"After a long deliberation of the council, the president declared, that C. A. F. H. de Labedoyere, colonel of the seventh regiment of the line, had been unanimously judged guilty of treason and rebellion. The court declared besides, unanimously, that the said Labedoyere had not availed himself of the delay of eight days granted by the ordonnance of the king to all the abettors of Buonaparte to return to their duty. In consequence, they condemned him to the pain of death, to degradation from the rank of colonel, and from the title of commandant of the legion of honour, and to the pay-judge of the court of cassation, and perhaps even a law ment of the expences of the trial.

nance appeared to be mitigated by that of the 23d, | matically communicated to the allied sovereigns, it was and particularly by the proclamation made by the king never disavowed, and must, therefore, be received as at Cambray, dated the 27th of June, on his entering authentic. France. In that proclamation, the king declared his intention to be, to deliver to the tribunals only the REPORT TO THE KING ON the situation of france, and authors and instigators of the horrible plot which had brought back Buonaparte.

"With respect to the reference of the cause to the se- "The allied powers have too loudly proclaimed their cond instead of the first council, the governor, Count doctrine to allow us to doubt of their magnanimity. Maison, had the right of making that substitution. What advantage can be derived from so many useless The other alleged grounds of objection did not appear evils? Shall there be no longer any bond of connecsufficient to annul the proceedings. He consequently tion between the nations? Do they wish to retard the concluded by moving the council to confirm the judg-reconciliation of Europe with France? One of the views of the sovereigns seemed to be to secure the go

"At noon the council withdrew to the hall of deli-vernment of your majesty, and yet its authority is inberation, and at one o'clock pronounced the following judgment:

cessantly compromised by the state of impotency to which it is reduced by them. Its power is even rendered "Considering that the second council was compe- odious by the evils of which it seems to be the accomtent, that the proceedings have been regularly con- plice, because it is unable to prevent them. Your maducted, and the law rightly applied, we declare unani-jesty signed as ally the treaty of the 25th of March, mously that the said judgment is confirmed, and that it shall have its full and entire execution.

"He was never able to render the war national; instruments are not accomplices. Who does not know. that the person who exercises tyranny finds always in "The sovereigns do not, perhaps, sufficiently remark the multitude a sufficient force to make himself obeyed? the circle of embarrassments and obstacles in which they "We are even reproached with his successes: they place both us and themselves. We require good order were compensated by a number of reverses. What to second them, and their explanation to re-establish image did the announcement of his victories hold up to good order. Are they desirous of sacrifices which reus, but that of the conscriptions, which perished and quire repartitions and prompt obedience? It is only reclosed their short career, only to make new conscrip-quisite for this purpose, that the authority of your mations, which were again to be mowed down in battle!jesty should be full and entire: nothing is possible, noWe were saved, like the rest of Europe, by the same mournings and the same calamities.

inflict on France the same violence, the same inhuma- | addressed to them by the ministers of the allied powers. nity. It was thought by all Europe that the entry of The latter wish to persuade the king's ministers that

the sovereigns into Paris would put an end to the war. What will be thought, on learning that it was then only that the excesses of oppression commenced, without combats, and without resistance? The evils which we are reproached with having inflicted on others, were never so great; they never took place when the use of arms had no object; and, though it were true that we had given the first examples of such an abuse of force, ought they to imitate what they impute to us as a crime? "It is known in the North, it is known in Prussia, that our want of moderation gave birth to energy and public spirit in our enemies. There will no longer be any end to the evils of humanity, if mutual vengeances are to become the rule of war; for nations never die. "Your majesty will deign to permit me to insist on one final consideration.-So long as France shall have any thing to preserve, by the hope of maintaining its integrity as a nation, no sacrifice will be impossible, and all the plans of an equitable policy may be executed; but the day in which the inhabitants shall have lost every thing, in which their ruin shall be consummated, a new order of things-a new series of events will be seen to arise, because there will no longer be either government or obedience. A blind fury will take the place of resignation: they will only seek counsel in despair: on both sides there will be ravagepillage will make war on pillage. Every step of the foreign soldiers will be marked with blood. France will be less ashamed of destroying herself than in allowing herself to be destroyed by others. The moment approaches;—already the national spirit takes this frightful direction;-the most opposite parties are blending into one;-La Vendée itself unites its colours with those of the army. In this excess of evils, what line of conduct remains to your majesty but that of removal? The public functionaries, in the same manner, will quit their places, and the armies of the sovereigns will then be at issue with individuals freed from all social ties.

66

“A nation of thirty millions of inhabitants may undoubtedly disappear from the face of the earth, but in this war of man to man, the oppressed and their vanquishers will lie together in more than one grave.

"FOUCHE."

