The scene was rich, not only in personal interest and pathos, but also in historic import.  It marks the end of a cataclysmic epoch and the dawn of a dreary and confused age.  We may picture the Muse of History, drawn distractedly from her abodes on the banks of the Seine, gazing in wonder on that event taking place under the lee of Berry Head, her thoughts flashing back, perchance, to the days when William of Orange brought his fleet to shore at that same spot and baffled the designs of the other great ruler of France.  The glory of that land is now once more to be shrouded in gloom.  For a time, like an uneasy ghost, Clio will hover above the scenes of Napoleon’s exploits and will find little to record but promises broken and development arrested by his unteachable successors.

But the march of Humanity is only clogged:  it is not stayed.  Ere long it breaks away into untrodden paths amidst the busy hives of industry or in the track of the colonizing peoples.  The Muse follows in perplexity:  her course at first seems dull and purposeless:  her story, when it bids farewell to Napoleon, suffers a bewildering fall in dramatic interest:  but at length new and varied fields open out to view.  Democracy, embattled for seven sad years by Napoleon against her sister, Nationality, little by little awakens to a consciousness of the mistake that has blighted his fortune and hers, and begins to ally herself with the ill-used champion of the Kings.  Industry, starved by War, regains her strength and goes forth on a career of conquest more enduring than that of the great warrior.  And the peoples that come to the front are not those of the Latin race, whom his wars have stunted, but those of the untamable Teutonic stock, the lords of the sea and the leaders of Central Europe.

* * * * *

The treatment of the ex-Emperor henceforth differed widely from that which had been hastily arranged by the Czar for his sojourn at Elba.  In that case he retained the title of Emperor; he reigned over the island, and was free to undertake coasting trips.  As these generous arrangements had entailed on Europe the loss of more than 80,000 men in killed and wounded, it is not surprising that the British Ministers should now have insisted on far stricter rules, especially as they and their Commissioner had been branded as accomplices in the former escape.  His comfort and dignity were now subordinated to security.  As the title of Emperor would enable him to claim privileges incompatible with any measure of surveillance, it was firmly and consistently denied to him; while he as persistently claimed it, and doubtless for the same reason.  He was now to rank as a General not on active service; and Cockburn received orders, while treating him with deference and assigning to him the place of honour at table, to abstain from any acknowledgment of the imperial dignity.  Napoleon soon put this question to the test by rising from dinner before the others had finished; but, with the exception of his suite, the others did not accompany him on deck.  At this he was much piqued, as also at seeing that the officers did not uncover in his presence on the quarter-deck; but when Cockburn’s behaviour in this respect was found to be quietly consistent, the anger of the exiles began to wear off—­or rather it was thrust down.