and the alliance of armies were to subject the French to the government of a family that they despise and detest: that the people are the property of certain royal families, was to be established as a maxim in the system of Europe; our army was degraded in being the main instrument of a warfare against freedom and civilisation. If parliament had been sitting in the autumn of 1815, and had these been the general opinions of the opposition as a body, the Bourbons might not have been supported by the English diplomatists in their restoration; and the English army might have been withdrawn from the occupation of France, after the object had been accomplished for which England had professed to arm-the overthrow of Napoleon. But parliament was not sitting in the autumn of 1815; and, what is more important, the opposition, as a body, did not hold these opinions. Two days before the meeting of parliament, Mr. Horner writes: 'I fear we are not likely to go on very harmoniously in opposition; there are such wide and irreconcilable differences of opinion between those who, on the one hand, will hear of nothing but a return to all that was undone by the French Revolution, and who, in the present moment of success, declare views of that sort which they never avowed to the same extent beforeand those who, on the other hand, think that the French people have some right to make and mend their government for themselves. . . . You may expect very soon to see a breach in the opposition; I think it cannot be averted much longer. Mr. Ward (afterwards Lord Dudley) attributes to the opposition motives which could belong only to a few and which even in those few were mixed up with something higher: 'Opposition had staked everything upon Napoleon's success, and are grieved at his failure.' Had Napoleon succeeded, there might have been unity. He fell; and the great Whig party was broken for a season. It only recovered its power when it took deeper root in the popular affections. The triumph of the British arms was soon followed by grievous embarrassments at home. But the people, at the commencement of 1816, had little sympathy for those who were lamenting over the banishment of Napoleon. Even the chief Whig organ, the Edinburgh Review, complained

There

Naples. The rival powers began to look to war. had been a million of allied men in arms to resist the aggressions of France, and to restore the just equilibrium of power in Europe. That these arms were now to be turned against each other was a more than possible event; it was an event to be instantly provided for and regulated by those whose mission was that of peace. In the treaty of Holy Alliance the rulers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia had solemnly engaged to remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity; and considering each other as fellow-countrymen, they will, on all occasions, and in all places, lend each other aid and assistance.' In a secret treaty concluded between Austria, England, and France on the 3rd Febuary 1815, an engagement was entered into to act in concert, each with an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, to carry into effect the Treaty of Paris, in the manner most conformable to the spirit of that treaty; 'convinced that the powers who had to complete the dispositions of the Treaty of Paris ought to be maintained in a state of security and perfect independence, and holding it necessary, in consequence of pretensions recently manifested, to look to the means to resist every aggression.' When, a year after the date of this treaty, Mr. Brougham moved in the House of Commons. for a copy of the document, Lord Castlereagh resisted its production, on the ground that it might be considered in the nature of an unfinished transaction, a mere historical fact,' that could have no influence on our actual affairs. He contended that the cordial co-operation of the allies in the events of 1815 was sufficient to show that for all great purposes the spirit of strict alliance pervaded the powers of Europe. Thirty years have passed since this argument was employed. It was a good argument then, to prevent inconvenient disclosures; but there requires little to convince us now, upon the clear evidence of this 'historical fact,' that if Bonaparte had not leaped into the throne of the Tuileries in the spring of 1815, the peace of Europe might have been broken before it was consolidated. The historical fact' is not without its lessons even at the present hour. On the 7th of March, Prince Metternich received a despatch announcing the hasty and mysterious

6

departure of Napoleon from Elba. On the 13th the solemn declaration of congress was published, that Bonaparte was to be put down as the common enemy of mankind. The Congress of Vienna continued its deliberations; and whilst preparations for war were made on every side, the general treaty of congress for the settlement of Europe was prepared, and was signed only a week before the battle of Quatre Bras. The points of difference as to territorial limits were settled by mutual concessions. The principle of partition and readjustment of territory was established.

The definitive treaty of the Congress of Vienna was signed on the 9th of June. On the 14th the chancellor of the exchequer went down to the House of Commons, and said that he had contracted a loan that day for thirty-six millions, and he asked for a total amount for the supplies of the year-in addition to the permanent charges of thirty-seven millions and a half-of no less a sum than ninety millions. The resolutions of the chancellor of the exchequer were agreed to, with only one opposing speech, and without a division. On the 18th the battle of Waterloo was fought. On the 3rd of July, Paris was in the occupation of the Anglo-Prussian army-Louis XVIII. was restored-Napoleon was banished to St. Helena.

