Nevertheless, this first invasion of the Allies has remained unparalleled in the annals of the world: order, peace and moderation reigned on every hand; the shops were re-opened; Russian guardsmen, six feet tall, were piloted through the streets by little French rogues who made fun of them, as of jumping-jacks and carnival maskers. The conquered might be taken for the conquerors; the latter, trembling at their successes, looked as though they were excusing themselves. The National Guard alone garrisoned the interior of Paris, with the exception of the houses in which the foreign Kings and Princes were lodged[133]. On the 31st of March 1814, countless armies were occupying France; a few months later all those troops passed back across our frontiers, without firing a musket-shot, without shedding a drop of blood after the return of the Bourbons. Old France found herself enlarged on some of her frontiers; the ships and stores of Antwerp were divided with her; three hundred thousand prisoners, scattered over the countries where victory or defeat had left them, were restored to her. After five and twenty years of fighting, the clash of arms ceased from one end of Europe to the other. Alexander departed, leaving us the master-pieces which we had conquered and the liberty lodged in the Charter, a liberty which we owed as much to his enlightenment as to his influence. The head of two supreme authorities, twice an autocrat by the sword and by religion, he alone, of all the sovereigns of Europe, had understood that, at the age of civilization which France had attained, she could be governed only by virtue of a free constitution. In our very natural hostility to the foreigners, we have confused the invasion of 1814 and that of 1815, which were in no sense alike. [Sidenote: The Emperor Alexander.] Alexander looked upon himself merely as an instrument of Providence, and took no credit to himself. When Madame de Staël complimented him upon the happiness which his subjects, lacking a constitution, enjoyed of being governed by him, he made his well-known reply: "I am only a 'fortunate accident.'" A young man in the streets of Paris expressed to him his admiration at the affability with which he received the least of the citizens; he replied: "For what else are sovereigns made?" He refused to inhabit the Tuileries, remembering that Bonaparte had taken his ease in the palaces of Vienna, Berlin and Moscow. Looking at the statue of Napoleon on the column in the Place Vendôme, he said: "If I were so high up, I should be afraid of becoming giddy." As he was going over the Palace of the Tuileries, they showed him the Salon de la Paix: "Of what use," he asked, laughing, "was this room to Bonaparte?" On the day of Louis XVIII.'s entry into Paris, Alexander hid himself behind a window, wearing no mark of distinction, to watch the procession as it passed.