The National Register. — London, England, 1815-06-11 00:00:00

Sri F NATIONAL RIMISITR. NNE 11. ... _ ~ . • • 401 111,1-NIFII , SIU (LC a,2,..,0111.1V1531 of PARIS. [The following has teen commtlititated to nil as the production of thosenten, ahn, after hringing'npon their country ail the horrors o r th e )t volution and deluging the Continent with blood, now pretend to nave p •re rived the criminatity of their comillet ; 'and tel the sound principles. It has been ptilifiglied in France ti• prep,re the people to adopt a Reptibliemi form of (lovertiment and ali e it gives feigned praises to .LNI indent', it tells him p!aitily that he is only a tool hi their hands and Illaht obey their W. It 1 , a enrion% document for the freedom with %%filch it dii phys thalei the pretence of excusing all the wrongs committed bs tne De,pot in his days of power.] The cause now threatened, is that of all nations. Whil'st arming against us, they arm against themselves, and not only betray their present interests - whilst attack. ine ours, but as far as it is in their power, relinquish for ever their tights to .freedom and to peace. Vain is the attempt to conceal it—all Europe is ripe for revolutions, 'fat every moveme►►t, at every concussion which alarms tyranny, the same motives obtain the same results, who can aids a period to those revolutions ? War or Slavery, such is the horrible and necessary choice - to ♦which na tions doom themselves by supporting this conspiracy of King. Far from joining them against us, their true in terests require that they should contend with its against them. And undoubtedly they would follow this wise poli:•y, were they allowed to know it : but they are over ruled by a passion which blinds them to their own in tcwsts and 'lorries them on. To weaken this passion, and to restore to sound policy its legitimate influence, would be, infallibly, to detach the people from Kings, and to strike with impotence the coalition, of which the people alone form the strength. What is that passion which our wisdom should uproot ? It is our own off spring. We had 'conquered and secured our own free dom, when the excess of force which it had imparted to became useless at home, and easily overflowed abroad. Not satisfied with being free, we attempted to prove deliverers. In our vast projects we compassed the liberation of the world, till freedom had its fanaticism .and its tyranny. We wished to compel nations to receive liberty from us, and to owe us the most precious of earth ly blessings. Imprudent men, we did not feel that free. Clem cannot be imposed ; that she springs spontaneous •whca her ►our is come : that she is a good only when she is wanted : that she must be long called fur, and with difficulty obtained. Instead of Protectors, nations could therefore only consider us as tyrants. They rose in arms, and Europe dethroned France. In her own capital was the great na tion humbled. We had given, we now received laws. We had imposed Kings upon nations, and were forced to obey the Masters whom nations impos?d upon us. Their Nyas partly appeased by the state of .l'umil;ltion to which they- had reduced us. We had be come in their eyes an object of indifference. But our ellrace was of too shot a duration to compensate for their to►►g humiliation; By de,troyin their work s we have renewed all their grounds of hatred. By replacing at our head a ince whom they c; , arge with beiug-the authbr of all the miseries which they have endured, we have awakened the sense of fear. Mistrust for the future revives all the terrors of the past : vengeance demands its prey and rf•g;rets not 'o have devoured it. This sentiment of ;,atrtd is no longer excited, it is true, by despair, by the necessity of shaking off an odious y A.:. • and wiping away accumulated staius of dishenour. It is ICS, violent, because it has been stn.cessful. But nations, long the sport of our misguided valour, cannot see without terror a renovated union of courage with genius. They cannot suppose, that, when reca:Lng her Chief, France has not also resumed that thirst for war, that spirit of conquest by which she Was always possessed under him, and which he knew how to render so terrible. They forget that there is a course of events which neither men 'nor empires can resist : that experience is a powerful ii:- strnctor, and that the character of a people, like the life of man, has its different ages. Because France has long displayed a turbulent disposition, it is thought she is inca pable of rest. Because Napoleon has reigned over France when she was a conqueror, it is faneed that she must remain a conqueror as long as she bears his rule s as though the French nation bad not a character of her ' own before she selected a sovereign, and one single marl could have misled thirty milieus against their own will. o ; it is not the Prince who has made the nation ; it is the nation who made the Prince. lie did not give dip impulse, but received it. Napoleon would no have mad° war, had the French wished for peace. ile cou!d not, being a new man, have so far counteracted the publie opinion, 'a ithout %.hich he was nothing. Whatever may be the ascendency of a great man pvei a free nation, him can only assist, never constiain its will, and still less compel it to perform prodigies. We had taken him, we . had placed him at our head, on!y to give a chief to our will, a minister to our passion, and whether praise, worth or obnoxious to blame, his errors and his glory arc as much ours as his own. But as he became a warrior, a conqueror and a (lamina• for with the French, by the same reason, and the same necessity he will henceforward be, like them, moderate, tranquil, and a pacificator. As he adopted and served our passion for bar, he will adept, and as powerfully second our passion for peace. It we wish for it, he must and cannot refuse to wish it too. It is therefore in vaii that our enemies attempt to divide in order to weaken us. The cause of the Ernpe. ror is essentially that of France, and that of France es. seutially the cause of the Emperor. We have with him but one interest, one strength—one w ill. IA us therefore remove that unfounded prejudice which kings nourish in the minds of nations against us. Let us show that the turbulence with which we are charged, was only the effect of a momentary intoxication. We wish for race, let us show that we do it oincerely.