When I ask what Napoleon at Fontainebleau thought of the acts of the Senate, his answer was made: an Order of the Day of 5 April 1814, not published officially, but printed in different newspapers outside the capital, thanked the army for its fidelity, adding: "The Senate has allowed itself to dispose of the government of France; it has forgotten that it owes to the Emperor the power which it is now abusing; that it was he who saved one part of its members from the storms of the Revolution, drew the other from obscurity and protected it against the hatred of the nation. The Senate relies upon the clauses of the Constitution to overthrow it; it is not ashamed to utter reproaches against the Emperor, without remarking that, in its capacity as the first body of the State, it took part in all the events. The Senate is not ashamed to speak of the libels published against the foreign governments: it forgets that these were drawn up in its midst. So long as fortune remained faithful to their Sovereign, these men remained faithful, and no complaint was heard of the abuses of power. If the Emperor had despised men, as he has been reproached with doing, then the world would recognise to-day that he has had reasons which justified his contempt." This was a homage rendered by Bonaparte himself to the liberty of the press: he must have believed that there was some good in it, since it offered him a last shelter and a last aid. And I, who am struggling with time, I, who am striving to make it give an account of what it has seen, I, who am writing this so long after the events that are past, under the reign of Philip, the counterfeit heir of so great an inheritance, what am I in the hands of that time, that great devourer of the centuries which I thought fixed, of that time which makes me whirl with itself through space? * Alexander had taken up his residence at M. de Talleyrand's[153]. I was not present at the cabals: you can read about them in the narratives of the Abbé de Pradt[154] and of the various intriguers who handled in their dirty and paltry paws the fate of one of the greatest men in history and the destiny of the world. I counted for nothing in politics, outside the masses; there was no plotting understrapper but enjoyed far more right and favour in the ante-chambers than I: a coming figure in the possible Restoration, I waited beneath the windows, in the street. Through the machinations of the house in the Rue Saint-Florentin, the Conservative Senate appointed a Provisional Government composed of General Beurnonville[155], Senator Jaucourt[156], the Duc de Dalberg[157], the Abbé de Montesquiou[158] and Dupont de Nemours[159]; the Prince de Bénévent helped himself to the presidency. [Sidenote: The provisional government.]