But if the order "to hunt down" appears strange, owing to the preservation of the old idiom of the law, had Bonaparte originally the intention of acting better, although employing a newer language? Papers of M. d'Hauterive[253], catalogued by M. Artaud[254], prove that it cost great difficulty to prevent Napoleon from having the Duc d'Angoulême shot, in spite of the official document in the Moniteur, a show document which remains to us: he thought it wrong of the Prince to have defended himself. And yet the fugitive from Elba, when leaving Fontainebleau, had recommended the soldiers to be "faithful to the monarch" whom France had chosen. Bonaparte's family had been respected; Queen Hortense had accepted from Louis XVIII. the title of Duchesse de Saint-Leu; Murat, who still reigned in Naples, saw his kingdom sold by M. de Talleyrand only during the Congress of Vienna.
This period, in which all are lacking in frankness, oppresses the heart: every one threw out a profession of faith as it were a foot-bridge to cross the difficulty of the day, free to change his direction, the difficulty once passed; youth alone was sincere, because it was near its cradle. Bonaparte solemnly declared that he renounced the crown; he departed, and returned after nine months. Benjamin Constant printed his vehement protest against the tyrant, and he changed in twenty-four hours. It will be seen later, in another book of these Memoirs, who inspired him with the noble impulse to which the fickleness of his nature did not permit him to remain faithful. Marshal Soult excited the troops against their old leader; a few days later he was roaring with laughter at his own proclamation in Napoleon's closet at the Tuileries, and became Major-general of the army at Waterloo; Marshal Ney kissed the King's hands, swore to bring him Bonaparte locked up in an iron cage, and handed over to the latter all the corps under his command. And the King of France, alas? He declared that, at the age of sixty years, he could not better end his career than by dying in defense of his people ... and fled to Ghent! At sight of this incapacity for truth in men's feelings, at the want of harmony between their words and their deeds, one feels seized with disgust for the human kind.
Louis XVIII., on the 16th of March, was declaring his intention of dying in the midst of France; had he kept his word, the Legitimacy might have lasted another century; nature herself seemed to have taken from the old King the power of retreating by chaining him about with wholesome infirmities; but the future destinies of the human race would have been trammelled by the accomplishment of the resolution of the author of the Charter. Bonaparte hastened to the assistance of the future; that Christ of the power for evil took the new man sick of the palsy by the hand, and said to him:
"Arise, take up thy bed, and walk[255]."
*
It was evident that a scamper was being contemplated: for fear of being detained, they did not even warn those who, like myself, would have been shot within an hour after Napoleon's entry into Paris. I met the Duc de Richelieu in the Champs-Élysées:
"They are deceiving us," he said; "I am keeping watch here, for I do not propose to await the Emperor at the Tuileries all by myself."
Flight of Louis XVIII.
On the evening of the 19th, Madame de Chateaubriand had sent a servant to the Carrousel, with instructions not to return until he had the certainty of the flight of the King. At midnight, as the man had not come in, I went to my room. I had just gone to bed, when M. Clausel de Coussergues entered. He told us that His Majesty had left and had gone in the direction of Lille. He brought me this news on the part of the Chancellor, who, knowing me to be in danger, was violating secrecy on my behalf and sent me twelve thousand francs recoverable on my salary as Minister to Sweden. I was obstinately bent on remaining, not wishing to leave Paris until I should be physically certain of the royal removal. The servant who had been sent to reconnoitre returned: he had seen the Court carriages go by. Madame de Chateaubriand pushed me into her carriage, at four o'clock in the morning on the 20th of March. I was in such a fit of fury that I knew neither where I was going nor what I was doing.