Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.

by Walter Scott

The Republican, or Jacobin party, closed with their powerful ally; their leaders accepted titles at his hands; undertook offices, and became members of a Chamber of Peers and of Representatives, summoned by his authority. They acknowledged him as their Emperor; received as his boon a new constitution; and swore in the face of all France the oath of fealty to it, and to him as their sovereign. On such terms the Emperor and his Legislative Body parted on the 7th of June. Suspicion there existed between them certainly, but, in all outward appearance, he departed a contented prince from a contented people. Eleven days brought the battle of Waterloo, with all its consequences. Policy of a sound and rational sort should have induced the Chambers to stand by the Emperor whom they had made, to arm him with the power which the occasion required, and avail themselves of his extraordinary military talent, to try some chance of arresting the invaders in their progress. Even shame might have prevented them from lending their shoulders to overthrow the tottering throne before which they had so lately kneeled. They determined otherwise. The instant he became unfortunate, Napoleon ceased to be their Emperor, the source of their power and authority. They could see nothing in him but the hurt deer, who is to be butted from the herd; the Jonas in the vessel, who is to be flung overboard. When Napoleon, therefore, talked to them of men and arms, they answered him, with "equality and the rights of man;" every chance of redeeming the consequences of Waterloo was lost, and the Emperor of their choice, if not ostensibly, was in effect at least arrested, and sent to the sea-coast, like a felon for deportation. Their conduct, however, went clearly to show, that Napoleon was not the free choice of the French people, and especially that he was not the choice of those who termed themselves exclusively the friends of freedom.

Having thus shown how easily they could get rid of the monarch who had called them into political existence, the Chambers applied to the allies, inviting them to give their concurrence to the election of another sovereign, and assist them to build another throne on the quicksand which had just swallowed that of Napoleon. In one respect they were not unreasonably tenacious. They cared little who the sovereign should be, whether Orleans or Orange, the Englishman Wellington or the Cossack Platoff, providing only he should derive no right from any one but themselves; and that they should be at liberty to recall that right when it might please them to do so. And there can be little doubt, that any new sovereign and constitution which could have been made by the assistance of such men, would have again occasioned the commencement of the wild dance of revolution, till like so many mad Dervises, dizzy with the whirl, the French nation would once more have sunk to rest under the iron sway of despotism.

The allied sovereigns viewed these proposals with an evil eye, both in respect to their nature, and to those by whom they were proposed. Of the authorities, the most prudent was the Duke of Otranto, and he had been Fouché of Nantes. Carnot's name was to be found at all the bloody rescripts of Robespierre, in which the conscience of the old decemvir and young count had never found any thing to boggle at. There were many others, distinguished in the Revolutionary days. The language which they held was already assuming the cant of democracy, and though there was among them a large proportion of good and able men, it was not to be forgotten how many of such existed in the first Assembly, for no purpose but to seal the moderation and rationality of their political opinions with their blood. It was a matter of imperious necessity to avoid whatever might give occasion to renew those scenes of shameful recollections, and the sovereigns saw a guarantee against their return, in insisting that Louis XVIII. should remount the throne as its legitimate owner.

LEGITIMACY.

The right of legitimacy, or the right of succession, a regulation adopted into the common law of most monarchical constitutions, is borrowed from the analogy of private life, where the eldest son becomes naturally the head and protector of the family upon the decease of the father. While states, indeed, are small—before laws are settled—and when much depends on the personal ability and talents of the monarch—the power, which, for aught we know, may exist among the abstract rights of man, of choosing each chief magistrate after the death of his predecessor, or perhaps more frequently, may be exercised without much inconvenience. But as states become extended, and their constitutions circumscribed and bounded by laws, which leaves less scope and less necessity for the exercise of the sovereign's magisterial functions, men become glad to exchange the licentious privilege of a Tartarian couroultai, or a Polish diet, for the principle of legitimacy; because the chance of a hereditary successor's proving adequate to the duties of his situation, is at least equal to that of a popular election lighting upon a worthy candidate; and because, in the former case, the nation is spared the convulsions occasioned by previous competition and solicitation, and succeeding heart-burnings, factions, civil war, and ruin, uniformly found at last to attend elective monarchies.

The doctrine of legitimacy is peculiarly valuable in a limited monarchy, because it affords a degree of stability otherwise unattainable. The principle of hereditary monarchy, joined to that which declares that the King can do no wrong, provides for the permanence of the executive government, and represses that ambition which would animate so many bosoms, were there a prospect of the supreme sway becoming vacant, or subject to election from time to time. The King's ministers, on the other hand, being responsible for his actions, remain a check, for their own sakes, upon the exercise of his power; and thus provision is made for the correction of all ordinary evils of administration, since, to use an expressive, though vulgar simile, it is better to rectify any occasional deviation from the regular course by changing the driver, than by overturning the carriage.

