ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.
Napoleon's greatest ambition was to inter-meddle with everything in the kingdom. With most of the changes which his restless spirit has produced, the French have no great reason to be satisfied; but all agree, that with regard to the administration of justice, and the courts, for the trial of civil suits in France, the alterations which he has introduced, have been ultimately of essential benefit to the country. Previous to his accession to the government, the sources of equity were universally contaminated, and the influence of corruption most deeply felt in every part of the constitution of their courts. On the accession of Napoleon to the throne, the most respectable and able men among the judges and magistrates were continued in their appointments, and the vacancies, occasioned by the dismission of those found guilty of corruption, (many of whom had, during the confusions of the revolution, actually seized their situations), were supplied, in frequent instances, by those of the older nobility, whose characters and principles were known and respected. In addition to this, the civil and the criminal codes were both carefully revised. In this revisal, the greatest legal talents in the nation were employed. The laws of different nations, more particularly of England, were brought to contribute in the formation of a new code; and by a compilation from the Roman, the French and the English law, a new institute, or body of civil and criminal justice, was formed, intended for the regulation of the whole kingdom. Previous to this change, it must be observed, that the laws, in the different provinces of the kingdom, were in some measure formed upon, and always interwoven with, the particular observances and customs of their respective provinces; the inevitable consequence was, that every province, possessing different usages, had also a different code. [44]"La bizarrerie des loix," says Mercier, "et la varieté des coutumes font que l'avocat le plus savant devient un ignore des qu'il se trouve en Gasgogne, ou en Normandie. Il perd a Vernon, un procés qu'il avoit gagné a Poissy. Prenez le plus habile pour la consultation, et la plaidoyerie, eh bien, il sera obligé d'avoir son avocat et son procureur, si on lui intente un proces dans le resort de la plupart des autres parlemens." The consequence of this was an uncertainty, intricacy, and want of any thing like regulating principles in the laws, and an incoherency and inconsistency in the administration of both civil and criminal justice.
The improvements introduced by the late Emperor, have therefore, considered under this point of view, been of no common benefit to the kingdom, as they have given, to some measure, certainty, principle and consistency, the essential attributes of good laws, to what was formerly a mass of confusion.
At Aix, where we resided, the head court is held for four provinces, and there is a college for the study of law and divinity. Most of the acquaintances I there formed were gentlemen belonging to the law; many of them had been liberally educated, were men of talents, and some of them possessed acquirements which would have done honour to any bar. The opinion of all these was strongly in favour of the new codes; and they go so far as to say, that when the matter comes under consideration, there are very few things which the present government will change, and very few judges who will lose their situations.
They allowed, however, that latterly, Napoleon had forgotten his usual moderation, and, incensed against the importation of foreign merchandise, had instituted a court, and formed a new and most rigorous code for the trial of all cases of smuggling and contraband trade. But fortunately for the people, this court had scarcely commenced its severe inflictions, when the deposition of Napoleon, and the subsequent peace with England, rendered its continuance unnecessary. The punishments awarded by this court, were, in their rigour, infinitely more terrible than that of any other in Europe. There was pot the slightest proportionment of the punishment to the offence. For the sale of the smallest proportion of contraband goods, the unfortunate culprit was condemned immediately to eight or ten years labour amongst the galley-slaves. For the weightier offences, the importation of larger quantities of forbidden goods, perpetual labour, and even death, were not unfrequently pronounced.
I was informed, that when Napoleon commanded the Senate to pass the decree for the institution of this court, one of the members asked him, if he believed he would find Frenchmen capable of executing his orders, and enforcing such laws? His answer was, "my salaries will soon find judges;" and the consequence of this determination, upon his part, was, that while he paid the judges of the other tribunals at Aix by a miserable annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds, and two hundred pounds, the judges of the court of contraband were ordered to receive seven hundred pounds and eight hundred pounds. Napoleon was perfectly right in his opinion; that such was the want of honour and principle, and such the excessive poverty of France, that these salaries would soon find judges. I have heard from unquestionable authority, that, for the last vacancy which was filled up in that court, there were ten candidates.
The court-room, in which this law tribunal was held, is now occupied by a society of musical amateurs, and a concert was given there, during our stay at Aix, once every week. One of the lawyers, in talking of this court, informed me, that in that very room, where the judges of the court of contraband sat, he had played in comedy and tragedy, pleaded causes, had taken his part in concerts, and danced at balls, under its several revolutions, its different political phases of a theatre, a court of justice, a concert and a ball-room. Exactly similar to this was the fate of the churches, palaces, and the houses of individuals under Napoleon, which were alternately barracks, hospitals, stables, courts of justice, caffés, restaurats, &c.
The penal code of the late Emperor breathes throughout a spirit of humanity, which must astonish every one acquainted with his character. The punishment of death, which, according to Blackstone, may be inflicted by the English law in one hundred and sixty different offences, is now in France confined to the very highest crimes only; the number of which does not exceed twelve. A minute attention has been paid to the different degrees of guilt in the commission of the same crime; and according to these, the punishments are as accurately proportioned as the cases will permit. One species of capital punishment has been ordained instead of that multitude of cruel and barbarous deaths which were marshalled in terrible array along the columns of the former code. This punishment is decapitation. The only exception to this is in the case of parricide, in which, previous to decapitation, the right hand is cut off; and in the punishment for high-treason, in which the prisoner is made to walk barefoot, and with a crape veil over his head to the scaffold, where he is beheaded. Torture was abolished by Louis XVI., and has never afterwards been resumed.
After Napoleon had it in view to form a new code for France, he was at great pains to collect together the most upright and honourable, as well as the most able amongst the French lawyers; the principal members of whom were Tronchet, one of the counsel who spoke boldly and openly in defence of the unfortunate Louis XVI., Portalis, Malville, and Bigot de Preameneau. Under such superintendance, the work was finished in a short time.
The trial by jury has been for some time established in France; but the Emperor, dreading that so admirable an institution, if managed with an impartial hand might, in too serious a manner, impose restraint upon his individual despotism, took particular care to subject those crimes, which he dreaded might arise out of the feelings of the public, to the cognisance of special tribunals. All trials originating out of the conscription, are placed under the care of a special court, composed of a certain number of the criminal judges and military officers. In France, there is no grand jury; but its place is supplied by that which they have denominated the Juré d'Accusation. This is a court composed of a few members amongst the civil judges, assisted by the Procureur-General or Attorney-General. Their juries for the trial of criminals are selected from much higher classes in society than with us in England; a circumstance the effect of absolute necessity, owing to the extreme ignorance of the middling ranks and the lower classes. In the conducting of criminal trials, the manner of procedure is in a great measure different from our English form. A criminal, when first apprehended, is carried, before the magistrate of the town, generally the Mayor. He there undergoes repeated examinations; all the witnesses, are summoned and examined, in a manner similar to the precognitions taken before the Sheriff of Scotland, and the whole process is nearly as tedious as upon the trial. All the papers and declarations are then sent with the accused, to the Juré d'Accusation, who also thoroughly examine the prisoner and the witnesses; if grounds are found for the trial, the papers are immediately laid before the "Cour d'Assize." Before this court, the prisoner is again specially examined by its president. His former declarations are compared and confronted with his present answers, and the strongest evidence against him, is often in this manner extracted from his own story. It might certainly be imagined, that with all these precautions, it would be scarcely possible that the guilty should escape. The very contrary is the case, and I have been informed by some of the ablest lawyers in the courts here, that out of ten prisoners, really guilty, six haves good chance of getting clear off. They ascribe this to two principal causes, 1st, That the proceedings become so extremely tedious and intricate, that it is impossible for the jury to keep them all in their recollection, and that, forgetting the general tenor of the evidence, they suffer the last impressions, those made by the counsel for the prisoner, to bias their judgment, and to regulate their verdict. In the 2d place, It is customary for the president of the court to enter into a long examination and cross-examination of the prisoner, (assisted and prompted in his questions by the rest of the judges), in a severe and peremptory style, and what is too often the case with the judge, in his anxiety to condemn, to identify himself with the public prosecutor. He appears, in the eye of the jury, more in the light of an interested individual, anxious to drag the offender in the most summary manner to the punishment of the law, than as an upright and unbiassed judge, whose duty it is coolly to consider the whole case, to weigh the evidence of the respective witnesses, to consider, with benevolent attention, the defence of the prisoner, and, after all this, to pronounce, with authoritative impartiality, the sentence of the law. This naturally prejudices the jury in favour of the prisoner; and few, even in our own country, who may have been witness to the common routine of our criminal procedure, will not themselves have felt that immediate and irresistible impression, which is made upon the mind of the spectator, when he sees on one side the solemn array of the court, the judges, the officers, and all the terrible show of justice; and on the other, the trembling, solitary, unbefriended criminal, who awaits in silence the sentence of the law. One difference, however, between the effects produced by the respective criminal codes of France and England, ought to be here remarked. In England, owing to the principles and practice of our criminal law, it too frequently happens, that the most open and notorious criminals escape, whilst the less able, but more innocent offenders, those who might be easily reclaimed, who have gone little way in the road of crime, but who are less able to do themselves justice at their trial, fall an easy sacrifice to the rigour of our criminal code. In France, owing to the custom of the cross-examinations of the prisoner, by the president and the different judges, this can never happen. The notoriety of his character prevents the common feelings of compassion in the breasts of the jury; the severity of the interrogations renders it impossible that any fictitious story, when confronted with his former examinations before the magistrate and the Juré d'Accusation, can long hold together, and he is, in this manner, generally convicted by the evidence extracted from his own mouth upon the trial.
