met
with no attempts at a national rising, a fact which proves the welcome
accorded to Napoleon in March to have been mainly the outcome of
military devotion and of the dislike generally felt for the Bourbons.
It is a libel on the French people to suppose that a truly national
impulse in his favour would have vanished with a single defeat. In
vain did the Provisional Government sue for an armistice that would
stay the advance. Wellington refused outright; but Bluecher declared
that he would consider the matter if Napoleon were handed over to him,
_dead or alive_. On hearing of this, Wellington at once wrote his ally
a private remonstrance, which drew from Gneisenau a declaration that,
as the Duke was held back _by parliamentary considerations and by the
wish to prolong the life of the villain whose career had extended
England's power_, the Prussians would see to it that Napoleon was
handed over to them for execution conformably to the declaration of
the Congress of Vienna.[530]

But the Provisional Government acted honestly towards Napoleon. On the
26th Fouche sent General Becker to watch over him and advise him to
set out for Rochefort, _en route_ to the United States, for which
purpose passports were being asked from Wellington. Becker found the
ex-Emperor a prey to quickly varying moods. At one time he seemed
"sunk into a kind of _mollesse_, and very careful about his ease and
comfort": he ate hugely at meals: or again he affected a rather coarse
joviality, showing his regard for Becker by pulling his ear. His plans
varied with his moods. He declared he would throw himself into the
middle of France and fight to the end, or that he would take ship at
Rochefort with Bertrand and Savary alone, and steal past the English
squadron; but when Mme. Bertrand exclaimed that this would be cruel to
her, he readily gave up the scheme.[531]

It is not easy to gauge his feelings at this time. Apart from one
outburst to Lavalette of pity for France, he seems not to have
realized how unspeakably disastrous his influence had been on the land
which he found in a victoriously expansive phase, and now left
prostrate at the feet of the allies and the Bourbons. Hatred and
contempt of the upper classes for their "fickle" desertion of him,
these, if we may judge from his frequent allusions to the topic during
the voyage, were the feelings uppermost in his mind; and this may
explain why he wavered between the thought of staking all on a la