XI. NAPOLEON'S FIRST ABDICATION[13]
[Footnote 13: References: Campbell, Sir Neil, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba, being a journal of occurrences in 1814-1815, with notes of conversations. Laborde, Napoleon et sa garde, ou relation du voyage de Fontainebleau a l'ile d'Elbe en 1814, etc. Ussher, A narrative of events connected with the first abdication of Napoleon, his embarkation at Frejus and voyage to Elba on board his majesty's ship Undaunted; his embarkation at Elba on board the Elbese brig of war l'Inconstant; and a journal of his extraordinary march to Paris, narrated by Colonel Laborde, who accompanied the Emperor on that occasion. Waldburg, L. F. Graf Truchsess von, Napoleon Bonaparte's Reise von Fontainebleau nach Frejus vom 17-29 April, 1814.]
The Meaning of Napoleon's Abdication -- The Paper and its Bearers -- Progress of Marmont's Conspiracy -- Alexander Influenced by Napoleon's Embassy -- Marmont's Soldiers Betrayed -- Marmont's Reputation and Fate -- Napoleon's Scheme for a Last Stroke -- Revolt of the Marshals -- Napoleon's First Attempt at Suicide -- Unconditional Abdication -- Restoration of the Bourbons -- Napoleon's New Realm -- Flight of the Napoleons -- Good-by to France, but not Farewell.
There is no doubt that Napoleon sincerely and dearly loved his "growlers"; there is no doubt that with grim humor he constantly circumvented and used them for his own ends; even in his agony he contemplated a course which, leaving them convinced of their success, would yet render their action of no effect. After a short conference with his minister he took a pen and wrote: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the establishment of peace in Europe, and since the Emperor cannot assuredly, without violating his oath, surrender any one of the departments which were united with France when he ascended the throne, the Emperor Napoleon declares himself ready to abdicate and leave France, even to lay down his life for the welfare of his country and for the preservation of the rights of his son the King, of the Empress-regent, and of the laws and institutions, which shall be subject to no change until the definite conclusion of peace and while foreign armies stand upon our soil."
But these words carried too plainly a meaning which was not intended to be conspicuous, and the paper, as finally written and executed, runs as follows: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reestablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France, and even to lay down his life for the good of the country, [which is] inseparable from the rights of his son, from those of the Empress's regency, and from the laws of the Empire." Who should constitute the embassy to present the document to the Czar? Caulaincourt, of course, would necessarily be one; Ney, dangerous if thwarted, must be the second; and the third? Marmont certainly, was Napoleon's first thought, and he ordered full powers to be made out for him. But on second thought he felt that his aide-de-camp in Egypt, his trusted friend from then onward, his confidential adviser, "brought up in his tent," as he said, might injure the cause as being too certainly influenced by personal considerations. Macdonald, therefore, was named in his stead. The embassy should, however, pass by Essonnes, and if Marmont desired to go he might send back for his credentials.
This was the company which, arriving about four in the afternoon at Marmont's headquarters, presented Napoleon's message. The busy conspirator was stunned, but he had already won at least five of his generals--Souham, Merlin, Digeon, Ledru des Essarts, and Megnadier, his chief of staff; the tide of treason was in full flow, and could not be stemmed. Should the Czar assent to the regency, where would Marmont be? Or, on the other hand, should Napoleon learn the truth, there was no question but that a few hours might see the emulator of Monk a corpse. In quick decision, the traitorous marshal confessed the steps already taken, and then at the loud cry of reprobation with which his statement was met, he falsely asserted that he was not yet committed, and demanded to join the embassy. The others, willing to remove their colleague from further temptation, assented; and Souham was left in command, with strict injunctions to inform the troops of Napoleon's abdication, but to take no further steps. At Schwarzenberg's headquarters Marmont found means to betray the situation to that general. The Austrian, by Marmont's own account, absolved his fellow-intriguer from all engagements so far made; but somehow that very evening about nine Talleyrand knew the whole story, and hastening, pale with terror, to Alexander's presence, poured out a bitter remonstrance against the regency. The Czar listened, but contemptuously dismissed the petitioner with the non-committal remark that no one would repent having trusted him.
