Part 5

General Milhaud had distinguished himself in the course of our national wars, by success and bravery. At the time when France was invaded by the allies, he "covered himself with glory" at the head of a handful of dragoons, who cut a considerable corps of the enemy's troops entirely to pieces. This officer, in consequence of his rank, his standing, and his services, had been appointed a chevalier de St. Louis as a matter of right; but at the moment of his reception, the cross was taken from him with ignominy, because he had been so unfortunate as to vote for the death of the King twenty years before.

Louis XVIII., when he returned to France, had promised that he would not inquire into the votes which had been given against his august brother. This promise, which had been demanded from him, and which he ratified by his charter, could not be otherwise than a painful victory over the feelings of his heart. He must have grieved when he found himself under the necessity of admitting those judges into his court, who had condemned Louis XVI. to the scaffold, and to present them to the daughter of the murdered monarch. But still he had sworn not to avenge his death, and the oaths by which a monarch binds himself to his people should be inviolable.

All resentment was to be repressed. The voters had been pardoned, and therefore the government could not be justified in reviving the memory of their crime, and in bringing down vengeance and death upon their heads. A funeral veil ought to have been drawn over that period of our revolution, during which we were all equally misled or guilty. Besides, we must state plainly and distinctly, that the grief excited by the murder of Louis XVI., was not the true cause of the invectives with which the regicides were assailed by the emigrants. Unfortunately the effect produced at Coblentz by the trial and execution of the king, is too well known. If the errors of some of the men of the revolution were hunted out with so much malignant zeal, it was only for the purpose of coming to this result--that as the revolution was the work of crime, it was necessary to root out every thing which had proceeded from the revolution.

The insult to which General Milhaud was subjected, was therefore rather a political movement, than a punishment inflicted on an individual. In selecting Milhaud as the object of the first assault against the regicides, the government gave a proof of their want of tact; for if they wanted to render the regicides contemptible or odious, they should have avoided attacking an officer who had long since washed away the stains of the blood of his King, by imbruing himself in the blood of our enemies!

But whilst the military, from the highest to the lowest, were exposed to the persecution and tyranny of the prevailing faction, the magistracy, and the civil functionaries of the state, suffered no less from ill treatment and injustice. Commissioners had been despatched into the departments, even at the beginning of the new reign, "in order to consolidate the royal government, and to examine into the conduct of the public functionaries under existing circumstances;" that is to say, at the moment of the restoration of the Bourbons.

Such was the confidence which the nation placed in the promises of the King, that no jealousy was excited by this measure. On the contrary, people expected that great good would result from it, that party heat would be allayed, and public interest and opinion become more speedily united to the throne.

This pleasing illusion was soon dispelled. A great number of emigrants, who had just come in again, were appointed commissioners. Instead of listening to cool and experienced advisers, they gave themselves up to the priests and nobles who beset them, and who were neither moderate nor enlightened.

The middling classes, who, from their habitual intercourse with the lower orders, possess so great an influence over the body of the people, were considered by the commissioners as a rabble multitude of upstart "roturiers." They treated the middling class with disdain and contempt. Deceived by the recollection of the excesses of the revolution, they fancied, that whoever could win the populace, became the ruler of the country. When money is not to be had, the surest way of getting over the multitude, is by appealing to its passions. They therefore announced, that they were sent to do justice to the people, to listen to their complaints, to reform abuses, and to abolish the "droits reunis," and the conscription.

Meetings were announced in the villages and in the country towns. All persons of respectability kept away; but the populace, who are always delighted with uproar and novelty, crowded in. There was no end to the preposterous charges which were preferred against the magistrates, the prefects, the under-prefects, the mayors, the administrators of public affairs, the officers of revenue; in short, none of the depositaries of public authority were spared.

Instead of despising such accusations, or submitting them to an impartial inquiry, the commissioners hailed the popular clamour with transport. They triumphed in the tumult; they were overflowing with happiness at the fancied success of their efforts; they continued exclaiming with increasing joy, "that is right, Good People; the King is your father; these fellows are nothing but canaille; upon our word of honour, we will kick them out."

