"'No, no--speak out; you know how I resisted at Ghent.' "'In that case, sire, I must obey my orders. Pardon my fidelity: I think it is all over with the monarchy.' "The King remained some time silent. I began to tremble at my boldness, when his Majesty rejoined:-- "'In truth, M. de Chateaubriand, I am of your opinion.' "I bowed and withdrew; and thus ended my connection with the Hundred Days."--Vol. vii. 70. Manzoni has written an ode, known over all Europe, on the double fall of Napoleon: "The last poet," says Chateaubriand, "of the country of Virgil, sang the last warrior of the country of Cæsar. Tutte ei provo, la gloria Maggior dopo il periglio, La fuga e la Vittoria, La reggia e il triste esiglio: Due volte nella polvere, Due volte sugli altar. Ei se nomo: due secoli, L'un contro l'altro armato, Sommessi a lui se volsero, Come aspettando il fato: Ei fe silenzio ed arbitro S'assise in mezzo a loro. "He proved everything; glory greater after danger, flight, and victory: Royalty and sad exile, twice in the dust, twice on the altar. "He announced himself: two ages, armed against each other, turned towards him, as if awaiting their fate; he proclaimed silence, and seated himself as arbiter between them." Notwithstanding the vehemence of Chateaubriand's dissension with Napoleon, it cannot be expected that a man of his romantic and generous temperament would continue his hostility after death. No one, accordingly, has awarded a more heartfelt or magnanimous tribute to his memory. "The solitude of the exile and of the tomb of Napoleon has shed an extraordinary interest, a sort of prestige, over his memory. Alexander did not die under the eyes of Greece, he disappeared amidst the distant wonders of Babylon. Buonaparte has not died under the eyes of France: he has been lost in the gloomy edge of the southern horizon. The grandeur of the silence which now surrounds him equals the immensity of the noise which his exploits formerly made. The nations are absent: the crowd of men has retired: the bird of the tropics, 'harnessed,' in Buffon's words, 'to the chariot of the sun,' has precipitated itself from the star of light--where does it now repose? It rests on the ashes of which the weight has all but subverted the globe."