I could perceive that he was speaking, but the words did not reach me. Eloquent and burning words they were, and to be recorded in history to the remotest ages. I now saw that he had finished, as General Petit sprang forward with the eagle of the First Regiment of the Guards, and presented it to him. The Emperor pressed it fervently to his lips, and then threw his arms round Petit's neck; while suddenly disengaging himself, he took the tattered flag that waved above him, and kissed it twice. Unable to bear up any longer, the worn, hard-featured veterans sobbed aloud like children, and turned away their faces to conceal their emotion. No cry of “Vive l'Empereur!” resounded now through those ranks where each had willingly shed his heart's blood for him. Sorrow had usurped the place of enthusiasm, and they stood overwhelmed by grief.
A tall and soldierlike figure, with head uncovered, approached the Emperor, and said a few words. Napoleon waved his hand towards the troops, and from the ranks many rushed towards him, and fell on their knees before him. He passed his hand across his face and turned away. My eyes grew dim; a misty vapor shut out every object, and I felt as though the very lids were bursting. The great tramp of horses startled me, and then came the roll of wheels. I looked up: an equipage was passing from the gate, a peloton of dragoons escorted it; a second followed at full speed. The colonels formed their men; the word to march was given; the drums beat out; the grenadiers moved on; the chasseurs succeeded; and last the artillery rolled heavily up. The court was deserted; not a man remained: all, all were gone! The Empire was ended; and the Emperor, the mighty genius who created it, on his way to exile!
CHAPTER XLI. THE CONCLUSION
France never appeared to less advantage in the eyes of Europe than at the period I speak of. Scarcely had the proud star of Napoleon set, when the whole current of popular favor flowed along with those whom, but a few days before, they accounted their greatest enemies. The Russians and the Prussians, whom they lampooned and derided, they now flattered and fawned on. They deemed no adulation servile enough to lay at the feet of their conquerors,—not esteeming the exaltation of their victors sufficient, unless purchased at the sacrifice of their own honor as a nation.
The struggle was no longer who should be first in glory, but who foremost in desertion of him and his fortunes whose word had made them. The marshals he had created, the generals he had decorated, the ministers and princes he had endowed with wealth and territory, now turned from him in his hour of misfortune, to court the favor of one against whom every act of their former lives was directed.
These men, whose very titles recalled the fields of glory to which he led them, now hastened to the Tuileries to proffer an allegiance to a monarch they neither loved nor respected. Sad and humiliating spectacle! The long pent-up hatred of the Royalists found a natural vent in this moment of triumphant success. Chateaubriand, Constant, and Madame de Staël led the way to those declarations of the press which denounced Napoleon as the greatest of earthly tyrants; and inveighed even against his greatness and his genius, as though malevolence could produce oblivion.
All Paris was in a ferment of excitement,—not the troubled agitation of a people whose capital owned the presence of a conquering army, but the tumultuous joy of a nation intoxicated with pleasure. Fêtes and balls, gay processions and public demonstrations of rejoicing, met one everywhere; and ingenuity was taxed to invent flatteries for the very nations whom, but a week past, they scoffed at as barbarians and Scythians.
Sickened and disgusted with the fickleness of mankind, I knew not where to turn. My wound had brought on a low, lingering fever, accompanied by extreme debility, increased in all likelihood by the harassing reflections every object around suggested. I could not venture abroad without meeting some evidence of that exuberant triumph by which treachery hopes to cover its own baseness; besides, the reputation of being a Napoleonist was now a mark for insult and indignity from those who never dared to avow an opinion until the tide of fortune had turned in their favor. The white cockade had replaced the tricolor; every emblem of the Empire was abolished; and that uniform, to wear which was once a mark of honorable distinction, was now become a signal for insult.
I was returning one evening from a solitary ramble in the neighborhood of Paris,—for, by some strange fatality, I could not tear myself away from the scenes to which the most eventful portions of my life were attached,—and at length reached the Boulevard Montmartre, just as the leading squadrons of a cavalry regiment were advancing up the wide thoroughfare. I had hitherto avoided every occasion of witnessing any military display which should recall the past; but now the rapid gathering of the crowd to see the soldiers pass prevented my escape, and I was obliged to wait patiently until the cortege should move forward.