ページの画像
PDF
ePub

same cause. With the resources of a hundred | with the aid of a fleet, would with ease reduce millions of men at their command, they under- the fortress itself, which, though impregnable went a catastrophe, which rivaled the fate of on the sea, is by no means equally defended on Varus's legions, at the hands of the mountain- the land side. The real danger of Turkey eers of Affghanistan; they were soon after out- arises, not from the strength of its enemies, but numbered, and brought to the verge of ruin by its internal weakness; and the proofs of it are the Sikhs, who had only the resources of six to be found, not in the triumphant march of millions to rely on. One-third of the invaders Diebitch across the Balkan, but in the annals of Russia perish before they reach the country of the Greek revolution. they are to assail; one-third of the Russians perish before they get out of it to begin the career of conquest, from the simple effect of the distances. It is no exaggeration, but the simple truth, to affirm that fifty thousand English and French troops disembarked at Varna, and beginning their fatigues there, are equal to a hundred and fifty thousand Russians, who have commenced their march from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw.

150. Dangers of the Russian

position in regard to Turkey.

The position of the Russians in Moldavia and Wallachia is singularly open to serious disaster. Spread out over an extent of three hundred miles in breadth, from the Euxine to the frontiers of Austria, it is accessible to attack, from a concentrated enemy, along the whole course of the Danube; and if defeated by a powerful army crossed over near Brahilov, a disaster as great as that at Marengo would await the Russian forces. A blow directed at Focksana, the vital point of their communications with Bessarabia, would compel them to fight their way back to the Pruth, with their faces to Moscow, and ruin, if worsted, in their rear. The Crimea, with the Russian naval establishment at Sevastopol, lies also open to attack by a power having the command of the sea-for thirty thousand men could hold the neck of the peninsula against any force which would in all probability be brought against it; while twenty thousand,

151.

Human thought can scarcely discern what is the probable issue of the contest now commencing in the East, in reference to the belligerent powers; but Pro- The final trividence is wiser than man, and umph of Chriscan educe good out of the most tianity in Turapparently inextricable elements key is secure. of confusion and discord. Whatever the result of the contest may be, the triumph of Christianity is secure, and the days of Ottoman dominion in Europe are numbered. If the Russians prevail, the ancient prophecy recorded in Gibbon will be realised, and the Cross will be replaced on the dome of St. Sophia; if the Western Powers are successful, and wrench the protectorate of the Christians in Turkey from the Czar, the triumph of the religion they profess is equally secure, and the government at Constantinople must pass into the hands of the great majority of the inhabitants of European Turkey. Unable to defend itself, the Ottoman empire must fall under the rule of one or other of the potentates which have entered the lists for its defense and subjugation. Power in the end must centre in the portion of mankind which is advancing, and pass from that which is receding; and the fact attested by all travelers, that the Christians are rapidly increasing in Turkey, and the Osmanlis as rapidly diminishing, points to the future destiny of those realms as clearly as the handwriting on the wall did to the fate of the king of Babylon. ina

CHAPTER XVI.

FRANCE FROM THE DEATH OF LOUIS XVIII. TO THE ACCESSION OF THE POLIGNAC ADMINISTRATION.

1. Great advant

ages of Charles X. on his accession to

the throne.

He

managed his charger with more skill and ad-
dress, or exhibited in greater perfection the
noble art of horsemanship; no courtier in his
saloons was more perfect in all the graces
which dignify manners, and cause the inequal-
ities of rank to be forgotten, in the courtesy
with which their distinctions are thrown aside.
He had little reflection, and had never thought
seriously on any subject save religion, with
the truths of which he was deeply impressed,
in his life. He was the creature of impulse,
and yielded alternately, like a woman, to
many different and seemingly contradictory
external influences. But that very circum-
stance gave, as it does to a graceful enchant-
ress, an indescrible charm to his manner.
was princely courtesy personified. None could
withstand the fascination of his manner; his
bitterest enemies yielded to its influence, or
were drawn by its seductions into at least a
temporary acquiescence in his designs. He
was a warm and faithful friend; in early
youth he had been an ardent and volatile
lover, but the misfortunes of middle life had
trained him to more serious and manly duties.
His heart was warm, his benevolence great, his
charity unbounded. He sincerely desired the
good of his people, and had the greatest wish
for their affection, which, by en-
1 Lamartine,
couraging the love of popularity, Histoire de la
led him sometimes into many Restauration,
doubtful or dangerous acts.1

