asm and infatuation; yet never did I see any thing
comparable to the transports of joy and tenderness, that burst from
the Lyonese. Not only the quays, and the places near the palace of the
Emperor, but even the most distant streets rung with perpetual
acclamations[59]. Workmen and their masters, the common people and
the citizens, rambled about the city arm in arm, singing, dancing, and
giving themselves up to the impulse of the most ardent gaiety.
Strangers stopped one another, shook hands, embraced, and
congratulated each other on the return of the Emperor, as if he had
conferred on them fortune, life, and honour.

[Footnote 59: The author of a libel entitled _Les
Quinze Semaines_, "The Fifteen Weeks," asserts,
that shouts were heard of "Death for ever! Guilt
for ever! Down with virtue! Down with God!" Such a
charge requires no refutation: I mention it here
only to show, to what a point the spirit of party,
and the rancorous passions, have misled writers,
who call themselves royalists. It has been equally
asserted, that the people plundered and destroyed a
number of shops and warehouses. This, too, is
false: no disorder occurred, except in Bellecour
Square, where the people broke the windows and
tables of the Bourbon coffee-house, known to be the
place where the ultra-royalists assembled; and this
disorder was quieted and suppressed immediately.]

The national guard, affected by the confidence he had shown it, by
entrusting to it the care of his person, participated with equal
ardour the general intoxication; and the day of Napoleon's departure
was a day of sorrow and regret to the city of Lyons, as that of his
arrival had been a day of real festivity.

We slept at Macon. The Emperor would not alight at the prefect's, but
went to lodge at the sign of the Savage. He found it was no longer
necessary, to wait at the gates of the towns, as at Grenoble and
Lyons: the people and the magistrates ran out to meet him, and
disputed the honour of being foremost, to do him homage, and express
their good wishes.

The next morning he received the felicitations of the national guard,
the municipal body, &c. One of the colleagues of the mayor gave u