Napoleon, however, made sundry attempts to open a negotiation with the Allies—­nor wanted there statesmen, even in England, to lend their best support to his reclamations.  He urged three arguments in defence of his breach of the convention by which he had become sovereign of Elba:  1st, the detention of his wife and son by the court of Austria—­an affair with which the king whose dominions he had invaded could have had nothing to do:  2nd, the nonpayment of his pension—­a grievance which might have furnished a legitimate ground of complaining to the powers that guaranteed its punctual discharge, and which, if so complained of at the Congress of Vienna, there is no reason to doubt would have been redressed:  and 3rd, the voice of the French nation, which he, according to his own statement, had but heard and obeyed.  But the state of public feeling in France could not be effectually misrepresented now:  and the answer that met him from every quarter was one and the same—­namely, that he had ascended the throne of Louis in consequence of the treason of the army, and the intrigues of a faction, in direct opposition to the wishes of almost all the upper classes of society throughout France, and, as regarded the mass of the nation, amidst profound indifference.

Meanwhile the royalists at home had failed in all their endeavours to prevent his authority from being recognised all over France.  The Duke d’Angouleme was soon surrounded by the superior numbers of General Gilly, and capitulated—­on condition of being permitted to disband his followers, and embark at Cette for Spain—­a convention which Napoleon did not hesitate to ratify.  The Duchess of Angouleme, daughter of Louis XVI., displayed at Bourdeaux such heroism as drew from Napoleon himself the sarcastic eulogy, “She is the only man of her race;” but in spite of the loyalty of the inhabitants all her efforts were vain.  The garrison was strong; they had caught the general flame; and the Princess was at length compelled to take refuge in an English frigate.  The Duke of Berri repaired, on the first alarm, to La Vendee:  but the regular troops in that faithful province were, thanks to the previous care of King Louis’s war-minister, so numerous and so well posted, that this effort failed also, and the Duke escaped to England.  Before March had ended, the tricolor flag was displayed on every tower of France.

Having discovered that there was no chance—­if indeed he had ever contemplated one—­of persuading the Emperor of Austria to restore his wife and son to him, Napoleon, ere he had been many days at the Tuileries, set on foot a scheme for carrying them off from Vienna, by a mixture of stratagem and force.  There were French people in the suite of Maria Louisa who easily embarked in this plot; and forged passports, relays of horses, and all other appliances had been so well provided, that but for a single individual, who betrayed the design, there seems to have been a considerable probability of its