The present style of French pleading is exactly what we might be led to expect from the peculiar state of manners, and the particular character of that singular people. It is infinitely further removed from dry legal ratiocination, and much more allied to real eloquence, than any thing we met with in England. Any one who is acquainted with the natural inborn fluency in conversation of every individual whom he meets in France, may be able to form some idea of the astonishing command of words in a set of men who are bred to public speaking. One bad effect arises from this, which is, that if the counsel is not a man of ability, this amazing volubility, which is found equally in all, serves more to weaken than to convince; for the little sense there may be, is spread over so wide a surface, or is diluted with such a dose of verbiage, that the whole becomes tasteless and insipid to the last degree. But this fluency, on the other hand, in the hands of a man of talents and genius, is a most powerful weapon. It hurries you along with a velocity which, from its very rapidity, is delightful; and where it cannot convince, it amuses, fascinates, and overpowers you.
One thing struck me as remarkable in the French form of trial, which perhaps might be with benefit adopted by England. All exceptions and challenges to jurymen are made in private, and not, as with us, in open court. This is a more delicate method, and no man's character can suffer (as is sometimes the case in England) by being rejected. The trial by jury is very far from being popular in France; indeed, upon an average I have heard more voices against it than advocates for its continuance. The great cause for this dissatisfaction is that which leads to various other calamitous consequences in that kingdom,—the want of public spirit in France.—The French have literally no idea of any duties which they must voluntarily, without the prospect of reward, undertake for their country. It never enters their heads that a man may be responsible for the neglect of those public duties, for the performance of which he receives no regular salary.—There is a constant connection in their minds, between business and payment, between money and obligation: and as for that noble and patriotic spirit which will undergo any labour from a disinterested sense of public duty, it is long since any such feeling has existed, and it will probably, if things continue in their present state, be long before it will exist again in France.
It might be imagined, from the advantages in the administration of criminal justice, that France was in this respect equal, if not superior to Britain.—This, however, is by no means the case. The written criminal code of France is indeed apparently more humane, and the civil code less intricate and voluminous than with us in England. But there is a wide and striking difference between this code, drawn up with all the luminousness of speculative benevolence, and the manner in which the same code is carried into execution: What signifies the purity of the code, if the executive part of the system, the nomination of the judges, the direction of the sentences, and the reversal of the whole proceedings, was submitted to the power, and constituted part of the iron prerogative, of a despotic Sovereign. It was the constant practice of the late Emperor to appoint, whenever it was necessary for the accomplishment of his own ends, what he denominated a cour prevoitale—a species of court consisting of judges of his own selection, who, with summary procedure, condemned or acquitted, according to the pleasure of its master. Not only was this court erected, which was in every respect under the controul of the Emperor, but by means of his police emissaries, of those pensioned spies whom he insinuated into all the offices, and the remotest branches of the political administration, he contrived to overawe the different judges, to keep them in perpetual fear of the loss of their official situation, and in this manner to beat down the evidence, to bias the sentence, and finally, to direct the verdict. The judicial situations became latterly so completely under the influence of the creatures of the Court, that I was informed by the lawyers, that no judge was sure of remaining for two months in his official situation.
Upon the important subject of criminal delinquency, I am sorry to say the only information I contrived to collect was extremely unsatisfactory. I had been promised, by an intelligent barrister, with whom I had the good fortune to become acquainted, a detailed opinion upon the state of criminal delinquency in France; but in the meantime Napoleon landed from Elba, and my friend was called away from his civil duties to join the national guard, who were marched, when it was too late, in pursuit of Bonaparte.
From the calendar of crimes, however, which I had the opportunity of examining at the Aix assizes, as well as from the decided opinion of many of the lawyers there, I should be induced to hazard the opinion, that the crimes of robbery, burglary, and murder, are infinitely less frequent than in England. The great cause of this is undoubtedly to be attributed to the excellence of their police. Wherever such a preventive as the system of Espionage, and that carried to the perfection which we find it possessing in that country, exists, it is impossible that the greater crimes should be found to any alarming decree. There is a power, a vigour and an omnipresence in this effective police, which can check every criminal excess before it has attained any thing like a general or rooted influence throughout the kingdom; and its power, under the administration of Napoleon, was exerted to an excessive degree in France. Such a mode, however, of diminishing the catalogue of crimes, could exist only under a state of things which the inhabitants of a free country would not suffer for a moment; and indeed, to anyone possessing but the faintest idea of what liberty is, there is something in the idea of a system of espionage which is dreadful. It is like some of those dark and gigantic dæmons, embodied by the genius of fiction, the form of which you cannot trace, although you feel its presence, which stalks about enveloped in congenial gloom, and whose iron grasp falls upon you the more terrible, because it is unsuspected. Fortunately such a monster can never be met with in a free country. It shuns the pure, and untainted atmosphere of liberty, and its lungs will only play with freedom in the foul and thick air of a decided despotism.
The effects of this system of espionage, in destroying every thing upon which individual happiness in society depends; the free and unrestrained communication of opinion between friends, and even the confidence of domestic society, can hardly be conceived by any one who has lived in a free country. Upon this subject, I had an opportunity of conversing with a most respectable and intelligent British merchant, who, previous to the revolution, had been a partner in a banking-house in the French metropolis; and afterwards had the misfortune of being kept a prisoner in Paris for the last twelve years. The accounts he gave us regarding the excessive rigour of the police, and the jealousy of every thing like intercourse, were truly terrible. It had become a maxim in Paris, an axiom whose truth was proved by the general practice and conduct of its inhabitants, to believe every third person a spy. Any matter of moment, any thing bordering upon confidential communication, was alone to be trusted entre quatre yeux. The servants in every family, it was well known, were universally in the pay of government. They could not be hired till they produced their licenses, and these licenses, to serve as domestics, they all procured from the office of the police. From that office their wages were as certain, and probably (if the information they conveyed was of importance), more regularly paid than those they received from their masters. Even, therefore, in the most secret retirement of your own family, you could never speak with perfect freedom. Mr B——, the gentleman above mentioned, informed me, that before he dared to mention, even to his wife or family, any subject connected with the affairs of the day, or when they wished to speak freely and unrestrainedly upon any point whatever, every corner of the room was first examined, the chinks of the doors, and the walls of the adjoining apartments underwent a similar scrutiny; and even then they did not dare to introduce any subject which was nearly connected with the political government of the country.
