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This circumstance did not serve to allay his fears, but they were dissipated by intelligence obtained soon after, that his emissaries had penetrated into Gap, and made all safe for his entrance.

About nine in the evening, he marched in, with his troops before him. They bivouacked in the streets, while he repaired to a tavern, supped, and reposed for a couple of hours. The prefect and military commandant had withdrawn from the place, and the sub-prefect was on a circuit re'cruiting aid against the invader. At two in the morning, the town was evacuated by the unwelcome guest, who stopped at Corps, the first village of the department of the Isere, but sent on General Cambronne with the vanguard to Mure, a small town half way be tween Gap and Grenoble. Although the occupation of Gap was of so little duration, we have an imperial proclamation dated at that place, (but, in reality, written and published at Grenoble) 6th March, in which the nation is told that she is in the right in calling Napoleon father; that his return heals all disquietudes, guarantees equality, and the rights which she had enjoyed for twenty-five years, &c. &c.

Grenoble, a fortified place, was the object of immediate attention, with all who received the news of the debarkation at Gulf St. Juan. Towards the end of February the emissaries of Bonaparte had announced, in this city, on the authority of pretended letters from Paris, for the 1st of March, the expulsion of the Bourbons, and the return of the emperor. The public authorities overlooked the rumour, but were roused to recollect it, when they learned, on the 4th of March, the fact of the landing of Bonaparte. The dispatch of the

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prefect on the subject to the ministry of Paris, published in the Parisian journals of the 8th March, spoke with great confidence of the preparations made, especially by the military commanders, to disappoint Bonaparte's small corps of brigands, should they think of approaching Grenoble. These preparations were, however, regulated in the same spirit with all the preceding which we have noticed.

The prefect communicated his news in the evening without delay, to the military authorities, at the head of whom was general Marchand. The general was reminded of the characteristic acti vity of Bonaparte, and advised to lose no time in seizing Ponteau, an important position near Mure, the more easy to defend, as it was known that Bonaparte must have relinquished his artillery, before arriving at Gap. The general replied, that he would call a council of the officers of the garrison, the next morning, (Sunday,) in order to determine what was to be done, and contended that Bonaparte would consume eight days in reaching Gap. In the course of the next morning accordingly, a council of the garrison was held, but what passed there did not transpire. It was known however, that general Marchand had sent orders for the immediate approach of the garrison of Chambéry, consisting of the 7th and 11th regiments of the line, of the first of which Labédoyère was colonel. It also appeared that general Mouton Duvernet,* commandant in the departments of the Drome, and Higher-Alps-had entered Grenoble during the night, and after conferring for a short time with general Marchand, had

Since shot for his treason.

diery with manifest reluctance and studied delay. At the same time arrived the garrison of Chambèry with colonel Labédoyère, who was careful to have his regiment lodged in barracks situated near one of the principal gates, on the Gap road. While it was believed, that the troops, particularly the van-guard, of which good accounts were received, might prove faithful, a multitude of the citizens, and a number of persons of mili

taken the road to Gap, in order, as he said, to oppose the 39th and 49th regiments of his subdivision, to the progress of Bonaparte. About 3 o'clock in the evening, the most active of the Bonapartean heralds, one Emmery, had stolen into Grenoble, and spread, by means of trusty friends, the news that Bonaparte would be there on the third day, that his landing, had the assent of Austria and England, and coincided with a movement planned at Paris for the expulsion|tary habits, tendered, unavailingly, of the Bourbons, &c.—Emmery was encountered and recognized, but | not arrested, by general Mouton Duvernet, who quickly returned to Grenoble, and had another secret interview with Marchand. On his departure for the second time, Marchand stated that he had repaired to Valence, with a view to intercept Bonaparte, should he avoid Grenoble, and endeavour to reach Lyons through Valence.

It was only in the afternoon of Monday 6th, that Marchand made any movement; and this was sending out a van-guard of between three and four hundred men. This body arrived near Mure at eleven at night. Some inferior officers had been dispatched to the town to prepare lodgings, and on entering the town-hall, found it, to their great astonishment, occupied by officers from Elba, who were on the same errand. While there, they saw an express from Grenoble deliver a letter to the commander of the Elbese van-guard. They returned and informed their own commander of the rencontre. He took a position for the night, on a height near the main road.

Meanwhile, Marchand sent no reinforcement, but merely issued orders that the cannon should be mounted on the ramparts, a task which was executed by the sol

their services to general Marchand.

