battles, standing on a hillock, or sitting over the bivouac fire, or
facing the musket shots and cannon balls! Must not nature and remembrance
overpower the influence of recent vows? The soldiers cry: “Vive
l’Empereur!” A general running to and fro ensues, guards and soldiers
mingling; caps are stuck upon bayonet points—what does one more hole
in the blue cloth matter? An hour later, two thousand instead of one
thousand fall in behind their leader.
This encounter on the high road to Grenoble, this moment of time, his
call, his aspect, were decisive. The man of action had won back to
leadership through his own deed; the middle-aged warrior had regained
life, power, and realm, by a look and a word. Thus he reaches Grenoble.
By a manifesto he communicates his thoughts to the people:
“Frenchmen!... After the fall of Paris my heart was torn, but my spirit
remained unshaken.... My life belongs to you, and must once more be made
useful to you. In my exile, I heard your plaints and your cries.... You
accused me of too long a slumber, saying I was sacrificing the interests
of the country to my own repose. Encompassed by dangers, I have sailed
over the sea. Now I am in your midst, to demand my rights, which are also
your rights.
“Soldiers! We are not conquered!... Marmont’s treachery delivered the
capital into the hands of the enemy, and disorganised our army.... Now
I have come! Your general, who was elected to the throne by the suffrage
of the people, and raised aloft on your shields, has returned to you.
Rally to him!... Wear the tricolour cockade again, the cockade of our
days of victory! Let the eagles which you bore at Ulm and Austerlitz, at
Jena, Eylau, and Friedland, at Eckmühl and Wagram, at Smolensk and on the
Moskva, at Lützen and Montmirail, once more wave on high!... Possessions,
rank, and glory, for yourselves and for your children, have no worse foes
than those princes who have been forced upon you by foreign powers....
Victory will guide us forward through the storms, and the eagles shall
fly from one church steeple to the other until at last they alight on
Notre Dame!”
Vive l’Empereur! The troops in Grenoble, together with the imperial
nobles, come over. Seven thousand men follow him to Lyons. Lyons comes
over. Masséna, who had been serving the king, journeys from Marseilles
and pays homage to the Emperor.
“Where is Ney?” Embarrassed silence. “With the king?”
They tell him about the council of war in Paris. Since the terrible news
was brought, the fat king and his lean court have sat there trembling.
The “Moniteur,” which had lied in Napoleon’s favour for fifteen years,
now lies on behalf of the king: the Emperor, it announces, is dead. Just
as they are deliberating what to do, old Count Condé enters the room and
asks his royal cousin whether on Maundy Thursday the king himself should
not officiate at the washing of feet. The king is writing a manifesto to
the army. But who is sitting by him, his mainstay, the true leader of the
Bourbon army? What is the man’s name?
It is Marshal Ney. When, on the retreat from Moscow he had been cut
off from the main body and appeared to be lost, his master had cried:
“Ney is lost! I would give the two hundred millions from my cellars in
the Tuileries, if I had him again!” Now he rises from among the royal
plenipotentiaries gathered round the conference table; he swears to
annihilate his sometime master. But when the breeze of general enthusiasm
sweeps by him, he veers; his corps dons the tricolour cockade, and in
Besançon he sends word to the Emperor that he would like to write a
vindication of his conduct. But the Emperor waves the proposal aside,
saying: “Tell him I love him the same as ever, and that to-morrow I shall
embrace him.”
What a master-stroke! True, he forgives; but he leaves Ney on tenterhooks
till the morrow. Next day, the marshal stammers: “I love you, Sire; but
as a son of the fatherland ... I was forced to kneel down before that fat
hog to receive the cross of St. Louis! Had you not come, we should have
chased him away ourselves.”
“Marvellous! How vacillating he is, how pale!” These thoughts flit
through the Emperor’s mind as he asks his questions.
The count of Artois has fled. The very morning of the flight, the guards
had sworn to die with him; by midday, they had rallied to the Emperor.
Such behaviour does not please Napoleon, and he keeps this portion of
the guard at arm’s length. But there is one man who had remained loyal
to Louis until the Bourbon was in safety; not till then does he change
sides. This recruit, Napoleon welcomes, and with his own hand decorates
him with the emblem of the Legion of Honour!
