She Said That Such Was
The Empressement On The Part Of The Inhabitants To See Him, And Embrace
Him By Way Of Testifying Their Affection, That The Emperor Was Obliged To
Say:
"Mais vous m'etouffez, mes enfans!" In fact, had the army remained
neutral, the peasantry alone would have carried the Emperor on their
shoulders to Paris.
It is quite absurd to say that a faction did this and
that it was effectuated merely by the disaffection of the Army. The Army
did its duty in the noblest manner, for it is the duty of every army to
support the national cause and the voice of the people, and by no means to
become the blind tools of the Prince; for it is absurd, as it is degrading
to humanity, it is impious to consider the Prince as the proprietor of the
country and the master of the people; he is, or ought to be, the principal
magistrate, the principal soldier paid by the people, like any other
magistrate or soldier, and like them liable to be cashiered for misconduct
or breach of faith. This is not a very fashionable doctrine nowadays, and
there is danger of it being forgotten altogether in the rage for what is
falsely termed legitimacy; it becomes therefore the bounden duty of every
friend of freedom to din this unfashionable doctrine into the ears of
Princes and unceasingly to exclaim to them and to their ministers:
Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere gentes.[48]
In their conduct on this occasion the French soldiers proved themselves far
more constitutional than those of any other army in Europe; let despots,
priests and weak-headed Tories say what they please to the contrary.
I embarked the following morning at 12 o'clock in the coche d'eau for
Lyons. There was a very numerous and motley company on board: there were
three bourgeois belonging to Lyons returning thither from Paris; a quiet
good-humoured sort of woman not remarkable either for her beauty nor
vivacity; a young Spaniard, an adherent of King Joseph Napoleon, very
taciturn and wrapped up in his cloak tho' the weather was exceeding hot; he
seemed to do nothing else but smoke cigarros and drink wine, of which he
emptied three or four bottles in a very short time - a young Piedmontese
officer, disbanded from the army of the Loire, who no sooner sat down on
deck than he began to chaunt Filicaja's beautiful sonnet, "Italia, Italia,
O tu cui feo la sorte," etc. - a merchant of Lyons who had been some time
in England, and spoke English well - a Lyonnese Major of Infantry, also of
the army of the Loire, who had served in Egypt in the 32nd Demi-brigade;
three Austrian officers of Artillery with their servants. A large barge
which followed and was towed by the coche d'eau was filled with Austrian
soldiers, and on the banks of the river were a number of soldiers of the
Army of the Loire returning to their families and homes.
The peaceable demeanour and honourable conduct of this army is worthy of
admiration, and can never be sufficiently praised: not a single act of
brigandage has taken place. The Austrian officers expressed to me their
astonishment at this, and said they doubted whether any other army in
Europe, disbanded and under the same circumstances, would behave so well. I
told them the French soldier was a free-man and a citizen and drawn from a
respectable class of people, which was not the case in most other
countries. Yes, these gallant fellows who had been calumniated by furious
Ultras, by the base ministerial prints of England, and the venal satellites
of Toryism, who had been represented as brigands or as infuriated Jacobins
with red caps and poignards, these men, in spite, of the contumely and
insult they met with from servile prefects, and from those who never dared
to face them in the field, are a model of good conduct and they preserve
the utmost subordination, tho' disbanded: they respect scrupulously the
property of the inhabitants and pay for everything. Mr. L., the young Irish
barrister, told me at Dijon that he left his purse by mistake in a shop
there in which were 20 napoleons in gold, when a soldier of the army of the
Loire, who happened to be in the shop, perceived it and came running after
him with it, but refused to accept of anything, tho' much pressed by Mr.
L., who wished to reward him handsomely for his disinterested conduct. Yes,
the French soldier is a fine fellow. I have served against them in Holland
and in Egypt and I will never flinch from rendering justice to their
exemplary conduct and lofty valour. No! it is not the French soldiery who
can be accused of plundering and exaction, but what brought the French name
in disrepute was the conduct of certain prefects and administrators in
Germany who were promoted to these posts for no other reason than because
they were of the old noblesse or returned Emigrants, whom Napoleon
favoured in preference to the Republicans whom he feared. These emigrants
repaid his favours with the basest ingratitude; after being guilty of the
grossest and most infamous concussions on the inhabitants of those parts
of Germany where their jurisdiction extended, they had the hypocrisy after
the restoration to declaim against the oppression of the Usurper's
government and its system: but Napoleon richly deserved to meet with this
ingratitude for employing such unprincipled fellows. I believe he was never
aware of the villany they carried on, or they would have met with his
severest displeasure in being removed from office, as was the case with
Wirion at Verdun.[49]
I do not find that the French soldiers with whom I have conversed are so
much attached to the person of the Emperor as I was led to believe; but
they are attached to their country and liberty; and in serving him, they
conceived they were serving the man par excellence of the People.
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