The young aide-de-camp’s influence is not allowed to wane for lack of self-advertisement.  Thus, when the battle of Waterloo is mentioned at table, he at once gives his version of it, and stoutly maintains that, whatever Napoleon may say to the contrary, he (Napoleon) did mistake the Prussian army for Grouchy’s force:  and, waxing eloquent on this theme, he exclaims to his neighbour, Glover, “that at one time he [Gourgaud] might have taken the Duke of Wellington prisoner, but he desisted from it, knowing the effusion of blood it would have occasioned."[550]—­It is charitable to assume that this utterance was inspired by some liquid stronger than the alleged “stale water that had been to India and back.”

On the whole, was there ever an odder company of shipmates since the days of Noah?  A cheery solid Admiral, a shadowy Captain Ross who can navigate but does not open his lips, a talkative creature of the secretary type, the soldierly Bingham, the graceful courtly Montholons, the young General who out-gascons the Gascons, the wire-drawn subtle Las Cases, the melancholy Grand Marshal and his spasmodic consort—­all of them there to guard or cheer that pathetic central figure, the world’s conqueror and world’s exile.

Meanwhile France was feeling the results of his recent enterprise.  Enormous armies began to hold her down until the Bourbons, whose nullity was a pledge for peace, should be firmly re-established.  Bluecher, baulked of his wish to shoot Bonaparte, was with difficulty dissuaded by the protests of Wellington and Louis XVIII. from blowing up the Pont de Jena at Paris; and the fierce veteran voiced the general opinion of Germans, including Metternich, that France must be partitioned, or at least give back Alsace and Lorraine to the Fatherland.  Even Lord Liverpool, our cautious Premier, wrote on July 15th that, if Bonaparte remained at large, the allies ought to retain all the northern fortresses as a security.[551] But the knowledge that the warrior was in our power led our statesmen to bear less hardly on France.  From the outset Wellington sought to bring the allies to reason, and on August 11th he wrote a despatch that deserves to rank among his highest titles to fame.  While granting that France was still left “in too great strength for the rest of Europe,” he pointed out that “revolutionary France is more likely to distress the world, than France, however strong in her frontier, under a regular Government; and that is the situation in which we ought to endeavour to place her.”

This generous and statesmanlike judgment, consorting with that of the Czar, prevailed over the German policy of partition; and it was finally arranged by the Treaty of Paris of November 20th, 1815, that France should surrender only the frontier strips around Marienburg, Saarbruecken, Landau, and Chambery, also paying war indemnities and restoring to their lawful owners all the works of art of which Napoleon had rifled the