The Duke of Vicenza received orders, personally to express to the foreign ministers the sentiments, with which the Emperor was animated: but the couriers, who carried his despatches, could not reach the places of their destination; one was arrested at Kehl, another at Mayence; a third, sent off for Italy, could not get beyond Turin; the communications were interrupted. The arrangements of the declaration of the congress of Vienna of the 13th of March were acted upon already.
This declaration, transmitted directly by the emissaries of the King to the prefects of the frontier cities, and distributed by the royalists, was in circulation at Paris. The inferior papers had announced its appearance, and united in asserting, that such an act was unworthy of the allied sovereigns, and could only be the work of calumny and malevolence.
However, when it became impossible to question its legitimacy, it was necessary to come to the resolution of no longer making a mystery of it to the French people; and accordingly the following account was given of it in the Moniteur on the 13th of April.
"The Duke of Otranto, minister of the general police, states, that he is about to read to the council a declaration, dated Vienna the 13th, which is supposed to have been issued by the congress:
"That this declaration, as it contains an incentive to the assassination of the Emperor, appears to him apocryphal: that, if it should prove genuine, it would be unexampled in the history of the world: that the libellous style, in which it is written, gives room to suppose, it ought to be classed among the papers fabricated by party-spirit, and by those pamphleteers, who of late years have foisted themselves uncommissioned into all state affairs: that it pretends to be signed by the English ministers; but it is impossible to suppose, that the ministers of a free nation, and particularly Lord Wellington, could have taken a step inconsistent with the legislation of their country, and with their own characters: that it pretends to be signed by the ministers of Austria; but it is impossible to conceive, whatever political dissensions may subsist between them, that a father could call for the assassination of his son: that, contrary to every principle of religion and morality, it is derogatory to the honourable character of the sovereigns, whose mandates are thus compromised by the libellists: that this declaration has been known several days, but, from the considerations abovementioned, it could not be considered otherwise than as deserving the profoundest contempt: that it was not deemed fit to engage the attention of the ministry, till official reports from Metz and Strasburg made known, that it had been brought into France by couriers from the Prince of Benevento; a fact confirmed by the result of the investigation that took place, and the interrogatories put: in fine, that it is proved, that this paper, which could not have been signed by the ministers of Austria, Russia, and England, was issued by the legation of the Count of Lille at Vienna; which legation had added to the crime of provoking assassination that of falsifying the signature of the members of the congress.