However, I have been informed that at Lyons, through which the Emperor passed on the 23d at eleven at night, the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" was still echoed among the groups who assembled before the post-office during the change of horses.

Augereau, who was still a Republican, though he accepted the title of Duke of Castiglione from Napoleon, had always been among the discontented. On the downfall of the Emperor he was one of that considerable number of persons who turned Royalists not out of love for the Bourbons but out of hatred to Bonaparte. He held a command in the south when he heard of the forfeiture of Napoleon pronounced by the Senate, and he was one of the first to send his recognition to the Provisional Government. Augereau, who, like all uneducated men, went to extremes in everything, had published under his name a proclamation extravagantly violent and even insulting to the Emperor. Whether Napoleon was aware of this proclamation I cannot pretend to say, but he affected ignorance of the matter if he was informed of it, for on the 24th, having met Augereau at a little distance from Valence, he stopped his carriage and immediately alighted. Augereau did the same, and they cordially embraced in the presence of the Commissioners. It was remarked that in saluting Napoleon took off his hat and Augereau kept on his. "Where are you going?", said the Emperor; "to Court?"—"No, I am going to Lyons."—"You have behaved very badly to me." Augereau, finding that the Emperor addressed him in the second person singular, adopted the same familiarity; so they conversed as they were accustomed to do when they were both generals in Italy. "Of what do you complain?" said he. "Has not your insatiable ambition brought us to this? Have you not sacrificed everything to that ambition, even the happiness of France? I care no more for the Bourbons than for you. All I care for is the country." Upon this Napoleon turned sharply away from the Marshal, lifted his hat to him, and then stepped into his carriage. The Commissioners, and all the persons in Napoleon's suite, were indignant at seeing Augereau stand in the road still covered, with his hands behind his back, and instead of bowing, merely making a contemptuous salutation to Napoleon with his hand. It was at the Tuileries that these haughty Republicans should have shown their airs. To have done so on the road to Elba was a mean insult which recoiled upon themselves.

—[The following letter, taken from Captain Bingham's recently published selections from the Correspondence of the first Napoleon, indicates in emphatic language the Emperor's recent dissatisfaction with Marshal Augereau when in command at Lyons daring the "death straggle" of 1814:

To Marshal Augereau.

NOGENT, 21st February, 1814,

     ….What! six hours after having received the first troops coming
     from Spain you were not in the field! Six hours repose was
     sufficient. I won the action of Naugis with a brigade of dragoons
     coming from Spain which, since it had left Bayonne, had not
     unbridled its horses. The six battalions of the division of Nimes
     want clothes, equipment, and drilling, say you? What poor reasons
     yon give me there, Augereau! I have destroyed 80,000 enemies with
     conscripts having nothing but knapsacks! The National Guards, say
     you, are pitiable; I have 4000 here in round hats, without
     knapsacks, in wooden shoes, but with good muskets, and I get a great
     deal out of them. There is no money, you continue; and where do you
     hope to draw money from! You want waggons; take them wherever you
     can. You have no magazines; this is too ridiculous. I order you
     twelve hours after the reception of this letter to take the field.
     If you are still Augereau of Castiglione, keep the command, but if
     your sixty years weigh upon you hand over the command to your senior
     general. The country is in danger; and can be saved by boldness and
     alacrity alone….
                                   (Signed) NAPOLEON]—

At Valence Napoleon, for the first time, saw French soldiers with the white cockade in their caps. They belonged to Augereau's corps. At Orange the air resounded with tines of "Vive le Roi!" Here the gaiety, real or feigned, which Napoleon had hitherto evinced, began to forsake him.

Had the Emperor arrived at Avignon three hours later than he did there is no doubt that he would have been massacred.—[The Royalist mob of Avignon massacred Marshal Brune in 1816.]— He did not change horses at Avignon, through which he passed at five in the morning, but at St. Andiol, where he arrived at six. The Emperor, who was fatigued with sitting in the carnage, alighted with Colonel Campbell and General Bertrand, and walked with them up the first hill. His valet de chambre, who was also walking a little distance in advance, met one of the mail couriers, who said is him, "Those are the Emperor's carriages coming this way?"—"No, they are the equipages of the Allies."—"I say they are the Emperor's carriages. I am an old soldier. I served in the campaign of Egypt, and I will save the life of my General."—"I tell you again they are not the Emperor's carriages."—"Do not attempt to deceive me; I have just passed through Organ, where the Emperor has been hanged in effigy. The wretches erected a scaffold and hanged a figure dressed in a French uniform covered with blood. Perhaps I may get myself into a scrape by this confidence, but no matter. Do you profit by it." The courier then set off at full gallop. The valet de chambre took General Drouot apart, and told him what he had heard. Drouot communicated the circumstance to General Bertrand, who himself related it to the Emperor in the presence of the Commissioners. The latter, justly indignant, held a sort of council on the highway, and it was determined that the Emperor should go forward without his retinue. The valet de chambre was asked whether he had any clothes in the carriage. He produced a long blue cloak and a round hat. It was proposed to put a white cockade in the hat, but to this Napoleon would not consent. He went forward in the style of a courier, with Amaudru, one of the two outriders who had escorted his carriage, and dashed through Orgon. When the Allied Commissioners arrived there the assembled population were uttering exclamations of "Down with the Corsican! Down with the brigand!" The mayor of Orgon (the, same man whom I had seen almost on his knees to General Bonaparte on his return from Egypt) addressed himself to Pelard, the Emperor's valet de chambre, and said, "Do you follow that rascal?"—"No," replied Pelard, "I am attached to the Commisairiers of the Allied powers."—Ah! that is well! I should like to hang the villain with my own hands.

"Ah! if you knew, sir, how the scoundrel has deceived us! It was I who received him on his return from Egypt. We wished to take his horses out and draw his carriage. I should like to avenge myself now for the honours I rendered him at that time."

The crowd augmented, and continued to vociferate with a degree of fury which may be imagined by those who have heard the inhabitants of the south manifest, by cries, their joy or their hatred. Some more violent than the rest wished to force Napoleon's coachman to cry "Vive le Roi!" He courageously refused, though threatened with a stroke of a sabre, when, fortunately; the carriage being ready to start, he whipped the horses and set off at full gallop. The Commissioners would not breakfast at Orgon; they paid for what had been prepared, and took