The second abdication of the Emperor Napoleon plunged the French nation into confusion. Its defeated army was retreating in disorder from the battlefields of Belgium, its government was undecided upon a choice for his successor,l and as the news of these eventful days spread over the stunned countryside the threat of civil war heightened. Louis XVIII had been biding his time in Belgium while waiting for his fate and that of the French people to be decided on the field of battle. Hardly had the news of Waterloo arrived at Ghent (June 19) when the exiled court began packing for its inglorious return to Paris. However, a second restoration of the House of Henry IV was neither automatic nor assured by the removal of Napoleon. The army was Bonapartist almost to the man; and if the nation shed few tears for the departed emperor, it was divided with respect to the return of the king. The principal architect of the Second Restoration may well have been Joseph Fouche, Duke of Otranto, but the man who made it virtually bloodless, who prevented civil war, and who made possible peace with the allies by controlling the military, was Louis Davout. Marshal Davout, Duke of Auerstadt, Prince of Eckmiihl,2 was a Mr. Gallaher is associate professor of history at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. 1 The emperor abdicated on the condition that his son be proclaimed Napoleon II, even though the boy was with his mother in Vienna in the custody of his grandfather, Francis I. The Chamber of Representatives gave official recognition to the young prince, but the number of staunch Bonapartists was relatively few. Fouche and his small circle of supporters were already considering the restoration of Louis XVIII; others were mentioning the name of the Duke of Orleans; and though they were not so vocal, there were republicans who wished neither an emperor nor a king. See Henry Houssaye,
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