ous reports, with regard to the
abdication of Napoleon. Certain historians have been pleased, to
represent Napoleon in a pitious state of despondency: others have
depicted him as the sport of the threats of M. Regnault St. Jean
d'Angely, and of the artifices of the Duke of Otranto. These Memoirs
will show, that Napoleon, far from having fallen into a state of
weakness, that would no longer permit him to wield the sceptre,
aspired, on the contrary, to be invested with a temporary
dictatorship, and that, when he consented to abdicate, it was because
the energetic attitude of the representatives disconcerted him, and he
yielded to the fear of adding the calamities of a civil war to the
disasters of a foreign invasion.

It was perfectly unknown too, that Napoleon was detained a prisoner at
Malmaison after his abdication. It was presumed, that he deferred his
departure, in the hope of being replaced at the head of the army and
of the government. These Memoirs will show, that this hope, if it
dwelt within the breast of Napoleon, was not the real motive of his
stay in France; and that he was detained there by the committee of
government, till the moment when, honour outweighing all political
considerations, it obliged Napoleon to depart, to prevent his falling
into the hands of Blucher.

The negotiations and conferences of the French plenipotentiaries with
the enemy's generals; the proceedings of the Prince of Eckmuhl; the
intrigues of the Duke of Otranto; the efforts of those members of the
committee, who remained faithful to their trust; the debates on the
capitulation of Paris, and all the collateral facts, connected with
these different circumstances, had been totally misrepresented; These
Memoirs establish or unfold the truth. They bring to light the conduct
of those members of the committee, who were supposed to be the dupes
or accomplices of Fouche; and that of the marshals, the army, and the
chambers. They contain also the correspondence of the plenipotentiaries,
and the instructions given to them; documents hitherto unpublished,
which will make known, what the politics and wishes of the government
of France at that time were.

Finally I shall observe, in order to complete the account I think it
right to give the reader of the substance of this work, that it
furnishes elucidations of the campaign of 1815, the want of which has
been imperiously felt. The causes, that determined Napoleon, to
separate from his army at