ls, to observe, and cause
to be observed, the constitutions of the empire, made the
archchancellor proclaim the oath of fealty of the French people,
represented by the electors. This oath was spontaneously repeated by
thousands and thousands of voices.

The ministers of war and of the navy, in the name of the armies by
land and sea, and at the head of their deputations; the minister of
the interior, in the name of the national guards of France, and at
the head of the electors; the staff of the imperial guard, and that of
the national guard; afterwards advanced to take the oath, and receive
from the hands of the Emperor the eagles intended for them.

This ceremony ended, the troops, making about fifty thousand men,
filed off before Napoleon and the festival concluded, as it had
commenced, amid the acclamations of the people, the soldiers, and the
majority of the electors: but to the discontent of a certain number of
them, who complained, and with reason, that the Emperor had
substituted a steril distribution of colours, instead of the grand
national congress, which he had convened.

The parties too, that already began to pullulate, were not better
satisfied with the issue of the _Champ de Mai_.

The old revolutionists would have wished Napoleon, to have abolished
the empire, and re-established a republic.

The partisans of the regency reproached him for not having proclaimed
Napoleon II.

And the liberals maintained, that he ought to have laid down the
crown, and left to the sovereign nation the right of restoring it to
him, or offering it to the most worthy.

Were these different pretensions well founded? No.

The re-establishment of the republic would have ruined France.

The abdication in favour of Napoleon II. would not have saved it. The
allies had explained their intentions at Bale: they would not have
laid down their arms, till the Emperor had consented, to deliver
himself up. "A circumstance, that, being to a prince the greatest of
misfortunes, can never form a condition of peace[22]?"

[Footnote 22: Montesquieu. Greatness and Decline of the
Romans.]

As to the latter proposition, I confess, that Napoleon, if on the 21st
of March, or the 12th of April[23], he had returned into the hands of
the French the sceptre, which he had just torn from those of the
Bourbons, would have stamped a character completely heroic on the
revolution of the 20th of March. He would have disconc