"The forgetfulness of these principles, impossible to be supposed in plenipotentiaries, who weigh the rights of nations maturely with wisdom and consideration, has nothing astonishing in it when manifested by French ministers, whose conscience reproaches them with more than one act of treason, in whom fear has engendered rage, and whose remorse leads their reason astray.
"Such men as these may have risked the fabrication and the publication of a piece like the pretended declaration of the 13th of March, in the hope of stopping the progress of Napoleon, and misleading the French people with regard to the real sentiments of foreign powers.
"But they cannot judge like these powers of the merits of a nation, which they have misunderstood, betrayed, and delivered up to the arms of foreigners.
"This nation, brave and generous, revolts against every thing that bears the marks of cowardice and oppression: its affections are heightened, when the object of them is threatened or affected by a great injustice; and assassination, which the commencement of the declaration of the 13th of March is intended to excite, will find not a single hand to execute it, either among the twenty-five millions of Frenchmen, the majority of whom attended, guarded, and protected Napoleon from the Mediterranean to the capital; nor among the eighteen millions of Italians, the six millions of Belgians or inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, and the numerous nations of Germany, who, on this solemn occasion, have not pronounced his name without respectful remembrance; nor a single individual of the indignant English nation, whose honourable sentiments disavow the language, that those men have dared to attribute to the sovereigns.
"The people of Europe are enlightened; they judge the rights of Napoleon, the rights of the allied princes, and those of the Bourbons.
"They know, that the convention of Fontainbleau was a treaty between sovereigns. Its violation, the entrance of Napoleon into the French territory, like any other infraction of a diplomatic act, like any hostile invasion, could only bring on an ordinary war; the result of which can only be, to the person, that of being conqueror or conquered, free or a prisoner of war; to possessions, that of being lost or preserved, diminished or increased; and that every thought, every threat, every attempt, against the life of a prince at war with another, is a thing unheard of in the history of nations, and of the cabinets of Europe.
"In the violence, the rage, the forgetfulness of principle, that characterize the declaration of the 13th of March, we recognize the envoys of the same prince, the organs of the same councils, who, by the ordinance of the 6th of March, also put Napoleon out of the pale of the law, also invoked for him the daggers of assassins, and also promised a reward to whoever would bring his head.
"Yet what has Napoleon done? By his confidence he has honoured the men of all nations, who were insulted by the infamous office to which they were invited: he has shown himself temperate, generous, a protector, even toward those who had devoted his head to destruction.
"When he spoke to General Excelmans, marching toward the column that closely pressed Louis Stanislas Xavier; to General Count Erlon, who was to receive him at Lille; to General Clausel, who was going to Bourdeaux, where the Duchess of Angoulême was; to General Grouchy, who marched to put a stop to the civil disturbances excited by the Duke of Angoulême; every where, in short, orders were given by the Emperor, that their persons should be respected, and sheltered from all attack, from all danger, from all violence, during their progress on the French territories, and to the moment of their quitting them.
"Contemporary nations and posterity will judge, on which side respect has been paid in this grand conjuncture to the rights of nations and of sovereigns, to the laws of war, the principles of civilization, and the maxims of law civil and religious: they will pronounce between Napoleon and the house of Bourbon.