NEVER did a monarch ascend a throne with fairer prospects and greater advantages than Charles X.; never was one precipitated from it under circumstances of greater disaster. Every thing at first seemed to smile on the new sovereign, and to pronosticate a reign of concord, peace, and happiness. The great contests which had distracted the government of his predecessors seemed to be over. The Spanish revolution had exhausted itself; it had shaken, without overturning, the monarchies of France and England, and led to a campaign glorious to the French, which on the Peninsula, so long the theatre of defeat and disaster, had restored the credit of their arms and the lustre of their influence. In Italy, the efforts of the revolutionists, for a brief season successful, had terminated in defeat and ignominy. After infinite difficulty, and no small danger, the composition of the Chamber of Deputies had been put on a practicable footing, and government was assured of a majority sufficient for all purposes, in harmony with the great body of the peers, and the principles of a constitutional monarchy. Internal prosperity prevailed to an unprecedented degree; every branch of industry was flourishing, and ten years of peace had both healed the wounds of war, and enabled the nation to discharge, with honorable fidelity, the heavy burdens imposed on it at its termination. After an arduous reign and a long struggle, Louis had A pretty fable was told of the Regent Orreaped the reward of his wisdom and persever-leans at his birth, that all the fairies 3 ance; he had steered the vessel of the state were invited to his christening, and His defects. through many dark storms and shoals of peril- each brought a gift of some mental ous intricacy; but he had at length got into quality to adorn his future life. One brought harbor: by the success with which his meas- courage, one genius, a third the graces, and so ures, externally and internally, had been attend- on. To one old fairy, however, no invitation ed, he had both restored the lustre of the throne, had been sent, and in anger she came, and in and in a great degree dissipated the prejudices spite brought a gift which should annul all those which, at the commencement of his reign, pre- the others had bestowed; and that was, that he vailed against the Bourbon family. He had be- should be unable to make any use of them. Folqueathed to his successor a throne to appear-lowing out this fable, a very powerful old fairy ance firmly established, a realm undoubtedly prosperous, and an external influence which seemed adequate to the wishes of the most ardent patriots in the country.

The character and personal qualities of 2. Charles X. were in many respects Character of such as were well calculated to imCharles X. prove and cultivate to the utmost these advantages. Burke had said, at the very outset of the French Revolution, that if the deposed race was ever to be restored, it must be by a sovereign who could sit eight hours a day on horseback. No sovereign could be so far removed from this requisite as Louis XVIII., whose figure was so unwieldy and his infirmities so great, that, for some years before his death, he had to be wheeled about his apartments in an arm-chair. But the case was very different with his successor. No captain in his guards

viii. 2, 3.

had been left out of the invitation at the christening of Charles X. His abilities were considerable; he had good natural parts, and great quickness in the apprehension of ideas in conversation, and an extraordinary turn for felicitous colloquy. Many of the sayings he made use of, in the most important crises of his life, became historical; repeated from one end of Europe to the other, they rivaled the most celebrated of Henry IV. in warmth of heart, and the most felicitous of Louis XIV. in terseness of expression. But, with all these valuable qualities, which, under other circumstances, might have rendered him one of the most popular monarchs that ever sat upon the throne of France, he was subject to several weaknesses still more prejudicial, which, in the end, precipitated himself and his family from the throne. He was extremely fond of the chase, and rivaled

grant, which rendered them the richest family
in Europe, to be confirmed by the Chambers
by the same act which settled the provision on
the Crown. He judged of others by Lam. viii.
the generosity of his own heart: he 9, 12, 15;
thought he could stifle rivalry by Cap. ix. 4,
kindness; he only kindled ambition 8; Lac. iv.
by gratification.1
133, 135.

ecclesiastics.

