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The numerous restorations of 1814 and 1815 were followed by a royalist and aristocratic reaction in many countries of Europe. In France Louis XVIII. found himself confronted by an ultra-royalist chamber of deputies which clamoured for vengeance on the partisans of the republican and imperial régimes and for the restoration of the privileges and estates of the Church.
It was actually proposed by Talleyrand, Fouche, and some important ecclesiastics of the ultra-royalist party, to arrest and shoot the Emperor Napoleon, who was then at Rochfort: so anxious were they to commit this criminal, inhuman, and cowardly act, on an illustrious fallen enemy, who had made the arms of France glorious throughout Europe, that they suggested to the Duke, who had the command of the old wooden-armed semaphores, to employ the telegraph to order what I should have designated by no other name than the assassination of the Caesar of modern history.
Instead of an ultra-royalist party resting on Spain, a constitutionalist party resting on Brazil and attempting to rest on England was now threatening the established government at Lisbon.
They were retained there when the fever had disappeared, and their numbers were gradually raised to 100,000. In December, 1821, an ultra-royalist ministry entered on office in France under the leadership of Villèle. Villèle, like King Louis XVIII., was opposed to war, but he might easily be forced to adopt the war policy which was popular with his party.
Even the prime minister Villèle, a legitimatist and an ultra-royalist, was too liberal for the king; and he was dismissed to make room for Martignac, and he again for Polignac, who had neither foresight nor prudence nor ability. The generals of the republic and of the empire were removed from active service.
When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by a refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room of the town; there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian.
I have a friend whom I have attached closely to myself, a colonel in the Army of the Loire, who has just been transferred into the garde royale. He has taken my advice and turned ultra-royalist; he is not one of those fools who never change their opinions. Of all pieces of advice, my cherub, I would give you this don't stick to your opinions any more than to your words.
He succeeded in inducing Turkey to evacuate the principalities and to open the Dardanelles to ships of all nations, but Turkish obstinacy deferred the conclusion of a treaty. Meanwhile the Spanish question became more critical. As time went on Spain grew less instead of more settled, while the ultra-royalist party gained strength in France.
Some years later he offered his sword to Russia; and it is asserted by some of his biographers that he was fighting in the Russian ranks at the time of the disastrous retreat from Moscow. Returning to France with the Bourbons, he became notorious by the intensity of his ultra-royalist opinions.
He was followed by Count Bloch, a sportsman well known for his mistresses, his collection of old pyxes, and his ultra-Royalist opinions, Leon Mouey, another man of fashion, who had reached his position as Deputy through literature, and was a writer from political ambition: he was young, bald, clean-shaven, with a lean bilious face: he had a long nose, round eyes, and a head like a bird's, and Dr.
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