Note Back to Main Text — MEMOIRS, &c. &c. (continued 2)

As to the latter proposition, I confess, that Napoleon, if on the 21st of March, or the 12th of April[23], he had returned into the hands of the French the sceptre, which he had just torn from those of the Bourbons, would have stamped a character completely heroic on the revolution of the 20th of March. He would have disconcerted the foreign powers, augmented his popularity, centuplicated his forces: but on the first of June it was too late: the additional act had appeared.