any of his royal ancestors in the passion for hunting; but with him it was not a recreation to amuse his mind amidst more serious cares, but, as with the Spanish and Neapolitan princes of the house of Bourbon, a serious occupation, which absorbed both the time and the strength that should have been devoted to affairs of state. A still more dangerous weakness was the blind submission, which increased with his advancing No change was made by the new sovereign years, that he yielded to the Roman Catholic in the ministers of state, who indeed 5. priesthood. He had been in former times pas- were as favorable to the royal cause The secret sionately attached to a very charming lady, as any that he could well have se- Camarilla of Madame de Pollastron; and on her death-bed lected. But from the very outset of he had vowed that he would never yield to a his reign there was a Camarilla, or secret court, fresh passion, but devote to the Most High the composed entirely of ecclesiastics, who had more fidelity which he had sworn to her in this real influence than any of the ostensible minisworld. He did so: but the resolution, however ters, and to whose ascendency in the royal counrespectable in its principle, induced a change cils the misfortunes in which his reign terminated in his character more fatal than any female in- are mainly to be ascribed. The most important fluence could by possibility have been; for it of these were, the Cardinal Latil, Archbishop brought him under the direction, not of the of Rheims, who had been the King's confessor changeful caprices of beauty, the very volitility during the time he was in exile, and earnestly of which often prevents their being attended recommended to him by Madame de Pollastron, 1 Lamartine, with any serious danger, but ofa firm and who possessed the greatest influence over Historie de la and consistent priesthood, whose un- his mind; the Pope's Legate, Lambruschini, a Restauration, dying influence was unceasingly di-subtle and dangerous ecclesiastical diplomatviii. 3, 5; rected, wholly regardless of conseHistorie de la quences, to the augmentation of the Restauration, power and authority of their own iv. 132, 133. body.'

Lacretelle,

4

The Duke d'Angou

ist; and M. Quelen, Archbishop of Paris, a man of probity and worth, but full of ambition, and ardently devoted to the interests of his order. To these, who formed, as it were, the secret cabThe first care of the new monarch on coming inet that directed the King, and of which he to the throne was to secure the order took counsel in all cases, was added the whole of succession in favor of his son. He chiefs of the ultra-Royalist and ultra-Catholic was too well aware of the scarcely party, who, like a more numerous privy countême is de- concealed pretensions of the Orleans cil, were summoned on important emergencies. clared Dau- family to the crown, not to be aware The most important of these were the Duke de phin. of the danger of a contest for it, and Rivière and Prince Polignac, who had both of the importance of taking every possible step given proofs of their ardent devotion to the which might secure its descent in the direct line throne; M. de Vaublanc, long an intimate of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon. counselor of the new monarch, and whose adThe saying of Louis XVIII. in regard to the vanced years had not diminished either his amDuke of Orleans, "He is near enough the throne bition or spirit of intrigue; and M. de Vitrolles, already; I shall take care he does not approach who had taken so important a part in the first it more nearly," was constantly present to his Restoration. He possessed qualities which at mind. There was a certain awkwardness in once made it probable that he would gain the declaring a prince long past the prime of life lead in such a secret council, and power emiDauphin for the first time, an appellation usu- nently dangerous in its direction. Bold but yet ally bestowed, like that of the Prince of Wales, courteous, ambitious but insinuating, knowing on the heir-apparent to the throne at his birth, much of individual men, but little of the course and it might be construed into an open decla- of events, without the responsibility of ostensiration of war against the Orleans family. But ble office, but with the influence of secret diin the insecure state of the Crown, it was im-rection, he was the very man to recommend portant during the lifetime of the reigning monarch to declare his successor, and the advantages of such a step appeared to overbalance the dangers with which it was attended. The Duke and Duchess d'Angoulême, accordingly, were declared Dauphin and Dauphiness of France; but at the same time, to conciliate the rival family, the title of "Your Royal Highness" was bestowed on the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, and a regiment in the Guards bestowed on their eldest son, the Duke of Chartres. To these marks of favor he added the substantial benefit of a gift in fee under the feudal title of appanage of the immense domains of the house of Orleans, which, reft from it in 1791 by the Revolution which it had supported, had been bestowed on the family in life-rent by Louis XVIII., and was restored it by the crown against which it had conspired. In his anxiety to secure the grandeur of the house of Orleans, he caused this magnificent

