Napoleon lands at Cannes--his progress to
Grenoble--Lyons--Fontainebleau--Treason of Labedoyere and
Ney--Louis XVIII. retires to Ghent, and Napoleon arrives in Paris.
The evening before Napoleon sailed (February the 26th), his sister
Pauline gave a ball, to which all the officers of the Elbese army were
invited. A brig (the _Inconstant_) and six small craft, had meanwhile
been prepared for the voyage, and at dead of night, without apparently
any previous intimation, the soldiery were mustered by tuck of drum, and
found themselves on board ere they could ask for what purpose. When the
day broke, they perceived that all the officers and the Emperor himself
were with them, and that they were steering for the coast of France; and
it could no longer be doubtful that the scheme which had for months
formed the darling object of all their hopes and dreams was about to be
realised.
Sir Neil Campbell, who had been absent on an excursion to Leghorn,
happened to return to Porto Ferraio almost as soon as the flotilla had
quitted it. The mother and sister of Buonaparte in vain endeavoured to
persuade the English officer that he had steered toward the coast of
Barbary. He pursued instantly towards Provence, in the _Partridge_,
which attended his orders, and came in sight of the fugitive armament
exactly when it was too late. Ere then Napoleon had encountered almost
an equal hazard. A French ship of war had crossed his path; but the
Emperor made all his soldiery lie flat on the decks, and the steersman
of the _Inconstant_, who happened to be well acquainted with the
commanding officer, had received and answered the usual challenge
without exciting any suspicion. Thus narrowly escaped the flotilla which
carried "Caesar and his fortune."
On the 1st of March he was once more off Cannes--the same spot which had
received him from Egypt, and at which he had embarked ten months before
for Elba. There was no force whatever to oppose his landing; and his
handful of men--500 grenadiers of the guard, 200 dragoons, and 100
Polish lancers, these last without horses, and carrying their saddles on
their backs--were immediately put in motion on the road to Paris.
Twenty-five grenadiers which he detached to summon Antibes were arrested
on the instant by the governor of that place; but he despised this omen,
and proceeded without a pause. He bivouacked that night in a plantation
of olives, with all his men about him. As soon as the moon rose, the
reveille sounded. A labourer going thus early afield, recognised the
Emperor's person, and, with a cry of joy, said he had served in the army
of Italy, and would join the march. "Here is already a reinforcement,"
said Napoleon; and the march recommenced. Early in the morning they
passed through the town of Grasse, and halted on the height beyond
it--where the whole population of the place forthwith surrounded them,
some cheering, the great majority looking on in perfect silence, but
none offering any show of opposition. The roads were so bad in this
neighbourhood, that the pieces of cannon which they had with them were
obliged to be abandoned in the course of the day, but they had marched
full twenty leagues ere they halted for the night at Cerenon. On the
5th, Napoleon reached Gap. He was now in Dauphiny, called "The cradle of
the Revolution," and the sullen silence of the Provencals was succeeded
by popular acclamations; but still no troops had joined him--and his
anxiety was great.
It was at Gap that he published his first proclamations; one "To the
Army," another "To the French people," both no doubt prepared at Elba,
though dated "March 1st, Gulf of Juan." The former, and more important
of the two, ran in these words--"Soldiers! we have not been beaten. Two
men, raised from our ranks,[69] betrayed our laurels, their country,
their prince, their benefactor. In my exile I have heard your voice. I
have arrived once more among you, despite all obstacles, and all perils.
We ought to forget that we have been the masters of the world; but we
ought never to suffer foreign interference in our affairs. Who dares
pretend to be master over us? Take again the eagles which you followed
at Ulm, at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Montmirail. Come and range yourselves
under the banners of your old chief. Victory shall march at the
charging step. The Eagle, with the national colours, shall fly from
steeple to steeple--on to the towers of Notre Dame! In your old age,
surrounded and honoured by your fellow-citizens, you shall be heard with
respect when you recount your high deeds. You shall then say with
pride--I also was one of that great army which entered twice within the
walls of Vienna, which took Rome, and Berlin, and Madrid, and
Moscow--and which delivered Paris from the stain printed on it by
domestic treason, and the occupation of strangers."
