Murat remained at Toulon, growing daily more hopeless, although the inhabitants treated him with great respect. But he had passed the point where the respect or otherwise of private citizens could affect him. Then came Waterloo, and the South of France took on the political aspect of the unhappy kingdom which he had just quitted. The Monarchists rose and smote out right and left, massacring their political opponents, and looting everything that those unfortunates left behind them. Marshal Brune, who had previously been sent by the Emperor to maintain order in the south, was torn to pieces by a mob, and Joachim was forced to hide himself as best he could from the “White Terror,” which was overrunning the land. From his hiding-place he wrote again to Fouché, but that adaptable gentleman was now Minister to Louis XVIII, and vouchsafed no answer. Fouché was one of those human chameleons that fit themselves into any colour scheme, and all the wars, plots, revolutions, and armageddons of the past years had passed him by. He had just succeeded in betraying Wellington, to whom he had promised Napoleon’s plan of campaign, by sending the plans and then taking steps to see that the messenger was delayed long enough on the frontier to make the delivery of them useless; and now he was more monarchist than the poor old monarch himself, hunting out his late associates mercilessly. Murat begged for a passport to England, but no notice was taken of his appeal. In despair, and having escaped, by what seemed to be a miracle, from the hands of the Marquis de la Rivière, who owed his life to Joachim’s favour, he wrote to Louis himself, requesting Fouché to deliver his letter. But Fouché sent no word, and no answer came from Louis, who probably never saw the letter at all; and, seeing no other hope for him, Murat resolved to go to Paris and place himself in the hands of the allied Sovereigns. They could not, in reason, blame him for doing to them that which they had all at various periods during the past twenty years done to one another. He had been a great figure—a greater figure than any of them. They had now no reason for betraying his confidence; and they were neither vengeful nor bloodthirsty. He would be safer with them than among his own countrymen. His idea was to travel by sea—for to attempt a land journey would have been something not far removed from suicide—to Havre de Grâce, whence he could make his way to Paris with little risk. So, having made arrangements for a vessel, and chosen a wild and unfrequented part of the coast and a dark night for his embarkation, he set out. But the vessel, for some reason or other, did not arrive at the spot that night, and Murat was compelled to retire among the rocks and vineyards for shelter, and here he remained, hoping against hope, until the darkness gave way to the summer dawn, and the light from the faint topaz-coloured east on the waters showed nothing that looked like the craft he had bargained for.