During the voyage from Elba to France, Napoleon had been in the best of spirits, moving about familiarly among his men, and chatting freely upon all subjects. He had not told them where they were going, but probably they little needed telling. All must have felt that they were bound for France.

The passage was full of peril, for French cruisers were often in sight. One of these came quite near, so much so that Napoleon ordered his guards to take off their bearskin caps and to lie down upon the deck. The commander of the French vessel hailed Napoleon’s brig, and recognizing it as from Elba, asked, “How’s the Emperor?” Napoleon himself seized the speaking-trumpet and replied, “He is wonderfully well.”

At length the companions of the Emperor were told that they were bound for France, and those who could write were called around him to copy two proclamations he intended to scatter abroad upon landing. He had himself written these in Elba, but nobody present could read them—not even himself.

Casting these into the sea, he dictated two others,—one for his old soldiers, the other for the nation at large. He revised these papers ten times before they satisfied him, and then he set all hands making copies. Engaged thus, they came within sight of France, and they greeted the shores with enthusiastic shouts.

It was about five o’clock in the evening of March 1, 1815, that Napoleon and his little army landed near Cannes, and bivouacked in a meadow surrounded by olive trees, close to the shore. A captain and twenty-five men, sent to Antibes to rouse the garrison and bring it over to Napoleon, entered the town crying, “Live the Emperor!” without explanation or further statement; and the people of the place, knowing nothing of Napoleon’s landing, took these men, who had suddenly come screaming through their quiet town, to be lunatics. The royal commandant had sufficient presence of mind to shut the town gates; and so the gallant twenty-six, who went to surprise and capture, got surprised and captured.

“We have made a bad beginning,” said Napoleon, when news of this mishap reached him. “We have nothing to do but to march as fast as we can, and get to the mountain passes before the news of our arrival.”

The moon rose, and at midnight the Emperor began his march. He had brought a few horses from Elba, had bought a few more from peasants after landing, and thus some of his officers were mounted, while he himself rode in a carriage given him by his sister Pauline, and which he had brought from Elba. They marched all night, passing through silent, moonlit villages, where the people, roused by reports of something unusual afoot,—the pirates had come, some said,—stood gaping at the marching troops, responding with shrugs of the shoulders to the shouts of “Live the Emperor!” It was not until the column had passed through Grasse, a town of six thousand inhabitants, and had halted on a hill beyond, that the people seemed to realize what was happening. The pirate alarm disappeared, the fires of enthusiasm began to glow, and with glad shout of “Live the Emperor!” the town-folk came running toward the camp, bearing provisions for the troops. From this time the country people were certain that Napoleon had really come back, and his march became one of triumph. Leaving cannon and carriage at Grasse, the column pressed on toward CÉrÉnon by mountain paths still covered with snow, the Emperor marching on foot among his grenadiers. When he stumbled and fell on the rough road, they laughed at him; and he could hear them calling him, among themselves, “Our little monk.” Reaching Gap on the 5th, he printed his proclamations; and he began to scatter them by thousands. And never before did proclamations find such willing readers, or win such popular favor. Advancing toward Grenoble, the advance guard under Cambronne encountered a battalion of six thousand troops, sent to stop the march of the invaders. The royalist commander refused to parley with Napoleon’s officers, and threatened to fire. Cambronne sent to inform the Emperor of what had occurred. Napoleon was riding in an old carriage, picked up at Gap, when this report reached him. Mounting his horse, he galloped forward to within a hundred yards of the hostile battalion. Not a cheer greeted him. Turning to Bertrand, the disappointed Emperor remarked, “They have deceived me, but no matter. Forward march!” Throwing the bridle of his horse to Bertrand, he went on foot toward the royal troops.

“Fire!” shouted the officer, drawing his sword. And then Napoleon, unbuttoning that familiar gray overcoat, and fronting them with that familiar cocked hat, made the famous address which broke down all military opposition between Grenoble and Paris, sweeping thousands of bayonets out of his way with a word.

“What! My children, do you not recognize me? It is your Emperor. If there be one among you who would kill his general, he can do it. Here I am!”

“Live the Emperor!” came the answer of six thousand men, as they melted into tears, broke ranks, and crowded around him to fall at his feet, kiss his hands, and touch the hem of his garment.

The officer who had ordered them to fire had a good horse and a fair start; hence he managed to escape.

