5. 4 



LOUIS XVIII. 



of the IHli, Louis followed, under tlie protection of 

 Wellington. '1 lie king immediately appointed his 

 new ministry, at the head of which was Talleyrand, 

 and in which Fouclic was minister of police. The 

 iiio-t declared partisans of Napoleon now lost their 

 places. July 13, the former chamber of deputies was 

 dissolved, and a new one summoned. See Chambre 

 Introuvable. 



Among the most decided measures by which the 

 king sought to support his throne, was the ordinance 

 of July 16, disbanding the army, according to the 

 wishes of his allies ; which Macdonald effected with 

 great prudence. To form a new army, 4000 officers 

 were appointed, in part of those who had escaped the 

 conscription ; and according to the edict of May 20, 

 1818, of the Jialf-pay officers of the army of 1815, 

 only those were appointed who had served for fifteen 

 years or more, and, consequently all French soldiers, 

 since 1803, were made incapable of service. Yet the 

 constitution of 1814 had secured to all officers the 

 preservation of their rank and their pensions. An 

 ordinance of July 24, 1815, designated the rebels 

 who were excluded from the amnesty. According 

 to this, nineteen generals and officers, Ney, Labe- 

 doyere, the brothers Lallemand, Erlon, Lefevre, 

 Desnouettes, Ameilh, Drouot.Brayer, Gilly, Moutoii 

 Duvernet, Grouchy, Clauzel, Laborde, Debelle, Ber- 

 trand, Cambronne, Lavalette and Savary, were to be 

 arrested and brought before a court-martial. Thirty- 

 eight others were exiled, according to a resolution of 

 the chambers, including Soult, Carnot, Excelmans, 

 Bassano, Vandamme, Lamarque, Lobau, Barre)re, 

 Arrighi, Ilegnault de St Jean d'Angely, Real, Mer- 

 lin de Douay, Hulin, the poet Arnauld, colonel Rory 

 de St Vincent, Mellinet and others. Twenty-nine 

 were degraded from the peerage, as Lefebvre, Suchet, 

 Augereau, Mortier, Cadore, Piacenza, &c. A few 

 exculpated themselves by proving that they had not 

 received from Napoleon a seat in the new chambers. 

 Of the rebels, towards whom many circumstances re- 

 commended mercy, Labedovere was shot August 19 ; 

 Ney, December 7, 1815 ; and Mouton Duvernet, 

 July 26, 1816. Lavalette escaped from prison, 

 December 21, 1815 ; Drouot and Cambronne were 

 released ; the greater number took refuge in flight ; 

 some, like Debelle, were pardoned ; others, as De- 

 jean the son, Laurence, Gamon, Alquier, Dnbois- 

 dubai and Grandpre received, in 1818, permission to 

 return. In the mean while, the royalists, who called 

 themselves rectilignes, obtained greater influence. 

 The princes were dissatisfied with Fouche's appoint- 

 ment to the ministry. At the same time, he made 

 himself obnoxious to the allies by his reports to the 

 king on the new state of France. Talleyrand and 

 Fouche, though devoted to the cause of the king, 

 were looked upon by the royalists as men who ought 

 not to be admitted to authority in the new system of 

 things. Thus a change in the ministry took place, 

 September 25, 1815. Fouche was dismissed, and, in 

 order to please Russia, the duke of Richelieu was 

 made minister of foreign affairs in his place. De- 

 razes became minister of police, Corvetto, of the 

 tinances, and Clarke, duke of Feltre, minister of 

 war, &c. 



The ultra royalists now raised their heads. The 

 state of things before 1789, alone appeared legitimate 

 in their eyes. The election of the deputies was made 

 accordingly, and many of those elected were but 

 twenty-five years old, though forty was the legal age. 

 A change of the constitution was openly talked of. 

