These were doubtless the thoughts that coursed through his brain as he paced with Lucien up and down the garden of the Elysee.  A crowd of federes and workmen outside cheered him frantically.  He saluted them with a smile; but, says Pasquier, “the expression of his eyes showed the sadness that filled his soul.”  True, he might have led that unthinking rabble against the Chambers; but that would mean civil war, and from this he shrank.  Still Lucien bade him strike.  “Dare,” he whispered with Dantonesque terseness.  “Alas,” replied his brother, “I have dared only too much already.”  Davoust also opined that it was too late now that the deputies had firmly seized the reins and were protected by the National Guards of Paris.

And so Napoleon let matters drift.  In truth, he was “bewildered” by the disunion of France.  It was a France that he knew not, a land given over to idealogues and traitors.  His own Minister, Fouche, was working to sap his power, and yet he dared not have him shot!  What wonder that the helpless autocrat paced restlessly to and fro, or sat as in a dream!  In the evening Carnot went to the Peers, Lucien to the Deputies, to appeal for a united national effort against the Coalition, but the simple earnestness of the one and the fraternal fervour of the other alike failed.  When Lucien finally exclaimed against any desertion of Napoleon, Lafayette fiercely shot at him the long tale of costly sacrifices which France had offered up at the shrine of Napoleon’s glory, and concluded:  “We have done enough for him:  our duty is to save la patrie.”

On the morrow came the news that Grouchy had escaped from the Prussians; and that the relics of Napoleon’s host were rallying at Laon.  But would not this encouragement embolden the Emperor to crush the contumacious Chambers?  Evidently the case was urgent.  He must abdicate, or they would dethrone him—­such was the purport of their message to the Elysee; but, as an act of grace, they allowed him an hour in which to forestall their action.  Shortly after midday, on the advice of his Ministers, he took the final step of his official career.  Lucien and Carnot begged him for some time to abdicate only in favour of his son;[529] and he did so, but with the bitter remark:  “My son!  What a chimera!  No, it is for the Bourbons that I abdicate!  They at least are not prisoners at Vienna.”

The deputies were of his opinion.  Despite frantic efforts of the Bonapartists, they passed over Napoleon II. without any effective recognition, and at once appointed an executive Commission of five—­Carnot, Caulaincourt, Fouche, Grenier, and Quinette.  Three of them were regicides, and Fouche was chosen their President.  We can gauge Napoleon’s wrath at seeing matters thus promptly rolled back to where they were before Brumaire by his biting comment that he had made way for the King of Rome, not for a Directory which included one traitor and two babies.  His indignation was just.  An abdication forced on by idealogues was hateful; to be succeeded by Fouche seemed an unforgivable insult; but he touched the lowest depth of humiliation on the 25th, when he received from that despicable schemer an order to leave Paris.