MEMOIRS
OF THE
PRIVATE LIFE,
RETURN, AND REIGN
OF
NAPOLEON
IN 1815.

Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habes. Scipio.

BY M. FLEURY DE CHABOULON,

Ex-Secretary of the Emperor Napoleon and of his Cabinets, Master of
Requests to the Council of State, Baron, Officer of the Legion of
Honour, and Knight of the Order of Reunion.

VOL. I.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET.
1820.

TO THE READER.

The revolution of the 20th of March will form unquestionably the most
remarkable episode in the life of Napoleon, so fertile as it is in
supernatural events. It has not been my intention, to write the
history of it: this noble task is above my powers: I have only
attempted, to place Napoleon on the stage of action, and oppose his
words, his deeds, and the truth, to the erroneous assertions of
certain historians, the falsehoods of the spirit of party, and the
insults of those timeserving writers, who are accustomed to insult in
misfortune those, to whom they have subsequently paid court.

Hitherto people have not been able to agree on the motives and
circumstances, that determined the Emperor, to quit the island of
Elba. Some supposed, that he had acted of his own accord: others, that
he had conspired with his (p. vi) partisans the downfal of the
Bourbons. Both these suppositions are equally false. The world will
learn with surprise, perhaps with admiration, that this astonishing
revolution was the work of two individuals and a few words.

The narrative of Colonel Z***, so valuable from the facts it reveals,
appears to me to merit the reader’s attention in other respects. On
studying it carefully, we find in it the exhibition of those defects,
those qualities, those passions, which, confounded together, form the
character, so full of contrasts, of the incomprehensible Napoleon. We
perceive him alternatively mistrustful and communicative, ardent and
reserved, enterprising and irresolute, vindictive and generous,
favourable to liberty and despotic. But we see predominant above all,
that activity, that strength, that ardour of mind, those brilliant
inspirations, and those sudden resolves, that belong only to
extraordinary men, to men of genius.

The conferences I had at Bâle with the mysterious agent of Prince
Metternich have remained to this day buried in profound secrecy.
(p. vii) The historians, who have preceded me, relate, without any
explanation, that the Duke of Otranto laid before the Emperor, at the
moment of his abdication, a letter from M. de Metternich; and that
this letter, artfully worded, had determined Napoleon to abdicate, in
the hope that the crown would devolve to his son. The particulars
given in these Memoirs will entirely change the ideas formed of this
letter, and of its influence. They confirm the opinion too, pretty
generally prevalent, that the allied sovereigns deemed the restoration
of the Bourbons of little importance, and would willingly have
consented, to place the young Prince Napoleon on the throne.

It had been supposed, that the famous decree, by which Prince de
Talleyrand and his illustrious accomplices were sent before the courts
of justice, was issued at Lyons in the first burst of a fit of
vengeance. It will be seen, that it was the result of a plan simply
political: and the noble resistance, which General Bertrand (now
labouring under a sentence of death) thought it his duty to oppose
(p. viii) to this measure, will add, if it be possible, to the high
esteem, merited on so many accounts by this faithful friend to the
unfortunate.

The writings published previously to this work, equally contain
nothing but inaccurate or fabulous reports, with regard to the
abdication of Napoleon. Certain historians have been pleased, to
represent Napoleon in a pitious state of despondency: others have
depicted him as the sport of the threats of M. Regnault St. Jean
d’Angely, and of the artifices of the Duke of Otranto. These Memoirs
will show, that Napoleon, far from having fallen into a state of
weakness, that would no longer permit him to wield the sceptre,
aspired, on the contrary, to be invested with a temporary
dictatorship, and that, when he consented to abdicate, it was because
the energetic attitude of the representatives disconcerted him, and he
yielded to the fear of adding the calamities of a civil war to the
disasters of a foreign invasion.

It was perfectly unknown too, that Napoleon was detained a prisoner at
Malmaison after his abdication. It was presumed, that he deferred
(p. ix) his departure, in the hope of being replaced at the head of
the army and of the government. These Memoirs will show, that this
hope, if it dwelt within the breast of Napoleon, was not the real
motive of his stay in France; and that he was detained there by the
committee of government, till the moment when, honour outweighing all
political considerations, it obliged Napoleon to depart, to prevent
his falling into the hands of Blucher.

The negotiations and conferences of the French plenipotentiaries with
the enemy’s generals; the proceedings of the Prince of Eckmuhl; the
intrigues of the Duke of Otranto; the efforts of those members of the
committee, who remained faithful to their trust; the debates on the
capitulation of Paris, and all the collateral facts, connected with
these different circumstances, had been totally misrepresented; These
Memoirs establish or unfold the truth. They bring to light the conduct
of those members of the committee, who were supposed to be the dupes
or accomplices of Fouché; and that of the marshals, the army, and the
chambers. (p. x) They contain also the correspondence of the
plenipotentiaries, and the instructions given to them; documents
hitherto unpublished, which will make known, what the politics and
wishes of the government of France at that time were.

Finally I shall observe, in order to complete the account I think it
right to give the reader of the substance of this work, that it
furnishes elucidations of the campaign of 1815, the want of which has
been imperiously felt. The causes, that determined Napoleon, to
separate from his army at Laon, were not known: I point them out.
General Gourgaud, in his narrative, could give no explanation of the
march of the corps of Count Erlon at the battle of Ligny, of the
conduct of Marshal Ney on the 16th, of the inactivity of Napoleon on
the 17th, &c. All these points, I believe, I have elucidated. I show
also, that it was not, as General Gourgaud and other writers assert,
to raise the spirits, and excite the courage of the French army, that
its leader announced to it the arrival of Marshal Grouchy. It is a
certain fact, that Napoleon was himself deceived by a brisk firing,
which (p. xi) took place between the Prussians and Saxons; and it is
falsely, that he has been charged with having knowingly deceived his
soldiers, at a moment when the laws of war and of humanity presented
to him, to think rather of a retreat, than of continuing the battle.

I had at first rejected from these Memoirs such official papers, as
had already been made known: but have since thought, that they ought
to be inserted. This work, which embraces all the events of the reign
of a Hundred Days, would be imperfect, if the reader were obliged to
refer to the papers of the day; to read or consult the act of the
congress of Vienna, that placed the Emperor Napoleon out of the pale
of the law of nations; the Additional Act, which occasioned his loss
of popularity; and the eloquent speeches and nervous declarations by
which Napoleon, his ministers, and his counsellors, sought to explain
and justify the 20th of March. I have thought, besides, that perhaps
the reader would not find it uninteresting, to witness the contests
exhibited, at that important (p. xii) period, between the legitimacy
of nations and the legitimacy of sovereigns.

The colours under which I represent Napoleon, the justice I do him for
the purity of his intentions, will not please all the world. Many
persons, who would blindly have believed any ill I could say of the
ancient sovereigns of France, will give little credit to my eulogies:
they are wrong: if praises lavished on power be suspicious, those
bestowed on the unfortunate will be true; to doubt them would be
sacrilege.

Neither can I conceal from myself, that the men, who, from principle,
see nothing but a hateful conspiracy in the revolution of the 20th of
March, will accuse me of having embellished facts, and designedly
distorted the truth. No matter: I have depicted this revolution as I
saw it, as I felt it. How many others are pleased, to tarnish the
honour of the nation, to represent their countrymen as composed of
rebels or cowards! For my part, I think it the duty of a good
Frenchman, to prove to all (p. xiii) Europe, that the king was not
guilty of abandoning France:

That the insurrection of the 20th of March was not the work of a few
factious persons, who might have been repressed; but a grand national
act, against which the efforts and volitions of individuals would have
been vain:

That the royalists were not cowards, and all other Frenchmen traitors:

Lastly, that the return from the island of Elba was the terrible
consequence of the faults of ministers and the ultras, which called to
France the man of fate, as the conductor draws down the lightning from
heaven.

This sentiment naturally led me, to conclude these Memoirs by a
philosophical examination of the Hundred Days, and a refutation of the
reproaches daily bestowed on the men of the 20th of March: but
considerations, easy to divine, held my pen. It was my duty, to
content myself with placing a statement of the facts before the eyes
of the grand jury, the public, and leave it to decide. I know, that
the question has been determined in the fields (p. xiv) of Waterloo;
but a victory is not a judicial sentence.

Whatever opinion the impartial reader may form of this work, I can
protest beforehand, that I have not allowed myself to be influenced by
any private consideration, by any feeling of hatred, affection, or
gratitude. I have followed no impulse but that of my conscience, and I
may say with Montaigne: “This is an honest book.”

Too young to have participated in the errors or crimes of the
revolution, I began and ended my political career without blot, and
without reproach. The places, titles, and decorations, which the
Emperor deigned to bestow on me, were the reward of several acts of
great devotion to his service, and of twelve years of trials and
sacrifices. Never did I receive from him any favours or gifts: I
entered his service rich, I quitted it poor.

When Lyons opened to him its gates, I was free: I spontaneously
embraced his cause: it appeared to me, as to the immense number of
Frenchmen, that of liberty, honour, and our (p. xv) country. The laws
of Solon declared infamous those, who took no part in civil troubles.
I followed their maxims. If the misfortunes of the 20th of March must
fall on the heads of the guilty, these guilty, I repeat, will not be
in the eye of posterity, the Frenchmen who abandoned the royal
standard, to return to the ancient colours of their country; but those
imprudent and senseless men, who, by their threats, their acts of
injustice, and their outrages, compelled us to choose between
insurrection and slavery, between honour and infamy.

During the Hundred Days, there was no person to whom I did an ill
turn; frequently I had an opportunity of doing good, and seized it
with joy.

Since the return of the regal government, I have lived tranquil and
solitary; and, whether from forgetfulness, or from a sense of justice,
I escaped in 1815 the persecutions, which the partisans and servants
of Napoleon experienced.

This explanation, or this apology, appeared (p. xvi) to me necessary:
it is right the reader should know, who it is that addresses him.

I could have wished, to abstain from speaking of the royal government
in the first part of this work: but it was impossible. It was
necessary for me, prominently to exhibit the errors and faults of the
king’s ministers one by one, to render evident this truth, that they
were the sole authors of the 20th of March. When elsewhere, as here,
I say the government, I mean not to designate the King, but his
ministers. In a constitutional monarchy, in which the ministers are
responsible, we cannot, and ought not to confound them with the King.
“It is from the King,” said the keeper of the seals, when he proposed
to the deputies of the nation the project of a law on the
responsibility of ministers, “that every act of equity, protection,
and clemency, and every regular employment of power, emanates: it is
to the ministers alone, that abuses, injustice, and misconduct, are to
be imputed.”

MEMOIRS,

&c. &c.

Until the close of the Spanish war, Napoleon, whether as the First
Consul of the Republic, or as the Chief of the Empire, had never
ceased to be the object of the love, the pride, and the confidence of
the people. But the multitude neither judge, nor can judge of the
actions of their rulers but from appearances which often mislead them
in their judgment; and the loyalty of the nation then became
enfeebled. The conduct of Napoleon was stigmatized as a series of
hateful aggressions; the war, as an unjustifiable act of violence.
Disaffection increased. Napoleon was assailed by the anger of his
subjects, and, for the first time, they upbraided him with having
spilt their blood, and wasted their riches, in gratifying his vain and
culpable ambition.

At this juncture the public mind became absorbed in the contemplation
of the invasion of Russia, and the general discontent was withdrawn
(p. 002) from the events which had taken place in the peninsula.

Our arms were crowned with good fortune and glory at the commencement
of the Russian war; but that conflict was ended by a catastrophe which
has no parallel in the annals of the world.

The Emperor, who escaped almost alone from the perils of the campaign,
returned to the capital. His countenance was that of a hero who defies
adversity. But his firmness was deemed to be the result of heartless
insensibility. Instead of inspiring the people with hope, it
embittered their feelings. Louder murmurs broke forth; their
indignation expressed itself with greater emphasis. Yet such was the
enthusiasm which was even then inspired by the proud recollections of
the triumphs of Napoleon, that France, blushing for her disgrace,
implored him to win new victories. Armies formed themselves as if by
enchantment, and Napoleon stood again in the midst of Germany, more
terrible than ever.

After we had conquered at Lutzen, at Bautzen, and at Dresden, the
battle of Leipsic was fought[1]. Never before that day had we been
(p. 003) doomed to witness our national armies flying before the
enemy. The scattered wrecks of our battalions, which had been created
by the last hope, by the last effort of our country, at length reached
our frontiers. But our soldiers were no longer the vigorous and
resolute warriors of France; they were bowed down by want, toil, and
humiliation. Soon afterwards they were followed by wandering trains of
military carriages, loaded with diseased and wounded wretches, who
festered beneath the corpses amongst which they were heaped, and who
at once absorbed and diffused the germs of pestilence and contagion.
Even the firmest minds now yielded to despair; and the grief
occasioned by the havoc now made amongst our defenders renewed the
sorrows of the mothers and the wives of those who erewhile had
perished in Russia and in Spain. Curses upon Napoleon, the author of
all these evils, resounded from side to side of the empire.

As long as good fortune waited upon Napoleon, his most ambitious
attempts commanded the applauses of the nation. We boasted of his
profound political wisdom, we extolled his genius, we worshipped his
courage. When his (p. 004) fortune changed, then his political wisdom
was called treachery, his genius, ambition, and his courage,
fool-hardiness and infatuation.

Napoleon was not to be depressed by ingratitude or misfortune. He
re-assembled the feeble fragments of his armies, and proclaimed aloud
that he would conquer or die at the head of his soldiery. This
resolution only produced a momentary impression. The French, who so
lately believed that the happiness and salvation of France depended
only upon the life of Napoleon, now coolly considered that his death,
the fate which he was prepared to encounter, afforded the only means
of putting an end to the calamities of war, for peace otherwise
appeared unattainable.

Napoleon departed. He achieved prodigies, but to no effect. National
spirit no longer existed, and the nation had gradually sunk into that
state of insensibility so fatal to sovereigns, when the public mind
has no perception of their dangers, and abandons them to their
destiny.

France was thus affected when Napoleon consented to divest himself of
his crown[2]. The (p. 005) apathy of the nation drove him to this
extremity; for it deprived him of the means (p. 006) either of
carrying on the war, or of making peace.

Hostilities ended with the abdication of Napoleon. The people of
Paris, who had scarcely recovered from the panic with which they were
struck by the marauding hordes of Russia, displayed the most
extravagant gladness when they thought that they were delivered from
the visitation, which again threatened them in the presence of the
allies and the imperial army.

The neighbouring departments, which the enemy prepared to invade,
rejoiced on being relieved from impending pillage and devastation.

The departments which had been occupied by the enemy were intoxicated
with joy, when they anticipated the termination of their sufferings.

Thus almost all the people of France turned away from their discarded
sovereign. And they abandoned themselves to joy when they thought that
they were delivered from the scourge of war, and that they could hope
to enjoy the blessings of peace.

It was in the midst of this pouring out of the spirit of selfishness,
that the senate raised the brother of Louis XVI. to the throne. His
election was not in conformity to the expectations of the people, and
it disappointed the wishes (p. 007) which had been uttered in favour
of the Empress and her son; yet the choice of the senate was but
slightly opposed, because the recall of Louis seemed to be necessarily
the pledge of peace. And peace was more the object of the public wish
than any other thing. Besides which, the Bourbons followed the wise
counsels which had been given to them. They lost no time in issuing
their proclamations, couched in fair language, in order to calm the
fears and diminish the antipathies excited by their recall.

“We will guarantee,” said they, “the rank, the honours, and the
rewards of the military.

“The magistracy and all public functionaries shall retain their
offices and their pre-eminence.

“To the people we promise a total oblivion of their political conduct;
and we will maintain them in the full enjoyment of their civil rights,
their property, and their social institutions.”

The French nation, whose confidence is so easily abused, considered
these promises as sacred and inviolable, and they delighted in
repeating the happy reply of the Count of Artois[3],
“Il n’y aura rien
de changé en France, il n’y aura (p. 008) que quelques Français de
plus.” They, the men, who had banished the imperial dynasty, laboured
to foster the growing confidence of the nation. The press was brought
into full play, and the country teemed with publications in which they
represented the sovereign whom they had brought in, as invested with
those attributes which were calculated to conciliate the nation. The
public were carefully informed, that the king “opened and read all the
dispatches himself. It is he who dictates every answer. Where it
becomes necessary to meet the ministers of foreign powers, he
transacts business with them; he receives the reports of their
missions, which he answers either by word of mouth, or in writing. In
short, he alone directs all the concerns of the government, both at
home and abroad. If his virtues and goodness are such as to cause the
French to know that they will now find a kind and affectionate father
in their King, they may also look with confidence to the future fate
of the nation, relying on his brilliant information, his strength of
character, and his aptitude for business[4].”

(p. 009) Thus the people congratulated themselves, when they were
assured that their Chief Magistrate was an enlightened sovereign, a
kind sovereign, an equitable sovereign, and one who was determined not
to allow the guiding reins of the state to slip from his paternal
hands into those of his ministers. Our lively imagination gave us a
present enjoyment of the blessings, which, as we anticipated, would
hereafter be diffused over the kingdom by his goodness, his prudence,
and his acquirements. If this glowing vision of hope and loyalty was
slightly dimmed by a few secret doubts, such misgivings were checked
and repelled by the name of our native country; nay, by the name of
the Emperor himself. For when Napoleon bade farewell to his trusty
soldiers, it was in these words: “Be faithful to the new sovereign of
France; do not rend asunder our beloved and long-suffering land.”

These circumstances (nor must the charm of novelty be excluded) united
in favour of the king, and won every head and every heart. He
appeared—he was received with acclamations of love and gladness,
which resounded until he entered the palace of his forefathers.

No counter revolution ever effected the change of a royal dynasty,
under such favourable auspices.

(p. 010) The French nation felt jaded by civil dissensions, by
misfortune—even their victories had weaned them. They longed for the
happiness of repose. Memorable were the words of the king’s brother;
“let us forget the past, let us look only towards the future, let us
all unite in the good work of labouring to heal the wounds of our
common country;” and these honoured precepts had become implanted in
every mind. They formed the canon of all our feelings and all our
duties.

As long as the machinery of the new government did not begin to work,
this loyal harmony subsisted, and no longer. For when it became
necessary to settle the organization of the army, the ministry, and
the magistracy, then self-love gained an easy victory over patriotism,
and the bad passions, pride, ambition, and party-hatred, roused
themselves from their slumber.

During a quarter of a century, our emigrants had sojourned in a
strange country. Useless and troublesome guests to the strangers by
whom they were fed, their lives had been droned away in shameless and
cowardly idleness. They could not cheat themselves into a belief that
they possessed the talents and experience of the sons of the
revolution. But they imagined that nobility, as in the old time, might
pass for worth; and that their patents and pedigrees still gave
(p. 011) them a right to monopolize all power and all honour.

The citizens, the soldiers, the nation, relied on the lawfulness of
their rights no less than on the promises of the king. The members of
the old privileged caste, instead of exciting suspicion, were only the
objects of harmless mirth. The people laughed at the grotesque
appearance of some, and at the decrepit sottishness of others. They
never dreamed that these pretended warriors, whose bloodless swords
had rusted in their scabbards, would attempt to snatch the staff of
command from the veteran generals of France; and that nobles who had
grown old in sloth and ignorance would aspire to the direction of
public affairs.

But though merit and valour were denied to them, they stood upon a
vantage ground, which gave them a direful and incalculable
preponderance in the state. They surrounded the throne. Soon did their
insolence announce that they had craftily availed themselves of the
advantages which they possessed; and we foresaw with affliction that
inveterate prejudice, malignant prepossessions, and old habits of
familiarity, would, sooner or later, crush the principles of justice
and equity, however solemnly proclaimed.

(p. 012) The emigrants, rendered arrogant by the prospects which
opened upon them, now treated their rivals with contemptuous disdain.
They dared not insult the defenders of our country face to face,
because the scars of the warriors scared them. But they were
spitefully active in disparaging their birth, their services, and
their glory, and these noble retainers of royalty took care to impress
the soldiers of Napoleon with a due sense of the width of the gulf
which was henceforth to separate a gentleman of good family, from an
upstart soldier of the revolution.

The women of the ancien régime did not share in the timidity which,
to a certain degree, still restrained their husbands. They threw off
all decency and all reserve, and indulged in all the fury of their
spite and pride. Without attempting to disguise their sentiments, they
openly insulted the titled dames belonging to the new nobility, and
such of the latter as were compelled to go to court on account of the
situations held by their husbands, never entered the saloon without
dread, and never quitted it without being bathed in tears.

Uneasy, harassed, and discontented, the people implored the fulfilment
of the king’s promises: they prayed with confidence; but the (p. 013)
government heard them not, and repulsed them harshly. The Doge of
Genoa, speaking of Louis XIV, said, “his majesty steals our hearts by
his amiability, but his ministers give them back again to us.” The
apophthegm of the Doge might have been pertinently applied to Louis
XVIII. by the people.

Hitherto the government appeared to adhere to the resolution of
dealing out impartial justice to both parties, and of performing the
covenant which the new monarch had entered into with the nation. But
now he was bound by an influence which he could not withstand.
Ensnared by the machinations, the threats, and the fears of his
emigrant court, and perhaps believing that the new order of things was
incompatible with the stability of the Bourbon dynasty, the maxims of
his government underwent a total change. He was taught to consider the
equality of civil rights as a revolutionary conquest, the liberties of
the nation as an usurpation of the authority of the throne, the new
constitution as insulting the independence of the sovereign. It was
therefore determined that all “dangerous characters[5]” should be led
quietly out of all (p. 014) civil and military offices. The old
trustworthy nobility of the old kingdom were again to become the sole
depositaries of the power of the state: and by slow but sure degrees
it was resolved to cancel the royal charter, and either by fair means
or by foul, to place the nation again beneath the yoke of absolute
power.

The government often appealed to the authority of the King’s
predecessor on the throne—of Bonaparte. Bonaparte, it was said, had
acknowledged that it was dangerous to concede a representative
government to the people, and that it was fit and proper to rule them
despotically. But Napoleon, he who re-established the authority of
royalty, morality, and religion—who had re-organized society—who had
given tranquillity to France, at the same time that he rendered her
formidable to the world—he had earned his authority by his services
and his victories, and, if I may venture to use the expression, he had
acquired a legitimate right of despotism, which neither belonged, nor
could belong, to a Bourbon. Besides which, (p. 015) in spite of the
real or pretended despotism of the imperial government, it was still a
national government; a character wholly foreign to the Bourbon
government, and which it had no tendency to acquire.

The prognostics of the re-action which the ministers intended to bring
about were disclosed in all parts of the body politic. Alarm seized
even the Chamber of Deputies: it hastened to become the organ of the
uneasiness of the people, and to remind the King of the warranty which
he had given to the nation.

In the address, or rather in the protest presented by the chamber on
the 15th of June, the national representatives say, “The charter
secures to the voice of truth every channel which leads to the throne,
since it consecrates the liberty of the press, and the right of
petition.

“Amongst the guarantees which it contains, the nation will attend to
that which insures the responsibility of any minister who may betray
the confidence reposed in him by your Majesty, by trespassing on the
public or private rights insured by the constitutional charter.

“By virtue of this charter, nobility in all future times will only
command the respect of the people as surrounded by proofs of honour
(p. 016) and glory, which the recollections of feudality will not
have the power of tarnishing.

“The principles of civil liberty are founded upon the independence of
judicial authority, and the retention of trial by jury, that
invaluable guarantee of all our rights.”

If the King had known the truth, this energetic address would have
attained its end. But the truth could not reach him. At first he
intended to bestow his personal confidence upon the greater part of
the leading “notables” of the revolution; but by means of
remonstrances and recriminations, another party contrived to place his
good sense again under the yoke of prejudice, and he surrounded
himself with old nobility alone, with men who had refused to obey the
constitution sanctioned by Louis XVI., because it destroyed their
privileges; and who, for the same reason, had refused to acknowledge
the new constitution, against which they had even dared to protest.
His companions were so blinded, so besotted by their presumption, that
they imagined that decrees and ordinances gave them the faculty of
overturning the edifice which the nation had erected during five and
twenty years of revolution. His confidents were those alone who,
instead of wishing to reveal to (p. 017) their sovereign the object
of the projects of the ministry, and of the faction which had rendered
the ministry their tools, had become the accomplices of ministerial
guilt, joint conspirators in the plot which was to destroy the royal
charter.

The cabinet contained, however, some able and experienced statesmen.
They were convinced that instead of teasing the nation by holding out
the probability of the restoration of ancient privileges, it was the
duty of government to tranquillize the country by guaranteeing the
stability of the new system of polity. These ministers were aware of
the impolicy of attempting to re-establish the monarchy on its ancient
principles; because by such an attempt it would be deprived of the
only advantage which it possessed over the late government—that of
being liberal. And, lastly, they felt that if despotism and violence
had been the distinguishing characteristics of the government of
Napoleon, it was necessary that moderation and justice should be the
attributes of the government of a Bourbon.

But they had not sufficient authority or personal influence to enable
them to struggle against the emigrants, and the protectors of the
emigrant faction. In the council chamber their opinions, often well
concerted, and always benevolent, (p. 018) were sanctioned and
approved. Out of the council, each minister acted according to his own
plans; and, unfortunately, those departments which ramify most deeply
into the nation and its affairs were confided to men who seemed to
think that they were bound to irritate and sour the public mind.

General Dupont obtained the important office of minister of the war
department, as a reward due to his proscription. According to the
government party, the general had been proscribed by the Emperor. An
odious name was thus given to the lenient punishment which had been
inflicted upon Dupont, he who had shuffled off the allegiance which he
owed to his Emperor, and whose cowardice had surrendered into
captivity the legions intrusted to his command[6]. Weak, indolent,
irresolute, devoid of character and resources, he never had the wish
or the ability of becoming any thing else than the pliant functionary
of the court and the ruling courtiers.

Another, the Abbé de Montesquiou,
received the “porte-feuille” of the
home department. When a member of the Constituent Assembly (p. 019)
he had been honourably distinguished by his soft and persuasive
eloquence. The temperance of his public conduct seemed to be insured
by his personal character; he was a servant of the altar, his health
was delicate, he had lived long in quiet retirement. But Montesquiou,
meek, mild, and timid as long as he was in the background, became
scornful, angry, and overbearing the instant that he stepped into
power. He detested and despised the revolution—I may almost say, he
detested and despised the nation. This sentiment was the principle
which guided him. Montesquiou never deigned to inquire whether any
given portion of our polity was sound or useful, whether it had been
formed with difficulty, whether it could be modified, or ameliorated,
or fitted into existing circumstances. He only inquired into the date
of its institution—and the date decided the question.

A third, Dambray, the chancellor, and the chief law officer of the
nation, had distinguished himself in his youth as a Judge of
Parliament. His credit arose from his prudence and his principles no
less than from his talents. He had been long since recalled to his
country. During the reign of Napoleon he fulfilled the duties of a
citizen and a subject with zeal and fidelity. We never doubted but
that he would (p. 020) protect those constitutional forms of
government under which he had flourished in peace and honour.
Scarcely, however, was the Chancellor clothed in his robe, when he
became the oppressor of the magistracy, the antagonist of our new
system of jurisprudence, and the dull partisan of those slavish forms
and barbarous customs and oppressive edicts, which had been long since
annihilated by reason, liberty, and knowledge.

The trust reposed in this portion of the cabinet was a source of
unhappiness to the nation, but it was not the only one. Louis,
according to the promises held out on his restoration, was to reign in
person; and the more the French have ever been desirous to obey their
sovereign with cheerful alacrity, the greater is the repugnance which
they feel to submit to the orders of his minions. Dismay, therefore,
prevailed throughout the kingdom when we learnt that Louis, weakened
by an obstinate and painful disease, had entirely divested himself of
his royal authority in favour of Monsieur de Blacas. And how much more
painful did our consternation become, when we were able to understand
the views and projects of this Mayor of the palace, and when we
ascertained the baneful extent of his ascendancy.

(p. 021) It was impossible that the royal government, including such
elements in its composition, could retain its hold on public opinion.
It was seen too clearly that the effects of a despicable coterie would
tend either to involve our country in a civil war, or overwhelm us
again with the wretchedness and slavery from which we had been
delivered by the revolution.

The absolute necessity of rising in opposition to these nefarious
attempts was felt by the entire country. Not a man would remain
neuter.

During the earliest period of the reign of Louis, the emigrant faction
comprehended nothing but the party composed of the relics of the
ancient privileged cast. The parvenus of the imperial government
alone constituted the so called Bonapartists. Considering their
private gratification and profit as of greater importance than the
public cause, each party had hitherto only wrangled for place and
power. Their war was a matter of calculation and selfishness. But soon
their disputes involved the fate of the main interests created by the
revolution the emigrants directed their attacks not only against
individuals but also against principles, and the people, who had
hitherto only looked on, now shared the quarrel, and (p. 022) all
France was divided into two great hostile parties[7].

The court, the courtiers, and the ministry appeared as the central
phalanx of the pure royalists. As their auxiliaries, they had the
old nobility,—the priesthood,—a certain number of apostates who had
skulked away from the imperial government,—and lastly, all those who
had been disqualified by their incapacity and disloyalty from
obtaining employment under Napoleon. It was the undisguised wish of
this party to wash out every stain of the revolution, and to effect a
full and unqualified restoration of the ancien régime in all its
parts, and to all intents and purposes.

On the other side were arrayed the party designated as that of the
Bonapartists, led on by our most honourable and most virtuous
citizens, and numbering within its ranks the great body of the people;
this party strove to withstand the impending resuscitation of the
privileges and abuses of the old government, and which was to be
effected only by the total subversion of our existing institutions.

(p. 023) The pure royalists endeavoured to annihilate the charter,
which their opponents defended, and thus a strange contradiction took
place. The royal charter had the royalists for its enemies, whilst its
defenders were only found amongst those who were stigmatized as the
adherents of Bonaparte.

Abortive attempts were made by the pure royalists to palliate the
treachery of the government. They tried to persuade the people that
the tranquillity and welfare of the nation depended but on the
re-establishment of an absolute monarch, of a feudal aristocracy, and
of all the trumpery of superstition. Such was the tendency of the
publications which issued from the ministerial press, owing their
birth to writers who had either sold themselves to the government, or
who had denationalized themselves by their political intolerance. But
it must not be supposed that liberty could remain in need of
advocates.

Each of the earliest stages of the growth of the young government of
royalty had been marked by obscure yet decisive symptoms of bad faith,
not the less mischievous because they were restricted to signs, and
symbols, and phrases. Instead of the constitution voted by the senate,
and which the king had engaged to accept and ratify, he graciously
granted and conceded a charter, (p. 024) by which he gave a new form
to the government; and which, according to its tenor, emanated from
the sovereign in the full and free exercise of his royal authority.
The tricoloured cockade worn by Louis XVI. and which our armies had
rendered illustrious, was exchanged for the white, though to the
mind’s eye the latter was seen drenched in the blood of the people.
Louis took the title of Louis XVIII. King of France and Navarre, and
he dated his proclamations and ordinances in the 19th year of his
reign, and thus it was to be inferred, that the nation had been in a
state of rebellion during five and twenty years. He had disdained to
receive his crown from the will of the people, and rather chose to
hold it by divine right and the good offices of the Prince Regent.
These ungracious affronts wounded the national feelings, but no notice
was taken of them at the time, because it was apprehended that angry
recriminations might endanger the profit which had resulted from the
important sacrifices to which we had consented for the public good.
But when the government unveiled its deformity, the silence of the
patriotic party was at end, and they attacked the government most
unrelentingly. The editors of the Censeur were most conspicuous. Every
abuse of power, every violation of the charter, was proclaimed
(p. 025) to France by these young tribunes of the people; and the
country was loud in applauding their zeal, their talents, and their
courage. Other writers of a more lively class stung the emigrants to
the quick by sarcasms and satire, and brought down the chastisement of
contempt and ridicule upon those who had been spared by the gravity of
the Censeur.

The nation also obtained a clear development of the anti-revolutionary
conspiracy of the administration, from the “Memoir” of Carnot, and the
pamphlets of Benjamin Constant. The undeniable facts, and the
unwelcome truths which were brought forward and stated by these
writers, apprized the people that their rights and liberties were in
fearful danger.

A judicial blindness had fallen upon the ministers. All warnings, all
lessons, all reproaches, were lost upon them. Far from being awed by
public opinion, they thought they deserved high honour for defying it.
The ministers had made up their mind. Deceived by the opinions which
they had formed respecting the preponderance of their faction, they
miscalculated the influence and resources of the partizans of the
revolution. Confiding in their power, and in the fear inspired by
their power, they thought it useless to maintain any further reserve;
and that they could charge onwards to the end of the career (p. 026)
which they had in view. Intoxicated by their ignorant enthusiasm, they
insulted the nation in the person of each individual, whilst they
encroached upon the rights which he valued most, and insulted him both
in his interests and his feelings. The imperial guard was removed from
Paris: the emigrants grudged the renown of these troops, and feared
their patriotism. It was given out that the discontent evinced by the
guard when the king came in, was the cause of the punishment which
they received[8].—But had not the government called forth this
discontent? Surely it was ungenerous to compel those heroes to walk as
attendants in the triumph of a new master. Their grief and fidelity
deserved not to be thus insulted. I then saw these honoured warriors.
Haggard looks and sullen silence revealed their feelings. Absorbed by
grief, they appeared to be insensible to the outward world. “Vive la
Garde Impériale” was the shout of the pitying Parisians, who wished
to cheer them. These (p. 027) salutations, which, perhaps, they
despised, were unheeded. Submissive to their superiors, they obeyed
the word of command which told them that they must march: they
marched, and that was all.

Troops of the line replaced the imperial guards, who were drafted out
of the capital with great expedition. Little time elapsed before the
dissatisfaction of the new troops became manifest. The regiments were
wholly disorganized; officers were thrust upon the soldiers, amongst
whom they stood as complete strangers. In consequence of these changes
the troops were put out of temper; and they became disgusted with
service, because they were wearied by endless parades and reviews
which took place, not to perfect them in their discipline, but for the
instruction of their raw commanders. The government broke their spirit
by affronting them: they were compelled to present arms to the king’s
body guard, whom they detested. The re-establishment of the “Maison du
Roi” was opposed by the general feeling of the nation, and it
particularly tended to rouse the jealousy and discontent of the
garrison of Paris. The troops of the line and the national guards who
were on duty at the Tuileries could not submit to acknowledge the
“gardes du corps” as their superiors, and refused to present arms to
(p. 028) them. The “gardes du corps” complained, and it was ordered
that the troops of the line should salute them with military honours,
or be punished. After this victory, the young “gardes du corps,” who
were proud of it, used to walk up and down before the sentinels, in
order to force the latter to worship their epaulettes. It may easily
be imagined how such childish insults, which were never checked, must
have mortified the old soldiers of Napoleon: and we all know that the
self-love of a Frenchman is not to be offended with impunity.

Self-love is the medium through which the soldier ascends into glory.
When Napoleon earned immortal fame in Italy, he nourished and
dignified this passion by addressing his soldiers in language
breathing the lofty spirit of the heroic age, he rekindled the courage
of his army, and every man became a conqueror. But the royalist
officers sought to destroy all warlike sentiment by expressing their
contempt for our national victories, by displaying the puffed
insolence of birth and rank; and they lost the confidence and the
esteem of the army which they were appointed to command.

Widely different, indeed, was the example which was set by the most
exalted and most formidable of our enemies. It is needless to name
him. This sovereign never tried to undervalue (p. 029) our glory: he
was only happy when he could bear testimony again and again to the
talents and the courage of the French nation. When he received our
officers he did not treat them with that ill-concealed disdain, so
often lavished on the conquered, but with the honest esteem inspired
by valour; and with that delicacy, I would almost say respect, which
is due to honourable misfortune. The subject of his discourse
sometimes compelled him to allude to our reverses; but he never failed
to allay the smart by lavishing his praises on the efforts which we
had made to deprive him of victory. He seemed to be astonished that he
had been able to withstand us.

How deeply were our warriors affected when they contrasted his
chivalrous magnanimity with the endeavours of their royalist masters,
who tried incessantly to poison the fond recollection of their former
triumphs, and to deprive them of the only consolation which remained
to them in the hour of affliction.

Whatever discontent might prevail amongst the troops, yet the greater
part of the staff and regimental officers had transferred themselves
to the Bourbons with cordial sincerity. Perhaps a few, who were less
confident than the rest, still appeared distrustful and lukewarm;
(p. 030) but they might have been easily won over, either by those
sugared and alluring phrases which sound so sweetly when pronounced by
royalty, or even by merely leaving them quiet until their resentment
could cool of itself.

When Henry IV. recovered his throne, the bigoted partisans of the
league, whom he had pardoned, continued still to threaten and revile
him. It was suggested that he should punish them; but Henry said,
“No,—we must wait, they are yet vexed.” Those who were constantly
invoking the memory of good king Henry, never sought to imitate his
conduct. Instead of allowing time to our generals to get over their
vexation, they embittered their temper by daily insults. Our officers
were treated like ruffian bandits; they were branded as rebels, who
were too happy if they obtained a pardon. Praise and favour fell only
to the share of the army of Condé, the Vendeans, and the Chouans. The
triumphal arches destined to eternize the exploits of our armies were
menaced with sacrilegious ruin; and it was solemnly proposed to erect
a monument to the memory of the Vendeans and the emigrants who fell at
Quiberon.

Certainly our deluded brethren deserved to be regretted and mourned.
Yet they had (p. 031) turned their weapons against the sacred bosom
of their country. They were either the auxiliaries or the hirelings of
our implacable enemies the English, and if honours were paid to them
as illustrious victims, it was equivalent to a declaration that their
conquerors were their murderers.

Our warriors had been graced with titles of nobility, bought with the
blood which they had shed in the defence of the country. Their honours
were treated with insolent scorn, and the ghost of Georges Cadoudal, a
murderer in effect, and a traitor in intent, was ennobled by the
gracious patent which was bestowed upon his father.

Georges in attempting the life of Napoleon had committed an act
against all law, whether human or divine. If such a crime was decked
out as a virtue, if signal rewards were allotted to the memory of the
criminal, the government abetted assassination and regicide. The
safety of Louis XVIII. and of every other monarch was compromised, and
a sanction was given to the dangerous and antisocial doctrine which
teaches that any individual may sit in judgment on the legitimacy of
the title of the occupier of the throne, and then determine to murder
his sovereign if he doubts the validity of his rights.

(p. 032) Other affronts exactly of the same complexion were offered to
France and to the army. Titles, military commissions, and pensions,
were showered, in La Vendée, upon the heads of such of the Chouans as
were most celebrated for their cruelty[9], and these marks of favour
were distributed amongst them in the presence of the victims of their
rapine and ferocity.

The members of the ruling faction thought that they had not done
enough in endeavouring to honour the French enemies of France at the
expense of her defenders, and therefore they compassed the degradation
and destruction of the institutions which reminded the people of the
praises and the glory of our national armies.

In despite of the most solemn engagements the government robbed the
legion of honour (p. 033) of its prerogatives. Then the ministerial
papers hinted that henceforward the order of St. Louis was to be the
only military order; and that the legion of honour was to be the
reward of civil merit. The blow was aimed at the heart; the army
shuddered, our marshals burned with indignation. The government was
compelled to disclaim and abandon its intent.

Yet one sure method of debasing the legion of honour was completely in
the power of government; they could make it cheap, and to this plan
they resorted. Under Napoleon the Cross was never granted until it had
been long and truly deserved: now it became the prey of meanness. The
order was prostituted and cast to favourite underlings and intriguers,
to whom it was distributed by caprice or bribery.

Our soldiers, who had purchased this distinction with their
blood,—the magistrates, the functionaries, the learned, the
manufacturers, who had received it as the reward of the services which
they had rendered to the state, to the arts, to useful industry,—all
were filled with consternation when they found themselves elbowed by a
mean and worthless mob. Yielding to their honest pride, the greater
part of our old legionaries refused to wear the insignia, which,
instead of conferring distinction, could only (p. 034) confound them
with men whom public opinion had branded and proscribed.

