262 EEMINISCENCES OF THE LEWS. 



Government would not — possibly could not — 

 have supported their general. 



The Due de St. Simon, then a colonel, was 

 the officer who, accompanied by Colonel Cook, 

 carried to Soult the news of the abdication of 

 Napoleon, in 1814. Soult discredited, or pre- 

 tended to discredit, the information, and pro- 

 ceeded to try St. Simon by a sort of court 

 martial, and General Foy told me himself he 

 voted for shooting him. Certainly he was 

 sentenced to be shot ; but whether through the 

 kindness of Soult's staff, or by his directions, 

 shortly after the sentence was announced to 

 him an aide-de-camp came into the room, and, 

 asking him if that was his horse under the 

 window, left it immediately. St* Simon took 

 the hint and made his escape to Suchet, with 

 whom he had long served in Catalonia, Avhere 

 he was in safety. 



It was either on his way from or back to 

 Paris on this hazardous expedition, that the 

 envoy and the ex-emperor on his road to Elba 

 met at a post-house when changing horses. 

 Napoleon, knowing him well, sent for him. The 

 white cockade was in his shako, and St. Siiiion, 

 with the instinct and the breeding of a thorough 

 gentleman, with something, perhaps, of the 

 galled pride of a soldier at thus entering his 



