ho abandoned the royal
standard, to return to the ancient colours of their country; but those
imprudent and senseless men, who, by their threats, their acts of
injustice, and their outrages, compelled us to choose between
insurrection and slavery, between honour and infamy.

During the Hundred Days, there was no person to whom I did an ill
turn; frequently I had an opportunity of doing good, and seized it
with joy.

Since the return of the regal government, I have lived tranquil and
solitary; and, whether from forgetfulness, or from a sense of justice,
I escaped in 1815 the persecutions, which the partisans and servants
of Napoleon experienced.

This explanation, or this apology, appeared to me necessary: it is
right the reader should know, who it is that addresses him.

I could have wished, to abstain from speaking of the royal government
in the first part of this work: but it was impossible. It was
necessary for me, prominently to exhibit the errors and faults of the
king's ministers one by one, to render evident this truth, _that they
were the sole authors of the 20th of March_. When elsewhere, as here,
I say the government, I mean not to designate the King, but his
ministers. In a constitutional monarchy, in which the ministers are
responsible, we cannot, and ought not to confound them with the King.
"It is from the King," said the keeper of the seals, when he proposed
to the deputies of the nation the project of a law on the
responsibility of ministers, "that every act of equity, protection,
and clemency, and every regular employment of power, emanates: it is
to the ministers alone, that abuses, injustice, and misconduct, are to
be imputed."

MEMOIRS,

&c. &c.

Until the close of the Spanish war, Napoleon, whether as the First
Consul of the Republic, or as the Chief of the Empire, had never
ceased to be the object of the love, the pride, and the confidence of
the people. But the multitude neither judge, nor can judge of the
actions of their rulers but from appearances which often mislead them
in their judgment; and the loyalty of the nation then became
enfeebled. The conduct of Napoleon was stigmatized as a series of
hateful aggressions; the war, as an unjustifiable act of violence.
Disaffection increased. Napoleon was assailed by the anger of his
subjects, and, for the first time, they upbraided him with having
spilt their blood, and wasted their riches, in gratifying his vain and
culpable a