PARIS OF NAPOLEON
Napoleon was a very young and unsophisticated Corsican when, in October,
1795, he commanded the troops that protected the Convention, in session
in the Tuileries, against the Paris “sections” and the National Guard
which had deserted to the royalists. He was still young, but a man
rotten with ambition when, after Waterloo, he fled to Paris, and, in the
Palace of the Élysée, signed his abdication of the throne of his adopted
country. In the twenty years intervening he had raised himself to the
highest position in the army, and he had won the confidence of an
unsettled people so that they turned to him for governmental guidance,
and made him consul for ten years, then consul for life and then
emperor.
In the two decades he had done great harm, for, abroad, he had embroiled
in war every country of Europe, and at home he had exhausted France of
her young men and had left the country poorer in territory than when he
was first made consul. Nevertheless, by the inevitable though sometimes
inscrutable law of balance, the evil he had wrought was not without its
compensating good. The countries of Europe learned as never before the
meaning of the feeling of nationality and of the value of coöperation,
while France--which, with her dependencies, Napoleon, at the height of
his career, had spread over three-fifths of the map of western
Europe--had gained self-confidence and stability and had crystallized
the passionate chaos of the Revolutionary belief in the rights of man.
Aside from his military and political genius Napoleon’s character
underwent a striking development as his horizon enlarged. He belonged to
a good but unimportant family which dwelt in a small town. His early
manner of living was of the simplest, yet he grew to a love of splendor
and to a knowledge of its usefulness in impressing the populace and in
buying their approbation.
Paris is connected with Napoleon throughout his whole career. He first
appears when but a lad, brought to the Military School with several
other boys by a priest. He lived in modest lodgings, at one time near
the markets, and at another near the Place des Victoires.
In 1795 the Convention drew up a new constitution by which the
government was vested in a Directory of five members. Even in its early
days Napoleon wrote from Paris to his brother of the change following
upon the turbulent, sordid period of the Revolution. “Luxury, pleasure
and art are reviving here surprisingly,” he said. “Carriages and men of
fashion are all active once more, and the prolonged eclipse of their gay
career seems now like a bad dream.”
In the midst of this agreeable change to which even his natural
taciturnity adapted itself he met and married Josephine, widow of the
Marquis de Beauharnais who had been guillotined under the Terror. They
both registered their ages incorrectly, Napoleon adding and Josephine
subtracting so that the discrepancy between them, she being older, might
appear less. This marriage introduced Napoleon to a class of people into
whose circle he would not otherwise have penetrated on equal terms, and
he learned from them many social lessons which he put to good use later.
Yet Talma, the actor, when accused of having taught Napoleon how to walk
and how to dress the part of emperor, denied that he could have given
instruction to one whose imagination was all-sufficient to make him
imperial in speech and bearing. No descendant of a royal line ever wore
more superb robes than Napoleon the emperor on state occasions, and the
elegance of the throne on which he sat was not less than that of his
predecessors.
Bonaparte had risen slowly in the army because of his open criticism of
his superiors, but by the time of his marriage he had become a general,
and three days after his wedding he was despatched to Italy to meet the
allied Italians and Austrians. Less than two years later the war was
ended by the Peace of Campo Formio. In the two months preceding its
negotiation Bonaparte had won eighteen battles, and had collected enough
indemnity to pay the expenses of his own army, to send a considerable
sum to the French army on the Rhine and a still greater amount to the
government at home.
When it came to making gifts to Paris he had the splendid beneficence of
the successful robber. Indemnities were paid in pictures as well as in
money, bronzes and marbles filled his treasure trains, and the Louvre
was enriched at Italy’s expense. Of the wealth of rare books, of ancient
illuminated manuscripts, of priceless paintings and statuary pillaged
from Italy’s libraries, monasteries, churches and galleries, even from
the Vatican itself, no count has ever been made. With such treasures as
Domenichino’s “Communion of Saint Jerome” and Raphael’s
“Transfiguration” under its roof and with booty arriving from the
northern armies as well as the southern, it is small wonder that the
Louvre became the richest storehouse in the world. After Napoleon’s fall
many of the works of art were returned whence they had come, but enough
were left to permit the great palace to hold its reputation.
