Napoleon, though apparently contemptuous of the opinions of mankind, evidently felt the strongest anxiety to make out a favorable statement for himself. And all his hours, except the few devoted to exercise on horseback and to sleep, and to his meals; were employed in completing the narrative which was to clear up his character to mankind.

events are continually under the guidance eyes. But to those duties of private friendof spirits of the air; in which fantastic ship were affixed official services, which palaces are erected by a spell, and the looked much more like tyranny than the treasures of the earth developed by the tribute of personal regard, and which we wave of a wand-in which the mendicant should think must have worn out the paof this hour is exalted into the prince of the tience, and tried the constitution, of the next; and while the wonder still glitters most devoted follower of this extraordinary before the eye, another sign of the necro- captive. mancer dissolves the whole pageant into air again. Human recollection has no record of so much power, so widely distributed, and apparently so fixed above all the ordinary casualties of the world, so instantly and so irretrievably overthrown. The kings of earth are not undone at a blow; kingdoms do not change their rulers without a struggle. Great passions and great havoc have always preceded and followed During the last years passed in St. He the fall of monarchies. But the four dia- lena, Napoleon sent for the Count every dems of the Napoleon race fell from their night at eleven o'clock, and continued dicwearers' brows with scarcely a touch from tating to him until six in the morning, when the hand of man. The surrender of the he went into the bath, dismissing the Count crown by Napoleon extinguished the crowns with "Come, my son, go and repose, actually ruling over millions, and virtually and come to me again at nine o'clock. influencing the whole Continent. They We shall have breakfast, and resume the were extinguished, too, at the moment labors of the night." At nine he returned, when the Imperial crown disappeared It and remained with him till one, when Nahad no sooner been crushed at Waterloo, than they all fell into fragments, of themselves; the whole dynasty went down with Napoleon into the dungeon, and not one of them has since returned to the world.

poleon went to bed. Between four and five, he sent for the Count again, who dined with him every day, and at nine o'clock left him, to return at eleven.

The world little knew the drudgery to which these unfortunate followers of the Ex-Emperor were thus exposed, and they must all have rejoiced at any termination of a toil so remorseless and so uncheering.

The name of General Count Montholon is well known to this country, as that of a brave officer, who, after acquiring distinguished rank in the French army by his sword, followed Napoleon to St. Helena; remained with him during his captivity; Napoleon was fond of the Turkish docand upon his death was made the depository trine of fatality. Whether so acute a mind of his papers, and his executor. But his was capable of believing a doctrine so palown language, in a letter dated from the pably contradicted by the common circumCastle of Ham in June, 1844, gives the best stances of life, and so utterly repugnant to account of his authority and his proceed-reason, can scarcely be a question; but ings. with him, as with the Turks, it was a capi"A soldier of the Republic, a brigadier- tal doctrine for the mighty machine which general at twenty years of age, and minis- he called an army. But the Count seems ter-plenipotentiary in Germany in 1912 and to have been a true believer. He, too, pro1813, I could, like others, have left me-nounces, that "destiny is written," and remoirs concerning the things which I saw; but the whole is effaced from my mind in presence of a single thing, a single event, and a single man. The thing is Waterloo; the event, the fall of the Empire; and the man, Napoleon."

He then proceeds to tell us, that he shared the St. Helena captivity for six years; that for forty-two nights he watched the dying bed of the ex-monarch; and that, by Napoleon's express desire, he closed his

gards himself as being under the peculiar influence of a malignant star, or, in his own words: "In fact, without having sought it, my destiny brought me into contact with the Emperor in the Elysée Bourbon, conducted me, without my knowing it, to the shores of Boulogne, where honor imposed upon me the necessity of not abandoning the nephew of the Emperor in presence of the dangers by which he was surrounded. Irrevocably bound to the misfortunes of a

family, I am now perishing in Ham; the captivity commenced in St. Helena."

Of Count Montholon, it must be acknowledged, that he was unstained by either the vices or the violences which scandalized Europe so frequently in the leaders of the French armies. He appears to have been at all times a man of honorable habits, as he certainly is of striking intelligence. But we have no faith in his doctrine of the star, and think that he would have acted much more wisely if he had left the stars to take care of themselves, avoided the blunder of mistaking the nephew of Napoleon for a hero and a genius, and stayed quietly in London, instead of risking himself with an invasion of valets to take the diadem off the most sagacious head in Europe.

