234 M. Arago^s Historical Eloge of Joseph Fourier, 



therefore decided to have recourse to proclamations. The Ge- 

 neral in command and the Prefect each brought forward a pro- 

 posal. The assembly was discussing their views minutely, 

 when an officer of the gendarmerie, an old soldier of the impe- 

 rial armies, rudely exclaimed : " Gentlemen, make haste ; other- 

 wise any deliberation will be useless. Trust me, I speak from 

 experience ; Napoleon always follows very quickly after the 

 couriers who announce him." Napoleon in fact arrived imme- 

 diately. After a slight hesitation, two companies of sappers 

 who had been dispatched to break down a bridge, joined their 

 former General. A battalion of infantry soon followed this 

 example. Finally on the ^Zam itself, and in the presence of 

 the multitude who thronged the ramparts, the entire 5th regi- 

 ment of the line put on the tricoloured cockade, substituted 

 for the white ensign the eagle which it had preserved and 

 which had witnessed twenty battles, and set oiF with cries of 

 Vive VEmpereur ! After such a commencement, any attempt 

 to keep the field would have been madness. General Mar- 

 chand, therefore, caused the gates of the town to be shut. He 

 still hoped, notwithstanding the evidently hostile dispositions 

 of the inhabitants, to be able to sustain a regular siege, merely 

 with the assistance of the 3d regiment of engineers, the 4th of 

 artillery, and some small detachments of infantry, who had not 

 abandoned him. 



From this instant, the civil authority had ceased. Fourier, 

 therefore, thought it his duty to quit Grenoble, and go to 

 Lyons, where the Princes had arrived. At the second re- 

 storation, this departure was imputed as a crime against him ; 

 and he narrowly escaped being tried for the offence. 



Certain persons alleged that the presence of the Prefect in 

 the chief town of Isere would have assuaged the storm ; and 

 that the resistance would have been more spirited and better 

 directed. They forgot, however, that in no place, and still 

 less at Grenoble than any Avhere else, could even a shadow of 

 resistance be attempted. 



Let us see, then, how the capture was effected of this fortified 

 town, whose fall, it is said, would have been prevented by the 

 mere presence of Fourier. It is eight in the evening. The 

 inhabitants and soldiers line the ramparts. Napoleon proceeds 