In the turmoil of the Revolution it had been impossible for any one
person to please everybody. Napoleon was distrusted by a large body of
the Parisians for the part that he had played in the support of the
Convention in October, 1795, and these people Bonaparte set himself to
conciliate. The Directory, also, was jealous of him. It meant that the
victorious general must tread gently and not seem to have his head
turned by the honors paid to his successes. There were festivals at the
Louvre where his trophies looked down upon the brilliant scene, and at
the Luxembourg, superbly decorated, upon the occasion of his formal
presentation to the Directory of the treaty of Campo Formio. There were
gala performances at the theaters at which the audience rose delightedly
at Napoleon if he happened to be present, and the Institute elected him
a life member. This honor gave him the excuse of wearing a civilian’s
coat, and, although when in Italy he had dined in public like an ancient
king, here he lived quietly on the street whose name was changed to
“Victory Street,” by way of compliment, and showed himself but little in
public, the more to pique the curiosity of the crowd which acclaimed
Josephine as “Our Lady of Victories.”
If he had had any hope of being made a member of the government at this
time, he soon saw that he was not yet popular enough to carry a sudden
change, and that, indeed, it behooved him, as he himself said, to “keep
his glory warm.” To that end he set about arousing public sentiment
against England. He concluded, however, that an invasion was not
expedient at that time, and set sail for Egypt, taking with him the
flower of the French army not only for their usefulness to himself, but
that their lack might embarrass the government if need for them should
arise in his absence.
A curious bit of testimony to the non-religious temper of the time is
the bit of information that though Bonaparte included in his traveling
library the Bible, the Koran and the Vedas, they were catalogued under
the head of “Politics.”
In the next year and a half Napoleon met with both successes and
reverses. He learned that, as he had foreseen, the Directory was
involved in a war with Italy which threatened its financial credit and
its stability, while at home its tyrannical rule was adding daily to its
enemies. Bonaparte saw his chance and determined to leave Egypt, to put
himself at the head of the Italian armies and then to go to Paris, fresh
from the victories which he was sure to win, and to present himself to
the people as their liberator. Leaving his army and setting sail with a
few friends he touched at Corsica where he learned that France was even
riper for his coming than he had supposed, and accordingly abandoned
the Italian plan and went directly home. So hopefully did the people
look to him for relief from their troubles that his whole journey from
Lyons to Paris was one long ovation, while his reception by the
Parisians was of an enthusiasm which betrayed much of their feeling
toward the government and promised much to the man who would bring about
a change.
Napoleon was only too glad to accommodate them. He tested the opinion of
the chiefs of the Directory and skillfully put each man into a position
where he felt forced to support the general. Josephine played her part
in the political intrigue; Lucien Bonaparte, who had been elected
President of the Five Hundred by way of compliment to his brother,
played his. According to pre-arrangement the Council of the Ancients
sitting in the Tuileries decreed that both houses should adjourn at once
to Saint Cloud that they might be undisturbed by the unrest of Paris,
and that Bonaparte be appointed to the command of the Guard of the
Directory, of the National Guard, and of the garrison of Paris, that he
might secure the safety of the Legislature.
Napoleon, who was waiting for the order at his house (not far north of
the present Opéra) rode to the Tuileries and accepted his commission.
The next day, at Saint Cloud, he utilized his popularity with the
soldiers to force the dissolution of the Directory. The result was
gained by trickery but it was nevertheless satisfactory to the people
who went quietly about their affairs in Paris while the excitement was
on at Saint Cloud and expressed themselves afterwards as amply pleased
with the _coup d’état_. A new constitution was adopted. The government
was vested in three consuls, Napoleon, on December 15, 1799, being made
First Consul for ten years. All three consuls were given apartments in
the Tuileries but one of the others had the foresight never to occupy a
building from which he might be ejected by the one who said to his
secretary when he entered it, “Well, Bourienne, here we are at the
Tuileries. Now we must stay here.”
Stay there he did, and the palace saw a more brilliant court than ever
it had sheltered under royalty. Josephine was a woman of taste and tact,
and the building which Marie Antoinette found bare even of necessary
furnishings at the end of her enforced journey from Versailles, the wife
of the First Consul arrayed in elegance and used as a social-political
battle field in which she was as competent as was her husband in the
open. “I win battles,” Napoleon said, “but Josephine wins hearts.” Dress
became elegant once more and not only women but men were as richly
attired as if the Revolution with its plain democratic apparel had not
intervened. Once more men wore knee breeches and silk stockings, and it
was only the aristocrats whose property had been confiscated who
advertised their poverty by wearing trousers, “citizen fashion.”