Success encouraged the government, and they did not stop. Richly
endowed asylums for the daughters of the deceased members of the
legion had been founded by the Emperor. Under the pretext of economy,
of saving the annual sum of forty thousand francs, the ministers took
the King by surprise, and hurried the Sovereign into the signature of
an order for turning the orphans out of doors. Marshal Macdonald
declared in vain that the old leaders of the army would never abandon
the children of their companions, and that they were ready to defray
the expense which was falsely assigned as the motive of the expulsion
of the girls. Equally fruitless was the generosity of Madame Delchan,
the matron of the establishment of Paris, who offered to continue its
management without any assistance from the government, and to expend
her entire fortune in the support of her pupils. Nor did the ministers
pay the least attention to those who stated that the greater part of
the children had neither friends nor relations, and that if they were
thrown destitute upon the world, they would be inevitably consigned to
misery or vice. No consideration could move the pity of the ministry.

(p. 035) But at length the indignation of the public found a voice in
the Lower House, and the representatives of the people were about to
remonstrate with the Sovereign. Ministers were disconcerted and
abashed, and they abandoned their profligate enterprise.

This check, however, did not amend them. A few days afterwards they
dissolved the military academies of St. Cyr and St. Germain, alleging
that they were superfluous; and at the same moment the “École Royale
Militaire” was re-established, “in order that the nobility of the
kingdom might enjoy the advantages secured to them by the edict of
January 1757.”

By this impudent violation of the principles of the charter our
representatives were again roused, and the ministers were again
obliged to recede.

Irritated by these defeats, they sought revenge and actuated by an
ill-judged hope of weakening the resisting obstacles, they dismissed a
countless multitude of military officers, who were turned out of the
army upon half pay, though their full pay had been formally
guarantied. It must be acknowledged that the number of the officers of
the imperial army was much greater than was required by the strength
of the royal army; but as it was alleged that (p. 036) they were
useless and expensive, it was not right to insult them in their
misfortunes by ministerial profusion; for, at the same time, they saw
the government granting rank and pay to a number of emigrants who were
good for nothing in the army. The government raised six thousand
“gardes du corps,” troops of musketeers and light horse, “gendarmes de
la garde,” &c. who scandalized Paris, and disgusted the army by their
new epaulettes, and their sumptuous and splendid uniforms. Lastly, the
government, led on by its innovating madness, did not respect those
veterans whom Death had spared on the field of battle. Without pitying
age or infirmities, the ministers, using their accustomed pretext of
economy, withdrew the benefactions which a grateful nation had
bestowed upon two thousand five hundred of these objects of
compassion.

Since the ministers did not dread giving public offence to the army,
and in matters where the offence would be felt most acutely,—since
they refused to recognize both its services and its rights, it may be
easily supposed that the military were disgusted and oppressed when
they appeared before the ministry as individuals. It is not intended
to detail the complaints and accusations which then justly abounded;
but one (p. 037) fact may be stated as giving a double illustration
of the spirit which prevailed.

General Milhaud had distinguished himself in the course of our
national wars, by success and bravery. At the time when France was
invaded by the allies, he “covered himself with glory” at the head of
a handful of dragoons, who cut a considerable corps of the enemy’s
troops entirely to pieces. This officer, in consequence of his rank,
his standing, and his services, had been appointed a chevalier de St.
Louis as a matter of right; but at the moment of his reception, the
cross was taken from him with ignominy, because he had been so
unfortunate as to vote for the death of the King twenty years before.

Louis XVIII., when he returned to France, had promised that he would
not inquire into the votes which had been given against his august
brother. This promise, which had been demanded from him, and which he
ratified by his charter, could not be otherwise than a painful victory
over the feelings of his heart. He must have grieved when he found
himself under the necessity of admitting those judges into his court,
who had condemned Louis XVI. to the scaffold, and to present them to
the daughter of the murdered monarch. But still he had (p. 038) sworn
not to avenge his death, and the oaths by which a monarch binds
himself to his people should be inviolable.

All resentment was to be repressed. The voters had been pardoned, and
therefore the government could not be justified in reviving the memory
of their crime, and in bringing down vengeance and death upon their
heads. A funeral veil ought to have been drawn over that period of our
revolution, during which we were all equally misled or guilty.
Besides, we must state plainly and distinctly, that the grief excited
by the murder of Louis XVI., was not the true cause of the invectives
with which the regicides were assailed by the emigrants. Unfortunately
the effect produced at Coblentz by the trial and execution of the
king, is too well known. If the errors of some of the men of the
revolution were hunted out with so much malignant zeal, it was only
for the purpose of coming to this result—that as the revolution was
the work of crime, it was necessary to root out every thing which had
proceeded from the revolution.

The insult to which General Milhaud was subjected, was therefore
rather a political movement, than a punishment inflicted on an
individual. In selecting Milhaud as the object (p. 039) of the first
assault against the regicides, the government gave a proof of their
want of tact; for if they wanted to render the regicides contemptible
or odious, they should have avoided attacking an officer who had long
since washed away the stains of the blood of his King, by imbruing
himself in the blood of our enemies!

But whilst the military, from the highest to the lowest, were exposed
to the persecution and tyranny of the prevailing faction, the
magistracy, and the civil functionaries of the state, suffered no less
from ill treatment and injustice. Commissioners had been despatched
into the departments, even at the beginning of the new reign, “in
order to consolidate the royal government, and to examine into the
conduct of the public functionaries under existing circumstances;”
that is to say, at the moment of the restoration of the Bourbons.

Such was the confidence which the nation placed in the promises of the
King, that no jealousy was excited by this measure. On the contrary,
people expected that great good would result from it, that party heat
would be allayed, and public interest and opinion become more speedily
united to the throne.

This pleasing illusion was soon dispelled. A great number of
emigrants, who had just come (p. 040) in again, were appointed
commissioners. Instead of listening to cool and experienced advisers,
they gave themselves up to the priests and nobles who beset them, and
who were neither moderate nor enlightened.

The middling classes, who, from their habitual intercourse with the
lower orders, possess so great an influence over the body of the
people, were considered by the commissioners as a rabble multitude of
upstart “roturiers.” They treated the middling class with disdain
and contempt. Deceived by the recollection of the excesses of the
revolution, they fancied, that whoever could win the populace, became
the ruler of the country. When money is not to be had, the surest way
of getting over the multitude, is by appealing to its passions. They
therefore announced, that they were sent to do justice to the people,
to listen to their complaints, to reform abuses, and to abolish the
“droits réunis,” and the conscription.

Meetings were announced in the villages and in the country towns. All
persons of respectability kept away; but the populace, who are always
delighted with uproar and novelty, crowded in. There was no end to the
preposterous charges which were preferred against the magistrates, the
prefects, the under-prefects, (p. 041) the mayors, the administrators
of public affairs, the officers of revenue; in short, none of the
depositaries of public authority were spared.

Instead of despising such accusations, or submitting them to an
impartial inquiry, the commissioners hailed the popular clamour with
transport. They triumphed in the tumult; they were overflowing with
happiness at the fancied success of their efforts; they continued
exclaiming with increasing joy, “that is right, Good People; the King
is your father; these fellows are nothing but canaille; upon our
word of honour, we will kick them out.”

These promises were kept. The public officers and functionaries of all
classes were gradually dismissed, and their places given to informers,
or to the old nobility. As the common people cooled, they became
undeceived, and it was found that they had gained neither in riches
nor in loyalty. The commissioners, instead of adding as they expected
to the popularity of the government, only helped to cry it down. The
cause of royalty was compromised by the scenes of riot which they
encouraged, and they degraded it by acts of injustice and oppression.
The non-emigrant commissioners acted far otherwise. They knew how to
value the lying declamations of the nobles, and of the mob (p. 042)
whom the nobles had set on. From the different conduct pursued by each
party, effects resulted which exhibited the most striking contrast. In
one department the public functionaries retained their situations, in
another they were disgraced and vituperated.

These scandalous proceedings excited the general indignation of the
country. The government was universally blamed. The important task of
instituting inquiries, which were to affect the honour and the civil
existence of the most respectable characters, had been entrusted to
emigrants who had lived amongst strangers during the best part of
their lives. And these men, who knew nothing of the forms, the
principles, or even the faults of the imperial government, were
consequently wholly unable to appreciate the conduct, whether
praiseworthy or blameable, of the depositaries of public authority.

The people discovered that they had been cheated, and that this
measure, disguised by specious representations, was in truth adopted
only for the purpose of more effectually displacing the old
functionaries of the nation. And, lastly, it was evident that this
general dismission would carry off those authorities who were the
natural guardians of every individual (p. 043) who had taken a part
in the revolution. And that all who were thus affected would be placed
beneath the sway of their sworn enemies, the nobles, the priests, and
their adherents.

Indications were given by the government that a “purification” of the
courts of justice was in contemplation; and the public apprehension
increased. The independence and immovability of the judges had been
guaranteed to the nation, and this guarantee was certainly the most
valuable of the rights which we had gained. But on account of its
importance, the government were the more desirous of violating it.

When the proposed “purification” became known, our national
magistrates trembled in their chairs, and they foresaw that they would
be plucked out for the purpose of making way for the antiquated
survivors of the courts of parliament.

The nation was alarmed, and protested against the measure. But the
“purification” was not to be stopped in its swoop. The process began
in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the Court of Cassation. And,
to remove all doubts respecting the ulterior object of the government,
it was officially announced that the elimination, disguised under
the name of the “installation royale,” had been deferred only
(p. 044) for the purpose of “obtaining the information which was
necessary to direct or decide the choice of the judges, and that it
would take place successively in all the courts and tribunals of the
kingdom.”

The “installation” was felt to be not only a breach of faith, but an
open conspiracy against the security of the person and property of the
subject. We knew that the tribunals would now be filled with
magistrates whose prejudices, principles, and interest, must be in
perpetual hostility against our national laws, and that the new men
would seek to elude or crush our juridical system. The royal
magistrates, as it was but too evident, would be the relations, the
friends, or the creatures of the nobility, the emigrants, and of all
who claimed to be restored to their rights and privileges. Nor could
we hope that judges so constituted would deal out impartial justice
between the ci-devant privileged tribes, whom they would naturally
consider as the victims of revolutionary principles, and the children
of the revolution, who, according to the same mode of reasoning, they
could not fail to consider as the oppressors and robbers of the
privileged tribes.

The owners of national property were most alarmed by the approaching
expulsion of the (p. 045) revolutionary judges. By the charter, the
inviolability of their property had been guaranteed to them. But they
had not forgotten that a violent debate arose on the “redaction” of
this article; and that the ministers had been already accused on
account of the obscurity of the clause, which they refused to correct
into such words as might prevent all future quibbling and special
pleading.

If the emigrants, the priesthood, and the nobility, did not scruple to
express their hopes aloud that the sales of the national domains might
be declared null and void, it was equally well known to the public
that certain Great Personages entertained the same hopes in secret.
Doubts respecting the legality, and, consequently, of the validity of
the sales, were expressed in the ministerial journals; and various
publications were industriously disseminated, in which the purchases
were directly impugned. The authors of these works were favoured and
protected[10]; (p. 046) and it was whispered that the Great
Personages, to whom we have already alluded, had deliberated on the
means of realizing their hopes. All these tokens of the times united
in giving too reasonable a ground for the apprehensions entertained by
the proprietors of the confiscated lands; and the disorganization of
the tribunals was considered as a national calamity.

It is calculated that the individuals who are interested directly or
indirectly either in the purchases of the national domains, or in the
rights and liabilities arising out of them, amount in number to
somewhat between nine and ten millions.

An opportunity offered itself when all the uneasiness felt by this
integral portion of the population of France might have been removed.
It was when the law; by which the emigrants recovered possession of
such part of their property as had not been alienated, came under
consideration. It was natural to suppose that the administration would
take advantage of the capability of the proceeding, in order to revive
the confidence of the public, and to renew the guarantee of the
charter. Such was not their conduct. On the contrary, M. Ferrand, the
government orator, one of the men who did most mischief to the King
and the kingdom, (p. 047) abandoned himself—we borrow the expression
of the reporter of the committee—to all the acrimony of his passions,
and all the profligacy of his principles. His fury could only be
equalled by his folly. He did not scruple to maintain, in the midst of
the representatives of the nation, that the emigrants had the greatest
right to claim the justice and favour of the royal government, because
they alone had not wandered from the righteous path. And starting with
this position, he represented the forfeiture and sale of their
property, not as the justifiable acts of a legislative body, but as
revolutionary outrages and robberies which the nation ought to hasten
to make good.

The Chamber of Deputies passed their censure upon the inflammatory
doctrines and language of the royalist orator, and expunged the word
“restitution” from the law. It had not been inserted without design,
for “restitution” supposes a previous robbery, and the emigrants had
not been robbed of the property: it had been confiscated by virtue of
a law sanctioned by the King; and which law was only a new application
of the system of confiscation created and followed up by the King’s
predecessors.

Without travelling into more remote periods, (p. 048) we may ask if
it was not with the spoils of the victims who had been sacrificed to
the murderous policy of Richelieu, and the religious intolerance of
Louis XIV., that the first families had been enriched? And who can
tell whether the lands which the emigrants reclaimed with so much
pride and bitterness, were not the same which their ancestors had
received without a blush from the bloody hands of Richelieu and Louis?

It must be confessed that the unalterable fidelity of a certain number
amongst the emigrants bound the royal government to reward their
fidelity and to alleviate their misfortunes. But all had not an equal
right to the affection and gratitude of the King. If some had
generously sacrificed their fortunes and their country in the cause of
royalty, yet others only fled from France because they wished to
escape their creditors[11], and thought that in strange countries they
might find dupes to feed upon, and thus exist upon swindling resources
to which they could no longer resort with impunity at home.

(p. 049) It was therefore necessary to separate the first class of
emigrants from the last; and after establishing this distinction, the
government should have made a fair appeal to the justice and
generosity of the nation. Frenchmen, who yield so readily to every
dignified sentiment, would not have allowed the faithful and virtuous
servants of their King to languish in poverty. We may appeal to the
universal assent which was given to the proposal[12] made by the
marshal duke of Tarentum, that ten millions of francs should be
annually appropriated for the indemnification of the emigrants who had
been deprived of their property, and of the soldiers who had lost
their “dotations.”

But the government party should not have attempted to assist the
emigrants by resorting to means offensive to the nation, and
derogatory to the charter. And, above all, they should not have puffed
up the emigrants with proud and silly hopes. If they had been left to
themselves, they would have fallen in with the purchasers of their
property, they would have treated for an amicable settlement of their
claims, and they would have regained possession of their hereditary
estates without jarring and without scandal.

(p. 050) The partiality which was shown towards the emigrants on all
occasions produced another evil of still greater extent. It
contributed, even more than the efforts of disaffection, in persuading
the peasantry that the government wished to chain them again to the
soil, and to render them once more the tributaries both of the
nobility and of the priesthood.

The revolution has taught the countryman to know that he is somebody
in the state. After the revolution the peasants became rich, and they
were delivered from the double vassalage of former days, when they
crouched before the priest and the lord: therefore they could not
think of any alteration without horror. Day after day they heard or
they read (in France every body reads now,) that the government
intended to restore the “ancien régime.” And the restoration of the
“ancien régime” was interpreted by them, as well as by many others,
to mean the restoration of tithes, vassalage, and feudal rights. They
were confirmed in their dangerous and disquieting opinion by the
outrageous claims of the emigrants, and the declamations of the
priests. It was to no purpose that the government tried to re-assure
them. They had been already deceived and it seldom happens that you
can catch a French peasant twice in the same snare. The abolition of
the conscription had been promised, (p. 051) and the old code was
continued in force with all its harshness, and still the refractory
conscripts were sent away in chains, whilst fines were imposed upon
their families. The abolition of the “droits réunis” had also been
promised, and they were not only levied with greater rigour and
harshness than before, but even some of these imposts had been greatly
increased.

Such was the fatality which influenced all the actions of the
government, that all proceedings which in themselves were simple and
reasonable, became venomous and corrupted when conducted by the
ministry, and only added to the general disorder and discontent,
instead of producing the good effects which they might have been
justly expected to produce.

The discontent of the people, the inevitable result of the injuries
inflicted on the feelings and interests of individuals[13], was
increased by (p. 052) the open infringement of the rights of the
people, although these rights were secured to the country by a compact
which seemed to be inviolable.

Liberty of conscience had been promised by the charter, and this
liberty was immediately annihilated. An ordonnance was issued by the
police[14], which revived regulations enacted in an age of
intolerance, for enforcing the strict and universal observance of the
Lord’s day, and the festivals of the church. Napoleon, anxious to
preserve a strict neutrality between the catholics and the
protestants, prohibited the religious processions of the former in all
towns containing places of worship belonging to the latter communion.
His prohibition was removed, and the catholic priesthood exulted in
their processions, in which they marched in triumph. They ought to
have tranquillized the apprehensions of their opponents, and to have
(p. 053) edified the faithful by humility, or at least by feigning
humility; but they disdained to conciliate the public, whom they
scandalized by their pride and irritated by their violence[15].

The imagination of the priests became fired by the victory which they
supposed they had gained. They dreamt that they were in full
possession of their ancient power; and they wished immediately to
revive it according to their ancient fashion. An actress belonging to
the Theatre Français died without being absolved, and without
suspecting that it was necessary to be absolved, from the
excommunication which had been formerly fulminated against stage
players; and which, as every body knows, deprived Moliere of Christian
burial.

Following the same precedents, the clergy would not allow the rites of
sepulture to the actress in question. The populace, who followed the
funeral out of curiosity, learnt the affront which was thus offered to
her remains. Transported by sudden indignation, they rushed to the
hearse, and dragged it onwards. The doors of the interdicted church
were burst open in a moment. They called for a priest; no priest
appeared. The tumult augmented. (p. 054) The church and the
neighbouring streets resounded with the groans and threats of ten
thousand persons. Their agitation became more violent, and there was
no possibility of foreseeing where the effervescence of popular
feeling would stop, when a messenger arrived from the court, who
ordered, in the name of the King, that the funeral should proceed.

The accounts of this event, and the comments to which it gave rise,
excited the most lively interest in Paris and throughout France: nor
did it fail to give the greatest pleasure to the enemies of religion.
The friends of public decency and good order accused the government of
encouraging the alarming progress of sacerdotal despotism. It was
particularly in the smaller towns, and in the country, that the
priests behaved with the most blamable audacity, abusing the privilege
of speech which had been restored to them[16]. The pulpit became a
tribunal from whence they pronounced sentence of present infamy, with
the reversion of eternal damnation, upon all who refused to
participate in their opinions and bigotry. Making common cause with
the emigrants, they employed hints, inuendoes, insinuations,
arguments, promises, (p. 055) and threats of every species, for the
purpose of compelling the owners of the national property to yield up
their lands, and of leading the wretched peasantry again beneath the
tyrant yokes of feudality and superstition.

During the revolution, the priesthood had betrayed its real character.
Contempt had fallen on the clergy, and it was out of the power of the
government to invest them suddenly with the salutary influence which
they had lost. This influence ought to be gained by wise and prudent
conduct, by active and impartial benevolence, by the practice of
sacerdotal virtues. It cannot be gained by ordonnances of police, by
abuse, by violence, by mumming processions, which, in our times, are
out of character and ridiculous.

By the charter the liberty of the press had been guarantied as well as
the liberty of public worship; yet every day innumerable publications
were seized or suppressed contrary to the laws. M. Durbach, a deputy
who never equivocated with his conscience or yielded to danger,
complained on this subject in the chamber: the opinion of the house
went along with him; and the government, pretending to yield to the
feeling of the deputies, presented a bill to the chambers through the
medium of M. de Montesquiou, (p. 056) which, instead of delivering
the press from its slavery, gave full establishment to the censorship,
and legalized the tyranny which had been exercised over the press by
mere force under the former government.

Benjamin Constant attacked the bill with vigour: the same side was
taken by the public journals, and by all public writers; but there was
no possibility of putting M. de Montesquiou out of countenance. It was
demonstrated to him that his law would wholly destroy the liberty of
the press. By holding the charter before his eyes, the advocates of
public rights proved that the charter only declared that the licence
of the press was to be restrained, and that his bill was therefore
radically unconstitutional, because the preliminary censorship was not
intended to restrain abuses, but to prevent their taking place.
Montesquiou answered gravely, that the persons with whom such
objections originated did not understand French; that the words
“prévenir” and “réprimer” were perfectly synonymous: and that the
bill, instead of being offensive or unconstitutional, contained a most
complete and a most liberal development of the clause in the charter.

This unparalleled endeavour of Montesquiou, who persuaded himself that
he could convince (p. 057) an assembly of Frenchmen that they did not
understand their own language, was justly considered by the chamber as
a matchless specimen of impudence and folly. Lexicographical
subtleties were employed with bitter mockery for the purpose of
destroying a public right, consecrated by the constitutional compact.
Never had insolence and bad faith been displayed so prominently:
Raynouard, the reporter of the committee, exclaimed in the language of
grief and indignation, “Minister of our King, confess, at least, that
your law is contrary to the constitution, since you cannot refute the
evidence adduced against it: your obstinacy in contesting such an
indisputable truth would not then inspire us with such just alarms.”

The law was ultimately adopted by both chambers; ministerial influence
triumphed over reason, and rased the most important bulwark of the
rights guarantied to the nation. The result of the conflict produced
the most lively sensation. No man who was capable of forethought and
reasoning could remain undisturbed. Notwithstanding the patriotism of
Dupont (of the department of the Eure), of Raynouard, of Durbach, of
Bedoch, of Flaugergues, it was seen too clearly that the chamber of
deputies (p. 058) could not oppose any effectual obstacle to the
despotic and anti-constitutional plans of the government; and that the
ministers would have full power, whenever they thought proper, to
interpret the clauses of the charter according to their own way, and
to rob the French nation of the few rights which it yet might promise
to them. “By means of such interpretations,” the people said, “the
senate sacrificed the independence of the nation to Napoleon. But at
least the imperial despotism assumed a character by which it was
justified and ennobled. It tended to render our nation the greatest
nation in the world; but the despotism which awaits us has no other
accompaniment but bad faith, and no other end except the degradation
and slavery of France.”

By such reflections, the suspicion and disgust and aversion inspired
by the government, were excited to the utmost pitch. The public
feeling did not stop there: the French people are naturally inconstant
in their opinions and sentiments; and their former prejudices against
Napoleon were changed into transports of admiration. France, under the
royal government, was humiliated, disorganized, and degenerate; and
they contrasted the present state of the country with the influence,
the strength, the (p. 059) compactness, which it enjoyed under the
reign of Napoleon; and He, who had lately been cursed as the root of
all evil, now appeared to be the greatest of men, and the greatest of
heroes, though in misfortune.

The government knew that Napoleon was again admired by the people, and
that they regretted his loss. To counteract these sentiments, coarse
and vulgar caricatures were exposed to the eyes of the populace; and
his person and his character became the theme of false and scandalous
libels published under the direction of the ministry. No effect was
produced. The mob looked at the caricatures with a smile of contempt;
and the actions of Napoleon, which, under his reign, excited the
greatest censure and disapprobation, now found the most zealous
apologists and defenders.

If Napoleon was accused of having overthrown the republican
government, and enslaved the country by the revolution of the 18th
Brumaire, they answered[17]:—”At that era, anarchy, emboldened by the
misfortunes of the country, could only be repressed by victory. Civil
war had been organized in twenty departments; (p. 060) insurrections
had taken place in many, rapine infected them all; robbery and murder
took place with impunity on many of the principal high roads. Two
dreadful laws, the law of the hostages, and that of the forced loans,
occasioned greater evils than they could cure. No nation had ever
existed in which the finances of the state were in equal confusion;
and a succession of partial bankruptcies prolonged the opprobrium of
the general bankruptcy of the country. The money of the public was
robbed whilst in transit on the high roads. Robbers even carried it
off from the houses of the receivers, and the deficiency could not be
made good by the most violent exactions. The jacobins were on the
point of recommencing their reign of terror. The royalists had
recourse without scruple to all the measures which might enable them
to satiate their revenge; and the peaceable friends of the law were
placed between the conflicting parties in a state of disgraceful
weakness and neutrality. Such was the desperate situation of France
when Napoleon seized the helm of the state. Instead of imputing the
slavery of the country to him, he ought to have been blessed; for he
delivered us from the spoliations, the murders, and the tyranny which
were consequent upon the reign of anarchy and terror.”

(p. 061) Was it maintained that Napoleon had reigned despotically?
They held that this accusation was unjust; and they had recourse to
the following reasoning. “Anarchy was silenced by Napoleon.” It became
necessary, that order should take the place of disorder; that the
authority of one should be substituted for the authority of all.
Parties were to be restrained within the bound of moderation; traitors
were to be annihilated. It was necessary to curb the prejudices of the
nobility, and the revolutionary habits and manners of the jacobins.
This great work could not be accomplished, without engaging in a
conflict against individual interests and opinions. Napoleon was
considered as a despot; this was inevitable. Whenever the existing
polity of a state has been totally subverted, he who first raises the
edifice of society from its ruins, is necessarily accused of
despotism, because apparently he has no other rule except his own
will. Nor must we forget that Napoleon had been accustomed to command
implicit obedience in the camp. He retained his military attitude on
the throne. He usually addressed his courtiers, his connexions, and
his ministers, in the tone which he had formerly adopted when speaking
to his soldiers or (p. 062) their generals[18]. An appearance of
despotism was certainly given to his way of reigning and commanding,
by such language which is seldom (p. 063) heard in civil society. And
in almost all cases, appearance is taken for reality.

At first the imperious tone adopted by Napoleon was blamed, next it
was admired. He soon employed it in his intercourse with foreign
ambassadors, with foreign sovereigns. The wily forms of ancient
diplomacy were discarded. Napoleon did not negociate; he issued his
orders. With one hand he brandished his victorious sword; in the other
he held crowns and sceptres. He bade the sovereigns of Europe make
their choice; he offered his friendship or his hatred, kingdoms or
blows. The monarchs who stood before his throne were taught wisdom by
experience. They knew that Napoleon could reward and punish; they
crowded into the ranks of his allies; and they consoled themselves for
their weakness, by crying out upon his tyranny[19].

When these causes were united, they aided (p. 064) in persuading the
world that Napoleon was really a despot. For, as Montesquieu observes,
there are some things which we believe at last, merely because we hear
them continually repeated. But if the government of Napoleon is
considered impartially, we shall feel convinced, that the despotism
attributed to him existed rather in words and forms, than in deeds.
Let the acts of his reign be scrutinized, and none will be found
impressed with the character of real despotism; that is to say, of
despotism founded on the mere arbitrary will and pleasure of the
prince. On the contrary, they all prove that the interest and
aggrandizement of France entered alone into the views of Napoleon, and
that instead of being under a tyrannical government, the people never
enjoyed the benefits of distributive justice with greater equality,
and were never protected more completely against the oppressions of
public functionaries, and of the higher ranks. He may, perhaps, be
censured for having violated certain laws, for violations in which the
senate and the representatives of the people were his accomplices. But
laws are only binding upon sovereigns in the ordinary course of
things, and the most rigid writers on the law of nations acknowledge
this principle. When extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances
(p. 065) take place, it is the duty of the sovereign to be above the
law. In order to judge fairly of the actions of a monarch, we must not
consider them separately. Many an action which, if taken singly,
appears unjustifiable or hateful, loses that character when viewed as
one of the series of events from which it arose, as a connecting link
in the political chain of which it forms a part. Neither should the
conduct of a sovereign be judged according to the principles of
natural equity. In the estimation of those, upon whom the task of
ruling nations has devolved, necessity and the public safety ought to
know no law. Every apprehension of injuring private interest vanishes,
and must ever vanish, before state considerations.

“After all,” continued they, “the real point at issue is, not whether
the government of Napoleon was more or less despotic; but whether it
was such as was required by the character of his people and of his
times,—such as it needed to be, in order that France might become
tranquil, happy, and powerful.” Now it is impossible to deny but that,
during the reign of Napoleon, the interior of France enjoyed an
unruffled calm, and that the ascendancy of his genius bestowed upon
the country a degree of power and prosperity, which it never attained
before, and which probably it will never possess again.

(p. 066) Was the emperor taxed with boundless ambition? Were the
calamities of Spain and Russia laid to his charge?—his indefatigable
apologists found a ready answer.—The Spanish war, instead of being an
unjust aggression, was an enterprise guided by the soundest political
talent. It had been provoked by the wavering treachery of that allied
government, which, in spite of its engagements, was secretly
negociating with the English; and which, yielding to their
instigations, had endeavoured to take advantage of our difficulties
and of the absence of our armies, in order to invade our territory,
and to become a sharer in the plots of our enemies.

The detention of Ferdinand ceased to be an odious breach of faith. It
resulted necessarily from his duplicity, his parricidal projects, and
his English connexions. The nomination of Joseph as King of Spain and
the Indies, had been universally attributed to the excessive vanity of
Napoleon, who, as it was supposed, was determined to drop a crown upon
the head of every member of the imperial family. But now opinion
changed. King Joseph’s promotion was felt to have been caused by the
necessity of placing Spain for ever out of the reach of English
influence. Had not Napoleon allowed the Cortes of Spain to elect their
monarch of their own uncontrolled authority? Had he not (p. 067) said
to them in public, “Dispose of the throne. Little do I care whether
the king of Spain is called Ferdinand, or whether he is called Joseph;
let him only be the ally of France, and the enemy of England[20]?”

It was still more easy to justify the Russian war. A Quixotic love of
the marvellous was no longer supposed to be the passion which excited
it. In making war against Russia, he was actuated by the desire of
avenging the injuries which that power had occasioned to France, at
the moment when the Russian government again opened its ports to the
English, thus snatching from the nation the reward of the sacrifices
which we had made for the establishment and consolidation of the
continental blockade,—of that universal barrier which made England
and her thousand vessels tremble!

The invasion of Germany was no longer the effect of Napoleon’s
insatiate thirst of power and glory[21]. It was seen, that there was
no other (p. 068) sure method, by which the English, the
irreconcilable enemies of France, could be deprived of their fatal
continental influence, by which they could be compelled to abandon the
empire of the seas. In short, Napoleon was only inflicting a salutary
and equitable punishment, deserved by those sovereigns of all sizes.
After having implored or obtained the alliance of Napoleon, and after
having ratified the bond by engagements and promises upon which he
generously relied, they compelled him to take up arms, in order to
prevent them from receiving (p. 069) the agents of England into their
cabinets, and her merchandizes into their ports.

Thus the partisans of Napoleon invented arguments by which they
palliated his faults and justified his errors. No objection, no
reproach was left without its answer. After defending him against his
accusers they became his advocates; and, turning to the fairer pages
of his history, their praises knew no bounds; these eulogiums were
certainly more just, and, perhaps, more sincere.

“Napoleon,” said they, “had all the great qualities of the greatest
monarchs, whilst he was exempted from their vices. Napoleon was not
stained by the lechery of Cæsar, nor by the drunkenness of Alexander,
nor by the cruelty of Charlemagne.”

At an age when others scarcely start in life, his years were
outnumbered by his victories; and the kings of Europe, conquered by
his sword or subjugated by his genius, cowered before the imperial
eagle.

In France, when aggrandized by the conquests of Napoleon, the empire
of ancient Rome was re-produced before the astonished world. The
French name, tarnished by the crimes of the revolution, regained its
ancient honour and its mastery. The nation was feared, admired, and
respected by the entire universe.

Philosophy graced Napoleon no less than warlike (p. 070) prowess.
After he had covered the nation with glory by his victories, he was
willing to insure our welfare by his laws. He bestowed upon us that
immortal code of jurisprudence which invested him with the title of
the legislator of France, a title to which our former kings had
aspired in vain. He organised that admirable system of finance and
administration, which their subjects, groaning under misrule, implored
but without effect.

Still he had not accomplished enough to satisfy his noble and
beneficent ardour. Arts, sciences, and industry were to flourish in
our country. The munificent aids[22] which were granted by Napoleon,
created the thousands and thousands of manufactories from whence
proceeded those finished works of skill and labour which became the
pride of the French, and the despair and ruin of foreign nations. The
sons of Apollo[23], on whom he lavished his gifts and favours, seized
the crayon, the compass, and the (p. 071) chisel. Paris became a
second Athens, when adorned by the wonders of art to which his
munificence gave birth. We then saw the venerable Louvre rise, as by
enchantment, from its deserted ruins; the palaces of our Kings became
more gorgeous; the temples of the arts were enriched by productions
which rivalled the relics of antiquity; our native land brought forth
those establishments so proudly useful to the public, and those
monuments destined to transmit the recollections of our fame and glory
to the most distant posterity.

At the same moment his sovereign will guided the hands which curbed
the waves of the ocean, and caused them to roll over a new abyss. He
directed those labours which substituted wide harbours, superb
dock-yards, and fertilizing canals, in the place of desert shores and
pestilential marshes, restoring commerce and existence to the
innumerable inhabitants of the sea coast, and of the banks of the
Scheld and the Somme. At the same moment his voice created those Roman
highways, branching through all parts of France, and Germany, and
Italy, equally useful and majestic, and which afforded to the
inhabitants of those countries means equally speedy and secure of
communicating with each other, and of exchanging the products of their
industry: and (p. 072) never will the friend or even the enemy of
Napoleon cross the summits of the Alps, or ascend their craggy sides,
without venerating the magnanimous sovereign, who, anxious to guide
the steps and protect the life of the traveller, has enclosed the
precipice, chained the torrent, and linked the great mountains of the
earth, which during so many ages have braved the might of man and
time. When future ages shall gather up in memory the glorious and
transcendent deeds of Napoleon; when they shall number the blessings
which he dispensed, and the victories which he gained, never will they
believe that one man can have worked such miracles in so short a
period. They will rather fancy that the historian was playing with the
credulity of posterity, that he culled out all the great deeds
performed by successive generations of the greatest men during an
infinite series of ages, and that he has attributed them all to his
ideal hero.

The soldiers who had bled beneath the banners of Napoleon would not
listen in silence to the praises which others bestowed upon his name.
His foreign conquests, which even they had lately considered as the
causes of our misfortunes, became again the sources of inexhaustible
admiration.

They recollected that Napoleon had ruled as the master of Madrid, of
Lisbon, of Munich, of (p. 073) Warsaw, of Hamburgh, of Berlin, of
Vienna, of Milan, of Amsterdam, of Rome, of Moscow, of Cairo.

Some recalled the memory of the day of Lodi. They saw him standing on
the bridge re-animating his dispirited followers, defying danger and
death whilst he waved the national flag, and drove the enemy from
their entrenchments, and blasted their glory. Others pointed him out
whilst crossing the perpetual snows and yawning chasms of Mount St.
Bernard, and then victorious on the plains of Marengo, where he won
that battle which insured the peace and glory of the country.

Austerlitz had its chroniclers, who described Napoleon as he fell with
the rapidity and violence of the thunderbolt on the battalions of the
Austrian and the Russian, and when he afforded to those trembling
monarchs an example of magnanimity which they knew not how to imitate
when generosity became their duty. Nor did his enthusiastic advocates
omit the field of Jena, where his victorious ensigns chased the flying
troops of Frederic, who, deceived by their recollections, yet held
themselves to be the paragons of military worth. They retraced his
paths amidst the burning sands of Egypt, amidst the icy wastes of
Muscovy; and in either region Napoleon supported fire (p. 074) and
frost without ostentation, and taught resignation and endurance to his
soldiers by his unshaken constancy.

More recent and more painful victories contributed equally to endear
him. They saw Napoleon in Champagne, when his veteran army scarcely
equalled one of the numerous divisions of the enemy. At the head of
his scanty troops he watched, and avoided, and surprised the
Austrians, the Russians, and the Prussians: wounding them on all sides
by his victorious weapons, and with such promptitude, that he seemed
to have bestowed wings upon iron and death. They placed him at Arcis
sur Aube, advancing before his squadrons, and rushing forward to meet
the balls and bullets of the enemy; for he sought to sacrifice on the
field of battle that life, which he foresaw he could no longer
dedicate on the throne, to the glory and prosperity of the nation.

In short, generals, officers, and soldiers, all vied with each other
in calling to mind the marches, the sieges, the conflicts, the
attacks, the days, which had immortalized their general[24]; and is
there a heart amongst us which does not beat higher at these
recollections?

(p. 075) The sentiments thus awakening in favour of Napoleon were
cherished by his friends, and by all those who, wearied of the
Bourbons or discontented with their government, now wished for his
return. His name, which lately we had scarcely dared to utter, was now
in every mouth, his image in every mind. The nation began to regret
the Emperor, then they longed for him; and every one was impressed by
a secret presentiment that these expectations would soon be realized.

Whilst this formidable revulsion of opinion was increasing and
appearing throughout the kingdom, it was scarcely heeded by the
ministry, the court, and the emigrants, who reposed with complacent
security on the volcano which they had kindled, and without
entertaining the slightest apprehension of the approaching explosion.

“If they wish to go out of the kingdom,” said M. de Chateaubriand,
when alluding to the partisans of the Emperor, “if they wish to return
(p. 076) again, to receive or despatch letters, to send expresses, to
make proposals, to circulate false intelligence, and even to
distribute bribes, to assemble in secret or in public, to menace, to
disseminate libels, in short, to conspire against the
government,—they are at liberty to do their worst. The royal
government, which began but eight months ago, now rests upon so sure a
basis, that, were it now to be obstinate in repeating folly after
folly, it would hold good in spite of all its errors.”

This infatuation, however, soon diminished. Without understanding the
full extent of the evil, the government ascertained that the army and
the nation were agitated and discontented, and they deliberated on the
methods which it would be proper to employ, not for the purpose of
conciliation, but for enforcing silence.

Acquainted with the uneasiness of the government, certain frantic
Chouans gave out that it was full time to despatch the Bonapartists.
One chieftain, celebrated in the annals of La Vendée, was even so
audacious as to declare to general Ex….. that he only waited for the
arrival of his faithful Vendeans, and then he would fall upon the
Jacobins.

The news of this massacre soon reached the ears of the intended
victims. Some quitted Paris, others armed themselves, and prepared
(p. 077) to sell their lives as dearly as they could. It is said that
the government became acquainted with the bloody conspiracy of the
Chouans, and that they relieved France and the world from the
spectacle of another St. Bartholomew’s day.

This intended massacre (I have never been able to believe in it,)
persuaded the revolutionists that they could expect neither respite
nor mercy from the royalists, and that one of the two parties would be
compelled to destroy the other. The soldiers of Napoleon began to
unite, and to make themselves ready. The ministers were anxious to
disperse these assemblages, which gave them uneasiness; orders were
issued, by which all officers, whether of the staff or regimental,
were prohibited from residing at Paris without permission; and all who
were not Parisians by birth were ordered to return to their native
provinces. This measure increased the exasperation of the military,
and it did not diminish the danger. The reduced officers, instead of
conforming to the order, encouraged each other in disobedience.
According to the regulations of the war department, their contumacious
residence at Paris would subject them to the loss of their half-pay;
and many of them, though in poverty, preferred independence to
submission. The ministers (p. 078) were irritated by this resistance,
and they determined to make an example. It happened that a letter of
congratulation which General Excelmans addressed to his former
sovereign, the king of Naples, was intercepted. This opportunity was
gladly seized by the new Minister at war[25]. He put the General on
the half-pay list, and ordered him to retire immediately, and until
further orders, to the distance of sixty leagues from Paris. Excelmans
maintained that the Minister at war had no right to remove an officer,
not being in active service, from his domicile; and he would not go:
upon this he was immediately taken into custody. It was pretended that
he had been guilty of a traitorous intercourse with the enemies of the
King, and that he was also guilty of disobedience to his Majesty’s
orders. The government expected that this blow would produce the best
possible effect; but it recoiled against them: Excelmans was known to
all France; he was valued as one of her bravest and most estimable
children. The spite and hatred of the ministers had loaded him with
accusations; but his alleged treasons, far from depriving him of
public esteem and (p. 079) public affection, only endeared him to his
companions in arms, and to the nation at large.

Excelmans was brought to trial, and the court acquitted him[26]. The
council of war, by sanctioning the disobedience of the General,
declared that the government did not possess that authority over
reduced officers which they had assumed; and from this moment the
government was ruined. The decision by which the half-pay military
were enfranchised, and which left them at liberty to brave the
commands of the government, was a shock which beat the royal authority
to the ground.

