reigner in French soil, to give them a respect for France,
so he lets them come close up to Paris, so as to do for them at a single
blow, and to rise to the highest height of genius in the biggest battle
that ever was fought, a mother of battles! But the Parisians wanting
to save their trumpery skins, and afraid for their twopenny shops, open
their gates and there is a beginning of the _ragusades_, and an end
of all joy and happiness; they make a fool of the Empress, and fly the
white flag out at the windows. The Emperor's closest friends among his
generals forsake him at last and go over to the Bourbons, of whom no one
had ever heard tell. Then he bids us farewell at Fontainbleau:

"'Soldiers!'... (I can hear him yet, we were all crying just like
children; the Eagles and the flags had been lowered as if for a funeral.
Ah! and it was a funeral, I can tell you; it was the funeral of the
Empire; those smart armies of his were nothing but skeletons now.) So he
stood there on the flight of steps before his chateau, and he said:

"'Children, we have been overcome by treachery, but we shall meet again
up above in the country of the brave. Protect my child, I leave him in
your care. _Long live Napoleon II.!_'

"He had thought of killing himself, so that no one should behold
Napoleon after his defeat; like Jesus Christ before the Crucifixion,
he thought himself forsaken by God and by his talisman, and so he took
enough poison to kill a regiment, but it had no effect whatever upon
him. Another marvel! he discovered that he was immortal; and feeling
sure of his case, and knowing that he would be Emperor for ever, he
went to an island for a little while, so as to study the dispositions of
those folk who did not fail to make blunder upon blunder. Whilst he was
biding his time, the Chinese and the brutes out in Africa, the Moors and
what-not, awkward customers all of them, were so convinced that he was
something more than mortal, that they respected his flag, saying that
God would be displeased if any one meddled with it. So he reigned over
all the rest of the world, although the doors of his own France had been
closed upon him.

"Then he goes on board the same nutshell of a skiff that he sailed in
from Egypt, passes under the noses of the English vessels, and sets foot
in France. France recognizes her Emperor, the cuckoo flits from steeple
to steeple; France cries with one voice, 'Long live the Emperor!' The
enthusiasm for that