.....

of the house of Bourbon. In case of defeat, nothing but the most hasty flight could snatch me from death. .. Happy if this work has done any good: if it has conduced to pull off the mask of so loathsome a tyranny."

That his loyal and patriotic wishes were accomplished, and that his eloquent address had effect in quickening the pulse of public opinion, when it again began to beat healthfully in Paris, we have every reason to believe. But though the main question of his work has been for some time satisfactorily, and, we trust, irrevocably solved, there is much matter of importance both in principle and practice, suggested for the thoughts of every European, and especially of every Englishman, during the perusal

of it.

Merely as an historical document it would be of great value, in that it points out those particulars in the system of Napoleon, which were felt as the worst grievances by the French, thereby throwing strong light on the character both of governors and governed. We are aware that such a statement must take and colour its subjects after the peculiar feelings and opinions of the individual still, making all allowances for this (and M. de Chateaubriand's enthusiasm is so strongly marked, that we quickly see where and how far such allowances are to be made) advice so given and received must have been grounded on premises before familiar to the hearts and minds of his audience. Taking for granted, therefore, what he states as notorious matter of fact,' and supposing the spirit of his pamphlet to be a favourable specimen of the general spirit of France, we will endeavour to raise on them a few reflections, tending to answer two important questions: the one, thank God, now merely speculative; the other, vital and practical: the one referring to our possible duty, if the reign of Buonaparte, by the connivance of man and the anger of Providence, had been further prolonged; the other to our actual and immediate duty towards France and ourselves, in the present state of our relations with her. In thus dividing our thoughts, we shall nearly run parallel with the train of M. de C.'s reasoning; for to answer the first of these questions is his avowed object, and there is throughout a constant effort, perhaps involuntary, but sufficiently discernible, to make good a proposition, which would go near to answer the second. By implication or、 allusion, if not by direct argument, we find in almost every page something meant to shew, that his country is innocent of the crimes of her late ruler. We heartily wish it could be proved, for then our duty towards her would be as manifest as delightful; to forget our old rivalry, and to draw ourselves nearer and nearer to console and befriend her. But we shall presently offer some considerations

considerations which would induce us to doubt this, and wait before we throw off all our armour, lest our newly reconciled an tagonist prove unworthy of our embrace.

In both these enquiries it is of the utmost consequence to remember, that the war which we have just terminated, and in conformity to which we ought now to make and secure peace, was from the beginning a war of no common sort. It was not a wrestling for territory, nor a scramble for wealth, nor a race for honour; but it was a desperate and all-involving struggle for that, without which power, wealth, and honour, are without value, for the right of nations to be independent, and of subjects to be loyal for external freedom, and internal order and civilization. Its circumstances were as extraordinary as its object: it was a conflict less of fleets and armies, than of doctrines and feelings, passions and principles, waged not between rival na, tions, but between the good and the bad, the wise and the fran tic, in every nation, city, and family.

Now, we have this alternative: either this war must have essentially changed its object and circumstances at some period of its duration; or our national resources must have been so ex. hausted, that it was physically impossible for us to continue it; or we ought not to have concluded any peace which did not rest on the complete and decisive triumph of the principles for which we fought, and the express renunciation of their opposites by our enemies.

In order to find out whether the objects of the war had changed between 1793 and 1814, let us examine, first, the doctrine and practice of the anarchists, and of Buonaparte, with respect to national independence.

On the 28th of March, 1796, the Executive Directory, in their zeal for liberty and equality, made the following moderate avowal of their claims on other states. "The constitutional act does not permit us to consent to any alienation of that which according to the existing laws constitutes the territory of the republic." At that time, the Netherlands, Savoy, and Avignon, were the comparatively narrow limits of French usurpation. But it was the principle, not the immediate extent of the demand, which made negociation impossible. "While these dispositions," said the English ministry," shall be persisted in, nothing is left for the King, but to prosecute a war equally just and ne

cessary

* "?

Compare this with the language of Buonaparte on his return from Russia, when the miscalled French empire, though begin

* First Letter on a Regicide Peace. Burke's Works, viii. 120,

ning to totter, had yet one foot on the Baltic, another beyond the Adriatic. Did he appeal to the law of nations, to the interest of France, or of the ceded countries themselves, pretences by which heretofore the most abandoned and shameless conquerors have been wont to cloke their obstinacy in ill? No: we have another reference to imaginary laws, to mockeries of principle, to the fundamental rules, as they were termed, of the empire in other words, to his own wicked will. "Though the enemy," said he to his Senate," were on the heights of Montmartre, I would not yield a single integral part of the French empire." This is not resemblance: it is absolute identity with the regicide politics. There is no need to quote more instances: the whole world knows to its cost what was the law of negociation, peace and war to the cabinet of St. Cloud. There the worst venom of all the vipers of the Revolution was condensed and sublimated. If Carnot made mock of the majesty of kings, and insulted their ambassadors, Buonaparte did the same and worse: for by gross personal outrage he broke the heart of a queen; a heart as truly royal, and as truly feminine, as her's whom the jacobins martyred. If Brissot and Condorcet defied their God, Buonaparte blasphemed Lim by thanksgivings for infamy and crime; by joining his name with his own in catechisins to teach slavery, and proclamations to enforce usurpation. If Robespierre slew his thousands in his frenzy, Buonaparte has slain his ten thousands upon cool calcu. lation. Spurning alike all boundaries, moral and geographical, they differed only in this-the limitary law of the jacobins was the will of the mob, that of Buonaparte his own will. Under this impression, we refer our readers to the triumphant arguments of the great watchman of Europe against a regicide peace, for a full conviction of the impolicy and injustice of treating with

tyranny.

