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on Sunday, the 23d of January. I was there in attendance on the King. All the officers of the newly organized Parisian National Guards were assembled in the Salle des Maréchaux. The Emperor appeared accompanied by the Empress and the King of Rome. He presented them both to his officers, asking them to watch over the safety of what was dearest to him in the world, and repeated several times, You will answer for them, will you not? You will defend them?" He uttered these words many times, with a warmth of feeling which seemed to make a deep impression on his hearers. There was a moment of enthusiasm and cries of "Vive l'Empereur! vive l'Impératrice! vive le roi de Rome!" were heard on all sides. In his ardent address the Emperor did not reveal any hope of peace. His whole speech, on the contrary, seemed to intimate a possibility that the enemy might soon arrive before the walls of Paris, entrusted to the defence of the National Guard. On returning to the drawing-rooms, he found there Senators, Councillors of State, Magistrates, in short, a numerous Court. He spoke a great deal and to very many persons, and without disguising the dangers pressing on us on all sides, he appealed to our generosity to help him to withstand the storm, and received from those present assurances of devotion which were soon belied. But he was fated to be deceived until the last moment, and to believe protestations of attachment to be sincere, that were but well-turned compliments from lips long accustomed to flattery. As for me I was less preoccupied; there was no occasion for hypocrisy towards me, and I perceived by everything that I saw and heard how changed was this Court, formerly so splendid and yet so subservient. I recollected the brilliant period following on the birth of the King of Rome and compared it with the present. Where were the ambassadors from every nation, where the princes, the courtier kings, who, at a period so recent and yet so different, filled these halls and bowed before this now tottering throne? All the pomp of those days had disappeared; of all that crowd of strangers there remained but a few Italian or German Councillors of State, summoned from the departments that had been annexed to France, and who, while their countries were returning to the possession of their ancient rulers, still represented that gigantic association of different nationalities already irretrievably shattered by war. But what struck me most of all was the language of the French Senators. Never had it been more obsequious. M. de Laplace, among others, speaking to me of the position of affairs, dwelt with such lively interest and such profound emotion on his attachment to and confidence in the Emperor, and such indignation on the rumoured proclamation in favour of the Bourbons, that I might well have believed the ancient dynasty to have no

A LAST RECEPTION.

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more determined enemy and the Emperor no truer friend than he. Judging from his language how could I have supposed that he "had never ceased to cherish'-these were his words subsequently" the Bourbons in his heart' ?

The Emperor left Paris on the 25th of January at seven in the morning and reached Châlons-sur-Marne the same day. I shall not follow him through that celebrated and fatal campaign in which, according to military judgment, he displayed the greatest talent, and which is considered the most scientific of all those which have shed lustre on his name. In this campaign he proved that his moral and physical faculties, far from being exhausted by reverses, had, on the contrary, acquired greater energy. He gave the lie direct to those rumours then prevalent, and since then accredited by many writers, that both mind and body had failed him in the Russian campaign. I leave to those who fought by his side the task of purging his memory from these slanderous imputations. I will only say that if he lost his Empire he at least preserved the renown of French arms. The soldiers fell indeed, but only before superior numbers, and though they frequently encountered enemies worthy to compete with them for the palm of valour and endurance, they never allowed it to be completely wrested from their grasp.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Preliminaries of Peace are proposed by the Plenipotentiaries of the Allies-Napoleon flushed with the military successes obtained in February rejects them-He nevertheless communicates them to an Extraordinary Council at Paris which unanimously advises their acceptanceThe numerical superiority of the enemy nullifies the advantages gained by the French-Conspiracy in favour of a Provisional Government is organised in Paris by Talleyrand-Consternation in Paris at the news of the rupture of negotiations at Châtillon-The Emperor throws himself on the rear of the enemy, who nevertheless continues to march on Paris-Measures to be taken for the safety of the Empress and the King of Rome are discussed in a Council of Regency, which decides that they shall leave Paris-Joseph's proclamation of the 29th of March -The Emperor at Troyes on the 28th-The Author refuses the King's proposal that he shall leave Paris with the Queen-Reluctance of the Queen and the Empress to quit Paris-On the morning of the 30th the enemy attacks the French positions under the walls of Paris-Departure of Queen Julia with her children-We hear of the arrival of the Emperor at Fontainebleau with a portion of his guard on the 29th-An order from the Grand Judge, Count Mole, directs the members of the Senate to rejoin the Empress-Regent, the Author leaves on the evening of the 30th and reaches Chartres the 31st of March-A cold reception by King Joseph-The Government of the Regency is established at Blois-Personages composing it-Uncertainty prevails at Blois with regard to the events that had taken place in Paris and at FontainebleauOn the 7th of April a letter from the Duke of Bassano informs the Regency of the abdication of Napoleon-The Author is sent to Paris to obtain passports for the members of the family assembled at Blois and reaches the capital-Difficulties in fulfilling his mission-He at last obtains the passports, which he sends to King Joseph at Orleans, who is greatly irritated at a clause in them-The Author is excluded from the Council of State, goes into retirement, and establishes himself and family on an estate near Paris.

