The National Register.
London, England, 1815-04-23 00:00:00

SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 1815.

No. 382.

VON' APARTE'S POLITICAL CONVERSION.

Th , volution which has replaced Napoleon on the
itspcill' throne, sudden and unexpected as it was, has
pc. rhP:)- excited less astonishment than that which appears
to have taken Place in his cou-cils. The man; whose will
vas his law ; wli"m not only France, but the nations and
monarchs of the Continent for many years-implicitly i
°herd, and in whom the long use of arbitrary power
must have become a natural habit, has no sooner passed
from exi'e to his crown, than he drops the despot's tone,
and ac-•trees that of .a patriot and a friend to liberty. His
Ministers are chos 'n among the men whom he had hitherto I
disgraced re, accou'it of their republican principles. The
people, he now proclaims, is not made to support the throne,
but the throne erected to concentrate the energies of the
peeple. and direcrithern into the channel of public pros-
perity. He recoqniSes n'ts.nther legitimate power -than
tort conferred by tied' fo-e.the nation. The Constitution
which he boasted in other times he had given Franeei.is
now found wanting in liberality and freedom,. and another
is to be formed by. the conntrY itself, to maintain which her
will pledge his-political existence and all his rights to the'.
Throne. The suddenness of this revolution in his natures
might well create some doubts of his sincerity. It seldom.
happens that the hearts of men expel at once their deep•
rooted passions to adopt others of an opposite tendencT4
The hand accustomed to wave the sword of War and con.°
quest, wants skill to weave the wreaths of peace If Na.:
poleon is believed in France, therefore, it is not on account,
of his professions, but of the situation in which he is placed,- ,
which compels him to realize them. He has been recalled
by the Army and the Republicans : the former is not suf-
ficient for his support ; its enthusiasm may be great in his
nese, but its numbers are not equal to thosewhich Europe
threatens to send forth against him, and as he is deprived of
the means of augmenting them by conscripts, all the devotion
of the army alone could not support him against foreign
hostility and internal disaffection, were he .to resume the
exercise of arbitrary power to its former exfent. He must I
therefore court additional support, and finds it in the Repub-
limns. who still can rouse and Wield; all the energies of the
Pc.)lo, hut who will only arm them in his defence, on
findlN him ready td adopt their views, to restore the
sovereignty to the nation, and under the title of Emperor,
to becomesnerely the head of the executive authority. To
these conditions he has subscribed with apparent willing-
/less : and the important documents which follow, and
which this week has produced to the world, wilt all be
found to breathe that ;spirit. ofpolitical
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which circumstances may have - forced upon him, but
which the measures adopted by his liresent cur/in-Wm will
not allow to evaporate in vain professions. The on-inner in
which they recruit his force to meet the attack of Europe,
should the lowering storm at last burst into open...war,
shows, that whilst they are willing to arm him against
the Allies, they yield him no weapon agai st themselvev.
Instead of reviving the Conscription to till up anti focd
the waste of the regular army, and swell it to an unli-
mited amount, thus giving him the means of re-establish-
ing aespotism, they only allow the disbanded soldiers
and returned prisoners to be called. As this force would
not be sufficient, they have recourse to another, but of a
temporary duration and of a nature which is not dt tho
disposal of the throne, but of the people. th Natiorial
Guards. Even should two millions of these be raised
as they propose, 'at the end of the war they must be
disbanded.) and Napateon must remain with no othti
standing force, than an army considerably reduced l±v
the events of its campaigns, without any certain mode of
replenishing its ranks, and therefore unable to support
him in an attempt to regain absolute power in Franco, or
once more to undertake the conqUest of the world.

FOREIGN DITELLIGENCE.
FRENCH PAPERS.

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AYSWEIt OF raiwca GOTEAno.--
'SION OF THE ALLIES. *

TO THZ DSCLA..

Report of the Committee of Presidents of the Council of State.
In consequence of the remit which lots been made to it. the Com-
mittee, composed of Presidents of Sections of the Conveil
has extunined the Declaration of the 13th of iamb. the report of
the Minister-of General Police, and the 4penments thereto sub-
joins& The Declaration is in a forM so dmisnal, coneeived in'
terms so strange, expresses ideas so antiffureial, -*bat the COM:dit-
, tee was ready to consider it as one of those forgeries by Which des-
picable men leek to mislead the people. and produce :a einniee in
pablic opinion. But the verifications of 1.-gill minutes &nun ups t
Metz, and orthe examinations of eentiers, has left no ground for daub t
that the transmission of this dechiation was made by the Memberi
°Utile 'French Legation at Vjeasta, and it nnist, therefore. b.' re-
garded at adopted and signed by them. It.was in this first point of
view that the Committee thought it their ditty to examine, in the
first instance, this prottnetibn, which is without precedent in the
annals of diplomacy, and in which Frenchmen, men invested with
a public character the most respectable, begin by a sort of placinj
withont the law, or, to speak more precisely, by an ineitrniciit to
the assassination of the Emperor Napoleon. We say with the Mi-
nister of Police that this Declaration is the work of the Frei:ell
Plenipotentiaries ; becanse those of Austria, Russia, Prussia) and
' England, conlA not have signi-d a deed which the S'. ereizos
an
the nations to which they below,- will _tasty,' to disavow. For u
the first place these Plenipotentia iv., most of *hum co opt-rat,-,1
in the Treaty of Paris, know tfkat gapoleun was there tecogfii • I
etaktfing the title of Emptier', and as SJveiCigr3 of the Isle of

