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
or the )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 alie 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 works 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 rules
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.