having at heart the full desire and hope of preserving peace abroad,
and of governing paternally at home....
"If the Emperor were less secure of the firmness of his character,
and the purity of his resolutions, he might consider himself as placed
between two shoals, the partisans of the expelled dynasty, and those
of the _republican system_. But the former, having been unable to
retain what they possessed, must be still less capable of seizing on
it anew: the latter, undeceived by long experience, and bound by
gratitude to the prince, who has been their deliverer, are become his
most zealous defenders; their candour, as well known as their
philanthropic ardour, surround the throne occupied by the august
founder of a new dynasty, who glories in having issued from the ranks
of the people."
After this declaration, to which the republican opinions of M. Carnot
gave great weight, he entered into an examination of the several
branches of the public administration in succession.
He disclosed the state, to which the calamities of the times, and the
mismanagement of the regal government, had reduced the finances of the
communes, the hospitals, religious worship, public works, mines,
manufactures, commerce, and public instruction; and made known the
system of improvement, which the Emperor had formed, and already
commenced, to restore to the communes and hospitals their former
resources, to public works their activity, to commerce its scope, to
the university its lustre, to manufactures their prosperity, to the
clergy that respect and easiness of circumstances, which it had
forfeited through the persecutions, directed by it, at the instigation
of the emigrants, against the pretended spoilers of their property.
When come to the war department, he announced, that the Emperor had
re-established on its old foundations the army, the elements of which
had been intentionally dispersed by the late government. That since
the 20th of March our forces had been raised by voluntary enlistments,
and the recall of the ancient soldiery, from a hundred thousand men,
to three hundred and seventy-five thousand. That the imperial guard,
the noblest ornament of France during peace, and its strongest rampart
during war, would soon amount to forty thousand men. That the
artillery, notwithstanding the twelve thousand six hundred pieces of
ordnance delivered to the enemy by the fatal convention of the 23d of
April, 1814, had risen from its ruins, and now reckoned a hundred
batteries, and twenty thousand horses. That our disorganised arsenals
had resumed their labours, and were replacing the army stores. That
our manufactories of arms, lately abandoned and empty, had made or
repaired four hundred thousand muskets in the course of two months.
That a hundred and seventy fortified towns, or fortresses, both on the
frontiers and in the interior, had been provisioned, repaired, and put
into a condition, to resist an enemy. That the national guard,
completely re-organised, had already supplied for the defence of the
frontiers two hundred and forty battalions, or a hundred and fifty
thousand men; and that the successive formation of the other
battalions of flank companies would produce more than two hundred
thousand men. That the volunteers in the walled towns, and the pupils
of the Lyceums and _special_ schools[36], had been formed into
companies of artillery, and constituted a body of more than
twenty-five thousand excellent gunners. So that eight hundred and
fifty thousand Frenchmen would defend the independence, the liberty,
and the honour of the country; while the sedentary national guards
were preparing themselves in the interior, to furnish fresh resources
for the triumph of the national cause.
[Footnote 36: These were schools intended for finishing
public education.--_Tr._]
In fine, after having taken a hasty view of the hostile dispositions
of our enemies, of the interior disturbances they had excited, and of
the means the Emperor had adopted to suppress them, M. Carnot
concluded his report by expressing a wish, that the two chambers might
soon bestow on France, in concert with the Emperor, those organising
laws, which were necessary _to prevent licentiousness from assuming
the place of liberty, and anarchy that of order_.
This report, in which M. Carnot did not totally conceal the
apprehensions, with which the progress of that spirit of
insubordination and demagogism, manifested by certain members of the
chamber, inspired the Emperor and the nation, was immediately followed
by one from the Duke of Vicenza, on the menacing dispositions of
foreign powers, and the fruitless efforts, that the Emperor had made,
to bring them to moderate and pacific sentiments. Their hostile
resolutions he ascribed chiefly to the suggestions of the cabinet of
London. He afterward made known the military preparations of the four
great powers, the leagues renewed or recently formed against us, and
concluded thus:
"To believe it possible, to maintain peace, at present, therefore,
would be a dangerous blindness: war surrounds us on all sides, and it
is on the field of battle alone, that peace can be regained by France.
