Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.Scott, Walter
History
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.
Scott, Walter
France -- History -- 1789-1815; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
Neither were the predictions concerning the stability of the new royal
government less false than had been the vaticinations respecting the
purposes of the allies. Numbers prophesied the downfall of the Bourbon
dynasty. It was with difficulty that the political augurs would allow
that it might last as long as the life of Louis XVIII. He now sleeps
with his fathers; and his successor, generally beloved for his courteous
manners, and respected for his integrity and honour, reigns over a free
and flourishing people. Time, that grand pacificator, is daily abating
the rancour of party, and removing from the scene those of all sides,
who, unaccustomed to the general and impartial exercise of the laws,
were ready to improve every advantage, and debate every political
question, sword in hand, or, as they themselves express it, _par voie du
fait_. The guarantee for the permanence of their freedom, is the only
subject on which reasonable Frenchmen of the present day are anxious. We
trust there is no occasion for their solicitude. Fatal indeed would be
the advice which should induce the French Government to give the
slightest subject for just complaints. The ultra Royalist, the Jacobin
_enragé_, are gradually cooled by age, or fate has removed them from the
scene. Those who succeed, having never seen the sword drawn, will be
less apt to hurry into civil strife; and the able and well-intentioned
on either side, while they find room in the Chambers for expressing
their difference of opinion, will acquire the habit of enduring
contradiction with candour and good-humour, and be led to entertain the
wholesome doubt, whether, in the imperfect state of the human intellect,
it is possible for one class of statesmen to be absolutely and
uniformly right, and their opponents, in all instances, decidedly wrong.
The French will learn, that it is from freedom of debate--from an
appeal, not to the arms, but to the understandings of the people--by the
collision of intellect, not the strife of brutal violence, that the
political institutions of this ingenious people are in future to be
improved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account