Baron de Marbot, in his most interesting memoirs, tells of his thrilling
experiences in this battle. He was at that time an officer under
Augereau. His horse, Lisette, of whom he was extremely fond, was
addicted to biting, but valued for her speed. At great risk, Marbot
carried a message to the Fourteenth. "I see no means of saving the
regiment," said the major; "return to the Emperor, bid him farewell from
the Fourteenth of the line, which has faithfully executed his orders,
and bear him the eagle which he gave us, and which we can no longer
defend; it would add too much to the pain of death to see it fall into
the hands of the enemy."
Marbot took the eagle, when a cannon ball went through the hinder part
of his hat, forcing, by the shock, the blood from his nose, ears, and
even eyes. His limbs were almost paralyzed. A hand to hand combat raged
around him. Several Frenchmen, not to be struck from behind, set their
backs against the sides of Lisette, who stood quite still. One of the
Russians thrust his bayonet into Marbot's left arm, and then into
Lisette's thigh.
"Her ferocious instincts being restored by the pain," says Marbot, "she
sprang at the Russian, and at one mouthful tore off his nose, lips,
eyebrows, and all the skin of his face, making of him a living
death's-head, dripping with blood. Then, hurling herself with fury among
the combatants, kicking and biting, Lisette upset everything that she
met on the road."
She seized another Russian who had tried to hit Marbot, "tore out his
entrails, and mashed his body under her feet, leaving him dying on the
snow."
When Lisette and her rider reached the cemetery of Eylau, where the
battle was hottest, the poor creature fell exhausted. The young Marbot,
supposed to be dead amid the piles of dead and wounded, was stripped of
his clothing. He was marvellously rescued by a servant, who cut up the
shirt of a dead soldier and bandaged the leg of Lisette, by which she
also was saved. Lisette, after doing service just before Friedland by
galloping twelve leagues on a hot day to carry a message of warning to
the Emperor, was cared for by the wife of an officer, and died of old
age.
Napoleon shared with his soldiers all the dangers and privations of war.
He wrote to his brother Joseph: "The staff-officers have not taken off
their clothes for two months, and some not for four. I have myself been
a fortnight without taking off my boots. We are deep in the snow and
mud.... The wounded have to be carried in open sleighs for fifty
leagues."
Josephine wished to come to him. He wrote: "You couldn't be racing
through inns and camps. I am as anxious as you can be to see you and be
quiet.... All my life I have sacrificed everything--peace, interest,
happiness--to my destiny."
The next great battle was at Friedland, when eighty thousand French met
seventy-five thousand Russians. "This is the anniversary of Marengo,"
said Napoleon, June 14, 1800, "and to-day _fortune is with me_."
And so it proved. The Russians fought desperately, but they were
overpowered. They retreated towards the river, and thousands who were
not captured were drowned. They lost twenty-six thousand, says Marbot,
in dead and wounded, and the French about half that number.
The conquered were glad to make peace, which was concluded at Tilsit,
July 7, 1807, between Alexander I. of Russia, Frederick William III. of
Prussia, and Napoleon. By this treaty, among other articles, some
provinces west of the Elbe were made into the kingdom of Westphalia, and
another brother of Napoleon, Jerome, was placed upon a throne. He had
married, when nineteen, Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore; but
through Napoleon's influence the union was annulled, and he married, at
twenty-three, Aug. 23, 1807, the daughter of the king of Würtemberg. She
proved a noble woman. When her husband was dethroned in 1814, she
refused to obtain a divorce, writing to her father: "Having been forced,
by reasons of state, to marry the king, my husband, it has been granted
me by fate to be the happiest woman in the world."
Napoleon said of her at Saint Helena, "Princess Catherine of Würtemberg
has, with her own hands, written her name in history."
Napoleon returned to Paris after the peace of Tilsit, and was received
with unbounded love and honor. He made Paris more beautiful with arches
and churches, he developed her industries, and he established schools
and colleges. He said, "We must not pass through this world without
leaving traces which may commend our memory to posterity."
England was still the bitter enemy of Napoleon. The decrees of both
regarding commerce were soon to plunge nearly all Europe into war. By
agreement of Alexander and Napoleon, if England did not consent to
peace, they were to summon Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, and perhaps
Austria, to close their ports against her. Denmark wished to be neutral.
While she hesitated, England, having heard of this project, sent a fleet
against Copenhagen and bombarded it.
Napoleon sent an army under Junot into Portugal to compel her assent,
and Murat into Spain, which at that time was friendly with France,
though distracted by royal dissensions. Napoleon placed his brother
Joseph on the throne. Mr. Ropes thinks, and probably correctly, that
Napoleon supposed "the population of the Spanish peninsula was ready
for the great reforms in government in which France had led the way, and
in which Holland, Western Germany, and Italy were then cheerfully and
hopefully marching, and that the better and more enlightened part of the
Spanish people would be thankful to see a liberal, intelligent, and
conscientious man like Joseph take the place of the bigoted and
profligate Charles IV."
Napoleon said at St. Helena: "It was the subject of my perpetual dreams
to render Paris the real capital of Europe.... My ambition was of the
highest and noblest kind that ever existed,--that of establishing and
consecrating the empire of reason, and the full exercise and complete
enjoyment of all the human faculties."
