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to yield to the profligate wishes of his people. Had he forgotten his professions, and done violence to his conscience ;-had he adopted the unprincipled schemes of his predecessor, and pursued his career of lawless ambition, he might have reigned the idol of the French, and the terror of Europe.

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CHAPTER II.

Connexion of Buonaparte with the Conspiracy;-His residence at Elba.-Progress of the Conspiracy. -Correspondence first opened with Buonaparte.Impolicy of placing him at Elba.-Negligence of the Ministers.

THE Conspiracy which terminated in the flight of Lewis was not formed for the sake of Buonaparte. They who were loudest in their expressions of dissatisfaction, aimed not at the restoration of the Corsican. In the early stage of the discontents he was not even thought of, and had he been further removed from the scene of action he would have been soon forgotten.

His personal friends were very few. Even in the army he would have become an object of indifference, if not of aversion. He was beloved only by a few of his officers whom he most favoured; the others were afterwards attached to his cause by their love of war and plunder, and their respect for his military talents. They would have followed with almost equal alacrity any leader who would have given them as fair a pro

mise of the gratification of their favourite propensities.

The republicans and the constitutionalists regarded him with mingled aversion and dread. Fouché, who must have been intimately acquainted with the feelings and views of all parties has truly said *, "It was not from attachment to

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Buonaparte, it was still less from fidelity to his "cause, that in the month of March a part of "France was seen to associate themselves with his "destinies. He owed his success entirely to our "discords, which made him to be regarded by some as a liberator, and by others as an instru"ment: and this instrument gave us much more "reason for fear than for hope."

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In another paper addressed to the ministers of the allied powers after the second abdication of Napoleon, he says, Why should the truth be now "concealed? Animprudent and overwhelming "zeal for the rules and maxims of the ancient "monarchy led to the commission of many faults. "Alarms of more than one description were the "result, as well as a fluctuation of opinion, "and a disaffection towards the government. "This moral opposition, which was known to "the whole of Europe, did not escape the cal"culations of Buonaparte; and he had no need

* Fouche's second Memorial.

"of any other invitation to throw himself into the "midst of this discontent, and these elements of "discord."

A small party, however, was sincerely attached to his interests. They principally consisted of those who owed to him their wealth and political consequence, and who were reduced to insignificance and comparative poverty by his abdication, --some functionaries whom the king had imprudently deprived of those emoluments which they had enjoyed during twenty years, and to which they were entitled neither by their talents nor their virtues, soldiers who languished with ennui and who, in his return, saw the only prospect of employment, promotion and wealth,-comedians whose consciences accused them of having been priests, and whom the new court treated with the contempt that they deserved,-women whose inconstancy three divorces had not been able to fix, and who sought in a fourth solemnity a new adultery,―scholars who had been crowned at the Lyceum or the Academy, but whose literary talents would not now excuse their debauchery and vice. But what they wanted in numbers, influence and power was amply compensated by diligence and zeal.

Some months passed before they dared to encourage the hope that it was possible to restore their patron and idol, and before they appear to

have meditated any project to accomplish this

atrocious purpose.

Buonaparte had retired to the island of Elba. The reluctance with which he followed the commissioners, and the tears in which he was always surprised when for a moment he had been left alone, shewed that he considered it as no temporary retreat; and that he regarded his political life as really terminated. One expression escaped from him before he embarked. "Had Marius "perished in the marshes of Manturnum, he would "not have attained his seventh consulate." But this probably is not to be regarded as an indication of his real purposes, but of those vague wishes which he could not immediately resign.

Astounded by the blow which had precipitated him from the first throne of the civilized world to a barren rock and a people nearly savage, his wild and lawless ambition had received a salutary check, and the Prince of Elba was constrained to regard the former Emperor of the French as a mere historical personage. But to suppose that he would always rest content with his new destination, was to conclude that that unrestrained imagination which had embodied the most gigantic projects, and had converted every obstacle into the means of facilitating their execution, was extinct and dead. The progress of events rekindled the smothered fire, and the errors of his enemies, and the inexhaustable resources of his own genius,

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