"Diary," April 15th and 18th, 1815.
"Parl. Debates"; Romilly's "Diary," vol. ii., p. 360.
Napoleon told Cockburn during his last voyage that he bestowed this constitution, not because it was a wise measure, but as a needful concession to popular feeling. The continental peoples were not fit for representative government as England was ("Last Voyages of Nap.," pp. 115, 137). So, too, he said to Gourgaud he was wrong in summoning the Chambers at all "especially as I meant to dismiss them as soon as I was a conqueror" (Gourgaud, "Journal," vol. i., p. 93).