But was it necessary to let all Europe into our secrets? Is
it fitting to wash our dirty linen in public? In what you say there
is some truth and some falsehood. What, then, was your obvious duty?
To have confidentially made known your grounds of complaint to me,
by whom they would have been thankfully received. I do not, any more
than yourselves, love those who have oppressed you. In three months
we shall have peace: the enemy will be driven from our territory, or
I shall be dead. We have greater resources than you imagine: our
enemies have never conquered us--never will. They will be pursued
over the frontier more quickly than they crossed it. Go!" [Footnote:
Bucher et Roux, "Histoire Parl. de France," vol. xxxix., pp. 460,
46l.]
The last words of the speech were still resounding through the hall
when the deputies, with pale faces, bowing timidly and silently
before the throne, turned and walked toward the door. All eyes were
riveted on them, and it was felt that the men whom the emperor
dismissed with such a strain of vehement invective were twenty new
enemies whom Napoleon sent into the provinces, and who would bring a
new hostile army--public opinion--into the field against him. Many
hoped that the emperor, perceiving his blunder, would call back the
deputies by some pleasant word, in order to bring about a
reconciliation between him and those who, whatever the emperor might
say, represented in the throne-hall the opinion of the people.
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