A dreadful insurrection took place in Spain against the rule of Joseph,
and Napoleon sent a large army to quell it. He succeeded in reinstating
Joseph on the throne for a time. He abolished the Inquisition and began
several reforms.
The insurrection in Spain gave great joy in England. "The general
rapture knew no bounds," says Alison. England sent her armies into Spain
and Portugal, and the Peninsular War resulted, which Napier has
described so vividly. To restore Ferdinand, the son of Charles IV., to
Spain, England spent, says Napier, one hundred millions sterling, about
five hundred million dollars, "and the bones of forty thousand British
soldiers lie scattered on the plains and mountains of the Peninsula."
The heroic Sir John Moore fell at Corunna, and was buried in his bloody
cloak at night by torchlight.
"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried."
His last words were, "I hope the people of England will be satisfied. I
hope my country will do me justice." After his death, Sir Arthur
Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, was made commander-in-chief of all
the English troops in the Spanish peninsula. Austria considered this an
opportune time to make war on Napoleon. The latter raised another
immense army,--Lanfrey says with much truth, "France was bleeding to
death,"--marched against Austria, and several bloody battles resulted.
At Eckmühl the Austrians, says Marbot, admitted a loss of five thousand
killed, and fifteen thousand prisoners. Napoleon said at St. Helena,
"The greatest military manoeuvres I ever made, and those for which I
give myself most credit, were performed at Eckmühl."
At Ratisbon the Emperor was wounded in the foot, just before the
retaking. So wild were the soldiers at the news, that as soon as his
wound was dressed he rode in front of the whole line to appease their
anxiety.
After some other successes, Napoleon reached Vienna, May 10, the Emperor
Francis having fled, as before, to a place of safety. Napoleon went at
once to the royal palace of Schönbrunn.
The enemy were now on the left bank of the Danube. The spring rains had
swollen the great river, and the crossing was most hazardous. In the
midst of the thousand yards of water was the huge Island of Lobau, four
and a half miles long. Here the troops of Napoleon intrenched
themselves, and built a bridge of boats to either side of the Danube. As
soon as a portion of the French troops had crossed the river, and
reached the towns of Aspern and Essling, the Austrians fell upon them
with great slaughter, compelling the French to retreat to the Island of
Lobau, in the middle of the river. In these battles the heroic Lannes
had both legs crushed by a cannon-ball. One leg was amputated. The
Emperor knelt beside the stretcher and wept as he embraced Lannes, whose
blood stained Napoleon's white kerseymere waistcoat.
"You will live, my friend, you will live," said the Emperor.
"I trust I may, if I can still be of use to France and your Majesty,"
was the reply.
After his death, said Marbot, "Napoleon embraced the marshal's body,
bathing it with tears, and saying repeatedly, 'What a loss for France
and for me!'"
The losses at this double battle are variously estimated from twenty to
fifty thousand; Lanfrey accepts the latter number. Seeley calls it "one
of the most terrible and bloody battles of the period." Napoleon at once
began to build substantial bridges on piles across the Danube, one of
them eight hundred yards long, broad enough for three carriages to pass
abreast. These bridges were finished in twenty days, and compelled great
admiration.
To the astonishment of the Austrians, he crossed most of his army of
150,000 men during the night of July 4, and on July 6 fought the
dreadful battle of Wagram. About 300,000 were in the battle. Fifty
thousand on both sides were killed and wounded, probably about an equal
number in each army.
The weather was extremely hot, and the corn on the battle-field caught
fire from the shells. "The movements of both armies were hampered by the
necessity of avoiding it," says Marbot; "for if once troops were
overtaken by it, pouches and wagons exploded, carrying destruction
through the ranks.... Of the soldiers who were severely wounded, great
numbers perished in the flames; and of those whom the fire did not
reach, many lay for days hidden by the tall corn, living during that
time on the ears. The Emperor had the plains searched by bands of
cavalry, and vehicles were brought from Vienna to remove the wounded,
friends and foes alike. But few of those even whom the fire had passed
recovered, and the soldiers had a saying that straw-fire had killed
nearly as many as gun-fire."
"After the battle," says General Savary, "the Emperor sent sixty francs
in crown pieces to each wounded soldier, and more than this to each
officer."
Oct. 14, 1809, the peace of Vienna was signed at Schönbrunn, between
France and Austria. "I committed a great fault after the battle of
Wagram," said Napoleon at St. Helena, "in not reducing the power of
Austria still more. She remained too strong for our safety, and to her
we must attribute our ruin."
On Napoleon's return to France he had made up his mind to an act which
will always tarnish his fame, and from which the decadence of his empire
may be dated. He would divorce Josephine, and marry another, with the
hope that he might have an heir to the throne. Undoubtedly he believed
he was doing the best thing for France; and Thiers says the French
people, while they loved Josephine, wished for the divorce.
On Nov. 30, 1809, as he and Josephine were dining together at
Fontainebleau, not a word having been uttered except Napoleon asked one
of the servants what time it was, he communicated to her his decision.
After dismissing the servants, he came to her, took her hand, pressed it
to his heart, and said, "Josephine! my dear Josephine! You know how I
have loved you.... To you, to you alone, I owe the only moments of
happiness I have tasted in this world. But, Josephine, my destiny is not
to be controlled by my will. My dearest affections must yield to the
interests of France."
"I expected this," said poor Josephine, "but the blow is none the less
mortal."
