CHAP. XLIV. lême. She was enceinte. The Duchess had yielded to the intreaties of the Duke de Richelieu to ask Lavalette's pardon of the King, who was prepared to grant it; but the ultra-Royalist coterie interfered, and insisted on the execution.* The Countess Lavalette, with great address and courage, contrived to substitute herself in prison for her husband, who escaped in her garments, holding the hand of their little daughter. The Count's subsequent escape from Paris, accompanied by Sir Robert Wilson, is well known. The ultra-royalist society of Paris, even its great ladies, were mortified at Lavalette having baffled justice. They stigmatised his little daughter as a "scélérate" for having aided to save her father, and she was obliged to quit in consequence the convent where she was being educated.† Marshal Ney was consigned to his Paris prison on the day of Labedoyère's execution. He suffered from the Royalists quite the same indignities that the Royal ists suffered under Robespierre. He was confined in a gloomy cell of the Conciergerie, guarded and treated with severity. A court-martial was named to try him. Marshal Moncey, finding himself amongst the judges, declined the duty, very honourably and naturally. St. Cyr, the war minister, condemned him to several months' arrest in consequence. Massena, Augereau, and Mortier consented to sit, but when Ney declined their jurisdiction, and demanded to be tried by the Chamber of Peers, the marshals gladly declared themselves incompetent. The Duc de Richelieu informed the peers that it was they who would try Ney, and offer to the world a striking reparation for the impunity which the court-martial had extended to the accused. When the prime minister, not a passionate man, spoke such language, what must have been the vindictive sentiments of the court and of Duvergier d'Hauranne, Mémoires de Marmont. † Mémoires of Guizot, of Lavalette, &c. its party? The marshal's friends appealed to the Duke of Wellington to protect Ney, as included in the capitulation of Paris. The Duke declined to act this generous part by the marshal, and observed that Ney could not have considered himself guaranteed by that capitulation, since he had left Paris immediately under a feigned name. The trial opened on the 4th of December. The chief witness was the future Marshal de Bourmont, serving under Ney when he proclaimed that the Bourbon cause was lost. Bourmont, the marshal declared, far from opposing, encouraged the act as unavoidable. Bourmont retorted the accusation by seeking to prove that Ney had all along meditated the treason--and alleged that he had the cross of the Legion of Honour with the eagle, not the fleur-de-lis, in his pocket, and that he wore it. This was disproved, and with it the accusation of the marshal's defection having been premeditated. 139 peers voted for the sentence of death, many afterwards joining the 17 who had declared for deportation, and entreating the Duc de Richelieu to obtain the mar shal's pardon and exile. Five peers also abstained. The royal family were, however, all of them, the Duchess d'Angoulême included, resolved on inflicting and demanding the extreme penalty against Ney. The Duke of Wellington was in the same sentiments, forgetting how anomalous were the circumstances, and how little the traditional laws of treason and allegiance were applicable to a time when events, even more than men, turned round with the wind. The scaffold, said Marshal Moncey, in his letter, never made friends. Not only did it make no friends in the present instance, but it awakened a whole country to enmity. A few weeks previous the Bonapartists were in general discredit, as the elections. proved. The death of Ney restored the party at once. to national sympathy and esteem. The blow which struck him down was considered to have been dealt to CHAP. XLIV. CHAP. the military glory and hardihood of the country. A few weeks before the catastrophe of Ney, Murat met a similar fate on the coast of Calabria, whither he had been lured by Bourbon emissaries. The Turks think that when they have slain the chief men of any party or enterprise, they extinguish it for ever. And they may be right for Turkey. But in Europe principles survive men, and instead of being crushed by the fall of their champions, very often gather strength from these having been sacrificed. The day after the execution of Ney, which took place on the 7th of December, ministers brought down to the Chamber a law of amnesty, excepting those already doomed to death or exile in the lists of Fouché. An additional clause banished the family and the relatives of the Bonapartes. It was a great mistake of the King and of Talleyrand not to have issued at once the amnesty, which was promised from