Napoleon’s preoccupation, however, was the conduct of the Jacobins in France, who had been quickened to immense energy by the absurdities of the royalist reaction and felt that they had the new ruler in their power.  A game of skill ensued, which took up the greater part of the “Hundred Days” of Napoleon’s second reign.  His conduct proved that he was not sure of success.  He felt out of touch with this new liberty-loving France, so different from the passively devoted people whom he had left in 1814; he bridled his impetuous nature, reasoning with men, inviting criticism, and suggesting doubts as to his own proposals, in a way that contrasted curiously with the old sledge-hammer methods.

“He seemed,” writes Mollien, “habitually calm, pensive, and preserved without affectation a serious dignity, with little of that old audacity and self-confidence which had never met with insuperable obstacles....  As his thoughts were cramped in a narrow space girt with precipices instead of soaring freely over a vast horizon of power, they became laborious and

This Pegasus in harness chafed at the unwonted yoke; and at times the old instincts showed themselves.  On one occasion, when the subject turned on the new passion for liberty, he said to Lavalette with a question in his voice:  “All this will last two or three years?” “Your Majesty,” replied the Minister, “must not believe that.  It will last for ever.”

The first grave difficulty was to frame a constitution, especially as his Lyons decrees led men to believe that it would emanate from the people, and be sanctioned by them in a great Champ de Mai.  Perhaps this was impossible.  A great part of France was a prey to civil strifes; and it was a skilful device to intrust the drafting of a constitution to Benjamin Constant.

This brilliant writer and talker had now run through the whole gamut of political professions.  A pronounced Jacobin and free-thinker during the Consulate, he subsequently retired to Germany, where he unlearnt his politics, his religion, and his philosophy.  The sight of Napoleon’s devastations made him a supporter of the throne and altar, compelled him to recast his treatises, and drove him to consort with the quaint circle of pietists who prayed and grovelled with Madame de Krudener.  Returning to France at the Restoration, he wielded his facile pen in the cause of the monarchy, and fluttered after the fading charms of Madame Recamier, confiding to his friend, De Broglie, that he knew not whether to trust most to divine or satanic agencies for success in this lawless chase.  In March, 1815, he thundered in the Press against the brigand of Elba—­until the latter won him over in the space of a brief interview, and persuaded him to draft, with a few colleagues, the final constitution of the age.