[Footnote 68:  The Emperor Alexander alone preserved perfect self-possession; and, turning to the Duke of Wellington, exclaimed “Eh bien, Wellington, c’est a vous encore une fois sauver le monde.”]

CHAPTER XXXVIII

     Napoleon lands at Cannes—­his progress to
     Grenoble—­Lyons—­Fontainebleau—­Treason of Labedoyere and
     Ney—­Louis XVIII. retires to Ghent, and Napoleon arrives in Paris.

The evening before Napoleon sailed (February the 26th), his sister Pauline gave a ball, to which all the officers of the Elbese army were invited.  A brig (the Inconstant) and six small craft, had meanwhile been prepared for the voyage, and at dead of night, without apparently any previous intimation, the soldiery were mustered by tuck of drum, and found themselves on board ere they could ask for what purpose.  When the day broke, they perceived that all the officers and the Emperor himself were with them, and that they were steering for the coast of France; and it could no longer be doubtful that the scheme which had for months formed the darling object of all their hopes and dreams was about to be realised.

Sir Neil Campbell, who had been absent on an excursion to Leghorn, happened to return to Porto Ferraio almost as soon as the flotilla had quitted it.  The mother and sister of Buonaparte in vain endeavoured to persuade the English officer that he had steered toward the coast of Barbary.  He pursued instantly towards Provence, in the Partridge, which attended his orders, and came in sight of the fugitive armament exactly when it was too late.  Ere then Napoleon had encountered almost an equal hazard.  A French ship of war had crossed his path; but the Emperor made all his soldiery lie flat on the decks, and the steersman of the Inconstant, who happened to be well acquainted with the commanding officer, had received and answered the usual challenge without exciting any suspicion.  Thus narrowly escaped the flotilla which carried “Caesar and his fortune.”

On the 1st of March he was once more off Cannes—­the same spot which had received him from Egypt, and at which he had embarked ten months before for Elba.  There was no force whatever to oppose his landing; and his handful of men—­500 grenadiers of the guard, 200 dragoons, and 100 Polish lancers, these last without horses, and carrying their saddles on their backs—­were immediately put in motion on the road to Paris.  Twenty-five grenadiers which he detached to summon Antibes were arrested on the instant by the governor of that place; but he despised this omen, and proceeded without a pause.  He bivouacked that night in a plantation of olives, with all his men about him.  As soon as the moon rose, the reveille sounded.  A labourer going thus early afield, recognised the Emperor’s person, and, with a cry of joy, said he had served in the army of Italy, and would join the march.