e, than all your
negotiations. I would have obtained my son, as the price of my
abdication: you will not obtain him. Fouche is not sincere: he has
sold himself to the Duke of Orleans. He will make fools of the
chambers; the allies will make a fool of him; and you will have Louis
XVIII. He thinks himself able, to manage every thing as he pleases;
but he is mistaken. He will find, that it requires a hand of a
different stamp from his, to guide the reins of a nation,
particularly when an enemy is in the land.... The chamber of peers has
not done its duty: it has behaved like a chicken. It has suffered
Lucien to be insulted, and my son to be dethroned. If it had stood
firm, it would have had the army on its side: the generals there would
have given it to it[69]. Its order of the day has ruined France, and
brought you back the Bourbons, I alone could repair all: but your
party-leaders will never consent to it: they would rather be swallowed
up in the gulf, than join with me to close it."

[Footnote 69: Most of the peers held commands in the
army.]

The complaints, the regrets, the menaces, that Napoleon allowed
continually to escape him, alarmed the promoters of his fall more and
more. In the first moments of their warmth they had displayed some
boldness; but after their heads had grown cool, they appeared
themselves to be astonished at their own courage. They turned pale at
the very name of Napoleon and conjured the government night and day,
to make him embark as speedily as possible.

From the very day of his abdication, the Emperor had thought of
seeking an asylum in a foreign country. Accustomed to powerful
emotions, to extraordinary events, he familiarized himself to this
idea without difficulty; and appeared to take a momentary pleasure in
calculating the hazards of the present, and the chances of the future;
and balancing the fictions of hope against the dangers of reality.

The Emperor had never confounded the English nation with the political
system of its government. He considered the heart of a Briton as the
inviolable sanctuary of honour, generosity, and all the public and
private virtues, that stamp on man loftiness and dignity. This high
opinion prevailed in his mind over the fears, with which the known
principles and sentiments of the cabinet of London could not fail to
inspire him: and his first intention was, to retire to England, and
there place himself under the protection