The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 3 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 3Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
History
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 3 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 3
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848
On the 2nd of April, the Senators, to whom we owe one clause only of
the Charter of 1814, the contemptible clause preserving their pensions,
decreed the deposition of Bonaparte. If this decree, which emancipated
France but brought infamy upon those who issued it, offers an affront
to the human race, at the same time it teaches posterity the price of
grandeurs and fortune, when these have disdained to take their stand
upon bases of morality, justice and liberty.
DECREE OF THE CONSERVATIVE SENATE.
"The Conservative Senate, taking into consideration that in a
constitutional monarchy the monarch exists only by virtue of
the constitution or the social compact;
"That Napoleon Bonaparte, for some time maintaining a firm
and prudent government, had given the nation cause to reckon,
in the future, upon acts of wisdom and justice; but that
subsequently he destroyed the compact which united him to the
French people, notably by levying imports and establishing
taxes, otherwise than by virtue of the law, against the
express tenor of the oath which he took on his accession to
the throne, in conformity with Clause 53 of the Constitutions
of the 28 Floréal Year XII.;
"That he was guilty of this attempt upon the rights of
the people at the very time when he had without necessity
adjourned the Legislative Body, and caused a report made by
that body, whose title and whose relation to the national
representation he contested, to be suppressed as criminal;
"That he undertook a series of wars in violation of Clause
50 of the Act settling the Constitution of the Year VIII.,
which lays down that any declaration of war shall be
proposed, discussed, decreed and promulgated like the laws;
"That he has unconstitutionally issued several decrees
bearing the penalty of death, namely, the two decrees of the
5th of March last, tending to cause a war to be considered as
national which was undertaken only in the interest of his own
unmeasured ambition;
"That he has violated the laws of the Constitution by his
decrees concerning the State prisons;
"That he has annihilated the responsibility of the ministers,
put down all the powers and destroyed the independence of the
courts of jurisdiction;
"Taking into consideration that the liberty of the press,
established and perpetuated as one of the rights of the
nation, has been constantly subjected to the arbitrary
censorship of his police, and that, at the same time, he
has always made use of the press to fill France and Europe
with fabricated facts, with false maxims, with doctrines
favourable to despotism and with outrages against foreign
governments;
"That acts and reports, passed by the Senate, have undergone
alterations when made public;
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