less of those of the soldiery." He | Dauphiny, committing violence of had, however, made arrangements to pass the river at night in boats at Mirbél. At four o'clock, a reconnoitring party of his hussars approached the suburb of Lyons, called la Guillotiere," and were welcomed," adds the narrative," with cries of vive l'empereur, by the population of a fauxbourg, always distinguished for its love of country." The duke of Tarentum, about the same time, led two battalions to the bridge of la Guillotiere, to defend it against the hussars; but he had scarcely reached some barricades, which had been thrown up in the neighbourhood, when the hussars debouched from the suburb, preceded by peasants waving their handkerchiefs at the end of long sticks, and vociferating vive l'empereurvive la liberté. The corps of the duke immediately repeated the same cries, and joined the soldiers of Bonaparte. The duke himself was pursued, and owed his safety to the fleetness of his horse. He overtook the count D'Artois at the mountain of Tarare, and there got into the same carriage. every kind, and uttering the most offensive cries. One of the officers of Bonaparte could not refrain from remarking the next morning, "that all the prisons of France appeared to have been opened upon the city during the night." A similar anarchy prevailed while Bonaparte remained; the shouts of vive l'empereur issued from the same source: yet we have in the official narrative the following mawkish phrase " The sentiments which, for two days, the inhabi tants of this great city and the peasantry of the neighbourhood, testified to the emperor, touched him so sensibly, that he could not express to them what he felt, but by saying-Lyonese-I love you!" So did his imperial majesty love the Americans. On Saturday the 11th, at seven in the morning, he requested the presence of the mayor of Lyons, Count de Fargues, a man of an energetic, independent character, and a favourite of all classes in the city. A conversation ensued between them of an hour's duration. "You are all lucky," exclaimed Bonaparte in the outset," and es"pecially the noblesse who have "committed so many faults, that "I am come. You would have ex"perienced a horrible revolution Lyons was already taken by its garrison, and nothing remained for Bonaparte but to make his triumphal entry; which he did, about nine o'clock at night, through an immense multitude assembled" in six weeks." The discourse to witness the spectacle. The city was, throughout the night, agitated by riot and the worst disorders of every description. It was with the utmost difficulty, that the mayor, at the head of a body of national guards, saved the houses of the more noted royalists from being sacked. The streets were filled with a hired rabble, a drunken soldiery, with the dregs of the neighbouring peasantry, and freebooters from the mountains of was here interrupted by the cries of a multitude assembled near the palace of the archbishop which he occupied. He went to the window, told the mayor to follow him, and they were both huzzaed.-Hc, then, asked the mayor why it was that he saw none but people with jackets in the crowd. Because, replied his companion, it is only that description of persons who like revolutions; their hopes are built. on convulsions, and they would exult at your fall, as they do now at your triumph. I know them, was the remark of Bonaparte, making a movement with his hand, I know them, and I will manage them-je les connois et je les tiendrai. He afterwards spoke of a quarrel of an old date between an uncle of the mayor, and his own uncle, Cardinal Fesch; from which he passed to politics and discussed the treaty of Paris, with much reprobation of the king for having admitted it. When he had fatigued himself in this way, he hurried out to review the troops,-an occupation which lasted for two hours. After the review, the garrison was directed towards Paris, under the cominand of General Brayer, who had been a leading member of the council of war held by the Count D'Artois. At two o'clock the public authorities, beginning with the Bench, were admitted into the imperial presence. They were com pelled to listen to an incoherent harangue, seasoned with acrid declamation against the noblesse, and of which the general text was the same as that of the proclamations from Gulf St. Juan. The manner of his majesty was not, however, without a certain degree of enjouement; for, when one of his audience addressed him alternately with the title of sir, and sire, he gave him a gentle slap on the cheek, with the remark-call me what you please-even consul. The fact merits preservation for the annals of servility, that the cheek thus honoured by the imperial hand, was, after the audience, kissed rapturously, by the president of the royal court, a Mr. Vouty, who was believed to have made a journey to Elba a few months before. "If the plague gave pensions," says the Persian VOL. I. moralist Saadi, "the plague even would find flatterers and servants." The historians of the Brazils speak with indignation of a custom