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Elba f•••they would have designated him by these Giles, nor would
have departed, either in sobstance or form, from the respectful.
notice which they impose. They would have felt that,' seeording•
to the law of nations, the Pi Mee least pawerfnl from the extent
or population of his States, enjoys. in regard to his political and
and civil character, the rights helatieiegto every Sovereign. Prince
equally with the most powerful Monarch ; and Napoleon, recog-
nised under the title of Empeior, and as a Sovereign Prince by all
the Powers was no mort than any one triable by the Congress of
Vienna. An oblivion of those principles, which it it impossible to
ascribe to Plettipurentiaties who weigh the rights of nations with.
deliberation and prudence, has in it notlinig astonishing when it is
displayed by sonic French Ministers, whose consciences reproach
them with more than one act of treason, in whom fear has pro-
duced rage, and wham remorse deptives of reason. Such persons
might have riskei the fshrication, the publication of a document
like the pretended Orel:nation of the 1311$ of March, in the hope of
stopping the progress of Napoleon, and misleading the. French
people as to the true principles of &reign powers. But such men
are not qualified, like the latter, to judge of the merit of a nation
which they have misconceived, betrayed, delivered up the arms of
Foreigners. That nation, brave and generous, revolts against every
thing bearing the character of .baseness and oppression ; its affec-
tions became enthusiastic when their object .is threatened or at-
taitked by a great injustice ; and the assassination to which the de-
claration'of the 13tii of March excites, will find anoint for its exe-
cution neither among the the twenty-five millions of Frenchmen,
the majority of whom folloWed, guarded, protected Napoleon from
the Mediterranean to the capital, nor among the eighteen millions
of Italians, the six, millions of Belgians and Rhenish, nor the nume-
rous nations of Germany, who, •at this-solemn crisis. have 'sot pros
nonneed his name but with respectful recollections ; nor antidat the
iridignant EtivJish nation, whose hononeableCentiments disavow* the
language which has been audaciously put into the months of Save--
reigns. The nations of Europe are enlightened vilify judge the.
rights of Napoleon, the rights of the Allied Princes, and those of
the RAtrhoos. They know that the convention of Fontainbleati
Was a Treaty among titc..Sovereigos ; its violation', the entrance of
Napoleon on the French territory, like every infraction of &diplo-
matic act, like every hostile itivision, coild . only lead tri"..an ordi-
nary war, the result of which can only be,. in reepect,of persons,
that of being conqueror or -conquered,, free,. or a prisqner,of war;,
in respect-Of possessions, that of their bring either preserveri or lost,
increased or diminished; and that of every thotight, every threat,
every attempt against the life of a Prince-pt war with another, is a
thing unheard of in rite history of nations and the cabinets of Europe.
In the violence, the rage, the oblivion of principles whirl, charac-
terise the Declaration of the 13111 of March, we recognise the en-
voys of the same Prince, the inami.of tine same Councils, which.
by the ordinance of the 9th of March, sits places, Napoleoir viltft,',
out the law, also incited agitaist has .the popisitdilif assassins, and 'I
promised a reward to the rger aids head. What, however, did
Napoleon do ? He did hokabo:474o,ldis Militiessce to the Meat 4:fall
nations, insulted by the info ;wpm to whirls it was *aka to
invite them: he chewed It . •
,ate. geosrons, the protector
even of those wigs baiLdev - Ma to death, When be spoke to
General Excelmans,.siOreleitint toitards the catmint which dwelt',
followed LUIIif Staltijillfir Xavier.;- to Count irtelent whit had to I
receive him at Lille :to GeneralQ.' mot, ert,o.stivis to Bordeipm,
where was the p s .d'Apgoetteme; to gawp* Grouchy,dio;
patched to pact - lid tb tife civil diaseusiona pica IV by the Doke.,
pedoeis
d'Angouleme,—ivery where(.-.in :abort, orders were given by .the
Emperor thatpersoft should Protected and ihelteied front everyattack,
attack, every danger, every.violenee, Waft on the "Preiteh ern
tory, and whop they quitted it Nations and posterity wilt -jadite
on which side, at this great c tome,: has, been respect tar the:
right' of tile t eople and of:severt Or the loto ofiporOlte ,
eiples of eicilleitioni'ffie maxitits of p., *civil spit rejigio,. ~:r4..
oii,
...decide betoken -Napoleonind the Hattie Of BotikbOb.• '.,„ .
If, after having examined the peeteisded tfeeldration cif the Chn- ,
gress under this first view, it is discomed !in Its Ptliiiiollloo. diiiio
stogie conventions. sad to the, Treaty of :Fottainblean, of the 3 ttta:
of April, 1814, ratified by the FreneltGoverinnent, it will be found
that its violation is onlyy, iinpotable to the very persona who repeogh I
Napoleon therewith. The treaty ofFontalidoleau has been violated. .i
by the Allied Vowers, and the Haase it ;Bourbon, in what regards
the Emperor Napoleon, and his family, in what regards the interests
Mad the rights of the French nation
-Frrig_The Empress Maria-Louisa and her son ought to have oh-.
tained passports, mid as escort to repair to the itteroe; and far
from exec . = alga ,t they separated vi violently the mite
fro= At- the father, and that during ditties- ,
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