The Chamber of Representatives thus silenced, if they did not satisfy, the Imperialist party, by a sort of incidental and ostensible acknowledgment of the young Napoleon's right to the crown; while at the same time, by declaring the Provisional Government to be a necessary guarantee for the liberties of the subject, they prevented the interference either of Napoleon himself, or any of his friends, in the administration of the country. Yet, notwithstanding the simulated nature of their compliance with the special condition of Napoleon's resignation, the Chambers and Provisional Government were as strict in exacting from the abdicated sovereign the terms of his bargain, as if they had paid him the stipulated value in sterling, instead of counterfeit coin. Thus they exacted from him a proclamation, addressed in his own name to the soldiers, in order to confirm the fact of his abdication, which the troops were unwilling to believe on any authority inferior to his own. In this address, there are, however, expressions which show his sense of the compulsion under which he acted. After an exhortation to the soldiers to continue in their career of honour, and an assurance of the interest which he should always take in their exploits, follows this passage:--"Both you and I have been calumniated. Men, very unfit to appreciate our labours, have seen in the marks of attachment which you have given me, a zeal of which I was the sole object. Let your future successes tell them, that it was the country, above all things, which you served in obeying me; and that, if I had any share in your affections, I owed it to my ardent love for France, our common mother."[168]
These expressions were highly disagreeable to the Chamber of Representatives, who at the same time regarded the presence of Napoleon in the capital as dangerous to their own power, and to the public tranquillity. The suburbs, with their fierce inmates, continued to be agitated, and soldiers, the straggling relics of the field of Waterloo, were daily gathering under the walls of Paris, furious at their recent defeat, and calling on their Emperor to lead them to vengeance. There seems to have been little to prevent Napoleon from still placing himself at the head of a small but formidable army. To remove him from this temptation, the Provisional Government required him to retire to the palace of Malmaison, near St. Germains, so long the favourite abode of the discarded Josephine. Napoleon had not been within its walls a single day, before, surrounded by Fouché's police, he found that he, who, not a month since, had disposed of the fate of myriads, was no longer the free master of his own actions. He was watched and controlled, though without the use of actual force, and now, for the first time, felt what it was to lose that free agency, of which his despotism had for so many years deprived so large a portion of mankind. Yet he seemed to submit to his fate with indifference, or only expressed impatience when beset by his personal creditors, who, understanding that he was not likely to remain long in France, attempted to extort from him a settlement of their claims. This petty persecution was given way to by the government, as one of several expedients to abridge his residence in France; and they had the means of using force, if all should fail.