The National Register. — London, England, 1815-06-04 00:00:00

JUNE 4. ton in which he was at the period of his entering France; but These e vints, brought on by criminal collusion, by military conspiracies, b y revolting treasons, can create no right; they are absolutely null in a legal point Of view ; and in order to the position of Bonaparte b e i h a esyenti ,Ilv and legitimately altered, it would he necessary that the •trP• s hick he has taken to establish himself on the mina of the government overturned by 'dm, should have been con frilled by some legal title. Bonaparte lays it down in his pnbliea tions, that the wishes of the French nation in favour of his re. es t a blishment oil the throne suffice to constitute this legal title. T he que stion for the powers to examine may be stated as follows: Cm the consent, teal or fictitious, explicit or tacit, of the Freneh ration t • the re-establishment of Bonaparte's power, operate a legal change in the position of the latter in regard to foreign powers, an d farm a title obligatory on these powers?--The Committee are of opinion that such cannot by any means be the et et of such consent ; and the following are their reasons :--The Powers know too well the prioeiples whicb ought to guide them in their re'ations with an independent country, to attempt las it is endeavoured to accu se them) ,4 to impose upon it laws, to interfere in its internal a ffair., to prescribe to it a form of government, to give it masters according to the interests or passions of ifs neighbours (.2). Bot they al.o know that the liberty of a nation to change its %VStl'ill of , •OVPI 1111 - 11 t must have its just ltutits, awl that it foreign Powers have not the right to prescribe to it the exercise which it shall make of that liberty, they have at least indubitably the right of protesting azainst the ;those which it may make of it at their expense. Ira. pressed with this principle, the Powers do not deem themselves authorised to impose a government on France; but they will never renounce the tight of preventing the establishment France of a focus of disorders and of subversions to other states, tinder the title of a Goveri.ment. They will respect the liberty of France in every way in which it shall not be ineompatilde with their own security and tie general tranquillity of Europe. In the existing case, the right of the Allied Sovereigns to interfere in the question of the wit government of France, is the more ineontestiblc, inasmuch a• 'he abolition of the power which now claims to he re• cstablidied there, was the furdamental condition of a treaty of peace, on which rested all the relations which, up to the return of fluonaparte to Paris. subsisted between France and the re•t of Europe. On the day of their entrance into Paris, the Sovereigns declared that they would never treat of peace with litionaparteN. This declaration, loudly applauded by France and by Europe, produced the abdication .4 . Napoleon and the CCIIVCIItion of the llth of April ; it formed the principal basis of the negociatioo ; it was explicitly pronounced in tl,e preamble of the treaty of Paris. The French nation, even supposing it perfectly free and united, cannot withdraw itself from this fundamental coudition withont abrogating the treaty of Paris and all its existing relations with the European system. The allied Powers. on the other hand, by insist ing on this very condition, only exercise a right which it is impos sible to contest to them, unless it be maintained that the most sacred compacts can be perverted as suits the convenience of either of the contracting parties. It hence follows, that the will of the people of France is by no means sufficient to re-establish, in a legal sense, a Govermnent proselibed by solemn engagements, which that very people entered into with all the Powers of Europe ; and that they cahoot, under any pretext, give validity as against these Powers to the right of recalling to the throne, him, whose exclusion was a con dition preliminary to every pacific arrangement with France : the wish of the French people, even if it were fully ascertained, world not be the ices null and of no effect in regard to Europe to wards re-establishing a power, against which all Europe has been in a state of permanent protest from the nlst of March, 1811, up to the 13th of March, 1s15; and in this view, the position of linonaparte is precisely at this day what it was at these last nsentiohed periods. seenNn QUFSTION. Should the offer to sanction the Treat+, of Paris change the dispositions if the Potcors7 France has had no reason to complain of the Treaty of Paris. This Treaty reconciled France with Enrope ; it satisfied al! her trite interests, %pron.(' all her real advantages, all the elements of prosperity and gl,try, ‘‘liich a people called to one of the first pl.ices 3 , 11 the Enropean system could reasonably desire. and only took . from her that w hi c h was to her, tinder the deceitflil exterior of great national eclat. an inexhaustible source of sufferings, of loin, (2) It i.i thus that lionawirte's Council of State exprev4 therocielves in their Report on the intentions of the Powers. See Noniteto of the latti of April. (3) Declaration ()film Sift of March. 