It was almost midnight when Alexander gave audience to the embassy. Marmont was not of the number, having slunk away in guilty uneasiness to await the event at Ney's house. To Caulaincourt, as the spokesman of the Empire, the Czar listened attentively and sympathetically. He now felt himself to have taken a false step when, five days earlier, he had virtually assented to the restoration of the Bourbons. In the interval their cause had steadily grown more and more unpopular; neither people nor soldiers, not even the national guard, would give any declaration of adherence to the acts of the provisional government; the imperial army, on the other hand, stood firm. His own and Russia's honor having been redeemed, the earlier instincts of hatred for absolutism had returned; the feeling that the Empire was better for his purposes than any dynasty welled up as he listened to Caulaincourt's powerful argument that France as a nation, and her undivided army, alike desired the regency. In fact, the listener wavered so much that, two days later, Ney and Macdonald asserted their belief that at a certain instant their cause had been won.
But at two in the morning an aide-de-camp entered and spoke a few words in Russian. The Czar gave a startled attention, and the officer repeated his words. "Gentlemen," said the monarch, "you base your claim on the unshaken attachment of the army to the imperial government. The vanguard of Napoleon's army has just deserted. It is at this moment within our lines." The news was true. The announcement of Napoleon's abdication had spread consternation among Marmont's men, and they were seriously demoralized. When a routine message came from Fontainebleau requiring Souham's presence there, his guilty conscience made him tremble; and when Gourgaud requested an interview the uneasy general foresaw his own arrest and was terror-stricken. Summoning the others who, like himself, were partly committed, he told his fears, and the soldiers were ordered under arms. Toward midnight the march began. Ignorant at first of whither they were going, the men were silent; but finding themselves before long between two Austrian lines, they hooted their officers. Thereupon they were told that they were to fight beside these same Austrians in defense of the Empire, and, believing the lie, were reconciled.
Arriving finally at Versailles, and learning the truth, they mutinied; but Marmont soon appeared, and partly cowed them, partly persuaded them to bend before necessity. After learning of Souham's deed he had hurried to the Czar's antechamber. In an adjoining room were assembled the members of the provisional government. Like Marmont, they had learned the result of Souham's efforts and had regained their equanimity. After grasping the appalling fact that twelve thousand men, the whole sixth corps, with arms and baggage, were prisoners within the Austrian lines, of course there had been nothing left for Caulaincourt and the marshals but to withdraw. With much embarrassment the Czar promised an answer to their request on the following afternoon. All knew that the knell of the Empire had struck. To the waiting royalists it seemed a fit moment for pleasantry as the members of the embassy came filing out with stony gaze. The thwarted imperialists sternly repulsed their tormentors. Marmont breathed hard as his colleagues passed without a glimpse of recognition, and murmured: "I would give an arm if this had not happened." "An arm? Sir, say your head," rejoined Macdonald, bitterly. For some time after the first Restoration Marmont was a hero, but soon his vanity and true character combined to bring out his conduct into clear view, and from his title of Ragusa was coined the word "ragusade" as a synonym for treason. During the "Hundred Days" his name was of course stricken from the list of marshals. Loaded with honors in the second Restoration, he proved a second time faithless, and in 1830 betrayed his trust to the republicans. The people called him "Judas," and he died in exile, honored by nobody.
There can be little doubt of Napoleon's conviction that his offer to abdicate would be rejected by Alexander. No sooner was it signed than, with his characteristic astuteness, he set about preparing an alternative course. At once he despatched a messenger requesting the Empress to send Champagny immediately to Dijon as an ambassador to intercede with her father. Then, on April fourth, he summoned a conclave of his officers to secure their assent to the battle which he believed inevitable. It was the call to this meeting which had stampeded Souham and his colleagues in desertion. The greater officers being absent from Fontainebleau, the minor ones were unanimous and hearty in their support of Napoleon's plans. But at the very close of the session came the news of what had happened at Essonnes. When finally assured of every detail, Napoleon took measures at once to repair as best he could the breaches in his defense, saying of Marmont quietly and without a sign of panic: "Unhappy man, he will be more unhappy than I." Only a few days before he had declared to Caulaincourt: "There are no longer any who play fair except my poor soldiers and their officers that are neither princes nor dukes nor counts. It is an awful thing to say, but it is true. Do you know what I ought to do? Send all these noble lords of yesterday to sleep in their beds of down, to strut about in their castles. I ought to rid myself of these frondeurs, and begin the war once more with men of youthful, unsullied courage." He was partly prepared, therefore, even for the defection of Marmont. Next morning, on the fifth, was issued the ablest proclamation ever penned by him; at noon the veterans from Spain were reviewed, and in the afternoon began the movements necessary to array beyond the Loire what remained of the army and rally it about the seat of imperial government. But at nine the embassy returned from Paris with its news--the Czar had refused to accept the abdication; the senate was about to proclaim Louis XVIII; Napoleon was to reign thereafter over the little isle of Elba. To this the undaunted Emperor calmly rejoined that war henceforth offered nothing worse than peace, and began at once to explain his plans.
