Then took place a really moving scene—Napoleon's farewell to his soldiers. Of this I may abstain from entering into any details, since they are known everywhere, and by everybody, but I may subjoin the Emperor's last address to his old companions-in-arms, because it belongs to history. This address was pronounced in a voice as firm and sonorous as that in which Bonaparte used to harangue his troops in the days of his triumphs. It was as follows:

"Soldiers of my Old Guard, I bid you farewell. For twenty years I
have constantly accompanied you on the road to honour and glory. In
these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you have
invariably been models of courage and fidelity. With men such as
you our cause could not be lost, but the war would have been
interminable; it would have been civil war, and that would have
entailed deeper misfortunes on France. I have sacrificed all my
interests to those of the country. I go; but you, my friends, will
continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought.. It
will still be the object of my wishes. Do not regret my fate: if I
have consented to survive, it is to serve your glory. I intend to
write the history of the great achievements we have performed
together. Adieu, my friends. Would I could press you all to my,
heart!"

During the first day cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" resounded along the road, and Napoleon, resorting to his usual dissimulation, censured the disloyalty of the people to their legitimate sovereign, which he did with ill disguised irony. The Guard accompanied him as far as Briars. At that place Napoleon invited Colonel Campbell to breakfast with him. He conversed on the last war in Spain, and spoke in complimentary terms of the English nation and the military talents of Wellington. Yet by that time he must have heard of the battle of Toulouse.

On the night of the 21st Napoleon slept at Nevers, where he was received by the acclamations of the people, who here, as in several other towns, mingled their cries in favour of their late sovereign with imprecations against the Commissioners of the Allies. He left Nevers at six on the morning of the 22d. Napoleon was now no longer escorted by the Guards, who were succeeded by a corps of Cossacks: the cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" accordingly ceased, and he had the mortification to hear in its stead, "Vivent les Allies!" However, I have been informed that at Lyons, through which the Emperor passed on the 23d at eleven at night, the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" was still echoed among the groups who assembled before the post-office during the change of horses.

Augereau, who was still a Republican, though he accepted the title of Duke of Castiglione from Napoleon, had always been among the discontented. On the downfall of the Emperor he was one of that considerable number of persons who turned Royalists not out of love for the Bourbons but out of hatred to Bonaparte. He held a command in the south when he heard of the forfeiture of Napoleon pronounced by the Senate, and he was one of the first to send his recognition to the Provisional Government. Augereau, who, like all uneducated men, went to extremes in everything, had published under his name a proclamation extravagantly violent and even insulting to the Emperor. Whether Napoleon was aware of this proclamation I cannot pretend to say, but he affected ignorance of the matter if he was informed of it, for on the 24th, having met Augereau at a little distance from Valence, he stopped his carriage and immediately alighted. Augereau did the same, and they cordially embraced in the presence of the Commissioners. It was remarked that in saluting Napoleon took off his hat and Augereau kept on his. "Where are you going?", said the Emperor; "to Court?"—"No, I am going to Lyons."—"You have behaved very badly to me." Augereau, finding that the Emperor addressed him in the second person singular, adopted the same familiarity; so they conversed as they were accustomed to do when they were both generals in Italy. "Of what do you complain?" said he. "Has not your insatiable ambition brought us to this? Have you not sacrificed everything to that ambition, even the happiness of France? I care no more for the Bourbons than for you. All I care for is the country." Upon this Napoleon turned sharply away from the Marshal, lifted his hat to him, and then stepped into his carriage. The Commissioners, and all the persons in Napoleon's suite, were indignant at seeing Augereau stand in the road still covered, with his hands behind his back, and instead of bowing, merely making a contemptuous salutation to Napoleon with his hand. It was at the Tuileries that these haughty Republicans should have shown their airs. To have done so on the road to Elba was a mean insult which recoiled upon themselves.

