"I read it several weeks ago."
"No, sire, it seems that the proclamation has not only appeared in
the English newspapers, but is circulating throughout France. The
Duke de Rovigo reports that secret agents of the Count de Lille are
actively at work in France. They are scattering every day thousands
of printed copies of the proclamation among the people. They are
circulated at night in the streets, secretly pushed under the doors
into the houses and rooms so that the police agents are unable to
take them away. These copies, it appears, are printed on hand-
presses, for their lines are often irregular and slanting, and
indicate an unpractised hand, but those who receive them try to
decipher them, and deliver them to the police only after having read
them." [Footnote: "Memoires du Duc Kovigo," vol. vi., p. 351.]
Napoleon said nothing; he was still whittling the back of his chair,
and did not once look up to his minister, who stood before him in
reverential silence. "I thought I had crashed this serpent of
legitimacy under my foot," he murmured at last to himself, "but it
still lives, and tries again to rise against me. Ah, I despise it,
and I have reason to do so. I alone am now the legitimate ruler of
France; the fifty battles in which I have fought and conquered for
France are my ancestors; the will of the French people has made me
emperor, and the voice of all the sovereign princes of Europe has
recognized my throne.
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