She became at once insensible; and Napoleon, alarmed, hastily called
assistance and bore her to her room. He came to see her in the evening,
and wept.
Eugène determined at once to resign his position as Viceroy of Italy,
but his mother begged him to remain the friend of Napoleon.
On Dec. 15, at the Tuileries, before the officers of the Empire, the
divorce was announced. Josephine was almost overcome by her sobs. "The
Emperor will always find in me his best friend," she said, and so it
proved.
The next day the divorce was consummated before the Senate. Eugène
announced the divorce, saying, "The tears of the Emperor do honor to my
mother." Josephine, in a simple white muslin dress, leaning on the arm
of Hortense, entered and signed the fatal decree. Both mother and
daughter were in tears, as well as many of those present. Eugène, who
idolized his mother, fell fainting to the floor. That evening when
Josephine thought her husband had retired, she came to his room, her
eyes swollen with weeping, and tottering towards the bed fell upon his
neck, and sobbed as though her heart would break. They wept together,
and talked for an hour. The next day Napoleon came to see her,
accompanied by his secretary, Meneval. "He pressed her to his bosom with
the most ardent embraces," says Meneval. "In the excess of her emotion
she fainted."
At eleven o'clock the same day, veiled from head to foot, Josephine
entered a close carriage drawn by six horses, said good-by to the
Tuileries forever, and was driven to Malmaison. She retained the title
of Empress, with $600,000 a year for her support. Napoleon passed eight
days in retirement at Trianon. On his return to the Tuileries, he wrote
to her, "I have been very lonely.... This great palace appears to me
empty, and I find myself in solitude. Adieu, my love."
He frequently visited Malmaison. One day he found Josephine painting a
violet. She says, "He threw himself with transport into the arms of his
old friend.... It seemed impossible for him to cease gazing upon me, and
his look was that of the most tender affection. At length he said, 'My
dear Josephine, I have always loved you. I love you still. Do you still
love me?"
Three months later, Mar. 11, 1810, Napoleon was married by proxy at
Vienna, Archduke Charles representing him at the wedding, to Marie
Louise, the daughter of Emperor Francis I. of Austria. He met her with
his suite at the palace of Compiègne. She was eighteen, with light hair,
and blue eyes, and gentle in manner. Napoleon was forty.
The civil marriage was celebrated at St. Cloud, April 1; and the next
day they made their triumphal entry into Paris, by the Arc de l'Étoile,
to the Tuileries, amid the cheers of three hundred thousand people. The
world must have been amazed at such a union of France and
Austria,--nations which had been at war for years. No wonder Napoleon,
at St. Helena, spoke of it as "an abyss covered with a bed of flowers."
Two weeks later Josephine wrote him, "Your majesty shall never be
troubled in his happiness by an expression of my grief. I offer
incessant prayers that your majesty may be happy."
A year after his marriage, Mar. 20, 1811, a son, Napoleon Francis, was
born to Napoleon, called the King of Rome, as the Roman States had been
annexed to the Empire. All France rejoiced when the firing of one
hundred guns announced the event.
Josephine wrote at once, telling Napoleon, "More than any one in the
world do I rejoice in your joy." Of Marie Louise she wrote, "She cannot
be more tenderly devoted to you than I am, but she has been enabled to
contribute more toward your happiness, by securing that of France....
Not till you have ceased to watch by her bed, not till you are weary of
embracing your son, will you take your pen to converse with your best
friend. I will wait."
Napoleon brought his child to Josephine. "The moment I saw you enter,"
she wrote him, "bearing the young Napoleon in your hands, was
unquestionably one of the happiest of my life."
He said at St. Helena: "Josephine would willingly have seen Marie
Louise. She frequently spoke of her with great interest.... Marie Louise
manifested the utmost dislike, and even jealousy, of Josephine. I wished
one day to take her to Malmaison, but she burst into tears when I made
the proposal. She said she did not object to my visiting Josephine, only
she did not wish to know it. But whenever she suspected my intention of
going to Malmaison, there was no stratagem which she did not employ for
the sake of annoying me."
The emperor was devoted to his son, and always considerate and tender to
Marie Louise. The boy developed into a very beautiful and bright child,
winning the love of everybody.
A little more than a year after the birth of the King of Rome, Russia
and France were again at war. Whatever Alexander's personal feelings
toward Napoleon, his nobles were opposed to him; they disliked his
restrictions on commerce, and feared his growing power. Russia and
England became allies, though Napoleon offered to make peace with the
latter, which offers she always declined. Probably the real truth was
they all wished to humble Napoleon.
Russia and France each raised a great army, the latter about a half
million men.
Napoleon left Paris for Dresden, May 9, taking Marie Louise with him. He
left her at Prague. Before he started from Paris he spent two hours in
earnest conversation with Josephine at Malmaison.
This Grand Army must have made an imposing appearance, with their twenty
thousand carriages, one hundred and eighty thousand horses employed in
the artillery, besides thousands of provision wagons and baggage.
He began to cross the river Niemen, which empties into the Baltic, on
the night of June 23, 1812. The policy of the Russians was to retreat,
burning the towns through which they passed, and destroying all produce,
that the French might find no support in the desolated country.
The first terrible battle was at Borodino, Sept. 7, where the French
lost about thirty thousand, and the Russians fifty thousand, in killed
and wounded.
