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The Bourbons and the Jesuits, his two most violent antipathies, served him well, and made him write his best and most spirited songs. Hence his great success.
Besides, Moreau was a sincere Republican; and if his habit of indecision had permitted him to adopt any resolution, it is quite certain that he would not then have assisted in the reestablishment of the Bourbons, as Pichegru wished.
The murder of Coligny was completed; his son-in-law Teligny perished; all the chief Huguenots were slain; the slaughter spread to country towns; the Church and the civil power were at one, and the victims, taken at unawares, could make no resistance. The two Bourbons, Henri and the Prince de Conde, were spared; they bought their lives by a sudden conversion to Catholicism.
Hortense wrote this book with her heart often interrupted by the tears that dimmed her eyes; she concludes it with a touching appeal to the French people, which it may well be permitted us to repeat here; it is as follows: "The renewal of the law of exile, and the assimilation made between us and the Bourbons, testify to the sentiments and fears that are entertained respecting us.
I know that Talleyrand is one. He is in secret communication with the legitimists, corresponding with the Bourbons, through other hands; at his house, meetings of malcontents and secret royalists are held every day; there the fires are kindled that will soon burst into devouring energy, unless your majesty extinguish them in time. You have disdained to regain Talleyrand by promises or honors.
He was to have advanced against the emperor from Grenoble; but, with the exulting cry, "Vive l'empereur!" the entire regiment had gone over to its adored chieftain. Labédoyère had paid dearly for the enthusiasm of those moments; for, the for-the-second-time restored Bourbons punished his fidelity with death.
The Bourbons had utterly discredited royalty, and the late glorious successes had been won partly by the lavish use in the enemy's camp of money raised and granted by radical democrats, partly by the prowess of enthusiastic republicans.
In Italy also, the Juggernaut car of the Continental System rolled over the small States. The Kingdom of Etruria, which in 1802 had served as an easy means of buying the whole of Louisiana from the Spanish Bourbons, was now wrested from that complaisant House, and in December was annexed to the French Empire. The Pope also passed under the yoke.
Spain would no longer be a danger in the rear, Austria and Russia would be his allies, sharing in the mastery of the world, and England, the irreconcilable enemy of them all, would be finally reduced to ignominious surrender by the loss of her means of subsistence. Pingaud: Bernadotte, Napoléon et les Bourbons. Rose: Napoleonic Studies.
The petition was presented by Sir Francis Burdett, and, I think, on the same evening. It was a strong remonstrance against plunging once more into a war with the French, merely to restore the Bourbons to that throne which they had not the talent or the virtue to fill, either with honour to themselves or with advantage to the people.
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