March 1.—“_Bonaparte_ has debarked at Cannes with eleven hundred men.” March 7.—“_General Bonaparte_ has taken possession of Grenoble.” March 10.—“_Napoleon_ has entered Lyons.” March 19.—“_The emperor_ reached Fontainebleau to-day.” March 19.—“_His Imperial Majesty_ is expected at the Tuileries to-morrow, the anniversary of the birth of the King of Rome.” [Illustration: BEFORE WATERLOO. After a lithograph by Charlet.] Two days before the flight of the Bourbons, the following notice appeared on the door of the Tuileries: “_The emperor begs the king to send him no more soldiers; he has enough._” “What was the happiest period of your life as emperor?” O’Meara asked Napoleon once at St. Helena. “The march from Cannes to Paris,” he replied immediately. His happiness was short-lived. The overpowering enthusiasm which had made that march possible could not endure. The bewildered factions which had been silenced or driven out by Napoleon’s reappearance recovered from their stupor. The royalists, exasperated by their own flight, reorganized. Strong opposition developed among the liberals. It was only a short time before a reaction followed the delirium which Napoleon’s return had caused in the nation. Disaffection, coldness, and plots succeeded. In face of this revulsion of feeling, the emperor himself underwent a change. The buoyant courage, the amazing audacity which had induced him to return from Elba, seemed to leave him. He became sad and preoccupied. No doubt much of this sadness was due to the refusal of Austria to restore his wife and child, and to the bitter knowledge that Marie Louise had succumbed to foreign influences and had promised never again to see her husband. If the allies had allowed the French to manage their affairs in their own way, it is probable that Napoleon would have mastered the situation, difficult as it was. But this they did not do. In spite of his promise to observe the treaties made after his abdication, to accept the boundaries fixed, to abide by the Congress of Vienna, the coalition treated him with scorn, affecting to mistrust him. He was the disturber of the peace of the world, a public enemy; he must be put beyond the pale of society, and they took up arms, not against France, but against Napoleon. France, as it appeared, was not to be allowed to choose her own rulers. [Illustration: “MARENGO,” NAPOLEON’S WAR-HORSE, LAST RIDDEN BY HIM AT THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO, AND AFTERWARDS THE PROPERTY OF CAPTAIN HOWARD.