Paris was full of returning royalists.
Banished exiles with grand old names, who had been earning a scanty living by teaching French and dancing in Vienna, London, and even in New York, were hastening to Paris for a joyful Restoration; and Louis XVIII., while Russian and Austrian troops guarded him on the streets of his own capital, was freely talking about ruling by divine right! That king was reigning under a liberal charter (as the new constitution was called)--a charter which guaranteed almost as much personal liberty as the one obtained in England from King John in 1215; and the palpable absurdity of supposing that he and his supporters might at the same time revive and maintain Bourbon traditions, as if there had been no Revolution, was at least not an indication of much sagacity.
But there was a very smooth surface.

The tricolor had disappeared.
Napoleon's generals had gone unresistingly over to the Bourbons.
Talleyrand adapted himself as quickly to the new regime as he had to the Napoleonic; was witty at the expense of the empire and the emperor, who, as he said, "was not even a Frenchman"; and was as crafty and as useful an instrument for the new ruler as he had been for the pre-existing one.
But something was happening under the surface.

While the plenipotentiaries were busy over their task of restoring boundaries in Europe, and the other restoration was going on pleasantly in Paris, a rumor came that Napoleon was in Lyons.

A regiment was at once despatched to drive him back; and Marshal Ney, "the bravest of the brave," was sent with orders to arrest him.
The next news that came to Paris was that the troops were frantically shouting "_Vive l'empereur_!" and Ney was embracing his beloved commander and pledging his sword in his service.
At midnight the king left the Tuileries for the Flemish frontier, and before the dawn Napoleon was in his Palace of Fontainebleau (March 20th), which he had left exactly eleven months before.

The night after the departure of the king there suddenly appeared lights passing swiftly over the Font de la Concorde; then came the tramp of horses' feet, and a carriage attended on each side by cavalry with drawn swords.