100 Days

A Perilous Peace

While the leashed top dog of Europe was carted off to confinement in his new Mediterranean kennel, his victors started sweeping up the refuse of his rampage. The Bourbon monarchy was reinstated, capsulized in the compliant, corpulent Louis XVIII, previously Prince de Provence. Brother of beheaded Louis XVI, this Louis had inherited the kingly title in exile after his nephew had starved to death, imprisoned by the late king's executioners.

These revolutionary leaders still lived. But the new king had learned early in his fragile reign not to dig up the skeletons of the past. Initially opposing the senate and calling out its members as murderers, Louis was ordered by the resident European rulers who had conquered his country for him to strike a conciliatory tone. The principle participants of the past two regimes had to remain if civil war was to be avoided. The officials who had guillotined thousands and the generals who had shed the battle blood of more thousands were to be untouched. Bloodshed had ended. For the moment, the world wanted to seize a breath after war racked decades. Victory must be celebrated.

The enemy cheered its victors. The Allies paraded through clapping citizens who had wept when the walls had fallen. Now the peasants welcomed the prosperity of peace and the golden pursed occupation. Two kings and a czar were finer than one emperor. The Parisians applauded the imperial pomp of Alexander of Russia as enthusiastically as they had Napoleon of the French Empire. Politics lay above the general public.

The aristocracy were returning in full force. Their king was restored. This meant their previous way of life was restored. They could recommence their careers of dissipation. They would rest on the backs of their peasantry, which would in turn be taxed back into poverty. This was the right way of the world. The poor must work while the rich must rule. Anarchy occurred when you attempted anything else.

This was to the narrow minded conservatives a moral victory of the old over the new, order over chaos, good over evil. Traditional monarchy had beaten republicanism and imperialism. The spirit of peace had defeated the god of war.

Louis XVIII established his big bulk comfortably on his throne in his court at the Tuileries Palace (kindly modernized for him by the tasteful Empress Josephine, now wilting in retirement) and beamed beneficently to show his subjects how willing he was to bestow blessings.

'The mistakes of my forefathers I have learned from,' he seemed to smile. 'No advice will I dismiss. My ears are open to everyone. Everyone here counts. This is a well balanced monarch.'

The well balanced monarch was besieged with petitioners. Vainly he tried to attend to every voice but all merged to make a deafening din. Calming the crowd with a plump palm, Louis beckoned each party to approach one at a time. The persons presented their petitions. His Majesty concentrated on beaming beneficently, promised to fulfill every demand, let the petitioner pass on, then tapped the minister by his right elbow to explain what it was all about. Prince Talleyrand, wielding the biggest broom of the sweepers, bent to confide in the beneficent ear.

"Two main groups have appeared," Talleyrand murmured. "Restorers of the old royal regime expecting special rights and progressives pushing a new public order. Our neighboring nations are conservatives but concerned you content the revolutionaries. You are to unite. I dominated you to replace Napoleon because his admirers of majesty might accept a king after an emperor."

"Not every republican has turned imperialist," Louis groaned. "Mourning isn't only over the defeat and exile of their imperial ideal. Hearts are yearning for the republic lost to Bonaparte's dictatorial dynasty."

"Which is why I warn your Majesty, Republican ardor will block policies to increase royal power," Talleyrand asserted, leaning in so near his breath caught at the kingly nostrils. "A complete comeback of absolute monarchy or feudal society is impossible."