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I had the above particulars from the Marshal himself in 1814., a few days after he returned to Paris with the treaty ratified by Napoleon. After the clauses of the treaty had been guaranteed Napoleon signed, on the 11th of April, at Fontainebleau, his act of abdication, which was in the following terms:
Proclamation having been made of Richard's abdication, Henry came forward and claimed the crown as Richard's rightful successor, and he was at once proclaimed king, and conducted to the throne. Richard was conducted back to the Tower, and soon afterward was conveyed, by Henry's order, to a more sure place of confinement Pontefract Castle, and here was shut up a close prisoner.
Maximilian, also, assured his uncle that he had as good an appetite for the crown as Philip, and could digest the dignity quite as easily. The son, too, for whom the Emperor was thus solicitous, had already, before the abdication, repaid his affection with ingratitude.
The Queen of Hungary had resigned the office of Regent of the Netherlands, as has been seen, on the occasion of the Emperor's abdication. She was a woman of masculine character, a great huntress before the Lord, a celebrated horsewoman, a worthy descendant of the Lady Mary of Burgundy.
No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with anything so loose and indefinite as an opinion of "misconduct." They who led at the Revolution grounded their virtual abdication of King James upon no such light and uncertain principle.
The crushing sense of misfortune which, for the first few days after the unexpected blow has fallen, weighs down the self-deceived or otherwise unprepared victims; the succeeding weeks of dejection and mortified pride; then the painful trial of parting with the showy equipage, the costly furniture, and the cherished mementoes, which had required, perhaps, the care of half a life in gathering; then the compulsory abdication of the great and conspicuous mansion for the small, obscure, hired cottage; then the saddening bodings and deep concern felt in seeing the means of living daily diminishing, with no prospect of ever being replenished; and, finally, the humiliating resort of the wife and children to the needle or menial employments, for the actual necessaries of life, these, all these, are but the usual graduated vicissitudes of sorrow and trial which are allotted to those whose folly and extravagance have suddenly thrown them on the downward track of fortune, and which the Elwoods, in common with others, were now doomed to experience, and, on the part of Mrs.
Nevertheless this feeling derives merely from their own despondency in face of the efforts necessary to free themselves, efforts manifold and prolonged, but within the compass of their powers. The apparent fatality results from the universal abdication. By abandoning himself to fate, each one incurs a share of the guilt. But the shares in the guilt are unequal. Honour to whom honour is due!
"My parties were, consequently, broken up; and the Queen ceased to be seen in society. Then commenced the unconquerable power over her of those forebodings which have clung to her with such pertinacity ever since. "I observed that Her Majesty would often indulge in the most melancholy predictions long before the fatal discussion took place in the Assembly respecting the King's abdication.
At her bidding most of his former acquaintances were discarded; and even his warmest friends and nearest relations, no longer meeting the old hearty welcome, gradually ceased to visit his house. But the bitterest effect of this weak and culpable abdication of his rights was experienced by his slaves.
Early in 1813 he was ordered to Russia, and thereafter served as attaché on Blücher's staff in the memorable advance to the Rhine and the Seine. He brought the news of Napoleon's first abdication to England, was knighted by the Prince Regent, and received Russian and Prussian orders of distinction for his services.
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