Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.

From a photograph by Braun, Clement & Co.

Empress Marie Louise
By Pierre Paul Prod'hon.

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE

PH.D., L.H.D., LL.D.
Professor of History in Columbia University

REVISED AND ENLARGED
WITH PORTRAITS

VOLUME IV

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1916

CHAPTER PAGE

The Last Imperial Victory [1]
Politics and Strategy [11]
The End of the Grand Army [23]
The Frankfort Proposals [37]
The Invasion of France [47]
Napoleon's Supreme Effort [59]
The Great Captain at Bay [71]
The Struggles of Exhaustion [84]
The Beginning of the End [101]
The Fall of Paris [111]
Napoleon's First Abdication [123]
The Emperor of Elba [137]
Napoleon the Liberator [151]
The Dynasties Implacable [164]
Ligny and Quatre Bras [175]
The Eve of Waterloo [189]
Waterloo [199]
The Surrender [212]
St. Helena [224]
Soldier, Statesman, Despot [247]
Napoleon and the United States [268]
Napoleon's Place in History [285]

Historical Sources [303]
General Bibliography [307]
Index [355]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Empress Marie Louise [Frontispiece]
Napoleon in 1813 [50]
Napoleon, François Charles Joseph, Prince Imperial; King of Rome; Duke of Reichstadt [98]
Map of the Field of Operations in 1814 [104]
The King of Rome [148]
Map of the Campaign of 1815 [194]
Napoleon, François Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, etc., etc., son of Napoleon Bonaparte [200]
Napoleon sleeping by Las Cases on board the Bellerophon [224]
Napoleon at St. Helena [230]
Napoleon I [274]

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

CHAPTER I

The Last Imperial Victory [1]

Napoleon's Prospects — The Preparations and Plans of the Coalition — Cross-purposes of the Combatants — Condition of Napoleon's Mind — Strength and Weakness of the Allies — Renewal of Hostilities — The Feint in Silesia — Napoleon at Dresden — First Day's Fighting — The Victory Won on the Second Day.

1813

In later years Napoleon confessed that during the interval between the first and second Saxon campaigns he had been outwitted. His antagonists had, in his own language, "changed for the better"; at least they secured the war they so earnestly desired under conditions vastly more favorable to themselves than to their opponent. Both parties had been arming with might and main during the prolonged truce, but each member of the dynastic coalition now had the backing of a growing national enthusiasm, while Napoleon had to deal with waning zeal and an exhausted people. Thus, then, at the opening of the second campaign in Saxony, the allies had four hundred and thirty-five thousand men, and Napoleon but three hundred and fifty thousand. With this inferiority, it behooved the Emperor to use all his strategic powers, and he did so with a brilliancy never surpassed by him. Choosing the Elbe as his natural defensive line, Hamburg stood almost impregnable at one end, flanked to the southward by Magdeburg, Wittenberg, and Torgau, three mighty fortresses. Dresden, which was necessarily the focal point, was intrenched and palisaded for the protection of the army which was to be its main bulwark. Davout and Oudinot, with seventy thousand men, were to threaten Berlin, and, thereby drawing off as many as possible of the enemy, liberate the garrisons of Stettin and Küstrin; they were then to beleaguer Spandau, push the foe across the Oder, and stand ready to fall on the flank of the coalition army. Napoleon himself, with the remaining two hundred and eighty thousand, was to await the onset of the combined Russian, Prussian, and Austrian forces.

The allies now had in their camp two mighty strategists—Jomini, the well-known Swiss adventurer and military historian, and Moreau, who had returned from the United States. The former, pleading that he had lost a merited promotion by Berthier's ill-will, and that as a foreigner he had the right of choice, had gone over to the enemies of his employer; the latter, yielding to the specious pleas of his silly and ambitious wife that he might fight Napoleon without fighting France, had taken service with the Czar. The arrow which penetrated Napoleon's vitals was indeed feathered from his own pinions, since these two, with another of Napoleon's pupils—Bernadotte, the Crown Prince of Sweden—were virtually the council of war. Two of them, the latter and Moreau, saw the specter of French sovereignty beckoning them on. They dreamed of the chief magistracy in some shape, imperial, monarchical, consular, or presidential, and were more devoted to their personal interests than to those of the coalition. In the service of their ambition was formed the plan by which not only was Napoleon overwhelmed, but the fields of France were drenched with blood. Under their advice, three great armies were arrayed: that of the North, in Brandenburg, was composed of Prussians, Swedes, and a few Russians, its generals being Bülow, Bernadotte, and Tchernicheff; that of the East was the Prusso-Russian army in Silesia, now under Blücher, that astounding young cavalryman of seventy, and Wittgenstein; finally, that of the South was the new Austrian force under Schwarzenberg, with an adjunct force of Russian troops under Barclay, and the Russian guard under the Grand Duke Constantine. Bülow was in and near Berlin with about a hundred and fifty-six thousand men; Blücher had ninety-five thousand, and, having violated the armistice, was on August fourteenth already within the neutral zone at Striegau, before Breslau; the Austro-Russian force of almost two hundred and fifty thousand was in northern Bohemia, near Melnik; Bennigsen was in Poland building up a strong reserve. Schwarzenberg, though commander of the main army, was reduced to virtual impotence by the presence at his headquarters of all the sovereigns and of Moreau. Divided counsels spring from diverse interests; there was at the outset a pitiful caution and inefficiency on the part of the allies, while at Napoleon's headquarters there was unity of design at least.

Both contestants were apparently under serious misapprehensions. The allies certainly were, because Francis believed that, as so often before, Napoleon's goal would be Vienna. The plan adopted by them was therefore very simple: each division of the allied army was to stand expectant; if assailed it was to yield, draw on the French columns, and expose their flank or rear to the attacks of the other two allied armies; then by superior force the invaders were to be surrounded. The allies divined, or believed they divined, that Napoleon would hold his guard in reserve, throw it behind any portion of his line opposite which they were vulnerable, break through, and defeat them in detachments. Their idea was keen, and displayed a thorough grasp both of the principles on which their opponent had hitherto acted and of his normal character. But nevertheless they were deceived. Napoleon discarded all his old principles, and behaved most abnormally. In his conduct there are evidences of a curious self-deception, and his decisions contradicted his language. Perpetually minimizing in conversation the disparity between the two forces, and sometimes even asserting his own superiority, he nevertheless almost for the first time assumed the defensive. This unheard-of course may have been due to misapprehension and exaggeration, but it produced for the moment a powerful moral effect on his generals, who, without exception, had hitherto been clamorous for peace, and likewise upon his new boy recruits; both classes began to have a realizing sense that they were now fighting, not for aggression, but for life. If the Emperor had any such confidence as he expressed, it must have been due to the fact that boys had fought like veterans at Lützen and Bautzen, and that at last there were cavalry and artillery in fair proportion. Possibly, likewise, he may have been desperate; fully aware that he was about to cast the dice for a last stake, he may have been at once braggart and timid. If he should win in a common defensive battle, he believed, as his subsequent conduct goes to show, that he was safe indefinitely; and if he lost—the vision must have been too dreadful, enough to distract the sanest mind: an exhausted treasury, an exhausted nation, an empty throne, vanished hopes, ruin!

Yet at the time no one remarked any trace of nervousness in Napoleon. Long afterward the traitorous Marmont, whose name, like that of Moreau, was to be execrated by succeeding generations of honorable Frenchmen, recalled that the Emperor had contemptuously designated the enemy as a rabble, and that he had likewise overestimated the strategic value of Berlin. The malignant annalist asserted, too, that Napoleon's motive was personal spite against Prussia. It has also been studiously emphasized by others that the "children" of Napoleon's army were perishing like flowers under an untimely frost, forty thousand French and German boys being in the hospitals; that corruption was rife in every department of administration; and that the soldiers' pay was shamefully in arrears. An eye-witness saw Peyrusse, the paymaster, to whom Napoleon had just handed four thousand francs for a monument to Duroc, coolly pocket a quarter of the sum, with the remark that such was the custom. He would be rash indeed who dared to assert that there was no basis for this criticism. It is true that the instructions to Davout and Oudinot made light of Bülow's army, and that Berlin had vastly less strategic value than those instructions seemed to indicate. But, on the other hand, both generals and men were sadly in need of self-reliance, and to see their capitals occupied or endangered had still a tremendous moral effect upon dynastic sovereigns. As to the defects in his army, Napoleon could not have been blind; but in all these directions matters had been nearly, if not quite, as bad in 1809, and a victory had set them all in order.

What nervousness there was existed rather among the allies. Never before in her history, not even under the great Frederick, had Prussia possessed such an army; the Austrians were well drilled and well equipped; the Russians were of fair quality, numerous, and with the reserves from Poland would be a powerful army in themselves. Yet in spite of their strength, the allies were not really able. Austria was the head, but her commander, Schwarzenberg, was not even mediocre, and among her generals there was only one who was first-rate, namely, Radetzky. Frederick William and Alexander were of incongruous natures; their alliance was artificial, and in such plans as they evolved there was an indefiniteness which left to the generals in their respective forces a large margin for independence. The latter were quick to take advantage of the chance, and this fact accounts for the generally lame and feeble beginning of hostilities.

For example, it was through Blücher's wilfulness that the moral advantage lay with Napoleon in the opening of the struggle. On July ninth Bernadotte, Frederick William, and the Czar had met at Trachenberg to lay out a plan of campaign. In this conference, which first opened Napoleon's eyes to the determination of the allies, Blücher had secured for himself an independent command. The accession of Austria rendered the agreement of Trachenberg null, but Blücher did not abandon his ambition. Impatient of orders or good faith, he broke into the neutral zone at Striegau on August fourteenth, apparently without any very definite plan. Napoleon, hearing that forty thousand Russians from this army were marching toward Bohemia, advanced from Dresden on August fifteenth, to be within reach of the passes of the Iser Mountains on the Upper Elbe, and halted at Zittau as a central point, where he could easily collect about a hundred and eighty thousand men, and whence, according to circumstances, he could either strike Blücher, cut off the Russians, or return to Dresden in case of need. That city was to be held by Saint-Cyr. On August twentieth Blücher reached the banks of the Bober at Bunzlau; owing to Napoleon's nice calculation, Ney, Marmont, Lauriston, and Macdonald were assembled on the other side to check the advance, he himself being at Lauban with the guard. Had Blücher stood, the Russo-Prussians would have been annihilated, for their inferiority was as two to one. But the headstrong general did not stand; on the contrary, retreating by preconcerted arrangement behind the Deichsel, he led his antagonist to the false conclusion that he lacked confidence in his army.

Napoleon was not generally over-credulous, but this mistake was probably engendered in his mind by the steady stream of uneasy reports he was receiving from his own generals. On the twenty-third he wrote to Maret that his division commanders seemed to have no self-reliance except in his presence; "the enemy's strength seems great to them wherever I am not." Marmont was the chief offender, having severely criticized a plan of operations which would require one or more of the marshals to act independently in Brandenburg or Silesia or both, expressing the fear that on the day when the Emperor believed himself to have won a decisive battle he would discover that he had lost two. Seventeen years of campaigning had apparently turned the great generals of Napoleon's army into puppets, capable of acting only on their leader's impulse. Whatever the cause, Napoleon was set in his idea, and pressed on in pursuit. On the twenty-second Blücher was beyond the Katzbach, with the French van close behind, when word arrived at Napoleon's headquarters that the Austro-Russians had entered Saxony and were menacing Dresden. How alert and sane the Emperor was, how thoroughly he foresaw every contingency, appears from the minute directions he wrote for Macdonald, who was left to block the road for Blücher into Saxony, while Lauriston was to outflank and shut off the perfervid veteran from both Berlin and Zittau.

These instructions having been written, Napoleon at first contemplated crossing the Elbe above Dresden to take Schwarzenberg on the flank and rear in the passes of the Ore Mountains. This would not only cut off the Austrian general from the Saxon capital, but prevent his swerving to the left for an advance on Leipsic. But finding that his enemy was moving swiftly, the Emperor resolved to meet him before Dresden. It would never do to lose his ally's capital at the outset, or to suffer defeat at the very head of his defensive line. Giving orders, therefore, for the corps of Marmont, Vandamme, and Victor, together with Latour-Maubourg's cavalry and the guard, to wheel, he hastened back to reinforce Saint-Cyr at Dresden. On the twenty-fifth, as he passed Bautzen, he learned that Oudinot had been defeated at Luckau; but he gave no heed to the report, and next day reached Dresden at nine in the morning. An hour later the guard came up, having performed the almost incredible feat of marching seventy-six miles in three days. Vandamme, with forty thousand men, had arrived at Pirna, a few miles above, and Saint-Cyr was drawing in behind the temporary fortifications of the city itself.

The enemy, too, was at hand, but he had no plan. In a council of war held by him the same morning there was protracted debate, and finally Moreau's advice to advance in six columns was taken. He refused "to fight against his country," but explained that the French could never be conquered in mass, and that if one assailing column were crushed, the rest could still push on. This long deliberation cost the allies their opportunity; for at four in the afternoon, when they attacked, the mass of the French army had crossed the Elbe and had thus completed the garrison of the city. For two hours the fighting was fierce and stubborn; from three different sides Russians, Austrians, and Prussians each made substantial gains; at six Napoleon determined to make a general sally and throw in his guard. With fine promptness. Mortier, at the head of two divisions of the young guard, attacked the Russians, and, fighting until midnight, drove them beyond the hamlet of Striefen. Saint-Cyr dislodged the Prussians, and pushed them to Strehla; while Ney, with two divisions of the young guard, threw a portion of the Austrians into Plauen, and Murat, with two divisions of infantry and Latour-Maubourg's cavalry, cleared the suburb Friedrichstadt of the rest. Napoleon, alert and ubiquitous, then made his usual round, and knew when he retired to rest in the royal palace that with seventy thousand men, or rather boys, he had repulsed a hundred and fifty thousand of his foe. His inspiriting personal work might be calculated as worth eighty thousand of his opponents' best men. That night both Marmont and Victor, with their corps, entered the city; and Vandamme in the early dawn began to bombard Pirna, thus threatening the allies' connection with Bohemia and drawing away forces from them to hold that outpost.

The second day's fighting was more disastrous to the allies than the first. The morning opened in a tempest, but at six both sides were arrayed. On the French right were Victor and Latour-Maubourg; then Marmont; then the old guard and Ney with two divisions of the young guard; next Saint-Cyr, with Mortier on the left. Opposite stood Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, in the same relative positions, on higher ground, encircling the French all the way westward and around by the south to Plauen; but between their center and left was reserved a gap for Klenau's Austrians, who were coming up from Tharandt in the blinding storm, and were overdue. At seven began the artillery fire of the young guard; but before long it ceased for an instant, since the gunners found the enemy's line too high for the elevation of their guns. "Continue," came swiftly the Emperor's order; "we must occupy the attention of the enemy on that spot." The ruse succeeded, and the gap was left open; at ten Murat dashed through it, and turning westward, killed or captured all who composed the enemy's extreme left. The garrison of Pirna then retreated toward Peterswald. Elsewhere the French merely held their own. Napoleon lounged all day in a curious apathy before his camp-fire, his condition being apparently due to the incipient stages of a digestive disorder. Early in the afternoon Schwarzenberg heard of Murat's great charge, but he held firm until at five the flight from Pirna was announced, when he abandoned the conflict. By six Napoleon was aware that the battle was over, and, mounting his horse, he trotted listlessly to the palace, his old gray overcoat and hood streaming with rain.

CHAPTER II

Politics and Strategy [2]

Napoleon's Conduct after Dresden — Military Considerations Overruled by Political Schemes — Probable Explanation of Napoleon's Failure — Prussian Victories at Grossbeeren and on the Katzbach — Vandamme Overwhelmed at Kulm — Napoleon's Responsibility — Political Considerations again Ascendant — The System of "Hither and Thither" — The Battle of Dennewitz — Its Disastrous Consequences — Napoleon's Vacillation — Strategy Thwarted by Diplomacy.

Throughout the night after the victory at Dresden, Napoleon believed that the enemy would return again to battle on the morrow. This is conclusively shown by the notes which he made for Berthier during the evening. These were based on the stated hypothesis that the enemy was not really in retreat, but would on the morrow by a great battle strive to retrieve his failure. But the Emperor was altogether mistaken. To be sure, the council of the disheartened allies debated far into the small hours whether an advantageous stand could not still be made on the heights of Dippoldiswalde, but the decision was adverse because the coalition army was sadly shattered, having lost a third of its numbers. Crippled on its left and threatened on its rear, it began next morning to retreat in fair order toward the Ore Mountains, and so continued until it became known that Vandamme was directly in the path, when a large proportion of the troops literally took to the hills, and retreat became flight. Then first, at four in the afternoon, Napoleon began to realize what had actually occurred. And what did he do? Having ridden almost to Pirna before taking measures of any kind to reap the fruits of victory, he there issued orders for the single corps of Vandamme, slightly reinforced, to begin the pursuit! Thereupon, leaving directions for Mortier to hold Pirna, he entered a carriage and drove quietly back to Dresden!

These are the almost incredible facts: no terrific onslaught after the first night, no well-ordered pursuit after the second, a mere pretense of seizing the advantage on the third day! In fact, Napoleon, having set his plan in operation at the very beginning of the battle, sank, to all outward appearances, into a state of lassitude, the only sign of alert interest he displayed throughout the conflict being shown when he was told that Moreau had been mortally wounded. The cause may have been physical or it may have been moral, but it was probably a political miscalculation. If we may believe Captain Coignet, the talk of the staff on the night of the twenty-seventh revealed a perfect knowledge of the enemy's rout; they knew that the retreat of their opponents had been precipitate, and they had credible information of disordered bands seen hurrying through byways or rushing headlong through mountain defiles. Yet for all this, they were thoroughly discontented, and the burden of their conversation was execration of the Emperor. "He's a ———— who will ruin us all," was the repeated malediction. If we may believe Napoleon himself, he had a violent attack of vomiting near Pirna, and was compelled to leave everything on that fateful day to others. This is possible, but unlikely; the day before, though listless, he was well enough to chat and take snuff as he stood in a redoubt observing the course of events through his field-glass; the day after he was perfectly well, and exercised unusual self-control when tidings of serious import were brought from the north. The sequel goes to show that neither his own sickness nor the bad temper of the army sufficiently accounts for Napoleon's unmilitary conduct on the twenty-eighth; it appears, on the contrary, as if he refrained of set purpose from annihilating the Austrian army in order to reknit the Austrian alliance and destroy the coalition. This he never was willing to admit; but no man likes to confess himself a dupe.

Had Oudinot and Macdonald succeeded in their offensive operations against Berlin, and had Napoleon himself done nothing more than hold Dresden, a place which we must remember he considered from the outset as a defensive point, it would have sufficed, in order to obtain the most favorable terms of peace, to throw back the main army of the coalition, humiliated and dispirited, through Bohemia to Prague. But, as we have repeatedly seen, long service under the Empire had destroyed all initiative in the French marshals: in Spain one mighty general after another had been brought low; those who were serving in Germany seemed stricken with the same palsy. It is true that in the days of their greatness they had commanded choice troops, and that now the flower of the army was reserved for the Emperor; but it is likewise true that then they had fought for wealth, advancement, and power. Now they yearned to enjoy their gains, and were embittered because Napoleon had not accepted Austria's terms of mediation until it was too late. Moreover, Bernadotte, one of their opponents, had been trained in their own school, and was fighting for a crown. To Blücher, untamed and untrustworthy in temper, had been given in the person of Gneisenau an efficient check on all headlong impulses, and Bülow was a commander far above mediocrity. Such considerations go far to account for three disasters—those, namely, of Grossbeeren, Katzbach, and Kulm—which made it insufficient for Napoleon to hold Dresden and throw back the main army of the allies, and which thwarted all his strategy, military and political.

The first of these affairs was scarcely a defeat. Oudinot, advancing with seventy thousand men by way of Wittenberg to seize Berlin, found himself confronted by Bernadotte with eighty thousand. The latter, with his eye on the crown of France, naturally feared to defeat a French army; at first he thought of retreating across the Spree and abandoning the Prussian capital. But the Prussians were outraged at the possibility of such conduct, and the schemer was convinced that a show of resistance was imperative. On August twenty-second a few skirmishes occurred, and the next day Bülow, disobeying his orders, brought on a pitched battle at Grossbeeren, which was waged, with varying success, until nightfall left the village in French hands. Oudinot, however, discouraged alike by the superior force of the enemy, by the obstinate courage of the Prussians, and by the dismal weather, lost heart, and retreated to Wittenberg. The heavy rains prevented an effective pursuit, but the Prussians followed as far as Treuenbrietzen. On August twenty-first, Blücher, aware of the circumstances which kept Napoleon at Dresden, had finally determined to attack Macdonald. The French marshal, by a strange coincidence, almost simultaneously abandoned the defensive position he had been ordered to hold, and advanced to give battle. It was therefore a mere chance when on the twenty-fifth the two armies came together, amid rain and fog, at the Katzbach. After a bitter struggle the French were routed with frightful loss. A terrific rain-storm set in, and the whole country was turned into a marsh. For five days Blücher continued the pursuit, until he reached Naumburg, on the right bank of the Queiss, where he halted, having captured eighteen thousand prisoners and a hundred and three guns.

To these misfortunes the affair at Kulm was a fitting climax. No worse leader for a delicate independent movement could have been selected than the reckless Vandamme. He was so rash, conceited, and brutish that Napoleon once exclaimed in sheer desperation: "If there were two Vandammes in my army, nothing could be done until one had killed the other." As might have been expected, the headlong general far outstripped the columns of Marmont, Saint-Cyr, and Murat, which had been tardily sent to support him. Descending without circumspection into the plain of Kulm, he found himself, on the twenty-ninth, confronted by the Russian guard; and next morning, when attacked by them in superior force, he was compelled to retreat through a mountain defile toward Peterswald, whence he had come. At the mouth of the gorge he was unexpectedly met by the Prussian corps of Kleist. Each side thought the other moving to cut it off. They therefore rushed one upon the other in despair, with no other hope than that of breaking through to rejoin their respective armies. The shock was terrible, and for a time the confusion seemed inextricable. But the Russians soon came up, and Vandamme, with seven thousand men, was captured, the loss in slain and wounded being about five thousand. Saint-Cyr, Marmont, and Murat halted and held the mountain passes.

This was the climax of disaster in Napoleon's great strategic plan. In no way responsible for Grossbeeren, nor for Macdonald's defeat on the Katzbach, he was culpable both for the selection of Vandamme and for failure to support him in the pursuit of Schwarzenberg. At St. Helena the Emperor strove in three ways to account for the crash under which he was buried after Dresden: by the sickness which made him unable to give attention to the situation, by the inundation which rendered Macdonald helpless at the crossing of the Bober, and by the arrival of a notification from the King of Bavaria that, after a certain date, he too would join the coalition. This was not history, but an appeal to public sentiment, carefully calculated for untrained readers.

The fact was that at Dresden the gradual transformation of the strategist into the politician, which had long been going on, was complete. The latter misapprehended the moment for diplomatic negotiations, conceiving the former's victory to have been determinative, when in reality it was rendered partial and contingent by failure to follow it up. Great as Napoleon was in other respects, he was supremely great as a strategist; it is therefore his psychological development and decline in this respect which are essential to the determination of the moment in which he became bankrupt in ability. This instant was that of course in which his strategic failures became no longer intermittent, but regular; and after Dresden such was the case. As to conception and tactics there never was a failure—the year 1814 is the wonder-year of his theoretical genius; but after Dresden there is continuous failure in the practical combination of concept and means, in other words, of strategic mastery. This contention as to the clouding of Napoleon's vision by the interference of political and military considerations is proved by his next step. Hitherto his basal principle had been to mass all his force for a determinative blow, his combinations all turning about hostile armies and their annihilation, or at least about producing situations which would make annihilation possible. Now he was concerned, not with armies, but with capital cities. Claiming that to extend his line toward Prague would weaken it, in order to resume a strong defensive he chose the old plan of an advance to Berlin, and Ney was sent to supersede Oudinot, Schwarzenberg being left to recuperate unmolested. The inchoate idea of political victory which turned him back from Pirna was fully developed; by a blow at Berlin and a general northward movement he could not merely punish Prussia, but alarm Russia, separate the latter's army from that of the other allies, and then plead with Austria his consideration in not invading her territories. In spite of all that has been written to the contrary, there was some strength in this idea, unworthy as it was of the author's strategic ability. Ney was to advance immediately, while he himself pressed on to Hoyerswerda, where he hoped to establish connections for a common advance.

Such a concentration would have been possible if for a fortnight Macdonald had been able to hold Blücher, and Murat had succeeded in checking Schwarzenberg. But the news of Macdonald's plight compelled Napoleon to march first toward Bautzen, in order to prevent Blücher from annihilating the army in Silesia. Exasperated by this unexpected diversion, the Emperor started in a reckless, embittered temper. On September fifth it became evident that Blücher would not stand, and Napoleon prepared to wheel in the direction of Berlin; but the orders were almost immediately recalled, for news arrived that Schwarzenberg was marching to Dresden. At once Napoleon returned to the Saxon capital. By September tenth he had drawn in his forces, ready for a second defense of the city; but learning that sixty thousand Austrians had been sent over the Elbe to take on its flank any French army sent after Blücher, he ordered the young guard to Bautzen for the reinforcement of Macdonald. Thereupon Schwarzenberg, on the fourteenth, made a feint to advance. On the fifteenth Napoleon replied by a countermove on Pirna, where pontoons were thrown over the river to establish connection with Macdonald. On the sixteenth Napoleon reconnoitered, on the seventeenth there was a skirmish, and on the eighteenth there were again a push and counterpush. These movements convinced Napoleon that Schwarzenberg was really on the defensive, and he returned to Dresden, determined to let feint and counter-feint, the "system of hither and thither," as he called it, go on until the golden opportunity for a crushing blow should be offered. Blücher meantime had turned again on Macdonald, who was now on the heights of Fischbach with Poniatowski on his right. Mortier was again at Pirna; Victor, Saint-Cyr, and Lobau were guarding the mountain passes from Bohemia.

This was virtually the situation of a month previous to the battle. Schwarzenberg might feel that he had prevented the invasion of Austria; Napoleon, that he had regained his strong defensive. While the victory of Dresden had gone for nothing, yet this situation was nevertheless a double triumph for Napoleon. Ney, in obedience to orders, had advanced on the fifth. Bernadotte lay at Jüterbog, his right being westerly at Dennewitz, under Tauenzien. Bertrand was to make a demonstration on the sixth against the latter, so that behind this movement the rest of the army should pass by unnoticed. But Ney started three hours late, so that the skirmish between Tauenzien and Bertrand lasted long enough to give the alarm to Bülow, who hurried in, attacked Reynier's division, and turned the affair into a general engagement. At first the advantage was with the Prussians; then Ney, at an opportune moment, began to throw in Oudinot's corps—a move which seemed likely to decide the struggle in favor of the French. But Borstell, who had been Bülow's lieutenant at Grossbeeren, brought up his men in disobedience to Bernadotte's orders, and threw them into the thickest of the conflict. Hitherto the Saxons had been fighting gallantly on the French side; soon they began to waver, and now, falling back, they took up many of Oudinot's men in their flight. The Prussians poured into the gap left by the Saxons, and when Bernadotte came up with his Swedes and Russians the battle was over. Ney was driven into Torgau, with a loss of fifteen thousand men, besides eighty guns and four hundred train-wagons. The Prussians lost about nine thousand killed and wounded.

This affair concentrated into one movement the moral effects of all the minor defeats, an influence which far outweighed the importance of Dresden. The French still fought superbly in Napoleon's presence, but only then, for they were heartily sick of the war. Nor was this all: the Bavarians and Saxons were coming to feel that their obligations to France had been fully discharged. They were infected with the same national spirit which made heroes of the Prussians. These, to be sure, were defending their homes and firesides; but seeing the great French generals successively defeated, and that largely by their own efforts, they were animated to fresh exertions by their victories; even the reserves and the home guard displayed the heroism of veterans. On September seventh Ney wrote to Napoleon: "Your left flank is exhausted—take heed; I think it is time to leave the Elbe and withdraw to the Saale"; and his opinion was that of all the division commanders. Throughout the country-side partizans were seizing the supply-trains; Davout had found his Dutch and Flemings to be mediocre soldiers, unfit at crucial moments to take the offensive; the army had shrunk to about two hundred and fifty thousand men all told; straggling was increasing, and the country was virtually devastated. To this last fact the plain people, sufferers as they were, remained in their larger patriotism amazingly indifferent: the "hither-and-thither" system tickled their fancy, and they dubbed Napoleon the "Bautzen Messenger-boy." Uneasiness pervaded every French encampment; on the other side timidity was replaced by courage, dissension by unity.

This transformation of German society seemed further to entangle the political threads which had already debased the quality of Napoleon's strategy. Technically no fault can be found with his prompt changes of plan to meet emergencies, or with the details of movements which led to his prolonged inaction. Yet, largely considered, the result was disastrous. The great medical specialist refrains from the immediate treatment of a sickly organ until the general health is sufficiently recuperated to assure success; the medicaster makes a direct attack on evident disease. Napoleon conceived a great general plan for concentrating about Dresden to recuperate his forces; but when Blücher prepared to advance he grew impatient, saw only his immediate trouble, and ordered Macdonald to make a grand dash. Driving in the hostile outposts to Förstgen, he then spent a whole day hesitating whether to go on or to turn westward and disperse another detachment of his ubiquitous foe, which, as he heard from Ney, had bridged the Elbe at the mouth of the Black Elster. It was the twenty-third before he turned back to do neither, but to secure needed rest on the left bank of the Elbe. But if Napoleon's own definition of a truly great man be accurate,—namely, one who can command the situations he creates,—he was himself no longer great. The enemy not only had bridges over the Elbe at the mouth of the Elster, but at Acken and Rosslau. The left bank was as untenable for the French as the right, and it was of stern necessity that the various detachments of the army were called in to hold a line far westward, to the north of Leipsic. Oudinot, restored to partial favor, was left to keep the rear at Dresden with part of the young guard. On October first it was learned that Schwarzenberg was manœuvering on the left to surround the invaders if possible by the south, and that Blücher, with like aim, was moving to the north. It was evident that the allies had formed a great resolution, and Napoleon confessed to Marmont that his "game of chess was becoming confused."

The fact was, the Emperor's diplomacy had far outstripped the general's strategy. It was blazoned abroad that on September twenty-seventh a hundred and sixty thousand new conscripts from the class of 1815, with a hundred and twenty thousand from the arrears of the seven previous classes, would be assembled at the military depots in France. Boys like these had won Lützen, Bautzen, and Dresden, and a large minority would be able-bodied men, late in maturing, perhaps, but strong. With this preliminary blare of trumpets, a letter for the Emperor Francis was sent to General Bubna. The bearer was instructed to say that Napoleon would make great sacrifices both for Austria and Prussia if only he could get a hearing. It was too late: already, on September ninth, the three powers had concluded an offensive and defensive alliance for the purpose of liberating the Rhenish princes, of making sovereign and independent the states of southern and western Germany, and of restoring both Prussia and Austria to their limits of 1805. This was the treaty which beguiled Bavaria from the French alliance, and made the German contingents in the French armies, the Saxons among the rest, wild for emancipation from a hated service. It explained the notification previously received from the King of Bavaria, who, in return for the recognition of his complete autonomy, formally joined the coalition on October eighth, with an army of thirty-six thousand men. How much of all this the French spies and emissaries made known to Napoleon does not appear. One thing only is certain, that Napoleon's flag of truce was sent back with his message undelivered. This ominous fact had to be considered in connection with the movements of the enemy. They had learned one of Napoleon's own secrets. In a bulletin of 1805 are the words: "It rains hard, but that does not stop the march of the grand army." In 1806 he boasted concerning Prussia: "While people are deliberating, the French army is marching." In 1813, while he himself was vacillating, his foes were stirring. On October third, Blücher, having accomplished a superb strategic march, drove Bertrand to Bitterfeld, and stood before Kemberg, west of the Elbe, with sixty-four thousand men; Bernadotte, with eighty thousand, was crossing at Acken and Rosslau; and Schwarzenberg, with a hundred and seventy thousand, was already south of Leipsic; Bennigsen, with fifty thousand reserves, had reached Teplitz. The enemy would clearly concentrate at Leipsic and cut off Napoleon's base unless he retreated. But it was October fifth before the bitter resolution to do so was taken, and then the movement began under compulsion. Murat was sent, with three infantry corps and one of cavalry, to hold Schwarzenberg until the necessary manœuvers could be completed.

CHAPTER III

The End of the Grand Army [3]

Plans for Conducting the Retreat — Napoleon's Health — Blücher's Brilliant Idea — Napoleon under Compulsion — His Skilful Concentration — The Battle-field around Leipsic — The Attack — Results of the First Day's Fighting — Attempt to Negotiate — Napoleon's Apathy — The Positions of the Third Day — The Grand Army Defeated — The Disaster at the Elster Bridge — Dissolution of the Grand Army.

But how should the retreat be conducted? Napoleon's habit of reducing his thoughts to writing for the sake of clearness remained strong upon him to the last, and in the painstaking notes which he made with regard to this important move he outlined two alternatives: to garrison Dresden with two corps, send three to reconnoiter about Chemnitz, and then march, with five and the guard, to attack Schwarzenberg; or else to strengthen Murat, place him between Schwarzenberg and Leipsic, and then advance to drive Bernadotte and Blücher behind the Elbe. But in winter the frozen Elbe with its flat shores would be no rampart. Both plans were abandoned, and on the seventh orders were issued for a retreat behind the Saale, the precipitous banks of which were a natural fortification. Behind this line of defense he could rest in safety during the winter, with his right at Erfurt and his left at Magdeburg. Dresden must, he concluded, be evacuated. This would deprive the allies of the easy refuge behind the Saxon and Bohemian mountains which they had sought at every onset, but it might leave them complete masters of Saxony. To avoid this he must take one of three courses: either halt behind the Mulde for one blow at the armies of the North and of Silesia, or join Murat for a decisive battle with the Austrian general, or else concentrate at Leipsic, and meet the onset of the united allies, now much stronger than he was.