A lawyer, who lived upon the same floor with this gentleman, was astonished, one morning, by the entry of the police officers into his room at four in the morning, without the slightest previous warning. They pulled him out of bed—hurried him away to the police office, kept him in strict custody for several days, seized all his papers; and having at last discovered that their suspicions were ill-founded, and that he had been secured upon erroneous information, he was brought back to his lodgings by the same hands, and in the same summary manner in which he had been removed; and he is to this day ignorant of the cause of his detention, or the nature of the offence of which he had been suspected.
Amongst the few English who, along with Mr B. were detained in Paris, it was naturally to be expected, that the precautions taken to deceive the police, and to prevent the suspicion of any secret intercourse, were still more severe and rigorous than were used by the native French. As the subjects of this country, they naturally became the objects of continual suspicion, and were more strictly watched than any other persons. They contrived, however, to procure, although at distant intervals, the sight of an English newspaper. Nine or ten months frequently elapsed without their receiving any intelligence from England. When they had the good fortune to procure one, the precautions necessary to be adopted were hardly to be believed. The same gentleman informed me, that upon receiving an English paper, he did not venture to mention the circumstance even to his wife and children, lest, in their joy, some incautious words might have escaped from them before the servants of the family, in which case, detection would have been immediate, and imprisonment inevitable. Keeping it, therefore, entirely to himself, he concealed it from every eye during the day, and at night, after the family had gone to bed, he sat up, lighted his taper, and, when every thing was still and silent about him, ventured, only then, to read over the paper, and to get by heart the most important parts of the intelligence regarding England; and he afterwards transmitted the invaluable present to some secret friend, who, in the same manner, dared only to peruse it at midnight, and with the same precautions.
A very sensible distinction has been made in the French code, in the difference of punishment which is inflicted upon robbery, when it has or has not been accompanied by murder; and the consequence of such distinction is, that in that country the most determined robberies are seldom, as they often are with us, accompanied with murder; whilst the accurate proportionment of punishment to the crimes, encourages persons possessing information to come forward, and removes those natural scruples which all must feel, when they reflect that they may be the chief instruments in bringing down a capital penalty upon the head of an individual, whose trivial offence was in no respect deserving of this last and severest punishment of the law.
The crime of which I heard most frequently, and of which the common occurrence may be traced to the miserable condition to which trade and commerce were, during the last few years, reduced in France, and to that general laxity of moral conduct which even now distinguishes that country, was Fraudulent Bankruptcy. The merchant, no longer possessing the means of making his fortune by fair speculation, has recourse to this nefarious mode of bettering his condition. He settles with his creditors for a small per centage; disposes of his property by fictitious sales, ventes simulees, and thus enriches himself upon the ruin of his creditors. At a small town in the south of France, where I for sometime resided, there were several individuals, who, it was well known, had made their fortunes in this manner; and at Marseilles it had, as I understood, become in some measure a common practice. The crime is seldom discovered, attended at least with those circumstances of corroborative evidence which are necessary in bringing it to trial. Upon detection, accompanied by complete proof, the punishment is severe. It consists in being condemned for fourteen years, or for life, to the galleys, and in branding the delinquent with letters denoting his crime: B F for Fraudulent Bankruptcy. At one of the trials of the Aix assizes, at which I was present, a young man of excellent family, son of the Chevalier de St Louis, was convicted of this crime, and although it was proved that he had been deceived by his partner, a man of decidedly bad character, but possessed of deep cunning, he was condemned for fourteen years to the galleys: Owing to a flaw in the process, the sentence was set aside by the Cour de Cassation, or Supreme Court of Appeal at Paris, and a new trial was ordered.
From the same cause, which I have mentioned above, the perfection of their police, petty theft is not of such common occurrence in France as in England. The country, in short, at the time when we passed through it, was very quiet, and few crimes were committed; but on the disbanding of the troops, a great change may be expected. These restless creatures must find work, or they will make it for themselves. It is a hard question how the un-warlike Louis is to employ them. Many talk of the necessity of sending an immense force to St Domingo; and it would appear wise policy to devise some expedition of this nature, which would swallow up the restless, the profligate, and the abandoned.
It is not our intention, nor indeed would the limits of our work permit, of entering into the question of what ought to be the conduct of the King. But there is another question, from answering which we can scarcely escape.
Are the majority of the French nation well affected to the Bourbons? This is a question which is put to every person who returns from France. It is a natural, a most important, but a most difficult one to answer. I endeavoured, by every method in my power, by a communication with those gentlemen of the province where I resided, whose characters and situations entitled them to implicit credit; by endeavouring to satisfy myself as to the real sentiments of the peasantry, and by a perusal of those documents regarding the state of the country, which were believed the most authentic, to acquire upon this subject something like satisfactory information. As to the sentiments entertained at present by the generality of the French people upon this subject, I cannot speak, but with regard to the period which I passed in France, which began in November 1814, and ended at the time of the landing of Napoleon from Elba, I have no hesitation in declaring, that it appeared to me, that the majority of the French nation were at that time hostile to the interests of the Bourbons. On the other hand, in consulting the same sources of information as I have above enumerated, it was as evident that they are not generally favourable to the restoration of the Imperial Government under Napoleon. What appeared at that period to be the general desire of the nation, was the establishment of a new constitution, formed upon those principles, embracing those new interests, and compatible with that new state of things which had been created by the revolution. It was on this account that they favoured Napoleon.
The situation of France then exhibited perhaps one of the most singular pictures ever presented to view by a civilized nation; a people without exterior commerce, and whose interior trade and manufactures, except in some favourite spots, was almost annihilated; whose youth was yearly drained off to supply the army, but whose agriculture has been constantly improving, which, for the last twelve years, had been subjected to all the complicated horrors of a state of war, but which, after all this, could yet earnestly desire a continuance of this state. A nation where there was scarcely to be found an intermediate rank between the Sovereign and the peasantry—for since the destruction of the ancienne noblesse, and more particularly, since all ranks have been admitted to a participation in the dignities conferred on the military, all have become equally aspiring, and all consider themselves upon the same level:—A nation where, notwithstanding the division into parties, possessing the most opposite interests and opinions, and pulling every different way, the greater part certainly desired a government similar to Napoleon's, and would even unite to obtain it:—A nation who talked of nothing but liberty, and yet suffered themselves to be subjected to the conscription, to the loss of their trade, to the severest taxes, the greatest personal deprivations, and the most complete restraint in the expression of their opinions—to the continued extortions of a military chief, the most despotic who ever reigned in a European country, and whose acts of oppression are truly Asiatic; and who tamely bore all this oppression, supported by their national vanity, because they wish to bear the name of the great people: Great, because their ambition is unbounded; great as a nation of rapacious and blood-thirsty soldiers; great in every species of immorality and vice! Who, led away by this miserable vanity, have been false to their oaths, so recently pledged to a mild and virtuous prince, very unfit to rule such a race of villains, because he is mild and virtuous.
But it is not generally believed, that the majority in France favoured Napoleon, though it is but a natural consequence of the state of the country; I shall therefore enumerate the divisions of ranks, and the sentiments of each.—All allow that the army were his friends; on that subject, therefore, I shall say nothing.—Next to the army, let us look to the civil authorities.—All these were in his favour—all that part of the civil authorities at least, who have the immediate management of the people.—It is in vain that the heads of office in Paris, the miserable bodies styled the Chambers of Parliament and the Counsellors of the realm, were favourably inclined towards the King.—Napoleon well knew that these were not the men who rule France.—France, as an entire kingdom, may be said to be governed by these men; but France, subdivided, is governed by the prefects, and the gens-d'armes of Napoleon.—Not a man of these was displaced by the King, and although they were all furious in their proclamations against the usurper, they, with few exceptions, joined him, and these few exceptions were removed by him.—The most powerful men in France under Napoleon were these prefects and gens-d'armes, and knowing their power, he was always cautious in their selection; wherever he conceived that they really favoured the Bourbon interest, he removed them.
