Devoted as I was to the cause of the Bourbons, I thought it my duty to write that very day to M. de Blacas to request an interview; I received no answer.  Two days after I wrote a second letter, in which I informed M. de Blacas that I had something of the greatest importance to communicate to him; this letter remained unnoticed like the first.  Unable to account for this strange treatment I again repaired to the Pavilion de Flore, and requested the Abbe Fleuriel to explain to me if he could the cause of his master’s silence.  “Sir,” said he, “I received your two letters, and laid them before the Count; I cannot tell why he has not sent you an answer; but Monsieur le Comte is so much engaged. . . .  Monsieur le Comte is so overwhelmed with business that”—­“Monsieur le Comte may, perhaps, repent of it.  Good morning, sir!”

I thus had personal experience of the truth of what I had often heard respecting M. de Blacas.  That favourite, who succeeded Comte d’Avaray, enjoyed the full confidence of the King, and concentrated the sovereign power in his own cabinet.  The only means of transmitting any communication to Louis XVIII. was to get it addressed to M. de Blacas by one of his most intimate friends.

Convinced as I was of the danger that threatened France, and unable to break through the blockade which M. de Blacas had formed round the person of the King, I determined to write to M. de Talleyrand at Vienna,’ and acquaint him with the communications that had been made to me.  M. de Talleyrand corresponded directly with the King, and I doubt not that my information at length reached the ears of his Majesty.  But when Louis XVIII. was informed of what was to happen it was too late to avert the danger.

CHAPTER IV.

1814-1815.

   Escape from Elba—­His landing near Cannes—­March on Paris.

About the middle of summer Napoleon was visited by his mother and his sister the Princess Pauline.  Both these ladies had very considerable talents for political intrigue, and then natural faculties in this way had not lain dormant or been injured by want of practice.  In Pauline this finesse was partially concealed by a languor and indecision of manner and an occasional assumption of ‘niaiserie’; or almost infantine simplicity; but this only threw people the more off their guard, and made her finesse the more sure in its operation.  Pauline was handsome too, uncommonly graceful, and had all that power of fascination which has been attributed to the Bonaparte family.  She could gain hearts with ease, and those whom her charms enslaved were generally ready to devote themselves absolutely to her brother.  She went and came between Naples and Elba, and kept her brother-in-law, Murat, in mind of the fact that the lion was not yet dead nor so much as sleeping, but merely retiring the better to spring forward on his quarry.