‘When he first attempted to act Cromwell, unlike the tough old Puritan, he had nearly fainted; but this was a transient qualm, that “overcame him like a summer’s cloud;” and, besides,
Men may tremble, and look paler,
From too much, or too little valour.
‘The abandonment of his throne was an act of undisguised, deliberate cowardice, not altogether unanticipated by us; for it will be remembered that some months ago, in comparing the terms offered to him by the Allies, with Fluellen’s offer of the leek to ancient Pistol, we said, that though he might vow “most horrible revenge,” he would eat the leek. We had not then any reason to believe that he would be required to yield up crown and all; but now that circumstances have led to such a point, his conduct in respect to it occasions us no surprise. That which displeases us, however, is, that in the very document which ought to have contained nothing more than his subscription to his own disgrace, he has been allowed to lay claim to something like honour—to shuffle in a lying pretence to virtue. This was not a time to indulge his vanity. The record of his punishment ought rather to have referred to real crimes than to fictitious merits.’
The illuminations on this occasion were very splendid—but perhaps the best of them all, as illustrating the popular feeling, was one which was simply ‘Thank God.’
The following caricature must have been published before the news of the abdication reached England.
‘Blücher the Brave extracting the groan of abdication from the Corsican Bloodhound’ is by Rowlandson (April 9, 1814). The Prussian general having stripped Bonaparte of his crown and uniform, &c., is administering to him a sound shaking, whilst Louis the Eighteenth is being welcomed by Talleyrand and the whole French nation.
‘The Corsican Shuttlecock, or a pretty Plaything for the Allies’ (April 10, 1814), is by G. Cruikshank. Napoleon is the shuttlecock, which is kept in the air by Schwartzenberg and Blücher. The former has just sent him to his comrade with—‘There he goes!! why Blücher! this used to be rather a weighty plaything; but d—— me if it isn’t as light as a feather now.’ Blücher replies, ‘Bravo Schwartzenberg, keep the game alive! send him this way, and d—— him, I’ll drive him back again.’
‘Europe,’ by Timothy Lash ’em (April 11, 1814), gives us a pyramid formed by all the States of that Continent. It is surrounded by clouds, from whence issue the heads of Napoleon’s victims—‘Wright, Georges, Pichegru, Moreau, Palm, and Hofer’—and on the summit of the pyramid, planting the Bourbon flag, is the ghost of the Duc d’Enghien, who hurls Napoleon into hell, where Robespierre and Marat are awaiting him.