Next, the whole class of Receveurs were his devoted friends.—These men were all continued in place under the un-warlike reign of Louis, but where no conscription and no droits reunis were to be enforced, they had poverty staring them in the face.—Is it unnatural that they should favour him whose government enriches them?
To the shadows of nobility, to the ghost of aristocracy which had re-appeared under the King, no power or influence can be attributed,—they dared not think, and could not act.
The better classes of the inhabitants of the cities, whether the traders and manufacturers, or the bourgeoise of France, are those who were the most decided enemies of Bonaparte: but let us look how their arm is weakened and palsied by the situation of their property.—They have many of them purchased the lands of the emigrants at very low prices, and, in many instances, from persons who could only bestow possession without legal tenure.—These feel uneasy in their new possessions; they dread the ascendancy which the nobility might still obtain under their lawful Sovereign: Napoleon came proclaiming to them that he would maintain them in their properties. Nor were all the traders and manufacturers his enemies.—He encouraged the trade of Lyons, for example, of Paris, of Rouen, and other interior towns, and he pitted these interior towns against the sea-ports of Bourdeaux, Marseilles, &c. Thus, even with commercial men, he had some friends.—And here, in mentioning Paris, I must observe, that the most slavish deference is paid by the whole of France to the opinions, as well as the fashions, which prevail at the capital. From the encouragement which he offered to its interior trade, from the grand works which he was constantly carrying on, affording labour to the idle rabble; from the magnificent spectacles supplied by his reviews, fetes, and festivities, and most of all, from the celebrated system of gulling and stage-trick, practised by his police, and through the medium of the press—From all these circumstances, it arises, that Napoleon was no where so much beloved as at Paris; and Napoleon took good care that Paris afforded to all France an example such as he would wish them to follow.—It is difficult to say why the French should tamely follow the example of their despot; but they forgot that he was a despot, and they were not singular as a nation in following the example of their chief, though, perhaps, they carried their obedience to a more slavish pitch than any other people.—"En France (says Mons. Montesquieu) il en est des manieres et de la facon de vivre, comme des modes, les Français changent des meurs selon l'age de leur Roi,—Le Monarque pouvait meme parvenir a rendre la nation grave s'il l'avait entrepris."
Next in rank, though, from their numbers and influence, perhaps, after the army, the most powerful body in the community, the situation of the peasants must be considered. They had either seized upon, or purchased, at a low rate, the lands of the emigrants, and the national domains; these they had brought into the best state of cultivation; without the interference of any one, they directly drew the profits. The oppression in agriculture, which existed before the revolution, whether from the authority of the Seigneurs, from the corvees, from tythes, game laws, &c. all are done away—become rich and flourishing, they are able to pay the taxes, which, under Napoleon, were not so severe as is generally supposed.—But they had every thing to fear from the return of the noblesse, and from the re-establishment of the ranks and order which must exist under the new constitution of France. Can it then be considered that the peasantry should see their own interest in maintaining the revolutionary order of things? The more unjust their tenure, the more cause have they to fear; and unenlightened as many of them are, their fears once raised, will not easily be controlled. Napoleon had most politically excited alarm among them, and they are favourably inclined towards him. This powerful body have no leaders to direct them: The respectable and wealthy farmer, possessing great landed property; the yeoman, the country gentleman,—all these ranks are abolished. Where the views of the Sovereign are inimical to the peasantry, as was imagined under Louis XVIII. that body will powerfully resist him; where they were in concert, as under Napoleon, that body became his chief support next to his military force.
It is not enough that Louis XVIII. had never invaded their property—it is not enough that in different shapes he issued proclamations, and assurances, that he had no such intentions,—the peasantry felt insecure; and they dreaded the influence of his counsellors, and of the noblesse. The low rabble of France, at all times restless, and desirous of change, were favourable to Napoleon;—they wished for a continuance of that thoughtless dissipation, and dreadful immorality, which he encouraged; they wished for employment in his public works,—they looked for situations in his army.
It may then be said, that among all ranks Napoleon had friends. Who then were against him? All those who wished for peace: all those who desired the re-establishment of the church: all those who had the cause of morality and virtue at heart—all the good,—but, alas! in France, they were few in number.
I have only enumerated the great and leading parties in the community. It was my intention to have touched on the sentiments of the different professions, but I have been already too tedious; I shall here only enumerate a few of the classes, who, as they are thrown out of bread by the return of the Bourbons, and the new system of government, will be ever busily employed in favouring a despotic and military government, a continuance of war, and of a conscription.
1st, All the prefects, collectors of taxes, and their agents, who were employed in the countries subjected to Napoleon.
2d, The many officers, and under agents, employed in the conscription, and in collecting the droits reunis.
3d, The police emissaries of all ranks, forming that enormous mass who conducted the grand machine of espionage, directed the public spirit, and supplied information to the late Emperor.
4th, All the rich and wealthy army contractors, furnishers, &c. &c.
Having attempted to shew that the situation of the people in France was highly favourable to the views of the usurper, let me now observe, that there are other circumstances which greatly aided his cause.
1st, The vanity of the nation was hurt: they had not forgotten their defeat by the allies, and the proceedings of Congress, in confining within narrow bounds, that nation, who, but a year ago, gave laws to the continent, had tended to aggravate their feelings. It is difficult for any nation to shrink at once into insignificance, from the possession of unlimited power; it is impossible for France to maintain an inglorious peace.
2d, The spirit of the nation had become completely military. One year of peace cannot be supposed to have done away the effects of twelve years of victory.
3d, The general laxity of morals, and the habits of dissipation and idleness, which have followed from the revolution, and have been taught by the military, and especially by the disbanded soldiers, were favourable to him.
4th, He came at the very time when his prisoners had returned from all quarters of the globe; he came again to unite them under the revered eagle, emblem of rapine and plunder, which they everywhere looked up to; in short, if it had been suggested to any one, possessing a thorough knowledge of the situation of France, to say at what time Napoleon was most likely to succeed, he must have pitched on the moment selected by him. There are indeed many circumstances which induce me to suppose, that the plan for his restoration had been partly formed before he left Fontainbleau; for it is well known, that he long hesitated—that he often thought of making use of his remaining force, (a force of about thirty thousand men), and fighting his way to Italy; that his Marshals only prevailed on him, and that he yielded to their advice, when he might have thought and acted for himself. The conduct of Ney favours the supposition: he selected for him the spot, of all others, the most favourable for his views, should they be directed to Italy; he stipulated for his rank, for a guard of veterans; he is described as using a boldness and insolence of speech to Napoleon, which he would not have dared to use, had there not been an understanding between them. He covered his treachery by a garb of the same nature, when in presence of his lawful Sovereign: open in his abuse of the usurper, while laying plans to join him.
There is a very peculiar circumstance in Bonaparte's character, which is, that at times, he makes the most unguarded speeches, forgetful of his own interest. Thus, when the national guard of Lyons begged permission to accompany him on his march, he said to them, "You have suffered the brother of your King to leave you unattended—go—you are unworthy to follow me." Thus, when at Frejus, he said to the Mayor,—"I am sorry that Frejus is in Provence; I hate Provence, but I have always wished your town well; and, ere long, I will be among you again." This speech, which I had from the Prefect of Aix, who was intimately attached to Napoleon and his interests, I know to be authentic. In it, even the place of his landing seemed to be determined. One thing is certain, that the plan, if not commenced before his abdication, was, at all events, begun immediately after; for a long time must have been necessary to arrange matters in such a manner that he should not find the slightest opposition in his march to Paris.
I have thus attempted to give my readers some account of the state of France under Napoleon. From this account, hastily written, they will draw their own conclusions. Mine, attached as I am to one party; knowing little of politics, only interested as a Briton in the fate of my country, are these:—That France decidedly wishes to live by war and plunder—that France deserves no such government as that of the virtuous Louis—that, till the soldiery are disbanded, and their leaders punished, France can never be governed by the Bourbons:—that the majority in the nation do not wish for Napoleon in particular, but for a revolutionary government, and that we have no right of interference with their choice: but that the propriety of our immediately engaging in war could not be doubted, for our very existence as a nation depended on such conduct—that we had the same right to attack Bonaparte, as we had to attack a common robber, more particularly, if this robber had repeatedly planned and devised the destruction of our property.
