commenced their homeward march, and the reigning family were left to
their own resources, to reconcile as they could the heterogeneous
materials stranded by the receding tide of revolution. But concession
formed no part of their character, and reconciliation was an unknown
element in their plan of government. They took possession of the throne
as though they had only been absent on a pleasure excursion, and,
ignoring twenty years of _parvenu_ glory, affected to be merely
continuing an uninterrupted sovereignty. The pithy remark of Talleyrand,
that "they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing," was abundantly
verified. Close following in their wake, came hordes of emigrants
famished by long exile and clamorous for the restitution of ancient
privileges. There was nothing in common between them and the men of the
Republic, or of the Empire. They assumed an air of superiority, which
the latter answered with the most undisguised contempt. Ridicule, that
fearful political engine, which, especially in France, is sufficient to
batter down the hopes of any aspirant who lays himself open to it, and
which Napoleon himself, in his greatest power, feared more than foreign
armies or intestine conspiracies, was most unsparingly directed against
them. The print-shops exposed them in every possible form of caricature,
the theatres burlesqued their pretensions, songs and epigrams
contributed to their discomfiture, and all the ingenuity of a witty
and laughter-loving people was unmercifully poured out upon this
resurrection of antediluvian remains. Their royal patrons came in for a
full share of the general derision, but they seemed entirely unmindful
that there was such a thing as popular opinion, or any other will than
their own. There were objects all around them which might have preached
to them of the uncertainty of human grandeur and the vanity of kingly
pride, reminding them that there is but a step from the palace to the
scaffold, which step had been taken by more than one of their family.
The walls of their abode were yet marked by musket-balls, mementos of