says Lavalette, “his hands extended before him like a blind man, and expressing his joy only by a smile.”  Ladies are there also, who have spent the weary hours of waiting in stripping off fleurs-de-lys, and gleefully exposing the N’s and golden bees concealed by cheap Bourbon upholstery.  Anon they fly back to this task; the palace wears its wonted look; and the brief spell of Bourbon rule seems gone for ever.

To his contemporaries this triumph of Napoleon appeared a miracle before which the voice of criticism must be dumb.  And yet, if we remember the hollowness of the Bourbon restoration, the tactlessness of the princes and the greed of their partisans, it seems strange that the house of cards reared by the Czar and Talleyrand remained standing even for eleven months.  Napoleon correctly described the condition of France when he said to his comrades on the “Inconstant”:  “There is no historic example that induces me to venture on this bold enterprise:  but I have taken into account the surprise that will seize on men, the state of public feeling, the resentment against the allies, the love of my soldiers, in fine, all the Napoleonic elements that still germinate in our beautiful France."[467]

Still less was he deceived by the seemingly overwhelming impulse in his favour.  He looked beyond the hysteria of welcome to the cold and critical fit which follows; and he saw danger ahead.  When Mollien complimented him on his return, he replied, alluding to the general indifference at the departure of the Bourbons:  “My dear fellow!  People have let me come, just as they let the others go.”  The remark reveals keen insight into the workings of French public opinion.  The whole course of the Revolution had shown how easy it was to destroy a Government, how difficult to rebuild.  In truth, the events of March, 1815, may be called the epilogue of the revolutionary drama.  The royal House had offended the two most powerful of French interests, the military and the agrarian, so that soldiers and peasants clutched eagerly at Napoleon as a mighty lever for its overthrow.

The Emperor wisely formed his Ministry before the first enthusiasm cooled down.  Maret again became Secretary of State; Decres took the Navy; Gaudin the finances; Mollien was coaxed back to the Treasury, and Davoust reluctantly accepted the Ministry of War.  Savary declined to be burdened with the Police, and Napoleon did not press him:  for that clever intriguer, Fouche, was pointed out as the only man who could rally the Jacobins around the imperial throne:  to him, then, Napoleon assigned this important post, though fully aware that in his hands it was a two-edged tool.  Carnot was finally persuaded to become Minister for Home Affairs.