Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume I.Scott, Walter
History
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume I.
Scott, Walter
France -- History -- 1789-1815; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
There was no party remained which could be termed strictly or properly
Royalist. Those who were attached to the old monarchy of France were now
almost all exiles, and there were left but few even of that second class
of more moderate and more reasonable Royalists, who desired to establish
a free constitution on the basis of an effective monarchy, strong enough
to protect the laws against license, but not sufficiently predominant to
alter or overthrow them. Cazalès,[161] whose chivalrous defence of the
nobility,--Maury,[162] whose eloquent pleadings for the Church,--had so
often made an honourable but vain struggle against the advances of
revolution, were now silent and absent, and the few feeble remnants of
their party had ranged themselves with the Constitutionalists, who were
so far favourers of monarchy as it made part of their favourite
system--and no farther. La Fayette continued to be the organ of that
party, and had assembled under his banners Duport,[163] Barnave, Lameth,
all of whom had striven to keep pace with the headlong spirit of the
Revolution, but, being outstripped by more active and forward champions
of the popular cause, now shifted ground, and formed a union with those
who were disposed to maintain, that the present constitution was
adapted to all the purposes of free and effectual government, and that,
by its creation, all farther revolutionary measures were virtually
superseded.
In stern opposition to those admirers of the constitution, stood two
bodies of unequal numbers, strength, and efficacy; of which the first
was determined that the Revolution should never stop until the downfall
of the monarchy, while the second entertained the equally resolved
purpose of urging these changes still farther onwards, to the total
destruction of all civil order, and the establishment of a government,
in which terror and violence should be the ruling principles, to be
wielded by the hands of the demagogues who dared to nourish a scheme so
nefarious. We have indicated the existence of both these parties in the
first, or Constituent Assembly; but in the second, called the
Legislative, they assumed a more decided form, and appeared united
towards the abolition of royalty as a common end, though certain, when
it was attained, to dispute with each other the use which was to be made
of the victory. In the words of Shakspeare, they were determined
"To lay this Angiers even with the ground,
Then, after, fight who should be king of it."[164]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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