CHAPTER XXI
ASSASSINATION OF THE DUC DE BERRY
(February 13, 1820)
THE political situation in France, after the overthrow of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons, was even more difficult and more precarious for the governing classes than it was in Germany. The French nation, proud in the consciousness of having occupied the first place in Europe for twenty years, chafed at the idea of living under a king whom foreign rulers and foreign armies had imposed on France, and who, in consequence, had to act in blind obedience to the dictates of these foreigners. The danger of a new violent outbreak against the Bourbon government was therefore ever present not only to the French mind, but to the mind of Europe, and to guard against it the foreign powers had made it one of the terms of peace with France that a foreign army of occupation should hold possession of the northern and northeastern provinces of France until the entire war indemnity exacted from the vanquished country had been paid. While the foreign occupation was ostensibly a financial measure, it was in reality a military measure giving to the foreign powers the keys to the interior of France and to Paris, in case a new invasion should become necessary. Not only was the position of the King rendered difficult by his political opponents, the Imperialists and the Republicans, but its hardships and difficulties were materially aggravated by the senseless and extravagant demands of the Royalists, who had in large number returned to France with the foreign armies. These Royalists, many of whom had been absent from France for twenty years or more, on their return from their voluntary exile, found their estates and manors, which had been confiscated under the Revolution, in the possession of strangers; all the superior offices in the civil service and the higher positions in the army, which they claimed as their own by right of birth, were filled by men of low extraction. They therefore turned to the King and demanded of him the restoration of their lost estates of their aristocratic privileges.
The King, Louis the Eighteenth, was perhaps the most intelligent of all the monarchs of Europe, but he lacked force of character, and, moreover, his long life in exile, with its pleasures and enjoyments as a sybarite and epicurean, had but poorly qualified him for his suddenly imposed tasks. He was expected by Europe to hold his own in a population the majority of whom were opposed to him, and who had learned that a king could be easily got rid of, if the people did not want him. Although Louis the Eighteenth, with his penetrating sagacity, clearly saw the instability of his throne, he honestly wished to make the best of the chance the fortune of war had given him. He was willing to give the French people a liberal government, provided it could be done without endangering the throne, and without violating the pledges given to the monarchs who had reinstated him. He might have even more energetically opposed the reactionary demands of the ultra-Royalists, who recognized his younger brother, the Comte d’Artois, as their leader, if his experiences, especially during the “Hundred Days,” had not filled him with disgust and suspicion toward the Imperialists. While Napoleon was in Elba, Louis the Eighteenth kept all the Bonapartist generals and high officials in office, relying on their promises and assurances of fidelity; but on Napoleon’s return they all betrayed him, and either flocked to the standards of the Emperor or declared their adhesion to his cause as soon as he had set foot on French soil.
Perhaps the man who had sinned most in this respect was Marshal Ney, who in a personal interview asked of the King as a personal favor to be placed in command of an army corps and to be sent against the Emperor, pledging himself to bring Napoleon in chains before his throne. Louis granted the Marshal’s request, but instead of capturing the Emperor, Ney went over to him with his entire army corps and fought at Waterloo again as the “bravest of the brave” in the imperial army. In vain he sought death on the field, when he saw that the battle was lost; it was reserved for him to die by French bullets in the Luxembourg garden of Paris, fired by royalist officers, disguised as common soldiers. From party hatred, these men had volunteered to act as executioners of one of the greatest military heroes of revolutionary France. Labédoyère and other famous generals who were traitors to Louis were executed; others saved their lives by flight. The great Carnot and other Imperialists were banished from France.
