(245) M. d'Arblay returned to France in the following June. -ED.
(246) Yesterday I left my retreat, very willingly, to-"
(247) "Far more honorable, nevertheless—-"
Page 292 SECTION 24. (1815)
MADAME D'ARBLAY AGAIN IN FRANCE: BONAPARTE'S ESCAPE FROM ELBA.
(The two following sections contain Fanny's account of her adventures during the " Hundred Days " which elapsed between the return of Napoleon from Elba and his final downfall and abdication. This narrative may be recommended to the reader as an interesting supplement to the history of that period. The great events of the time, the triumphal progress of the emperor, the battles which decided his destiny and the fate of Europe, we hear of only at a distance, by rumour or chance intelligence ; but our author brings vividly before us, and with the authenticity of personal observation, the disturbed state of the country, the suspense, the alarms, the distress occasioned by the war. To refresh our readers' memories, we give an epitome, as brief as possible, of the events to which Madame d'Arblay's narrative forms, as it were, a background.
When Napoleon abdicated the imperial throne, in April, 1814, the allied powers consented by treaty to confer upon him the sovereignty of the island of Elba, with a revenue of two million francs. To Elba he was accordingly banished, but the revenue was never paid. This disgraceful infringement of the treaty of Fontainebleau, joined to the accounts which he received of the state of public feeling in France, determined him to make the attempt to regain his lost empire. March 1, 1815, he landed at Cannes, with a few hundred men. He was everywhere received with the utmost enthusiasm. The troops sent to oppose him joined his standard with shouts of "Vive l'empereur!" March 20, he entered Paris in triumph, Louis XVIII having taken his departure the preceding evening, "amidst the tears and lamentations of several courtiers."(248)
The congress of the allied powers at Vienna proclaimed the emperor an outlaw, not choosing to remember that the treaty which they accused him of breaking, had been first violated by themselves. To his offers of negotiation they replied not. The Page 293
English army under the Duke of Wellington, the Prussian under Prince Blcher occupied Belgium; the Austrians and Russians were advancing in immense force towards the Rhine. Anxious to strike a blow before the arrival of the latter Napoleon left Paris for Belgium, June 12. His army amounted to about one hundred and twenty thousand men. On the 15th the fighting commenced, h and the advanced guard of the Prussians was driven back. On the 16th, Blcher was attacked at Ligny, and defeated with terrible loss; but Marshal Ney was unsuccessful in an attack upon the combined English and Belgian army at Quatre Bras. Sunday, June 18, was the day of the decisive battle of Waterloo. After the destruction of his army, Napoleon hastened to Paris, but all hope was at an end. He abdicated the throne for the second time, proceeded to Rochefort, and voluntarily surrendered himself to Captain Maitland, of the English seventy-four, Bellerophon. He was conveyed to England, but was not permitted to land, and passed the few remaining years of his life a prisoner in the island of St. Helena.-ED.]