But what a change! The more this avalanche of soldiers grows as he
marches forward towards Paris, the more peaceful do his speeches become.
In one town after another, he addresses the municipal councillors and the
citizens in the following words: “War is at an end. Peace and liberty!
The principles of the revolution must be protected from the onslaughts of
the émigrés. The treaties with Europe must be adhered to. France will win
back her glory without war. We must be content to be the most esteemed
nation, without trying to dominate other countries.”
Does the people grasp the significance of the new tone? If the nation
understands, is there belief in its genuineness? Must one be content?
Glory without war? To a high official, an old acquaintance whom he meets
on the march and in whom at length he finds an intelligent listener after
addressing dull-witted citizens and partisan officers, he gives this
political explanation:
“The spirit of the people is changed. In earlier days, the nation thought
only of glory; now it thinks only of liberty. In the past, I brought the
nation glory; I will not withhold liberty now. Freedom can be enjoyed in
full, when power rests upon a good constitution.... Only—no anarchy! That
would bring us back to the days of the despotic republicans, when every
one had a finger in the pie. I shall retain only so much power as is
essential for governing properly.”
In the naïve closing sentence lies the new problem. He has broached the
question; he is determined to stabilise the basic ideas of democracy.
One thing is the same as on the Eighteenth Brumaire: no party politics!
“I don’t want to write to them,” he says, when advised to forgive the
turncoats. “They would believe that I was pledged to them. How are things
in the Tuileries?”
“Nothing has been changed; not even the eagles have been removed.” He is
gay, bubbling over with good humour. He laughs.
“I suppose King Louis found the eagles decorative! What are they playing
at the theatre? How is Talma? Were you at court? I’ve been told that the
Bourbons looked like parvenus, did not know what to talk about, nor how
to behave.”
How inquisitive he is! How full of malicious joy! How he yearns for the
air of Paris! He seeks his revenge in mockery, he whom the others had so
long held up to ridicule. He is told of the parsimony of the court. He is
shown the king’s effigy on a twenty-franc piece.
“Do you see? They’ve got it again: ‘God protect the king’! My device
is: ‘God protect France’! They’ve left out those words. They were always
like that: everything for themselves; nothing for France!” In the course
of three minutes he enquires after twenty persons. When he is told that
Hortense has been made a duchess, he answers simply:
“She should have called herself Madame Bonaparte. That name is worth more
than all the rest.”
His words are symbolic of the new epoch. If he calls himself Bonaparte
once more, grants a constitution, allows liberty, and does not grasp at
more power than he actually needs, he can make himself king of France.
Then, after the failure of his attempt at the unification of Europe, he
will still be able to become the happy exemplar of a modern prince by
God’s grace. He has always ruled as circumstances might dictate. Now,
called to power for the second time, and after his imaginative flight
towards far horizons, he will still prove himself a master. The road lies
open.
The road to Paris is likewise open. The Bourbon king has run away, and
the majority of the inhabitants are on the Emperor’s side. Any one
who might still have dreaded a fight with the last royal troops, must
have overestimated them. When the Emperor is yet a hundred miles from
the capital, the remnants of the royal guard flee from the city. The
Emperor’s army overtakes the king, but allows him to escape to a seaport,
being content to take the silver he is carrying off with him in sixty
carts, and to seize his cannon. France has a hearty laugh at this fat old
gentleman, who had been escorted from England to Paris by enemy soldiers,
and now makes all speed back to England with the soldiers of France
chasing him.
Paris is calm. The town has long since forgotten how to take the
initiative. During the twenty days between the Emperor’s landing in
the south and his arrival at the capital, the thermometer of the press
registers the following degrees: “The monster has escaped from his place
of exile.”—“The Corsican werewolf has landed at Cannes.”—“The tiger
appeared at Gap, troops were sent against him, the wretched adventurer
ended his career in the mountains.”—“The fiend has actually, thanks
to treachery, been able to get as far as Grenoble.”—“The tyrant has
reached Lyons, where horror paralysed all attempts at resistance.”—“The
usurper has dared to advance within a hundred and fifty miles of the
capital.”—“Bonaparte moves northward with rapid strides, but he will
never reach Paris.”—“To-morrow Napoleon will be at our gates.”—“His
Majesty is at Fontainebleau.”