On Sept. 14, Napoleon and his weary army--many thousands had been
stationed at various places along the route--entered Moscow. Here they
hoped for food and rest. They found the great city deserted. Powder had
been placed under the Kremlin, and shells under the larger palaces,
where Napoleon and his officers would be apt to lodge; water-pipes had
been cut, fountains destroyed; and, the day after Napoleon's arrival,
the whole city was set on fire by Russians detailed for that purpose. No
wonder Napoleon said, years later, of this terrible destruction of a
great city, "It was the most grand, the most sublime, the most terrific
sight the world ever beheld!"
Napoleon wrote to the Tsar proposing peace; but no answer was ever
returned, though he waited some weeks in Moscow, hoping to hear
favorably. The more intelligent serfs offered to rise against their
masters, and aid Napoleon, but he did not desire civil war.
On Oct. 19, 1812, the Grand Army of France, one hundred thousand strong,
commenced its heart-breaking retreat. Deep snow had already come,
earlier than usual. Kutusof, the Russian general, moved his army
parallel to the French, and fought them at every available point.
Marshal Ney covered the rear, and made for himself an immortal record.
Napoleon rightly called him "The Bravest of the Brave." When they
reached Borodino they sadly turned their heads away from the
battle-fields where the bodies of thirty thousand men were half devoured
by wolves. The cold became intense. Horses slipped and fell on the icy
ground. Artillery and baggage were abandoned. There was no food in the
devastated country. Where Napoleon had left provisions on his way to
Moscow the enemy had destroyed them. Men ate their horses for food. They
lay down at night on the snow to sleep, and never rose. "Every morning,"
says Marbot, "we left thousands of dead in our bivouacs.... So intense
was the cold that we could see a kind of vapor rising from men's ears
and eyes. Condensing, on contact with the air, this vapor fell back on
our persons with a rattle such as grains of millet might have made. We
had often to halt and clear away from the horses' bits the icicles
formed by their frozen breath.... Many soldiers of all ranks blew out
their brains to put an end to their misery.... All ranks were
confounded; there were no arms, no military bearings; soldiers,
officers, generals, were clad in rags, and for boots had nothing but
strips of leather or cloth, hardly fastened together with a string." The
Emperor himself was grave, calm, and self-controlled, with no diminution
of courage.
The soldiers of the allies of Napoleon, Austria, Prussia, Spain, and
others, deserted by the thousands, the Russians having sent
proclamations in various languages into the camps, telling them they
should be returned to their homes.
Finally they reached the river Beresina, the bridge over which had been
destroyed by the Russians. Tearing down the hovels in the village, the
French built two bridges at night, the men standing for six or seven
hours in the water. Then the troops surged upon them, and one bridge
broke under the weight of guns and men. In rushing upon the other, great
crowds were forced into the river and drowned. The Russians meantime
swept them with cannon. From twenty to twenty-five thousand men perished
in this dreadful crossing of the Beresina.
On Dec. 5, 1812, they were within the borders of Poland; and Napoleon,
having learned that his death had been proclaimed in Paris, and that a
man had tried to usurp the power, left his army in charge of Murat, and,
with two officers, hastened by sledges to Paris, which he reached Dec.
18.
The loss of the French army and its allies in the Russian campaign
Thiers estimates as 300,000 men; other authorities make it 350,000;
100,000 were killed in the advance and retreat from Moscow; 150,000 died
of hunger, fatigue, and cold; 100,000 were taken prisoners. The Russian
losses were also heavy.
Prussia now joined herself to Russia, and declared war against France.
Napoleon at once raised another army of nearly two hundred thousand by
conscription, and defeated the enemy at Lützen, or Gross-Beeren, and
Bautzen. His young conscripts fought heroically. His beloved Marshal
Duroc was killed just after the latter battle. Napoleon wept as he left
him dying, saying, "Duroc, there is another life.... We shall one day
meet again."
Austria offered to be a mediator, but failing, hastened to join Prussia
and Russia. The marriage with Marie Louise had not won Napoleon friends,
as he had fondly hoped.
The allies now had five hundred thousand men, the Prussians under
Blücher, the Austrians under Schwarzenberg. Upon Aug. 27, 1813, Napoleon
defeated them at Dresden, where they left forty thousand on the field,
half of whom were prisoners, but was himself defeated in the dreadful
battle of Leipsic, Oct. 16-19.
Bavaria and Westphalia had been compelled to join the allies, whose
forces thrice outnumbered the French. The Swedes, under Bernadotte, had
now turned against France. "In the three days' battle," says Alison,
"the French lost 60,000 men, and the allies nearly as many."
In the retreat of the French from Leipsic they were obliged to cross the
Elster river. The bridge had been mined, and by a mistake was exploded
before all the French had passed over. Marbot says, of those who were
left in Leipsic, about 13,000 were killed, and 25,000 made prisoners.
Meantime the English had been victorious over the French in Spain and
Portugal, and Joseph Bonaparte had been driven from the throne. He came
to the United States and lived at Bordentown, New Jersey, for some
years, dying at Florence, Italy, July 28, 1844, at the age of
seventy-six.