It was between Mure and Vizele that Cambronne, who commanded his
advanced guard of forty grenadiers, met suddenly a battalion sent
forwards from Grenoble to arrest the march. The colonel refused to
parley with Cambronne; either party halted until Napoleon himself came
up. He did not hesitate for a moment. He dismounted, and advanced alone;
some paces behind him came a hundred of his guard, with their arms
reversed. There was perfect silence on all sides until he was within a
few yards of the men. He then halted, threw open his surtout so as to
show the star of the Legion of Honour, and exclaimed, "If there be among
you a soldier who desires to kill his general--his Emperor--let him do
it now. Here I am."--The old cry of _Vive l'Empereur_ burst
instantaneously from every lip. Napoleon threw himself among them, and
taking a veteran private, covered with chevrons and medals, by the
whisker, said, "Speak honestly, old Moustache, couldst thou have had the
heart to kill thy Emperor?" The man dropped his ramrod into his piece to
show that it was uncharged, and answered, "Judge if I could have done
thee much harm--all the rest are the same." Napoleon gave the word, and
the old adherents, and the new, marched together on Grenoble.
Some space ere they reached that town, Colonel Labedoyere, an officer of
noble family, and who had been promoted by Louis XVIII., appeared on the
road before them, at the head of his regiment, the seventh of the line.
These men, and the Emperor's little column, on coming within view of
each other, rushed simultaneously from their ranks, and embraced with
mutual shouts of _Live Napoleon! Live the Guard! Live the Seventh!_
Labedoyere produced an eagle, which he had kept concealed about his
person, and broke open a drum which was found to be filled with
tricolor cockades; these ancient ensigns were received with redoubled
enthusiasm. This was the first instance of an officer of superior rank
voluntarily espousing the side of the invader. The impulse thus afforded
was decisive; in spite of all the efforts of General Marchand,
Commandant of Grenoble, the whole of that garrison, when he approached
the walls, exclaimed _Vive l'Empereur_! Their conduct, however,
exhibited a singular spectacle. Though thus welcoming Napoleon with
their voices, they would not so far disobey the governor as to throw
open the gates. On the other hand no argument could prevail on them to
fire on the advancing party. In the teeth of all the batteries,
Buonaparte calmly planted a howitzer or two, and blew the gates open,
and then, as if the spell of discipline were at once dissolved, the
garrison broke from their lines, and he in an instant found himself
dragged from his horse, and borne aloft on these men's shoulders towards
the principal inn of the place, amidst the clamours of enthusiastic and
delirious joy. Marchand remained faithful to his oath; and was dismissed
without injury. Next morning the authorities of Grenoble waited on
Napoleon, and tendered their homage. He reviewed his troops, now about
7000 in numbers, and on the 9th recommenced his march.
On the 10th, Buonaparte came within sight of Lyons, and was informed
that Monsieur and Marshal Macdonald had arrived to take the command,
barricaded the bridge of Guillotierre, and posted themselves at the head
of a large force to dispute the entrance of the town. Nothing daunted
with this intelligence, the column moved on, and at the bridge of Lyons,
as at the gates of Grenoble, all opposition vanished when his person was
recognised by the soldiery. The Prince and Macdonald were forced to
retire, and Napoleon entered the second city of France in triumph. A
guard of mounted gentlemen had been formed among the citizens to attend
on the person of Monsieur. These were among the foremost to offer their
services to the Emperor, after he reached his hotel. Surrounded by his
own soldiery, and by a manufacturing population, whom the comparatively
free admission of English goods after the peace of Paris had filled with
fear and discontent, and who now welcomed the great enemy of England
with rapturous acclamations, Napoleon could afford to reject the
assistance of these faithless cavaliers. He dismissed them with
contempt; but finding that _one_ of their number had followed Monsieur
until his person was out of all danger, immediately sent to that
individual the cross of the Legion of Honour.
