ed four different residences at different
corners of Elba, and was continually in motion from one to another of
them. Wherever he was, in houses neither so large nor so well furnished
as many English gentlemen are used to inhabit, all the etiquettes of the
Tuileries were, as far as possible, adhered to; and Napoleon's eight or
nine hundred veterans were reviewed as frequently and formally as if
they had been the army of Austerlitz or of Moscow. His presence gave a
new stimulus to the trade and industry of the islanders; the small port
of Ferraio was crowded with vessels from the opposite coasts of Italy;
and, such was still the power of his name, that the new flag of Elba
(covered with Napoleon's _bees_), traversed with impunity the seas most
infested with the Moorish pirates.

Buonaparte's eagerness as to architectural and other improvements was,
ere long, however, checked in a manner sufficiently new to him--namely,
by the want of money. The taxes of the island were summarily increased;
but this gave rise to discontent among the Elbese, without replenishing
at all adequately the Emperor's exchequer. Had the French government
paid his pension in advance, or at least quarterly, as it fell due, even
that would have borne a slender proportion to the demands of his
magnificent imagination. But Napoleon received no money whatever from
the Bourbon court; and his complaints on this head were unjustly and
unwisely neglected. These new troubles embittered the spirit of the
fallen Chief; and the first excitement of novelty being over he sank
into a state of comparative indolence, and apparently of listless
dejection; from which, however, he was, ere long, to be roused
effectually, by the course of events in that great kingdom, almost in
sight of whose shores he had been most injudiciously permitted to
preserve the shadow of sovereign state.

Louis XVIII., advanced in years, gross and infirm in person, and devoted
to the luxuries of the table, was, in spite of considerable talents and
accomplishments, and a sincere desire to conciliate the affections, by
promoting the interests, of all orders of his people, but ill-adapted
for occupying, in such trying times, the throne which, even amidst all
the blaze of genius and victory, Napoleon had at best found uneasy and
insecure.[67] The King himself was, perhaps, less unpopular than almost
any other member of his family; but it was his fatal misfortune, that
while, on the whole, every