arly directed, to express to me the good opinion
(permit me to repeat the terms) which he had conceived of my character
and merit. Your Majesty would be wrong, I think, not to allow me to
make this last attempt. As the point in question was not a conspiracy,
but to set on foot a negotiation, it is possible, that M. Werner may
return."--"You have my consent very willingly; but I am afraid, they
will lay hold of you: be prudent."

I was afraid so too. I set off.

It happened as the Emperor foresaw. M. Werner appeared no more.

Thus ended this negotiation, which might perhaps have realized many
hopes, had not M. Fouche occasioned its failure.

At the period when it took place, England, in its celebrated Memoir of
the 25th of April, and Austria, in that it published the 9th of May
following, had authentically declared, subsequently to my first
interview at Bale, that they had not engaged by the treaty of the 29th
of March, to restore Louis XVIII. to the throne; and that their
intentions in pursuing the war were not, to impose on France any
particular government whatever.

These declarations gave great weight to the proposals of M. Werner.
The Emperor thought them sincere; and in one of those moments of
openness, which he was not always sufficiently master of himself to
suppress, he said at his levee: "Well, gentlemen, they offer me the
regency already: it depends only on myself, whether I shall accept
it." These inconsiderate words made some impression; and they who
remembered them have since asserted, that, if the Emperor had not been
enamoured of the crown, he might have placed his son on the throne,
and spared France the carnage of Mont St. Jean. The Emperor descending
from his throne, to place on it his son, and peace, would have added,
no doubt, a noble page to his history: but, ought he to have accepted
the loose proposals of M. Werner, and trusted to the faith of his
enemies? I think not. The first question to be decided, before
treating of a regency, was this: What is to be done with Napoleon? and
it has been seen, that on this point the allies held the profoundest
silence.

I am far from thinking, that the Emperor would have consented in any
case, to lay aside his crown, which he considered as the price of
twenty years toil and victory; I only maintain, that he cannot be
blamed on this occasion, for having retained it.

This confidential avowal to his courtiers is not the only
indiscretion, of which they l