stationed with a few attendants. At four o'clock in the morning, a courier brought him intelligence, from the Duke of Vicenza, that all was over; that the capitulation had been signed at midnight, and that the allies were to enter Paris in the course of the day. Napoleon immediately returned to Fontainebleau. He alighted at the palace, on the 31st of March, at six o'clock in the morning, and repaired to his small apartment situated on the first story, in a line with the gallery of Francis I. In the course of some hours, the different columns of his army successively came up, and the divisions of Marmont and Mortier arrived from Paris. The troops were posted around Fontainebleau, and the park of artillery was sent to Orléans. The advanced posts stationed at Essonne were commanded by Marshal Marmont, to whom was thus confided the task of protecting the camp at Fontainebleau, and the remains of the army, which still rallied round the Emperor, amounting altogether to about fifty thousand men.

THE ALLIED SOVEREIGNS ENTER PARIS-TALLEYRAND-MEETING OF THE SENATE-PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT-THE SENATE PROCLAIMS THAT NAPOLEON HAS FORFEITED THE THRONE-CONFERENCE AT FONTAINEBLEAU-NAPOLEON ABDICATES IN FAVOUR OF HIS SON-DEFECTION OF MARMONT-NAPOLEON ABDICATES UNCONDITIONALLY-TREATY OF

FONTAINEBLEAU-DEATH OF JOSEPHINE-BATTLE OF TOULOUSE-LOUIS XVIII. ENTERS PARIS-NAPOLEON LEAVES FONTAINEBLEAU, AND LANDS IN ELBA.

ON the 31st of March, 1814, the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, attended by Schwartzenburg, and followed by fifty thousand picked troops, made their entrance into the conquered city of Paris. The foreign hosts filed along the Boulevards in broad and deep columns, exhibiting a forest of bayonets, interrupted at intervals by long trains of artillery, and preceded by numerous regiments of cavalry. The monarchs and their train made the circuit of one

half of Paris, and halted in the Champs Elysées, where the Cossacks of the guard established their bivouac. The Parisians, for the most part, beheld this spectacle with a kind of silent stupor. It would have been

temerity indeed, to manifest any disrespect or indignation; and those who felt their degradation too keenly to conceal their feelings, kept out of the way. The entrance of the sovereigns had been preceded by proclamations which held forth a conciliatory tone to France, and pointed to Napoleon as the sole object of their hostility; and simultaneously with these manifestations of the policy which the allies were about to adopt openly, the royalist party began to shew itself. Monsieur de Chateaubriand put forth at this moment his pamphlet entitled "Bonaparte and the Bourbons," which Scott has characterised as a "vigorous and affecting comparison between the days when France was in peace and honour under her own monarchs, contrasted with those in which Europe appeared in arms under her walls." The peaceful and honourable condition of the people of France in those former days, is thus described by Carlyle :-"They are sent for, to do statute-labour; to pay statute-taxes; to fatten battle-fields (named beds of honour) with their bodies, in quarrels which are not theirs; their hand and toil is in every possession of man; but for themselves they have little or no possession. Untaught, uncomforted, unfed; to pine dully in thick obscuration, in squalid destitution and obstruction: this is the lot of the millions: peuple taillable et corvéable à merci et à miséricorde. In Brittany, they once rose in revolt at the first introduction of pendulum-clocks; thinking it had something to do with the gabelle. Paris requires to be cleared out periodically by the police; and the horde of hunger-stricken vagabonds sent wandering again over space for a time. 'During one such periodical clearance,' says Lacretelle, in May, 1750, the police had presumed withal to carry off some reputable people's children, in the hope of extorting ransoms for them. The mothers fill the public places with cries of despair; crowds gather, get excited; so many women in distraction run about exaggerating the alarm: an absurd and horrid fable rises among the people; it is said that the doctors have ordered a Great Person to take baths of young human blood for the restoration of his own, all spoiled by debaucheries.' 'Some of the rioters,' adds Lacretelle, quite coolly, 'were hanged on the following days:' the police went on. Oh, ye poor naked wretches! and this then is your inarticulate cry to Heaven, as of a dumb tortured animal, crying from uttermost depths of pain and debasement? Do these azure skies, like a dead crystalline vault, only reverberate the echo of it on you? Respond to it only by hanging on the following days?' Not so: not for ever! Ye are heard in Heaven. Also the answer will come,-in a horror of great darkness, and shakings of the world, and a cup of trembling which all the nations shall drink."* Within forty years the revolution began.

Carlyle's "History of the French Revolution," vol. i. p. 19.

