Napoleon received the ultimatum of the
invading powers. He hesitated and pondered long ere he would sign his
acceptance of it. The group of his personal followers had been sorely
thinned; and the armies of the Allies, gradually pushing forward from
Paris, had nearly surrounded Fontainebleau, when he at length (on the
11th of April) abandoned all hope, and executed an instrument, formally
"renouncing for himself and his heirs the thrones of France and of
Italy."

Even after signing this document, and delivering it to Caulaincourt, he
made a last effort to rouse the spirits of the chief officers still
around his person. They, as the Marshals had done on the 4th, heard his
appeals in silence; and the Duke of Vicenza, though repeatedly commanded
to give him back the act of abdication, refused to do so. It is
generally believed that, during the night which ensued, Napoleon's
meditations were, once more, like those of the falling Macbeth:--

"There is no flying hence, nor tarrying here.
I 'gin to be weary o' the sun."--

Whether the story, very circumstantially told, of his having swallowed
poison on that night, be true, we have no means of deciding. It is
certain that he underwent a violent paroxysm of illness, sank into a
death-like stupor, and awoke in extreme feebleness, lassitude, and
dejection; in which condition several days were passed.

Napoleon remained long enough at Fontainebleau to hear of the
restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, and the triumphant entrance of the
Count d'Artois (now Charles X.) into Paris, as Lieutenant for his
brother, Louis XVIII.; and of another event, which ought to have given
him greater affliction. Immediately on the formation of the provisional
government, messengers had been sent from Paris to arrest the progress
of hostilities between Soult and Wellington. But, wherever the blame of
intercepting and holding back these tidings may have lain, the English
General received no intelligence of the kind until, pursuing his career
of success, he had fought another great and bloody battle, and achieved
another glorious victory, beneath the walls of Toulouse. This
unfortunate, because utterly needless, battle, occurred on the 11th of
April. On the 14th the news of the fall of Paris reached Lord
Wellington; and, Soult soon afterwards signifying his adhesion to the
new government, his conqueror proceeded to take part in the final
negotiations of the Allies at Paris.

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