Louis XVIII had left the palace in the early hours of that very morning. ‘I hope that France will no longer have need of your swords,’ he had declared to Napoleon’s marshals when they rallied to him less than a year before, expressing the hope that they would become the pillars of his throne, ‘but, by God! Gentlemen, if the need to draw them should arise once more, I will, gout-ridden as I am, march at your side!’ But in the event he had cowered in the Tuileries, sending off one force after another, handing out cash to the troops in an attempt to buy their loyalty.
