, with all the faults of
its chief, must have possessed--and the political humiliation of
France, in the eyes of all Europe, as well as of the French people
themselves, immediately connected with the disappearance of Napoleon--we
shall have some faint conception of that mass of multifarious griefs and
resentments, in the midst of which the unwieldy and inactive Louis
occupied, ere long, a most unenviable throne--and on which the
eagle-eyed Exile of Elba gazed with reviving hope even before the summer
of 1814 had reached its close.

Ere then, as we have seen, the demeanour and conduct of Napoleon were
very different from what they had been when he first took possession of
his mimic empire. Ere then his mother, his sister Pauline (a woman,
whose talents for intrigue equalled her personal charms), and not a few
ancient and attached servants, both of his civil government and of his
army, had found their way to Elba, and figured in "his little senate."
Pauline made repeated voyages to Italy, and returned again. New and busy
faces appeared in the circle of Porto Ferraio--and disappeared
forthwith--no one knew whence they had come or whither they went; an air
of bustle and of mystery pervaded the atmosphere of the place. Sir Neil
Campbell found it more and more difficult to obtain access to the
presence of Buonaparte--which the refusal of the English government to
acknowledge the Imperial title, and this officer's consequent want of
any very definite character at Elba, left him no better means of
overcoming than to undertake journeys and voyages, thereby gaining a
pretext for paying his respects at every departure and return. Sir Neil
early suspected that some evil was hatching, and repeatedly remarked on
the absurdity of withholding Napoleon's pension, thereby tempting him,
as it were, to violence. But neither the reports nor the reclamations of
this gentleman appear to have received that attention which they
merited.

What persons in France were actually in communication on political
subjects with the turbulent court of Elba, during that autumn and the
following winter, is likely to remain a secret: that they were neither
few nor inactive, nor unskilful, the event will sufficiently prove. The
chiefs of the police and of the post-office had been removed by Louis;
but the whole inferior machinery of these establishments remained
untouched; and it is generally believed, that both were early and
sedulously employed in the serv