Virginia Argus. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1796-1816, 1815-06-10

p.
have been Informed Nos. Is and l4( that |
100 men and Il officer, French prisoners,
returning from Russia, have been stopped
by his orders near Eirlement. While /
reserve to myself the privilege of obtain
mo correct information OH this subject,
and CT demanding lii due season redress
Tor such a procedure, am led at present
to give an account of it TO your majesty,
considering the seriousness with which YOU
receive the report of it and the other Cir
cumstances which are taking place around
us. In every pant of Europe they are in
motion, they are arming, they arc march
ing, or ready to march.
And these grand ornaments, against
whom are they directed ? Sire. it is your
majesty whom they name, but it France is
which is threatened. The leact favorable
peace which the powers ever daredto offer
you, is that with which your majesty is
this day contented. What reasons can
they have, not to be willing to make It up
on the same terms, as they stipulated at
Chaumont, and which they signed at Pa
RS 1t is not then, against the Monarch.
It's against the French nation lit is against
the independence of the people. it is
against every thing which we hold most
dear, against every thing which we have
Iacquiredby twenty years of sunerings, and
OF glory against our liberties, against our
institutions, that hostile passions would
make the war. A part of the Bourbon ia
miiy, and those men who, for lonr time.
nave ceased to be Frcnchmen, seek, to stir
! up again the nations of Germany and the
North, IN the hope of re-entering second
time by force of arms upon a soil which
dsavows them, and will no more receive
, them.
The same appeal has resounded, for
moment, in some countries of the south !:
and it is from Spanish troops that they
demand again the Crown of France. Il IS
: family, again become solitary and de-
Iprived, which seeks to implore thus the
assistance OF foreigners. Where are the
pubic functionaries, the troops of the line,
tie national guards, the private citizens
VINO have accompanied their flight beyond
=, our frontiers? To wish again TO restore
the Bourbons, would be to declare war
AGAINST the whole population of France.
: when your majesty entered Paris, with
an escort of few men, when Bordeaux,
Toulouse and Marseilles, and the whole
OF the South, disengaged themselves in a
; day of the pledges which they had given
them, IS th,3 military movement which
+ operates these miracles or rather, is it
: not a national movement, common move
: ment of all French hearts. which con-
t POUNDS, IL a single sentiment, love of
country and love for the sovereign who
knows how to defend it ? 1t would then
be to restore to us a family which is not
OF your age, nor of our maners which has
not known how to appreciate our elevation
) OF sou, nor to comprehend the extent of
, our rights it would be to replace upon
our necss the triple yoke Of absolute mon
archy, OF fanaticism and of the feudal sys-
; TEN, that entire Europe would seem to give
itself up TO an immense rising! They
would say that France, confined within the
, ancient limits, when the boundaries of the
other powers are enlarged so prodigiously,
that Free France, rich only in great cha.
racter which her revolutions have left her.
, occupies still two large place in the map
of the world.
Yes, If, contrary to the dearest wishes
OF your majesty, the foreign powers give
the signal Tor new war, il IS France her
self, it is the whole nation which thev ,yisb
to attack, when they pretend only to at
"s0fN hSA ooNCIclSil--Nnel Jney Affect to
: separate the nation from the Emperor
} The contract of France with your majesty
2 is the most rigid that ever united ration
to It's prince. The people and the monarch
can only have the same friends and the
same enemies. 1t is the contest then A.
bout personal provOcations between sove
reign and sovereign Perhaps it is then
nothing but an ordinary duel. What did
Francis |. in his rage against Charles V. ?
| He sent him challenge. But to distin-
: gulsh the chief of nation from the nation
itself, to protest that they only want the
: person of the prince, and to cause an army
y OF million of men to march against him
alone, is to sport too much with the Gre
! dulity of mankind. The only true end
which the foreign powers can propose TO
themselves, in tie basis of the new coal-
ton, IS the eXhausting, the abasement of
France and to arrive at this end the sur
r est means to accomplish their wishes would
be to impose upon it government without
power and without energy This policy
ON their part is not political novelty.
The example has been furnished them by
2 other great masters
; Thus the Romans prescribed Mithri-
dates, the Nicomedes, and only covered