Here I shall stop. It would be of no further use to lengthen the
history and the investigation of the absurd tyranny of the government.
If we trace the progress of the principles successively enounced by
the ministry, and the actions of which they were the authors, we shall
see that they had formed and executed the (p. 080) project of
re-establishing the old monarchy, and of overturning the
constitutional government either by artifice or by main force. The
royal charter was spurned by them, and they trampled without scruple
on the civil and political rights which it consecrated. Every
guarantee given to the army, the magistracy, the public functionaries,
or the nation, was forgotten, attacked, or violated. Our national
glory was insulted; public feeling was wounded. The manners and
customs and opinions of the new era were all treated with harshness:
all ranks and classes of citizens experienced those vexations which
filled them with discontent. By injustice and bad faith the government
deprived the King of our confidence and love, and caused the
restoration of the Emperor to become the hope of the nation. In spite
of the obstacles experienced by the ministry, in spite of the affronts
to which they had been subjected, in spite of the retrograde steps
which they had been compelled to take, they still clung to the baneful
system which they had fostered; and, bigoted to these plans, they
continued to persevere in those errors which recalled Napoleon from
his exile, just as Napoleon persevered in the errors which recalled
the Bourbons back from theirs.

But whilst the storm was gathering in France, how was Napoleon
employed? Ambition had (p. 081) taken flight, and he was seen to
prefer a life of unostentatious retirement to all his former
grandeurs. Repose had greater charms for him than the noble turmoil of
war; and his genius, no longer teeming with meditation, yielded to the
pleasures of retirement. The study of botany, the cares of his
household, the plantations which he had made, and those which he was
still planning, beguiled his hours[27]; and, like the Roman
Diocletian, he might have said to those who suspected that he longed
in secret after the throne, “Come and see me in my retirement: I will
show you the gardens which I have planted, and you will talk no more
to me about the empire.”

Napoleon, during the early part of his retirement in Elba, felt only a
vague desire of reigning. Grieved by the miseries of France, the
country which he loved so truly, wearied by the vicissitudes of
fortune, disgusted with mankind, he feared that, if he attempted to
seize the sceptre again, he should involve France and himself in new
troubles; and, without abandoning (p. 082) his expectation of
re-ascending the throne, he resolved to allow his resolutions to be
guided by futurity.

The turn taken by public affairs soon roused the Emperor from this
state of indifference and hesitation. At first he hoped, and I have
heard him say so, that the Bourbons, instructed by adversity, would
confer liberty and happiness upon the nation. But when he witnessed
the power which was bestowed upon the priesthood, the emigrants, and
the courtiers, he foresaw that the very same causes which had produced
the first revolution, would soon occasion a second. From that period
he watched the continent; nor did he lose sight, even for a moment, of
the congress, or of France, or of the Bourbons. He could tell the
talents[28], the principles, the vices, and the virtues of all those
who had acquired the confidence of Louis XVIII, either by intrusion or
by favour. He could measure the degrees of influence which each was
capable of acquiring and exercising, and he calculated beforehand on
the errors (p. 083) which they would inevitably induce his docile
successor to commit.

Napoleon now employed himself again in reading the public journals of
France and of foreign countries; he read assiduously all periodical
works of a political tendency; he studied these productions; he
investigated them with acuteness, and he could well divine the meaning
of a writer who was compelled to be silent, and conjecture the nature
of intelligence which an editor was forced to suppress.

Strangers of distinction, and particularly the English, were received
by Napoleon with affability and kindness, and he used to talk freely
with his visitors on public affairs. He knew how to draw them out, and
to lead them to expatiate on points which he wished to penetrate; and
he seldom failed to obtain much useful information from those
interviews. By these simple methods Napoleon obtained a correct idea
of the events which were taking place on the continent; he was too
well acquainted with revolutions not to be sensible that the sway of
events would open the gates of France, and admit him; and he was too
wary to enter into a private correspondence with his partisans, when
any accident might have revealed his secret wishes, and have afforded
a pretext to (p. 084) his enemies for attacking his independence and
his liberty.

Napoleon thus waited in silence till the fated time of his
re-appearance in France should arrive, when a French Officer[29],
disguised as a sailor, disembarked at Porto Ferrajo.

Some few days before this Officer set out to join the army in the year
1815, he gave over to me the manuscript narrative of his voyage to the
Isle of Elba. “To you,” added he, “I deliver my history, which is also
that of the revolution of the 20th of March. As the Emperor, when
regaining his throne, did not think fit to speak of me, I was
therefore bound to be silent; but I am as eager to live in the memory
of after-ages as he can possibly be[30]. It is my wish that posterity
may learn, that I too shared (p. 085) in the glorious enterprise of
subverting the Bourbon government, and of bringing back the (p. 086)
Emperor. My mind misgives me. I have a presentiment that I shall die
in this campaign. Keep my manuscript, and promise to publish it when
the time shall arrive.” I gave my word accordingly; and the
forebodings of my friend were realised, for he was killed at Waterloo.

I now fulfil my promise. I have not dared to make any alterations in
the narrative: if I had, I should have felt that I was betraying the
wishes of my friend. But I have suppressed the names of the parties
concerned, and I have expunged some passages, in which the Bourbon
family were treated with disrespect.

HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION OF THE 20th OF MARCH.

When Napoleon resigned his crown, I broke my sword. I swore that I
never more would use it in the service of France, or of the new
Sovereign of the nation. But the generous farewell of the Emperor
could not fail to affect me; and, conquered by the irresistible
influence which the love of glory and of our native land exercises
upon a French soldier, I soon awoke to more praiseworthy and more
tempered feelings. My recollections faded, my regrets were softened,
and I aspired most sincerely to the honour of being again useful to my
country, and to my country’s King.

At first the character which I had earned, procured for me the most
gratifying reception. Dazzling prospects were held out to me. I
believed that I was treated with sincerity. This error was of short
duration. Deceived and baffled, I now understood that they were
cheating the army and myself. They affected to honour us in the
aggregate, because they were afraid of us; and they insulted us
individually, (p. 088) in conformity to their systematic hated. My
character was too proud to allow me to bear with the insults and the
contempt which they wished to pour out upon me. I resigned my
commission. France and her government sickened me; but my military
enthusiasm had not abated. I thought that I should be recollected by
the Emperor, who had distinguished me in the field of battle; and that
he would deign to grant that boon which was dearest to my heart; that
he would allow me to live and die in his service. I therefore made up
my mind to visit the isle of Elba.

Just, however, as I was on the point of departing, I was stopped by a
sudden thought. Abandoned, betrayed, and denied, by men whom he has
heaped with rewards and honours, will the Emperor really believe that
I am really attached to him? Perhaps he will even suspect that I am a
spy, and that the Bourbons have sent me to watch his words and
actions. I was still in relation with those persons who had formerly
enjoyed the confidence of the Emperor. Since the restoration, their
conduct had been marked by frankness and honesty. Their feelings led
them to be faithful to the person of Napoleon; their patriotism and
their principles led them to be devoted to his cause; and they had not
(p. 089) sought to conceal either their fidelity or their devotion.
Many efforts had been made to gain them over to the royal party, but
they had continued immoveable. I therefore thought, that whatever
recommendation I could obtain from any one of the persons in question,
would protect me from the suspicions of the Emperor; and to them I
therefore confided my plans and the causes of my uneasiness, without
hesitation or reserve.

The first, and the second, to whom I thus applied, severally assured
me that they took the most lively interest in the undertaking, and
they betrayed the most tender anxiety for its result. They desired me
to express to the Emperor the grief which his loss had occasioned to
them, and their hopes of seeing him once more; but both were afraid to
compromise themselves by writing to him, and I quitted them without
having obtained my wishes. Then I proceeded to the third, whom I shall
call Monsieur X. We had known each other in those eventful periods
when men are put to the test, and he had kindly formed and retained a
favourable opinion of my character and courage. I unveiled my projects
and my fears. “Your fears,” answered he, “are well founded. (p. 090)
The Emperor will distrust you, and probably he will not allow you to
continue with him. My recommendation would, without doubt, be of great
utility to you, but I cannot give it without danger. Not that I should
be in danger, for my affection towards the Emperor is well known to
all the world, but we might put the Emperor himself in jeopardy; for,
if they were to take my letter from you, they might give it over to a
spy, nay, even to an assassin.”

This argument appeared conclusive to me, but I answered, “A lucky
thought flashes across my mind. You have acted so long and so often in
connexion with the Emperor, that surely you must be able to recollect
some circumstances, some disclosures known only to yourselves, which,
if I relate them to his Majesty, will prove to him that you trust me,
and that I am worthy of his trust.”—”Your idea is excellent; yet,”
added he, “I must either give you insignificant details, and then the
Emperor will have forgotten them, or I must reveal important secrets
to you, and I am forbidden by my duty to do so; yet I will turn the
matter over in my mind. Call here again to-morrow morning.”

I called again. “I have ransacked my memory,” (p. 091) said M. X***
as he accosted me, “and here is the very thing which you want.” He
then delivered a note to me. “I had only considered your expedition to
Elba,” continued M. X***, “in relation to your own concerns; but it is
of much greater importance than you imagine, or than I myself thought
it would be. It may produce tremendous consequences. It is impossible
that the Emperor can be indifferent to what is going on in France. If
he was to put any questions to you on that head, how would you answer
him? You must be fully aware how very dangerous it might be if you
were to give him an erroneous idea of our political
situation.”—”Though I am a soldier by profession, yet I am not an
utter novice in politics. I have often reflected on the present
position of France. I really think that I understand enough of the
matter to be able to satisfy the curiosity of Napoleon.”—”I don’t
doubt it: but, come, what is your opinion of affairs?”

In answer to this interrogatory, I entered into an illustrative
analysis of the faults of government, and of the consequences ensuing
therefrom. Our conversation became warmer, and when, after having
discussed the time present, we began to contemplate futurity, our
thoughts (p. 092) were evolved with so much rapidity; we were carried
so much further than we intended, that we ourselves were astonished,
and we then both continued during a short interval in a kind of
reverie. I was the first who broke silence. “Well,” said I, “suppose
the Emperor, after having questioned me, were to ask, Do you think the
time of my re-appearance in France is arrived, what must I
answer?”—”You will tell his Majesty that I could not dare to decide
so important a question; but that he may consider it as a positive and
incontestible fact that our present government (as you have well
observed) has wholly lost the confidence of the people and of the
army; that discontent has increased to the highest pitch; and that it
is impossible to believe that the government can stand much longer
against the universal dislike. You will add, that the Emperor is the
only object of the regret and hope of the nation. He, in his wisdom,
will decide what he ought to do.”—”If he asks me whether this opinion
is only yours, or whether Messrs. ******* all share in it, what shall
I answer?”—”Tell him that since his abdication those persons have
ceased to be in communication with each other, but that my opinion is
conformable to the general opinion.”—”I (p. 093) am now able to
answer all the questions which the Emperor may ask. Adieu.”

We embraced each other repeatedly, and we parted.

As soon as I had quitted M. X*** all that had passed between us filled
my mind again. I now contemplated at leisure the mission which I was
called upon to fulfil. I measured its extent, and weighed its
consequences, and I could not help feeling astonished, and in some
measure alarmed, by the result of this self-examination. So long as I
merely intended to go to Elba for the sole purpose of offering my
services to the Emperor, my journey appeared to be nothing out of the
common course of things, and I thought that I should not have
hesitated to declare to the government that I was going to rejoin my
former benefactor, the Sovereign of my choice; but since the object of
my journey had become so much more important; since, to use the words
of M. X***, it might produce tremendous consequences, it seemed that
the government would not fail to watch me; that it would dog me in my
path, and endeavour to spy out all my words and actions.

Hence I became suspicious and uneasy. The (p. 094) note of M. X***
appeared an immense burthen. I got it by heart, and then I threw it in
the fire. Instead of asking at once for a passport to Genoa or
Leghorn, as I had at first intended, I asked for a passport to Milan.
There was a General officer then residing in that city whom I knew;
and I thought that if the Police were to question me, I might then
declare that I was going to Milan in order to settle my accounts with
my friend the General, he being in my debt for money which I had
advanced to him.

Having thus settled my plan, I went on to the “prefecture de police.”
Whilst I was stepping across the threshold of the door, my heart began
to beat so violently that I could hardly move or breathe. If at that
instant any body had cried out to me, “Rascal, what are you about?” I
think I should have dropped, and that I should have let out the whole
secret. It must not be thought that my confusion arose from cowardly
fear; no, it was the impression which every honest man ought to feel,
when, for the first time in his life, he commits an action which he is
under the necessity of concealing.

In a few minutes I came to myself again. In I went, and presented
myself boldly to Monsieur (p. 095) Rivière, the Prefect of Police. He
cross-questioned me at full length, but my answers were clear and
firm. My countenance was unabashed, and appeared to preclude all
suspicion, and he granted my passport. Yet, at all events, I thought
it prudent to ascertain whether I was watched, and to my great
surprise I found that during two days I was closely followed. I did
not give any token by which my spy could ascertain that I was aware of
his company, and, in order to mislead him, I went to the
messageries, where I took and paid for a place in the Lyons
diligence. But when night came I hired post-horses under a feigned
name, and set off as fast as possible, and in a few days I was at
Milan.

My friend the General was absent: I wrote to him, and he hastened to
meet me. I confessed that I intended to try to obtain employment under
Napoleon.—”You won’t get it,” said he; “Napoleon has not ready money
enough to pay his body guard. A good many of my old officers have
joined him, and for themselves and their families they only receive
fifty, or perhaps sixty francs a month. They are in a state of
starvation and despair.”—”No matter; I love the Emperor, and come
what may, I will (p. 096) join him. Do tell me how I can soonest put
to sea.”—”The thing is not easy; there is no place from whence you
can sail, except only from Leghorn or from Genoa; and those two points
are under such close inspection, that you will be sure to be taken up,
if you are known to be a Bonapartist. You might slip through with
greater ease if you could pass for a tradesman of this town. I will
try to get you a passport, but I am afraid it will be a difficult
job.”—”Besides, there is another difficulty, which is still greater;
ma foi! I can’t speak a dozen words of Italian.”—”Is it
possible?”—”Yes, I am in earnest.”—”And you would venture on such a
scheme! are you crazy?”—”Crazy or not, I will venture; but can I
really embark no where but at Leghorn or Genoa?”—”There are very many
small ports on the coast of Tuscany, but if you go to any of them you
must stop till there is an opportunity of getting out; and in the mean
time you would be under the surveillance of the authorities, who
are, one and all, exceedingly ill-disposed towards the Emperor and his
people. Perhaps you might be able to embark immediately in the gulf of
Spezzia at Lerici; but, in order to get there, you must go through
(p. 097) Genoa, and along the shore; and then there is great reason
to fear that you may be snapped either by the Piedmontese carabineers,
or by the new consul at Genoa, who, according to what I hear, is quite
outrageous. There is another road through the mountains of Spezzia,
but it has not been used for a long time, and you would run the risk
either of breaking your neck, or of being knocked on the head.”—”No
matter, if there is no danger in the victory there is no glory in the
triumph. That road suits me; and to-morrow I will set out on my
expedition.”—”Is your passport all right?”—”I will go and get it
marked for Lerici.”—”Another piece of stupidity; don’t you know that
here you have to deal with our implacable enemies, the Austrians, who
will raise all kinds of difficulties; but I know a Tedesco Colonel (in
Italy an Austrian is called a Tedesco), who will probably be able to
do the needful for us: we will ask him to come and dine with us.
Business or quarrels can all be settled with these gentry when they
are feeding.”

Our Tedesco Colonel really got my passport through the office. I left
my “calèche” and my baggage at Milan, and the next day I started in a
“seggiola,” a kind of a little cabriolet, in which you drive along at
an infernal (p. 098) rate. I travelled through cross roads till I
came to the foot of the mountains. As it was impossible to ascend them
in a wheeled carriage, I was compelled, though reluctantly, to
separate myself from my “conducteur.” I bought two horses, one for
myself, and the other for my new guide; this new guide could not speak
a word of French. I had taken care to provide myself with a pocket
dictionary, French and Italian; but I was completely ignorant, or at
least very nearly so, of the way either of pronouncing Italian words,
or of arranging them; and thus our conversation was reduced on both
sides to a few detached phrases, which were often mutually
unintelligible.

We set out at break of day. About noon the snow began to fall, and we
had the greatest difficulty imaginable in reaching a hamlet, the name
whereof I have forgotten. The next day the weather became still more
wretched; my guide’s horse foundered in the snow, and we lost two
hours in hauling him out again. My guide was an Italian, and, like all
Italians, he was full of superstition, and easily discouraged. He
considered this accident as a bad omen, and he wanted to turn back; I
could only conquer his repugnance by means of a double Napoleon d’or.
Scarcely had I given it to him when I (p. 099) felt the extent of my
imprudence; I was exciting his avarice, and perhaps exposing myself to
become his victim. As we advanced, the road became worse and worse; at
every step we encountered pits and holes, or the road was stopped by
rocks which had fallen in, and which forced us to scramble through new
paths. So much snow had fallen in the north of Italy, and particularly
in the district which we were then crossing, that even the muleteers
had deserted the mountains: and my guide, unable to discern the beaten
road, was compelled to make a survey at every step, lest we should
either lose ourselves, or else tumble down the precipices which
bordered our road of danger. The next day we arrived at Borcetto; the
perils which I had escaped taught me caution: I hired two more horses,
and another guide; and for this addition to my train, I paid out of
all reason. I then met with a custom-house officer, who either out of
kindness, or for the purpose of alarming me, I know not which, warned
me to be particularly on my guard in crossing “la Size,” a very lofty
and dangerous mountain, for he told me that it swarmed with robbers. I
put fresh priming in my pistols; I turned up my eyes toward Heaven to
implore its protection, and I set out. When we had proceeded (p. 100)
half way up the mountain, I was accosted by a soldier, who compelled
me to enter the guard-house, and to produce my passport. This post,
which had been lately established for the security of travellers, was
occupied by a subaltern and by six soldiers, who had all served in the
imperial army. They guessed by my looks that I had seen some service,
and, after a short conversation, they asked me to come in and warm
myself by drinking the health of the Emperor Napoleon. I refused at
first, lest I should be entrapped, but they insisted so frankly that I
was compelled to yield. On taking leave I gave them a twenty-franc
piece, in order to drink the health of Napoleon, and mine too; and I
begged them to recommend my guides to take care of me. The commandant
called the guides, and at the same time that he fired a volley of
oaths and curses, he declared that if any accident happened to me, he
would shoot them both on their return. My worthy military friends also
escorted me during a considerable distance, and we separated with
feelings which no one but a soldier can appreciate or understand.

We were to sleep at Pontremoli. Our halt retarded us, and night
overtook us. In order to shorten the distance, my guides led me by a
(p. 101) broad path which wound round the side of the mountain. The
descent was so steep that our horses came down every moment, and we
ourselves were obliged to slide along. I found myself at the foot of
the mountain in a spot which was so dark and dreary, that I fancied my
guides had conducted me thither in order to dispatch me. After having
groped along for some time, my guides stopped. The darkness and the
snow concealed the face of the country to such a degree, that they did
not know where they were, nor which way they ought to turn: their fear
became excessive; they prayed to all the Saints in heaven in their
turn: they shook each other by the hand, and embraced each other like
sailors on the point of being shipwrecked. My sang froid did not
desert me; I took one of the horses which looked like an old roadster;
I dropped the bridle on his neck, and gave him a sound cut with my
whip; he started, I followed, and a few minutes afterwards, to the
inexpressible surprise, and also to the inexpressible satisfaction of
my guides, we found ourselves in the right road, and within half an
hour’s ride of Pontremoli, where we arrived towards midnight.

From Pontremoli to Spezzia there was yet a journey of four-and-twenty
hours; and four-and-twenty hours on such roads as I had gone (p. 102)
over are equal to four-and-twenty centuries. But how great was my
delight on quitting Pontremoli, when, instead of the frozen rocks and
deserts, which I had crossed the eve before, I saw nothing as I looked
around, but valleys clothed with verdure, and enamelled with flowers;
and hills surrounded and crowned by evergreens and olive-trees. On the
day before, winter reigned with all his severity; the day after
exhibited spring with all her charms. This pleasing transition
beguiled my impatience; and the agitations which had become habitual
to my soul were succeeded by that happy tranquillity, which is
inspired by the contemplation of the beauties and the gifts of nature.

A few leagues beyond Pontremoli the road is interrupted by a deep and
rapid stream. There is a ford across this torrent. It had scarcely
been indicated to me by my guides, beyond whom I had advanced, when I
dashed into the water; but instead of guiding my horse to the right
(as I ought to have done), I took the opposite direction. My guides,
who saw my mistake, screamed out in Italian, “fermate, fermate!” which
means, “stop, stop!” I thought it meant “firm, firm!” so I whipped and
spurred my horse with all my might; he lost his footing, and I
narrowly escaped drowning. When (p. 103) I reached the opposite shore
my guides treated me with a sermon, which I dare say was very
energetic, and in which the “Devil and the Frenchman” appeared to be
the leading actors.

I arrived on the **** at Lerici. I rejoiced when I saw the sea before
me, when I saw the last obstacle which was interposed between the
fulfilment of my hopes and the termination of my labours. But
unhappily my joy was of short duration; in the course of the night I
was attacked by an oppression on my chest, accompanied by a burning
fever: this was the result of the cold bath which I had taken in the
river. My mental sufferings were severe: I thought to myself, if I
should be so unlucky as to get an inflammation on my lungs, what will
become of me here without help, without friends, and in a strange
land? Ah, my beloved country! ah, my dear mother! have I left you
both, in order to perish in the arms of hirelings and of strangers!
Have I only reached the long wished-for shores of Spezzia but to
experience the grief of not being able to sail from them! Ah, if I
could but have reached the Emperor, if I could but have spoken to him,
if I could but have expired at his feet, then I should not have
regretted life! My devoted attachment would have been known; my memory
honoured; my (p. 104) name, linked to the destiny of the Emperor,
would, perhaps, have descended with his unto posterity…. I sent for
a doctor: by singular good fortune, the medical man who came to attend
me was a retired army surgeon, a worthy man, and a great admirer of
the French. When I was quite out of danger, he expressed a wish to
know the motives which had induced me to cross the mountains to
Lerici: and he gave me to understand that he guessed my views. A man
who speaks is always liable to less suspicion than a man who says
nothing; I therefore thought it right to allay the doctor’s curiosity.
After exhorting him to secrecy, and making a great mystery of the
matter, I confessed that I was a Colonel in the French army, and that
an officer who held a high rank in the service of Napoleon had married
my sister. My sister, I proceeded to state, was so afflicted and
broken down by the expatriation of her husband, that her medical
attendants had declared her life to be in the greatest danger. My
sister’s illness, and the care of her four small children, prevented
her from rejoining her husband; and therefore, in order to restore
health and happiness to my poor dear sister, I had determined to go to
Elba, for the purpose of reminding my brother-in-law of the duty which
he owed to his wife and (p. 105) children, and that I hoped to be
able to induce him to return to France, at least for a short time.

I took care to diversify my romance with sighs and sentimental
reflections, and it appeared to affect him exceedingly. He condoled
with me, he tried to console me; he gave me the most flattering hopes,
and he promised to serve me to the utmost of his power, and with all
his heart and soul.

As soon as I was in a state of convalescence, I became more ardent
than before, in search of an immediate opportunity of embarking. My
complaisant doctor introduced me to the captain of a running felucca,
and I hired his vessel for a fortnight.

The captain asked me for my passport, in order that he might receive
his “feuille de bord” and his “boletta” from the port officer.
This was in consequence of regulations of which I was wholly ignorant.
The fact is, that no vessel can clear out of one port, or enter
another, without a “feuille de bord,” stating the complement of the
crew, and the number of passengers; and a “boletta,” or certificate,
delivered by the health officers to each of the passengers and crew
individually, stating that the bearer has not been attacked by any
infectious (p. 106) disorder. These papers are only delivered on the
production of the passports, to which they must correspond exactly. I
did not expect this proceeding; my plans were all disorganized: my
passport did not authorize me to embark; and I was afraid if I
produced it, (for in such situations we are afraid of every thing),
that difficulties might arise, and that they would refer to the Consul
or his agents.

The Captain guessed the cause of my uneasiness, and he offered to
procure a passport and a boletta under a feigned name. I refused: I
thought it more advisable to run the risk of being punished as a
Bonapartist than as an impostor. “Since you will not do so,” said the
captain, “there is but one course which you can pursue: you must get
on board a boat, and pass for a common sailor. I will manage the
business for you.”—Some hours afterwards the captain came to me with
a Gallo-Genoese sailor, who offered to take me, without any papers,
wherever I wished to go. He added, that he had a relation who was a
gunner on board the Inconstant, a brig belonging to Napoleon, and that
he should be very glad to see him again. I judged that my design of
going to Elba had got wind: I therefore determined, if possible, to
depart that very night. It was (p. 107) therefore agreed that
Salviti, so the sailor was called, should fetch me, and that we should
put out to sea, however bad the weather might prove.

Whilst these arrangements were going on my doctor paid me a visit. The
doctor told me that the commandant of the town, whom he attended, was
going to send a file of his carabineers to bring me before him in
order to ascertain the reason of my arrival, and of my residence on
the shores of the gulf. “I told him,” continued the doctor, “that you
are unwell, and that you are going to your family in Corsica, and that
you intend to begin your voyage as soon as you are able to support the
fatigue. I think I have made him easier, yet don’t trust him: be off
as quick as you can.”—”I shall be off to-night; but as your
commandant or his gensdarmes might take a fancy to lay hold of me
between this and then, I therefore think it will be more prudent for
me to go to him of my own accord, and to confirm the story which you
have had the goodness to tell him.” Accordingly I went immediately to
the Commandant; and as the doctor had let me into the character of the
man, I easily succeeded in pleasing and tranquillizing him. However,
he made me promise that I would bring my (p. 108) passport to him
to-morrow. I gave as many promises as he could wish. At midnight we
set sail; and by break of day we had already lost sight of the gulf of
Spezzia, and of the majestic scenery which surrounds it. The bark
which carried me and all my fortunes was only a common boat with four
oars and a lateen sail. The crew consisted of six men; Salviti could
speak French, and he was a good-looking fellow: the countenances of
the others displayed want and utter profligacy. They examined me with
great curiosity, and they were constantly talking about me. Salviti
interpreted their discourse. I gave them civil language. We even seek
to please sailors when we are in need of their help[31]. I was
sea-sick without intermission; and to complete my misfortunes I had
omitted to furnish myself with provisions. I was therefore obliged to
mess with my companions; and their food consisted of stinking salt
fish, and chiefly of bacalao, or salt cod, which is eaten quite raw.

The wind was against us, therefore we did not come in sight of the
lighthouse of Leghorn until the morning of the second day. How can I
express (p. 109) my surprise and anger when I saw that our vessel was
making the mouth of the harbour! “Salviti, where are you taking
me?”—”To Leghorn.”—”I won’t go to Leghorn,” I exclaimed with a great
oath. “It is not to Leghorn that you promised to take me.”—Salviti
answered, with confusion, that he was not the owner of the vessel, but
that he hired it in partnership with the rest of the crew, that they
were all smugglers, and that they were going to Leghorn for the
purpose of arranging an expedition of consequence with other smugglers
there. Their business would be soon settled, and then they would take
me to Porto Ferrajo; and he declared that he gave his word of honour
that he would do so, and that I might trust him.—”I will not agree to
all this,” I exclaimed, presenting my pistols to his breast: “Let us
go straight on to Elba, or I will shoot you.”—”Shoot away, if you
like, but you will not do yourself much good: my companions will heave
you into the sea, or else you will be guillotined at Leghorn.” The
coolness of the fellow completely disarmed me. “Well, then,” said I,
“swear that you will take me to-morrow to the isle of Elba.”—”I have
told you already that I am a scoundrel if I break my word.” The
sailors did not understand (p. 110) a word of our dialogue, nor could
they make out what was the cause of my fury. One of them, who had
deserted from the English navy, seized a big knife in the shape of a
stiletto. The others seemed to wait the result, in order to throw
themselves upon me. When this scene had finished, I endeavoured to
bribe Salviti to turn back, but no; he had given his word of honour to
go to Leghorn, and his word of honour was inviolable. Thus I was
conducted against my will into the trap which I wished to avoid. I was
worked up to the highest pitch of fury and vexation; I foamed with
rage and despair. Thus, thought I, wringing my hands, these ruffians
will deprive me of the reward which I was to obtain for my sufferings.
Alas! the Emperor, the Emperor! so near him—under his eyes—at the
moment that—”Rascal!” I cried out to Salviti, “I will follow you like
your shadow, and sooner than allow myself to be arrested, I will blow
out your brains!”—Salviti shrugged up his shoulders, and answered,
“Well and good; but, in the mean time, strip, and dress yourself like
a sailor.”—”Why?”—”Why! why, because you have no passport, and they
will lock you up.”—I submitted to this new tribulation. One of the
wretches pulled off a heavy jacket with a hood attached (p. 111) to
it, in which I arrayed myself. A coloured handkerchief, all drenched
with sweat and filthiness, was taken from the neck of another of them,
and tied round mine. A third gave me his woollen cap; and in spite of
my unavoidable disgust, I was compelled to draw it on my head down to
my eyes. My beard, by good luck, did not disgrace my unshaved
messmates, and in order that the colour of my hands might not betray
me, I washed them in the bilge-water which stagnated beneath the
flooring of our boat. More remained to be done: our “feuille de
bord” stated that our crew consisted of six men: we were seven. It
therefore, became necessary to hide one[32]. We chose him who was the
shortest, and the most slender. He nestled at the end of the boat, and
we covered him with some old mats and sailors’ jackets. These
preparations being terminated, I was told to seat myself in the place
of a rower, and to take an oar in my hand; and at night-fall we came
into the road of Leghorn.

(p. 112) Salviti presented his papers. The date was too old[33]. The
officers raised objections: he lost his temper; and by way, both of
punishment and precaution, we were ordered to submit to the lesser
quarantine, that is to say, to remain prisoners in the roads during
three days.

Salviti came with a sorrowful visage and announced this fresh
misfortune; our vessel tacked about, and we reached our station of
exile.

On the morning of the third day Salviti informed me that, according to
custom, they intended to put an “inspector of health” on board of our
vessel, who would pass the night with us, in order to ascertain
whether we were all well. From the person who had brought, or who,
rather, had thrown us our provisions (for all contact is prohibited
under pain of death), he had ascertained the name of our intended
inspector. He was a gamester and a drunkard. (p. 113) Salviti
procured cards and wine; and he assured me that he would manage the
inspector in such a manner as to prevent his taking any notice of me.

As for me, I was not as easy as Salviti. I was afraid lest the
inspector might discover the sailor whom we had hidden, or that he
might guess by my manner, my looks, and my awkwardness, that I was not
really the character which I seemed to be. Besides, a single question
would have ended the matter. I did not understand a single word of
Italian, and I should have betrayed myself either by answering him, or
by remaining silent. It came into my head to counterfeit deafness:
this would excuse me from taking a part in the conversation: and to
make believe that I had a wound in my hand: this would account for my
inactivity, and prevent his observing how little I knew of my
pretended occupation. I drew a few drops of blood, which I smeared
upon some dirty rags, in which I wrapped my hand. Salviti explained my
stratagem to my companions, and their loud peals of laughter explained
to me that they approved of it. The inspector arrived. I kept myself
to myself. Salviti acted his part admirably. So did I: and to my great
delight the evening closed, and nothing disagreeable had (p. 114)
happened. Until this night I had always slept separately from the rest
on a tolerable mattress. But the inspector was now accommodated with
my birth and my bed; and I was compelled to lie on the floor with the
sailors; my head being placed even with the feet of my two next
neighbours. The stench and closeness of the atmosphere of my den drove
the blood into my head, and I thought I should have been suffocated.
Early in the morning my companions began to eat and drink: I kept at a
distance. “Come here, and eat,” said Salviti.—”I can’t.”—”The
inspector will fancy that you are ill, and that will be enough to give
us another quarantine.”—I ate. At ten o’clock the health-officers
came near us; and as our inspector made a favourable report, we were
allowed to enter the harbour. I remained on board with one of the
crew, whom I kept as a hostage. The smugglers broke up their cabinet
council about two o’clock; and at three o’clock we quitted our
anchorage. A fair wind filled the sail, and I forgot all my sufferings
and my dangers when I perceived the rock where I was to meet with
Napoleon the Great.

We entered the road of Porto Ferrajo[34], without (p. 115) any
difficulty, at the moment when the cannon fired, announcing that the
harbour was about to close. I heard the French drums sounding the
roll: my heart beat high: I passed the night on the deck of the boat.
Notwithstanding the joy which I felt at my arrival, I could not help
indulging in a certain degree of melancholy, inspired, perhaps, by the
silence of the night, and the aspect of the arid and gloomy mountains
which surrounded me. Ah, how vain is human grandeur! thought I. The
air of that sterile islet is breathed by that incomprehensible man who
lately felt that he had not breathing room in Europe. It is in that
humble hovel that he now dwells with his scanty train of faithful
followers; He whom I have seen in the palace of the Cæsars, receiving
the homage and the worship of the most brilliant court in the world;
He whom I have seen sitting covered, whilst eight Kings stood before
him with their hats in their hands. It is over (p. 116) this little
tribe alone, not exceeding the population of a village, that Napoleon
the Great is now doomed to reign! Napoleon the Great! He who endowed
the thrones of his allies with the leavings of his conquests—He who
so long was the master and the terror of the universe!

The sun rose, and put an end to my musings. My joy was inexpressible
when I recognized on the ramparts those old grenadiers whom I had so
often admired and honoured on the field of battle.

I jumped on shore, and I rushed into the nearest inn for the purpose
of putting off my sailor’s dress, and then flying to the palace of
Napoleon. But I had been watched and followed: and the functionaries
despatched by general Cambronne, the Commandant of the town,
immediately appeared to secure me. I tranquillized them, and they
accompanied me to the town-house, where General Bertrand then lodged.
I sent in my name, and the General came out. “Sir, do you come from
France?”—”Yes, Monsieur le Maréchal.”—”What do you want here?”—”I
wish to see the Emperor, and to solicit employment.”—”Does the
Emperor know you?”—”Yes, Sir, and M. X*** has also given me (p. 117)
the means of proving to the Emperor that I am not unworthy of his
goodness.”—”Do you bring us any news from France?”—”I do, Monsieur
le Maréchal; and I think that the intelligence which I bring is
good.”—”Well, Heaven hears you; as for us, we are so wretched—I am
dying with impatience to have a talk with you about France; but I must
inform the Emperor of your arrival. Perhaps he may not be able to see
you immediately. To-day the English corvette[35] is here, and those
people are suspicious of every thing: is it publicly known who you
are?”—”It is known that I am a French officer.”—”So much the worse;
hide your decorations, hold your tongue, and remain within doors and
rest yourself at your inn. I will send for you.”—Half an hour
afterwards the Marshal desired me to proceed as quickly as possible to
the Emperor’s garden-gate: the Emperor, would come there, and speak to
me without appearing to know me. I went accordingly: the Emperor,
according to his custom, was walking with his hands behind his back.
He passed several times before me without lifting up his eyes; at last
he looked at me: he stopped, and asked me in Italian (p. 118) what
countryman I was. I answered in French that I was a Parisian; that
business had called me to Italy; and that I could not resist the
desire of seeing my old sovereign.—”Well, Sir, talk to me about Paris
and France;”—and as he finished these words he began to walk again. I
accompanied him; and after he had put several indifferent questions to
me aloud, he desired me to enter his apartments: he then ordered
Bertrand and Drouot to retire, and forced me to sit down by his side.
Napoleon began in a reserved and absent manner: “The grand Marshal
tells me that you have just arrived from France.”—”Yes, Sire.”—”What
do you want here?”—”Sire, I wish to offer my services to you; my
conduct in 1814—” Napoleon interrupting me,—”Sir, I do not question
but that you are a very good officer, however I have so many officers
with me already, that it will be very difficult for me to assist you;
yet we will see: it appears that you know M. X***.”—”Yes,
Sire.”—”Has he sent a letter for me by you?”—”No, Sire.”—Napoleon,
interrupting me, “I see he forgets me just like the rest; since I have
been here, I have not heard a word of him or of any body.”—I
interrupted the Emperor in my turn, “Sire, he has never ceased to
entertain those sentiments (p. 119) of devotion and attachment
towards your Majesty which are still cherished by all true Frenchmen;
and—” Napoleon, with disdain; “What, do they still think of me in
France?”—”Never will they forget you.”—”Never! that is a strong
expression; the French have another Sovereign, and they are commanded
both by their duty and their tranquillity to think on him alone.” This
answer did not please me: the Emperor, thought I to myself, is out of
humour because I have not brought him any letters; he mistrusts me: it
was not worth while to come so far for the sake of such an ungracious
reception.—Napoleon, continuing, “What do they think about me in
France?”—”There, your Majesty is universally deplored and
regretted.”—”Yes, and there, also, they manufacture all sorts of lies
concerning me. Sometimes they say that I am mad, sometimes that I am
ill, and you may see (here the Emperor looked at his embonpoint), if
I look like an ailing man. It is also given out that they intend to
transport me either to St. Helena or to Malta. I would not advise them
to try. I have provisions for six months, and brave followers to
defend me: but I cannot think that Europe will be so dishonourable as
to rise in arms against a single man, who has neither the power nor
the inclination (p. 120) of hurting others. The emperor Alexander has
too much love for posterity to lend himself to such a crime. They have
guaranteed the sovereignty of the isle of Elba to me by a solemn
treaty. Here I am in my own home; and as long as I do not go out to
pick a quarrel with my neighbours, they have no right to come and
disturb me … have you served in the grand army?”—”Yes, Sire, I had
the felicity of distinguishing myself under your Majesty’s eyes in the
plains of Champagne; your Majesty appeared to take such particular
notice of me, that I had dared to hope that your Majesty would
recollect me.”—”Why, yes; I thought, somehow, that I knew your face
when I saw you, but I have only a confused recollection of you.”—Poor
mortals! thought I to myself, go and expose your lives for the sake of
Kings, go and sacrifice your youth, your repose, your happiness for
their sake!—”In what affairs have you distinguished
yourself?”—”Sire, at *****, and at ***** Marshal Ney there presented
me to your majesty, saying, ‘Sire, here is the intrepid S…. P…..
of whom I have spoken to your Majesty.'”—”Ah! ah! I really do
recollect—yes, I was very well pleased indeed, with your behaviour at
**** and at ****; you showed much resolution, much strength of
(p. 121) character. Did I not ‘decorate’ you on the field of
battle?”—”Yes, Sire.”—Napoleon, with greater warmth and confidence,
“Eh bien! how are they all treated in France by the
Bourbons?”—”Sire, the Bourbons have not realized the expectations of
the French, and the number of malcontents increases every
day.”—Napoleon, sharply; “So much the worse, so much the worse: but
how, has not X. sent me any letters?”—”No, Sire; he was afraid lest
they might be taken from me; and as he thought that your Majesty,
being now compelled to be vigilant, and to distrust all the world,
might distrust me also, he has revealed several circumstances to me,
which are only known to your Majesty and to himself; thus enabling me
to give a proof that I am worthy of your Majesty’s confidence.”—”Let
us hear them.” I began my detail, but he exclaimed, without allowing
me to finish, “that’s enough; why did you not begin by telling me all
that? there is half an hour that we have lost.” This storm[36]
disconcerted (p. 122) me. He perceived my confusion, and resumed his
discourse with mildness.—”Come, make yourself easy, and repeat to me,
with the greatest minuteness, all that has passed between you and
X****.” I then related the circumstances which had induced me to have
an interview with Monsieur X****. I repeated our conversation word for
word. I gave him a complete account of all the faults and excesses of
the royal government; and I was going to draw the inferences which had
occurred to Monsieur X**** and me. But the Emperor, who, when he was
affected, was incapable of listening to any recital without
interrupting it, and making his comments at every moment, stopped my
mouth. “I thought so, too,” said he, “when I abdicated, that the
Bourbons, instructed and disciplined by adversity, would not fall
again into the errors which ruined them in 1789. I thought that
(p. 123) the King would govern you ‘en bon homme.’ This was the
only way by which he could obtain a pardon from you, for having been
put upon you by foreigners. But since they have stepped into France,
they have done nothing but acts of madness. Their treaty of the
twenty-third of April,” (raising his voice,) “has made me deeply
indignant: with one stroke of the pen they have robbed France of
Belgium, and of all the territory acquired since the revolution. They
have deprived the nation of its docks, its arsenals, its fleets, its
artillery, and the immense materiel which I had collected in the
fortresses and the ports which they have ceded. Talleyrand has led
them into this infamous business: he must have been bribed. Peace is
easy upon such terms. If, like them, I had consented to the ruin of
France, they would not now be on my throne:” (with energy,) “I would
sooner have cut off my right hand. I preferred renouncing my throne
rather than to retain it by staining my glory, and the honour of the
French nation…. A degraded crown is an intolerable burthen. My
enemies have published everywhere, that I obstinately refused to make
peace. They have represented me as a wretched madman, eager only for
blood and carnage: this language answered their turn. When you wish
(p. 124) to hang your dog, you give out that he is mad: Quand on
veut tuer son chien, il faut bien faire accroire qu’il est enragé.
But Europe shall know the truth: I will let the world know all that
was said and done at Chatillon. I will unmask the Austrians, the
Russians, and the English with a powerful hand. Europe shall judge:
Europe shall say who was the rogue, and who was wishing to shed human
blood. If I had been mad for war, I might have retired with my army
beyond the Loire, and I might have enjoyed mountain warfare to my
heart’s content. I would not; I was tired of carnage … my name, and
the brave fellows who remained faithful to me, yet made the allies
tremble, even in my capital. They offered Italy to me as the price of
my abdication: I refused it. After once reigning over France, one
ought not to reign anywhere else. I chose the isle of Elba. They were
too happy to give Elba to me. This position suited me. I can watch
France and the Bourbons. All that I have done has been only for
France. It is for her sake and not for mine that I wished to render
her the first nation in the universe. My glory is made for myself[37]
(p. 125) *******. If I had only thought of myself, I would have
returned to a private station, but it was my duty to retain the
imperial title for my family and my son…. Next to France, my son is
the dearest object in the world to me.”

