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lence of adaptation, he thinks Louis has been helped to the throne of France. He will not have the boldness to say, that monarch was not imposed upon his subjects,

LETTER XXXVII.

Thursday, July 20.

On the day the allies occupied the barriers, it was notified that Napoleon had passed through Niort on the morning of the 2d of July, and three days afterwards it was known that he had reached Rochefort. Since that period no notice was taken of him in any of the public journals until the 16th, when the evening papers proclaimed the departure of Napoleon Bonaparte from Rochefort. This was not confirmed until the 18th, when the fact of his having surrendered himself to the Bellerophon, to which he was pursued by two royalist prefects, was announced in the Moniteur in the following terms:

"Des mesures avaient été prises pour prévenir "l'evasion de Napoléon Bonaparte; on verra par "l'extrait suivant, d'une lettre du prefet maritime "de Rochefort, à son excellence le ministre de la "marine, que le résultat a été tel qu'on avait lieu « de l'espérer.

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Rochefort, le 15 juillet, à dix heures du soir.

"Pour exécuter les ordres de V. E., je me suis embarqué dans mon canot, accompagné de M. "le baron Ricard, prefet de la Charente-Infe"rieure. Les rapports de la rade de là journée "du 14 ne m'étaient point encore parvenus: il me

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fut rendu compte par le capitaine de vaisseau "Philibert, commandant l'Amphitrite, que Bona"parte s'etait embarqué sur le brick Epervier, "armé en parlementaire, determiné à se rendre à "la croisière Anglaise.

"En effet, au point de jour nous le vîmes ma"nœuvrer pour s'approcher au vaisseau Anglais, "le Bellerophon, commandé par le Capitaine "Maitland, qui, voyant que Bonaparte se dirigeait sur lui, avait arboré pavillon blanc au "mât de misaine.

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Bonaparte a été reçu à bord du vaisseau Anglais ainsi que les personnes de sa suite: l'officier que j'avais laissé en observation, m'avait in"formé de cette importante nouvelle, quand le general Becker arrivé peu de momens après, "me l'a confirmé.

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Nothing but the entire oblivion into which he had before fallen could account for the very

little notice taken, or importance attached by the people of Paris to this close of the most extraordinary life of modern times. Hardly any one I met mentioned the paragraph in the Monitéur; only one of his personal admirers told me that the Duke of, speaking to her of the fact, said, with the tears in his eyes, "he owed "it to us not to have been taken by the English.' It is an honourable regret that drew this re

tion from a faithful ervant of France, who would have wished that a man, to whom is attached so brilliant, as well as so unfortunate a portion of the history of his country, should have ter minated his career in a manner worthy of the author of so many stupendous events, so many wars, so many conquests, the founder and destroyer of states and statesmen, the rise and the ruin of so many kingdoms and crowns. You might have felt inclined to ask the above gentleman what the fugitive Emperor could have done in such an emergency. You would, I know, have had the answer of the dramatic hero" Qu'il mourût." You know my sentiments on that subject. I shall only add here,

that if he is treated by the English in a way unworthy of them, the disgrace will fall not upon Napoleon, who will gain from the manly support of severity the only credit which can

VOL. II.

now attract the notice of mankind to the future portion of his life *.

Even at this moment there are persons in Paris who affect to believe that some representative has been taken in his stead, and that the true man is at the head quarters behind the Loire; an absurd story, originating, most probably, with the malice of the royalists, who wish to represent the army as still devoted to Napoleon, and to excuse measures of extraordinary rigour against the imperial prisoner and his adherents. Our ministers will, doubtless, be entirely ignorant of the insignificance of the fallen monarch in France, and our intelligent journals will be filled with details and observations on an event which here makes not the least sensation, and passes, indeed, in a silence which sufficiently proves to me, that Napoleon might be permitted almost to remain in the heart of France, without the danger of an insurrection in his favour, unless the vengeance of the restored dynasty should give rise to a revolt that would, were the dethroned Emperor in China, find some rallying

The opinion of the writer of these letters as to the banishment of Napoleon to St. Helena need not be stated: he will only say, that the consummate injustice of such a measure is only to be equalled by the pleasantry of boasting of it as an act of clemency.

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