CHAPTER VII.

   —­[By the Editor of the 1836 edition]—­

1815.

Napoleon at Paris—­Political manoeuvres—­The meeting of the Champ-de-Mai—­Napoleon, the Liberals, and the moderate Constitutionalists—­His love of arbitrary power as strong as ever—­ Paris during the Cent Jours—­Preparations for his last campaign—­ The Emperor leaves Paris to join the army—­State of Brussels—­ Proclamation of Napoleon to the Belgians—­Effective strength of the French and Allied armies—­The Emperor’s proclamation to the French army.

Napoleon was scarcely reseated on his throne when he found he could not resume that absolute power he had possessed before his abdication at Fontainebleau.  He was obliged to submit to the curb of a representative government, but we may well believe that he only yielded, with a mental reservation that as soon as victory should return to his standards and his army be reorganised he would send the representatives of the people back to their departments, and make himself as absolute as he had ever been.  His temporary submission was indeed obligatory.

The Republicans and Constitutionalists who had assisted, or not opposed his return, with Carnot, Fouche, Benjamin Constant, and his own brother Lucien (a lover of constitutional liberty) at their head, would support him only on condition of his reigning as a constitutional sovereign; he therefore proclaimed a constitution under the title of “Acte additionnel aux Constitutions de l’Empire,” which greatly resembled the charter granted by Louis XVIII. the year before.  An hereditary Chamber of Peers was to be appointed by the Emperor, a Chamber of Representatives chosen by the Electoral Colleges, to be renewed every five years, by which all taxes were to be voted, ministers were to be responsible, judges irremovable, the right of petition was acknowledged, and property was declared inviolable.  Lastly, the French nation was made to declare that they would never recall the Bourbons.

Even before reaching Paris, and while resting on his journey from Elba at Lyons, the second city in France, and the ancient capital of the Franks, Napoleon arranged his ministry, and issued sundry decrees, which show how little his mind was prepared for proceeding according to the majority of votes in representative assemblies.

Cambaceres was named Minister of Justice, Fouche Minister of Police (a boon to the Revolutionists), Davoust appointed Minister of War.  Decrees upon decrees were issued with a rapidity which showed how laboriously Bonaparte had employed those studious hours at Elba which he was supposed to have dedicated to the composition of his Memoirs.  They were couched in the name of “Napoleon, by the grace of God, Emperor of France,” and were dated on the 13th of March, although not promulgated until the 21st of that month.  The first of these decrees abrogated all changes in