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and received with reproach and contempt. These dilapidations and ruins of the ancient candour and discipline, were not taken enough at heart, and repaired with that early care and severity that they might have been, for they were not incorrigible; but by the remissness of applying remedies to some, and the unwariness in giving a kind of countenance to others, too much of that poison insinuated itself into minds not well fortified against such inflictions, so that much of the malignity was transplanted, instead of being extinguished, to the corruption of many wholesome bodies, which corruption spread the disease more powerfully and more mischievously."

But although the state of England so nearly resembled that of France, at the same critical period of history, she was more fortunate in several points, which enabled her to resist the contagion, to which France so nearly fell a victim.

The death of Cromwell, and the existence of Bonaparte, we have already noticed as a marked point of distinction.

The Cavaliers also, though ruined and impoverished, remained most of them in possession of their paternal estates, and the natural influence was attached to them, which had been transferred from the French royalists, and was vested in others, whom the very apprehension of the claims of the emigrants rendered hostile to the royal family.

The English also might at the Restoration of Charles rally around the ancient forms of their constitution, which had been violated indeed, but not obliterated, and still commanded the reverence due to the social system of their fathers. But in France there was no such resource. Even the most staunch royalist must have despaired to reinstate the ancient monarchy, since the parliaments, the privileges of the clergy and nobles, and all other Gothic

institutions, which served to balance the power of the crown, and to distinguish between the government of Louis XV. and an absolute despotism, were irretrievably demolished. The ephemeral institutions of the revolution were still farther from affording a rallying point, and with the ruins of ten successive constitutions lying around them, the political architects could select little that might be useful as materials in a new structure. The charter, therefore, laboured under all the disadvantages of an experimental measure, the subject of criticism to all factions, and of reverence to none.

The high pretensions to religion among the English puritans, though in many instances hypocritical, served to keep one part of the kingdom strangers to gross and open profligacy, and if they did not restrain the egotism, pride, deceit, and avarice of the fathers, at least insured to the children the benefits of a sober, severe, and reli gious education, and prevented the manners of the nation from becoming utterly and openly depraved by license and sensuality. But above all, Louis XVIII. wanted-what he would have better known how to prize than Charles,-the services of such a minister as the disinterested and the sagacious Clarendon, wise to foresee, firm to meet, and skilful to repress or elude the evils growing out of the overstrained expectations of some, the fears and jealousies of others, the discontent of a third class, and the general deterioration of national character, which he saw with the eye of an able statesman, and recorded with the pen of a faithful historian. The want of such a sage and disinterested minister was, in all human probability, the principal cause that the fortunes of France and of the House of Bourbon were a second time committed to the bloody arbitrement of the sword.

9

CHAP. VII.

Report on the State of France.-The Finance.-The War Establishment.-The Navy.-Moral State of the Country.-Debate on the Liberty of the Press. Faure's Motion for a previous Censorship-Opposed by Marshal Macdonald. -Adopted in a Modified State. Reflections on these Restrictions.-Petition of Ferru, and other Booksellers, to the Chamber of Deputies.-Characters of some of the Censors.-Conduct of Incendiary Authors and Publishers to evade the Law-Affairs of the Maire of Darnae, and the ancient Seigneur.Marshal Macdonald's Plan for granting Indemnities to the Emigrants, and paying the Pensions of the veteran Soldiers.

THOUGH the political atmosphere of France appeared to present symptoms of future tempestuous change, the first months of the restored monarch's reign were calm and undisturbed, There appeared even signs of reviving prosperity, which the royal ministers endeavoured to enhance by contrast ing them with the state of public affairs at the restoration of Louis the Desired.

A report on the state of the nation, by the minister of the interior, painted in the strongest colours the miseries of Buonaparte's subjects, and may be long consulted as an antidote to the thirst of conquest. "War," said the Abbé de Montesquieu," was doubtless the principal cause of the ills of France. History presented not any example of a great nation incessantly precipitated against its will into enterprises constantly increasing in hazard and distress. The world saw with astonishment, mingled with terror, a civilized people compelled to exchange its happiness and repose for the wandering life of barbarous hordes. The ties of families were broken; fathers have grown old far from their children;

and children have been hurried off to die 400 leagues from their fathers. No hope of return soothed this frightful separation; habit had caused it to be regarded as eternal; and the peasants of Britany, after conducting their sons to the place of separation, have been seen to return to their churches to put up for them by anticipation the prayers for the dead!"