The night of the seventh was spent in indecision as to any one or all of these ideas, but in active preparation for the actual movements of the retreat, however it should be conducted; any contingency might be met or a resolve taken when the necessity arose. During that night the Emperor took two warm baths. The habit of drinking strong coffee to prevent drowsiness had induced attacks of nervousness, and these were not diminished by his load of care. To allay these and other ailments, he had had recourse for some time to frequent tepid baths. Much has been written about a mysterious malady which had been steadily increasing, but the burden of testimony from the Emperor's closest associates at this time indicates that in the main he had enjoyed excellent health throughout the second Saxon campaign. He was, on the whole, calm and self-reliant, exhibiting signs of profound emotion only in connection with important decisions. He was certainly capable of clear insight and of severe application in a crisis; he could still endure exhausting physical exertion, and rode without discomfort, sitting his horse in the same stiff, awkward manner as of old. There were certainly intervals of self-indulgence and of lassitude, of excessive emotion and depressing self-examination, which seemed to require the offset of a physical stimulus; but on the whole there do not appear to have been such sharp attacks of illness, or even of morbid depression, as amount to providential interference; natural causes, complex but not inexplicable, sufficiently account for the subsequent disasters.

For instance, considerations of personal friendship having in earlier days often led him to unwise decisions, a like cause may be said to have brought on his coming disaster. It was the affection of the Saxon king for his beautiful capital which at the very last instant, on October eighth, induced Napoleon to cast all his well-weighed scheme to the winds, and—fatal decision!—leave Saint-Cyr and Lobau, with three corps, in Dresden. A decisive battle was imminent; the commander was untrue to his maxim that every division should be under the colors. But with or without his full force, the master-strategist was outwitted: the expected meeting did not take place as he finally reckoned. On the tenth his headquarters were at Düben, and his divisions well forward on the Elbe, ready for Bernadotte and Blücher; but there was no foe. Both these generals had been disconcerted by the unexpected swiftness of the French movements; the former actually contemplated recrossing the river to avoid a pitched battle with those whom he hoped before long to secure as his subjects. But the enthusiastic old Prussian shamed his ally into action, persuading him at least to march south from Acken, effect a junction with the army of Silesia, and cross the Saale to threaten Napoleon from the rear. This was a brilliant and daring plan, for if successful both armies might possibly unite with Schwarzenberg's; but even if unsuccessful in that, they would at least reproduce the situation in Silesia, and reduce the French to the "hither-and-thither" system, which, rendering a decisive battle impossible, had thwarted the Napoleonic strategy.

Napoleon spent a weary day of waiting in Düben, yawning and scribbling, but keeping his geographer and secretary in readiness. It was said at the time, and has since been repeated, that throughout this portion of the campaign Napoleon was not recognizable as himself: that he ruminated long when he should have been active; that he consulted when he should have given orders; that he was no longer ubiquitous as of old, but sluggish, and rooted to one spot. But it is hard to see what he left undone, his judgment being mistaken as it was. When rumors of Bernadotte's movements began to arrive, he dismissed the idea suggested by them as preposterous; when finally, on the twelfth, he heard that Blücher was actually advancing to Halle, and no possible doubt remained, he gave instant orders for a march on Leipsic. Critics have suggested that again delay had been his ruin; but this is not true. An advance over the Elbe toward Berlin in search of the enemy would merely have enabled Blücher and Bernadotte to join forces sooner, and have rendered their union with Schwarzenberg easier. No stricture is just but one: that Napoleon, knowing how impossible it was to obtain such exact information as he seemed determined to have, should have divined the enemy's plan, and acted sooner. The accurate information necessary for such foresight was not obtainable; in fact, it seldom is, and some allowance may be made if the general lingered before rushing into the "tube of a funnel," as Marmont expressed it. On the morning of the thirteenth, while the final arrangements for marching to Leipsic were making, came the news of Bavaria's defection. It spread throughout the army like wildfire, but its effect was less than might be imagined, and it served for the priming of a bulletin, issued on the fifteenth, announcing the approaching battle.

On the fifteenth, Murat, who had been steadily withdrawing before the allied army of the South, was overtaken at Wachau by Schwarzenberg's van. He fought all day with magnificent courage, and successfully, hurling the hostile cavalry skirmishers back on the main column. Within sound of his guns, Napoleon was reconnoitering his chosen battle-field in and about Leipsic; and when, after nightfall, the brothers-in-law met, the necessary arrangements were virtually complete. Those who were present at the council thought the Emperor inexplicably calm and composed—they said indifferent or stolid. But he had reasons to be confident rather than desperate, for by a touch of his old energy he had concentrated more swiftly than his foe, having a hundred and seventy thousand men in array. Reynier, with fourteen thousand more, was near; if Saint-Cyr and Lobau, with their thirty thousand, had been present instead of sitting idly in Dresden, the French would actually have outnumbered any army the coalition could have assembled for battle. The allies could hope at best to produce two hundred thousand men; Bernadotte was still near Merseburg; Blücher, though coming in from Halle, was not within striking distance. In spite of his vacillation and final failure to evacuate Dresden, Napoleon had an excellent fighting chance.

The city of Leipsic, engirdled by numerous villages, lies in a low plain watered by the Parthe, Pleisse, and Elster, the last of which to the westward has several arms, with swampy banks. Across these runs the highway to Frankfort, elevated on a dike, and spanning the deep, central stream of the Elster by a single bridge. Eastward by Connewitz the land is higher, there being considerable swells, and even hills, to the south and southeast. This rolling country was that chosen by Napoleon for the main battle against Schwarzenberg; Marmont was stationed north of the city, near Möckern, to observe Blücher; Bernadotte, the cautious, was still at Oppin with his Swedes. On the evening of the fifteenth, his dispositions being complete, Napoleon made the tour of all his posts. At dusk three white rockets were seen to rise in the southern sky; they were promptly answered by four red ones in the north. These were probably signals between Schwarzenberg and Blücher. Napoleon's watch-fire was kindled behind the old guard, between Reudnitz and Crottendorf.

The battle began early next morning. Napoleon waited until nine, and then advanced at the head of his guards to Liebertwolkwitz, near Wachau, on the right bank of the Pleisse, where the decisive struggle was sure to occur, since the mass of the enemy, under Barclay, with Wittgenstein as second in command, had attacked in four columns at that point. Between the Pleisse and the Elster, near Connewitz, stood Poniatowski, opposed to Schwarzenberg and Meerveldt; westward of the Elster, near Lindenau, stood Bertrand, covering the single line of retreat, the Frankfort highway, and his antagonist was Gyulay. Thus there were four divisions in the mighty conflict, which began by an onset of the allies along the entire front. The main engagement was stubborn and bloody, the allies attacking with little skill, but great bravery. Until near midday Napoleon more than held his own. Victor at Wachau, and Lauriston at Liebertwolkwitz, had each successfully resisted six desperate assaults; between them were massed the artillery, a hundred and fifty guns, under Drouot, and behind, all the cavalry except that of Sebastiani. The great artillery captain was about to give the last splendid exhibition of what his arm can do under favorable circumstances—that is, when strongly posted in the right position and powerfully supported by cavalry. He intended, with an awful shock and swift pursuit, to break through the enemy's center at Güldengossa and surround his right. So great was his genius for combinations that while the allies were that moment using three hundred and twenty-five thousand effective men all told to his two hundred and fourteen thousand, yet in the decisive spot he had actually concentrated a hundred and fifteen thousand to their hundred and fourteen thousand. This was because Schwarzenberg, having attempted to outflank the French, was floundering to no avail in the swampy meadows between the Pleisse and the Elster, and was no longer a factor in the contest.

When, at midday, all was in readiness and the order was given, the artillery fire was so rapid that the successive shots were heard, not separately, but in a long, sullen note. By two, Victor and Oudinot on the right, with Mortier and Macdonald on the left, were well forward of Güldengossa, but the place itself still held out. At three the cavalry, under Murat, Latour-Maubourg, and Kellermann, were sped direct upon it. With awful effort they broke through, and the bells of Leipsic began to ring in triumph—prematurely. The Czar had peremptorily summoned from Schwarzenberg's command the Austro-Russian reserve, and at four these, with the Cossack guard, charged the French cavalry, hurling them back to Markkleeberg. Nightfall found Victor again at Wachau, and Macdonald holding Liebertwolkwitz. Simultaneously with the great charge of the allies Meerveldt had dashed out from Connewitz toward Dölitz, but his force was nearly annihilated, and he himself was captured. At Möckern, Marmont, after gallant work with inferior numbers, had been beaten on his left, and then compelled for safety to draw in his right. While he still held Gohlis and Eutritzsch, the mass of his army had been thrown back into Leipsic. Throughout the day Bertrand made a gallant and successful resistance to superior numbers, and drove that portion of the allied forces opposed to him away from Lindenau as far as Plagwitz. At nightfall three blank shots announced the cessation of hostilities all around.

In the face of superior numbers, the French had not lost a single important position, and whatever military science had been displayed was all theirs; Blücher made the solitary advance move of the allies, the seizure of Möckern by York's corps; Schwarzenberg had been literally mired in his attempt to outflank his enemy, and but for Alexander's peremptory recall of the reserves destined for the same task, the day would have been one of irretrievable disaster to the coalition. Yet Napoleon knew that he was lost unless he could retreat. Clearly he had expected a triumph, for in the city nothing was ready, and over the Elster was but one crossing, the solitary bridge on the Frankfort road. The seventeenth was the first day of the week; both sides were exhausted, and the Emperor of the French seems to have felt that at all hazards he must gain time. During the previous night long consultations had been held, and the French divisions to the south had been slightly compacted. In the morning Meerveldt, the captured Austrian general, the same man who after Austerlitz had solicited and obtained on the part of Francis an interview from Napoleon, was paroled, and sent into his own lines to ask an armistice, together with the intervention of Francis on the terms of Prague: renunciation of Poland and Illyria by Napoleon, the absolute independence of Holland, of the Hanse towns, of Spain, and of a united Italy. When we remember that England was paymaster to the coalition, and was fighting for her influence in Holland, and that Austria's ambition was for predominance in a disunited Italy, we feel that apparently Napoleon wanted time rather than hoped for a successful plea to his father-in-law.

This would be the inevitable conclusion except for the fact that he withdrew quietly to his tent and there remained; the resourceful general was completely apathetic, being either over-confident in his diplomatic mission or stunned by calamity. The day passed without incident except a momentary attack on Marmont, and the arrival of Bernadotte, who had been spurred to movement by a hint from Gneisenau concerning the terms on which Great Britain was to pay her subsidies. It was asserted at the time that Napoleon gave orders early in the morning for building numerous bridges over the western streams. If so, they were not executed, only a single flimsy structure being built, and that on the road leading from the town, not on the lines westward from his positions in the suburbs. His subordinates should have acted in so serious a matter even without orders; but, like the drivers of trains which run at lightning speed, they had, after years of high-pressure service, lost their nerve. Marmont asserts that even Napoleon was nerveless. "We were occupied," he wrote, "in restoring order among our troops; we should either have commenced our retreat, or at least have prepared the means to commence it at nightfall. But a certain carelessness on the part of Napoleon, which it is impossible to explain and difficult to describe, filled the cup of our sorrows." Considering who wrote these words, they must be taken with allowance; but they indicate a truth, that in his decadence this hitherto many-sided man could not be both general and emperor. No answer from Francis was received; the allies agreed on this course, and determined, according to their agreement with England, not to cease fighting till the last French soldier was over the Rhine. It was midnight when Napoleon finally drew in his posts and gave preliminary orders to dispose his troops in readiness either to fight or to retreat.

When day dawned on October eighteenth the French army occupied an entirely new position: the right wing, under Murat, lying between Connewitz and Dölitz; the center at Probstheida in a salient angle; the left, under Ney, with front toward the north between Paunsdorf and Gohlis. Within this arc, and close about the city, stood all the well-tried corps, infantry, artillery, and cavalry, under their various leaders of renown—Poniatowski, Augereau, Victor, Drouot, Kellermann, Oudinot, Latour-Maubourg, Macdonald, Marmont, Reynier, and Souham; Napoleon was on a hillock at Thonberg, with the old guard in reserve. His chief concern was the line of retreat, which was still open when, at seven, the fighting began. Schwarzenberg, with the left, could get no farther than Connewitz. Bennigsen, with the right, started to feel Bernadotte and complete the investment. Neither was entirely successful, but Marmont withdrew from before Blücher, and Ney from before Bernadotte and Bennigsen, in order to avoid being surrounded; so that the two French armies were united before nightfall on the western outskirts of the town, where Bertrand had routed Gyulay, and had kept open the all-important line of retreat, over which, since noon, trains of wagons had been passing. But magnificent as was the work of all these doughty champions on both sides, it was far surpassed in the center, where during the entire day, under Napoleon's eye, advance and resistance had been desperate. Men fell like grass before the scythe, and surging lines of their comrades moved on from behind. Such were the numbers and such the carnage that men have compared the conflict to that of the nations at Armageddon.

At Victor's stand, near Probstheida, the fighting was fiercer than the fiercest. The allied troops charged with fixed bayonets, rank after rank, column following on column; cannon roared while grape-shot and shells sped to meet the assailants; men said the air was full of human limbs; ten times Russians and Prussians came on, only to be ten times driven back. The very soil on which the assailants trod was human flesh. Hour after hour the slaughter continued. Occasionally the French attempted a rally, but only to be thrown back by musket fire and cavalry charge. It was the same at Stötteritz, where no one seemed to pause for breath. Woe to him who fell in fatigue: he was soon but another corpse in the piles over which new reinforcements came on to the assault or countercharge. At last there was scarcely a semblance of order; in hand-to-hand conflict men shouted, struggled, wrestled, thrust, advanced, and withdrew, and in neither combatants nor onlookers was there any sense of reality. By dusk the heated cannon were almost useless, the muskets entirely so, and, as darkness came down, the survivors fell asleep where they stood, riders in their saddles, horses in their tracks. Napoleon learned that thirty-five thousand Saxons on the left had gone over to the enemy, and some one of his staff handing him a wooden chair, he dropped into it and sank into a stupor almost as he touched it. For half an hour he sat in oblivion, while in the thickening darkness the marshals and generals gathered about the watch-fires, and stood with sullen mien to abide his awakening. The moon came slowly up, Napoleon awoke, orders were given to complete the dispositions for retreat already taken, and, there being nothing left to do, the Emperor, with inscrutable emotions, passed inside the walls of Leipsic to take shelter in an inn on the creaking sign-board of which were depicted the arms of Prussia!

Throughout the night French troops streamed over the stone bridge across the Elster; in the early morning the enemy began to advance, and ever-increasing numbers hurried away to gain the single avenue of retreat. Until midday Napoleon wandered aimlessly about the inner town, giving unimportant commands to stem the ever-growing confusion and disorder. Haggard, and with his clothing in disarray, he was not recognized by his own men, being sometimes rudely jostled. After an affecting farewell to the King of Saxony, in which his unhappy ally was instructed to make the best terms he could for himself, the Emperor finally fell into the throng and moved with it toward Lindenau. Halting near the Elster, a French general began to seek information from the roughly clad onlooker who, without a suite or even a single attendant, stood apparently indifferent, softly whistling, "Malbrook s'en va t'en guerre." Of course the officer started as he recognized the Emperor, but the conquered sovereign took no notice. Bystanders thought his heart was turned to stone. Still the rush of retreat went on, successfully also, in spite of some confusion, until at two some one blundered. By the incredible mistake of a French subaltern, as is now proven, the permanent Elster bridge was blown up, and the temporary one had long since fallen. Almost simultaneously with this irreparable disaster the allies had stormed the city, and the French rear-guard came thundering on, hoping to find safety in flight. Plunging into the deep stream, many, like Poniatowski, were drowned; some, like the wounded Macdonald, swam safely across. The scene was heartrending as horses, riders, and footmen rolled senseless in the dark flood, while others scrambled over their writhing forms in mad despair. Reynier and Lauriston, with twenty thousand men, were captured, the King of Saxony was sent a prisoner to Berlin, and Stein prepared to govern his domains by commission from the allies. By ten in the evening Bertrand was in possession of Weissenfels; Oudinot wheeled at Lindenau, and held the unready pursuers in check.

Next morning, the twentieth, Napoleon was alert and active; retreat began again, but only in tolerable order. Although he could not control the great attendant rabble of camp-followers and stragglers, he had nevertheless about a hundred and twenty thousand men under his standards; as many more, and those his finest veterans, were besieged and held in the fortresses of the Elbe, Oder, and Vistula by local militia. These places, he knew, would no longer be tenable; in fact, they began to surrender almost immediately, and the survivors of Leipsic were soon in a desperate plight from hunger and fatigue. Yet the commander gave no sign of sensibility. "'T was thus he left Russia," said the surly men in the ranks. Hunger-typhus appeared, and spread with awful rapidity; the country swarmed with partizans; the columns of the allies were behind and on each flank; fifty-six thousand Bavarians were approaching from Ansbach, under Wrede; at Erfurt all the Saxons and Bavarians still remaining under the French eagles marched away. The only foreign troops who kept true were those who had no country and no refuge, the unhappy Poles, who, though disappointed in their hopes, were yet faithful to him whom they wrongly believed to have been their sincere friend. Though stricken by all his woes, the Emperor was undaunted; the retreat from Germany was indeed perilous, but it was marked by splendid courage and unsurpassed skill. At Kösen and at Eisenach the allies were outwitted, and at Hanau, on the twenty-ninth, the Bavarians were overwhelmed in a pitched fight by an exhibition of personal pluck and calmness on Napoleon's part paralleled only by his similar conduct at Krasnoi in the previous year. At the head of less than six thousand men, he held in check nearly fifty thousand until the rest of his columns came up, when he fell with the old fire upon a hostile line posted with the river Kinzig in its rear, and not only disorganized it utterly, but inflicted on it a loss of ten thousand men, more than double the number which fell in his own ranks. But in spite of this brilliant success, the ravages of disease continued, and only seventy thousand men of the imperial army crossed the Rhine to Mainz. Soon the houses of that city were packed, and the streets were strewn with victims of the terrible hunger-typhus. They died by hundreds, and corpses lay for days unburied; before the plague was stayed thousands found an inglorious grave.

CHAPTER IV

The Frankfort Proposals [4]

Importance of the Battle of Leipsic — Decline of Napoleon's Powers — His Gentler Side — Disintegration of Napoleon's Empire — The Coalition and the Sentiment of Nationality — Reasons for the Parley at Frankfort — Insincerity of the Proposal — Napoleon and France — The Revolution and the Empire — Hollow Diplomacy.

The battle of Leipsic is one of the most important in general history. Apparently it was only the offset to Austerlitz, as the Beresina had been to Friedland. In reality it was far more, because it gave the hegemony of continental Europe to Prussia. French imperialism in its death-throes wiped out the score of royal France against the Hapsburgs; Austria was not yet banished from central Europe to the lower courses of the Danube, but, what was much the same thing, Prussia was launched upon her career of military aggrandizement. Three dynasties seemed in that battle to have celebrated a joint triumph; as a matter of fact, the free national spirit of Germany, having narrowly escaped being smothered by Napoleonic imperialism, had chosen a national dynasty as its refuge. The conflict is well designated by German historians as "the battle of the nations," but the language has a different sense from that which is generally attributed to it. The seeds of Italian unity had been sown, but they were not yet to germinate. The battle of Leipsic seemed to check them, yet it was the process there begun under which they sprang up and bore fruit. France was destined to become for a time the sport of an antiquated dynastic system. The liberties which men of English blood had been painfully developing for a century she sought to seize in an instant; she was to see them still elude her grasp for sixty years, until her democratic life, having assumed consistency, should find expression in institutions essentially and peculiarly her own. Though the conquering monarchs believed that revolutionary liberalism had been quenched at Leipsic, its ultimate triumph was really assured, since it was consigned to its natural guardianship, that of national commonwealths. The imperial agglomeration of races and nationalities was altogether amorphous and had been found impossible; that form of union was not again attempted after Leipsic, while another—that, namely, of constitutional organic nationalities—was made operative. The successive stages of advance are marked by 1813, 1848, and 1870.

The Saxon campaigns display the completion of the process in which the great strategist, stifled by political anxieties, became the creature of circumstances both as general and statesman. The Russian campaign was nicely calculated, but its proportions and aim were those of the Oriental theocrat, not of the prosaic European soldier. With the aid of the railroad and the electric telegraph, they might possibly have been wrought into a workable problem, but that does not excuse the errors of premature and misplaced ambition. The Saxon campaigns, again, are marked by a boldness of design and a skill in combination characteristic of the best strategy; but again the proportions are monstrous, and, what is worse, the execution is intermittent and feeble. As in Russia, the war organism was insufficient for the numbers and distances involved, while the subordinates of every grade, though supple instruments, seemed mercenary, self-seeking, and destitute of devotion. Bonaparte had ruled men's hearts by his use of a cause, securing devotion to it and to himself by rude bonhomie, by success, and by sufficient rewards; Napoleon, on the other hand, quenched devotion by a lavishness which sated the greediest, and lost the affections of his associates by the demands of his gigantic plans.

As the world-conqueror felt the foundations of his greatness quivering, he became less callous and more human. Early in 1813 he said: "I have a sympathetic heart, like another, but since earliest childhood I have accustomed myself to keep that string silent, and now it is altogether dumb." His judgment of himself was mistaken: throughout the entire season he was strangely and exceptionally moved by the horrors of war; his purse was ever open for the suffering; he released the King of Saxony from his entangling engagements; in spite of his hard-set expression on the retreat from Leipsic, he forbade his men to fire the suburbs of the city in order to retard the pursuit of their foes, and before he left Mainz for St. Cloud he showed the deepest concern, and put forth the strongest effort, in behalf of the dying soldiery.

The immediate effects of Leipsic were the full display of that national spirit which had been refined, if not created, in the fires of Napoleon's imperious career. An Austrian army under Hiller drove Eugène over the Adige. The Italians, not unsusceptible to the power in the air, felt their humiliation, and, turning on their imperial King in bitter hate, determined, under the influence of feelings most powerfully expressed by Alfieri, that they would emulate northern Europe. But though they had for years been subject to the new influences, enjoying the equal administration of the Code Napoléon, and freed from the interference of petty local tyrants, they were neither united nor enlightened in sufficient degree. After an outburst of hatred to France, they were crushed by their old despots, and the land relapsed into the direst confusion. The Confederation of the Rhine was, however, resolved into its elements: the Mecklenburgs reasserted their independence; King Jerome fled to France; Würtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Baden followed Bavaria's example; Cassel, Brunswick, Hanover, and Oldenburg were craftily restored to their former rulers before Stein's bureau could establish an administration. Holland recalled the Prince of Orange, Spain rose to support Wellington, and Soult was not merely driven over the Pyrenees—he was defeated on French soil, and shut up in Bayonne.

Even the three monarchs, as they sedately moved across Germany with their exhausted and battered armies, were aware of nationality as a controlling force in the future. In a direct movement on Paris they could, as Ney said, "have marked out their days in advance," but they halted at Frankfort for a parley. There were several reasons why they should pause. They had seen France rise in her might; they did not care to assist at the spectacle again. Moreover, the coalition had accomplished its task and earned its pay; not a Frenchman, except real or virtual prisoners, was left east of the Rhine. From that point the interests of the three monarchs were divergent. As Gentz, the Austrian statesman, said, "The war for the emancipation of states bids fair to become one for the emancipation of the people." Alexander, Frederick William, and Francis were each and all anxious for the future of absolutism, but otherwise there was mutual distrust. Austria was suspicious of Prussia, and desired immediate peace. In the restoration of Holland under English auspices, Russia saw the perpetuation of British maritime and commercial supremacy, to the disadvantage of her Oriental aspirations, and the old Russian party demanded peace. On the other hand, Alexander wished to avenge Napoleon's march to Moscow by an advance to Paris; and though Frederick William distrusted what he called the Czar's Jacobinism, his own soldiers, thirsting for further revenge, also desired to prosecute the war; even the most enlightened Prussian statesmen believed that nothing short of a complete cataclysm in France could shake Napoleon's hold on that people and destroy his power. Offsetting these conflicting tendencies against one another, Metternich was able to secure military inaction for a time, while the coalition formulated a series of proposals calculated to woo the French people, and thus to bring Napoleon at once to terms.

Ostensibly the Frankfort proposals, adopted on November ninth, were only a slight advance on the ultimatum of Prague: Austria was to have enough Italian territory to secure her preponderance in that peninsula; France was to keep Savoy, with Nice; the rest of Italy was to be independent. Holland and Spain liberated, France was to have her "natural" boundaries, the Alps, the Pyrenees, the ocean, and the Rhine. Napoleon was to retain a slight preponderance in Germany, and the hope was held out that in a congress to settle details for a general pacification, Great Britain, content with the "maritime rights" which had caused the war, would hand back the captured French colonies. The various ministers present at Frankfort assented to these proposals for Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia respectively; but Alexander and Frederick William were dissatisfied with them, and when Castlereagh heard them, he was as furious as his cold blood would permit at the thought of France retaining control of the Netherlands, Antwerp being the commercial key to central Europe.

Such a humor in three of the high contracting parties makes it doubtful whether the Frankfort proposals had any reality, and this doubt is further increased by the circumstances of the so-called negotiation. St. Aignan, the French envoy to the Saxon duchies, had in violation of international law and courtesy been seized at Gotha and held as a prisoner. He was now set free and instructed to urge upon Napoleon the necessity of an immediate settlement. To his brother-in-law, the pacific Caulaincourt, who was soon to displace Maret as minister of foreign affairs, he was to hand a private and personal letter from Metternich. In the course of this epistle the writer expresses his conviction that any effort to conclude a peace would come to nothing. Not only, therefore, were the pretended negotiations entirely destitute of form, they were prejudged from the outset. Still further, the allies refused what Napoleon had granted after Bautzen, an armistice, and insisted that hostilities were to proceed during negotiation. All possible doubt as to the sincerity of the proposals is turned into assurance by Metternich's admission in his memoirs that they were intended to divorce Napoleon from the French nation, and in particular to work on the feelings of the army. He says that neither Alexander nor Frederick William would have assented to them had they not been convinced that Napoleon would "never in the world of his own accord" resolve to accept them. Yet the world has long believed that Napoleon, as he himself expressed it, lost his crown for Antwerp; that had he believed the honeyed words of the Austrian minister, and opened negotiations on an indefinite basis without delay, he might have kept France with its revolutionary boundaries intact for himself and his dynasty, and by the sacrifice of his imperial ambitions have retained for her, if not preponderance, at least importance in the councils of Europe.

Neither Napoleon nor the French nation was deceived; a peace made under such circumstances could result only in a dishonorable tutelage to the allied sovereigns. France abhorred the dynasties and all their works, believing that dynastic rule could never mean anything except absolutism and feudalism. The experiment of popular sovereignty wielded by a democracy had been a failure; but the liberal French, like men of the same intelligence throughout Europe, did not, for all that, lose faith in popular sovereignty; they knew there must be some channel for its exercise. Outside of France, as in it, the most enlightened opinion of the time regarded Napoleon as the savior of society. The Queen of Saxony bitterly reproached Metternich for having deserted Napoleon's "sacred cause." This was because the Emperor of the French seemed to have used the people's power for the people's good. His giant arm alone could wield the popular majesty. It is said that the great mass of the French nation, on hearing of the Frankfort proposals, groaned and laughed by turns. Being profoundly, devotedly imperialist and therefore idealistic, they were outraged at the thought of Hapsburgs, Romanoffs, or Hohenzollerns, the very incarnations of German feudality, as leaders of the new Europe. It seemed the irony of fate that civil and political rights on the basis, not of privilege, but of manhood, the prize for which the world had been turned upside down, should be intrusted to such keepers. Welded into a homogeneous nationality themselves, the French could not understand that the inchoate nationalities in other states had as yet nothing but dynastic forms of expression, or foresee that during a century to come the old dynasties would find safety only in adapting royalty to national needs.

Napoleon seems to have been fully aware of French sentiment. In addition, he understood that not merely for this sufficient reason could he never be king of France in name or fact, but also that, having elsewhere harried and humiliated both peoples and dynasties in the name of revolutionary ideals, the masses had found him out, and were as much embittered as their rulers, believing him to be a charlatan using dazzling principles as a cloak for personal ambition. In May, 1813, the Emperor Francis, anxious to salve the lacerated pride of the Hapsburgs, produced a bundle of papers purporting to prove that the Bonapartes had once been ruling princes at Treviso. "My nobility," was Napoleon's stinging reply, "dates only from Marengo." He well knew that when the battle should be fought that would undo Marengo, his nobility would end. In other words, without solid French support he was nothing, and that support he was fully aware he could never have as king of France. If the influence of what France improperly believed to be solely the French Revolution were to be confined to her boundaries, revolutionary or otherwise, not only was Napoleon's prestige destroyed, but along with it would go French leadership in Europe. An imperial throne there must be, exerting French influence far abroad. What happened at Paris, therefore, may be regarded as a counter-feint to Metternich's effort at securing an advantageous peace from the French nation when it should have renounced Napoleon. It was merely an attempt to collect the remaining national strength, not now for aggressive warfare, but for the expulsion of hated invaders.

Having received no formulated proposition for acceptance or rejection, and desiring to force one, the Emperor of the French virtually disregarded the letter of Metternich's communication, and sent a carefully considered message to the allies. Making no mention in this of the terms brought by St. Aignan, he suggested Caulaincourt as plenipotentiary to an international congress, which should meet somewhere on the Rhine, say at Mannheim. Further, he declared that his object had always been the independence of all the nations, "from the continental as well as from the maritime point of view." This communication reached Frankfort on November sixteenth, and, whether wilfully or not, was misinterpreted to mean that the writer would persist in questioning England's maritime rights. Thereupon Metternich replied by accepting Mannheim as the place for the proposed conference, and promised to communicate the language of Napoleon's letter to his co-allies. How far these co-allies were from a sincere desire for peace is proven by their next step, taken almost on the date of Metternich's reply. A proclamation was widely posted in the cities of France, which stated, in a cant borrowed from Napoleon's own practice, that the allies desired France "to be great, strong, and prosperous"; they were making war, it was asserted, not "on France, but on that preponderance which Napoleon had too long exercised, to the misfortune of Europe and of France herself, to which they guaranteed in advance an extent of territory such as she never had under her kings." Napoleon's riposte was to despatch a swarm of trusty emissaries throughout France in order to compose all quarrels of the people with the government, to strengthen popular devotion in every possible way—in short, to counteract the possible effects of this call. The messengers found public opinion thoroughly imperial, but profoundly embittered against Maret as the supposed instigator of disastrous wars. Maret was transferred to the department of state, and the pacific Caulaincourt was made minister of foreign affairs. On December second, at the earliest possible moment, the new minister addressed a note to Metternich, accepting the terms of the "general and summary basis." This, said the despatch, would involve great sacrifices; but Napoleon would feel no regret if only by a similar abnegation England would provide the means for a general, honorable peace. Metternich replied that nothing now stood in the way of convening a congress, and that he would notify England to send a plenipotentiary. There, however, the matter ended, and Metternich's record of those Frankfort days scarcely notices the subject, so interested is he in the squabbles of the sovereigns over the opening of a new campaign. It was the end of the year when they reached an agreement.

CHAPTER V

The Invasion of France [5]

Amazing Schemes of Napoleon for New Levies — Attitude of the People toward the Empire — The Disaffected Elements — Napoleon's Armament — Activity of the Imperialists — Release of Ferdinand and the Pope — Napoleon's Farewell to Paris — His Strategic Plan — France against Europe — The Conduct of Bernadotte — Murat's Defection — Conflicting Interests of the Allies — Positions of the Opponents at the Outbreak of Hostilities.

1813-14

What happened in France between the first days of November, 1813, when Napoleon reached St. Cloud, and the close of the year, is so incredible that it scarcely seems to belong in the pages of sober history. Of five hundred and seventy-five thousand Frenchmen, strictly excluding Germans and Poles, who had been sent to war during 1812 and 1813, about three hundred thousand were prisoners or shut up in distant garrisons, and a hundred and seventy-five thousand were dead or missing; therefore a hundred thousand or thereabouts remained under arms and ready for active service. By various decrees of the Emperor and the senate, nine hundred and thirty-six thousand more were called to arms: a hundred and sixty thousand from the classes between 1804 and 1814, whether they had once served or not; a hundred and sixty thousand from the class of 1815; a hundred and seventy-six thousand five hundred were to be enrolled in the regular national guard, and a hundred and forty thousand in a home guard; finally, in a comprehensive sweep from all the classes between 1804 and 1814 inclusive, every possible man was to be drawn. This, it was estimated, would produce three hundred thousand more.

It is easy to exaggerate the significance of these enormous figures, for to the layman they would seem to mean that every male capable of bearing arms was to be taken. But this was far from being the case; contrary to the general impression, the population of France had been and was steadily increasing. In spite of all the butcheries of foreign and civil wars, the number of inhabitants was growing at the rate of half a million yearly, and the country could probably have furnished three times the number called out. Moreover, less than a third of the nine hundred and thirty-six thousand were ever organized, and not more than an eighth of them fought. This disproportion between plan and fulfilment was due partly to official incapacity or worse, partly to a popular resistance which was not due to disaffection. It speaks volumes for the state of the country that even the hated flying columns, with their thorough procedure, could not find the men, especially the fathers, husbands, and only sons, who were the solitary supports of many families. The fields were tilled by the spades of women and children, for there were neither horses to draw nor men to hold the plows. Government pawn-shops were gorged, and the government storehouses were bursting with manufactured wares for which there was no market; government securities were worth less than half their face, the currency had disappeared, and usury was rampant. Yet it seems certain that four fifths of the people associated none of these miseries with Napoleonic empire. The generation which had grown to maturity under Napoleon saw only one side of his activities: the majestic public works he had inaugurated, the glories of France and the splendors of empire during the intervals of peace, the exhaustion and abasement of her foes in a long series of splendid campaigns—all this they associated with the imperial rule, and desired what they supposed was a simple thing, the Empire and peace.

The other fifth was, however, thoroughly aroused. When the legislature convened on December nineteenth, and the diplomatic correspondence was so cleverly arranged and presented as to make the allies appear implacable, an address to the throne was passed, amid thunderous applause and by a large majority, which virtually called for a return to constitutional government as the price of additional war supplies. In sober moments even the most ardent liberals were ashamed, feeling that this was not an opportune moment for disorganizing such administration as there was by calls for the reform of the constitution. Only one question was imperative, the awful responsibility they had for the national identity. The general public was so outraged by the spectacle that the deputies reconsidered their action, and by a vote of two hundred and fifty-four to two hundred and twenty-three struck out the obnoxious clause. But this did not appease Napoleon, who made no attempt to conceal his rage, and prorogued the chamber in scorn. His support was ample in the almost universal conviction that at such a moment there was no time for parleying about abstract questions of political rights; but every cavilling deputy had some friends at home, and in a crisis where the very existence of France was jeopardized there were agitations by the reactionary radicals. The royalists kept silent then, and for months later, contenting themselves with biting innuendos or witty double meanings; drinking, for instance, to "the Emperor's last victory," when the newspapers announced "the last victory of the Emperor."