 On the other hand, the partisans of the fallen govern- 

 ment, excited by the ultras, began to form conspi- 

 racies ; but for their speedy punishment prevotal 

 courts were introduced, which, however, were 

 ahciishcd in 1818. Decazes discovered several con- 



spiracies, among which, however, that under Didit-r 

 alone broke out, in May, 1816, in the vicinity of 

 Grenoble. The numerous arrests attracted atten- 

 tion, and several foreigners, as the British who had 

 favoured Lavalette's escape, lord Kinnaird (in his 

 letter to lord Liverpool), mid the Polish count Siera- 

 kowski, complained of the arbitrary conduct of the 

 French police. It excited great dissatisfaction that 

 the duke of Richelieu, as minister, in the trial of Ney, 

 had availed himself of the extreme rigour of the law 

 in procuring his condemnation. Among the princes, 

 the duke of Orleans (Louis Philip) alone used a 

 milder tone. When an address of thanks to the king, 

 written by Chateaubriand, was read in the house of 

 peers, the duke proposed to change the passage in 

 which traitors were given up to the justice of the 

 king, so as to recommend the persons there named to 

 the mercy of the king. The censors of the press 

 would not allow his speech to be printed ; and the 

 duke, for whom a party was already forming, though 

 without his own consent, soon after (October, 1815) 

 came to England. Richelieu now concluded with the 

 allied powers the treaty of November 20, 1815 (see 

 France), which embarrassed the finances of the king- 

 dom, since, from December 1,1815, France was bound 

 to pay 144,000,000fr. yearly, towards 700,000,0001 r. , 

 which had been the expenses of the war, with 

 130,000,000fr. for the support of the army of occupa- 

 tion. A violent dispute soon after arose in the cham- 

 bers on the subject of the law of amnesty. The ultra 

 royalists, January 6, 1816', proposed some changes, 

 which extended and rendered more severe the first 

 propositions of the king. All the relations of 

 Napoleon were, under pain of death, banished from 

 France ; they lost the property conferred upon them, 

 and were obliged to sell what they had bought. 

 Those, also, who had voted for the death of the king 

 (regicides), and those who, in 1815, had received 

 offices or honours from the usurper, or had acknow- 

 ledged the Additional Act to the constitution, were 

 banished from the kingdom, and forfeited all their 

 civil rights, and the titles, estates and pensions, which 

 had been conferred on them. Of 366 who had voted 

 for the king's death, 163, who were still living, were 

 banished from France. Three only Tallien, Mil- 

 haud and Richard were allowed to remain. If 

 violent measures were taken against the real or sus- 

 pected anti-Bourbonists (among others a captain was 

 imprisoned on suspicion, for having named his horse 

 Cossack], the public authorities did but little to re- 

 strain the commotions at Nismes, and the depart- 

 ment of Card, where political and religious fana- 

 ticism had caused the persecution and murder of 

 the Protestants, in 1815 and 1816. One voice 

 only was heard in the chamber, in the cause of the 

 Protestants that of the noble D'Argenson ; but 

 Trestaillons, who was universally known to be a 

 murderer, remained unpunished. (He died in 1827.) 

 The victory in the chambers gradually inclired to the 

 royalists, who were called exageres, or white Jacobins. 

 The king, therefore, closed the session, April 29, 

 1816, after a law, prohibiting divorces, had been 

 passed. Laine, the former president of the chamber 

 of deputies, was appointed minister of the interior, 

 and, with Corvetto, Richelieu, and Decazes, formed, in 

 the ministry, the constitutional majority; the minister 

 of the marine, Dubouchage, appeared to join them, 

 so that the chancellor, D'Ambray, and the minister 

 of war, Feltre, alone possessed the confidence of the 

 ultras. (In September, 1817, marshal St Cyr took 

 the place of the latter ; count Mole, a peer of France, 

 tiio place of Dubouchage ; and, somewhat later, 

 Roy, the place of Corvetto.) 



In the midst of continual seditions in France, the 

 majority of the ministers, supported by the influence 