The details corresponding to this fearful exordium, the multiplication of levies, and the consumption of life had been such, that, including the. levy en masse of 1814, to the number of 143,000 men, which had not been fully executed, the sum total of conscription amounted, in the course of about two years or little more, to no less than one million three hundred thousand souls. It is not too much, therefore, to suppose, that one million, the flower of the youth and manhood of France, perished by fatigue, disease, and the edge of the sword, within that brief space.

Notwithstanding this drain of population, the state of agriculture, which had received a strong impulse by the subdivision of great landed estates,

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But to this expenditure the public treasury only contributed about 60 millions yearly at the utmost; the rest was made up by taxes of various kinds in the departments, and the funds so raised were often withdrawn from the purposes of the interior administration, and applied to the more pressing demands of military operations. In order to supply the deficiences thus occasioned, many expenses which should have been borne by the general funds of the state, as salaries of police administrators, expense of the barracks, &c. were thrown upon the revenues of the communes, who, to defray these exorbitant charges, were compelled to increase the poll-tax, called communal octrois, until it was averaged at about seven livres (five shillings and ten-pence) a-head upon each inhabitant, and in some cities even amounted to seventeen livres, (or fourteen shillings and two-pence). The state of the poor and of the hospitals, thus plundered of all the tangible funds destined to support them, was represented as most deplorable; and the state of the roads and bridges, as neglected by the late government, and destroyed in the course of the invasion.

The expenses of the war establishment being the very root of the evil, complicated as they were during Buonaparte's prosperity, and while he had

all the resources which could be extorted from the other nations of Europe, had, after the commencement of his misfortunes, and while he was compelled to seek all the necessary funds from the bosom of France herself, been plunged into a complete chaos. The report states, "On the 1st of May last, (1814), the land forces of France amounted to more than five hundred and twenty thousand men, including gend-armerie, veterans, invalids, and cannoniers, guarding the coasts. Besides this force, there are 122,597 military of all ranks enjoying half-pay. One hundred and sixty thousand prisoners are returning to us from Prussia, Austria, England, and Russia. The staff of the army, including engineers, inspectors, commissaries, &c. amounts to 1874 individuals.

The pay, &c. of men in active service for 1814, amounts to 202,000,000 Half-pay, &c. to $4,000,000

Total, 236,000,000

The war of 1812 and 1813 destroyed, in artillery and ammunition, a capital of 250 millions; and the fortified places in the countries ceded by France, had, since 1804, cost her 115 millions. The budget of the war ministry, properly so called, had been fixed under all heads, for 1814, at 360 millions. But in consequence of a division which had existed some years, there was, besides the department of the ministry at war, that of the war administration. The expences of this last were in 1812, 238,000,000 francs; in 1813, 374,000,000; and in 1814 they will be 380,000,000; which last sum will, for 1814, occasion a total expense, in these two branches, of 740 millions.

The arrear also of these two branches is enormous: That of the ministry at war amounts, according to present statements, to 104,000,000;

and that of the war administration to 157,000,000, making a total arrear of 261 millions.

"But these statements are not yet complete: The arrears of the armies during the years 1811, 12, 13, and 14, are still unknown. Neither do they include a sum of 100 millions, ordonnanced by the two minstries, which they no longer reckon their debt, but which the treasury has not been able to pay. We must add, also, to the expenses occasioned by the war, the requisitions of which we have already spoken, the expense of the guards of honour, and of the offers of mounted and equipped horsemen. The expense of the two latter heads, for the departments of Old France, may be estimated at 15,611,000 francs."

The state of the marine department exhibited in the strongest colours the active and energetic, yet vain-glorious and miscalculating, disposition of Buonaparte. From the date of the projected invasion of England downwards, the most gigantic attempts had been made to render France a naval power. Dock-yards had been formed where scarce fishing-boats had formerly entered. Even Paris itself had seen a naval arsenal within its walls. One hundred and fifty millions of livres had been sacrificed to these visions, of which no trace now remained but a few rotten vessels, unfit even for their destined purpose while new, and works constructed at immense expense, abandoned to the winds and tides, which were daily burying them with sand. The great expenditure on the dockyard and basins at Antwerp, which had now passed away from the French empire, did not escape notice and censure. But above all, it was complained, that while the imperial government had thus emptied the arsenals, and exhausted the treasures of France, in efforts ostensibly to form a navy, the imperial mandates had virtually given.

the lie to these measures, by forming into marching regiments and uniting with the army the crews with whom the intended vessels were to have been manned. And thus, while apparently intent upon forming with the one hand the material part of a naval power, Buonaparte annihilated with the other the very profession of the sailors, through whose means alone it could be rendered efficient and formidable.