The English, the Prussians, the Austrians, are in line of battle; the
Russians are in full march. It becomes a duty, to hasten the day of
engagement, when too long hesitation might endanger the welfare of the
state."
These two reports were presented to the chamber of deputies by
ministers of state, at the same time when the ministers were making
them known to the chamber of peers. Instead of impressing upon the
representatives the necessity of frankly joining the Emperor, and, as
one of them observed, of not entering into a contest with the
government, at a moment when the blood of Frenchmen was about to be
shed, they suggested to them only steril discussions of the
impropriety of the connexion of ministers of state with the chamber,
and of the urgency of appointing a committee, to remould the
additional act. An immoderate desire of speechifying, and of making
laws, had seized the greater number of the deputies: but a state is
not to be saved by empty words, and schemes of a constitution. The
Romans, when their country was in danger, instead of deliberating,
suspended the sway of the laws, and gave themselves a dictator.
The next day, the 17th, a new report, made to the Emperor by the
minister of police, on the moral state of France, was communicated to
the two chambers.
"Sire," said this minister, "it is my duty, to tell you the whole
truth. Our enemies are emboldened by instruments without, and
supporters within. They wait only for a favourable moment, to realize
the plan they conceived twenty years ago, and which during these
twenty years has been continually frustrated, of uniting the camp of
Jalès to Vendée, and seducing a part of the multitude into that
confederacy which extends from the Mediterranean to the Channel.
"In this system, the plains on the left bank of the Loire, the
population of which it is most easy to mislead, are the principal
focus of the insurrection; which, by the help of the wandering bands
of Britanny, is to spread into Normandy, where the vicinity of the
islands, and the disposition of the coasts, will render communication
more easy. On the other side it rests on the Cevennes, to extend
thence to the banks of the Rhone by the revolts, that may be excited
in some parts of Languedoc and Provence. Bordeaux has been the centre
of the direction of these movements from the beginning.
"This plan is not abandoned. Nay more: the party has been increased,
at every change in our revolution, by all the malecontents, that
events have produced; by all the factious, that a certainty of amnesty
has encouraged; and by all the ambitious, who have been desirous of
acquiring some political importance in the changes they foreboded.
"...... It is this party, that now disturbs the interior. Marseilles,
Toulouse, and Bordeaux, are agitated by it. Marseilles, where the
spirit of sedition animates even the lowest classes of the population;
where the laws have been disregarded: Toulouse, which seems still
under the influence of that revolutionary organisation, which was
imparted to it some months ago: Bordeaux, where all the germs of
revolt are deposited, and intensely fermenting.
"It is this party, which by false alarms, false hopes, distribution of
money, and the employment of threats, has succeeded in stirring up
peaceable agriculturists, throughout the territory included between
the Loire, la Vendée, the ocean, and the Rhone. Arms and ammunition
have been landed there. The hydra of rebellion revives, re-appears
wherever it formerly exercised its ravages, and is not destroyed by
our successes at St. Gilles and Aisenay. On the other side of the
Loire, bands are desolating the department of Morbihan, and some parts
of those of Isle and Vilaine, the Coasts of the North, and Sarthe.
They have invaded in a moment the towns of Aurai, Rhedon, and
Ploermel, and the plains of Mayenne as far as the gates of Laval; they
stop the soldiers and sailors, that are recalled; they disarm the
land-holders; increase their numbers by peasants, whom they compel to
march with them; pillage the public treasures, annihilate the
instruments of administration, threaten the persons in office, seize
the stage coaches, stop the couriers, and for a moment intercepted the
communication between Mans and Angers, Angers and Nantes, Nantes and
Rennes, and Rennes and Vannes.