These promises were kept. The public officers and functionaries of all classes were gradually dismissed, and their places given to informers, or to the old nobility. As the common people cooled, they became undeceived, and it was found that they had gained neither in riches nor in loyalty. The commissioners, instead of adding as they expected to the popularity of the government, only helped to cry it down. The cause of royalty was compromised by the scenes of riot which they encouraged, and they degraded it by acts of injustice and oppression. The non-emigrant commissioners acted far otherwise. They knew how to value the lying declamations of the nobles, and of the mob whom the nobles had set on. From the different conduct pursued by each party, effects resulted which exhibited the most striking contrast. In one department the public functionaries retained their situations, in another they were disgraced and vituperated.

These scandalous proceedings excited the general indignation of the country. The government was universally blamed. The important task of instituting inquiries, which were to affect the honour and the civil existence of the most respectable characters, had been entrusted to emigrants who had lived amongst strangers during the best part of their lives. And these men, who knew nothing of the forms, the principles, or even the faults of the imperial government, were consequently wholly unable to appreciate the conduct, whether praiseworthy or blameable, of the depositaries of public authority.

The people discovered that they had been cheated, and that this measure, disguised by specious representations, was in truth adopted only for the purpose of more effectually displacing the old functionaries of the nation. And, lastly, it was evident that this general dismission would carry off those authorities who were the natural guardians of every individual who had taken a part in the revolution. And that all who were thus affected would be placed beneath the sway of their sworn enemies, the nobles, the priests, and their adherents.

Indications were given by the government that a "purification" of the courts of justice was in contemplation; and the public apprehension increased. The independence and immovability of the judges had been guaranteed to the nation, and this guarantee was certainly the most valuable of the rights which we had gained. But on account of its importance, the government were the more desirous of violating it.

When the proposed "purification" became known, our national magistrates trembled in their chairs, and they foresaw that they would be plucked out for the purpose of making way for the antiquated survivors of the courts of parliament.

The nation was alarmed, and protested against the measure. But the "purification" was not to be stopped in its swoop. The process began in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the Court of Cassation. And, to remove all doubts respecting the ulterior object of the government, it was officially announced that the elimination, disguised under the name of the "installation royale," had been deferred only for the purpose of "obtaining the information which was necessary to direct or decide the choice of the judges, and that it would take place successively in all the courts and tribunals of the kingdom."

The "installation" was felt to be not only a breach of faith, but an open conspiracy against the security of the person and property of the subject. We knew that the tribunals would now be filled with magistrates whose prejudices, principles, and interest, must be in perpetual hostility against our national laws, and that the new men would seek to elude or crush our juridical system. The royal magistrates, as it was but too evident, would be the relations, the friends, or the creatures of the nobility, the emigrants, and of all who claimed to be restored to their rights and privileges. Nor could we hope that judges so constituted would deal out impartial justice between the ci-devant privileged tribes, whom they would naturally consider as the victims of revolutionary principles, and the children of the revolution, who, according to the same mode of reasoning, they could not fail to consider as the oppressors and robbers of the privileged tribes.

The owners of national property were most alarmed by the approaching expulsion of the revolutionary judges. By the charter, the inviolability of their property had been guaranteed to them. But they had not forgotten that a violent debate arose on the "redaction" of this article; and that the ministers had been already accused on account of the obscurity of the clause, which they refused to correct into such words as might prevent all future quibbling and special pleading.

If the emigrants, the priesthood, and the nobility, did not scruple to express their hopes aloud that the sales of the national domains might be declared null and void, it was equally well known to the public that certain Great Personages entertained the same hopes in secret. Doubts respecting the legality, and, consequently, of the validity of the sales, were expressed in the ministerial journals; and various publications were industriously disseminated, in which the purchases were directly impugned. The authors of these works were favoured and protected; and it was whispered that the Great Personages, to whom we have already alluded, had deliberated on the means of realizing their hopes. All these tokens of the times united in giving too reasonable a ground for the apprehensions entertained by the proprietors of the confiscated lands; and the disorganization of the tribunals was considered as a national calamity.

It is calculated that the individuals who are interested directly or indirectly either in the purchases of the national domains, or in the rights and liabilities arising out of them, amount in number to somewhat between nine and ten millions.