They will draw the happiest conclusions in favour of our own blessed country, from a comparison with France—looking on that unhappy nation, they will exclaim with me, in the beautiful words of La Harpe: [45]"J'excuse et n'envie point ceux qui peuvent vivre comme s'ils n'avoient ni souffert ni vu souffrir; mais qu'ils me pardonnent de ne pouvoir les imiter. Ces jours d'une degradation entière et innouie de la nature humaine sont sous mes yeux, pesent sur mon ame et retombent sans cesse sous ma plume, destinée à les retraçer jusqu'à mon dernier moment."[46]
The improvements introduced by the late Emperor, have therefore, considered under this point of view, been of no common benefit to the kingdom, as they have given, to some measure, certainty, principle and consistency, the essential attributes of good laws, to what was formerly a mass of confusion.
At Aix, where we resided, the head court is held for four provinces, and there is a college for the study of law and divinity. Most of the acquaintances I there formed were gentlemen belonging to the law; many of them had been liberally educated, were men of talents, and some of them possessed acquirements which would have done honour to any bar. The opinion of all these was strongly in favour of the new codes; and they go so far as to say, that when the matter comes under consideration, there are very few things which the present government will change, and very few judges who will lose their situations.
They allowed, however, that latterly, Napoleon had forgotten his usual moderation, and, incensed against the importation of foreign merchandise, had instituted a court, and formed a new and most rigorous code for the trial of all cases of smuggling and contraband trade. But fortunately for the people, this court had scarcely commenced its severe inflictions, when the deposition of Napoleon, and the subsequent peace with England, rendered its continuance unnecessary. The punishments awarded by this court, were, in their rigour, infinitely more terrible than that of any other in Europe. There was pot the slightest proportionment of the punishment to the offence. For the sale of the smallest proportion of contraband goods, the unfortunate culprit was condemned immediately to eight or ten years labour amongst the galley-slaves. For the weightier offences, the importation of larger quantities of forbidden goods, perpetual labour, and even death, were not unfrequently pronounced.
I was informed, that when Napoleon commanded the Senate to pass the decree for the institution of this court, one of the members asked him, if he believed he would find Frenchmen capable of executing his orders, and enforcing such laws? His answer was, "my salaries will soon find judges;" and the consequence of this determination, upon his part, was, that while he paid the judges of the other tribunals at Aix by a miserable annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds, and two hundred pounds, the judges of the court of contraband were ordered to receive seven hundred pounds and eight hundred pounds. Napoleon was perfectly right in his opinion; that such was the want of honour and principle, and such the excessive poverty of France, that these salaries would soon find judges. I have heard from unquestionable authority, that, for the last vacancy which was filled up in that court, there were ten candidates.
The court-room, in which this law tribunal was held, is now occupied by a society of musical amateurs, and a concert was given there, during our stay at Aix, once every week. One of the lawyers, in talking of this court, informed me, that in that very room, where the judges of the court of contraband sat, he had played in comedy and tragedy, pleaded causes, had taken his part in concerts, and danced at balls, under its several revolutions, its different political phases of a theatre, a court of justice, a concert and a ball-room. Exactly similar to this was the fate of the churches, palaces, and the houses of individuals under Napoleon, which were alternately barracks, hospitals, stables, courts of justice, caffés, restaurats, &c.
The penal code of the late Emperor breathes throughout a spirit of humanity, which must astonish every one acquainted with his character. The punishment of death, which, according to Blackstone, may be inflicted by the English law in one hundred and sixty different offences, is now in France confined to the very highest crimes only; the number of which does not exceed twelve. A minute attention has been paid to the different degrees of guilt in the commission of the same crime; and according to these, the punishments are as accurately proportioned as the cases will permit. One species of capital punishment has been ordained instead of that multitude of cruel and barbarous deaths which were marshalled in terrible array along the columns of the former code. This punishment is decapitation. The only exception to this is in the case of parricide, in which, previous to decapitation, the right hand is cut off; and in the punishment for high-treason, in which the prisoner is made to walk barefoot, and with a crape veil over his head to the scaffold, where he is beheaded. Torture was abolished by Louis XVI., and has never afterwards been resumed.
After Napoleon had it in view to form a new code for France, he was at great pains to collect together the most upright and honourable, as well as the most able amongst the French lawyers; the principal members of whom were Tronchet, one of the counsel who spoke boldly and openly in defence of the unfortunate Louis XVI., Portalis, Malville, and Bigot de Preameneau. Under such superintendance, the work was finished in a short time.
The trial by jury has been for some time established in France; but the Emperor, dreading that so admirable an institution, if managed with an impartial hand might, in too serious a manner, impose restraint upon his individual despotism, took particular care to subject those crimes, which he dreaded might arise out of the feelings of the public, to the cognisance of special tribunals. All trials originating out of the conscription, are placed under the care of a special court, composed of a certain number of the criminal judges and military officers. In France, there is no grand jury; but its place is supplied by that which they have denominated the Juré d'Accusation. This is a court composed of a few members amongst the civil judges, assisted by the Procureur-General or Attorney-General. Their juries for the trial of criminals are selected from much higher classes in society than with us in England; a circumstance the effect of absolute necessity, owing to the extreme ignorance of the middling ranks and the lower classes. In the conducting of criminal trials, the manner of procedure is in a great measure different from our English form. A criminal, when first apprehended, is carried, before the magistrate of the town, generally the Mayor. He there undergoes repeated examinations; all the witnesses, are summoned and examined, in a manner similar to the precognitions taken before the Sheriff of Scotland, and the whole process is nearly as tedious as upon the trial. All the papers and declarations are then sent with the accused, to the Juré d'Accusation, who also thoroughly examine the prisoner and the witnesses; if grounds are found for the trial, the papers are immediately laid before the "Cour d'Assize." Before this court, the prisoner is again specially examined by its president. His former declarations are compared and confronted with his present answers, and the strongest evidence against him, is often in this manner extracted from his own story. It might certainly be imagined, that with all these precautions, it would be scarcely possible that the guilty should escape. The very contrary is the case, and I have been informed by some of the ablest lawyers in the courts here, that out of ten prisoners, really guilty, six haves good chance of getting clear off. They ascribe this to two principal causes, 1st, That the proceedings become so extremely tedious and intricate, that it is impossible for the jury to keep them all in their recollection, and that, forgetting the general tenor of the evidence, they suffer the last impressions, those made by the counsel for the prisoner, to bias their judgment, and to regulate their verdict. In the 2d place, It is customary for the president of the court to enter into a long examination and cross-examination of the prisoner, (assisted and prompted in his questions by the rest of the judges), in a severe and peremptory style, and what is too often the case with the judge, in his anxiety to condemn, to identify himself with the public prosecutor. He appears, in the eye of the jury, more in the light of an interested individual, anxious to drag the offender in the most summary manner to the punishment of the law, than as an upright and unbiassed judge, whose duty it is coolly to consider the whole case, to weigh the evidence of the respective witnesses, to consider, with benevolent attention, the defence of the prisoner, and, after all this, to pronounce, with authoritative impartiality, the sentence of the law. This naturally prejudices the jury in favour of the prisoner; and few, even in our own country, who may have been witness to the common routine of our criminal procedure, will not themselves have felt that immediate and irresistible impression, which is made upon the mind of the spectator, when he sees on one side the solemn array of the court, the judges, the officers, and all the terrible show of justice; and on the other, the trembling, solitary, unbefriended criminal, who awaits in silence the sentence of the law. One difference, however, between the effects produced by the respective criminal codes of France and England, ought to be here remarked. In England, owing to the principles and practice of our criminal law, it too frequently happens, that the most open and notorious criminals escape, whilst the less able, but more innocent offenders, those who might be easily reclaimed, who have gone little way in the road of crime, but who are less able to do themselves justice at their trial, fall an easy sacrifice to the rigour of our criminal code. In France, owing to the custom of the cross-examinations of the prisoner, by the president and the different judges, this can never happen. The notoriety of his character prevents the common feelings of compassion in the breasts of the jury; the severity of the interrogations renders it impossible that any fictitious story, when confronted with his former examinations before the magistrate and the Juré d'Accusation, can long hold together, and he is, in this manner, generally convicted by the evidence extracted from his own mouth upon the trial.
