your address," he began abruptly: "it was incendiary. I called you round
me to do good--you have done ill. Eleven-twelfths of you are well-
intentioned, the others, and above all M. Laine, are factious intriguers,
devoted to England, to all my enemies, and corresponding through the
channel of the advocate Deseze with the Bourbons. Return to your
Departments, and feel that my eye will follow you; you have endeavoured
to humble me, you may kill me, but you shall not dishonour me. You make
remonstrances; is this a time, when the stranger invades our provinces,
and 200,000 Cossacks are ready to overflow our country? There may have
been petty abuses; I never connived at them. You, M. Raynouard, you said
that. Prince Massena robbed a man at Marseilles of his house. You lie!
The General took possession of a vacant house, and my Minister shall
indemnify the proprietor. Is it thus that you dare affront a Marshal of
France who has bled for his country, and grown gray in victory? Why did
you not make your complaints in private to me? I would have done you
justice. We should wash our dirty linen at home, and not drag it out
before the world. You, call yourselves Representatives of the Nation.
It is not true; you are only Deputies of the Departments; a small portion
of the State, inferior to the Senate, inferior even to the Council of
State. The Representatives of the People! I am alone the Representative
of the People. Twice have 24,000,000 of French called me to the throne:
which of you durst undertake such a burden? It had already overwhelmed
(ecrase), your Assemblies, and your Conventions, your Vergniauds and your
Guadets, your Jacobins and your Girondins. They are all dead! What, who
are you? nothing--all authority is in the Throne; and what is the
Throne? this wooden frame covered with velvet?--no, I am the Throne!
You have added wrong to reproaches. You have talked of concessions--
concessions that even my enemies dared not ask! I suppose if they asked
Champaigne you would have had me give them La Brie besides; but in four
months I will conquer peace, or I shall be dead! You advise! how dare