It is not within our province to trace the various political intrigues that followed the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne from which they had been hurled, partly by their own indiscretions, essentially by the reaction of that fierce military spirit which had held Europe in terror for a quarter of a century. There was once more to be a contest for power between England and Russia. England could repress the national hatred of Prussia, and preserve Paris from worse than useless outrage. She could even read France a great moral lesson' in the restoration of the works of art to their lawful owners. But England could not preserve the influence which would have secured France from the dangerous revenge of the ultra-royalists. Talleyrand, who had raised his country to the position which she occupied at the Congress of Vienna, was driven from the councils of that king who, a few months before, was a powerless outcast. Russia, it is

6

said, named his successor. The ministers of England did all that remained to them to do. The treaty of alliance, which accompanied the Treaty of Paris, was forwarded to the French minister with a note which contained sundry excellent lessons on the duty of uniting moderation with firmness, and rejecting imprudent or impassioned counsels. 'Indemnities for the past' were to be secured by France paying, by gradual instalments, seven hundred millions of francs-a sum not equal to the loan which the English chancellor of the exchequer raised in one day; 'guarantees for the future' were exacted by the presence of the army of occupation for a term of years, supported at the expense of France, and garrisoning her strong places, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. England, having lost her real influence in the government of France, retained the power of making herself odious. The terms granted to the French were in truth moderate. England, at the height of glory, had to pay penalties of longer duration, perhaps of greater severity, as the price of this tremendous conflict. The last three years of war alone had cost the country one hundred and ninety-seven millions.

Paris in the autumn of 1815 presented a scene even more remarkable than the Vienna of the preceding year. The conquered city was one universal theatre of gaiety and excitement. Here was no 'Rachel weeping for her children.' In some dark estaminet might a solitary soldier of the disbanded army of the Loire be heard execrating the presence of the foreigner. But the foreigner preserved an exact discipline. He paid for everything, and he had ample means of payment. 'It is from this year, 1815, that the greater part of the shopkeeping fortunes of Paris are to be dated. The haughty nobles of Russia lavished their rents upon Parisian mistresses and gamblers. Hundreds of the great English families rushed to Paris to gaze upon the conquering armies, and to contend for the honour of a smile from Lady Castlereagh in her evening circle, or a bow from the great duke at his morning levee. All this was to end. The ministers and serf-lords of Russia had to return to a St. Petersburg winter, and see how best they could persuade the Poles

that their annexation was the triumph of their independ-
ence. The cautious diplomatists of Austria had to discover
how the hot Italian spirits that had dreamt of liberty and
national greatness were to sit down under the leaden
sceptre of the German stranger. Prussian councillors of
state had to meet the excited landwehr, who had rushed to
arms under the promise of constitutional liberty; and to
accommodate the differences of one set of subjects with the
old German laws, and her new Rhine people with the
French code. The smaller German states had to re-arrange
themselves under the confederation. Sweden had to re-
concile Norway. Holland had to amalgamate with Bel-
gium-Protestant with Catholic, and interpret Dutch laws
to a French race. Spain, which had put down the cortes,
had to try if proscriptions could satisfy a people that had
been fighting seven years in the name of freedom. Cer-
tainly these home prospects were not so agreeable to the
managers of national affairs as the reviews of the Bois de
Boulogne, or the réunions of the Faubourg St. Honoré.
Perhaps to the English ministers, and to their admiring
followers, there was less of apprehension than to the leaders
of those states who had gained something more solid than
the glory with which England remained contented.
was enough for her to believe that she had won security.
She had proudly won the semblance of it; the one great
enemy was overthrown. Still there might be some feel-
ing-half fear, half disgust-at the thought of the House
of Commons, with its searching questions, its hatred of
continental alliances, its denunciations of broken promises,
coming from a small but active minority. The lofty port
and the cold politeness that befitted the table of Congress
would be there out of place. Two years of negotiation in
the midst of victory would not be favourable to debating
equanimity. Hard everyday business would have to be
talked of instead of glory. There was but one course:
They must either-

For so run the conditions-leave those remnants
Of fool, and feather, that they got in France,
With all their honourable points of ignorance,
And understand again like honest men,

Or pack to their old playfellows.

It

-SHAKSPEARE: Henry VIII.