"On the borders of the Channel, Dieppe and Havre have been agitated by
seditious commotions. Throughout the whole of the 15th division, the
battalions of the national militia have been formed only with the
greatest difficulty. The soldiers and sailors have refused, to answer
their call; and have obeyed it only by compulsion. Caen has twice been
disturbed by the resistance of the royalists; and in some of the
circles of the Orne bands are formed as in Britanny and Mayenne.
"In fine, all kinds of writings, that can discourage the weak,
embolden the factious, shake confidence, divide the nation, bring the
government into contempt; all the pamphlets, that issue from the
printing-offices of Belgium, or the clandestine presses of France; all
that the foreign newspapers publish against us, all that the
party-writers compose; are distributed, hawked about, and diffused
with impunity, for want of restrictive laws, and from the abuse of the
liberty of the press.
"Firm in the system of moderation, which your Majesty had adopted, you
have thought it right, to wait for the meeting of the chambers, that
legal precautions only might be opposed to manoeuvres, which by the
ordinary course of law are not always punishable, and which it could
neither foresee, nor prevent......"
The Duke of Otranto, entering on the subject, then discussed the laws,
which, issued under analogous circumstances, might have been applied
on the present occasion; and, as these laws appeared to him,
impolitic, dangerous, and inadequate, he concluded, that it was
indispensable for the chambers, immediately to set about framing new
laws, which were necessary to check the licentiousness of the press,
and circumscribe personal liberty, till internal peace and order were
restored.
This report did not make the impression, that might have been expected
from it. The deputies, accurately acquainted with what was passing in
their departments, knew, that facts had been misrepresented. They
persuaded themselves, that the melancholy picture of the situation of
France, presented to them by M. Fouché, had been drawn up by order of
the Emperor, with the view to alarm them, and render them more docile
to his will.
The separate committees of the chamber rung with the contradictions,
more or less direct, that each representative gave to the assertions
of the minister. One of the members of the deputation from Calvados,
would not rest satisfied with this civil way of giving him the lie,
but declared openly from the tribune, that the agents of the minister
had deceived their principal, by describing to him a personal quarrel
of no consequence, and quelled on the spot, as a general insurrection
of the royalists. They might have spared themselves the trouble of
telling M. Fouché, that his report exaggerated the truth, and
transformed private occurrences into public events: he knew this.
Already devoted to the cause of the Bourbons, he had intentionally
distorted facts, with the design of giving hope and consistency to the
royalists, and of intimidating, cooling, and dividing, the partisans
of Napoleon[37].
[Footnote 37: The Duke of Otranto excelled in the art of
bending facts to his own liking. He exaggerated or
extenuated them with so much skill, grasped them with so
much address, and deduced consequences from them so
naturally, that he was often able, to fascinate
Napoleon. More securely to deceive and seduce him, he
loaded him in his reports with protestations of
attachment and fidelity; and he took care to contrive
occasions of adding marginal notes with his own hand, in
which he adroitly displayed in a distinguished manner
his devotion, discernment, and activity. All his reports
in general bore the same stamp: with much of cunning,
and much of talent, they offered to the eye a rare and
valuable assemblage of quickness and judgment, of
moderation and firmness: at every word you might
discover the able minister, the profound politician, the
consummate statesman: in short, M. Fouché would have
wanted nothing, to place him in the rank of great
ministers, had he been what I shall call an honest
statesman (_un ministre honnête homme._)]
The chamber, instead of occupying itself on laws and measures for
promoting the public safety, the introduction of which had been
referred to them, left to the minister the task of proposing them. It
preferred the resumption of its discussions on its favourite subject,
the additional act; and I shall leave it, to waste its time in
abstract dissertations, while I return to Napoleon.
The Emperor, who set out on the 12th at three in the morning, had gone
over the fortifications of Soissons and Laon in his way, and arrived
at Avesnes on the 13th. His anxious thoughts were incessantly turned
toward Paris. Placed as it were between two fires, he seemed less to
dread the enemies he had before him, than those he left behind.
On the 14th of June the whole of his forces amounted to three hundred
thousand men; of which only a hundred and fifty thousand infantry, and
thirty-five thousand cavalry, were in a state to take the field.
