Art. 18. "No Frenchman who shall have followed the Emperor Napoleon or his family, shall be held to have forfeited his rights as such, by not returning to France within three years; at least, they shall not be comprised in the exceptions which the French Government reserves to itself to grant after the expiration of that term.

Art. 19. "The Polish troops, of all arms, in the service of France, shall be at liberty to return home, and shall retain their arms and baggage, as a testimony of their honourable services. The officers, sub-officers, and soldiers, shall retain the decorations which have been granted to them, and the pensions annexed to those decorations.

Art. 20. "The high Allied Powers guarantee the execution of all the articles of the present treaty, and engage to obtain that it shall be adopted and guaranteed by France.

Art. 21. "The present act shall be ratified, and the ratifications exchanged at Paris, within two days, or sooner, if possible.

"The Prince de Metternich, J. P. Comte de Stadion, Andre Comte de Rasamouffsky, Charles Robert Comte de Nesselrode, Castlereagh, Charles Auguste Baron de Hardenberg, Marshal Ney. (L. S.) Caulincourt."

"Done at Paris, the 11th April, 1814."

The tranquillity of France, and the secure re-establishment of the house of Bourbon on the throne, required his immediate departure from France.

His journey to the sea-side, whither he was accompanied by commissioners from the allies, and by a military escort, was attended with very interesting circumstances. In some places where he was recognised, a feeble cry of Vive l'Empereur ! was raised; in others, he was assailed with shouts of Vive le Roi! A bas le Tyran! In others again, he was received with sullen indifference, and in one or two instances he had reason to dread the effects of popular indignation. His own demeanor fluctuated between occasional attempts at cheerfulness and magnanimity, and the deepest depression, which at times betrayed him into the infirmity of shedding tears. Stunned by

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the suddenness and greatness of his fall, from the proudest. elevation in which man had ever been placed in modern times, his mind was driven from its poise; but when the first agonies of shame and regret were over, he conversed very frankly and courteously with the commissioners and his attendants. A small detachment of his guard followed him to Elba, and a few distinguished officers. We have not interrupted the thread of our narrative to notice in its natural order the reverses sustained by the French army in Italy, the defection of the King of Naples from the cause of his benefactor, and the re-conquest of the Netherlands. In any other drama than that, to the last scenes of which we are now approaching, these events would furnish an important under-plot; but in the overwhelming and tremendous interest of the grand catastrophe, they hardly rise by comparison to the distinction of bye-play. We have already said, that the first measures adopted by the allied monarchs, after they had conquered Napoleon, had in view the restoration of the Bourbons. Monsieur, the only brother of Louis XVIII., had joined the allied armies about the middle of the campaign, and had exerted himself to form a party in support of the royal crown.

Indeed, after the abdication of Napoleon, and the exclusion of his family, there was no alternative between the restoration of the Bourbons or the re-establishment of the Republic: the latter was absurdly impracticable. The senate, therefore, conforming itself to the pressure of circumstances, determined to call Louis XVIII. to the throne.

Monsieur, who, in the absence of Louis XVIII., had been appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom, objected to certain parts of the proposed plan of government, but declared the readiness of his royal brother to adopt the spirit of its leading provisions.

Apprized of the favourable turn which affairs had taken in France, Louis prepared to leave this country and re-ascend the throne of his ancestors. His reception in France appeared most flattering: every where addresses, fraught with expressions of the most fervent loyalty, were presented, and graciously received. The different corps of the French army expressed

themselves satisfied with the new order of things. Treaties of peace between France and the allied powers restored to her her ancient territories in Europe, and her colonial possessions, with the exceptions chiefly of the Mauritius and Pondicherry. A general disposition prevailed at this period throughout France to support the new government, and to enjoy the blessings (more precious, because almost new to the rising generation) of tranquillity abroad, and a moderate degree of freedom at home. Commerce revived; and as the military profession ceased to be the only avenue to distinction, the lively and mercurial genius of the nation had begun to seek out other and less dangerous pursuits. But whilst the surface teemed with flowers, a revolutionary flame was re-kindled in the centre. To comprehend the immediate causes of this fatal change, we must recollect that at the epoch of the restoration, the French nation was divided into four parties.

