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Memoirs of the History of France During the Reign of Napoleon (1823)
Memoirs of the History of France During the Reign of Napoleon - 1823 Author:Napoleon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MEMOIRS NAPOLEON. WAR OF ITALY. Chapter I. I. Remarks on the state of parties in France in 1793.—II Circumstances which occasioned the surrender of Tou... more »lon to the English.—III. Consequences of the reduction of Toulon by the troops of the Convention. Appointment of Napoleon to the command of the artillery of the Army of Italy. The. Constituent Assembly went in some respects too far, and in others did too little. It was composed of men endowed with distinguished talents, but devoid of experience. It committed two errors, which might have produced the total ruin of the nation: the first was the establishment of a constitution at variance with the experience of all ages and states, and the mechanism of which was contrived, not for the purpose of strengthening social order and promoting national prosperity, Memoirs.—-vol. in. B but of restricting and annulling the public power, which is that of government. Great as this error was, it was less flagrant and had less deplorable consequences than that of persisting in re-establishing Louis XVI. on the throne, after the affair of Varennes. What then ought the Assembly to have done ? It ought to have sent commissioners extraordinary to Varennes, not to bring the King back to Paris, but to clear the way for him, and to conduct him safely beyond the frontiers; to have decreed, by virtue of the Constitution, that he had abdicated; proclaimed Louis XVII. King; created a regency, confided the care of the King, during his minority, to a Princess of the House of Cond6, and composed the council of regency and the ministry of the principal members of the Constituent Assembly. A government so conformable to principle, and so national, would have found means to remedy the disadvantages of the Constitution; the force of events would so...« less