which its first conquerors found among the Aborigines; that of the attendants of a chief eagerly catching his spittle in their hands; but if servility in civilized life does not wear forms quite so disgusting, the spirit of it is the same, or yet more grovelling, and certainly much less pardonable. On Sunday the 12th, "the rising sun" had a crowded levee of courtiers and half-pay officers. He was principally employed during the day in dispatching emissaries into Burgundy, Alsace, Lorraine, and the other military divisions. The riotous scenes which were soon witnessed at Dijon, Chalons, and some other cities, proved that his missionaries did not forget their errand. In the defence of mar. shal Ney, his advocate states professionally that the number of them who arrived in the marshal's camp at Lons le Saulnier in the night of the 13th, was prodigious. It was then that the treason of the marshal himself burst forth. His proclamation to his division of troops bears date the 13th; and when its outrageous language with respect to the Bourbons and their cause is contrasted with his conduct and language, on his admission to the king, but a few days before, the fervent kissing of the hand of the monarch, the promise to bring back Bonaparte in an iron cage,the knowledge of the importance attached to his aid, and the confidence reposed in his fidelity,-the great resources unsuspectingly placed at his disposal,-there can be but one voice as to the heinousness of the perfidy and the justice of the punishment. On the 13th, Monday, we have "our dearly beloved son." The date of this decree, 13th March, is the same as that of the declaration of the congress of Vienna, signed by the emperor of Austria, wherein Napoleon is put under the ban of civilization, proclaimed an outlaw, and delivered up to public vengeance. On the same day, the son-in-law announces the speedy return of his "beloved spouse," and her father signs the the Emperor again in all the confidence of legitimacy, and the potency of legislation. We have a batch of decrees, dissolving the house of peers, as containing individuals who have an interest in feudal rights and the destruction of equality; and the legislative body as having consecrated the principle that the nation was made for the throne, and not the throne for the nation; suppressing the military orders of St. Louis, St. Mi-act of his proscription as the comchael, &c. annulling the appointments made by the Bourbons, and, generally, re-establishing the imperial aspect of things. The last provision of one of these decrees is in the most hardy, shameless strain of imposture that can be imagined. It orders the confluence of all the electors of the empire at Paris, in an extraordinary meeting of the field of May, in the course of the following month of May, to take measures for the correction and modification of the imperial constitutions, according to the interests and will of the nation; and to assist at the coronation of the empress 66 our dearly beloved spouse," and that of tillery, and followed to the gates mon enemy of mankind. The charge of the publication of the decrees issued from Lyons was devolved upon the grand marshal | Bertrand, acting as major general of the grand army. At the same time no one doubted but that all of them had been, before-hand, concerted and framed between Bonaparte and his ministers in Paris. They were all exertions of a sovereignty certainly not that of the people, about which, however, he had unceasingly talked, from the moment of his landing. In the afternoon of Monday, 13th, he set out from Lyons, escorted by companies of light ar by a mob, who had been regularly, morning and evening, paid for the acclamations that exploded with double violence at the moment of his departure. He took the route of Burgundy, which he found lined with peasants, some brought by his emissaries, and others attracted by curiosity. He dined at Villefranche, a small town, having, in commemoration of the new era, eagles stuck on the houses, and trees of liberty planted in the streets. Thence he proceeded to Mâcon, where every thing was duly prepared for his reception, addresses, huzzas, and delations. Those who fabricated "the address of the city," thought proper to subscribe to it the name of the mayor, a Mr. Bonne, although this magistrate had fled, along with the prefect, to Dijon, and is stigmatized in the official narrative. the 18th to be king, and Bonaparte his generalissimo; we should then be satisfied." Bonaparte next directed his steps to Autun, the principal city of the department of the Soane and Loire. It had been much agitated by internal tumults previous to his arrival. On the 12th March, after the transactions at Lyons were known, the commander of the gendarmerie usurped the municipal authority, and substituted the tri-coloured for the white flag. On Monday, 13th, the municipal council, with the mayor at their head, seconded by the orderly citizens, reinstated them Bourbons, and published an energetic proclamation. In the morning of the 15th, the city was yet in obedience to