"This plan is not abandoned. Nay more: the party has been increased, at every change in our revolution, by all the malecontents, that events have produced; by all the factious, that a certainty of amnesty has encouraged; and by all the ambitious, who have been desirous of acquiring some political importance in the changes they foreboded.
"...... It is this party, that now disturbs the interior. Marseilles, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, are agitated by it. Marseilles, where the spirit of sedition animates even the lowest classes of the population; where the laws have been disregarded: Toulouse, which seems still under the influence of that revolutionary organisation, which was imparted to it some months ago: Bordeaux, where all the germs of revolt are deposited, and intensely fermenting.
"It is this party, which by false alarms, false hopes, distribution of money, and the employment of threats, has succeeded in stirring up peaceable agriculturists, throughout the territory included between the Loire, la Vendée, the ocean, and the Rhone. Arms and ammunition have been landed there. The hydra of rebellion revives, re-appears wherever it formerly exercised its ravages, and is not destroyed by our successes at St. Gilles and Aisenay. On the other side of the Loire, bands are desolating the department of Morbihan, and some parts of those of Isle and Vilaine, the Coasts of the North, and Sarthe. They have invaded in a moment the towns of Aurai, Rhedon, and Ploermel, and the plains of Mayenne as far as the gates of Laval; they stop the soldiers and sailors, that are recalled; they disarm the land-holders; increase their numbers by peasants, whom they compel to march with them; pillage the public treasures, annihilate the instruments of administration, threaten the persons in office, seize the stage coaches, stop the couriers, and for a moment intercepted the communication between Mans and Angers, Angers and Nantes, Nantes and Rennes, and Rennes and Vannes.
"On the borders of the Channel, Dieppe and Havre have been agitated by seditious commotions. Throughout the whole of the 15th division, the battalions of the national militia have been formed only with the greatest difficulty. The soldiers and sailors have refused, to answer their call; and have obeyed it only by compulsion. Caen has twice been disturbed by the resistance of the royalists; and in some of the circles of the Orne bands are formed as in Britanny and Mayenne.
"In fine, all kinds of writings, that can discourage the weak, embolden the factious, shake confidence, divide the nation, bring the government into contempt; all the pamphlets, that issue from the printing-offices of Belgium, or the clandestine presses of France; all that the foreign newspapers publish against us, all that the party-writers compose; are distributed, hawked about, and diffused with impunity, for want of restrictive laws, and from the abuse of the liberty of the press.
"Firm in the system of moderation, which your Majesty had adopted, you have thought it right, to wait for the meeting of the chambers, that legal precautions only might be opposed to manœuvres, which by the ordinary course of law are not always punishable, and which it could neither foresee, nor prevent......"
The Duke of Otranto, entering on the subject, then discussed the laws, which, issued under analogous circumstances, might have been applied on the present occasion; and, as these laws appeared to him, impolitic, dangerous, and inadequate, he concluded, that it was indispensable for the chambers, immediately to set about framing new laws, which were necessary to check the licentiousness of the press, and circumscribe personal liberty, till internal peace and order were restored.
This report did not make the impression, that might have been expected from it. The deputies, accurately acquainted with what was passing in their departments, knew, that facts had been misrepresented. They persuaded themselves, that the melancholy picture of the situation of France, presented to them by M. Fouché, had been drawn up by order of the Emperor, with the view to alarm them, and render them more docile to his will.
The separate committees of the chamber rung with the contradictions, more or less direct, that each representative gave to the assertions of the minister. One of the members of the deputation from Calvados, would not rest satisfied with this civil way of giving him the lie, but declared openly from the tribune, that the agents of the minister had deceived their principal, by describing to him a personal quarrel of no consequence, and quelled on the spot, as a general insurrection of the royalists. They might have spared themselves the trouble of telling M. Fouché, that his report exaggerated the truth, and transformed private occurrences into public events: he knew this. Already devoted to the cause of the Bourbons, he had intentionally distorted facts, with the design of giving hope and consistency to the royalists, and of intimidating, cooling, and dividing, the partisans of Napoleon[37].
The chamber, instead of occupying itself on laws and measures for promoting the public safety, the introduction of which had been referred to them, left to the minister the task of proposing them. It preferred the resumption of its discussions on its favourite subject, the additional act; and I shall leave it, to waste its time in abstract dissertations, while I return to Napoleon.