CHAP. XXXIII.

Restoration of the Bourbons.-Invitation to all the French Generals.Address of the Provisional Government to the People.-Extract from the Registers of the Conservative Senate.-Sittings of the Legislative Body.-The Prince of Benevento's Address to Monsieur.-Extracts from the Register of the Senate.-Address to the Army. -Entry of the Emperor of Austria into Paris.

Paris, April 7.

THE constitution has been presented to the senate. It was read twice, and a commission appointed to consider it.

The commission having made its report on the 5th of April, at eight o'clock in the evening, the constitution was adopted unanimously.

Louis Stanislaus Xavier is restored to the wishes of the French by a constitutional charter, equally advantageous to the people and the royal family destined to govern them.

Before such great news all other intelligence fades away. But it is our duty to give an account of the events that preceded it."

Letters of invitation were sent to marshal Marmont, marshal Ney, and most of the French generals, &c. and immediately accepted, so that nothing now interrupted the Bourbons in ascending the throne of their ancestors.

Address of the Provisional Government to the People.

"People of France,

"When you came out of a state of civil discord, you chose for your chief a man who appeared upon

the stage of the universe with the character of grandeur: you placed in him all your hopes. Those hopes were vain. Upon the ruins of anarchy he built only despotism.

He ought at least from gratitude to have become French with you. He never was. He never ceased to undertake, without motive and object, unjust wars, like an adventurer who would become famous. In a few years he has devoured your wealth and your population.

Every family is in mourning; all France is in tears; he is deaf to our miseries. Even yet perhaps he dreams of gigantic designs, though unheard-of reverses punish so signally the pride and abuse of victory.

He never knew how to reign either in the national interest, or even in the interest of his own despotism; he has destroyed all that he ought to create, and re-created all that he ought to destroy: he relied only upon force: force now overwhelms him just reward of senseless ambition!

At length this unexampled tyranny has ceased. The allied powers have entered the capital of France. Napoleon governed us like a king of barbarians; Alexander, and his magnanimous allies, speak only the language of honour, justice, and humanity. They have just reconciled Europe to a brave and unhappy people.

People of France, the senate has declared that Napoleon has forfeited the throne. The country is no longer with him. Another order of things can alone save it. We have known the excesses of popular licentiousness and absolute power: let us restore the real monarchy in limiting, by wise laws, the different powers that compose it.

Let exhausted agriculture re-flourish under a paternal throne; let commerce, bound in fetters, resume her freedom; let our youth be no longer cut

off by arms before they have the strength to bear them; let the order of nature be no longer interrupted; and let the old men hope to die before their children! Men of France, let us rally; past calamities are finished, and peace will put an end to the subversion of Europe. The august allies have given their word-France will rest from her long agitation, and, better enlightened by the double proof of anarchy and despotism, will find happiness in the return of a tutelary government."

Extract from the Registers of the Conservative Senate. Sitting of April 3, under the Presidency of Senator Count de Barthelemy.

The sitting which had been adjourned was resumed at four o'clock, when the senator count Lambrechts read the revised and adopted plan of the decree which passed in the sitting of yesterday. It is in the following terms:

"The conservative senate, considering that in a constitutional monarchy, the monarch exists only in virtue of the constitution or social compact;

"That Napoleon Bonaparte, during a certain period of firm and prudent government, afforded to the nations reasons to calculate for the future on acts of wisdom and justice; but that afterwards he violated the compact which united him to the French people, particularly in levying imposts and establishing taxes otherwise than in virtue of the law, against the express tenor of the oath which he had taken on ascending the throne, conformable to article 53 of the act of the constitutions of the 28th Floreal, year 12;

"That he committed this attack on the rights of the people, even in adjourning, without necessity, the legislative body, and causing to be suppressed, as criminal, a report of that body, the title of which,

and its share in the national representation, he disputed;

"That he undertook a series of war in violation of article 59, of the act of the constitution of the 22d Frimaire, year 8, which purports, that declarations of war should be proposed, debated, decreed, and promulgated in the same manner as laws;

"That he issued, unconstitutionally, several decrees, inflicting the punishment of death; particularly the two decrees of the 5th of March last, tending to cause to be considered as national, a war which would not have taken place, but for the interests of his boundless ambition;

"That he violated the constitutional laws by his decrees respecting the prisoners of the state;

"That he annulled the responsibility of the ministers, confounded all authorities, and destroyed the independence of judicial bodies;

"Considering that the liberty of the press, established and consecrated as one of the rights of the nation, has been constantly subjected to the arbitrary controul of his police, and that at the same time he has always made use of the press to fill France and Europe with misrepresentations, false maxims, doctrines favourable to despotism, and insults on foreign governments;

"That acts and reports heard by the senate have undergone alterations in the publication;

Considering that, instead of reigning according to the terms of his oath, with a sole view to the interest, the happiness, and the glory of the French people, Napoleon completed the misfortunes of his - country by the refusal to treat on conditions which the national interests required him to accept, and which did not compromise the French honour;

"By the abuse which he made of all the means entrusted to him in men and money;

"By the abandonment of the wounded without

dressings, without assistance, and without subsis tence;

"By various measures, the consequences of which were the ruin of the towns, the depopulation of the country, famine, and contagious diseases;

"Considering that, for all these causes, the im perial government established by the Senatus Consultum of the 28th Floreal, year 12, has ceased to exist, and that the wish manifested by all Frenchmen calls for an order of things, the first result of which should be the restoration of general peace, and which should also be the æra of a solemn reconciliation of all the states of the great European family;

"The senate declares and decrees as follows:"Art. 1. Napoleon Bonaparte has forfeited the throne-and the hereditary right established in his family is abolished.

"2. The French people and the army are released from their oath of fidelity towards Napoleon Bonaparte.

"3. The present decree shall be transmitted by a message to the provisional government of France, conveyed forthwith to all the departments and the armies, and immediately proclaimed in all the quarters of the capital."

Sitting of 3d April.

The legislative body met in its palace, and in the usual hall of its sittings, in virtue of the invitation received this day from the members composing the provisional government. M. Felix Faulcon took the chair. Messrs. Bois-Savary, Laborde, and Faure, secretaries.

The president read an arrete of the provisional government, under the date of the 2d of this month, by which it announces, that the senate has pronounced the forfeiture of Napoleon Bonaparte and of his family, and has declared, that Frenchmen were dis