The allies now pushed into France, determined to enter Paris and
dethrone Napoleon. The Emperor raised a new army, and with prodigious
energy and courage fought against the coalition of Europe. Often with
his forces greatly inferior in number to the allies, he defeated them,
but finally he was overborne. Marie Louise fled to Blois. The young King
of Rome refused to go. "They are betraying my papa," he said, "and I
will not go away. I do not wish to leave the palace." He wept as he was
taken to the carriage. His governess promised that he should come back,
but she was never able to keep her promise.
Paris capitulated March 30, 1814; and the Senate, through the lead of
Talleyrand, declared that Napoleon and his family had forfeited the
throne.
Napoleon arrived at Paris a few hours after the capitulation, stunned at
the news. Fearless as ever, he wished to attack the allies, but was
persuaded by his marshals to desist.
With agony of soul, but calmness of demeanor, he signed his abdication
at Fontainebleau, April 6, 1814: "The Emperor Napoleon declares that he
renounces, for himself and his heirs, the throne of France and Italy;
and that there is no personal sacrifice, not even that of life itself,
which he is not willing to make for the interests of France."
By the will of the allies, Louis XVIII. was recalled, and Napoleon was
banished to the Island of Elba, east of Corsica, with an annual income
from France of $500,000. He bade the Old Guard an affectionate good-by.
"Adieu, my children," he said. "I would that I could press you all to my
heart. Let me at least embrace your general and your eagle." He put his
arms around General Petit, and kissed the eagle on its silver beak. Amid
the tears and sobs of his brave soldiers, on April 20, Napoleon drove
away from Fontainebleau to Fréjus, and in the British frigate, The
Undaunted, set sail for Elba, April 27, 1814.
He had frequently written to Josephine through these melancholy months.
Once he wrote: "To me death would now be a blessing. But I would once
more see Josephine," and he saw her before his departure.
Four days before he left Fontainebleau for Elba, he wrote, "Adieu, my
dear Josephine. Be resigned, as I am, and never forget him who never
forgot, and who never will forget you. Farewell, Josephine."
She longed to follow him to Elba, but waited to see if Marie Louise
would join him. At first Marie Louise desired to go to him, but was
prevailed upon by her father, the Emperor Francis, to return to Austria,
where she and her son became virtually prisoners. She finally retired to
the Duchy of Parma, which the allies had given her, and later married
her chamberlain, Count de Neipperg, an Austrian general.
Josephine wrote to Napoleon: "I have been on the point of quitting
France to follow your footsteps, and to consecrate to you the remainder
of an existence which you so long embellished. A single motive restrains
me, and that you may divine.... Say but the word, and I depart."
As soon as Napoleon went to Elba, Josephine's health rapidly declined.
She caught cold in driving in the park at Malmaison. When near death she
said to Hortense, "I can say with truth, in this, my dying hour, that
the first wife of Napoleon never caused a single tear to flow."
Napoleon landed at Elba, May 4, 1814. A month later, May 29, Josephine
died, uttering, with her last breath, "Napoleon! Elba!"
"I have seen," said Mademoiselle Avrillon, the first lady of her
bedchamber, "the Empress Josephine's sleeplessness and her terrible
dreams. I have known her to pass whole days buried in the gloomiest
thought. I know what I have seen and heard, and I am sure that grief
killed her!"
Napoleon's mother, a woman of sixty-four, and his sister Pauline, joined
him at Elba. The latter had married Prince Borghese in 1803, but they
soon separated. After several years they were reconciled to each other.
She died at Florence in 1825.
Napoleon remained at Elba ten months, when he escaped, landed at Cannes,
Mar. 1, 1815, raised an army in France as if by magic, and entered Paris
at its head, Mar. 20.
The people seemed glad to be rid of Louis XVIII., who fled at midnight,
Mar. 19. Napoleon said, with much truth, "The Bourbons, during their
exile, had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing." The Grand Army
joyously received their leader. The people shouted themselves hoarse.
They wept, and sang songs of thanksgiving. Paris was brilliant with
illuminations. When he reached the Tuileries, he was seized and borne
aloft above the heads of the throng. The ladies of the court, says
Alison, "received him with transports, and imprinted fervent kisses on
his cheeks, his hands, and even his dress. Never was such a scene
witnessed in history." Hortense and her two children were at the
Tuileries to welcome Napoleon.
The allies cared little whom France wished to rule her. They preferred
the conservative Bourbons or indeed anybody who would not disturb the
so-called balance of power in Europe. They at once banded themselves
together, England, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Portugal, Spain, and
Sweden, to crush this "enemy and disturber of the world."
A million men were soon raised by the allies, and Napoleon brought
together over 200,000. He decided at once to take the offensive rather
than let the allies invade France. He left Paris for Belgium, June 12,
1815, taking with him about 120,000 men. He drove the Prussians out of
Charleroi, and on June 16 gained a victory over the Prussian marshal,
Blücher, at Ligny. Jomini, who is usually authentic, says Napoleon had
72,000 in the battle, and Blücher from 80,000 to 90,000. It was a hotly
contested battle-field in which the Prussians lost from 12,000 to 20,000
men. Thiers says 30,000.
Blücher had his gray charger, given him by the Prince Regent of England,
shot under him, and was nearly killed in the retreat.
The same day occurred the desperate battle of Quatre-Bras, in which
Marshal Ney was defeated.
On June 18, 1815, the decisive battle of Waterloo was fought, nine miles
south-east of Brussels. Napoleon's forces, according to Jomini and
Thiers, were 70,000 in number; Seeley and Ropes say 72,000. Wellington
had about 68,000.
