One of the first public men to see Napoleon after his return from Waterloo was Lavallette.  “I flew,” says he, “to the Elysee to see the Emperor:  he summoned me into his closet, and as soon as he saw me, he came to meet me with a frightful epileptic ‘laugh. `Oh, my God!’ he said, raising his eyes to heaven, and walking two or three times up and down the room.  This appearance of despair was however very short.  He soon recovered his coolness, and asked me what was going forward in the Chamber of Representatives.  I could not attempt to hide that party spirit was there carried to a high pitch, and that the majority seemed determined to require his abdication, and to pronounce it themselves if he did not concede willingly.  ‘How is that?’ he said.  ’If proper measures are not taken the enemy will be before the gates of Paris in eight days.  Alas!’ he added, ’have I accustomed them to such great victories that they knew not how to bear one day’s misfortune?  What will become of poor France?  I have done all I could for her!’ He then heaved a deep sigh.  Somebody asked to speak to him, and I left him, with a direction to come back at a later hour.

“I passed the day in seeking information among all my friends and acquaintances.  I found in all of them either the greatest dejection or an extravagant joy, which they disguised by feigned alarm and pity for myself, which I repulsed with great indignation.  Nothing favourable was to be expected from the Chamber of Representatives.  They all said they wished for liberty, but, between two enemies who appeared ready to destroy it, they preferred the foreigners, the friends of the Bourbons, to Napoleon, who might still have prolonged the struggle, but that he alone would not find means to save them and erect the edifice of liberty.  The Chamber of Peers presented a much sadder spectacle.  Except the intrepid Thibaudeau, who till, the last moment expressed himself with admirable energy against the Bourbons, almost all the others thought of nothing else but getting out of the dilemma with the least loss they could.  Some took no pains to hide their wish of bending again under the Bourbon yoke.”

On the evening of Napoleon’s return to Paris he sent for Benjamin Constant to come to him at the Elysee about seven o’clock.  The Chambers had decreed their permanence, and proposals for abdication had reached the Emperor.  He was serious but calm.  In reply to some words on the disaster of Waterloo he said, “The question no longer concerns me, but France.  They wish me to abdicate.  Have they calculated upon the inevitable consequences of this abdication?  It is round me, round my name, that the army rallies:  to separate me from it is to disband it.  If I abdicate to-day, in two days’ time you will no longer have an army.  These poor fellows do not understand all your subtleties.  Is it believed that axioms in metaphysics, declarations of right, harangues from the tribune, will put a stop to the disbanding of an army?  To reject me when