These hundred and eighty-five thousand men he had formed into four
armies, and four corps of observation.
The first, under the name of the grand army, was intended to act
immediately under his own orders. This was subdivided into five
principal corps, commanded
The 1st by Count d'Erlon;
The 2d by Count Reille;
The 3d by Count Vandamme;
The 4th by Count Gérard;
The 5th (called the 6th) by Count de Lobau[38]:
[Footnote 38: The 5th corps became the army of the
Rhine, and the 6th, which at first was only a corps of
reserve, took its place, without changing its number.]
And into a corps of cavalry commanded by Marshal Grouchy.
This army, exclusive of the imperial guard, which was 4500 horse, and
14,000 foot, amounted to a hundred thousand men, or thereabouts, of
whom sixteen thousand were cavalry.
The second, entitled the army of the Alps, was commanded by Marshal
the Duke of Albuféra. It was to occupy the passes of Italy, and the
border country of the Pays de Gex. Its strength might be twelve
thousand men.
The third, styled the army of the Rhine, had at its head General Count
Rapp; and its business was, to protect the frontiers of Alsace. It was
estimated at eighteen thousand men.
The fourth, called the army of the West, was employed in La Vendée;
and, after that country was quieted, it was to be incorporated in the
grand army. It consisted of seventeen thousand men; and General
Lamarque was its commander-in-chief.
The first corps of observation, stationed at Béford, was commanded by
General Lecourbe. It had to defend the passages from Switzerland, and
Franche Comté; and to form a communication, according to
circumstances, by its left with the army of the Alps, or by its right
with the army of the Rhine[39].
[Footnote 39: Surely the army of the Alps must have been
on its right, and that of the Rhine on its left, unless
it was stationed with its rear to the enemy.--_Tr._]
The other three corps, the commanders of which were Marshal Brune at
Marseilles, General Clausel at Bordeaux, and General Decaen at
Toulouse, were to maintain the tranquillity of the country; and, in
case of need, to oppose any invasion, that the Spaniards might attempt
on the one side, or the Piedmontese and English on the other.
These four corps of observation amounted together to about twenty
thousand men.
They were to be supported and reinforced by ten thousand soldiers, and
fifty thousand national guards receiving pay.
The two armies of the Rhine and of the Alps were to be the same,
fifty thousand men of the line, and a hundred thousand chasseurs and
grenadiers of the national guard.
In fine, the army commanded by the Emperor in person was to be
augmented by a hundred thousand national guards, who would have been
stationed in a second line; and by sixty thousand regulars, who, as
well as those mentioned above, were daily forming in the _dépôts_.
All these resources, when they should be disposable, and they might be
before the end of the campaign, would have mounted the strength of the
acting army to more than three hundred thousand fighting men; and that
of the army of reserve, namely the national guards in the second line,
or in the fortified towns, to four hundred thousand men. They would
have been recruited, the first by levies from the conscriptions of
1814 and 1815; the second, by calling into service fresh battalions of
the flank companies.
The whole army was superb, and full of ardour: but the Emperor, more a
slave, than could have been believed, to his remembrances and
habitudes, committed the fault of replacing it under the command of
its former chiefs. Most of these, notwithstanding their addresses to
the King, had not ceased to pray for the triumph of the imperial
cause; yet they did not appear disposed to serve it with the ardour
and devotion, that circumstances demanded. They were not now the men,
who, full of youth and ambition, were generously prodigal of their
lives, to acquire rank and fame; they were men tired of war, and who,
having reached the summit of promotion, and being enriched by the
spoils of the enemy or the bounty of Napoleon, had no further wish,
than peaceably to enjoy their good fortune under the shade of their
laurels.
The colonels and generals, who entered on their career subsequent to
them, murmured at finding themselves placed under their tutelage. The
soldiers themselves were dissatisfied: but this dissatisfaction did
not abate their confidence of victory, for Napoleon was at their
head[40].
[Footnote 40: The ascendancy he possessed over the minds
and courage of the soldiers was truly incomprehensible.
