The most dramatic incident in the domestic annals of England in this year was the visit of the allied sovereigns to this country, after their triumphal entry into Paris, and the signature of a convention, to be described hereafter, for the resettlement of Europe. Louis XVIII. left his retreat at Hartwell on April 20, and reached his capital on May 3 to find it occupied by foreign armies, and to discover that his French escort, composed of Napoleon's old guard, was of doubtful loyalty. On July 8 the Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia, having accepted an invitation from the prince regent, which the Emperor of Austria declined, landed at Dover, and were afterwards received with the utmost enthusiasm in London. Their appearance betokened the supposed termination of the greatest, and almost the longest, war recorded in European history, but it was also accepted as a tribute of gratitude for the unique services rendered by Great Britain, the only European power which had never bowed the knee to the French Republic or the French Empire. They attended Ascot races, were feasted at the Guildhall, witnessed a naval review at Portsmouth, and were decorated with honorary degrees at Oxford, where Blücher was the hero of the day with the younger members of the university. There were men of calmer minds and maturer age, who must have remembered the time, but seven years before, when Alexander swore eternal friendship with Napoleon, on the basis of enmity to Great Britain, and Frederick William of Prussia shrunk from no depths of dishonour, first to aggrandise his kingdom and then to save the remnants of it from destruction. Others foresaw that a restoration of the Bourbons portended reaction, in its worst sense, throughout all the continent of Europe. But such memories and forebodings were hushed in the sincere and general rejoicing over the return of peace, marred by no suspicion of the new trials and privations which peace itself was destined to bring with it for the working classes of Great Britain. FOOTNOTES: [53] See p. 105. [54] George, _Napoleon's Invasion of Russia_, p. 33. [55] James, _British Naval History_, iv., 470-84. [56] See above, p. 58. [57] See _Cambridge Modern History_, vii., 336, 338. [58] For details of the naval warfare of this year see James, _British Naval History_, vi., 115-202. [59] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 372. [60] For the importance of this flight of the Emperor Francis see Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 418, 425. The flight did not take place till after the advance on Paris was begun. CHAPTER VII. VIENNA AND WATERLOO.