During the whole of this discourse, the Emperor continued striding up
and down, and appeared violently agitated. He paused a little while,
and then he began again. “They (i.e. the emigrants) know too well that
I am here, and they would like to assassinate me. I discover new
plots, new snares every day. They have sent to Corsica one of the
assassins of Georges, a wretch whom the English journals themselves
have pointed out to Europe as a blood-thirsty assassin; but let us be
on the alert. If he misses me, I won’t miss him. I shall send my
grenadiers after him, and he shall be shot as an example to others.”

After a few moments of silence, he said, “Do my generals go to court?
they must cut a sad figure there.” I waited for the end of this
digression, in order to resume the thread of my discourse. As I was
convinced that I could not possibly lead the conversation, I resolved
to let the Emperor have it according to his own way, and I answered,
“Yes, Sire, and they (p. 126) are furious to see themselves
superseded in favour by emigrants who have never heard the sound of a
cannon.”—”The emigrants will never alter. As long as they were only
required to dance attendance in my anti-chamber, I had more than
enough of them. When it was necessary to show any heart, they slunk
away like…. I committed a great error, when I recalled that
anti-national race into France. If it had not been for me, they would
have died of starvation abroad; but then I had great motives. I wanted
to reconcile Europe to us, and to close the revolution…. What do my
soldiers say about me?”—”The soldiers, Sire, talk constantly about
your immortal victories. They never pronounce your name but with
respect, admiration, and grief. When the Princes give money to the
soldiers, they drink it out to your health, and when they are forced
to cry Vive le Roi! they add in a whisper, de Rome.”—”And so they
still love me?” (smiling.)—”Yes, Sire, and I may even venture to say,
more than ever.”—”What do they say about our misfortunes?”—”They
consider them as the effect of treachery; and they constantly repeat,
that they never would have been conquered, if they had not been sold
to their enemies. They are particularly (p. 127) indignant with
respect to the capitulation of Paris.”—”They are right: had it not
been for the infamous defection of the Duke of Ragusa, the allies
would have been lost. I was master of their rear, and of all their
resources; not a man would have escaped. They too would have had their
twenty-ninth bulletin. Marmont is a wretch; he has ruined his country,
and delivered up his sovereign. His convention with Schwartzenburg
would alone suffice to dishonour him. If he had not known when he
surrendered, that he compromised my person and my army, he would not
have found it necessary to make stipulations in favour of my liberty
and life. This piece of treachery is not the only one. He has
intrigued with Talleyrand to take the regency from the Empress, and
the crown from my son. Caulincourt, Macdonald, and the rest of the
marshals, have been cheated and gulled by him in the most shameful
manner. All his blood would not be sufficient to expiate the harm
which he has done to France…. I will devote his name to the
execration of posterity. I am glad to learn that my soldiers retain
the feeling of their superiority, and that they attribute our great
misfortunes to the right authors. I collect with great pleasure, from
the intelligence which you (p. 128) have brought, that the opinion
which I had formed respecting the situation of France, is correct. The
family of the Bourbons is not fit to reign. Their government may be
good for priests, nobles, and old fashioned countesses: it is good for
nothing for the present generation. The revolution has taught the
people to know their rank in the state. They will never consent to
fall back into their former nullity, and to be tied up by the nobility
and the clergy. The army can never belong to the Bourbons. Our
victories and our misfortunes have established an indissoluble tie
between the army and myself. It is only through me that the soldiers
can earn vengeance, power, and glory. From the Bourbons they can get
nothing but insults and blows. Kings can only retain their power by
the love of their subjects or by fear. The Bourbons are neither loved
nor feared. At last they will throw themselves off their throne; but
they may yet retain their position for a long time. Frenchmen do not
know how to conspire.”

In pronouncing these words, the Emperor continued walking hastily, and
using many gestures. He rather appeared to be soliloquizing than
addressing any one else; he then continued, looking at me aside, “Does
M. X*** (p. 129) think that those people can stand much
longer?”—”His opinion on this point is exactly conformable to the
general opinion; that is to say, it is now the general impression and
conviction, that the government is hastening to its fall. The priests
and the emigrants are its only partisans; every man of patriotism or
soul is its enemy.”—Napoleon (with energy), “Yes, all men in whose
veins any national blood is flowing must be its enemies; but how will
all this end? Is it thought that there will be a new
revolution?”—”Sire, discontent and irritation prevail to such an
extent, that the slightest partial effervescence would inevitably
cause a general insurrection, and nobody would be surprised if it were
to take place to-morrow.”—”But what would you do were you to expel
the Bourbons: would you re-establish the republic?”—”The republic,
Sire! nobody thinks about it; perhaps they would create a
regency.”—Napoleon (with vehemence and surprise), “A regency! And
wherefore? am I dead?”—”But your absence….”—”My absence makes no
difference. In a couple of days I would be back again in France, if
the nation were to recal me. Do you think it would be well, if I were
to return?” The Emperor turned away his eyes, and I could (p. 130)
easily remark, that to this question he attached more importance than
he cared to manifest, and that he expected my answer with anxiety.
“Sire, I dare not personally attempt to answer such a question,
but….”—Napoleon (abruptly), “That’s not what I am asking you;
answer yes or no.”—”Why then, Sire,—yes.”—Napoleon (with
tenderness), “You really think so?”—”Yes, Sire, I am convinced, and
so is M. X****, that the people and the army would receive you as
their deliverer, and that your cause would be embraced with
enthusiasm.”—Napoleon (appearing agitated and impatient), “Then X***
advises me to return?”—”We had foreseen that your Majesty would make
inquiries on this point, and the following is literally his answer.
You will tell his Majesty that I would not dare to decide so important
a question, but that he may consider it as a positive and
incontrovertible fact, that our present government has wholly lost the
confidence of the people and of the army; that discontent has
increased to the highest pitch, and that it is impossible to believe
that the government can stand much longer against the universal
dislike. You will add, that the Emperor is the only object of the
regret and hope of the nation. He, in his wisdom, will decide what he
ought to do.”

(p. 131) The Emperor became silent and pensive; and, after a long
meditation, he said, “I will reflect upon it; I will keep you with me.
Come here to-morrow at eleven o’clock.”

On leaving the Emperor, I met the Grand Marshal, who said, “the
Emperor has detained you a long time. I am in terror lest this
interview should have been noticed. We are surrounded by English
spies. The slightest indiscretion might cost us dear. I do not ask you
to relate to me any thing which was reserved for the Emperor; but if,
without violating your duty, you could give me any details relating to
France, you would be doing me a great favour. We hear nothing of what
is going forward, except from the journals and a few commercial
travellers; and the intelligence which we thus obtain is so trifling
and so contradictory, that we do not know what to make of it.”—”I can
satisfy you, Monsieur le Maréchal, and without acting indiscreetly:
what I have told to the Emperor is known to all France. Discontent is
at its greatest height, and the royal government is on its last
legs.”—”I cannot tell what futurity promises to us; but whatever our
fate may be, we cannot be worse off than we are at present. Our
resources are dwindling away daily; we are becoming home-sick. If we
were not a (p. 132) little upheld by hope, I really do not know what
would become of us. Has the Emperor allowed you to remain with
us?”—”Yes, Monsieur le Maréchal.”—”I give you joy, but I pity you.
There is no happiness out of one’s own country. I do not regret having
followed the Emperor—this step was dictated to me by my duty and my
gratitude; but I regret France, like an infant who has lost its
mother; like a lover who has lost his mistress.” The Grand Marshal’s
eyes were filled with tears; he pressed my hand affectionately, and
then said, “Come and breakfast with us to-morrow morning. I will
introduce you to my wife; it will be as good as a fête to her when she
has an opportunity of receiving a Frenchman, and above all, a true
Frenchman.”

It was soon known all over the town, that a Frenchman had arrived from
the continent. My inn was besieged by a crowd of officers and
grenadiers, who overwhelmed me with inquiries after their friends and
relations. They seemed to think that I must be acquainted with every
living creature in France. Many inquired respecting the state of
public affairs. I evaded their interrogatories, by declaring that I
had quitted France five months since.

I waited on the Grand Marshal according to (p. 133) his invitation.
He resided in one wing of the building occupied by the municipality.
In his apartment, there was hardly any thing to be seen except the
four walls. He took notice that I was surveying its appearance.—”You
are contemplating our misery,” said he: “Perhaps it contrasts itself
with the opinion which you may have formed respecting our situation.
It is supposed throughout Europe, that the Emperor carried off immense
treasures; but his camp-plate, his camp bed, and a few broken down
horses, are the only objects which he has preserved, or which he
wished to preserve. Like Saladin, he could cause an outcry to be made
at his door, whilst he exposes our tatters,—behold all that Napoleon
the Great, the conqueror of the universe, has retained from his
conquests!”

The General was as good as his word: he introduced me to Madame la
Maréchale. I was enchanted by her manners and her amiability. Our
conversation turned upon France and the Isle of Elba, the present and
the future; and on quitting Madame Bertrand, I did not know what I
ought most to admire—the lively graces of her mind, or the dignity
and energy of her character.

At eleven o’clock I attended, to present myself (p. 134) to the
Emperor. They made me wait in his saloon on the ground floor. The
striped silk hangings were half worn out and faded; the carpet was
threadbare, and patched in several places; a few shabby arm chairs
completed the furniture of the apartment. I thought upon the splendour
of the imperial palaces, and I drew a deep and melancholy sigh. The
Emperor arrived: he had assumed a degree of calmness in his manner,
which was belied by his eyes. It was easy to see that he had been
violently agitated. “Sir,” said he, “I declared to you yesterday, that
I retained you in my service. I repeat the same to you to-day. From
this instant you belong to me, and I hope you will fulfil your duties
towards me like a good and faithful subject: you swear that you
will—is it not so?”—”Yes, Sire, I swear.”—”That’s right.” After a
pause, “I had foreseen the crisis to which France would come, but I
did not think that things were so ripe. It was my intention not to
interfere any longer in political affairs. The intelligence which you
have brought to me has changed my resolutions. I have caused the
misfortunes of France; therefore I must remove them: but before I
commit myself, I wish to have a thorough knowledge (p. 135) of the
state of our affairs. Sit down: repeat to me all that you told me
yesterday; I like to hear you.”

Re-assured by these words, and by a look full of kindness and
benignity, I abandoned myself without reserve to all the inspirations
of my heart and soul. The picture which I drew of the sufferings and
hopes of the nation, which I presented to the Emperor, was so touching
and so animated, that he was astonished. “You are a noble young
fellow,” said he, “you have truly the soul of a Frenchman; but are you
not carried away by your imagination?”—”No, Sire; the recital which I
have made to your Majesty is quite faithful. I may have expressed
myself with warmth, because I cannot express my feelings otherwise;
but all that I have told you is exact and true. Under such important
circumstances, I should have thought it a crime to substitute the
inspirations of my imagination in the place of truth.”—”You therefore
think that France awaits her redemption from me; that I shall be
received as a deliverer.”—”Yes, Sire; I will even say more: the royal
government is so exceedingly hateful and disgusting to the French, the
government weighs so very heavily on the nation and the army, that not
only your Majesty, but (p. 136) any body else who would endeavour to
liberate the French would find them disposed to second him.”—Napoleon
(with dignity): “Repeat that to me again.”—”Yes, Sire, I do repeat
it. The French are so wearied, and degraded, and incensed, by the
anti-national yoke of the emigrants and the priests, that they are
ready to join any one who will promise to deliver them.”—”But if I
were to disembark in France, is there not reason to fear that the
patriots may be massacred by the emigrants and the chouans?”—”No,
Sire, I do not think so; we are the most numerous and the bravest
party.”—”Yes, but they may heap you in the prisons, and cut your
throats.”—”Sire, the people will not let them do that.”—”I hope you
may not be deceived; to be sure, I shall get to Paris so speedily,
that they won’t have time to consider where they are to hide their
heads. I shall be there as soon as the news of my disembarkation….
Yes,” the Emperor continued, after taking a few steps, “I have
resolved…. It was I who gave the Bourbons to France, and it is I who
must rid France of them…. I will set off…. The enterprise is vast,
it is difficult, it is dangerous, but it is not beyond me. On great
occasions fortune has never abandoned me…. I shall (p. 137) set
off, but not alone; I won’t run the risk of allowing myself to be
collared by the gensdarmes. I will depart with my sword, my Polanders,
my grenadiers … all France is on my side. I belong to France; and
for her I will sacrifice my repose, my blood, my life, with the
greatest joy.” After this speech, the Emperor stopped; his eyes
sparkled with hope and genius: his attitude announced energy,
confidence, victory; he was grand, he was beautiful, he was
adorable!—he resumed his discourse, and said, “Do you think that they
will dare to wait for me?”—”No, Sire.”—”I don’t think so, either:
they will quake when they hear the thunder of my name; and they will
know that they can only escape me by a speedy flight. But what will be
the conduct of the national guards? Do you think they will fight for
them?”—”I think, Sire, that the national guards will remain
neutral.”—”Even that’s a great deal; as to their ‘gardes du corps,’
and their red regiments, I am not afraid of them: they are either old
men or boys: they will be frightened by the mustachios of my
grenadiers. I will make my grenadiers hoist the national flag;”
lifting up his voice and his hand: “I will appeal to my old soldiers;
I will speak to them. None of them will refuse to hear the (p. 138)
voice of their old general…. It is certain that the soldiers cannot
hesitate to choose between the white flag and the tricoloured flag;
between me, by whom they have been covered with rewards and glory, and
the Bourbons, who wish to dishonour them…. And the Marshals, what
will they do?”—”The Marshals, who are full of money and titles, have
nothing to wish for but repose. They would fear to compromise their
existence by embracing a doubtful party; and perhaps they will
continue merely spectators of the crisis. Perhaps even the fear lest
your Majesty may possibly punish them for their defection or treason
in 1814 may induce them to adhere to the king.”—”I will punish no
one. Do you take me rightly? Tell M. **** clearly, that I will forget
every thing. We have all reason to reproach each other.”—”Sire, I
will tell him so with the greatest joy. This assurance will completely
gain all opinions over to your side; because even amongst your
partisans there are men who dread your return; lest you should revenge
yourself.”—”Yes, I know that it is thought that I am revengeful, and
even sanguinary; that I am considered as a kind of ogre, as a
man-eater. They are mistaken: I will make every one do his duty, and
I will be obeyed; and that’s all. A weak sovereign (p. 139) is a
calamity to his subjects. If he allows criminals and traitors to fancy
that he does not know how to punish, there is no longer any security
either for the state or for individuals. More crimes are prevented
than repressed by severity. A sovereign must govern by his head, and
not by his heart. Yet, tell X*** that I except Talleyrand, Augereau,
and the Duke of Ragusa, out of the general pardon. They caused all our
misfortunes. The country must be revenged.”—”But why exclude them,
Sire? Is there not reason to fear that this exclusion may deprive you
of the fruits of your clemency, and may even raise doubts as to your
sincerity in future?”—”It would be much more exposed to doubt were I
to pardon them.”—”But, Sire….”—”Don’t you trouble your head about
it … what is the strength of the army?”—”Sire, I do not know; I
only know that it has been much weakened by desertion and by
discharges, and that few of the regiments consist of more than three
hundred men.”—”So much the better; those who are good for nothing
have probably left the army; the good soldiers will have remained. Do
you know the names of the officers who command the maritime districts,
and the eighth division?”—”No, Sire.”—Napoleon (out of temper),
(p. 140) “Why did not X*** give you that information?”—”Sire, both M.
X*** and myself were far from supposing that your Majesty would
immediately embrace the glorious resolution of re-appearing in France;
besides which, he might believe, according to the common report, that
your agents did not allow you to remain in ignorance of any
circumstance which might interest you.”—”I do know that the
newspapers gave out that I had agents…. It is an idle story. It is
true that I sent some of my people to France, in order to learn what
was going on; but they stole my money, and only treated me with the
gabble of the canaille. C**** has been to see me, but he knew nothing.
You are the first person from whom I have ascertained the situation of
France and the Bourbons under all its extensive bearings. Had it not
been for you, I should never have known that the hour of my return had
struck. Had it not been for you, they would have left me here to dig
in my garden. I have received—I do not exactly know from what
quarter—the description of certain assassins, hired against me; and
one or two anonymous letters besides—all from the same hand, in which
I was told to remain quiet, that the embroideries were coming into
fashion, and other (p. 141) nonsense in the same style; but that’s
all. It is not upon such data that one is induced to attempt a crash.
But how do you think foreigners will like my return: there is the
great question?”—”Foreign nations, Sire, have been compelled to
confederate against us in order to protect themselves; allow me to say
it….”—”Speak out, speak out.”—”In order to protect themselves
against the effects of your ambition, and the abuse of your strength.
Now that Europe has recovered her independence, and that France has
ceased to be dangerous, foreign powers will probably be unwilling to
run the risk of a new war, which may end by restoring to us that
ascendancy which we have lost.”—”If the allied sovereigns were at
home in their capitals they would certainly consider the matter twice
before they would take the field again; but they are yet face to face;
and it is to be feared that war may become an affair of vanity. Do you
think it is true that they are on ill terms with each other?”—”Yes,
Sire, it appears that discord reigns in the congress; that each of the
great powers wishes to seize the largest share of the booty.”—”It
appears, also, that their subjects are discontented: is it not
so?”—”Yes, Sire; kings and people, every thing seems to unite in our
favour. The Saxons, (p. 142) the Genoese, the Belgians, the
inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, the Polanders, all refuse the
new sovereigns to whom they are to be given. Italy, tired of the
avarice and the grossness of the Austrians, pants for the moment of
withdrawing from their sovereignty. Experience has taught the King of
Naples that you are his surest protector, and he will assist the
rising of the Italians whenever you wish it. The princes of the
confederation of the Rhine, warned by the example of Saxony, will
become the allies of your majesty after the first victory. Prussia and
Russia will sit quiet, if you will only allow them to retain their new
acquisitions. The Emperor of Austria, who has every thing to fear from
Russia and Prussia, and nothing to hope for from the King of France,
will easily consent, if you only guarantee Italy to him, to allow you
to do what you think best with the Bourbons. In short, all the powers
of Europe, England only excepted, are more or less interested in not
declaring themselves against you; and before England can have
corrupted, or raised the continent, your Majesty will be so firmly
fixed on the throne, that your Majesty’s enemies may try in vain to
make you totter.”

Napoleon (shaking his head), “All this is very fine; … however, I
consider it as (p. 143) certain, that the Kings who have fought
against me are no longer guided by the same unity, the same views, the
same interests. The Emperor Alexander must esteem me: he must be able
to estimate the difference which exists between Louis XVIII. and
myself. If he were to understand his policy rightly, he would rather
see the French sceptre in the hands of a powerful sovereign, the
relentless enemy of England, than in the hands of a weak sovereign,
the friend and vassal of the Prince Regent. I would give him Poland,
and a great deal more, if he wished it: he knows that I have been
always more inclined to tolerate his ambition than to restrain it. If
he had continued my friend and my ally, I would have made him greater
than he ever will be now. Prussia, and the petty Kings of the Rhenish
confederation, will follow the lot cast by Russia. If I had Russia on
my side, she would secure me all the second-rate powers. As to the
Austrians, I do not know what they would do: they have never treated
me candidly. I suppose I could keep Austria in order by threatening to
deprive her of Italy. Italy is yet very grateful to me, and much
attached to me: if I were to ask that country for an hundred thousand
men, and an hundred millions, I should have the men and (p. 144) the
money. If they were to force me to make war, I could easily
revolutionize the Italians; I would grant them whatever they might
wish, independence or Eugene. Mejean and some others have done him
harm, but, in spite of that, he is warmly loved, and highly esteemed:
he deserves to be so; he has shown that he possesses a noble mind.
Murat is ours. I have had great reason to complain of him. Since I
have been here, he has wept for his errors, and has done his utmost to
repair the injuries which he has inflicted upon me. He has regained my
friendship and my confidence: his assistance, if I were engaged in
war, would be very useful to me. He has little brains; he has nothing
but hand and heart; but his wife would direct him. The Neapolitans
like him tolerably well; and I have yet some good officers amongst
them who would keep them in the right way. As to England, we should
have shaken hands from Dover to Calais, if Mr. Fox had lived; but as
long as that country continues to be governed by the principles and
passions of Mr. Pitt, we must always be as hostile as fire and
water…. From England I expect no quarter, no truce…. England knows
that the instant I place my foot in France, her influence will be
driven back across the seas … as long as I live I will wage a war
(p. 145) of extermination against her maritime despotism. If the
continental powers had seconded me; if they had not been afraid of me;
if they had understood my ambition, their flags would have floated
from the mast-head throughout the universe, and the world would have
enjoyed peace. All things considered, foreign powers have great
reasons to declare war against me; whilst there are also great reasons
to induce them to remain at peace with me. It is to be feared, as I
have already said to you, that they may turn the war into an affair of
vanity, or that they make it a point of honour. On the other hand, it
is possible that they may renounce their coalition, which has now no
longer any object, in order to watch their subjects; preserving at the
same time an armed neutrality, until I shall have given them
sufficient guarantees.

“Their determinations, whatever they may be, will not influence mine.
France speaks, and that is sufficient for me. In 1814 I had to deal
with all the powers in Europe, but they should not have laid down the
law to me if France had not left me to wrestle alone, against the
entire world. Now the French know my value; and, as they have regained
their courage and their patriotism, they will triumph over the enemies
who may attack them, just as they triumphed (p. 146) in the good days
of the revolution. Experience has shown that armies cannot always save
a nation; but a nation defended by the people is always invincible.

“I have not settled the day of my departure: by deferring it I should
have the advantage of allowing the Congress to run out; but then, on
the other hand, I should run the risk of being kept here as a close
prisoner by the vessels of the Bourbons and of the English, if, as
every thing appears to indicate, there should be a rupture amongst
foreign powers. Murat would lend me his navy if I wanted it; but if we
do not succeed he would be compromised. We must not be anxious about
all these matters: we must allow some room for destiny to come into
play.

“I think we have considered all the points upon which it was important
that I should be settled, and that we should understand each other.
France is tired of the Bourbons; she demands her former sovereign. The
people and the army are for us: foreign powers will be silent. If they
speak, we shall be able to reply: this, in short, is the state of the
present time and of the future.

“Depart. Tell X*** that you have seen me, and that I have determined
to expose myself to every danger for the purpose of yielding to the
(p. 147) prayers of France, and of ridding the nation of the
Bourbons…. Say also that I shall leave this place with my guard, on
the first of April—perhaps sooner. I pardon every thing. I will give
to France and to Europe all the guarantees which can be expected or
demanded of me. I have renounced all my plans of aggrandizement, and I
wish to repair the evils which war has caused to us, by a permanent
peace.

“You will also tell X*** and the rest of my friends to nourish and
strengthen the good disposition of the people and the army by all
possible means. Explain to X*** that if the excesses of the Bourbons
should hasten their fall, if the French should drive them out before
my disembarkation, then I will not allow of a regency, or any thing in
the shape of it; but let them establish a provisional government,
composed of … of … of … of … and of…. Go, Sir, I hope that
we shall soon meet again.”—”Sire, where shall I land?”—”You must
proceed to Naples; here is a passport of the island, and a letter for
****. Pretend to place great trust in him, but do not trust him with
any thing. You will give him a loose account of the French news; and
you may tell him that I (p. 148) send you there to explore the
soundings, and settle some concerns of moment. I have directed **** to
furnish you with a passport, in order that you may be able to return
to Paris without meeting with any obstacle or danger.”—”Your Majesty
has then determined to send me back to France?”—”It must absolutely
be so.”—”Your Majesty knows my attachment, and that I am ready to
prove it in any way which may be required. But, Sire, deign to
consider, both for your interest and for that of France, that my
departure has been remarked, and that my return will excite still more
notice, and that it may give rise to suspicion, and perhaps induce the
Bourbons to put themselves on their guard, and cause them to watch the
coasts and the island of Elba.”—”Bah! do you suppose that fellows of
the police know every thing, and can foresee every thing? More is
invented than is discovered by the police. The agents of our police
were decidedly as good as those of the present people, and yet they
frequently knew nothing of what was going on but at the end of a week
or a fortnight; and then they found it out only by chance, or
incaution, or treason. I don’t fear that any disclosures will be
obtained (p. 149) from you by any of these means. You are clever and
decided, and, if they were to work upon you, you would easily get
clear. Besides, when you once arrive at Paris, don’t show yourself;
creep into a corner, and nobody will think of ferreting you out. I
could certainly confide this mission to some of the people who are
about me; but I do not wish to make any additional confidant: you are
trusted by X***: I trust you; and, in one word, you are exactly the
man whom I want. Your return is certainly exposed to objections, but
they are as nothing when compared to its advantages. All that we have
said about the Bourbons, and about France, and about myself, is mere
talk, and talk won’t overturn a throne. In order that my enterprise
may not be rendered abortive, it must be seconded, and the patriots
must prepare to attack the Bourbons on one side, whilst I shall occupy
them on the other. And, above all, it is necessary that they should
know that they may depend upon me; that they may know my sentiments,
my views, and the resolution which I have made of submitting to every
sacrifice, and exposing myself to every danger, for the purpose of
saving the country.”—The Emperor stopped to look at me. He certainly
(p. 150) thought that I was one of those men who only appear
reluctant to obey, in order to enhance the price of their services; so
he said, “Money is always wanted in travelling; I will order them to
pay you a thousand Louis, and then you may set off.”—”A thousand
Louis!” I exclaimed with indignation, “Sire, I must answer your
Majesty in the words with which the soldier answered his general,
‘These actions are not performed for pay.'”—”That’s very right; I
like to see pride.”—”Sire, I am not proud, but I have a soul; and if
I thought that your Majesty could believe that I embraced your
Majesty’s cause for the sake of filthy lucre, I should request your
Majesty to cease to rely on my services.”—”If I had believed that to
be the case, I should not have trusted you. No person ever received a
more honourable and splendid proof of my confidence, than that which I
am now bestowing upon you, in deciding, merely on the strength of your
word, to quit the isle of Elba, and in directing you, as my precursor,
to announce my speedy arrival in France. But do not let us talk any
more on that head; and tell me if you recollect fully all that I have
told you.”—”I have not lost one of your Majesty’s expressions. They
are all engraven (p. 151) on my memory.”—”Then I have only to wish
you a pleasant journey. I have directed that everything should be got
ready for your departure.

“This evening, at nine o’clock, you will find a guide and horses at
the gate of the town: you will be taken to Porto Longone. The
commandant has been authorised to furnish you with the necessary
quarantine documents. He knows nothing; say nothing to him. At
midnight a felucca will leave the port, by which you will reach
Naples. I am sorry to have hurt your feelings by offering money to
you, but I thought you might be in want of it. Adieu, Monsieur; be
cautious. I hope we shall soon meet again, and I shall acknowledge, in
a manner worthy of your merits, your exertions in favour of the
country and of myself.”

Hardly had I gone down to the town, when he sent for me again. “I have
considered,” said he, “that it is desirable that I should know what
regiments are stationed in the eighth and tenth military divisions,
and the names of the commanding officers. You will take care to
procure this information during your journey, and transmit it to me
without the slightest delay. Write triplicates of your letters. Send
one by way of Genoa, the second by Leghorn, (p. 152) and the third by
Civita Vecchia. You will take care to write this name legibly, (here
he gave me a memorandum containing the name of an inhabitant of the
island). Fold your letters in a business-like way. In order that the
secret of your correspondence may not be discovered, should any
accident happen, you will put your intelligence in the shape of
commercial transactions, and you will imitate the usual style of
bankers. I will suppose, for example, that between Chambery and Lyon,
going by the way of Grenoble, there are five regiments. You will write
to me … in my way I have seen the five merchants whom you mentioned;
their views continue the same: your credit is increasing daily. The
concern will turn out well … do you understand me?”—”Yes, Sire; but
how am I to send the names of the colonels and the generals in
command?”—”Transpose the letters of their names, and nothing will be
more easy. There is not a single colonel or general whom I do not
know, and I shall soon be able to recompose their names.”—”But, Sire,
the anagrams which I shall make will perhaps be so uncouth, that it
will be seen at the post-office, that the names are disguised on
purpose.”—”Do you think then, that they amuse themselves at the
post-office (p. 153) by opening and reading all the letters of
business which pass through? They could not get through them. I have
attempted to unravel the correspondence carried on under the disguise
of banking transactions, but I could never succeed. The post-office is
like the police, only fools are caught; yet think of any other method:
I shall have no objection.”

After I had considered a little while, I said to the Emperor, “Sire,
there is a method which perhaps will do. Your majesty has the imperial
calendar.”—”Yes, sure.”—”Well, Sire, the calendar contains the lists
of the general officers and colonels of the army. Now, I will suppose,
for example, that the regiment quartered at Chambery is commanded by
Colonel Paul. I look into the calendar, and I find that Paul stands
forty-seven in the list of colonels. I will also suppose that, between
ourselves, ‘bill of exchange’ means ‘colonel’ or ‘general.’ Then I
shall write to your Majesty, I have seen your correspondent at
Chambery; he has paid me the amount of your bill of exchange, No. 47.
Your Majesty will turn to your Majesty’s calendar, and then your
Majesty will see, that the 47th colonel who commands the regiment of
Chambery, is called ‘Paul.’ And, lastly, in order that your Majesty
may be able to tell (p. 154) when I speak of a colonel, a general, or
a marshal, I shall take care to indicate the rank of the officer by
one, two, or three dots, placed after the ‘No.‘ The colonel will have
one dot, No. .; the general two, No. .., &c.“—”Very good, very good.
Here is a calendar for you. Bertrand has one which I will take.”

The calendar given to me by the Emperor was richly bound, and stamped
with the imperial arms. I tore off the binding. The Emperor kept
walking up and down, and saying, as he laughed, “It is really
excellent; they will never be able to see through it.” When I had
finished, he said, “One thought brings on another. I have asked myself
how you would manage to write to me, if you should have any thing of
unexpected importance to communicate. For instance, suppose any
extraordinary event should make you think that my disembarkation ought
to be accelerated or retarded; if the Bourbons were to be on their
guard; in short, I know not what.” He remained silent, and then began
again. “I only know one way to provide for it: the confidence which I
place in you ought to be unbounded. I will give you the key to a
cipher which was composed for my use, in order that I might employ it
in corresponding with my family under the most (p. 155) important
circumstances. I need not tell you that you must keep it with care:
always carry it about you, lest it should be lost: and if the smallest
danger arises, burn it or tear it at the slightest suspicion. With
this cipher you may write any thing to me which you like. I would
rather that you should use it, than be under the necessity of coming
back, or of sending any messenger to me. If they intercept a letter
written in my cipher, it will take them three months to read it;
whilst the capture of an agent might ruin all in an instant.” He then
went and looked out his cipher; he made me employ it under his eyes,
and delivered it to me, exhorting me not to use it unless all other
modes of communication should become insufficient.

The Emperor continued, “I do not suppose that you will have occasion
to return here before my departure, unless the sudden overthrow of our
projects should force you to seek an asylum here. In such a case,
apprise me of your intended return, and I will send for you to any
place which you may name. But we must hope that victory will declare
for us. She loves France…. You have not spoken to me about the
affair of Excelmans: if such a thing had happened in my time, I should
have thought (p. 156) myself lost: when the authority of the master
is not recognised, all is over. The more I think upon the matter (here
he displayed a sudden emotion), the more I am convinced that France is
mine, and that the patriots and the army will receive me with open
arms.”—”Yes, Sire, I swear to you, upon my soul, the people and the
army will declare for you as soon as they hear your name, as soon as
they see the caps of your grenadiers.”—”Provided the people do seek
to do themselves justice before my arrival, a popular revolution would
alarm foreign powers: they would dread the contagion of example. They
know that royalty only hangs by a thread, that it does not agree with
the ideas of the age; they would rather see me seize the throne, than
allow the people to give it to me. They have re-established the
Bourbons in order to convince the people that the rights of sovereigns
are sacred and inviolable. They have blundered. They would have done
more for the cause of legitimacy by leaving my son there, than by
re-establishing Louis XVIII. My dynasty had been recognised by France
and by Europe; it had been consecrated by the Pope. They ought to have
respected it. By abusing the rights of victory, it was in their power
to deprive me of the throne: but it was unjust, odious, impolitic,
(p. 157) to punish the son on account of the wrongs of his father,
and to deprive him of his inheritance. I was not an usurper: they may
say so as long as they like; nobody will believe them. The English,
the Italians, the Germans, are now too enlightened to allow themselves
to be crammed with old ideas, with antiquated notions. In the eyes of
nations, the Sovereign who is chosen by the entirety of the nation,
will always be the legitimate Sovereign…. The sovereigns who sent
their ambassadors to me with servile solemnity; who placed in my bed a
girl of their breed; who called me their brother, and who, after doing
all this, have stigmatized me as an usurper, they have spit in their
own faces by trying to spit at me. They have degraded the majesty of
kings. They have covered majesty with mud. What is the name of an
emperor? A word like any other. If I had no better title than that,
when I shall present myself to future ages they would scorn me. My
institutions, my benefactions, my victories—these are the true titles
of my glory. Let them call me a Corsican, a corporal, an usurper…. I
don’t care…. I shall not be less the object of wonder, perhaps of
veneration, in all future time. My name, new as it is, will live from
age to age, whilst the names of all these kings, and their royal
progeny, will (p. 158) be forgotten before the worms will have had
time to consume their carcases.” The Emperor stopped, and then
continued; “I forget that time is precious; I will not detain you any
longer. Adieu, Monsieur; embrace me, and depart; my thoughts and good
wishes follow you.”—Two hours afterwards I was at sea. My attention,
my faculties were wholly absorbed by the Emperor, his words, his
disclosures, his plans. I had neither leisure nor opportunity to think
of myself. As soon as I was quite out at sea, my ideas were filled by
the extraordinary part which chance had assigned to me. I contemplated
it with pride, and I returned my thanks to destiny for having selected
me as the instrument by which its impenetrable decrees were to be
accomplished. Perhaps no man was ever placed in so “imposing” a
situation. I was the arbiter of the fate of the Bourbons, and of the
Emperor, of France and Europe. With one word I could destroy Napoleon;
with one word I could save Louis. But Louis was nothing to me: in him
I only saw a sovereign who had been forced upon the throne by foreign
hands still imbrued with French blood. In Napoleon I saw the sovereign
to whom France had freely offered the crown as the reward of twenty
years of danger and of glory. The perspective of the (p. 159) evils
which the attempt of Napoleon might bring upon France did not arise
before my imagination. I was persuaded that all foreign powers
(England excepted), would remain neutral; and that the French would
receive Napoleon as a deliverer, and as a father. Still less did I
consider myself as engaged in treason or conspiracy against the
Bourbons. Since I had taken the oath of allegiance to Napoleon, I
considered him as my legitimate sovereign; and I rejoiced to think
that the confidence which Napoleon reposed in me had induced him to
call upon me to concur in restoring to France the liberty, the power,
and the glory of which the country had been unjustly deprived. I
enjoyed, by anticipation, the public eulogiums, which, after his
success, he would bestow upon my courage, my self-devotion, my
patriotism. In short, I abandoned myself with rapture and with pride
to all the thoughts, and all the generous resolutions which can be
inspired by the love of fame and the love of our country.

The dialogues which had taken place between me and the Emperor
continued impressed on my memory; yet, lest I might vary them, or omit
any part, I employed my time during the voyage in recalling his own
expressions, and in classing his questions and my answers. I
afterwards (p. 160) got the whole by heart, just as a scholar learns
his lesson, in order that I might be able to affirm to M. X*** that I
was making a faithful and literal report to him of all that the
Emperor had said, and of all that he had ordered me to tell him.

The weather being tolerably favourable, we soon reached Naples. I went
immediately to M. ****: he put a great number of indiscreet questions
to me; and I replied by an equal number of unmeaning answers. He
probably thought that I knew no better, and therefore my caution did
not offend him. When our preliminary conversation was exhausted, I
desired him to give me my passport; he did so immediately: it was a
Neapolitan passport. “This won’t do for me,” said I; “I must have a
French passport.”—”I have not got one.”—”The Emperor told me that
you could get one.”—”That is just like the Emperor; he thinks every
thing is possible: where does he suppose that I can procure it? I am
doing a great deal in giving you a passport as a subject of his
Majesty. It is already known that we are in relation with the isle of
Elba. If they were to find out that you are attached to Napoleon, and
that you are going back to France by his directions, and with the
assistance of the (p. 161) King, all Europe would hear of it, and the
King would be committed. Why does not the Emperor keep himself quiet?
he will ruin himself, and ruin us all along with him.”—”It is not fit
that I should examine the conduct of his Majesty, much less that I
should censure it. I am in his service; and my duty commands me to
obey him. I want a French passport: can you, or can you not get me
one?”—”I tell you again that it is impossible: it is doing too much
if I give you one as a Neapolitan subject.”—”Then I must return to
Porto Ferrajo: but I cannot conceal from you that the Emperor is very
desirous that I should return to France; and he will certainly be very
much displeased, both with you and with the King.”—”Then he will act
unfairly: the King has done, and will do, every thing in his power for
him: but the Emperor should know what the King may do under his
present critical situation, and what he may not. But why won’t you
take the passport which I offer you?”—”Because I do not understand
Italian, and consequently your passport would expose me to greater
suspicion than my own.”—”Then why don’t you try to push on as far as
Rome? there you will find the family of the Emperor. Louis (p. 162)
XVIII. has a legation there; and perhaps money may get you a
passport.”—”Your idea is excellent: I will go. Inform the Emperor of
the delay which I have experienced, in order that he may send another
agent, if he thinks it advisable so to do.”

When the mind is in perpetual activity, and constantly assailed by new
feelings, there is no time for reflection. I thus went to Rome, full
of the idea that I should visit the family of the Emperor, and request
their help to aid me out of my difficulties. But when the time came,
and I was to present myself, it then struck me that the Emperor,
though aware that I was to pass through Rome, had not directed me to
see them; and I concluded that he had his reasons. I therefore
determined to continue my route. From Naples I have proceeded to Rome
without any obstacle; and I shall proceed, thought I to myself, from
Rome to Milan without any greater obstacle: there I shall meet my
friend and his Tedesco; I will get them to legalize my French passport
for the second time, and destiny will accomplish the rest.

I therefore presented myself boldly to the police at Rome, in order to
have my Elba passport indorsed for Milan. I was introduced to
(p. 163) his Eminence the Director-general, who, as I believe, had
been shut up at Vincennes under the imperial government. He received
me with great rudeness; and he wished to compel me to present myself
to the French embassy. I would not consent. I answered, firmly, “The
King of France is no longer my sovereign; I am the subject of the
Emperor Napoleon: the allied sovereigns have proclaimed and recognized
him as the sovereign of the isle of Elba: he therefore reigns at Porto
Ferrajo like the Pope at Rome, George at London, and Louis XVIII. at
Paris. The Emperor and his Holiness are on good terms with each other.
The subjects and the vessels of the Roman states are well received in
the isle of Elba[38], and therefore you are bound to afford aid and
protection to the Elbese, so long as the holy father shall not become
the enemy of Napoleon.”

