feasibility of attacking Wellington and Blucher with the battalions of
the Messrs Calicot, upon which the Ex-Emperor made the following
solemn speech: "To put into action the brute force of the masses,
would without doubt save Paris, and ensure me the crown, without
having recourse to the horrors of a civil war. But this would be also
to risk the shedding of rivers of fresh blood. What is the compressive
force which would be sufficiently strong to regulate the outburst of
so much passion, hatred, and vengeance? No, I never can forget one
thing, that I have been brought from Cannes to Paris in the midst of
cries for blood, 'Down with the priests!' 'Down with the nobles!' I
would rather have the regrets of France than possess its crown."
There is no country in the world, where Napoleon's own phrase, that
from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step, is more perpetually
and practically realised than in France. Here was a man utterly
ruined, without a soldier on the face of the earth, all but a
prisoner, abandoned by every human being who could be of the slightest
service to him, beaten in the field, beaten on his own ground, and now
utterly separated from his remaining troops, and with a hundred
thousand of the victors rushing after him, hour by hour, to Paris. Yet
he talks as if he had the world still at his disposal, applauds his
own magnanimity in declining the impossible combat, vaunts his own
philosophy in standing still, when he could neither advance nor
retreat, and gives himself credit as a philanthropist, when he was on
the very point of being handed over to the enemy as a prisoner. Some
unaccountable tricks of a lower description now began to be played on
the goods and chattels of the Elysée Bourbon. A case containing
snuff-boxes adorned with portraits set in diamonds, was laid by
Bertrand on the mantel-piece. He accidentally turned to converse with
General Montholon at the window. Only one person entered the room. The
Count does not give his name,--he was evidently a person of rank. On
turning to the mantel-piece again, the case was gone.
One of the ministers had brought some negotiable paper to the amount
of several millions of francs into the Emperor's chamber. The packet
was placed under one of the cushions of the sofa. Only one person, and
that one a man of rank who had served in Italy, entered the chamber.
Napoleon went to look for the money, calculated a moment, and a
million and a half of francs, or about £60,000 sterling, had been
taken in the interim. Those were times for thievery, and the
plunderers of Europe were now on the alert, to make spoil of each
other. The Allies were still advancing, but they were not yet in
sight; and the mob of Paris, who had been at first delighted to find
that the war was at an end, having nothing else to do, and thinking
that, as Wellington and Blucher had not arrived within a week, they
would not arrive within a century, began to clamour _Vive l'Empereur!_
Fouché and the provisional government began to feel alarm, and it was
determined to keep Napoleon out of sight of the mob. Accordingly they
ordered him to be taken to Malmaison; and on the 25th, towards
nightfall, Napoleon submissively quitted the Elysée, and went to
Malmaison. At Malmaison he remained for the greater part of the time,
in evident fear of being put to death, and in fact a prisoner.--Such
was the fate of the most powerful sovereign that Europe had seen since
Charlemagne. Such was the humiliation of the conqueror, who, but seven
years before, had summoned the continental sovereigns to bow down to
his footstool at Erfurth; and who wrote to Talma the actor these words
of supreme arrogance--"Come to Erfurth, and you shall play before a
pit-full of kings."
From this period, day by day, a succession of measures was adopted by
the government to tighten his chain. He was ordered to set out for the
coast, nominally with the intention of giving him a passage to
America. But we must doubt that intention. Fouché, the head of the
government, had now thrown off the mask which he had worn so many
years. And it was impossible for him to expect forgiveness, in case of
any future return of Napoleon to power. But Napoleon, in America,
would have been at all times within one-and-twenty days of Paris. And
the mere probability of his return would have been enough to make many
a pillow sleepless in Paris. We are to recollect also, that the
English ministry must have been perfectly aware of the arrest of
Napoleon; that St Helena had been already mentioned as a place of
security for his person; and that if it was essential to the safety of
Europe,--a matter about which Fouché probably cared but little; it was
not less essential to the safety of Fouché's own neck,--a matter about
which he always cared very much, that the Ex-Emperor should never set
foot in France again.
