a

considerable classical and historical attainments, but a man of wit, humour, and sense. It was not, we believe, till the period of the Hundred Days, that M. Guizot came into personal contact with Louis XVIII., who had then accomplished his 60th year. Some time after the flight from Paris, the Constitutional Royalists deemed it fitting to lay before the King their opinions on public affairs, and of the line of conduct most proper for a constitutional monarch to adopt under the circumstances. M. Guizot, as the youngest and one of the most ardent and able Constitutionalists, was selected for the task. In the last week in May, 1815, he left Paris and made that journey to Ghent, about which so much has been written during the last three and forty years. The King, who had been there for two months, was surrounded by five of the most experienced and able men in France; these were the Count de Sancourt, descendant on the female side of Duplessis de Mornay, like M. Guizot a Huguenot, then President of the French Bible Society (an office in which M. Guizot subsequently succeeded him); M. Beugnot, early in life a distinguished member of the Legislative Assembly, where his voice was always raised in favour of moderate measures; Baron Louis, one of the ablest financiers in France, and who said to M. Guizot after the Revolution of 1830, 'Govern well, and you will never spend so much money as I shall be able to supply;' M. Lally Tolendal, one of the honestest and most chivalrous of Frenchmen (the descendant of the famous Count Lally, Governor of the French possessions in India, who was judicially murdered in 1766); and M. Mounier, originally a distinguished advocate of Grenoble, of whom it was said that he hungered and thirsted for justice. Better advisers than these it was difficult to find; and it is to their own credit that they followed the King, and to the monarch's credit that he was followed by them. But their task with Louis XVIII. was no easy one. Suffering as all Frenchmen suffer when in exile from their country, they had to counteract resistance and reaction in the very bosom of the royal family; the King himself, a sensible man, was not difficult to manage; but there was the party of the Count d'Artois, self-willed, reactionary, and obstinate, which found an advocate and ally in M. Blacas, the confidential adviser of Louis XVIII. When M. Guizot was presented to his Sovereign, he was chiefly struck by his Majesty's impotence and dignity. There was a haughty serenity in the successor of more than forty kings, who had reigned nearly fourteen centuries, as he sat nailed in his arm-chair. The young author, professor, and minister that was to be, was surprised and touched at this tranquil confidence in the power of his name and rights

First interview with Louis XVIII.

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which Louis XVIII. displayed on this as on every other occasion. Of this confidence no man was better aware than the first Napoleon, and, in truth, he seemed himself to share it. In the pride of his power he constantly reverted to the forgotten Bourbons, well knowing that he had no other formidable competitors for the throne of France.

To return, however, to the author of these Memoirs. At his first interview with his Sovereign, he did not lose his presence of mind. What he had to say was not pleasing, and from respect, not calculation, he began with what was agreeable. He spoke of the Royalist feeling which exhibited itself vehemently in Paris, and in corroboration related anecdotes and couplets of songs. This pleased and entertained the monarch, as men, says M. Guizot, are pleased with humorous recitals who have no sources of gaiety within themselves.' There may have been another reason why the monarch was pleased. In early life, between 1775 and 1785, and in the subsequent years, Louis XVIII., then Monsieur, had been himself a writer of light poetry, lyrics, songs, madrigals, and satirical pieces; and when in exile at Turin, and in Mittau in Courland, he is known to have written more than one fugitive trifle. One of the pieces written at Mittau was addressed to the Duchess d'Angouleme, and commenced

'De Therese en ce jour pour célébrer la fête.'

M. Guizot spoke to the King of the persecutions which his co-religionists, the Protestants, endured in the South. This is very bad,' said Louis XVIII.; 'I will do all I can to stop it, but I cannot be at the same time a liberal and an absolute king.' If we are to believe M. Guizot, the talents of the monarch were rather passive than active. In appearance he was judicious, circumspect, and acute. He could temporize as well as reconcile, restrain, and defeat. But he could not direct nor give the impulse. Persevering application to business was as little suited to him as active movements. Maintaining his rank and dignity, he seldom committed a glaring mistake; but when once that dignity was vindicated, he allowed things to take their course. We believe all this is a correct estimate of the King's character, who was without passion or energy; but when M. Guizot says that Louis was a man of few ideas, he is at issue with those who had much better opportunities of knowing Louis XVIII. both as King, as Monsieur, and Comte de Provence, and who were quite competent to form a correct opinion.

That the mental character of Louis XVIII. is underrated by M. Guizot, appears not alone from the testimony of men in the

position of his ministers, but also from the testimony of men of letters. M. de Lamartine thus speaks of him :

'His natural talent,' says Lamartine, 'cultivated, reflective, and quick, full of recollections, rich in anecdotes, nourished by philosophy, enriched by quotations, never deformed by pedantry, rendered him equal in conversation to the most renowned literary characters of his age. M. de Chateaubriand had not more elegance, M. de Talleyrand more wit, Madame de Stael more brilliancy. Never inferior, always equal, often superior to those with whom he conversed on every subject; yet with more tact and address than they, he changed his tone and subject of conversation with those he addressed, and yet was never exhausted by any one. History, contemporary events, things, men, theatres, books, poetry, the arts, the incidents of the day, formed the varied text of his conversations. Since the suppers of Potsdam, where the genius of Voltaire met the capacity of Frederic the Great, never had the cabinet of a prince been the sanctuary of more philosophy, literature, talent, and taste.'