This reasoning produced its effect; and his Eminence ordered, though
he continued grumbling, that my demand was to be granted. “What are
you going to do at Milan?” said he, and I think he muttered an oath
between his teeth: “I am going,” I answered, “relative to the
dotations which were assigned to us (p. 164) upon the ‘Mont
Napoléon.'” He was satisfied with my answer, and so was I. I wrote to
M. ****, the Neapolitan consul, transmitting my letter; and I
requested him to send to the island an account of my new route.

I continued my journey. My passport was headed by the imperial arms.
The name of Napoleon, and his title of Emperor, were inscribed in
large letters. I was the first Frenchman from the island who had been
able or who had dared to traverse Italy. How many things there were
which roused curiosity and commanded attention! I was overwhelmed with
questions relative to Porto Ferrajo and its illustrious sovereign. I
answered as fully as they wished. Whilst they were busying themselves
about the Emperor, they did not think of me, and that was what I
wanted. In order to avoid troublesome examinations, I took care to
pass through the towns at night, and never to stop in them. At length,
thanks to my address and good fortune, I arrived safe and sound at
Milan; there I found my friend and his colonel, and every thing was
settled admirably.

I set off again for Turin with all possible speed. When I arrived on
the Place of … I perceived several numerous groups of persons, who
appeared exceedingly animated. (p. 165) How great was my surprise when
I found that they were talking of Napoleon, and his escape from the
isle of Elba. This piece of intelligence, which had been just
received, put me in a violent passion: I accused the Emperor of
perfidiousness. I reproached him with having misled, deceived, and
sacrificed me.

When my first fit of ill humour was calmed, I considered the conduct
of the Emperor under another aspect. I thought that unexpected
considerations might have induced him to embark precipitately. I was
ashamed of my suspicions and of my violence, and I only wished to fly
to his footsteps; but already orders had been given to prevent
communication. I passed eight days, which appeared so many ages, in
soliciting permission to return to France; and at last I obtained it.
I arrived at Paris on the 25th of March: on the 26th M. X*** presented
me to the Emperor: he embraced me, and said, “I have weighty reasons
for wishing that you and X*** may both forget whatever passed at the
isle of Elba. I alone will not forget it. Rely on my esteem and
protection on all occasions[39].”

Here ends the memoir of M. Z****.

This officer had scarcely quitted the island of Elba, when the Emperor
(and I had the particulars from his Majesty himself) acknowledged
(p. 167) and deplored the imprudence of which he had been guilty, in
sending Z*** to the continent. The character and firmness of this
faithful servant were sufficiently known to him, to prevent his
feeling any anxiety on his account. He was certain (I use his own
words), that he would suffer himself to be cut to pieces, before he
would open his mouth: but he was afraid, that the inquiries he had
directed him to make on the road, the letters he might address to him,
or the conferences he might have at Paris with M. X*** and his
friends, would excite the suspicions of the police; and that the
Bourbons would station cruizers, so as to render an escape from the
island of Elba, and a landing on the coast of France, altogether
impossible.

Thus the Emperor felt that there was but one way of preventing the
danger, that of departing immediately.

On this point he did not hesitate. From that moment every thing
assumed a different aspect in the island of Elba.

This island, but the moment before the abode of philosophy and peace,
became in an instant the imperial head-quarters. Couriers, orders, and
counter-orders, were incessantly going and returning from Porto
Ferrajo to Longone, and from Longone to Porto Ferrajo. Napoleon,
(p. 168) whose fiery activity had been so long enchained, gave
himself up, with infinite delight, to all the cares, that his
audacious enterprise demanded. But in whatever mystery he fancied he
had shrouded himself, the unusual accounts he had caused to be
delivered in, the particular attention he had paid to his old
grenadiers, had excited their suspicion; and they scarcely doubted,
that he had it in contemplation to quit the island. Every one
supposed, that he would land at Naples, or in some other port of
Italy: no one ventured even to imagine, that his plan was to go and
expel Louis XVIII. from the throne.

On the 26th of February, at one o’clock, the guard and the officers of
his household received orders to hold themselves in readiness to
depart. Every thing was in motion: the grenadiers with joy resumed
their arms, that so long had lain idle, and spontaneously swore, never
to quit them but with life. The whole population of the country,
crowds of old men, women, and children, eagerly rushed to the shore;
the most affecting scenes were exhibited on all sides. They thronged
round the faithful companions of Napoleon in his exile, and contended
with each other for the pleasure, the honour, of touching them, seeing
them, embracing them for the last time. The younger members of the
families (p. 169) of the first distinction in the island solicited as
a favour, the danger of sharing in the perils of the Emperor. Joy,
glory, hope, sparkled in every eye. They knew not whither they were
going, but Napoleon was present, and with him could they doubt of
victory?

At eight in the evening a gun gave the signal for departure. A
thousand times embraces were immediately lavished and returned. The
French rushed into their boats; martial music struck up; and Napoleon
and his followers sailed majestically from the shore, amid the shouts
of “Long live the Emperor!” a thousand times repeated[40].

Napoleon, when he set foot on board his vessel, exclaimed with Cæsar,
“The die is cast!” His countenance was calm, his brow serene: he
appeared to think less of the success of his enterprise, than of the
means of promptly attaining his object. The eyes of Count Bertrand
sparkled with hope and joy: General (p. 170) Drouot was pensive and
serious: Cambronne appeared to care little about the future, and to
think only of doing his duty well. The old grenadiers had resumed
their martial and menacing aspect. The Emperor chatted and joked with
them incessantly: he pulled their ears and their mustachios, reminded
them of their dangers and their glory, and inspired their minds with
that confidence, with which his own was animated.

All were burning to know their destination: respect did not allow any
one to ask the question: at length Napoleon broke silence.
“Grenadiers,” said he, “we are going to France, we are going to
Paris.” At these words every countenance expanded, their joy ceased to
be mingled with anxiety, and stifled cries of “France for ever!”
attested to the Emperor, that in the heart of a Frenchman the love of
his country is never extinct.

An English sloop of war, commanded by Captain Campbell, appeared to
have the charge of watching the island of Elba[41]: she was
continually (p. 171) sailing from Porto Ferrajo to Leghorn, and from
Leghorn to Porto Ferrajo. At the moment of embarkation she was at
Leghorn, and could occasion no alarm; but several vessels were
descried in the channel, and their presence gave room for just
apprehensions. It was hoped, however, that the night breeze would
favour the progress of the flotilla, and that before daybreak it would
be out of sight. This hope was frustrated. “”Scarcely had it doubled
Cape St. Andrew, in the island of Elba, when the wind fell and the sea
became calm. At daybreak it had advanced only six leagues, and was
still between the islands of Elba and Capræa.

“”The danger appeared imminent: several of the seamen were for
returning to Porto Ferrajo. The Emperor ordered them to hold on their
course, as, at the worst, he had the chance either of capturing the
French cruiser, or of taking refuge in the island of Corsica, where he
was assured of being well received. To facilitate their manœuvres,
he ordered all the luggage embarked to be thrown overboard, which was
cheerfully executed at the instant.””

(p. 172) About noon the wind freshened a little. At four o’clock they
were off Leghorn. One frigate was in sight five leagues to leeward,
another on the coast of Corsica, and a man-of-war brig, which was
perceived to be Le Zéphir, commanded by Captain Andrieux, was coming
down upon the imperial flotilla right before the wind. It was first
proposed to speak to him, and make him hoist the three-coloured flag.
“The Emperor, however, gave orders to the soldiers of the guard to
take off their caps and conceal themselves below, choosing rather to
pass by the brig without being known, and reserving himself in case of
necessity, for the alternative of making him change his colours. At
six o’clock the two brigs passed alongside of each other, and their
commanders, who were acquainted, spoke together. The captain of Le
Zéphir inquired after the Emperor, and was answered through a speaking
trumpet by the Emperor himself, that he was extremely well.

“”The two brigs, steering opposite courses, were soon out of sight of
each other, without Captain Andrieux having any suspicion of the
valuable prize, that he had allowed to escape.

“”In the night of the 27th the wind continued to freshen. At day-break
a seventy-four was descried, which appeared steering for San (p. 173)
Fiorenzo or Sardinia, and it was soon perceived, that she took no
notice of the brig[42].””

The Emperor, before he quitted the island of Elba, had prepared with
his own hand two proclamations, one addressed to the French people,
the other to the army; and he was desirous of having them copied out
fairly. His secretary and General Bertrand, being neither of them able
to decipher them, carried them to Napoleon, who, despairing of doing
it himself, threw them into the sea from vexation. Then, after
meditating for a few moments, he dictated to his secretary the two
following proclamations on the spot.

Proclamation.

Gulf of Juan, March the 1st, 1815.

Napoleon, by the grace of God and constitution of the
empire, Emperor of the French, &c. &c. &c.

To the Army.

Soldiers!

We have not been vanquished: two men, who issued from our ranks,
betrayed our (p. 174) laurels, their country, their prince, their
benefactor.

Shall they, whom we have seen for five and twenty years traversing all
Europe, to stir up enemies against us—who have spent their lives
in fighting against us in the ranks of foreign armies, and cursing our
lovely France—now pretend to command us, and to enchain our
eagles, the looks of which they could never withstand? Shall we suffer
them to inherit the fruits of our glorious toils? to seize upon our
honours, and our property, and calumniate our fame? Should their reign
continue, all would be lost, even the remembrance of our memorable
victories.

With what virulence do they distort them! They endeavour to poison
what is the admiration of the world; and if any defenders of our glory
still remain, it is among those very enemies whom we combated in the
field.

Soldiers! in my exile I heard your voice: I am arrived through every
obstacle, through every danger.

Your general, called to the throne by the voice of the people, and
raised on your shields, is restored to you. Come and join him.

Tear down those colours, which the nation has proscribed, and which
for five and twenty years served as a signal to rally all the enemies
(p. 175) of France. Mount that tricoloured cockade, which you wore in
our great victories. We must forget, that we have been the masters of
other nations; but we must not suffer any to interfere in our affairs.
Who shall pretend to be our master? Who is able to be so? Resume the
eagles you bore at Ulm, at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Eylau, at Wagram,
at Friedland, at Tudela, at Eckmuhl, at Essling, at Smolensko, at
Moscow, at Lutzen, at Wurtchen, at Montmirail. Think you that handful
of Frenchmen, now so arrogant, can support their sight? They will
return whence they came; and there, if they please, they may reign, as
they pretend to have reigned for nineteen years.

Your property, your rank, your glory—the property, the rank, the
glory of your children—have no greater enemies than those
princes, who have been imposed on us by foreigners. They are the
enemies of our glory; since the recital of so many glorious actions,
which have rendered illustrious the French people, fighting against
them to emancipate themselves from their yoke, is their condemnation.

The veterans of the armies of the Sambre and Meuse, of the Rhine, of
Italy, of Egypt, of the west, of the grand army, are humiliated; their
honourable scars are disgraced; their successes (p. 176) would be
crimes, the valiant would be rebels, if, as the enemies of the people
assert, legitimate sovereigns were among the foreign armies. Their
honours, rewards, affections, are for those who have served them,
against us and against our country.

Soldiers, come and arrange yourselves under the standards of your
chief: his existence consists only of yours; his rights are only those
of the people and of you; his interest, his honour, his glory, are no
other than your glory. Victory will march forward with the charge
step: the eagle, with the national colours, will fly from steeple to
steeple till it reaches the towers of Notre Dame. You may then display
your scars with honour, you may then boast of what you have done: you
will be the deliverers of your country.

In your old age, surrounded and respected by your fellow citizens,
they will listen with veneration to the recital of your noble deeds:
you may proudly say, I too was in that grand army which twice entered
the walls of Vienna, and those of Rome, of Berlin, of Madrid, and of
Moscow, and which cleansed Paris from the stain inflicted on it by
treason and the presence of the enemy. Honour to those brave soldiers,
the glory of their country! and eternal shame to those guilty
Frenchmen, in whatever (p. 177) rank it was their fortune to be born,
who fought for five and twenty years in company with foreigners, to
wound the bosom of their country.

Signed, Napoleon.

By the Emperor.

The grand marshal, executing the functions of major-general
of the grand army.

Signed, Bertrand.

Proclamation.

Gulf of Juan, March 1, 1815.

Napoleon, by the grace of God and the constitution of the
empire, Emperor of the French, &c. &c. &c.

To the French People.

Frenchmen!

The defection of the Duke of Castiglione gave up Lyons without defence
to our enemies. The army, the command of which I had entrusted to him,
was capable, from the bravery and patriotism of the troops of which it
was formed, of beating the Austrian army opposed to it, and taking in
the rear the left flank of the enemy’s army, that threatened Paris.

The victories of Champ Aubert, of Montmirail, of Château Thierry, of
Vauchamp, of Mormane, of Montereau, of Craone, of Rheims, (p. 178) of
Arcy-sur-Aube, and of St. Dizier; the insurrection of the brave
peasantry of Lorraine, of Champagne, of Alsace, of Franche Comté, and
of Burgundy; and the position I had taken in the rear of the enemy’s
army, cutting it off from its magazines, its parks of reserve, and
convoys, and all its waggons, had placed it in a desperate situation.
The French were on the point of being more powerful than ever, and the
flower of the enemy’s army was lost without resource; it would have
found its grave in those vast countries, which it had so pitilessly
ravaged, when the treachery of the Duke of Ragusa delivered up the
capital, and disorganized the army. The unsuspected conduct of these
two generals, who betrayed at once their country, their prince, and
their benefactor, changed the fate of the war: the situation of the
enemy was such, that, after the affair that took place before Paris,
he was without ammunition, in consequence of being separated from his
parks of reserve[43].

Under these new and important circumstances, my heart was torn, but my
mind remained unshaken: I consulted only the interests of our country,
and banished myself to a rock surrounded by the seas: my life was
useful to (p. 179) you, and was destined still to be so. I would not
permit the great number of citizens, who were desirous of accompanying
me, to share my fate: I deemed their presence advantageous to France,
and I took with me only the handful of brave fellows necessary for my
guard.

Raised to the throne by your choice, every thing that has been done
without you is illegal. Within these five and twenty years France has
acquired new interests, new institutions, new glory, to be guarantied
only by a national government, and a dynasty born under these new
circumstances. A prince who should reign over you, who should be
seated on my throne by the power of the same armies, that have ravaged
our territories, would seek in vain to support himself by the
principles of feudal right; he could secure the honour and the rights
only of a small number of individuals, enemies to the people, who have
condemned them in all our national assemblies for five and twenty
years. Your tranquillity at home, and estimation abroad, would be lost
for ever.

Frenchmen! in my exile I heard your complaints and wishes: you called
for that government of your own choice, which alone is legitimate; you
blamed my long slumber; you reproached me with sacrificing the great
interests of the country to my own repose.

(p. 180) I have crossed the seas amid perils of every kind: I arrive
among you to resume my rights, which are also yours. Every thing that
individuals have done, written, or said, since the taking of Paris, I
shall consign to everlasting oblivion; it shall have no influence on
the remembrance I retain of the important services they have rendered,
for there are events of such a nature, that they are above the frame
of man.

Frenchmen! there is no nation, however small, that has not possessed
the right of withdrawing, and that has not withdrawn itself, from the
disgrace of obeying a prince imposed upon it by an enemy temporarily
victorious. When Charles VII. re-entered Paris, and overturned the
ephemeral throne of Henry VI., he acknowledged, that he held his crown
from the valour of his brave people, and not from the Prince Regent of
England.

It is to you only, and to the brave men of the army, that I make, and
shall always make it my glory, to owe every thing.

Signed, Napoleon.

By the Emperor.

The grand marshal, executing the functions of major-general
of the grand army.

Signed, Bertrand.

(p. 181) The Emperor, while he dictated these proclamations, appeared
to be animated with the most profound indignation. He seemed to have
before his eyes, both the generals, whom he accused of having given up
France, and the enemies, who had subjugated it. He incessantly
repeated the names of Marmont and Augereau, and they were always
accompanied with threats and with epithets, suited to the idea he had
conceived of their treachery.

When the proclamations were transcribed, the Emperor directed them to
be read aloud, and invited all those who could write a good hand to
copy them. In an instant, benches and drums were converted into
tables; and soldiers, sailors, and officers, set themselves gayly to
work.

After a certain time, his Majesty said to the officers around him,
“Now, gentlemen, it is your turn, to speak to the army: you must tell
it what France expects of it under the important circumstances in
which we shall soon find ourselves. Come, Bertrand, take your pen.”
The grand marshal excused himself. The Emperor then resumed his
discourse, and dictated, without stopping, an address to the generals,
officers, and soldiers of the army, in which the imperial guard
conjured them, in the (p. 182) name of honour and their country, to
shake off the yoke of the Bourbons.

“Soldiers,” said they to them, “the drum beats the general, and we
march: run to arms, come and join us, join your Emperor, and our
eagles.

“And if these men, now so arrogant, who have always fled at the sight
of our weapons, dare wait for us, where can we find a fairer occasion
of shedding our blood, and chanting the hymn of victory?

“Soldiers of the seventh, eighth, and nineteenth military divisions,
garrisons of Antibes, Toulon, and Marseilles, retired officers,
veterans of our army, you are called to the honour of setting the
first example: come with us to conquer that throne, which is the
palladium of your rights; and let posterity some day tell,
‘Foreigners, seconded by traitors, had imposed a disgraceful yoke on
France; the brave arose, and the enemies of the people, of the army,
disappeared, and returned to their original nothingness.'”

This address was scarcely finished, when the coast of Antibes was
descried at a distance. Immediately on this, the Emperor and his brave
fellows saluted the land of their country with shouts of “France for
ever! Success to the (p. 183) French!” and at the same instant
resumed the tricoloured cockade[44].

On the 1st of March, at three o’clock, they entered the Gulf of Juan.
General Drouot, and a certain number of officers and soldiers, who
were on board the felucca Caroline, landed before the Emperor, who was
still at a considerable distance from the shore. At this moment they
perceived to the right a large vessel, which appeared to them (though
they were mistaken in this) to be steering with all sails towards the
brig. Suddenly they were seized with the greatest disquiet; they
walked backward and forward, testifying by their gestures and their
hurried steps, the emotion and fear with which they were agitated.
General Drouot ordered the Caroline to be unloaded, and to hasten to
meet the brig. In an instant cannons, carriages, chests, baggage,
every thing was thrown out upon the sand, and already the grenadiers
and brave sea officers of the guard were rowing away with all their
strength, when acclamations from the brig saluted their ears and their
affrighted eyes. It was the Emperor: whether from prudential motives
or impatience, (p. 184) he had got into a simple boat. Their alarms
ceased; and the grenadiers, stretching out their arms to him, received
him with the most affecting demonstrations of devotedness and joy. At
five o’clock he landed. I have heard him say, that he never felt an
emotion so profound.

“”His quarters for the night were taken up in a field surrounded by
olive-trees. This, he exclaimed, is a happy omen: may it be
realized!””

A few peasants were seen: the Emperor ordered them to be called, and
interrogated them. One of them had formerly served under him: he knew
his old general, and would not quit him. Napoleon, turning to the
grand marshal, said to him, with a smile, “Well, Bertrand, you see we
have a reinforcement already.” He spent the evening chatting and
laughing familiarly with his generals and the officers of his
household. “I see from this spot,” said he, “the fright I shall give
the Bourbons, and the embarrassment of all those who have turned their
backs upon me.” Then, continuing to joke on the same subject, he
defined, with his wonted sagacity, the characters of the marshals and
great personages, who had formerly served him; and was much amused
with the endeavours they would make “”to (p. 185) save appearances,
and prudently await the moment for declaring themselves for the
strongest party.””

The success of his enterprise appeared less to employ his thoughts,
than the dangers to which his friends and partisans, whom he no longer
called by any other name than that of patriots, were going to be
exposed. “What will become of the patriots before my arrival at
Paris?” he frequently exclaimed: “I tremble lest the Vendeans and
emigrants should massacre them. Wo betide those who touch them! I will
have no mercy on them.”

Immediately after he landed, the Emperor had despatched a captain of
the guard with five and twenty men to Antibes: their instructions
were, to present themselves as deserters from the island of Elba; to
sound the disposition of the garrison; and, if this appeared
favourable, to seduce it: but, led away by their imprudent ardour,
they entered the city, shouting, “Long live the Emperor!” and the
commandant caused the drawbridge instantly to be raised, and detained
them as prisoners. Napoleon, finding they did not return, sent for a
civil officer of the guard, and said to him, “”You will immediately
repair to the walls of Antibes: you will deliver this despatch, or
cause it to be delivered (p. 186) to General Corsin: you will not
enter the place, as you might be detained: you will draw together the
soldiers, you will read to them my proclamations, and you will
harangue them. Do you not know, you will say to them, that your
Emperor is here? that the garrisons of Grenoble and Lyons have marched
to join him with the charge step? What do you wait for? Will you leave
to others the honour of joining him before you? the honour of marching
at the head of his advanced guard? Come, and salute our eagles and our
tricoloured flags. The Emperor and your country command it; then
come.””

This officer, on his return, said, that the gates of the town and
harbour were closed, and that it was not possible for him to see
General Corsin, or to speak to the soldiers. Napoleon appeared
disappointed, though but little disturbed by the disappointment. At
eleven in the evening he began his march, with four small pieces of
artillery in his train. The Poles, though unable to embark their
horses, had brought with them their accoutrements, and gayly marched
in the advanced guard, bending beneath the weight of their enormous
luggage. Napoleon purchased for them every horse he met with, and thus
remounted his handful of cavalry one by one.

(p. 187) He proceeded to Cannes, thence to Grasses, and, in the
evening of the 2d, arrived at the village of Cerenon, having marched
twenty leagues this first day. Every where he was received with
sentiments, that presaged the success of the enterprise.

On the 3d the Emperor slept at Bareme, and on the 4th at Digne. The
report of his landing, which preceded him from place to place, excited
every where a mingled feeling of joy, surprise, and anxiety. The
peasants blessed his return, and expressed their good wishes to him in
their simple language; but when they saw his little troop, they looked
on him with tender pity, and had no hope of his being triumphant with
such feeble means.

On the 5th Napoleon slept at Gap, and retained with him only six
horsemen, and forty grenadiers.

In this city he printed, for the first time, his proclamations: they
were diffused with the rapidity of lightning, and inflamed every head
and every heart with such violent and prompt devotedness, that the
whole population of the country was desirous of rising in a body, and
marching as his advanced guard.

In these proclamations he did not borrow, as has been asserted, the
title of general in chief, (p. 188) or of lieutenant general of his
son. Before he quitted the island of Elba, he had determined to resume
the style of Emperor of the French as soon as he landed.

He was aware, that any other title would diminish his strength, and
his ascendancy over the people and the army; would render his
intentions doubtful; would give rise to scruples and hesitation; and
besides, would place him in a state of hostility against France. In
short, he was aware, that it would always be in his power to give
legitimacy to his title of Emperor of the French, should the suffrages
of the nation prove necessary, to restore to him in the eyes of
Europe, and even of France, those rights, which might have been
temporarily lost by his abdication.

The superior authorities of Gap had retired at his approach: he had to
receive the congratulations only of the mayor, the municipal council,
and the half-pay officers. He discoursed with them on the benefits of
the revolution, the sovereignty of the people, liberty, equality, and
particularly of the emigrants and the Bourbons. Before he left them,
he addressed his public thanks to the inhabitants of the Upper and
Lower Alps, in the following words:

(p. 189) Citizens,

I have been strongly touched by all the sentiments that you have
testified towards me: your prayers will be heard; the cause of the
nation will still triumph. You have reason to call me your father; I
live only for the honour and happiness of France. My return dissipates
your disquietudes; it guarantees the preservation of every one’s
property, the equality of all classes; and those rights, which you
have enjoyed for twenty-five years, and for which our forefathers so
frequently sighed, now form a part of your existence.

In whatever circumstances I may be placed, I shall always remember,
with a lively interest, what I have seen in traversing your country.

[45]“”On the 6th, at two o’clock in the afternoon, the Emperor left
Gap, and the whole city went out to see him set off.

“”At St. Bonnel the inhabitants, seeing the small number of his
soldiers, were full of fears, and proposed to him to sound the
alarm-bell, in order to collect the neighbouring villagers, and
accompany him in a body. ‘No,’ said the Emperor, (p. 190) ‘your
sentiments convince me, that I have not deceived myself; they are a
sure guarantee of the sentiments of my soldiers; those whom I meet
will range themselves on my side; and the more they are, the more
certain will be my success. Remain, therefore, tranquil at home.'””

The same day the Emperor came to sleep at Gorp; General Cambronne and
forty men, forming the advanced guard, pushed on as far as Mure.

Cambronne most commonly proceeded alone before his grenadiers to
explore the road, and cause quarters and subsistence to be provided
for them. Scarcely had he pronounced the name of the Emperor, when
every one was eager to testify to him the most lively and tender
solicitude. One mayor alone, the Marquis de ***, mayor of Sisteron,
tried to raise the inhabitants of that commune, describing to them
the soldiers of Napoleon as robbers and incendiaries. Confounded by
the sudden appearance of General Cambronne alone, and with no other
weapon than his sword, he changed his language, and pretended to have
had no fear but that of being paid[46]. Cambronne coolly threw him his
(p. 191) purse, and said, “Pay yourself!” The indignant people were
eager to furnish more provision than was demanded; and when the
battalion of Elba appeared, they offered it a tricoloured flag, as a
sign of their esteem and devotedness.

On quitting the mayor, General Cambronne and his forty grenadiers met
a battalion sent from Grenoble to block up their passage. Cambronne
wished to parley with them, but they would not listen to him. The
Emperor, informed of this resistance, immediately went forward: his
guard, exhausted by a long march through the snow and rough roads, had
not all been able to follow him; but when it heard of (p. 192) the
affront offered to Cambronne, and the dangers the Emperor might run,
it forgot its fatigues, and hastened after him. Those soldiers, who
could no longer support themselves on their galled or wounded feet,
were assisted by their comrades, or carried by them on litters formed
with their musquets: all swore, like the soldiers of Fabius, not to
conquer or die, but to be victors. When the Emperor perceived them, he
held out his hand to them, and said, “With you, my brave soldiers, I
should not be afraid of ten thousand men.”

Meantime the troops come from Grenoble had retreated, and taken a
position three leagues from Gorp, between the lakes, and near a
village. The Emperor went to reconnoitre them. He found in the line
opposed to him a battalion of the fifth regiment, a company of
sappers, and a company of miners; in all seven or eight hundred men.
He sent to them chef d’escadron Roul: they refused to listen to him.
On this, Napoleon, turning to Marshal Bertrand, said, “Z. has
deceived me; no matter, forwards!” Immediately, alighting from his
horse, he marched straight to the detachment, followed by his guard,
with arms secured (l’arme baissée): “What, my friends!” said he to
them, “do you not know me? I am your Emperor: if there be (p. 193) a
soldier among you, who is willing to kill his general, his Emperor, he
may do it: here I am!” and he placed his hand upon his breast….

The unanimous shout of “Long live the Emperor!” was the answer.

“”Immediately they requested permission, to be the first to march
against the division, that covered Grenoble. The march commenced amid
a crowd of the inhabitants, which increased every instant. Vizille
distinguished itself by its enthusiasm: “It is here the revolution is
born,” said these brave fellows: “we are the first who have dared to
claim the privileges of men: it is here, too, that French liberty
revives, and that France recovers its honour and independence.”

“”Between Vizille and Grenoble, an adjutant-major of the seventh of
the line came to announce, that Colonel Labedoyère, deeply wounded by
the dishonour that affected all France, and governed by the noblest
sentiments, had separated from the division of Grenoble, and with his
regiment was hastening with all speed to meet the Emperor.””

Soon after, numerous acclamations were heard at a distance: they were
from Labedoyère, and the seventh. The two troops, impatient to join,
broke their ranks: embraces, and shouts a thousand (p. 194) times
repeated, of “The guard for ever! the seventh for ever! long live the
Emperor!” became the pledge of their union, and of their sentiments.

Napoleon, who saw his forces and the public enthusiasm increase at
every step, resolved to enter Grenoble that very evening.

Before he reached the city he was stopped by a young merchant, an
officer of the national guard. “Sire,” said he, “I come to offer your
Majesty a hundred thousand francs, and my sword.”—”I accept both:
remain with us.” Farther on he was joined by a party of officers, who
confirmed to him what he had learned from Labedoyère, that General
Marchand and the prefect had declared against him, and that neither
the garrison, nor the national guard, had yet displayed any favourable
disposition.

“”In fact, General Marchand had caused the troops to re-enter
Grenoble, and closed the gates: the ramparts were covered by the third
regiment of engineers, composed of two thousand sappers, all veterans,
covered with honourable scars; by the fourth of artillery of the line,
the very regiment in which the Emperor had been made a captain five
and twenty years (p. 195) before; then the two battalions of the
fifth of the line, and the faithful hussars of the fourth.””

Never did a besieged town exhibit a similar spectacle; the besiegers,
with arms reversed, and marching in joyful irregularity, approached
the walls singing. No noise of arms, no warlike shouts from the
soldiers, rose to affright the air: nothing was heard but repeated
acclamations of “Grenoble for ever! France for ever! Napoleon for
ever!” no cries but those of the most unrestrained gaiety, and the
purest enthusiasm. The garrison, the national guard, the
town’s-people, spread over the ramparts, beheld at first with
surprise, with emotion, these transports of joy and attachment. It was
not long before they shared them; and the besiegers and besieged,
united by the same thoughts, the same sentiments, uttered at once the
rallying words, “Long live the Emperor!” The people and the soldiers
repaired to the gates, which were in an instant beaten down, and
Napoleon, surrounded, thronged by an idolizing crowd, made his
triumphant entry into Grenoble. A few moments after, the people came
and brought him the fragments of the gates with trumpets sounding, and
said, “For want of the keys of (p. 196) the good town of Grenoble,
here are the gates for you.”

The possession of this place was of the highest importance to
Napoleon: it afforded him a point of support, ammunition, arms, and
artillery. He could not conceal his extreme satisfaction, and said
repeatedly to his officers, “All is now decided; we are sure of
getting to Paris.” He questioned Labedoyère at large on the state of
Paris, and the situation of France in general. This young colonel,
full of the noblest sentiments, expressed himself with a frankness
that sometimes staggered Napoleon. “Sire,” he said, “the French will
do every thing for your Majesty; but then your Majesty must do every
thing for them: no more ambition, no more despotism: we are
determined to be free and happy. It is necessary, Sire, to renounce
that system of conquest and power which occasioned the misfortunes of
France, and of yourself.”—”If I succeed,” answered Napoleon, “I will
do every thing requisite to fulfil the expectations of the nation: its
happiness is dearer to me than my own: it is to render it free and
happy, that I have embarked in an undertaking, which might not
succeed, and might cost me my life; but we shall have the consolation
of dying in our (p. 197) native land.”—”And of dying,” added
Labedoyère, “for its honour and its liberty.”

The Emperor gave orders to have his proclamations printed in the
course of the night, and despatched emissaries in every direction to
announce his having entered Grenoble; that Austria was for him; that
the king of Naples was following him with eighty thousand men; …
and, in short, to discourage, intimidate, and curb, by false alarms
and false confidences, the partisans and agents of the regal
government.

The proclamations, posted up in abundance, produced the most lively
sensation, as at Gap. In fact, never had the national pride,
patriotism, and the noblest passions of the mind, been addressed with
more fascination, strength, and eloquence. The soldiers and citizens
were never tired of reading and admiring them. Every person was
desirous of having them. Travellers, and the inhabitants of the
neighbouring country, received an immense quantity, which they took
upon themselves to spread abroad on their road, and to send to all
parts.

The next day, the 8th, the clergy, the staff-officers, the imperial
court, the tribunals, and the civil and military authorities, came to
acknowledge Napoleon, and to offer him their (p. 198)
congratulations. He conversed familiarly with the judges on the
administration of justice; with the clergy on what was necessary to
public worship; with the soldiery on the armies; with the municipal
officers on the sufferings of the people, the towns, and the country
places; and delighted them all by the variety of his knowledge, and
the benevolence of his intentions. He then said to them: “I knew that
France was unhappy; I heard its groans and its reproaches; I am come
with the faithful companions of my exile, to deliver her from the yoke
of the Bourbons … their throne is illegitimate … my rights were
conferred on me by the nation, by the unanimous will of the French
people: they are no other rights than theirs…. I am come to resume
them; not to reign, the throne is nothing to me: not to revenge
myself, for I shall forget every thing that has been said, done, or
written, since the capitulation of Paris; but to restore to you the
rights, which the Bourbons have taken from you, and to emancipate you
from the subscription to the glebe, the vassalage, and the feudal
system, with which you are threatened by them…. I have been too fond
of war; I will make war no more: I will leave my neighbours at rest:
we must forget, that we have been masters of the world…. I wish to
(p. 199) reign, in order to render our lovely France free, happy, and
independent; and to place its happiness on foundations not to be
shaken; I wish to be less its sovereign than the first and best of
its citizens. I might have come to attack the Bourbons with ships and
numerous fleets; but I would have no assistance from Murat or from
Austria. I know my fellow citizens, and the defenders of my country,
and I reckon on their patriotism.”

The audience ended, the Emperor reviewed the garrison, consisting of
five or six thousand men. As soon as he appeared, the sky was darkened
by the multitude of sabres, bayonets, grenadier-caps, chacos, &c.,
which the people and the soldiers raised in the air, amid the most
lively demonstrations of attachment and love.

He said a few words to the people, which could not be heard, and
repaired to the front of the fourth of artillery. “It was among you,”
said he, “that I began my career in arms. I love you all as old
comrades; I have observed you in the field of battle, and I have
always been satisfied with your conduct. But I hope, that we shall
have no occasion for your guns: France has need of moderation and
repose. The army will enjoy, in the bosom of peace, (p. 200) the
benefits I have already conferred on it, and those I shall yet bestow.
In me the soldiers have found again their father: they may reckon upon
the rewards they have deserved.”

After this review, the garrison set out on its march to Lyons.

In the evening Napoleon wrote to the Empress and Prince Joseph. He
directed him to make known at Rome, at Naples, and at Porto Ferrajo,
that his enterprise had every appearance of being crowned with the
most speedy and brilliant success. The couriers departed with great
noise; and care was taken to make known, that they were carrying to
the Empress the news of the Emperor’s return, with orders to come
immediately, with her son, and join him.

On the 9th the Emperor declared the establishment of the imperial
power by three decrees.

The first directed all public acts, and the administration of justice,
to be executed in his name from the 15th of March.

The two others organized the national guards of the five departments
of the Upper and Lower Alps, la Drôme, Mont Blanc, and the Izère, and
entrusted to the honour and patriotism of the (p. 201) inhabitants of
the seventh division the fortified towns of Briançon, Grenoble, Fort
Barreaux, Colmar, &c.

The moment he set off, he addressed to the inhabitants of the
department of the Izère the following proclamation:

Citizens,

When in my exile I learned all the misfortunes, that oppressed the
nation; that all the rights of the people were disregarded, and that I
was reproached with the state of repose in which I lived: I lost not a
moment: I embarked on board a slight vessel, crossed the sea in the
midst of ships of war belonging to various nations, landed alone on
the shores of our country, and thought of nothing but of arriving with
the rapidity of an eagle in this good city of Grenoble, of the
patriotism of which, and its personal attachment to me, I was well
aware. Men of Dauphiny, you have answered my expectation.

I have endured, not without a wounded heart, but without being
dejected, the misfortunes to which for a twelvemonth I have been a
prey. The spectacle displayed to my eyes by the people on my journey
has inspired me with the most lively emotions. Though a few clouds
(p. 202) have altered the high opinion I entertained of the French
people, what I have seen has convinced me, that they are still worthy
of the name of the Great People, which I gave them twenty years ago.

Men of Dauphiny, about to quit your country, to repair to my good city
of Lyons, I could not refrain from expressing to you all the esteem,
with which your lofty sentiments have inspired me. My heart is filled
with the emotions, that you have excited in it, and I shall never
forget them.

The news of the Emperor’s landing did not reach Paris till the 5th of
March, at night. It transpired on the 6th; and on the 7th a royal
proclamation appeared in the Moniteur, convoking the chambers
immediately; and a decree, that placed Napoleon, and all who should
join or assist him, out of the protection of the law[47]; without any
farther particulars.

(p. 203) On the 8th the Moniteur and other newspapers announced, that
Bonaparte had landed with eleven hundred men, most of whom had already
deserted him; that he was wandering in the mountains, accompanied only
by a few individuals; that he had been refused provision, was in want
of every thing, and, pursued and on the point of being surrounded by
the troops sent against him from Toulon, Marseilles, Valence, and
Grenoble, he must speedily expiate his rash and criminal enterprise.

This news struck all parties with astonishment, and made different
impressions on them, according to their different sentiments and
opinions.

The discontented had no doubt of the success of the Emperor, and the
ruin of the Bourbons.

(p. 204) The courtiers regretted that there was not sufficient danger
in this mad and audacious enterprise, to give at least some value to
their attachment.

The emigrants looked at it with pity, turned it into ridicule; and, if
they had wanted nothing more than jests, abuse, and swaggering, to
beat Napoleon, there could have been no doubt of their victory.

The government itself participated in their boasting and security.

Fresh despatches soon made known the progress of Napoleon.

The Count d’Artois, the Duke of Orléans, and Marshal Macdonald, set
off hastily for Lyons.

The royalists were uneasy, the government removed their fears.

The Count d’Artois, they said, at the head of fifteen thousand
national guards, and ten thousand of the troops of the line, must stop
him before Lyons.

General Marchand, General Duverney, the Prince of Essling, and the
Duke d’Angoulême, were getting into his rear, and would cut off his
retreat.

General Le Courbe was manœuvring on his flanks.

(p. 205) Marshal Oudinot was arriving with his faithful royal
grenadiers.

The national guards of Marseilles, and the whole population of the
south, were marching from all quarters in pursuit of him; and it was
impossible for him to escape.

This was the 10th of March.

The next day an officer of the King’s household appeared in the
balcony of the Tuileries, and, waving his hat, announced, that the
King had just received an official account of the Duke of Orléans, at
the head of twenty thousand men of the national guard of Lyons, having
attacked Bonaparte on the side towards Bourgoing, and completely
beaten him.

The same day information was given, that Generals d’Erlon, Lefevre
Desnouettes, and Lallemand, who had attempted to seduce the troops
under their orders, had completely failed, and taken flight[48].

(p. 206) The malecontents were in doubt: the royalists were
intoxicated.

On the 12th, the victory of the Duke of Orléans was contradicted. The
official paper announced, that Bonaparte must have slept at Bourgoing;
that he was expected to enter Lyons on the evening of the 10th of
March; (p. 207) and that it appeared certain, that Grenoble had not
yet opened its gates to him.

The Count d’Artois soon arrived, and confirmed by his return the
taking of Lyons, and the inutility of his efforts.

The alarm was renewed.

The King, whose countenance was at the same time dignified and
affecting, invoked by eloquent proclamations the attachment of the
French, and the courage and fidelity of the army.

The army maintained silence. The judicial bodies, the civil
authorities, the order of advocates, and a number of individual
citizens, answered the King’s appeal by addresses testifying their
love and fidelity.

The two chambers equally laid at the foot of the throne the expression
of their sentiments: but their language differed.

“Sire,” said the Chamber of Peers, “hitherto paternal goodness has
marked all the acts of your government[49]. If it be necessary that
the laws should be rendered more severe, you would no doubt lament it;
but the two chambers, (p. 208) animated with the same spirit, would
be eager to concur in every measure that the importance of
circumstances, and the safety of the people, may require.”

“Whatever faults may have been committed,” said the Chamber of
Deputies, “the present is not the moment for inquiring into them. It
is the duty of all of us, to unite against the common enemy, and
afterwards endeavour, to render this crisis beneficial to the security
of the throne and its public liberty.”

The King did not stop at empty proclamations. He decreed,

That a new army should be assembled in front of Paris, under the
orders of the Duke of Berri and the command of Marshal Macdonald:

That all the soldiers on furlough, or conditionally discharged, should
rejoin their corps:

That all the half-pay officers should be called out:

That the three millions of national guards of the kingdom should take
up arms, in order to check the factious and disperse their meetings,
while the army took the field:

That the young national guards, who were desirous of forming a part of
the acting army, should be armed and accoutred, and sent to the parts
that were threatened.