[ocr errors]

dangerous measures, of which others, in the
event of failure, would bear the responsibility,
and he, in the event of success, would reap the
fruits. Such was the secret council by which
Charles from the first was almost entirely direct-
ed, and the history of his reign is 1 Lam viii.
little more than the annals of the con- 9. 11; Lac.
sequences of their administration. iv. 132, 133.
The King made his public entry into Paris
on the 27th September.
The day

6.

was cloudy, and the rain fell in tor- Entry of the rents as he moved through the king into Pastreets, surrounded by a brilliant ris. Sept. 27. cortège; but nothing could damp the ardor of the people. Mounted on an Arab steed of mottled silver color, which he managed with perfect skill, the monarch traversed the whole distance between St Cloud and the palace, bowing to the people in acknowledgment of their salutions with that inimitable grace which pro

[ocr errors]

8.

claimed him at once, like the Prince-Regent in | capital. Never, not even in the palmy days of England, the first gentleman in his dominions. Napoleon and the Empire, had the monarch His answers on his way to and when he arrived been received with louder and more unanimous at the palace were not less felicitous than his demonstrations of affection. manner. When asked if he did not feel fatigued, he replied, "No; joy never feels weariness." "No halberts between my people and me, cried he to some of his attendants, who were repelling the crowd which pressed in too rudely upon his passage an expression which recalled his famous saying on April 12, 1814, "There is but one Frenchman the more.' Never had a monarch been received with such universal joy by his subjects. "He is charming as hope," said one of the numerous ladies who were enchanted by his manner. Some of his courtiers had suggested the propriety of taking some precautions against the ball of an assassin in the course of his entry. "Why so?" said he: "they can not hate me without knowing me; and when they know me, I am sure they will not hate me.' Every thing in his manner and expressions toward those by whom his family had been opposed, seemed to breathe the words, "I have forgotten." Marshal Grouchy, who had made the Duke d'Angoulême prisoner in 1815, was re1 Lam.viii. 15, stored to favor. To General Excel17; Cap.ix. 15, mans he said, "I have forgotten the 17; Lac. iv. past, but I feel assured I may rely 128, 129. upon you for the future."

7. Abolition

[ocr errors]

The first act of Charles was one eminently calculated to realize the expectations excited by these felicitous expressions, of the cen- and to tinge the opening of his reign sorship of with the brightest colors. On the the press. Sept. 28. very evening before his entry into Paris, he proposed, in a council of his ministers, to abolish the censorship of the press. The Ministers acquiesced in the proposal, though not without secret misgivings as to the result; and next morning a decree appeared in the Moniteur, formally abolishing the restrictions on the press.* It need not be said with what transports this resolution was received by the press, which had been severely galled by the restrictions, and was proportionally enchanted by their removal. Even the journals heretofore most strongly opposed to the Bourbons were profuse in their expressions of gratitude, and their professions of loyalty. "A new reign," said the Courrier Français, the most violent of the Liberal journals, "has commenced: the King wishes the general good, but he has need to be taught how it is to be attained. In restoring liberty to the journals, his wisdom has torn asunder that cloud of deception with which his Ministers would willingly envelop him; what more assuring pledge can the nation desire? what more efficacious guarantee can it obtain for the future?" A review of the National Guard, held the next day, 1 Moniteur, and at which the King rode through Sept. 29, the ranks on horseback,' afforded 1824; Couran opportunity for giving vent to rier Français, idem. ; their sentiments in a way of all Cap. ix. 19, others the most reassuring-from the voice of the armed force of the

20.

“Ne jugeant pas nécessaire de maintenir plus longtemps la mesure qui a été prise dans des circonstances differentes contre les abus de la Liberté des Journaux,

l'ordonnance du 15 Aôut dernier cessera d'avoir son effet." -Moniteur, 28 Sept., 1824.

