Page:Coubertin - France since 1814, 1900.djvu/31

 with which the French nation has so long been supposed to have welcomed the return from Elba! It is remarkable that these demonstrations of public feeling date from the first few weeks, when the country still flattered itself that a war could be escaped, when the people of the villages and the small towns, easily enough deceived by the optimism affected by the Government, were still capable of illusion on this point, and when not a single foreign bayonet had as yet been seen upon the frontiers.

On his arrival at Lyons, on the 24th of March, Napoleon published the famous series of nine decrees by which he annulled all that the Restoration had done, even nominations to the Legion of Honour and acts of simple justice. But he had hardly set foot in the Tuileries before that foot found itself thrust into the King's shoes. In fact, he had no other alternative than either to rouse those dangerous revolutionary passions which were still rumbling underground, or to pass under the Caudine Forks of Liberalism. To this latter fate he resigned himself.

The Acte Additionnel drawn up by Benjamin Constant was a mere counterfeit of the Charter,