Bourbon monarchy

“ The Bourbon monarchy consolidated the French national organization, encouraged French intellectual and religious life, and at times sought in an intelligent manner to improve the economic conditions of the country. ”

“ It were easy to show that men may be as free and freer under a Monarchy than a Republic. After all I have said, done, and written for the Bourbons, I should be the basest of the human race if I denied them when, for the third and last time, they are directing their steps towards exile." [Z]
On the morning of the next day, the 9th, the Chamber of Deputies met at the Palais Bourbon. It was a very exciting scene, and strong opposition was manifested against proclaiming the Duke of Orleans king. ”

“ Universal monarchy has at many periods been feared from the House of Bourbon, and England has been exhausted to prevent it; she has engaged allies pretendedly to keep the balance of power in Europe, as it is ridiculously and unintelligibly termed by European politicians; but you will permit an American to give his sentiments ”

“ You will have heard in the course of last month of my return to the French coast, my entering Paris, and the departure of the Bourbon family. The true nature of these events must now be known to your Majesty: they are the work of an irresistible power, the work and the unanimous will of a great nation, who knows its duties and its rights. The dynasty, which force (p. 367) had bestowed on the French people, was not formed for them: the Bourbons would not accommodate themselves either to their sentiments, or to their manners. France could not but separate itself from them. ”

“ The treason of the Duke of Bourbon stirred a new hope of conquering France. Bourbon was Constable of France, the highest of the French nobles both from his blood and the almost independent power he wielded in his own duchy and in Provence. But a legal process by which Francis sought to recall his vast possessions to the domain of the crown threatened him with ruin; and driven to secret revolt, he pledged himself to rise against the king on the appearance of the allied armies in the heart of the realm. ”

“ Bourbonists and Republicans, Bonapartists and anarchists, all sought to keep or to acquire power. The Murats, the Beauharnais, the various Bonaparte brothers and even Bernadotte, were all scheming for the succession or the regency, while intertwining among all this was the more legitimate scheming of the various European powers, whose secret agents were equally active throughout the Empire. There is small room for wonder that after a dozen years of this frantic merry-go-round the French people accepted the Bourbon restoration quietly, lest worse befall. ”

“ It is very true. Setting aside those whose family interest, position or fortune attached them to the Bourbon dynasty, it is impossible to conceive any idea of the ever growing feeling of opposition which spread throughout the provinces; it got to such a pitch that, without knowing why, in spite of every reason that my mother and I had to curse Napoleon, we hated the Bourbons far more, though they had never done anything to us, or had even done us good rather than harm. ”

“ The Bourbons and the Bonapartes are above all that is individual and personal. They represent two opposite causes. By the intrigues of Louis Napoleon, the offshoots of the House of Bourbon have disappeared from the thrones of southern Europe. They are a living protestation against revolutions. The Bourbons have in vain allied themselves with the revolutionary party, and ruined their own cause; they never succeeded in gaining the good-will of their adversaries, so effectually have their principles, which they cannot divest themselves of, protected the monarchical cause against themselves! ”

“ But do you, or does any man in his senses believe that if you upset the Empire you could get back the Bourbons; that you would not be in imminent danger of a Government infinitely more opposed to the theories on which rests the creed of Legitimists than that of Louis Napoleon? After all, what is there in the loyalty of you Bourbonites that has in it the solid worth of an argument which can appeal to the comprehension of mankind, except it be the principle of a hereditary monarchy? Nobody nowadays can maintain the right divine of a single regal family to impose itself upon a nation. ”

“ Bourbon princes in Italy.The first prince of the House of Bourbon has been obliged to give himself up entirely to the new system, and to pretend even to propagate it with all zeal: at least, that club of intriguers who assemble at the Feuillants, and whose cabinet meets at Madame de Staël's, and makes and directs all the ministers, is the real executive government of France. The Emperor is perfectly in concert, and they will not long suffer any prince of the House of Bourbon to keep by force the French emissaries out of their dominions ”

“ The monarchy of the Bourbons has signed its death-warrant. By suffering a legislature to be formed by the votes of the mere multitude, it has put property within the power of all beggars; rank has been left at the mercy of the rabble; and the church has been sacrificed to please a faction. Thus the true pillars of society have been cut away; and the throne is left in the air. ”

“ France had well-nigh forgotten him. A generation of Frenchmen who knew not the Bourbons had grown up; and the abuses of the Old Order were known to the younger generation only as an almost incredible story, told in the evenings by older people, as the family circled about the hearthstone. So completely had the Revolution swept away the foul wrongs of the Bourbon system, that the younger generation could never be made to understand why their fathers hated it with such bitterness. Reined in by the iron hand of Napoleon, the nobles and the clericals of the Empire seemed to be harmless enough. ”

“ Their purpose was to establish a constitutional government, under the tri-colored flag of revolutionary France; but the old Bourbon gave them to understand that he would not consent to reign under the Tricolor, but must remain steadfast to the white banner of his ancestors; he had no desire to be “the legitimate king of revolution.”
This letter shattered the plans of his supporters. No man with ideas like these would be tolerated on the French throne. ”

“ The King of Great Britain stood definitely on their side; he made common cause with them, and soon there appeared in the political world an audacious document signed by this prince, in which, from the retreat of his island, the empire of fogs, he dared to demand peace from Louis of Bourbon, his ancient ally and his cousin german, imposing on him the most revolting conditions. ”

