—­[Napoleon seems to have always known, as with Cromwell and the Stuarts, that if his dynasty failed the Bourbons must succeed him.  “I remember,” says Metternich, “Napoleon said to me, ’Do you know why Louis XVIII. is not now sitting opposite to you?  It is only because it is I who am sitting here.  No other person could maintain his position; and if ever I disappear in consequence of a catastrophe no one but a Bourbon could sit here.’” (Metternich, tome i. p. 248).  Farther, he said to Metternich, “The King overthrown, the Republic was master of the soil of France.  It is that which I have replaced.  The old throne of France is buried under its rubbish.  I had to found a new one.  The Bourbons could not reign over this creation.  My strength lies in my fortune.  I am new, like the Empire; there is, therefore, a perfect homogeneity between the Empire and myself.”—­“However,” says Metternich, “I have often thought that Napoleon, by talking in this way, merely sought to study the opinion of others, or to confuse it, and the direct advance which he made to Louis XVIII., in 1804 seemed to confirm this suspicion.  Speaking to me one day of this advance he said, ’Monsieur’s reply was grand; it was full of fine traditions.  There is something in legitimate rights which appeals to more than the mere mind.  If Monsieur had consulted his mind only he would have arranged with me, and I should have made for him a magnificent future’” (Metternich, tome i, p. 276).  According to Iung’s Lucien (tome ii. p. 421), the letter written and signed by Napoleon, but never sent, another draft being substituted, is still in the French archives.  Metternich speaks of Napoleon making a direct advance to Louis XVIII. in 1804.  According to Colonel Iung (Lucien Bonaparte, tome ii. pp. 4211-426) the attempt was made through the King of Prussia in 1802, the final answer of Louis being made on the 28th February 1803, as given in the text, but with a postscript of his nephew in addition, “With the permission of the King, my uncle, I adhere with heart and soul to the contents of this note.
                    “(signed) Louis Antoine, Due d’Angouleme.”

The reader will remark that there is no great interval between this letter and the final break with the Bourbons by the death of the Duc d’Enghien.  At this time, according to Savory (tome iii. p. 241), some of the Bourbons were receiving French pensions.  The Prince de Conti, the Duchesse de Bourbon, and the Duchesse d’Orleans, when sent out of France by the Directory, were given pensions of from 20,000 to 26,000 francs each.  They lived in Catalonia.  When the French troops entered Spain in 1808 General Canclaux, a friend of the Prince de Conti, brought to the notice of Napoleon that the tiresome formalities insisted on by the pestilent clerks of all nations were observed towards these regal personages.  Gaudin, the Minister of Finance, apparently on his own initiative, drew up a decree