220 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Winter drew on and no word fell from Napoleon that he was other 

 than resolved to end his days in Elba. Meanwhile the restored 

 Bourbon rule in France was steadily helping the cause of its enemies. 

 Men were found to say in blind adulation that when God made 

 Louis XVIII He paused for rest after labour so great. Officers who 

 had served under Napoleon were objects of scorn and contempt and 

 were dismissed by hundreds and even thousands from the army. 

 Their men were treated with similar derision. The returned nobles 

 began to clamour for the revival of the feudal rights over the peasantry 

 which they had enjoyed before the Revolution. They alarmed the 

 thousands of innocent purchasers of lands, which had been seized and 

 sold during the revolution, by demanding that these new owners should 

 be dispossessed. The restored royalists indulged in many foolish 

 acts of revenge. The restored Church was eager to persecute those 

 who had raised their hands against it. From all this came a state of 

 opinion which would have alarjned any but the blind and the deaf. 

 Soldiers and peasants in France were alike growing eager for a change, 

 and were turning in thought to the old leader. Napoleon knew what 

 was happening in France. Newspapers came freely and there was 

 constant communication with the Continent. 



Nothing was spared by an incredibly stupid government to make 

 Napoleon resolve to attempt his own restoration. By a truly bar- 

 barous tyranny his wife and his son were not allowed to go to him. 

 It was openly debated at the Congress of Vienna whether, for greater 

 safety, he should not be sent to some remoter island. In this con- 

 nection the ominous name of St. Helena was already mentioned. St. 

 Lucia, too, was suggested on the ground that the deadly climate would 

 soon kill him. High circles made it quite clear that his assassination 

 would be welcome, and base hirelings lurked even in his garden, await- 

 ing a chance to kill him. Though Napoleon could easily have frus- 

 trated so wild a plan, it is quite certain that encouragement was given 

 to Moorish pirates to make a sudden descent upon the island and kid- 

 nap him. The island swarmed with spies and some of them lived in 

 the domestic circle at the Mulini. The treaty made with him was 

 not regarded as binding. Though by it he was to have an income of 

 2,000,000 francs a year, France was fatuous enough to break faith 

 and to pay nothing; Talleyrand said it would be folly to give Nap- 

 oleon the means to carry on new intrigues. He had taken about 

 4,000,000 francs to Elba. This was a small sum for a sovereign, and 

 he was soon face to face with dire poverty. He reduced some of the 

 meagre salaries of his officials; he sold off part of his stable; he cut 

 down the scale of his receptions and, in a hundred ways, with the 

 Corsican frugality of his early youth, tried to live within his means. 



