er course was open to him. When he started for his
last campaign, he was no longer the champion of an united nation, and
consciously staked his all on a single throw. When he returned from it,
discomfited and without an army, he found the chambers actively hostile
to him. Carnot, who had formerly opposed his assumption of the imperial
title, was now the only one of his ministers to deprecate his
abdication, but Napoleon himself saw no hope of retaining his power, or
transmitting it to his son, without a reckless appeal to revolutionary
passions. From this he shrank, and he represented himself at St. Helena
as having sacrificed personal ambition to patriotism.

The chamber of deputies appointed an executive commission of five,
including the infamous Fouche, and from this body the late emperor
actually received an order to quit Paris. He retired to Malmaison, where
he received a fresh order to set out for Rochefort, which he reached on
July 3. On the next day Paris capitulated to the allies, and the
necessity for his leaving the shores of France became more urgent. Two
frigates were assigned for his escape to America, but a British squadron
was lying ready to intercept them. Some of his bolder companions devised
a scheme for smuggling him on board a swift merchant ship, but it was
foiled by the vigilant watch of the British squadron off the islands of
Oleron and Re. At last he surrendered himself on board the
_Bellerophon_, relying, as he said, on the honour of the British nation,
and claiming the generous protection of the prince regent. He was,
however, clearly informed that he would be at the disposal of the
government. Under an agreement with the allied powers, the ministers
decided, and were supported by the nation in deciding, that he could not
be detained in England, either as a guest or as a prisoner, with any
regard to public safety or the verdict of Europe at Vienna. The proposal
of banishing him to St. Helena, suggested in the previous year, was
finally adopted, and he sailed thither in the _Northumberland_ on August
8, vehemently protesting against the bad faith of Great Britain. Louis
XVIII. was restored, and the treaty of Vienna, signed on the eve of the
Waterloo campaign, was but slightly modified.

The action of Murat had solved the difficulties which the congress had
to face in Italy. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies reverted to the
Bourbon, Ferdinand; and the Bourbons also acquired a right of reversion
i