Part 13

"My thoughts were then turned wholly on the means of establishing our liberty by a constitution conformable to the will and the interests of the people. I convened the Champ de Mai.

"It was not long before I learned, that the princes, who have disregarded all principles, and wounded the opinions and dearest interests of so many nations, resolved to make war on us. They purpose, to enlarge the kingdom of the Netherlands, to give it for barriers all our strong places on the North, and to reconcile the differences, which still keep them at variance, by dividing among them Lorraine and Alsace.

"It was necessary, to prepare for war.

"However, before incurring personally the dangers of battle, my first care necessarily was, to consult the nation without delay. The people has accepted the act I have laid before it.

"Frenchmen, when we have repelled these unjust aggressions, and Europe is convinced of what is due to the rights and independence of twenty-eight millions of Frenchmen, a solemn law, made according to the forms willed by the constitutional act, shall combine the different arrangements of our constitutions, that are at present scattered.

"Frenchmen, you are about to return to your departments. Tell the citizens, that the present circumstances are important! That with union, energy, and perseverance, we shall rise victorious from this struggle of a great people against its oppressors; that generations to come will severely scrutinize our conduct; and that a nation has lost every thing, when it has lost its independence. Tell them, that the foreign kings, whom I raised to a throne, or who are indebted to me for the preservation of their crowns; all of whom, in the days of my prosperity, courted my alliance, and the protection of the French people; now direct their blows against my person. Did I not see, that it is our country at which they really aim, I would place at their mercy this life, against which they appear so exasperated. But tell the citizens also, that, as long as the French retain for me those sentiments of affection, of which they have given me so many testimonies, this rage of our enemies will prove impotent.

"Frenchmen, my will is that of the people: my rights are its rights; my honour, my glory, my happiness, can be no others than the honour, the glory, and the happiness of France."

These words of Napoleon, pronounced with a strong and emphatic voice, produced the most lively sensation. A cry of "Long live the Emperor!" resounded in an instant throughout the immense space of the Champ de Mars, and was repeated from one to another in the places around.

The Emperor, after having sworn on the Gospels, to observe, and cause to be observed, the constitutions of the empire, made the archchancellor proclaim the oath of fealty of the French people, represented by the electors. This oath was spontaneously repeated by thousands and thousands of voices.

The ministers of war and of the navy, in the name of the armies by land and sea, and at the head of their deputations; the minister of the interior, in the name of the national guards of France, and at the head of the electors; the staff of the imperial guard, and that of the national guard; afterwards advanced to take the oath, and receive from the hands of the Emperor the eagles intended for them.

This ceremony ended, the troops, making about fifty thousand men, filed off before Napoleon and the festival concluded, as it had commenced, amid the acclamations of the people, the soldiers, and the majority of the electors: but to the discontent of a certain number of them, who complained, and with reason, that the Emperor had substituted a steril distribution of colours, instead of the grand national congress, which he had convened.

The parties too, that already began to pullulate, were not better satisfied with the issue of the Champ de Mai.

The old revolutionists would have wished Napoleon, to have abolished the empire, and re-established a republic.

The partisans of the regency reproached him for not having proclaimed Napoleon II.

And the liberals maintained, that he ought to have laid down the crown, and left to the sovereign nation the right of restoring it to him, or offering it to the most worthy.

Were these different pretensions well founded? No.

The re-establishment of the republic would have ruined France.

The abdication in favour of Napoleon II. would not have saved it. The allies had explained their intentions at Bâle: they would not have laid down their arms, till the Emperor had consented, to deliver himself up. "A circumstance, that, being to a prince the greatest of misfortunes, can never form a condition of peace?"

As to the latter proposition, I confess, that Napoleon, if on the 21st of March, or the 12th of April, he had returned into the hands of the French the sceptre, which he had just torn from those of the Bourbons, would have stamped a character completely heroic on the revolution of the 20th of March. He would have disconcerted the foreign powers, augmented his popularity, centuplicated his forces: but on the first of June it was too late: the additional act had appeared.

Unhappily for himself, therefore, Napoleon could do nothing better at the Champ de Mai, than what he did: namely, to endeavour to conceal the emptiness of the day under the pomp of a religious and military solemnity, calculated to move the heart, and strengthen by fresh bands the union, already subsisting between him, the people, and the army.

