Why did he abdicate?
The Chambers demanded it. Think of Napoleon as a constitutional king hastening to yield to the wish of the Chambers!
Sire, was not the man of the 22nd June the same as the man of the 18th Brumaire?
But wait ... perhaps he believed all was lost? perhaps a ray of hope had sprung up, and it was to re-kindle the extinct light which caused him, in the darkness in which he found himself, to have recourse to the lantern of Benjamin Constant?
Jérôme arrived on the evening of the 22nd. It was high time, for Lucien had just insulted his brother. Lucien, the unambitious, the simple Republican, who had refused the title of King of Portugal, which the emperor had offered him, to accept that of Prince of Canino, offered him by the pope, had come to him and had made conditions at the Élysee, as Napoleon had made to him at Mantua.
"France," he said, "no longer believes in the magic of the Empire. She wants liberty, even if she abuses it; she prefers the Charter to the splendours of your rule; she, like myself, desires a Republic, because she has faith in it. I will give you the chief command of the army, and I will prevent a Revolution by the help of your sword."
You see, the moment was propitious. Jérôme was a young soldier, and had accomplished things which Napoleon would not have looked for from an old general. By dint of activity, perseverance, and determination, he had stayed the fugitives; he had rallied them under the walls of Laon; he had placed them under command of Marshal Soult, and he came, exhausted with fatigue, bleeding still from the wounds he had received, not like Lucien to impose conditions on his brother, but to inform the emperor of the reorganisation of the 1st, 2nd, and 6th corps, which, united to the 42,000 men under Marshal Grouchy, would make a total of over 80,000 men, an army with which he could begin operations immediately, and take a sanguinary revenge upon the Duke of Wellington.
Eighty thousand men was more than he had ever had during the campaign of 1814.
Sire, sire, we shall have to say, as was said at Montereau, "Come, Bonaparte, save Napoleon."
Napoleon listened to Jérôme, but made him no reply, and dismissed him; a moment later, a great tumult was heard on the terrace of the Élysee; two regiments of sharp-shooters from the guard of volunteers drawn from the working classes of the faubourg Saint-Antoine threaded their way through the garden in disorder; they were the forerunners of a vast column of men, the rank and file of the nation, who came demanding with loud shouts that the emperor should place himself at their head and lead them against the enemy.