The first was composed of the Buonapartists, which reckoned amongst its principal adherents a large proportion of that immense number of public functionaries whom Napoleon had been accustomed to employ in his domestic administration, - and who constituted the tendons and muscles by which he set in motion the colossal body of his government.

To this party an infinite majority of the officers and soldiers of the line adhered, who despised the Bourbons for their pacific temper, hated them as the despoilers of their former master, and panted for an opportunity of effacing the disgrace of their arms, and of exchanging a life of penury at home for one of license and military glory abroad. This dangerous body was naturally distrusted, but unwisely irritated by the administration of Louis. They complained, and perhaps with some justice, that their stipends were irregularly paid; that their former services to their country were disregarded; and, above all, that many of the emigrant nobility, who, if they had ever borne arms, had wielded them against France, were promoted to the exclusion of veterans who had fought and bled in what they deemed the defence of the rights, and the advancement of the glory of France.

The second party was composed of the Jacobins; men who

idolized the theory of a republic, and who, although they had from motives of self-interest and fear concurred in the assumption of the imperial title by Napoleon, yet had never cordially forgiven his elevation to the sovereign power. This faction mortally hated the Bourbons. Their numbers were small, and their moral influence trifling; for they were detested and feared by the great bulk of the people; but amongst them were found men of the most powerful talents, desperate courage, and remorseless guilt: of themselves they would do little; but they were the ready auxiliaries of the Buonapartists, and, by ordinary observers, were often confounded with them.

The third party, the most numerous, and indisputably the most respectable in the state, was composed of men whose attachment was directed less to the persons, and to the hereditary rights of the House of Bourbon, than to the provisions of the charter which Louis had granted. This body included a vast proportion of the small landed proprietors in France, who had become purchasers of the national domains, and almost the whole of the mercantile interest. They reviewed, first with curiosity, then with interest, and finally, with apprehension, the measures of the Royal Government. They saw, or imagined that they saw, a disposition in the ministry to proceed by slow but sure steps to the abrogation of some of the most important provisions of the charter. They conceived that it was intended to call in question the sales of national domains, upon the inviolable maintainance of which the very existence of four millions of men depended. They dreaded the increasing influence of the emigrant nobility, and shuddered at the most distant apprehension of being once more reduced to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to their former lords; and those apprehensions, certainly ill-founded, obtained a fatal consistency by the daring imprudence of some retainers of the noblesse, who ventured openly to foretel a speedy restoration of the ancient aristocratical privileges. The emigrant clergy also excited their dislike, conscious, as many small proprietors were, that they were partakers of the spoils of church property; and, under this impression, the piety of the court was offensive. The frequency of religious processions, so zealously

supported by the Duke and Duchess d'Angoulême and the Duke de Berry, was a novelty which excited more of the ridicule than the devotion of the people at large.

The shackles imposed upon the liberty of the press was another and increasing ground of dissatisfaction. The censorship exercised by the Government over the public journals, and works of every description, was a signal calamity to the country and to the cause of the Bourbons. The people ceased to credit what they knew were not the free opinions of the writers of those journals and works; and the administration was deprived of the inestimable advantage of collecting, upon important questions, the genuine feelings of the country, and thereby ascertaining when it could safely advance, or prudently recede.

The fourth, and last party, infinitely the least numerous in the state, and for the reasons already mentioned, generally disliked by the other three parties, consisted of the nobility and clergy who had quitted France at the time of the Revolution. Amongst these classes were doubtless many honourable, and some distinguished individuals: the constancy with which such of them as resided in this country, supported their misfortunes, and the alacrity with which most of them, entering on active and useful employment, earned the delicious bread of independence, were indications of a real elevation of mind which gave to its possessors a moral rank superior to the secular distinctions of which they had been deprived; but, however individually estimable they might be, few of them possessed any portion of political sagacity, and a still smaller number restrained their expectations and claims within any reasonable or moderate bounds. Naturally averse to the revolution, which had wrested from them their possessions, and to the institutions which rendered all French subjects equal in the eye of the law, the royal family were besieged with applications which, from just feelings of gratitude, it was painful to refuse, and with which it was impossible to comply, without violating the fundamental laws of the regenerated monarchy, and causing the sceptre of the amiable and worthy Louis to tremble in his hands.

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