The ground was so drenched by rains that the battle was not begun till
a little past eleven. Both sides fought desperately. Blücher, a few
miles to the right of Wellington, at Wavre, had promised to join him.
Napoleon had told Marshal Grouchy to follow the Prussians and thus
prevent their union with the English. He started too late for Wavre; he
did not take the advice of some of his officers to hasten to Napoleon
when they heard the sound of battle, and his 33,000 men failed to help
at Waterloo. Ropes gives an interesting account of this in the _Atlantic
Monthly_, June, 1881, "Who lost Waterloo?"
All day long the battle raged. Hand to hand combats were constant. The
battle seemed in favor of the French. Meantime Blücher was coming from
Wavre, with his guns sinking axle-deep in the mud. "We shall never get
on," was heard on all sides. "We _must get on_," said the bluff Blücher;
"I have given my word to Wellington."
Napoleon kept watching for Grouchy. Early in the afternoon about 30,000
Prussians under Bulow had come to Wellington's assistance. Night came on
and the firing of musketry was heard. "There's Grouchy!" said the
Emperor. His aide-de-camp, Labédoyère, rushed to announce it to the
army. "Marshal Grouchy is arriving, the Guard is going to charge.
Courage! courage! 'tis all over with the English."
"One last shout of hope burst from every rank," says M. Fleury de
Chaboulon, ex-secretary of the Emperor; "the wounded who were still
capable of taking a few steps returned to the combat, and thousands of
voices eagerly repeated, Forward! forward!"
It was not Grouchy, but Blücher with thirty or forty thousand fresh
troops. The Imperial Guard did indeed charge with all their wonted
impetuosity. They were mowed down like grain. Ney, with five horses shot
under him, marched on foot with his drawn sword. Napoleon watched them,
pale, yet calm. "All is lost!" said he, "the Guard recoils!"
The Emperor was everywhere in the battle. "Death shuns you. You will be
made a prisoner," said his generals, and an officer seized the bridle of
his horse and dragged him away.
The French were completely overcome, and the Prussians pursued them with
great vigor. It is estimated that the French lost thirty thousand on the
field of Waterloo, and the loss of the allies was probably not much
less. It was one of the most bloody battles of modern times.
Napoleon returned to Paris, and then retired to Malmaison. He abdicated
in favor of his son, Napoleon II.; but the allies, when they captured
Paris a second time, July 7, 1815, placed Louis XVIII. again on the
throne.
Napoleon repaired to Rochefort with the hope that he might embark for
America, but the coast was so blockaded by the English steamers that
this was impossible. He surrendered himself to go on board the English
ship, Bellerophon, July 15, with the hope that he should find a generous
foe. He soon learned, to his inexpressible grief, that he was destined
for St. Helena. On Aug. 7 he was transferred to the Northumberland, and
sailed for his lonely place of exile, which he reached Oct. 16, 1815.
The Island of St. Helena, ten miles broad and seven long, is in the
Atlantic Ocean, fourteen hundred miles west of the west coast of South
Africa. It is composed of rugged mountains of volcanic origin, with
little vegetation. Wherever a vessel could approach a fort was planted,
so that the island formed a complete prison.
Lieutenant John R. Glover, who accompanied the British admiral who took
Napoleon to St. Helena, said of the island (_Century_, for November,
1893): "Nothing can possibly be less prepossessing, nay, more horribly
forbidding, than the first appearance of this isolated and apparently
burnt up barren rock, which promises neither refreshment nor
pleasure.... During our eight months' residence we experienced little
variation, and had continued rains. The climate is by no means healthy,
... the children being sickly, and the adults suffering from the liver,
of which complaint many of our men died."
Here Napoleon lived for six years, till his death, May 5, 1821, at the
age of fifty-two, of a cancer in the stomach, the same disease which had
killed his father. He was allowed to take with him to St. Helena three
of his generals and their families, and a secretary, Las Cases.
His jailer, Sir Hudson Lowe, seems to have been a most unfortunate
choice in the surveillance of a high-spirited and remarkable man.
Napoleon was allowed to walk or ride only within certain limits, with a
British officer near at hand. His accommodations were poor and plain.
"The rats," says Dr. O'Meara, "are in numbers almost incredible. I have
frequently seen them assemble like broods of chickens round the offal
thrown out of the kitchen." Besides he says, through the roof "the rain
entered in torrents." Napoleon's letters were all opened, both those
sent or received. He was never addressed as Emperor, England
ungenerously insisting that he be called simply General Bonaparte. Books
addressed to "The Emperor" were not delivered to him. William O'Connor
Morris says: "His humiliation was degrading and needless.... Admitting
that the allies had a right to deprive him of liberty, they had no right
to subject him to insult and wrong; and St. Helena is a blot on the fair
fame of England." From his idolized son he was not permitted to hear.
He said to Countess Montholon, at St. Helena, "On receiving into my arms
that infant, so many times fervently implored of Heaven, could I have
believed that one day he would have become the source of my greatest
anguish? Yes, madame, every day he costs me tears of blood. I imagine to
myself the most horrid events, which I cannot remove from my mind. I see
either the potion or the empoisoned fruit which is about to terminate
the days of that young innocent by the most cruel sufferings."