“Citizen,” as a title, fell into disuse, and once again “Monsieur” and
“Madame” were used as terms of address. At first the consuls were
addressed as “Citoyen premier consul,” “Citoyen second consul,” and
“Citoyen troisième consul.” The clumsiness of these titles induced M. de
Talleyrand to propose as abbreviations “_Hic, Haec, Hoc_.” “These would
perfectly fit the three consuls,” he added; “_Hic_ for the masculine,
Bonaparte; _haec_ for the feminine, Cambacérès, who was a lady’s man,
and _hoc_, the neutral Lebrun, who was a figurehead.”
Napoleon’s acquaintance with other capitals spurred him to emulate their
beauties and his knowledge of engineering helped him to bring them into
being in his own. He opened no fewer than sixty new streets, often
combining in the result civic elegance with the better sanitation whose
desirability he had learned from his care of the health of his armies.
He swept away masses of old houses on the Cité, he tore down the noisome
prisons of the Châtelet and the tower of the Temple and laid out squares
on their sites, he built sidewalks, condemned sewage to sewers instead
of allowing it to flow in streams down the center of the streets,
introduced gas for lighting, and completed the numbering of houses, an
undertaking which had been hanging on for seventy-five years.
He added to the convenience of the Parisians by building new bridges,
two commemorating the battles of Austerlitz and Jena, and one, the only
foot-bridge across the river, called the “Arts” because it leads to the
School of Fine Arts and the Institute which houses the Academy of Fine
Arts. He made living easier by opening abattoirs and increasing the
number of markets. He helped business enterprises by constructing quays
along the Seine and by establishing the Halle aux Vins where wine may be
stored in bond until required by the merchants. This market also
relieved such congestion as had turned the old Roman Thermes into a
storehouse for wine casks. New cemeteries on the outskirts, one of them
the famous Père Lachaise, the names upon whose tombs read like a roster
of the nineteenth century’s great, lessened the crowding of the
graveyards and the resulting danger in the thickly settled parts of the
city.
The First Consul’s methods of reducing to order the disorder of France
grew more and more stifling, his basic principle more and more that of
centralization. Independence of thought as it found expression in
politics, he silenced as he silenced the newspapers and censored all
literary output. He set in action the modern machinery of the University
of France, and he supervised the planning of the entire elementary
school system, so centralized, that it is possible to know in Paris
to-day, as he did, “What every child of France is doing at this moment.”
Unhampered trade and commerce, improved methods of transportation, a
definite financial system headed by the Bank of France, a uniform code
of laws--all these contributions to stability were entered into in
detail by the marvelous visualizing mind whose vision could pierce the
walls of the Tuileries and foresee that battle would be waged at the
spot called Marengo on the map lying on the table.
Early in 1800 war was renewed in Italy and Napoleon in person
superintended the perilous crossing of the Alps. Yet although the news
of the victory at Marengo was celebrated in Paris with cheers and
bonfires, the successes of the French armies in Italy and in Germany did
not secure full popularity to the First Consul in Paris, for on
Christmas Eve, 1800, an attempt was made upon his life as he was driving
through a narrow street near the Tuileries. The bomb which was meant to
kill him fell too far behind his carriage, however, and the only result
of the plot was that he was provided with an excuse for ridding himself
by exile and execution of some two hundred men whom he looked upon as
his enemies.
In 1802 the Peace of Amiens put a temporary stop to the war, and
Napoleon looked to France to reward him for winning glory and territory
for the French flag. Already he was impatient of the ten-year limitation
of his power, and it was his own suggestion that the people should be
asked, “Shall Napoleon Bonaparte be made Consul for life?” This
referendum resulted overwhelmingly in his favor. He was appointed Consul
for life with the right not only to choose his successor but to nominate
his colleagues. Then he encouraged French manufactures, he regulated
taxes, he established art galleries in Paris and the departments,
incidentally banishing the artists’ studios whose establishment had been
allowed in the Louvre and in the side chapels of the church of the
Sorbonne. He offered exemption from military service to students and
other people to whom it would be a hardship, such as the only sons of
widows, he assisted scientific men, among them our own Robert Fulton
who, in 1803, built a steamboat which sank in the Seine. The nobility,
whom Napoleon encouraged to return from exile, were allowed to use their
titles, thereby establishing a precedent for the time when he himself
would be creating dukes. For the moment he declared an aristocracy of
merit by founding the Legion of Honor to which men are eligible by
distinguished service to France in any field. The nation felt a
soundness and a comfort that it had not known for many a long year.