181 THE NATIONAL REGISTER. `5 am! of misery. This Treaty was even au immense It for a roosis try, reduced by the madness of its chief to the most disastrous situ ation(4). The Allied Powers would have betrayed Muir jokiest* rind their ditties, if, as the price ago notch moderation and gear. rosily, they had not, on signing the treaty, obtained some so:ii advantage ; but the sole object of their ambition yea,* the peace of . Europe and the happiness of Frauce. Never. iii treatiog with 800. naparte, would they have consented to the coedit ions granted to a government, which, " while offering to Europe a Wedue of security and stability., relieved them from iequiring from France the gnarantees which they lout demanded under its former govei inem."(s) This clause is inseparable I . rion the treaty of Paris; . abolish it, is to break this treaty. Tile formal /consent of the , French nation to the return of Lonaitarte to the throne would he equivalent to a declaration of war ;realm' Europe: f,ir the state of peace did not exist between Europe and France, except by tl e treaty of Paris, and the treaty of Paris is incompatible with the power of Bonaparte. It this reasontog had need of further sup port, it might be bl on d in the very otler Ilemaparte to ratify the treaty of Paris. This treaty livid Lieu seinpidosisly observed and executed : the tram:m.lloos of the (:oogiess.' of Vienna were only , its snoplements and developments; aiiti without the new tatempt of Itimaparte, it would have been ti,r a long sr tics of ) . ears one of the of the public 1011 of rotor : het thfs order of thing has then place to a new revolution; and the agents of this revn!o. alhough they proclaim incc santiv'' that (6) oothino has been • changed." conceive and feel themselves that all is chanced arouna them. The question is no longer the maintenance of the treaty of Paris, but the snaking qf it afresh. '1 lie Poln ers find themselves with respect to France, iii the condition in which they were on the :11st of March, 1314. It is not to prevent war, for France has io • fact rekindled it, it is to terminate it that there now offers itself to Europe a state of things essentially different from that en w Licit the peace of 1814 was founded. The question ; then, has ceased to be a question of right : it is no noire than a question of calculation and foresight, in which the powers have only to console the real interests of their people and the common ioterest of ' rope. The Committee thinks it may dispense with emitting Isere into an t xposition of the considerat . o.na which, under this last view, • have directed the measures of the governments. It will be sot- • lo a rat to recall to notice, that the man, who, in now offeriug to sanction the treaty of Pails, poem]. to substitute his guarantee for that of a Sovereign, whose loyalty was without stain, and be nevolence without measure, is the sitar who during 15 years ra vaged and laid waste the earth, to find means of satisfying La ambition, who sacrificed of victims, and the happioesn of an entire gem:ration, to a system of ci:nipiests, whom tutees, little worthy of the mune of peace, have only rendered more 01,1)1(.9..v:et and more odious; (7) who, after having by. mad eoterprizes tired fortune, armed all Europe against him, and exhausted all the rneanal of France, wa4- forced to abandon his projects, anti abdicated po..vi r to save some relics of existence ; who, at the moment when the nations of Europe were giving themselves up to the hope of durahle tranquillity, meditated new catastrophes, aed by it don tee perfidy, totwarcls the powers who had too geiverons:y spared !um, and towards a government which he could not attack withotit t're blackest treason, usurped a throne which he had renounced, an I - which he never occupied except tOr the misery of Fiance and the world. This man In.'s no other guarantee to propose to Europe than kis word. After the cruel experience of 15 years. who would. • (4) 'lite Entperor, convinced of tlie critical situation ii i lie hae placed France, mid of the impossibility of it hit/Nell; appeared to resign liiinvelf and consent to an ttilite and iniconil+- tional abdication.—Lotter otAlai Ney to lie•• (5) Preamble of lire Treaty of (ti) idea recur: perpetually is the t , :port of the Conneil et; State of Bonaparte, published in the lioiii‘ettr..lpril 13. 18;5. (7) The Committee here think it r;glit to ad.} toe Tithilr::tht 04- servaticm, that the greater part et' die iiivasinos, at d fin red of which Bonaparte formei suceessivelv what he e3Ped the Grua Empire. tout: place during those pertidio4t4 intervak of pe a ce, more destructive to Europe than even the war.' with which it w,ot tormented. It wag thus that he toi,k possession of Po.:(:mont, Parma. Goma, Lucca, or the State: of Rome , of . of eountrieg composino the SA ;vltlitary Division. It v.. a s thus period of peace (at least with all the couthient), that he sti tick the first blow against Poi to:4A and Spain, and he Ilioneht to have finished the conquest of tito‘e couw.rea by cinning. when the pattiotiqn a,td energy or the itrpple of the Pcininsr,ll drew him into a sitogstinatv whr, : , :the.i.cogusasretment of :.i! „IP • II