drew out the sachet in question before the doctor's eyes and opened it. Yvan, terrified by this action, seized part of its contents and threw it into the fire. It appears that on the morrow, a prey to the blackest thoughts, despair seized upon the Emperor's mind, and he rose without summoning anybody, diluted the rest of the poison in a goblet, and swallowed it. What remained of this lethal substance was no doubt insufficient in quantity or had been too much diluted to cause death. On April 11, 1814, towards eleven in the evening, the silence of the palace of Fontainebleau was suddenly disturbed by the sound of groans, and the noise of comings and goings. The Ducs de Bassano and de Vicence, and General Bertrand, rushed to the Emperor's side, whilst Yvan himself was sent for. Napoleon was stretched out on a sofa in his bedroom, with his head leaning on his hands. He addressed himself to Doctor Yvan: 'Death will have nothing to do with me. You know what I have taken.' Yvan, dumbfounded, troubled, stammered, saying that he did not know what His Majesty meant, that he gave him nothing; at last he lost his head altogether, and rushed out of the room to throw himself into an arm-chair in the adjoining room, where he had a violent fit of hysterics. Napoleon passed a fairly quiet night. On the morrow Doctor Yvan, M. de Turenne, and others, presented themselves at the Emperor's levée, and found him almost recovered from this
