Part 8

ART. 66. No place, no part of the territory, can be declared in a state of siege, except in case of invasion by a foreign power, or of civil disturbance.

In the former case, the declaration is made by an act of the government.

In the second case, it can be made only by the law. However, if the case occur, when the chambers are not assembled, the act of government, declaring the state of siege, must be converted into a proposal for a law in the first fifteen days after the meeting of the chambers.

ART. 67. The French people declare farther, that, in the delegation it has made, and now makes, of its powers, it has not intended, and does not intend, to confer the right of proposing the re-establishment of the Bourbons, or of any prince belonging to that family, on the throne, even in case of the extinction of the imperial dynasty; or the right of re-establishing either the ancient feudal nobility, or feudal and seigniorial rights, or tithes, or any privileged and predominant form of worship; or the power of making any infringement of the irrevocability of the sale of national domains: it formally prohibits the government, the chambers, and the citizens, from every proposal in respect to these.

Done at Paris, the 22d of April, 1815.

(Signed) NAPOLEON. By the Emperor, The minister secretary of state, (Signed) The Duke of BASSANO.

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This additional act did not answer the general expectation.

The public had hoped, to receive from Napoleon a new constitution, freed from the faults and abuses of the preceding constitutions; and it was surprised, grieved, dissatisfied, when it saw, by the very preamble of the additional act, that it was nothing but a modification of the former constitutions, decrees of the senate, and other acts, by which the empire was governed.

What confidence, people cried, can such a production inspire? What guarantee can it afford the nation? Do we not know, that it was by means of these decrees of the senate, that Napoleon sported with our most sacred laws? and, since they are now maintained and confirmed, may he not employ them, as he formerly did, to interpret after his own fashion his additional act, alter its nature, and render it illusory?

It had been to be wished, undoubtedly, that the additional act had not revived the name, and borrowed the assistance, of all the senatorial acts, become on so many accounts objects of the public contempt and derision: but this was impossible. They were the basis of our institutions; and they could not have been proscribed in a body, without arresting the progress of government, and subverting the established order of things from top to bottom.

Besides, the fear of Napoleon's putting them in vigour was founded only on vague suppositions. The oppressive arrangements of the decrees of the senate were annulled, both in fact and in law, by the principles, which the additional act sanctioned: and Napoleon had rendered it impossible for him to augment his authority, or to abuse it, by the immense power, with which he had invested the chambers, the responsibility he had thrown on his agents and ministers, and the inviolable guarantees he had conferred on freedom of opinion and personal liberty. The slightest attempt would have betrayed his secret intentions; and a thousand voices would have been raised, to say to him: "We, who are as good as you, have made you our King, on condition, that you keep our laws: if not, not."

The re-establishment of the chamber of peers, imported from England by the Bourbons, excited no less vividly the public discontent.

It was clear, in fact, that the privileges, and peculiar jurisdiction, which the peers exclusively enjoyed, constituted a manifest violation of the laws of equality; and that the hereditary state of the peerage was a formal infraction of the right of all Frenchmen, to be equally admissible to the offices of the state.

Accordingly the friends of liberty and equality with reason reproached Napoleon for having falsified his promises; and given them, instead of a constitution bottomed on the principles of equality and liberty, which he had solemnly professed, a shapeless act, more favourable than the charter, or any of the preceding constitutions, to the nobility and their institutions.

But Napoleon, when he promised the French a constitution, that might be termed republican, had rather followed the political suggestions of the moment, than consulted the welfare of France. Restored to himself, ought he to have adhered strictly to the letter of his promises, or interpreted them merely as an engagement, to give France a liberal constitution, as perfect as possible?

The answer cannot be doubtful.

Now the testimony of the most learned civilians, the experience of England for 125 years, had demonstrated to him, that the government best adapted to the habits, manners, and social relations of a great nation; that which affords the greatest pledge of happiness and stability; in fine, that which best reconciles political liberty with the degree of power necessary to the chief of a state; is a representative monarchical government. It was Napoleon's duty, therefore, as a legislator, and a paternal sovereign, to give this mode of government the preference.

This point granted, and it is incontestable, Napoleon was under the necessity of establishing an hereditary and privileged chamber of peers; for a representative monarchy cannot subsist, without an upper chamber, or chamber of peers; as a chamber of peers cannot subsist without privileges, and without being hereditary.

None therefore but the insincere; or men, who, though good patriots, unconsciously substitute their passions or prejudices in the place of the public welfare; can reproach Napoleon for having introduced this institution into our political organization.

The re-establishment of an intermediate chamber, perhaps, would not have wounded them so deeply, if care had been taken, to give it a name less sullied by feudal recollections: but the revolution had exhausted the nomenclature of public magistracies. Besides, the Emperor thought, that this was the only title answerable to its high destination. Perhaps, too, as Louis XVIII. had had his peers, he was not displeased, to have his also.

A third accusation bore hard on Napoleon. He promised us, it was urged, as a natural consequence of the fundamental truth, the throne is made for the nation, and not the nation for the throne, that our deputies, assembled at the Champ de Mai, should give to France, jointly with him, a constitution conformable to the interests and wishes of the nation; and by an odious breach of faith, he grants us an additional act, after the manner of Louis XVIII; and this he forces us to adopt in the lump, without allowing us to reject those parts, that may wound our dearest and most sacred rights.

Napoleon had proclaimed, it is true, on the 1st of March, that this constitution should be the work of the nation: but since this period circumstances had altered. It was of importance to the preservation of peace at home, and to the relations between Napoleon and foreign powers, that the state should be speedily established and that Europe should find in its new laws those safeguards against the ambition and despotism of the Emperor, and perhaps too against the re-establishment of a republic, that it might deem desirable.

Literally to comply with the words of Napoleon, it would have been necessary, for the electoral colleges to give their deputies written instructions, as in 1789. The assembling of these colleges, the drawing up of their instructions after discussion, the choosing of delegates, their journeying to Paris, the distribution of the labour, the preparation, examination, and discussion of the bases of the constitution, the disputative conferences with the delegates of the Emperor, &c. &c., would have consumed an incalculable portion of time, and left France in a state of anarchy, that would have deprived it of the means or possibility of making peace or war with foreigners.

Thus, then, far from blaming the Emperor for deviating at the moment from this part of his promises, he on the contrary deserves credit for having voluntarily resigned the dictatorship, with which circumstances had invested him, and placed public liberty under the protection of the laws. Had he not been sincere; had he not been honestly disposed, to restore to the people their rights, and confine his own within proper limits, he would not have been in haste, to publish the additional act: he would have been for gaining time, in hopes that victory or peace, by consolidating the sceptre in his hands, would have enabled him to dictate laws, instead of subjecting himself to them.

In fine, the additional act was reproached with having re-established the confiscations abolished by the charter.

The majority of the counsellors of state and ministers, and M. de Bassano more particularly, strongly opposed this renewed provision of our revolutionary laws. But the Emperor considered the confiscation of estates as the most efficacious means of bridling the royalists; and he persisted obstinately in not giving it up; reserving the power of relinquishing it, when circumstances would permit.

Upon the whole, the additional act was not without blemishes; but these blemishes, easy to be removed, no way affected the beauty or goodness of its basis.