On his arrival at Besançon, March 10th, he learned the disaffection of all the troops hitherto sent against the invader, and perceived that those by whom he was surrounded were not more to be trusted. He was surrounded with loud and incessant cries of _Vive l'Empereur!_ Already, at Lyons, two members of the royal family had found all opposition vain; the march of Napoleon was equally peaceful and triumphant. During the night of the 13th, Ney had a secret interview with a courier from his old master; and on the following morning he announced to his troops that the house of Bourbon had ceased to reign--that the emperor was the only ruler France would acknowledge! He then hastened to meet Napoleon, by whom he was received with open arms, and hailed by his indisputed title of Bravest of the Brave. Ney was soon doomed to suffer the necessary consequence of his crime--bitter and unceasing remorse. His inward reproaches became intolerable: he felt humbled, mortified, for he had lost that noble self-confidence, that inward sense of dignity, that unspeakable and exalted satisfaction, which integrity alone can bestow: the man who would have defied the world in arms, trembled before the new enemy within him; he saw that his virtue, his honour, his peace, and the esteem of the wise and the good, were lost to him for ever. In the bitterness of his heart, he demanded and obtained permission to retire for a short time into the country. But there he could not regain his self-respect. Of his distress, and we hope of his repentance, no better proof need be required than the reply, which, on his return to Paris, he made to the emperor, who feigned to have believed that he had emigrated: "I _ought_ to have done so long ago (said Ney); it is now too late." The prospect of approaching hostilities soon roused once more the enthusiasm of this gallant soldier, and made him for awhile less sensible to the gloomy agitation within. From the day of his being ordered to join the army on the frontiers of Flanders, June 11, his temper was observed to be less unequal, and his eye to have regained its fiery glance.