Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/221

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

IX.] THE GREAT REVOLUTIO.^. 197 as also Siome points on the Belgian frontier, with Mont- beillard and part of Savoy, with its capital Chambery. A congress was to meet at Vienna to arrange the affairs of Europe, after the overthrow of all old landmarks and institutions. Of the conquests of France the whole Netherlands were to form a single kinglom under the House of Orange, the co.iquests in Germany went mainly to Prussia, Bavaria, and Hanover, and four of the free cities got back their independence. The Italian princes, but not the commonwealths, got back their territories. Austria took back almost all that she had lost in Germany and was allowed to kesp Venice, with the old Venetiin dominions in Italy and on the Hadriati % in addition to the part of Lombardy that had formerly belon^jed to Austria. The Ionian Islands becane a commonwealth under the protection of England. Thus France was to begin again with its old royal family and nearly its old boundaries. Lewis XVIII. called himself Kingof France and Navarre, but he was never crowned. He began his reign with Talleyrand for his adviser. He was an elderly man, large, inert, and gouty, shrewd and clever, and su"h an epicure that a pun turned Louis Dixhuit (iSth~) into Loins des hitilres (»« of the oysters). A con-^titution had been drawn up by the senate, but he rejejted it and gave them one of his own called the charter. It was realh the more liberal of the two, but they were affronted that it was called his grant, and was not to spring from themselves. The disbanded soldiers were discontentei ; and violets were handed about with the whisper, •' He will return in spring." 32. The. Hundred Days, 181^ . — Napoleon was encour- aged to escape fro n Elba, and ma :e one last attempt. He I'.nded n;ar Antibe s on the isc of M ai-rh, 1X19^ and was hailed with rapture by his old soldiers. Ney, after strong pro nises of fUelity to Lewis XVTIL, went over to him, and every regiment sent to meet him threw down its arms, and greeted him as a father. Lewis XVIII. fled to Ghent, and Buonaparte was received at Paris with transports of^ joy on t e part of the soldiers and the mob. He found however that he could not re-establish his old desyjotism , and he proclaimed a constitution callect tlie Additional Act, which established a Legislative As- sembly of two chambers. On the 1st of Tune, he held a gathering of deputies from all parts of l-'rance, which he called a Champ de Mai. in imitation of the old Frankisb