This act of Labedoyere was most decisive, for in spite of all the efforts of General Marchand, commandant at Grenoble, the whole of that garrison, when he approached the walls, shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" Though welcoming Napoleon with their voices and shaking hands with his followers through the wicket below, they would not so far disobey the governor as to throw open the gates. Neither could any argument prevail upon them to open fire on the advancing party and in the very teeth of all their batteries Napoleon calmly planted a howitzer or two and blew the gates open. Then, as if the spell of discipline was at once dissolved, the garrison broke from their lines and dragging the Emperor from his horse, bore him aloft on their shoulders towards the principal inn of the place, amidst the clamors of enthusiastic and delirious joy. The inhabitants of Grenoble, being unable to bring him the keys of the city, brought him with acclamations, the shattered gates instead, exclaiming: "For want of the keys of the good city of Grenoble, here are the gates for you!" Next morning he reviewed his troops, now amounting to about 7,000, and on the 9th recommenced his march.
On the 10th of March Napoleon came within sight of Lyons and was informed that Marshal Macdonald had arrived to take the command, had barricaded the bridge of Guillotierre, and posted himself at the head of a large force to dispute the entrance of the town. Nothing daunted with this intelligence, the column moved on, and at the bridge of Lyons, as at the gates of Grenoble, all opposition vanished when the person of the Emperor was recognized by the soldiery. Macdonald was forced to retire and Napoleon entered the second city of France in triumph. Macdonald would have been taken prisoner by his own troops, had not some of them, more honorable than the rest, insisted on his escape being unobstructed. He thereupon returned to Paris where he once more hoped to make a stand.
A guard of mounted citizens who had been formed to attend on the person of Count d'Artois, the heir of the Empire, and who had accompanied Macdonald, were the foremost to offer their services to the Emperor after he reached the hotel; but he rejected their assistance and dismissed them with contempt. Finding that one of their number had followed the Prince until his person was out of all danger, Napoleon immediately sent to that individual the cross of the Legion of Honor.
Meanwhile, during the week that the Emperor had continued his march Parisward without opposition, the newspapers of the capital were silent, and none ventured to make any allusion whatever to his successes. There then appeared a royal decree, proclaiming Napoleon Bonaparte "an outlaw," and convoking, on the instant, the two Chambers. Next day the "Moniteur" announced that, surrounded on all hands by faithful garrisons and a loyal population, this "outlaw and invader" was already stripped of most of his followers, was wandering in despair among the hills, and certain to be a prisoner within two or three days at the utmost! Louis received many addresses full of loyalty and devotion from the public bodies of Paris, from towns and departments, and, above all, from the marshals, generals and regiments who happened to be near the capital. The partisans of Napoleon at Paris, however, were far more active than the royalists. They gave out everywhere that, as the proclamation addressed "To the French people" from Gap had stated, Napoleon came back thoroughly cured of that ambition which had armed Europe against his throne; that he considered his act of abdication void, because the Bourbons had not accepted the crown on the terms which it was offered, and had used their authority in a spirit, and for purposes at variance with the feelings and the interests of the French people; that he was come to be no longer the dictator of a military despotism, but the first citizen of a nation which he had resolved to make the freest of the free; that the royal government wished to extinguish by degrees all memory of the Revolution; that he was returning to consecrate once more the principles of liberty and equality, ever hateful to the eyes of the old nobility of France, and to secure the proprietors of forfeited estates against all machinations of that dominant faction;—in a word, that he was fully sensible of the extent of his past errors, both of domestic administration and of military ambition, and desirous of nothing but the opportunity of devoting, to the true welfare of peaceful France, those unrivalled talents and energies which he had been rash enough to abuse in former days.
Napoleon's friends declared, too, and with much show of authority, that the army was, high and low, on the side of the Emperor; that every detachment sent to intercept him would but swell his force so that nothing could prevent him from taking possession of the Tuileries ere a fortnight more had passed over the head of the Bourbon King.
Napoleon remained at Lyons from the 10th to the 13th of March. Here he formally resumed the functions of civil government, published various decrees, one of which commanded that justice be administered everywhere in his name after the 15th, another abolishing the Chambers of the Peers and the Deputies and summoning all the electoral colleges to meet in Paris to witness the coronation of Marie Louise and her son, and settle definitively the constitution of the State; a third, ordering into banishment all those whose names had not been erased from the list of emigrants prior to the abdication of Fontainebleau; a fourth, depriving all strangers and emigrants of their commissions in the army; a fifth, abolishing the order of St. Louis, and bestowing all its revenues on the Legion of Honor; and a sixth restoring to their authority all magistrates who had been displaced by the Bourbon government.
These publications soon reached Paris and caused much alarm among the adherents of the King.
Marshal Ney now received orders from the Minister of War to take command of a large body of troops whose fidelity was considered sure, and who were about to be sent to Lons-le-Saunier, to intercept and arrest the returning Exile before he could make further progress. Ney immediately rode to Paris from his retired country-seat and there, for the first time, learned of the disembarkation of Napoleon from Elba. He is even said to have declared that he would bring his former chief to Paris in a cage, like a wild beast, in the course of a week. On reaching Lons-le-Saunier he received a letter from Napoleon reminding him of their former campaigns and summoning him to join his standard as the "bravest of the brave." Ney had a secret interview with a courier who brought this letter, with one from Bertrand. Generals Lecourbe and Bourmont, by whom the marshal was attended, advised him not to oppose a torrent which was too powerful for any resistance he could bring against it. While in this state of doubt and indecision, sorely perplexed as to his exact duty, he received intelligence that his vanguard, posted at Bourg, had gone over to Napoleon, and that the inhabitants of Chalons-sur-Saone had seized the park of artillery. All this confirming what Ney had just been told by the courier, he exclaimed, "It is impossible for me to stop the incoming water of the ocean with the palm of my hand!" Accordingly, on the following morning, he published an order of the day, declaring that "the cause of the Bourbons was lost forever, and that the legitimate dynasty which the French nation had adopted was about to reascend the throne." This order was read to the troops and was received by them with rapture; some of the officers, however, remonstrated and left their command. One, before he went away, broke his sword in two, and threw the pieces at Ney's feet, saying, "It is easier for a man of honor to break iron than to infringe his word."