Louis XVIII. appeared on the 16th of March in the Chamber of Deputies; the destinies of France and of the world were at stake. When His Majesty entered, the deputies and the strangers in the galleries uncovered and rose; cheers shook the walls of the house. Louis XVIII. slowly mounted the steps of his throne; the Princes, the marshals and the captains of the guards ranged themselves on either side of the King. The cheers ceased; none spoke: in that interval of silence, one seemed to hear the distant footsteps of Napoleon. His Majesty, seated, cast his eyes over the assembly, and in a firm voice delivered this speech:
The King's speech.
"Gentlemen,
"At this critical moment, when the public enemy has penetrated into a part of my kingdom and threatens the liberty of all the remainder, I come into your midst to knit yet more closely the ties which, uniting you to myself, constitute the strength of the State; I come, by addressing you, to make manifest my feelings and my wishes to the whole of France.
"I have seen my country again; I have reconciled it with foreign Powers, who will, you may be sure, be faithful to the treaties which have restored peace to us; I have laboured for the good of my people; I have received, I continue daily to receive the most touching marks of its love; could I, at sixty years of age, better end my career than by dying in its defense?
"I fear nothing, therefore, for myself; but I fear for France: he who comes to kindle among us the torches of civil war brings with him also the scourge of foreign war; he comes to put back our country under his iron yoke; he comes, lastly, to destroy the Constitutional Charter which I have given you, that Charter which will be my proudest title in the eyes of posterity, that Charter which all Frenchmen cherish and which I here swear to maintain: let us then rally round it."
The King was still speaking, when a fog spread darkness through the house; eyes were turned towards the ceiling to ascertain the cause of that sudden gloom. When the King-Lawgiver ceased to speak, the cries of "Long live the King!" were renewed, amid tears.
"The assembly," the Moniteur truly says, "electrified by the King's sublime words, stood up, its hands stretched towards the throne. One heard only the words: 'Long live the King! We will die for the King! The King in life and death!' repeated with an enthusiasm which will be shared by every French heart"
It was, in fact, a pathetic sight: an old, infirm King who, in reward for the murder of his family and twenty-three years of exile, had brought France peace, liberty, forgiveness of all outrages and all misfortunes; this patriarch of sovereigns coming to declare to the deputies of the nation that, at his age, after seeing his country again, he could not better end his career than by dying in defense of his people! The Princes swore fidelity to the Charter; those tardy oaths were closed with that of the Prince de Condé and with the adhesion of the father of the Duc d'Enghien. This heroic race on the verge of extinction, this race of the patrician sword seeking behind liberty a shield against a younger, longer and more cruel plebeian sword offered, by reason of a multitude of memories, a spectacle that was extremely sad.
When Louis XVIII.'s speech became known outside, it aroused unspeakable enthusiasm. Paris was wholly Royalist, and remained so during the Hundred Days. The women in particular were Bourbonists.
The youth of to-day worships the memory of Bonaparte, because it is humiliated by the part which the present Government makes France play in Europe; the youth of 1814 hailed the Restoration, because the latter had thrown down despotism and set up liberty. In the ranks of the Royal Volunteers were included M. Odilon Barrot[247], a large number of pupils of the School of Medicine and the whole of the School of Law[248]; the last, on the 13th of March, addressed this petition to the Chamber of Deputies:
"Gentlemen,
"We offer our services to our King and country; the whole School of Law asks to go to the front. We will abandon neither our King nor our Constitution. Faithful to French honour, we ask you for arms. The feeling of love which we bear to Louis XVIII. is answerable to you for the constancy of our devotion. We want no more irons, we want liberty. We have it, and they come to snatch it from us. We will defend it to the death. Long live the King! Long live the Constitution!"
In this energetic, natural and sincere language, one feels the generosity of youth and the love of liberty. They who come to tell us to-day that the Restoration was received by France with dislike and sorrow are ambitious men who are playing a game, or new-comers who have never known Bonaparte's oppression, or old imperialized revolutionary liars who, after applauding the return of the Bourbons with the rest, now, according to their habit, insult the fallen and return to their instincts of murder, police and servitude.