baron Pierre Alexandre Édouard Fleury de Chaboulon

“ Confiding in the promises of your Majesty, we resign to you, we resign to our representatives and to the chamber of peers, the care of revising, consolidating, and perfecting in concert, without precipitancy, without concussion, maturely, and with wisdom, our constitutional system, and the institutions that must guaranty it.
"And if, however, we be compelled to fight, let one sole voice resound from every heart. Let us march against the enemy, that would treat us as the lowest of nations. Let us all press around the throne, on which is seated the father and chief of the people and of the army. ”

“ I thank you for the sentiments you express towards me: I wish, that my abdication may procure the happiness of France; but I have no expectation of it; it leaves the state without a head, without political existence. The time wasted in overturning the monarchy might have been employed in putting France into a condition to crush the enemy. I recommend to the chamber, speedily to reinforce the armies: whoever is desirous of peace ought to prepare for war. Do not leave this great nation at the mercy of foreigners: be on your guard against being deceived by your hopes. There lies the danger. ”

“ A federal government may suit a country with a scanty population, like Switzerland; or a new nation, like America; but it would be a calamity to our old France: we are too volatile, too impassioned; we want a ruler, a master who knows how to make himself obeyed. Hark you, M. Werner, I must continue to speak to you frankly: the only chief, that suits us, is Napoleon: no longer Napoleon the ambitious and the conqueror, but Napoleon corrected by adversity. The desire of reigning will render him docile to the will of France, and of Europe. ”

“ We are strong only within the sphere of our duties: let us not step out of the constitution, let us not give the foreign powers a right to say to us, you are no longer any thing! They have declared, that Napoleon alone was the obstacle to a peace: let us put their good faith to the test. It is besides as advantageous, as it is just and politic, to acknowledge Napoleon II., and to govern in his name. Look at the soldiers, look at the people of Alsace, Franche Comté, Lorraine, Burgundy, and Champagne, for whom, and in whose name, have they lavished their generous blood? ”

“ You, sire, are the man of the nation, the defender of our country: from you we expect independence, and a sage liberty. You will secure to us these two precious possessions; you will render sacred for ever the rights of the people: you will reign according to the constitution and the laws. We come to offer you our arms, our courage, and our blood, for the safety of the capital. ”

“ Sire, nothing is impossible: nothing shall be spared, to ensure our honour and independence, possessions dearer than life: every thing shall be attempted, every thing done, to repel an ignominious yoke. We say it to the nations, may their rulers hear us! if they accept your offers of peace, the French people will expect from your strong, liberal, and paternal government, motives of consolation for the sacrifices, which the peace has cost them: but if they leave us no other alternative, than war or disgrace, the whole nation is for war ”

“ Before we surrender ourselves into the hands of the King, he must make known to us the guarantees, by which we are to be secured. If they be agreeable to us, then we may deliberate but if we open our gates without conditions, and previous to the arrival of Alexander, Wellington and the Bourbons will make a jest of their promises, and oblige us to submit to the will of the conqueror without pity. Besides, why should we despair of the safety of France? Is the loss of a single battle, then, to decide the fate of a great nation? ”

“ After having devoured twelve millions of Polanders, twelve millions of Italians, a million of Saxons, six millions of Belgians, it would devour all the states of the second order in Germany.
"Madmen! a moment of prosperity has blinded them. The oppression and humiliation of the French people are out of their power! If they enter France, they will find in it their graves.
"Soldiers, we have forced marches to make, battles to fight, hazards to run; but, with firmness, victory will be ours: the rights, the honour, and the happiness of our country will be reconquered. ”

“ Tell the citizens, that the present circumstances are important! That with union, energy, and perseverance, we shall rise victorious from this struggle of a great people against its oppressors; that generations to come will severely scrutinize our conduct; and that a nation has lost every thing, when it has lost its independence. Tell them, that the foreign kings, whom I raised to a throne, or who are indebted to me for the preservation of their crowns; all of whom, in the days of my prosperity, courted my alliance, and the protection of the French people ”

“ Resuming now the exercise of its rights; rallying round the hero, whom its confidence invests anew with the government of the state; France is astonished and grieved, to see sovereigns in arms demand of it the reason of an internal change, which is the result of the national will, and affects neither its existing connexions with other governments, nor their security. France cannot admit the distinctions, under which the coalized powers endeavour to cloak their aggression. To attack the monarch of its choice is to attack the independence of the nation. ”

“ Will they not make us expiate our mad and cruel resistance by a disgraceful capitulation? If the allies, at the present moment, think themselves strong enough to refuse you a suspension of hostilities, what will they do, when they have their twelve hundred thousand soldiers on our territory? The dismemberment of France, the pillage and devastation of the capital, will be, perhaps, the fruit of the rash defence you propose to us. ”

“ I ask you, now, what ought we to conclude from this union, this unanimity of sentiments and actions?"—
"We may infer, that the people, naturally weak and timid, were afraid of the army; and gave it a good reception, that they might not be exposed to its violence: but this does not prove, that in the bottom of their hearts they shared the sentiments of the army for Napoleon."
"God alone knows what passes in the bottom of the heart: we mortals can judge only by appearances, by men's words and actions. ”

“ If the question related to Napoleon alone, we should not hesitate to sacrifice the cause of one man to that of a whole people: Napoleon, personally, is nothing to us; but his continuance on the throne is so connected with the happiness and independence of the nation, that we cannot betray him, without betraying our country at the same time; and this is a crime, of which M. Fouché and his friends will never render themselves guilty. ”

