Note 163 — Chapter XC

"We all manœuvred to extort his abdication. There was a multitude of messages backwards and forwards, parleys, objections, replies—in a word, evolutions of every description: ground was taken, abandoned, and again retaken. At length, after a warm battle, Napoleon surrendered, in full council, under the conviction that longer resistance was useless; then turning to me, he said, with a sardonic smile, 'Write to those gentlemen to make themselves easy; they shall be satisfied.' Lucien took up the pen, and drew, under Napoleon's dictation, the act of abdication."—Fouché, tom. ii., p. 283.