In proportion as this great concession to public freedom was calculated to insure the present popularity of the Dangers of monarch, did it augment his future this step. dangers, if the measures of his government did not in all respects keep pace with the ambition of the journals and the expectations of the people. Like many other similar measures, it purchased present tranquillity at the expense of future disturbance. But this peril, sufficiently great at all times, and under all circumstances, was augmented in a most serious degree in the case of Charles from the ultraRomish principles by which he was actuated, and the influence of the secret conclave of Jesuits and priests by which the determinations of the monarch were ruled. The principles of this party were in direct opposition to those of the Revolution, for they tended to extinguish the freedom of thought, and re-establish that sacerdotal despotism which, even more than the oppression of the Crown, it had been the object of that convulsion to remove. Yet so little were the chiefs of this religious party aware of this, that they were zealous in wishing the restoration of the freedom of the press, and were the chief instigators of the measure. They recollected how powerfully the pen of M. de Chateaubriand and the columns of the Conservateur had aided their cause in the days of M. Decazes and the Duke de Richelieu, and anticipated a corresponding support, now that it was freed from its fetters; forgetting, or never having learned, that Romanism, in the days of its misfortune, will sometimes ally itself with Liberalism, but never fails 1 Cap. ix. 30, to become its bitterest enemy in 33; Lac. iv. those of its power.1 130, 134.

influence at

try.

Before the new reign had continued many weeks, appearances began to indicate 9. what was deemed an undue prepon- Increase of derance of the Parti-prêtre in the the Jesuits' palace, and to create uneasiness as the court, to its coming ascendency in the and their Cabinet. On all sides there was a efforts in talk of establishing new colleges for the counthe Jesuits, and some were actually set on foot, with a munificence which showed that their funds came from no ordinary sources. Montrouge, their chief religious seminary, became the centre to which they drew the youth of the highest distinction about the court. Wise in their generation, they passed by the middle-aged and confirmed in opinion, and bent their whole efforts to influence the thoughts and win the affections of the young. A perpetual file of splendid equipages was to be seen at the doors of their seminary, indicating the elevated connections of their pupils. The court itself assumed an entirely new aspect: masses, vespers, fasts, processions, sermons, prayers, became the order of the day; an air of extraor dinary sanctity the best avenue to promotion. So numerous, however, were the observances, so austere the practices, so rigid the fasts prescribed for the devotees, that many thought the favor of the court was dearly purchased at such a price. Great efforts were made to spread

agency of

these zealous and able partisans, who were all in the interest of the Jesuits, it was hoped that the object of their leaders would be attained without the public becoming aware of what was going forward, or the jealousy of the press or the tribune being awakened, as the 1 Lac. iv. ostensible holders of the great offices 137, 139; of state had undergone no alteration Cap, ix. since the demise of the late king.1

30, 32.

religious fervor among the soldiers: the Minis- that of the Minister of the Interior; M. Delavan, ter at War, M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, nephew of the Minister of Police; M. Doudeauville, of of the Archbishop of Toulouse, one of the most of the King's Household; M. de Dumas, of enthusiastic of the prelates, and who shared all Foreign Affairs; M. de Vaulchier, of the Posthis uncle's zeal, was indefatigable in his en-office. By the unseen but ceaseless deavors to electrify the troops, a task of difficulty and obloquy in a scoffing and irreligious generation, but which, from the religious feel ings of several of the regiments raised in rural districts, sometimes met with surprising success. A regular system of catechising was established in many regiments; the Royalist journals were filled with accounts, ostentatiously paraded, of military communions among soldiers by hundreds at a time. Incessant processions, in which the priests were to be seen arrayed in unheard of luxury of ecclesiastical splendor, were to be seen in the streets of the capital and the chief provincial towns. The people looked on sometimes with reverence, sometimes with indifference, often with contempt. In all this the Jesuits and leaders of the congregation, as this party was called, mistook the signs of the times, and injured rather than advanced the progress of real devotion. They were right in supposing that it was by the influence of religious feeling that it was alone possible to combat the progress of revolutionary ideas; but they were wrong in imagining that it was on the throne that the fountain from which they were to spread was to be opened. It was not 1 Lac. iv. from the temple of Jerusalem, but the 132, 138; fishermen of Galilee, that the faith Cap. ix. sprung which changed the face of the 21, 30.

