PARIS. 
523 
proval or diffent. In every (late which boafts the flighted 
portion of liberty, a deliberative voice has been jealoufly 
withheld from the military. The duty of the army is to 
defend the country from invafion, and to obey the com¬ 
mands of the executive power. Its very character renders 
it dangerous and fatal to freedom, to permit it to have a- 
voice in the legiflative deliberations of the country. This 
novel compliment now paid to the army was the refult of 
the difficult circumftances in which Napoleon was placed. 
His chief dependance was on the attachment and devotion 
of his foldiers. His fate was in their hands 5 and by their 
aid alone could he avert the deftruftion which threatened 
to overwhelm him. Yet even on this ground his conduCl 
was not juftifiable. It was an unneceffary violation of 
every conllitutional principle. His troops would not have 
claimed a privilege, to which in no country had the army 
ever been entitled ; and the gratuitous offer of it excited 
in the mind of every rational man the mod painful fuf- 
picions, and prepared the way for alienation and difguft. 
We muff now advert to the fituation of Louis XVIII. 
at Ghent, where he was furrounded by his fmall but 
faithful court. On the rath of April he iffued a Declara¬ 
tion, in which may be feen the early avowal of the deter¬ 
mination of the allies to re-feat the Bourbons on the 
throne. It contains the following expreffions : “Treafon 
has forced us to quit our capital, and to feek refuge on 
the confines of our Hates. However, Europe has taken 
up arms j Europe, faithful to its treaties, will know no 
other king of France except ourfelf. Twelve hundred 
thoufand men are about to march to affure the repofe of 
the world, and, a fecond time, to deliver our fine country.” 
This was followed, on the 14th of April by a Mani- 
fefto from Louis to the French Nation. On this docu¬ 
ment, as well as on the former, we (hall offer only two 
remarks. In the firft place, it is very ftrikingly obfer- 
vable, that the language of all addreffes to the French 
nation, whether proceeding from Napoleon or Louis, are 
deeply tinCtured with the lame faults : their language is 
pompous and inflated ; their fentiments exaggerated; 
little is addreffed to cool reafon and fober judgment: 
almoft the whole to feeling or paffion. In the fecond 
place, Louis, by fo frequently and ftrikingly dwelling on 
the Charter, and qn the inviolability of property, evi¬ 
dently was fenfible, that he had not been afting as he ought 
to have aCted with refpeft to thefe points. 
Thefe papers were probably drawn up by Chateaubriand. 
He alfo drew up about the fame time a Report on the 
State of France. This report is important and interefting 
as exhibiting a ftrong contrail with the Report laid before 
Bonaparte. The firft head of this report relates to the 
aCts and decrees for the interior. Under this head the 
reporter contrails the benedictions that followed the king 
on his departure with the gloom that was caufed by the 
return of Bonaparte : he remarks on the fyltem of official 
lying: the proclamations of Bonaparte, promifing the 
return of the golden age, See. If Bonaparte abolilhes 
the excife, he only undoes his own work ; by what right, 
among a free people, does he alter the mode of levying 
the taxes preferibed by the law ? 
The fecond head relates to the exterior. Under this 
head are Hated the attempts made by Bonaparte to deceive 
foreign powers by the hopes of peace, while, at the very 
fame time, he was flattering his army with the recovery 
of Belgium, the natural boundary of the Rhine and Italy. 
The queftion of foreign interference is alfo Hated and ar¬ 
gued under this head. 
The third head of the report relates to reproaches made 
to the royal government. Under this head the reporter 
(hows the reproaches concerning the lavifti expenditure 
to be wholly groundlefs ; and endeavours tojujiify the non¬ 
payment of Bonaparte's allowance in Elba, becaufe he had 
immenfe debts in France. 
Such were the employments of Louis and his minifters 
during his exile at Ghent. But though, in his manifefto 
and in the official report, he reprefented the majority of 
the French nation (or rather the whole French nation, 
with the exception of the army and a very few individuals) 
as hoftile to Bonaparte, and warmly attached to himfelf; 
yet it was evident that he looked for his re-eftablifhment on 
the throne to the allies alone, not to his fubjeCts, not to 
Frenchmen ; and the event proved that he was right, for, 
as we have before obferved, not a French fword was drawn 
in his caufe. 
The allies, then, upon whom Louis relied, being deter¬ 
mined on war, it was neceffary that no time (hould be loft 
in bringing their troops into the field. Mod of the Ruf¬ 
fians had already retired within the frontiers of Poland ; 
the Pruffians had alfo returned to their country ; and the 
Auftrians were engaged in Italy. But, as the allies were 
deeply imprefled with the indifpenfible neceffity of the 
mod prompt and vigorous meafures, it was refolved that 
all the troops which they were to furniffi, and even more 
than their quotas, (hould, without the lead delay, affemble 
on the French frontiers. 
The allied powers, however, could not dir in this mo¬ 
mentous affair unlefs Great Britain fubfidized them mod 
liberally. For this purpofe the chancellor of the exche¬ 
quer propofed, and carried with little oppofition, the re¬ 
newal of the income-tax; and a loan of thirty-fix millions 
was alfo raifed. Among the benefits expeCted from the con- 
cluiion of a general peace in the laft year, fcarcely any was 
more cordially greeted by the people of England than a libe¬ 
ration from that burdenfome and vexatious import, the pro¬ 
perty-tax, which was neceffarily to expire at a certain period 
after the fignature of a definitive peace. In the fufpicion, 
however, that minifters might be tempted to renew it, as 
the eafieft mode of providing for the great demands which 
would be occafioned by the winding up of the war-ex- 
penfes, petitions were drawn up in almoft all the princi¬ 
pal places in the kingdom, to be laid before parliament, 
warmly deprecating fuch a meafure. Whatever might 
have been the intention of the government, this decided 
expreffion of the national defire had the effect of caufing 
the adoption of other financial plans ; and, on February 
the 20th, at a committee of ways and means, the chan¬ 
cellor of the exchequer introduced his plan of new taxes 
to fupply the place of the property-tax. But the return 
of Bonaparte to France re-plunged this nation into all its 
difficulties ; and in the month of May the tax was revived, 
exaCtly in the fame form as before, for one year from the 
5th of April, 1815. 
Great Britain then entered into twelve treaties of ac¬ 
ceffion, and twenty-five treaties of fubfidy. By the 
treaty of acceffion with Baden, his Britannic majefty en¬ 
gaged in his own name, and in that of his allies, not to 
lay down his arms without particularly taking into conli- 
deration the interefts of the Grand Duke of Baden, and 
not to permit the political exiftence of the duchy to be 
violated. The other treaties of acceffion were with Ba¬ 
varia, Denmark, Hanover, the Grand Duke of Heffe, the 
King of the Netherlands, Portugal, Sardinia, Saxony, 
Switzerland, Wurtemberg, and the princes and free towns 
of Germany. The treaties of fubfidy were with the fame 
powers : and by thefe Baden was to furniffi 16,000 men ; 
Bavaria, 60,000; Denmark, 15,000; Hanover, 26,400; 
Hefl'e, 8000; Sardinia, 15,000; Saxony, 8000; Wurtem¬ 
berg, 20,000 ; befides the troops to be furniffied by the 
princes and free towns of Germany; fo that Great Bri¬ 
tain had at her command upwards of 200,000 troops. 
Of the whole collective force of allies, lord Caftlereagh 
gave the following ftatement to parliament: 
Auftria - 300,000 
Ruffia - 225,000 
Pruffia .... 236,000 
States of Germany - 150,000 
Great Britain - 50,000 
Netherlands - 50,000 
1 , 011,000 
The 