The commander of the vanguard had begun to fall back, when Bonaparte who had now advanced from Corps, directed his lancers to overtake it, and mingle with it, as if to recognize old comrades, and not to fight. When this was accomplished, so as to arrest the retreat, he pushed on at full gallop, threw himself in the midst of the battalion, harangued them, and brought over the whole, without having a shot fired at him.

At three o'clock in the evening, Labédoyère put his regiment under arms, and hurried it out of the city: He had scarcely left the gates when he caused the top of a drum to be burst, and drew forth an eagle, which he showed to his soldiers, telling them at the same time, that he was about to conduct them to meet the emperor. He was answered by cries of vive l'empereur, and had the satisfaction of seeing the white cockade trampled under foot, and the tricoloured eagerly received by the whole regiment. General Devilliers, the superior officer of the garrison of Chambery, as soon as he heard of this defection, followed Labédoyère and began to expostulate with him. "I know what I do," said the colonel; "all this is

arranged. Count d'Erlon is now marching with forty thousand men to second our movement." The joyful meeting of the emperor, and this loyal colonel, took place between Vizille and Grenoble.

All was, henceforth, confusion and dismay at Grenoble. Yet there were troops and some pieces of cannon on the ramparts, and when the lancers of Bonaparte were descried from them at eight in the evening, the military inspector general, and several officers of rank, were urgent with general Marchand, to give orders to fire; he refused, however, to do more than direct the gates to be shut. A single discharge from the ramparts would have been sufficient to drive back a handful of men without artillery, and, in all probability, have given a denouement to this enterprise, not unlike what we have witnessed in the case of Murat. So far, abstracting the prepared treason of the army and the higher authorities, it might afford food for ridicule and pity, rather than any other sentiments. Had the catastrophe been, by any chance, the same, we should be apt to view the landing at Gulf St. Juan, and that at Pizzo, in the same light. There would not have been a greater disproportion between the means and the end, in the one than in the other, nor less of pitiable fool-hardiness in Napoleon than in Joachim; of which, however, history being in possession of all the proofs of domestic treason, must entirely acquit the former. Audacity and imposture are among the clues to the extraordinary elevation of the man; but, while imposture abounds, there is, perhaps, much less of audacity, under all circumstances, in his return from Elba, than entered into the other great adventures of his life.

At nine o'clock, general Marchand deputed an officer of his staff to the prefect to inform him, that if he wished to leave the city, before the entry of Bonaparte, he had no time to lose. The prefect and several other functionaries set out immediately for Lyons. Mar. chand himself retired into the country at a small distance, leaving the subordinate officers to their own discretion. The gates were broken open with axes, without opposition, and Bonaparte traversed the city escorted by his new recruits, and a rabble of the lowest order, to whom alone of the citizens, he was indebted for the acclamations of which he boasts in his own narrative. Nearly the whole mass of the troops assembled there, declared for him at once, and the remark which he makes respecting them, deserves to be repeated, in illustration of the general condition of things as to the army. "It did not escape observers, that, in the twinkling of an eye, these six thousand men were seen decorated with the tricoloured cockade; which they had never discarded, but kept concealed in the bottom of their knapsacks. Not one was bought at Grenoble."*

Bonaparte found his lodging arranged at an inn called Les Trois Dauphins, kept by one of his old scouts, and which had served as the rendezvous of his emissaries. He had no sooner alighted, than he sent for the mayor, with whom he held a conversation. The colonel of the gendarmerie was then called, and directed to set out immediately for Turin, with a packet addressed to the emperor of Austria. On the 8th of March, his majesty received the public au

* Official Narrative.

thorities, the bishop and grand | vicar, the courts, the academy, &c., and talked to them about every thing with wonderful affability and volubility. He seemed to aim at showing what great progress he had made in jurisprudence and the sciences during his year of learned leisure in Elba. We have an address in return, of the same date," from the inhabitants of Grenoble," which bears intrinsic evidenceof imperial origin. It tells him that he is as great as Camillus; the hero of Europe; and that the great nation is immortal; that

the laurels are about to resume their empire," and repeats the phrases of his proclamations concerning the renunciation of the empire of the world, &c.