“ The reign of the Bourbon dynasty had opened auspiciously. Henry IV. was the idol of the people. His loveless marriage with Margaret de Valois had been annulled, and he had espoused Marie de Medici. The blood from that poisoned stream was again to be intermingled with the blood of the future Kings of France.
After a reign of twenty-one years, the sagacious ruler who had done more than any other to make her great and happy was stricken down by the hand of an assassin, and a cry of grief arose alike from Catholic and Protestant throughout the kingdom. ”

“ Smarting under these injuries, Bourbon, who for some time had been coquetting with the enemies of France, renewed his negotiations with the emperor and Henry VIII. of England. It was agreed that the constable should raise in his own dominions an armed force to assist the emperor in an invasion of France, and should receive in return the hand of Eleonora, queen dowager of Portugal, or of another of the emperor’s sisters, and an independent kingdom comprising his own lands together with Dauphiné and Provence. He was required, too, to swear fidelity to Henry VIII. as king of France. ”

“ Officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers!
The cause of the Bourbons is lost for ever. The legitimate dynasty, which the French nation has adopted, is about to re-ascend the throne: it belongs to the Emperor Napoleon alone, our sovereign, to reign over our fine country. Whether the nobility of the Bourbons take the step of expatriating itself again, or consent to live among us, is no concern of ours. The sacred cause of liberty, and of our independence, will no longer suffer from their fatal influence. They have endeavoured to debase our military glory ”

“ They have imitated the practise of their great prototype, and, through their whole career of mischiefs and of crimes, have done no more than servilely trace the steps of their own Louis XIV. If they have overrun countries and ravaged them, they have done it upon Bourbon principles; if they have ruined and dethroned sovereigns, it is entirely after the Bourbon manner; if they have even fraternized with the people of foreign countries, and pretended to make their cause their own, they have only faithfully followed the Bourbon example. ”

“ When, shortly after winning the battle of Pavia, Bourbon went thither to meet Charles, and the Marquis of Villane was requested to lodge the victorious general in his palace, the haughty Spaniard told the Emperor that his house and all that he possessed were at his sovereign's disposition, but that he should assuredly burn it down as soon as Bourbon was out of it; since, having been sullied by the presence of a renegade, it could no longer be a fitting residence for a man of honor.
So low had Bourbon fallen! Every man's hand was raised against him, and his hand was against every man. ”

“ They feel towards the noblesse the hatred which has accumulated during twelve centuries of past oppression and the resentment excited by present insolence. Of all the noble families of France the most noble is that of Bourbon. The head of that house has always called himself le premier gentilhomme de France. The Bourbons therefore suffer, and in an exaggerated degree, the odium which weighs down the caste to which they belong. ”

“ In his superb Court he found all the elements required to satisfy his pride, and glorify his reign. The Sun King was the most profligate host in all history. Determined to outdo the fabulous luxury of the feasts of Lucullus in early Roman times, and to outshine the storied splendor of Oriental princes, he entertained his Court and guests with lavish liberality, superbly indifferent to the cost of his boundless extravagance and considering not at all the day of reckoning that must come later for the Bourbon dynasty in France. ”

“ Had the germ of the Legitimacy remained in France and the two old Kings gone to end their days in Rome, none of the difficulties which surround an usurpation and render it suspicious to the various parties would have existed. The adoption of the Younger Branch of Bourbon was not only a danger, it was a political solecism: New France is Republican; she does not want a king, at least she does not want a king of the old dynasty. A few years more, and we shall see what will become of our liberties and what that peace will be which is to gladden the world. ”

“ The Legitimists have no wish to keep his name too much before the French people. He is well 92 enough as a temporary head of the State till the rightful sovereign comes, but when Henri de Bourbon appears, they want no "Marshal-President" to stand in his way as he ascends the throne of his ancestors.
Thus excited by a strange mixture of religious zeal and political enthusiasm, France pours its multitudes annually to these shrines of Lourdes and Paray-le-Monial. ”

“ In the same ignorance and fearlessness with which a savage plays about a powder magazine with a torch, the Bourbon king and his court, buttressed by the consent of centuries and the unquestioned possession of every power to the state, sought relief from cloying pleasures and vigor for enervated minds in permitting and encouraging the loftiest genius and the most impassioned eloquence of the time to discuss the rights and liberties of man. ”

“ She may place faith in the enemy of the institutions which the Bourbon symbolizes. No man more than I hates the dynasty which, in committing treason against the country, became the cause of that country's woes, the woes of a foreign invasion. Mortal, eternal, inextinguishable hatred has Louis Pierre sworn against the House. ”

“ He concludes by naming those who desired his overthrow—Moreau, Reynier, Bernadotte, Simon, Masséna, Lannes, and Férino: Sieyès, Carnot, Chénier, Fouché, Barras, Tallien, Rewbel, Lamarque, and Jean de Bry. Others would not attack him "corps à corps," but disliked his supremacy. These two papers prove that our Government was aware of the Bourbon plot. Another document, dated London, November 18th, 1803, proves its active complicity. It is a list of the French royalist officers "who had set out or were ready to set out." ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a Bourbon king, to gratify the traditional policy and animosities of his house, sent his fleets and armies to help the glorious work of building up the independence of this people, little did either he or his enraged and maniac foe, King George, imagine what the end of it all would be! Little did they dream that this land would, in ninety years, contain thirty millions of men of European blood, and that the whole European population would learn new principles, catch new inspirations, and be filled with new longings, new hopes, and stern resolves by intercourse with this young republic. ”