The first conscription from the classes of 1808-1814 was thoroughly successful, the second attempt to glean from them was an utter failure; the effort to forestall the draft of 1815 met with resistance, and was abandoned. It was impossible to organize the home guards and reserves, for they rebelled or escaped, and local danger had to be averted by local volunteers who were designated as "sedentary" because they could not be ordered away. By the end of January not more than twenty thousand men had been secured for general service from all classes other than the first—at least that was approximately the number in the various camps of instruction. In order to arm and equip the recruits, Napoleon had recourse to his private treasure, drawing fifty-five million francs from the vaults of the Tuileries for that purpose. The remaining ten were transferred at intervals to Blois. But all his treasure could not buy what did not exist. The best military stores were in the heart of Europe; the French arsenals could afford only antiquated and almost useless supplies. The recruits were armed, some with shot-guns and knives, some with old muskets, the use of which they did not know; they were for the most part without uniforms, and wore bonnets, blouses, and sabots. There were not half enough horses for the scanty artillery and cavalry. Worse than all, there was no time for instruction in the manual and tactics. On one occasion a boy conscript was found standing inactive under a fierce musketry fire; with artless intrepidity he remarked that he believed he could aim as well as anybody if he only knew how to load his gun!

Napoleon in 1813
From a painting by Aimable-Louis-Claude Pagnest.

The disaffected, though few, were powerful and active, suborning the prefects and civic authorities by every device, issuing proclamations which promised anything and everything, and procuring plans of fortified places for the allies. Talleyrand began to utter oracular innuendos about the vindictiveness of the allies, the desertion of Murat, the sack of Paris, and various half-truths more dangerous even than lies. The air was so full of rumors that, although there was no widespread revolutionary movement, there were now and then serious panics; the town of Chaumont surrendered to a solitary Würtemberg horseman. But when the populace of the country at large began to wonder who the coming Bourbon might be, and what he would take back from the present possessors of royal and ecclesiastical estates, they were staggered. People in the cities heard with some satisfaction the strains of the "Marseillaise," which by order of imperial agents were once again ground out around the streets by the hand-organs. Napoleon walked the avenues of Paris without escort, and was wildly cheered; the Empress and her little son were produced on public occasions with dramatic success, and popular wit dubbed the boy conscripts by the name of "Marie Louises." The little men showed a grim determination and eventually a sublime courage, but they never could acquire the veteran steadfastness which wins battles. Journals, theaters, music-halls, and public balls were all managed in the interest of imperial patriotism; imperial tyranny dealt ruthlessly with suspicious characters. Yet the imperialists had their doubts, and many, like Savary, threw an anchor to windward by storing treasure at distant points, and sending their families to safe retreats. On the whole, the balance of public opinion at the opening of 1814 was overwhelmingly imperialist both in the cities and in the country. Men ardently desired peace, but they wanted it with honor and under the Empire.

That the Empire desired peace seemed to be proved by steps for the release of its two most important prisoners, the King of Spain and the Pope. Wellington thought that if the former had been despatched directly into his kingdom on December eighth, the day on which the conditions between himself and the Emperor were signed, England would have found the further conduct of the war impossible. Talleyrand, already deep in royalist plots, must have been of the same opinion, for he did not advise haste, but craftily suggested to his prisoner that the provisional government of Spain might refuse to accept him as king unless the treaty of release had been previously ratified by the Cortes. Accordingly it was referred to them, and, since the liberals desired the assent to their new constitution of a king not under duress, by their influence it was rejected. It was not until March, 1814, that Ferdinand was unconditionally released, and this delay proved fatal to Napoleon's interests in Spain. The liberals could no longer fight for free institutions, because it was then clear that the dynastic conservatism of Europe was to win a temporary victory. In about six months King Ferdinand undid the progressive work of six years, and Spain relapsed into absolutism and ecclesiasticism, with all their attendant evils. Nevertheless, France interpreted the conduct of the Emperor as indicating an earnest desire for peace, and this feeling had been strengthened by the absolutely unconditional release of the Pope on January twenty-second. This apparently gracious concession was effective among the masses, who did not know, as the Emperor did, that the allies were already on French soil.

The very next day Napoleon performed his last official act, which was one of great courage both physical and moral. The national guard in Paris had been reorganized, but its leaders had never been thoroughly loyal, many of them being royalists, some radical republicans, and the disaffection of both classes had been heightened by recent events. But the officers were nevertheless summoned to the Tuileries; the risk was doubled by the fact that they came armed. Drawn up in the vast chamber known as that of the marshals, they stood expectant; the great doors were thrown open, and there entered the Emperor, accompanied only by his consort and their child in the arms of his governess, Mme. de Montesquiou. Napoleon announced simply that he was about to put himself at the head of his army, hoping, by the aid of God and the valor of his troops, to drive the enemy beyond the frontiers. There was silence. Then, taking in one hand that of the Empress, and leading forward his child by the other, he continued, "I intrust the Empress and the King of Rome to the courage of the national guard." Still silence. After a moment, with suppressed emotion, he concluded, "My wife and my son." No generous-hearted Frenchman could withstand such an appeal; breaking ranks by a spontaneous impulse, the listeners started forward in a mass, and shook the very walls with their cry, "Long live the Emperor!" Many shed tears, and felt, as they withdrew in respectful silence, a new sense of devotion welling up in their hearts. On the eve of his departure, the Emperor received a numerously signed address from the very men whose loyalty he had hitherto had just reason to suspect.

It was four in the morning of January twenty-fifth when Napoleon left for Châlons. From that moment he was no longer Emperor. During the long winter nights just past he had wrought with an intensity and a feverish activity which he had never surpassed, sparing neither himself nor others, displaying no consideration for prejudice or honest opposition, calling on every Frenchman to sacrifice everything for France, to which, as he vehemently asserted, he himself was more necessary than she to him. If he had come honestly to believe what millions of others believed, it was little wonder; he had thenceforth but one aim—to prove that he was, as of yore, the first general of France, the only one able to save the country in an hour when all her glories were falling in wreck about her. His strategic plans, immense and intricate as was his task, were complete and excellent. The first was intended to prevent invasion by way of Liège, the most direct line and that which Prussia preferred. The second, which was partly defensive, was the one eventually used against the clumsy form of advance actually chosen by the invaders. Of the two, the former was the more brilliant, but the second was almost as clever. By it the Rhine bank was divided into three parts for purposes of defense. Macdonald was stationed at Cologne to protect the lower course; Marmont was to guard the central stretch, and they two divided between them the remnants of the army which had been swept out of Germany; Victor was stationed on the upper course to command the garrisons of the great frontier fortifications and strengthen himself by the new levies; Bertrand remained as a sort of rear post on the right bank of the river at Kastel, opposite Mainz. All told, these generals had at first only fifty thousand men.

The allies no sooner obtained possession of central Europe than they outdid its recent master in every species of exaction. The countries which had formed the Confederacy of the Rhine were compelled almost to double the number of the contingents they had raised for France, and to organize every fencible man into either the first or second line of reserves, called by the old feudal terms of ban and arrière-ban. At the same time the allies demanded and obtained new subsidies both of money and arms from Great Britain. In the three armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, as they stood on the Rhine, there were ready by January first about two hundred and eighty-five thousand men. By the end of February the army-lists of France, excluding the national guards, displayed a total of six hundred and fifty thousand men; the coalition, including England, had registered nearly a million. Deducting forty per cent. as ample to cover all shortcomings, we may say that France, with three hundred and ninety thousand in the ranks, men and boys, faced Europe with six hundred thousand full-grown men. These figures include the French armies of Catalonia, of the Pyrenees, of Italy, and of the Netherlands, together with the garrisons in all the strong places then held by France on both sides of the Rhine; they also include the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian reserves, with the national armies of Holland, Spain, and Italy.

Aside from the centrifugal forces inherent in the coalition, there was one which threatened its disintegration: the erratic character of the great Gascon who represented Sweden. Bernadotte's first care, after the battle of Leipsic, was to move north and secure the long-coveted prize of Norway. Ever mindful of the hint about a French crown, which Alexander had thrown out as still another bait at Abo, he gave as his parting admonition the transparent advice that the coming campaign should be confined to a frontier invasion of France, and at Hamburg he actually offered Davout, as the price of surrender, a safe return for himself and his army to their native land! This was too much; Alexander was furious, and the schemer was peremptorily ordered to leave a sufficient investing force before the city and return with the rest of his army to the lower Rhine. There he was suffered to remain in idleness, the task assigned to him being that of watching the Netherlands; two of his best corps were withdrawn from him and assigned to Blücher.

Nor was Napoleon free from his thorn in the flesh. In a bulletin published by him after the retreat from Moscow was a passage which implied some censure of Murat for his lack of stability. This both the King of Naples and his spouse bitterly resented, the latter roundly abusing her brother in their correspondence. This was an excellent pretext for desertion when the general crash appeared imminent, and at Erfurt the dashing and gallant, but weak and testy, monarch decamped. Hastening south, he entered at once into alliance with Austria, and then, putting himself at the head of eighty thousand Neapolitans, set out for Rome, waging a terrific warfare of proclamations. Eugène, too,—and this was an elemental disaster,—was virtually checkmated by the defection of his father-in-law, the King of Bavaria, which opened the Tyrol to the allies. All Italy was consequently lost. Augereau, whose feeble loyalty to Napoleon was already at the vanishing-point, had been appointed to take forty thousand conscripts, collect any straggling soldiers he could find in southeastern France, and keep open the door out of Italy for some or all of Eugène's veterans, with whose assistance it was hoped the marshal could form an army for the defense of the Vosges Mountains. But Eugène, having fought the indecisive battle of Roverbello, and finding himself in a sorry plight from both the military and political points of view, could send no reinforcements until April, when finally he concluded an armistice releasing his army. Augereau therefore found himself opposite Bubna at Geneva with an ineffective force, and with very little heart to wield what he had. This ended Napoleon's grand scheme for uniting the forces of Italy, Naples, Switzerland, and France.

Prussia was now the ablest as well as the bitterest of Napoleon's foes, Stein, Blücher, Gneisenau, and their friends aiming at nothing short of annihilating the Napoleonic power. This was, no doubt, due in part to a thirst for revenge; but in the main it was due to the longing for such a leadership in Germany as would spread abroad the new doctrines of liberal and constitutional monarchy, in order to restrain Austria's ever-increasing influence. The councils of the allies presented an amusing spectacle. The Prussians urged an immediate advance by the best line for invasion, that, namely, from Liège and Brussels; but the Austrians, except Radetzky, drew back, fearing Prussia almost equally with France. The Czar held the balance, but his scales were very sensitive, inclining often toward Prussia, but settling in the end to a compromise suggested by Schwarzenberg and Metternich. Having imitated Napoleon in his practice of war requisitions, the allies now determined to imitate him in contempt for international law, and to violate Swiss neutrality. The plan which they adopted was to throw their main army into France by way of Basel, and thus turn the line of frowning fortresses behind the Rhine, as well as the Vosges Mountains. Blücher was to cross the middle Rhine, and Bülow, with thirty thousand men, was to coöperate with the English troops under Graham in the Netherlands. The whole scheme was unmilitary, but it exactly suited Metternich, who, having on January thirteenth first learned of Bernadotte's understanding with the Czar about the crown of France, was very uneasy. Both he and Schwarzenberg desired to end the war on the frontier, if possible; Prussia's power and Alexander's ambitions for European preponderance were far more dangerous to Austria than a Napoleonic empire confined to France.

Blücher, leaving twenty-eight thousand men before Mainz, crossed the Saar on January ninth with forty-seven thousand; Schwarzenberg, with the main army arrayed in four columns, two hundred and nine thousand strong, crossed the Rhine at or near Basel and moved toward Langres. The thin, straggling French columns began to retreat concentrically toward Châlons on the Marne. At the opening of the second stage in the campaign Blücher had invested the Mosel fortresses, and was advancing, with less than thirty thousand men, toward Arcis on the Aube; Schwarzenberg was in and about Langres; and the French were concentrated on a line from Vitry-le-François to St. Dizier. Napoleon reached Châlons on the twenty-sixth, having left Joseph to represent him in Paris. The wily strategist, feeble as was his strength, had momentarily secured the advantage over his unwieldy foe, having wedged himself between the invading armies, and being quite strong enough, with the forty thousand soldiers in his ranks, to cope with Blücher.

CHAPTER VI

Napoleon's Supreme Effort [6]

The Fertility of Genius — The Battles of Brienne and La Rothière — The French Retreat — Victory at Champaubert — Victory at Montmirail — Victory at Vauchamps — Success Engenders Delusion — Insincerity of the Allies — Their Clashing Interests — The Congress of Châtillon — Napoleon's Procrastination — French Victory and French Diplomacy.

1814

The year 1814 is the most astonishing of Napoleon's military life. He first conceived a plan for combining the resources of Italy, Switzerland, Naples, and France. This failed by Augereau's sloth and Murat's ingratitude. Nothing daunted, the fertile brain then outlined schemes for meeting the quick advance of the allies through the Netherlands, for defending the Rhine frontier, and for a levy en masse of the French people to hurl back invasion under the walls of Paris. After taking the field, the daring of his conceptions, the rapidity of his movements, the surprises he prepared for his enemy, the support he wrung from an exhausted land, the devotion he received from a panting, ill-clothed army at bay—all are so remarkable that by contrast the allies appear to be a lumbering, stupid mass. With another antagonist they would have appeared in a very different light; Gneisenau's clear head, Blücher's daring, Radetzky's good sense and courage, together with the valor of the forces at their back, would have won the goal far more easily with an ordinary, or even an extraordinary, combatant in Napoleon's plight. The Emperor of the French had not merely a prestige worth a hundred thousand men, as he was fond of reckoning: he had an activity of mind and body, a reservoir of resources, which made his single blade cover the whole circumference of defense like the whirling spokes of a fiery wheel.

After a skirmish for the possession of St. Dizier, the campaign opened at Brienne, where Blücher, hurrying to gain touch with the main army of the allies, was caught on January twenty-ninth. The conflict probably did not recall to Napoleon his mock conflicts when a schoolboy near the same spot. The terrific struggle began late in the afternoon, and lasted in full fury until midnight, when the Prussian general, narrowly escaping capture, abandoned the town and hurried toward Trannes. Thoroughly beaten, he needed not touch alone, but actual union with the Austrians, and this he gained near Bar on the Aube, whence Schwarzenberg was passing on toward Auxerre. Ignorant of this success, Napoleon now drew up his line with its center at La Rothière, hoping in the first place to hold the bridge over the Aube at Lesmont, and thus secure the moral effect of his victory at Brienne, and in the second to bring on another engagement with Blücher, whom he believed to be still isolated. Marmont was at Montierender, Mortier was summoned from before Troyes. This stand of Napoleon's was a desperate attempt to overawe the allied sovereigns, for strategically it was fatal, since in the case of either victory or defeat the French army was in danger of being outflanked by Schwarzenberg's advance, and thus cut off from Paris. On February first, Blücher, reinforced by twelve thousand of the Russian guard, attacked. The battle lasted, with fluctuating success for the allies, during two days, and at its close Napoleon safely retreated over the Aube to make another stand at Troyes. The various conflicts were terrific; in the end Blücher lost six thousand dead and wounded, the French about four thousand. The odds against the latter were never less than two to one, sometimes more. Had the allies first thrown their full strength into the contest, and had they then followed up their victory by a well-organized pursuit, the campaign would have ended there. As it was, they paused, permitted a disorganized, feeble enemy to escape, and gained nothing from the bloody conflict except an ill-founded self-confidence. Blücher wrote on the evening of the battle that they would be in Paris within eight days. To General Reynier, who was to be liberated by an exchange of prisoners, the Czar said: "We shall be in Paris before you." A council of war was called which decided for an advance on the French capital in two columns; to Blücher, as the conqueror of La Rothière, was assigned the shortest line, that down the Marne.

For several days the allied lines moved onward, slowly, widely scattered, and carelessly. Napoleon was as calm and undaunted as if he had been the victor. Retreating on the defensive with careful deliberation, he strengthened his forces by well-chosen periods of rest, and by hurrying in reinforcements from the various depots about and beyond Paris. On the afternoon of February ninth, when leaving Nogent for Sézanne, he wrote to his brother Joseph, whom he had left to represent his interests at Paris, that he could now reckon, all told, on between sixty and seventy thousand men, including engineers and artillery; that he estimated the Silesian army under Blücher at forty-five thousand, and the main army under Schwarzenberg at a hundred and fifty thousand, including Bubna and the Cossacks. "If I gain a victory over the Silesian army, and put it out of account for some days, I can turn against Schwarzenberg, reckoning on the reinforcements you will send, with from seventy to eighty thousand men, and I think he cannot oppose me at once with more than from a hundred and ten to a hundred and twenty thousand. If I find myself too weak to attack, I shall be at least strong enough to hold him in check for a fortnight or three weeks, and this would give me the opportunity for new combinations." To hold Schwarzenberg temporarily, Oudinot with twenty-five thousand men was stationed on the line from Provins to Sens, and Victor with fourteen thousand was sent to Nogent. The Emperor himself, with the old guard, about eight thousand strong, with Ney and Marmont each commanding six thousand infantry, and with ten thousand cavalry under Nansouty and Doumerc, set out from Sézanne to try his fortunes with Blücher.

This was the last of Napoleon's great strategic schemes which was destined to be crowned with success. It had but a single drawback. While Napoleon was still the boldest man in war that ever lived, as at St. Helena he declared himself to be, his marshals were uneasy and depressed; Marmont, in this moment of infinite chance, as it seemed to him, fell into a panic. The marshal's fears were not justified, for his Emperor's daring was not foolhardy. It was calculated on the myriad chances of his enemy's opportunity and his enemy's ability, and in this case it was perfectly calculated. Blücher, in spite of Gneisenau's continuous warnings, was over-confident. Having dispersed his detachments more than ever, he had for two days been moving swiftly in the hope of cutting off Macdonald by a dashing feat of arms. In his haste he had not taken up two Russian corps which had been separated from his main line, but on the contrary he had left them so far out that they were beyond support. By a blunder of the Czar's, reinforcements which had been promised were still a long distance in the rear. Schwarzenberg's movements were marked by an over-confident deliberation as characteristic of him as overhaste was of Blücher. Accordingly when on the tenth Marmont advanced from Sézanne, he found the corps of Olsusieff, about forty-five hundred strong, virtually isolated at Champaubert. His own numbers were slightly superior, and with a swift rush he annihilated the unready Russians. Napoleon was beside himself with joy, and began to talk of the Vistula once more; but he stopped when he saw how sour the visages of Marmont and the other marshals grew at the very mention of such an idea. Nevertheless, if the process begun at Champaubert could be continued, victory and ultimate recovery of something more than French empire were assured. He therefore hurried Nansouty and Macdonald on toward Montmirail for a second stroke of the same kind.

The affair at Montmirail was more of a battle than that at Champaubert, for Blücher had been able to gather in the divisions of Sacken, York, Kleist, and Kapzewitch. The battle opened about an hour before noon on the eleventh by a fierce artillery fire from the French, behind which Napoleon manœuvered so as to concentrate his own force against the Russians, and separate them from York with his Prussians. At two o'clock Napoleon attacked the Russians, Mortier engaging the Prussians separately. The plan succeeded, and by nightfall the enemy was in full retreat for Château-Thierry, where was the nearest bridge over the Marne. Napoleon had hoped that Macdonald would arrive from La Ferté-sous-Jouarre in time to seize the bridge, cut off the retreat, and make the victory decisive. But in spite of heroic exertion, that marshal could not or did not move with sufficient rapidity over the heavy dirt roads. The flying allies sacked the town with awful cruelty, and destroyed the bridge without any molestation except from the inhabitants, who wreaked their vengeance on numerous stragglers. On the thirteenth the French occupied the place, repaired the bridge, and crossed to the right bank. Next morning Marmont started in pursuit of Blücher.

Somewhat flushed by such success, Napoleon deliberated whether he should not now turn and attack Schwarzenberg. The Emperor thought these victories might give pause to a mediocre Austrian, ever mindful of the terrific blows his country had received once and again from France. He was mistaken; Schwarzenberg had moved, though slowly, yet steadily forward. On the twelfth Victor abandoned the bridge at Nogent, and Napoleon sent Macdonald with twelve thousand men to join Victor at Montereau. Early on the fourteenth came news that Blücher had driven Marmont back to Fromentières. By noon Napoleon had effected a junction with this marshal near Étoges, making a famous and successful flank march over a marshy country, a manœuver which is justly considered worthy of his great genius. Advancing then to the neighborhood of Vauchamps, his infantry attacked in front, while the cavalry, under Grouchy, outflanked the enemy's line and fell on the rear. Blücher was apparently doomed, for he had only three regiments of cavalry, and while facing one powerful enemy he would be forced to break the ranks of another in order to open a line of retreat. He solved the problem, but at enormous cost. Forming his troops into a line of solid squares, one stood to support the artillery and receive the onset in front, while the others dashed at Grouchy's horsemen, each square standing and retreating behind the next alternately as the bloody retreat went on. At last the butchery ceased, and Blücher fled to Bergères. The French pursued only as far as Étoges. Napoleon had hoped to follow all the way to Châlons, annihilate what was left of Blücher's army, and then to return and throw himself on Schwarzenberg. He was arrested by the news that the Seine valley, as far as Montereau, was in the hands of the Austro-Russians; that Oudinot and Victor had been driven back to Nangis; in short, that Paris was seriously menaced.

It was long asserted that in the three actions just recorded the French far outnumbered their opponents, and that Napoleon's generalship was consequently inferior to his high average. The sufficient answer to this is in the facts now universally accepted. At Champaubert there were four thousand eight hundred and fifty French against four thousand seven hundred Russians; at Montmirail there were twenty-two thousand seven hundred Russians and Prussians against twelve thousand eight hundred French; and in the third engagement, near Étoges, Blücher had twenty-one thousand five hundred to ten thousand three hundred. It is therefore natural to compare these three victories with those at Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego. But they were far greater. At forty-four Napoleon displayed exactly the same boldness, steadfastness, and skill which he had displayed in youth; but in addition he overcame the stolid enmity of winter, of variable weather, of roads almost impassable, of swampy fields that were almost impassable by reason of overflowing ditches and half-frozen morasses. He overcame, too, the resisting power created by his own example; for here were the choicest soldiers of the Continent, commanded by men inured for eighteen years to the hardships, the shifts, the rapidity of warfare as he himself had taught the art. Momentarily Napoleon seems to have wondered whether allied and co-allied Europe had learned nothing in half a generation, and whether an army twice and a half larger than his own, under veteran generals, was to withdraw again behind the Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder, perhaps the Vistula. It is hard to believe that he dreamed such dreams as we read the prosaic, scientific, hard common sense of his military correspondence between January twenty-sixth and February fourteenth. Yet there is certainly an appearance of self-deception and vacillation in his political and diplomatic plans, due apparently to the intoxication of success, as when he spoke of the Vistula to Marmont after Champaubert.

The innermost thoughts of Metternich, and of the diplomats associated with him, are very hard to fathom. For two generations the world believed that after Leipsic, Napoleon, in his sanguine conceit, rejected offer after offer from the allies, and finally perished utterly because of a folly which made him believe he could recover his predominance. There is now every reason to believe the contrary, and to suppose that Napoleon clearly understood the situation. The war was one of extermination on the part of the allies; in the interest of their dynasties they intended not only to destroy Napoleon, but also thereby to root out the ideas for which he was supposed to stand. By the light of recent memoirs, especially those of Metternich himself, we seem forced to the conclusion that in all the offers after Leipsic there was, if anything, far less of reality and sincerity than in those between the armistice of Poischwitz and the battle. When Castlereagh arrived at the allied headquarters early in January, 1814, he found them established in Basel. Schwarzenberg had found no difficulty in crossing Switzerland. Geneva surrendered its keys without a struggle, and generally the Swiss seemed indifferent to the violation of their neutrality. As the advance continued, it appeared that the French were equally apathetic. Bubna was driven from before Lyons by Augereau, but Dijon surrendered to a squad of cavalrymen which, at the request of the conscientious mayor, made a show of force to oblige him. It was not difficult under such circumstances for the sovereigns and their ministers to convince themselves that any peace with Napoleon would be nothing but a "ridiculous armistice," and that the Emperor of the French must, in any case, be utterly overthrown.

In response to the Frankfort proposals, the pacific Caulaincourt had promptly arrived to conduct negotiations. The invaders had almost at once suggested that they must abandon the Frankfort proposals, and confine France to her royal limits; that is, refuse her Belgium with the great port of Antwerp. So far they were agreed, but there the unanimity ceased. The Czar desired first to conquer France, and then leave her to choose her own government; he intended to take the whole of Poland, and give Alsace to Francis in return for Galicia, thus checking Austria by both Prussia and France, so that he could work his will in the Orient. Metternich wished the old balance of power, and had determined on the restoration of the Bourbons. Francis was writing to his daughter that he would never separate her cause and that of her son from France. The Prussian king and ministers desired only such an arrangement as would secure to their country what she had regained. Stein and his associates wished the utter humiliation of their foe. Castlereagh spoke with the authority of a paymaster; he was determined to keep the Netherlands from falling under French influence, to restore the Bourbons, and to establish so nice an equilibrium in Europe that Great Britain would be unhampered elsewhere in the world. There was to be no mention of colonial restitution or neutral rights. Being a second-rate statesman, he was much influenced by Metternich, and the two sought to form an impossible alliance between constitutional liberty and feudal absolutism.

A so-called congress was opened at Châtillon on February fifth.[7] It must be remembered that the treaty of Reichenbach was still a secret. That agreement was the reality behind the congress of Prague, the Frankfort proposals, and the meeting at Mannheim. None of those gatherings consequently was serious; that at Châtillon was even less so. The memoirs of Metternich explain all the facts: Swiss neutrality was violated by Austrian influence in order to restore the aristocratic constitution of Bern and the ascendancy of that canton; Alexander, posing still as a liberal, was angry at this violation of international law, and forbade the restoration of Vaud to its old master. Schwarzenberg's deliberate movements were due primarily to timidity, but they stood in good stead Metternich's desire to restore the Bourbons. It has been asserted, and there is much probability in the conjecture, that not only the plan adopted for invading France, but the slowness of the Austrians in advancing toward Langres, toward Troyes, across into the Seine valley, together with the spurious activity they displayed before Montereau, Sens, and Fontainebleau, was part of a scheme to wear out but not to exhaust France, and then compel her to take back her dynastic rulers. Blücher, who wanted glory and revenge, and the Prussian liberals, who desired so to crush France that Prussia might be free to slough off her militarism and build up a constitutional government, were alike furious at being chained to the frontier. All these cross-purposes and bitterness were mirrored in the ostentatious proceedings of the congress of Châtillon. Napoleon, either divining the facts, or, more probably, informed by spies, seemed indifferent, and refused at first to give full powers to Caulaincourt; finally the marshals, terrified at the prospect of indefinite war opened by the unlucky mention of the Vistula, made their influence so felt that the Emperor yielded.

Maret's name was long held up to detestation as the instigator of Napoleon's procrastinating policy at Dresden, the line of conduct which seemed to have made it possible for Austria to join the coalition. Among the papers of that minister is an account of his relations with Napoleon during the congress at Châtillon, which displays the evident motive of an attempt to prove how pacific his nature really was. He declares that after the defeat at La Rothière, Caulaincourt wrote a panic-stricken letter demanding full authority to treat. Maret handed it to the Emperor, beseeching him to yield. Napoleon seemed scarcely to heed, but indicated a passage in Montesquieu's "Grandeur and Fall of the Romans," which he happened to be reading: "I know nothing more magnanimous than the resolution taken by a monarch who ruled in our time, to bury himself under the ruins of the throne rather than to accept proposals which a king may not entertain. He had a soul too lofty to descend lower than his misfortunes had hurled him." "But I, sire," rejoined the secretary—"I know something more magnanimous—to cast aside your glory in order to close the abyss into which France would fall along with you." "Well, then, gentlemen, make your peace," came the reply. "Let Caulaincourt make it; let him sign everything necessary to obtain it. I can support the disgrace, but do not expect me to dictate my own humiliation." Maret informed Caulaincourt, but the latter recoiled before the responsibility, and asked for particular instructions. The Emperor persistently refused, but wrote giving the minister "carte blanche" to take any measure which would save the capital. Again Caulaincourt begged for details, and again Napoleon refused, persisting until Bertrand joined his supplications to those of Maret, whereupon he consented to abandon Belgium, and even the left bank of the Rhine.

The formal despatch containing these concessions was to be signed next morning, on February eighth, but in the interval came news of Blücher's movements. Maret found the Emperor buried in the study of his map. "I have an entirely different matter in hand," was the greeting; "I am at present occupied in dealing Blücher a blow in the eye." The signature was indefinitely postponed. On the tenth Alexander suspended the congress on the plea of Caulaincourt's refusal to state his own or accept the offered terms. Then followed the three victories, and Napoleon, on the night of the twelfth, wrote to Châtillon demanding the Frankfort proposals. Caulaincourt urgently besought the allies for an armistice, and begged Napoleon to be less exacting. Prussia and Austria were eager for the armistice, but Alexander obstinately refused to reopen the congress until the eighteenth, when everything seemed changed, and all the allies really desired peace. Caulaincourt, warned by Napoleon's letter of the twelfth, refused to treat without full instructions, and as he had none he began to procrastinate. In the end he bore the blame for not having used the carte blanche when he had it in order to save his country, for subsequently he had no opportunity.

CHAPTER VII

The Great Captain at Bay [8]

Victor's Failure at Montereau — Schwarzenberg's Ruse — The French Advance and the Austrian Retreat — Napoleon's Effort to Divide the Coalition — Vain Negotiations — The Treaty of Chaumont — Blücher's Narrow Escape — The Prussians Defeated at Craonne — Napoleon's Determination to Fight — His Misfortunes at Laon — Dissensions at Blücher's Headquarters — Napoleon at Soissons — Rheims Recaptured — Another Phase in Napoleon's Eclipse.

The eagerness of the Prussians and the Austrians to grant an armistice was at first due to the belief that Caulaincourt's request was a confession of exhaustion; the Czar's assent to reopening the congress on the eighteenth was wrung from him by the military operations between the fourteenth and that date. Convinced that Paris was menaced, Napoleon left Marmont to hold Blücher, and starting for La Ferté-sous-Jouarre on the fifteenth, covered fifty miles with his army in a marvelous march of thirty-six hours, arriving on the evening of the sixteenth with his men comparatively fresh. Next morning the French began to advance, and the Austrians to withdraw toward the Seine. Victor was to seize Montereau that same day and hold the bridge. Compelled to drive an Austrian corps out of Valjouan, the marshal did not reach his goal until six or seven in the evening, and finding it beset by the Crown Prince of Würtemberg with fourteen thousand Germans, he merely drove in the outposts and then halted for the night. His ardor was far from intense, and though, like Macdonald at Château-Thierry, he might feel that he had done all that could be demanded, yet he lost the opportunity of annihilating a considerable portion of the enemy's force. Simultaneously Macdonald had now advanced until he stood before Bray, while Oudinot on the left was before Provins. Thus far Napoleon's advance had been a front movement to cover Paris, but that same day, the seventeenth, he drove Wittgenstein from Nangis, and then expected by a rush over the bridge at Montereau to prevent Schwarzenberg from extending his flank to Fontainebleau, a move which would surround the French right. As a matter of fact, strange riders speaking curious outlandish tongues, Cossack scouts in other words, had appeared for the first time that very day in Nemours and Fontainebleau, terrifying the inhabitants. It seems highly probable that if Napoleon's force could have made a quick push from Montereau early on the eighteenth, it would have cut off a considerable portion of Schwarzenberg's left. In any case the Emperor was deeply incensed by what he considered Victor's slackness, and degraded him. The humbled marshal confessed his fault, displaying profound contrition, and was speedily restored to partial favor, being intrusted with the command, under Ney, of a portion of the young guard.

This was the third of the marshals—Augereau, Macdonald, Victor, each in turn—who since the opening of the campaign had shown a physical and moral exhaustion disabling them from rising to the heights of Napoleon's expectation. "We must pull on the boots and the resolution of '93," wrote the Emperor to Augereau; he was quite right: nothing short of the unsapped revolutionary vigor of France could have saved his cause. On the eighteenth, after a six hours' struggle, the French under Gérard and Pajol seized Montereau. Napoleon had halted at Nangis, and there Berthier received by a flag of truce a letter from Schwarzenberg, declaring that he had ceased his offensive march in consequence of news that preliminaries of peace had been signed the day previous at Châtillon. This was probably as base a ruse as any ever practised by Napoleon's generals. It is likely that all the Austrian marches and countermarches for ten days past had been but a bustling semblance calculated for diplomatic effect. Be that as it may, before Napoleon's advance the Austrian commander had quailed, and, with the French at Montereau, his columns were already moving back to Troyes, where they were drawn up in battle array. Napoleon wrote indignantly to Joseph that the ruse was probably preliminary to a request for an armistice, and that he would now accept nothing short of the Frankfort proposals. "At the first check the wretched creatures fall on their knees." Meanwhile he led his army over the river to Nogent, and prepared to attack Schwarzenberg.

But Blücher had not been idle; by superhuman exertions he had collected and strengthened his army at Châlons, and on the twenty-first he appeared at Méry on the Seine, threatening Napoleon's left flank in case of an advance toward Troyes. By this time the flames of French patriotism were rekindled in town and country, and, the soldiers being flushed with victory, it was clearly the hour to strike at any hazard. Oudinot was despatched with ten thousand men to hold Blücher, and this task he actually accomplished, capturing that portion of Méry which lay on the left bank of the river, and fortifying the bridge-head against all comers. Marmont being at Sézanne with eight thousand men to cover Paris, and Mortier at Soissons with ten thousand to prevent the advance of York and Sacken, Napoleon marched on Troyes. It was late in the evening when his main army was drawn up, and in order to leave time for his rear to come in, he postponed operations until the morning. Schwarzenberg had seventy thousand in line, but at four in the early dawn of the twenty-second, leaving in place a front formation sufficient to mask his movements, he decamped with his main force and withdrew behind the Aube.

