When I gather up my memories, when I recollect having seen Washington in his little house at Philadelphia and Bonaparte in his palaces, it seems to me that Washington, retiring to his field in Virginia, cannot have experienced the searchings of conscience of Bonaparte awaiting exile in his gardens at the Malmaison. Nothing was altered in the life of the first; he relapsed into his modest habits; he had not raised himself above the happiness of the husbandman whom he had freed: all was subverted in the life of the second. * Napoleon left the Malmaison[357] accompanied by Generals Bertrand, Rovigo and Beker[358], the latter in the quality of inspector or commissary. On the way, he was seized with a wish to stop at Rambouillet. He left it to take ship at Rochefort, as did Charles X. to take ship at Cherbourg; Rambouillet, the inglorious retreat where all that was greatest in men or dynasties was eclipsed: the fatal spot where Francis I. died; where Henry III., escaping from the barricades, slept booted and spurred in passing; where Louis XVI. left his shadow[359]! How happy would Louis, Napoleon and Charles have been, had they been only the humble keepers of the herds of Rambouillet! On arriving at Rochefort[360], Napoleon hesitated: the Executive Commission were sending imperative orders: "The garrisons of Rochefort and the Rochelle," said the dispatches, "must use main force to make Napoleon take ship.... Employ force... make him go... his services cannot be accepted." Napoleon's services could not be accepted! And had you not accepted his bounties and his chains? Napoleon did not go away; he was driven out: and by whom? Bonaparte had believed only in fortune; he banned misfortune _ab igne et aquâ_; he had acquitted the ungrateful in advance: a just retaliation made him appear before his own system. When success, ceasing to animate his person, became incarnate in another individual, the disciples abandoned the master for the school. I, who believe in the legitimacy of benefits and the sovereignty of misfortune, had I served Bonaparte, I would not have left him; I would have proved to him, by my fidelity, the falseness of his political principles; sharing his disgrace, I would have remained by his side as a living contradiction of his barren doctrines and of the worthlessness of the right of prosperity.