e
country for the sake of according with them. It is truly an absurd
injustice to charge the Restoration with the presence of those
foreigners which the mad ambition of Napoleon alone brought upon our
soil, and which the Bourbons only could remove by a prompt and certain
peace. The enemies of the Restoration, in their haste to condemn it
from the very first hour, have plunged into strange contradictions. If
we are to put faith in their assertions, at one time they tell us that
it was imposed on France by foreign bayonets; at another, that in 1814,
no one, either in France or Europe, bestowed a thought upon the subject;
and again, that a few old adherences, a few sudden defections, and a few
egotistical intrigues alone enabled it to prevail. Puerile blindness of
party spirit! The more it is attempted to prove that no general desire,
no prevailing force, from within or without, either suggested or
produced the Restoration, the more its inherent strength will be brought
to light, and the controlling necessity which determined the event. I
have ever been surprised that free and superior minds should thus fetter
themselves within the subtleties and credulities of prejudice, and not
feel the necessity of looking facts in the face, and of viewing them as
they really exist. In the formidable crisis of 1814, the restoration of
the House of Bourbon was the only natural and solid solution that
presented itself; the only measure that could be reconciled to
principles not dependent on the influence of force and the caprices of
human will. Some alarm might thence be excited for the new interests of
French society; but with the aid of institutions mutually accepted, the
two benefits of which France stood most in need, and of which for
twenty-five years she had been utterly deprived, peace and liberty,
might also be confidently looked for. Under the influence of this double
hope, the Restoration was accomplished, not only without effort, but in
despite of revolutionary remembrances, and was received throughout
France with alacrity and cheerfulness. And France did wisely in this
adoption, for the Restoration, in fact, came accompanied by peace and
liberty.

Peace had never been more talked of in France than during the last
quarter of a century. The Constituent Assembly had proclaimed, "No more
conquests;" the National Convention had celebrated the union of nations;
the Emperor Napoleon had concluded, in fifteen years, more pacific
nego