The humiliating position forced upon France caused the downfall of the Ministry of Thiers. Marshal Soult was placed at the head of affairs. Guizot was recalled from his embassy at London to take the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. He succeeded in restoring France to her former place in the concert of Europe. The French Government joined with the other powers in the restoration of the ancient rule of the Ottoman Empire by which all foreign warships were excluded from the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Russia thereby virtually conceded the abrogation of her treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. On the other hand, Sebastopol and the Russian arsenals of the Euxine were thus safeguarded against any maritime attack except by Turkey.
The revival of the Napoleonic legend by such writers as Béranger, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo, together with other influences which served to keep bright the glories of the Empire, bore their fruit in the return of Napoleon's remains to France. On October 15, his body had been removed from the simple tomb at St. Helena. On November 30, the ship bearing Napoleon's remains arrived at Cherbourg. A million francs were voted by the Chambers for the new sepulchre under the dome of the chapel of the Hôtel des Invalides. On this occasion great publicity was given to Lord Palmerston's letter to Ambassador Granville: "The government of her British Majesty hope that the promptness of their response to this French request will be considered in France as a proof of their desire to efface all traces of those national animosities which, during the life of the Emperor armed against each other the French and English nations. The government of her Majesty are confident that if such sentiments still exist anywhere, they will be buried in the tomb in which the remains of Napoleon are to be laid." Napoleon's reburial was witnessed by a million of persons including a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers drawn up in line to do him honor. The ceremonies were attended by the royal family and all the dignitaries of France, excepting only the immediate relatives of the great Napoleon. As it happened, those of the Napoleonides that were not dead were either in exile or in prison.
Shortly before this, great havoc had been wrought in France by disastrous inundations of the Saone and Rhone. The water, which covered 60,000 acres, and flooded Lyons, rose higher than it had within 250 years. In Greece, a tremendous earthquake laid the city of Zante in ruins. These catastrophes were made the object of special study in Germany and Switzerland, where Agassiz was in the midst of his epoch-making discourses on the glacial period.