Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II

by baron Pierre Alexandre Édouard Fleury de Chaboulon

As to the latter proposition, I confess, that Napoleon, if on the 21st of March, or the 12th of April[23], he had returned into the hands of the French the sceptre, which he had just torn from those of the Bourbons, would have stamped a character completely heroic on the revolution of the 20th of March. He would have disconcerted the foreign powers, augmented his popularity, centuplicated his forces: but on the first of June it was too late: the additional act had appeared.

Unhappily for himself, therefore, Napoleon could do nothing better at the Champ de Mai, than what he did: namely, to endeavour to conceal the emptiness of the day under the pomp of a religious and military solemnity, calculated to move the heart, and strengthen by fresh bands the union, already subsisting between him, the people, and the army.

The Emperor had not been able to deliver with his own hands to the electors the eagles of their departments. It had not been concealed from him, that some among them appeared dissatisfied; and he wished to attempt to dissipate their ill-humour, and revive their zeal. Ten thousand persons were assembled in the vast galleries of the Louvre; on one side were seen the deputies and electors of the nation; on the other, its glorious defenders. The eagle of each department, and that of each deputation from the armies, were placed at the head of groups of citizens or warriors; and nothing could exhibit a more animated, and more impressive picture, than this confused assembly of Frenchmen, of all the orders of the state, crowding mutually around the standards and the hero, that were to conduct them to victory and to peace.

The Emperor was polite, affectionate, amiable: with infinite art he accommodated his manners to every body, and almost every body was enchanted with him. He was convinced of the mischief he had done himself by the additional act: and, in order to regain the good opinion of the public, he repeated to satiety, to the representatives and electors, that he would employ himself in concurrence with the two chambers, to collect together those provisions of the constitutional laws, that were not abrogated, and form the whole into one sole constitution, that should become the fundamental law of the nation.

This retraction was the consequence of the remonstrances of his ministers, and particularly of M. Carnot. "Sire," he was incessantly repeating to him, "do not strive, I conjure you, against public opinion. Your additional act has displeased the nation. Promise it, that you will modify it, and render it conformable to its wishes. I repeat to you, Sire, I have never deceived you; your safety and ours depend on your deference to the national will. This is not all, Sire; the French are become a free people. The appellation of 'subject,' which you are continually giving them, wounds and humbles them. Call them citizens, or your children. Neither suffer your ministers, your marshals, your great officers, to be called 'monseigneur:' there is no seigneur in a country, where equality forms the basis of the laws; there are none but citizens."

The Emperor, however, did not see the opening of the chambers approach, without a certain degree of apprehension. His intention was, frankly to submit to the principles and consequences of a representative government; in the first place, because he wished to reign, and was convinced, that he could not retain the throne, unless he governed as the nation demanded.

In the second place, because he was persuaded, that the nation now placed its ideas of happiness on a representative government; and because, greedy of every kind of celebrity, he found, as he told me at Lyons, that it was glorious, to render a great people happy. But, whatever were the sentiments and good inclinations of Napoleon, he had not had time, to divest himself completely of his old notions and ancient prejudices. The remembrance of our preceding assemblies besieged him still in spite of himself: and he appeared to fear, that the French had too much warmth of imagination, instability of will, and propensity to abuse their rights, to be capable of enjoying on a sudden, without any preparation, the benefits of absolute liberty. He feared, too, that the opposition inherent in representative governments would not be rightly comprehended in France, and would make a bad impression; that it would degenerate into resistance; and that it would clog the action of the sovereign power, take from it its illusion, its moral strength, and make of it nothing but an instrument of oppression[24].

Independently of these general considerations, Napoleon had still other motives, to dread the approaching assembly of the chambers. They were going to meet under circumstances, in which it was indispensable, that the chief of the state should govern without contradiction: yet he foresaw, that the representatives, misled by their ardent love of liberty, and by the fear of despotism, would seek to fetter his exercise of authority, instead of seconding its full display.

"When a war has commenced," said he one day, "the presence of a deliberative body is as embarrassing, as it is fatal. It must have victories. If the monarch meet with any check, fear seizes the timid, and renders them unconsciously the instruments and accomplices of the audacious. The apprehension of danger, and the desire of withdrawing from it, derange every head. Reason has no longer any sway: physical feelings are everything. The turbulent, the ambitious, greedy of rule, of popularity, of making a noise, erect themselves of their own authority into advocates of the people, and advisers of the prince: they want to know all, regulate all, direct all. If no regard be paid to their counsels, from advisers they become censors, from censors factionaries, and from factionaries rebels. The necessary consequence then is, that the prince must either submit to their yoke, or expel them; and in either case he almost always compromises his crown and the state."

Napoleon, tormented by the anxiety, which the sudden and inconsiderate application of the popular system, and the dispositions of the deputies, inspired, rested all his security on the chamber of peers. He hoped, that this chamber would influence the representatives by its example, or check them by its firmness.