Ere the Marshals returned from Paris he reviewed his guard again; and it was obvious to those about him that he still hankered after the chances of another field.  We may imagine that his thoughts were like those of the Scottish usurper:—­

“I have lived long enough:  my May of life Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf....  Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff. ...  The Thanes fly from me.”

He sometimes meditated a march southwards, collecting on his way the armies of Augereau and Soult, and re-opening the campaign as circumstances might recommend, behind either the Loire or the Alps.  At other times the chance of yet rousing the population of Paris recurred to his imagination.  Amidst these dreams, of which every minute more clearly showed the vanity, Napoleon received the ultimatum of the invading powers.  He hesitated and pondered long ere he would sign his acceptance of it.  The group of his personal followers had been sorely thinned; and the armies of the Allies, gradually pushing forward from Paris, had nearly surrounded Fontainebleau, when he at length (on the 11th of April) abandoned all hope, and executed an instrument, formally “renouncing for himself and his heirs the thrones of France and of Italy.”

Even after signing this document, and delivering it to Caulaincourt, he made a last effort to rouse the spirits of the chief officers still around his person.  They, as the Marshals had done on the 4th, heard his appeals in silence; and the Duke of Vicenza, though repeatedly commanded to give him back the act of abdication, refused to do so.  It is generally believed that, during the night which ensued, Napoleon’s meditations were, once more, like those of the falling Macbeth:—­

    “There is no flying hence, nor tarrying here. 
    I ‘gin to be weary o’ the sun.”—­

Whether the story, very circumstantially told, of his having swallowed poison on that night, be true, we have no means of deciding.  It is certain that he underwent a violent paroxysm of illness, sank into a death-like stupor, and awoke in extreme feebleness, lassitude, and dejection; in which condition several days were passed.

Napoleon remained long enough at Fontainebleau to hear of the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, and the triumphant entrance of the Count d’Artois (now Charles X.) into Paris, as Lieutenant for his brother, Louis XVIII.; and of another event, which ought to have given him greater affliction.  Immediately on the formation of the provisional government, messengers had been sent from Paris to arrest the progress of hostilities between Soult and Wellington.  But, wherever the blame of intercepting and holding back these tidings may have lain, the English General received no intelligence of the kind until, pursuing his career of success, he had fought another great and bloody battle, and achieved another glorious victory, beneath the walls of Toulouse.  This unfortunate, because utterly needless, battle, occurred on the 11th of April.  On the 14th the news of the fall of Paris reached Lord Wellington; and, Soult soon afterwards signifying his adhesion to the new government, his conqueror proceeded to take part in the final negotiations of the Allies at Paris.