Arrived at Bar, the Austrian commander wrote on the twenty-sixth an admirable letter of justification for the course he had taken. Defeat would have meant a retreat, not behind the Aube, but the Rhine. "To offer a decisive battle to an army fighting with all the confidence gained in small affairs, manœuvering on its own territory, with provisions and munitions within reach, and with the aid of a peasantry in arms, would be an undertaking to which nothing but extreme necessity could drive me." This retreat put a new aspect on the diplomacy of Châtillon. On the nineteenth Caulaincourt received a despatch from Napoleon revoking the carte blanche entirely; the same day Napoleon received an ultimatum from the congress, written several days before, to the effect that he was to renounce all the acquisitions of France since 1792, and take no share in the arrangements subsequent to the peace. This last clause being a covert suggestion of abdication, the recipient flew into a passion; when finally he was soothed by the pleadings of Berthier and Maret, he gave such a meaningless reply as would enable negotiations to proceed, but his counter-project he addressed directly to the Emperor Francis. It was a refusal to give up Antwerp and Belgium, and an emphatic recurrence to the Frankfort proposals. "If we are not to lay down our arms except on the offensive conditions proposed at the congress, the genius of France and Providence will be on our side."

Napoleon's missive suggested to his father-in-law, as was its intention, that a continental peace on the Frankfort basis would leave France free to recuperate her sea power and continue the war with England alone. This was the wedge which for some time past the writer had been proposing to drive into the coalition so as to separate Austria from Russia. Castlereagh was very uneasy as to the possible effect of the message, and there was much anxiety among all the diplomats. Their first step was to send a pacific reply and renew their request for an armistice. Napoleon consented, but stipulated that hostilities should proceed during the preliminary pourparlers, and that in the protocol a clause should be inserted declaring that the plenipotentiaries were reassembled at Châtillon to discuss a peace on the basis proposed at Frankfort. A commission to arrange the terms of the armistice met on the twenty-fourth. That they were not in earnest is shown by Frederick William's despatch of the twenty-sixth to Blücher, saying, "The suspension of arms will not take place." That very day, also, in a council of war held by the allied generals, it was determined to form an invading army of the south. Blücher was authorized to make a diversion in favor of the main army—a move which he had really begun the day before by a march to the right. Napoleon, leaving Macdonald and Oudinot, with forty thousand men, to follow Schwarzenberg, hurried after Blücher with his remaining force. On the twenty-eighth the commission adjourned its sessions with a formal reiteration of the ultimatum already made by the allied powers.

The reason was that by that time its members believed Napoleon to be elsewhere engaged. Schwarzenberg's army had checked Oudinot, and as his troops recuperated their strength the leader recovered partial confidence. Blücher being off for Paris, with Napoleon on his heels, the main army of the allies had then turned on the forces of Macdonald and Oudinot, and had driven them westward until in the pursuit it reached Troyes, where it halted, ready, in case of Blücher's defeat, to recross the Rhine. The congress of Châtillon was formally reopened on March first, and continued its useless sessions until the nineteenth, when it closed. During this second period none of the important dignitaries, except Schwarzenberg and the King of Prussia, attended; the rest withdrew to Chaumont, where, on March ninth, the three powers signed a treaty with England, dated back to March first, binding themselves, in return for an annual subsidy of five million pounds sterling equally divided, that each would keep a hundred and fifty thousand men in the field, for twenty years if necessary, provided Napoleon would not accept the boundaries of royal France—a futile stipulation. This treaty was the precursor of that iniquitous triple alliance between Russia, Austria, and Prussia which was destined not merely to hamper England herself so seriously in the subsequent period of history, but to stop for some time the progress of liberal ideas throughout Europe.

Blücher crossed the Marne on February twenty-seventh with half his force, and then attempted to cross the Ourcq in order to attack Meaux from the north. But he was checked by Marmont and Mortier, with the sixteen thousand men they already had, and then, after six thousand new recruits came in from Paris, he was forced to retreat. Should Napoleon arrive in time he would be annihilated. Accordingly he hastened up the valley of the Ourcq with his entire force. Napoleon arrived on the Marne too late to attack Blücher's rear, and after some hesitation as to whether he should not return to complete his work with Schwarzenberg, he finally determined that, inasmuch as the fortress of Soissons was secure, and Blücher must therefore retreat to the eastward, he could himself deliver an easy but staggering blow on the Prussian flank when they should cross the Aisne at Fismes. Accordingly, on March third the worn-out columns of the French passed over the Marne. Unfortunately, Soissons had been left by Marmont in charge of an inexperienced commander, who had surrendered almost without resistance when, on March second, Bülow and Wintzengerode, having come in from the Netherlands, suddenly appeared before the place. This stroke of good fortune enabled Blücher not merely to find a city of refuge for his exhausted and disorganized force, but to recruit it by the two victorious and elated corps which thenceforth served him as an invaluable rear-guard. Napoleon, thwarted again, gave no outward sign of the despair he must have felt, but crossed the Aisne on March fifth, and occupied Rheims, in order at least to cut Blücher off from any connection with Schwarzenberg. He then turned to join Marmont and Mortier in order to drive Blücher still farther north, so that, as he wrote to Joseph, he might gain time sufficient to return by Châlons and attack Schwarzenberg.

In spite of all his discouragements, Blücher had no intention of retreating without a blow. There was constant friction between the Prussian commander and his subordinates, so that dissension prevented prompt action. Nevertheless, after much delay the army was got in motion to resume the offensive, the general plan being to move eastward instead of withdrawing due north, to cross the plateau of Craonne, and, descending into the plain north of Berry, to attack the French in force as they advanced to Laon. Napoleon had expected to meet his foe under the walls of that city; his quick advance was as much of a surprise to Blücher as Blücher's was to him. The first shock of battle, therefore, occurred at Craonne on the sixth, when neither army was in readiness. But Blücher secured the advantage of position. Though he had only a portion of his force, the troops he did have were on a commanding plateau above the enemy when the action began. The skirmishes of the first day, however, were indecisive. Napoleon's knowledge of the district being defective, he sought to secure the best possible information from the inhabitants. Some one mentioning incidentally that the mayor of a neighboring town was named de Bussy, Napoleon recalled, with his astounding memory, that in the regiment of La Fère he had had a comrade so named. The mayor turned out to be the sometime lieutenant, and, with superserviceable zeal, the former friend poured out worthless information which led the Emperor to believe that on the morrow there would be only Blücher's rear-guard to disperse. But it was not so. Blücher struggled with his utmost might to gather in his cavalry and artillery, while Sacken, with the Russians, stood like a wall, repelling the successive surges of Ney and Victor the whole day through. At nightfall the Prussian commander, finding it impossible to assemble guns or horsemen over the icy fields, gave orders for retreat, and his army passed on to Laon.

Though Craonne was a victory, the losses of the French were proportionately greater than those of the enemy, and the pursuit, though spirited, gained no advantage. "The young guard melts like snow; the old guard stands; my mounted guards likewise are much reduced," were the words of Napoleon's private letter. Yet he pressed on. The night of the seventh he spent in a roadside inn under the sign of "The Guardian Angel." There Caulaincourt's last messenger from Châtillon found him. The congress was still sitting, but the warrior knew the fact meant and could mean nothing to him; though the allies had increased their demands in proportion to their victories, they had not lessened them in proportion to their defeats. Whatever terms he might accept, and whatever Metternich might say, this war he felt sure was one for his extermination. As he said then and there, it was a bottomless chasm, and he added, "I am determined to be the last it shall swallow up." So he made no answer, and spent the night completing his plans for battle at Laon.

That place stands on a terraced hill rising somewhat abruptly from the plain, and throughout the eighth Blücher arrayed his army in and on both sides of the city, which itself was of course the key. Napoleon, being a firm believer in such movements when on friendly soil, made a long night march. He reached the enemy's fore-posts early on the ninth, and drove them in. At seven Ney and Mortier began the battle under cover of a mist, and captured two hamlets at the foot of the hill. Marmont was on the right, and had already been cut off from the center by a body of Cossacks; but he attacked the village of Athies. After a long day's hard fighting, he succeeded in capturing a portion of it. Further exertion being impossible, his men bivouacked, while he himself withdrew to the comforts of Eppes, a château three miles distant. It was noon when Napoleon learned that Marmont had been severed from the line; at once he renewed his attack on Laon, but though he gained Clacy on his left, he lost Ardon, and was thus more completely cut off from Marmont. That night York fell upon Marmont's men unawares, and routed them utterly.

Napoleon heard of this disaster shortly after midnight. He was, of course, deeply agitated—did he dare risk being infolded on both sides, or should he brave his fate in order to mislead the enemy? He chose the desperate course, and when day broke stood apparently undismayed. Even when two fugitive dragoons arrived and confirmed in all its details the terrible news from Athies, he issued orders as bold as if his army were still entire. This was a desperate ruse, but it succeeded, for the pursuit of Marmont's men was stayed. At four the main French army began its retreat, and the next morning saw it at Soissons; six thousand had been killed and wounded. Again Napoleon's name had stiffened the allies into inactive horror, for they did not pursue. York was so disgusted with the dissensions at Blücher's headquarters that he threw up his command and left for Brussels. Blücher was literally at the end of his powers. "For heaven's sake," said Langeron, a French refugee in the Russian service, on whom the command would have devolved, "whatever happens, let us take the corpse along." "The corpse," with dimmed eyes and trembling hands, traced in great rude letters an epistle beseeching York to return, and this, indorsed by another from the Prince Royal of Prussia, brought back the able but testy refugee.

Meantime Rheims, intrusted to a feeble garrison, had been taken by Langeron's rear-guard under St. Priest, another French emigrant in the service of the allies. By this disaster communication between Schwarzenberg and Blücher had been reëstablished. In the short day Napoleon could spend at Soissons, he took up twenty-five hundred new cavalrymen, a new line regiment of infantry, a veteran regiment of the same, and some artillery detachments. It is not easy to conceive of recuperative power more remarkable than that which was thus exhibited both by France and her Emperor. These men had been sent forward from Paris in spite of the profound gloom now prevalent there. The truth was at last known in the capital; Joseph was hopeless; the Empress and her court were preparing for extremities. News had come that in the south Soult had been thrown back on Toulouse; that in the southwest royalist plots were thickening; that in the southeast Augereau had been forced back to Lyons; Macdonald was ready to abandon Provins at the first sign of advance by Schwarzenberg; and the sorry tale of Laon was early unfolded. Yet the administrative machinery was still running, and soldiers were being manufactured from the available materials. Those who had been sent to Soissons had been hastily gathered, equipped, and drilled almost without hope, but they were precious since they enabled Napoleon to refit his shattered battalions.

Marmont had unwisely abandoned Berry-au-Bac, and that in disregard of orders. But otherwise he had done his best to make good a temporary lapse, and had got together about eight thousand men at Fismes. His narratives give a graphic picture of the situation—of disorder, confusion, chaos among his troops, of artillery served by inexperienced sailors, of undrilled companies whose members had neither hats, clothes, nor shoes. There were plenty of captured uniforms and head-coverings, but they were so infested with vermin that the French, sorry as was their plight, refused to wear them, and clung to their old tatters. Marmont's men were heroes, he himself was not yet a traitor. Though overborne by a sense of Napoleon's recklessness, and therefore unfit for the desperate self-sacrifice which would have made him a fit coadjutor for his chief, he was prepared to atone for his disgrace at Athies. Early in the morning of the thirteenth the main French army moved from Soissons; at four in the afternoon Marmont opened the attack on Rheims. Napoleon himself had arrived, but his troops were slow in coming up, and there was no heavy artillery wherewith to batter in the gates. The struggle went on with desperate courage and gallantry on both sides. St. Priest was killed by the same gunner whose aim had been fatal to Moreau. "We may well say, O Providence! O Providence!" wrote Napoleon to his brother. At ten the beleaguered garrison began to sally and flee. Napoleon rose from the bearskin on which he had been resting before a bivouac fire, and storming with rage lest his prey should escape, hurried in the guns, which were finally within reach. Amid awful tumult and carnage the place fell; three thousand of the enemy were slain, and about the same number were captured. The burghers were frenzied with delight as the Emperor marched in, and the whole city burst into an illumination.

Next morning Napoleon and Marmont met. The culprit was loaded with reproaches for the affair at Athies, and treated as a stern father might treat a careless child. No better evidence of the Emperor's low state is needed. Marmont was now the hero of the hour; his peccadillos might well have been forgotten for the sake of securing his continued faithfulness. With Napoleon at his best, this would surely have been the case; but aware that at most the war could be a matter of only a few weeks, the desperate man overdid his rôle of self-confidence, being too rash, too severe, too haughty. Not that he was without some hope. Although for two years the shadow had been declining on the dial of Napoleon's fortunes, and although under adverse conditions one brilliant combination after another had crumbled, yet his ideas were as great as ever, the adjustment of plans to changing conditions was never more admirable. The trouble was that effort and result did not correspond, and this being so, what would have been trifling misdemeanors in prosperity seemed to him in adversity to be dangerous faults. The great officers of state and army, imitating their master's ambitions, had acquired his weaknesses, but had failed in securing either his strength or his adroitness. With him they had lost that fire of youth which had carried them and him always just over the line of human expectation, and so his nice adjustments failed in exasperating ways at the very turn of necessity. Hard words and stinging reproofs are soon forgotten in generous youth; they rankle in middle life; and even the invigorating address or inspiring word, when heard too often for twenty years, fails of effect. The beginning of the end was the loss of Soissons at the critical instant. Napoleon was uncertain and touchy; his marshals were honeycombed with disaffection; the populations, though flashing like powder at his touch, had nowhere risen en masse. Thereafter the great captain was no longer waging a well-ordered warfare. Like an exhausted swordsman, he lunged here and there in the grand style; but his brain was troubled, his blade broken. Some untapped reservoirs of strength were yet to be opened, some untried expedients were to be essayed, but the end was inevitable. The movement on Rheims was the spasmodic stroke of the dying gladiator.

CHAPTER VIII

The Struggles of Exhaustion [9]

The Allies Demoralized — Napoleon's Desperate Choice — The Battle at Arcis — The Correspondence of Caulaincourt and Napoleon — Panic at Schwarzenberg's Headquarters — Cross-purposes of the Allies — Napoleon's Determination Confirmed — His Over-confidence — The Resolution to Abandon Paris — The French Brought to a Stand — Their Masked Retreat — Inefficiency of Marmont and Augereau — Napoleon's March toward St. Dizier — His Terrible Disenchantment — How the Allies had Discovered Napoleon's Plans — Their Determination to Pursue — The Czar's Resolution to March on Paris — Successful Return of the Invaders.

Though unscientific as a military move and futile as to the ultimate result of the war, the capture of Rheims was, nevertheless, a telling thrust. On receipt of the news from Laon, Schwarzenberg had immediately set his army in motion against Macdonald, and Blücher, after waiting two days to restore order among his worried troops and insubordinate lieutenants, had advanced and laid siege to Compiègne. The capture of Rheims checked the movements of both Austrians and Prussians; dismay prevailed in both camps, and both armies began to draw back. The French halted at Nangis in their retreat before Schwarzenberg, and the people of Compiègne were released from the terrors of a siege. "This terrible Napoleon," wrote Langeron in his memoirs—"they thought they saw him everywhere. He had beaten us all, one after the other; we were always frightened by the daring of his enterprises, the swiftness of his movements, and his clever combinations. Scarcely had we formed a plan when it was disconcerted by him." Besides this, in obedience to Napoleon's call, the peasantry began an organized guerrilla warfare, avenging the pillage, incendiarism, and military executions of the allies by a brutal retaliation in kind which made the marauding invaders quake. Finally the momentary consternation of the latter verged on panic when the report reached headquarters that Bernadotte, lying inactive at Liège with twenty-three thousand Swedes, had permitted a flag of truce from Joseph to enter his presence. Could it be that the sly schemer, for the furtherance of his ambition to govern France, was about to turn traitor and betray the coalition?

But the consternation of the allies was the least important effect of the capture of Rheims by Napoleon.[10] It initiated certain ideas and purposes in his own mind about which there has been endless discussion. Many see in them the immediate cause of his ruin, a few consider them the most splendid offspring of his mind. Reinforcements from Paris, slender as they were, flowed steadily into his camp; and when he learned that both Schwarzenberg and Blücher had virtually retreated, he believed himself able to cope once more with the former. Accordingly he dictated to his secretary an outline of three possible movements: to Arcis on the Aube, by way of Sézanne to Provins, and to Meaux for the defense of Paris. The first was the most daring; the second would cut the enemy off from the right bank of the Seine, but it had the disadvantage of keeping the troops on miry cross-roads; the third was the safest. Of course he chose the way of desperation—all or nothing. Leaving Marmont with seven thousand men at Berry-au-Bac, and Mortier with ten thousand at Rheims and Soissons, he enjoined them both to hold the line toward Paris against Blücher at all hazards, and himself set out, on March seventeenth, for Arcis on the Aube. This he did, instead of marching direct to Meaux for the defense of Paris, because it would, in his own words, "give the enemy a great shock, and result in unforeseen circumstances."

Schwarzenberg's movements during the next three days awakened in Napoleon the suspicion, which he was only too glad to accept as a certainty, that the Austro-Russian army was on the point of retreating into the Vosges or beyond; and on the twentieth he announced his decision of marching farther eastward, past Troyes, toward the frontier forts still in French hands. This idea of a final stand on the confines of France and Germany haunted him to the end, and was the "will-o'-the-wisp" which intermittently tempted him to folly. But for the present its execution was necessarily postponed. That very day news was received within the lines he had established about Arcis that the enemy, far from retreating, was advancing. Soon the French cavalry skirmishers appeared galloping in flight, and were brought to a halt only when the Emperor, with drawn sword, threw himself across their path. A short, sharp struggle ensued—sixteen thousand French with twenty-four thousand five hundred of their foe. It was irregular and indecisive, but Napoleon held his own. The neighboring hamlet of Torcy had also been attacked by the allies, and before their onset the French had at first yielded. But the defenders were rallied, and at nightfall the position was recaptured. This sudden exhibition by Schwarzenberg of what looked like courage puzzled Napoleon; after long deliberation he concluded that the hostile troops were in all probability only a rear-guard covering the enemy's retreat. He was not very far wrong, but far enough to make all the difference to him. The circumstances require a full explanation.

Thanks to Caulaincourt's sturdy persistence, the congress at Châtillon was still sitting, and on the thirteenth the French delegate wrote a last despairing appeal to the Emperor. His messenger was delayed three days by the military operations; but when he arrived, on the sixteenth, Maret wrung from Napoleon concessions which included Antwerp, Mainz, and even Alessandria. In the despatch announcing this, and written on the seventeenth to Caulaincourt, Maret made no reservation except one: that Napoleon intended, after signing the treaty, to secure for himself whatever the military situation at the close of the war might entitle him to retain. The return of the messenger was likewise delayed for three days, and it was the twenty-first before he reached the outskirts of Châtillon. He arrived to find Caulaincourt departing; the second "carte blanche" had arrived too late. With all his skill, the persistent and adroit minister had been unable to protract negotiations longer than the eighteenth. His appeal having brought no immediate response, he had, several days earlier, despatched a faithful warning, and this reached Napoleon at Fère-Champenoise simultaneously with the departure of the messenger for Châtillon. The day previous the Emperor had received bad news from southern France: that Bordeaux had opened its gates to a small detachment of English under Hill, and that the Duke of Angoulême had been cheered by the people as he publicly proclaimed Louis XVIII King of France. Apparently neither this information nor Caulaincourt's warning profoundly impressed Napoleon; he knew his Gascons well, his "carte blanche" he must have believed to be in Châtillon, and it had been in high spirits that he hastened on to Arcis, determined to make the most of the time intervening until the close of negotiations.

When news of Napoleon's advance reached Schwarzenberg's headquarters in Troyes, there had at first been nothing short of panic; the commander himself was on a sick-bed, having entirely succumbed to the hardships of winter warfare. No sooner had he ordered the first backward step than his army had displayed a feverish anxiety for farther retreat. As things were going, it appeared as if the different corps would, for lack of judicious leadership, be permitted to withdraw still farther in such a way as to separate the various divisions ever more widely, and expose them successively to annihilating blows from Napoleon, like those which had overwhelmed the scattered segments of the Silesian army. The Czar and many others immediately perceived the danger. With faculties unnerved by fear, the officers foreboded a repetition with the Bohemian army of Montmirail, Champaubert, and Vauchamps. Rumors filled the air: the peasantry of the Vosges were rising, the Swiss were ready to follow their example; the army must withdraw before it was utterly surrounded and cut off. There was even a report—and so firmly was it believed that it long passed for history—of Alexander's having expressed a desire to reopen the congress.

Schwarzenberg's strange hesitancy in the initial stages of the invasion has been explained. Beyond his natural timidity, it was almost certainly due to Metternich's politics, which displayed a desire to ruin Napoleon's imperial power, but to save France either for the Bourbons or possibly for his Emperor's son-in-law. If the Austrian minister could accomplish this, he could thereby checkmate Prussian ambitions for leadership in Germany. But during the movements of February and March the actions of the Austrian general appear to have been due almost exclusively to cowardice. The papers of Castlereagh, of Metternich, and of Schwarzenberg himself aim to give the impression that during all the events which had occurred since the congress of Prague, everything had been straightforward, and that Austria had no thought of sparing Napoleon or acting otherwise than she did in the end. Yet the indications of the time are quite the other way: the Russians in Schwarzenberg's army were furious, and, as one of them wrote, suspicious "of what we are doing and what we are not doing." Alexander, in this crisis, was deeply concerned, not for peace, but for an orderly, concentrated retreat. With stubborn fatalism, he never doubted the final outcome; and during his stay in Châtillon he had spent his leisure hours in excogitating a careful plan for the grand entry into Paris, whereby the honors were to be his own.

Consequently, when on the nineteenth he hastened to Schwarzenberg's bedside, it was with the object of persuading the Austrian commander to make a stand long enough to secure concentration in retreat. This idea originated with the Russian general Toll, and the place he suggested for concentration was the line between Troyes and Pougy. But the council was terror-stricken, and though willing to heed Alexander's urgent warning, they at first selected a position farther in the rear, on the heights of Trannes. With this the Czar was content, but on second thought such a course appeared to the more daring among the Austrian staff as if it smacked of pusillanimity. Schwarzenberg felt the force of this opinion, and by the influence of some one, probably Radetzky, it was determined, without consulting the Czar, to concentrate near Arcis on the left bank of the Aube, in order to assume the offensive at Plancy. This independent resolution of Schwarzenberg's staff explains the presence of allied troops near Arcis and at Torcy. Alexander was much incensed by the news of the meeting, and declared that Napoleon's real purpose was to hold them while cutting off their connections on the extreme right at Bar and Chaumont. This was in fact a close conjecture. Napoleon, though surprised into action, was naturally confirmed in his surmise that the hostile troops were a retreating rear-guard; and in consequence he had definitely adopted the most desperate scheme of his life—the plan of hurrying toward the Vosges, of summoning the peasantry to rise en masse, and of calling out the garrison troops from the frontier fortresses to reinforce his army and enable him to strike the invaders from behind.

By his retreat to Troyes on February twenty-second, Schwarzenberg had avoided a decisive conflict, saving his own army, and leaving Napoleon to exhaust himself against the army of Silesia; by his decision of March nineteenth he had confirmed Napoleon in the conviction that the allies were overawed, and had thus led his desperate foe into the greatest blunder conceivable—this chimerical scheme of concentrating his slender, scattered force on the confines of France, and leaving open a way for the great army of invaders to march direct on Paris. Of such stuff are contemporary reputations sometimes constructed. But this was not enough: a third time the Austrian general was to stumble on greatness. Napoleon's movements of concentration had thus far met with no resistance, in spite of their temerity; and throughout the nineteenth the enemy's outposts, wherever found, fled incontinently. It appeared a certainty that the allies were abandoning the line of the Seine in order to avoid a blow on their flank. That evening Napoleon began to vacillate, gradually abandoning his notion of an offensive move near Troyes, and deliberating how best to reach Vitry for a further advance toward his eastern fortresses. To avoid any appearance of retreat, he rejected the safer route by way of Fère-Champenoise to Sommesous, and determined to follow the course of the Aube for a while before turning northward to Sommepuis. He might run across the enemy's rear-guard, but he counted on their pusillanimity for the probable retreat of the very last man to Troyes. When Ney and Sebastiani began on the twentieth to push up the south bank of the Aube, they expected no opposition. That very morning Napoleon had announced to his minister of war, "I shall neglect Troyes, and betake myself in all haste to my fortresses."

So far the Emperor had made no exhibition of the temerity about which so much was later to be said. But he had deceived himself and had taken a wild resolution. Moreover, it is amazing that he should have felt a baseless confidence in Blücher's remaining inert. This hallucination is, however, clearly expressed in a despatch to Marmont of the very same date. Yet, nevertheless, the alternative is not left out of consideration, for he ordered that marshal, in case Blücher should resume the offensive, to abandon Paris and hasten to Châlons. This fatal decision was not taken suddenly: the contingency had been mentioned in a letter of February eighth to Joseph, and again from Rheims emphatic injunctions to keep the Empress and the King of Rome from falling into Austrian hands were issued to the same correspondent. "Do not abandon my son," the Emperor pleaded; "and remember that I would rather see him in the Seine than in the hands of the enemies of France. The fate of Astyanax, prisoner to the Greeks, has always seemed to me the unhappiest in history." The messenger had been gone but a few hours when word was brought that Blücher had resumed the offensive, and a swift courier was despatched summoning Marmont to Châlons. In this ultimate decision Napoleon showed how cosmopolitan he had grown: he had forgotten, if he had ever understood, the extreme centralization of France; he should have known that, Paris lost, the head of the country was gone, and that the dwarfed limbs could develop little or no national vitality.

This bitter lesson he was soon to learn. On the momentous afternoon of the twentieth, as has been related, about sixteen thousand French confronted nearly twenty-five thousand of the allies in the sharp but indecisive skirmishes before Arcis; the loss of the former was eighteen hundred, that of the allies twenty-seven hundred. In spite of the dimensions which these conflicts had assumed, Napoleon remained firm in the belief that he had to do with his retreating enemy's rear-guard; Schwarzenberg, on the other hand, was convinced that the French had a strength far beyond the reality. During the night both armies were strongly reinforced, and in the early morning Napoleon had twenty-seven thousand five hundred men—quite enough, he believed, to demoralize the retreating Austrians. It was ten o'clock when he ordered the attack, Ney and Sebastiani being directed to the plateau behind the town. What was their surprise and dismay to find Schwarzenberg's entire army, which numbered not less than a hundred thousand, drawn up in battle array on the plain to the eastward, the infantry in three dense columns, cavalry to right and left, with three hundred and seventy pieces of artillery on the central front! The spectacle would have been dazzling to any but a soldier: the bright array of gay accoutrements, the glittering bayonets, the waving banners, and the serried ranks. As it was, the audacious French skirmishers instinctively felt the incapacity of a general who could thus assemble an army as if on purpose to display its numbers and expose it to destruction. Without a thought they began a sort of challenging rencounter with horse-artillery and cavalry.

But the Emperor's hopes were dashed when he learned the truth; with equal numbers he would have been exultant; a battle with odds of four to one he dared not risk. Sebastiani was kept on the heights to mask the retreat which was instantly determined upon, and at half-past one it began. This ruse was so successful, by reason of the alarms and crossings incident to the withdrawal of the French, that the allies were again terror-stricken; even the Czar rejected every suggestion of attack; again force was demoralized by genius. At last, however, scouts brought word that columns of French soldiers were debouching beyond the Aube, and the facts were plain. Even then the paralyzed invaders feared to attack, and it was not until two thirds of Napoleon's force was behind the stream that, after fierce fighting, the French rear was driven from the town. Oudinot's corps was the last to cross the river, and, standing until sappers had destroyed the bridge, it hurried away to follow the main column toward Vitry. The divisions of Gérard and Macdonald joined the march, and there were then forty-five thousand men in line.

While Napoleon was thus neutralizing the efforts of armies and generals by the renown of his name, two of his marshals were finally discredited. Enfeebled as Blücher appeared to be, he was no sooner freed from the awe of Napoleon's proximity than he began to move. On the eighteenth he passed the Aisne, and Marmont, disobeying the explicit instructions of Napoleon to keep open a line of retreat toward Châlons, began to withdraw toward Fismes, where he effected a junction with Mortier. His intention was to keep Blücher from Paris by false manœuvers. Rheims and Épernay at once fell into hostile hands; there was no way left open toward Châlons except the long detour by Château-Thierry and Étoges; and Blücher, it was found, was hurrying to effect a connection with Schwarzenberg. This was an assured checkmate. Meantime Augereau had displayed a similar incapacity. On the eighth he had begun a number of feeble, futile movements intended to prevent the allies from forming their Army of the South. But after a few aimless marches he returned to Lyons, and stood there in idleness until his opponents had completed their organization. On the twentieth the place was assaulted. The French general had twenty-one thousand five hundred men under his immediate command, six thousand eight hundred Catalonian veterans were on their way from Perpignan, and at Chambèry were seven thousand more from the armies of Tuscany and Piedmont. The assailants had thirty-two thousand, mostly raw troops. With a stout heart in its commander, Lyons could have been held until the reinforcements arrived, when the army of the allies would probably have been annihilated. But there was no stout heart in any of the authorities; not a spade had been used to throw up fortifications; the siege-guns ready at Avignon had not been brought up. Augereau, at the very height of the battle, summoned the civil authorities to a consultation, and the unwarlike burghers assented without a murmur to his suggestion of evacuation. The great capital of eastern France was delivered as a prize to those who had not earned it. Had Suchet been substituted for Augereau some weeks earlier, the course of history might have been diverted. But although Napoleon had contemplated such a change, he shrank from disgracing an old servant, and again, as before Leipsic, displayed a kindly spirit destructive to his cause.

The night after his retreat from Arcis, Napoleon sent out a reconnaissance to Vitry, and finding it garrisoned by Prussians, swerved toward St. Dizier, which, after a smart combat, he entered on the twenty-third. This placed him midway between the lines of his enemy's communication both from Strasburg and from Basel; which of the two, he asked himself, would Schwarzenberg return to defend? Thinking only how best to bait his foe, he set his army in motion northward; the anxious Austrian would certainly struggle to retain the line in greatest danger. This illusion continued, French cavalry scoured the country, some of the Châtillon diplomats were captured, and the Emperor of Austria had a narrow escape at Bar. It seemed strange that the country-side as far as Langres was deserted, but the fact was apparently explained when the news came that the enemy were in force at Vitry; probably they had abandoned Troyes and had disregarded Brienne in order to divert him from his purpose.

Alas for the self-deception of a ruined man! The enemy at Vitry were a body of eight thousand Russian cavalry from the Silesian army, sent, under Wintzengerode, to dog Napoleon's heels and deceive him, just as they actually did. Having left Vitry on the twenty-eighth, they were moving toward St. Dizier when Napoleon, believing that they formed the head of a powerful hostile column, fell upon them with needless fury, and all too easily put them to flight; two thousand were captured and five hundred killed. Thanks to Marmont's disobedience and bad judgment, Blücher had opened communications with Schwarzenberg, and both were marching as swiftly as possible direct to Paris. Of this Napoleon remained ignorant until the twenty-eighth. From his prisoners the Emperor first gained a hint of the appalling truth. It was impossible to believe such reports. Orders were issued for an immediate return to Vitry in order to secure reliable information. Arrived before the place, Napoleon called a council of war to decide whether an attempt to storm it should be made. In the moment of deliberation news began to arrive in abundance: captured despatches and bulletins of the enemy, confirmed by definite information from the inhabitants of the surrounding country. There could no longer be any doubt: the enemy, with an advantage of three days' march, was on his way to Paris. The futility of his eastward movement appears to have struck Napoleon like a thunderbolt. Paris abandoned in theory was one thing; France virtually decapitated by the actual loss of its capital was quite another. The thought was unendurable. Mounting his horse, the unhappy man spurred back to St. Dizier, and closeted himself in silent communing with his maps.

The allies had not at first divined Napoleon's purpose. Indeed, their movements in passing the Aube and on the day following were little better than random efforts to fathom it. But on the morning of the twenty-third two important messengers were captured—one a courier from Berthier to Macdonald with despatches stating exactly where Napoleon was; the other a rider with a short note from Napoleon to his Empress, containing a statement of its writer's plans. This famous paper was lost, for Blücher, after having read it, let the rider go. But the extant German translation is doubtless accurate. It runs: "My friend, I have been all day in the saddle. On the twentieth I took Arcis on the Aube. The enemy attacked at eight in the evening. I beat him, killed four thousand men, and captured four cannon. On the twenty-first the enemy engaged in order to protect the march of his columns toward Brienne and Bar on the Aube. I have resolved to betake myself to the Marne in order to draw off the enemy from Paris and to approach my fortifications. I shall be this evening in St. Dizier. Adieu, my friend; kiss my boy." Savary declares that there was a final phrase: "This movement makes or mars me."

The menace to their lines of communication at first produced consternation in the council of the allies. The first proposition laid before them was that they should return on parallel lines and recover their old bases. Had this scheme been adopted, Napoleon's strategy would have been justified completely instead of partially as it was; nothing but a miracle could have prevented the evacuation of France by the invaders. But a second, calmer thought determined the invaders to abandon both the old lines, and, opening a new one by way of Châlons into the Netherlands, to make the necessary detour and fall on Napoleon's rear. Francis, for the sake of keeping close touch with his own domains, was to join the Army of the South at Lyons. Although there is no proof to support the conjecture, it seems as if the Czar and the King of Prussia had suggested this so that both Francis and Metternich might be removed from the military councils of the allies in order that the more warlike party might in their absence take decisive measures. That night a package of letters to Napoleon from the imperial dignitaries at Paris fell into the hands of the invaders. The writers, each and all, expressed a profound despondency, Savary in particular asserting that everything was to be feared should the enemy approach the capital. Next morning, the twenty-fourth, the junction between Blücher and Schwarzenberg was completed. Francis and Metternich being absent, Schwarzenberg, listening to warlike advice, determined to start immediately in pursuit of Napoleon and seek a battle. The march was begun, and it seemed as if Napoleon's wild scheme was to be completely justified. He had certainly displayed profound insight.