Even the outside nations that had been at war with France thought it
safe to visit it again and Paris was full of travelers who admired the
new rue de Rivoli whose arcades run parallel with the Tuileries gardens.
They found, too, that the old names of before the Revolution were being
adopted once more--the Place de la Revolution became again the Place
Louis XV--and the old etiquettes and elegances of royalty resumed.
Josephine’s aristocratic connections helped to relate the old nobility
with the new court and its “new” members whose fortunes had risen with
their leader’s. Much of the glitter of the Tuileries came from the great
number of soldiers always in evidence, for Napoleon’s suspicious nature
caused him to have a large military escort wherever he went. His
professional zeal prompted the careful review of the troops which he
made every Sunday, and which was one of the “sights” for the tourists of
the day who looked with an approach to awe upon the exact lines of
grenadiers drilled to an astonishing accuracy.
As in the days of Francis I and Louis XIV the classical in art and
language touched the pinnacle of popularity. With the government in the
hands of “Consuls” it was appropriate that the legislative body should
be called the “Tribunate.” The Tribunate held its sessions in the Palais
Royal which had been called Equality Palace during the Revolution and
was now christened Palace of the Tribunate.
It was through the Tribunate that Napoleon manipulated the offer of the
title of Emperor which was made to him in 1804. It came as the crown of
his ambition because it was the recognition of both his military skill
and his political and administrative ability. He expressed his feeling
when he refused the suggestion for an imperial seal of “a lion resting”
and proposed instead “an eagle soaring.”
Success is a heady draught. At the beginning of his career Bonaparte
used to compliment his generals by saying, “_You_ have fought
splendidly.” After a time he said, “_We_ have fought splendidly.” Still
later his comment was, “You must allow that _I_ have won a splendid
battle.”
With the pope Napoleon had made an arrangement, the Concordat, by which
he restored the Roman Catholic as the national church of France. The
papal power was not accepted as in other countries, but the treaty gave
him a hold over the pope so that when the new emperor, to conciliate the
royalists who were all Romanists, summoned him to assist at his
coronation, Pius VII felt himself constrained to obey. He was lodged in
the Pavilion of Flora, the western tip of Henry IV’s south wing of the
Louvre, overlooking the Seine.
Napoleon and Josephine had been married only with the civil ceremony, as
was the custom during the Revolution. On the day before the coronation
Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon’s uncle, married them with the religious
ceremony in the chapel of the Tuileries. The celebration of the
Concordat had been conducted magnificently in Notre Dame, but the
coronation on December 2, 1804, was the most splendid of the many
splendid scenes upon which the Gothic dignity of the cathedral had
looked down. In preparation, many small buildings round about were
pulled down and many streets suppressed or widened. Decorated with
superb tapestries, resounding with the solemn voices of the choir, the
ancient church held a scene brilliant with the uniforms of generals and
the rich costumes of officers of state and of representatives from all
France, aflutter with plumes and glittering with the beauty and the
jewels of the fairest women of the court. It was a scene unique in
history, for never before had a man of the people commanded so superb a
train every one of whom was alert with a personal interest in a ceremony
which meant his own elevation as well as that of the aspirant to the
power of that Charlemagne whose sword and insignia he had caused to be
brought for the occasion.
The pope and his attendants advanced in dignified procession, acclaimed
by the solemn hail of the intoning clergy. Before the high altar the
Holy Father performed the service of consecration, anointing for his
office the man who had been chosen to it by the will of the people.
Then, as he was about to replace the gold laurel wreath of the victor
with a replica of Charlemagne’s crown, Napoleon characteristically
seized it and placed it on his own head.
With his own hands, too, he crowned Josephine. She was dressed like her
husband in flowing robes of purple velvet heavily sown with the golden
bee which Napoleon had copied from those found in the tomb of Childéric,
father of Clovis, and which he had adopted as the imperial emblem
because he wanted one older than the royalist _fleur-de-lis_. Followed
by ladies of the court, her mantle borne by her sisters-in-law, who had
been made princesses, Josephine knelt, weeping, before Napoleon, who
placed her crown lightly on his own head and then laid it upon that of
his empress. David’s famous picture hanging in the Louvre has saved this
moment for posterity.
On the night before the coronation the city was plastered by royalist
wits with placards which read: “Final performance of the French
Revolution. For the benefit of a poor Corsican family.”