In the financial department, a singular instance of Buonaparte's deceptive policy was exposed to the nation. Annual expositions of national receipt and expenditure had been periodically published since he assumed the reins of government, which were, to outward appearance, unchallengeably accurate; and, as they seemed to balance each other, afforded the fair prospect that, the revenues of the state being realized, the expenses could not fall into arrear. But in reality, a number of extraordinary expenses were withheld from the view of the public, while, on the other hand, the produce of the taxes was over-estimated. Thus the two budgets of 1812 and 1813, upon close examination, exhibited a deficit of upwards of three hundred and twelve millions of livres, or thirteen millions sterling. Buonaparte was not ignorant of this fact, but concealed it from the eyes of the nation, in hopes of replacing it, as in his more successful days, by foreign tribute, and, in the mean time, supplying himself by the anticipation of other funds; as an unfaithful book-keeper makes up a plausible balance to meet the eye of his master, and covers his peculations by his dexterity in the use of cyphers. Upon the whole, the debts of France appeared to have increased in the course of thirteen years to the extent of 1,645,469,000 francs, or more than sixty-eight millions and a half of sterling money.

The report proceeded to notice the

moral state of the country, and that of public instruction, and concluded with a passage which proved but too prophetic: "Unhappily we cannot also restore at once to France those moral habits and that public spirit which cruel misfortunes and long oppression have there almost annihilated! Noble sentiments were opposed; generous ideas were stifled; the government, not content with condemning to inaction the virtues which it dreaded, excited and fomented the passions which could do it service; to suppress public spirit, it called personal interest to its aid; it offered its favours to ambition, in order to silence conscience; it left no other state but that of serving it, no other hope but those which it could alone fulfil; no ambition appeared indiscreet, no pretension exaggerated; hence that incessant agitation of all interests and of all wishes; hence that instability of situation which left hardly any man the virtues of his condition, because all thought only of emerging from it; hence, in fine, incessant attacks upon every kind of probity by seductions against which the most generous characters could hardly defend themselves.

"Such were the melancholy effects of that destructive system which we have now to combat. The difficulties of the moment are great, but much may be expected from time; the nation will feel that its zealous concurrence is necessary to hasten the return of its own happiness; its confidence in the intentions of its king, the lights and wisdom of the two chambers, will render the task of government more easy. If any thing can prevent the speedy realization of these hopes, it will be that restless turbulence which wishes to enjoy, without delay, the blessings of which it has the prospect."

This exposé, which was drawn up with great talent and perspicuity, (by

Talleyrand, as was supposed,) had for a time a happy effect on the temper of the nation, and prepared the two branches of the legislature to receive favourably the financial projects which the ministers were next to submit to them.

Upon the 23d of August, 1814, the budget proposed by the ministers of France, after undergoing the revision of the central committee, was presented to the Chamber of Deputies. The ministers, professing their resolution to keep faith with the creditors of the state of every description, announced that the pressing debts of the state, which could be instantly demanded by the creditors, amounted only to 759 millions of francs, not quite thirty-two millions sterling. For reimbursement of this sum, the first resource proposed was the sale of 300,000 hectaries (being about one-fifth part) of the national forests. Voluntary subscriptions, and the sale of the property of the communes, was to provide for the balance of the debt. In the meanwhile, ministers proposed to issue bills upon the royal treasury, bearing an interest of eight per cent., an advantage which was thought absolutely necessary to prevent depreciation of the government securities in the market.

The budget underwent a severe scrutiny in the Chamber of Deputies, where there was already a powerful and organized opposition to the administration. Messrs Flaugergues, Dumoulard, and especially Monsieur Desgraves, attacked the means proposed to discharge the debt, as partly dangerous, partly delusive. The sale of the national forests, it was said, must destroy the means of supporting the French navy in future wars, and render her dependant on foreign countries for naval timber. But the granting treasury bonds, bearing the exorbitant interest of eight per cent.

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