This etext was produced by David Widger
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, at the end of several of thefiles for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before makingan entire meal of them. D.W.]
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps
Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
1891
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER VII. to CHAPTER X. 1815
—[By the Editor of the 1836 edition]—
1815.
Napoleon at Paris—Political manoeuvres—The meeting of the Champ- de-Mai—Napoleon, the Liberals, and the moderate Constitutionalists —His love of arbitrary power as strong as ever—Paris during the Cent Jours—Preparations for his last campaign—The Emperor leaves Paris to join the army—State of Brussels—Proclamation of Napoleon to the Belgians—Effective strength of the French and Allied armies —The Emperor's proclamation to the French army.
Napoleon was scarcely reseated on his throne when he found he could notresume that absolute power he had possessed before his abdication atFontainebleau. He was obliged to submit to the curb of a representativegovernment, but we may well believe that he only yielded, with a mentalreservation that as soon as victory should return to his standards andhis army be reorganised he would send the representatives of the peopleback to their departments, and make himself as absolute as he had everbeen. His temporary submission was indeed obligatory.
The Republicans and Constitutionalists who had assisted, or not opposedhis return, with Carnot, Fouche, Benjamin Constant, and his own brotherLucien (a lover of constitutional liberty) at their head, would supporthim only on condition of his reigning as a constitutional sovereign; hetherefore proclaimed a constitution under the title of "Acte additionnelaux Constitutions de l'Empire," which greatly resembled the chartergranted by Louis XVIII. the year before. An hereditary Chamber of Peerswas to be appointed by the Emperor, a Chamber of Representatives chosenby the Electoral Colleges, to be renewed every five years, by which alltaxes were to be voted, ministers were to be responsible, judgesirremovable, the right of petition was acknowledged, and property wasdeclared inviolable. Lastly, the French nation was made to declare thatthey would never recall the Bourbons.
Even before reaching Paris, and while resting on his journey from Elba atLyons, the second city in France, and the ancient capital of the Franks,Napoleon arranged his ministry, and issued sundry decrees, which show howlittle his mind was prepared for proceeding according to the majority ofvotes in representative assemblies.
Cambaceres was named Minister of Justice, Fouche Minister of Police (aboon to the Revolutionists), Davoust appointed Minister of War. Decreesupon decrees were issued with a rapidity which showed how laboriouslyBonaparte had employed those studious hours at Elba which he was supposedto have dedicated to the composition of his Memoirs. They were couchedin the name of "Napoleon, by the grace of God, Emperor of France," andwere dated on the 13th of March, although not promulgated until the 21stof that month. The first of these decrees abrogated all changes in thecourts of justice and tribunals which had taken place during the absenceof Napoleon. The second banished anew all