Early in the morning of the day on which the allied sovereigns were to make their entrance, groups of royalists had gathered together, and began to raise the cry of "Vive le Roi!" Not only noblemen, but some ladies of the highest rank, traversed the streets in procession, distributing white cockades, and recalling the people to their ancient loyalty. The Princess of Leon, and Mesdames de Chateaubriand and de Choiseul, distinguished themselves in this manner, and are said to have torn their own dresses to replenish their stock of royalist emblems. When their eloquence began to receive the powerful assistance of the moving forest of foreign bayonets, and of the open-mouthed artillery which accompanied them, portions of the populace joined them, and the progress of the sovereigns was greeted at various spots by enthusiastic acclamations. At the Boulevard des Italiens, they were absolutely impeded in their advance by a crowd, foremost amongst whom were ladies, who pressed around them with cries of welcome as "Liberators!" "Vive le Roi!" and such like testimonies of joy; and several elegantly-dressed females pressed forward for the honour of touching their clothes. The Emperor Alexander, after passing his troops in review, established his head-quarters at the hotel of M. de Talleyrand.

A large meeting of the leading political intriguers of Paris awaited the arrival of the Emperor of Russia at the hotel of Talleyrand. Bourrienne was among the number, and he has given a circumstantial description of the meeting. The great majority of those assembled met the Autocrat with an urgent demand for the restoration of the Bourbons. Alexander affected some hesitation. He observed that three plans remained for consideration. First:-The maintenance of Napoleon on the throne. Secondly:-The establishment of a regency. Thirdly:-The recall of the Bourbons. All present urged the adoption of the last measure, and the meeting terminated in an unanimous resolution to place the Bourbons on the throne. This resolution was not publicly announced, at once, but a declaration was drawn up and signed by the Emperor Alexander, to the effect that "the allied sovereigns would no longer treat with Bonaparte, nor any member of his family." The document, further, invited the senate to appoint a provisional government to manage the business of the state, and to prepare the constitution which might be agreeable to the wishes of the people: adding, "The sovereigns will recognise and guarantee any constitution of which the French nation may make choice." The mockery of these words was ere long made apparent. The walls of Paris, however, were covered with this declaration in less than an hour. "Thus," says Hazlitt, "nations are disposed of, while they themselves look on and wonder!"

The senate met on the 1st of April, under the presidency of Talleyrand. The provisional government was immediately appointed. It consisted of Talleyrand, Bournonville, Jaucourt, Dalberg, and the Abbé Montesquieu. Bourrienne was placed at the head of the postoffice. Lavalette had left Paris. On the 3rd, the senate proclaimed "That Napoleon Bonaparte had forfeited the throne, and the right of inheritance which had been established in his family," and further, "That the people and army of France were disengaged and freed from the oath of fidelity which they had taken to Napoleon and his constitution." Eight formal inductive causes which were asserted to have led to these final resolutions, were appended. They were made up of complaints against the acts of Napoleon's government, nearly every one of which had been sanctioned by the senate, who now reprobated them. Their present proclamation was full of excuses for their tergiversation. Their true motives might have been summed up in few words; namely, that perceiving their present master was conquered, they were ready to pay their court to a new one. The council-general of the department of the Seine immediately gave in its adherence to the provisional government, and the example was followed by the various public bodies in and around Paris, as well as by numerous individuals, most of whom had been enriched and raised into consequence by Napoleon.

The Duke of Vicenza returned to Fontainebleau on the night of the 3rd of April. The resolution of the allies to cease negociations with Napoleon, had rendered his mission to Paris merely nominal, but the language of the Emperor of Russia did not openly avow a determination to set aside the son of Napoleon. The Duke of Vicenza was therefore ready to recommend to the Emperor a personal abdication, and to ask to be empowered to treat for a regency. Napoleon, on the contrary, was preparing to advance upon Paris. He was again at the head of fifty thousand men, and he still hoped that the sound of his cannon would rouse the national spirit, and that a coup de main might produce such results as to ensure better conditions. On the 4th, he reviewed his army, and ordered head-quarters to be removed to a position between Ponthierry and Essonne. He announced to the troops his intention of marching on the capital, and was answered with enthusiastic shouts of "Paris! Paris!" After the review, however, he was followed to his apartment by his principal marshals and councillors, whose purpose it was to discountenance the attempt on Paris. They adverted to the proposal that he should abdicate; talked of it as a sacrifice which he was called upon to make, and held forth to him the prospect of a peace on the basis of a regency. The feeling of his old companions in arms against any