DURING the two months which elapsed between the opening of this campaign and the catastrophe that closed it, I remained in Paris, a prey to the alternate hope and fear awakened by the contradictory accounts which reached us from the army. I was separated from all I loved-my son-in-law, General Jamin, major of the mounted grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, was sharing the dangers of the campaign, at the head of that famous regiment; my son and my nephew his aides-de-camp, had joined him, my wife and daughter were at Mayenne with the family of my son-in-law. Deprived of all domestic consolation, I lived at the Luxembourg, in the midst

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CONDITIONS OF PEACE.

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of an agitation incessantly kept up by the arrival of couriers, by the visits of the ministers and principal officers of State, who came for orders or advice to that palace, for it had become in some sort the headquarters of the Government. There was not an interval of repose, nor a day unmarked by some event, sometimes reassuring, at other times, and more often disastrous. Such was my life during those two months. I do not however intend to describe it in detail. I will confine myself to circumstances, which may throw some light on the events of that terrible period.

After the bloody combat of Brienne, when the bold and skilful manœuvres of the Emperor had resulted in the brilliant successes of Champaubert, Montmirail and Montereau, Napoleon regained his habitual confidence in his destiny. He once more beheld himself as the conqueror of Europe, now leagued against him, and he wrote to his brother, that, when crossing the pass of Montereau, where he lost much precious time, he was nearer to Vienna than the Austrians then were to Paris.

It was while dazzled with this success that he received the sketch of the treaty of the preliminaries of peace given to the Duke of Vicenza by the Plenipotentiaries of the allies, assembled at the Congress of Berlin.

The principal conditions are as follows:

France shall give up Belgium and all conquests made since 1792.

The Emperor shall abandon the titles of King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, and Mediator of the Swiss Leagues, and his son that of King of Rome.

Spain shall belong to Ferdinand VII.

Holland shall be given to a Prince of the House of Orange with an increase of territory.

Italy shall be given up to independent Princes.

England shall retain Malta, but abandon the American colonies, and the French establishments in India, as being commercial establishments. She shall retain the islands of France* and of Bourbon. All strongholds in the lands ceded by France, as well as in those still in her power on the Oder and the Elbe, shall be given up within a very short period.

The Allies will likewise retain as surety, until the signing of a definitive peace, the strongholds of Huningen, Belfort, and Besançon.

This draft of a treaty was accompanied by a Note of the Plenipotentiaries of the Allied Powers dated the 2d of March. The

*Mauritius.

Emperor sent it to King Joseph with all previously received papers relating to the negotiation.

*

In an accompanying letter the Emperor ordered that everything should be communicated to an Extraordinary Council, presided over by the Empress Regent, and composed of the Princes, Ministers of Departments, Ministers of State, and Presidents of the section of the State Council. "But," wrote he, "it is only formal opinion I ask for my resolution is taken-I will never accept a treaty which I regard as a disgraceful capitulation. I only wish to know what will be the sentiments of those famous Councillors on the reading of the propositions and the accompanying documents." Then he added that he had written to Prince Schwarzenberg by the Prince of Neuchatel, to announce to him his determination to concede nothing that concerned the honour of France or his own ; also that he had himself written a long letter to the Emperor, his father-in-law, pointing out the importance of the success he had just obtained, and while assuring him that he would soon be at the head of a larger army than Austria's, informing him that 200,ooo men would defend Paris, and that even should the capital be taken, France would never consent to such humiliating conditions.

The meeting of the Council and the opinion it might pronounce were therefore really useless, since the negotiations were broken off beforehand. It nevertheless assembled on the 3d of March at five in the evening. It was unanimous in accepting the treaty, such as the Allies proposed; and in fact, hard as the conditions were, they ought to have been accepted, if, which I cannot yet believe, they were the sincere and final proposals of the Powers. The treaty, rigorous as it was, maintained the established government of France; it sanctioned the existence of the Emperor and that of the Imperial Family. England recognised the new dynasty, which was an advantage none of the previous transactions had given Napoleon. There was no question of the Bourbons, who appeared to be altogether abandoned. This was conceding a great deal to the Emperor, who was more considered in this arrangement than France herself. Time might produce discord among the Allied Powers; the very division of the spoils of the Empire must quickly bring about dissensions, and the Emperor would be skilful enough to profit by their disunion, and partly to regain what he now lost by this treaty. Lastly, what he had most reason to fear was the disorganization that menaced the social body; it

* See in the Moniteur of the 7th of March, 1814, the two decrees of the 5th of the same month which prove that Napoleon had abandoned all idea of peace, and sought a war of extermination.

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