Alexander, however, had been steadily hardening his purpose to annihilate Napoleon. For a week past Vitrolles, the well-known royalist agent, had been at his headquarters; the accounts of a steady growth in royalist strength, the efforts of Napoleon's lifelong foe, Pozzo di Borgo, and the budget of despondent letters from the Paris officials, combined to temper the Czar's mystical humor into a determination of steel. Accordingly, on the same day he summoned his personal military advisers, Barclay, Wolkonsky, Diebitsch, and Toll; then, pointing out on a map the various positions of the troops engaged in the campaign, he asked, significantly and impressively, whether it were best to pursue Napoleon or march on Paris. Barclay supported the former alternative; Diebitsch advised dividing the army and doing both; but Toll, with powerful emphasis, declared himself for the second course. The Czar listened enthusiastically to what was near his own heart, and expressed himself strongly as favoring it; the others yielded with the eagerness of courtiers, and Alexander, mounting his horse, spurred after Frederick William and Schwarzenberg. The new plan was unfolded; the Prussian king supported it; Schwarzenberg hesitated, but yielded. That night orders were issued for an about-face, a long explanatory despatch was sent to Blücher, and on the twenty-fifth the combined armies of Bohemia and Silesia were hurrying with measured tramp toward Paris. For the first time there was general enthusiasm in their ranks. Blücher, who from his unremitted ardor had won the name of "Marshal Forward," was transported with joy.

In the collection of the Marquis of Bassano

Napoleon-François-Charles-Joseph, Prince Imperial;
King of Rome; Duke of Reichstadt
From the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

The two armies marched on parallel lines, and met with no resistance of any importance, except as the various skirmishes enabled the irregular French soldiers to display a desperate courage, not only the untried "Marie Louises" coming out from Paris, but various bodies of the national guard convoying provision-trains. It was the twenty-fifth before Marmont and Mortier effected their junction, and then, although about sixteen thousand strong, they were steadily forced back through Fère-Champenoise and Allemant toward Charenton, which was under the very walls of Paris. Marmont displayed neither energy nor common sense on the retreat: his outlying companies were cut off, and strategic points which might have been held were utterly neglected. The army with which he reached Paris on the twenty-ninth should have formed an invaluable nucleus for the formation and incorporation of the numerous volunteers and irregular companies which were available; but, like its leader, it was entirely demoralized. Ledru des Essarts, commander of Meaux, was obliged on the twenty-seventh to abandon his charge, a military depot full of ammunition and supplies, which was essential to the safety of Paris. The garrison consisted of six thousand men, but among them were not more than eight hundred veterans, hastily collected from Marmont's stragglers, and the new conscripts were ill-conditioned and badly commanded. Although the generals drew up their men with a bold front to defend the passage of the Marne, the undisciplined columns were overwhelmed with terror at the sight of Blücher's army, and, standing only long enough to blow up the magazines, fled. They fought gallantly, however, on their retreat throughout the twenty-eighth, but to no avail; one position after another was lost, and they too bivouacked on the evening of the twenty-ninth before the gates of the capital. It is a weak curiosity, possibly, but we must wonder what would have occurred had Marmont, instead of retreating to Fismes on the eighteenth, withdrawn to Rheims, where he and Mortier could at least have checked Blücher's unauthorized advance, and perhaps have held the army of Silesia for a time, when the moral effect would probably have been to justify Schwarzenberg and confirm his project for the pursuit of Napoleon. In that case, moreover, the precious information of Napoleon's letter to his consort would not have fallen into his enemies' hands. Would destiny have paused in its career?

CHAPTER IX

The Beginning of the End [11]

Napoleon's Problem — The Military Situation — A Council of War and State — The Return to Paris — Prostrating News — The Empress-Regent and her Advisers — Traitors Within — Talleyrand — The Defenders of the Capital — The Flight of the Court — The Allies before the City.

The pallid, silent Emperor at St. Dizier was closeted with considerations like these. He knew of the defeat which forced Marmont and Mortier back on Paris; the loss of the capital was imminent; parties were in a dangerous state; his marshals were growing more and more slack; he had failed in transferring the seat of war to Lorraine; the information he had so far received was almost certainly colored by the medium of scheming followers through which it came. What single mind could grapple with such affairs? It was not because the thwarted man had lost his nerve, but because he was calm and clear-minded, that he felt the need of frank, dispassionate advice on all these matters. On the other hand, there stood forth in the clearest light a single fact about which there could be no doubt, and it alone might counterbalance all the rest: the peoples of northern and eastern France were at last aroused in behalf of his cause. For years all Europe had rung with outcries against the outrages of Napoleon's soldiery; the allied armies no sooner became invaders in their turn than they began to outstrip their foe in every deed of shame; in particular, the savage bands from Russian Asia indulged their inhuman passions to the full, while the French peasantry, rigid with horror, looked on for the moment in paralysis. Now they had begun to rise in mass, and from the twenty-fifth to the twenty-eighth their volunteer companies brought in a thousand prisoners. The depots, trains, and impedimenta of every sort which the allies abandoned on turning westward fell into the hands of a peasant soldiery, many of whom were armed with shot-guns. The rising for Napoleon was comparable only to that which earlier years had seen in the Vendée on behalf of the Bourbons.

Besides, all the chief cities of the district were now in the hands of more or less regular troops; Dunette was marching from Metz with four thousand men; Broussier, from Strasburg with five thousand; Verdun could furnish two thousand, and several other fortresses a like number. Souham was at Nogent with his division, Allix at Auxerre with his; the army at the Emperor's disposal could easily be reckoned at seventy thousand. Assisted by the partizan bands which now hung in a passion of hatred on the skirts of the invaders, and by the national uprising now fairly under way, could not the Emperor-general hope for another successful stand? He well knew that the fear of what had happened was the specter of his enemy's council-board; they would, he reckoned, be rendered over-cautious, and give him at least a fortnight in which to manœuver before the fall of Paris could be expected. Counting the men about Vitry and the garrison reinforcements at only sixty thousand, the combined armies of Suchet, Soult, and Augereau at the same number, that of Marmont at fourteen thousand, and the men in the various depots at sixteen thousand, he would have a total of a hundred and fifty thousand, from which he could easily spare fifty thousand to cut off every line of retreat from his foe, and still have left a hundred thousand wherewith to meet their concentrated force on a basis of something like equality. From the purely strategic point of view, the march of the allies to Paris was sheer madness unless they could count on the exhaustion of the population right, left, and behind. If the national uprising could be organized, they would be cut off from all reinforcement and entrapped. Already their numbers had been reduced to a hundred and ten thousand men. Napoleon with a hundred thousand, and the nation to support him, had a fair chance of annihilating them.

It was, therefore, not a mere hallucination which led him to hope that once again the tangled web of affairs might be severed by a sweep of the soldier's saber. But of course in the crisis of his great decision he could not stand alone; he must be sure of his lieutenants. Accordingly, after a few hours of secret communing, he summoned a council, and laid before it his considerations substantially as enumerated. Those present were Berthier, Ney, Lefebvre, Caulaincourt, and Maret; Oudinot and Macdonald, at Bar on the Ornain and Perthes respectively, were too distant to arrive in time, but he believed that he knew their opinion, which was that the war should be continued either in Lorraine or from a center of operations to be established at Sens. From this conclusion Macdonald did not once waver; Oudinot had begun to hedge; their absence, therefore, was unimportant. Berthier was verging on desperation, and so was Caulaincourt, who, since leaving Châtillon, had been vainly struggling to reopen negotiations for peace on any terms; Ney, though physically brave, was not the stuff from which martyrs are made, and Lefebvre, naturally weak, was laboring under a momentary attack of senility. The council was imperative for peace at any price; the Emperor, having foreseen its temper, had little difficulty in taking the military steps for carrying out its behests.

Early in the morning of March twenty-eighth the army was set in motion toward Paris. The line of march was to be through Bar on the Aube, Troyes, and Fontainebleau, a somewhat circuitous route, chosen apparently for three reasons: because the region to be traversed would still afford sustenance to the men, because the Seine would protect its right flank, and because the dangerous point of Meaux was thus avoided. Such a conclusion is significant of the clearest judgment and the nicest calculation. Pages have been written about Napoleon's hallucinations at the close of his career; neither here nor in any of the courses he adopted is there aught to sustain the charge. At breakfast-time a squad of jubilant peasants brought in a prisoner whom they believed to be no less a person than the Comte d'Artois. In reality it was Weissenberg, an Austrian ambassador on his way to London. He was promptly liberated on parole and despatched with letters to Francis and Metternich. By a curious adventure, Vitrolles was in the minister's suite disguised as a serving-man, but he was not detected.

Map of the field of operations in 1814.

At Doulevant Napoleon received cipher despatches from La Valette, the postmaster-general in Paris, a trusted friend. These were the first communications since the twenty-second; the writer said not a moment must be wasted, the Emperor must come quickly or all would be lost. His decision once taken, Napoleon had grown more feverish with every hour; this message gave wings to his impatience. With some regard for such measures as would preclude his capture by wandering bands of Cossacks, he began almost to fly. New couriers were met at Doulaincourt with despatches which contained a full history of the past few days; in consequence the troops were spurred to fresh exertions, their marches were doubled, and at nightfall of the twenty-ninth Troyes was reached. Snatching a few brief hours of sleep, Napoleon at dawn next morning threw discretion to the winds, and started with an insufficient escort, determined to reach Villeneuve on the Vanne before night. The task was performed, but no sooner had he arrived than at once he flung himself into a post-chaise, and, with Caulaincourt at his side, sped toward Paris; a second vehicle, with three adjutants, followed as best it might; and a third, containing Gourgaud and Lefebvre, brought up the rear. It will be remembered that Gourgaud was an able artillerist; Lefebvre, it was hoped, could rouse the suburban populations for the defense of Paris. At Sens Napoleon heard that the enemy was ready to attack; at Fontainebleau that the Empress had fled toward the Loire; at Essonnes he was told that the decisive battle was raging; and about ten miles from the capital, at the wretched posting-station of La Cour de France, deep in the night, fell the fatal blow. Paris had surrendered. The terrible certainty was assured by the bearer of the tidings, Belliard, a cavalry officer despatched with his troop by Mortier to prepare quarters for his own and Marmont's men.

Maria Louisa had played her rôle of Empress-regent as well as might be expected from a woman of twenty-three with slender abilities; only once in his letters did the Emperor chide her, and that was for a fault at that time venial in European royalty: receiving a high official, in this case the arch-chancellor, in her bedchamber. On the whole, she had been dignified and conciliatory; once she rose to a considerable height, pronouncing before the senate with great effect a stirring speech composed by her husband and forwarded from his headquarters. About her were grouped a motley council: Joseph, gentle but efficient; Savary, underhanded and unwarlike; Clarke, working in the war ministry like a machine; Talleyrand, secretly plotting against Napoleon, whose title of vice-grand elector he wore with outward suavity; Cambacérès, wise but unready; Montalivet, adroit but cautious. Yet, while there was no one combining ability, enthusiasm, and energy, the equipment of troops had gone on with great regularity, and each day regiments of half-drilled, half-equipped recruits had departed for the seat of war. The national guards who garrisoned the city, some twelve thousand in all, had forgotten their imperialism, having grown very sensitive to the shafts of royalist wit; yet they held their peace and had performed the round of their duties. Everything had outwardly been so quiet and regular that Napoleon actually contemplated a new levy, but the emptiness of the arsenals compelled him to dismiss the idea. Theoretically a fortified military depot, Paris was really an antiquated fortress with arsenals of useless weapons. Spasmodic efforts had been made to throw up redoubts before the walls, but they had failed from lack of energy in the military administration.

A close examination of what lay beneath the surface of Parisian society revealed much that was dangerous. Talleyrand's house was a nest of intrigue. Imperial prefects like Pasquier and Chabrol were calm but perfunctory. The Talleyrand circle grew larger and bolder every day. Moreover, it had influential members—de Pradt, Louis, Vitrolles, Royer-Collard, Lambrecht, Grégoire, and Garat, together with other high functionaries in all departments. Bourrienne developed great activity as an extortioner and briber; the great royalist irreconcilables, Montmorency, Noailles, Denfort, Fitz-James, and Montesquiou, were less and less careful to conceal their activity. Jaucourt, one of Joseph's chamberlains, was a spy carrying the latest news from headquarters to the plotters. "If the Emperor were killed," he wrote on March seventeenth, "we should then have the King of Rome and the regency of his mother.... The Emperor dead, we could appoint a council which would satisfy all opinions. Burn this letter." The program is clear when we recall that the little King of Rome was not three years old. Napoleon was well aware of the increasing chaos, and smartly reproved Savary from Rheims.

But Talleyrand was undaunted. At first he appears to have desired a violent death for Napoleon, in the hope of furthering his own schemes during a long imperial regency. At all events, he ardently opposed the departure of the Empress and the King of Rome from Paris. Nevertheless it was he who despatched Vitrolles, the passionate royalist, to Nesselrode with a letter in invisible ink which, when deciphered, turned out to be an inscrutable riddle capable of two interpretations. "The bearer of this deserves all confidence. Hear him and know me. It is time to be plain. You are walking on crutches; use your legs and will to do what you can." Lannes had long before stigmatized the unfrocked bishop as a mess of filth in a silk stocking; Murat said he could take a kick from behind without showing it in his face; in the last meeting of the council of state before the renewal of hostilities, Napoleon fixed his eyes on the sphinx-like cripple and said: "I know I am leaving in Paris other enemies than those I am going to fight." His fellow-conspirators were scarcely less bitter in their dislike than his avowed enemies. "You don't know the monkey," said Dalberg to Vitrolles; "he would not risk burning the tip of his paw even if all the chestnuts were for himself." Yet, master of intrigue, he pursued the even tenor of his course, scattering innuendos, distributing showers of anonymous pamphlets, smuggling English newspapers into the city, in fact working every wire of conspiracy. Surprised by the minister of police in an equivocal meeting with de Pradt, he burst out into hollow laughter, his companion joined in the peal, and even Savary himself found the merriment infectious.

Toward the close of March the populace displayed a perilous sensitiveness to all these influences. The London "Times" of March fifteenth, which was read by many in the capital, asked what pity Blücher and the Cossacks would show to Paris on the day of their vengeance, the editor suggesting that possibly as he wrote the famous town was already in ashes. Such suggestions created something very like a panic, and a week later the climax was reached. When the fugitive peasants from the surrounding country began to take refuge in the capital they found business at a standstill, the shops closed, the streets deserted, the householders preparing for flight. From the twenty-third to the twenty-eighth there was no news from Napoleon; the Empress and council heard only of Marmont's defeat. They felt that a decision must be taken, and finally on the twenty-eighth the imperial officials held a council. The facts were plainly stated by Clarke; he had but forty-three thousand men, all told, wherewith to defend the capital, and in consequence it was determined to send the Empress and her son to Rambouillet on the very next day. This fatal decision was taken partly through fear, but largely in deference to Napoleon's letter containing the classical allusion to Astyanax. The very men who took it believed that the Parisian masses would have died for the young Napoleon, and deplored the decision they had reached. "Behold what a fall in history!" said Talleyrand to Savary on parting. "To attach one's name to a few adventures instead of affixing it to an age.... But it is not for everybody to be engulfed in the ruins of this edifice." From that hour the restoration of the Bourbons was a certainty.

It was a mournful procession of imperial carriages which next morning filed slowly through the city, attracting slight attention from a few silent onlookers, and passed on toward Rambouillet. The baby king had shrieked and clutched at the doors as he was torn away from his apartments in the Tuileries, and would not be appeased; his mother and attendants were in consternation at the omen, and all thoughtful persons who considered the situation were convinced that the dissolution of the Empire was at hand. A deputation from the national guard had sought in vain to dissuade the Empress from her course; their failure and the distant booming of cannon produced widespread depression throughout the city, which was not removed by a spirited proclamation from Joseph declaring that his brother was on the heels of the invaders. All the public functionaries seemed inert, and everybody knew that, even though the populace should rise, there was no adequate means of resistance either in men or in arms or in proper fortifications.

Clarke alone began to display energy; with Joseph's assistance, what preparations were possible at so late an hour were made: six companies were formed from the recruits at hand, the national guard was put under arms, the students of the polytechnic school were called out for service, communication with Marmont was secured, and by late afternoon Montmartre, Belleville, and St. Denis were feebly fortified. The allies had been well aware that what was to be done must be done before the dreaded Emperor should arrive, and on that same morning their vanguard had summoned the town; but during the parley their generals began to feel the need of greater strength, and further asked an armistice of four hours. This was granted on the usual condition that within its duration no troops should be moved; but the implied promise was perfidiously broken, and at nightfall both Alexander and Frederick William, accompanied by their forces, were in sight of the far-famed city. Dangers, hardships, bygone insults and humiliations, all were forgotten in a general tumult of joy, wrote Danilevsky, a Russian officer. Alexander alone was pensive, well knowing that, should the city hold out two days, reinforcements from the west might make its capture impossible until Napoleon should arrive. Accordingly he took virtual command, and issued stringent orders preparatory for the assault early next morning.

CHAPTER X

The Fall of Paris [12]

The Battle before Paris — The Armistice — The Position of Marmont — Legitimacy and the Bourbons — The Provisional Government — Napoleon's Fury — Suggestions of Abdication — Napoleon's New Policy Foreshadowed — His Troops and Officers — The Treason of Marmont — The Marshals at Fontainebleau — Napoleon's Despair.

From early dawn until midday on March thirtieth the fighting before Paris was almost continuous, the assailants displaying an assurance of victory, the defenders showing the courage of despair. Marmont and Mortier kept their ranks in order, and the soldiers fought gallantly; elsewhere the militia and the boys emulated each other and the regulars in steadfastness. But when, shortly after noon, it became evident that Paris was doomed to fall before superior force, Joseph, as deputy emperor, issued to Marmont full powers to treat, and followed the Empress, whom he overtook at Chartres, far beyond Rambouillet, where she had expected to halt. She had determined, for greater safety, to cross the Loire. At four in the afternoon the Prussians captured Montmartre, and prepared to bombard from that height; at the same moment the last ranks of the allied armies came up.

Marmont felt further resistance to be useless; his line of retreat was endangered, and he had special directions not to expose the city to a sack. There was still abundant courage in the citizens, who stood behind the barricades within the gates clamorous for arms and ammunition. A messenger came galloping in with the news that Napoleon was but half a day distant. The lookouts now and then espied some general riding a white horse, and called, "'Tis he!" But for all the enthusiasm, the expected "he" did not appear. Further carnage seemed useless, since French honor had been vindicated, and when the war-worn Marmont withdrew into the town he was received as one who had done what man could do. Negotiations once fairly begun, the allies abandoned the hard conditions with which they opened the parley, and displayed a sense of great relief. Their chief representative, Count Orloff, behaved with much consideration. Recognizing the force of the French plea that their army was quite strong enough, if not to defend the city another twenty-four hours, at least to contest it street by street until, arrived at last on the left bank of the Seine, they could regain Fontainebleau in safety, Orloff assented to what were virtually the stipulations of Marmont and Mortier. The terms adopted made provision for an armistice, assured kind treatment to the city, and permitted the withdrawal of the troops.

Throughout the afternoon and evening Marmont's house was the rendezvous of the negotiators and of the few political personages left in the city. There was the freest talk: "Bonaparte" was conquered; the Bourbons would be restored; what a splendid man was this Marmont! Some weeks earlier the marshal had been significantly informed by his brother-in-law Perregaux, a chamberlain of Napoleon's, that in case of a restoration he and Macdonald would be spared, whatever happened to the other great imperial leaders. Talleyrand had ostensibly taken flight with his colleagues, but by an interesting coincidence his coachman had sought the wrong exit from the city, and had been turned back. That night he appeared in Marmont's presence with direct overtures from the Bourbons. His interview was short, and he seemed to have gained nothing; but he had an air of victory as he withdrew. He saw that Marmont was consumed with vanity, feeling that the destinies of France, of Napoleon, of all Europe, perhaps, were in his hands alone. This was much. Passing through the corridors, the sly diplomatist respectfully greeted Prince Orloff, and begged to lay his profound respects at the feet of the Czar. "I shall not forget to lay this blank check before his majesty," was the stinging retort. Talleyrand smiled almost imperceptibly with his lips, and went his way. But Alexander said on hearing the facts: "As yet this is but anecdote; it may become history."

The triumphal entry of the allies into Paris began next morning, March thirty-first, 1814, at seven o'clock. It was headed by Alexander and Frederick William, now universally regarded as the Czar's satellite king. Francis was in Dijon; he was represented by Schwarzenberg. The three leaders, with their respective staff officers, were solemnly received by a deputation of the municipal authorities. Their soldiers were orderly, and there was no pillage or license. Crowds of royalists thronged the streets acclaiming the conquerors and shouting for Louis XVIII. Throughout the afternoon Talleyrand and Nesselrode were closeted in the former's palace; and when, toward evening, they were joined by the Czar and the King, both of whom had devoted the day to ceremony, the diplomats had already agreed that France must have the Bourbons. The sovereigns had actually been deceived by the noisy royalist manifestations into believing that France welcomed her invaders, and they assented to the conclusion of the ministers. A formal meeting was instantly arranged; there were present, besides the monarchs and their ministers, Schwarzenberg, Lichtenstein, Dalberg, and Pozzo di Borgo. Alexander assumed the presidency, but Talleyrand, with consummate skill, monopolized the deliberations. The Czar suggested, as various bases for peace, Napoleon under all guaranties, Maria Louisa as regent for the King of Rome, the Bourbons, and, it is believed, hinted at Bernadotte or the republic as possibilities. Of all these courses there was but one which represented the notion of legitimacy with which Alexander had in the coalition identified himself, and by which alone he, with his shady title, could hope to assert authority in western Europe. This was expounded and emphasized by the wily Talleyrand with tremendous effect. The idea of the republic was of course relegated to oblivion; of Bernadotte there could not well be a serious question. If France wanted a mere soldier, she already had the foremost in the world. Napoleon still alive, the regency would be only another name for his continued rule; the Bourbons, and they alone, represented a principle. There was little difficulty, therefore, in reaching the decision not to treat with Napoleon Bonaparte or with any member of his family.

This was the great schemer's first stroke; his second was equally brilliant: the servile senate was appointed to create a provisional government and to construct a new constitution, to be guaranteed by the allies. That body, however obsequious, was still French; even the extreme radicals, as represented by Lainé of Bordeaux, had to acknowledge this. The new and subservient administration was at work within twenty-four hours; Talleyrand, with his two creatures, Dalberg and Jaucourt; Montesquiou, the royalist; and Beurnonville, a recalcitrant imperialist, constituting the executive commission. Two days later the legislature was summoned, and seventy-nine deputies responded. After considerable debate they pronounced Napoleon overthrown for having violated the constitution. The municipal council and the great imperial offices, with their magistrates, gave their assent. The heart of the city appeared to have been transformed: on the street, at the theater, everywhere the white Bourbon cockades and ribbons burst forth like blossoms in a premature spring. But outside the focus of agitation, and in the suburbs, the populace murmured, and sometimes exhibited open discontent. In proportion to the distance west and south, the country was correspondingly imperial, obeying the imperial regency now established at Blois, which was summoning recruits, issuing stirring proclamations, and keeping up a brave show. In a way, therefore, France for the moment had three governments, that of the allies, that of the regency, and that of Napoleon himself.

When, in the latest hours of March thirtieth, Napoleon met Belliard, and heard the disastrous report of what had happened, he gave full vent to a frightful outburst of wrath. As he said himself in calmer moments, such was his anger at that time, that he never seemed to have known anger before. Forgetful of all his own shortcomings, he raged against others with a fury bordering on insanity, and could find no language vile or blasphemous enough wherewith to stigmatize Joseph and Clarke. In utter self-abandonment, he demanded a carriage. There were noise and bustle in the stable. With a choked, hoarse voice the seeming maniac called peremptorily for haste. No vehicle appeared. Probably Caulaincourt had dared to cross his Emperor's command for the sake of his Emperor's safety. Finally Napoleon strode forth into the darkness toward Paris. Questioning and storming as he walked, he denounced his two marshals for their haste in surrendering. His attendants reasoned in vain until, a mile beyond La Cour de France, Mortier's vanguard was met marching away under the terms of the convention, and Napoleon knew that he was face to face with doom; to advance farther would mean imprisonment or worse. General Flahaut was therefore sent to seek Marmont's advice, and Caulaincourt hurried away to secure an audience with the Czar. There were still wild hopes which would not die. Perhaps the capitulation was not yet signed, perhaps Caulaincourt could gain time if nothing else, perhaps by sounding the tocsin and illuminating the town the populace and national guard would be led to rise and aid the army. The reply from Marmont came as swiftly as only discouraging news can come; the situation, he said, was hopeless, the public depressed by the flight of the court, the national guard worthless; he was coming in with the twenty thousand troops still left to himself and Mortier. Napoleon, now calm and collected, issued careful orders for the two marshals to take position between the Essonne and the Seine, their left on the former stream, their right on the latter, the whole position protected by these rivers on the flanks, and by the Yonne in the rear. It was clear there was to be a great battle under the walls of Paris. Macdonald was the only general who advised it; Berthier, Drouot, Belliard, Flahaut, and Gourgaud all wished to return into Lorraine; but the divisions were coming in swiftly, and in the short midnight hour before returning to Fontainebleau, Napoleon's decision was taken.

On the afternoon of April first the Emperor rode from Fontainebleau to Marmont's headquarters. While he was in the very act of congratulating Marmont on his gallantry, the commissioners who had signed the capitulation arrived and opened their budget of news. They told of the formal entry by the allies, of their resolution not to treat with Napoleon, and declared that the white cockade of the Bourbons was everywhere visible. Napoleon grew pensive and somber as he listened, and then, almost without speaking, rode sadly back to Fontainebleau. Next morning he was cheerful again, and as he stepped into the White Horse court of the palace at the hour of guard-mounting two battalions cheered him enthusiastically. His step was elastic, his countenance lighted with the old fire; the onlookers said, "It is the Napoleon of Potsdam and Schönbrunn." But in the afternoon Caulaincourt returned, and the sky seemed darkened; the Czar had listened to the envoy's eloquence only so far as to take into consideration once again the question of peace with the Empire under a regency; as a condition antecedent, Napoleon must abdicate.

The stricken man could not hear his faithful servant's report with equanimity. He restrained his violent impulses, but used harsh words. Soon it seemed as if ideas of a strange and awful form were mastering him, the gloomy interview was ended, and the Emperor dismissed his minister. For such a disease as his there was no remedy but action; next morning two divisions, one each of the old and young guard, arrived, and they were drawn up for review. Napoleon, in splendid garb and with a brilliant suite, in which were two marshals, Ney and Moncey, went through the ceremony. At its close he gathered the officers present into a group, and explained the situation in his old incisive phrase and vibrating tones, closing with the words: "In a few days I am going to attack Paris; can I count on you?" There was dead silence. "Am I right?" rang out, in a final exhausting effort, the moving call of the great actor. Then at last came the hearty, ringing response so breathlessly expected. "They were silent," said General Petit in gentle tones, "because it seemed needless to reply." Napoleon continued: "We will show them if the French nation be master in their own house, that if we have long been masters in the dwellings of others we will always be so in our own." As the officers scattered to their posts and repeated the "little corporal's" words, the old "growlers," as men had come to call the veterans of the Empire, gave another cheer. The bands played the two great hymns of victory, the "Marseillaise" and the "Chant du Départ," as the ranks moved away.

Napoleon must now have certain clear conceptions. Except Mortier, Drouot, and Gérard, his great officers were disaffected; but the ambitious minor generals were still his devoted slaves. The army was thoroughly imperialist, partly because they represented the nation as a whole, partly because they were under the Emperor's spell. Of such troops he appeared to have at hand sixty thousand, distributed as follows: Marmont, twelve thousand five hundred; Mortier, six thousand; Macdonald, two thousand seven hundred; Oudinot, five thousand five hundred; Gérard, three thousand; Ney, two thousand three hundred; Drouot, nine thousand; and about eleven thousand six hundred guard and other cavalry. Besides these, there were sixteen hundred Poles, two thousand two hundred and fifty recruits, and fifteen hundred men in the garrisons of Fontainebleau and Mélun. Farther away were considerable forces in Sens, Tours, Blois, and Orléans, eight thousand in all; and still farther the armies of Soult, Suchet, Augereau, and Maison. Although the allies had lost nine thousand men before Paris, they had quickly called up reinforcements, and had about a hundred and forty thousand men in readiness to fight. This situation may not have been entirely discouraging to the devotee of a dark destiny, to which as a hapless worshiper he had lately commenced to give the name of Providence. Be that as it may, when Macdonald arrived on the morning of the fourth the dispositions for battle had been carefully studied and arranged; every corps was ordered to its station. As usual, Napoleon appeared about noon for the ceremony of guard-mounting, and the troops acclaimed him as usual. But a few paces distant from him stood the marshals and higher generals in a little knot, their heads close bunched, their tongues running, their glances averted. From out of this group rang the thunderous voice of Ney: "Nothing but the abdication can draw us out of this." Napoleon started, regained his self-control, pretended not to hear the crushing menace, and withdrew to his work-room.

Concurrent with the resolve of the marshals at Fontainebleau ran the actual treason of one who alone was more important to Napoleon's cause than all of them. "I am ready to leave, with my troops, the army of the Emperor Napoleon on the following conditions, of which I demand from you a written guaranty," are the startling words from a letter of Marmont to the Czar, dated the previous day. On April first agents of the provisional government had made arrangements with a discredited nobleman named Maubreuil for the assassination of Napoleon; the next day Schwarzenberg introduced into the French lines newspapers and copies of a proclamation explaining that the action of the senate and of all France had released the soldiers from their oaths. Marmont forwarded the documents he received to Berthier, and while most of the officers flung their copies away in contemptuous scorn, some read and pondered. On April third an emissary from Schwarzenberg appeared at Marmont's headquarters, and what he said was spoken to willing ears. Still under the influence of the homage he had received in Paris, the vain marshal saw himself repeating the rôle of Monk; he beheld France at peace, prosperity restored, social order reëstablished, and himself extolled as a true patriot—all this if only he pursued the easy line of self-interest, whereby he would not merely retain his duchy, but also secure the new honors and emoluments which would be showered on him. So he yielded on condition that his troops should withdraw honorably into Normandy, and that Napoleon should be allowed to enjoy life and liberty within circumscribed limits fixed by the allied powers and France. Next morning, the fourth, came Schwarzenberg's assent, and Marmont at once set about suborning his officers; at four in the afternoon arrived an embassy from Fontainebleau on its way to Paris. The officers composing it desired to see Marmont.

The informal meeting held in the courtyard at Fontainebleau was a historical event. Its members chatted about the course taken by the senate, about Caulaincourt's mission, and discussed in particular the suggestion of abdication. The marshals and great generals, long since disgusted with campaigning, wounded in their dignity by the Emperor's rebukes, and attributing their recent failures to the wretched quality of the troops assigned to them, were eager for peace, and yearned to enjoy their hard-earned fortunes. They caught at the seductive idea presented by Caulaincourt. The abdication of Napoleon would mean the perpetuation of the Empire. The Empire would be not merely peace, but peace with what war had gained; to wit, the imperial court and society, the preservation and enjoyment of estates, the continuity of processes which had done so much to regenerate France and make her a modern nation. The prospect was irresistible, and Ney only expressed the grim determination of his colleagues when he gave the watchword so unexpectedly at the mounting of the guard. When Napoleon entered his cabinet he found there Berthier, Maret, Caulaincourt, and Bertrand. Concealing his agitation, he began the routine of such familiar labors as impend on the eve of battle. Almost instantly hurrying footsteps were heard in the corridor, the door was burst open, and on the threshold stood Ney, Lefebvre, Oudinot, and Macdonald. The leader of the company quailed an instant under the Emperor's gaze, and then gruffly demanded if there were news from Paris. No, was the reply—a deliberate falsehood, since the decree of the senate had arrived the night before. "Well, then, I have some," roared Ney, and told the familiar facts.

At Nogent, six weeks earlier, Ney and Oudinot had endeavored to bully Napoleon in a similar way; then they were easily cowed. But now Napoleon's manner was conciliatory and his speech argumentative. Long and eloquently he set forth his situation. Enumerating all the forces immediately and remotely at his disposal, describing minutely the plan of attack which Macdonald had stamped with his approval, explaining the folly of the course pursued by the allies, contrasting the perils of their situation with the advantages of his own, he sought to justify his assurance of victory. The eloquence of a Napoleon, calm, collected, clear, but pleading for the power which was dearer to him than life, can only be imagined. But his arguments fell on deaf ears; not one of his audience gave any sign of emotion. Macdonald was the only one present not openly committed, and he too was sullen; during the last twenty-four hours he had received, through Marmont, a letter from Beurnonville, the contents of which, though read to Napoleon then and there, have not been transmitted to posterity. What happened or what was said thereafter is far from certain, so conflicting and so biased are the accounts of those present. Contemporaries thought that in this crisis, when Ney declared the army would obey its officers and would not march to Paris in obedience to the Emperor, there were menacing gestures which betrayed a more or less complete purpose of assassination on the part of some. If so, Napoleon was never greater; for, commanding a calm by his dignified self-restraint, he dismissed the faithless officers one and all. They went, and he was left alone with Caulaincourt to draw up the form of his abdication.

CHAPTER XI

Napoleon's First Abdication [13]

The Meaning of Napoleon's Abdication — The Paper and its Bearers — Progress of Marmont's Conspiracy — Alexander Influenced by Napoleon's Embassy — Marmont's Soldiers Betrayed — Marmont's Reputation and Fate — Napoleon's Scheme for a Last Stroke — Revolt of the Marshals — Napoleon's First Attempt at Suicide — Unconditional Abdication — Restoration of the Bourbons — Napoleon's New Realm — Flight of the Napoleons — Good-by to France, but not Farewell.

There is no doubt that Napoleon sincerely and dearly loved his "growlers"; there is no doubt that with grim humor he constantly circumvented and used them for his own ends; even in his agony he contemplated a course which, leaving them convinced of their success, would yet render their action of no effect. After a short conference with his minister he took a pen and wrote: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the establishment of peace in Europe, and since the Emperor cannot assuredly, without violating his oath, surrender any one of the departments which were united with France when he ascended the throne, the Emperor Napoleon declares himself ready to abdicate and leave France, even to lay down his life for the welfare of his country and for the preservation of the rights of his son the King, of the Empress-regent, and of the laws and institutions, which shall be subject to no change until the definite conclusion of peace and while foreign armies stand upon our soil."

But these words carried too plainly a meaning which was not intended to be conspicuous, and the paper, as finally written and executed, runs as follows: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reëstablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France, and even to lay down his life for the good of the country, [which is] inseparable from the rights of his son, from those of the Empress's regency, and from the laws of the Empire." Who should constitute the embassy to present the document to the Czar? Caulaincourt, of course, would necessarily be one; Ney, dangerous if thwarted, must be the second; and the third? Marmont certainly, was Napoleon's first thought, and he ordered full powers to be made out for him. But on second thought he felt that his aide-de-camp in Egypt, his trusted friend from then onward, his confidential adviser, "brought up in his tent," as he said, might injure the cause as being too certainly influenced by personal considerations. Macdonald, therefore, was named in his stead. The embassy should, however, pass by Essonnes, and if Marmont desired to go he might send back for his credentials.

