had landed with eleven hundred men, most of whom had already deserted
him; that he was wandering in the mountains, accompanied only by a few
individuals; that he had been refused provision, was in want of every
thing, and, pursued and on the point of being surrounded by the troops
sent against him from Toulon, Marseilles, Valence, and Grenoble, he
must speedily expiate his rash and criminal enterprise.
This news struck all parties with astonishment, and made different
impressions on them, according to their different sentiments and
opinions.
The discontented had no doubt of the success of the Emperor, and the
ruin of the Bourbons.
The courtiers regretted that there was not sufficient danger in this
mad and audacious enterprise, to give at least some value to their
attachment.
The emigrants looked at it with pity, turned it into ridicule; and, if
they had wanted nothing more than jests, abuse, and swaggering, to
beat Napoleon, there could have been no doubt of their victory.
The government itself participated in their boasting and security.
Fresh despatches soon made known the progress of Napoleon.
The Count d'Artois, the Duke of Orleans, and Marshal Macdonald, set
off hastily for Lyons.
The royalists were uneasy, the government removed their fears.
The Count d'Artois, they said, at the head of fifteen thousand
national guards, and ten thousand of the troops of the line, must stop
him before Lyons.
General Marchand, General Duverney, the Prince of Essling, and the
Duke d'Angouleme, were getting into his rear, and would cut off his
retreat.
General Le Courbe was manoeuvring on his flanks.
Marshal Oudinot was arriving with his faithful royal grenadiers.
The national guards of Marseilles, and the whole population of the
south, were marching from all quarters in pursuit of him; and it was
impossible for him to escape.
This was the 10th of March.
The next day an officer of the King's household appeared in the
balcony of the Tuileries, and, waving his hat, announced, that the
King had just received an official account of the Duke of Orleans, at
the head of twenty thousand men of the national guard of Lyons, having
attacked Bonaparte on the side towards Bourgoing, and completely
beaten him.
The same day information was given, that Generals d'Erlon, Lefevre
Desnouettes, and Lallemand, who had attempted to seduce the troops
under their orders, had completely failed, and taken flight[48].
[Footnote 48: These four generals had agreed, to
repair together to Paris. The troops of Count
d'Erlon, quartered at Lisle, deceived by
supposititious orders, were on their march, when
they were met by the Duke de Trevise, who was going
to take the command of his government. He
interrogated them, perceived the plot, and ordered
them back.
Count Lefevre Desnouettes, ignorant of this unlucky
circumstance, put in motion his regiment, which was
in garrison at Cambrai. When he reached Compiegne,
he did not find the troops he expected, and showed
some hesitation. The officers of his corps, and
particularly Major Lyon, questioned him, and
finally abandoned him.
On the other hand, the brothers Lallemand, one of
whom was general of artillery, had marched to Fere
with a few squadrons, intending to seize the park
of artillery. The resistance they met from General
d'Aboville disconcerted them, and, after they had
attempted in vain to seduce the garrison, they
fled, but were shortly after arrested.
It was supposed, that this rising in arms had been
concerted with Napoleon; but I know from good
authority, that it was solely the result of an
evening spent at General ***'s. A few bowls of
punch had heated their brains; they complained of
their situation; they were indignant, that a
handful of cowardly emigrants should prescribe laws
to them; they were persuaded it would be easy to
displace them; and, proceeding from one step to
another, they concluded by agreeing to march to
Paris, and compel the King to change his ministry,
and banish from France all those whom the public
voice denounced as enemies to the charter, and
disturbers of the public tranquillity and
happiness. Such was their true and only object.]
The malecontents were in doubt: the royalists were intoxicated.
On the 12th, the victory of the Duke of Orleans was contradicted. The
official paper announced, that Bonaparte must have slept at Bourgoing;
that he was expected to enter Lyons on the evening of the 10th of
March; and that it appeared certain, that Grenoble had not yet opened
its gates to him.
The Count d'Artois soon arrived, and confirmed by his return the
taking of Lyons, and the inutility of his efforts.
The alarm was renewed.
The King, whose countenance was at the same time dignified and
affecting, invoked by eloquent proclamations the attachment of the
French, and the courage and fidelity of the army.
The army maintained silence. The judicial bodies, the civil
authorities, the order of advocates, and a number of individual
citizens, answered the King's appeal by addresses testifying their
love and fidelity.
The two chambers equally laid at the foot of the throne the expression
of their sentiments: but their language differed.
