On the 20th, he bade farewell to his Guard:  in thrilling words he told them that his mission thenceforth would be to describe to posterity the wonders they had achieved:  he then embraced General Petit, kissed the war-stained banner, and, wafted on his way by the sobs of these unconquered heroes, set forth for the Mediterranean.  In the central districts, and as far as Lyons, he was often greeted by the well-known shouts, but, further south, the temper of the people changed.

At Orange they cursed him to his face, and hurled stones at the windows of the carriage; Napoleon, protected by Bertrand, sat huddled up in the corner, “apparently very much frightened.”  After forcing a way through the rabble, the Emperor, when at a safe distance, donned a plain great coat, a Russian cloak, and a plain round hat with a white cockade:  in this or similar disguises he sought to escape notice at every village or town, evincing, says the British Commissioner, Colonel Campbell, “much anxiety to save his life.”

By a detour he skirted the town of Avignon, where the mob thirsted for his blood; and by another device he disappointed the people of Orgon, who had prepared an effigy of him in uniform, smeared with blood, and placarded with the words:  “Voila donc l’odieux tyran!  Tot ou tard le crime est puni."[456] In this humiliating way he hurried on towards the coast, where a British frigate, the “Undaunted,” was waiting for him.  There some suspicious delays ensued, which aroused the fears of the allied commissioners, especially as bands of French soldiers began to draw near after the break-up of Eugene’s army.[457]

At last, on the 28th, accompanied by Counts Bertrand and Drouot, he set sail from Frejus.  It was less than fifteen years since he had landed there crowned with the halo of his oriental adventures.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXVIII

ELBA AND PARIS

If it be an advantage to pause in the midst of the rush of life and take one’s bearings afresh, then Napoleon was fortunate in being drifted to the quiet eddy of Elba.  He there had leisure to review his career, to note where he had served his generation and succeeded, where also he had dashed himself fruitlessly against the fundamental instincts of mankind.  Undoubtedly he did essay this mental stock-taking.  He remarked to the conscientious Drouot that he was wrong in not making peace at the Congress of Prague; that trust in his own genius and in his soldiery led him astray; “but those who blame me have never drunk of Fortune’s intoxicating cup.”  When a turn of her wheel brought him uppermost again, he confessed that at Elba he had heard, as in a tomb, the verdict of posterity; and there are signs that his maturer convictions thenceforth strove to curb the old domineering instincts that had wrecked his life.