A fortnight later the emperor and empress were entertained by the city
fathers at a banquet. The Hôtel de Ville had been gorgeously done over
for the coronation, the throne room being hung with red velvet sown with
the imperial bee. On the return of the distinguished guests to the
Tuileries the streets were illuminated, and on the Cité a display of
fireworks lighted up the ancient buildings.
The “poor Corsican family” did indeed profit by the successes of its
prosperous member. After the coronation the imperial court far exceeded
in elegance the court of the Consulate. Many of the ancient
offices--Grand Almoner, Grand Marshal, Grand Chamberlain--were revived
from the days of the Bourbons; many of them, indeed, were held by
members of the old nobility; and it was one of Louis XVI’s former
ambassadors to Russia who held the post of Master of Ceremonies,
instructing, rehearsing
[Illustration: RUE DE RIVOLI, LAID OUT BY NAPOLEON IN 1802.]
and laying down the laws of etiquette for public functions according to
the customs of the old _régîme_.
Soon after the coronation Paris was again deserted of its foreign
tourists for once again war was imminent. Napoleon was so sure of the
success of his proposed invasion of England that he supplied himself
with gold medals inscribed “Struck at London in 1804.” Nelson’s victory
at Trafalgar put an end to the usefulness of these medals, and the great
fighter turned his attention to other foes than the English. Six weeks
later he defeated the combined forces of Russia and Austria at
Austerlitz and sent to Paris one thousand two hundred captured cannon
which were melted down to make the column which stands to-day in the
Place Vendôme.
Events of the campaign are pictured in relief on the bronze plates which
wind in a spiral around the Vendôme column. On the top stood a statue of
Napoleon dressed in a toga according to the classic fashion of the
moment. At the Restoration in 1814 this statue was taken down and its
metal used for the making of a new statue of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf,
the former statue having been destroyed during the Revolution. For
seventeen years the white flag of the Bourbons floated from the Vendôme
column, and then Louis Philippe substituted a statue of Napoleon in
campaign uniform. For thirty-two years this figure looked down the rue
Castiglione to the Tuileries gardens, and then Napoleon III replaced it
by a Napoleon once more in classic dress. He did not stand long,
however, for in the troubles of 1871 the Communards pulled down the
whole column. Four years later it was reërected and is now topped by
Napoleon in his imperial robes.
The Place Vendôme in which the column stands, and the arcaded rue
Castiglione which leads into it from the similarly arcaded rue de
Rivoli, are, like the Place des Victoires, guarded against change by a
municipal law. In the case of the squares, each laid out as a unit, it
is easily seen that any change in the façades would do serious injury to
the harmony of the whole. The arcades of the rue Castiglione have their
ornamental value in furnishing an approach to the Place Vendôme. To a
dispassionate eye, however, the chimney-pots and skylights of the rue de
Rivoli so overbalance by their ugliness the symmetry of the arcades
below that the impertinent traveler feels moved to ask for an amendment
to the law as far as this street is concerned. The same ugly roofs mar
the otherwise beautiful addition which Napoleon made to the Louvre.
In 1806 Napoleon reconstructed the German Empire and secured the
dependence of Naples and the Netherlands upon himself by placing his
brothers on their thrones, and of other sections of Italy by granting
their government to nineteen dukes of his own creation. Then followed
the battles of Jena, Eylau, and Friedland which humbled Prussia, and the
festivals which welcomed the conqueror to Paris surpassed in brilliancy
any that had gone before. Two of the triumphal arches which beautify
Paris were raised to commemorate these victories. The Triumphal Arch of
the Carrousel, a reduced copy of the arch of Septimius Severus in Rome,
was built as an entrance to the Tuileries from the small square of the
Carrousel. It must be remembered that in the early nineteenth century
the whole of the north wing of the Louvre was non-existent, its site
being occupied by a tangle of small streets and mean houses, whose
destruction was merely entered upon when Napoleon I began to build the
section of the palace running east from the rue de Rivoli end of the
Tuileries toward the ancient quadrangle of the Louvre. Upon the top of
the arch was placed the bronze Quadriga from Saint Mark’s in Venice
which Bonaparte sent home after his first Italian campaign. After
Napoleon’s fall the horses were sent back to Italy and replaced on the
arch by a modern quadriga.
The Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, a mammoth construction begun by
Napoleon on the crest of a slope approached by twelve broad avenues, is
adorned with historical groups and bas-reliefs which repay a close
examination, but the impressiveness of the monument rests in its
dominating position which makes it one of the focal points in a
panoramic view of the city. It is a majestic finish to the vista of the
Champs Élysées seen from the Place de la Concorde. Although many
different forms of decoration have been suggested for the top of the
arch, and some have even been tried by models, none has been found
satisfactory, and the great mass remains incomplete.
Though France had returned from its Revolutionary wanderings and once
again had an established religion, and though the Emperor went to mass
as regularly as his army duties permitted, there was practically no
building of new churches by Napoleon. It was a sufficient task to repair
the mutilations of the Revolution. The church of Sainte Geneviève--the
Pantheon--was consecrated in the early years of the Consulate. In 1806
the construction of the Madeleine, which had been begun some sixty years
before, was renewed, not, however, as a church, but as a Temple of
Glory. Before it was finished the Restoration had come and had turned it
into a church again.
[Illustration: TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF THE CARROUSEL.]
[Illustration: TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF THE STAR.]
The Madeleine shows the classic influence, as does the Bourse, whose
heavy columns, while decorative, do not seem to be especially
appropriate for an Exchange. Victor Hugo scornfully says that so far as
any apparent adaptation to its purpose is to be seen the Bourse might be
a king’s palace, a House of Commons, a city hall, a college, a riding
school, an academy, a storehouse, a court house, a museum, barracks, a
tomb, a temple or a theater.
And it might!
The Bourse makes itself known at some distance by the noise which rises
from its _coulisses_ or “wings”--our “curb”--where a constant fury of
chatter is going on.
The pillared façade on the Seine side of the present Palace of Deputies
was designed to harmonize with the façade of the Madeleine at the
northern end of the rue Royale. This front, conspicuous from the Place
de la Concorde, is not the real front of the Palais Bourbon whose main
entrance is on the rue de l’Université.
While anything in Europe remained apart from his control Napoleon was
not happy, so after the Peace of Tilsit he turned his attention to the
south once more. Portugal yielded to him through sheer terror. He
compelled the abdication of the king of Spain, but here England
interfered, and the Peninsular War brought him its reverses. Renewed
war with Austria, however, added the battle of Wagram to the list of the
great fighter’s victories. He was at the summit of his power and his
very successes made him increasingly conscious that he had no son to
inherit the fruits of his life work. He realized fully that Josephine’s
tact and diplomacy had won him many a bloodless victory, and he had an
almost superstitious belief that she brought him luck. However, ambition
conquered affection. Eugène Beauharnais, Josephine’s son, was compelled
to approve before the Senate the divorce which the pope would not
confirm but which the clergy of Paris were forced to grant. Josephine,
though stricken with grief, bore herself bravely before the court during
her last evening at the Tuileries where the divorce was pronounced. She
withdrew to Malmaison, some six miles out of the city, where she died in
1814, Napoleon’s name the last word on her lips.
Failing to arrange a Russian match Napoleon married Marie Louise of
Austria, first by proxy in Vienna, then by a civil ceremony after the
bride reached France, and lastly by the religious ceremony in the great
hall of the Louvre. Cardinal Fesch gave the benediction, for the new
marriage was not approved at Rome. Indeed, thirteen of the cardinals
refused to be present at the ceremony and were thereafter called the
“black cardinals” because they were forbidden by the emperor to wear
their red robes.
Marie Louise came to Paris a frightened girl, for Napoleon had no
reputation for gentleness, but she seems to have found him endurable. It
is even related that at one time when he caught her experimenting with
the making of an omelette he gave yet one more instance of his
omniscience by playfully teaching her how to prepare it. That he dropped
it on the floor would seem to prove that Jove occasionally nods.
In the following March enthusiastic crowds about the Tuileries listened
anxiously for the cannon which should announce by twenty-one reports the
birth of a daughter to the empress, by one hundred and one the coming of
a son. Their joy rose to frenzy when the twenty-second boom announced an
heir who received the title of the King of Rome, and for days the city
was given over to rejoicing. Napoleon himself told the news to Josephine
in a letter dated
Paris, March 22, 1811
My dear,
I have your letter. I thank you for it. My son is fat, and in
excellent health. I trust he may continue to improve. He has my
chest, my mouth and my eyes. I hope he will fulfill his destiny.
Josephine, who was staying at Evreux, commanded a festival to be held
in the town, and when she returned to Malmaison Napoleon secretly had
the baby sent to the country for her to see.
