufficient time, sufficient calmness, sufficient power, to command his numerous armies; to govern twenty foreign nations, and forty millions of subjects; to enter solicitously into all the particulars of the administration of his states; to see every thing; to sift every thing to the bottom; to regulate every thing; in fine, to conceive, create, and realize those unexpected improvements, those bold innovations, those noble institutions, and those immortal codes, that raise the civil glory of France to a degree of superiority, which alone can match its military glory. But I know not why I attempt to combat such adversaries: they who are blind to the genius of Napoleon, have never known genius itself, and I ought to give them no answer, but that of Rousseau: "Silence, ye uninitiated!"
The Emperor, by his decrees issued at Lyons, had in some degree repaired the wrongs imputed to the royal government. One grievance still remained for him; the slavery of the press. The decree of the 24th of March[80], by suppressing the censors, the censorship, and the superintendance of the bookselling trade, completed the imperial restoration.
This last concession was unquestionably the greatest, that Napoleon could make to public opinion. A press in the general interest of the people is the surest protection of their rights. It is the most noble conquest liberty can gain over despotism: to honest men it gives dignity; it inspires them with the love of their country, and of the laws; in fine, according to the English definition, it is the mother of all liberty: but in times of trouble and of revolution, it is a dangerous weapon in the hands of the wicked; and the Emperor foresaw, that the royalists would employ it in the cause of the Bourbons; and the Jacobins, to calumniate his sentiments, and render his designs suspected. But, a declared enemy of half-measures, he resolved, since he had set thought at liberty, that it should circulate unshackled[81].
This decree, and those that preceded it, were undoubtedly sufficient to testify to the nation the liberal disposition of Napoleon: but no speech from the throne had yet declared with solemnity the positive intentions of the Emperor.
At length he fixed on Sunday, the 26th of March, as the day, on which he would make his new profession of faith in the face of the nation[82].
The ministers, the council of state, the court of cassation, the court of accounts, the imperial court, the prefect, and the municipal council of Paris, were admitted to the foot of the throne.
The prince arch-chancellor, speaking in the name of the ministers, said:
"Sire, Providence, that watches over our destiny, has re-opened to your Majesty the road to that throne, to which you had been raised by the free choice of the people, and the national gratitude. Our country raises its majestic brow, and for the second time salutes with the name of deliverer the prince, who destroyed anarchy, and whose existence alone is at present capable of consolidating our liberal institutions.
"The most just of revolutions, that which will restore to men their dignity, and all their political rights, has hurled from the throne the dynasty of the Bourbons. After five and twenty years of war and troubles, all the efforts of foreigners have proved unable, to awaken affections that are extinct, or wholly unknown to the present generation. The struggle of the interests and prejudices of a few against the enlightened state of the age, and the interests of a great nation, is at length terminated.
"Our destinies are accomplished: the only legitimate cause, the cause of the people, has triumphed. Your Majesty has yielded to the wishes of the French; you have seized anew the reins of the state, amid the benedictions of the people and of the army.