. GENERAL SAVARY

AND

7

THE DUKE OF OTRANTO,

&c. &c.

To the Editor of the Pamphleteer, London.

SIR,

Prague, June 1, 1817. I HAVE no hesitation in using your permission to insert in your work an answer to certain calumnious attacks upon the conduct of the Duke of Otranto, contained in one of the articles of a former number. I will candidly tell you what I know of that celebrated man.

We studied together; the revolution separated us, he entered upon public business and I emigrated. I regularly corresponded with him until he became sufficiently powerful to procure my return to my native country.-I found him as I had left him; a good friend, a good husband, and a kind relation. I long desired to speak to him of his political career, concerning which the Journals were full of contradictions, their language having varied accordingly as he was in favour or in disgrace. One day, perceiving my eagerness, "I have not," "I have not," says he, "lost the habit you formerly knew me to possess; I have kept an

which

account of every transaction of my life; read these two books, and afterwards we will have as much conversation upon the contents as you think proper.

As these precious notes form at present the groundwork of his Memoirs which are about to be printed, the public will be enabled to judge them. I saw with pleasure, that if my illustrious friend had been guilty of faults, he was capable of detecting and correcting them, that his mind had never bent but to the pressure of the times. I could wish these notes to be published in the form in which they were when I read them; by the polishing of the style they will gain but little, and will lose much. I regret that I am not possessed of his superior talent for giving all the explanations to which they led. Never did I read a better course of moral and political instruction.

The outcries of every party in France against the Duke of Otranto, are truly wonderful. Nothing makes any impression on his opposers; neither his past services, nor the uniform character of moderation and generosity which he displayed under every system, throughout a long and painful administration, can find any favour with them.

This excessive irritation is however to be accounted for: the credit enjoyed by the Duke of Otranto during the later stages of his political career was immense; the hopes of all the nation rested on him, and they find themselves in some measure disappointed; each individual had cherished illusions which every day's experience dissipates and destroys.

Reasonable men call to mind that the evils which they endure were foreseen and constantly pointed out by the Duke of Otranto, and that the only cause of his retirement from office was the refusal on the part of Government, to second his efforts for their prevention: those who suffer passion to get the better of their reason, in their inability to trace their

misfortunes to any other source, make him the object of all their complaints, on him they heap their accusations. They blame him for every thing which he did, and still more for that which he did not.

In the eyes of some the capitulation of Paris was treason.-Although that capitulation was the result of the joint deliberations of a council of all the leading military characters, they attribute it to him alone. Far from giving him credit for having prevented a useless effusion of blood, for having saved Paris from destruction, for having exposed himself to the first shock of a reaction for the salvation of those who would have been its victims; they blush not to charge him with having given up France to Foreigners. The restoration of the Bourbons they add is the fruit of his negociations, Neither the force of events, nor his disgrace, nor his exile, nor his proscription, nothing in fine can convince the ignorant, the empty, the prejudiced mind. It is easier to blame than to reason.

In the eyes of another party, the moderation of the Duke of Otranto is considered as perfidy; his courageous advising of an amnesty, as a triumph to the Buonapartists; the reports which he published to gain the public opinion to side with the king in opposition to those who invaded his authority under a pretence of better providing for the defence of the throne, are adduced as the manifestoes of personal ambition. Not content with inveighing against his past life, even his resignation is made the subject of their reproaches. They say that in his retreat he forgets to de-. fend the interests of society; that he consults his ease rather than his fame; that silence is a crime in a man who has often displayed such lofty views, and such strength of character they attack him even in the bosom of his family, they inquire into the age of his children, they ask for what profession he designs them; they would wish to

ascertain if they be sensible of the obligations imposed on them by the name of their father. Do they not know that the annals of these later times present us with heroes of their in the military profession?

age

The children of the Duke of Otranto cannot surely do better than profit by the living lessons which they have under their eyes, than gather from his lips the noble inheritance of his great, his important precepts,-than peruse with him the narrative of events which they themselves have witnessed, events so strangely perverted, so distorted, that one hardly knows which most to admire, the falsehood of the writer, or the listlessness of the readers so feeble in their reprobation of such a narrative. To the children of the Duke of Otranto aboye all men does the truth of the aphorism of Pope apply, which is taken for a motto to the immortal work of Cabanis,

"The proper study of mankind, is man."

The factions will never forgive the Duke of Otranto; they know that from him they must expect no compromise, that they can never regain his good opinion, and that he views as the commencement of anarchy, the attempt to establish the claims of pride in the place of the law. One answer of his, which I heard, I shall never while I live forget. A person sought to excuse by the plea of excess of zeal, a rather disrespectful sally against a proclamation of the king-"Reserve," says the Duke of Otranto to him, "your zeal, for your obedience."

It appears to me that Henry the 4th. would have felt the value of such a minister, and that most particularly his incorruptible good faith would have prevented him, after having laid claim to his services, from sacrificing such a man to a faction.

The atrocious fable which has been founded upon the

death of Captain Wright, and which you published in the number of the Pamphleteer which appeared on the 18th March, is absurd. What interest could the French Government have in ridding itself of so unimportant a personage? The moral character of the Duke of Otranto is in itself a sufficient refutation of all these senseless and groundless aspersions of malevolence.

It is a lamentable circumstance, that at this day courage should be wanting to do justice to his administration; whatever it may have been, I will not join in the unjust and ungrateful invectives of the parties who flattered him whilst he rendered them service, and calumniate him now that he no longer possesses the power of so doing; never did I feel for him a more profound esteem or a more tender attachment.

I hope the printing of his Memoirs will clear up the doubts of honest men, and silence those who have no other feelings than prejudice and hatred. As to the idle talkers, no hope remains of quieting them, since they hear nothing, and their self-love admits of no gratification equal to that of having the last word.

· In a future letter I shall enter somewhat at large into the question whether the Duke of Otranto could have opposed the march of the allied forces and kept them out of Paris. It is very clear, to me at least, that with the regular troops he could not, for the chiefs of the army and Napoleon himself did not think it possible: his abdication is a satisfactory proof that he had no hope left. It is said the Duke might have roused the nation to rise against the Foreigners; but the wounds inflicted by the failure of Napoleon were yet bleeding, and the Foreigners seemed to promise help rather than oppression. The present moment is every thing with the people.

I shall next inquire whether the Duke of Otranto has served his country better by accepting the ministry under