Kentucky Gazette

FROM THE AURORA.

THE FRENCH CONSTITUTION.

No. III.

In our former numbers we have endeavored to show that the title assumed by Louis, though of very ancient origin, was created by a bigotted pope, founded on falsehood, and forced upon a credulous and ignorant nation—let us now hear his most christian majesty of our day :

"Divine Providence, in recalling us to our states after a long absence, has imposed upon us great obligations."

Though none believe with more reverence & sincerity in the Omnipotence of the Supreme Being, our creed is not of that latitudinarian texture which admits of the particular interposition of Divine Providence, and makes a selection of certain individuals to rule over their fellow creatures. We have too sublime an idea of the Almighty's goodness, to believe that he has permitted the murder of Louis XVI. only to place his present majesty on his throne or the strangling of Paul of Russia, in order to place the diadem on the head of Alexander : that he has expelled from the throne the unfortunate Gustavus, to set upon it Charles Jean Bernadotte: we cannot believe that Providence had any participation in the coronation of all the kings manufactured by Bonaparte ; that he has driven from the throne of Naples the lawful possessor, to transfer it to Joachim Murat ; we are very far from thinking that Divine Providence has driven George III. mad, merely to afford his son an opportunity to exhibit his virtues as a member of society, a husband, father, and prince: nor can we suppose that the Almighty has recalled Ferdinand VII. to a throne claimed by its legitimate lineal inheritor Charles IV—Therefore, with all due submission to the royal word of his majesty, we will continue to doubt that Providence has brought Louis from Hartwell, in England, to the throne from which Napoleon had been expelled by a power very opposite to that of Providence.

Although history presents, almost at every page, instances of nations dismissing their princes, bon gre mal gre ; if the French revolution of 1793, had not taken place, it might be supposed with some plausibility, that France was an exception to the general laws of nature and reason, and that she alone enjoys the felicity of receiving her sovereign from the hands of Divine Providence. Unfortunately for the supporters of this notion, the revolution of the 4th of April, 1814, is too fresh in the memory ; and the constitution made by the provisional government of France, sanctioned by the senate & legislative body, and solemnly accepted by Monsieur, son of France, lieut general of the kingdom, in the name of his august brother Louis Stanislaus Xavier, to whom it was officially communicated, and which was probably in his pocket at the moment of the reading of the speech—this constitution, which calls him to the throne, not in virtue of his birth-right, but in the name and by the free will of the French nation, leaves some doubts on the correctness of his majesty's being recalled by Divine Providence to his states : we have no hesitation to believe, that Louis is firmly persuaded of what he is pleased to express, that he verily thinks, that he has reigned over his subjects during nineteen years in the most peaceable manner—but as there are two parties in this affair, the king and the nation, we venture to predict, that it will be next to an impossibility to persuade Frenchmen generally, that Louis ever was their king before the throne was offered to him by their representatives, and the constitution accepted and signed in due form.

"A constitutional charter was solicited by the existing administration of the kingdom; we have promised one, and we now publish it."

Had his majesty possessed the power to give to the waters of the river Seine the peculiar property of those of the poetical Lethe, he might, without fear of contradiction, have said that a constitutional charter was solicited; otherwise the French could not but remember, that a constitutional charter was made by the existing administration of France, and presented, not for discussion, but for his acceptation.

Though Louis pretends that he has been recalled by Divine Providence, nevertheless, as we do not live in the age of miracles, some human means must have been devised to bring Louis into the palace of the Thuilleries; either he has been restored by the bayonets of his allies, (and we have his own authority to deny the fact, since he proclaimed that the glory of the French arms has received no diminution,) or the French people must have informed him that he might exchange his abode of Hartwell for that of Paris ; and this was, in fact, performed officially on the part of the French, by forwarding him the constitutional charter, by which he was to be made king, after he should have signed it and swore to it. The charter was presented ; he accepted several of its provisions, and objected to some; but the jugglers of the senate, instead of reminding Louis that he had nothing to do, but to sign and swear to the constitution, or to return to Hartwell—basely compromised for their private interest, and thus emboldened the self-created king, to seat himself on the throne, (contrary to the conditions stipulated for the nation for his return) under the protection of the lances of the Cossacks.

It does not follow from that transaction, that the king is correct in his speech, and that if the French people have been cheated out of their sovereign rights by his serenity the prince of Benevento and his excellency the abbe Montesquieu, that they will consider themselves bound to obey the mandates of his majesty, so repugnant to reason and common sense ; it might be possible (which God forbid) that monseigneur Talleyrand should find it necessary to take another trip to England, and that his most christian majesty should be pleased to forget the rights of Divine Providence, and be satisfied with the dignity of the first magistrate of the nation conferred upon him by the will of a free people ; and we are of opinion, that by contenting himself with the power delegated to him without force by his people, he would be more safely seated on the throne, than by having recourse to the old customs of the 9th century—that he would be more happy and beloved, and that France might really enjoy tranquillity, and prosper under a really lawful and paternal government.

CATO