tyrants; and inveighed even against
his greatness and his genius, as though malevolence could produce
oblivion.

All Paris was in a ferment of excitement,--not the troubled agitation of
a people whose capital owned the presence of a conquering army, but the
tumultuous joy of a nation intoxicated with pleasure. Fetes and
balls, gay processions and public demonstrations of rejoicing, met one
everywhere; and ingenuity was taxed to invent flatteries for the
very nations whom, but a week past, they scoffed at as barbarians and
Scythians.

Sickened and disgusted with the fickleness of mankind, I knew not where
to turn. My wound had brought on a low, lingering fever, accompanied
by extreme debility, increased in all likelihood by the harassing
reflections every object around suggested. I could not venture abroad
without meeting some evidence of that exuberant triumph by which
treachery hopes to cover its own baseness; besides, the reputation of
being a Napoleonist was now a mark for insult and indignity from those
who never dared to avow an opinion until the tide of fortune had turned
in their favor. The white cockade had replaced the tricolor; every
emblem of the Empire was abolished; and that uniform, to wear which
was once a mark of honorable distinction, was now become a signal for
insult.

I was returning one evening from a solitary ramble in the neighborhood
of Paris,--for, by some strange fatality, I could not tear myself away
from the scenes to which the most eventful portions of my life were
attached,--and at length reached the Boulevard Montmartre, just as
the leading squadrons of a cavalry regiment were advancing up the wide
thoroughfare. I had hitherto avoided every occasion of witnessing
any military display which should recall the past; but now the rapid
gathering of the crowd to see the soldiers pass prevented my escape, and
I was obliged to wait patiently until the cortege should move forward.

They came on in dense column,--the brave Chasseurs of the Guard, the
bronzed warriors of Jena and Wigram; but to my eyes they seemed sterner
and sadder than their wont, and heeded not the loud "vivas" of the
mob around them. Where were their eagles? Alas! the white banner that
floated over their heads was a poor substitute for the proud ensign
they had so often followed to victory. And here weie the dragoons,--old
Kellermann's brave troopers; their proud glances were changed to a
mournful gaze upon that crowd whose