Lyons, but he soon found that Napoleon
possessed the hearts of the soldiers and the mass of the people. Ney
yielded to urgent appeals from his old chief, signed and read to his
troops a proclamation drawn up by Napoleon himself, and was followed in
his treason by his whole army. As Napoleon approached Paris, all armed
opposition to him melted away. On March 19, Louis XVIII., seeing that
his cause was hopeless, proclaimed a dissolution of the chambers, and
retired once more into exile, fixing his residence at Ghent.

Napoleon re-entered the Tuileries on the 20th, after a journey which he
afterwards described as the happiest in his life. But his penetrating
mind was not deceived by the manifestations of popular joy. He well knew
that he was distrusted by the middle classes, as well as by the
aristocracy, and threw himself more and more on the sympathy of the old
revolutionists. When he came to fill up the higher offices, he met with
a strange reluctance to accept them, and was driven to enlist the
services of two regicides, the virtuous republican, Carnot, and the
double-dyed traitor Fouche. Feeling the necessity of resting his power
on a democratic basis, he promulgated a constitution modelled on the
charter of Louis XVIII., and known as the _Acte Additionnel_, which,
however, satisfied no one. The royalists objected to its anti-feudal
spirit, the revolutionists and moderates to its express recognition of
an hereditary peerage, and its tacit recognition of a dictatorial power.
It was by no means with a light heart that Napoleon took leave of Paris
on June 7, having appointed a provisional government, to place himself
at the head of his army.

Attempts had been made in the southern provinces and La Vendee to
organise armed rebellion against the emperor, and met for a time with
considerable success. But they were soon quelled by the overwhelming
imperialism not only of the regular army, but of vast numbers of
disbanded soldiers and half-pay officers, dispersed throughout France,
and disgusted with their treatment under the restored monarchy. Even
among the _bourgeoisie_ Napoleon had an advantage which he never
possessed before. Disguise it as he might, all his former wars had been
essentially wars of conquest, and, however patiently they might endure
it, the peasantry of France, in thousands upon thousands of humble
cottages, groaned under the exaction of crushing taxes--worst of all,
the blood-tax of conscription--in ord