During the voyage from Elba to France, Napoleon had been in the best
of spirits, moving about familiarly among his men, and chatting freely
upon all subjects. He had not told them where they were going, but
probably they little needed telling. All must have felt that they were
bound for France.
The passage was full of peril, for French cruisers were often in
sight. One of these came quite near, so much so that Napoleon ordered
his guards to take off their bearskin caps and to lie down upon the
deck. The commander of the French vessel hailed Napoleon’s brig, and
recognizing it as from Elba, asked, “How’s the Emperor?” Napoleon
himself seized the speaking-trumpet and replied, “He is wonderfully
well.”
At length the companions of the Emperor were told that they were bound
for France, and those who could write were called around him to copy
two proclamations he intended to scatter abroad upon landing. He had
himself written these in Elba, but nobody present could read them--not
even himself.
Casting these into the sea, he dictated two others,--one for his old
soldiers, the other for the nation at large. He revised these papers
ten times before they satisfied him, and then he set all hands making
copies. Engaged thus, they came within sight of France, and they
greeted the shores with enthusiastic shouts.
It was about five o’clock in the evening of March 1, 1815, that
Napoleon and his little army landed near Cannes, and bivouacked in a
meadow surrounded by olive trees, close to the shore. A captain and
twenty-five men, sent to Antibes to rouse the garrison and bring it
over to Napoleon, entered the town crying, “Live the Emperor!” without
explanation or further statement; and the people of the place, knowing
nothing of Napoleon’s landing, took these men, who had suddenly
come screaming through their quiet town, to be lunatics. The royal
commandant had sufficient presence of mind to shut the town gates;
and so the gallant twenty-six, who went to surprise and capture, got
surprised and captured.
“We have made a bad beginning,” said Napoleon, when news of this mishap
reached him. “We have nothing to do but to march as fast as we can, and
get to the mountain passes before the news of our arrival.”
The moon rose, and at midnight the Emperor began his march. He had
brought a few horses from Elba, had bought a few more from peasants
after landing, and thus some of his officers were mounted, while he
himself rode in a carriage given him by his sister Pauline, and which
he had brought from Elba. They marched all night, passing through
silent, moonlit villages, where the people, roused by reports of
something unusual afoot,--the pirates had come, some said,--stood
gaping at the marching troops, responding with shrugs of the shoulders
to the shouts of “Live the Emperor!” It was not until the column had
passed through Grasse, a town of six thousand inhabitants, and had
halted on a hill beyond, that the people seemed to realize what was
happening. The pirate alarm disappeared, the fires of enthusiasm began
to glow, and with glad shout of “Live the Emperor!” the town-folk came
running toward the camp, bearing provisions for the troops. From this
time the country people were certain that Napoleon had really come
back, and his march became one of triumph. Leaving cannon and carriage
at Grasse, the column pressed on toward Cérénon by mountain paths still
covered with snow, the Emperor marching on foot among his grenadiers.
When he stumbled and fell on the rough road, they laughed at him; and
he could hear them calling him, among themselves, “Our little monk.”
Reaching Gap on the 5th, he printed his proclamations; and he began
to scatter them by thousands. And never before did proclamations find
such willing readers, or win such popular favor. Advancing toward
Grenoble, the advance guard under Cambronne encountered a battalion
of six thousand troops, sent to stop the march of the invaders. The
royalist commander refused to parley with Napoleon’s officers, and
threatened to fire. Cambronne sent to inform the Emperor of what had
occurred. Napoleon was riding in an old carriage, picked up at Gap,
when this report reached him. Mounting his horse, he galloped forward
to within a hundred yards of the hostile battalion. Not a cheer greeted
him. Turning to Bertrand, the disappointed Emperor remarked, “They have
deceived me, but no matter. Forward march!” Throwing the bridle of his
horse to Bertrand, he went on foot toward the royal troops.
“Fire!” shouted the officer, drawing his sword. And then Napoleon,
unbuttoning that familiar gray overcoat, and fronting them with that
familiar cocked hat, made the famous address which broke down all
military opposition between Grenoble and Paris, sweeping thousands of
bayonets out of his way with a word.
“What! My children, do you not recognize me? It is your Emperor. If
there be one among you who would kill his general, he can do it. Here I
am!”
“Live the Emperor!” came the answer of six thousand men, as they melted
into tears, broke ranks, and crowded around him to fall at his feet,
kiss his hands, and touch the hem of his garment.
The officer who had ordered them to fire had a good horse and a fair
start; hence he managed to escape.