a new scandal; but hitherto no evil had been produced by this gross regard of self. The penalty, however, must be paid. His flight from the army in Belgium, leaving it without counsel or direction, to be crushed by a victorious enemy, was the third instance of that ignoble preference of his own objects which had characterized and stained his Egyptian and Russian career. But retribution was now come, and he was to be undone. The slaughter of Waterloo had been tremendous, but it was not final. The loss of the French army had been computed at forty thousand men, killed, wounded, and dispersed. He had come into the field with seventy-two thousand men, independent of Grouchy. He had thus thirty thousand remaining. Grouchy's force of thirty thousand was still untouched, The narrative commences with the re- and was able to make its way to Paris. In turn of Napoleon to Paris after his renown, addition to these sixty thousand, strong garhis throne, and his dynasty were alike risons had been left in all the fortresses, crushed by the British charge at Waterloo. which he might without difficulty have He reached Paris at six in the morning of gathered upon his retreat. The Parisian the 21st. It is now clear that the greatest national guard would have augmented this blunder of this extraordinary man was his force, probably, on the whole, to one hunflight from the army. If he had remained dred thousand men. It is true that the alat its head, let its shattered condition belied Russian and Austrian forces were on what it might, he would have been power- the frontier. But they had not yet moved, ful, have awed the growing hostility of the and could not prevent the march of those capital, and have probably been able to reinforcements. Thus, without reckoning make peace alike for himself and his nation. the provincial militia of France, or calculaBut by hurrying to Paris all was lost he ting on a levée en masse, Napoleon within a stripped himself of his strength; he threw fortnight might have been at the head of one himself on the mercy of his enemies; and hundred and fifty thousand men, while the palpably capitulated to the men who, but pursuing army could not have mustered half the day before, were trembling under the the number. He would thus have had time fear of his vengeance. for negotiating; and time with him was every thing. Or let the event be what it might, the common sense of the Allies would have led them to avoid a direct collision with so powerful a force fighting on its own ground under the walls of the capital, and knowing that the only alternatives were complete triumph or total ruin.

Nobleness of heart is essential to all true renown; and perhaps it is not less essential to all real security. Napoleon, with talents which it is perfectly childish to question, though the attempt has been made since the close of his brilliant career, wanted this nobleness of heart, and through its want ultimately perished. Of the bravery of him Count Montholon makes a remark on who fought the splendid campaigns of Italy, the facility with which courtiers make their and of the political sagacity of him who escape from a fallen throne, which has been raised himself from being a subaltern of ar- so often exemplified in history. But it was tillery to a sovereign of sovereigns, there never more strikingly exemplified than in can be no doubt. But his selfishness was the double overthrow of Napoleon. "At so excessive that it occasionally made both Fontainbleau, in 1814," says the Count, contemptible, and gave his conduct alike" when I hastened to offer to carry him off the appearance of cowardice, and the appearance of infatuation. His flight from Egypt, leaving his army to be massacred or captured, disgraced him in the face of Europe. His flight from Russia, leaving the remnant of his legions to be destroyed, was

with the troops under my command, I found no one in those vast corridors, formerly too small for the crowd of courtiers, except the Duke of Bassano and two aidesde-camp." His whole court, down to his Mameluke and valet, had run off to Paris,

to look for pay and place under the Bour- tion, whether he should proceed in person bous. In a similar case in the next year, at to the Chamber of Deputies, and demand the Elysée Bourbon, he found but two supplies, or send his brothers and ministers counts and an equerry. It was perfectly to make the communication. Three of plain to all the world but Napoleon himself the ministers approved of his going in perthat his fate was decided.

There certainly seems to have been something in his conduct at this period that can scarcely be accounted for but by infatuation. His first act, the desertion of his army, was degrading to his honor, but his conduct on his arrival was not less degrading to his sagacity. Even his brother Lucien said that he was blinded with the smoke of Waterloo. He seems to have utterly lost that distinct view and fierce decision which formerly characterized all his conduct. It was no more the cannon-shot or the thunder-clap, it was the wavering of a mind suddenly perplexed by the difficulties which he would once have solved by a sentence and overwhelmed by resistancewhich he would have once swept away like a swarm of flies. The leader of armies was crushed by a conspiracy of clerks, and the sovereign of the Continent was sent to the dungeon by a cabal of his own slaves. While Napoleon was thus lingering in the Elysée Bourbon, the two chambers of the Legislature were busily employed between terror and intrigue. The time was delicate, for the Bourbons and the Allies were approaching. But on the other hand, the fortunes of Napoleon might change; tardiness in recognizing the Bourbons might be fatal to their hopes of place, but the precipitancy of abandoning Napoleon might bring their heads under the knife of the guillotine. All public life is experimental, and there never was a time when the experiment was of a more tremulous description.

son, but the majority disapproved of it-on the plea of its being a dangerous experiment, in the excited state of the public passions. If Napoleon had declined this counsel, which arose from either pusillanimity or perfidy, it is perfectly possible that he might have silenced all opposition. The known attachment of the troops, the superstition connected with his fortunes, the presence of the man whom they all so lately worshipped, as the Indians worship the serpent for the poison of its fang, might have produced a complete revulsion. Napoleon, too, was singularly eloquent-his language had a romantic splendor which captivates the artificial taste of the nation; and with an imperial figure before them, surrounded with more powerful incidents than the drama could ever offer, and threatening a fifth act which might involve the fate of France and Europe, the day might have finished by a new burst of national enthusiasm, and the restoration of Napoleon to the throne, with all his enemies in the Legislature chained to its footstool.

But he sent his brother Joseph to the Chamber of Peers, and received the answer to his mission next morning, in a proposal which was equivalent to a demand for his abdication.

