ONE:Louis XVIII., having raised an army of thirty thousand men, thought that he could protect himself, and was anxious that France might be spared the expense of supporting the one hundred and fifty thousand men. Accordingly, one-fifth of the army was withdrawn in 1817. In the following year a Congress was held, in the month of September, at Aix-la-Chapelle, at which the Emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia attended; on the part of France, the Duke of Richelieu; and of Great Britain, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh, when it was determined that a complete evacuation of France might and should take place by the 20th of November, when the three years terminated. At this Congress it was determined also that, besides the seven hundred million francs for the charges incurred by the Allied armies, another seven hundred millions should be paid in indemnification of damages to private individuals in the different countries overrun by France. These and other items raised the total to be paid by France for Napoleon's outbreak of the Hundred Days to about sixty million pounds sterling.
TWO:In January, 1812, Government made another attempt to punish the Catholic delegates, and they obtained a verdict against one of them, Thomas Kirwan; but such was the public feeling, that they did no more than fine him one mark, and discharge him. They also abandoned other contemplated prosecutions. The Catholic committee met, according to appointment, on the 28th of February, addressed the Prince Regent, and then separated. The usual motions for Catholic Emancipation were introduced into both Houses of Parliament, and by both were rejected. It was the settled policy of this Ministry not to listen to the subject, though the Marquis Wellesley, Canning, and others now admitted that the matter must be conceded. The assassination of Mr. Perceval, on the 11th of May, it was hoped, would break up that Ministry, but it was continued, with Lord Liverpool at its head. Though Lord Wellesley this year brought forward the motion in the Lords, and Canning in the Commons, both Houses rejected it, but the Lords by a majority of only one. The question continued to be annually agitated in Parliament during this reign, from the year 1814, with less apparent success than before, Ireland was in a very dislocated state with the Orangemen and Ribbonmen, and other illegal associations and contentions between Catholics and Protestants, and this acted very detrimentally on the question in England. Only one little victory was obtained in favour of the Catholics. This was, in 1813, the granting to Catholics in England of the benefit of the Act passed in Ireland, the 33 George III., repealing the 21 Charles II. And thus the Catholics were left, after all their exertions, at the death of the old king.
ONE:The Assembly had not paid him the respect to wait on him; but, at the last moment, they passed a resolution that the Assembly was inseparable from the person of the king, and appointed one hundred deputies to attend him. Amongst them was Mirabeau. It was about one o'clock when the king quitted Versailles amid a general discharge of musketry, falsely, on this occasion, termed a feu-de-joie. The king and queen, the dauphin, and the little daughter, Monsieur, the king's brother, and Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister, went all in one great State coach. Others of the royal household, with the ladies of honour, and the one hundred deputies, followed in about a hundred vehicles of one kind or other. The Mayor, Bailly, received them at the barrier of Paris, and conducted them to the H?tel de Ville. So soon as they had passed the barrier, the numerous procession were joined by the whole leviathan mob of Paris, calculated at two hundred thousand men! It was night, and the crushing and shouting throngs prevented the royal carriage from more than merely moving all the way from the barrier to the Place de Grve. At the H?tel de Ville, Moreau de St. Mery addressed the king in a long speech, congratulating him on his happy arrival amongst his peoplehis "loving children of the capital." The poor tired and dispirited king replied that he always came with confidence amongst his people. Bailly repeated the words in a loud tone to the people, but omitted the words "with confidence," whereupon the queen said, with much spirit, "Sir, add 'with confidence';" so Bailly replied, "Gentlemen, in hearing it from the lips of the queen you are happier than if I had not made that mistake." The king was then exhibited on the balcony to the mob, with a huge tricolour cockade in his hat, at which sight, in French fashion, the people hugged and kissed each other and danced for joy. It was eleven o'clock at night before the miserable royal captives were conducted by Lafayette to their appointed prisonfor such it was, in factthe great palace of their ancestors, the Tuileries, which had been uninhabited for a century, and had not been prepared[370] for their reception. The Assembly followed, and proceeded to work under the eyes of the Paris commune and the people. Power was fast slipping from their hands.The year 1763 opened with the signing of the[176] definitive treaty at Paris on the 19th of February, whence it was called the Peace of Paris. Five days later, a peace was signed between Prussia and Austria at Hubertsberg, in Saxony, to which Saxony, as the ally of Austria, was a party. Indeed, when England and France, Russia and Sweden, had withdrawn from the contest, there was little prospect of the continuance of the war. Both parties were exhausted, and yet, of the two, Frederick, in his dogged firmness, and in the almost unparalleled endurance of his people, was more than a match for Austria. If Maria Theresa could not cope with him when she had France, Russia, Saxony, and Poland, all united with her to put him down, the case was now hopeless. The English had stipulated that France should evacuate all the places in Germany and Flanders that belonged to those countries, and Frederick had easily induced the German states, in these circumstances, to a maintenance of neutrality. Austria, therefore, consented to this peace. She stood out the longest for the retention of Glatz, the only place won from Frederick still in her hands, but she was compelled to yield that, too. Both parties returned to the same situations as before the commencement of this fatal Seven Years' War.
TWO:William Stanhope was rewarded for his accomplishment of this treaty with the title of Lord Harrington, and was soon after made Secretary of State. But whilst the English were delighted by the completion of the treaty, the Emperor was enraged by it, and his mortification was doubled by the fact that, when he sought to raise four hundred thousand pounds by a loan in London to supply the want of his Spanish subsidies, the Ministry brought in and rapidly passed a Bill prohibiting loans to foreign Powers, except by a licence from the king under the Privy Seal. The Opposition raised a loud outcry, calling it "a Bill of Terrors," an "eternal yoke on our fellow-subjects," and a "magnificent boon to the Dutch." But Walpole very justly answered, "Shall British merchants be permitted to lend their money against the British nation? Shall they arm an enemy with strength and assist him with supplies?"[See larger version]
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TWO:In April the French made an attempt to recover Quebec. Brigadier-General Murray had been left in command of the troops, six thousand in number, and the fleet had returned to England. The Marquis de Vaudreuil, now the French governor at Montreal, formed a plan of dropping down the St. Lawrence the moment the ice broke up, and before the mouth of the river was clear for ships to ascend from England. He therefore held in readiness five thousand regular troops, and as many militia, and the moment the ice broke in April, though the ground was still covered with snow, he embarked them in ships and boats under the command of Chevalier de Levis, an officer of reputation. On the 28th of that month they were within sight[139] of Quebec. They had landed higher up than where Wolfe did, and were now at the village of Sillery, not far from Wolfe's place of ascent. Murray, who had only about three thousand men available for such a purpose, the rest having been reduced by sickness, or being needed to man the fortifications, yet ventured to march out against them. He was emulous of the fame of Wolfe, and attacked this overwhelming force with great impetuosity, but was soon compelled to retire into Quebec with the loss of one thousand men killed and wounded. This was a serious matter with their scanty garrison, considering the numbers of the enemy, and the uncertainty of the arrival of succour.
