Nevertheless, this first invasion of the Allies has remained unparalleled in the

annals of the world: order, peace and moderation reigned on every hand; the shops
were re-opened; Russian guardsmen, six feet tall, were piloted through the streets
by little French rogues who made fun of them, as of jumping-jacks and carnival
maskers. The conquered might be taken for the conquerors; the latter, trembling at
their successes, looked as though they were excusing themselves. The National
Guard alone garrisoned the interior of Paris, with the exception of the houses in
which the foreign Kings and Princes were lodged [133]. On the 31st of March 1814,
countless armies were occupying France; [Pg 61] a few months later all those troops
passed back across our frontiers, without firing a musket-shot, without shedding a
drop of blood after the return of the Bourbons. Old France found herself enlarged
on some of her frontiers; the ships and stores of Antwerp were divided with her;
three hundred thousand prisoners, scattered over the countries where victory or
defeat had left them, were restored to her. After five and twenty years of fighting,
the clash of arms ceased from one end of Europe to the other. Alexander departed,
leaving us the master-pieces which we had conquered and the liberty lodged in the
Charter, a liberty which we owed as much to his enlightenment as to his influence.
The head of two supreme authorities, twice an autocrat by the sword and by
religion, he alone, of all the sovereigns of Europe, had understood that, at the age of
civilization which France had attained, she could be governed only by virtue of a
free constitution.
In our very natural hostility to the foreigners, we have confused the invasion of
1814 and that of 1815, which were in no sense alike.
The Emperor Alexander.

Alexander looked upon himself merely as an instrument of Providence, and took no

credit to himself. When Madame de Stal complimented him upon the happiness
which his subjects, lacking a constitution, enjoyed of being governed by him, he
made his well-known reply:
"I am only a 'fortunate accident.'"
A young man in the streets of Paris expressed to him his admiration at the affability
with which he received the least of the citizens; he replied:
"For what else are sovereigns made?"
He refused to inhabit the Tuileries, remembering that Bonaparte had taken his ease
in the palaces of Vienna, Berlin and Moscow.
Looking at the statue of Napoleon on the column in the Place Vendme, he said:
"If I were so high up, I should be afraid of becoming giddy."
As he was going over the Palace of the Tuileries, they showed him the Salon de la
Paix:
"Of what use," he asked, laughing, "was this room to Bonaparte?"
On the day of Louis XVIII.'s entry into Paris, Alexander hid himself behind a
window, wearing no mark of distinction, to watch the procession as it passed.
Alexander sometimes had elegantly affectionate manners. [Pg 62] Visiting a mad-
house, he asked a woman if there were many women "mad through love":
"Not at present," replied she; "but it is to be feared that the number has increased
since the moment of Your Majesty's entry into Paris."
One of Napoleon's great dignitaries said to the Tsar:
"Your arrival has long been expected and wished for, Sire."
"I should have come sooner," he replied; "you must blame only French valour for
my delay."
It is certain that, when crossing the Rhine, he had regretted that he was not able to
retire in peace to the midst of his family.
At the Htel des Invalides, he found the maimed soldiers who had defeated him at
Austerlitz: they were silent and gloomy; one heard nothing save the noise of their
wooden legs in their deserted yard and their denuded church. Alexander was
touched by this noise of brave men: he ordered that twelve Russian guns should be
given back to them.
A proposal was made to him to change the name of the Pont d'Austerlitz:
"No," he said, "it is enough for me to have crossed the bridge with my army."
Alexander had something calm and sad about him. He went about Paris, on horse-
back or on foot, without a suite and without affectation. He appeared astonished at
his triumph; his almost melting gaze wandered over a population whom he seemed
to regard as superior to himself: one would have said that he thought himself a
Barbarian among us, even as a Roman felt shame-faced in Athens. Perhaps, also, he
reflected that these same Frenchmen had appeared in his fired capital; that his
soldiers, in their turn, were masters of Paris, in which he might have been able to
find again some of those now extinguished torches by which Moscow was freed
and consumed. This destiny, these changing fortunes, this common misery of
peoples and of kings were bound to make a profound impression upon a mind so
religious as his.
*
What was the victor of the Borodino doing? So soon as he had heard of Alexander's
resolution, he had sent orders to Major Maillard de Lescourt of the Artillery to blow
up the Grenelle powder-magazine: Rostopschin had set fire to Moscow, but he had
first sent away the inhabitants. From Fontainebleau, to which he had returned,
Napoleon marched[Pg 63] to Villejuif; thence he threw a glance over Paris: foreign
soldiers were guarding its gates; the conqueror remembered the days in which his
grenadiers kept watch on the ramparts of Berlin, Moscow, and Vienna.
Events destroy other events; how poor a thing to-day appears to us the grief of
Henry IV. learning of the death of Gabrielle at Villejuif, and returning to
Fontainebleau! Bonaparte also returned to that solitude; he was awaited there only
by the memory of his august prisoner: the captive of peace [134] had gone from the
palace in order to leave it free for the captive of war, so swiftly does "misfortune"
fill up its "places."
Flight of the Empire.

The Regency had retired to Blois. Bonaparte had given orders for the Empress and
the King of Rome to leave Paris, saying that he would rather see them at the bottom
of the Seine than led back in triumph to Vienna; but, at the same time, he had
enjoined Joseph to remain in the capital. His brother's retreat made him furious, and
he accused the ex-King of Spain of ruining all. The ministers, the members of the
Regency, Napoleon's brothers, his wife and his son arrived in disorder at Blois,
swept away in the downfall; military waggons, baggage-vans, carriages, everything
was there; the King's own coaches were there and were dragged through the mud of
the Beauce to Chambord, the only morsel of Fr