This revolution had been proceeding during more than a week, ere the
gazettes of Paris ventured to make any allusion to its existence. There
then appeared a royal ordonnance, proclaiming Napoleon Buonaparte _an
outlaw_, and convoking on the instant the two chambers. Next day the
_Moniteur_ announced that, surrounded on all hands by faithful garrisons
and a loyal population, this outlaw was already stripped of most of his
followers, wandering in despair among the hills, and certain to be a
prisoner within two or three days at the utmost. The _Moniteur_,
however, was no very decisive authority in 1815, any more than in 1814;
and the public mind continued full of uncertainty, as to the motives and
every circumstance of this unparalleled adventure. Monsieur, meanwhile,
had departed, we have seen with what success, to Lyons; the Duke of
Angouleme was already at Marseilles, organising the loyal Provencals,
and preparing to throw himself on Grenoble and cut off the retreat of
Buonaparte; and Louis continued to receive addresses full of loyalty and
devotion from the public bodies of Paris, from towns, and departments,
and, above all, from the marshals, generals, and regiments who happened
to be near the capital.
This while, however, the partisans of Napoleon in Paris were far more
active than the royalists. They gave out everywhere that, as the
proclamation from the Gulf of Juan had stated, Buonaparte was come back
thoroughly cured of that ambition which had armed Europe against his
throne; that he considered his act of abdication void, because the
Bourbons had not accepted the crown on the terms on which it was
offered, and had used their authority in a spirit, and for purposes, at
variance with the feelings and the interests of the French people; that
he was come to be no longer the dictator of a military despotism, but
the first citizen of a nation which he had resolved to make the freest
of the free; that the royal government wished to extinguish by degrees
all memory of the revolution--that he was returning to consecrate once
more the principles of liberty and equality, ever hateful in the eyes of
the old nobility of France, and to secure the proprietors of forfeited
estates against all the machinations of that dominant faction; in a
word, that he was fully sensible to the extent of his past errors, both
of domestic administration and of military ambition, and desirous of
nothing but the opportunity of devoting, to the true welfare of peaceful
France, those unrivalled talents and energies which he had been rash
enough to abuse in former days. With these suggestions they mingled
statements perhaps still more audacious. According to them, Napoleon had
landed with the hearty approbation of the Austrian court, and would be
instantly rejoined by the Empress and his son. The Czar also was
friendly; even England had been sounded ere the adventure began, and
showed no disposition to hazard another war for the sake of the
Bourbons. The King of Prussia, indeed, remained hostile--but France was
not sunk so low as to dread that state single-handed. It was no secret,
ere this time, that some disputes of considerable importance had sprung
up among the great powers whose representatives were assembled at
Vienna; and such was the rash credulity of the Parisians, that the most
extravagant exaggerations and inventions which issued from the saloon of
the Duchess de St. Leu (under which name Hortense Beauharnois, wife of
Louis Buonaparte, had continued to reside in Paris)--and from other
circles of the same character, found, to a certain extent, credence.
There was one tale which ran louder and louder from the tongue of every
Buonapartist, and which royalist and republican found, day after day,
new reason to believe; namely, that the army were, high and low, on the
side of Napoleon; that every detachment sent to intercept him, would but
swell his force; in a word, that--unless the people were to rise _en
masse_--nothing could prevent the outlaw from taking possession of the
Tuileries ere a fortnight more had passed over the head of Louis.
It was at Lyons, where Napoleon remained from the 10th to the 13th, that
he formally resumed the functions of civil government. He published
various decrees at this place; one, commanding justice to be
administered everywhere in his name after the 15th; another abolishing
the Chambers of the Peers and the Deputies, and summoning all the
electoral colleges to meet in Paris at a _Champ-de-Mai_,[70] there to
witness the coronation of Maria Louisa and of her son, and settle
definitively the constitution of the state; a third, ordering into
banishment all whose names had not been erased from the list of
emigrants prior to the abdication of Fontainebleau; a fourth, depriving
all strangers and emigrants of their commissions in the army; a fifth,
abolishing the order of St. Louis, and bestowing all its revenues on the
Legion of Honour; and a sixth, restoring to their authority all
magistrates who had been displaced by the Bourbon government. These
proclamations could not be prevented from reaching Paris; and the Court,
abandoning their system of denying or extenuating the extent of the
impending danger, began to adopt more energetic means for its
suppression.
