Messrs. de Ségur, de Flahaut, and Roederer, opposed this, and strenuously maintained the rights of Napoleon II. "If the Emperor had been killed," said they, "his son would succeed him as a matter of right. He is politically deceased why should not his son succeed him? The monarchy is composed of three branches: one of these branches is dead; it must be replaced. We are strong only within the sphere of our duties: let us not step out of the constitution, let us not give the foreign powers a right to say to us, you are no longer any thing! They have declared, that Napoleon alone was the obstacle to a peace: let us put their good faith to the test. It is besides as advantageous, as it is just and politic, to acknowledge Napoleon II., and to govern in his name. Look at the soldiers, look at the people of Alsace, Franche Comté, Lorraine, Burgundy, and Champagne, for whom, and in whose name, have they lavished their generous blood? At home, the acknowledgment of Napoleon II. would justify the nation and the army; abroad it would reconcile us to Austria. Could the Emperor view us with the eyes of an enemy, when we had adopted for our sovereign a child of his own blood?"
"The 67th article of the constitution," said M. Thibaudeau, "is still the law of the two chambers: neither the chamber, nor the nation, nor the provisional government we shall form, thinks of bringing back the government, under which we groaned a whole year; but the proposal for acknowledging Napoleon II. cannot be discussed at the present moment. Let us leave things as they are, and adopt the resolution of the chamber of deputies, without prejudging any thing in regard to the entirety of the abdication of Napoleon."
The chamber, delighted at having discovered a method of preserving the rights of Napoleon, without placing itself in manifest opposition to the representatives, adopted this suggestion, and proceeded immediately to the nomination of the two members to the committee of government.
The Duke of Vicenza and Baron Quinette had the suffrages in their favour.
M. Carnot, the Duke of Otranto, and General Grenier, were at the same time chosen by the other chamber.
The committee of government immediately entered on its functions under the presidency of the Duke of Otranto.
Though the question of the entirety of the abdication remained untouched upon, the Emperor nevertheless considered the creation of a committee of government as a manifest violation of its conditions. He reproached the ministers of state, and particularly M. Regnault, with not having maintained the rights of his son: and made them sensible, that it was incumbent on them, as they regarded their honour and duty, to oblige the chambers to declare themselves. "I have not abdicated," said he, "in favour of a new directory. I abdicated in favour of my son. If they do not proclaim him, my abdication must be null, and not made. The chambers well know, that the people, the army, public opinion, desire it, will it; but the foreigners check them. It is not by presenting themselves before the allies with their ears hanging down, and their knee on the ground, that they will compel them to acknowledge the independence of the nation. Had they been sensible of their situation, they would spontaneously have proclaimed Napoleon II. The foreign powers would then have seen, that you know how to have but one will, one object, one rallying point: they would have seen, that the 20th of March was not a party affair, the attempt of a faction; but the result of the attachment of the French to me and to my dynasty. The unanimity of the nation would have had more effect upon them, than all your mean and degrading deference."
The effect produced by the sitting of the chamber of peers, in spite of the pains taken to misrepresent it, roused the attention of the Duke of Otranto, and of the Anti-Napoleon faction, of which he was become the director and the head.
On the other hand the army of Marshal Grouchy, which was supposed to be destroyed, had just re-entered France[67]. Prince Jerome, Marshal Soult, Generals Morand, Colbert, Poret, Petit, and a number of other officers, whom I regret not being able to name, had succeeded in rallying the wreck of Mont St. Jean; and the army already formed a body of fifty or sixty thousand men, whose sentiments in favour of the Emperor had undergone no alteration.
The Duke of Otranto and his party then perceived the necessity of keeping terms with Napoleon and in a secret conference, which took place at the house of the minister of police, and at which M. Manuel and the deputies of most weight in the party of the Duke of Otranto were present, it was confessed, that it appeared neither prudent nor possible, to prevent the acknowledgment of Napoleon II.; and that they would exert themselves merely to retain the authority in the hands of the committee.