the war has been prefaced are as hazardous as the war itself. Consider before what an audience you plead. How many of their passions are against you!—how few of their sympathies are with you! * And do you make war to free such a monarch from all restraint? And do you hope to have mankind with you ?"

CHAPTER VII.

Invasion of 1823.

ON entering the Spanish territory, the Duc D'Angoulême issued a proclamation (2d April), which opens in these words :

"The King of France, in withdrawing his Ambassador from Madrid, hoped that the warning would have recalled the Spanish Government to more moderate sentiments. Two months and a half have passed, and His Majesty has awaited in vain to see an order of things established in Spain compatible with the security of its neighbours."

The Note of the French Government which had preceded the recall of the Ambassador contained the following passage: "The Government of His Majesty will not hesitate to seek guarantees in more efficacious dispositions for the protection of the material interests of France, should they continue to be compromised, and should she lose the hopes of an amelioration, which, with pleasure, she awaits from the sentiments which have so long united the Spaniards to the French in a sage liberty."

Such were the hopes in which she awaited the two months and a half spent in active preparation for Invasion, in consequence of a provocation which she had tranquilly endured for two years, and which Invasion her King from the throne had the year before declared that "malevolence alone" could suspect.

The Duc D'Angoulême having with laconic vagueness explained the grounds of the Invasion, thus exposes the conduct he is about to pursue :—

"Spaniards-everything will be done for you and with you. --The French are, and only will be your auxiliaries ;—your

own flag will alone wave over your cities;-the provinces that my soldiers shall traverse, will be administered in the name of Ferdinand, by Spanish authorities ::-we do not pretend to impose upon you laws, we only desire to restore to you order."

Three days before the date of the Duke's Proclamation, another had appeared, also issuing from the French territory; it contained these words :

"Spaniards, to you belong the glory of exterminating the Revolutionary Hydra.

"The Provisional Junta of Government declares that sovereignty resides entirely in the King, and emanates from him.

Spaniards, your Government declares that it does not recognise, and holds as null, all the public and administration acts, as well as the measures of a Government established by Rebellion, and that consequently it temporarily re-establishes things in the state in which they were previous to the 7th March, 1820."

The place from which it was dated, and the concurrent transmission of the two Proclamations, prove the connivance. At a subsequent period the French Government attempted to exculpate itself by its inability to restrain the Party it had placed in power, without exposing its troops to the fury of a reaction. But of what further violence could it be guilty? The proclamation of the Duke was not his voluntary act, nor one to which he had assented,—it was sent to him only at the moment that it was to be published, and with pressing orders that the publication should not be delayed an hour.*

"The Duc d'Angoulême found at Toulouse the members of the ex-regency of Urgel. He received them very coldly, and only as private persons. He showed attention only to the Baron d'Eroles, but whether it was that his opinions had undergone a change, or that he had been overreached by some intrigue, it is certain that, in direct contradiction with his moderate ideas, a provisional junta made its appearance on the 6th of April at Bayonne, composed of Eguia, Erol, and Gomez Calderon, and which, without waiting to know whence its power came to it, or who it represented, com

The only course was the appointment of the Duc D'Angoulême as Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, until the close of the expedition. The political circumstances of the country rendered this imperative, and it presented no administrative difficulty even of detail, the municipal bodies having there the entire management, and standing distinct from the Cortes and their system. Whilst the issue remained uncertain, there was absolutely nothing for a general government legitimately to do.

Two savage factions stood in face of each other: how could France restore order if not by standing as a moderator between them? To announce that her armies shall advance as stalking horses, for the vengeance of a proscribed minority, was a device to accumulate obstacles in their van, to surround the march with dangers, and to mark their track with the desolation of a civil war. To tell the one party that the door of vengeance was open, was to shut against the other the hope of reconciliation, and to bring upon the army a fate similar to that with which it threatened Spain. Had the design been executed in the spirit in which it was planned, 100,000 Frenchmen would have marched to their graves; Spain would have been a chaos of convulsion, of which the counterpart would soon have appeared in France herself; and the Russian troops, which, as we learn from M. de Chateaubriand, were to be put in motion, would have found their concerted destination.

However, the Spaniards are not a reading people, and they had made up their minds upon the matter in a manner which Shakspeare has anticipated in the words, "A plague on both your houses." The Duo d'Augoulême was hailed as a liberator; the French troops were everywhere received with

menced from that day by declaring null every act since the 7th of March, 1820; and that declaration, although calculated seriously to injure the cause of restoration, and to produce the worst effects in France, was not the less sanctioned by the proclamation of the Prince-Generalissimo at Oyarzun on the 9th of April.”—Mar. de Miraflores.

own fag will alone wave over your cities;—the provinces that my soldiers shall traverse, will be administered in the name of Ferdinand, by Spanish authorities:—we do not pretend to impose upon you laws, we only desire to restore to you order."

Three days before the date of the Duke's Proclamation, another had appeared, also issuing from the French territory ; in contained these words:

Spaniards, to you belong the glory of exterminating the Revolutionary Hydra.

"The Provisional Junta of Government declares that sovereignty resides entirely in the King, and emanates from

him.

“Spaniards, your Government declares that it does not recognise, and holds as null, all the public and administration acts, as well as the measures of a Government established by Rebellion, and that consequently it temporarily re-establishes things in the state in which they were previous to the 7th March, 1820."

The place from which it was dated, and the concurrent transmission of the two Proclamations, prove the connivance. At a subsequent period the French Government attempted to exculpate itself by its inability to restrain the Party it had placed in power, without exposing its troops to the fury of a reaction. But of what further violence could it be guilty? The proclamation of the Duke was not his voluntary act, nor one to which he had assented,-it was sent to him only at the moment that it was to be published, and with pressing orders that the publication should not be delayed an hour.*

"The Duc d'Angoulême found at Toulouse the members of the ex-regency of Urgel. He received them very coldly, and only as private persons. He showed attention only to the Baron d'Eroles, but whether it was that his opinions had undergone a change, or that he had been overreached by some intrigue, it is certain that, in direct contradiction with his moderate ideas, a provisional junta made its appearance on the 6th of April at Bayonne, composed of Eguia, Erol, and Gomez Calderon, and which, without waiting to know whence its power came to it, or who it