“ Men's minds are in great agitation: the dispositions of the deputies appear more hostile than ever: and, since your Majesty deigns to listen to me, it is my duty to say, that it is to be feared the chamber will not act agreeably to your expectations. I am sorry, Sire, to see you in Paris. It would have been better, not to have separated from your army: that constitutes your strength, your safety."—"I have no longer an army," replied the Emperor: "I have nothing but fugitives. I shall find men, but how are they to be armed? I have no muskets left. ”

“ They are at this moment ready to receive any prince, that foreigners may think proper to impose on them. But, if they reject Napoleon II., the Emperor ought to have recourse to his sword, and to those brave men, who, covered as they are with blood and scars, still cry 'Long live the Emperor!' It was, in favour of his son, that he abdicated: his abdication is void, if Napoleon II. be not acknowledged. Shall French blood have been spilt again, only to make us pass a second time under a foreign yoke? to bow the head beneath a degraded government? ”

“ This word, negotiation, struck me. "Since we must not think, M. Werner," answered I, "of re-establishing that union and friendship between Austria and France separately, which their interests, and their family connexion, demand; at least let us not renounce the hope of a general accommodation. Never perhaps was humanity threatened with a war so terrible: it will be a conflict to the death, not between army and army, but between nation and nation. ”

“ The Emperor then, turning toward the electors, said:
"Gentlemen, electors of the colleges of departments and circles;
"Gentlemen, deputies of the armies by sea and land to the Champ de Mai:
"Emperor, consul, soldier, I hold every thing from the people. In prosperity, in adversity; on the field of battle, in the council chamber; on the throne, and in exile; France has been the sole and constant object of my thoughts, and of my actions. ”

“ Had they been sensible of their situation, they would spontaneously have proclaimed Napoleon II. The foreign powers would then have seen, that you know how to have but one will, one object, one rallying point: they would have seen, that the 20th of March was not a party affair, the attempt of a faction; but the result of the attachment of the French to me and to my dynasty. The unanimity of the nation would have had more effect upon them, than all your mean and degrading deference. ”

“ Thus terminated the political life of Napoleon.
Some have been astonished, that he chose to survive himself. He might have killed himself; nothing is easier for a man. But was such an end worthy of him? A king, a great king, ought not to die the desperate death of a conspirator, of the head of a party. To use the proper words of the illustrious captive at St. Helena, he ought to be superior to the rudest attacks of adversity. ”

“ If the fundamental principles, announced in this declaration, should be disregarded or violated, the representatives of the French people, acquitting themselves this day of a sacred duty, enter their protest beforehand, in the face of the whole world, against violence and usurpation. They entrust they maintenance of the arrangements, which they now proclaim, to all good Frenchmen, to all generous hearts, to all enlightened minds, to all men jealous of liberty, and, in fine, to future generations. ”

“ If Napoleon, instead of yielding to the fear of compromising the independence and existence of the nation, had wished to revive a second 20th of March, neither the instructions of General Beker, nor the threats of Marshal Davoust, nor the intrigues of M. Fouché, could have prevented him: it would have been sufficient for him to make his appearance. The people, the army, would have received him with enthusiasm and not one of his enemies, the Prince of Eckmuhl at their head, would have dared to lift their eyes, and oppose his triumph. ”

“ Have the federates, the national guard, and all true Frenchmen, refused to shed their blood in defence of the glory, the honour, and the independence of their country? While we are fighting under the walls of the capital, the levy in mass of the patriots will be arranged in the departments: and when our enemies see, that we are determined to defend our independence, they will rather respect it, than expose themselves to a patriotic and national war for interests not their own. ”

“ The Emperor, offended at the chamber's arrogating to itself an authority over his ministers, forbade them to stir. The deputies, finding they did not come, considered their delay as a contempt for the nation. Some, to whom contempt both of the Emperor and of constitutional principles was already familiar, moved, that the ministers should be ordered to attend the assembly, setting all other business aside. Others, alarmed by their own consciences, and, fearing a politic stroke, created phantoms of their own imagination. ”

“ I repeat to you, Sire, I have never deceived you; your safety and ours depend on your deference to the national will. This is not all, Sire; the French are become a free people. The appellation of 'subject,' which you are continually giving them, wounds and humbles them. Call them citizens, or your children. Neither suffer your ministers, your marshals, your great officers, (p. 115) to be called 'monseigneur:' there is no seigneur in a country, where equality forms the basis of the laws; there are none but citizens. ”

“ The allies are agreed, that we shall have a Bourbon; but it is necessary, that he submit to the conditions imposed on him by the nation. The chamber will be retained, the generals will remain at the head of the army; all will go well. Is it not better to submit, than to expose France to be partitioned, or delivered over to the Bourbons bound hand and foot? A prolonged resistance would have no other result, than to retard our fall. It would rob us of the price of a voluntary submission, and authorise the Bourbons to be implacable. ”

“ Do you, peers and representatives, set the nation an example of confidence, energy, and patriotism: and, like the senate of the great people of antiquity, resolve rather to die, than to survive the dishonour and degradation of France. ”

“ In fine, all kinds of writings, that can discourage the weak, embolden the factious, shake confidence, divide the nation, bring the government into contempt; all the pamphlets, that issue from the printing-offices of Belgium, or the clandestine presses of France; all that the foreign newspapers publish against us, all that the party-writers compose; are distributed, hawked about, and diffused with impunity, for want of restrictive laws, and from the abuse of the liberty of the press. ”

“ It is even the interest of the King, that every thing should remain in a state of suspension: force may replace him on the throne, but cannot keep him there. It is neither by force, nor by surprise, nor by the wishes of one party, that the national will can be brought to change its government. It would even be in vain, at the present moment, to offer us conditions, to render a new government more supportable. There are no conditions that can be examined, as long as the necessity of bending our necks to the yoke, of renouncing our independence, is not (p. 363) proved to us. ”