But he was interrupted--exactly how we cannot tell; for, though the embassy returned as it left, in a body, the memoirs of each member strive to convey the impression that it was he alone who said and did everything. If only the narrative attributed to Caulaincourt were of undoubted authenticity, cumulative evidence might create certitude; but it is not. The sorry tale of what probably occurred makes clear that all three were now royalists more or less ardent, for in passing they had concluded a truce with Schwarzenberg on that basis. Macdonald asserts that his was the short and brutal response to Napoleon's exhibition of his plans; to wit, that they must have an abdication without conditions. Ney was quite as savage, declaring that the confidence of the army was gone. Napoleon at first denounced such mutiny, but then, with seeming resignation, promised an answer next day. He did not yet know that in secret convention the generals were resolving not to obey the orders issued for the morrow; but as the door closed behind the marshals the mind so far clear seemed suddenly eclipsed, and murmuring, "These men have neither heart nor bowels; I am conquered less by fortune than by the egotism and ingratitude of my companions in arms," the great, homeless citizen of the world sank into utter dejection.
It appears to have been a fixed purpose with Napoleon never to fall alive into his enemy's hands. Although they acted under legal forms, yet some European monarchs of the eighteenth century were no more trustworthy in dealing with foes than their great prototype Julius Caesar in his faithlessness to a certain canton of the Helvetians. They did not display sufficient surprise when enemies were assassinated. Since 1808 the European colossus had worn about his neck as a kind of amulet a little bag which was said to contain a deadly poison, one of the salts of prussic acid. During the night, when the terrors of a shaken reason overpowered him, he swallowed the drug. Whether it had lost its efficacy, or whether the agitated victim of melancholy did not take the entire dose, in either case the effects were imperfect. Instead of oblivion came agony, and his valet, rushing to his master's bedside at the sound of a bitter cry, claimed to catch the words: "Marmont has struck me the final blow! Unhappy man, I loved him! Berthier's desertion has broken my heart! My old friends, my comrades in arms!" Ivan, the Emperor's body physician, was summoned, and administered an antidote; the spasm was allayed, and after a short sleep reason resumed her seat. It is related in the memoirs of Caulaincourt, and probably with a sort of Homeric truth, that when the minister was admitted in the early morning, Napoleon's "wan and sunken eyes seemed struggling to recall the objects round about; a universe of torture was revealed in the vaguely desolate look." Napoleon is reported as saying: "God did not will it. I could not die. Why did they not let me die? It is not the loss of the throne that makes existence unendurable; my military career suffices for the glory of a single man. Do you know what is more difficult to bear than the reverses of fortune? It is the baseness, the horrible ingratitude, of men. Before such acts of cowardice, before the shamelessness of their egotism, I have turned away my head in disgust and have come to regard my life with horror.... Death is rest.... Rest at last.... What I have suffered for twenty days no one can understand."
What throws some shadow on this account is the fact that on the following morning Napoleon appeared outwardly well and perfectly calm when he assembled his marshals and made a final appeal. It is certain, from the testimony of his secretary and his physician, that he had been violently ill, but the sobriety of the remaining chronicle is to be doubted. Possibly, too, the empty sachet had contained a preparation of opium intended to relieve sharp attacks like that at Pirna; but in view of the second attempt at suicide made after Waterloo, this is not likely. Yet the circumstances may easily have been exaggerated; for the evident motive of what has been called the imperial legend is to heighten all the effects in the Napoleonic picture. Whatever was the truth as to that gloomy night, Napoleon's appeal next morning, though eloquent, was in vain; the marshals were unshaken in their determination, though less bitter and violent in their language. "You deserve repose," were the Emperor's last words to them; "well, then, take it." Thereupon the act of unconditional abdication was written in these words: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reestablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that for himself and his heirs he renounces the thrones of France and of Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice which he is not ready to make for the welfare of the nation." These last words were, after some consideration, erased, and the phrase "in the interest of France" was substituted for them. Some think, and it may well be true, that this change of form, taken in connection with Napoleon's calmness, was another proof of his deep purpose. Unable to thwart his "growlers," he may have recollected that once before he had crossed the Mediterranean to give a feeble government full scope for its own destruction. France might easily recall her favorite son in her own interest. He was scarcely more than forty-four, a young man still, and this he probably recalled as he made ready to play a new role.
