B. and F. State Papers, 1816-17, p. 553. Metternich, iii. 80. Castlereagh had at first desired that the Constitution should be modified under the influence of the English Ambassador. Instructions to A'Court, March 14, 1814, marked "Most Secret"; Records: Sicily, vol. 99. A'Court himself detested the Constitution. "I conceive the Sicilian people to be totally and radically unfit to be entrusted with political power." July 23, 1814, id.
Castlereagh, x. 25.
"If his Majesty announces his determination to give effect to the main principles of a constitutional régime, it is possible that he may extinguish the existing arrangement with impunity, and re-establish one more consistent with the efficiency of the executive power, and which may restore the great landed proprietors and the clergy to a due share of authority." Castlereagh, id.
Daudet, La Terreur Blanche, p. 186. The loss of the troops was a hundred. The stories of wholesale massacres at Marseilles and other places are fictions.
See the Address, in Journal des Débats, 15 Octobre: "Nous oserons solliciter humblement la rétribution nécessaire," etc. For the general history of the Session, see Duvergier de Hauranne, iii. 257; Viel-Castal, iv. 139; Castlereagh's severe judgment of Artois. Records: Cont., 28, Sept. 21.
Journal des Débats, 29 October.
Wellington, S.D., xi. 95. This self-confident folly is repeated in many of Lord Liverpool's letters.
Procès du Maréchal Ney, i. 212.
Ney was not, however, a mere fighting general. The Military Studies published in English in 1833 from his manuscripts prove this. They abound in acute remarks, and his estimate of the quality of the German soldier, at a time when the Germans were habitually beaten and despised, is very striking. He urges that when French infantry fight in three ranks, the charge should be made after the two front ranks have fired, without waiting for the third to fire. "The German soldier, formed by the severest discipline, is cooler than any other. He would in the end obtain the advantage in this kind of firing if it lasted long." (P. 100.) Ney's parents appear to have been Würtemberg people who had settled in Alsace. The name was really Neu (New).
See the extracts from La Bourdonnaye's printed speech in Journal des Débats, 19 Novembre: "Pour arrêter leurs trames criminelles, il faut des fers, des bourreaux, des supplices. La mort, la mort seule peut effrayer leurs complices et mettre fin à leurs complots," etc. The journals abound with similar speeches.