214 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



the French Government, agreed to restore the 

 prisoners to their country, on the sole condition that 

 they would first declare their adherence to the 

 Bourbon dynasty, in token of which they were to 

 hoist the white flag of France on the summit of 

 the castle tower. This proposal was extremely un- 

 palatable to the majority of the French officers, 

 who, in fact, absolutely refused to agree to it. The 

 commissioners who represented the French Embassy 

 waited the event with some anxiety from morning 

 to evening of a long summer's day. " During that 

 period," says an eye-witness, from whose narrative 

 we have gathered several interesting incidents, "the 

 prisoners in the castle appeared like a vast hive of 

 bees about to swarm. Knots of Frenchmen, in their 

 short yellow jackets and grey caps, covered the entire 

 area of the castle, and argued the question of sub- 

 mission with all the vehemence and gesticulation 

 common to their nation. At length, as evening ap- 

 proached, principle gave place to prudence. The 

 Bonapartists made a virtue of necessity, and gave 

 way. A loud shout of ' Vive le Roi ! ' proclaimed 

 the allegiance of the prisoners to the House of 

 Bourbon, and at the same moment the white flag 

 of old France rose and floated over the Norman 

 keep of Portchester." 



Arrangements were at once hurried forward for 

 the liberation of the prisoners, who a few days later 

 embarked at the water-gate, amid loud rejoicings, for 

 the shores of France, and by the end of June not a 

 single Frenchman was left within the walls of Port- 

 chester Castle. For twenty years, with the exception 

 of a short period which followed the peace of Amiens 

 in 1802, the castle had been occupied by prisoners 