The present style of French pleading is exactly what we might be led to expect from the peculiar state of manners, and the particular character of that singular people. It is infinitely further removed from dry legal ratiocination, and much more allied to real eloquence, than any thing we met with in England. Any one who is acquainted with the natural inborn fluency in conversation of every individual whom he meets in France, may be able to form some idea of the astonishing command of words in a set of men who are bred to public speaking. One bad effect arises from this, which is, that if the counsel is not a man of ability, this amazing volubility, which is found equally in all, serves more to weaken than to convince; for the little sense there may be, is spread over so wide a surface, or is diluted with such a dose of verbiage, that the whole becomes tasteless and insipid to the last degree. But this fluency, on the other hand, in the hands of a man of talents and genius, is a most powerful weapon. It hurries you along with a velocity which, from its very rapidity, is delightful; and where it cannot convince, it amuses, fascinates, and overpowers you.
One thing struck me as remarkable in the French form of trial, which perhaps might be with benefit adopted by England. All exceptions and challenges to jurymen are made in private, and not, as with us, in open court. This is a more delicate method, and no man's character can suffer (as is sometimes the case in England) by being rejected. The trial by jury is very far from being popular in France; indeed, upon an average I have heard more voices against it than advocates for its continuance. The great cause for this dissatisfaction is that which leads to various other calamitous consequences in that kingdom,—the want of public spirit in France.—The French have literally no idea of any duties which they must voluntarily, without the prospect of reward, undertake for their country. It never enters their heads that a man may be responsible for the neglect of those public duties, for the performance of which he receives no regular salary.—There is a constant connection in their minds, between business and payment, between money and obligation: and as for that noble and patriotic spirit which will undergo any labour from a disinterested sense of public duty, it is long since any such feeling has existed, and it will probably, if things continue in their present state, be long before it will exist again in France.
It might be imagined, from the advantages in the administration of criminal justice, that France was in this respect equal, if not superior to Britain.—This, however, is by no means the case. The written criminal code of France is indeed apparently more humane, and the civil code less intricate and voluminous than with us in England. But there is a wide and striking difference between this code, drawn up with all the luminousness of speculative benevolence, and the manner in which the same code is carried into execution: What signifies the purity of the code, if the executive part of the system, the nomination of the judges, the direction of the sentences, and the reversal of the whole proceedings, was submitted to the power, and constituted part of the iron prerogative, of a despotic Sovereign. It was the constant practice of the late Emperor to appoint, whenever it was necessary for the accomplishment of his own ends, what he denominated a cour prevoitale—a species of court consisting of judges of his own selection, who, with summary procedure, condemned or acquitted, according to the pleasure of its master. Not only was this court erected, which was in every respect under the controul of the Emperor, but by means of his police emissaries, of those pensioned spies whom he insinuated into all the offices, and the remotest branches of the political administration, he contrived to overawe the different judges, to keep them in perpetual fear of the loss of their official situation, and in this manner to beat down the evidence, to bias the sentence, and finally, to direct the verdict. The judicial situations became latterly so completely under the influence of the creatures of the Court, that I was informed by the lawyers, that no judge was sure of remaining for two months in his official situation.
Upon the important subject of criminal delinquency, I am sorry to say the only information I contrived to collect was extremely unsatisfactory. I had been promised, by an intelligent barrister, with whom I had the good fortune to become acquainted, a detailed opinion upon the state of criminal delinquency in France; but in the meantime Napoleon landed from Elba, and my friend was called away from his civil duties to join the national guard, who were marched, when it was too late, in pursuit of Bonaparte.
From the calendar of crimes, however, which I had the opportunity of examining at the Aix assizes, as well as from the decided opinion of many of the lawyers there, I should be induced to hazard the opinion, that the crimes of robbery, burglary, and murder, are infinitely less frequent than in England. The great cause of this is undoubtedly to be attributed to the excellence of their police. Wherever such a preventive as the system of Espionage, and that carried to the perfection which we find it possessing in that country, exists, it is impossible that the greater crimes should be found to any alarming decree. There is a power, a vigour and an omnipresence in this effective police, which can check every criminal excess before it has attained any thing like a general or rooted influence throughout the kingdom; and its power, under the administration of Napoleon, was exerted to an excessive degree in France. Such a mode, however, of diminishing the catalogue of crimes, could exist only under a state of things which the inhabitants of a free country would not suffer for a moment; and indeed, to anyone possessing but the faintest idea of what liberty is, there is something in the idea of a system of espionage which is dreadful. It is like some of those dark and gigantic dæmons, embodied by the genius of fiction, the form of which you cannot trace, although you feel its presence, which stalks about enveloped in congenial gloom, and whose iron grasp falls upon you the more terrible, because it is unsuspected. Fortunately such a monster can never be met with in a free country. It shuns the pure, and untainted atmosphere of liberty, and its lungs will only play with freedom in the foul and thick air of a decided despotism.
The effects of this system of espionage, in destroying every thing upon which individual happiness in society depends; the free and unrestrained communication of opinion between friends, and even the confidence of domestic society, can hardly be conceived by any one who has lived in a free country. Upon this subject, I had an opportunity of conversing with a most respectable and intelligent British merchant, who, previous to the revolution, had been a partner in a banking-house in the French metropolis; and afterwards had the misfortune of being kept a prisoner in Paris for the last twelve years. The accounts he gave us regarding the excessive rigour of the police, and the jealousy of every thing like intercourse, were truly terrible. It had become a maxim in Paris, an axiom whose truth was proved by the general practice and conduct of its inhabitants, to believe every third person a spy. Any matter of moment, any thing bordering upon confidential communication, was alone to be trusted entre quatre yeux. The servants in every family, it was well known, were universally in the pay of government. They could not be hired till they produced their licenses, and these licenses, to serve as domestics, they all procured from the office of the police. From that office their wages were as certain, and probably (if the information they conveyed was of importance), more regularly paid than those they received from their masters. Even, therefore, in the most secret retirement of your own family, you could never speak with perfect freedom. Mr B——, the gentleman above mentioned, informed me, that before he dared to mention, even to his wife or family, any subject connected with the affairs of the day, or when they wished to speak freely and unrestrainedly upon any point whatever, every corner of the room was first examined, the chinks of the doors, and the walls of the adjoining apartments underwent a similar scrutiny; and even then they did not dare to introduce any subject which was nearly connected with the political government of the country.
A lawyer, who lived upon the same floor with this gentleman, was astonished, one morning, by the entry of the police officers into his room at four in the morning, without the slightest previous warning. They pulled him out of bed—hurried him away to the police office, kept him in strict custody for several days, seized all his papers; and having at last discovered that their suspicions were ill-founded, and that he had been secured upon erroneous information, he was brought back to his lodgings by the same hands, and in the same summary manner in which he had been removed; and he is to this day ignorant of the cause of his detention, or the nature of the offence of which he had been suspected.