"Sire," said the Chamber of Peers, "hitherto paternal goodness has
marked all the acts of your government[49]. If it be necessary that
the laws should be rendered more severe, you would no doubt lament it;
but the two chambers, animated with the same spirit, would be eager
to concur in every measure that the importance of circumstances, and
the safety of the people, may require."
[Footnote 49: The chancellor, no doubt, had
forgotten the proscription, that delivered over to
death all those Frenchmen who joined or assisted
Bonaparte.]
"Whatever faults may have been committed," said the Chamber of
Deputies, "the present is not the moment for inquiring into them. It
is the duty of all of us, to unite against the common enemy, and
afterwards endeavour, to render this crisis beneficial to the security
of the throne and its public liberty."
The King did not stop at empty proclamations. He decreed,
That a new army should be assembled in front of Paris, under the
orders of the Duke of Berri and the command of Marshal Macdonald:
That all the soldiers on furlough, or conditionally discharged, should
rejoin their corps:
That all the half-pay officers should be called out:
That the three millions of national guards of the kingdom should take
up arms, in order to check the factious and disperse their meetings,
_while the army took the field_:
That the young national guards, who were desirous of forming a part of
the acting army, should be armed and accoutred, and sent to the parts
that were threatened.
That to render useful the services of those brave Frenchmen, who on
all sides were demanding to be led against the enemy, battalions of
royal volunteers should be formed, and make a part of the army of the
Duke of Berri.
Marshal Ney, whose popularity and influence were well known, was
appointed to take the command of the troops of the east.
The Duke de Feltre took the place of Marshal Soult.
In short, the King omitted nothing, that could concur in protecting
his throne from the dangers, with which it was threatened.
Such measures, sufficient to stop an army of three hundred thousand
men, could only attest the success of Napoleon; and yet the ministry
daily caused the most encouraging reports to be spread among the
people, and confirmed by the newspapers.
M. de Montesquiou, faithful to the system of deception he had adopted,
continued to mislead the deputies, cheating them by false
intelligence, and lulling them with hopes, which he himself no longer
entertained. He knew the intoxication, which was excited in every
place by the approach and passage of Napoleon. He knew, that he was
master of Grenoble and Lyons; that the troops attempted to be opposed
to him had joined his with enthusiasm: and nevertheless he announced
to the chamber, "that the population of all the departments invaded by
the adventurer of the island of Elba loudly manifested their
indignation against this audacious robber; that they may have been
surprised, but not subjugated; that all his summonses of places, and
the orders he had attempted to issue to the local authorities, had
been rejected with firmness; that the Lyonese had displayed the
attachment, that was to be expected from their noble character; that
the departments of Burgundy, Franche Comte, Lorraine, Champagne,
Picardy, &c. &c. rivalled each other in their attachment and energy;
that the good disposition of the troops was answerable to that of the
citizens; and that all together, generals, officers, soldiers, and
citizens, concurred in the defence of their country and of their
King."
These political juggleries were not without effect. They satisfied
some credulous men, and inflamed the courage and imaginations of a few
youths. The enrolments of volunteers were more numerous: a certain
number of pupils of the schools of law and physic offered their
services, and traversed the streets of Paris, shouting "Long live the
King! Down with the Corsican! Down with the tyrant! &c."
This effervescent movement could not be durable; and whatever pains
were taken to deceive the metropolis, the truths announced by
travellers and private letters opposed these ministerial falsehoods.
The defection of Marshal Ney soon came to tear off the veil, and
spread affright and consternation among the ministers and their
partisans.
The King repaired to the Chamber of Deputies, in the hope of
confirming their attachment, and of dissipating by a solemn oath those
doubts of his adherence to the charter, and of his intention to
maintain it, which his ministers occasioned. Never was a more imposing
and pathetic spectacle exhibited. What heart could steel itself
against the sorrows of that august and aged man, against the sound of
his mournful voice? Those prophetic words, "I fear nothing for myself,
but I fear for France: at sixty years of age can I better close my
career, than by dying in defence of the state?" These words of the
King excited the most lively emotion, and tears in abundance fell from
every eye.
The oath pronounced by the King, to maintain the charter, was
immediately repeated by the Count d'Artois, who had hitherto refrained
from it. "We swear," said he, "on our honour, I and my family, to
live and die faithful to our King, and to the constitutional charter,
which assures the happiness of France." But these tardy protestations
could not repair the mischief, that the disloyal conduct of the
government had done to the Bourbons and their cause.
In vain did the words country, liberty, and constitution, recur in
every discourse, and in every proclamation.
In vain was it solemnly promised, that France, as soon as it was
delivered, should receive all the securities claimed by the public
voice, and that the press should recover perfect freedom.