The three leading ministers of Louis XVIII., antecedent to, and subsequent to the departure of the King for Ghent, on the 20th March, 1815, were Talleyrand, the Abbé de Montesquiou, and M. Blacas. We can only find room for the portrait of M. de Talleyrand, which appears faithfully drawn :

'At the crisis of the Restoration, M. de Talleyrand displayed in a very superior manner the qualities of sagacity, cool determination, and preponderating influence. Not long after, at Vienna, he manifested the same endowments, and others even more rare and apposite, when representing the House of Bourbon and the European interests of France. But, except in a crisis or a congress, he was neither able nor powerful. A courtier and a politician, no advocate upon conviction for any particular form of government, and less for representative government than for any other, he excelled in negotiating with insulted individuals, by the power of conversation, by the charm and skilful employment of social relations; but in authority of character, in fertility of mental resources, in promptitude of resolution, in command of language, in the sympathetic association of general ideas with public passions,-in all these great sources of influence upon collected assemblies, he was absolutely deficient. Besides which, he had neither the inclination nor habit of sustained systematic labour, another important condition of internal government. He was at once ambitious and indolent, a flatterer and a scoffer, a consummate courtier in the art of pleasing and serving, without the appearance of servility; ready for anything, and capable of any pliability that might assist his fortune; preserving always the mean, and recurring at need to the attractions of independence; a diplomatist without scruples, indifferent as to means, and almost equally careless as to the end, providing only that the end advanced his personal interest. More bold than profound in his views, calmly courageous in danger, well suited to the great en

Fouché, Vitrolles, Wellington.

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terprises of absolute government, but insensible to the true atmosphere and light of liberty, in which he felt himself lost and incapable of action. He was too glad to escape from the Chambers and from France, to find once more at Vienna a congenial sphere and ass80ciations.'

The battle of Waterloo, as everybody is aware, took place on the 18th June, 1815. The victory of the Allies terminated the anxiety of the exiles at Ghent, and the King of France quitted that city on the 22nd June. He addressed, from Cambray, a moderate proclamation to the French nation. But much more important and significant than this proclamation was the advance of Wellington and Blacher. On the 6th July, the Allied troops entered Paris, and on the following day the commission of the Provisional Government ceased its functions. Before the military convention between Marshal Davoust, commanding the French army, on the one part, and Wellington and Blucher commanding the English and Prussian armies on the other, had been signed. Fouché, the Minister of Police, had opened negotiations through Vitrolles, whom he released from prison, with Louis XVIII., and it is also certain that he kept up a regular correspondence with the Allied Powers and the Duke of Welling ton. It is certain that the Count d'Artois, whose agent Vitrolles was, as well as the Duke of Wellington, urged the King to accept Fouché as Minister of Police-a proposition to which the King acceded. From the Duke of Wellington's head-quarters at Neuilly, Fouché proceeded with the English commander to the chateau of Arnouville, near Gonesse, where the King, after a slight pause, addressed the Duke of Otranto in civil terms, assuring him that he had determined to have him as his Minister of Police. On the following day, the Sth, the King entered Paris, and on the 9th the names of the new Ministry were published. M. Guizot intimates his belief that there was no necessity to have recourse to Fouché. But can this statesman be ignorant that without the aid of Fouché it is doubtful whether Louis XVIII. would have ever entered Paris? The Emperor Alexander and Prince Metternich would not have been averse to a Regency in the interest of Napoleon II., but the Duke of Wellington saw no satisfactory guarantee for permanency unless in the restoration of Louis XVIII., remarking, Nous ne pouvons donc pas en venir dans trois mois par une usurpation même honnête et de bonne maison;'* and Fouché was one of the most useful instruments in this restoration. No doubt he was a man of tainted character, false and faithless; but according to the Duke of Wellington there were only two men in France who had * Villemain, Souvenirs les Cent Jours. Paris: 1855.

served Bonaparte who were the exceptions to the scores of generals and officials who believed in nothing and who loved nothing-these were Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, and Oudinot, Duke of Reggio. The impression of the Duke concerning the French-who knew Frenchmen well-for he had much commerce with them, having been brought up at the military college at Angers-is well known. Speaking of that character to a military friend, who had served with him in India in early life, he observed he had never heard but one excuse for the most infamous conduct. They shrugged up their shoulders and said, 'we were obliged to do so and so by the circumstances in which we found ourselves.' It was the opinion of the Duke that the French, in July, 1815, had not a man as a statesman or a general who could be called great. If they think in England,' said he, 'that an administration of honourable and honest men can be 'found in France, they are fools.' M. Guizot freely allows that the honour of the second Restoration chiefly belonged to the Duke of Wellington; and in admitting that the Emperor of Russia was sternly disposed towards Louis XVIII., and that the German generals were disposed to be malignant and brutal, the Duke was clearly politic in recommending, as a minister of Police, a man who had always maintained relations with the national party, and who was thoroughly up to Bonapartist and Russian intrigues. To the credit of the king, be it said, he resisted Russian and German insolence with true kingly dignity, and threatened to place his arm-chair on a bridge which Blucher vowed he would blow up. We may also state that Talleyrand was of opinion that Fouché would rally to the Government a portion of the national liberal and independent party. In the Ministry appointed on the 9th June, Talleyrand was President of the Council, with the Portfolio of Foreign Affairs, Fouché had the police, Gouvoin St. Cyr, a general of the Empire, who distinguished himself in Germany, Spain, Russia, and Poland, was Minister of War, the Count de Jaucourt, of whom we have before spoken, was Minister of Marine, and the Baron Louis Minister of Finance. The Duke de Richelieu was Minister of the King's household, and Davoust, who was Commander-in-chief beyond the Loire, in nine days after the entry of the king, called on his soldiers to resume the white flag and cockade. Had not the ferocity of the Prussian generals been tempered during this time by the calmness, equity, and sense of justice of the Duke of Wellington, the bridges of Jena and Austerlitz would certainly have been blown up.

It may be asked what brought back Napoleon, on the 20th March, 1815, and caused the King to fly from the Tuileries to Ghent.