not unconcerned;
the possibility of forming a treaty, that should reconcile the
interests of all parties; the name of Bourbon, which might have been
employed abroad, without uttering it at home: all these motives, and
others besides, afforded in this choice a prospect of repose and
security even to those, who could not see in it the presage of
happiness."

The King of Saxony had no other title to the suffrages of France, than
the heroic fidelity, which he had maintained toward it in 1814. But
after him the empire might have returned to Napoleon II.: and as a
prince, possessed of experience, wisdom, and virtue, may reign
indifferently over any people, and render them happy, the French
nation would have resigned itself to the government of a foreign
monarch, till the day when his death would have restored the sceptre
to the hands of its legitimate possessor.

The deference which the committee was prepared to pay to the will of
the allied powers, was not the effect of its own weakness. It was
enjoined it by the alarming reports, which Marshal Grouchy sent it
daily, of the defection and dejected state of the army.

The soldiers, it is true, discouraged by the abdication of the
Emperor, and the reports of the return of the Bourbons, appeared
irresolute. "Our wounds," said they, "will no longer entitle us to any
thing but proscription." The generals themselves, rendered timid by
their uncertainty of the future, spoke with circumspection: but all,
generals and soldiers, maintained the same sentiments in the bottom of
their hearts; and their hesitation, their lukewarmness, were the work
of their leader; who, in France as on the banks of the Dyle, wanting
resolution and strength of mind, did not take the trouble to conceal,
that he considered the national cause as lost, and awaited only a
favourable opportunity, to pacify the Bourbons and their allies by a
prompt and complete submission.

The committee, however, having their eyes opened by private letters,
conceived suspicions of the veracity of the marshal's reports. It
commissioned General Corbineau, to give it an account of the state of
the army. Informed of the truth, it was no longer afraid of being
obliged to submit humbly to the law of the victor: and, desirous of
preventing Marshal Grouchy, whose intentions had ceased to be a
mystery, from endangering the independence of the nation by an
inconsiderate act, it prohibited him from negotiating any armistice,
or comme