The boy worshipped his father. "Tell him," said the little King of Rome,
then four years old, when Meneval, Napoleon's former secretary, left
Marie Louise in Austria, "that I love him dearly." He looked like his
father, had his ambition, and, as he grew to manhood, longed to return
to France. When Charles X. was overthrown in 1830, he said, "Why was I
not there to take my chance?" He was then nineteen. Napoleon had
foreseen the fall of the Bourbons, as he said at St. Helena, "They will
not maintain their position after my death; a reaction in my favor will
take place everywhere, even in England."
Napoleon II. died at Vienna, July 22, 1832, at the age of twenty-one, of
consumption, at Schönbrunn, the summer home of the Emperor. He expired
upon the same narrow bed on which his father slept when he came as the
conqueror of Austria. General Hartmann said, "Having passed my life on
battle-fields, I have often seen death, but I never saw a soldier die
more bravely."
When near death, Napoleon II. said, "So young, and is there no remedy?
My birth and my death will be the only points of remembrance." He lies
buried in the plain Church of the Capucines, beside his mother. His
heart is in a small silver urn in St. Augustine's Church.
For six years Napoleon lived in this prison at St. Helena, dictating his
memoirs and commentaries to Count Montholon, Baron Gourgaud, and Count
Las Cases. His health failed rapidly after the first year. Not taking
exercise, on account of the constant espionage, he was finally prevailed
upon by the physician to work a little in a garden, which he found a
relief.
At the end of a year, Las Cases was banished with his son to England,
because he had forwarded a letter to Lady Clavering, telling how badly
the Emperor was treated, and it had not passed through the hands of Sir
Hudson Lowe. This was a great blow to Napoleon, as he was the only one
who could read, speak, and understand English. Dr. O'Meara was also
obliged to leave St. Helena on account of Sir Hudson Lowe's treatment of
him.
After some months of illness, the friends of Napoleon were permitted to
send Dr. Antommarchi, a Corsican, to him. In the spring of 1821,
Napoleon grew feeble and emaciated. He made his will, remembering his
friends most generously. April 22, from perspiration on account of his
great pain, Count Montholon writes, "On this night I changed the
Emperor's linen seven times." April 25, as Montholon watched by his
bedside, at four o'clock in the morning, Napoleon exclaimed, "I have
just seen my good Josephine, but she would not embrace me. She
disappeared at the moment when I was about to take her in my arms. She
was seated there.... She is not changed. She is still the same, full of
devotion to me. She told me that we were about to see each other again,
never more to part. Did you see her?"
Three days later he gave directions about his death, asking that his
heart might be put in spirits of wine, and carried to Parma, to Marie
Louise. "You will tell her that I tenderly loved her," he said, "that I
never ceased to love her."
Five days before his death he dictated for two hours his desires about
the Palace of Versailles, and the organization of the National Guard for
the defence of Paris. To the last he carried out his chosen motto,
"Everything for the French people."
He remembered his servants, and wished to see them and say good-by. One
of them exclaimed excitedly, "I will die for him."
May 2 the Emperor was delirious, and, thinking he was with his army,
shouted, "Desaix! Massena! Ah! victory is declaring. Run! hasten! press
the charge! They are ours!" He sprang from the bed and fell prostrate
upon the floor.
On the night of May 4 a tornado swept the island, uprooting the trees
which the Emperor had planted. During the night, says Count Montholon,
"Twice I thought I distinguished the unconnected words, '_France--armée,
tête d'armée_ (head of the army)--Josephine.'"
During the whole of May 5 he lay quiet and peaceful, conscious, his
right hand out of bed, seemingly absorbed in deep meditation. At eleven
minutes before six o'clock he died.
England would not permit his body to be embalmed or to be carried to
France, as he had requested, or his heart to be given to Marie Louise;
so, at half-past twelve, on May 8, he was buried under some willows at
St. Helena. The English garrison, two thousand five hundred strong,
which had been on the island to keep Napoleon from escaping, now
followed his body to the grave. Three volleys of fifteen guns each were
fired over it. The soldiers had unbounded admiration for the unrivalled
leader, and begged to kiss the blue cloak which he wore at Marengo, and
which was thrown over the coffin.
"We were not allowed," says Dr. Antommarchi, "to place over the grave
either a stone or a modest inscription, the governor [Sir Hudson Lowe]
opposing this pious wish."
The Emperor had written in his will, "It is my wish that my ashes may
repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people,
whom I have loved so well."
On May 5, 1840, nineteen years after Napoleon's death, the French, now
that Louis Philippe had become king, asked England that his body might
be removed to France. Consent being given, Prince de Joinville, the son
of the king, with Gourgaud, Bertrand, and the son of Las Cases, with two
armed ships, proceeded on their sad errand, bearing an ebony coffin,
with the one word, "Napoleon," on it in gold letters. Within was a
coffin of lead. The funeral pall was of purple velvet, embroidered with
bees, and bordered with ermine.
At midnight, Oct. 5, 1840, the work of exhuming the body of the Emperor
was begun. At ten o'clock in the forenoon the coffin was reached, so
difficult had it been to remove the heavy stones and cement which
covered the vault. The first coffin of mahogany was opened, then the
leaden one, then one of mahogany, then one of tin. The body was found
wonderfully preserved, and seemed as though recently interred. The hands
were perfect, with the smooth skin as if in life. The clothes retained
their color,--the dark green coat faced with red, the white pantaloons,
and the hat, resting on the thigh. The body was exposed to the air only
two minutes; the coffins were re-sealed and placed in those brought from
France.
