"Not France, but myself!" cried Napoleon. "Ah, you come to propose an abdication to me?"
"We come to implore your majesty to make a last great sacrifice."
"Sire," exclaimed Oudinot, "let your heroic soul conquer itself, and restore peace to France."
"She will forever bless you," said Lefebvre.
"Restore to France the peace for which she has been vainly longing for twenty-five years!" cried Macdonald.
Now that they had all spoken, there was an anxious, breathless pause. Suddenly Napoleon passed over to his desk. He cast a last glance, full of pride, contempt, and anger, on his four marshals; then, seating himself, he took up a pen with a firm hand, and wrote. The marshals stood in silence, and looked at him in an embarrassed manner. Laying aside the pen, and rising, he held up the paper on which he had written, and motioned to Marshal Ney. "Here, Prince de la Moskwa," said Napoleon, "read to the marshals what I have written."
Ney read in a tremulous voice: "'The allied powers, having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the reestablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to quit France, and even life itself, for the good of the country, inseparable from the rights of his son, of the regency of the empress, and of the maintenance of the laws of the empire.'" [Footnote: Fain, "Manuscrit de 1814," p. 221.]
"You have willed it so," said Napoleon, when Ney had finished. "Macdonald and Ney, with Caulaincourt, will immediately repair with this document to Paris. On the way they will meet Mortier, and request him to accompany them. The four dukes will present my conditional abdication to the Emperor Alexander, and treat with him in regard to the future of my son and the regency of my consort."
On the 7th of April the Duke de Vicenza entered the emperor's cabinet, pale and with a mournful air.
"Caulaincourt," cried Napoleon, "you have delivered my abdication to
Alexander?"