FRANCE. (HISTORY.) 



conspiracy in favour of Napoleon, the measures taken 

 to oppose his progress were unsuccessful ; why the 

 army and a great part of the nation declared for him ; 

 ami why, after a march of eighteen days, which re- 

 sembled a triumph, he was able to enter Paris 

 (March 20) without shedding a drop of blood. The 

 king and his partisans left the country. Napoleon 

 immediately annulled most of the royal ordinances, 

 dissolved the two chambers, and named a new min- 

 istry. He declared that he should content himself 

 with the limits of France, as settled by the peace of 

 Paris, and that he would establish his government 

 on liberal principles. But he could not satisfy the 

 expectations of the different parties ; much less could 

 he avert the danger of a new war with Europe. As 

 soon as the news of Napoleon's landing in France 

 was received at Vienna, the ministers of all the allied 

 powers, who were assembled in congress there, de- 

 clared Napoleon (March 13, 1815) the enemy and dis- 

 turber of the repose of the world ; and that the powers 

 were firmly resolved to employ all means, and unite 

 all their efforts, to maintain the treaty of Paris. For 

 tins purpose, Austria, Russia, Britain, and Prussia 

 concluded, March 25th, a new treaty, on the basis of 

 that of Chaumont (March 1, 1814), whereby each 

 power agreed to bring 150,000 men into the field 

 against Napoleon, who, on his part, was indefatigable 

 in making preparations for war. At the same time 

 (April 22), he published the additional act to the 

 constitutions of the empire, and summoned the meet- 

 ing of the Champ de Mai, which accepted that act 

 (June 1.) On the 7th of June, the new chambers 

 met. The army expressed great attachment to him, 

 but the nation was less confident. His greatest dif- 

 ficulty was the want of supplies. The expedition of 

 Murat against Austria (April, 1815) frustrated the 

 secret negotiations of Napoleon with the court of 

 Vienna. War was unavoidable. The armies of the 

 allies formed a cordon around the frontiers of France, 

 extending from Ostend to Switzerland, and beyond 

 it to Italy. Napoleon, with his main army, advanced 

 to meet the British and Prussians, under Welling- 

 ton and Blucher, who were approaching from the 

 Netherlands. After some skirmishes with the 

 outposts on the frontiers, the French attacked the 

 Prussians at Thuin on the Sambre, June 15, and drove 

 them back. On the IGtli, Napoleon gained a victory 

 over the Prussians in the plains of Fleurus. (See 

 Ligny, and Quatrebras.) But, on the 18th, he 

 was entirely defeated at Waterloo (q. v.), and the 

 allies advanced, almost without resistance, towards 

 Paris. As Napoleon saw that France was lost to 

 him, he resigned the crown, on tlie 22d of June, in a 

 proclamation to the French nation, and at the same 

 time declared his son emperor, under the title of 

 Napoleon II. A provisional government, at the 

 head of which was Fouche, was vested with the 

 administration of the state. Napoleon left the capital, 

 and surrendered himself to the British, as the way to 

 America was shut against him. (For the history of 

 the hundred days, see the works of Benjamin Con- 

 stant, and Fleury de Chaboulon.) 



The army of the allies had, in the mean time, 

 arrived at Paris, where, on the 3d of July, a military 

 convention was concluded by Blucher and Welling- 

 ton, with marshal Davoust, according to the articles 

 of which the French army retired behind the Loire, 

 and Paris was surrendered to the troops of the allies. 

 On the 6th, they entered Paris ; and, on the follow- 

 ing day, Louis XVIII. a second time took possession 

 of his throne. Hereupon a new chamber of deputies 

 was convoked, the French army behind the Loire 

 was disbanded, and an order was issued for the forma- 

 tion of a new army. Severe measures were adopted 

 against the adherents of Napoleon. The condition 



of France was deplorable ; a forced tranquillity pre. 

 vailed where the armies of the allies were stationed 

 they occupied almost two-thirds of the country 

 but the other parts of the kingdom were the scene of 

 troubles and bloodshed. The allied powers did not 

 treat France with the same forbearance that they had 

 done the year before. After much negotiation, the 

 treaty of Paris was concluded between them and 

 Louis XVIII. (November 20.) on the following condi- 

 tions : the limits of France were to remain as in 

 1790 ; France was to surrender four fortresses 

 (Landau, Philippeville, Sarre-Louis, and Marien- 

 burg), the duchy of Bouillon, that part of the 

 department of the Lower Rhine situated on the left 

 bank of the Lauter, a part of the district of Gex, and 

 the part of Savoy which had been left to France in 

 1814 (in all, 434,000 inhabitants); she was bound 

 not to erect any fortress within tliree leagues of Basle, 

 in the place of the fortifications of Huningen, which 

 had been demolished immediately after its surrender ; 

 renounced her claims to the principality of Monaco , 

 agreed to pay to the allies a contribution of 700 

 million francs, to give up seventeen citadels for from 

 three to five years, and to support 150,000 troops of 

 the allies within her frontiers. The French govern- 

 ment was further bound to satisfy the lawful claims 

 of individuals, corporations, or institutions in the 

 countries of the allies, and to restore all the treasures 

 of literature and art which the French had carried off 

 from conquered countries. The last article was 

 executed while the foreign troops were in Paris. 

 Finally, France agreed to abolish the slave-trade 

 unconditionally. This treaty was signed by Riche- 

 lieu, the president of the new ministry, appointed in 

 September, 1815. The nation was discontented; 

 but the spirit of reaction, which was perceived in the 

 chambre introuvable, silenced all opposition. The 

 law of the 29th of October, 1815, granted to the 

 government the extraordinary power of confining all 

 persons suspected of designs against the king and the 

 state, without previous conviction by a judicial 

 tribunal, and often without publicity. Finally, the 

 two chambers passed the law of amnesty proposed 

 by the king (January 6, 1816), by which all those 

 who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., or hud 

 accepted offices from Napoleon during the hundred 

 days, were for ever banished from the kingdom. This 

 victory of the royalists was succeeded by the dismis- 

 sal of several thousand judges and other officers. 

 Yet the ministers and other officers were not royal 

 enough for the ultra royalists (see Ultra), who con- 

 sidered the government of France in 1789 as the only 

 legitimate one. All events posterior to that period 

 were to them a series of crimes, and every individual 

 who had been concerned in them a criminal. Those 

 who had never contaminated themselves by any 

 participation in the revolution, but had opposed it 

 from the first constitution, they called plein-purs, or 

 true Frenchmen ; those who had been in favour of 

 the first assembly, but had adhered firmly to the 

 king, were pure in a less degree. All others were 

 in their eyes more or less suspicious,- and not true 

 Frenchmen. On the other hand, the party directly 

 the opposite of the ultras considered every thing 

 which had happened in France for the preceding 

 twenty-five years, as belonging to a period of great 

 national development, to which it was the duty of 

 every Frenchman to have contributed according to 

 his means. Whoever abandoned France at that time, 

 whoever deprived her of his services, or bore arms 

 against her, whatever may have been the form of 

 government, was a traitor to his country. Thus 

 each party defended its own cause as the cause of 

 justice, and accused the other party of treason. The 

 attacks of the ultras in the two chambers upon the 



