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
The other stipulations of this extraordinary treaty divided a portion of
revenue secured to Napoleon among the members of his family. The most
rational was that which settled upon Maria Louisa and her son the
duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, in full sovereignty. Except
this, all the other stipulations were to be made good at the expense of
France, whose Provisional Government were never consulted upon the terms
granted.[49]
It was not till the bad effects of this singular treaty had been
experienced, that men inquired why and on what principle it was first
conceded. A great personage has been mentioned as its original author.
Possessed of many good and highly honourable qualities, and a steady and
most important member of the great European confederacy, it is doing the
memory of the Emperor Alexander no injury to suppose, that he remembered
his education under his French tutor La Harpe, and was not altogether
free from its effects. With these there always mingles that sort of
showy sensibility which delights in making theatrical scenes out of acts
of beneficence, and enjoying in full draughts the popular applause which
they are calculated to excite. The contagious air of Paris--the
shouts--the flattery--the success to a point hitherto unhoped for--the
wish to drown unkindness of every sort, and to spread a feast from which
no one should rise discontented--the desire to sum up all in one word,
to show MAGNANIMITY in the hour of success, seems to have laid
Alexander's heart more open than the rules of wisdom or of prudence
ought to have permitted. It is generous to give, and more generous to
pardon; but to bestow favours and forgiveness at the same moment, to
secure the future fortune of a rival who lies prostrate at his feet, to
hear thanks and compliments on every hand, and from the mouths even of
the vanquished, is the most fascinating triumph of a victorious
sovereign. It is only the consequences which teach him how thriftless
and unprofitable a prodigality of beneficence often proves, and that in
the attempt so to conduct great national measures that they shall please
and satisfy every one, he must necessarily encroach on the rules both
of justice and wisdom, and may occasion, by a thoughtless indulgence of
romantic sensibility, new trains of misfortune to the whole civilized
world. The other active parties in the treaty were the King of Prussia,
who had no motive to scan with peculiar scrutiny a treaty planned by his
ally the Emperor Alexander, and the Emperor of Austria, who could not in
delicacy object to stipulations in favour of his son-in-law.
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