Buonaparte

AND

THE BOURBONS,

AND THE NECESSITY OF RALLYING AROUND OUR

LEGITIMATE PRINCES,

FOR THE SAFETY OF

FRANCE AND OF EUROPE.

BY

F. A. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.

PREFACE.

I BEGAN this work three or four months ago: events have surpassed my hopes: I arrive too late, and I rejoice at it. Many passages of this essay will no longer accord with the political occurrences of the day but if it should only serve to impress a deeper hatred of the tyranny that we have just escaped, and to confirm our attachment to the government that is restored to us, its publication will not be wholly without advantage.

ON

BUONAPARTE AND THE BOURBONS.

No; I can never believe that I am writing over the grave of France; I cannot think that, after witnessing the day of vengeance, we shall be excluded from the dayspring of mercy. The ancient patrimony of our Most Christian Sovereigns cannot be dispersed: that kingdom cannot perish, which owed its birth to the agonies of expiring Rome, and was the last surviving pledge of her former majesty. Men are not the sole agents in the wonderful events that we behold; they bear the stamp of Providence; God himself is manifested in the ranks of war, and presides over the council of monarchs. How, without the direct agency of Heaven, can we account either for the prodigious elevation, or the yet more astounding fall, of him who lately trampled on the nations of the earth? But fifteen months ago, he was at Moscow, and now the Russians are at Paris. A short time since, all bowed to his sway, from the Pillars of Hercules to Mount Caucasus; and he is now a fugitive, a wanderer, without asylum; his power was spread abroad, like the flow of the ocean tide, and has subsided like its ebb.

How shall we account for the errors of this madman? We speak not as yet of his crimes. We are assailed by a furious revolution, bred from the corruption of our manners and the perversion of the national intellect. Religion and morality are subverted in the name of Law; experience and the example of our forefathers are contemned; the tombs of our ancestors, the only solid basis of

all government, are demolished, in order to erect, by the light of a fallible and presumptuous reason, a state of society without precedent or permanence. Led astray by our own chimæras, and having lost all perception of justice or iniquity, of good or evil, we passed through the different forms of republican government. We summoned the mob, to deliberate, in the streets of Paris, on those great objects which the people of Rome assembled to discuss in the Forum, when they had laid aside their arms, and bathed themselves in the Tiber. Then sallied from their dens the whole tribe of tattered tyrants, squalid and hardened with poverty, disfigured by toil, and whose only virtue was the insolence of misery and the pride of rags. Under the hands of such quacks as these, their country was soon covered with wounds. What did we gain by our frenzy and our visionary speculations? Nothing but crimes and bonds.

But it was at least an imposing term which drove us to our excesses. To LIBERTY should not be imputed the horrors that were sanctioned by her name: true philosophy disclaims those pernicious doctrines which sophists inculcate. Enlightened by experience, we became sensible that a monarchical form of government was the best adapted to our country.

It might have occurred to us to recal our legitimate Princes; but we thought our errors too great to be pardoned. We did not reflect that the heart of a descendant of St. Louis is a spring of never-failing mercy. Some entertained apprehensions for their lives, others for their property. But indeed it was too hard a trial for human pride, to confess itself deceived. What, so many murders, ravages, and inflictions, and after all to replace affairs entirely as before! While so many passions were afloat, so many pretensions in controversy or in prospect, men could not yet abandon that chimerical equality which caused all our misfortunes. The motives that impelled us were powerful, and they were but feebly counteracted: public benefit was sacrificed to private interest, and justice was overborne by vanity.

It was therefore necessary to elect a chief who might be considered as the child of the revolution: a chief, through whom the law, corrupted in its source, might serve to protect corruption, and might even act in concert with it. Magistrates, endued with in

tegrity, constancy, and courage; captains, renowned alike for their probity and their talents, had been excited and formed by our civil discords; but a power could not be tendered to them which their principles must have prevented them from accepting. The search was almost hopeless among Frenchmen, for one whose temples would not shrink from the diadem of Louis XVI. A foreigner stepped forth, and was successful.

The views of Buonaparte were not openly professed: his character was but gradually developed. Under the modest title of Consul, he first accustomed independent minds to behold without alarm the power that they had granted. He conciliated true Frenchmen by proclaiming himself the restorer of order, laws, and religion. The most perspicacious were deceived; the most pru dent were over-reached. The republicans considered Buonaparte as their own organ, and as the popular chief of a free state. The royalists thought that he was acting the part of Monk, and flocked eagerly to his service. All parties confided in him. Brilliant victories, obtained by the bravery of the French, encircled him with a crown of glory. He then became intoxicated with success, and his evil nature began to work in him. Posterity will doubt whether this man is more guilty for the crimes that he has committed, or for the opportunities that he has neglected of doing good. Never did an easier or a more splendid office devolve on any usurper. With a little moderation, he might have established himself and his race on the first throne of the civilized world. That throne was besieged by no rival. Such as arose into manhood since the revolution, were unacquainted with our ancient masters, and had only witnessed troubles and misfortunes. France and Europe were wearied with contention: they only sighed for repose, and would have purchased it at any price. But it was not the will of God that so dangerous an example should prosper; that mankind should see an adventurer disturb the lineal succession of royalty; that he should seize on the birth-right of heroes, and acquire in a single day the treasures of genius, of glory, and of time. In the absence of birth, a Usurper has no claim to a throne but from his virtues. On this principle, Buonaparte had nothing to recommend him but military talents, equalled, if not excelled, by those of several