GENERAL 
‘that the communication with 
‘France also had been maintained 
without interruption, although its 
extent and instrumentality have 
‘never been fully made known. 
The island was under a kind of 
naval supervision by English and 
French armed cruizers, but it 
does not appear that any direct 
authority was claimed of control- 
ing Buonaparte’s motions. Pro- 
‘ably the transportation of an 
armed force from Elba would 
have been opposed if the attempt 
had been discovered ; but the op- 
portunity of a clear sea, and the 
shade of evening, was taken by 
the daring adventurer, when, on 
February 26th, he embarked at 
Porto Ferraio, on board a brig, 
followed by four small. vessels, 
conveying about 1000 men, of 
whom a few only were French, 
and the rest Poles, Corsicans, 
Neapolitans, and Elbese. On 
March Ist the expedition anchored 
off the small town of Cannes in 
Provence, where the men were 
landed. No disposition appeared 
in that quarter to join the inva- 
der, who put himself in march 
with his small and motley force 
for Grenoble. ' 
Intelligence of this extraordi- 
nary event having reached Paris, 
a proclamation was issued by the 
King on March 6th for the convo- 
cation of the two chambers, which 
had been adjourned to May Ist; 
and another, declaring Napoleon 
Buonaparte a traitor and rebel, 
for having entered by main force 
the department of the Var; en- 
joining all the authorities, civil 
and military, to attack and arrest 
him, and bring him before a court 
martial, to suffer the punishment 
prescribed by the law, and de- 
HISTORY. [57 
nouncing the same penalties 
‘against all his adherents who 
should not submit within ten days. 
Buonaparte in the mean time was 
advancing to Grenoble, where he 
arrived on the 8th. The seventh 
‘regiment of the line, commanded 
by La Bedoyere, had marched out, 
and joined him upon his route. 
The rest of the garrison opened 
the gates to him, delivered up 
their general, Marchand, and the 
magazine and arsenal deposited 
in that city, and thus placed their 
former emperor at the head of a 
body of regular troops, with a 
train of artillery. Assoon as the 
enterprize had put on a serious 
aspect, Monsieur, the King’s bro- 
ther, had hastened to Lyons, and 
was followed by the Duke of Or- 
leans and Marshal Macdonald. 
That important city, the second 
in France, the prosperity of which 
depends on commerce, might have 
been supposed well-affected to« 
wards a government the security 
of which was essential to a state 
of peace; but its population was 
wavering in its fidelity, and the 
regular troops by which it was 
garrisoned were decidedly attach- 
ed to the invader. He appeared 
before Lyons on the 9th, when 
‘¢ Vive l'Empereur” was the ge- 
neral cry of the soldiers and the 
populace: he entered without the 
least resistance, the French prin- 
ces having previously retired to 
Clermont, whence they soon after 
returned to Paris. 
It was not now a time te de- 
ceive the public by false or sup- 
ressed_ intelligence; and on 
March 1lth a report was made 
to the chamber of peers, by the 
King’s order, in which the whole 
progress of Buonaparte from his 
