Wellington's policy embraced a wider field. He invariably kept in view the great object for which the war had been undertaken. The information which he contrived to obtain relative to the effect which Napoleon's disaster produced upon the minds of the leading men of the great political parties by which France was then agitated, and upon the Members of the two Chambers of Parliament generally, combined with the knowledge he had already acquired of the disposition of the inhabitants of the Department of the North, which, in fact, had not evinced that enthusiasm attendant upon the return of Napoleon from Elba that was manifested throughout the greater part of the nation, convinced him that by adopting measures calculated to impress upon the French people that the allies were friendly towards them, though inveterately hostile to Napoleon, and by seizing every advantage afforded by the presence and the influence of their legitimate monarch, he was, by such means, ensuring the security of the operations upon Paris more effectively than could have been accomplished by additional military force applied under different circumstances.
