as he saw me, he
came to meet me with a frightful epileptic 'laugh. `Oh, my God!' he
said, raising his eyes to heaven, and walking two or three times up and
down the room. This appearance of despair was however very short. He
soon recovered his coolness, and asked me what was going forward in the
Chamber of Representatives. I could not attempt to hide that party
spirit was there carried to a high pitch, and that the majority seemed
determined to require his abdication, and to pronounce it themselves if
he did not concede willingly. 'How is that?' he said. 'If proper
measures are not taken the enemy will be before the gates of Paris in
eight days. Alas!' he added, 'have I accustomed them to such great
victories that they knew not how to bear one day's misfortune? What will
become of poor France? I have done all I could for her!' He then heaved
a deep sigh. Somebody asked to speak to him, and I left him, with a
direction to come back at a later hour.

"I passed the day in seeking information among all my friends and
acquaintances. I found in all of them either the greatest dejection or
an extravagant joy, which they disguised by feigned alarm and pity for
myself, which I repulsed with great indignation. Nothing favourable was
to be expected from the Chamber of Representatives. They all said they
wished for liberty, but, between two enemies who appeared ready to
destroy it, they preferred the foreigners, the friends of the Bourbons,
to Napoleon, who might still have prolonged the struggle, but that he
alone would not find means to save them and erect the edifice of liberty.
The Chamber of Peers presented a much sadder spectacle. Except the
intrepid Thibaudeau, who till, the last moment expressed himself with
admirable energy against the Bourbons, almost all the others thought of
nothing else but getting out of the dilemma with the least loss they
could. Some took no pains to hide their wish of bending again under the
Bourbon yoke."

On the evening of Napoleon's return to Paris he sent for Benjamin
Constant to come to him at the Elysee about seven o'clock. The Chambers
had decreed their permanence, and proposals for abdication had reached
the Emperor. He was serious but calm. In reply to some words on the
disaster of Waterloo he said, "The question no longer concerns me, but
France. They wish me to abdicate. Have they calculated upon the
inevitable consequences of this abdication? It is round me, round my
name, that the