An opportunity offered itself when all the uneasiness felt by this integral portion of the population of France might have been removed. It was when the law; by which the emigrants recovered possession of such part of their property as had not been alienated, came under consideration. It was natural to suppose that the administration would take advantage of the capability of the proceeding, in order to revive the confidence of the public, and to renew the guarantee of the charter. Such was not their conduct. On the contrary, M. Ferrand, the government orator, one of the men who did most mischief to the King and the kingdom, abandoned himself--we borrow the expression of the reporter of the committee--to all the acrimony of his passions, and all the profligacy of his principles. His fury could only be equalled by his folly. He did not scruple to maintain, in the midst of the representatives of the nation, that the emigrants had the greatest right to claim the justice and favour of the royal government, because they alone had not wandered from the righteous path. And starting with this position, he represented the forfeiture and sale of their property, not as the justifiable acts of a legislative body, but as revolutionary outrages and robberies which the nation ought to hasten to make good.

The Chamber of Deputies passed their censure upon the inflammatory doctrines and language of the royalist orator, and expunged the word "restitution" from the law. It had not been inserted without design, for "restitution" supposes a previous robbery, and the emigrants had not been robbed of the property: it had been confiscated by virtue of a law sanctioned by the King; and which law was only a new application of the system of confiscation created and followed up by the King's predecessors.

Without travelling into more remote periods, we may ask if it was not with the spoils of the victims who had been sacrificed to the murderous policy of Richelieu, and the religious intolerance of Louis XIV., that the first families had been enriched? And who can tell whether the lands which the emigrants reclaimed with so much pride and bitterness, were not the same which their ancestors had received without a blush from the bloody hands of Richelieu and Louis?

It must be confessed that the unalterable fidelity of a certain number amongst the emigrants bound the royal government to reward their fidelity and to alleviate their misfortunes. But all had not an equal right to the affection and gratitude of the King. If some had generously sacrificed their fortunes and their country in the cause of royalty, yet others only fled from France because they wished to escape their creditors, and thought that in strange countries they might find dupes to feed upon, and thus exist upon swindling resources to which they could no longer resort with impunity at home.

It was therefore necessary to separate the first class of emigrants from the last; and after establishing this distinction, the government should have made a fair appeal to the justice and generosity of the nation. Frenchmen, who yield so readily to every dignified sentiment, would not have allowed the faithful and virtuous servants of their King to languish in poverty. We may appeal to the universal assent which was given to the proposal made by the marshal duke of Tarentum, that ten millions of francs should be annually appropriated for the indemnification of the emigrants who had been deprived of their property, and of the soldiers who had lost their "dotations."

But the government party should not have attempted to assist the emigrants by resorting to means offensive to the nation, and derogatory to the charter. And, above all, they should not have puffed up the emigrants with proud and silly hopes. If they had been left to themselves, they would have fallen in with the purchasers of their property, they would have treated for an amicable settlement of their claims, and they would have regained possession of their hereditary estates without jarring and without scandal.

The partiality which was shown towards the emigrants on all occasions produced another evil of still greater extent. It contributed, even more than the efforts of disaffection, in persuading the peasantry that the government wished to chain them again to the soil, and to render them once more the tributaries both of the nobility and of the priesthood.

The revolution has taught the countryman to know that he is somebody in the state. After the revolution the peasants became rich, and they were delivered from the double vassalage of former days, when they crouched before the priest and the lord: therefore they could not think of any alteration without horror. Day after day they heard or they read (in France every body reads now,) that the government intended to restore the "ancien regime." And the restoration of the "ancien regime" was interpreted by them, as well as by many others, to mean the restoration of tithes, vassalage, and feudal rights. They were confirmed in their dangerous and disquieting opinion by the outrageous claims of the emigrants, and the declamations of the priests. It was to no purpose that the government tried to re-assure them. They had been already deceived and it seldom happens that you can catch a French peasant twice in the same snare. The abolition of the conscription had been promised, and the old code was continued in force with all its harshness, and still the refractory conscripts were sent away in chains, whilst fines were imposed upon their families. The abolition of the "droits reunis" had also been promised, and they were not only levied with greater rigour and harshness than before, but even some of these imposts had been greatly increased.