Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/151

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NAPOLEON
115

extending along under cliffs covered with ilexes. A little way out to sea, two tawny-coloured rocks, like fantastic beasts at rest, close the harbour, and receive over their long backs the foam of the breakers; the first is couched some cable lengths from the shore, the second five hundred metres beyond it. They bear the names of the Land and the Sea Lions."[1]


It was here that Napoleon entered the vessel deporting him to Elba, attended by the Commissioners of the Allied Powers. He had left Fontainebleau upon April 20th, 1814. As he got south he was made to perceive that his popularity, if he ever had any in Provence, was gone. Near Valence he encountered Augereau, whom he had created Duke of Castiglione, and who was an underbred, coarse fellow. Napoleon and his Marshal met on the 24th. Napoleon took off his hat, but Augereau, with vulgar insolence, kept his on. "Where are you going?" asked the fallen Emperor, "to Court?"—"I care for the Bourbons as little as I do for you," answered Augereau: "all I care for is my country." Upon this, Napoleon turned his back on him, and reentered the carriage. Augereau would not even then remove his hat and bow, but saluted his former master with a contemptuous wave of the hand.

At Valence, Napoleon saw, for the first time, French soldiers wearing the white cockade. At Orange the air rang with cries of "Vive le Roy!"

On arrival at Orgon the populace yelled, "Down with the Corsican! Death to the tyrant! Vive le Roy!"Portraits of Bonaparte were burnt before his eyes; an effigy of himself was fluttered before the carriage window, with the breast pierced, and dripping with

  1. La Province Maritime, 1897, p. 356.