After the audience, he reviewed the troops and the national guard in the public square, and there was scarcely a soldier to whom he did not put a question separately. The review lasted five hours. Some revolutionary airs were struck up, but he ordered them to be discontinued, and requested the mayor to disperse the rabble, (mandrille) whose vociferations of vive l'empereur, and vive la liberté, became irksome. The troops were then put in motion for Lyons, with the exception of his band of Elba, which required repose. He remained himself until the day after, busied with framing decrees, and publishing proclamations. By some of the first, he cashiered such of the leading civil and military functionaries as had not given him the desired welcome. Of this number were the prefects of Grenoble and Gap. He published, also, an address of thanks to the inhabitants of the departments of Isere and of the Higher and Lower Alps, in the ejaculatory and affettuoso tone, so fulsome and ridicu

lous to an American reader. "Citizens, you have fulfilled my expectations! Inhabitants of Dauphiny! my heart is quite full of the emotions you have excited there! I shall always remember, with a lively interest, what I have seen in traversing your country! What I have seen among you, has convinced me that the French people was always worthy of the name of great people, with which I saluted them twenty years ago." What he saw, in fact, (while he traversed the departments of the Var, and the upper and lower Alps, along the bye-roads of the smugglers) was gloom and consternation on every side, at his approach;-what he heard-the shouts of vagrants and idlers, who, like the populace of the great cities, would have hailed his Satanic majesty himself, with equal satisfaction, had he chosen to appear among them, with a retinue of drums and colours. Montesquieu remarks, in his Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, that the populace of Rome and the empire generally, were fond of Caligula and Nero. They regretted these monsters, who had regaled them with gorgeous spectacles; and who seemed, from their tastes and habits, to belong more immediately to themselves.

On the 9th, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Bonaparte left Grenoble, and towards night stopped at a village called Rives, where he dined. He held a conversation, as usual, with the mayor of the place, and, among other matters, talked of peace and war. He remarked, with respect to the treaty of Paris, how preposterous it was to pass through the territories of Piedmont, in order to go from Grenoble to Chamberi." But," continued he, turning towards his officers, "we

will settle all that-We need only four years of quiet for the women to get children, and the mares to get horses."

From Rives he proceeded to Bourgoin, and arrived at midnight. He there awaited intelligence from Lyons, which was already crowded with his emissaries.

The news of his landing had reached Lyons on Saturday, 4th -the same day as Grenoble. It was kept secret on Sunday; began to spread on Monday, and was officially announced by the prefect and mayor, on Tuesday. As early as Monday, however, a requisition was made on the mayor of Grenoble for horses to drag six pieces of cannon with their caissons from the arsenal to Lyons. The horses were led, accordingly, to the arsenal, at 5 o'clock on Tuesday morning, but, after remaining there until one in the afternoon, were sent back by the director of the arsenal, with the allegation that they were no longer wanted. Lyons was without cannon, arms, and munitions. The governor, count Roger de Damas, had, for several months, solicited them in vain from the department of war at Paris, and had gone thither to try what personal instances could effect.

The count d'Artois arrived at Lyons on Wednesday the eighth, in the morning, and immediately reviewed the troops of the garrison, who seemed, for the moment, not to be wholly without sympathy in the feelings of loyalty expressed by the better orders of the citizens. The former were, however, too well tutored to remain long in this disposition; and the latter sunk into discouragement and in action, on hearing the reports industriously spread, that Bonaparte had twenty thousand men, and the countenance of Austria-that the

king had quitted Paris, &c. Things soon wore the aspect which they took at Grenoble. The defection of the troops was openly encouraged by the officers. The proclamation which the count d'Artois addressed to them, only induced plainer indications of their purpose. He was advised to abandon the city at once, from an apprehension that he might suffer in his person, and had resolved to set out in the night of Thursday. The marshal, duke of Tarentum, arrived, however, at nine o'clock, and prevailed upon him to await the result of another effort on the minds of the garrison. A council of war was then held, as to the defence of Lyons. Various measures were proposed and rejected, with reasonings significative of a spirit in the council, not very auspicious for the object. It was, still, resolved to destroy the bridges on the Rhone; but the attempt was relinquished on account of the murmurs of the populace.

The duke of Orleans arrived, also, on Thursday, but departed in the course of the night. On Friday. morning, the duke of Tarentum assembled the troops at six o'clock, and the Bourbon prince reviewed them. What he saw was sufficient to destroy all hope of their amendment, and the dispositions evinced by the multitude, who covered the bridges and quays of the Rhone, convinced him of the expediency of immediate departure. He, therefore, took the road to Moulins, escorted by a detachment of dragoons, whom he dismissed at the first stage. The mounted national guard had been dismissed the even. ing before. Bonaparte, speaking, in his official narrative, of the preparations for the destruction of the bridges, says, that he smiled at them, "having no doubts of the dispositions of the people, and still

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