This report was accompanied by the following

ANSWER OF THE FRENCH MINISTERS TO THE OFFICIAL

NOTE OF THE ALLIED SOVEREIGNS.

the measures which they have commanded to the government of Paris, are such as may contribute to diminish the exactions of the war, and to re-establish the royal authority. The king's ministers, however, unfortunately, cannot regard these measures in that point of view. They owe it to the sovereigns, to France, and to themselves, to explain themselves on this subject. The sovereigns, doubtless, are the masters, and can do whatever they desire; but at any rate let them not say, that, in taking every step calculated to ruin the cause of his majesty, that they wish to confer any favour on him. There is already in France too much odium and ill-will against the Bourbons, to render it necessary still more to revolt every heart, by making the nation experience the greatest losses and the deepest humiliations. What can be more afflicting than to see, in a time of peace, all the departments subjected to your military governors-what misfortune more to be deprecated than the dispersion of your troops over the whole face of the country? The sovereigns declared that they only made war against Napoleon, and yet all their measures belie their words; since, at the present moment, when the war ought to be finished, it is only about to commence. The present position of France is so much the more afflicting, as were war openly declared, (which it is not,) it is utterly impossible that she can suffer in a greater degree all its evils and all its horrors. Every where, wherever the armies are, (always excepting the English,) pillage, fire, rape, and murder, have been carried to their fullest extent; avarice and vengeance have left nothing for the officers or soldiers to desire. To speak with freedom, they exceed even the atrocities of which the French armies have been too often justly accused. The measures, however, alluded to in your note can have no other results than to extend the limits of this devastation. The armies spread themselves in our provinces, and all the horrors which we have depicted follow in their train. Such are the sentiments of the king's ministers on the new decree, and their answer to the appeal which has been made to them.

"They have the honour to subscribe themselves, with the highest consideration,

"TALLEYRAND, "FOUCHE."

In addition to the presence of the armies by which they had been conquered, and the weight of the con"The king's ministers have received the official note tributions levied by the allied sovereigns, the French

and which had been wrested from different nations, were now about to be restored to their legitimate

owners.

had the mortification to perceive that the splendid | was manifested in the most offensive language, even works of art with which the Louvre was decorated, whilst the foreign troops were standing guard over every public edifice in Paris. Every day new arrivals of strangers poured into the capital, anxious to gain a view of the Louvre before its collection was broken up. Those who took the journey to France at this period were gratified: the few pictures seized by the Prussians were scarcely missed, and all the most celebrated works remained. The halls of the statues were uninjured; and, in the great gallery above, which was constantly filled with strangers, who found it an agreeable place of rendezvous, the probability of further spoliation was strongly contested.

France, in the period of her overwhelming power, had stripped of their richest monuments of science and antiquity, all the nations that had unfortunately fallen under her iron yoke. In so doing, she acted contrary to the usages of modern warfare, and in that coarse spirit of selfish rapacity by which the whole of her revolutionary history is distinguished. France it was, that first incorporated the most odious violations in her regular system of conduct; she it was, that first refused to acknowledge that any right could stand in the way of her power; and she gave an example of a cold cruelty of practice, perfectly consonant with the worthlessness of her principles. Austria, Italy, Prussia, the Netherlands, and the smaller states of Germany, were all robbed of their finest works of genius and memo rials of antiquity: Rome had been stripped to enrich Paris; the Vatican had been plundered to stock the Louvre. When Frederick of Prussia entered Dresden as a conqueror, he only requested permission of the magistrates to sit in their gallery and admire its pictures. The French general, however, made their selection of these, and sent them off for France. The armies of these plundered states were now on the spot where all that had been taken from them was collected; and that they had the power to cause restitution, was sufficiently

obvious.

The Prussians alone, however, seem to have resolved, that, if ever they had occasion to pay a second visit to Paris, they would not leave any of the spoils of their country within its walls. Marshal Blucher, therefore, waited for no settlement of concert, and solicited no co-operation. When the commissioners came to treat for the surrender of Paris, he at once repelled their attempt to preserve the contents of the Museums, and, in fact, he had already commenced at Saint Cloud the work of retaking. From the first moment of his entrance into Paris, he proceeded spiritedly in removing from the Louvre all that it contained of Prussian property; and the blanks on the walls shewed the daily progress of the French loss in this respect. The whole amount of it, however, would have been as nothing to the remainder of the collection, if the other members of the alliance had not determined to restore the works of art, which were successively claimed by other nations.

For some time, it seemed as if the allies hesitated to mortify the vanity of the French though that feeling

Under this apparent inactivity, however, the business was by no means at rest. The towns and principalities that had been plundered, were making the utmost exertions to influence the allies to determine on a general restoration; and several of the great powers evidently inclined to such a decision. The famous sculptor, Canova, appeared as a claimant in behalf of Rome, which had only her venerable name to urge, having no force to support her rights. Attempts were certainly made to contrive an arrangement with the French ministry, by which justice might be done to Europe, observing the greatest possible delicacy that circumstances admitted of towards Louis XVIII. and his subjects. But Fouché and Talleyrand hung back, in that cunning selfish spirit, which has invariably characterized the school of Buonaparte's politicians ;— hoping that the allies would either shrink from a forcible seizure altogether, or that some of the minor states, to whom the most valuable articles belonged, might fail to receive from their powerful friends that assistance which would enable them to regain their property. It was even reported, at the time, that Canova's representations to the French government were treated with cutting contempt; and that Talleyrand remarked, by way of taunt, that no pictures or statues could be taken from the Louvre, unless there were fifty thousand soldiers to see that they were taken down in safety.

At length, however, the allies were fully convinced of the impolicy as well as the injustice of leaving to France these trophies of a monstrous system of spoliation; and it was resolved, that each power of the alliance should act in the independent exercise of its own strength, according to its own views.

A deputation from the Netherlands now claimed the Dutch and Flemish pictures taken during the revolutionary wars from these countries; and this demand was conveyed through the Duke of Wellington, as commander-in-chief of the Dutch and Belgian armies.