Cambray, making such exceptions as might reasonably satisfy justice. Fouché's list was no doubt intended for this purpose. But the King's proclamation unfortunately deferred the composition of such list to the Chamber, which Fouché's did not satisfy. M. de la Bourdonnaye had instead at once proposed to exile or execute all who had taken office or exercised command during the Hundred Days, which was to proscribe the whole army and the greater part of the civilians. In lieu of the amnesty proposed by the minister, with the exception of Fouché's list, the commission of the Chamber adopted very nearly La Bourdonnaye's proscription of Bonapartists, ranged in three categories. That furious Royalist supported his proposal in a speech which chiefly resembled and recalled the ideas of St. Just. Death, nothing but death, would satisfy M. de la Bourdonnaye, who declared, still in from his father, a member of the commission. * For what passed in commission, see Duvergier d'Hauranne's history, who relates what he heard accord with St. Just, that Terror alone could prevent conspiracy. Whilst the ultra-Royalists were thus, like hounds in chase, foaming at the mouth for the blood of their enemies, the day of Lavalette's execution approached. Ministers were for pardoning and the Chamber for punishing. His flight filled the ultraRoyalists with rage. They prepared their categories. They accused the ministers of having allowed Lavalette to escape, nay threatened to impeach them for it. These in turn threatened to dissolve the Chamber.* It is to be noted, that even those leaders of the Royalist party who afterwards saw the necessity of moderation, nay of semi-liberalism, such as Chateaubriand and Villèle, were zealous supporters of La Bourdonnaye and his categories. A compromise, however, took place between them and the Government. Even this could only be effected by the Duc de Richelieu invoking the aid and announcing the resolution of the King not to sanction the large proscription and confiscation of M. de la Bourdonnaye. He agreed that those marked out for exile should suffer the penalty without trial. When afterwards the categories were put to the vote, they were rejected by a majority of nine. So narrowly did the country escape the proscription of the White Jacobins. These debates necessarily produced a deep schism in the Chamber. All were Royalist, but Royalist in different degrees. Some, those who grouped round the Count d'Artois, were for re-edifying the past and restoring the old state of things, nay, a far worse than that which existed previous to 1789. Then indeed the King was nominally despot, the Church and aristocracy dominant in society and endowed with many privileges. But the King's power was then easily defied, and the aristocracy had no political influence. Were the * Duvergier d'Hauranne. CHAP. XLIV. XLIV. CHAP. squirearchy and clergy to become in 1816 masters of the legislature, they would wield a power far greater and more galling than they possessed in 1788; the nation being completely opposed to such power and the use made of it, another revolution sooner or later was inevitable. The King and the moderate Royalists sought to avoid this, and there came naturally to be formed around Louis the Eighteenth a middle party of moderation, holding the fittest opinions for place. Their pretensions exasperated the ultra-Royalists and their leaders, for these were eager not merely to apply their principles, but to grasp office. Louis the Eighteenth wished to avoid both. He doubted the wisdom, and set aside the influence of his brother, and determined, as far as he was able, to uphold moderate ministers and a middle party. This flung the majority of the Assembly to aim at overruling the King, a policy which not only the more violent adopted, but even such men as Chateaubriand and Villèle. The electoral law became the field of battle for the parties. According to the charter, one-fifth of the Chamber was to be renewed annually. It was necessary to fix by what law. Ministers prepared one in December (1815). It was highly conservative, especially from having two degrees of election. A cantonal assembly was to choose the electors. It was composed, like the Imperial colleges, of the highest taxpayers, but was swelled by the functionaries of the district, civil, military and clerical, thus giving increased electoral influence to the Government employés. Referred to a commission, of course in the interests of the majority, M. de Villèle, its reporter, superseded the ministerial plan of a functionary body of electors by an apparently more liberal one, but really placing the elections in the hands of the squirearchy and the agricultural interests, and refusing all salary or indemnity to the deputies. This was an |