—­[Lord William Bentinck and Sir Edward Pellew had taken Genoa on
   the 18th Of April.  Murat was in the field with the Austrians
   against the French.]—­

Eugene, thinking that the Senate of Milan was favourably disposed towards him, solicited that body to use its influence in obtaining the consent of the Allied powers to his continuance at the head of the Government of Italy; but this proposition was rejected by the Senate.  A feeling of irritation pervaded the public mind in Italy, and the army had not proceeded three marches beyond Mantua when an insurrection broke out in Milan.  The Finance Minister, Pizna, was assassinated, and his residence demolished, and nothing would have saved the Viceroy from a similar fate had he been in his capital.  Amidst this popular excitement, and the eagerness of the Italians to be released from the dominion of the French, the friends of Eugene thought him fortunate in being able to join his father-in-law at Munich almost incognito.

—­[Some time after Eugene visited France and had a long audience of Louis XVIII.  He announced himself to that monarch by his father’s title of Marquis de Beauharnais.  The King immediately saluted him by the title of Monsieur le Marechal, and proposed that he should reside in France with that rank.  But this invitation Eugene declined, because as a French Prince under the fallen Government he had commanded the Marshals, and he therefore could not submit to be the last in rank among those illustrious military chiefs.  Bourrienne.]—­

Thus, at the expiration of nine years, fell the iron crown which Napoleon had placed on his head saying, “Dieu me l’a donne; gare a qui la touche.”

I will now take a glance at the affairs of Germany.  Rapp was not in France at the period of the fall of the Empire.  He had, with extraordinary courage and skill, defended himself against a year’s siege at Dantzic.  At length, being reduced to the last extremity, and constrained to surrender, he opened the gates of the city, which presented nothing but heaps of ruins.  Rapp had stipulated that the garrison of Dantzic should return to France, and the Duke of Wurtemberg, who commanded the siege, had consented to that condition; but the Emperor of Russia having refused to ratify it, Rapp, having no means of defence, was made prisoner with his troops; and conducted to Kiow, whence he afterwards returned to Paris, where I saw him.

Hamburg still held out, but at the beginning of April intelligence was received there of the extraordinary events which had delivered Europe from her oppressor.  Davoust refused to believe this news, which at once annihilated all his hopes of power and greatness.  This blindness was persisted in for some time at Hamburg.  Several hawkers, who were marked out by the police as having been the circulators of Paris news, were shot.  An agent of the Government publicly announced his design of assassinating one of the French Princes, in whose service he was said to have been as a page.  He said he would go to his Royal Highness and solicit to be appointed one of his aides de camp, and that, if the application were refused, as it probably would be, the refusal would only confirm him in his purpose.