In vain was the lustre and the prerogative, of which the legion of
honour had been despoiled, offered to be restored to it.
In vain were pompous eulogies and brilliant promises lavished on the
army.
The time was past.
The minister had robbed the King of confidence, which is the prime
agent of the ascendancy of princes over the people; and of strength,
which can alone supply the place of confidence, and command fear and
obedience.
The approach of Napoleon;
The desertion of Marshal Ney;
The declaration made by those generals, who still retained their
fidelity, that the troops would not fight against the Emperor, left
the government no doubt of the fate that awaited it.
From that moment there was no longer harmony in their designs, or
concert in the means of executing them.
Orders and counter-orders were given on the one hand, and revoked on
the other. Schemes of every kind, all equally inconsiderate and
impracticable, were approved and rejected, resumed and abandoned.
The chambers and the government had ceased to act in unison. The
ministers complained of the deputies; the deputies publicly demanded
of the King the dismissal of his ministers, and that he would place
around himself men, "who have been the constant defenders of justice
and liberty, and whose names shall be a guarantee for the interest of
all[50]."
[Footnote 50: It is asserted, that on this occasion
a conference took place, at which M. Laine, MM. de
Broglie, la Fayette, d'Argenson, Flaugergue,
Benjamin Constant, &c. were present, where it was
decided, that the King should be required in the
name of the public safety:
1. To dismiss MM. de Blacas, Montesquiou, Dambray,
and Ferrand:
2. To call to the Chamber of Peers forty new
members, chosen exclusively from men of the
revolution:
3. To confer on M. de la Fayette, the command of
the national guard: and
4. To despatch patriotic commissioners, to
stimulate the attachment, the zeal, and the
fidelity of the troops.]
The same disorder, the same disunion, manifested themselves every
where at the same time: there was only one point in which people
agreed; that all was lost.
In fact so it was.
The people, whom the nobles had humbled, vexed, or terrified by
haughty and tyrannical pretensions;
They who had acquired national domains, whom they had wished to
dispossess;
The protestants, who had been sacrificed;
The magistrates, who had been turned out;
The persons in office, who had been reduced to want;
The soldiers, officers, and generals, who had been despised and
ill-treated;
The revolutionists, who had been incessantly insulted and menaced;
The friends of justice, and of liberty, who had been abused;
All the French, whom the government had reduced, as it were, in spite
of themselves, to wish for another order of things; eagerly embraced
the cause of Napoleon, which had become the national cause through
the faults of the government.
Royalty had no defenders left but women _and their handkerchiefs_;
priests without influence; nobles without courage; body guards without
youth, or without experience.
The legions of the national guard, on which such great reliance had
been placed, were reviewed by their colonel-general: he harangued them
on the charter, and the tyranny of Bonaparte; he told them, that he
would march at their head, and said: "Let those, who love their King,
come out from their ranks, and follow me." Scarcely two hundred obeyed
the order.
The royal volunteers, who had made so much noise, when they expected
to be victors without incurring any peril, had gradually dispersed;
and those, whom the approach of danger had neither intimidated nor
cooled, were too few to have any weight in the balance.
The government had one sole and last hope remaining: it was, dare I
say it? that Napoleon would be assassinated.
The same men who had preached up a civil war, _and declared, that it
would be shameful not to have one_; soiled the walls of Paris with
provocations to murder, and fanatic praises bestowed beforehand on
murderers. Emissaries, mixing in the various groups of the people,
endeavoured to put the poniard into the hands of the new Jacques
Clements. A public act had proscribed Napoleon; a reward was publicly
offered for his head. This call for a crime, which indignant France
first heard from the assassins of Coligny, was repeated by men, who,
like them, had the sacred words of morality, humanity, and religion,
continually in their mouths, and who, like them, thirsted only after
vengeance and blood.
But while they were conspiring at Paris to assassinate Napoleon, he
peaceably pursued his triumphant march.
Quitting Grenoble on the 9th, he came that night and slept at
Burgoing. [51]""The crowd and the enthusiasm continued to increase:
"We have long expected you," said all these brave fellows to the
Emperor; "at length you are come, to deliver France from the insolence
of the nobility, the pretensions of the priests, and the disgrace of a
foreign yoke."
[Footnote 51: The double sets of inverted commas
are still used to distinguish passages extracted
from the official account.]