A word, a gesture, was sufficient, to inspire them with
enthusiasm, and make them face with joyful blindness the
most terrible dangers. If he ordered them mal-à-propos,
to rush to such a point, to attack such another, the
inconsistency or temerity of the manoeuvre at first
struck the good sense of the soldiers: but immediately
they thought, that their general would not have given
such an order, without a motive for it, and would not
have exposed them wantonly. "He knows what he is about,"
they would say, and immediately rush on death, with
shouts of "Long live the Emperor!"]
On the 14th the Emperor directed the following proclamation, to be
issued in the orders of the day.
"Avesnes, June 14, 1815.
"Soldiers,
"This is the anniversary of Marengo and of Friedland, which twice
decided the fate of Europe: then, as after Austerlitz, as after
Wagram, we were too generous! We trusted to the protestations and
oaths of the princes, whom we left on the throne! Now, however, in
coalition against us, they aim at the independence and the most sacred
rights of France, They have commenced the most unjust of aggressions.
Let us then march to meet them: are not they and we still the same
men?
"Soldiers, at Jena, against these same Prussians, now so arrogant, you
were but one to three, and at Montmirail one to six! Let those among
you, who were prisoners to the English, give you an account of their
hulks (_pontons_), and of the dreadful miseries they endured.
"The Saxons, the Belgians, the Hanoverians, the soldiers of the
confederation of the Rhine, groan at being obliged to lend their arms
to the cause of princes, who are enemies to justice, and to the
rights common to all people. They know, that this coalition is
insatiate. After having devoured twelve millions of Polanders, twelve
millions of Italians, a million of Saxons, six millions of Belgians,
it would devour all the states of the second order in Germany.
"Madmen! a moment of prosperity has blinded them. The oppression and
humiliation of the French people are out of their power! If they enter
France, they will find in it their graves.
"Soldiers, we have forced marches to make, battles to fight, hazards
to run; but, with firmness, victory will be ours: the rights, the
honour, and the happiness of our country will be reconquered.
"To every Frenchman, who has any heart, the moment is come, to conquer
or die!"
The plan of the campaign adopted by the Emperor was worthy the courage
of the French, and the high reputation of their chief.
Information given by a hand to be depended upon, and agents furnished
by the Duke of Otranto[41], had made known the position of the allies
in all its particulars. Napoleon knew, that the army of Wellington was
dispersed over the country from the borders of the sea to Nivelles:
that the right of the Prussians rested on Charleroy; and that the rest
of their army was stationed in échélon indefinitely as far as the
Rhine. He judged, that the enemies' lines were too much extended; and
that it would be practicable for him, by not giving them time to close
up, to separate the two armies, and fall in succession on their troops
thus surprised.
[Footnote 41: These agents, paid by the king, went and
came from Ghent to Paris, and from Paris to Ghent. The
Duke of Otranto, who, no doubt, had good reasons for
knowing them, offered the Emperor, to procure him news
of what passed beyond the frontiers; and it was by their
means the Emperor knew in great part the position of the
enemies' armies. Thus the Duke of Otranto, if we may
credit appearances, with one hand betrayed to the enemy
the secrets of France, and with the other to Napoleon
the secrets of the Bourbons and the foreign powers.]
For this purpose he had united all his cavalry into a single body of
twenty thousand horse, with which he intended to dart like lightning
into the midst of the enemies' cantonments.
If victory favoured this bold stroke, the centre of our army would
occupy Brussels on the second day, while the corps of the right and of
the left drove the Prussians to the Meuse, and the English to the
Scheldt. Belgium being conquered, he would have armed the
malecontents, and marched from success to success as far as the Rhine,
where he would have solicited peace anew.
On the 14th, in the night, our army, the presence of which the Emperor
had taken care to conceal, was to commence its march: nothing
indicated, that the enemy had foreseen our irruption, and every thing
promised us grand results; when Napoleon was informed, that General
Bourmont, Colonels Clouet and Villoutreys, and two other officers, had
just deserted to the enemy.