The moment Napoleon abdicated, he ceased to be a factor in the great events that followed. He was even an obstacle in the way of those who had usurped his place, and was treated with a contumely he had little deserved at the hands of flatterers, who, having basked in his smiles, had now constituted themselves the arbiters of his lot. Driven almost with indignity to the suburban retreat of La Malmaison, where his personality could not affect the Parisians, he still dreamt of power, but did nothing to grasp it. At last he was obliged to fly to the coast before the Allies, who were approaching the capital. Despairing of making good his escape, and feeling keenly the humiliation of his position, should capture await him in the land where for so long he had been the idol, he yielded himself a prisoner to Captain Maitland, who commanded H.M.S. _Bellerophon_—stationed near Rochfort to intercept the Imperial fugitive,—as to the representative of “the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous” of his enemies (July 15th). This is the last of Napoleon, and henceforward he lived and died a captive in the island of St. Helena, hated by his gaolers, forgotten by his country, and forsaken by his kindred. “But where is he, the modern, mightier far, Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car; The new Sesostris, whose unharness’d kings, Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings, And spurn the dust o’er which they crawl’d of late, Chain’d to the chariot of the chieftain’s state? Yes! where is he, the champion and the child Of all that’s great or little, wise or wild? Whose game was empires, and whose stake was thrones? Whose table earth—whose dice were human bones? Behold the grand result in yon lone isle, And as thy nature urges, weep or smile.”[8] ----- Footnote 8: Byron, _Age of Bronze_, iii. -----