The result was, an order from the minister at war, Davoust, Prince of
Eckmuhl, couched in the following terms. We give it as a document of
history.
"General, I have the honour to transmit to you the subjoined
decree, which the commission of government desires you to
notify to the Emperor Napoleon: at the same time informing
his majesty, that the circumstances are become imperative,
and that it is necessary for him immediately to decide on
setting out for the Isle of Aix. This decree has been passed
as much for the safety of his person as for the interest of
the state, which ought always to be dear to him. Should the
Emperor not adopt the above mentioned resolution, on your
notification of this decree, it will then be your duty to
_exercise the strictest surveillance_, both with a view of
preventing his majesty from leaving Malmaion, and of guarding
against any attempt upon his life. You will station guards at
all the approaches to Malmaison. I have written to the
inspector-general of the gendarmerie, and to the commandant
of Paris, to place such of the gendarmerie and troops as you
may require at your disposal.
"I repeat to you, general, that this decree has been adopted
solely for the good of the state, and the personal safety of
the Emperor. Its prompt execution is indispensable, as the
future fate of his majesty and his family depends upon it. It
is unnecessary to say to you, general, that all your measures
should be taken with the greatest possible secresy.
(Signed) "PRINCE OF ECKMUHL,
Marshal and Minister of War."
Those documents, which have now appeared, we believe, for the
first time authentically, will be of importance to the
historian, and of still higher importance to the moralist.
Who could have once believed that the most fiery of soldiers,
the most subtle of statesmen and the proudest of sovereigns,
would ever be the subject of a rescript like the following?
It begins with an absolute command that "Napoleon Bonaparte"
(it has already dropped the emperor) "shall remain in the
roads of the Isle of Aix till the arrival of passports." It
then proceeds:--"It is of importance to the well-being of the
state, which should not be indifferent to him, that he should
remain till his fate, and that of his family, have been
definitively regulated. French honour is interested in such
an issue; but in the mean time every precaution should be
taken for the personal safety of Napoleon, and that he must
not be allowed to leave the place of his present sojourn.
(Signed) "THE DUKE OF OTRANTO.
THE PRINCE OF ECKMUHL."
A similar document was issued to General Beker, signed by Carnot and
Caulaincourt. Count Montholon remarks, with sufficient justice, on the
signature of Caulaincourt to this paper, that the Emperor would have
been extremely astonished to see that name subscribed to a letter in
which he was called Napoleon--if any thing could have astonished the
former exile of Elba, and the future exile of St Helena.
This must have been a period of the deepest anxiety to the imperial
prisoner. He evidently regarded his life as unsafe; thought that he
discovered in the project of his journey a determination to throw him
either into the hands of assassins or of the French king, and formally
announced his refusal to leave Malmaison "until informed of his fate
by the Duke of Wellington." He was now reduced to the lowest ebb. He
acknowledged himself powerless, hopeless, and utterly dependent on the
will of his conqueror. The bitterness of heart which dictated such
words must have been beyond all description. He was now abandoned by
the few who had followed him from the Elysée.
But time was pressing; Wellington was advancing with rapid steps, and
there was a possibility that he might capture Napoleon at Malmaison.
Troops were sent to burn the neighbouring bridge, and precautions were
taken to prevent the catastrophe. A division of the army coming from
the Vendée halted before the palace, and insisted on seeing Napoleon,
and on being led by him to battle. This was rodomontade, with the
advanced troops of the whole army now within sight of Paris. But it
was enough to betray him into the absurdity of proposing to try
another chance for his crown. Beker was dispatched to Paris to try the
effect of this communication. Fouché gave for answer, the simple fact
that the Prussians were advancing on Versailles. The sitting of the
provisional government would have been worth the hand of a great
painter. Fouché, after sharply rebuking the general for bringing in
his proposal from Malmaison, made him sit down at his side, while he
wrote a peremptory and decided refusal. Carnot was walking gloomily up
and down the room. Caulaincourt, Baron Quinette, and General Grenier,
sat silently around the table. Not a word was uttered except by the
Duke of Otranto. The general received his dispatch and departed. On
passing through the anterooms, he found them filled with generals and
high civil officers, who all expressed but one opinion on the
necessity of getting rid of Napoleon. "Let him set off, let him go,"
was the universal cry. "We can undertake nothing for either his
personal good or Paris." There was now no alternative. Napoleon must
either remain and fall into the hands of Louis XVIII., who had already
proclaimed him a traitor and an outlaw, or he must try to make his
escape by sea. On the 29th of June, at five o'clock in the evening, he
entered the carriage which was to convey him to the coast, leaving
Paris behind, to which he was never to return alive, but to which his
remains have returned in a posthumous triumph twenty-six years after,
on the 15th of September 1840.
On his arrival at Rochfort, all the talent of the French for projects
was immediately in full exercise. Never were there so many castles in
the air built in so short a time. Proposals were made to smuggle the
prisoner to the United States in a Danish merchant vessel, in which,
in case of search, he was to be barrelled in a hogshead perforated
with breathing holes.
Another project was, to put him on board a kind of fishing-boat manned
by midshipmen, and thus escape the English. A third project proposed,
that the two French frigates anchored under the guns of the Isle of
Aix should put to sea together; that one of them should run alongside
Captain Maitland's ship, and attack her fiercely, with the hope of
distracting her attention, even with the certainty of being destroyed,
while the other frigate made her escape with Napoleon on board. This
is what the French would call a _grande pensée_, and quite as heroic
as any thing in a melodrama of the Porte St Martin. But the captain of
the leading frigate declined the distinction, and evidently thought it
not necessary that he and his crew should be blown out of the water,
as they certainly would have been if they came in contact with the
Bellerophon; so this third project perished.
After a few days of this busy foolery, the prisoner, startled by new
reports of the success of the Allies every where, and too sagacious
not to feel that the hands of the French king might be the most
dangerous into which the murderer of the Duc D'Enghien could fall;
looking with evident contempt upon the foolish projects for his
escape, and conscious that his day was done, resolved to throw himself
into the hands of Captain Maitland, the commander of the Bellerophon,
then anchored in Basque roads. On the night of the 10th, Savary and
Las Cases were sent on board the English ship, to inquire whether the
captain would allow a French or neutral ship, or the frigates with
Napoleon on board, to pass free? Captain Maitland simply answered,
that he had received no orders except those ordinarily given in case
of war; but that he should attack the frigates if they attempted to
pass; that if a neutral flag came in his way, he would order it to be
searched as usual. But that, in consequence of the peculiar nature of
the case, he would communicate with the admiral in command.
A circumstance occurred on this occasion, which brought M. Las Cases
into no small disrepute afterwards. The captain hospitably asked Las
Cases and Savary to lunch with him, and, while at table, inquired
whether they understood English. He was answered that they did not;
and the captain, though of course relying upon the answer, made his
observations in English to his officers, while he addressed the
Frenchman in his own tongue. It was afterwards ascertained that Las
Cases, who had been an emigrant for some years in England, understood
English perfectly. Nothing could therefore be more pitiful than his
conduct in suffering the captain to believe that he was ignorant on
the subject, and thus obtain a confidence to which he had no right.
The circumstance, as Count Montholon says,--"was afterwards made a
bitter reproach against Las Cases; the English charging him with a
violation of honour; because, as they affirmed, he had positively
declared that he was unacquainted with their language, when the
question was put to him at the commencement of the conference. This,
however," says Count Montholon, "is not correct." And how does he show
that it is not correct? "The question," says he, "was put
collectively, that is, to both alike, and Savary alone answered in the
negative." Of course the answer was understood collectively, and
comprised M. Las Cases as well as M. Savary. In short, the conduct was
contemptible, and the excuse not much better. Las Cases, of course,
should not have allowed any other person's word to be taken, when it
led to a delusion. It is _possible_ that Savary was unacquainted with
his companion's knowledge of English,--though when we recollect that
Savary was minister of police, and that Las Cases was about the court
of Napoleon, it is difficult to conceive his ignorance on the subject.
But in all instances, there could be no apology for his
fellow-Frenchman's sitting to hear conversations of which he was
supposed, on the credit of Savary's word, and his own silence, to
comprehend nothing.
It happily turns out, however, that all this _dexterity_ had only the
effect of blinding the parties themselves.
"This mystification and piece of diplomatic chicanery"--we use the
language of the volume--"proved, in fact, rather detrimental than
useful; for, no doubt, the information thus gained by _surprise_ from
Captain Maitland and his officers, contributed to induce the Emperor
to decide on surrendering himself to the English." The captain was too
honourable a man to think of practising any chicane on the subject;
but if the two _employés_ overreached themselves, so much the better.
But events now thickened. On the 12th, the Paris journals arrived,
announcing the entrance of the Allies into Paris, and the
establishment of Louis XVIII. in the Tuileries! All was renewed
confusion, consternation, and projects. On the next day Joseph
Bonaparte came to the Isle of Aix, to propose the escape of his fallen
brother in a merchant vessel from Bordeaux, for America, and remain in
his place. This offer was generous, but it could scarcely be accepted
by any human being, and it was refused. But delay was becoming doubly
hazardous. It was perfectly possible that the first measure of the new
government would be an order for his seizure, and the next, for his
execution. On that evening he decided to accept the offer of the
_chasse-marées_, to go on board before morning, and trust to the young
midshipmen and chance for his passage across the Atlantic.
We know no history more instructive than these "last days" of a
fugitive Emperor. That he might have escaped a week before, is
certain, for the harbour was not then blockaded; that he might have
made his way among the channels of that very difficult and obstructed
coast even after the blockade, is possible; that he might have found
his way, by a hundred roads, out of France, or reached the remnant of
his armies, is clear, for all his brothers escaped by land. But that
he still hesitated--and alone hesitated; that this man--the most
memorable for decision, famed for promptitude, for the discovery of
the true point of danger, daring to the height of rashness, when
daring was demanded--should have paused at the very instant when his
fate seemed to be in his own hand, more resembles a preternatural loss
of faculty than the course of nature. His whole conduct on the shore
of France is to be equalled only by his conduct among the ashes of
Moscow,--it was infatuation.
Again the man of decision hesitated; and at four in the morning
General Lallemand and Las Cases were sent on board the Bellerophon
under the pretext of waiting for the admiral's answer, but in reality
to ascertain whether the captain would express _officially_ any pledge
or opinion relative to Napoleon's favourable reception in England;
which Las Cases had conceived him to express in his conversation with
his officers, and of which this M. Las Cases was supposed not to have
understood a syllable.
Captain Maitland's answer was distinct and simple. It was, "that he
had yet received no information, but hourly expected it; that he was
authorized to receive Napoleon on board, and convey him to England,
where, according to his own opinion, he would receive all the
attention and respect to which he could lay any claim." But, to
prevent all presumptions on the subject, adding--"I am anxious that it
should be well understood, that I am expressing only my personal
opinion on this subject, and have in no respect spoken in the name of
the government, having received _no_ instructions from either the
admiralty or the admiral."
It is almost painful to contemplate these scenes. What agonies must
have passed through the heart of such a man, so humbled! What
inevitable contrasts of the throne with the dungeon! What sense of
shame in the humiliation which thus placed him at the disposal of his
own few followers! What sleepless anxiety in those midnight
consultations, in those exposures to public shame, in this sense of
utter ruin, in this terrible despair! If some great painter shall
hereafter rise to vindicate the pencil by showing its power of
delineating the deepest passions of our nature, or some still greater
poet shall come to revive the day of Shakspeare, and exhibit the
tortures of a greater Macbeth, fallen from the highest elevation of
human things into a depth of self-reproach and self-abasement to which
all the powers of human language might be pale,--what a subject for
them were here!
The theatrical habits of the French are singularly unfortunate for a
nation which assumes to take an influential rank in the world. They
deprive them of that capacity for coping with real things which is
essential to all substantial greatness. With them the business of the
world must be all melodrame, and the most commonplace, or the most
serious actions of life, must be connected with scene-shifting,
trap-doors, and the mimic thunders of the stage. Napoleon was now in a
condition the most deeply calculated to force these stern realities of
life on the mind. Yet even with him all was to be dramatic; he was to
throw himself on the clemency of his conqueror, like one of the heroes
of Corneille. England was to stand in admiration of his magnanimous
devotedness. The sovereign was to receive him with astonishment and
open arms, and, after an embrace of royal enthusiasm, he was to be
placed in secure splendour, cheered by the acclamations of a people
hastening to do him homage. In this false and high-coloured view of
things, he wrote the famous and absurd note, in which he pronounced
himself another Themistocles, come to sit by the hearth of the British
people. A manlier, because a more rational view of things, would have
told him that a war, expressly begun with a determination to overthrow
his dynasty, could not be suffered to conclude by giving him the power
of again disturbing the world--that his utter faithlessness prohibited
the possibility of relying on his pledges--the security of the Bourbon
throne absolutely demanded his being finally disabled from disturbing
its authority--England owed it to her allies to prevent a repetition
of the numberless calamities which his reign had inflicted upon
Europe, and owed it to herself to prevent all necessity for the havoc
of a new Waterloo.
The national passion for a _coup de théâtre_ rendered all this
knowledge of no avail, and he flung himself at the feet of the Prince
Regent, with the flattering phraseology of claiming protection "from
the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous of his
enemies."
The step was now taken. On the 15th of July, at daybreak, he left the
Isle of Aix, and entered one of the boats which was to convey him on
board the Bellerophon. He had still a parting pang to undergo. As he
looked round the shore, a white flag was flying on all the ships and
batteries. All the rest of this curious narrative has been already
given to the world. We have no desire to repeat the details.
Count Montholon, in his fondness for excitement, here states that a
privy council was held on the question, whether the terms of the
Congress of Vienna prevented England from giving up Napoleon to the
vengeance of Louis XVIII., adding that "the dispatches of the Duke of
Wellington urged them to adopt bloody and terrible determinations."
This we utterly disbelieve; and, if we required additional reasons for
our disbelief, it would be in the Count's telling us that the
energetic opposition of the Duke of Sussex alone prevented the
delivery of the prisoner--there not being perhaps any prince, or any
individual of England, less likely to have weight in the councils of
the existing government.
Without presuming to trace the steps of Providence, it is natural and
not unwise to follow them in those leading transactions which give
character to their times, or which complete events decisive of the
fates of eminent men or nations. One of the most characteristic and
abhorred acts of the entire life of the French Emperor, was his
imprisonment of the English who were travelling in his country at the
commencement of his reign. The act was the most treacherous within
human record--it was perfidy on the largest scale. Europe had been
often scandalised by breaches of political faith, but the agents and
the sufferers were sovereigns and nations. But in this instance the
blow fell upon individuals with the most sudden treachery, the most
causeless tyranny, and the most sweeping ruin. Twelve thousand
individuals, travelling under the protection of the imperial laws,
wholly incapable of being regarded by those laws as prisoners, and
relying on the good faith of the government, were seized as felons,
put under duress, separated from their families in England, suddenly
deprived of their means of existence, stopt in the progress of their
professions, plundered of their property, and kept under the most
vigilant surveillance for eleven years.
The retribution now fell, and that retribution exactly in the form of
the crime by which it was drawn down. We give a few extracts of the
document by which Napoleon protested against his detention, as a most
complete, though unconscious indictment against his own act eleven
years before.
Protest at sea, on board the Bellerophon, August 1815--"In the face of
God and man, I solemnly protest against the injury which has been
committed upon me, by the violation of my most sacred rights, in
forcibly disposing of _my person and liberty_.
"I came freely on board the Bellerophon, and _am not a prisoner_,--I
am the _guest of England_.