(p. 209) That to render useful the services of those brave Frenchmen,
who on all sides were demanding to be led against the enemy,
battalions of royal volunteers should be formed, and make a part of
the army of the Duke of Berri.

Marshal Ney, whose popularity and influence were well known, was
appointed to take the command of the troops of the east.

The Duke de Feltre took the place of Marshal Soult.

In short, the King omitted nothing, that could concur in protecting
his throne from the dangers, with which it was threatened.

Such measures, sufficient to stop an army of three hundred thousand
men, could only attest the success of Napoleon; and yet the ministry
daily caused the most encouraging reports to be spread among the
people, and confirmed by the newspapers.

M. de Montesquiou, faithful to the system of deception he had adopted,
continued to mislead the deputies, cheating them by false
intelligence, and lulling them with hopes, which he himself no longer
entertained. He knew the intoxication, which was excited in every
place by the approach and passage of Napoleon. He knew, that he was
master of Grenoble and Lyons; that the troops attempted to be opposed
to him (p. 210) had joined his with enthusiasm: and nevertheless he
announced to the chamber, “that the population of all the departments
invaded by the adventurer of the island of Elba loudly manifested
their indignation against this audacious robber; that they may have
been surprised, but not subjugated; that all his summonses of places,
and the orders he had attempted to issue to the local authorities, had
been rejected with firmness; that the Lyonese had displayed the
attachment, that was to be expected from their noble character; that
the departments of Burgundy, Franche Comté, Lorraine, Champagne,
Picardy, &c. &c. rivalled each other in their attachment and energy;
that the good disposition of the troops was answerable to that of the
citizens; and that all together, generals, officers, soldiers, and
citizens, concurred in the defence of their country and of their
King.”

These political juggleries were not without effect. They satisfied
some credulous men, and inflamed the courage and imaginations of a few
youths. The enrolments of volunteers were more numerous: a certain
number of pupils of the schools of law and physic offered their
services, and traversed the streets of Paris, shouting “Long live the
King! Down with the Corsican! Down with the tyrant! &c.“

(p. 211) This effervescent movement could not be durable; and whatever
pains were taken to deceive the metropolis, the truths announced by
travellers and private letters opposed these ministerial falsehoods.

The defection of Marshal Ney soon came to tear off the veil, and
spread affright and consternation among the ministers and their
partisans.

The King repaired to the Chamber of Deputies, in the hope of
confirming their attachment, and of dissipating by a solemn oath those
doubts of his adherence to the charter, and of his intention to
maintain it, which his ministers occasioned. Never was a more imposing
and pathetic spectacle exhibited. What heart could steel itself
against the sorrows of that august and aged man, against the sound of
his mournful voice? Those prophetic words, “I fear nothing for myself,
but I fear for France: at sixty years of age can I better close my
career, than by dying in defence of the state?” These words of the
King excited the most lively emotion, and tears in abundance fell from
every eye.

The oath pronounced by the King, to maintain the charter, was
immediately repeated by the Count d’Artois, who had hitherto refrained
from it. “We swear,” said he, “on our (p. 212) honour, I and my
family, to live and die faithful to our King, and to the
constitutional charter, which assures the happiness of France.” But
these tardy protestations could not repair the mischief, that the
disloyal conduct of the government had done to the Bourbons and their
cause.

In vain did the words country, liberty, and constitution, recur in
every discourse, and in every proclamation.

In vain was it solemnly promised, that France, as soon as it was
delivered, should receive all the securities claimed by the public
voice, and that the press should recover perfect freedom.

In vain was the lustre and the prerogative, of which the legion of
honour had been despoiled, offered to be restored to it.

In vain were pompous eulogies and brilliant promises lavished on the
army.

The time was past.

The minister had robbed the King of confidence, which is the prime
agent of the ascendancy of princes over the people; and of strength,
which can alone supply the place of confidence, and command fear and
obedience.

The approach of Napoleon;

The desertion of Marshal Ney;

(p. 213) The declaration made by those generals, who still retained
their fidelity, that the troops would not fight against the Emperor,
left the government no doubt of the fate that awaited it.

From that moment there was no longer harmony in their designs, or
concert in the means of executing them.

Orders and counter-orders were given on the one hand, and revoked on
the other. Schemes of every kind, all equally inconsiderate and
impracticable, were approved and rejected, resumed and abandoned.

The chambers and the government had ceased to act in unison. The
ministers complained of the deputies; the deputies publicly demanded
of the King the dismissal of his ministers, and that he would place
around himself men, “who have been the constant defenders of justice
and liberty, and whose names shall be a guarantee for the interest of
all[50].”

(p. 214) The same disorder, the same disunion, manifested themselves
every where at the same time: there was only one point in which people
agreed; that all was lost.

In fact so it was.

The people, whom the nobles had humbled, vexed, or terrified by
haughty and tyrannical pretensions;

They who had acquired national domains, whom they had wished to
dispossess;

The protestants, who had been sacrificed;

The magistrates, who had been turned out;

The persons in office, who had been reduced to want;

The soldiers, officers, and generals, who had been despised and
ill-treated;

The revolutionists, who had been incessantly insulted and menaced;

The friends of justice, and of liberty, who had been abused;

All the French, whom the government had reduced, as it were, in spite
of themselves, to wish for another order of things; eagerly embraced
(p. 215) the cause of Napoleon, which had become the national cause
through the faults of the government.

Royalty had no defenders left but women and their handkerchiefs;
priests without influence; nobles without courage; body guards without
youth, or without experience.

The legions of the national guard, on which such great reliance had
been placed, were reviewed by their colonel-general: he harangued them
on the charter, and the tyranny of Bonaparte; he told them, that he
would march at their head, and said: “Let those, who love their King,
come out from their ranks, and follow me.” Scarcely two hundred obeyed
the order.

The royal volunteers, who had made so much noise, when they expected
to be victors without incurring any peril, had gradually dispersed;
and those, whom the approach of danger had neither intimidated nor
cooled, were too few to have any weight in the balance.

The government had one sole and last hope remaining: it was, dare I
say it? that Napoleon would be assassinated.

The same men who had preached up a civil war, and declared, that it
would be shameful not (p. 216) to have one; soiled the walls of
Paris with provocations to murder, and fanatic praises bestowed
beforehand on murderers. Emissaries, mixing in the various groups of
the people, endeavoured to put the poniard into the hands of the new
Jacques Clements. A public act had proscribed Napoleon; a reward was
publicly offered for his head. This call for a crime, which indignant
France first heard from the assassins of Coligny, was repeated by men,
who, like them, had the sacred words of morality, humanity, and
religion, continually in their mouths, and who, like them, thirsted
only after vengeance and blood.

But while they were conspiring at Paris to assassinate Napoleon, he
peaceably pursued his triumphant march.

Quitting Grenoble on the 9th, he came that night and slept at
Burgoing. [51]“”The crowd and the enthusiasm continued to increase:
“We have long expected you,” said all these brave fellows to the
Emperor; “at length you are come, to deliver France from the insolence
of the nobility, the pretensions of the priests, and the disgrace of a
foreign yoke.”

(p. 217) “”The Emperor, being fatigued[52], was in his calash, the
horse walking, surrounded by a crowd of peasants, singing songs, that
expressed the noble sentiments of these brave Dauphinese. “Ah!” said
the Emperor, “I here find again the sentiments, which twenty years ago
led me to hail France by the name of the great nation! Yes, you are
still the great nation, and you shall ever be so.”””

They approached Lyons: the Emperor had sent his emissaries before him,
who informed him, that the Count d’Artois, the Duke of Orléans, and
Marshal Macdonald, had determined to defend the city, and that they
were going to break down the bridges de la Guillotière and Moraud.
“”The Emperor laughed at these ridiculous preparations: he could not
doubt the disposition of the Lyonese, still less those of the
soldiers; yet he gave orders to General Bertrand, to collect boats at
the Mirbel, intending to cross the river in the night, and cut off the
roads to Moulins and Macon for the Prince, who wanted to prevent his
passing the Rhone. At four o’clock a reconnoitring party of the
(p. 218) fourth hussars arrived at la Guillotière, and were received
with shouts of “Long live the Emperor!” by the immense population of
the suburb, that has always been distinguished for its attachment to
its country.””

The Emperor immediately countermanded the passage at Mirbel, and
desirous of availing himself of this first enthusiastic movement, as
at Grenoble, galloped forward to the suburb of Guillotière.

The Count d’Artois, less fortunate, could not even succeed in opposing
to his adversary a shadow of defence.

He was desirous of destroying the bridges, but the city opposed it.

The troops, whose attachment he fancied he could purchase by the
distribution of money, or the bait of rewards, had remained deaf to
his words, his entreaties, his promises. Passing before the thirteenth
regiment of dragoons, he said to a brave fellow, decorated with three
chevrons and with scars: “Come, comrade, shout Long live the
King!”—”No, Sir,” answered the brave dragoon, “No soldier will fight
against his father; I can only answer you by saying Long live the
Emperor!” Confused and in despair, he exclaimed in a sorrowful tone,
“All is lost!” and these words, instantly spreading (p. 219) from one
to another, only strengthened the prevailing ill will or
discouragement[53].

Marshal Macdonald, however, who was well known to the troops, had
succeeded in barricading the bridge of la Guillotière, and led two
battalions of infantry thither in person; when the hussars of Napoleon
came out from the suburb, and presented themselves before the bridge,
preceded, surrounded, and followed, by all the youth of the place.

The marshal restrained the soldiers a few minutes: but moved, seduced,
borne away, by the incitements of the people and the hussars, they
rushed to the barricadoes, burst them, and were quickly in the arms
and in the ranks of the soldiers of Napoleon.

The Count d’Artois, foreseeing this defection, had quitted Lyons,
unaccompanied by a single gendarme, but escorted by a detachment of
the thirteenth dragoons, commanded by lieutenant Marchebout. It is due
to the troops to say, that they did not cease to respect him, and that
he ran no risk[54].

(p. 220) At five in the evening the whole garrison rushed out to meet
Napoleon.

An hour after, the imperial army took possession of the city.

At seven Napoleon made his solemn entry, proceeding alone before his
troops, but preceded and followed by an immense crowd, expressing, by
incessant acclamations, the intoxication, happiness, and pride, they
felt at seeing him again. He alighted at the archbishop’s palace, and
quietly took his rest in the very places, which the Count d’Artois,
yielding to despair, had just watered with his tears.

Napoleon immediately entrusted the guarding of his person, and the
interior charge of the palace, to the national guard. He would not
accept the services of the horse-guards. “Our institutions,” said he
to them, “know nothing of national guards on horseback; besides, you
behaved so ill with the Count d’Artois, that I will have nothing to
say to you.”

In fact the Emperor, who had always respected misfortune, had made
inquiries concerning the Count d’Artois on his arrival; and had
learned, that the nobles, of whom the horse-guards (p. 221) were
chiefly composed, after having sworn to the prince to die for him, had
deserted him; one excepted, who remained faithfully attached to his
escort, till the moment he thought his life and liberty out of all
danger.

The Emperor did not confine himself to commendation of the conduct of
this generous Lyonese. “I never left a noble action,” said he,
“without reward:” and he appointed him a member of the Legion of
Honour.

I was at Lyons the moment when Napoleon arrived. He knew it, and sent
for me that very evening. “Well!” said he to me with a smile, “you did
not expect to see me again so soon[55].”—”No, Sire; your Majesty
alone is capable of occasioning such surprises.”—”What do they say of
all this at Paris?”—”Why, Sire, there, as here, they are rejoiced, no
doubt, at your Majesty’s happy return.”—”And public opinion, how is
that?”—”Sire, it is greatly changed: formerly we thought of nothing
but (p. 222) glory, now we think only of liberty. The struggle that
has arisen between the Bourbons and the nation has revealed to us our
rights; it has engendered in men’s minds a number of liberal ideas,
that did not exist in your Majesty’s time; people feel, people
experience, the necessity of being free; and the most certain means of
pleasing the French would be to promise, and to give them, laws truly
popular.”—”I know that the discussions they[56] have suffered to take
place, have diminished the respect for power, and enfeebled it.
Liberal ideas have resumed all the ground I had gained for it. I shall
not attempt to reconquer it: no one should attempt to contend with a
nation; it is the earthen pot against the iron pot. The French shall
have reason to be satisfied with me. I know, that there is both
pleasure and glory in rendering a great people free and happy. I will
give pledges to France: I did not stint it in glory, I will not stint
it in liberty. I will retain no farther power than is necessary to
enable me to govern. Power is not incompatible with liberty: on the
contrary, liberty is never more entire, than when power is well
established. When it is weak, it is captious: (p. 223) when it is
strong, it sleeps in tranquillity, and leaves the reins loose on the
neck of liberty. I know what is requisite for the French; we shall
settle that point: but no licentiousness, no anarchy; for anarchy
would lead us to the despotism of the republicans, the most fertile of
all despotisms in tyrannic acts, because every body takes a share in
it…. Do they suppose we shall come to a battle?”—”They do not think
it: the government have never had confidence in the soldiery; it has
made itself detested by the officers; and all the troops that may be
opposed to your Majesty’s, will be so many reinforcements sent
you.”—”I think so too: and the marshals?”—”Sire, they cannot but be
apprehensive, that your Majesty will remember Fontainbleau; and
perhaps it will be well to remove their fears, and to make known to
them personally your Majesty’s intention of consigning every thing to
oblivion.”—”No, I will not write to them; they would consider me as
under obligations to them; and I will be obliged to no person. The
troops are well disposed, the officers are good, and if the marshals
wished to restrain them, they would be hurried along by them … where
is my guard?”—”I believe at Metz and at Nancy.”—”Of (p. 224) that I
am sure, do what they will, they will never corrupt it. What are
Augereau and Marmont about?”—”I do not know.”—”What is Ney doing? On
what terms is he with the king?”—”Sometimes good, sometimes bad: I
believe he has had reason to complain of the court on account of his
wife.”—”His wife is an affected creature; no doubt she has attempted
to play the part of a great lady, and the old dowagers have ridiculed
her. Has Ney any command?”—”I do not think he has, Sire.”—”Is he one
of us?”—”The part he took in your abdication”–“Ay, I read that at
Porto Ferrajo: he boasted of having ill-treated me, of having laid his
pistols on my table: it was all false. Had he dared to fail of respect
to me, I would have ordered him to be shot. A heap of tales has been
spread respecting my abdication. I abdicated, not in consequence of
their advice, but because my army was out of its senses: besides, I
would not have a civil war. It was never to my taste. It was said,
that Augereau, when I met him, loaded me with reproaches … it was a
lie: no one of my generals would have dared, in my presence, to forget
what was due to me. Had I known of the proclamation of Augereau, I
would have (p. 225) forbidden him my presence[57]: cowards only
insult misfortune. His proclamation, which I was reported to have had
in my pocket, was unknown to me till after our interview. It was
General Koller who showed it me; but let us quit these popular
rumours. What has been done at the Tuileries?”—”Nothing has been
altered, Sire; even the eagles have not yet been removed.”—(Smiling)
“They must have thought my arrangement of them admirable.”—”So I
presume, Sire: it has been said, that the Count d’Artois went through
all the apartments immediately after his arrival, and could not cease
to admire them.”—”I can readily believe it. What have they done with
my pictures?”—”Some have been taken away, but that of the battle of
Austerlitz is still in the council-chamber.”—”And the theatre?”—”It
has not been touched: it is no longer used.”—”What is Talma
doing?”—”Why, Sire, he continues to deserve and obtain public
applause.”—”I shall see him (p. 226) again with pleasure. Have you
been at court?”—”Yes, Sire, I have been presented.”—”I am told, they
all have the air of upstarts of yesterday; that they know not how to
utter a word, or take a single step, with propriety: have you seen
them on grand public days?”—”No, Sire, but I can assure your Majesty,
that people pay as little regard to ceremony at the Tuileries, as at
their own homes: they go thither in dirty boots, common frock-coats,
and round hats.”—”That must have a very majestic appearance. But how
do all those old thicksculls spend their money? for every thing has
been restored to them.”—”But, probably, Sire, they wish to wear out
their old clothes.”—”Poor France! into what hands hast thou thrust
thyself! And the king, what sort of a countenance has he?”—”He has a
tolerably fine head.”—”Is his coin handsome?”—”Of this your Majesty
may judge: here is a twenty-franc piece.”—”What! they have not
re-coined louis: I am surprised at this. (Turning the piece over) He
does not look as if he would starve himself: but observe, they have
taken away Dieu protège la France (God protect France), to restore
their Domine, salvum fac regem (Lord, preserve the King). This is as
they always were: every thing for themselves, (p. 227) nothing for
France. Where is Maret? where is Caulincourt? where is Lavalette?
where is Fouché?”—”They are all at Paris.”—”And Môlé?”—”He, too, is
at Paris; I observed him a short time ago at the Queen’s.”—”Have we
any persons hereabout, who were nearly attached to me?”—”I do not
know, Sire.”—”You must inquire, and bring them to me. I should be
glad to be thoroughly acquainted with the spirit of the times, and
know something of the present state of affairs. What does Hortense
do?”—”Sire, her house is still the resort of men, who know how to
appreciate wit and elegance: and the Queen, though without a throne,
is not less an object of the respect and homage of all Paris.”—”She
did a very foolish thing, in exhibiting herself as a spectacle before
the tribunals. They who advised her to it were blockheads. Why, too,
did she go and demand the title of duchess?”—”She, Sire, did not
demand it, it was the Emperor Alexander….”—”No matter, she ought
not to have accepted, any more than demanded it: she should have
called herself Madame Bonaparte: this name is full as good as any
other. Besides, what right had she to have her son made a duke of St.
Leu, and a peer of the Bourbons? Louis was (p. 228) in the right to
oppose it: he was sensible, that the name of her son was sufficiently
honourable, not to suffer himself to change it. If Josephine had been
alive, she would have prevented her from engaging in such a foolish
piece of business. Was she much regretted?”—”Yes, Sire, your Majesty
knows how much she was beloved and honoured by the French.”—”She
deserved it. She was an excellent woman: she had a great deal of
sense. I greatly regretted her too, and the day when I heard of her
death was one of the most unhappy of my life. Was there a public
mourning for her?”—”No, Sire. Indeed I think she would have been
refused the honours due to her rank, had not the Emperor Alexander
insisted on their being paid her.”—”So I heard at the time, but I did
not believe it. He was no way interested in it.”—”The generosity of
Alexander was not confined within any limits: he showed himself the
protector of the Empress, the Queen, Prince Eugene, the Duke of
Vicenza, and a number of other persons of distinction, who, but for
him, would have been persecuted or ill treated.”—”You love him, it
seems.”—”Sire….”—”Is the national guard of Paris well
disposed?”—”I cannot positively affirm it; but of this at least I am
(p. 229) certain, that if it do not declare for your Majesty, at
least it will not act against us.”—”I imagine so too. What is it
supposed, that the foreigners will think of my return?”—”It is
thought, that Austria will connect itself with your Majesty, and that
Russia will behold the disgrace of the Bourbons without regret.”—”Why
so?”—”It is said, Sire, that Alexander was not pleased with the
princes while at Paris. That the predilection of the king for England,
and his attributing his crown to the Prince Regent, offended
him.”—”It is well to know that. Has he seen my son?”—”Yes, Sire: I
have been assured, that he embraced him with a tenderness truly
paternal, and exclaimed: He is a charming fellow: how have I been
deceived!”—”What did he mean by that?”—”They say he had been
informed, that the young prince was rickety and imbecile.”—”Wretches!
he is an admirable child: he gives every indication of becoming a
distinguished character. He will be an honour to his age. Is it true,
that so much was made of Alexander at Paris?”—”Yes, Sire, nobody else
was attended to but he: the other sovereigns appeared as if they were
his aides-de-camp.”—”In fact, he did a great deal for Paris: but for
him the English would have (p. 230) ruined it, and the Prussians
would have set it on fire.—He acted his part well … (with a smile)
if I were not Napoleon, perhaps I would be Alexander.”

The next day he reviewed the division of Lyons in Bellecour Square. “I
shall see that square again with pleasure,” said he, to the chiefs of
the national guard, who stood round him: “I remember, that I raised it
from its ruins, and laid the first stone of it fifteen years ago.” He
went out merely preceded by a few hussars. A crowd of men, old men,
women and children, thronged the bridges, the quays, and the streets.
They rushed under the horses’ feet to hear him, to see him, to have a
closer view of him, to touch his garments … it was an actual
delirium. Scarcely had he proceeded a few steps, when the crowd, that
had already seen him, ran to another spot, to see him again. The air
rung with uninterrupted acclamations. It was a rolling volley of “The
nation for ever! The Emperor for ever! Down with the priests! Down
with the royalists!” &c.

The division of Brayer, as soon as reviewed, set out on its march to
Paris.

When the Emperor returned to the archiepiscopal palace, the great
gallery was crowded with generals, colonels, magistrates, and public
officers (p. 231) of all ranks and kinds. You might have thought
yourselves in the Tuileries.

The Emperor stopped a few minutes: he embraced Generals Mouton
Duvernay, Girard, and other officers, whom Paris supposed to be in
pursuit of him; and after having distributed on the right and left a
few smiles and many compliments, he proceeded to his saloon, and
admitted to be presented to him the imperial court, the municipal
body, and the chiefs of the military corps and the national guard.

He conversed a long time with them on the faults of the Bourbons, and
the deplorable situation in which he found France. He confessed to
them with noble frankness, that he was not altogether inculpable for
its misfortunes. “I was hurried on,” said he, “by the course of
events, into a wrong path. But, taught by experience, I have abjured
that love of glory, so natural to the French, which has had such fatal
consequences to them and to me…. I was mistaken in supposing, that
the time was arrived for rendering France the metropolis of a great
empire: I have renounced for ever that grand enterprise; we have
enough of glory, we want repose.

“It is not ambition, that has brought me back to France: it is the
love of the country. I (p. 232) could have preferred the tranquillity
of the island of Elba to the cares of a throne, had I not known, that
France was unhappy, and had need of me.

“On setting foot on our dear France,” continued he, after a few
unimportant answers from his auditors, “I made a vow to render it free
and happy: I bring nothing to it but benefits. I am returned to
protect and defend those interests, to which our revolution has given
birth: I return to concur with the representatives of the nation in a
family compact, that shall preserve for ever the liberty and the
rights of every Frenchman: henceforward it will be my ambition, and my
glory, to effect the happiness of the great people from whom I hold
every thing. I will not, like Louis XVIII., grant you a revocable
charter; I will give you an inviolable constitution, and it shall be
the work of the people, as well as of myself.”

Such were his words. He pronounced them with an air of such
satisfaction, he appeared so confident of himself and of the future,
that a man would have thought himself criminal to suspect the purity
of his intentions, or to doubt the happiness he was about to secure to
France.

The language he held at Lyons we perceive was not the same, as that he
had uttered at (p. 233) Gap and at Grenoble. In the last-mentioned
towns he sought principally to excite in men’s minds hatred of the
Bourbons, and the love of liberty: he had spoken as a citizen, rather
than a monarch. No formal declaration, not a single word, revealed his
intentions. It might as well have been supposed, that he thought of
restoring the republic, or the consulship, as the empire. At Lyons,
there was no longer any thing vague, any thing uncertain: he spoke as
a sovereign, and promised to give a national constitution. The idea of
the Champ de Mai had recurred to him.

Not one of us suspected the sincerity of the promises and resolves of
Napoleon.

Time, reflection, misfortune, the grand teacher of mankind, had
effected the most favourable changes in the principles of Napoleon.

Formerly, when unforeseen obstacles arose, suddenly to thwart his
projects, his passions, accustomed to no restraint, to respect no
bridle, burst forth with the fury of a raging sea: he spoke, he
ordered, he decided, as if he had been master of the earth and of the
elements; nothing appeared to him impossible.

After his reverse of fortune, he had learned in the calm of solitude
and meditation, to control the violence of his will, and to subject it
to (p. 234) the yoke of reason and prudence. He had read attentively
the writings, pamphlets, and even libels, published against him: and
amid the revilings, calumnies, and absurdities, which they frequently
contained, he had found useful truths, judicious observations, and
profound views, of which he knew how to benefit himself.

“Princes,” observes the learned author of the Spirit of Laws, “have in
their lives periods of ambition to which other passions, and even
indolence, succeed.” Napoleon’s hour of indolence was not yet come:
but to the ambition of increasing his power without limit, had
succeeded the desire of rendering France happy, and of repairing by a
durable peace, and a paternal government, all the evils that had been
brought upon it by war.

The Emperor spent the evening of the 11th in his closet: his first
thought was for the Empress. He wrote her a very tender letter, which
began with these remarkable words. “Madam and dear wife, I have
re-ascended my throne.”

He informed Prince Joseph[58] also, that he had resumed his crown; and
directed him to make known to foreign powers, through their ministers
to the Helvetic Confederation, that (p. 235) he intended never more
to disturb the tranquillity of Europe, and faithfully to maintain the
treaty of Paris. He particularly recommended to him, strongly to
impress upon Austria and Russia, how desirous he was of
re-establishing his former connexions with them in the most intimate
manner.

He appeared to set a particular value on the alliance of Russia. His
predilection was founded, no doubt, on political motives not difficult
to guess; yet I believe he was equally induced to it by Alexander’s
generous conduct towards the French. The popularity and renown, which
this prince had acquired in France, excited, and could not but excite,
the jealousy of Napoleon: but this jealousy, the attribute of great
minds, did not render him unjust; he knew how to estimate Alexander.

Hitherto Napoleon has been engaged only in depriving the King of his
army; he now thought the time was come, to take from him also the
sceptre of civil government. “On this I have resolved,” said he to me:
“I will now annihilate the royal authority, and dismiss the chambers.
Since I have resumed the government, no authority but mine ought to
exist. The public must be taught from this moment, that (p. 236) they
are to obey me alone.” He then dictated to me in succession the
following decrees, known by the name of the decrees of Lyons.

Lyons, 13th of March, 1815.

Napoleon, Emperor of the
French, &c. &c.

Considering, that the Chamber of Peers is partly composed of persons
who have borne arms against France, and who are interested in the
re-establishment of feudal rights, in the destruction of the equality
of the different classes, in the nullification of the sale of the
national domains, and finally in depriving the people of the rights
they have acquired by fighting for five and twenty years against the
enemies of the national glory:

Considering, that the powers of the deputies of the legislative body
have expired, and that from that moment the Chamber of Commons has no
longer a national character; that a part of this chamber has rendered
itself unworthy the confidence of the nation, by assenting to the
re-establishment of the feudal nobility, abolished by the constitution
accepted by the people; by making France pay debts contracted with
foreign powers for negotiating coalitions, and paying armies, against
the French people; (p. 237) by giving to the Bourbons the title of
legitimate King, which was declaring the French people and the armies
rebels, proclaiming those emigrants, who for five and twenty years
have been wounding the vitals of their country, the only good
Frenchmen, and violating all the rights of the people, by sanctioning
the principle, that the nation is made for the throne, not the throne
for the nation:

We have decreed, and do decree, as follows:

Article I.

The Chamber of Peers is dissolved.

Article II.

The Chamber of Commons is dissolved: it is ordered, that every one of
the members convened and arrived at Paris since the 7th of March last
shall repair to his home without delay.

Article III.

The electoral colleges of the departments of the empire shall assemble
at Paris in the course of the month of May next, in order to take
proper measures for correcting and modifying our constitutions
agreeably to the interests and will of the nation; and at the same
time to assist at the coronation of the Empress, our (p. 238) dear
and well-beloved wife, and that of our dear and well-beloved son.

Article IV.

Our Grand Marshal, executing the functions of Major-general of the
grand army, is appointed to take necessary measures for making public
the present decree.

SECOND DECREE.

Napoleon, &c.

Article I.

All the emigrants, whose names have not been erased, amnestied, or
eliminated, by us, or by the governments that have preceded us; and
who have returned to France since the 1st of January, 1814, shall
immediately quit the territory of the empire.

Article II.

Those emigrants, who shall be found in the territory of the empire
fifteen days after the promulgation of the present decree, shall be
arrested and tried conformably to the laws decreed by our national
assemblies: unless however (p. 239) it be proved, that they had no
knowledge of the present decree; in which case, they shall merely be
arrested, and conducted out of the territory by the gendarmerie.

Article III.

All their property, moveable and immoveable, &c. &c. shall be
placed in sequestration.

THIRD DECREE.

Napoleon, &c.

Article I.

The nobility is abolished, and the laws of the Constituent Assembly
shall be put in force.

Article II.

Feudal titles are suppressed.

Article III.

Those individuals, who have obtained from us national titles, as
national rewards, and whose letters patent have been verified before
the council by the seal of state, shall continue to bear them.

(p. 240) Article IV.

We reserve to ourselves the power of giving titles to the descendants
of those men, who have rendered the French name illustrious in various
ages, whether in the command of armies by land and sea, in the
councils of sovereigns, in the administration of justice or of civil
authority, or finally in the arts and sciences, commerce, &c.

FOURTH DECREE.

Napoleon, &c.

Article I.

All those generals and officers by land and sea, of whatever rank, who
have been introduced into our armies since the 1st of April, 1814, who
had emigrated; or who, not having emigrated, had quitted the service
at the period of the first coalition, when the country had the
greatest need of their services; shall immediately cease their
functions, relinquish the marks of their rank, and repair to their
homes, &c. &c.

(p. 241) FIFTH DECREE.

Napoleon, &c.

Considering, that by our constitutions the members of the judicial
order are not removable, we decree:

Article I.

All the arbitrary changes made in our inferior tribunals and courts
are null, and to be considered as having never taken place.

Article II.

The presidents of the court of cassation, our procureur-général
(attorney-general), and the members who have been unjustly, and from a
spirit of reaction, dismissed from the said court, are restored to
their functions, &c. &c.

By four other decrees the Emperor ordered, that the property of the
Bourbon family should be placed in sequestration.

That all the property of emigrants, which belonged to the Legion of
Honour, hospitals, communes, the sinking fund, or the national
domains, should be restored to these different establishments.

(p. 242) That the King’s household and the Swiss should be dismissed,
and that no foreign corps should be admitted as a guard to the
sovereign.

And that the decoration of the lily, and the orders of St. Louis, the
Holy Ghost, and St. Michael, should be abolished.

These decrees, which embraced at once every part of the political,
civil, and military administration of the state, succeeded each other
so rapidly, that Napoleon had scarcely time to interpose a few words
between them.

By restoring to their seats those magistrates, who had been expelled
from them, he gained with a stroke of the pen all the members of the
judicial order; but I know not why he did not extend this beneficial
measure to the functionaries of the administrative order, particularly
to the prefects and sub-prefects, whom M. de Montesquiou had so
cruelly persecuted. Among these functionaries there were
unquestionably some, who, from the weakness or incapacity they had
shown during the last moments of the imperial government, merited no
confidence: but the greater part of them had remained worthy of it;
and Napoleon, by placing them at the head of their former offices,
would have added to the advantage of publicly repairing an act of
royal injustice, that of entrusting the (p. 243) administration to
experienced men, and who, already knowing the partisans of the
revolution and those of the Bourbons, had only to show themselves, to
intimidate the latter, and render effective the patriotism of the
former.

With this exception, every thing he did at Lyons appeared to me a
master-piece of wisdom and address.

It was necessary, to overturn the Chamber of Peers: he did it at one
stroke. “It is composed,” said he, “only of men who have borne arms
against their country, and who are interested in restoring feudal
rights, and annulling the national sales.”

The Chamber of Deputies had shown some resistance to the ministers,
and attachment to liberal doctrines; it was difficult, therefore, to
render it unpopular, yet the Emperor did it by a word: “It has shown
itself unworthy of the confidence of the nation, by making the people
pay debts contracted with foreigners for the shedding of French
blood.”

It was necessary, to remove the apprehensions of France respecting the
future: he called the electors to the Champ de Mai. It was necessary,
to excite the belief, that he had a good understanding with Austria,
and that Maria Louisa would be restored to him: he announced (p. 244)
the approaching coronation of the Empress and her son.

It was necessary, to seduce the patriots, the republicans: he
abolished the feudal nobility; and declared, that the throne was made
for the nation, not the nation for the throne. It was necessary, to
tranquillize those, who had acquired national domains; he expelled the
emigrants not erased from the lists, and resumed their property: to
please the peasantry and the poor, he restored to the hospitals the
property of which they had been despoiled: to flatter the guard and
the army, he expelled from their ranks foreigners and emigrants,
dismissed the King’s household, and restored to the Legion of Honour
its endowments and prerogatives.

Men may censure his conduct at Lyons; may represent it as that of a
madman, resolved to alter, to destroy, to overturn every thing: no
matter … they who judge with impartiality, I believe, will find,
that he conducted himself with all the skill of a consummate
politician. He knew how to inspire confidence, dissipate
apprehensions, confirm attachments, and fill the people and the army
with enthusiasm: what could he do more?

The steps taken at Paris against him were known to him on the 12th. He
appeared delighted, (p. 245) that a command was given to Marshal Ney;
not that he held any intelligence with him; but because he knew the
weakness and fickleness of his character. He directed the Grand
Marshal to write to him. “You will inform him,” said he, “of the
delirium excited by my return, and of all the forces sent against me
having joined my army in succession. You will tell him, that the
troops under his command will infallibly follow the example of their
brave comrades, sooner or later: and that the efforts he might make
would have no farther effect, than at most to retard the fall of the
Bourbons a few days. Give him to understand, that he will be
responsible to France, and to me, for the civil war and bloodshed, of
which he would be the cause. Flatter him,” added the Emperor, “but
do not caress him too much; he would think me afraid of him, and
require to be entreated.”

Letters were written also to all the commanders of corps, that were
known to be quartered in the neighbouring departments. None of them
were in a supplicatory style: the Emperor already spoke as a master;
he did not entreat, he commanded.

Every thing being finished, on the 13th Napoleon departed; and
profoundly moved with (p. 246) the affection the Lyonese had shown
him, he bade them adieu in the following words:

“Lyonese,

“At the moment of quitting your city to repair to my capital, I feel
it necessary, to make known to you the sentiments with which you have
inspired me: you have always ranked with the foremost in my
affections. On the throne or in exile, you have always displayed the
same feelings towards me: the lofty character that distinguishes you,
has merited my entire esteem: in a period of greater tranquillity, I
shall return, to consider the welfare of your manufactures, and of
your city.

“Lyonese, I love you.”

These last words were the ingenuous expression of his feelings: in
dictating, he pronounced them with that indefinable charm, that was
impressed on his words when they came from the heart.

So much has been said of the hardness of Napoleon’s heart, and the
harshness of his language, that whatever is at variance with the
received opinion must appear fabulous. Yet it is a truth, and they who
have been about the Emperor’s person will vouch for it, that he was
(p. 247) far from being so unfeeling, as he was commonly thought. His
military education, and the necessity of commanding fear and respect,
had rendered him grave, severe, and inflexible; and had accustomed
him, to check and despise the suggestions of his sensibility. But when
nature resumed her rights, he felt a delight in yielding to the
movements of his soul, and he then expressed the emotions or
sentiments, that had overpowered him, in an ardent and impassioned
tone, and with a sweetness and grace, as seducing as it was
inimitable.

Indeed the Lyonese merited the esteem and love, that Napoleon avowed
for them. Though yet young, I have more than once seen popular
displays of enthusiasm and infatuation; yet never did I see any thing
comparable to the transports of joy and tenderness, that burst from
the Lyonese. Not only the quays, and the places near the palace of the
Emperor, but even the most distant streets rung with perpetual
acclamations[59]. Workmen and their (p. 248) masters, the common
people and the citizens, rambled about the city arm in arm, singing,
dancing, and giving themselves up to the impulse of the most ardent
gaiety. Strangers stopped one another, shook hands, embraced, and
congratulated each other on the return of the Emperor, as if he had
conferred on them fortune, life, and honour.

The national guard, affected by the confidence he had shown it, by
entrusting to it the care of his person, participated with equal
ardour the general intoxication; and the day of Napoleon’s departure
was a day of sorrow and regret to the city of Lyons, as that of his
arrival had been a day of real festivity.

We slept at Macon. The Emperor would not alight at the prefect’s, but
went to lodge at the sign of the Savage. He found it was no longer
necessary, to wait at the gates of the towns, as at Grenoble and
Lyons: the people (p. 249) and the magistrates ran out to meet him,
and disputed the honour of being foremost, to do him homage, and
express their good wishes.

The next morning he received the felicitations of the national guard,
the municipal body, &c. One of the colleagues of the mayor gave us a
long, ridiculous harangue, which amused us much. When he had finished,
the Emperor said to him: “You were much astonished, then, at hearing
of our having landed?”—”Yes, faith:” answered the orator: “when I
knew you had landed, I said to every body, the man must be mad, he
will never be able to escape.”—Napoleon could not help laughing at
this simplicity. “I know,” said he, with a sarcastic smile, “that you
are all a little inclined to be frightened; you gave me a proof of
this last campaign; you should have behaved as the men of Chalons did;
you did not maintain the honour of the Burgundians.”—”It was not our
fault, Sire,” said one of the party: “we were badly commanded; you had
not given us a good mayor.”—”That is very possible; we have all been
guilty of foolish actions, and they must be forgotten: the safety and
happiness of France are henceforward the only objects, to which we
ought to attend.” He dismissed them in a friendly manner.

(p. 250) The prefect had taken flight. The Emperor asked me his name.
It was one Germain, whom he had made a count, and a gentleman of the
bedchamber, without well knowing why. “What!” said he to me, “does
that little Germain fancy it necessary to shun me? he must be brought
back:” and he thought no more of him.

He directed me, to cause an account of the events at Grenoble and
Lyons to be inserted in the newspaper of the department. The editor, a
furious royalist, had hidden himself. I entrusted to the new
subprefect the business of fulfilling the Emperor’s orders; but,
whether it were carelessness or incapacity on his part, he had
recourse to the printer of the paper, who supplied him with an article
far from answering our views.

It began with a very just, but ill-timed eulogy of the goodness of
Louis XVIII.; and ended with declaring in substance, that so good a
king was not fitted to reign over the French, and that they required a
sovereign such as Napoleon, &c.

The Emperor, who would read every thing, asked me for the paper. I
pretended I could not lay my hand upon it: but, after a thousand
attempts to put him off from seeing it, I was at (p. 251) length
obliged to bring it him. I thought he would have given me a severe
reprimand, but he contented himself with saying: “Change that man, he
is a fool; and desire him for the future, never to attempt a eulogy of
me.” I sent for him, scolded him, and, like me, he was let off for the
fright.

It was at Macon, that we first received official news of what was
going on at Paris. It was brought us by M. ***. The unskilful manner
in which the royalist party superintended the police of the roads, was
truly astonishing. Not one of its emissaries escaped us, while ours
went and came without any obstruction. Rage or fear must have turned
the brains of all the royalists. M. *** assured the Emperor, that the
national guard appeared determined to defend the king, and that the
king had declared, he would not quit the Tuileries. “If he choose to
wait for me there,” said Napoleon, “I have no objection: but I doubt
it much. He suffers himself to be lulled by the boastings of the
emigrants; and when I get within twenty leagues of Paris, they will
abandon him, as the nobles of Lyons abandoned the Count d’Artois. What
indeed could he do with the old puppets that are about him? One of our
grenadiers would knock down a hundred of them with the (p. 252)
butt-end of his musket…. The national guard shouts at a distance;
when I am at the barriers it will be silent. Its business is not to
raise a civil war, but to maintain peace and order in the country. The
majority is sound; there is nothing rotten in it but a few officers;
and them I will expel. Return to Paris; tell my friends not to
implicate themselves, and within ten days my grenadiers will mount
guard at the Tuileries: go.”

We arrived at Chalons on the 14th, at an early hour. It was terrible
weather, yet the whole population had come out of the city, to see the
Emperor a few minutes the sooner. On approaching the walls, he
perceived artillery and ammunition waggons, and was surprised at it.
“They were intended,” said the people, “to act against you; but we
have stopped them on their way, and present them to you.”—”That’s
right, my lads; you have always been good citizens.”

