XXI.
THE DESCENT BEGUN.
I shall pass rapidly over much intervening ground, and bring the reader to the days when fortune had turned against Napoleon, and he sank, never again to rise.
In the midst of the disastrous retreat from Moscow, Napoleon for the first time thought of suicide as an outlet from his troubles. He feared above all things being taken prisoner by the Czar, and being paraded as part of his triumph:
"He asked his ordinary medical adviser, Doctor Yvan, in consequence, to give him a dose of poison, which was contained in a sachet which he could carry round his neck, and which was to spare him the humiliation of falling alive into the hands of the Cossacks, and of being exposed to the insults of these savages."
Napoleon carried the black taffeta sachet around his neck until he reached Paris. Then, in the midst of his cheerful surroundings, and of his engrossing occupations, he laid it aside, depositing it in one of his travelling bags. But 1814 came, and Napoleon, ruined, deserted, lonely, at Fontainebleau, remembered the sachet:
"One day, after having consulted Yvan on the various means of putting an end to one's life, he
