Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II

by baron Pierre Alexandre Édouard Fleury de Chaboulon

The Emperor, after having sworn on the Gospels, to observe, and cause to be observed, the constitutions of the empire, made the archchancellor proclaim the oath of fealty of the French people, represented by the electors. This oath was spontaneously repeated by thousands and thousands of voices.

The ministers of war and of the navy, in the name of the armies by land and sea, and at the head of their deputations; the minister of the interior, in the name of the national guards of France, and at the head of the electors; the staff of the imperial guard, and that of the national guard; afterwards advanced to take the oath, and receive from the hands of the Emperor the eagles intended for them.

This ceremony ended, the troops, making about fifty thousand men, filed off before Napoleon and the festival concluded, as it had commenced, amid the acclamations of the people, the soldiers, and the majority of the electors: but to the discontent of a certain number of them, who complained, and with reason, that the Emperor had substituted a steril distribution of colours, instead of the grand national congress, which he had convened.

The parties too, that already began to pullulate, were not better satisfied with the issue of the Champ de Mai.

The old revolutionists would have wished Napoleon, to have abolished the empire, and re-established a republic.

The partisans of the regency reproached him for not having proclaimed Napoleon II.

And the liberals maintained, that he ought to have laid down the crown, and left to the sovereign nation the right of restoring it to him, or offering it to the most worthy.

Were these different pretensions well founded? No.

The re-establishment of the republic would have ruined France.

The abdication in favour of Napoleon II. would not have saved it. The allies had explained their intentions at Bâle: they would not have laid down their arms, till the Emperor had consented, to deliver himself up. "A circumstance, that, being to a prince the greatest of misfortunes, can never form a condition of peace[22]?"