The accompanying cut will give the reader a vivid idea of the departure. The king was enormously fat. His figure, with long body and very short legs, was peculiar almost to deformity. He entered his carriage for his flight, with apparently none to regret his departure, at one o'clock, on the morning of the 19th of March. The evening of the next day, the 20th, the emperor arrived, and, surrounded by the acclamations of thousands, was borne, in a scene of indescribable enthusiasm, on the shoulders of the people into the vacant palace. [Illustration: LOUIS XVIII. LEAVING PARIS.] "The moment that the carriage stopped," says Alison, "he was seized by those next the door, borne aloft in their arms, amidst deafening cheers, through a dense and brilliant crowd of epaulets, hurried literally above the heads of the throng up the great staircase into the saloon of reception, where a splendid array of the ladies of the imperial court, adorned with a profusion of violet bouquets, half concealed in the richest laces, received him with transports, and imprinted fervent kisses on his cheeks, his hands, and even his dress. Never was such a scene witnessed in history." This triumphal journey of Napoleon for nearly seven hundred miles, through the heart of France, alone and unaided invading a kingdom of thirty millions of inhabitants, vanquishing all the armies of the Bourbons, and regaining the throne without drawing a sword or firing a musket, presents one of the most remarkable instances on record of the power of one mighty mind over human hearts. Boundless enthusiasm, from citizens and soldiers, greeted him every step of his way. A more emphatic vote in favor of the Empire could not have been given. A more legitimate title to the throne no monarch ever enjoyed. And yet the Allies, in renewing the war against him, had the unblushing effrontery to proclaim that they were contending for the _liberties of the people against the tyranny of an usurper!_ In view of such achievements of Napoleon, we do not wonder that Lamartine, his unrelenting political foe, should say that, as a man, "Napoleon was the greatest of the creations of God."