This was the company which, arriving about four in the afternoon at Marmont's headquarters, presented Napoleon's message. The busy conspirator was stunned, but he had already won at least five of his generals—Souham, Merlin, Digeon, Ledru des Essarts, and Megnadier, his chief of staff; the tide of treason was in full flow, and could not be stemmed. Should the Czar assent to the regency, where would Marmont be? Or, on the other hand, should Napoleon learn the truth, there was no question but that a few hours might see the emulator of Monk a corpse. In quick decision, the traitorous marshal confessed the steps already taken, and then at the loud cry of reprobation with which his statement was met, he falsely asserted that he was not yet committed, and demanded to join the embassy. The others, willing to remove their colleague from further temptation, assented; and Souham was left in command, with strict injunctions to inform the troops of Napoleon's abdication, but to take no further steps. At Schwarzenberg's headquarters Marmont found means to betray the situation to that general. The Austrian, by Marmont's own account, absolved his fellow-intriguer from all engagements so far made; but somehow that very evening about nine Talleyrand knew the whole story, and hastening, pale with terror, to Alexander's presence, poured out a bitter remonstrance against the regency. The Czar listened, but contemptuously dismissed the petitioner with the non-committal remark that no one would repent having trusted him.

It was almost midnight when Alexander gave audience to the embassy. Marmont was not of the number, having slunk away in guilty uneasiness to await the event at Ney's house. To Caulaincourt, as the spokesman of the Empire, the Czar listened attentively and sympathetically. He now felt himself to have taken a false step when, five days earlier, he had virtually assented to the restoration of the Bourbons. In the interval their cause had steadily grown more and more unpopular; neither people nor soldiers, not even the national guard, would give any declaration of adherence to the acts of the provisional government; the imperial army, on the other hand, stood firm. His own and Russia's honor having been redeemed, the earlier instincts of hatred for absolutism had returned; the feeling that the Empire was better for his purposes than any dynasty welled up as he listened to Caulaincourt's powerful argument that France as a nation, and her undivided army, alike desired the regency. In fact, the listener wavered so much that, two days later, Ney and Macdonald asserted their belief that at a certain instant their cause had been won.

But at two in the morning an aide-de-camp entered and spoke a few words in Russian. The Czar gave a startled attention, and the officer repeated his words. "Gentlemen," said the monarch, "you base your claim on the unshaken attachment of the army to the imperial government. The vanguard of Napoleon's army has just deserted. It is at this moment within our lines." The news was true. The announcement of Napoleon's abdication had spread consternation among Marmont's men, and they were seriously demoralized. When a routine message came from Fontainebleau requiring Souham's presence there, his guilty conscience made him tremble; and when Gourgaud requested an interview the uneasy general foresaw his own arrest and was terror-stricken. Summoning the others who, like himself, were partly committed, he told his fears, and the soldiers were ordered under arms. Toward midnight the march began. Ignorant at first of whither they were going, the men were silent; but finding themselves before long between two Austrian lines, they hooted their officers. Thereupon they were told that they were to fight beside these same Austrians in defense of the Empire, and, believing the lie, were reconciled.

Arriving finally at Versailles, and learning the truth, they mutinied; but Marmont soon appeared, and partly cowed them, partly persuaded them to bend before necessity. After learning of Souham's deed he had hurried to the Czar's antechamber. In an adjoining room were assembled the members of the provisional government. Like Marmont, they had learned the result of Souham's efforts and had regained their equanimity. After grasping the appalling fact that twelve thousand men, the whole sixth corps, with arms and baggage, were prisoners within the Austrian lines, of course there had been nothing left for Caulaincourt and the marshals but to withdraw. With much embarrassment the Czar promised an answer to their request on the following afternoon. All knew that the knell of the Empire had struck. To the waiting royalists it seemed a fit moment for pleasantry as the members of the embassy came filing out with stony gaze. The thwarted imperialists sternly repulsed their tormentors. Marmont breathed hard as his colleagues passed without a glimpse of recognition, and murmured: "I would give an arm if this had not happened." "An arm? Sir, say your head," rejoined Macdonald, bitterly. For some time after the first Restoration Marmont was a hero, but soon his vanity and true character combined to bring out his conduct into clear view, and from his title of Ragusa was coined the word "ragusade" as a synonym for treason. During the "Hundred Days" his name was of course stricken from the list of marshals. Loaded with honors in the second Restoration, he proved a second time faithless, and in 1830 betrayed his trust to the republicans. The people called him "Judas," and he died in exile, honored by nobody.

There can be little doubt of Napoleon's conviction that his offer to abdicate would be rejected by Alexander. No sooner was it signed than, with his characteristic astuteness, he set about preparing an alternative course. At once he despatched a messenger requesting the Empress to send Champagny immediately to Dijon as an ambassador to intercede with her father. Then, on April fourth, he summoned a conclave of his officers to secure their assent to the battle which he believed inevitable. It was the call to this meeting which had stampeded Souham and his colleagues in desertion. The greater officers being absent from Fontainebleau, the minor ones were unanimous and hearty in their support of Napoleon's plans. But at the very close of the session came the news of what had happened at Essonnes. When finally assured of every detail, Napoleon took measures at once to repair as best he could the breaches in his defense, saying of Marmont quietly and without a sign of panic: "Unhappy man, he will be more unhappy than I." Only a few days before he had declared to Caulaincourt: "There are no longer any who play fair except my poor soldiers and their officers that are neither princes nor dukes nor counts. It is an awful thing to say, but it is true. Do you know what I ought to do? Send all these noble lords of yesterday to sleep in their beds of down, to strut about in their castles. I ought to rid myself of these frondeurs, and begin the war once more with men of youthful, unsullied courage." He was partly prepared, therefore, even for the defection of Marmont. Next morning, on the fifth, was issued the ablest proclamation ever penned by him; at noon the veterans from Spain were reviewed, and in the afternoon began the movements necessary to array beyond the Loire what remained of the army and rally it about the seat of imperial government. But at nine the embassy returned from Paris with its news—the Czar had refused to accept the abdication; the senate was about to proclaim Louis XVIII; Napoleon was to reign thereafter over the little isle of Elba. To this the undaunted Emperor calmly rejoined that war henceforth offered nothing worse than peace, and began at once to explain his plans.

But he was interrupted—exactly how we cannot tell; for, though the embassy returned as it left, in a body, the memoirs of each member strive to convey the impression that it was he alone who said and did everything. If only the narrative attributed to Caulaincourt were of undoubted authenticity, cumulative evidence might create certitude; but it is not. The sorry tale of what probably occurred makes clear that all three were now royalists more or less ardent, for in passing they had concluded a truce with Schwarzenberg on that basis. Macdonald asserts that his was the short and brutal response to Napoleon's exhibition of his plans; to wit, that they must have an abdication without conditions. Ney was quite as savage, declaring that the confidence of the army was gone. Napoleon at first denounced such mutiny, but then, with seeming resignation, promised an answer next day. He did not yet know that in secret convention the generals were resolving not to obey the orders issued for the morrow; but as the door closed behind the marshals the mind so far clear seemed suddenly eclipsed, and murmuring, "These men have neither heart nor bowels; I am conquered less by fortune than by the egotism and ingratitude of my companions in arms," the great, homeless citizen of the world sank into utter dejection.

It appears to have been a fixed purpose with Napoleon never to fall alive into his enemy's hands. Although they acted under legal forms, yet some European monarchs of the eighteenth century were no more trustworthy in dealing with foes than their great prototype Julius Cæsar in his faithlessness to a certain canton of the Helvetians. They did not display sufficient surprise when enemies were assassinated. Since 1808 the European colossus had worn about his neck as a kind of amulet a little bag which was said to contain a deadly poison, one of the salts of prussic acid. During the night, when the terrors of a shaken reason overpowered him, he swallowed the drug. Whether it had lost its efficacy, or whether the agitated victim of melancholy did not take the entire dose, in either case the effects were imperfect. Instead of oblivion came agony, and his valet, rushing to his master's bedside at the sound of a bitter cry, claimed to catch the words: "Marmont has struck me the final blow! Unhappy man, I loved him! Berthier's desertion has broken my heart! My old friends, my comrades in arms!" Ivan, the Emperor's body physician, was summoned, and administered an antidote; the spasm was allayed, and after a short sleep reason resumed her seat. It is related in the memoirs of Caulaincourt, and probably with a sort of Homeric truth, that when the minister was admitted in the early morning, Napoleon's "wan and sunken eyes seemed struggling to recall the objects round about; a universe of torture was revealed in the vaguely desolate look." Napoleon is reported as saying: "God did not will it. I could not die. Why did they not let me die? It is not the loss of the throne that makes existence unendurable; my military career suffices for the glory of a single man. Do you know what is more difficult to bear than the reverses of fortune? It is the baseness, the horrible ingratitude, of men. Before such acts of cowardice, before the shamelessness of their egotism, I have turned away my head in disgust and have come to regard my life with horror.... Death is rest.... Rest at last.... What I have suffered for twenty days no one can understand."

What throws some shadow on this account is the fact that on the following morning Napoleon appeared outwardly well and perfectly calm when he assembled his marshals and made a final appeal. It is certain, from the testimony of his secretary and his physician, that he had been violently ill, but the sobriety of the remaining chronicle is to be doubted. Possibly, too, the empty sachet had contained a preparation of opium intended to relieve sharp attacks like that at Pirna; but in view of the second attempt at suicide made after Waterloo, this is not likely. Yet the circumstances may easily have been exaggerated; for the evident motive of what has been called the imperial legend is to heighten all the effects in the Napoleonic picture. Whatever was the truth as to that gloomy night, Napoleon's appeal next morning, though eloquent, was in vain; the marshals were unshaken in their determination, though less bitter and violent in their language. "You deserve repose," were the Emperor's last words to them; "well, then, take it." Thereupon the act of unconditional abdication was written in these words: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reëstablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that for himself and his heirs he renounces the thrones of France and of Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice which he is not ready to make for the welfare of the nation." These last words were, after some consideration, erased, and the phrase "in the interest of France" was substituted for them. Some think, and it may well be true, that this change of form, taken in connection with Napoleon's calmness, was another proof of his deep purpose. Unable to thwart his "growlers," he may have recollected that once before he had crossed the Mediterranean to give a feeble government full scope for its own destruction. France might easily recall her favorite son in her own interest. He was scarcely more than forty-four, a young man still, and this he probably recalled as he made ready to play a new rôle.

Armed with the document necessary to secure his pardon, Ney hurried back to the capital. The elderly, well-meaning, but obtuse Louis XVIII was immediately proclaimed king by the senate. Having "learned nothing, and forgotten nothing," he accepted the throne, making certain concessions to the new France, sufficient, as he hoped, to secure at least the momentary support of the people. The haste to join the white standard made by men on whom Napoleon's adventurous career had heaped honor and wealth is unparalleled in history. Jourdan, Augereau, Maison, Lagrange, Nansouty, Oudinot, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Hulin, Milhaud, Latour-Maubourg, Ségur, Berthier, Belliard—such were the earliest names. Among the soldiers near by some bowed to the new order, but among the garrisons there was such widespread mutiny that royalist hate was kindled again and fanned to white heat by the scoffs and jeers of the outraged men. Their behavior was the outward sign of a temper not universal, of course, but very common among the people. At Paris both the King and the King's brother were cheered on their formal entry, but many discriminating onlookers prophesied that the Bourbons could not remain long.

Fully aware that Napoleon was yet a power in France, and challenged by the marshals to display a chivalric spirit in providing for the welfare of their former monarch, Alexander gave full play to his generous impulses. His first suggestion was that his fallen foe should accept a home and complete establishment in Russia; but this would have been to ignore the other members of the coalition. It was determined finally to provide the semblance of an empire, the forms of state, and an imperial income, and to make the former Emperor the guest of all Europe. The idea was quixotic, but Napoleon was not a prisoner; he had done nothing worthy of degradation, and throughout the civilized world he was still regarded by vast numbers as the savior of European society, who had fallen into the hands of cruel oppressors. The paper which was finally drawn up was a treaty between Napoleon, for the time and purposes of the instrument a private citizen, as one party, and the four sovereign states of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England as the other. It had, therefore, no sanction except the public opinion of France and the good faith of those who executed it, the former being bound by her allies to a contract made by them. It was France which was to pay Napoleon two millions of francs a year, and leave him to reign undisturbed over Elba; the allies granted Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla as a realm in perpetuity to Maria Louisa and her heirs, through the King of Rome, as her successors. The agreement was unique, but so were the circumstances which brought it to pass. There was but one important protest, and that was made by Castlereagh in regard to the word Napoleon and the imperial style! His protest was vain, but to this day many among the greatest of his countrymen persistently employ "Bonaparte" in speaking of the greater, and "Napoleon" in designating the lesser, of the two men who have ruled France as emperors.

Four commissioners, one from each of the powers, proceeded to Fontainebleau. They were careful to treat Napoleon with the consideration due to an emperor. To all he was courteous, except to the representative of Prussia, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, whose presence he declared unnecessary, since there were to be no Prussian troops on the southern road toward Elba. With Colonel Campbell, the British commissioner, he was most friendly, conversing enthusiastically with the Scotch officer about the Scotch poet known as Ossian. What was particularly admired in his remarkable outpourings was their warlike tone. As the preparations for departure went forward, it became clear that of all the imperial dignitaries only Bertrand and Drouot would accompany the exile. The others he dismissed with characteristic and appropriate farewells: to Caulaincourt he assigned a gift of five hundred thousand francs from the treasure at Blois; Constant, the valet, and Rustan, the Mameluke, were dismissed at their own desire, but not empty-handed. For his line of travel, and for a hundred baggage-wagons loaded with books, furniture, and objects of art, Napoleon stipulated with the utmost nicety and persistence. With every hour he showed greater and greater anxiety for his personal safety. Indifferent to life but a few short days before, he was now timid and over-anxious. If he had been playing a part and pondering what in a few years, perhaps months, his life and person might again be worth in European politics, he could not have been more painstaking as to measures for his personal safety. The stoic could have recourse to the bowl, the eighteenth-century enthusiast must live and hope to the last. Napoleon seems to have struggled for the union of both characters. "They blame me that I can outlive my fall," he remarked. "Wrongfully.... It is much more courageous to survive unmerited bad fortune." Only once he seemed overpowered, being observed, as he sat at table, to strike his forehead and murmur: "God, is it possible?" Sometimes, too, he appeared to be lost in reverie, and when addressed started like one awakened from a dream. All was ready on the twentieth; but the Empress, who by the terms of the "treaty" was to accompany her consort as far as the harbor of St. Tropez, did not appear. Napoleon declared that she had been kidnapped, and refused to stir, threatening to withdraw his abdication. Koller, the Austrian commissioner, assured him of the truth, that she had resolved of her free will not to be present. In the certainty that all was over, the Empress had determined to take refuge with her father, and the imperial government at Blois had dispersed, Joseph and Jerome flying to Switzerland.

The announcement staggered Napoleon, but he replied with words destined to have great significance: "Very well; I shall remain faithful to my promise; but if I have new reasons to complain, I shall consider myself absolved." Further, he touched on various topics as if seeking to talk against time, remarking that Francis had impiously sought the dissolution of his daughter's marriage; that Russia and Prussia had made Austria's position dangerous; that the Czar and Frederick William had shown little delicacy in visiting Maria Louisa at Rambouillet; that he himself was no usurper; and that he had been wrong not to make peace at Prague or Dresden. Then, suddenly changing tone and topic, he asked with interest what would occur if Elba refused to accept him. Koller thought he might still take refuge in England. Napoleon rejoined that he had thought of that; but, having always sought to do England harm, would the English make him welcome? Koller replied that, as all the projects against her welfare had come to naught, England would feel no bitterness. Finally, about noon Napoleon descended into the courtyard, where the few grenadiers of the old guard were drawn up. The officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, were called forward, and in a few touching words their former leader thanked all who had remained true for their loyalty. With their aid he could have continued the war beyond the Loire, but he had preferred to sacrifice his personal interests to those of France. "Continue to serve France," runs the Napoleonic text of this fine address: but the commissioners thought they heard "to serve the sovereign which the nation has chosen." He could have ended his life, he went on to say, but he wished to live and record for posterity the great deeds of his warriors. Then he embraced Petit, the commanding officer, and, snatching to his breast the imperial eagle, his standard in so many glorious battles, he pressed it to his lips, and entered the waiting carriage. A swelling sob burst from the ranks, and tears bedewed the weather-beaten cheeks of men who had not wept for years.

CHAPTER XII

The Emperor of Elba [14]

Napoleon and the Popular Frenzy — Serious Dangers Incurred — The Exile under the British Flag — The Voyage to Elba — The Napoleonic Court at Porto Ferrajo — Mysterious Visitors — Estrangement of Maria Louisa — Napoleon's "Isle of Repose" — The Congress of Vienna — Its Violation of Treaty Agreement — Discontent in France — Revival of Imperialism — Bitterness of the Army — Intrigues against the Bourbons — Napoleon's Behavior — His Fears of Assassination.

1814-15

Napoleon's journey to Elba was a series of disenchantments. As has been said, he had stipulated in his "treaty" that the Empress should accompany him to St. Tropez, where he was to embark. Her absence, he persisted in declaring, was explicable only by forced detention; and he again talked of withdrawing his abdication at this breach of the engagements made by the allies. But he grew more composed, and the journey was sufficiently comfortable as far as Lyons. Occasionally during that portion of it there were outbursts of good feeling from those who stopped to see his train pass by. But in descending the Rhone there was a marked change. As the Provençals had been the radicals of the Revolution, so now they were the devotees of the Restoration. The flood of disreputable calumny had broken loose: men said the Emperor's mother was a loose woman, his father a butcher, he himself but a bastard, his true name Nicholas. "Down with Bonaparte! down with Nicholas!" was too often the derisive shout as he traversed the villages. Maubreuil, the hired assassin, was hurrying from Paris with a desperate band, ostensibly to recover crown jewels or government funds which might be among Napoleon's effects. Recalling Alexander's boast that his best servants had been found among the assassins of his father, and recollecting that Francis sighed to Metternich for Napoleon's exile to a far-distant land, Elba being too near to France and to Europe, it is conceivable that Talleyrand might reckon on the moral support of the dynasties in conniving at Napoleon's assassination. Had he forgotten the murder of Enghien? Probably not; but his conscience was not over-tender. Near Valence, on April twenty-fourth, the imperial procession met Augereau's carriage. The arch-republican of Napoleon's earlier career had given his adhesion to the new government, and had been retained in office. He alighted, the ex-Emperor likewise: the latter exhibited all the ordinary forms of politeness, the former studiously disdained them. Napoleon, with nice irony, asked if the general were on his way to court. The thrust went home, but in a gruff retort Augereau, using the insulting "thou," declared with considerable embarrassment that he cared no more for the Bourbons than for Napoleon; that he had no motive for his conduct except love for his country.

Partly by good fortune, partly by good management, the cortège avoided the infuriated bands who, in various places, had sworn to take the fallen Emperor's life. At Avignon his escape was almost miraculous. Near Orgon a mob of royalists beset the carriage, and Napoleon shrank in pallid terror behind Bertrand, cowering there until the immediate danger was removed by his Russian escort. A few miles out he donned a postilion's uniform and rode post through the town. At Saint-Cannat he would not touch a morsel of food for fear of poison. Rumors of the bitter feeling prevalent at Aix led him for further protection to clothe one of his aides in his own too familiar garb. In that town he was violently ill, somewhat as he had been at Fontainebleau. The attack yielded easily to remedies, and the Prussian commissioner asserted that it was due to a loathsome disease. Thereafter the hounded fugitive wore an Austrian uniform, and sat in the Austrian commissioner's carriage; thus disguised, the Emperor of Elba seemed to feel secure. From Luc onward the company was protected by Austrian hussars; but in spite of these military jailers, mob violence became stronger from day to day in each successive town. Napoleon grew morbid, and the line of travel was changed from the direction of St. Tropez to that of Fréjus in order to avoid the ever-increasing danger. The only alleviation in the long line of ills was a visit from his light and giddy but affectionate sister Pauline, the Princess Borghese, who comforted him and promised to share his exile. At length Fréjus was reached, and Napoleon resumed his composure as he saw an English frigate and a French brig lying in the harbor. Perhaps the beautiful view recalled to an outcast monarch the return, in 1799, of one General Bonaparte, who had landed on the same shore to overthrow the Directory. If not, it must have been due to unwonted dejection or dark despair.

Again Napoleon remarked a breach of his treaty. He was to have sailed from St. Tropez in a corvette; here was only a brig. Accordingly, as if to mark an intentional slight, in reality for his safety and comfort, he asked and obtained permission to embark on the English frigate, the Undaunted, as the guest of her captain. The promised corvette was at St. Tropez awaiting its passenger, but the hasty change of plan had made it impossible to bring her around in time. Possibly for this reason, too, the baggage of Napoleon had been much diminished in quantity; and of this he complained also, as being a breach of his treaty. His farewell to the Russian and Prussian commissioners was brief and dignified; the Austrian hussars paid full military honors to the party; and as the Emperor, accompanied by the English and Austrian commissioners, embarked, a salvo of twenty-four guns rang out from the Undaunted. Already he had begun to eulogize England and her civilization, and to behave as if throwing himself on the good faith of an English gentleman, exactly as a defeated knight would throw himself on the chivalric courtesy of his conqueror. This appearance of distinguished treatment heightened his self-satisfaction. His attendants said that once again he was "all emperor."

It was a serious blow when, on passing aboard ship, he discovered that the salutes had been in recognition of the commissioners, and that the polite but decided Captain Ussher was determined to treat his illustrious guest with the courtesy due to a private gentleman, and with that alone. Although chafing at times during the voyage against the restrictions of naval discipline, Napoleon submitted gracefully, and wore a subdued air. This was his first contact with English customs: sometimes they interested him; frequently, as in the matter of after-dinner amusements and Sunday observance, they irritated him, and then with a contemptuous petulance he withdrew to his cabin. In conversation with Koller, the Austrian commissioner, he once referred to his conduct in disguising himself on the road to Fréjus as pusillanimous, and admitted in vulgar language that he had made an indecent display of himself. He was convinced that all the dreadful scenes through which he had passed were the work of Bourbon emissaries. In general his talk was a running commentary on the past, a well-calculated prattle in which, with apparent spontaneity and ingenuousness, interpretations were placed on his conduct which were thoroughly novel. This was the beginning of a series of historical commentaries lasting, with interruptions, to the end of his life. There is throughout a unity of purpose in the explication and embellishment of history which will be considered later. On May fourth the Undaunted cast anchor in the harbor of Porto Ferrajo.

Elba was an island divided against itself, there being both imperialists and royalists among its inhabitants, and a considerable party which desired independence. By representing that Napoleon had brought with him fabulous sums, the Austrian and English commissioners easily won the Elbans to a fervor of loyalty for their new emperor. Before nightfall of the fourth the court was established, and the new administration began its labors. After mastering the resources and needs of his pygmy realm, the Emperor began at once to deploy all his powers, mending the highways, fortifying the strategic points, and creating about the nucleus of four hundred guards which were sent from Fontainebleau an efficient little army of sixteen hundred men. His expenses were regulated to the minutest detail, the salt-works and iron-mines, which were the bulwarks of Elban prosperity, began at once to increase their output, and taxation was regulated with scrupulous nicety. By that supereminent virtue of the French burgher, good management, the island was made almost independent of the remnants of the Tuileries treasure, the sum of about five million francs, which Napoleon had brought from France. The same powers which had swayed a world operated with equal success in a sphere almost microscopic by comparison. To many this appeared a sorry commentary on human grandeur, but the great exile did not intend to sink into a contemptible lethargy. If the future had aught in store for him, his capacities must have exercise and their bearings be kept smooth by use. The Princess Borghese had been separated from her second husband soon after the marriage, and since 1810 she had lived an exile from Paris, having been banished for impertinent conduct to the Empress. But she cherished no malice, and before long, according to promise, she arrived and took up her abode as her brother's companion. Madame Mère, though distant in prosperity, came likewise to soothe her son in adversity. The intercepted letters of the former prove her to have been at least as loose in her life at Elba as ever before, but they do not afford a sufficient basis for the scandals concerning her relations with Napoleon which were founded upon them and industriously circulated at the court of Louis XVIII. The shameful charge, though recently revived and ingeniously supported, appears to have no adequate foundation.

Napoleon's economies were rendered not merely expedient, but imperative, by the fact that none of the moneys from France were forthcoming which had been promised in his treaty with the powers. After a short stay Koller frankly stated that in his opinion they never would be paid, and departed. The island swarmed with Bourbon spies, and the only conversation in which Napoleon could indulge himself unguardedly was with Sir Neil Campbell, the English representative, or with the titled English gentlemen who gratified their curiosity by visiting him. During the summer heat, when the court was encamped on the heights at Marciana for refreshment, there appeared a mysterious lady with her child. Both were well received and kindly treated, but they withdrew themselves entirely from the public gaze. Common rumor said it was the Empress, but this was not true; it was the Countess Walewska, with one of the two sons she bore her host, whom she still adored. They remained but a few days, and departed as mysteriously as they had come. Base females thronged the precincts of the imperial residence, openly struggling for Napoleon's favor as they had so far never dared to do; success too frequently attended their efforts.

But the one woman who should have been at his side was absent.[15] It is certain that she made an honest effort to come, and apartments were prepared for her reception in the little palace at Porto Ferrajo. Her father, however, thwarted her at every turn, and finally she was a virtual prisoner at Schönbrunn. So manifest was the restraint that her grandmother Caroline, Queen of the Two Sicilies, cried out in indignation: "If I were in the place of Maria Louisa, I would tie the sheets of my bed to the window-frame and flee." Committed to the charge of the elegant and subtle Neipperg, a favorite chamberlain whom she had first seen at Dresden, she was plied with such insidious wiles that at last her slender moral fibre was entirely broken down, and she fell a victim to his charms. As late as August, Napoleon received impassioned letters from her; then she grew formal and cold; at last, under Metternich's urgency, she ceased to write at all. Her French attendant, Méneval, managed to convey the whole sad story to her husband; but the Emperor was incredulous, and hoped against hope until December. Then only he ceased from his incessant and urgent appeals.

The number of visitors to Elba was sometimes as high as three hundred in a single day. Among these were a few English, fewer French, but many Italians. As time passed the heaviness of the Austrian yoke had begun to gall the people of Napoleon's former kingdom, and considerable numbers from among them, remembering the mild Eugène with longing, joined in an extensive though feeble conspiracy to restore Napoleon to the throne of Italy. Lucien returned to Rome in order to foster the movement, and Murat, observing with unease the general faithlessness of the great powers in small matters, began to tremble for the security of his own seat. With them and others Napoleon appears to have corresponded regularly. He felt himself entirely freed from the obligations he had taken at Fontainebleau, for he was sure the people of southern France had been instigated to take his life by royalist agents, and while one term after another passed, not a cent was paid of the promised pension; his own fortune, therefore, was steadily melting away. For months he behaved as if really determined to make Elba his "isle of repose," as he designated it just before landing; but under such provocations his temper changed. The corner-stone of his treaty was his complete sovereignty; otherwise the paper was merely a promise without any sanction, not even that of international law. This perfect sovereignty had been recognized by the withdrawal of all the commissioners as such, Campbell insisting that he remained merely as an ambassador.

In a treaty concluded on May thirtieth between Louis XVIII and the powers of the coalition, the boundaries of France were fixed substantially as they had been in 1792, and the destiny of the lands brought under her sway by the Revolution and by Napoleon was to be determined by a European congress. This body met on November first, 1814, at Vienna. It was soon evident that the four powers of the coalition were to outdo Napoleon's extreme endeavors in their reckless disposition of European territories. Before the close of the month, however, Talleyrand, by his adroit manipulations and his conjurings with the sacrosanct word "legitimacy," had made himself the moving spirit of the congress, and had so inflamed the temper of both Metternich and Castlereagh against the dictatorial attitude of Russia and Prussia as to induce Austria and Great Britain to sign, on January third, 1815, a secret treaty with France whereby the parties of the first part bound themselves to resist the aggressiveness of the Northern powers, and that by force if necessary. This restored France to the position of a great power. By the middle of February the Northern allies were brought to terms, and in return for their concessions it was agreed that Murat was to be deposed. This spirit of compromise menaced, or rather finally destroyed, the sovereignty of Napoleon, petty as it was. On the charge of conspiring with Murat, he could easily be removed from Elba, and deported to some more remote spot from which he could exert no influence on European politics.

From the opening sessions of the congress there had been a general consensus of opinion as to this course. As to the place opinions varied. Castlereagh favored the Azores, but others the Cape Verde islands; St. Helena, then well known as a place of call on the long voyage to the Cape, had been suggested much earlier, even before Elba was chosen, but when or by whom is not known. It is quite possible that Wellington, who succeeded Castlereagh as English plenipotentiary in February, may have mentioned the name; he had been there, and knew it as almost the remotest spot of land in the world. The formal proposition to that effect appears to have been made by the Prussian cabinet. The congress took no definite action in the matter, but the understanding was so clear and general that a proclamation to the national guard was printed in the "Moniteur" of March eighth, 1815, stating that measures had been taken at the Congress of Vienna to remove Napoleon farther away. It was easy for everybody, including the captive himself, to believe that, all the other articles of the agreement at Fontainebleau having been violated, that which guaranteed the sovereignty of Elba was equally worthless.

It cannot be doubted that Napoleon was fully aware of whatever was proposed at Vienna, and it is absolutely certain that he was thoroughly informed as to the changed state of public opinion in France. Having promised a fairly liberal constitution as the price of his throne, Louis XVIII, with colossal stupidity, undertook to ignore the past and promulgated the charter as his own gracious act, done in the nineteenth year of his reign! The upper chamber, or House of Peers, was his creature, since he could create members at will. Feeble in mind and body, he was unable to check the reactionary assumptions of his family, who, having deserted their country, had returned to it by the aid of invaders despised and feared by the nation. These and the returning emigrants were provided with rich sinecures, and began to talk of restoring estates to their rightful owners; in some cases the possessors, on their death-beds, were intimidated into making such restitution. The extreme clerical party began even to hamper the ministry in its efforts to grant the freedom of worship guaranteed by the constitution. Secular business was forbidden on certain holy days, and funeral masses were celebrated for Pichegru, Moreau, and Cadoudal, that for the latter at the King's expense. When, finally, Christian burial was refused to an actress, there were riots in Paris.

But the government continued its suicidal course; even the Vendée grew disaffected, and, the suffrage having been greatly restricted, there were murmurings about oligarchies and tyrants. At Nîmes the Protestants feared another St. Bartholomew, and said so. Even moderate royalists grew troubled, and could not retort when they heard the new order stigmatized by the fitting name of "paternal anarchy." Both veterans and conscripts deserted in great numbers from the army as they saw their officers discharged by the score to make places for the young aristocracy, or their comrades retired, nominally on half-pay, in reality to eke out a subsistence as best they could. It was not long before men showed each other pocket-pieces bearing Napoleon's effigy, whispering as watchwords, "Courage and hope," or "He has been and will be," or "Frenchmen, awake; the Emperor is waking." As early as July, 1814, rumors of his return were rife in country districts, and by autumn the longing for it was outspoken and general. In Paris there was greater caution, but as Marmont was called "Judas" for having betrayed his master, so Berthier was known as "Peter" in that he had denied him, and it was a common joke to tie a white cockade to the tail of a dog. Before the Chamber met the various factions openly avowed themselves as either royalists, Bonapartists, liberals, or Jacobins. The money estimates presented made it clear that a king was more expensive than an emperor, and when the peers not only voted to indemnify the emigrants for the lands held by their families, but likewise passed a bill establishing the censorship of the press, it was common talk that the present state of things could not last.

The number of French prisoners of war and of soldiers released from the besieged fortresses in central Europe was about three hundred thousand, of whom a third were veterans of the Empire. To these must be added the army which Soult, ignorant of Napoleon's abdication, had led to defeat at Toulouse, and the soldiers who had served in Italy. These men, long accustomed to much consideration, found themselves on their return to be persons of no consequence. They learned that the great officers of the Empire were everywhere treated with scant courtesy, and that the great ladies of the imperial court were now virtually driven from the Tuileries by the significant questions and loud asides of the royal personages who had supplanted them. It was told in all public resorts how Ney had resented the rude affronts put on his wife by the Duchess of Angoulême. The well-trained subordinate officers of these contingents were turned adrift by thousands on the same terms as those of Napoleon's own army, half-pay if they showed themselves good Catholics, otherwise nothing. For the most part, again, this promise was empty; young royalists were put in their places, the pay of the old guard was reduced, a new noble guard was organized, promotion was refused to those who had received commissions during the operations of war, and the asylums established for the orphans of those who had belonged to the Legion of Honor were abolished. So bitter was the outcry that the King felt compelled to dismiss his minister of war, and, not daring to substitute Marmont, who demanded the place, appointed Soult. He too was speedily discredited for harshness to Exelmans, a subordinate who was discovered to have been in correspondence with Napoleon; and by the middle of February, 1815, nearly all the soldiers were at heart Bonapartists, their friends for the most part abetting them.

Napoleon Exposition, 1895

The King of Rome
Painted by Marie Louise under direction of Isabey
belonging to Messrs. Marquis and Comte de Las Cases.

In less than two months after Louis XVIII took his seat, Talleyrand and Fouché were deep in their element of plot and intrigue. They thought of the son of Philippe Égalité as a possible constitutional ruler; they talked of reëstablishing the imperial regency; with Napoleon placed beyond the possibility of returning, the latter course would be safe. During the succeeding months they continued to juggle with this double intrigue, and around their plots clustered minor ones in mass. Lord Liverpool actually called Wellington to London for fear the duke should be seized, and Marmont put the Paris garrison under arms. On January twenty-first, 1815, the death of Louis XVI was commemorated by the royalists with the wildest talk; and such was the general fury over Exelmans's treatment that Fouché at last stepped forward to give his conspiracy some form. Carnot and Davout were both expected to coöperate; but although they refused, enough officers of influence were secured to make a plan for an extended insurrection entirely feasible. For this all parties were willing to unite; no one knew or cared what was to supplant the existing government—anything was better than "paternal anarchy."