Such is the principle of legitimacy which was invoked by Louis XVIII., and recognised by the allied sovereigns. But it must not be confounded with the slavish doctrine, that the right thus vested is, by divine origin, indefeasible. The heir-at-law in private life may dissipate by his folly, or forfeit by his crimes, the patrimony which the law conveys to him; and the legitimate monarch may most unquestionably, by departing from the principles of the constitution under which he is called to reign, forfeit for himself, and for his heirs if the legislature shall judge it proper, that crown, which the principle of legitimacy bestowed on him as his birth-right. The penalty of forfeiture is an extreme case, provided, not in virtue of the constitution, which recognises no possible delinquency in the sovereign, but because the constitution has been attacked and infringed upon by the monarch, and therefore can no longer be permitted to afford him shelter. The crimes by which this high punishment is justly incurred, must therefore be of an extraordinary nature, and beyond the reach of those correctives for which the constitution provides, by the punishment of ministers and counsellors. The constitutional buckler of impeccability covers the monarch (personally) for all blameworthy use of his power, providing it is exercised within the limits of the constitution; it is when he stirs beyond it, and not sooner, that it affords no defence for the bosom of a tyrant. A King of Britain, for example, may wage a rash war, or make a disgraceful peace, in the lawful, though injudicious and blameworthy exercise of the power vested in him by the constitution. His advisers, not he himself, shall be called in such a case, to their responsibility. But if, like James II., the sovereign infringes upon, or endeavours to destroy, the constitution itself, it is then that resistance becomes lawful and honourable; and the King is justly held to have forfeited the right which descended to him from his forefathers, by his attempt to encroach on the rights of the subjects.

The principles of hereditary monarchy, of the inviolability of the person of the King, and of the responsibility of ministers, were recognised by the constitutional charter of France. Louis XVIII. was therefore, during the year previous to Buonaparte's return, the lawful sovereign of France, and it remains to be shown by what act of treason to the constitution he had forfeited his right of legitimacy. If the reader will turn back to vol. iv., p. [86], (and we are not conscious of having spared the conduct of the Bourbons,) he will probably be of opinion with us, that the errors of the restored King's government were not only fewer than might have been expected in circumstances so new and difficult, but were of such a nature as an honest, well-meaning, and upright Opposition would soon have checked; he will find that not one of them could be personally attributed to Louis XVIII., and that, far from having incurred the forfeiture of his legitimate rights, he had, during these few months, laid a strong claim to the love, veneration, and gratitude of his subjects. He had fallen a sacrifice, in some degree, to the humours and rashness of persons connected with his family and household—still more to causeless jealousies and unproved doubts, the water-colours which insurrection never lacks to paint her cause with; to the fickleness of the French people, who became tired of his simple, orderly, and peaceful government; but, above all, to the dissatisfaction of a licentious and licensed soldiery, and of clubs of moody banditti, panting for a time of pell-mell havoc and confusion. The forcible expulsion of Louis XVIII., arising from such motives, could not break the solemn compact entered into by France with all Europe, when she received her legitimate monarch from the hand of her clement conquerors, and with him, and for his sake, obtained such conditions of peace as she was in no condition to demand, and would never otherwise have been granted. The King's misfortune, as it arose from no fault of his own, could infer no forfeiture of his vested right. Europe, the virtual guarantee of the treaty of Paris, had also a title, leading back the lawful King in her armed and victorious hand, to require of France his reinstatement in his rights; and the termination which she thus offered to the war was as just and equitable as the conduct of the sovereigns during this brief campaign had been honourable and successful.

To these arguments, an unprejudiced eye could scarcely see any answer; yet the popular party endeavoured to found a pleading against the second restoration of Louis, upon the declaration of the allies. This manifesto had announced, they said, that the purpose of the war was directed against Buonaparte personally, and that it was the intention of the allied sovereigns, when he should be dethroned, to leave the French the free exercise of choice respecting their own internal government.[173] The Prince Regent's declaration, in particular, was referred to, as announcing that the treaty of Vienna, which resolved on the dethronement of Napoleon, should not bind the British government to insist upon the restoration of the Bourbon family as an indispensable condition of peace.[174] Those who urged this objection did not, or would not consider the nature of the treaty which this explanatory clause referred to. That treaty of Vienna had for its express object the restoration of Louis XVIII., and the Prince Regent adhered to it with the same purpose of making every exertion for bringing about that event. The restrictive clause was only introduced, because his Royal Highness did not intend to bind himself to make that restoration alone the cause of continuing the war to extremity. Many things might have happened to render an absolute engagement of this nature highly inexpedient; but, since none of these did happen, and since the re-establishment of the throne of the Bourbons was, in consequence of the victory of Waterloo, a measure which could be easily accomplished, it necessarily followed, that it was to be accomplished according to the tenor of the treaty of Vienna.

But, even had the sovereigns positively announced in their manifestoes, that the will of the French people should be consulted exclusively, what right had the Legislative Body, assembled by Buonaparte, to assume the character of the French people? They had neither weight nor influence with any party in the state, except by the momentary possession of an authority, which was hardly acknowledged on any side. The fact, that Napoleon's power had ceased to exist, did not legitimate them. On the contrary, flowing from his commission, it must be held as having fallen with his authority. They were either the Chambers summoned by Napoleon, and bound to him as far as oaths and professions could bind them, or they were a body without any pretension whatever to a political character.