Napoleon found some scope for his activity in the government of the island, and gave audiences regularly to the people. He might seem to have lost ambition as he read in his library or played with a tame monkey of which he made a pet, but a scheme of great audacity was forming in his mind. He resolved to go back to France once more and appeal to the armies to restore him. The Bourbons had never become popular again with the nation which was inspired with the lust for military successes. The life in the Tuileries seemed empty and frivolous, wanting in great figures. There was little resistance when the news came that Napoleon had landed and put himself at the head of the troops at Grenoble. He had appealed to the ancient spirit of the South which had risen before in the cause of liberty. Feudalism and the oppression of the peasants would return under the rule of the Bourbons, he assured them. They began to look upon the abdicated Emperor as the Angel of Deliverance. The people of Lyons were equally enthusiastic, winning warmer words than generally fell from the lips of Napoleon. "I love you," he cried, and bore them with him to the capital. He entered the Tuileries at night, and again the eagle of the Empire flew from steeple to steeple on every church of Paris. {182} The Hundred Days elapsed between the liberation from the Bourbons and Napoleon's last struggle for supremacy. The King made a feeble effort against the Emperor. It was, however, the united armies of England and Prussia that met the French on the field of Waterloo in 1815. From March 13th to June 22nd Napoleon had had time to realize the might of Wellesley, now Duke of Wellington. The splendid powers of the once indefatigable French general were declining. Napoleon, who had not been wont to take advice, now asked the opinions of others. The dictator, so rapid in coming to a decision, hesitated in the hour of peril. He was defeated at Waterloo on June 18th, 1815, by Bluecher and Wellington together. The battle raged from the middle of morning to eight o'clock in the evening and ended in the rout of the French troops. The Emperor performed a second time the ceremony of abdication, and, his terrible will being broken, surrendered on board the _Bellerophon_ to the English. The English Government feared a second return like the triumphant flight from Elba. No enemy had ever been so terrible to England as Napoleon. He must be removed altogether from the continent of Europe. St Helena was chosen as the place of imprisonment, and Sir Hudson Lowe put over him as, in some sort, a gaoler. A certain amount of personal freedom was accorded, but the captive on the lonely rock did not live to regain liberty. He died in 1821 on a day of stormy weather, uttering _tete d'armee_ in the last moments of delirium. {183} Chapter XVI "God and the People"