The impression made upon the ultra-Royalists by these severe measures against men who had shed lustre upon France, was in the highest degree deplorable. These fanatics supposed that the Bonapartists and Republicans of the whole kingdom were utterly at their mercy. They secretly organized a special government, under the presidency of the Comte d’Artois, at the Pavilion Marsan for the purpose of bringing to justice all those who had participated in the Napoleonic coup d’état or in the Revolution of 1789. A new era of terrorism was organized by these “white Jacobins,” as they were significantly called, and the most cruel excesses were committed in the provinces. La Vendée, which had fought so heroically for the Bourbon dynasty, treated the Imperialists and Republicans generously; but in the South, where religious fanaticism added fuel to the flame of political hatred, the most atrocious excesses and murders were committed. Avignon, Nîmes, Montpellier, Toulouse and other cities of the South were disgraced by the butchery of hundreds of Protestants; in some of them the victims of religious and political persecution died at the stake. At Avignon the famous Marshal Brune was assassinated; at Toulouse, General Ramel; at Nîmes, Count de la Garde. Wholesale assassinations and butcheries were organized; armed bands, fanaticized by the priests, roamed through the country, and butchered the Protestants en masse. Ten thousand of the unfortunates fled to the mountain recesses of the Cevennes, choosing rather to die from hunger and cold than to be tortured to death. Juries composed of the most intolerant Royalists lent their aid to these outrages, by condemning the Protestants to death and acquitting the assassins. The veterans of Napoleon’s army and forty thousand officers, many of whom had served with distinction under the imperial eagles, were driven from their homes and wandered from village to village begging for bread and shelter. The northern provinces were spared these outrages, but the one hundred and fifty thousand foreign soldiers stationed in their towns and fortresses were terrible reminders of the humiliation and shame which the restoration of the Bourbons had brought upon France.
The French Chambers were entirely under the control of the extreme Royalists. They enacted laws which reduced the political conditions of France to those which had existed prior to 1789. They looked upon the Revolutionary era and the Empire as upon a lawless interregnum which should be ignored by the government, and they demanded that all the old institutions of the kingdom should be revived. They were so bold and so insolent that they overawed the government for a while. Very reluctantly the King consented to several tyrannical laws,—for instance, the law referring all political crimes to special courts, composed of one officer and four judges, from whose decision no appeal could be taken. But the King saw to his regret that his acquiescence in these immoderate demands had no other effect than to make the ultra-Royalists bolder and more arrogant. They demanded a curtailment of the right of suffrage, a reënactment of the right of primogeniture and other feudal measures.
The King’s patience was exhausted; he refused to sanction any of these laws and dissolved the Chambers. In their impotent rage the disappointed ultra-Royalists applied to the foreign powers, asking their intervention in behalf of absolute royalty, and imploring them to compel the King to desist from his pernicious protection of Jacobins and regicides. Metternich sent this strange petition to the French government. But neither the King nor his favorite minister, M. Decazes, was scared by such foolhardy steps. They coolly ignored them and courageously inaugurated a series of political reforms in order to reassure public opinion. Instead of reducing the number of electors (as the ultras demanded), they largely increased it. To the periodical press and the daily newspapers was given greater liberty; the censorship, which had been exceedingly annoying, was abolished. At the same time, by the able financial management of the Duc de Richelieu, the 1,600,000,000 francs war indemnity was reduced to 502,000,000 francs and a large number of the foreign troops were withdrawn from the northern provinces. These liberal and patriotic measures followed one another in quick succession and made a very favorable impression upon the people. The liberal parties were willing to coöperate with the government in its endeavor to restore the prosperity of the country, to relieve the distress of the masses, and to free France from foreign occupation. The Chambers of 1818 and 1819 also coöperated with the government, and the liberal party was represented in them by a small number of illustrious men,—such men as Lafayette, General Foy, Benjamin Constant,—men who were more patriots than partisans. In fact, everything indicated a return of speedy prosperity, when an event occurred which at one blow crushed the hopes of the patriots, paralyzed the hand of the government, and reinstated the extremists in power. This event was the assassination of the Duc de Berry, the hope of the Bourbon dynasty.
On its return from exile the royal family of France consisted of:
The King, formerly Comte de Provence.
The King’s brother, the Comte d’Artois, and his two sons: