THE BEGINNING OF THE END[11]
[Footnote 11: References: Napoleon, King of Elba. Pons de
l'Herault, Memoire aux puissances alliees; publ. pour la
"societe d'histoire contemporaine." Houssaye, Napoleon a
l'ile d'Elbe. Sorel, Essais d'histoire et de critique.
Talleyrand, Metternich. Sorel, Le Congres de Vienne. Rose,
Napoleonic Studies. Campbell, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and
Elba. Foresi, Napoleone I all' isola dell' Elba.]
Napoleon's Problem -- The Military Situation -- A Council of War
and State -- The Return to Paris -- Prostrating News -- The
Empress-Regent and her Advisers -- Traitors Within -- Talleyrand
-- The Defenders of the Capital -- The Flight of the Court -- The
Allies before the City.
The pallid, silent Emperor at St. Dizier was closeted with
considerations like these. He knew of the defeat which forced Marmont
and Mortier back on Paris; the loss of the capital was imminent;
parties were in a dangerous state; his marshals were growing more and
more slack; he had failed in transferring the seat of war to Lorraine;
the information he had so far received was almost certainly colored by
the medium of scheming followers through which it came. What single
mind could grapple with such affairs? It was not because the thwarted
man had lost his nerve, but because he was calm and clear-minded, that
he felt the need of frank, dispassionate advice on all these matters.
On the other hand, there stood forth in the clearest light a single
fact about which there could be no doubt, and it alone might
counterbalance all the rest: the peoples of northern and eastern
France were at last aroused in behalf of his cause. For years all
Europe had rung with outcries against the outrages of Napoleon's
soldiery; the allied armies no sooner became invaders in their turn
than they began to outstrip their foe in every deed of shame; in
particular, the savage bands from Russian Asia indulged their inhuman
passions to the full, while the French peasantry, rigid with horror,
looked on for the moment in paralysis. Now they had begun to rise in
mass, and from the twenty-fifth to the twenty-eighth their volunteer
companies brought in a thousand prisoners. The depots, trains, and
impedimenta of every sort which the allies abandoned on turning
westward fell into the hands of a peasant soldiery, many of whom were
armed with shot-guns. The rising for Napoleon was comparable only to
that which earlier years had seen in the Vendee on behalf of the
Bourbons.
Besides, all the chief cities of the district were now in the hands of
more or less regular troops; Dunette was marching from Metz with four
thousand men; Broussier, from Strasburg with five thousand; Verdun
could furnish two thousand, and several other fortresses a like
number. Souham was at Nogent with his division, Allix at Auxerre with
his; the army at the Emperor's disposal could easily be reckoned at
seventy thousand. Assisted by the partizan bands which now hung in a
passion of hatred on the skirts of the invaders, and by the national
uprising now fairly under way, could not the Emperor-general hope for
another successful stand? He well knew that the fear of what had
happened was the specter of his enemy's council-board; they would, he
reckoned, be rendered over-cautious, and give him at least a fortnight
in which to manoeuver before the fall of Paris could be expected.
Counting the men about Vitry and the garrison reinforcements at only
sixty thousand, the combined armies of Suchet, Soult, and Augereau at
the same number, that of Marmont at fourteen thousand, and the men in
the various depots at sixteen thousand, he would have a total of a
hundred and fifty thousand, from which he could easily spare fifty
thousand to cut off every line of retreat from his foe, and still have
left a hundred thousand wherewith to meet their concentrated force on
a basis of something like equality. From the purely strategic point of
view, the march of the allies to Paris was sheer madness unless they
could count on the exhaustion of the population right, left, and
behind. If the national uprising could be organized, they would be cut
off from all reinforcement and entrapped. Already their numbers had
been reduced to a hundred and ten thousand men. Napoleon with a
hundred thousand, and the nation to support him, had a fair chance of
annihilating them.
It was, therefore, not a mere hallucination which led him to hope that
once again the tangled web of affairs might be severed by a sweep of
the soldier's saber. But of course in the crisis of his great decision
he could not stand alone; he must be sure of his lieutenants.
Accordingly, after a few hours of secret communing, he summoned a
council, and laid before it his considerations substantially as
enumerated. Those present were Berthier, Ney, Lefebvre, Caulaincourt,
and Maret; Oudinot and Macdonald, at Bar on the Ornain and Perthes
respectively, were too distant to arrive in time, but he believed that
he knew their opinion, which was that the war should be continued
either in Lorraine or from a center of operations to be established at
Sens. From this conclusion Macdonald did not once waver; Oudinot had
begun to hedge; their absence, therefore, was unimportant. Berthier
was verging on desperation, and so was Caulaincourt, who, since
leaving Chatillon, had been vainly struggling to reopen negotiations
for peace on any terms; Ney, though physically brave, was not the
stuff from which martyrs are made, and Lefebvre, naturally weak, was
laboring under a momentary attack of senility. The council was
imperative for peace at any price; the Emperor, having foreseen its
temper, had little difficulty in taking the military steps for
carrying out its behests.
Early in the morning of March twenty-eighth the army was set in motion
toward Paris. The line of march was to be through Bar on the Aube,
Troyes, and Fontainebleau, a somewhat circuitous route, chosen
apparently for three reasons: because the region to be traversed would
still afford sustenance to the men, because the Seine would protect
its right flank, and because the dangerous point of Meaux was thus
avoided. Such a conclusion is significant of the clearest judgment and
the nicest calculation. Pages have been written about Napoleon's
hallucinations at the close of his career; neither here nor in any of
the courses he adopted is there aught to sustain the charge. At
breakfast-time a squad of jubilant peasants brought in a prisoner whom
they believed to be no less a person than the Comte d'Artois. In
reality it was Weissenberg, an Austrian ambassador on his way to
London. He was promptly liberated on parole and despatched with
letters to Francis and Metternich. By a curious adventure, Vitrolles
was in the minister's suite disguised as a serving-man, but he was not
detected.
[Illustration: Map of the field of operations in 1814.]
At Doulevant Napoleon received cipher despatches from La Valette, the
postmaster-general in Paris, a trusted friend. These were the first
communications since the twenty-second; the writer said not a moment
must be wasted, the Emperor must come quickly or all would be lost.
His decision once taken, Napoleon had grown more feverish with every
hour; this message gave wings to his impatience. With some regard
for such measures as would preclude his capture by wandering bands of
Cossacks, he began almost to fly. New couriers were met at
Doulaincourt with despatches which contained a full history of the
past few days; in consequence the troops were spurred to fresh
exertions, their marches were doubled, and at nightfall of the
twenty-ninth Troyes was reached. Snatching a few brief hours of sleep,
Napoleon at dawn next morning threw discretion to the winds, and
started with an insufficient escort, determined to reach Villeneuve on
the Vanne before night. The task was performed, but no sooner had he
arrived than at once he flung himself into a post-chaise, and, with
Caulaincourt at his side, sped toward Paris; a second vehicle, with
three adjutants, followed as best it might; and a third, containing
Gourgaud and Lefebvre, brought up the rear. It will be remembered that
Gourgaud was an able artillerist; Lefebvre, it was hoped, could rouse
the suburban populations for the defense of Paris. At Sens Napoleon
heard that the enemy was ready to attack; at Fontainebleau that the
Empress had fled toward the Loire; at Essonnes he was told that the
decisive battle was raging; and about ten miles from the capital, at
the wretched posting-station of La Cour de France, deep in the night,
fell the fatal blow. Paris had surrendered. The terrible certainty was
assured by the bearer of the tidings, Belliard, a cavalry officer
despatched with his troop by Mortier to prepare quarters for his own
and Marmont's men.
Maria Louisa had played her role of Empress-regent as well as might be
expected from a woman of twenty-three with slender abilities; only
once in his letters did the Emperor chide her, and that was for a
fault at that time venial in European royalty: receiving a high
official, in this case the arch-chancellor, in her bedchamber. On the
whole, she had been dignified and conciliatory; once she rose to a
considerable height, pronouncing before the senate with great effect a
stirring speech composed by her husband and forwarded from his
headquarters. About her were grouped a motley council: Joseph, gentle
but efficient; Savary, underhanded and unwarlike; Clarke, working in
the war ministry like a machine; Talleyrand, secretly plotting against
Napoleon, whose title of vice-grand elector he wore with outward
suavity; Cambaceres, wise but unready; Montalivet, adroit but
cautious. Yet, while there was no one combining ability, enthusiasm,
and energy, the equipment of troops had gone on with great regularity,
and each day regiments of half-drilled, half-equipped recruits had
departed for the seat of war. The national guards who garrisoned the
city, some twelve thousand in all, had forgotten their imperialism,
having grown very sensitive to the shafts of royalist wit; yet they
held their peace and had performed the round of their duties.
Everything had outwardly been so quiet and regular that Napoleon
actually contemplated a new levy, but the emptiness of the arsenals
compelled him to dismiss the idea. Theoretically a fortified military
depot, Paris was really an antiquated fortress with arsenals of
useless weapons. Spasmodic efforts had been made to throw up redoubts
before the walls, but they had failed from lack of energy in the
military administration.
A close examination of what lay beneath the surface of Parisian
society revealed much that was dangerous. Talleyrand's house was a
nest of intrigue. Imperial prefects like Pasquier and Chabrol were
calm but perfunctory. The Talleyrand circle grew larger and bolder
every day. Moreover, it had influential members--de Pradt, Louis,
Vitrolles, Royer-Collard, Lambrecht, Gregoire, and Garat, together
with other high functionaries in all departments. Bourrienne
developed great activity as an extortioner and briber; the great
royalist irreconcilables, Montmorency, Noailles, Denfort, Fitz-James,
and Montesquiou, were less and less careful to conceal their activity.
Jaucourt, one of Joseph's chamberlains, was a spy carrying the latest
news from headquarters to the plotters. "If the Emperor were killed,"
he wrote on March seventeenth, "we should then have the King of Rome
and the regency of his mother.... The Emperor dead, we could appoint a
council which would satisfy all opinions. Burn this letter." The
program is clear when we recall that the little King of Rome was not
three years old. Napoleon was well aware of the increasing chaos, and
smartly reproved Savary from Rheims.
But Talleyrand was undaunted. At first he appears to have desired a
violent death for Napoleon, in the hope of furthering his own schemes
during a long imperial regency. At all events, he ardently opposed the
departure of the Empress and the King of Rome from Paris. Nevertheless
it was he who despatched Vitrolles, the passionate royalist, to
Nesselrode with a letter in invisible ink which, when deciphered,
turned out to be an inscrutable riddle capable of two interpretations.
"The bearer of this deserves all confidence. Hear him and know me. It
is time to be plain. You are walking on crutches; use your legs and
will to do what you can." Lannes had long before stigmatized the
unfrocked bishop as a mess of filth in a silk stocking; Murat said he
could take a kick from behind without showing it in his face; in the
last meeting of the council of state before the renewal of
hostilities, Napoleon fixed his eyes on the sphinx-like cripple and
said: "I know I am leaving in Paris other enemies than those I am
going to fight." His fellow-conspirators were scarcely less bitter in
their dislike than his avowed enemies. "You don't know the monkey,"
said Dalberg to Vitrolles; "he would not risk burning the tip of his
paw even if all the chestnuts were for himself." Yet, master of
intrigue, he pursued the even tenor of his course, scattering
innuendos, distributing showers of anonymous pamphlets, smuggling
English newspapers into the city, in fact working every wire of
conspiracy. Surprised by the minister of police in an equivocal
meeting with de Pradt, he burst out into hollow laughter, his
companion joined in the peal, and even Savary himself found the
merriment infectious.
Toward the close of March the populace displayed a perilous
sensitiveness to all these influences. The London "Times" of March
fifteenth, which was read by many in the capital, asked what pity
Bluecher and the Cossacks would show to Paris on the day of their
vengeance, the editor suggesting that possibly as he wrote the famous
town was already in ashes. Such suggestions created something very
like a panic, and a week later the climax was reached. When the
fugitive peasants from the surrounding country began to take refuge in
the capital they found business at a standstill, the shops closed, the
streets deserted, the householders preparing for flight. From the
twenty-third to the twenty-eighth there was no news from Napoleon; the
Empress and council heard only of Marmont's defeat. They felt that a
decision must be taken, and finally on the twenty-eighth the imperial
officials held a council. The facts were plainly stated by Clarke; he
had but forty-three thousand men, all told, wherewith to defend the
capital, and in consequence it was determined to send the Empress and
her son to Rambouillet on the very next day. This fatal decision was
taken partly through fear, but largely in deference to Napoleon's
letter containing the classical allusion to Astyanax. The very men who
took it believed that the Parisian masses would have died for the
young Napoleon, and deplored the decision they had reached. "Behold
what a fall in history!" said Talleyrand to Savary on parting. "To
attach one's name to a few adventures instead of affixing it to an
age.... But it is not for everybody to be engulfed in the ruins of
this edifice." From that hour the restoration of the Bourbons was a
certainty.
It was a mournful procession of imperial carriages which next morning
filed slowly through the city, attracting slight attention from a few
silent onlookers, and passed on toward Rambouillet. The baby king had
shrieked and clutched at the doors as he was torn away from his
apartments in the Tuileries, and would not be appeased; his mother and
attendants were in consternation at the omen, and all thoughtful
persons who considered the situation were convinced that the
dissolution of the Empire was at hand. A deputation from the national
guard had sought in vain to dissuade the Empress from her course;
their failure and the distant booming of cannon produced widespread
depression throughout the city, which was not removed by a spirited
proclamation from Joseph declaring that his brother was on the heels
of the invaders. All the public functionaries seemed inert, and
everybody knew that, even though the populace should rise, there was
no adequate means of resistance either in men or in arms or in proper
fortifications.
Clarke alone began to display energy; with Joseph's assistance, what
preparations were possible at so late an hour were made: six companies
were formed from the recruits at hand, the national guard was put
under arms, the students of the polytechnic school were called out for
service, communication with Marmont was secured, and by late afternoon
Montmartre, Belleville, and St. Denis were feebly fortified. The
allies had been well aware that what was to be done must be done
before the dreaded Emperor should arrive, and on that same morning
their vanguard had summoned the town; but during the parley their
generals began to feel the need of greater strength, and further asked
an armistice of four hours. This was granted on the usual condition
that within its duration no troops should be moved; but the implied
promise was perfidiously broken, and at nightfall both Alexander and
Frederick William, accompanied by their forces, were in sight of the
far-famed city. Dangers, hardships, bygone insults and humiliations,
all were forgotten in a general tumult of joy, wrote Danilevsky, a
Russian officer. Alexander alone was pensive, well knowing that,
should the city hold out two days, reinforcements from the west might
make its capture impossible until Napoleon should arrive. Accordingly
he took virtual command, and issued stringent orders preparatory for
the assault early next morning.