Emperor of the French.

The present Ministers will provisionally form the Council of the
Government.  The interest which I take in my son induces me to
invite the Chambers to form without delay the Regency by a law. 
Unite all for the public safety, that you may continue an
independent nation. 

                              (Signed) Napoleon.

This declaration was conveyed to both the Chambers, which voted deputations to the late Emperor, accepting this abdication, but in their debates the nomination of his son to the succession was artfully eluded.  The Chamber of Representatives voted the nomination of a Commission of five persons, three to be chosen from that Chamber, and two from the Chamber of Peers, for the purpose of provisionally exercising the functions of Government, and also that the Ministers should continue their respective functions under the authority of this Commission.  The persons chosen by the Chamber of Representatives were Carnot, Fouche, and Grenier, those nominated by the Peers were the Duke of Vicenza (Caulaincourt) and Baron Quinette.  The Commission nominated five persons to the Allied army for the purpose of proposing peace.  These proceedings were, however, rendered of little importance by the resolution of the victors to advance to Paris.

Napoleon’s behaviour just before and immediately after the crisis is well described by Lavallette.  “The next day,” he observes, “I returned to the Emperor.  He had received the most positive accounts of the state of feeling in the Chamber of Representatives.  The reports had, however, been given to him with some little reserve, for he did not seem to me convinced that the resolution was really formed to pronounce his abdication, I was better informed on the matter, and I came to him without having the least doubt in my mind that the only thing he could do was to descend once more from the throne.  I communicated to him all the particulars I had just received, and I did not hesitate to advise him to follow the only course worthy of him.  He listened to me with a sombre air, and though he was in some measure master of himself, the agitation of his mind and the sense of his position betrayed themselves in his face and in all his motions.  ‘I know,’ said I, ’that your Majesty may still keep the sword drawn, but with whom, and against whom?  Defeat has chilled the courage of every one; the army is still in the greatest confusion.  Nothing is to be expected from Paris, and the coup d’etat of the 18th Brumaire cannot be renewed.’—­’That thought,’ he replied, stopping, ’is far from my mind.  I will hear nothing more about myself.  But poor France!’ At that moment Savary and Caulaincourt entered, and having drawn a faithful picture of the exasperation of the Deputies, they persuaded him to assent to abdication.  Some words he uttered proved to us that he would have considered death preferable to that step; but still he took it.