He watched with intense anxiety the madly ambitious career of Buonaparte, and hailed with unfeigned delight the return of his patrons, the Bourbons. He had no cause to complain of their ingratitude, and occupied as good a position as a literary man could expect, when the escape from Elba, during a hundred days, disturbed his occupations, and placed him in considerable danger. He left Paris; returned again, and put himself forward for a struggle: but finding resistance dangerous and useless, he retired to the department of the Ain, where he concealed himself till the tempest had blown over; his celebrated journal, the _Quotidienne_, in the mean time, degenerating into the _Feuille du Jour_, or rather, as a wit said, “La Feuille de la veille ’last night’s journal); for it was only edited by scissors, and contained nothing but scraps from the _Moniteur_ and other inoffensive journals.” The _Nain Jaune_ ’yellow dwarf) took unfair advantage of an enemy, who, he knew, could not answer him, and bestowed upon Michaud the sobriquet of “Grand Master of the Order of the Extinguishers,” which stuck to him with the burlike pertinacity of sobriquets, for many years after the second restoration of the Bourbons. He welcomed this last event by the publication of a pamphlet entitled “The History of the Fifteen Weeks, or the Last Reign of Buonaparte,” which had a great sale, twenty-seven editions of it appearing in a very short period. Having, since his success as an author, separated from his brother as a bookseller, and sold his share in the printing office, he, after 1815, gave himself up to the prosecution of his great work on the crusades, and even parted with his portion of “La Biographie Universelle.” His love of politics led him, at this time, to get returned as deputy for the department of the Ain: but alas! he found it a very different thing for a man with a weak voice, and totally “unaccustomed to public speaking,” to sit and write uncontrolled and unobserved in his closet,—and to be subject to the “retort courteous” of an enemy who watches for your mistakes, corrects your errors, and mercilessly refutes all your favourite arguments: after the trial of one session, he retired from his deputyship, and gave up all hopes of fame as an orator.