legislature

world.1

The extreme religious party, however, were 10. very powerful both in the Chamber Strength of of Deputies and the administration; the Jesuit and it is not surprising that, seeing party in the their strength at once in the legislaand the ad- ture and the court, they were sanministra- guine in their hopes of being able to tion. reconstruct society on an entirely new basis. They could boast of one hundred and thirty members of the Chamber of Deputies who were entirely in their interest-so great was the change which the alterations in the Electoral Law, in 1821, had made in the composition of the representative part of the legisÎature. In the Peers they were less powerful, the numbers on whom they could there rely being not more than thirty; but this was not of much importance, as the court was known to be with them, and it was not likely that, except on a very anxious crisis, the Peers would thwart the wishes of the Government. The highest offices in the palace were filled by their adherents: M. de Latil disposed of the whole patronage there; and M M. de Montmorency, de Blacas, and de Rivière, who held the situations of importance around the prince, were in their interest. M. Frayssinons, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, was a zealous and powerful supporter, by whom all the instructions and ceremonies at Montrouge were directed; and they had succeeded in getting a creature of their own either into every important office under Government, or into the confidence of the persons who actually held it. M. de Renneville, a young man of remarkable abilities, was intrusted with the surveillance of M. de Villèle, the President of the Council; M. Tronchet, with

the press.

It was no easy matter, however, to conceal this secret agency altogether from 11. the vigilant eyes of the press, for Their oppoits leaders were both able and nents in the clear-sighted. At the head of the Chambers and party who, from the very first, detected and denounced the movements of the Jesuits, was the Count de Montlouis, a veteran of the Right in the Constituent Assembly, but who anticipated nothing but evil from the zealous efforts of the ultra-religious party in the present time. The Viscount de Chateaubriand also, though an ardent and devoted Royalist, united his efforts to those who opposed the ultramontane party; he was too sagacious not to see that the age was not one in which the press could be fettered or thought confined in bonds. The Abbé de Pradt also gave the aid of his ready pen and envenomed wit to the same side; while in the daily press PAUL COURIER was already giving tokens of those great abilities on the Liberal side which afterward rendered his name so celebrated; and Hoffman, the most powerful writer in the Journal des Debats, proved that the weapon of Pascal could pass into the hands of those who were not so sincerely attached to the cause of religion.2

2 Lac. iv.

138, 139.

12.

[ocr errors]

The good sense and delicate tact of the King prevented the opposite parties coming into collision before the Chambers General met; and the answers he made to the prosperity various constituted authorities and in France. bodies which presented him with addresses on his accession to the throne, breathed the most liberal and conciliatory spirit.* The uncommon prosperity which prevailed in the kingdom, added to the satisfaction which these declarations created, and diffused a universal feeling of contentment and security. The harvests

To the Papal Nuncio, who congratulated him on his accession, the King replied, "Mon cœur est trop déchiré pour que je puisse vous exprimer mes sentimens. Je n'ai c'est de continuer avec zèle ce que mon vertueux frère a si qu'une ambition, et j'espère que Dieu me l'accordera, bien fait; mon règne ne sera que la continuation du sien, tant pour le bonheur de la France que pour la paix et l'union sciences et les lettres ont perdu un protecteur, qui les a culde l'Europe." To the French Academy he answered, "Les tivées dès sa plus tendre jeunesse; je l'imiterai, non pas avec le même talent, mais avec le même zèle, et je suis persuadé que l'Académie me secondera."

To the Min"J'ai besoin de grands secours que le clergé joigne ses ister of Public and Ecclesiastical Instruction he said, prières aux miennes ; l'instruction publique est la chose la plus importante, non-seulement pour nous, mais pour

nos successeurs. Je compte sur vos efforts pour continuer le règne de mon vertueux frère." To the President of the General Assembly of the French Protestants he said, "Soyez sûr de ma protection, comme vous l'étiez de celle de mon frère: tous les Français sont égaux à mes yeux; ils ont tous les mêmes droits à mon amour, à ma protection, et à ma bienveillance."-CAPEFIGUE, ix. 16, 18.

« 前へ次へ »