the king, but Bonaparte arrived in the afternoon, and gave his friends an undisputed ascendancy. His generals disarmed and treated with the utmost indignity, those who were suspected of an attachment to the royal cause. Bonaparte entered Mâcon about eight o'clock in the evening, with a great and noisy retinue of the populace. At three o'clock of Tuesday morning, he invited the coadjutor of the mayor to wait upon him, and maintained a conversation in the ordinary way. This functionary happening to remark that they had thought him rash in the extreme, when they heard of his landing with fifteen hundred men,-"Bah," was his re-selves, replaced the ensign of the ply, "I had but six hundred. I shall meet with no obstacles; and if I did, I should have three hundred thousand Austrians." After substituting a prefect for the one who had withdrawn, he departed, near eleven o'clock, for Chalons, where he arrived, at ten at night. The populace gave him here the usual welcome, but were so obstreperous and unruly as to draw The municipal council and the from him the epithet of canaille. mayor were compelled to appear、 Wednesday, 15th, his first care before his majesty the next mornwas to summon the civil and mi- ing. He had by his side generals litary authorities. The mayor re- Brayer and Drouot, and manifested fused to appear, but all the rest the strongest displeasure, espeobeyed. The commander of the cially against the mayor, some eighteenth military division, a ge- pieces of whose proclamation he neral Deveaux, came from Dijon held in his hand. He inveighed to tender his services, and was against the trembling culprits for left in the administration of Cha-suffering themselves to be led by lons, with the charge of accommo- the nobles and priests, who aimed dating the city and its neighbour- at the restoration of tithes and feuhood to the change of circum- dal rights. "They reject me; they stances. It is related of one of the do not then know, that if I had not staff of this general, that when a come, they would have been all lady in whose house he was quar- murdered by the people. I will tered, ventured to reproach him know how to manage them. I will with his defection from the king, bring them to the lantern. My and asked whether he did not feel power is more lawful than that of a little remorse, he replied, “ It is the Bourbons. Begone sir, (to the true, madam, we could wish Louis mayor), I cashier you. I will see to your being replaced at once." The generals were little less ceremonious in their deportment. On the 16th, Thursday, Bonaparte caused the proclamation of Marshal Ney to be printed, as well as the decrees dated at Lyons, and to be disseminated by thousands. At ten o'clock, he accompanied the troops to Avallon, where one of his emissaries, general Gerard, had arrived on the 16th, and concerted the defection of the regiments stationed in that quarter. In the morning of the 16th, the general sent the proclamations of Bonaparte to the mayor, with an order to print and distribute them; but the mayor refused, and went in person to assign his reasons, of which the chief was, the oath he had taken to the king. An officer present undertook to combat his scruples on this head, and alleged, that, for the twenty-five years preceding, an oath was but a mere formality, prescribed at every change of government, and that as for himself, he had taken seven to as many different governments, which he enumerated. Bonaparte arrived at 4 o'clock, surrounded by the populace rustic and urbane, who were the more numerous and disorderly, in consequence of the annual fair being held at the time. He alighted at an inn, (the Post-house,) and called for the public authorities. It was with the utmost difficulty that they could be prevailed upon to make their appearance. The conference which followed was the longest and most various in its topics, that had occurred, hitherto, in an expedition more deserving, in fact, of the title of a logomachy than of a warfare of any other kind. There was very little of interlocution in any of them, his majesty choosing to play the part both of querist and respondent. He is every where Thersites and the casque of Achilles. The following are among the most remarkable of the phrases which he uttered on this occasion, and which are perfectly well attested. 'I have received addresses and felicitations from four of the five regiments who compose the gar'rison of Paris. I have consented 'that general Maison should issue 'a proclamation in favour of the 'king, at the request of the gene'ral. I return to France where my 'army is: it receives and obeys my orders. There is no resistance 'any where—there can be none— 'In six or eight months you would have had a terrorist revolution, 'which the men at the head of af'fairs could not have turned to any account for France. The king is 'a good man, not without talents and good intentions, but sur'rounded by a feudal nobility, who 'make him go counter to the revo'lution which he ought to have fol'lowed.-I came, through hostile 'fleets, with six hundred men; |