Ney put his soldiery in motion forthwith, and joined the march of the Emperor on the 17th of March at Auxerre, being received by Napoleon with open arms. Ney avowed later that he had chosen the part of Napoleon long ere he pledged his oath to Louis, adding that the greater number of the marshals were, like himself, original members of the Elban conspiracy to again place him on the throne.
In and about the capital there still remained troops sufficient in numbers to overwhelm the advancing column, and Louis intrusted the command of these battalions to Marshal Macdonald, who proceeded to establish himself at Melun with the King's army, in the hopes of being supported by his soldiers in the discharge of his commission.
On the 19th Napoleon slept once more in the chateau of Fontainebleau, and on the morning of the 20th he advanced through the forest, alone, and with the full knowledge of Macdonald's arrangements. About noon the marshal's troops, who had been for some time under arms on an eminence beyond the wood, perceived suddenly a single open carriage coming at full speed towards them from among the trees. A handful of Polish horsemen, with their lances reversed, followed the equipage. The little flat cocked hat; the gray surtout; then the person of Napoleon was recognized. In an instant the men burst from their ranks, surrounded him with the cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" and trampled their white cockades in the dust. Macdonald escaped to Paris but Louis had not awaited his last stand. He had set off from the Tuileries in the middle of the preceding night, amidst the tears and lamentations of several courtiers, taking the road to Lisle. McDonald soon overtook and accompanied him to the frontier of the Netherlands, which he reached in safety.
Napoleon once more entered Paris on the evening of the 20th of March. He came preceded and followed by the soldiery on horseback, and on whom alone he had relied. At the Tuileries he was received with every possible demonstration of joy and was almost stifled by the pressure of those enthusiastic adherents who, the moment he stopped in the court-yard of the palace, mounted him on their shoulders and carried him in triumph up the great staircase of the palace. The Emperor, during this dramatic proceeding, continued to exclaim, "Be steady my good children; be steady I entreat you." A piece of his coat being either purposely or by accident torn off, was instantly divided into hundreds of scraps, for the procurement of each remnant of which, by way of relic, there was as much struggling as if the effort had been made to become possessed of so many ingots of gold. He found in the apartments, which the King had but lately vacated, a brilliant assemblage of those who had in former times filled the most prominent places in his own councils and court.
"Gentlemen," said Napoleon, as he walked round the circle, "it is disinterested people who have brought me back to my capital. It is the subalterns and the soldiers that have done it all. I owe everything to the people and the army."
All night long the cannon of Marengo and Austerlitz pealed forth their joyous sounds, the city was brilliantly illuminated, and all except the Bourbons, who, as Thiers happily says, "during twenty-five years had neither learned or forgotten anything," were rejoicing at the return of the Exile. Napoleon had now proved that he was not only Emperor of the army but of the citizens, the people, the peasantry, and the masses. With a handful of men he had marched from one end of the kingdom to the other, entered the capital and taken possession of the throne, and that without shedding even one drop of blood!
He assigned, among other reasons for leaving Elba, that in addition to the violation of the treaty of Fontainebleau in failing to pay his pension, that his wife and child had been seized, detained, and never permitted to join him; that the pensions to his mother and brothers were alike refused, and that assassins had been sent over to Elba, for the express purpose of murdering him. This last charge has also been made by Savary with much positiveness. "Last year," said Napoleon, "it was said that I recalled the Bourbons; this year they recall me; so we are equal!"
Previous to the morning of the 20th of March the nights had been rainy and the days sombre and cloudy; but on this morning, the anniversary of the birth of the young King of Rome, the day was ushered in by a brilliant sun and which produced a strong effect on the populace who again referred in their acclamations to the "sun of Napoleon" as they had that of Austerlitz, ten years before. On the following day the whole population of the capital directed their steps towards the Tuileries and repeated anon and anon their pleasure at the return of the Emperor who had, between the 1st and the 20th of March, fulfilled that strange prophecy in which he said, victory would march at the charging step, and that the imperial eagle would fly, without pause, from steeple to steeple, to the towers of Notre Dame, even to the dome of the Palace of the Tuileries!