""The Emperor, being fatigued[52], was in his calash, the horse
walking, surrounded by a crowd of peasants, singing songs, that
expressed the noble sentiments of these brave Dauphinese. "Ah!" said
the Emperor, "I here find again the sentiments, which twenty years ago
led me to hail France by the name of the great nation! Yes, you are
still the great nation, and you shall ever be so."""
[Footnote 52: He had travelled from Cannes to
Grenoble partly on horseback, but chiefly on foot.]
They approached Lyons: the Emperor had sent his emissaries before him,
who informed him, that the Count d'Artois, the Duke of Orleans, and
Marshal Macdonald, had determined to defend the city, and that they
were going to break down the bridges de la Guillotiere and Moraud.
""The Emperor laughed at these ridiculous preparations: he could not
doubt the disposition of the Lyonese, still less those of the
soldiers; yet he gave orders to General Bertrand, to collect boats at
the Mirbel, intending to cross the river in the night, and cut off the
roads to Moulins and Macon for the Prince, who wanted to prevent his
passing the Rhone. At four o'clock a reconnoitring party of the
fourth hussars arrived at la Guillotiere, and were received with
shouts of "Long live the Emperor!" by the immense population of the
suburb, that has always been distinguished for its attachment to its
country.""
The Emperor immediately countermanded the passage at Mirbel, and
desirous of availing himself of this first enthusiastic movement, as
at Grenoble, galloped forward to the suburb of Guillotiere.
The Count d'Artois, less fortunate, could not even succeed in opposing
to his adversary a shadow of defence.
He was desirous of destroying the bridges, but the city opposed it.
The troops, whose attachment he fancied he could purchase by the
distribution of money, or the bait of rewards, had remained deaf to
his words, his entreaties, his promises. Passing before the thirteenth
regiment of dragoons, he said to a brave fellow, decorated with three
chevrons and with scars: "Come, comrade, shout Long live the
King!"--"No, Sir," answered the brave dragoon, "No soldier will fight
against his father; I can only answer you by saying Long live the
Emperor!" Confused and in despair, he exclaimed in a sorrowful tone,
"All is lost!" and these words, instantly spreading from one to
another, only strengthened the prevailing ill will or discouragement[53].
[Footnote 53: It was a great oversight, to send the
Count d'Artois to face Napoleon. It was easy to
foresee, that, if this prince should fail in a city
of a hundred thousand inhabitants against eight
hundred men, the business would be decided.]
Marshal Macdonald, however, who was well known to the troops, had
succeeded in barricading the bridge of la Guillotiere, and led two
battalions of infantry thither in person; when the hussars of Napoleon
came out from the suburb, and presented themselves before the bridge,
preceded, surrounded, and followed, by all the youth of the place.
The marshal restrained the soldiers a few minutes: but moved, seduced,
borne away, by the incitements of the people and the hussars, they
rushed to the barricadoes, burst them, and were quickly in the arms
and in the ranks of the soldiers of Napoleon.
The Count d'Artois, foreseeing this defection, had quitted Lyons,
unaccompanied by a single gendarme, but escorted by a detachment of
the thirteenth dragoons, commanded by lieutenant Marchebout. It is due
to the troops to say, that they did not cease to respect him, and that
he ran no risk[54].
[Footnote 54: Marshal Macdonald was not so happy.
Two hussars, one of whom was drunk, pursued him,
and would have arrested him, if he had not been
extricated by his aide-de-camp.]
At five in the evening the whole garrison rushed out to meet Napoleon.
An hour after, the imperial army took possession of the city.
At seven Napoleon made his solemn entry, proceeding alone before his
troops, but preceded and followed by an immense crowd, expressing, by
incessant acclamations, the intoxication, happiness, and pride, they
felt at seeing him again. He alighted at the archbishop's palace, and
quietly took his rest in the very places, which the Count d'Artois,
yielding to despair, had just watered with his tears.
Napoleon immediately entrusted the guarding of his person, and the
interior charge of the palace, to the national guard. He would not
accept the services of the horse-guards. "Our institutions," said he
to them, "know nothing of national guards on horseback; besides, you
behaved so ill with the Count d'Artois, that I will have nothing to
say to you."
In fact the Emperor, who had always respected misfortune, had made
inquiries concerning the Count d'Artois on his arrival; and had
learned, that the nobles, of whom the horse-guards were chiefly
composed, after having sworn to the prince to die for him, had
deserted him; one excepted, who remained faithfully attached to his
escort, till the moment he thought his life and liberty out of all
danger.
The Emperor did not confine himself to commendation of the conduct of
this generous Lyonese. "I never left a noble action," said he,
"without reward:" and he appointed him a member of the Legion of
Honour.