personally inclined to a
regency, and preserving the crown to the King of Rome; nor is it to be
doubted that that scheme, if at all practicable, would have been
preferred by the Emperor of Austria. But the Frenchmen who had once
committed themselves against Napoleon could not be persuaded but that
his influence would revive, to their own ruin, under any Buonapartean
administration; and the events of the two succeeding days were decisive.
The Municipal Council met, and proclaimed that the throne was empty.
This bold act is supposed to have determined the Conservative Senate. On
the 1st of April that body also assembled, and named a provisional
government, with Talleyrand for its head. The deposition of Napoleon was
forthwith put to the vote, and carried without even one dissentient
voice. On the 2nd the Legislative Senate, angrily dispersed in January,
were in like manner convoked; and they too ratified the decrees proposed
by the Conservative. On the 3rd the senatus-consultum was published, and
myriads of hands were busy in every corner of the city pulling down the
statues and pictures, and effacing the arms and initials of Napoleon.
Meantime the Allied Princes appointed military governors of Paris, were
visible daily at processions and festivals, and received, night after
night, in the theatres, the tumultuous applause of the most inconstant
of peoples.

It was in the night between the 2nd and the 3rd that Caulaincourt
returned from his mission to Fontainebleau, and informed Napoleon of the
events which he had witnessed; he added, that the Allies had not yet, in
his opinion, made up their minds to resist the scheme of a regency, but
that he was commissioned to say nothing could be arranged, as to
ulterior questions, until he, the Emperor, had formally abdicated his
throne. The Marshals assembled at Fontainebleau seem, on hearing this
intelligence, to have resolved unanimously that they would take no
further part in the war; but Napoleon himself was not yet prepared to
give up all without a struggle. The next day, the 4th of April, he
reviewed some of his troops, harangued them on "the treasonable
proceedings in the capital," announced his intention of instantly
marching thither, and was answered by enthusiastic shouts of "Paris!
Paris!" He, on this, conceiving himself to be secure of the attachment
of his soldiery, gave orders for advancing headquarters to Essonne. With
the troops which had filed through Paris, under