the above copy may differ in a few words.  It met with the unqualified approbation of every one present.  I was therefore extremely surprised, on looking at the ‘Moniteur’ next day, to find that the article was not inserted.  I knew not what courtly interference prevented the appearance of the article, but I remember that Marmont was very ill pleased at its omission.  He complained on the subject to the Emperor Alexander, who promised to write, and in fact did write, to the Provisional Government to get the article inserted.  However, it did not appear, and in a few days we obtained a solution of the enigma, as we might perhaps have done before if we had tried.  The Emperor Alexander also promised to write to the Comte d’Artois, and to inform him that the opinion of France was in favour of the preservation of the three colours, but I do not know whether the letter was written, or, if it was, what answer it received.

Marshal Jourdan, who was then at Rouen, received a letter, written without the knowledge of Marmont, informing him that the latter had mounted the white cockade in his corps.  Jourdan thought he could not do otherwise than follow Marmont’s example, and he announced to the Provisional Government that in consequence of the resolution of the Duke of Ragusa he had just ordered his corps to wear the white cockade.  Marmont could now be boldly faced, and when he complained to the Provisional Government of the non-insertion of the article in the Moniteur the reply was, “It cannot now appear.  You see Marshal Jourdan has mounted the white cockade:  you would not give the army two sets of colours!”

Marmont could make no answer to so positive a fact.  It was not till some time after that I learned Jourdan had determined to unfurl the white flag only on the positive assurance that Marmont had already done so.  Thus we lost the colours which had been worn by Louis XVI., which Louis XVIII., when a Prince, had adopted, and in which the Comte d’Artois showed himself on his return to the Parisians, for he entered the capital in the uniform of the National Guard.  The fraud played off by some members of the Provisional Government was attended by fatal consequences; many evils might have been spared to France had Marmont’s advice been adopted.

At the period of the dissolution of the Empire there might be said to be three Governments in France, viz. the Provisional Government in Paris, Napoleon’s at Fontainebleau, and the doubtful and ambulatory Regency of “Maria Louisa.”  Doubtful and ambulatory the Regency might well be called, for there was so little decision as to the course to be adopted by the Empress that it was at first proposed to conduct her to Orleans, then to Tours, and she went finally to Blois.  The uncertainty which prevailed respecting the destiny of Maria Louisa is proved by a document which I have in my possession, and of which there cannot be many copies in existence.  It is a circular addressed to the prefects by M. de Montalivet, the Minister of the Interior, who accompanied the Empress.  In it a blank is left for the seat of the Government, to which the prefects are desired to send their communications.  In the copy I possess the blank is filled up with the word “Blois” in manuscript.