While we are on this subject, we feel it impossible not to remark how strongly the late events have confirmed the almost prophetic opinions of that great statesman. In proportion as we have waged war according to his maxims, as we have relied on moral rather than physical strength, as we have chosen to give others protection instead of purchasing it for ourselves, and have ceased to direct our efforts towards what are called exclusively British interests, the tide of success and glory has set strong towards us, and those meaner goods, for which we refused to alter our course, have been borne along with it.

We have in the next place to consider whether there was any thing in the domestic administration of Buonaparte, which would have made it, under all circumstances, dishonourable and unsafe for England to be at peace with him. This is a question which cannot rightly be answered without a reference to the ground

work

work of all political duty, and to the broadest axioms of the law of nations. That law and that duty rest, we conceive, substantially on the same foundation with the principles of morals in private life. It matters not whether this common base be called, as it is in itself, the standard of general utility, or, as it is to us, the will of God. It is enough to our purpose, if it be granted that it differs not in kind according as it is applied to individuals and families, or to nations. We will allow that the mode of its application to the latter is less definite, on account of the abstract and somewhat imaginary nature of those bodies: still, since the national union does not destroy or alter the nature of its elements, and since the functions of states must be discharged through the instrumentality of individuals, there cannot, generally speaking, be a fairer standard of their duties than the analogous and better known, because revealed, duties of those individuals to each other.

Now let this reasoning be applied to the present case. What is a man bound to do, if he see his neighbour's child, or servant, suffering under brutal and degrading oppression: oppression enforced by fear and violence, by scourgings and threatenings, by starvation and imprisonment: if he see them wantonly and insultingly deprived of air, and light, and liberty, and made to live a life ten times worse than death, in pain and loathsomeness, in watching and fasting, in cold and nakedness? Is it in our duty, is it in our nature, to sit at ease, and listen to the cries of those helpless and injured beings, because we happen to live on the other side of a partition wall, or because we have not, by indenture or statute, a right of controul over them? This is not an ornamental illustration. It is a case bearing a strict analogy to our situation with regard to the late French empire; only that the mischief which we were called on to redress was infinitely greater than what we have here imagined, in proportion as the moral debasement, which was the necessary and intended produce of that infernal system, exceeds in evil all possible physical wretchedness. We will take but two instances, and those M. de Chateaubriand shall choose for us. The first relates to the annihilation of domestic affection, and all the kindly charities of social life, by the law of conscription. Like those who sprang ready armed from the seed of dragon's teeth, the nurslings of regicide ambition own no father or mother.

"By breaking to pieces the ties of general society, the conscription also annihilated those of domestic life. Accustomed from their cradles to regard themselves as victims devoted to death, children no longer obeyed their parents: they become idle, vagabonds, and debauchees, in expectation of the day when they were to march to pillage and slaughter the world. What principle of

religion

religion or morals had time to take root in their hearts? Fathers and mothers, on the other hand, among the lower orders, no longer attached their affections, no longer betowed their cares on children whom they must prepare to lose, who no longer formed their wealth and their staff of support, and who had become for them only a grief and a burthen. Hence that hardness of heart, that oblivion of every sentiment of nature, which leads to selfishness, to wrecklessness of good or evil, to indifference for country; which obliterate conscience and remorse, and devote a people to servi tude by equally stripping it of the horror of vice, and the admiration of virtue." P. 28.

Of the horrors of the conscription itself, the animated pen of our author will present an Englishman with the most faithful description.

"But the conscription was, as it were, the crowning of these works of despotism. Scandinavia itself, styled by an historian the workshop of the human race, would have been unable to furnish men for this homicidal law. The code of the conscription will remain an eternal monument of the reign of Buonaparte: there may be found collected all that the most subtle and ingenious tyranny can devise to torment and devour the people: it is truly the code of hell. The generations of France were placed in regular rows for the axe, like the trees of a forest; every year 80,000 young men were cut down. But this was only the regular average of deaths; the conscription was often doubled or reinforced by extraordinary levies; often it devoured before-hand its destined victims, like a dissipated heir who borrows on his future income. At last they were taken even without estimate; the legal age, the qualities requisite for dying on a field of battle, were no longer regard. ed, and the law displayed, in this respect, a marvellous facility: it went back to infancy, it descended to oid age; the discharged soldier, the man who had a substitute, were equally taken; the son of a poor artisan, perhaps, ransomed thrice, even at the expence of his father's little property, was compelled to march: maladies, infirmities, bolily defects, were no longer a protection." P. 24.

"Such a contempt was entertained for the life of man and for France, that it was even customary to call conscripts the raw material, and food for cannon. The following great question was discussed the among purveyors of human flesh, namely, to ascertain the given average time that a conscript might last; some alledged that he lasted thirty-three months, others thirty-six months.Buonaparte was wont to say himself, I have 300,000 men in reserve. In the eleven years of his reign he caused more than five millions of Frenchmen to perish, which exceeds the number of those whom our civil wars swept away during three centuries, under the reigns of John, Charles V. Charles VI. Charles VII. Henry II. Francis II.

Charles