d the king, "the die is cast. I will go to Corsica."

The same day Marshal Brune was assassinated at Avignon.

II--CORSICA

Once more on the same beach at Bonette, in the same bay where he had
awaited the boat in vain, still attended by his band of faithful
followers, we find Murat on the 22nd August in the same year. It was no
longer by Napoleon that he was threatened, it was by Louis XVIII that he
was proscribed; it was no longer the military loyalty of Marshal Brune
who came with tears in his eyes to give notice of the orders he had
received, but the ungrateful hatred of M. de Riviere, who had set a price
[48,000 francs.] on the head of the man who had saved his own.[Conspiracy
of Pichegru.] M. de Riviere had indeed written to the ex-King of Naples
advising him to abandon himself to the good faith and humanity of the
King of France, but his vague invitation had not seemed sufficient
guarantee to the outlaw, especially on the part of one who had allowed
the assassination almost before his eyes of a man who carried a
safe-conduct signed by himself. Murat knew of the massacre of the
Mamelukes at Marseilles, the assassination of Brune at Avignon; he had
been warned the day before by the police of Toulon that a formal order
for his arrest was out; thus it was impossible that he should remain any
longer in France. Corsica, with its hospitable towns, its friendly
mountains, its impenetrable forests, was hardly fifty leagues distant; he
must reach Corsica, and wait in its towns, mountains, and forests until
the crowned heads of Europe should decide the fate of the man they had
called brother for seven years.

At ten o'clock at, night the king went down to the shore. The boat which
was to take him across had not reached the rendezvous, but this time
there was not the slightest fear that it would fail; the bay had been
reconnoitred during the day by three men devoted to the fallen fortunes
of the king--Messieurs Blancard, Langlade, and Donadieu, all three naval
officers, men of ability and warm heart, who had sworn by their own lives
to convey Murat to Corsica, and who were in fact risking their lives in
order to accomplish their promise. Murat saw the deserted shore without
uneasiness, indeed this delay afforded him a few more moments of
patriotic satisfaction.

On this little patch of land, this strip of sand, the unhappy exile clung
to his mother France, for once his foot touched the vessel which was to
ca