e; and
those men who were not blinded by incurable illusions, prepared to
fall again under the sway of the Bourbons.

Their partisans, their emissaries, their known agents (M. de Vitrolles
and others) had asserted, that the King, ascribing the revolution of
the 20th of March to the faults of his ministry, would shut his eyes
to all that had passed; and that a general absolution would be the
pledge of his return, and of his reconciliation with the French. This
consolatory assertion had already surmounted the repugnance of many;
when the proclamations of the 25th and 28th of June, issued at
Cambray, made their appearance[87]. These in fact acknowledged, that
the ministers of the King had committed faults; but, far from
promising a complete oblivion of those committed by his subjects, one
of them, the work of the Duke of Feltre, on the contrary announced,
"that the King, whose potent allies had cleared the way for him to his
dominions, by dispersing _the satellites of the tyrant_, was hastening
to return to them, to carry the existing laws into execution against
the guilty."

[Footnote 87: They were published by order of the
chamber.]

Information was soon brought by the commissioners, returned from the
head quarters of the allies, and confirmed by the reports of MM.
Tromeling and Macirone, that Blucher and Wellington, already taking
advantage of our weakness, openly declared, that the authority of the
chambers and of the committee was illegal; and that the best thing
they could do would be, to give in their resignations, and proclaim
Louis XVIII.

All the good effected by the cajolery of M. Fouche, and the hope of a
happy reconciliation, now disappeared. Consternation seized the
weak-minded; indignation, men of a generous spirit. The committee,
disappointed of the hope of obtaining Napoleon II., or the Duke of
Orleans; who, according to the expression of the Duke of Wellington,
would have been only an usurper of a good family; could no longer
disguise from itself, that it was the intention of the foreign powers,
to restore Louis XVIII. to the throne; but it had imagined, that his
re-establishment would be the subject of an agreement between the
nation, the allied monarchs, and Louis.

When it was acquainted with the language held by the enemy's generals,
it foresaw, that the independence of the powers of the state,
stipulated by the convention, would not be respected; and it
deliberated