A council of ministers was again held on this proposal. The same three who had voted for his presence in the Chamber, now voted for his rejection of the proposal. The majority, however, were against them. Napoleon yielded to the majority. He had lost his opportunity-and in politics opporAt length they began to act; and the tunity is every thing. He had now nothing first precaution of the Chamber of Deputies more to lose. He drew up an acknowledg was to secure their own existence. Old ment of his abdication; but appended to it Lafayette moved a resolution, that the man the condition of proclaiming his son, Nashould be regarded as a traitor to the coun-poleon Second, emperor of the French. try who made any attempt to dissolve the This was an artifice, but it was unworthy Chamber. This was an obvious declara- even of the art of Napoleon. He must tion against the authority of the Empire. have been conscious that the Allies would The next motion was, that General Beker have regarded his appointment as a trick to should be appointed commandant of the ensure his own restoration. His son was guard ordered to protect the Legislature. yet a child; a regent must have been apThis was a provision against the mob of pointed; Napoleon would have naturally Paris. The Legislature was now safe from been that regent; and in six months, or on its two prominent perils. In the mean the first retreat of the Allies, he would as time, Napoleon had made another capital naturally have re-appointed himself emblunder. He had held a council of the peror. The trick was too shallow for his ministers, to which he proposed the ques-sagacity, and it was impossible to hope that

The Count was sent to dismiss the vol

it could have been suffered by the Allies. | least evident that he intended to tempt the Yet it passed the Chamber, and Napoleon field no more, but after being the cause of Second was acknowledged within the walls. shedding the blood of two millions of the But the acknowledgment was laughed at people, his reserve was romantic. without them; the Allies did not condescend to notice it; and the Allies proceed-unteers, and they having per formed their ed to their work of restoration as if it had never existed. In fact, the dynasty was at an end; a provisional government was appointed, with Fouché at its head, and the name of Napoleon was pronounced no

more.

act of heroism, and offered to challenge the whole British army, were content with the glory of the threat, and heroically marched home to their shops.

But Montholon, on returning again, addressed Napoleon on the feasibility of attacking Wellington and Blucher, with the battalions of the Messrs. Calicot, upon which the Ex-Emperor made the following solemn speech: "To put into action the brute force of the masses, would without doubt save Paris, and ensure me the crown, without having recourse to the horrors of a civil war. But this would be also to risk the shedding of rivers of fresh blood. What is the compressive force which would be sufficiently strong to regulate the outburst of so much passion, hatred, and vengeance? No, I never can forget one thing, that I have been brought from Cannes to Paris in the midst of cries for blood, 'Down with the priests! Down with the nobles!' I would rather have the regrets of France than possess its crown."

Count Montholon gives a brief but striking description of the confusion, dismay, and despair, into which Waterloo had thrown the Bonapartists. He had hurried to the Elysée a few hours after the arrival of Bonaparte from the field. He met the Duke of Vicenza coming out, with a countenance of dejection, and asked him what was going on. "All is lost," was the answer. "You arrived to-day, as you did at Fontainbleau, only to see the emperor resign his crown. The leaders of the Chambers desire his abdication. They will have it; and in a week Louis XVIII. will be in Paris. At night on the 19th, a short note in pencil was left with my Swiss, announcing the destruction of the army. The same notice was given to Carnot. The last telegraphic dispatch had brought news of vic- There is no country in the world, where tory; we both hastened to the Duke of Napoleon's own phrase, that from the subOtranto; he assured us with all his cadav-lime to the ridiculous is but a step, is more erous coldness that he knew nothing. He perpetually and practically realized than in knew all, however, I am well assured. France. Here was a man utterly ruined, Events succeeded each other with the rapidity of lightning; there is no longer any possible illusion. All is lost, and the Bourbons will be here in a week."

without a soldier on the face of the earth, all but a prisoner, abandoned by every human being who could be of the slightest service to him, beaten in the field, beaten on his own ground, and now utterly separated from his remaining troops, and with a hundred thousand of the victors rushing after him, hour by hour, to Paris. Yet he talks as if he had the world still at his dis

The Count remained forty-eight hours at the palace. The fallen Emperor had now made up his mind to go to America, and the Count promised to accompany him. A couple of regiments, formed of the workmen of the Faubourg St. Germain, march-posal, applauds his own magnanimity in ing by the palace, now demanded that Napoleon should put himself at their head, and take vengeance on his enemies. But he well knew the figure which the volunteers of the mob would make in front of the bayonets which had crushed his guard at Waterloo, and he declined the honor of this new command. A few courtiers, who adhered to him still, continued to talk of his putting himself at the head of the national force. But Waterloo had effectually cured him of the passion for soldiership, and he constantly appealed to his unwillingness to shed the blood of Frenchmen. It was at

declining the impossible combat, vaunts his
own philosophy in standing still, when he
could neither advance nor retreat, and gives
himself credit as a philanthropist, when he
was on the very point of being handed over
to the enemy as a prisoner.
Some unac-
countable tricks of a lower description now
began to be played on the goods and chat-
tels of the Elysée Bourbon. A case con-
taining snuff-boxes adorned with portraits
set in diamonds, was laid by Bertrand on
the mantel-piece. He accidentally turned
to converse with General Montholon at the
window. Only one person entered the