When, at length, without having had to fire a shot, the Emperor mounts
the steps of the palace he had been compelled to leave thirteen months
before, Paris is overawed by his soldiers, and the émigrés have fled with
the king. All is quiet. He notes the fact, listens attentively, and says:
“They have let me come, just as they let the others go.”
Now he has his first disappointment! The march on Paris had been
glorious, and in after days he spoke of it as the most splendid
experience in his life. But here, in the city which will ultimately
decide his fate, the city whose favour he has wooed more assiduously than
he ever fought for any realm, the city he has never wholly conquered, he
encounters moral resistance. Those whose favour he courts are no longer
in the arms of their new friend; but they are listless, as if, after
excess of passion, their vital energy had run down. Still, here he is,
and he must bestir himself.
He looks to Vienna for a sign.
A week after Napoleon’s landing in France, Metternich goes to bed at
three o’clock, and is awakened at six by a messenger who hands him a
despatch. He reads the inscription on the envelope, “General Consulate,
Genoa,” angrily turns over and goes to sleep again. He does not open
the missive till several hours later, to read: “Campbell, the English
commissioner, has just called to enquire whether Napoleon has been seen
in Genoa. He has vanished from the island of Elba.”
The bomb! Those who were yesterday still intriguing against one another,
now become thick as thieves once more. The vows which have so often been
broken are renewed. The first to think of declaring the man an outlaw
is Baron vom Stein, whom Napoleon had outlawed five years earlier. The
possibility is discussed, but father-in-law Francis of Habsburg cannot
make up his mind to the step; he would like to ask Marie Louise first.
Four years ago she was devoted to her husband. She has never breathed
a word of complaint to her father or to any of her women friends. Why
should she? Napoleon had done whatever she wanted; she had been courted
and wealthy; he had been the most equable of husbands; the parents had
shared in the games of the little boy. Will she now become the Emperor’s
advocate?
The wife of Napoleon and the mistress of the Austrian officer prefers to
take up her pen and write a formal declaration to the congress. She will
have nothing to do with the Emperor, and she will put herself under the
protection of the allies. Such is her answer to that hour when Napoleon
had had to choose between the mother’s life and the child’s, and had
decided in favour of the mother. Not until his wife has cast her vote
against him, is the Emperor made an outlaw: “The powers declare that
Napoleon Bonaparte has placed himself outside the bounds of civil and
social relationships, and that as an enemy and disturber of the peace of
the world he is consigned to public prosecution.”
The tidings leave him unmoved. He is used to being outlawed. When he left
Corsica, he and all his relatives were under sentence of outlawry. The
word “outlaw” had been shouted at him in the Orangerie at Saint-Cloud.
The pope had pronounced the major excommunication against him. All three
anathemas had glanced harmless from his coat of mail, so that he deemed
himself impregnable. But this fourth ban will lay him low.
He still continues to hope in the Habsburg. Announcing his intention to
summon the Electoral Colleges of the Empire to a great assembly, he
speaks of the gathering, in Carlovingian terminology, as a Champ de Mai,
for he intends to have the empress and his son crowned there. He thinks
that this will ensure Austrian support, and writes to his wife:
“I am master of France. The people and the army are wild with enthusiasm!
No one but the so-called king has run away to England.... I expect you
here in April with my son.” The thought of his dynasty is ineradicable.
But even this most natural of feelings assumes a distorted form, for
his feelings are in pawn to the old world. Writing to the man who has
just outlawed him, he says: “At the moment when providence has recalled
me to the capital of my States, it is my chief desire, the object of my
tenderest inclination, to see my wife and son once more.” He goes on to
speak of his wife, who must certainly reciprocate his longing. Then:
“All my endeavours are directed towards the firm establishment of this
throne which the love of my people guarantees and restores to me; and
towards handing it down to my son in due time, based upon an imperishable
foundation.... Since a lasting peace is essential to the attainment of
this important and sacred aim, there is nothing nearer to my heart than
to remain at peace with all the powers.”
