ithout
any sort of reserve, that Fouche, while serving the cause of usurpation,
would secretly betray it. The future was viewed with alarm, and the
present with dissatisfaction. The sight of the federates who paraded the
faubourgs and the boulevards, vociferating, "The Republic for ever!" and
"Death to the Royalists!" their sanguinary songs, the revolutionary airs
played in our theatres, all tended to produce a fearful torpor in the
public mind, and the issue of the impending events was anxiously awaited.

One of the circumstances which, at the commencement of the Hundred Days,
most contributed to open the eyes of those who were yet dazzled by the
past glory of Napoleon, was the assurance with which he declared that the
Empress and his son would be restored to him, though nothing warranted
that announcement. It was evident that he could not count on any ally;
and in spite of the prodigious activity with which a new army was raised
those persons must have been blind indeed who could imagine the
possibility of his triumphing over Europe, again armed to oppose him.
I deplored the inevitable disasters which Bonaparte's bold enterprise
would entail, but I had such certain information respecting the
intentions of the Allied powers, and the spirit which animated the
Plenipotentiaries at Vienna, that I could not for a moment doubt the
issue of the conflict: Thus I was not at all surprised when I received at
Hamburg the minutes of the conferences at Vienna in May 1815.

When the first intelligence of Bonaparte's landing was received at Vienna
it must be confessed that very little had been done at the Congress, for
measures calculated to reconstruct a solid and durable order of things
could only be framed and adopted deliberately, and upon mature
reflection. Louis XVIII. had instructed his Plenipotentiaries to defend
and support the principles of justice and the law of nations, so as to
secure the rights of all parties and avert the chances of a new war.
The Congress was occupied with these important objects when intelligence
was received of Napoleon's departure from Elba and his landing at the
Gulf of Juan. The Plenipotentiaries then signed the protocol of the
conferences to which I have above alluded.

[ANNEX TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.]

The following despatch of Napoleon's to Marshal Davoust (given in Captain
Bingham's Translation, vol. iii. p. 121), though not strictly bearing
upon the subject of the Duke of Bassano's inq