The Emperor had not been able to deliver with his own hands to the electors the eagles of their departments. It had not been concealed from him, that some among them appeared dissatisfied; and he wished to attempt to dissipate their ill-humour, and revive their zeal. Ten thousand persons were assembled in the vast galleries of the Louvre; on one side were seen the deputies and electors of the nation; on the other, its glorious defenders. The eagle of each department, and that of each deputation from the armies, were placed at the head of groups of citizens or warriors; and nothing could exhibit a more animated, and more impressive picture, than this confused assembly of Frenchmen, of all the orders of the state, crowding mutually around the standards and the hero, that were to conduct them to victory and to peace.

The Emperor was polite, affectionate, amiable: with infinite art he accommodated his manners to every body, and almost every body was enchanted with him. He was convinced of the mischief he had done himself by the additional act: and, in order to regain the good opinion of the public, he repeated to satiety, to the representatives and electors, that he would employ himself in concurrence with the two chambers, to collect together those provisions of the constitutional laws, that were not abrogated, and form the whole into one sole constitution, that should become the fundamental law of the nation.

This retraction was the consequence of the remonstrances of his ministers, and particularly of M. Carnot. "Sire," he was incessantly repeating to him, "do not strive, I conjure you, against public opinion. Your additional act has displeased the nation. Promise it, that you will modify it, and render it conformable to its wishes. I repeat to you, Sire, I have never deceived you; your safety and ours depend on your deference to the national will. This is not all, Sire; the French are become a free people. The appellation of 'subject,' which you are continually giving them, wounds and humbles them. Call them citizens, or your children. Neither suffer your ministers, your marshals, your great officers, to be called 'monseigneur:' there is no seigneur in a country, where equality forms the basis of the laws; there are none but citizens."

The Emperor, however, did not see the opening of the chambers approach, without a certain degree of apprehension. His intention was, frankly to submit to the principles and consequences of a representative government; in the first place, because he wished to reign, and was convinced, that he could not retain the throne, unless he governed as the nation demanded.

In the second place, because he was persuaded, that the nation now placed its ideas of happiness on a representative government; and because, greedy of every kind of celebrity, he found, as he told me at Lyons, that it was glorious, to render a great people happy. But, whatever were the sentiments and good inclinations of Napoleon, he had not had time, to divest himself completely of his old notions and ancient prejudices. The remembrance of our preceding assemblies besieged him still in spite of himself: and he appeared to fear, that the French had too much warmth of imagination, instability of will, and propensity to abuse their rights, to be capable of enjoying on a sudden, without any preparation, the benefits of absolute liberty. He feared, too, that the opposition inherent in representative governments would not be rightly comprehended in France, and would make a bad impression; that it would degenerate into resistance; and that it would clog the action of the sovereign power, take from it its illusion, its moral strength, and make of it nothing but an instrument of oppression.

Independently of these general considerations, Napoleon had still other motives, to dread the approaching assembly of the chambers. They were going to meet under circumstances, in which it was indispensable, that the chief of the state should govern without contradiction: yet he foresaw, that the representatives, misled by their ardent love of liberty, and by the fear of despotism, would seek to fetter his exercise of authority, instead of seconding its full display.

"When a war has commenced," said he one day, "the presence of a deliberative body is as embarrassing, as it is fatal. It must have victories. If the monarch meet with any check, fear seizes the timid, and renders them unconsciously the instruments and accomplices of the audacious. The apprehension of danger, and the desire of withdrawing from it, derange every head. Reason has no longer any sway: physical feelings are everything. The turbulent, the ambitious, greedy of rule, of popularity, of making a noise, erect themselves of their own authority into advocates of the people, and advisers of the prince: they want to know all, regulate all, direct all. If no regard be paid to their counsels, from advisers they become censors, from censors factionaries, and from factionaries rebels. The necessary consequence then is, that the prince must either submit to their yoke, or expel them; and in either case he almost always compromises his crown and the state."

Napoleon, tormented by the anxiety, which the sudden and inconsiderate application of the popular system, and the dispositions of the deputies, inspired, rested all his security on the chamber of peers. He hoped, that this chamber would influence the representatives by its example, or check them by its firmness.