As is the manner of vultures, there was much gorging: Louis XVIII., the man “who had learned nothing, and _forgotten_ nothing,” brought back in his train a host of hungry folk, princes of the blood royal, dukes, and noble dames; and France soon found that it would be made to suffer for its Revolution and its Republic, and that the victories of its Emperor were like to cost it dear. Royalists filled the high places in Church and State. Shameless rapacity and mean reprisals were seen on every side; and in the army the most scandalous injustices were unblushingly practised. People began to look with regret towards the Mediterranean isle where the Eagle plumed his ruffled feathers moodily. There were mysterious nods and glances, and allusions to a certain flower which a certain “little corporal” was known to have loved. “He will return again with the violet,” they said in whispers. Ladies affected violet-coloured silks, and rings of the same hue became fashionable, bearing the motto “It will re-appear in Spring.” Nor were they wrong, for on the 1st March, 1815, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Napoleon the Great, with a hundred dismounted Lancers of the Guard, some veteran Grenadiers and a few officers, landed in the Gulf of San Juan, and began that triumphal progress which ended at WATERLOO. His advance is curiously recorded in the papers of the day: I quote from the _Moniteur_:-- “The cannibal has left his den.” “The Corsican wolf has landed in the Bay of San Juan.” “The tiger has arrived at Gay.” “The wretch spent the night at Grenoble.” “The tyrant has arrived at Lyons.” “The usurper has been seen within fifty miles of Paris.” “Bonaparte is advancing with great rapidity, but he will not set his foot inside the walls of Paris.” “To-morrow Napoleon will be at our gates!” “The Emperor has arrived at Fontainebleau.” “His Imperial Majesty Napoleon entered Paris yesterday, surrounded by his loyal subjects.” At midnight on the 19th March, Louis the Gross got into his carriage by torchlight, and was driven off to Lille; the Comte d’Artois and the Court followed an hour later, and the good citizens found when they rose next morning, two notices fastened to the railings of the Place Carrousel-- “Palace to let, well furnished, except the kitchen utensils, which have been carried away by the late proprietor.” And the other-- “A large fat hog to be sold for one Napoleon.” At eight o’clock that evening the Emperor was carried up the grand staircase of the Tuileries on the shoulders of his officers, and from that moment until the 12th June the master-mind was wrestling with a task vast enough to have discouraged twenty brains!