Armed with the document necessary to secure his pardon, Ney hurried back to the capital. The elderly, well-meaning, but obtuse Louis XVIII was immediately proclaimed king by the senate. Having "learned nothing, and forgotten nothing," he accepted the throne, making certain concessions to the new France, sufficient, as he hoped, to secure at least the momentary support of the people. The haste to join the white standard made by men on whom Napoleon's adventurous career had heaped honor and wealth is unparalleled in history. Jourdan, Augereau, Maison, Lagrange, Nansouty, Oudinot, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Hulin, Milhaud, Latour-Maubourg, Segur, Berthier, Belliard--such were the earliest names. Among the soldiers near by some bowed to the new order, but among the garrisons there was such widespread mutiny that royalist hate was kindled again and fanned to white heat by the scoffs and jeers of the outraged men. Their behavior was the outward sign of a temper not universal, of course, but very common among the people. At Paris both the King and the King's brother were cheered on their formal entry, but many discriminating onlookers prophesied that the Bourbons could not remain long.
Fully aware that Napoleon was yet a power in France, and challenged by the marshals to display a chivalric spirit in providing for the welfare of their former monarch, Alexander gave full play to his generous impulses. His first suggestion was that his fallen foe should accept a home and complete establishment in Russia; but this would have been to ignore the other members of the coalition. It was determined finally to provide the semblance of an empire, the forms of state, and an imperial income, and to make the former Emperor the guest of all Europe. The idea was quixotic, but Napoleon was not a prisoner; he had done nothing worthy of degradation, and throughout the civilized world he was still regarded by vast numbers as the savior of European society, who had fallen into the hands of cruel oppressors. The paper which was finally drawn up was a treaty between Napoleon, for the time and purposes of the instrument a private citizen, as one party, and the four sovereign states of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England as the other. It had, therefore, no sanction except the public opinion of France and the good faith of those who executed it, the former being bound by her allies to a contract made by them. It was France which was to pay Napoleon two millions of francs a year, and leave him to reign undisturbed over Elba; the allies granted Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla as a realm in perpetuity to Maria Louisa and her heirs, through the King of Rome, as her successors. The agreement was unique, but so were the circumstances which brought it to pass. There was but one important protest, and that was made by Castlereagh in regard to the word Napoleon and the imperial style! His protest was vain, but to this day many among the greatest of his countrymen persistently employ "Bonaparte" in speaking of the greater, and "Napoleon" in designating the lesser, of the two men who have ruled France as emperors.
Four commissioners, one from each of the powers, proceeded to Fontainebleau. They were careful to treat Napoleon with the consideration due to an emperor. To all he was courteous, except to the representative of Prussia, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, whose presence he declared unnecessary, since there were to be no Prussian troops on the southern road toward Elba. With Colonel Campbell, the British commissioner, he was most friendly, conversing enthusiastically with the Scotch officer about the Scotch poet known as Ossian. What was particularly admired in his remarkable outpourings was their warlike tone. As the preparations for departure went forward, it became clear that of all the imperial dignitaries only Bertrand and Drouot would accompany the exile. The others he dismissed with characteristic and appropriate farewells: to Caulaincourt he assigned a gift of five hundred thousand francs from the treasure at Blois; Constant, the valet, and Rustan, the Mameluke, were dismissed at their own desire, but not empty-handed. For his line of travel, and for a hundred baggage-wagons loaded with books, furniture, and objects of art, Napoleon stipulated with the utmost nicety and persistence. With every hour he showed greater and greater anxiety for his personal safety. Indifferent to life but a few short days before, he was now timid and over-anxious. If he had been playing a part and pondering what in a few years, perhaps months, his life and person might again be worth in European politics, he could not have been more painstaking as to measures for his personal safety. The stoic could have recourse to the bowl, the eighteenth-century enthusiast must live and hope to the last. Napoleon seems to have struggled for the union of both characters. "They blame me that I can outlive my fall," he remarked. "Wrongfully.... It is much more courageous to survive unmerited bad fortune." Only once he seemed overpowered, being observed, as he sat at table, to strike his forehead and murmur: "God, is it possible?" Sometimes, too, he appeared to be lost in reverie, and when addressed started like one awakened from a dream. All was ready on the twentieth; but the Empress, who by the terms of the "treaty" was to accompany her consort as far as the harbor of St. Tropez, did not appear. Napoleon declared that she had been kidnapped, and refused to stir, threatening to withdraw his abdication. Koller, the Austrian commissioner, assured him of the truth, that she had resolved of her free will not to be present. In the certainty that all was over, the Empress had determined to take refuge with her father, and the imperial government at Blois had dispersed, Joseph and Jerome flying to Switzerland.
The announcement staggered Napoleon, but he replied with words destined to have great significance: "Very well; I shall remain faithful to my promise; but if I have new reasons to complain, I shall consider myself absolved." Further, he touched on various topics as if seeking to talk against time, remarking that Francis had impiously sought the dissolution of his daughter's marriage; that Russia and Prussia had made Austria's position dangerous; that the Czar and Frederick William had shown little delicacy in visiting Maria Louisa at Rambouillet; that he himself was no usurper; and that he had been wrong not to make peace at Prague or Dresden. Then, suddenly changing tone and topic, he asked with interest what would occur if Elba refused to accept him. Koller thought he might still take refuge in England. Napoleon rejoined that he had thought of that; but, having always sought to do England harm, would the English make him welcome? Koller replied that, as all the projects against her welfare had come to naught, England would feel no bitterness. Finally, about noon Napoleon descended into the courtyard, where the few grenadiers of the old guard were drawn up. The officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, were called forward, and in a few touching words their former leader thanked all who had remained true for their loyalty. With their aid he could have continued the war beyond the Loire, but he had preferred to sacrifice his personal interests to those of France. "Continue to serve France," runs the Napoleonic text of this fine address: but the commissioners thought they heard "to serve the sovereign which the nation has chosen." He could have ended his life, he went on to say, but he wished to live and record for posterity the great deeds of his warriors. Then he embraced Petit, the commanding officer, and, snatching to his breast the imperial eagle, his standard in so many glorious battles, he pressed it to his lips, and entered the waiting carriage. A swelling sob burst from the ranks, and tears bedewed the weather-beaten cheeks of men who had not wept for years.
XII. THE EMPEROR OF ELBA[14]
[Footnote 14: References: Czartoryski, Memoirs, Vol. II. Houssaye, Napoleon a l'ile d'Elbe, in Revue historique, tom. 51, pp. 1-25, Paris, 1893. Ussher, Napoleon's Last Voyage. Peyrusse: Memorial.]
Napoleon and the Popular Frenzy -- Serious Dangers Incurred -- The Exile under the British Flag -- The Voyage to Elba -- The Napoleonic Court at Porto Ferrajo -- Mysterious Visitors -- Estrangement of Maria Louisa -- Napoleon's "Isle of Repose" -- The Congress of Vienna -- Its Violation of Treaty Agreement -- Discontent in France -- Revival of Imperialism -- Bitterness of the Army -- Intrigues against the Bourbons -- Napoleon's Behavior -- His Fears of Assassination.
[Sidenote: 1814-15]
Napoleon's journey to Elba was a series of disenchantments. As has been said, he had stipulated in his "treaty" that the Empress should accompany him to St. Tropez, where he was to embark. Her absence, he persisted in declaring, was explicable only by forced detention; and he again talked of withdrawing his abdication at this breach of the engagements made by the allies. But he grew more composed, and the journey was sufficiently comfortable as far as Lyons. Occasionally during that portion of it there were outbursts of good feeling from those who stopped to see his train pass by. But in descending the Rhone there was a marked change. As the Provencals had been the radicals of the Revolution, so now they were the devotees of the Restoration. The flood of disreputable calumny had broken loose: men said the Emperor's mother was a loose woman, his father a butcher, he himself but a bastard, his true name Nicholas. "Down with Bonaparte! down with Nicholas!" was too often the derisive shout as he traversed the villages. Maubreuil, the hired assassin, was hurrying from Paris with a desperate band, ostensibly to recover crown jewels or government funds which might be among Napoleon's effects. Recalling Alexander's boast that his best servants had been found among the assassins of his father, and recollecting that Francis sighed to Metternich for Napoleon's exile to a far-distant land, Elba being too near to France and to Europe, it is conceivable that Talleyrand might reckon on the moral support of the dynasties in conniving at Napoleon's assassination. Had he forgotten the murder of Enghien? Probably not; but his conscience was not over-tender. Near Valence, on April twenty-fourth, the imperial procession met Augereau's carriage. The arch-republican of Napoleon's earlier career had given his adhesion to the new government, and had been retained in office. He alighted, the ex-Emperor likewise: the latter exhibited all the ordinary forms of politeness, the former studiously disdained them. Napoleon, with nice irony, asked if the general were on his way to court. The thrust went home, but in a gruff retort Augereau, using the insulting "thou," declared with considerable embarrassment that he cared no more for the Bourbons than for Napoleon; that he had no motive for his conduct except love for his country.