How accurate the information was which reached Napoleon at Elba we cannot ascertain, for his feelings were masked and his conduct was non-committal. He had entirely recovered his health, and though old in experience, he was only forty-five years of age, and still appeared like one in the prime of life. He was apparently vigorous, being short, thick-necked, and inclined to corpulence. His cheeks were somewhat heavy and sensuous, his hair receded far back on the temples, his limbs were powerful, his hands and feet were delicately formed and noticeably small. His movements were nervous and well controlled, his eye was clear and bright, his passions were strong, his self-control was apparent, and the coördination of his powers was easy. To the Elban peasant he was gracious; with his subordinates he was dignified; among his many visitors he moved with good humor and tact; his kindness to his mother and sister made both of them devoted and happy.

The only anxiety he displayed was in regard to assassination and kidnapping: the former he said he could meet like a soldier; of the latter he spoke with anxious foreboding. He had reason to fear both. Every week either in France or Italy or both, there was a plot among fanatical royalists and priests to kill him; and though the Barbary pirates were eager to seize him and win a great ransom, they were excelled in their zeal both by Mariotte, Talleyrand's agent in Leghorn, and by Bruslart, a bitter and ancient enemy, who had been appointed governor of Corsica for the purpose. For these reasons, probably, the Emperor of Elba lived as far as possible in seclusion. As time passed he grew less intimate with Campbell, but the Scotch gentleman did not attribute the fact to discontent. Before leaving Elba, on February sixteenth, to reside for a time in Florence and perform the duties of English envoy in that place, he gave it as his opinion that if Napoleon received the pension stipulated for in the treaty he would remain tranquilly where he was.

CHAPTER XIII

Napoleon the Liberator [16]

Napoleon Ready to Reappear — Reasons for his Determination — The Return to France — The Northward March — Grenoble Opens its Gates — The Lyons Proclamations — The Emperor in the Tuileries — The Emperor of the French — The Additional Act — Effects of the Return in France and Elsewhere — The Congress of Vienna Denounces Napoleon.

It has lately been recalled that as early as July, 1814, the Emperor of Elba remarked to an English visitor that Louis XVIII, being surrounded by those who had betrayed the Empire, would in turn probably be himself betrayed by them. For the ensuing four months, however, the exile gave no sign of any deep purpose; to those who wished to leave him, he gave a hearty good-by. In December, however, he remarked to one of his old soldiers, pointedly, as the man thought: "Well, grenadier, you are bored; ... take the weather as it comes." Slipping a gold piece into the veteran's hand, he then turned away, humming to a simple air the words, "This will not last forever." Thereafter he dissuaded all who sought to depart, saying: "Be patient. We'll pass these few winter days as best we may; then we'll try to spend the spring in another fashion." This vague language may possibly have referred to the Italian scheme, but on February tenth he received a clear account of what had happened at Vienna, and on the evening of the twelfth Fleury de Chaboulon, a confidential friend of Maret, arrived in the disguise of a sailor, and revealed in the fullest and most authentic way the state of France. When he heard of the plan to reëstablish the regency, Napoleon burst out hotly: "A regency! What for? Am I, then, dead?" Two days later, after long conferences, the emissary was despatched to do what he could at Naples, and the Emperor began his preparations.

This was soon known on the mainland, and three days later a personage whose identity has never been revealed arrived in the guise of a Marseilles merchant, declaring that, except the rich and the emigrants, every human being in France longed for the Emperor's return. If he would but set up his hat on the shores of Provence, it would draw all men toward it. When Napoleon turned pseudo-historian he declared in one place that the breaches of the Fontainebleau treaty and his fears of deportation had nothing to do with his return from Elba; in another he states the reverse. Since the legend he was then studiously constructing required the unbroken devotion of the French to the standard-bearer of the Revolution for the sake of consistency, he probably recalled only the feelings awakened by Fleury's report that opportunity was ripe, and that, too, earlier than had been expected. But there were other motives at the time, for Peyrusse, keeper of Napoleon's purse during the Elban sojourn, heard his master asseverate that it would be more dangerous to remain in Porto Ferrajo than to return to France. In any case, so far as France and the world at large were concerned, the contemptuous indifference of Louis and his ministers to their obligations under the treaty powerfully justified Napoleon's course. Even Alexander and Castlereagh had early made an indignant protest to Talleyrand; but the latter, already deep in conspiracy, turned them off with a flippant rejoinder.

With great adroitness and secrecy Napoleon collected and fitted out his little flotilla, which consisted of the Inconstant, a stout brig assigned to him at Fontainebleau, and seven smaller craft. During the preparations the French and English war-vessels patrolling the neighboring waters came and went, but their captains suspected nothing. Campbell's departure created a false rumor among the islanders that England was favoring some expedition on which the Emperor was about to embark, thus allaying all suspicion. When, on the twenty-sixth, a little army of eleven hundred men found itself afloat, with eighty horses and a number of cannon, no one seemed to realize what had happened; except Drouot, who pleaded against Napoleon's rashness, all were enthusiastic. To avoid suspicion, each captain steered his own course, and the various craft dotting the sea at irregular intervals looked no way unlike the other boats which plied those waters. Several men-of-war were sighted, but they kept their course. As one danger after another was averted, the great adventurer's spirits rose until he was exuberant with joy, and talked of Austerlitz. It was March first when land was finally sighted from the Inconstant; as if by magic, the other vessels hove in sight immediately, and by four the men were all ashore on the strand of the Gulf of Jouan. Cambronne, a colonel of the imperial guards, was sent to requisition horses at Cannes, with the strict injunction that not a drop of blood be shed. As the great actor had theatrically said on board his brig, he was "about to produce a great novelty," and he counted upon dazzling the beholders into an enthusiasm they had ceased to feel for the old plays. Among others brought to Napoleon's bivouac that night was the Prince of Monaco, who had been found by Cambronne at St. Pierre traveling in a four-horse carriage, and had been taken as a prisoner into Napoleon's presence. "Where are you going?" was, according to tradition, the greeting of Napoleon. "I am returning to my domains," came the reply. "Indeed! and I too," was the merry retort.

Recalling the mortal agony he had endured on the highway through Aix but a short year before, and its causes, and having been informed how bitter was the anti-royalist feeling in the Dauphiné, Napoleon set his little army in march direct toward Grenoble. At Cannes there was general indifference; at Grasse it was found that the division general in command had fled, and there were a few timid shouts of "Long live the Emperor!" Thence to Digne on the Grenoble highway was a mountain track over a ridge twelve thousand feet above the sea. In twenty hours the slender column marched thirty-five miles. The "growlers" joked about the "little corporal" who trudged at their side, the Alpine hamlets provided abundant rations, and the government officials furnished blank passports which enabled Napoleon to send emissaries both to Grenoble and to Marseilles, where Masséna was in command. The little garrison of Digne was Bonapartist in feeling, but it was not yet ready to join Napoleon, and withdrew; that at Sisteron was kept from meddling by a body of troops which had been despatched as a corps of observation from Marseilles, while the populace shouted heartily for the Emperor. At Gap the officials strove to organize resistance, but they desisted before the menaces of the people. By this time the peasantry were coming in by hundreds. So far Napoleon's enterprise had received but four recruits: two soldiers from Antibes, a tanner from Grasse, and a gendarme. Now he was so confident that he dismissed the peasantry, assuring them that the soldiers in front would join his standards.

On March seventh the head of the column of imperial adventurers reached La Mure, a short day's march from Grenoble. They were received with enthusiasm, and a bucket of the poor native wine was brought for the refreshment of the men. When all had been served Napoleon reached out for the cheap little glass, and swallowed his ration like the rest. There was wild delight among both his men and the onlookers as the "army" set out for Laffray, the next hamlet, where was a small detachment sent from Grenoble to destroy a bridge over the Drac. With inscrutable faces they stood across the highway, lances set and muskets charged, under orders to fire on Napoleon the moment he should appear. At length the critical moment arrived. "There he is! Fire!" cried a royalist officer. The soldiers clutched their arms, their faces blanched, their knees shook, and they—disobeyed! Napoleon, walking slowly, advanced within pistol-shot. He wore the old familiar gray surtout, the well-known cocked hat, and a tricolor cockade. "Soldiers of the Fifth," he said in a strong, calm voice, "behold me!" Then advancing a few paces farther, he threw open his coat and displaying the familiar uniform, he called: "If there be one soldier among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, he can. I come to offer myself to your assaults." In an instant the opposing ranks melted into a mob of sobbing, cheering men, kissing Napoleon's shoes, struggling to touch the skirts of his shabby garments. The surrounding throng crowded near in sympathy. "Soldiers," cried the magician, "I come with a handful of brave men because I count on you and the people. The throne of the Bourbons is illegitimate because it was not erected by the nation. Your fathers are threatened by a restoration of titles, of privilege, and of feudal rights; is it not so?" "Yes, yes," shouted the multitude. At that instant appeared a rider arrayed in the uniform of the national guard, but wearing a huge tricolor cockade. Alighting at Napoleon's feet, he said: "Sire, I am Jean Dumoulin the glove-maker; I bring to your majesty a hundred thousand francs and my arm." At that instant likewise an imperial proclamation denouncing traitors, and promising that under the old standards victory would return like the storm-wind, was passing from hand to hand in the garrison of Grenoble. Labédoyère, the colonel, of the Seventh of the line, first announced his purpose to support his Emperor, and the royalist officers saw the imperialist feeling spread with dismay. They arranged to evacuate the place next morning. At seven in the evening Napoleon summoned the town; the commandant, unable to resist the pressure of both soldiers and populace, fled with a few adherents, and at ten the gates were opened. The reception of the returning exile was hearty and impressive. It was with an army of seven thousand men that, after a rest of thirty-six hours, he started for Lyons.

"As far as Grenoble I was an adventurer; at Grenoble I was a prince," wrote Napoleon at St. Helena. If this were true, at Lyons he was an Emperor in fact as well as in name, that great city receiving him with plaudits as energetic as were the execrations with which they dismissed Artois and Macdonald. Recalling the lessons of his youth, some learned in Corsica, some in the Rhone valley, the returning Emperor carefully felt the pulse of public opinion as he journeyed. He found the longing for peace to be universal, and even before entering Lyons he began to promise peace with honor. But this he quickly found was not enough: it must be peace with liberty as well. The sole task before him, therefore, he declared to be that of protecting the interests and principles of the Revolution against the returning emigrants. France, restored to her glory, was to live in harmony with other European powers as long as they minded their own affairs. Napoleon, the liberator of France! To terrify foreign invaders and intestine foes a great united nation was to speak in trumpet notes. From Lyons, therefore, second city of the Empire, was summoned a popular assembly to revise the constitution. To convey the impression that Austria was in secret accord with the Emperor's course, three delegates from the eastern capital were summoned to assist at a significant ceremony which was to occur almost immediately, the coronation of the Empress and the King of Rome. Still further, a decree was issued which banished the returned emigrants and swept away the pretensions of the arrogant nobles. Talleyrand, Marmont, Augereau, and Dalberg were attainted, and the noble guard of the King was abolished. Under these influences Bonapartist feeling grew so intense and spread so widely that the army of Soult, which had been assembled in the southeast to oppose Murat, turned imperialist almost to a man. Masséna, who seems to have followed the lead of Fouché, waited to see what was coming, and remained neutral. Ney fell in with the general movement, and joined Napoleon at Auxerre. "Embrace me, my dear general," were the Emperor's words of greeting. "I am glad to see you; and I want neither explanations nor justifications."

All resistance disappeared before Napoleon's advance as he passed Autun and descended the Yonne valley toward Paris. Everywhere there were dissensions among the populace, but the enthusiasm of the soldiers and their sympathizers triumphed. The troops despatched by the King's government to overpower the "usurper" sooner or later went over to the "usurper's" standards. One morning a placard was found on the railing around the Vendôme column: "Napoleon to Louis XVIII. My good brother, it is useless to send me any more troops; I have enough." Paris was in a storm of suppressed excitement. The measures of resistance were half-hearted; the King made lavish concessions and the chambers passed excellent laws without attracting any attention or sympathy; volunteers were raised, but there was no energy in their organization. When Napoleon reached Fontainebleau on the eighteenth, the reserves stationed in and near Paris on the south came over to him in a body. On the nineteenth Louis issued a despairing address to the army, and fled to Lille; on the morning of the twentieth the capital found itself without any vestige of government. The streets were thronged with people, but there was no disorder until a band of royalists attacked a half-pay officer wearing the imperial cockade. At once the city guard formed and intervened to quell the disturbance. Thereupon the imperialists endeavored to seize the Tuileries; they, too, were checked, and a double force, royalist and imperial, was set to defend that important spot. Over other public buildings the imperial colors waved alone and undisturbed. During the afternoon the crowds dispersed and the imperial officials quietly resumed their places. At nine in the evening a post-chaise rolled up to the Tuileries gate, Napoleon alighted, and the observers thought his smile was like that of one walking in a dream. At once he was caught in the brawny arms of his admirers, and handed upward from step to step, from landing to landing. So fierce was the affection of his friends that his life seemed to be in danger from their embraces, and it was with relief that he entered his cabinet and closed the door, to find himself among a few of his old stanch and tried servants, with Caulaincourt at their head. This reception had been in sharp contrast to the apathy displayed on the streets, where the people were few in number, unenthusiastic, and indifferent. "They let me come," said Napoleon to Mollien, "as they let the other go." Finding himself unable to endure the loneliness of the Tuileries, and depressed by the associations of the familiar scenes, he withdrew in a few days to the comparative seclusion of the Élysée, then a suburban mansion dubbed by courtesy a palace.

Some portion of Napoleon's leisure in Elba had been devoted, as was mentioned in another connection, to sketching the outline of a treatise intended to prove that his dynasty was quite as legitimate as any other which had ruled over France. His illusions of European empire were dismissed either permanently or temporarily, and for the moment he was the apostle of nationality and popular sovereignty in France. Before laying his head on his pillow in the Tuileries he displayed this fact to the world in the constitution of his cabinet, which would in our day be designated as a cabinet of concentration, representative of various shades of opinion. Maret, Davout, Cambacérès, Gaudin, Mollien, Decrès, Caulaincourt, Fouché, and Carnot accepted the various portfolios; most surprising of all, Benjamin Constant, the constitutional republican, became president of a reconstructed council of state. In connection with the announcement of these names, the nation was informed that the constitution was to be revised, and that the censorship of the press was abolished. In reference to the latter, Napoleon remarked that, since everything possible had been said about him during the past year, he could himself be no worse off than he was, but the editors could still find much to say about his enemies. To Constant he frankly explained what he meant by revision. The common people had welcomed his return because he was one of themselves, and at a signal he could have the nobles murdered. But he wanted no peasants' war, and, as the taste had returned for unrestricted discussion, public trials, emancipated elections, responsible ministers, and all the paraphernalia of constitutional government, the public must be gratified. For all this he was ready, and with it for peace. But peace he could win only by victory, for, although in his conduct, in the Lyons decrees, and in casual talk, he hinted at negotiations with foreign powers, those negotiations were purely imaginary.

With a clear comprehension of the situation, the ministers went to work. On April twenty-third was promulgated the Additional Act, whereby the franchise was extended, the state church abolished, liberty of worship guaranteed, and every wretched remnant of privilege or divine right expunged. The two chambers were retained, many imperial dignitaries being assigned to the House of Peers, the Bonaparte brothers, Lucien, Joseph, and Jerome, among the number. It was, as Chateaubriand sarcastically said, a revised and improved edition of Louis's constitution. The preamble, however, was new; it set forth that Napoleon, having been long engaged in constructing a great European federal system suited to the spirit of the time and favorable to the spirit of civilization, had now abandoned it, and would henceforth devote himself to a single aim, the perfect security of public liberty. This specious representation, half true and half false, awakened no enthusiasm in France; it was accepted, along with the Additional Act, by a plebiscite, but by only a million three hundred thousand votes—less than half the number cast for the Consulate and the Empire. This was largely due to a curious apathy, induced by a still more curious but firm conviction that at last France had secured peace with honor. Reference has been made to a military conspiracy fomented by Fouché in the North; before the hostile public feeling thus engendered in that quarter Louis fled to Ghent within five days after Napoleon reached Paris, and, though the royal princes were able to carry on civil war in the South a little longer, it was generally felt that the nation now had a ruler of its own choosing, and that if they attended strictly to their own affairs they would be left in peace. For considerable time there was little news from abroad, and so swift was the rush of internal affairs that no heed was given to what there was.

This was suddenly changed in April, when it was brought home to the nation that the specter of war had again been raised, and that the dynasties were finally a unit in their determination to extirpate the Napoleonic régime as a measure of self-defense. Every man with any means saw himself beggared, and every mother felt her son slipping from her arms to swim once more that sea of blood in which for a generation the hope of the nation had been submerged. The depression was general and terrible, for the prospect was appalling. England, entangled with dynastic alliances in order to preserve her prosperity and dignity, had lost most of her serious and trusted leaders, and the few who survived were so panic-stricken as to have little perspicacity. The King's illness having at last removed him from public life, he had been succeeded by the most profligate and frivolous of all the line of English kings, the Prince Regent, who was later George IV. Percival and Liverpool were not merely conservative from principle; they were negative from the love of negatives. Already they had laid the basis, in their mismanagement of domestic affairs, for the social turbulence which within a short time was to compel the most sweeping reforms. Castlereagh had not even an inkling of what the treaty of Chaumont might mean to Great Britain in the end. To destroy Napoleon he was perfectly content that his own free country should support a system of dynastic politics destructive of every principle of liberty.

The Congress of Vienna represented, not a confederation of states, but a league of dynasties posing as nations and banded for mutual self-preservation. To them the permanent restoration of Napoleon could mean only one thing, the recognition of a nation's right to choose its own rulers, and that would be the end of absolutism in Europe. To Great Britain it would mean the destruction of her prosperity, or at least a serious diminution of both power and prestige. The late coalition, therefore, was re-cemented without difficulty, but on a basis entirely new. The account of Napoleon's escape reached Vienna on March sixth. Within the week Maria Louisa, now entirely under Neipperg's influence, wrote declaring herself a stranger to all Napoleon's schemes, and a few days later the French attendants of the little King of Rome were dismissed; the child's last words to Méneval were a message of affection to his father.[17] At that time negotiations among the powers were progressing famously, each having secured its main object; on March thirteenth the Congress, under Castlereagh's instigation, publicly denounced Napoleon as the "enemy and disturber of the world's peace," and proclaimed him an outlaw. The Whigs stigmatized the paper in parliament as provocative of assassination and a disgrace to the English character, but, of all the important journals, the "Morning Chronicle" alone was courageous enough to sustain them, asserting that it was a matter of complete indifference to England whether a Bourbon or a Bonaparte reigned in France. These manly protests were unheeded, and by the twenty-fifth all Europe, except Naples, was united against France alone.

CHAPTER XIV

The Dynasties Implacable [18]

The Vienna Coalition — Its Purpose — Napoleon as a Liberal — The Fiasco — France on the Defensive — Napoleon's Health — War Preparations of the Combatants — Their Respective Forces — Qualities and Achievements of the French — The Armies of Blücher and Wellington — The French Strategy — Napoleon's First Misfortune.

1815

The supreme effort of the dynasties to outlaw Napoleon, and restore France to the Bourbons, was made by what was nominally an alliance of eight members—Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. The last was, however, absorbed in her struggle with Norway, and, though Spain and Portugal were signatories, the real strength of the coalition arranged at Vienna lay in a virtual renewal of the treaty of Chaumont: Austria, Prussia, and Russia were each to put a hundred and eighty thousand men in the field, and Great Britain was to continue her subsidies.

On April fourth, the sovereigns of Europe were notified that the Empire meant peace; they retorted by the mobilization of their forces, and by denouncing in a joint protocol the treaty of Paris. In his extremity Napoleon appealed to Talleyrand, but that minister knew too well the temper of the Congress at Vienna, and refused to coöperate. The versatile Fouché thereupon initiated a new plot, this time against Napoleon, and sounded Metternich; but Metternich was dumb. The other diplomats asseverated that they did not wish to interfere with the domestic affairs of France; but they prevaricated, intending nothing less than the complete restoration of the Bourbons.

Under the shadow of this storm-cloud Napoleon regulated his domestic affairs of state with intrepid calmness. He had no easy task. It was the revived hatred of the masses for priests and nobles to which he had appealed on his progress from Grenoble, and, observing the wild outbursts of the populace at Lyons, he had whispered, "This is madness." It was with studied deliberation, therefore, that in Paris he cast himself completely upon the moderate liberals. This alienated the Jacobin elements throughout the country, and they, in turn, stirred up the royalists. When it became clear that neither Maria Louisa nor the King of Rome was to be crowned, and that there was no help in Austria, even the imperialists displayed a dangerous temper. Such was the general uneasiness about war that the first measures of army reorganization were taken almost stealthily. It was easy enough to establish the skeleton of formation, and not very difficult to find trustworthy officers, commissioned and non-commissioned; but to summon recruits was to announce the coming war. Of the three hundred thousand veterans now returned home, less than one fifth responded to the call for volunteers; the Emperor had reckoned on four fifths at least. The National Guard was so surly that many felt it would be bravado for Napoleon to review them. But he was determined to do so, and on April sixteenth the hazardous ceremony took place. Until at least half the companies had been reviewed not a cheer was heard; then there were a few scattering shouts here and there in the ranks; finally there was some genuine enthusiasm.

By the middle of May the national deputies summoned at Lyons began to arrive. They were to meet, after the fashion of Charles the Great's assemblies, in the open field. Their task was to be the making of a new constitution. It was not reassuring news that they brought from their various homes, and their accounts disturbed public opinion in Paris sadly. Before long it was known that civil war had again broken out in Vendée; the consequences would have been most disastrous had not La Rochejacquelein, the insurgent leader, been killed on June fourth. As it was, the ignoble slaughter of one of their order intensified the bitterness of the nobles. Worse still, it had been found that of the six hundred and twenty-nine deputies five hundred were ardent constitutionalists indifferent to Napoleon, and that only fifty were his devoted personal friends; there were even between thirty and forty who were Jacobins, and at Fouché's command. Under these circumstances the Emperor dared not hold the promised national congress. What could be substituted for it? The great dramatic artist was not long at a loss. He determined to summon the electoral deputies to a gorgeous open-air ceremony on June first, and have them stamp with their approval the Additional Act. A truly impressive spectacle would pass muster for the promised "field of May," and profoundly affect the minds of all present. But, unfortunately, though Ségur made the plan, and though every detail was carefully studied by Napoleon, the affair was not impressive. About eighteen thousand persons assembled on the benches, and there was a vast crowd in the field. The cannon roared their welcome, and the people cheered the imperial carriage, the marshals, the body-guard, and the procession. But when Napoleon and his brothers stepped forth, clad like actors in theatrical costumes of white velvet, wearing Spanish cloaks embroidered with the imperial device of golden bees, and with great plumed hats on their heads, there was a hush of disappointment. The populace had expected a soldier in a soldier's uniform; many had felt sure "he" would wear that of the National Guard.

There was, however, no sign of disrespect while the ministers and the reconstituted corps of marshals filed to their places. Among the latter were familiar faces—Ney, Moncey, Kellermann, Sérurier, Lefebvre, Grouchy, Oudinot, Jourdan, Soult, and Masséna. A committee of the deputies then stood forth, and their chairman read an address declaring that France desired a ruler of her own selection, and promising loyalty in the coming war. Napoleon arose, and in spite of his absurd clothes commanded attention while he set forth his reasons for offering a ready-made constitution instead of risking interminable debate. Although he declared that what was offered could, of course, be amended, there was no applause, except from a few soldiers. When the chambers met, a week later, Lanjuinais, one of Napoleon's lifelong opponents, was chosen president of the House of Deputies. The speech from the throne was clever and conciliatory, and in spite of evident distrust both houses promised all the strength of France for defense—but for defense only. The peers declared that under her new institutions France could never be swept away by the temptations of victory; the deputies asserted that nothing could carry the nation beyond the bounds of its own defense, not even the will of a victorious prince.

The anxieties and exertions of two months were manifest in Napoleon's appearance. His features, though impressive, were drawn, and his long jaw grew prominent. He lost flesh everywhere except around the waist, so that his belly, hitherto inconspicuous, looked almost pendulous. When standing, he folded his hands sometimes in front, sometimes behind, but separated them frequently to take snuff or rub his nose. Sometimes he heaved a mechanical sigh, swallowing as if to calm inward agitation. Often he scowled, and looked out through half-closed lids as if growing far-sighted; the twitching of his eye and ear on the left side grew more frequent. With thickening difficulties and increasing annoyance, serious urinary and stomach troubles set in; there was also a persistent hacking cough. Recourse was again had to protracted warm baths in order to alleviate the accompanying nervousness; but as the ailments were refractory, a mystery soon attached to the malady, and his enemies said it was a loathsome disease. In spite of the statements both of the Prussian commissioner at Fontainebleau, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, and of Sir Hudson Lowe, it is highly improbable that Napoleon's health was undermined by sexual infection. He was surrounded all his life by malignant attendants, and among the sweepings of their minds, which in recent years have been scattered before the public, there would be some proof of the fact. In the utter absence of any reliable information, some have guessed that the trouble was the preliminary stage in the disease of which he died; and others, again, in view of his quick changes of mood, his depressions, exaltations, sharpened sensibilities, and abrupt rudeness, have explained all his peculiarities in disease and health by attributing them to a recondite form of epilepsy. Exhausted and nervous, the sufferer might well, as was the case, be found in tears before the portrait of his son; he might well lift up his voice, as he was heard to do, against the destiny which had played him false. But he was quite shrewd enough to see that during his absence no regency could be trusted, and he arranged to conduct affairs by special messengers. Joseph was to preside and give the casting-vote in the council of state; to Lucien was given a seat in the same body; but the supreme power rested in Napoleon.

When Wellington replaced Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna, it was quickly apparent that he was greater in the field than at the council-board. Both he and Blücher desired to assume the offensive quickly; but inasmuch as Alexander was determined to retain his ascendancy in the coalition, and as each power insisted on its due share in the struggle, it was arranged to begin hostilities on June twenty-seventh, the earliest date at which the Russian troops could reach the confines of France. There were to be three armies. Schwarzenberg, with two hundred and fifty thousand men, comprising the Austrian, Russian, and Bavarian contingents, was to attack across the upper Rhine; Blücher, with one hundred and fifty thousand Prussians, was to advance across the lower Rhine; and Wellington in the Netherlands was to collect an army of one hundred and fifty thousand, compounded of Dutch, Belgians, Hanoverians, and some thirty-eight thousand British, who could be there assembled. The two latter armies were in existence by the first of June, but Wellington was dissatisfied with the quality of his motley force; even the English contingent was not the best possible, for his Peninsular veterans had been sent to find their match in Jackson's riflemen at the battle of New Orleans.

On the eve of hostilities Napoleon had one hundred and twenty-four thousand effective men, and three thousand five hundred more in his camp train; Wellington had one hundred and six thousand, but of these four thousand Hanoverians were left in garrison; Blücher had about one hundred and seventeen thousand. Neither of the two allied generals dreamed that Napoleon would choose the daring form of attack upon which he decided—that of a wedge driven into the broken line nearly a hundred miles in length upon which his enemy lay—for to do so he must pass the Ardennes. But he did choose it, and selected for the purpose the valleys of the Sambre and the Meuse. Allowing for the differences in topography, the idea was identical with that which, nineteen years before, he had executed splendidly in Piedmont and repeated in Germany. The twin enemy seemed unaware that its long and straggling line must, in case of activity, either be broken to maintain the respective bases or else abandon one base for concentration and be cut off from supplies. Wellington's base was westward at Antwerp, Blücher's eastward through Liège toward the Rhine. Vacillation would ensue, Napoleon felt, on a central attack, and in that vacillation he intended to repeat with Blücher what he had done with Brunswick at Jena.

The opening of the campaign was sufficiently auspicious. By a superb march during the night of June thirteenth, Napoleon's army had gained a most advantageous position. The first corps under d'Erlon was at Solre on the Sambre, the second under Reille was at Leers. The guard, the sixth corps under Lobau, the line cavalry and the third corps under Vandamme, stood in that order on a line northeasterly from Beaumont, and due east of that place were four cavalry corps; the fourth corps under the young and dashing Gérard had marched from Metz and were at Philippeville; to the south lay the guard cavalry and the reserve artillery under Grouchy. In front was Charleroi, whence a broad turnpike led almost direct to Brussels, thirty-four miles due north; another turned eastward toward Liège. Thirteen miles distant on this was Sombreffe; somewhat farther on that, Quatre Bras, both on the highway running east and west between Namur and Nivelles. To have accomplished such marches as it did, the French army must have been fine; to have secured such a brilliant strategic position its general must have been almost inspired. He commanded the operating lines of both Wellington and Blücher, while they were far distant from each other, separated by serious obstacles, both alike instinct with centrifugal rather than centripetal tendency. The same high qualities which shone in their general distinguished the subordinate French commanders. Though many of the famous names are absent from the list,—Mortier, for instance, having fallen ill on the frontier,—yet Soult was present as chief of staff, and Ney was coming up to take command of the left wing. Reille, d'Erlon, and Foy were veterans of the Peninsular war; what twenty-two years of service had done for the "wild Hun," Vandamme, is known. Kellermann was made famous by Marengo, Lobau was noted for daring, Gérard had earned distinction in Russia, and though Grouchy's merit has been the theme of much discussion, yet he had been famous under Jourdan and Moreau, and nothing had occurred in the long interval to tarnish his reputation.

Nearly half of Blücher's troops were irregular reserves, and many of the regulars were recruits, but all were thoroughly drilled and well equipped. The passion of hatred which animated them was comparable only to the "French fury" with which Napoleon's army would fight for national existence. Such was the reverence for routine among the Prussian officers, and so bitter were the jealousies of the petty aristocracy from which they sprang, that the King dared not promote on any basis except that of seniority. In order to make Gneisenau second in command, York, Kleist, and Tauenzien were stationed elsewhere, and Bülow was put in command of a reserve to hold Belgium when Blücher should advance to Paris. The aged but fiery marshal had not mended his health by the self-indulgence of a year; the three division generals, Ziethen, Pirch, and Thielemann were capable men of local renown. Gneisenau and Bülow were the only first-rate men among the Prussian commanders, but for rousing enthusiasm Blücher's name was a word to conjure with. Wellington was felt by his officers and soldiers to be a man of real power; his British recruits were well drilled, and his veterans were good. His associate generals were no more famous than those of Gneisenau, but they were, for the most part, English gentlemen with a high sense of duty and much executive ability. One of his corps was commanded by the Prince of Orange, a respectable soldier, whose name, however, was more valuable than the experience he had gained in the Peninsula as aide-de-camp; the other corps was under Lord Hill, an admirable subordinate and an excellent commander. The only English general whose name is a familiar one abroad was Picton, who died on the field. As to the quality of the respective armies, it has become the fashion of each nation to decry that of its own and overrate that of the other two. Thus they condone their own blunders, and yet heighten the renown of victory. Napoleon was superior in organization, in cavalry, and in artillery to either Wellington or Blücher, but he was inferior to both in infantry. He was in wretched health, and he had a desperate cause. Taking fully into account his consummate ability and personal prestige, it yet remains true that the odds against him were high, certainly eight to five.

Ziethen's posts before Charleroi saw the French camp-fires in the early hours of June fourteenth; that evening they began to withdraw toward Fleurus, whither the remainder of the Prussian army was gradually set in motion. It seems incredible that this should have been the first move of the allies toward concentrating their widely scattered forces, for neither Wellington nor Blücher was completely surprised. Both commanders had for two days been aware, in a general way, of Napoleon's movements, but they were awaiting developments. It was Wellington's opinion, carefully set forth in his old age, that it would have been better strategy for the French to advance so as to turn his right, seize his munitions, and cut off his base; but as this would have rolled up the entire allied force, ready to deliver battle with odds of two to one, the statement may perhaps be accepted as an explanation, but certainly not as a justification.

In the dawn of the fifteenth a ringing, rousing proclamation, like those of the olden time, and written the day before on the anniversary of Marengo, was read to the French soldiers. It was in high spirits that the army, in three columns, began to march. The left, under Reille, dislodged the Prussian outposts from Thuin, and, forcing them back through Marchiennes, seized the bridge at that place, and crossed to the left bank of the Sambre. The movement was complete by ten in the morning. The center under Napoleon comprised the mass of the army: Pajol, Vandamme, Lobau, the Guard, Exelmans, Kellermann, and Milhaud. Soult despatched his orders by a solitary aide, who broke his leg by a fall from his horse, and failed to deliver them. Though at equally critical moments before both Eylau and Wagram, Berthier had done as Soult did, with identical results, yet the latter was justly and severely blamed. Had Vandamme been found, the movements of the center would have been greatly accelerated, the speedy capture of Charleroi would have enabled the third corps to reach Fleurus in time to intercept Ziethen, and thus the whole course of events would have been changed. The marshal's ill success was, therefore, as Napoleon called it, a "deplorable mischance," and it was high noon before Pajol, with the van, reached Charleroi and, after a smart engagement, drove out the Prussians. The right wing, under Gérard, was in motion at five in the morning, but it also was detained by a serious disaster. Shortly after starting it was found that Bourmont, the commander of its best division, a man who had been Chouan, imperialist, and royalist by turns, had deserted with his chief of staff and eight soldiers. Having been at the council of war, he had the latest information of Napoleon's secret plans, and his treason demoralized the troops he so basely abandoned. It was long before confidence could be restored; the crossing at Charleroi had been delayed too long, and it was nightfall when Gérard at last reached Châtelet, four miles below, secured the bridge, and crossed with only half his men. The campaign opened, if not in disaster, at least with only partial success.

CHAPTER XV

Ligny and Quatre Bras [19]

Napoleon's Orders — Ney's Failure to Seize Quatre Bras — Wellington Surprised — Napoleon's Fine Strategy — The Meeting at Ligny — Blücher's Defeat — The Hostile Forces at Quatre Bras — Wellington Withdraws — Napoleon's Over-confidence — His Instructions to Grouchy — His Advance from Quatre Bras.

For four hours after his arrival at Charleroi, Napoleon, uneasy as to the whereabouts of his detachments, stood in idleness waiting for news. During this interval the first Prussian corps under Ziethen, retreating from Charleroi, reached Fleurus unmolested, all except a small body, which gathered at Gosselies, on the Brussels road, but was easily dispersed by Reille. It seemed as if the road to Quatre Bras was open, and when, at half-past four, Ney appeared, he was put in command of the left, with verbal instructions, as Napoleon asserted some years later, to seize that strategic point. Within these limits he was to act independently. If Quatre Bras were surprised and held, the second move could be attempted: the seizure of Sombreffe. Since the highway between the two was the only line by which the allied armies could quickly unite, the possibility of attacking them separately would be assured even if the successive attacks should follow each other so closely as to be substantially one battle. Either Ney misunderstood, or Napoleon recorded what he intended to say, not what he actually said. Colonel Heymès, Ney's chief of staff, declared that the Emperor's final words were, "Go, and drive back the enemy"; the Emperor asserted that his orders to go and hold Quatre Bras were positive.