Is this sublime, or is it ridiculous? Napoleon renounces war, and
abandons his designs on Europe. He speaks truth when he says that he
needs nothing more than France. The monarchs who had conquered him last
year have formed a new alliance against him, and have declared him an
outlaw. The sentence of outlawry has been signed by Emperor Francis, in
the Austrian capital, with Marie Louise’s express authorisation. She
had left him after the last defeat; had thrown up the regency which
she had sworn to carry on faithfully; had taken the boy with her; had
thrown herself into another man’s arms, and is still living with him: the
Emperor knows these things. But now, instead of beginning the new era
with a clear-cut severance from all that has overthrown and disappointed
him, he begins by suing for the friendship of this old throne which had
triumphed over his new one.
This is the ban, this is the outlawry, which will for the second time
bring him to his doom.
XVII
The adventurer now becomes a rat-catcher, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Bourbon had been clever enough to invite the best talents to serve him;
and as a result of this, when once the royalist national anthem had been
sung, all went smoothly for him. Some of these men know not whether
to go or to stay: they wait upon events. But Napoleon, who has always
commanded, who has never canvassed for any one’s services, places the
flute of the tempter to his lips: he knows that now is the time for
suggestion and smiles. The loyal few, he restores to their posts, with
a shake of the hand. Maret, Davoust, and Caulaincourt, form part of his
ministry.
He knows all that those who have proved ungrateful have been doing,
and he judges them by their record. Officials, officers, and court
dignitaries, again flock to his levees. A count of the old aristocracy
comes likewise. Napoleon had called this man back from exile and had
made him senator; but at the Bourbon restoration the count had gone over
to the king. Now, as the Emperor draws near, the count casts his eyes
heavenward and seems to imply that his actions were dictated by God’s
inscrutable will. The Emperor smiles. Not a word is exchanged. But the
count comes no more to court. When, on the other hand, one of Marmont’s
generals, a man who had delivered a decisive speech in the war council
before the marshal’s defection, approaches Napoleon and begins to
stammer out an explanation, the Emperor does not smile. He says, in an
overbearing tone: “What do you want of me? Can you not see that I do not
know you?”
Here is Oudinot: for twenty years he was Bonaparte’s companion-in-arms;
now he comes back to the Emperor. “You see, Oudinot? You were worshipped
as a god by the Lorrainers; two hundred thousand peasants were ready,
even last year, to go through fire and water for your sake. To-day I have
to protect you against these same peasants!”
Here is Rapp. He has wavered longer than the rest, and even now comes
hesitatingly to his master. “You’ve kept us waiting a long time! Did you
really want to take up arms against me?”
Rapp is an Alsatian, half a German, and as such he is more a man of duty
than a man of feeling: “My duty, Sire, constrained me.”
“Diable! The soldiers would not have obeyed you; your Alsatians would
have stoned you!”
But Rapp is nothing if not thorough: “You must admit, Sire, the position
was a difficult one. You abdicate, you leave France, you advise us to
serve the king, you come again....”
“Were you often here? How did they treat you? At first, I suppose, they
flattered you. Soon they’d have chucked you out of doors. That is what
your fate would have been.... Have you read Chateaubriand’s pamphlet? Is
it true that I am a coward on the battle-field? They are always accusing
me of ambition because they have nothing better to say. Does one get as
fat as I, if one is constantly being spurred on by ambition?... Once
again, General, we must serve France. Then we can be gathered to our
fathers.”
In such a debonair and lively manner does he play with this doughty and
decorous old comrade. But Rapp holds his own: “You must admit, Sire, that
you made a mistake in not concluding peace after Dresden. You treated as
nonsensical my reports concerning German sentiment....” The Emperor is
quick with his repartee:
“You do not understand what such a peace would have meant!” Suddenly
his tone changes into one more suitable to the camp than to this palace
and to this hour; it is intimate and familiar, and goes home to Rapp’s
heart: “Or were you perhaps afraid of beginning a fresh war, you who for
fifteen long years had acted as my adjutant? When you returned from Egypt
you were nothing more than a soldier. I have made a man of you. To-day
you can have whatever you like to ask for.... I shall never forget your
conduct before Moscow. At Danzig you achieved the greatest that any man
could achieve. Ney and you, you belong to the tiny legion of those who
have strength of character!” The Emperor embraces him, kisses him again
and again. Then, pulling Rapp’s moustache, he says:
“Eh? One of the braves of Egypt and Austerlitz—and you wanted to forsake
me! You shall take command of the army on the Rhine, while I am dealing
with the Prussians and the Russians. In two months, I hope you will
be receiving my wife and my son in Strasburg. From to-day, you are my
adjutant!”