The six thousand who had come to capture Napoleon turned and marched
with him. By this time the country was aroused on all sides, and crowds
flocked around the column, shouting “Live the Emperor!” Advancing
beyond Vizille, the Emperor was met by Colonel Labédoyère, who had
brought his regiment to join Napoleon’s ranks. With cries of joy the
troops mingled, and Napoleon took the ardent young colonel in his arms,
pressing him to his breast, and saying, “Colonel, it is you who replace
me upon the throne!” Onward then to Grenoble, where the gates had been
closed, and the defences manned to resist the invader.
It was dark when Napoleon arrived before the walls. He ordered
Labédoyère to address the troops within. This was done, and there
were cries of “Live the Emperor!” from within the city. But the royal
commandant had the keys, and the gates could not be opened. “Room!
room!” came the cry from within. It was the shout of citizens of the
town coming with beams to batter down the gates.
The work was soon done, the way was open, and the Emperor’s column
found itself surrounded by a multitude as enthusiastic as any they had
met. With uncontrollable transports they laid hold of Napoleon, pulled
him from his horse, and bore him forward in their arms.
That night was one long festival for soldiers, citizens, and peasants;
and next morning a great crowd followed him when he set out for Lyons.
There, upon an immenser scale, was repeated the ovation of Grenoble.
Royal officers lost all control of their troops. Marshal Macdonald
and the Count of Artois were utterly abandoned; and when they fled,
were followed by a solitary trooper, to whom Napoleon afterward gave
the cross of the Legion of Honor. For four days, this great city of
southern France testified in every possible way its unbounded joy at
the Emperor’s return. It is said that twenty thousand people were
constantly under his windows. It is certain that he never forgot these
glorious days--almost the last days which he might name glorious.
His journey was now no longer an adventure; once more he was a great
power among the nations of earth. He had committed no violence, had
shed no blood. The love and the admiration of a gallant people were
his again--balm for all those wounds of last year. In his address, at
his departure, his closing words were simple and touching, “People of
Lyons, I love you!” and there can be no doubt that he did.
Moving onward, he came to Auxerre on the 17th; and in the evening came
Marshal Ney, with something in word and manner which suggests that he
felt what nothing so well describes as the term “sheepish.” Very rude
had he been to his Emperor in 1814--rude, brutal, threatening. Now
there was a change. Ney was contrite, apologetic, explanatory. He had
been misrepresented, it seems; and the newspapers had told lies about
him. But Napoleon relieved him with: “Embrace me, my dear Ney. To me
you are still the _Bravest of the brave_.”
Halting briefly at Fontainebleau on March 20, Napoleon spent some
solitary hours in the room where he had suffered such agonies the
year before; and he went again into the garden which had been his
Gethsemane. Pushing on to Paris, he arrived after dark and entered
the Tuileries at nine o’clock, borne on the shoulders of his wildly
enthusiastic friends. Five thousand young nobles of the royal
body-guard had left Paris that morning to head the royal army, and
oppose Napoleon’s advance. The troops they expected to command joined
their Emperor near Paris; and the noble officers, left without
commands, were heard in the Parisian saloons that evening plausibly
explaining the cause of their failure to stop the usurper’s progress.
The great city of Paris did not go out to meet the returning Emperor
as Grenoble and Lyons had done. Paris was rather indifferent. “They
let me come as they let the other fellows go,” remarked Napoleon that
night. Thousands of soldiers had cheered him as he entered the capital,
adoring friends had pressed him so ardently at the Tuileries that he
had cried out, “My friends, you smother me!” Elegant ladies of the
imperial court, Hortense in the lead, had made ready to welcome him to
the palace; they had thrown arms about his neck and kissed him. But as
the wifeless, childless Emperor sat by the fireside late in the night,
almost alone, his feet up, resting on the mantelpiece, he looked very
tired and very sad. Many old friends had met him; many had stayed
away. Paris had not been so warm as Lyons. France was not so unanimous
as he had hoped. Confidence in him, and his fortune and final success,
was very far indeed from being universal.
Bourrienne records that one of the Paris newspapers made note of the
various stages of Napoleon’s return in this wise:--
“A report is circulated that the Corsican brigand has landed at
Cannes;” a few days later the same pen wrote: “Do you know what news is
circulated? They say the rash usurper has been received at Grenoble;”
then later came the announcement, “I have it from a good source that
General Bonaparte has entered Lyons;” then, after a few days, it was,
“Napoleon, it appears, is at Fontainebleau;” and on March 20 came the
final, “His Majesty the Emperor and King alighted this evening at his
palace of the Tuileries.”