It is also a matter of dispute whether or not Napoleon had hoped, after seizing the bridges and crossing the Sambre, to complete his movement by surprising both Quatre Bras and Sombreffe on that same day, the fifteenth. Had he done so, Blücher might possibly have withdrawn to effect a junction with Wellington for the decisive conflict, and thus have thwarted Napoleon's strategy; but it is not likely, for that move, as finally executed, was the work not of Blücher but of Gneisenau; at this stage of the campaign the Prussians would probably have retreated toward Namur. Whatever may have been Napoleon's intention, Ney hurried to Gosselies, stationed Reille to hold the place, and then, despatching one division to pursue the Prussians, and another, with Piré's cavalry, toward Quatre Bras, put himself at the head of the cavalry of the guard to help in seizing this latter important point. But at seven his force, to their astonishment, was confronted by a strong body of Nassauers from Wellington's army, who, having passed Quatre Bras, had seized Frasnes, a village two and a half miles in advance. These made no stand, but Ney, instead of proceeding immediately to attack Quatre Bras itself, left his men to hold the position at Frasnes, and hurried away to consult his superior. For this he had excellent reasons: his staff was not yet organized, and d'Erlon's corps was not within call; he was therefore too weak for the movement contemplated by his orders. At the same moment Napoleon, who had been in the saddle since three in the morning, and who had become convinced that the retreating Prussians would not halt at Fleurus, but would rejoin their main army, turned back to Charleroi, and, on reaching his quarters an hour later, flung himself in utter exhaustion upon his couch. In fact, he was in exquisite torture from the complication of urinary, hemorrhoidal, and other troubles which his long day's ride had aggravated, and, as he declared at St. Helena,—probably the truth,—he had lost his assurance of final success. The day had been fairly successful, but at what a cost of energy! No one, he least of all, could feel that there had been any buoyancy in the movements or favoring fate in the combinations of his armies.

Throughout the day Blücher had displayed a fiery zeal. Since early in May he had had no serious consultation with Wellington, and in a general conversation held at that time there had been merely a vague understanding as to a union at some point south of Sombreffe. That town was accordingly selected by him for concentration, and in general his orders had been well executed. Why the bridges of Marchiennes and Châtelet were not undermined and blown up by the Prussians has never been explained. Moreover, the language of Gneisenau's orders to Bülow being vague, the latter misinterpreted it, and his much-needed force was not brought in, as expected. Wellington's conduct is a riddle. He displayed little anxiety and found time for social enjoyment as well as for the activities of military command in a supreme crisis. About the middle of the afternoon he was informed, through the Prince of Orange, as to his enemy's movements. With perfect calm, he commanded that his troops should be ready in their cantonments; at five he issued orders for the divisions to march with a view to concentration at Nivelles, the easternmost point which he intended to occupy; at ten, just as he was setting out for the noted ball which the Duchess of Richmond was giving on the eve of decision, he gave definite instructions for the concentration to begin. These were his very first steps toward concentration, although twenty-seven years later he made the assertion, supported only by his despatch to Bathurst of the nineteenth, that he had ordered the Anglo-allied army to concentrate to the left, as Blücher had ordered the Prussians to concentrate to the right. As a matter of fact, he was twenty-four hours behind Blücher in ordering his first defensive movements. This is not excused by the fact that his movement of concentration was completed somewhat earlier than Blücher's. About twenty minutes after the Prince of Orange had reached the ball-room, Wellington sent him away quietly, and then, summoning the Duke of Richmond, who, it is doubtfully said, was to have command of the reserve when completely formed, he asked for a map. The two withdrew to an adjoining room. Wellington closed the door, and said, with an oath, "Napoleon has humbugged me." He then explained that he had ordered his army to concentrate at Quatre Bras, adding, "But we shall not stop him there; and if so, I must fight him here," marking Waterloo with his thumb-nail on the map as he spoke. It was not until the next morning that he left for the front. Though Napoleon, on the evening of the fifteenth, had neither Quatre Bras nor Sombreffe, he held all the debatable ground; and if, next morning, he could seize the two towns simultaneously, the first move in his great game would be won. It seems as if he must risk everything to that end.

What passed between Napoleon and Ney from midnight until two in the morning is unknown. There is no evidence that the Emperor expressed serious dissatisfaction, although he may have been exasperated. He was not exactly in a position to give vent to his feelings. Whatever was the nature of their conversation, Ney was again at his post long before dawn, and not a soldier moved from Charleroi until nearly noon! It seems that Napoleon, or Ney, or both, must have been stubbornly convinced that Wellington could not concentrate within twenty-four hours. That Napoleon was not incapacitated by prostration is proved by his acts: about five he sent a preliminary order to Ney; very early, also, he took measures to complete Gérard's crossing at Châtelet; and then, having considered at length the alternatives of pushing straight on to Brussels or of taking the course he did, he had reached a decision as early as seven o'clock. It seems almost certain that he delayed chiefly to get his troops well in hand, partly to give them a much-needed rest. They had been seventeen hours afoot the previous day. Toward nine, believing that more of Ney's command was assembled than was yet the case, he sent a fretful order commanding the marshal to seize Quatre Bras, and stating that a semi-independent command, under Grouchy, would stand at Sombreffe, while he himself would hold Gembloux. This done, he settled into apparent lethargy. To Grouchy he wrote that he intended to attack the enemy at Sombreffe, and "even at Gembloux," and then to operate immediately with Ney "against the English." His scheme was able, for if at either salient angle, Quatre Bras or Sombreffe, his presence should be necessary, he could, at need, quickly join either Ney or Grouchy; but his senses must have been dulled. When informed that the enemy was at Fleurus in force, he hesitated long before resolving to move, being crippled by the inability of his left to move on Quatre Bras and behaving as if sure that the soldiers before him were only a single corps of Blücher's army, which he could sweep away at his convenience. Meanwhile Vandamme had advanced. The Prussians withdrew from Fleurus, and deployed at the foot of the hillock on which the village of Ligny stands. When, about midday, Napoleon arrived at Fleurus, he had to experience the unpleasant surprise of finding a strong force ready to oppose him. Eighty-seven thousand men, all Blücher's army, except Bülow's corps and a portion of Ziethen's which had been dispersed by the right wing and cavalry of the French near Gilly, were drawn up in battle array to oppose him. This was a loss to the foe of possibly two thousand men, a serious weakening at a fateful moment. But the Emperor was not yet ready to meet them, much as he had desired just such a contingency. He was not aware of the full strength of his enemy, but he was not sure of annihilating even those he believed to be in presence, for he had left ten thousand men at Charleroi, under Lobau, as a reserve, and the troops most available for strengthening his line were moving toward Quatre Bras.

By the independent action of their own generals a substantial force of several thousand Dutch-Belgians, virtually the whole of Perponcher's division, was concentrated at Quatre Bras early that same morning. To be sure, Wellington had simultaneously determined on the same step, but it was taken long before his orders arrived. Indeed, he seems to have reached Quatre Bras before his orderly. Scarcely halting, he rapidly surveyed the situation and, leaving the troops in command of the Prince of Orange, rode away to visit Blücher. The two commanders met at about one o'clock in the windmill of Bry. They parted in the firm conviction that the mass of the French army was at Ligny, and with the verbal understanding that Wellington, if not himself attacked, would come to Blücher's support. On leaving, the English commander sharply criticized the tactical disposition of his ally's army; but Blücher, with the fixed idea that, in any case, the duke was coming to his aid, determined to stand as he was. With similar obstinacy, Napoleon, still certain that what he had before him, although a great force, was only a screen for the retreat of the main army of the allies, now despatched an order (the second) for Ney to combine Reille, d'Erlon, and Kellermann in order to destroy whatever force was in opposition at Quatre Bras. This was at two. The French attack was opened at half-past two by Gérard and Vandamme; the resistance was such as to leave no doubt of the real Prussian strength. This being clear, Napoleon immediately wrote two despatches of the same tenor—one he sent to Ney by an aide, and one to d'Erlon by a subofficer of the guard.[20] The former (the third for the same destination) urged Ney to come for the sake of France; the other summoned d'Erlon from Ney's command to the Emperor's own immediate assistance: "You will save France, and cover yourself with glory," were its closing words. This last order, the original of which has but lately been revealed, came nigh to ruining the whole day's work. Before Wellington could return to Quatre Bras, Ney's force was engaged with the Prince of Orange, and before three o'clock a fierce conflict was raging at that place. D'Erlon appears to have been in a frightful quandary as to his duty. He marched away toward St. Amand and in his dilemma detached his best division, that of Durutte, toward Bry. Neither superior nor subordinate did anything to the purpose. Ney was without the support of an entire corps and did not therefore literally obey his orders. Napoleon was unassisted by the wandering force and even confused by their unexpected appearance at a critical moment. They were mistaken at Ligny for enemies; d'Erlon's vacillation had so detained them.

Blücher, who was determined to fight, come what would, had held in as long as his impatient temper permitted; but when no reinforcement from Wellington appeared, he first fumed, and then about six gave his fatal orders to prepare for the offensive. The nature of the ground was such as necessarily to weaken his center by the initial movements. Napoleon marked this at once, and summoned his guard in order to break through. For a moment the Emperor hesitated; a mysterious force had appeared on the left; perhaps they were foes. But when once assured that they were d'Erlon's men, he waited not an instant longer; at eight the crash came, and the Prussian line was shattered. Retreat was turned into a momentary rout so quickly that Blücher could not even exchange his wounded horse for another, and in the first mad rush he was so stunned and overwhelmed that his staff gave him up for lost. The few moments before he was found were the most precious for the allies of the whole campaign, since Gneisenau directed the flight northward on the line to Wavre, a route parallel with that on which Wellington, whatever his success, must now necessarily withdraw. This move, which abandoned the line to Namur, is Gneisenau's title to fame.[21] The lines were quickly formed to carry it out, and the rest of the retrograde march went on with great steadiness. Napoleon did not wait until d'Erlon arrived and thereupon order an immediate, annihilating pursuit, but came to the conclusion that the Prussians were sufficiently disorganized, and would seek to reorganize on the old line to the eastward. They were thus, he thought, completely and finally cut off from Wellington. It was not until early next morning that he despatched Pajol, with his single cavalry corps, to follow the foe, for he was confirmed in his fatal conjecture by the false report of five thousand Prussians having been seen on the Namur road, and exerting themselves to hold it. The Prussians seen were merely a horde of stragglers. The truth was not known until next day.

Almost simultaneously with the battle of Ligny was fought that of Quatre Bras. At eleven Ney received orders outlining a general plan for the day; about half an hour later came the specific command to unite the forces of d'Erlon, Reille, and Kellermann, and carry Quatre Bras; at five arrived in hot haste the messenger with the third order. At two o'clock there were not quite seven thousand Anglo-Belgians in Quatre Bras, but, successive bodies arriving in swift succession, by half-past six o'clock there were over thirty thousand. At two Ney had seventeen thousand men, and though he sought to recall d'Erlon, yet, owing to the withdrawal of Durutte, and to d'Erlon's indecision, he had at half-past six not more than twenty thousand. Not one of d'Erlon's men had reached him: Girard's division of Reille's corps was with Vandamme before St. Amand. Gérard's corps had been kept at Ligny. Had he advanced on the position the previous evening, or had he attacked between eleven and two on the sixteenth, the event of the campaign might have been different from what it was. But if he really believed, as Heymès afterward asseverated was the case, that his orders were merely to push and hold the enemy, then his conduct throughout was gallant and correct.[22] The weight of evidence favors the claim of Napoleon that the marshal was perverse in his refusal to take Quatre Bras according to verbal orders. Whatever the truth, the behavior of Ney's men was admirable when they did advance, but they were forced back to Frasnes before superior numbers.

Next morning Wellington was conversing with Colonel Bowles when a staff officer drew up, his horse flecked with foam, and whispered the news of Ligny. Without a change of countenance, the commander said to his companion: "Old Blücher has had a —— good licking, and gone back to Wavre, eighteen miles. As he has gone back, we must go, too. I suppose in England they will say we have been licked. I can't help it; as they have gone back, we must go, too." Accordingly, he issued his orders, and his army began to march at ten. On the whole, therefore, the events of June sixteenth seemed favorable to Napoleon, since, fighting at two points with inferior numbers, he had been victorious at one, and had thereby secured the other also. We, of course, know that by Gneisenau's move this apparent success was rendered nugatory. It is useless to surmise what would have happened had Bülow been with Blücher, and d'Erlon and Lobau with Napoleon, or if either of these possibilities had happened without the other; as it was, Napoleon's strategy gained both Quatre Bras and Sombreffe.

The Prussians had lost twenty thousand men, missing, wounded, and dead, and it required vigorous treatment to restore Blücher. But all night the army marched, and in the morning Bülow, having found his direction, was near Beauderet and Sauvinières, within easy reach at Gembloux. The retreat continued throughout the seventeenth. It was a move of the greatest daring, since the line was over a broken country almost destitute of roads, and, the old base of supplies having been abandoned, the men had to starve until Gneisenau could secure another by way of Louvain. The army bore its hardships well; there was no straggling or demoralization, and the splendor of success makes doubly brilliant the move which confounded Napoleon's plans. Never dreaming at first that his foe had withdrawn elsewhere than along his natural line of supply toward Liège, the Emperor considered the separation of the two allies as complete, and after carefully deliberating throughout the long interval he allowed for collecting his troops and giving them a thorough rest, he determined to wheel, join Ney, and attack Wellington, wherever found. It was serious and inexplicable slackness which he showed in not taking effective measures to determine immediately where his defeated enemy was. Being, nevertheless, well aware of the Prussian resources and character, he made up his mind to detail Grouchy, with thirty-three thousand men, for the purpose of scouring the country toward Liège at least as far as Namur. Then, to provide for what he considered a possible contingency,—namely, that which had actually occurred,—this adjunct army was to turn north, and hasten to Gembloux, in order to assure absolutely the isolation of Wellington; in any and every case the general was to keep his communications with Napoleon open.

It was eight in the morning of the seventeenth when Napoleon issued from his quarters at Fleurus. Flahaut was waiting for the reply to an inquiry which he had just brought from Ney concerning the details of Ligny. The Emperor at once dictated a despatch, the most famous in the controversial literature of Waterloo, in which his own achievements were told and Ney was blamed for the disconnected action of his subordinates the previous day; in particular the marshal was instructed to take position at Quatre Bras, "as you were ordered," and d'Erlon was criticized for his failure to move on St. Amand. The wording of the hastily scribbled order to the latter he had probably forgotten; it was: "Portez-vous ... à la hauteur de Ligny, et fondez sur St. Amand—ou vice versa; c'est ce que je ne sais bien." ("Betake yourself ... to the heights of Ligny, pounce on St. Amand—or the reverse; I am not quite sure which.") Further, the Emperor now declared that, had Ney kept d'Erlon and Reille together, not an Englishman would have escaped, and that, had d'Erlon obeyed his orders, the Prussian army would have been destroyed. In case it were still impossible to seize Quatre Bras with the force at hand, Napoleon would himself move thither. Then, entering a carriage, he drove to Ligny; Lobau was ordered at once to Marbais, on the road to Quatre Bras. After haranguing the troops and prisoners, Napoleon was informed, about noon, that Wellington was still in position. At once a second order was sent, commanding Ney to attack; the Emperor, it ran, was already under way to Marbais. This was not quite true, for while he was giving detailed instructions to Grouchy before parting, that general had seemed uneasy, and had finally pleaded that it would be impossible further to disorganize the Prussians, since they had so long a start. These scruples were peremptorily put down, and the chief parted amicably from his subordinate, but with a sense of uneasiness, lest he had left nice and difficult work in unwilling hands. Scouts soon overtook him, and expressed doubt as to the Prussians having gone to Namur. In case they had not, Grouchy must act cautiously. Accordingly, positive instructions were then dictated to Bertrand, and sent to Grouchy, whose movements were now doubly important. The latter general was to reconnoiter toward Namur, but march direct to Gembloux; his chief task was to discover whether Blücher was seeking to join Wellington or not. For the rest, he was free to act on his own discretion.

Napoleon then entered his carriage, and drove to Quatre Bras. Mounting his horse, he led the pursuit of the English rear. Indignant that Ney had lost the opportunity to overwhelm at least a portion of Wellington's force, he exclaimed to d'Erlon, "They have ruined France!" But he said nothing to Ney himself. So active and energetic was the Emperor that he actually exposed himself to the artillery fire with which the English gunners sought to retard the pursuit. It was not an easy matter for Grouchy to carry out his instructions; at two o'clock began a steady downpour, which lasted well into the next morning; the roads to Gembloux were lanes, and the rain turned them into sticky mud. Not until that night was Grouchy's command assembled at Gembloux; it was ten o'clock before the leader gained an inkling of where the Prussians were, and then, though uncertain as to their exact movements, he immediately despatched a letter, received by Napoleon at two in the morning. The marshal explained that he would pursue as far as Wavre, so as to cut off Blücher from Brussels, and to separate him from Wellington. Some hours later, about seven in the morning, when finally convinced that the Prussians were retiring on Wavre, Grouchy set his columns in motion in a straight line toward that place by Sart-à-Walhain, choosing, with very poor judgment, to advance by the right bank of the Dyle, and thus jeopardizing the precious connections he had been repeatedly and urgently instructed to keep open.

CHAPTER XVI

The Eve of Waterloo [23]

Wellington's Choice of Position — State of the Two Armies — The Orders of Napoleon to Grouchy — Grouchy's Interpretation of Them — Napoleon Surprised by the Prussian Movements — His Inactivity — The Battle-field — Wellington's Position — Napoleon's Battle Array — His Personal Health — His Plan.

On the night of June seventeenth Wellington's army reached the heights at Mont St. Jean, on the northern edge of what was destined to be the most talked of battle-field in modern times. His retreat, masked by a strong body of cavalry, with some horse-artillery and a single infantry division, had been slow and regular, being retarded somewhat by the heavy rain. Ney had held his position at Frasnes, well aware that what was before him was far more than a rear-guard—in fact, owing to the arrival of strong reinforcements during the night, it was the larger portion of the Anglo-Belgian army. But the instant the French marshal was informed of his enemy's retrograde movements he threw forward a strong force of cavalry to coöperate with Napoleon. When reunited, the French army numbered seventy-one thousand five hundred men, with two hundred and forty guns, excluding of course, the whole of Gérard's corps, which had been left at Ligny to coöperate with Grouchy. That Wellington was far on his way to the defensive position chosen by himself was probably in accord with Napoleon's calculations; his only fear was lest his foe should have withdrawn behind the forest of Soignes, where free communication with Blücher and the junction of the two allied armies would be assured, as would not be the case at Mont St. Jean.

This anxiety was set at rest by a cavalry reconnaissance, and at dusk the French van bivouacked at Belle Alliance, separated by a broad, shallow vale from their foe. The rest of the army followed with great difficulty, some by the road; some through plowed or swampy fields, wading the swollen tributaries of the Dyle, and floundering through the meadows on their banks. The army of Wellington had seized, in passing, what provisions and forage they found, and they had camp-fires to comfort them in the steady rain. The French had scanty or no rations, and lay throughout the night in the grain-fields, without fire or shelter. All told, Wellington had sixty-eight thousand men; ten miles on his right, at Hal, lay eighteen thousand more; ten miles on his left, twelve from his headquarters at Waterloo, was Blücher. Wellington, who had informed the Prussian commander that unless support reached him he would fall back to Brussels, at two o'clock in the morning had assurance of Blücher's coöperation. There is an unsupported statement of Napoleon's that he twice sent to Grouchy on the night of the seventeenth, by two separate officers, a definite order to detach seven thousand men from his camp at Wavre (where the Emperor affected to believe that Grouchy was), and make connection by St. Lambert with the right of the main army. This would entirely cut off Blücher from Wellington. The motive of this statement is transparent—with the allies separated, they were outmanœuvered; with the possibility of their union, and an understanding between them to that effect, he was himself outmanœuvered.

Grouchy denied having received this order; neither of the officers intrusted with it ever revealed himself; the original of it has never been found; and in subsequent orders issued next day there is no mention of, or reference to, any such message. Either the declaration, twice made at St. Helena, was due to forgetfulness, being an account of intentions not carried out, or else it was put forward to explain the result of the campaign as due to his lieutenant's inefficiency. Grouchy must have had an uneasy conscience, since for thirty years he suppressed the text of the Bertrand order, which was not on the order-book because it had not been dictated to Soult; and when, after falsely claiming for the duration of an entire generation that he had acted under verbal instructions, he did publish it, he gave, at the same time, a mutilated version of his own report from Gembloux, sent on the night of the seventeenth, changing his original language so as to show that he had never looked upon the separation of the allies as his chief task, but that what was uppermost in his mind was an attack on the Prussians.

It was two in the morning of the eighteenth when the letter of Grouchy, written about four hours earlier, arrived at Napoleon's headquarters. Both the Emperor and Soult knew by that time that the whole of Blücher's army was moving to Wavre; yet they did not give this information, nor any minute directions, to the returning messenger. Grouchy, therefore, was left to act on his own discretion, his superior doubtless believing that the inferior would by that time himself be fully informed, and would hasten to throw himself, like an impenetrable wall, between the Prussians and the Anglo-Belgian army. By the defenders of Napoleon Grouchy is severely criticized for not having marched early in the morning of the eighteenth to Moustier, where, if energetic, he could have carried over his army to the left bank of the river by eleven o'clock, thus placing his force within the sphere of Napoleon's operations. Perhaps he would have been able to prevent the union of the opposing armies, or, if not that, to strengthen Napoleon in his struggle. It is proved by Marbot's memoirs that this is what Napoleon expected. On the other hand, excellent critics present other very important considerations: the line to Moustier was over a country so rough and miry that after a torrential rain the artillery would have been seriously delayed, and Prussian scouts might well have brought down a strong Prussian column in time to oppose the crossing there or elsewhere. Grouchy, moreover, could not know that Wellington would offer battle in front of the forest of Soignes—a resolution which, in the opinion of Napoleon and many lesser experts, was a serious blunder. He appears to have been positive that the two armies were aiming to combine for the defense of Brussels; finally, when from Walhain the sound of the firing at Waterloo was distinctly heard, and Gérard fiercely urged an immediate march toward the field of battle, Grouchy was acting strictly within the limits of the Bertrand order, and according to what he then held to be explicit instructions, when he pressed on to concentrate at Wavre, and thus, if Napoleon had already defeated Wellington, to prevent any union between Wellington and the Prussian army. It is almost certain that Grouchy would in no way have changed the event by marching direct to Mont St. Jean, for the cross-roads were soaked, his troops were already exhausted, and the distance was approximately fourteen and a half miles as the crow flies: the previous day he had been able to make somewhat less than half that distance in nine hours.

Napoleon himself did not apparently expect the Prussians to rally as they did. He spent the hours from dawn, when the rain ceased, in careful reconnoitering. The mud was so thick in places that he required help to draw his feet out of his own tracks. At breakfast, according to a contemporary anecdote, he expressed himself as having never been more favored by fortune; and when reminded that Blücher might effect a union with the English, he replied that the Prussians would need three days to form again. This opinion is in accord with his exaggerated but reiterated estimates of the disaster produced in Blücher's ranks after Ligny, and taken in connection with the difficulty of moving artillery, which is not a sufficient explanation in itself, affords the only conceivable reason for his delay in attacking on the eighteenth. It also explains his remissness in leaving Grouchy to exercise full discretion as to his movements. At eight the plan of battle was sketched; at nine the orders for the day were despatched throughout the lines; about ten the weary but self-confident Emperor threw himself down and slept for an hour; at eleven he mounted, and rode by the Brussels highway to the farm of Belle Alliance. It was probably during the Emperor's nap that Soult forwarded to Grouchy a despatch, marked ten in the morning, instructing that general to manœuver toward the main army by way of Wavre. Although, according to Marbot, Napoleon expected Grouchy in the afternoon by way of Moustier, at one o'clock a second despatch, of which the Emperor certainly had cognizance, was forwarded to Grouchy, expressing approval of his intention to move on Wavre by Sart-à-Walhain, but instructing him "always to manœuver in our direction." The postscript of this second order enjoins haste, since it was thought Bülow was already on the heights of St. Lambert.

The one central idea of Napoleon and Soult was clearly to leave a wide discretion for Grouchy, provided always that he kept his communications with the main army open, and that his general direction was one which would insure easy connection, in order either to cut off or check the Prussians. But, however this may be, the hours of Napoleon's inactivity were precious to his enemies; by twelve Bülow was at St. Lambert, and at the same hour two other Prussian corps were leaving Wavre. These movements were apparently tardy, but Gneisenau, feeling that Wellington had been a poor reliance at Ligny, and very much doubting whether he really intended to stand at Waterloo, was unwilling that Blücher should despatch his troops until it was certain that the Prussian army would not again be left in the lurch. Should the Anglo-Dutch retreat to Brussels, the Prussians must either retreat by Louvain, or be again defeated. Anxiety was not dispelled until the roar of cannon was heard between eleven and twelve. Then the Prussians first exerted themselves to the utmost; it was about four when they were within striking distance, ready to take Napoleon's army on its flank. When Grouchy reached Wavre, at the same hour, he found there but one of Blücher's corps, the rear under Thielemann.

Campaign of 1815.
June 15th to 19th.

From Belle Alliance Napoleon returned, and took his station on the height of Rossomme. In front was a vale something less than a mile in width. The highway stretched before him in a straight line until it skirted the large farmstead of La Haye Sainte on the opposite side; then, ascending by a slant to the first crest, it passed the hamlet of Mont St. Jean, only to ascend still higher to the top of the ridge before falling again into a second depression. At Mont St. Jean was Wellington's center. The road from Nivelles to Brussels crosses the valley about a quarter of a mile westward, and on it, midway between the two slopes, lay another farm-house, with its barns, that of Hougomont. More than half a mile eastward, in the direction from which the Prussians were expected, lay scattered the farm buildings of Papelotte, La Haye, Smohain, and Frischermont. The valley was covered with rich crops. Unobstructed by ditches or hedges, it was cut longitudinally about the middle by a cruciform ridge, with spurs reaching toward Belle Alliance on one side, and past Hougomont on the other; the road passed by a cut through the longitudinal arm. Hougomont was almost a fortress, having strong brick walls and a moat; it stood in a large orchard, which was surrounded by a thick hedge. The house at La Haye Sainte was brick also, and formed one side of a quadrangle, inclosed further by two brick barns and a strong wall of the same material; though not as large or solid as Hougomont, it was a strong advance redoubt for Mont St. Jean.

The right and center of Wellington were thus well protected, the left was admirably screened by the places already enumerated. His army was deployed in three lines, the front plainly visible to the French, the second partly concealed by the crest of the hill, and the third entirely so. His headquarters were two miles north, at Waterloo; his lines of retreat, though broken by the forest of Soignes, were open either toward Wavre or toward the sea. The latter line was well protected by the troops at Hal. Uneasy about the character of his Dutch-Belgian troops, the duke had carefully disposed them among the reliable English and Germans, in order to preclude the possibility of a panic.

In the foreground of Napoleon's position was the French army, also deployed in three lines. The front, extending from the mansion of Frischermont to the Nivelles road, consisted of two infantry corps, one on each side of Belle Alliance, and of two corps of cavalry, one on the extreme right wing, one on the left; of this line Ney had command. The second was shorter, its wings being cavalry, and its center in two divisions, of cavalry and infantry respectively. The third, or reserve, was the guard. Each of the lines had its due proportion of artillery, stationed in all three along the road. This disposition gave the French array, as seen from beyond, a fan-like appearance, the sticks, or columns, converging toward the rear. The array was brilliant; every man and horse was in sight; the number was superior by about four thousand to that of the enemy; the ground was, by eleven, almost dry enough to secure the fullest advantage from superiority in artillery; deserters from the foe came in from time to time. Surely the moral effect of such a scene upon the somewhat motley throng across the valley must be very powerful. Yet the road to Charleroi was the single available line of retreat, and it passed through a deep cut; the soldiers were tired and not really first-rate, fifty per cent. of the line being recruits, and nearly a quarter of the guard untrained men; the tried officers had all been promoted, and those who replaced them needed such careful watching that deep formations had been adopted, and these must not merely diminish the volume of fire, but present vulnerable targets; the cavalry had been hastily gathered, and was far from being as efficient as the British veterans of the German legion.

For some moments after reaching his position Napoleon stood impassive. He was clad in his familiar costume of cocked hat and gray surtout. Throughout his lines he had been received with enthusiasm, and his presence was clearly magnetic, as of old. The direction of affairs in this momentous crisis was his, and he dreamed of two implacable enemies routed, of appeasing the two who were less directly interested, of glory won, of empire regained. Reason must have told him how empty was such a vision; for, since the armistice of Poischwitz, Austria and Russia had been quite as bitter, and more tortuous, than the other powers. His expression mirrored pain, both physical and intellectual; his over-confidence and consequent delay were signs of degenerate power; his exertions for three days past had been beyond any human strength, especially when the faculties of body and mind had previously been harassed for more than two months, as his had been.

It was the first day of the week, but there was a calm more profound than that of the Sabbath; the sky was dull, the misty air was heavy with summer heat; but there was the expectant silence of a great host, the deep determination of two grim and obstinate armies. Wellington, with his western lines protected, would be safe when the Prussian army should appear where he knew its van already was, and he must manœuver eastward to keep in touch. Napoleon must crush the British center and left, and roll up the line to its right, in order to separate the parts of his dual foe. To this end he had determined to make a feint against Hougomont; should Wellington throw in his reserves at that point on his right, one strong push might create confusion among the rest, and hurl the whole force westward, away from Brussels. It was a simple plan, great in its simplicity, as had been every strategic conception of Napoleon from the opening of the campaign. But its execution was like that of every other movement attempted since the first great march of concentration—tardy, slack, and feeble. Personal bravery was abundant among the French, but the orderly coöperation of regiment, division, and corps in all the arms, the courage of self-restraint, and the self-sacrifice of individuals in organized movement, with the invigorating ubiquity of a master mind—these were lacking from the first.

CHAPTER XVII

Waterloo [24]

Hougomont — La Haye Sainte — d'Erlon Repulsed — Ney's Cavalry Attack — Napoleon's One Chance Lost — Plancenoit — Union of Wellington and Blücher — Napoleon's Convulsive Effort — Charge of the Guard — The Rout — Napoleon's Flight.

Napoleon's salute to Wellington was a cannonade from a hundred and twenty guns. The fire was directed toward the enemy's center and left, but it was ineffectual, except as the smoke partially masked the first French movement, which was the attack on Hougomont by their left, the corps of Reille. This was in three divisions, commanded respectively by Bachelu, Foy, and the Emperor's brother Jerome, whose director was Guillemenot. Preceded by skirmishers, the column of Jerome gained partial shelter in a wood to the southwest of their goal, but the resistance to their advance was vigorous; on the skirts of the grove were Nassauers, Hanoverians, and a detachment of the English guards, all picked men, and behind, on higher ground, was an English battery. The two other divisions pressed on behind, and for a time their gains were apparently substantial. But, checked in front by artillery fire, and by a murderous fusillade from loopholes cut in the walls of Hougomont, the besiegers hesitated. Their fiery energy was not scientifically directed; but such was their zeal, and so great were their numbers, that one brigade doubled on the rear of the fortalice, drove back the English guards from before the entrance to the courtyard on the north, and charged for the opening. Some of the French actually forced a passage, and the success of Napoleon's first move was in sight when five gallant Englishmen, by sheer physical strength, shut the stout gate in the face of the assailants. A fearless French grenadier scaled the wall, but he and his comrades within were killed. A second assault on the same spot failed; so, too, a third from the west, and still another from the east, all of which were repelled by the English guards, who moved down from above, and drove the French into the wood, where they held their own. These close and bloody encounters were contrary to Reille's orders, but in the thick of combat his various detachments could not be restrained.

The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 4 (of 4)

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

CHAPTER I

The Last Imperial Victory [1]

CHAPTER II

Politics and Strategy [2]

CHAPTER III

The End of the Grand Army [3]

CHAPTER IV

The Frankfort Proposals [4]

CHAPTER V

The Invasion of France [5]

CHAPTER VI

Napoleon's Supreme Effort [6]

CHAPTER VII

The Great Captain at Bay [8]

CHAPTER VIII

The Struggles of Exhaustion [9]

CHAPTER IX

The Beginning of the End [11]

CHAPTER X

The Fall of Paris [12]

CHAPTER XI

Napoleon's First Abdication [13]

CHAPTER XII

The Emperor of Elba [14]

CHAPTER XIII

Napoleon the Liberator [16]

CHAPTER XIV

The Dynasties Implacable [18]

CHAPTER XV

Ligny and Quatre Bras [19]

CHAPTER XVI

The Eve of Waterloo [23]

CHAPTER XVII

Waterloo [24]

The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 4 (of 4)

THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

CHAPTER I

The Last Imperial Victory[1]

CHAPTER II

Politics and Strategy[2]

CHAPTER III

The End of the Grand Army[3]

CHAPTER IV

The Frankfort Proposals[4]

CHAPTER V

The Invasion of France[5]

CHAPTER VI

Napoleon's Supreme Effort[6]

CHAPTER VII

The Great Captain at Bay[8]

CHAPTER VIII

The Struggles of Exhaustion[9]

CHAPTER IX

The Beginning of the End[11]

CHAPTER X

The Fall of Paris[12]

CHAPTER XI

Napoleon's First Abdication[13]

CHAPTER XII

The Emperor of Elba[14]

CHAPTER XIII

Napoleon the Liberator[16]

CHAPTER XIV

The Dynasties Implacable[18]

CHAPTER XV

Ligny and Quatre Bras[19]

CHAPTER XVI

The Eve of Waterloo[23]

CHAPTER XVII

Waterloo[24]

The Last Imperial Victory [1]

Politics and Strategy [2]

The End of the Grand Army [3]

The Frankfort Proposals [4]

The Invasion of France [5]

Napoleon's Supreme Effort [6]

The Great Captain at Bay [8]

The Struggles of Exhaustion [9]

The Beginning of the End [11]

The Fall of Paris [12]

Napoleon's First Abdication [13]

The Emperor of Elba [14]

Napoleon the Liberator [16]

The Dynasties Implacable [18]

Ligny and Quatre Bras [19]

The Eve of Waterloo [23]

Waterloo [24]