CHAPTER V. Position of France in 1822.-Invasion of To speak in 1822 of a Spanish war was to recall the previous one, in which above half a million of Frenchmen had perished. The object proposed in so perilous an enterprise was not a disputed succession: it was to obtain redress for no injuries, there was no French interest involved; it was to change institutions, in an inverse sense to those of France. It presented, then, insuperable difficulties, and involved the reappearance of the armies of England in the Peninsula. Wellington survived, Napoleon was gone, and but seven years had elapsed since the Allies had, for the second time, entered Paris, having the first time marched thither from the Pyrenees. No enterprise could present itself under features more forbidding to the French nation. The king was not in favour of the plan; the President of the Council was most adverse to it; the royalist minority deemed it insane; the Constitutionalist majority held it an attack upon themselves. No men of genius supported, by their private judgment or senatorial eloquence, the unpopular measure. At this hour, when all secrets have been laid bare, we can scarcely discover a known name not hostile, save those of M. de Montmorency and M. de Chateaubriand: of these the first was the minister of foreign affairs, the latter the ambassador in London. M. de Montmorency fell a sacrifice to his ardour in this cause, even before the Congress of Verona had terminated its sittings, and M. de Chateaubriand had been backed by England, as the opponent of "extreme measures." Astounding as such a statement may be, the proofs of its accuracy lie within the reach of any diligent man. There are the columns of the Moniteur,' the official documents, and the published exculpation of M. de Chateaubriand. The event has proved that these apprehensions of Spanish resistance were unfounded; may not, therefore, the promoters of the war have calculated with greater accuracy the chances than the public? We have their most secret communications before us: from these I extract the leading points, as given by the author of the Invasion. He held the In He considered the people of Spain intractible, not attached to "legitimate principles more than to constitutional;" he held the whole case "to reside in the character of the king;" he was the political disease of Spain; he was "false, imbecile, and treacherous;" the people of Spain were vindictive, and the restoration of the absolute king would be the signal of every excess to which " they were entitled by their traditional habits of arrogance." vasion to be most dangerous, and to place the French armies entirely at the mercy of England: he looked on failure as "the fall of the Bourbons in France," and the beginning of a convulsion " more dangerous than that of 1793." Had he looked to prompt and easy success, had he come with a scheme of government to introduce, he might have been set down as fit for a place in St. Luke's; but he had no such hope or plan. How shall we describe him if not in his own words, "It is not he that is fabulous, but the age?" Let us now consider the dispositions of foreign Powers. France was then humbled. She was admitted to no Conclaves she had just escaped from a project of further partition projected by England: she was hated by the despotic Powers for her supposed liberalism, and by the Constitutionalists for her entrance into the "Holy Alliance." She was then linked by no entente cordiale with England, but looked upon her neighbour as engaged in a national policy to humble and weaken her. The Spanish Constitution was considered England's work: an eventual occupation of Spain was therefore, justly to be considered "a possible war with England." Canning was minister. As to the Continental Powers, and especially the Holy Alliance, it may be supposed that they were not only favour able but so ardent in the matter, as to make common cause with her when repeating across the expeditions of Austria across the Alps. were widely different. Pyrenees the recent In these Interventions, Austria acted in the pursuit of a definite policy on a field abandoned to her at the Congress of Vienna; there was no danger of a war thence arising between her and England. Prussia did not apprehend that she would extend her power, or change in a dangerous manner her own character, but knew full well that she would be only weakened. France alone could have taken umbrage at Austrian Intervention in Italy; it was against her that the blow was aimed, and she was prostrate. The Holy Alliance had, moreover, denounced these Revolutions from the beginning. No danger for the person of the king could arise from the hostile operation. The Invasion of Spain by France presents the counterpart in all respects of this picture; there the Revolution had been recognised, the powers had their ambassadors at Madrid—the Russian ambassador, who was also a Spanish general (Pozzo di Borgo), had taken part in the appointment of the ministry. The Invasion was considered not an easy suppression of doctrines, but as a great war with incalculable consequences. Austria and Russia reduced the question to this dilemma, "either France will be victorious, or she will be beaten :" in the first case she will regain her preponderance-in the second Revolution its strength. Where then was the support of the promoters of the project against their King, their Colleagues, the Chamber, the Charter, the Parties, in a word-France? Let us open the " Congress of Verona"-I mean the volume. CHAPTER VI. Congress of Verona. THE Conference at Verona was attended, not like that of Laybach, by the members of the Holy Alliance only, but also by the Representatives of other States and of England, who had protested against such meetings, declaring that she ἐσ never contemplated that the alliance of the great Powers was to be converted into a conclave for the government of independent states." The Conference ended without any decision: no joint declaration of principles was published, and no concerted action of any description resolved on. There were five major points discussed, which I place according to their order of discussion and supposed importance: 1st. The Slave Trade. 2d. Suppression of piracy in America and the Spanish Colonies. 3d. The differences between Russia and the Porte. 4th. The affairs of Italy. 5th. The Revolution in Spain. These subjects were treated severally by the Powers directly interested. The smaller States were excluded from the discussion on the affairs of the Porte, and France, though not excluded, was allowed no consultative voice; from those of Italy, she was entirely excluded. Those on which she was called to treat were the Slave Trade, the Spanish Colonies, and Spain. The first two were introduced by the English Government; the rôle of France was limited to declining to accede to the English proposals. France herself introduced Spain in the form of a question as to how far the Powers would lend to her their sanction or co-operation in eventual circumstances, such as, for instance, a declaration of war by Spain. The French Commissioners had however been enjoined by their instructions "to avoid presenting themselves to the Congress as reporting on Spanish affairs," because, says the President of the Council, "should Spain declare war against us, we do not require succours, and we could not even admit of them, if the result were to be the passage of foreign troops across our territory." He proceeds to show the impossibility of conquering Spain, or of maintaining there an army of occupation. These instructions were framed to meet and counteract supposed warlike dispositions on the part of the Congress, which might place France in the alternative of defending the Spanish Revolution against Europe, or of attacking it on behalf of Europe. The French Plenipotentiary, in the teeth of these specific orders, did, as we have seen, make himself the reporter on Spanish affairs, and, in so doing, applied the words of M. Villele, in reference to a defensive war against Spain to an Intervention in Spain, and so identified the proposed measure with those operations against Piedmont and Naples, which the President of the Council had energetically repudiated. In his communication to the Congress of the 20th October, he says: "Besides, the Spanish Government may suddenly determine upon a formal aggression. France must therefore foresee as possible, and perhaps even as probable, a war with Spain. By the nature of things, and in the sentiments of moderation by which she seeks to regulate her conduct, she must consider this war as strictly defensive. Full of confidence in the justice of the cause she will have to defend, and honouring herself with having to preserve Europe from the revolutionary scourge, &c." He then proceeds to indicate a middle course as possible between war and peace,—that of breaking off diplomatic intercourse; and his proposal is, that the other Courts shall also withdraw their Representatives. This step, not in his instructions, was that best calculated to exasperate Spain, and to identify France with the Holy Alliance. He himself contemplates this result. "This measure, which |