secret convention against Russia and Prussia, whose ambitions they
feared. France was supporting Austria against Prussia in its claim to
Dresden, but Austria made a poor requital by failing to agree to a
Bourbon restoration in Naples; she was actuated partly by jealousy of the
House of Bourbon and partly by loyalty to Murat, whose abandonment of
Napoleon in January 1814 had in some ways been the crucial military
event in the entire campaign. Most of all, there was considerable personal
animus between Czar Alexander and Louis XVIII. The Czar was fu rious
when he heard the portly Bourbon tell another ruler known for his
corporation, the Prince Regent, that he owed his restoration to the
British; the Czar took the view, rightly, that it was the Russians who had
done most of the fighting to topple the Corsican ogre. With a strong
visceral dislike of Louis XVIII, Alexander also felt he had been insulted
when Louis served himself first at a state banquet and refused to spend
the night under the same roof. It was reported that Alexander remarked
indignantly: 'One would think that it was actually he who put me on my
throne.'
If there were doubts about how far the Allies would go to support
Louis XVIII, it was very clear the Bourbons could look for little from the
French people themselves. The demobilized soldiers already hated him
and pined for the good old days of the Emperor. Tens of thousands of
undefeated veterans who had been cooped up in the besieged fortresses,
returned home, when these were surrendered, fully convinced that they
had been sold down the river. They joined the throng of disgruntled
Napoleonic officers and fu rther tens of thousands of returning prisoners
of war, who found that there was nothing for them in France as Bourbon
placemen had taken all the good things. The result was an ex-army
thrown on the scrapheap and abandoned, but bitter, brooding and eager
for revenge.
The notables too were becoming concerned by the Bourbons' new
bearing. They resented the dismantling of the Concordat and the
assumption of their sees by the ultramontane bishops, for if Catholicism
was restored to a dominant position in the state, it would not be long
before the issue of confiscated Church property was raised. Indeed, there
were worrying signs that Louis XVIII was about to go back on his word
concerning national property in general. All other classes suffered too,
and not just from an ending of all hope of careers open to talents. The
peasantry were afraid that national property would be taken from them
and fe udal tithes reintroduced; urban workers were hit hard by
unemployment as British goods came flooding in and they remembered
with fondness Napoleon's cheap bread policies; while all who had had
marcin
(Marcin)
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