The ships reached France early in December. Never was there such a
funeral in Paris. One hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and more than
a million citizens assisted at the magnificent obsequies. The funeral
car, its cenotaph rising fifty feet from the ground, was drawn by
sixteen black horses, four abreast, covered with cloth of gold. The
Emperor's war-horse was draped with a veil of purple crape, embroidered
with bees. The remnants of the Old Guard were there--the hosts who
idolized Napoleon and would have died for him; but the son, the King of
Rome, was sleeping in a coffin in Austria, and Josephine was resting in
the church at Rueil, two miles from Malmaison.
At the funeral service three hundred musicians played Mozart's Requiem
in the Church of the Invalides, where now the great hero rests. The
seemingly countless throng of people were moved to tears. Could he who
was its object have looked forward to all this love and homage, when he
lay dying among the rocks of St. Helena, the agony might have been
lessened. Could he have foreseen how tens of thousands, every year, from
all the world, would stand by that tomb, under the dome of the
Invalides, and do honor to the wonderful soldier and statesman, that
bitter exile and death might not have been quite so desolate and
pathetic.
"Posterity," as he said, "will do him justice." Already the harshness
of his critics is giving place to a correct estimate of his
extraordinary genius.
"I have formed and carried into effect," he said to Dr. O'Meara, "a code
of laws that will bear my name to the most distant posterity. From
nothing I raised myself to be the most powerful monarch of the world."
Napier thought Napoleon "the greatest man of whom history makes
mention." "Never," says Alison, "were talents of the highest, genius of
the most exalted kind, more profusely bestowed upon a human being."
Napoleon worked incessantly. He saved every moment. He believed in
himself. He had great courage, will, and energy. He said to Las Cases
that he liked _two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage_, which he had rarely
met. "I mean," he said, "unprepared courage; that which is necessary on
an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen
events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision."
Napoleon had this courage. Three horses were killed under him at Toulon,
several in Italy, and three or four at the siege of Saint Jean d'Acre.
When his body was prepared for burial, it was found that there were
several scars upon it, some slight, and three very distinct.
He hated selfishness. Madame la Générale Durant, first lady to the
Empress Marie Louise, relates in her book, "Napoleon and Marie Louise,"
that once, when Marie Louise said everybody was selfish, and that she
was also, he replied, "Don't say, my Louise, that you are selfish; I
know no more hideous vice."
He had great dignity combined with kindliness. After a ball, during
which he conversed with Goethe, he wrote Josephine: "I have attended a
ball in Weimar. The Emperor Alexander danced. But I? No! Forty years
are forty years."
"He had a directness of action," says Emerson, "never before combined
with so much comprehension.... Here was a man who, in each moment and
emergency, knew what to do next.... Few men have any next; they live
from hand to mouth, without plan, and are ever at the end of their line,
and, after each action, wait for an impulse from abroad. Napoleon had
been the first man of the world, if his ends had been purely public....
"We cannot, in the universal imbecility, indecision, and indolence of
men, sufficiently congratulate ourselves on this strong and ready actor,
who took occasion by the beard, and showed us how much may be
accomplished by the mere force of such virtues as all men possess in
less degrees; namely, by punctuality, by personal attention, by courage
and thoroughness."
While indomitable in battle, he was, says General Gourgaud, "of all
generals, whether ancient or modern, the one who has paid the greatest
attention to the wounded. The intoxication of victory never could make
him forget them. His first thought after every battle was always of
them."
Count Segur relates that, after the battle of Borodino, when Napoleon
and his escort were going over the field, a horse stepped on a dying
man, who expired with a groan. Napoleon uttered a shriek of pain. Some
one, to soothe him, said, "It was only a Russian." With much warmth,
Napoleon replied, "After victory there are no enemies, but only men."
His despatch was marvellous. He was generous, and never forgot the
poorest who needed his kindness. He was ambitious; but Europe, fearing
him, forced him into many of his wars. He knew how to govern himself as
well as others. He said of Lannes, one of his generals who lost his
temper, that a man could not be great who permitted himself to get
angry. The officer heard of this remark, and ever after controlled his
temper.
Napoleon was more moral than his age. He loved children and nature. "How
many times," says Bourrienne, as they walked toward Rueil from
Malmaison, "has the bell of the village church interrupted our most
serious conversations! He would stop, lest the noise of our footsteps
should drown any portion of the delightful sound."
He believed, in an age of unbelief. He said to Bertrand at St. Helena,
"I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man....
Everything in him astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and his will
confounds me. Between him and whoever else in the world there is no
possible term of comparison."
Napoleon compared the reign of Christ with that of Cæsar, Alexander,
Hannibal, and of himself; "My armies have forgotten me, even while
living, as the Carthaginian army forgot Hannibal. Such is our power! A
single battle lost crushes us, and adversity scatters our friends....
What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal reign of Christ,
which is proclaimed, loved, adored, and which is extended over all the
earth! Is this to die? Is it not rather to live? The death of Christ! It
is the death of God."
The life of Napoleon, truly called "the Great," is more interesting and
pathetic than any novel. It will always remain one of the marvels of the
world.
[Illustration: LORD NELSON.]