Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty 1789-1848. Adam Zamoyski
of Marshal Marmont, ‘It was the height of fashion to be without mercy.’ Marmont was himself told he should be shot, despite his having remained loyal to the king.8
The more conciliatory Louis XVIII reportedly hoped that Ney would make his escape abroad, and was dismayed when he was apprehended. The marshal was to be tried by a tribunal of the Chamber of Peers, but its most distinguished members refused to sit in judgement over a man widely regarded as a national hero. Those who stepped in turned the trial into a mockery of justice, which only deepened the fault lines running through French society. While members of the highest aristocracy insisted on replacing the prison guards and donning their uniforms in order to stand guard over Ney between his condemnation and his execution, many others began to see him as a martyr.9
Napoleon’s postmaster Lavalette was also condemned to death. While he awaited the guillotine, the king’s entourage did everything they could to prevent his wife addressing a plea for mercy to him. When Marshal Marmont did manage to smuggle her into his presence he dismissed her petition, saying there was nothing he could do. ‘Vive le Roi!’ his entourage roared; Marmont records that the ferocious sound ‘reeked of cannibalism’. With remarkable devotion (considering that Lavalette was by no means young and had a mistress far fresher than her) she devised a plot to spring her husband from gaol dressed in her clothes, while she remained in his cell. With the help of friends, and the British general Sir Robert Wilson, he was then whisked off to England.10
An amnesty was declared, but it did not put a stop to the witch-hunts, and many were either banished or obliged to take shelter abroad. The army was further reduced and combed through for unreliable elements, resulting in the dismissal, disgrace, banishment or imprisonment of thousands. Anyone who had taken a seat in a legislative chamber under Napoleon was automatically disqualified from holding public office.
All the political passions of the past quarter-century had been stirred up. The humiliated army dreamed of revenge, Bonapartists of bringing back Napoleon or his son, revolutionaries of 1789 pined for a limited monarchy, others for the Republic of 1792, Jacobins for more extreme measures, and returned émigrés wanted the restoration of the ancien régime. Some monarchists felt that the lacklustre Louis XVIII, who had, as the saying went, forgotten nothing and learned nothing, should have been passed over in favour of the duc d’Orléans, head of a junior line, an intelligent man who had fought under the revolutionary tricolour in 1792, been a Jacobin and learned a great deal since. More reactionary elements favoured replacing him with a prince from the Spanish line of Bourbons, whose medieval mindset was more to their taste. Another candidate was the Prince of Orange, son of the newly created King of Holland, backed by deluded revolutionary French émigrés in Belgium who apparently believed that they would thereby succeed in adding the territory of Belgium to France.11
If Waterloo had convincingly demonstrated the strength of the forces of repression and the pointlessness of challenging them, Napoleon’s sensationally successful seizure of power suggested that with a will anything was possible. Sensible people took note of the former and resigned themselves to reality; hotheads were inspired by the latter, and were inclined to believe that any ‘coup de main’ might succeed. This meant that no serious group of would-be revolutionaries even considered the feasibility of action, while dreamers and adventurers were prepared to try their hand. If the probability of a well-organised conspiracy was negligible, that of sporadic isolated rebellion was not, particularly in Paris.
The city contained a vast number of manual labourers living on the breadline or beneath it as a result of the early stages of industrialisation, a drift from the countryside and the disbandment of the army. Between 1800 and 1817 the density of the population went up by 30.8 per cent. A volatile new element was the jeunesse des écoles, students of the grandes écoles established by Napoleon, who were filled with the spirit of individualism, philanthropy and rebellion against all authority fostered by the culture of the Romantic movement. The city also attracted restless spirits, including a group of English liberals, the most prominent of whom were Byron’s friend Kinnaird and General Sir Robert Wilson, a flamboyant cavalryman who had fought his way to fame in the colonies, the Peninsula, Russia and Germany, and whose sense of chivalry was outraged at what was going on. Referred to by the Russian ambassador as ‘the English Jacobins’ and ‘the English revolutionaries’, they were, according to him, on a ‘mission’ to ‘excite everywhere civil war’. The French prime minister referred to them as ‘a turbulent sect which is seeking to stir up revolutionary ferment wherever it can find the means’.12
The ambassador was Charles André Pozzo di Borgo, a Corsican by birth and a one-time friend of Napoleon who had participated in the early stages of the Revolution, but then helped the British capture his native island in 1794. He was rescued from it by Nelson when the French reoccupied it two years later, and after spending some time in England had taken service in Russia. Alexander gave him the rank of general and employed him on various missions before posting him to Paris. There, Pozzo di Borgo played a leading role in the permanent conference of the ambassadors of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Britain and the Duke of Wellington, commander-in-chief of their joint army of occupation. This conference had been put in place by the allies to monitor the situation and coordinate their policy on France. It also edited the king’s speeches, new legislation and other important documents, which were submitted to it beforehand by the French cabinet for approval. Pozzo di Borgo was a brilliant conversationalist, with a wit likened to a fireworks display. With his strong Corsican accent, his agility, his flexibility alternating with outbursts of feeling, he was very much a man of the south, and was described by one French statesman as ‘a political Figaro’.13
The prime minister was Armand-Émmanuel du Plessis, duc de Richelieu. At the age of forty-nine, Richelieu had had an eventful life. Born into the highest aristocracy, he had been a gentleman of the bedchamber to Louis XVI. At sixteen he was married by his genealogically minded family to a hunchback dwarf of impeccable lineage and such ugliness that he fainted when he first saw her. He never did again: he left France in the early stages of the Revolution and took service in Russia, distinguishing himself at the capture of Ismail. He was befriended by Alexander, who in 1803 appointed him governor of Odessa, a city he developed and beautified over the next decade. In the autumn of 1815 Alexander persuaded Louis XVIII to appoint him prime minister, hoping that this would ensure that France would be governed in accordance with his views. Richelieu was a capable administrator, with frugal tastes and great integrity. ‘No man had a finer face, a more elegant figure, more seductive manners,’ noted a contemporary. ‘In the midst of the most polite and elegant circles he stood out by his elegance and his politeness, like a grand seigneur among bourgeois.’ He was not temperamentally suited to politics, but took up the challenge gamely.14
‘The interior of the country is perfectly tranquil,’ Richelieu wrote to Alexander in January 1816, ‘taxes are being paid on time, the public funds are rising, and outside the provinces occupied by the allied armies, and particularly the Prussians, which are still suffering greatly, the rest of France is getting back on its feet, recovering some confidence, and looking forward to a happier future …’ His principal cause for anxiety was what he called the ‘counter-revolution’, which obstructed him at every step and threatened to upset the fragile political balance he was trying to maintain. He was referring to the ultra-royalists, known as les Ultras. They coalesced around Louis XVIII’s sibling Charles Philippe, comte d’Artois, also known as Monsieur, the traditional style of the king’s younger brother.15
Endowed with wit and charm, he had been the darling of the court prior to 1789, a constant companion to Marie-Antoinette in her frivolous diversions, noted for his amorous adventures. Foreseeing the worst, he had left France two days after the fall of the Bastille, and in 1791, after the failure of Louis XVI’s attempt to escape, gathered a number of émigré nobles at Koblenz in Germany who hoped to march back into France to reinstate him.