The six thousand who had come to capture Napoleon turned and marched with him. By this time the country was aroused on all sides, and crowds flocked around the column, shouting “Live the Emperor!” Advancing beyond Vizille, the Emperor was met by Colonel LabÉdoyÈre, who had brought his regiment to join Napoleon’s ranks. With cries of joy the troops mingled, and Napoleon took the ardent young colonel in his arms, pressing him to his breast, and saying, “Colonel, it is you who replace me upon the throne!” Onward then to Grenoble, where the gates had been closed, and the defences manned to resist the invader.

It was dark when Napoleon arrived before the walls. He ordered LabÉdoyÈre to address the troops within. This was done, and there were cries of “Live the Emperor!” from within the city. But the royal commandant had the keys, and the gates could not be opened. “Room! room!” came the cry from within. It was the shout of citizens of the town coming with beams to batter down the gates.

The work was soon done, the way was open, and the Emperor’s column found itself surrounded by a multitude as enthusiastic as any they had met. With uncontrollable transports they laid hold of Napoleon, pulled him from his horse, and bore him forward in their arms.

That night was one long festival for soldiers, citizens, and peasants; and next morning a great crowd followed him when he set out for Lyons. There, upon an immenser scale, was repeated the ovation of Grenoble. Royal officers lost all control of their troops. Marshal Macdonald and the Count of Artois were utterly abandoned; and when they fled, were followed by a solitary trooper, to whom Napoleon afterward gave the cross of the Legion of Honor. For four days, this great city of southern France testified in every possible way its unbounded joy at the Emperor’s return. It is said that twenty thousand people were constantly under his windows. It is certain that he never forgot these glorious days—almost the last days which he might name glorious. His journey was now no longer an adventure; once more he was a great power among the nations of earth. He had committed no violence, had shed no blood. The love and the admiration of a gallant people were his again—balm for all those wounds of last year. In his address, at his departure, his closing words were simple and touching, “People of Lyons, I love you!” and there can be no doubt that he did.

Moving onward, he came to Auxerre on the 17th; and in the evening came Marshal Ney, with something in word and manner which suggests that he felt what nothing so well describes as the term “sheepish.” Very rude had he been to his Emperor in 1814—rude, brutal, threatening. Now there was a change. Ney was contrite, apologetic, explanatory. He had been misrepresented, it seems; and the newspapers had told lies about him. But Napoleon relieved him with: “Embrace me, my dear Ney. To me you are still the Bravest of the brave.”

Halting briefly at Fontainebleau on March 20, Napoleon spent some solitary hours in the room where he had suffered such agonies the year before; and he went again into the garden which had been his Gethsemane. Pushing on to Paris, he arrived after dark and entered the Tuileries at nine o’clock, borne on the shoulders of his wildly enthusiastic friends. Five thousand young nobles of the royal body-guard had left Paris that morning to head the royal army, and oppose Napoleon’s advance. The troops they expected to command joined their Emperor near Paris; and the noble officers, left without commands, were heard in the Parisian saloons that evening plausibly explaining the cause of their failure to stop the usurper’s progress.

The great city of Paris did not go out to meet the returning Emperor as Grenoble and Lyons had done. Paris was rather indifferent. “They let me come as they let the other fellows go,” remarked Napoleon that night. Thousands of soldiers had cheered him as he entered the capital, adoring friends had pressed him so ardently at the Tuileries that he had cried out, “My friends, you smother me!” Elegant ladies of the imperial court, Hortense in the lead, had made ready to welcome him to the palace; they had thrown arms about his neck and kissed him. But as the wifeless, childless Emperor sat by the fireside late in the night, almost alone, his feet up, resting on the mantelpiece, he looked very tired and very sad. Many old friends had met him; many had stayed away. Paris had not been so warm as Lyons. France was not so unanimous as he had hoped. Confidence in him, and his fortune and final success, was very far indeed from being universal.

Bourrienne records that one of the Paris newspapers made note of the various stages of Napoleon’s return in this wise:—

“A report is circulated that the Corsican brigand has landed at Cannes;” a few days later the same pen wrote: “Do you know what news is circulated? They say the rash usurper has been received at Grenoble;” then later came the announcement, “I have it from a good source that General Bonaparte has entered Lyons;” then, after a few days, it was, “Napoleon, it appears, is at Fontainebleau;” and on March 20 came the final, “His Majesty the Emperor and King alighted this evening at his palace of the Tuileries.”