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became a stranger to all the world after the departure of the Emperor for the Island of Elba, and, filled with a deep sense of gratitude for the kindness with which his Majesty had overwhelmed me during the fourteen years I had passed in his service, thought incessantly of this great man, and took pleasure in renewing in memory all the events, even the most trivial, of my life with him. I thought it best suited my former position to live in retirement, and passed my time most tranquilly in the bosom of my family in the country-house belonging to me. At the same time a fatal idea preoccupied my mind involuntarily; for I feared that persons who were jealous of my former favor might succeed in deceiving the Emperor as to my unalterable devotion to his person, and strengthen in his mind the false opinion that they had for a time succeeded in giving him of me. This opinion, although my conscience told me that it was unjust, was not the less painful to me; but, as will soon be seen, I was fortunate enough to obtain the certainty that my fears in this respect were without foundation.
Although an entire stranger to politics, I had read with deep interest the newspapers I received in my retreat, since the great political change to which the name of the Restoration was given; and it seemed to me to need only the simplest common-sense to see the marked difference which existed between the government which had been overthrown and the new. In all departments I saw a succession of titled men take the places of the long list of distinguished men who had given under the Empire so many proofs of merit and courage; but I was far from thinking, notwithstanding the large number of discontented, that the fortunes of the Emperor and the wishes of the army would ever restore him to that throne which he had voluntarily abdicated in order that he might not be the cause of a civil war in Dance. Therefore, it would be impossible to describe my astonishment, and the multiplicity of varied feelings which agitated me, when I received t
The Entire PG Memoirs of Napoleon, page 2056
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