Yet it soon seemed as if the loss of Josephine had, indeed, deprived
Napoleon of his good fortune. He quarreled with the pope and even kept
him a prisoner in the palace of Fontainebleau. This quarrel alienated
Catholic Frenchmen, and they included practically all those with Bourbon
leanings. To punish Russia for not agreeing to his plan for humiliating
England by cutting off its trade with the continent he entered the
country in the invasion which destroyed his army by a death more bitter
than that encountered in battle.
During his fearful retreat from Moscow two adventurers almost succeeded
in bringing about a _coup d’état_ in Paris by reading to a body of the
soldiers a proclamation purporting to be from the Senate, and by
capturing the Prefect of Police and the City Hall. The news reached
Napoleon and when he realized that so much had been accomplished without
any outcry being made for a continuance of the Napoleonic line, he left
the army and went post haste to the city, where he found hostile
placards constantly being posted. His presence quieted the ominous
disturbance, and he drove impressively with the empress to the Senate
in a glassed carriage drawn by cream-colored horses, and there and
elsewhere spread falsely reassuring reports minimizing the losses in
Russia. Very soon, however, the truth carried mourning to almost every
home in France, and with it hatred of the man who had brought it to
pass.
In January, 1813, the Emperor left once more for the front after
appointing Marie Louise as regent and confiding her and the King of Rome
to the care of the National Guard assembled before the Tuileries.
There is no doubt that the genius that had sent Napoleon to victory
after victory with almost clairvoyant intelligence was now failing. He
lacked decision and his generals were not trained to help him. He made
blunder after blunder coldly disheartening to sorrowful France. “Have
the people of Paris gone crazy?” he cried angrily when he heard that
public prayers were being offered for the success of the campaign.
Prayers were needed. The “army of boys,” all that Napoleon could raise
after the disastrous retreat from Moscow, was defeated at Leipsic late
in 1813, and the allies--England, Russia, Prussia, Sweden and
Austria--pressed upon Paris both from the north and the south. The city
was no longer guarded by defensible walls and her reliance could be only
in her garrison of about twenty-five thousand men. Marie Louise, the
regent, fled from the city on March 29, 1814, and on the next day
Napoleon left Fontainebleau at the head of a few cavalry to lend his
aid, but found that the city already had yielded. On the thirty-first
the King of Prussia and the Czar entered Paris on the north by the
faubourg Saint Martin, finding a welcome from the white-cockaded
royalists. Within three weeks Napoleon had abdicated and had started for
his modest throne on the island of Elba, and a fortnight later Louis
XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, made his formal entry. The people, trained
to Napoleon’s magnificence, looked coldly on the fat, plainly dressed
elderly man who drove to the Tuileries in a carriage belonging to his
predecessor, whose arms had been badly erased and imperfectly covered by
those of the Bourbons.
Paris was glad to be rid of the man it had come to look upon as a
vampire draining the strength of France to feed his personal ambition,
yet the city by no means enjoyed the presence of the allies. They
insisted on the return to Italy of many of the art treasures on which
the Parisians had come to look with the pride of possession. There were
constant quarrels of citizens with the invading officers and the
townsfolk were nettled at the frank curiosity with which they and their
[Illustration: NAPOLEON’S TOMB.]
city were scrutinized by the many travelers of all nations who poured in
immediately. It was then that a rope was laid about the neck of Napoleon
on the Vendôme column and he was lowered to the ground to be replaced by
the Bourbon flag.
Less than a year afterwards Paris was aquiver over the report that the
chained lion had broken loose and was advancing to the city in the march
which he declared at Saint Helena was the happiest period of his life.
The fickle peasants who had pursued him out of the country so that he
had had to disguise himself as a white-cockaded postboy to escape them,
now received him joyfully. At his approach Louis fled from the
Tuileries, but Napoleon did not occupy the palace. It was at the palace
of the Élysée that he worked out his plans against the allies, and it
was there that he signed his abdication when the defeat at Waterloo put
an end to the Hundred Days. Three days later he went to Malmaison, and
he never saw Paris again. He died in 1821 at Saint Helena. In December,
1840, Louis Philippe caused his remains to be brought to Paris where
they were borne beneath the completed Arch of the Star and down the
Champs Élysées, and were laid under the Dome of the Invalides that the
request of his will might be granted: “I desire that my ashes repose on
the banks of the Seine among the French people whom I have so greatly
loved.”