nd the legal exercise of power. Their Report contained nothing
beyond a guarded expression of these moderate sentiments.

With such men, animated by such views, a perfect understanding was
anything but difficult. Napoleon would not even listen to them. It is
well known how he suddenly suppressed the Report and adjourned the
Legislative Body, and with what rude but intentional violence he
received the Deputies and their Commissioners on the 1st of January,
1814. "Who are you who address me thus? I am the sole representative of
the nation. We are one and inseparable. I have a title, but you have
none.... M. Laine, your mouthpiece, is a dishonest man who corresponds
with England through the Advocate Deseze. I shall keep my eye upon him.
M. Raynouard is a liar." In communicating to the Commission the papers
connected with the negotiation, Napoleon had forbidden his Minister of
Foreign Affairs, the Duke of Vicenza, to include that which specified
the conditions on which the Allied Powers were prepared to treat, not
wishing to pledge himself to any recognized basis. His Minister of
Police, the Duke of Rovigo, took upon himself to carry to extremity the
indiscretion of his anger. "Your words are most imprudent," said he to
the members of the Commission, "when there is a Bourbon in the field."
Thus, in the very crisis of his difficulties, under the most emphatic
warnings from heaven and man, the despot at bay made an empty parade of
absolute power; the vanquished conqueror displayed to the world that the
ostensible negotiations were only a pretext for still trying the chances
of war; the tottering head of the new dynasty proclaimed himself that
the old line was there, ready to supplant him.

The day had arrived when glory could no longer repair the faults which
it still covers. The campaign of 1814, that uninterrupted masterpiece of
skill and heroism, as well on the part of the leader as of his
followers, bore, nevertheless, the ineffaceable stamp of the false
calculations and false position of the Emperor. He wavered continually
between the necessity of protecting Paris, and the passion of
reconquering Europe; anxious to save his throne without sacrificing his
ambition, and changing his tactics at every moment, as a fatal danger or
a favourable change alternately presented itself. God vindicated reason
and justice, by condemning the genius which had so recklessly braved
both, to sink in hesitation and uncertainty, under the we