Amongst the few English who, along with Mr B. were detained in Paris, it was naturally to be expected, that the precautions taken to deceive the police, and to prevent the suspicion of any secret intercourse, were still more severe and rigorous than were used by the native French. As the subjects of this country, they naturally became the objects of continual suspicion, and were more strictly watched than any other persons. They contrived, however, to procure, although at distant intervals, the sight of an English newspaper. Nine or ten months frequently elapsed without their receiving any intelligence from England. When they had the good fortune to procure one, the precautions necessary to be adopted were hardly to be believed. The same gentleman informed me, that upon receiving an English paper, he did not venture to mention the circumstance even to his wife and children, lest, in their joy, some incautious words might have escaped from them before the servants of the family, in which case, detection would have been immediate, and imprisonment inevitable. Keeping it, therefore, entirely to himself, he concealed it from every eye during the day, and at night, after the family had gone to bed, he sat up, lighted his taper, and, when every thing was still and silent about him, ventured, only then, to read over the paper, and to get by heart the most important parts of the intelligence regarding England; and he afterwards transmitted the invaluable present to some secret friend, who, in the same manner, dared only to peruse it at midnight, and with the same precautions.
A very sensible distinction has been made in the French code, in the difference of punishment which is inflicted upon robbery, when it has or has not been accompanied by murder; and the consequence of such distinction is, that in that country the most determined robberies are seldom, as they often are with us, accompanied with murder; whilst the accurate proportionment of punishment to the crimes, encourages persons possessing information to come forward, and removes those natural scruples which all must feel, when they reflect that they may be the chief instruments in bringing down a capital penalty upon the head of an individual, whose trivial offence was in no respect deserving of this last and severest punishment of the law.
The crime of which I heard most frequently, and of which the common occurrence may be traced to the miserable condition to which trade and commerce were, during the last few years, reduced in France, and to that general laxity of moral conduct which even now distinguishes that country, was Fraudulent Bankruptcy. The merchant, no longer possessing the means of making his fortune by fair speculation, has recourse to this nefarious mode of bettering his condition. He settles with his creditors for a small per centage; disposes of his property by fictitious sales, ventes simulees, and thus enriches himself upon the ruin of his creditors. At a small town in the south of France, where I for sometime resided, there were several individuals, who, it was well known, had made their fortunes in this manner; and at Marseilles it had, as I understood, become in some measure a common practice. The crime is seldom discovered, attended at least with those circumstances of corroborative evidence which are necessary in bringing it to trial. Upon detection, accompanied by complete proof, the punishment is severe. It consists in being condemned for fourteen years, or for life, to the galleys, and in branding the delinquent with letters denoting his crime: B F for Fraudulent Bankruptcy. At one of the trials of the Aix assizes, at which I was present, a young man of excellent family, son of the Chevalier de St Louis, was convicted of this crime, and although it was proved that he had been deceived by his partner, a man of decidedly bad character, but possessed of deep cunning, he was condemned for fourteen years to the galleys: Owing to a flaw in the process, the sentence was set aside by the Cour de Cassation, or Supreme Court of Appeal at Paris, and a new trial was ordered.
From the same cause, which I have mentioned above, the perfection of their police, petty theft is not of such common occurrence in France as in England. The country, in short, at the time when we passed through it, was very quiet, and few crimes were committed; but on the disbanding of the troops, a great change may be expected. These restless creatures must find work, or they will make it for themselves. It is a hard question how the un-warlike Louis is to employ them. Many talk of the necessity of sending an immense force to St Domingo; and it would appear wise policy to devise some expedition of this nature, which would swallow up the restless, the profligate, and the abandoned.
It is not our intention, nor indeed would the limits of our work permit, of entering into the question of what ought to be the conduct of the King. But there is another question, from answering which we can scarcely escape.
Are the majority of the French nation well affected to the Bourbons? This is a question which is put to every person who returns from France. It is a natural, a most important, but a most difficult one to answer. I endeavoured, by every method in my power, by a communication with those gentlemen of the province where I resided, whose characters and situations entitled them to implicit credit; by endeavouring to satisfy myself as to the real sentiments of the peasantry, and by a perusal of those documents regarding the state of the country, which were believed the most authentic, to acquire upon this subject something like satisfactory information. As to the sentiments entertained at present by the generality of the French people upon this subject, I cannot speak, but with regard to the period which I passed in France, which began in November 1814, and ended at the time of the landing of Napoleon from Elba, I have no hesitation in declaring, that it appeared to me, that the majority of the French nation were at that time hostile to the interests of the Bourbons. On the other hand, in consulting the same sources of information as I have above enumerated, it was as evident that they are not generally favourable to the restoration of the Imperial Government under Napoleon. What appeared at that period to be the general desire of the nation, was the establishment of a new constitution, formed upon those principles, embracing those new interests, and compatible with that new state of things which had been created by the revolution. It was on this account that they favoured Napoleon.
The situation of France then exhibited perhaps one of the most singular pictures ever presented to view by a civilized nation; a people without exterior commerce, and whose interior trade and manufactures, except in some favourite spots, was almost annihilated; whose youth was yearly drained off to supply the army, but whose agriculture has been constantly improving, which, for the last twelve years, had been subjected to all the complicated horrors of a state of war, but which, after all this, could yet earnestly desire a continuance of this state. A nation where there was scarcely to be found an intermediate rank between the Sovereign and the peasantry—for since the destruction of the ancienne noblesse, and more particularly, since all ranks have been admitted to a participation in the dignities conferred on the military, all have become equally aspiring, and all consider themselves upon the same level:—A nation where, notwithstanding the division into parties, possessing the most opposite interests and opinions, and pulling every different way, the greater part certainly desired a government similar to Napoleon's, and would even unite to obtain it:—A nation who talked of nothing but liberty, and yet suffered themselves to be subjected to the conscription, to the loss of their trade, to the severest taxes, the greatest personal deprivations, and the most complete restraint in the expression of their opinions—to the continued extortions of a military chief, the most despotic who ever reigned in a European country, and whose acts of oppression are truly Asiatic; and who tamely bore all this oppression, supported by their national vanity, because they wish to bear the name of the great people: Great, because their ambition is unbounded; great as a nation of rapacious and blood-thirsty soldiers; great in every species of immorality and vice! Who, led away by this miserable vanity, have been false to their oaths, so recently pledged to a mild and virtuous prince, very unfit to rule such a race of villains, because he is mild and virtuous.
But it is not generally believed, that the majority in France favoured Napoleon, though it is but a natural consequence of the state of the country; I shall therefore enumerate the divisions of ranks, and the sentiments of each.—All allow that the army were his friends; on that subject, therefore, I shall say nothing.—Next to the army, let us look to the civil authorities.—All these were in his favour—all that part of the civil authorities at least, who have the immediate management of the people.—It is in vain that the heads of office in Paris, the miserable bodies styled the Chambers of Parliament and the Counsellors of the realm, were favourably inclined towards the King.—Napoleon well knew that these were not the men who rule France.—France, as an entire kingdom, may be said to be governed by these men; but France, subdivided, is governed by the prefects, and the gens-d'armes of Napoleon.—Not a man of these was displaced by the King, and although they were all furious in their proclamations against the usurper, they, with few exceptions, joined him, and these few exceptions were removed by him.—The most powerful men in France under Napoleon were these prefects and gens-d'armes, and knowing their power, he was always cautious in their selection; wherever he conceived that they really favoured the Bourbon interest, he removed them.
Next, the whole class of Receveurs were his devoted friends.—These men were all continued in place under the un-warlike reign of Louis, but where no conscription and no droits reunis were to be enforced, they had poverty staring them in the face.—Is it unnatural that they should favour him whose government enriches them?
To the shadows of nobility, to the ghost of aristocracy which had re-appeared under the King, no power or influence can be attributed,—they dared not think, and could not act.