It was now that Marshal Ney volunteered his services to take the command
of a large body of troops, whose fidelity was considered sure, and who
were about to be sent to Lons-le-Saunier, there to intercept and arrest
the invader. Well aware of this great officer's influence in the army,
Louis did not hesitate to accept his proffered assistance; and Ney, on
kissing his hand at parting, swore that in the course of a week he would
bring Buonaparte to his majesty's feet in a cage, like a wild beast.
On reaching Lons-le-Saunier, Ney received a letter from Napoleon,
summoning him to join his standard as "the bravest of the brave." In how
far he guided or followed the sentiments of his soldiery we know not,
but the fact is certain, that he and they put themselves in motion
forthwith, and joined the march of Buonaparte on the 17th at Auxerre.
Ney, in the sequel, did not hesitate to avow that he had chosen the part
of Napoleon long ere he pledged his oath to Louis; adding that the
greater number of the marshals were, like himself, original members of
the Elbese conspiracy. Of the latter of these assertions no other proof
has hitherto been produced; and the former continues to be generally as
well as mercifully discredited.
In and about the capital there still remained troops far more than
sufficient in numbers to overwhelm the advancing column, and drag its
chief to the feet of Louis. He entrusted the command of these battalions
to one whose personal honour was as clear as his military reputation
was splendid--Marshal Macdonald; and this gentleman proceeded to take
post at Melun, in good hope, notwithstanding all that happened, of being
duly supported in the discharge of his commission.
On the 19th, Napoleon slept once more in the chateau of Fontainebleau;
on the morning of the 20th he advanced through the forest in full
knowledge of Macdonald's arrangements--and he advanced alone. It was
about noon that the marshal's troops, who had for some time been under
arms on an eminence beyond the wood, listening, apparently with delight,
to the loyal strains of _Vive Henri Quatre_ and _La Belle Gabrielle_,
perceived suddenly a single open carriage coming at full speed towards
them from among the trees. A handful of Polish horsemen, with their
lances reversed, followed the equipage. The little flat cocked hat--the
grey surtout--the person of Napoleon was recognised. In an instant the
men burst from their ranks, surrounded him with the cries of _Vive
l'Empereur_, and trampled their white cockades in the dust.
Macdonald escaped to Paris; but his master had not awaited the issue of
the last stand at Melun. Amidst the tears and lamentations of the loyal
burghers of the capital, and the respectful silence of those who really
wished for the success of his rival, Louis had set off from the
Tuileries in the middle of the preceding night. Macdonald overtook him,
and accompanied him to the frontier of the Netherlands, which he reached
in safety. There had been a plan organised by Generals Lallemand and
Lefevre for seizing the roads between Paris and Belgium, and
intercepting the flight of the King; but Marshal Mortier had been
successful in detecting and suppressing this movement.
On the evening of the 20th of March, Napoleon once more entered Paris.
He came preceded and followed by the soldiery, on whom alone he had
relied, and who, by whatever sacrifices, had justified his confidence.
The streets were silent as the travel-worn cavalcade passed along; but
all that loved the name or the cause of Napoleon were ready to receive
him in the Tuileries; and he was almost stifled by the pressure of those
enthusiastic adherents, who the moment he stopped, mounted him on their
shoulders, and carried him so in triumph up the great staircase of the
palace. He found, in the apartments which the King had just vacated, a
brilliant assemblage of those who had in former times filled the most
prominent places in his own councils and court: among the rest was
Fouche. This personage was not the only one present who had recently
intrigued with the Bourbons against Buonaparte--with as much apparent
ardour, and perhaps with about as much honesty, as in other times he had
ever brought to the service of the Emperor. "Gentlemen," said Napoleon,
as he walked round the circle, "it is disinterested people who have
brought me back to my capital. It is the subalterns and the soldiers
that have done it all. I owe everything to the people and the army."
[Footnote 69: The allusion is to Marmont's conduct at Essonne, and
Augereau's hasty abandonment of Lyons when the Austrians approached it
in March, 1814.]
[Footnote 70: Napoleon took the idea and name of this assembly from the
history of the early Gauls.]