172 EASY-CHAIR MEMORIES 



" the same fate would have followed had it 

 been Louis the Eighteenth, for I again declare 

 that I found it necessary to roll the thunder 

 back on the metropolis of England, as from 

 thence, with the Count d'Artois at their head, 

 did the assassins assail me." Mr. Warden 

 replied that he did not believe that any person 

 would be found in England who would attempt 

 to justify the precipitate manner in which the 

 young prince was seized, tried, sentenced, and 

 shot. The Emperor replied that he was 

 justified in his own mind ; at the same time 

 he solemnly affirmed that no message or letter 

 from the Duke reached him till after the sen- 

 tence of death had been passed. 



Talleyrand, however, was said to be in pos- 

 session of a letter from the royal prisoner 

 addressed to Napoleon. Mr. Warden saw a 

 copy of this letter in the hands of Las Cases. 

 The object of the letter was to beg the writer's 

 life. In it he stated that in his opinion the 

 Bourbon dynasty was terminated, that the 

 crown was no longer in his view, and he 

 requested to be allowed to live and devote 

 his life and services to France, merely as a 

 native of it. Talleyrand took care not to 