He was well pleased, to find himself among the Chalonese, and received
them with much affection and regard. “I have not forgotten,” said he,
“that you resisted the enemy for forty days, and valiantly defended
the passage of the Saône. Had all the French possessed your courage
and patriotism, not a single foreigner (p. 253) would have escaped
out of France.” He expressed to them his desire of knowing the brave
men, who had most distinguished themselves; and on their unanimous
testimony, he granted on the spot the decoration of the Legion of
Honour to the mayor of St. Jean Delonne. “It was for the brave men
like him and you,” said he to them, “that I instituted the Legion of
Honour, and not for emigrants pensioned by our enemies.” When the
audience was ended, he said to me: “The mayor of Chalons is not come;
yet it was I who appointed him: but he is related to an ancient
family, and probably has his scruples. The inhabitants complain of
him, and will make him suffer for it. You must go and see him. If he
object to you his oath, tell him, that I absolve him from it; and make
him sensible, that, if he wait till he is freed from it by Louis
XVIII., he will wait a long time. Say to him, in short, what you
please; I care little about his visit; it is for his own sake I wish
him to come. If he do not come, the people will stone him to death
after I am gone. Germain was lucky to escape[60]; let his example be a
lesson to him.”

(p. 254) I repaired immediately to the municipality, where I found the
mayor, and a few municipal counsellors. He appeared to me a man of
merit. I informed him, that it was my usual office, to introduce to
his Majesty the municipal authorities; that I had observed with
surprise, he had not been as eager as the mayors of other cities, to
pay his duty to the Emperor; and that I was come to remove his fears,
&c. He answered me frankly, that he had great respect and admiration
for Napoleon; but, having sworn fealty to Louis XVIII., he thought it
his duty to keep his oath, till he was absolved from it. I had my
answer ready. “I, like you,” said I, “consider perjury as the most
degrading act, of which man can be guilty. But it is necessary, to
make a distinction between a voluntary oath, and the stipulated oath,
which people take to their government. In the eye of reason, this oath
is merely an act of local submission; a pure and simple formality,
which the monarch, whoever he may be, has a right to require of his
subjects; but which cannot, as it ought not, enchain their persons and
faith to perpetuity. France, since 1789, has sworn by turns to be
faithful to royalty, to the convention, to the republic, to the
directory, to the consulship, to the empire, to (p. 255) the charter:
if those Frenchmen, who had taken an oath to royalty, had sought to
oppose the establishment of a republic, by way of acquitting
themselves of their oaths; if those, who had taken an oath to the
republic, had opposed the establishment of the empire, &c.; into what
a state of anarchy and disorder, into what a deluge of blood and
evils, would they not have plunged our unhappy country? On similar
occasions, the national will ought to be the sole guide of our
conscience and our actions: the moment it is manifested, it is the
duty of good citizens, to yield and obey.”

“These principles,” replied he, “may be very good as a general rule;
but our present case is an exception, never before known. When the
governments, that have existed since the revolution, were overturned,
the new government seized the authority, and it ought to be presumed,
that the assent of the nation was on its side: but here it is a
different affair; the royal government subsists; the Emperor abdicated
voluntarily; and till the king has renounced the crown, I shall
consider him as the sovereign of France.”

“If you wait for the king’s renunciation,” rejoined I, “before you
acknowledge the Emperor, you will wait a long time. Has not the
(p. 256) king pretended, that he has not ceased to reign over France
these five-and-twenty years? And if he thought himself sovereign of
France at a time, when the imperial government was rendered legitimate
by the unanimous suffrages of France, and acknowledged by all Europe,
do you think he will renounce the crown at present?

“The time when kings reigned in virtue of right divine is far removed
from us: their rights are no longer founded on any thing but the
formal or tacit consent of nations: the moment nations reject them,
the contract is broken; the conditional oaths taken to them are
annulled in law and in fact, without their intervention or consent
being necessary; for, as the proclamations of Napoleon say, kings are
made for the people, not the people for kings.

“As to the abdication of Napoleon, whether voluntary or compulsive,
and the rights newly acquired by Louis XVIII., it would be requisite,
in order to answer this part of your objections, to inquire, whether
the chief of a nation have a right to relinquish the authority
entrusted to him, without the consent of that nation; and whether a
government imposed by foreigners, either through influence or force of
arms, unite those characters of legitimacy, (p. 257) which you
ascribe to it. I have read in our publicists, that we owe obedience to
a government de facto: and since the Emperor has in fact resumed the
sceptre, I think we cannot do better, than submit to his laws; with
the proviso,” added I jocularly, “of leaving to posterity the task of
deciding the question of right between Napoleon and Louis XVIII.

“However,” continued I, “I leave you perfectly at liberty to embrace
which side you judge best: it is not my intention to take you by
surprise, or to put any violence on your conscience; and I beg you to
consider the attempts I have made to convince you, only as a proof of
my desire to bring you over to my opinion by the force of reason.”

“Well, sir,” said he, “I yield to your observations: be so good as to
announce me to his Majesty.”

The next day he was displaced!

On the 16th we slept at Avalon. Napoleon was received there as he had
been every where; that is to say, with demonstrations of joy, that
were actually bordering on madness. People crowded, thronged, to see,
to hear, to speak to him; his quarters were instantly surrounded,
besieged, by such a numerous and obstinate multitude, (p. 258) that
it was impossible for us to enter or go out, without walking on the
heads of all the population of the country. Those men who made part of
the national guard would remain on duty from morning to night. Women
of the greatest distinction in the place spent the day and night on
the stairs and in the passages, to watch for his going by. Three of
them, tired with standing the whole day for want of seats, requested
permission to sit down by us: it was in the hall (adjoining the
Emperor’s chamber), in which some mattresses had been laid on the
floor, in order that we might gain a few minutes’ rest. It was
pleasant enough, to see these three young and elegant Bonapartists
timidly huddling together on a little couch in the midst of our dirty
guardroom. We endeavoured to keep them company but our eyes closed in
spite of us. “Go to sleep,” said they to us, “we will watch over the
Emperor.” In fact, fatigue got the better of gallantry; and, to our
shame be it spoken, we were soon asleep at their feet. When we awoke,
we found one of these ladies keeping guard at Napoleon’s door. We
heard of it, and thanked her for her attachment, in very polite and
pleasing terms.

(p. 259) I think it was at Avalon[61], that an officer of the staff
came and brought us Marshal Ney’s submission, and his orders of the
day[62]. These (p. 260) orders of the day were printed that night;
but the Emperor, after having read them over, directed them to be
changed and reprinted. I know not whether his Majesty judged it proper
to alter them, or whether the printer had made any mistake.

On the 17th the Emperor arrived at Auxerre, where he was received for
the first time by a prefect. He alighted at the prefect’s house. On
the mantel-piece of the first saloon were the busts of the Empress,
and of her son; and in the next was a whole-length portrait of
Napoleon, in his imperial robes: it might have been supposed, that the
reign of the Emperor had never been interrupted.

Napoleon immediately received the congratulations of all the
authorities, and of the tribunals. These congratulations began to be
no longer a mark of attachment in our eyes, but the fulfilment of a
duty. After having discoursed with them on the grand interests of the
state, the Emperor, whose good humour was (p. 261) inexhaustible,
began to joke about the court of Louis XVIII. “His court,” said he,
“has the air of that of King Dagobert: we see nothing in it but
antiques; the women are old and frightfully ugly; there were no pretty
women in it but mine, and those were so ill-treated, that they were
obliged to desert it. All those people are made up of nothing but
haughtiness and pride: I have been reproached with being proud; I was
so to strangers; but never did any one see me suffer my chancellor to
set one knee to the ground to receive my orders, or oblige my prefects
and mayors to wait at table on my courtiers and dowagers[63]. They
say, that the men about the court are little better than the women;
and that, to distinguish them from my generals, whom I had covered
with gold lace, they are dressed like beggars. My court, it is true,
was superb: I was fond of magnificence; not for myself, a plain
soldier’s coat was sufficient for me; I was fond of it, (p. 262)
because it encourages our manufactures: without magnificence there is
no industry. I abolished at Lyons all that parchment nobility; it was
never sensible of what it owed me: it was I that exalted it, by making
counts and barons of my best generals. Nobility is a chimera; men are
too enlightened to believe, that some among them are noble, others
not: they all spring from the same stock; the only distinction is that
of talents, and of services rendered the state: our laws know no
others.”

The Emperor imagined, that he should find Ney at Auxerre on his
arrival: “I cannot conceive,” said he to General Bertrand, “why Ney is
not here: I am surprised at it, and uneasy: has he changed his
opinions? I cannot think so; he would never have suffered Gamot[64] to
implicate himself. Yet we must know on what we are to depend; see to
it.” A few hours after, the marshal arrived. It was about eight
o’clock, and Count Bertrand came to inform the Emperor of it. “The
marshal, before he comes into your Majesty’s presence,” said he, “is
desirous of collecting his ideas, and justifying in writing his
conduct both previous and (p. 263) subsequent to the events of
Fontainbleau.”—”What need is there of any justification to me?”
answered Napoleon: “tell him, that I love him still, and that I will
embrace him to-morrow.” He would not receive him the same day, as a
punishment for having had to wait for him.

The next day the Emperor, as soon as he perceived him, said: “Embrace
me, my dear marshal; I am glad to see you. I want no explanation or
justification: I have honoured and esteemed you as the bravest of the
brave.”—”Sire, the newspapers have told a heap of lies, which I wish
to confute: my conduct has ever been that of a good soldier, and a
good Frenchman.”—”I know it, and accordingly never doubted your
attachment.”—”You were right, Sire. Your Majesty may always depend
upon me, when my country is concerned…. It is for my country I have
shed my blood, and for it I would still spill it to the last drop. I
love you, Sire, but my country above all! above all.“—(The Emperor
interrupting him) “It is patriotism too, that brings me to France. I
learned, that our country was unhappy, and I am come to deliver it
from the emigrants and the Bourbons. I will confer upon it all that it
expects from me.”—”Your Majesty may be (p. 264) assured, that we
will support you: he who acts with justice, may do what he pleases
with the French. The Bourbons have ruined themselves, by having wished
to act as they thought proper, and thrown aside the army.”—”Princes
who never saw a naked sword could not honour the army: its glory
humbled them, and they were jealous of it.”—”Yes, Sire, they
incessantly sought to humiliate us. I am still enraged, when I think,
that a marshal of France, an old warrior like me, was obliged to kneel
down before that … of a Duke of B….. to receive the cross of St.
Louis. It could not last; and, if you had not come to expel them, we
should have driven them out ourselves[65].”—”How (p. 265) are your
troops disposed?”—”Very well, Sire; I thought they would have stifled
me, when I announced to them, that they were about to march to meet
your eagles.”—”What generals are with you?”—”Le Courbe and
Bourmont.”—”Are you sure of them?”—”I will answer for Le Courbe, but
I am not so sure of Bourmont.”—”Why are they not come hither?”—”They
showed some hesitation, and I left them.”—”Are you not afraid of
Bourmont‘s bestirring himself, and embarrassing you?”—”No, Sire, he
will keep himself quiet: besides, he would find nobody to second him.
I have expelled from the (p. 266) ranks all the light infantry of
Louis XIV.[66], who had been given to us, and all the country is fired
with enthusiasm.”—”No matter, I shall not leave him any possibility
of disturbing us: you will direct him and the royalist officers to be
secured till we enter Paris. I shall be there without doubt by the
20th or 25th, and sooner. If we arrive, as I hope, without any
obstacle, do you think they will defend themselves”—”I do not think
they will, Sire: you know what the Parisians are, more noise than
work.”—”I have received despatches from Paris this morning: the
patriots expect me with impatience, and are on the point of rising. I
am afraid of some quarrel taking place between them and the royalists.
I would not for the world, that my return should be stained with a
single drop of blood. It is easy for you, to hold communication with
Paris: write to your friends, write to Maret, that our affairs go on
well, that I shall arrive without firing a single musket; and let them
all unite, to prevent the spilling of blood. Our triumph should be as
pure, as the cause we serve.” Generals Bertrand and Labedoyère, who
were (p. 267) present, then mixed in the conversation; and after a
few minutes the Emperor left them, and retired into his closet.

He wrote to the Empress for the third time. This letter finished,
Napoleon turned his thoughts to the means of embarking a part of his
army, harassed by forced marches. He sent for the chief of the boat
department, required an account of the number of boats, the means of
preventing accidents, &c. He entered so minutely into particulars with
him, that the man could scarcely recover from his surprise, or
comprehend how an Emperor should know so much as a boatman. Napoleon
persisted in the speedy departure of his troops. Several times he
ordered me to go and hasten the embarkation: he was in the habit of
employing those about him for every thing that came into his head. His
genius knowing no bounds, he imagined, that we poor mortals ought
equally to know every thing, and do every thing.

The Emperor had given orders to his scouts, to bring him all the
mails; and he had appointed me, to examine their contents. I waged
implacable war with the correspondence of ministers; and if I
frequently found in it threats and abuse, of which I came in for my
share, it (p. 268) presented me at least with matters as important as
curious. I particularly remarked two secret instructions, the
publication of which, even now, would cover their authors with eternal
disgrace. The letters comme il faut were equally revolting. Most of
them, dictated by frantic hatred, might have sanctioned the rigours of
the law: but I considered them as the offspring of brains to be pitied
for their diseased state, and contented myself with writing on them in
large letters, before I returned to the post-boy, a Seen; which,
like the head of Medusa, no doubt petrified more than one noble
reader.

The darksome conspiracies of the enemies of Napoleon were not the only
objects, that met my indiscreet eyes. Sometimes I found myself
unintentionally initiated into gentler mysteries and my pen, by
mistake, traced the fatal Seen at the bottom of epistles, which
should have charmed the sight only of the happy mortals, for whom love
had destined them.

It was from the newspapers, and the private correspondence, we
learned, that some Vendeans were set off from Paris, according to
their own account, with the design of assassinating the Emperor. A
paper, which it is unnecessary to name, even said, that these
gentlemen (p. 269) were disguised as soldiers, and as women, and that
most assuredly the Corsican could not escape them.

Though Napoleon did not appear to be uneasy about these criminal
plots, we were under apprehensions for him. Previously, when
travellers were desirous of telling him news, I stepped aside to enjoy
a few minutes’ liberty: but from that time I never quitted him, and,
with my hand on my sword, I never for a moment lost sight of the eyes,
attitude, and gesture of the persons I admitted to his presence.

Count Bertrand, General Drouot, and the officers of his household,
equally redoubled their care and attention. But it seemed as if the
Emperor made a point of setting his murderers at defiance. That very
day he reviewed the 14th of the line in the public square, and
afterwards mixed with the people and the soldiers. In vain did we
endeavour to surround him; we were jostled with so much perseverance
and impetuosity, that it was impossible for us to remain close to him
for two minutes together. The way in which we were elbowed amused him
extremely: he laughed at our efforts, and, in order to brave us,
plunged himself still deeper amid the crowd that besieged us.

(p. 270) Our mistrust was nearly fatal to two of the enemy’s
emissaries.

One of them, a staff officer, came to offer us his services. Being
questioned, he scarcely knew what answers to make. His embarrassment
had already excited violent suspicions, when it was unfortunately
perceived, that he had on green pantaloons. This was sufficient to
convince every body, that he was one of the Artois guards in disguise.
Interrogated anew, he answered still more awkwardly; and, attainted
and convicted of being a highly suspicious person, and of wearing
green pantaloons to boot, he was on the point of being thrown out of
the window, when fortunately Count Bertrand happened to pass by, and
ordered him merely to be turned out at the door.

This officer of the new batch had not come to kill Napoleon; he had
only been sent to spy what passed at his head-quarters.

The same day witnessed another scene. A chef d’escadron of hussars,
adorned with a sabre-cut in the face, came also to join us. He met an
extraordinarily good reception, and was even invited to breakfast at
the table of the great officers of the household. In wine there is
truth; and the new comer, forgetting his part, explained himself so
clearly, that it was (p. 271) easy to distinguish in him a false
brother. He told us, that the national guard of Paris, and all the
imperial guard, were for the King: that every soldier, who retained
his fidelity, had a gift of a hundred francs, every officer a
thousand, and was promoted a step, &c. &c; that Napoleon had been
outlawed, and that if he were taken…. At these words Colonel ***,
who sat next him, seized him by the collar; every body was for
knocking him on the head at once; I alone was against it. “Gentlemen,”
said I, “the Emperor will not hear of any blood being shed; you have
sworn to give no quarter to assassins, but this man is not one; he is
no doubt a spy. We are not afraid of them; let them go, and report
what they have seen to those who have sent them: let us all drink the
health of our Emperor, Long live the Emperor!” He was spitten upon,
turned out, and we saw him no more.

Another deserter from the royal army presented himself, to reveal an
important secret, as he said, to the Emperor. The Emperor, who knew no
secret but strength, would not waste time in listening to him, and
sent him to me. He was an officer of hussars, the friend and
accomplice of Maubreuil. He did not think me worthy of his secrets,
and I introduced him (p. 272) to the grand Marshal. The substance of
what he said was, that he, as well as Maubreuil, had been commissioned
by the provisional government, and by very great persons, to
assassinate the Emperor, at the time of his departure for the island
of Elba: that he held in execration such an execrable crime, and would
not commit it; and that, after having once saved the life of Napoleon,
he came to place himself near his person, to make a rampart for him
with his body in case of necessity. He delivered to the grand Marshal
a memorial of Maubreuil‘s, and divers papers, of which the Emperor
directed me to give him an account. I examined them all with the
greatest care. They proved incontestably, that mysterious rendezvous
had been given to Maubreuil in the name of the provisional government;
but they contained no clue, that could enable any one to penetrate the
object and end of these secret conferences: the names of those
illustrious personages, whom some persons have since been desirous of
implicating in this odious plot, were not even mentioned in them. This
officer reaped no benefit from his disclosures, real or pretended, and
disappeared.

From hearing so much of plots against his life, however, a painful
impression was at length (p. 273) made on the Emperor. “I cannot
conceive,” said he to me, “how men liable to fall into my hands can be
incessantly urging my assassination, and setting a price upon my head.
Had I wished to get rid of them by similar means, they would long ago
have been mingled with the dust. Like them, I could have found
Georges, Brularts, and Maubreuils. Twenty times, if I had wished it,
persons would have brought them to me bound hands and feet, dead or
alive. I had always the foolish generosity, to despise their rage: I
despise it still; but wo betide them, wo to all their infernal gang,
if they dare touch one of my people! My blood boils, when I think,
that they have dared, in the face of nations, to proscribe without
trial the thousands of Frenchmen, who are marching with us: is this
known to the army?”—”Yes, sire, some persons have had the imprudence,
to spread the report, that we are all proclaimed out of the protection
of the laws, and that some of the body guards and Chouans have set out
to assassinate you: accordingly, the troops have sworn, to give them
no quarter, and already two spies have with difficulty escaped being
knocked on the head before my eyes.”—”So much the (p. 274) worse, so
much the worse; such are not my intentions. I wish not a single drop
of French blood to be shed, not a single gun to be fired. Girard[67]
must be desired to restrain his soldiers; write: “General Girard, I am
informed, that your troops, being acquainted with the decrees of
Paris, have resolved, by way of reprisals, to kill all the Royalists
they meet: you will meet none but Frenchmen; I forbid you to fire a
single musket: calm your soldiers; contradict the reports by which
they are exasperated; tell them, that I will not enter Paris at their
head, if their weapons be stained with French blood[68].””

Ministers of the King, guilty authors of the parricidal ordinance of
the 6th of March, read this and blush!

The moment he was quitting Auxerre, the (p. 275) Emperor heard, that
the Marseillese appeared to have an intention of annoying his rear. He
gave orders to the general posted in échelon on the road, and set out
without fear.

In advance of Fossard, he perceived, drawn up in order of battle, the
dragoons of the King’s regiment, who had deserted their officers, to
come and join him. He alighted, saluted them with that military
gravity, which so well became him, and bestowed on them compliments
and promotions. No regiment could escape us. When the officers
demurred, the soldiers came without them. I am wrong, however: there
was one regiment, the third of hussars, that the Emperor could not
bring over to him. The brave Moncey, who commanded it, was a man of
sound understanding, and his attachment to Napoleon, his ancient
benefactor, could not be doubted: but all men do not see with the same
eyes; some made their duty consist in running to meet Napoleon, Moncey
thought himself obliged to avoid him.

He had conjured his regiment, not to subject him to the disgrace of
being deserted. His officers and his hussars, by whom he was adored,
followed him, while they made the air ring with shouts of Long live
the Emperor! thinking thus to reconcile their respect for their
(p. 276) colonel with their devotion to the cause and person of
Napoleon.

We were informed on the road, that two thousand of the body guards
were posted in the forest of Fontainbleau. Though this account was
improbable, it was thought necessary, not to cross the forest without
precaution. At our urgent solicitation, the Emperor took about two
hundred horse to accompany him. Hitherto his only escort had been the
carriage of General Drouot, which preceded his, and mine, which closed
the march. Colonels Germanouski and Du Champ, Captain Raoul, and three
or four Polanders, galloped by the side of them. Our horses, our
postillions, our couriers, with tricoloured ribands, gave our
peaceable party an air of festivity and happiness, that formed a
singular contrast to the proscription suspended over our heads, and to
the mourning and despair of the men who had proscribed us.

We marched almost all night, as the Emperor was desirous of reaching
Fontainbleau at break of day. I observed, that I thought it would be
imprudent in him, to alight at the castle. “You are a child,” answered
he; “if any thing be to happen to me, all these precautions would be
of no avail. Our fate is (p. 277) written above:” and he pointed with
his finger to the sky[69].

I had imagined, that the sight of the palace of Fontainbleau, the
place where he had so lately descended from the throne, and where he
now re-appeared as conqueror and sovereign, would make some impression
on him, and impel him to think of the fragility of human grandeur. I
watched him attentively; but he did not appear to me, to experience
any emotion. Immediately on his arrival, he rambled over the gardens
and the palace with as much pleasure and curiosity, as if he came to
take possession of them for the first time. Napoleon occupied the
little apartments, and complaisantly made me notice their extreme
elegance. He then led me to his library, and in going up, said with an
air of satisfaction, “We shall be very well here.”—”Yes, sire,”
answered I, “people are always well at home.” He smiled, and I believe
was pleased with my well-timed compliment.

(p. 278) At eleven o’clock he dictated to me the orders of the day;
and these orders announced, that we should sleep at Essonne. It was
not till noon, that the news of the King’s departure was brought at
once by a courier from M. de Lavalette, by a letter from Madame
Hamalin, and by M. de Ség…. He sent for me immediately. “You will
set out first,” he said, “to get every thing ready.”—”It is to
Essonne, I presume, your Majesty orders me to repair?”—”No, to Paris.
The King and the Princes have fled. I shall be at the Tuileries this
evening.” He gave me some secret directions, and I quitted
Fontainbleau with a heart full of happiness and joy. I had never
doubted Napoleon’s triumph; but from hope to reality how great the
distance!

In fact the King had quitted Paris.

The aspect of affairs had never changed since the royal session of the
17th of March. The minister, persevering in his system of falsehood
and dissimulation, still distorted the truth with the same impudence,
and did not cease to predict the approaching destruction of Napoleon
and his adherents. At length, after a thousand subterfuges, it became
necessary to confess, that Napoleon was within a few leagues of Paris.
The King, whom the minister had not (p. 279) been afraid to deceive,
had scarcely time to think of retreating. In this painful situation,
he displayed a strength of mind above all praise. His courage was not
that of a warlike prince, who defends his capital inch by inch, and
trembles with rage and despair when forced to quit it; but that of a
good father, who separates himself with regret from his children, and
from the roof under which they were born. The Bonapartists themselves,
who made a great distinction between the king and his family, were not
insensible to the tears of that august and unfortunate monarch, and
sincerely prayed, that his flight might be exempted from danger and
trouble.

It was supposed, that Napoleon would make a triumphal entry into his
capital. His old grenadiers, who had marched in seventeen days a
distance that would commonly require five-and-forty, seemed, as they
approached their object, to acquire fresh strength at every step. On
the road you might see them in agitation, pressing upon and
encouraging one another. They would have marched twenty leagues in an
hour, if necessary, not to be deprived of the honour of entering Paris
by the side of Napoleon. Their hopes were disappointed: the Emperor,
(p. 280) who had witnessed their fatigues, ordered them to take a
day’s rest at Fontainbleau.

At two o’clock on the 20th of March, Napoleon set out for Paris.
Retarded by the crowd, that accumulated on his way, and by the
felicitations of the troops and the generals, who had run to meet him,
he could not reach it till nine in the evening. As soon as he
alighted, the people rushed on him; a thousand arms lifted him up, and
carried him along in triumph. Nothing could be more affecting than the
confused assembly of the crowd of officers and generals, who had
pressed into the apartments of the Tuileries at the heels of Napoleon.
Happy to see themselves once more triumphant, after so many
vicissitudes, humiliations, and disgusts, they forgot the majesty of
the place, to give themselves up without constraint to the desire of
expressing their happiness and joy. They ran to one another, and
hugged each other again and again. The halls of the palace seemed
metamorphosed into a field of battle, where friends, brothers,
unexpectedly escaped from death, found and embraced one another after
victory.

We had been so spoiled on the road, however, that the Emperor’s
reception by the (p. 281) Parisians did not answer our expectations.
Multiplied shouts of “Long live the Emperor!” saluted him on his way;
but they wanted those characters of unanimity and frenzy, which were
displayed by the acclamations, that had accompanied him from the gulf
of Juan to the gates of Paris. It would be a mistake, however, to
infer, that the Parisians did not behold the return of Napoleon with
pleasure. We must only conclude, therefore, that the Emperor missed
the proper time for his entrance.

The people of great cities are eager for sights: to move their hearts,
you must astonish their eyes. If Napoleon, instead of traversing Paris
in the evening, and without being announced or expected, had put it
off till the next day, and allowed the disquietudes inseparable from
such a crisis time to be allayed; if he had given his entrance the
pomp and splendour it ought to have had; if he had caused the troops
and half-pay officers, who had hastened to his call, to march before
him; if he had presented himself at the head of his grenadiers of the
island of Elba, with all their decorations; if he had been surrounded
by Generals Bertrand, Drouot, Cambronne, and the faithful companions
of his exile; (p. 282) this grand and affecting train would have
produced the most lively sensation, and the whole population of Paris
would have applauded the return and the triumph of Napoleon. Instead
of those unanimous transports, he received only the applauses of the
populous part of the capital, that he had occasion to traverse; and
his detractors did not fail, to compare this reception with that of
Louis XVIII., and to publish, that he was obliged to enter Paris by
night, in order to escape the maledictions and vengeance of the
public. Napoleon, who had just travelled two hundred and fifty leagues
amid the acclamations of two millions of Frenchmen, could not be
agitated by any such fears; but it is well known with what confidence,
what intoxication, he was inspired by the anniversary of a victory or
happy event; and as the 20th of March was the birthday of his son, he
determined at all events to enter the capital under such fortunate
auspices.

The very evening of his arrival, Napoleon had a long conversation with
the Duke of Otranto, and the other dignitaries of the state, on the
situation of France. They all appeared intoxicated with happiness and
hope. The Emperor himself could not disguise his rapture: (p. 283)
never did I see him so madly gay, or so prodigal of boxes on the
ear.[70] His conversation savoured of the agitation of his heart: the
same words incessantly recurred to his tongue; and, it must be
confessed, they were not very flattering to the crowd of courtiers and
great personages, who already besieged him: he was continually saying:
“It was the disinterested persons, who brought me back to Paris; the
sub-lieutenants and soldiers did every thing; I owe all to the people
and the army.”

That night and the following morning the Emperor was busied in the
choice and nomination of his ministers.

At their head Prince Cambacérès found himself placed. The system of
defamation directed against him had not altered the high
consideration, which he had acquired by his great wisdom, and constant
moderation. The Emperor offered him the port-folio of the minister of
justice, and was obliged to command him to accept it. His sagacity and
foresight, no doubt, presaged the fatal issue of the new reign of
Napoleon.

(p. 284) The Prince of Eckmuhl was named minister of war. By the
harshness of his manners, by acts of severity almost barbarous, he had
formerly drawn upon himself universal animadversions; his fidelity to
the Emperor, and his defence of Hamburgh, had subsequently conciliated
public opinion. The feebleness and versatility of his character indeed
excited some apprehensions; but it was hoped, that the Emperor would
know how to master him, and that the army would derive happy
advantages from his indefatigable zeal, and his strict probity.

The Duke of Vicenza[71] was placed at the (p. 285) helm of foreign
affairs. The rectitude of his principles, the firmness, nobleness, and
independence of his character, had justly acquired him the esteem of
France and of Europe; and his appointment was considered as a pledge
of the loyal and pacific intentions of Napoleon.

The Duke of Gaëta and Count Mollien became again ministers of the
finances and the treasury. They had obtained the confidence of the
public by the ability, prudence, and integrity of their preceding
administration; and the choice of them met with general applause.

The Duke of Otranto had the charge of the police. He had been at the
helm of the state in circumstances of difficulty and peril; he had
learned to form a sound judgment of the public mind, and to foresee,
prepare, and guide events. Having belonged to all parties in
succession, he knew their tactics, their resources, their pretensions;
and the whole nation, convinced of (p. 286) his experience, talents,
and patriotism, hoped, that he would successfully concur in the safety
of the Emperor and the empire.

The recall of the Duke of Bassano to the ministry, as secretary of
state, displeased the court, and also those credulous people, who,
having no opinions but what are suggested to them, adopt praise and
blame without discernment.

Few men have been so ill treated, as this minister.

Every one has taken pleasure in disfiguring his character and even his
features.

The Duke of Bassano had an open countenance, an agreeable manner of
conversation, a politeness always uniform, a dignity sometimes
affected, but never offensive, with a natural propensity to esteem
men, courtesy in obliging them, and perseverance in serving them. The
favour he enjoyed was at first the reward of unexampled readiness in
business; of indefatigable activity; of pure intentions, lofty views,
probity, proof against all temptation, and I will even add an iron
constitution; for physical strength also was a quality in the eyes of
Napoleon. Subsequently it became the just return for an attachment not
to be shaken; an attachment, which, by its force, vivacity, and
constancy, (p. 287) seemed to be a compound of love and friendship.

I must own, I believe, that M. de Bassano most frequently shared and
approved without exception the opinions of the Emperor; but it was not
from interested or base motives: the Emperor was the idol of his
heart, the object of his admiration: with such sentiments, how was it
possible for him, to perceive the errors and faults of Napoleon?
Besides, having continually to express the ideas of the Emperor, and
to imbue himself as it were with the emanations of his spirit, he had
identified himself with his way of thinking and of viewing things, and
saw and thought as he did with the most perfect sincerity. Not but
that he sometimes differed from him in opinion; yet whatever efforts
he made, he always yielded ultimately to the irresistible ascendancy,
that the genius of Napoleon exercised over him, as it did over every
other person.

The Duke of Decrès was called anew to the post of minister of the
navy, and this unexpected choice was completely disapproved. This
minister was not deficient in understanding, talents, or bravery; but
from the little importance he appeared to set on acting with justice
or injustice, his cynicism, and his brutal (p. 288) contempt for
those under him, he had acquired the aversion of all who came near
him; and, as evil spreads readily, this aversion, though unjust, had
become general.

The discontent this appointment excited was repaired by the good
effect, which was produced by that of M. Carnot to the ministry of the
home department. The soldiery did not forget, that he had paved the
way to victory for many years; and the citizens remembered with what
zeal, this courageous patriot had shown himself the defender of public
liberty under Napoleon, both when consul and when Emperor, and under
Louis XVIII. To be a real patriot, says one of our celebrated writers,
it is requisite, to possess greatness of soul; to have knowledge, to
have probity, to have virtue. In M. Carnot all these rare and valuable
qualities were combined: and, far from acquiring any personal lustre
from this great name of patriot, he seemed on the contrary to
embellish the name by wearing it; so well had he preserved it in its
primitive purity, amid the debasement into which it had been plunged
by the excesses of the revolution, and the abuses of despotism.

The choice of such a minister was considered as a pledge to the
nation. The sovereign, who was not afraid to introduce this
illustrious (p. 289) citizen into the government of the state, could
not but entertain the generous design of securing the happiness of his
subjects, and respecting their rights.

The same day the Emperor gave the chief command of the gendarmerie to
the Duke of Rovigo.

The Duke of Rovigo, an old aide-de-camp of Napoleon, had sworn him an
eternal attachment, both from feeling and gratitude. This attachment,
born in a camp, had retained the character of military obedience: a
word, a gesture, was sufficient to call it into action. But however
great its strength, or, if you will, its fanaticism, it never affected
the rectitude and frankness, which were the base and ornament of the
duke’s character.

From no other person, except the Duke of Vicenza, did the Emperor hear
more bold and useful truths. Twenty times did he venture to say to
him, as his ministerial correspondence testifies, that France and
Europe were tired of shedding blood; and that, if he did not renounce
his system of war, he would be abandoned by the French, and
precipitated from the throne by foreigners.

The command of the gendarmerie was taken from Marshal Moncey, not from
disgust or dissatisfaction, (p. 290) but because the marshal showed
little eagerness to retain it. On this occasion he wrote to the
Emperor a letter full of fine sentiments, in which he requested him,
to continue to his son the kindness he had formerly conferred on
himself: it was difficult to reconcile the gratitude he owed Napoleon
with the fidelity he had promised the King: in this he was so happy as
to succeed.

All the marshals were not so fortunate.

M. de Montalivet, formerly minister of the home department, became
intendant of the civil list, an office that suited him better. In
administration, as in many other things, endeavours to do better
prevent people from doing so well; and M. de Montalivet, from a desire
to neglect no minute particular, and seeking to carry every thing to
perfection, lost in empty trifles that time, which he might have
employed in promoting the general good on a large scale.

The strangest metamorphosis was that of the Duke de Cadore: he was
made a surveyor of buildings.

“Soyez plutôt maçon, si c’est votre métier.”[72]

(p. 291) This place, hitherto the modest portion of auditors or
masters of request, who had interest at court, was astonished at the
honour of belonging to a duke and peer, ex-ambassador, ex-minister,
ex-grand chancellor, &c. &c. &c. But so much was his excellency then
devoted to the sovereign of the day, that he would readily have
accepted the post of a gentleman usher, had there been no other to
offer him.

The council of state was re-established on the ancient footing, and
composed of nearly the same members.

The Emperor was neither politic nor prudent in ostensibly bestowing
his confidence on some of them, who were obnoxious to the public. The
usurpations of the imperial power were ascribed to their servile
counsels, and their presence near the throne could not but revive
recollections and anxieties, which it was of importance to destroy for
ever. If their merit and experience rendered them necessary, they
should have been consulted in private, but not held up to public view.
A government firmly established may sometimes brave opinion, but a
rising government ought to respect and submit to it.

All the aides-de-camp of the Emperor, with the exception, I believe,
of General Lauriston, (p. 292) whom he would not employ again, were
recalled. He could not place around him officers more worthy of his
confidence for their noble-mindedness and superior talents. Generals
Le Tort and Labedoyère were added to their number. The Emperor,
deceived by false appearances[73], had taken from the former the
command of the dragoons of the guard, and to compensate for this
involuntary injustice, he made him his aide-de-camp. The same favour
was conferred on Labedoyère, as a recompense for his conduct at
Grenoble; but he answered the kindness of Napoleon by a formal
refusal. “I will not allow it to be thought,” said he proudly, “that I
joined the Emperor for the sake of reward. I espoused his cause,
simply because it was that of liberty, and of my country; the honour
of having served it is enough for me: I desire nothing more; the
Emperor personally owes me nothing.”

This noble refusal will not surprise those, who had an opportunity of
knowing and esteeming the patriotism and disinterestedness of that
brave and unfortunate young man.

Introduced to society at an early age, he conducted himself at first
as those generally do, (p. 293) who have a handsome face, elegance of
manners, wit, a name, wealth, and no experience. Soon brought to
himself, he felt, that he was not born to lead a life of dissipation;
and his conduct became as honourable, as it had been irregular. His
mind, turned to serious occupation, engaged in political speculations:
his soul, naturally proud and independent, matured and enlarged
itself, and expanded to those liberal ideas and noble sentiments, that
the love of glory and of our country inspires. Nature, in giving him a
lofty, firm, and daring character, unquestionably destined him to act
an important part in the world; and if death, and what a death! had
not struck him in the flower of his years, he would assuredly have
fulfilled his shining destiny, and done honour to France.

The Emperor set several persons to speak to him, and after three days
negotiations Labedoyère yielded. Napoleon persisted in recompensing
him. In ordinary cases, the Emperor looked with indifference on the
endeavours made to please him; never was he known to say, I am
pleased; and a person conjectured he had given him satisfaction, when
he did not show any marks of discontent. If, on the other hand, the
services rendered him made a noise, (p. 294) like those of
Labedoyère, he was lavish of his praises and rewards: and in this he
had two objects; the one, that of appearing not only just, but
generous; the other, that of inspiring emulation. But frequently on
the very day, on which he had bestowed on you praises, and proofs of
his satisfaction, he would treat you with disdain and harshness, to
prevent your attaching too much importance to the service you might
have rendered him, or believing, that he had contracted a debt of
obligation to you.

The Emperor replaced about his person most of the gentlemen of the
bedchamber, equerries, and masters of ceremonies, who were with him in
1814. He had retained his unfortunate predilection for the great lords
of former times, and must have them at any price: had he not been
surrounded by ancient nobles, he would have fancied himself in a
republic.

Most of these (for there were some who were most honourably excepted,
as the Prince de Beauveau, Messrs. de Turenne, de Montholon, de
Lascases, Forbin de Janson, Perregaux, &c. &c.) had meanly renounced
him in 1814, and become the common valets of the Bourbons; but he
would not believe a word of (p. 295) it. He had the weakness, common
to all princes, of considering his most cringing courtiers as his most
devoted subjects.

He would also form an establishment for the Empress, and re-appointed
Mesdames de Bassano, de Vicenza, de Rovigo, Duchâtel, and Marmier,
ladies of the bedchamber. The Duchess of M*** was not recalled. He
heard from Prince Joseph, that after the events of Fontainbleau, she
had abused the confidence of the Empress, and betrayed the secret of
her correspondence.

It was said, but falsely, that the gracefulness and beauty of the
Duchess had formerly obtained the homage of Napoleon; and her disgrace
did not fail to be urged as a fresh proof of the inconstancy of men;
but I have assigned the true and only cause.

The corruption of courts often sanctions a number of lying
suppositions, against which few reputations can stand. This justice
however must be done Napoleon; no prince was ever a man of purer
manners, or took so much pains to avoid and even check scandal: he was
never seen, to be followed to the army by his mistresses, like Louis
XIV.; or disguised in the dress of a porter, or of a small-coal man,
like (p. 296) Henry IV., to carry disgrace and despair into the
houses of his most faithful servants.

As a pretty remarkable contrast, Napoleon, at the moment when he
resumed with delight his own upper servants, sent about their business
without pity the lacqueys, who had served Louis XVIII. and the
princes.

“De tout tems les petits ont payé pour les grands.”[74]

These poor people were left destitute. It has been said and repeated a
hundred times, that Napoleon ill-treated and struck all those who came
near him, right or wrong. Nothing can be more false. He had his
moments of impatience and warmth; and what honest citizen has not? But
in general, the officers and even subalterns of his household were in
easy circumstances with him, and he was more frequently in a gay than
in a serious humour. He very easily became attached to a person; and
when he liked any one, he could not do without him; and treated him
with a kindness, that frequently degenerated into weakness. It is
true, it would have been very difficult for him (p. 297) to find
servants more able, or more devotedly attached to him: every one of
them had made it his particular study, to become, not what he did
wish, but what he might wish.

Tacitus has observed, that voluntary slaves make more tyrants, than
tyrants make slaves. When we recollect the officiousness, the
meannesses, and the adulation, of certain nobles, who had become the
courtiers of Napoleon, we are astonished, that it never entered his
head to follow the example of Alexander, and cause himself to be
adored as a god.

Counts Drouot and Bertrand were retained in their posts of grand
marshal of the palace, and major-general of the guards. It had been
imagined, that the Emperor would have conferred on them the titles of
Duke of Porto Ferrajo, and Duke of Porto Longone, as memorials of
their fidelity. He did no such thing. They were fully recompensed,
however, by the veneration, with which Frenchmen and foreigners were
inspired for them both. Still, for what reason, I cannot conceive, a
higher value was generally set on the devoted attachment of General
Bertrand.

When the Emperor had laid down his crown, Count Drouot did not
hesitate an instant, to preserve that fidelity to him in adversity,
which (p. 298) he had sworn in his prosperity: and this fidelity was
not in his eyes a proof of attachment, still less a sacrifice; it
appeared to him only the natural fulfilment of a duty imposed on him
by the kindnesses and misfortunes of Napoleon.