The better classes of the inhabitants of the cities, whether the traders and manufacturers, or the bourgeoise of France, are those who were the most decided enemies of Bonaparte: but let us look how their arm is weakened and palsied by the situation of their property.—They have many of them purchased the lands of the emigrants at very low prices, and, in many instances, from persons who could only bestow possession without legal tenure.—These feel uneasy in their new possessions; they dread the ascendancy which the nobility might still obtain under their lawful Sovereign: Napoleon came proclaiming to them that he would maintain them in their properties. Nor were all the traders and manufacturers his enemies.—He encouraged the trade of Lyons, for example, of Paris, of Rouen, and other interior towns, and he pitted these interior towns against the sea-ports of Bourdeaux, Marseilles, &c. Thus, even with commercial men, he had some friends.—And here, in mentioning Paris, I must observe, that the most slavish deference is paid by the whole of France to the opinions, as well as the fashions, which prevail at the capital. From the encouragement which he offered to its interior trade, from the grand works which he was constantly carrying on, affording labour to the idle rabble; from the magnificent spectacles supplied by his reviews, fetes, and festivities, and most of all, from the celebrated system of gulling and stage-trick, practised by his police, and through the medium of the press—From all these circumstances, it arises, that Napoleon was no where so much beloved as at Paris; and Napoleon took good care that Paris afforded to all France an example such as he would wish them to follow.—It is difficult to say why the French should tamely follow the example of their despot; but they forgot that he was a despot, and they were not singular as a nation in following the example of their chief, though, perhaps, they carried their obedience to a more slavish pitch than any other people.—"En France (says Mons. Montesquieu) il en est des manieres et de la facon de vivre, comme des modes, les Français changent des meurs selon l'age de leur Roi,—Le Monarque pouvait meme parvenir a rendre la nation grave s'il l'avait entrepris."
Next in rank, though, from their numbers and influence, perhaps, after the army, the most powerful body in the community, the situation of the peasants must be considered. They had either seized upon, or purchased, at a low rate, the lands of the emigrants, and the national domains; these they had brought into the best state of cultivation; without the interference of any one, they directly drew the profits. The oppression in agriculture, which existed before the revolution, whether from the authority of the Seigneurs, from the corvees, from tythes, game laws, &c. all are done away—become rich and flourishing, they are able to pay the taxes, which, under Napoleon, were not so severe as is generally supposed.—But they had every thing to fear from the return of the noblesse, and from the re-establishment of the ranks and order which must exist under the new constitution of France. Can it then be considered that the peasantry should see their own interest in maintaining the revolutionary order of things? The more unjust their tenure, the more cause have they to fear; and unenlightened as many of them are, their fears once raised, will not easily be controlled. Napoleon had most politically excited alarm among them, and they are favourably inclined towards him. This powerful body have no leaders to direct them: The respectable and wealthy farmer, possessing great landed property; the yeoman, the country gentleman,—all these ranks are abolished. Where the views of the Sovereign are inimical to the peasantry, as was imagined under Louis XVIII. that body will powerfully resist him; where they were in concert, as under Napoleon, that body became his chief support next to his military force.
It is not enough that Louis XVIII. had never invaded their property—it is not enough that in different shapes he issued proclamations, and assurances, that he had no such intentions,—the peasantry felt insecure; and they dreaded the influence of his counsellors, and of the noblesse. The low rabble of France, at all times restless, and desirous of change, were favourable to Napoleon;—they wished for a continuance of that thoughtless dissipation, and dreadful immorality, which he encouraged; they wished for employment in his public works,—they looked for situations in his army.
It may then be said, that among all ranks Napoleon had friends. Who then were against him? All those who wished for peace: all those who desired the re-establishment of the church: all those who had the cause of morality and virtue at heart—all the good,—but, alas! in France, they were few in number.
I have only enumerated the great and leading parties in the community. It was my intention to have touched on the sentiments of the different professions, but I have been already too tedious; I shall here only enumerate a few of the classes, who, as they are thrown out of bread by the return of the Bourbons, and the new system of government, will be ever busily employed in favouring a despotic and military government, a continuance of war, and of a conscription.
1st, All the prefects, collectors of taxes, and their agents, who were employed in the countries subjected to Napoleon.
2d, The many officers, and under agents, employed in the conscription, and in collecting the droits reunis.
3d, The police emissaries of all ranks, forming that enormous mass who conducted the grand machine of espionage, directed the public spirit, and supplied information to the late Emperor.
4th, All the rich and wealthy army contractors, furnishers, &c. &c.
Having attempted to shew that the situation of the people in France was highly favourable to the views of the usurper, let me now observe, that there are other circumstances which greatly aided his cause.
1st, The vanity of the nation was hurt: they had not forgotten their defeat by the allies, and the proceedings of Congress, in confining within narrow bounds, that nation, who, but a year ago, gave laws to the continent, had tended to aggravate their feelings. It is difficult for any nation to shrink at once into insignificance, from the possession of unlimited power; it is impossible for France to maintain an inglorious peace.
2d, The spirit of the nation had become completely military. One year of peace cannot be supposed to have done away the effects of twelve years of victory.
3d, The general laxity of morals, and the habits of dissipation and idleness, which have followed from the revolution, and have been taught by the military, and especially by the disbanded soldiers, were favourable to him.
4th, He came at the very time when his prisoners had returned from all quarters of the globe; he came again to unite them under the revered eagle, emblem of rapine and plunder, which they everywhere looked up to; in short, if it had been suggested to any one, possessing a thorough knowledge of the situation of France, to say at what time Napoleon was most likely to succeed, he must have pitched on the moment selected by him. There are indeed many circumstances which induce me to suppose, that the plan for his restoration had been partly formed before he left Fontainbleau; for it is well known, that he long hesitated—that he often thought of making use of his remaining force, (a force of about thirty thousand men), and fighting his way to Italy; that his Marshals only prevailed on him, and that he yielded to their advice, when he might have thought and acted for himself. The conduct of Ney favours the supposition: he selected for him the spot, of all others, the most favourable for his views, should they be directed to Italy; he stipulated for his rank, for a guard of veterans; he is described as using a boldness and insolence of speech to Napoleon, which he would not have dared to use, had there not been an understanding between them. He covered his treachery by a garb of the same nature, when in presence of his lawful Sovereign: open in his abuse of the usurper, while laying plans to join him.
There is a very peculiar circumstance in Bonaparte's character, which is, that at times, he makes the most unguarded speeches, forgetful of his own interest. Thus, when the national guard of Lyons begged permission to accompany him on his march, he said to them, "You have suffered the brother of your King to leave you unattended—go—you are unworthy to follow me." Thus, when at Frejus, he said to the Mayor,—"I am sorry that Frejus is in Provence; I hate Provence, but I have always wished your town well; and, ere long, I will be among you again." This speech, which I had from the Prefect of Aix, who was intimately attached to Napoleon and his interests, I know to be authentic. In it, even the place of his landing seemed to be determined. One thing is certain, that the plan, if not commenced before his abdication, was, at all events, begun immediately after; for a long time must have been necessary to arrange matters in such a manner that he should not find the slightest opposition in his march to Paris.
I have thus attempted to give my readers some account of the state of France under Napoleon. From this account, hastily written, they will draw their own conclusions. Mine, attached as I am to one party; knowing little of politics, only interested as a Briton in the fate of my country, are these:—That France decidedly wishes to live by war and plunder—that France deserves no such government as that of the virtuous Louis—that, till the soldiery are disbanded, and their leaders punished, France can never be governed by the Bourbons:—that the majority in the nation do not wish for Napoleon in particular, but for a revolutionary government, and that we have no right of interference with their choice: but that the propriety of our immediately engaging in war could not be doubted, for our very existence as a nation depended on such conduct—that we had the same right to attack Bonaparte, as we had to attack a common robber, more particularly, if this robber had repeatedly planned and devised the destruction of our property.
They will draw the happiest conclusions in favour of our own blessed country, from a comparison with France—looking on that unhappy nation, they will exclaim with me, in the beautiful words of La Harpe: [45]"J'excuse et n'envie point ceux qui peuvent vivre comme s'ils n'avoient ni souffert ni vu souffrir; mais qu'ils me pardonnent de ne pouvoir les imiter. Ces jours d'une degradation entière et innouie de la nature humaine sont sous mes yeux, pesent sur mon ame et retombent sans cesse sous ma plume, destinée à les retraçer jusqu'à mon dernier moment."[46]
Dieses Kapitel ist Teil des Buches TRAVELS IN FRANCE, DURING THE YEARS 1814-15.