his star, and it
was with a view of reassuring public opinion, as well as of providing
for the future, that he divorced Josephine and married the Austrian
archduchess, Marie-Louise. A year afterward, on the 20th of March, 1811,
the policy of this marriage seemed to justify itself, and the Empire to
have acquired a new security, by the birth of a son. A contemporary
writer, M. de Saint-Amand, gives a lively picture of the emotions with
which the Parisians awaited the news of this auspicious event. "All the
inhabitants of the city knew that the reports of twenty-one cannon only
would announce the birth of a daughter, but that if a son were born,
there would be fired a hundred and one. The explosions of the artillery
commenced. From the moment the first report was heard, the multitude
kept perfectly silent. This silence was interrupted only by voices
counting the sounds of the cannon,--one, two, three, four, and so on.

"The suspense of the waiting was solemn. When the twentieth report was
heard, the emotion was indescribable; at the twenty-first, all the
breasts were breathless; at the twenty-second, there was an outburst of
joy which rose almost to delirium. Cries of delight, hats in the air,
applaudings; it was an ovation, a victory over Destiny, which it seemed
was to be henceforth the servant of Napoleon."

Nevertheless, three years later, the Allies were in Paris, and the
Senate, convoked and directed by Talleyrand,--to whom the Chancellor
Pasquier, qualified by Taine as "the best informed and the most
judicious witness for the first half of this century," denies every
quality of "the heart or the soul," the superiority of talent with which
he is generally credited, and even the sole virtue usually left him by
his detractors, that of having skilfully and worthily represented France
at the Congress of Vienna,--named a provisional government, on the 1st
of April, 1811. On the 3d, it pronounced the end of Napoleon's power; on
the 6th, it adopted a new constitution and called to the throne a
brother of Louis XVI, who became Louis XVIII.

[Illustration: THE FLOWERS. CEILING DECORATION FOR THE GRANDE SALLE DES
FETES IN THE NEW HOTEL DE VILLE.

Painted by Gabriel Ferrier.]

The return from Elba, the Chancellor states in his _Memoires_, so far
from being desired by the nation at large, was viewed with terror; and
the unpopularity of the government of the Bourbons, after their return
to power, he ascribes to the very po