—[The following letter, taken from Captain Bingham's recently
published selections from the Correspondence of the first Napoleon,
indicates in emphatic language the Emperor's recent dissatisfaction
with Marshal Augereau when in command at Lyons during the "death
struggle" of 1814:
To Marshal Augereau.
NOGENT, 21st February, 1814,
....What! six hours after having received the first troops coming
from Spain you were not in the field! Six hours repose was
sufficient. I won the action of Naugis with a brigade of dragoons
coming from Spain which, since it had left Bayonne, had not
unbridled its horses. The six battalions of the division of Nimes
want clothes, equipment, and drilling, say you? What poor reasons
you give me there, Augereau! I have destroyed 80,000 enemies with
conscripts having nothing but knapsacks! The National Guards, say
you, are pitiable; I have 4000 here in round hats, without
knapsacks, in wooden shoes, but with good muskets, and I get a great
deal out of them. There is no money, you continue; and where do you
hope to draw money from! You want waggons; take them wherever you
can. You have no magazines; this is too ridiculous. I order you
twelve hours after the reception of this letter to take the field.
If you are still Augereau of Castiglione, keep the command, but if
your sixty years weigh upon you hand over the command to your senior
general. The country is in danger; and can be saved by boldness and
alacrity alone....
(Signed) NAPOLEON]—

At Valence Napoleon, for the first time, saw French soldiers with the white cockade in their caps. They belonged to Augereau's corps. At Orange the air resounded with tunes of "Vive le Roi!" Here the gaiety, real or feigned, which Napoleon had hitherto evinced, began to forsake him.

Had the Emperor arrived at Avignon three hours later than he did there is no doubt that he would have been massacred.—[The Royalist mob of Avignon massacred Marshal Brune in 1816.]—He did not change horses at Avignon, through which he passed at five in the morning, but at St. Andiol, where he arrived at six. The Emperor, who was fatigued with sitting in the carriage, alighted with Colonel Campbell and General Bertrand, and walked with them up the first hill. His valet de chambre, who was also walking a little distance in advance, met one of the mail couriers, who said to him, "Those are the Emperor's carriages coming this way?"—"No, they are the equipages of the Allies."—"I say they are the Emperor's carriages. I am an old soldier. I served in the campaign of Egypt, and I will save the life of my General."—"I tell you again they are not the Emperor's carriages."—"Do not attempt to deceive me; I have just passed through Organ, where the Emperor has been hanged in effigy. The wretches erected a scaffold and hanged a figure dressed in a French uniform covered with blood. Perhaps I may get myself into a scrape by this confidence, but no matter. Do you profit by it." The courier then set off at full gallop. The valet de chambre took General Drouot apart, and told him what he had heard. Drouot communicated the circumstance to General Bertrand, who himself related it to the Emperor in the presence of the Commissioners. The latter, justly indignant, held a sort of council on the highway, and it was determined that the Emperor should go forward without his retinue. The valet de chambre was asked whether he had any clothes in the carriage. He produced a long blue cloak and a round hat. It was proposed to put a white cockade in the hat, but to this Napoleon would not consent. He went forward in the style of a courier, with Amaudru, one of the two outriders who had escorted his carriage, and dashed through Orgon. When the Allied Commissioners arrived there the assembled population were uttering exclamations of "Down with the Corsican! Down with the brigand!" The mayor of Orgon (the same man whom I had seen almost on his knees to General Bonaparte on his return from Egypt) addressed himself to Pelard, the Emperor's valet de chambre, and said, "Do you follow that rascal?"—"No," replied Pelard, "I am attached to the Commisairiers of the Allied powers."—Ah! that is well! I should like to hang the villain with my own hands.

"Ah! if you knew, sir, how the scoundrel has deceived us! It was I who received him on his return from Egypt. We wished to take his horses out and draw his carriage. I should like to avenge myself now for the honours I rendered him at that time."

The crowd augmented, and continued to vociferate with a degree of fury which may be imagined by those who have heard the inhabitants of the south manifest, by cries, their joy or their hatred. Some more violent than the rest wished to force Napoleon's coachman to cry "Vive le Roi!" He courageously refused, though threatened with a stroke of a sabre, when, fortunately; the carriage being ready to start, he whipped the horses and set off at full gallop. The Commissioners would not breakfast at Orgon; they paid for what had been prepared, and took some refreshments away with them. The carriages did not overtake the Emperor until they came to La Calade, where he had arrived a quarter of an hour before with Amaudru.