To follow him, he abandoned all that is most dear to a well-born mind,
his family and his country, as well as the military career, in which
he had acquired the most glorious renown.

Transported into the midst of the seas, he frequently cast his looks
towards the land of his birth: but no regret, no complaint, escaped
from his heart. His conscience was satisfied, how could he be unhappy?
As disinterested in the service of the sovereign of the island of
Elba, as he had been in that of the Emperor of the French[75], though
poor, he would receive no reward from Napoleon: “Give me food and
clothing,” said he, “I want nothing more.” The most seducing offers
were lavished on him, to draw him over to the Bourbons. To these he
was insensible; and he felt no difficulty in (p. 299) preferring the
rock of Napoleon to the lustre of their throne.

Such was General Drouot; and such also was his worthy rival, Count
Bertrand; for there existed no difference in the generosity of their
conduct, and none ought to exist in the admiration they deserve.

The Emperor himself was not free from this injustice: he seemed to
give the preference to Count Bertrand. This difference proceeded, I
believe, from that degree of intimacy, which the functions of the
grand Marshal established between the Emperor and him, and perhaps
from the suitableness of their characters.

Bertrand, amiable, witty, insinuating, united the agreeable and
polished manners of a courtier with an air of distinction. Feeble,
irresolute, in the ordinary conduct of life; he yielded to no one in
courage and firmness, on occasions of difficulty and danger. A
stranger to intrigue, inaccessible to seduction, he was in the camp,
as in the palace, a man of honour, a man of probity.

Drouot, simple in his manners, affectionate in his speech, displayed
that rare assemblage of virtues, which compel us to love the sages of
antiquity, and the heroes of the days of chivalry. (p. 300) He had
the wisdom, the prudence of Aristides, the valour, the modesty, the
loyalty of Bayard. The favour he enjoyed, the military power with
which he was invested, inspired him with no pride: he was not less
humble and timid at court, than he was terrible and daring in the
field of honour.

Bertrand, when he was consulted, delivered his opinion with the
caution and skill of a courtier; Drouot, with the precision and
frankness of a soldier: but neither was false to his conscience. Their
language, though different in structure, was the same in substance; it
was always that of truth and honour.

The Emperor, though greatly fatigued by nocturnal marches, reviews,
perpetual harangues, and his labours in the closet, which for the last
thirty-six hours had occupied all his moments, would nevertheless
review the troops, that previously composed the army of the Duke of
Berri.

He caused them to be assembled in the court of the Tuileries; and, to
use his own words, “The whole capital was witness to the sentiments of
enthusiasm and attachment, by which those brave troops were animated:
they seemed to have reconquered their country, and found (p. 301)
again in the national colours the remembrance of all those generous
sentiments, which have ever distinguished the French nation.”

After having gone through the ranks, he made the troops form square
battalions, and said to them:

“Soldiers, I came to France with six hundred men, because I reckoned
on the love of the people, and the remembrance of the old soldiers. I
have not been deceived in my expectations: soldiers, I thank you. The
glory of what we have just done belongs wholly to you and to the
people, mine is only that of having known you, and judged you rightly.

“Soldiers, the imperial throne only can guarantie the rights of the
people, and more especially the first of our interests, that of our
glory. Soldiers, we are going to march, to chase from our territories
those princes, who are the auxiliaries of foreigners. The nation will
not only second us with its good wishes, but will follow our impulse.
The French people and myself depend upon you: we will not interfere
with the affairs of foreign nations; and wo to the nation, that shall
interfere with ours!”

At this moment General Cambronne, and some officers of the guards of
the battalion of the island of Elba, appeared with the ancient
(p. 302) eagles of the guard: the Emperor resumed his harangue, and
said[76]: “Here are the officers of the battalion, who accompanied me
in my adversity: they are all my friends, they were dear to my heart!
Whenever I saw them, they reminded me of the different regiments of
the army; for among these six hundred brave fellows are men from every
regiment. They recalled to my mind those great victories, the
remembrance of which is so dear; for they are all well covered with
honourable scars received in those memorable battles! In loving them,
it was all of you, soldiers, of the whole French army, whom I loved.
They bring back to you these eagles; let them serve you as a rallying
point: in giving them to the guards, I give them to the whole army.”

“Treason and unfortunate circumstances had covered them with a
funereal veil: but, thanks to the French people and to you, they
appear again resplendent with all their glory. Swear, that they shall
always be found, wherever the interests of our country call them! that
traitors, and those who would invade our territories, shall never
stand their appearance.”

“We swear it,” answered all the soldiers with (p. 303) enthusiasm.
They then filed off with shouts of “Long live the Emperor!” and to the
sound of military music, playing the favourite tunes of the
revolution, and the Marseillese march, so celebrated in the annals of
our crimes and our victories.

When the review was over, the Emperor returned to his closet, and
applied himself immediately to business. His situation rendered it
necessary, that he should ascertain without delay the precise state of
the country, of the government of which he had resumed the reins. This
was so vast an undertaking, that the faculties of any other man would
have been overwhelmed by it. He found the writing table covered with
mystic authors[77]; and substituted (p. 304) for them plans and maps.
“The closet of a French monarch,” said he, “should resemble the tent
of a general, not an oratory.” His eyes rested on the map of France.
After having contemplated its recent limits, he exclaimed in a tone of
profound sorrow, “Poor France!” He kept silence a few minutes, and
then began to hum in a low voice one of his usual burdens of songs:

“S’il est un tems pour la folie,
Il en est un pour la raison[78].”

The Emperor entered his closet habitually (p. 305) before six in the
morning, and seldom quitted it till night.

Impatience and vivacity are almost always incompatible with order and
precision. Napoleon, destined to be like no other person, added to the
fire of genius the methodical habits of cold and little minds. For the
most part, he took care to arrange his numerous papers himself. Each
of them had its settled place. Here was found whatever related to the
war department: there, the budgets, the daily statements of the
treasury and finances: farther on, the reports of the police, his
secret correspondence with his private agents, &c. He carefully
returned every thing to its place, after having used it: compared with
him the most methodical clerk would have been but a bungler.

His first business was to read his correspondence, and the despatches
that had arrived in the night. He put aside the interesting letters,
and threw the rest on the floor: this he called his answered.

He afterwards examined the copies of letters opened at the post
office, and burnt them immediately. It seemed, as if he wished to
annihilate all traces of the abuse of power, of which he had been
guilty.

He finished by casting an eye over the newspapers. (p. 306) Sometimes
he said, “That’s a good article; whose is it?” He must know every
thing.

These several readings ended, he set to work; and it may be said
without exaggeration, that he was then as extraordinary, as
incomparable, as at the head of his armies.

As he would entrust to nobody the supreme care of the government, he
saw every thing himself; and it is easy to conceive, on what a
multiplicity of objects he had to fix his eyes. Independently of his
ministers, the Duke of Bassano, the commandant of the first division
of Paris, the prefect of the police, the inspector general of the
gendarmerie, the major-general of guards, the grand marshal of the
palace, the great officers of the crown, the aides-de-camp, and the
orderly officers (officiers d’ordonnance) on missions, daily sent
him circumstantial reports, which he examined, and answered
immediately: it being a maxim with him, to put nothing off till
to-morrow. And let it not be supposed, that he satisfied himself with
a superficial judgment of affairs: he read every report through, and
examined every voucher attentively. Frequently the super-human
sagacity, with which he was gifted, enabled him to perceive errors and
imperfections, that had escaped (p. 307) the scrutinizing eyes of his
ministers; and then he corrected their labours. But still more
frequently he fashioned them anew from beginning to end; and what was
a fortnight’s work to a whole ministry, scarcely cost the genius of
Napoleon a few minutes.

The Emperor rarely sat down, but dictated as he walked about. He did
not like to repeat his words; and if you asked him a word not clearly
understood, he answered impatiently, “I said,” and went on.

When he had to treat a subject worthy of himself, his style,
habitually nervous and concise, rose to the level of his grand
conceptions: it became majestic and sublime.

If the possibility of expressing his ideas was shackled by the want of
the proper word; or if the customary terms did not appear to him
sufficiently strong, sufficiently animated, he brought together words,
that were astonished to find themselves in each other’s company, and
created a language of his own, a language rich and impressive, that
might sometimes infringe established rules, but compensated this happy
fault, by giving more loftiness and vigour to his thoughts[79].

(p. 308) Sometimes, hurried away by the impetuosity of his character,
and eager to arrive more quickly at his object, he did not take time
to weigh his words, his ideas, his desires. When his orders had been
dictated to us in such a fit of hastiness, we were careful, as far as
possible, not to present them for signing the same day. The next day,
they were almost always modified, softened, or torn. Napoleon was
never displeased with us, for endeavouring to guard him against the
dangers of precipitancy. They who think, that he never corrected a
false step, are mistaken: if under certain circumstances his
determinations were inflexible, in a number of others he yielded to
remonstrance, and relinquished his projects and resolves without
difficulty.

The Emperor seldom wrote with his own hand. Words of many syllables
were tedious to him; and, not having patience to write them at length,
he mutilated them. This habit, (p. 309) added to the defective
formation of his letters, rendered his writing altogether illegible.
Frequently, too, from carelessness, or absence of mind, he infringed
the laws of orthography; and people have not failed thence to infer,
that he was completely ignorant.

Most assuredly the ignorance of Napoleon, were it proved, would
detract nothing from his glory and renown. Charlemagne could scarcely
sign his own name. Louis XIV., and I quote him by choice, though born
on a throne, was unacquainted with the rules of grammar. Yet
Charlemagne and Louis were nevertheless great kings. The imputation,
however, is as false as it is absurd. Napoleon, educated at the school
of Brienne, was distinguished there by that facility of comprehension,
that disdain of pleasure, that fondness for study, that enthusiastic
regard for models of greatness, which commonly indicate superior
minds. Destined for the profession of arms, he would not aspire to
become a man of letters, a man of reading, a learned man: his object,
for he had an object in his earliest years, was to become some day a
distinguished officer, perhaps even a great captain. It was to the
military sciences, therefore, he bent his genius … the universe
knows the rest.

But do I say his genius? the detractors of (p. 310) Napoleon also
assert, that his mind was too subject to irregularities, for the
possession of genius to be granted him: do they not know, or do they
pretend to be ignorant, that such irregularities are on the contrary
the proof, the distinguishing characteristics, of this precious gift
of nature.

“Genius,” says one of our philosophers, “rises and stoops by turns; it
is often imperfect, because it does not take the trouble to improve
itself. It is great in great things, because they are adapted to
excite its sublime instinct, and call it into action. It is negligent
in ordinary things, because they are beneath it, and have nothing in
them to stir it up: if, however, it do turn its attention to them, it
fertilizes them, aggrandizes them, and gives them a new and unexpected
appearance, that had escaped vulgar eyes.”

And with how vast a genius must he have been endowed! he, who,
occupied by the torments of ambition, military calculations, political
schemes, and the anxieties inspired by the enemies of his crown and of
his life, still found sufficient time, sufficient calmness, sufficient
power, to command his numerous armies; to govern twenty foreign
nations, and forty millions of subjects; to enter solicitously into
all the particulars of the administration of his (p. 311) states; to
see every thing; to sift every thing to the bottom; to regulate every
thing; in fine, to conceive, create, and realize those unexpected
improvements, those bold innovations, those noble institutions, and
those immortal codes, that raise the civil glory of France to a degree
of superiority, which alone can match its military glory. But I know
not why I attempt to combat such adversaries: they who are blind to
the genius of Napoleon, have never known genius itself, and I ought to
give them no answer, but that of Rousseau: “Silence, ye uninitiated!”

The Emperor, by his decrees issued at Lyons, had in some degree
repaired the wrongs imputed to the royal government. One grievance
still remained for him; the slavery of the press. The decree of the
24th of March[80], by suppressing (p. 312) the censors, the
censorship, and the superintendance of the bookselling trade,
completed the imperial restoration.

This last concession was unquestionably the greatest, that Napoleon
could make to public opinion. A press in the general interest of the
people is the surest protection of their rights. It is the most noble
conquest liberty can gain over despotism: to honest men it gives
dignity; it inspires them with the love of their country, and of the
laws; in fine, according to the English definition, it is the mother
of all liberty: but in times of trouble and of revolution, it is a
dangerous weapon in the hands of the wicked; and the Emperor foresaw,
that the royalists would employ it in the cause of the Bourbons; and
the Jacobins, to calumniate his sentiments, and render his designs
suspected. But, a declared enemy of half-measures, he resolved, since
he had set thought at liberty, that it should circulate
unshackled[81].

(p. 313) This decree, and those that preceded it, were undoubtedly
sufficient to testify to the nation the liberal disposition of
Napoleon: but no speech from the throne had yet declared with
solemnity the positive intentions of the Emperor.

At length he fixed on Sunday, the 26th of March, as the day, on which
he would make his new profession of faith in the face of the
nation[82].

The ministers, the council of state, the court of cassation, the court
of accounts, the imperial court, the prefect, and the municipal
council of Paris, were admitted to the foot of the throne.

The prince arch-chancellor, speaking in the name of the ministers,
said:

“Sire, Providence, that watches over our destiny, has re-opened to
your Majesty the road to that throne, to which you had been raised by
the free choice of the people, and the national gratitude. Our country
raises its majestic (p. 314) brow, and for the second time salutes
with the name of deliverer the prince, who destroyed anarchy, and
whose existence alone is at present capable of consolidating our
liberal institutions.

“The most just of revolutions, that which will restore to men their
dignity, and all their political rights, has hurled from the throne
the dynasty of the Bourbons. After five and twenty years of war and
troubles, all the efforts of foreigners have proved unable, to awaken
affections that are extinct, or wholly unknown to the present
generation. The struggle of the interests and prejudices of a few
against the enlightened state of the age, and the interests of a great
nation, is at length terminated.

“Our destinies are accomplished: the only legitimate cause, the cause
of the people, has triumphed. Your Majesty has yielded to the wishes
of the French; you have seized anew the reins of the state, amid the
benedictions of the people and of the army.

“France, Sire, has as a guarantee of it her will, and her dearest
interests; she has as a guarantee of it all that your Majesty has said
to the population of the different parts of the country, which
assembled in crowds on your passage. Your Majesty will keep your word,
you will remember only the services rendered your country; (p. 315)
you will prove, that in your eyes, and in your heart, whatever the
different opinions and exasperations of parties may have been, all
citizens are equal, as they are in the eye of the law.

“Your Majesty will also forget, that we have been the masters of the
nations around us. Generous idea! that adds another glory to the glory
already acquired.

“Already has Your Majesty traced out to your ministers the path they
have to pursue: already have you made known to all the people by your
proclamations the maxims, by which you would have your empire governed
for the future. No war without, unless to repel unjust aggression; no
re-action within, no arbitrary proceedings; security of person,
security of property, and the free circulation of opinions, are the
principles you have sanctioned.

“Happy those, Sire, who are called to cooperate in so many sublime
acts! Such benefits will ensure to you from posterity, when the days
of adulation are at an end, the name of Father of your country: they
will be guarantied to our children by the august heir, whom your
Majesty is preparing to crown in the Champ de Mai.”

The Emperor answered:

“The sentiments you have expressed to me (p. 316) are mine. ‘Every
thing agreeably to the sense of the nation, and every thing for
France:’ such is my motto.

“I and my family, whom this great people has raised to the French
throne, and maintained on it in spite of vicissitudes and political
tempests, will not, ought not, cannot, ever claim any other title to
it.”

The Count Défermon, father of the presidents of the council of state,
delivered to the Emperor the following declaration, tending to prove
the nullity of the abdication of Fontainbleau:

“The council of state, in resuming its functions, thinks it necessary
to make known the principles, by which its conduct and opinions are
guided.

“The sovereignty resides in the people, who are the only legitimate
source of power.

“In 1789 the nation recovered its rights, which had long been usurped,
or misunderstood.

“The National Assembly abolished the feudal monarchy, and established
a constitutional monarchy, and a representative government.

“The resistance of the Bourbons to the wishes of the people occasioned
their downfal, and their banishment from the French territories.

(p. 317) “Twice the people sanctioned by its votes the new form of
government established by its representatives.

“In the year 8th, Bonaparte, already crowned by victory, found himself
raised to the government by the assent of the nation. A constitution
created the consular magistracy.

“The senatus consultum of the 16th of Thermidor, year 10, named
Bonaparte consul for life.

“The senatus consultum of the 28th of Floréal, year 12, conferred on
Napoleon the imperial dignity, and made it hereditary in his family.

“These three solemn acts were laid for acceptance before the people,
who sanctioned them by nearly four millions of votes.

“Accordingly, the Bourbons had ceased to reign in France for two and
twenty years; they were forgotten there by their contemporaries;
strangers to our laws, our institutions, our manners, our glory; and
the present generation knew nothing of them.

“In 1814 France was invaded by the armies of the enemy, and the
capital occupied. The foreigners created a pretended provisional
government. They assembled a minority of the senators, and compelled
them, in opposition to their delegated powers and to their will, to
destroy the existing establishments, to overturn (p. 318) the
imperial throne, and to recall the family of the Bourbons.

“The senate, which had been instituted solely to maintain the
constitution of the empire, acknowledged itself, that it had no power
to alter it. It decreed, that the scheme of a constitution, which it
had prepared, should be submitted to the people for their acceptance,
and that Louis Stanislas Xavier should be proclaimed King of the
French, as soon as he had accepted the constitution, and sworn to
observe it, and cause it to be observed.

“The abdication of the Emperor Napoleon was solely the result of the
unfortunate situation, to which France and the Emperor had been
reduced by the events of the war, by treason, and by the occupation of
the capital. The only object of the abdication was, to avoid a civil
war, and the shedding of French blood. Unsanctioned by the will of the
people, this act could not annul the solemn contract, that was
established between them and the Emperor. And if Napoleon possessed
the power of abdicating the throne in his own person, he had none to
sacrifice the rights of his son, appointed to reign after him.

“The Emperor, therefore, by re-ascending (p. 319) the throne, to
which the people had elevated him, restored the people to their most
sacred rights: he only called into execution the decrees of the
Representative Assemblies, sanctioned by the nation: he returns to
reign on the only legitimate principle, that France acknowledges and
has acknowledged for five and twenty years, and to which all the
authorities bound themselves by oaths, that they can be released from
by the will of the people alone.

“The Emperor is called upon, to guaranty anew, by institutions, as he
has engaged to do in his proclamations to the nation and the army, all
the principles of liberty: personal freedom, and equality of rights;
the freedom of the press, and abolition of the censorship; freedom of
religious worship; the voting of laws and contributions by the
representatives of the nation lawfully chosen; national property, from
whatever source arising; the independence and stability of our
tribunals; the responsibility of ministers, and of all the agents of
authority.

“The more perfectly to sanction the rights and obligations of the
people and the monarch, the national institutions should be revised in
a grand assembly of the representatives already announced by the
Emperor.

“Previous to the meeting of this grand representative (p. 320)
assembly, the Emperor ought to exercise, and cause to be exercised,
conformably to the existing laws and constitution, the authority they
have delegated to him, which could not be taken from him, which he
could not abdicate without the consent of the nation, and which the
wishes and general interest of the French people render it his duty to
resume.”

The Emperor answered:

“Princes are the first citizens of the state: their authority is more
or less extensive according to the interests of the nations they
govern: the sovereignty itself is hereditary only because the interest
of the people requires it. I know nothing of a legitimacy extraneous
to these principles.

“I have renounced the idea of that grand empire, of which in the
course of fifteen years I had merely laid the foundations:
henceforward the happiness and consolidation of the French empire will
be the object of all my thoughts.”

The court of cassation expressed the same principles and the same
sentiments as the council of state.

To this the Emperor answered:

“In the earliest ages of the French monarchy, rude tribes made
themselves masters of Gaul. (p. 321) The sovereignty, of course, was
not framed for the benefit of the Gauls, who were slaves, or destitute
of political rights; but for the benefit of the conquering tribe. It
can never have been said with truth, therefore, in any period of
history, in any nation, even in the east, that the people exist for
kings. Every where it has been established, that kings exist only for
the people. A dynasty created under circumstances, that have created
so many new interests, being itself interested in the maintenance of
the rights and properties of all, can alone be natural and legitimate,
and in possession of strength and confidence, the two leading
characters in all government.”

The court of accounts, and the imperial court, held the same language
as the preceding authorities.

To these the Emperor answered:

“What particularly distinguishes the imperial throne is, that it has
been raised by the nation, that it is consequently natural, and that
it guaranties the interests of all. This is the true character of
legitimacy. It is the interest of this throne, to consolidate all that
at present exists, and all that has been done in France during the
twenty-five years of revolution. It comprises (p. 322) all interests,
and particularly that of the national glory, which is not the least
among them.

“Whatever has returned with the foreign armies, whatever has been done
without consulting the nation, is null. The courts of Grenoble and
Lyons, and all the tribunals of the judicial order, which I met with
while the success of events was yet uncertain, have shown me, that
these principles are engraved on the heart of every Frenchman.”

The reception of these public bodies being over, there was a grand
audience in the apartments of the palace. The answers of the Emperor,
repeated with embellishments, had produced the most profound
sensation. The words national glory, liberty, country, so long unknown
and proscribed within these walls, resounded on every side. When the
emigrants re-appeared, and the most illustrious servants of the state
were expelled, to make room for men, who had become strangers to our
manners, our institutions, and our triumphs; you would have said, that
France existed no longer, that it had passed under the dominion of
foreigners. When Napoleon returned, our country appeared to have
returned with him: he seemed to (p. 323) have brought it back from
exile, and he might then exclaim with just pride: “I am the nation.”

The example set by the magistrates of Paris soon found numerous
imitators in the departments. The public functionaries, the judicial
and administrative authorities, which but a few days before had
offered up prayers to Heaven and to the King for the extermination of
the Corsican, the tyrant, and the usurper, were eager to congratulate
the Emperor on his miraculous return; and to confer on him the
titles of hero, deliverer, and more especially of legitimate
sovereign.

Napoleon’s progress had been so rapid, that many addresses to the King
did not reach Paris before the King was gone; and all these were
delivered at the same time with the new addresses voted to his
successor[83]! I remarked this to the Emperor; who answered me with a
smile of pity: “See what men are!”

The favourites of Apollo did not fail to offer up their obsequious
incense to the god of the day. We received from the Countess de G***
some very pretty verses in honour of the violet. (p. 324) Another
woman, still more celebrated, the Baroness de S***, took occasion from
some flattering words said for her to M. B. C., to write an epistle to
the Emperor, which would make a curious figure at the head of her last
work.

The most rigid writers and lecturers on the common law, who the
evening before, with Cujas and Bartholi in their hands, had formally
impleaded Napoleon, were eager to testify their admiration of him, and
proclaim him the sovereign of sovereigns.

Thus Napoleon was more honoured and lauded than ever; and it must be
confessed, that he conducted himself so as to deserve it: on one hand
he caressed the nation, and on the other private interests, which it
is much more difficult to conciliate than what is called the public
interest.

The decrees of Lyons had sequestrated anew the estates restored to
emigrants since 1814. Part of these had been sold by those who had
recovered them; and it was necessary, to quiet the apprehensions of
the purchasers. The Emperor declared irrevocable all the sales, that
had been completed; and confirmed those, that had taken place
subsequently to the decree, when it could be proved, that they were
not collusive.

(p. 325) On the other hand, the emigrants, who had returned, had
purchased property, the price of which might not have been entirely
paid: and in order to do justice both to the emigrants and to the
sellers, he ordered, that estates recently acquired should not be
subject to sequestration, on condition of being re-sold within a
certain period.

Another decree from Lyons had indiscriminately abolished all
promotions in the legion of honour, and in the army, made since the
royal restoration. He subjected to revision the nominations, that
appeared to him the result of favour, intrigue, and venality; and
confirmed all, that had been the reward of real and meritorious
services. He would not even allow men’s opinions, to constitute a line
of demarcation and directed the minister, to pay regard to ancient
services rendered by officers since incorporated in the King’s
household.

He confirmed also the decorations granted to the national guard; and
distributed new ones among the brave pupils of the polytechnical
school, whose noble conduct had so much excited the admiration of
Paris, and of foreigners, at the time of the occurrences of 1814.

The daughters of the members of the legion (p. 326) of honour had
claims to his remembrance, and his consolation, too sacred, not to
participate in his favours. He went to visit them. His presence
excited inexpressible enthusiasm among these young orphans: they threw
themselves at his feet, embraced his knees, and watered them with
their tears. He had taken a spoon, to taste their food: after he was
gone, as every one wished to have it, they broke it to pieces, and
shared it amongst them. Most of them had braided rings of hair, on
which were traced patriotic devices, or the ingenious expression of
their sentiments for Napoleon. The Emperor having condescended to
accept some of these, and place them on his fingers, every one of the
orphans was desirous of obtaining the same favour: they rushed on him,
seized his hands, and in an instant covered them with these innocent
pledges of love and gratitude. The Emperor, moved, enchanted,
submitted with kind complaisance to the gentle fetters of these
amiable infants. They ingeniously intreated him, not to give away the
rings they had presented to him; and he promised to keep them,
assuring them, that they would be as valuable in his eyes as the
jewels of his crown.

(p. 327) The working class, who had surnamed Napoleon le grand
entrepreneur[84], also received its share of the imperial favours.
The works commenced in his reign, and buried in dust under that of the
Bourbons, were resumed with activity. The capital became, as before, a
vast workshop: and the Parisians, who had learned from strangers to
perceive the beauty of their edifices, saw with a mingled sentiment of
gratitude and pride, that new marvels were still more to embellish
their majestic city.

In fine, all classes received testimonies of the solicitude and
justice of Napoleon. Must it be said? his old companions in the island
of Elba alone were forgotten.

While Napoleon had no throne but his rock, they had shown themselves
as disinterested as faithful: when he had recovered his crown, they
flattered themselves, that they should be recompensed with generosity.

Some, whom honour alone had attached to Napoleon, enjoyed in prospect
the praises, titles, ribands, that would be bestowed on them: others,
inspired with less lofty sentiments, expected (p. 328) benefits more
solid. The guard and its worthy chiefs were ambitious only of the
favour of retaining the glorious title of grenadiers of the island of
Elba. Vain illusions! the Emperor’s thoughts, entirely absorbed by
other cares, were no longer turned to those brave fellows, who had
shared his exile and his misfortunes. The moment of forgetfulness,
however, had not time to degenerate into ingratitude: it was repaired:
promotions, endowments, indemnifications, were bestowed on them; and,
if they did not feel themselves completely satisfied with the conduct
of Napoleon, they had at least no reason to complain.

The Emperor would have wished from feeling, and perhaps too from
ostentation, to have had it in his power, to acknowledge in a manner
more worthy of himself their services and attachment: but he was
deterred by the fear of being charged with imitating the Bourbons, and
of preferring those Frenchmen, who had gone into exile with him, to
those who had retained their fidelity in their mother country.

These scruples appear to me unfounded.

The emigrants had sullied their native land with blood, shed either by
their own weapons, or in the civil wars they had fomented and
cherished; and the indignant nation had long (p. 329) combated them,
and pursued them with its maledictions, as the enemies of its
happiness and tranquillity.

The Frenchmen who returned from the island of Elba with Napoleon, on
the contrary, had spilt their blood in the defence of their country.
They were beloved, honoured, respected and the recompenses the Emperor
might have bestowed upon them, instead of tending to alienate France,
would have fulfilled her wishes. She would have enjoyed it with that
feeling of pride and pleasure, which a mother experiences, when she
hears the triumphs of her children proclaimed in the lists opened for
youth, and sees their heads adorned with the rewards of their success.

Policy, no less than justice, required, that Napoleon should confer,
even with prodigality, his favours and benefits on men, who had
sacrificed themselves for him. In his situation it would have been
better, to have been deemed prodigal than ungrateful: but fortune
favoured him so highly, that he might be allowed, in some degree, to
neglect the means of securing the feeble support of men.

The re-establishment of the imperial government, which appeared as if
it would experience some obstacles, took place on all sides with a
(p. 330) promptitude and facility truly extraordinary. Marshal
Augereau, who had endeavoured in his proclamation of 1814 to disgrace
the Emperor, was eager to make his public recantation in a fresh
proclamation.

The Duke of Belluno, and Count Gouvion St. Cyr, after attempting in
vain to curb their insurgent troops, were forced to shun their
resentment by flight.

The troubles excited in La Vendée and Calvados by a few royal
volunteers had been appeased, and the perturbators disarmed.

The military household of the King had submitted to their discharge,
and readily surrendered their horses and arms.

In fine, the royal family had evacuated the imperial territory.

The Emperor thought proper, to acquaint his army in person with these
happy results. “Thanks to the French people and you,” said he, on
reviewing the troops on the 27th of March, “the imperial throne is
re-established. It is acknowledged throughout the empire, and not a
single drop of blood has been spilt. The Count de Lille, the Count
d’Artois, the Duke de Berri, the Duke of Orléans, have passed our
northern frontier, and sought an asylum among foreigners. The
tricoloured flag waves on the (p. 331) towers of Calais, Dunkirk,
Lille, Valenciennes, Condé, &c. A few bands of Chouans had attempted
to form themselves in Poitou and La Vendée: popular opinion, and the
march of a few battalions, were sufficient to disperse them. The Duke
of Bourbon, who came to excite disturbances in the provinces, has
embarked at Nantes.

“How senseless were they,” continued the Emperor, “and how little did
they know of the nation, who imagined, that the French would consent
to receive a prince from those very hands, that had ravaged our
territory, and, aided by treason, had for a moment obscured our
laurels!”

The King, who at first took refuge at Lille, had in fact just retired
to Ghent. His Majesty had given orders to his household and the
princes, to join him in the former city, where it had been apparently
his intention, to take up his residence, and convene the chambers. But
marshal the Duke of Treviso, governor of that division, declared to
him, that he would no longer answer for his troops, if the musketeers,
the body guards, &c., entered the place; and advised him to repair to
Dunkirk, which, from its geographical position, and the attachment of
its inhabitants, afforded him an opportunity (p. 332) of awaiting the
issue of events without danger. M. de Blacas and the emigrants with
the King remonstrated with him strongly, that he would not be out of
danger there; and that he could no longer be safe from the pursuit of
Napoleon, except in a foreign country. The Duke of Treviso still
insisted on the contrary: and the King, in spite of the alarm and
entreaties of the Count de Blacas and the other courtiers, had
resolved to follow the advice of the marshal, when some despatches
from the Count d’Artois, received in the course of the night,
determined him to pass the frontier.

The Emperor thought at first, that the design of Louis XVIII. was to
return to England. He was glad of this: and it was not without extreme
vexation, that he learned the intention of this Prince, to remain on
the Belgic frontiers, observing the course of affairs. But if this
resolution, to which perhaps the King was indebted for the recovery of
his throne, was displeasing to Napoleon, it never inspired him with
the criminal desire, as some wicked writers have pretended, of making
any attempts against the lives or liberty of the Bourbons.

The orders given to General Excelmans merely were, to drive the King
and the Princes (p. 333) out of France step by step. He was never
commanded, “either to secure their persons, or to kill them in case of
resistance.”

The instructions given at the same time to Marshal Ney, sent on a
mission to the frontiers of the North and East, directed him also in
express words, “to cause the royal family to be respected, and
facilitate its procuring the means of quitting France freely and
quietly[85].”

It has been asserted, that the Duke of Bassano, who had the temporary
charge of the port-folio (p. 334) of the home department, had sent
orders to M. Siméon, then royal prefect at Lille, to arrest the King.
The Duke of Bassano, indignant at such an odious charge, would not
quit France, without having refuted it. He proposed, to summon M.
Siméon to declare the truth; and his declaration would have been made
public through the means of the newspapers and the press, if the
police had not opposed it.

The King quitted Lille on the 23d of March. The Duke of Orléans, who
had attended his Majesty, and whom the King on his departure had
invested with the command of that place, did not quit it till
twenty-four hours after; when he addressed the following letter to
Marshal Mortier.

“I commit entirely to your hands, my dear Marshal, the command which I
was so happy as to exercise with you in the department of the North. I
am too good a Frenchman, to sacrifice the interests of France, because
fresh misfortunes compel me to quit it. I go to bury myself in
retirement and oblivion. The King being no longer in France, I cannot
issue orders in his name: and nothing remains for me, but to absolve
you from all obedience to (p. 335) the orders I have already
transmitted to you; requesting you, to do whatever your own excellent
judgment, and pure patriotism, shall suggest to you as most conducive
to the interests of France, and most agreeable to the duties you have
to fulfil.”

The Emperor, after having read this letter, turned to the Duke of
Bassano, and said: “See what the Duke of Orléans writes to Mortier;
this letter does him honour. His heart was always French.“

I then informed him, that I had been assured, that the Duke of
Orléans, when he parted from his officers, said to one of them,
Colonel Athalin: “Go, sir, resume the national cockade: I take a pride
in having worn it, and I wish I could wear it still.” The Emperor
appeared struck with these words, and made no reply. A few minutes
after he asked me, if I had not a letter from Madame the Duchess of
Orléans. I delivered it to him: he read it, and said: “Let his mother
be treated with the regard he merits.” And he ordered, that the
duchess, whose property had just been sequestrated, should receive
annually from the public treasury three hundred thousand francs as an
indemnification. At the same time another indemnification (p. 336) of
a hundred and fifty thousand francs was granted to the Duchess of
Bourbon.

The Duke of Bourbon, though the Emperor had announced his embarkation,
did not sail however till several days afterward. His presence and his
proclamation had produced a partial rising in the circle of Beaupréau;
but convinced by his own eyes, and by the reports of his principal
officers, that the great body of the Vendeans would not stir, he
yielded to the wishes of Colonel Noirot, commandant of the
gendarmerie, expressed in the following letter:

“Monseigneur,

“It will not be in vain, I am persuaded, that I make an appeal to your
magnanimity. It is in your power, with a single word, to calm an
effervescence, the first results of which may once more stain with
blood the fields of the too unhappy Vendée: this word your Highness
will pronounce, and every thing will be restored to order. You will be
aware likewise, Monseigneur, that a longer stay in the circle of Beaupréau, while it endangers the internal security of the
country, will also endanger the personal safety of your Highness.

“Deign then, I conjure you, Monseigneur, to yield to the wishes I
entertain for your happiness, (p. 337) and for that of my country.
For all the means of safety, which your Highness may desire, to repair
to the place of destination you may choose, I will engage.”

This letter, which I take a pleasure in quoting, to prove what was the
language of the men of the 20th of March, was not without effect. The
Duke of Bourbon directed his aide-de-camp to have an interview with
Colonel Noirot and it was determined, that his Highness should quit la
Vendée, and embark at Nantes for England.

For reasons with which I am unacquainted, the prince did not fulfil
his engagements. In fact, he quitted Beaupréau, but still roamed about
the coast some time with a fictitious passport, and under a borrowed
name. General—[86] recognised him, but respected his disguise. The
Emperor approved this deference, and gave orders, that he should
merely be obliged to depart: the father of the Duke of Enghien was
become sacred to him, and to France.

Of all the family of the Bourbons the Duke (p. 338) and Duchess of
Angoulême alone persisted in struggling against their ill-fortune.

She was at Bordeaux at the time of the landing. The entrance of
Napoleon into Paris, the flight of the King, and the general defection
of the army, did not abate her courage. She made the national guard
take up arms: she hastened to the barracks, to harangue the soldiers,
and remind them of what they owed to their oaths and to their King.
Numerous battalions of volunteers were instantly formed, and directed
by her orders, to defend the avenues to the city, intercept all
communication, and prevent popular commotions.

General Clausel, however, appointed by the Emperor head commandant of
the 11th division, had advanced as far as St. André de Cubsac, six
leagues from Bordeaux, at the head of about five and twenty gendarmes
collected on the road, and of a hundred and fifty men from the
garrison of Blayes, who, informed of his arrival by his emissaries,
had come to meet him.

On his approach, a battalion of volunteers, posted at Cubsac with two
pieces of cannon, retreated hastily to St. Vincent, and there joined
some other volunteers, to defend with them the passage of the
Dordogne.

(p. 339) The soldiers of General Clausel attempted to seize the flying
bridge, and were saluted with several discharges of artillery and
small arms, which they received without returning. Their chief,
desirous of avoiding a civil war, requested, that some person might be
sent, to hold a parley with him. The Bordelese having deputed their
commandant, M. de Martignac, for this purpose, he charged this
officer, to make known to them, that he had no design of making any
attempts against their persons or property; and that he conjured them,
in the name of their country, not to spill the blood of Frenchmen to
no purpose.

Nevertheless some hostile appearances were continued on both sides;
but the royal volunteers were alarmed at the sight of three boats,
which they supposed to be filled with troops, and took flight.

General Clausel, thus become master of the Dordogne, was preparing to
cross it, when M. de Martignac returned to inform him, that Madame the
Duchess of Angoulême consented to retire, and that the city should be
delivered up to him in twenty-four hours.

Madame, instead of fulfilling this double promise, allowed herself to
yield to the desire and hope of prolonging the defence. She assembled
(p. 340) the national guard, and made fresh attempts to bring over
the troops of the garrison to the royal party.

General Clausel perceived her at a distance reviewing the national
guards and volunteers: he ordered M. de Martignac to be called back,
and complained of the promises made him not being fulfilled. He urged
in excuse, that the national guard and the garrison were no longer
disposed to surrender the city. The general, perceiving that the
Bordelese flattered themselves with being seconded by the troops of
the line, assured M. de Martignac, that, on the contrary, they only
waited for a concerted signal, to declare themselves in favour of the
imperial cause. M. de Martignac appearing to doubt this, the general
ordered a flag to be waved in the air, and immediately the tricoloured
standard was hoisted on Trompette castle[87].

The Bordelese, astonished and affrighted, requested a capitulation.
General Clausel was eager to grant all their proposals, and the next
day they opened the gates of the city to him.

The Emperor was well pleased with the happy issue of this affair. He
gave orders, to publish (p. 341) the report of General Clausel
immediately: but as this report was a mere military statement, he
added to it himself the supplementary particulars below, which he
directed to be inserted in the Moniteur under the head of Bordeaux.

“The firm and courageous conduct of General Clausel has prevented
great evils: the passage of the Dordogne made a strong impression
here. Before he reached la Bastide, the Duchess of Angoulême, feeling
an alarm she was unable to conceal, sent him a promise, that she would
quit Bordeaux in the morning of the 1st of April; which induced
General Clausel, to halt at la Bastide, in front of Bordeaux, on the
right bank of the Garonne, where he arrived on the 31st of March in
the evening. The Duchess of Angoulême thought proper, to avail herself
of this delay, and break her promise: she went to the barracks, caused
the troops to be assembled, and endeavoured to persuade them, to
oppose the entrance of General Clausel into Bordeaux. The officers of
all ranks told her plainly, that they would pay her all the respect
due to her unfortunate situation, and to her sex, but that, being
Frenchmen themselves, no motive could induce them, to take up arms
against Frenchmen. The Duchess shed abundance of tears: she requested,
that the troops (p. 342) would at least remain neutral, if the
national guards should be willing to fight for her. The officers
answered, that they would not fire on the national guard; but they
would not suffer the national guard, to fire on the troops of General
Clausel: they would not allow a single drop of French blood to be
spilt. The soldiers joined with one voice in the sentiments of their
officers: the Duchess retired with alarm in her heart, and threats in
her mouth: she was all trembling. When she reached the quay, where the
national guard was under arms, she was received in profound silence. A
murmur pervaded the ranks of “No fighting! no civil war!” The Duchess
hastened to retire to the imperial palace, where she gave orders for
her departure[88]. At eight o’clock she had quitted Bordeaux. The fire
she had kindled was not extinguished in every bosom. The national
guard, which had just conducted itself so prudently, had in company
with it some unruly persons. These were the dregs of the people,
forming the bulk of the companies of royal (p. 343) volunteers, who
had been bribed to enlist, and reckoned upon plunder. Their hopes were
already disappointed by the firmness of the national guard. A small
number of the most outrageous fired on the company of M. Troplong, who
was reputed to be of the soundest principles. The national guard
returned the fire. The volunteers fled, but Captain Troplong had
received a mortal wound. He has just been interred with military
honours. More than ten thousand persons attended the funeral of this
excellent citizen; the regret occasioned by his death suspended for a
moment the gaiety of the people, happy in being at length freed from
the evils, with which they were threatened.”