“At your orders, Sire!”
Had the Emperor ever seen _Wallenstein’s Death_ performed on the German
stage, as had, perhaps, that would-be murderer in Poland? He must have
this fellow, Rapp, about him. The man is fundamentally honest, and is as
brave as he is honourable; of all the Grand Army, he is the officer who
was most frequently wounded. He only went over to the king from a sense
of duty; he is not to be bought by the lure of promises. And yet, in a
quarter of an hour, he is not only the Emperor’s man once more, but has
accepted the posts of army commander and adjutant, as of old. Fidelity,
Napoleon realised it well, is what the Emperor most urgently needs.
Ney’s case is a more difficult one. Remorse keeps Ney sleepless. With
distraught countenance and extravagant words he addresses his master:
“Perhaps you have heard, Sire, before I marched to Besançon, I said at
the council of war—here, in the Tuileries, I promised the king—”
“Well, what did you promise?”
“To bring you in an iron cage, and place you before his throne—”
The Emperor stiffens. Then: “Foolishness! Such thoughts are unworthy of a
soldier!”
“You are mistaken, Sire,” exclaims the Marshal yet more excitedly; “allow
me to finish. I said it, yes—but—I wanted to hide my real feelings—”
The Emperor is incensed. Ney quickly withdraws, and only after the lapse
of two months takes command in the campaign. Thus near to madness had
these iron warriors been brought through their struggle between duty
and inclination, when the one great will which mastered them had been
withdrawn. Berthier, who also rallied to Napoleon, had gone through the
same experience.
“The donkey,” exclaims the Emperor leniently, when talking of his old
favourite. “He’s a good fellow. I ask nothing of him than that he should
present himself before me in the uniform of the royal guard!” But
Berthier, since the Emperor’s return, rushes all night through the rooms
of his mansion, and at last throws himself headlong from a balcony, like
Junot, to perish on the cobbles instead of dying in the battle-field.
Forwards! We have no time for loitering! Who else is there? Ah, Madame
de Staël pops up again. This old opponent writes to him, admires his
conduct, and promises that if he will restore the two million francs
which France still owes her father, she will in future devote her
literary gifts to the cause of France. The pity of it! Through making
this stipulation, so splendid a woman must come down to history as beaten
in the game! The Emperor mischievously replies that, to his great regret,
he is not wealthy enough to fulfil her condition.
Who else is there? Marmont? Augereau? They are declared outlaws by the
Emperor, because they sold the fatherland to the foreigner. And then, at
long last, Talleyrand likewise! The lightning flashes that travel from
Vienna to Paris and from Paris to Vienna strike a deadly blow at this
hostile friendship which has lasted for eighteen years. Each man thinks
in his secret heart: “A pity that so fine a brain should be working for
the other side!”
What about the second of the Dioscuri? Fouché is back again! He takes
up his service as Minister of Police in the twofold capacity of working
for and against his master. He says of the Emperor: “Well, he’s here. We
none of us exactly wished him back again; now we shall have to keep close
watch on him.... The man has returned even madder than when he left. I
give him three months!” Meanwhile, he corresponds with Metternich; but
spies soon tell the Emperor, who angrily apostrophises him: “You are
a traitor!” Lavalette, who is in waiting, hears the words through the
half-open door. “Why do you consent to be my minister if you mean to
betray me? I know that you are exchanging letters with Metternich through
the intermediation of a bank official in Basle. I could have you hanged,
and all the world would applaud my action.” Fouché’s answer has not been
recorded!
The minister owed his present position to his radical outlook, for he had
been a revolutionary in theory ever since Robespierre’s time. The Emperor
needed him in the cabinet as a decoy for the democrats. But Fouché not
only betrayed his master to Metternich, he likewise betrayed Metternich
to the radicals; he wanted to set up a republic—with Fouché at the head.
Carnot, who was a more violent antagonist of the king than even the
Emperor himself had been, now, for the first time since the days of the
Directory, entered the ministry.