Before his exception from the amnesty was known Ney left Paris on the 6th of July, and went into the country with but little attempt at concealment, and with formal passports from Fouche.  The capitulation of Paris seemed to cover him, and he was so little aware of the thirst of the Royalists for his blood that he let his presence be known by leaving about a splendid sabre presented to him by the Emperor on his marriage, and recognised by mere report by an old soldier as belonging to Ney or Murat; and Ney himself let into the house the party sent to arrest him on the 5th of August, and actually refused the offer of Excelmans, through whose troops he passed, to set him free.  No one at the time, except the wretched refugees of Ghent, could have suspected, after the capitulation, that there was any special danger for Ney, and it is very difficult to see on what principle the Bourbons chose their victims or intended victims.  Drouot, for example, had never served Louis XVIII., he had never worn the white cockade, he had left France with Napoleon for Elba, and had served the Emperor there.  In 1815 he had fought under his own sovereign.  After Waterloo he had exerted all his great influence, the greater from his position, to induce the Guard to retire behind the Loire, and to submit to the Bourbons.  It was because Davoust so needed him that Drouot remained with the army.  Stilt Drouot was selected for death, but the evidence of his position was too strong to enable the Court to condemn him.  Cambronne, another selection, had also gone with Napoleon to Elba.  Savory, another selection, had, as was eventually acknowledged, only joined Napoleon when he was in full possession of the reins of Government.  Bertrend, who was condemned while at St. Helena, was in the same position as Drouot.  In fact, if any one were to draw up a list of probable proscriptions and compare it with those of the 24th of July 1815, there would probably be few names common to both except Labedoyere, Mouton Duvernet, etc.  The truth is that the Bourbons, and, to do them justice, still more the rancorous band of mediocrities who surrounded them, thirsted for blood.  Even they could feel the full ignominy of the flight to Ghent.

While they had been chanting the glories of the Restoration, the devotion of the people, the valour of the Princes, Napoleon had landed, the Restoration had vanished like a bad dream, and the Princes were the first to lead the way to the frontier.  To protest that there had been a conspiracy, and that the conspirators must suffer, was the only possible cloak for the shame of the Royalists, who could not see that the only conspiracy was the universal one of the nation against the miserable men who knew not how to govern a high-spirited people.