quailed before his enemies was crushed
by the desertion of his friends. He had now to feel that treason and
ingratitude are attendants on adversity, and that the worshippers of
power, like the Gheber devotee, turn their faces reverently towards the
rising sun.

There are few things in history so touching as the position of Napoleon
at Fontainebleau, during the few days which preceded his abdication
and departure for the Island of Elba. Nearly all his superior officers
forsook him, not even finding time to bid him adieu. Men whom he had
covered with wealth and honors, who had most obsequiously courted his
smiles, and been most vehement in their protestations of fidelity, were
the first to leave him in his misfortune, forgetting, in their anxiety
to conciliate his successor, to make the slightest stipulation for the
protection of their benefactor. He was left in the vast apartments of
that deserted palace, with hardly the footsteps of a domestic servant to
break its monastic stillness; and, for the first time in his eventful
life, he sat, hour after hour, without movement, brooding over his
despair. At last, when all was ready for his departure, he called up
something of his old energy, and again stood in the presence of what
remained of the Imperial Guard, which was faithful to the end. These
brave men had often encircled him, like a wall of granite, in the hour
of utmost peril, and they were now before him, to look upon him, as they
thought, for the last time. He struggled to retain his firmness, but
the effort was beyond human resolution; his pride gave way before his
bursting heart, and the stern vanquisher of nations wept with his old
comrades.

Napoleon was gone. His empire was in the dust. The streets of his capital
were filled with strangers, and the volatile Parisians were almost
compensated for the degradation, in their wonder at the novel garb and
uncouth figures of their enemies. The Cossacks of the Don had made their
threatened "hurra," and bivouacked on the banks of the Seine. Prussian
and Austrian cannon pointed down all the great thoroughfares, and by
their side, day and night, the burning match suggested the penalty of
any popular commotion. The Bourbons were at the Tuileries, and France
appeared to have moved back to the place whence she had started on her
course of redemption. At length, slowly and prudently, the allied armies
commenced their homeward march, and the reigning family were left to
their