The party of Imperialists or Buonapartists, if we lay the army out of view, was small and unimportant. The public functionaries, whom the King had displaced from the situations of emolument which they held under the Emperor--courtiers, prefects, commissioners, clerks, and commissaries--whose present means and future hopes were cut off, were of course disobliged and discontented men, who looked with a languishing eye towards the island of Elba. The immediate family connexions, favourites, and ministers of the late Emperor, confident in the wealth which most of them had acquired, and resenting the insignificance to which they were reduced by the restoration of the Bourbons, lent to this party the activity which money, and the habit of political intrigue, can at all times communicate. But the real and tremendous strength of the Buonapartists lay in the attachment of the existing army to its abdicated general. This was the more formidable, as the circumstances of the times, and the prevailing military character of the French nation, had raised the soldiers from their proper and natural character of servants of the state, into a distinct deliberative body, having interests of their own, which were in their nature incompatible with those of the commonwealth; since the very profession of arms implies an aptitude to a state of war, which, to all other ranks in the state, the army itself excepted, may indeed be a necessary and unavoidable evil, but never can be a real advantage. The King could not be accused of neglecting to cultivate the affections, soothe the prejudices, and gratify the wishes of the army. The fact is, that the unprecedented difficulties of his situation forced him to study how to manage by flattery, and by the most imprudent indulgences and favours, the only part of his subjects, who, according to the rules of all well-governed states, ought to be subjected to absolute authority. Every effort was made to gratify the feelings of the troops, and the utmost exertions were made to remount, re-establish, and re-clothe them. Their ranks were augmented by upwards of 150,000 prisoners of war, whose minds were in general actuated by the desire of avenging the dishonour and hardship of their defeat and captivity, and whose presence greatly increased the discontent as well as the strength of the French army.