lost a vast deal of that hauteur of favouritism which made him so much
disliked.

When I entered upon my duties in the Prefecture of Police the evil was
already past remedy. The incorrigible emigres required another lesson,
and the temporary resurrection of the Empire was inevitable. But, if
Bonaparte was recalled, it was not owing to any attachment to him
personally; it was not from any fidelity to the recollections of the
Empire. It was resolved at any price to get rid of those imbecile
councillors, who thought they might treat France like a country conquered
by the emigrants. The people determined to free themselves from a
Government which seemed resolved to trample on all that was dear to
France. In this state of things some looked upon Bonaparte as a
liberator, but the greater number regarded him as an instrument. In this
last character he was viewed by the old Republicans, and by a new
generation, who thought they caught a glimpse of liberty in promises, and
Who were blind enough to believe that the idol of France would be
restored by Napoleon.

In February 1815, while everything was preparing at Elba for the
approaching departure of Napoleon, Murat applied to the Court of Vienna
for leave to march through the Austrian Provinces of Upper Italy an army
directed on France. It was on the 26th of the same month that Bonaparte
escaped from Elba. These two facts were necessarily connected together,
for, in spite of Murat's extravagant ideas, he never could have
entertained the expectation of obliging the King of France, by the mere
force of arms, to acknowledge his continued possession of the throne of
Naples. Since the return of Louis XVIII. the Cabinet of the Tuileries
had never regarded Murat in any other light than as a usurper, and I know
from good authority that the French Plenipotentiaries at the Congress of