Partly by good fortune, partly by good management, the cortege avoided the infuriated bands who, in various places, had sworn to take the fallen Emperor's life. At Avignon his escape was almost miraculous. Near Orgon a mob of royalists beset the carriage, and Napoleon shrank in pallid terror behind Bertrand, cowering there until the immediate danger was removed by his Russian escort. A few miles out he donned a postilion's uniform and rode post through the town. At Saint-Cannat he would not touch a morsel of food for fear of poison. Rumors of the bitter feeling prevalent at Aix led him for further protection to clothe one of his aides in his own too familiar garb. In that town he was violently ill, somewhat as he had been at Fontainebleau. The attack yielded easily to remedies, and the Prussian commissioner asserted that it was due to a loathsome disease. Thereafter the hounded fugitive wore an Austrian uniform, and sat in the Austrian commissioner's carriage; thus disguised, the Emperor of Elba seemed to feel secure. From Luc onward the company was protected by Austrian hussars; but in spite of these military jailers, mob violence became stronger from day to day in each successive town. Napoleon grew morbid, and the line of travel was changed from the direction of St. Tropez to that of Frejus in order to avoid the ever-increasing danger. The only alleviation in the long line of ills was a visit from his light and giddy but affectionate sister Pauline, the Princess Borghese, who comforted him and promised to share his exile. At length Frejus was reached, and Napoleon resumed his composure as he saw an English frigate and a French brig lying in the harbor. Perhaps the beautiful view recalled to an outcast monarch the return, in 1799, of one General Bonaparte, who had landed on the same shore to overthrow the Directory. If not, it must have been due to unwonted dejection or dark despair.
Again Napoleon remarked a breach of his treaty. He was to have sailed from St. Tropez in a corvette; here was only a brig. Accordingly, as if to mark an intentional slight, in reality for his safety and comfort, he asked and obtained permission to embark on the English frigate, the Undaunted, as the guest of her captain. The promised corvette was at St. Tropez awaiting its passenger, but the hasty change of plan had made it impossible to bring her around in time. Possibly for this reason, too, the baggage of Napoleon had been much diminished in quantity; and of this he complained also, as being a breach of his treaty. His farewell to the Russian and Prussian commissioners was brief and dignified; the Austrian hussars paid full military honors to the party; and as the Emperor, accompanied by the English and Austrian commissioners, embarked, a salvo of twenty-four guns rang out from the Undaunted. Already he had begun to eulogize England and her civilization, and to behave as if throwing himself on the good faith of an English gentleman, exactly as a defeated knight would throw himself on the chivalric courtesy of his conqueror. This appearance of distinguished treatment heightened his self-satisfaction. His attendants said that once again he was "all emperor."
It was a serious blow when, on passing aboard ship, he discovered that the salutes had been in recognition of the commissioners, and that the polite but decided Captain Ussher was determined to treat his illustrious guest with the courtesy due to a private gentleman, and with that alone. Although chafing at times during the voyage against the restrictions of naval discipline, Napoleon submitted gracefully, and wore a subdued air. This was his first contact with English customs: sometimes they interested him; frequently, as in the matter of after-dinner amusements and Sunday observance, they irritated him, and then with a contemptuous petulance he withdrew to his cabin. In conversation with Koller, the Austrian commissioner, he once referred to his conduct in disguising himself on the road to Frejus as pusillanimous, and admitted in vulgar language that he had made an indecent display of himself. He was convinced that all the dreadful scenes through which he had passed were the work of Bourbon emissaries. In general his talk was a running commentary on the past, a well-calculated prattle in which, with apparent spontaneity and ingenuousness, interpretations were placed on his conduct which were thoroughly novel. This was the beginning of a series of historical commentaries lasting, with interruptions, to the end of his life. There is throughout a unity of purpose in the explication and embellishment of history which will be considered later. On May fourth the Undaunted cast anchor in the harbor of Porto Ferrajo.
Elba was an island divided against itself, there being both imperialists and royalists among its inhabitants, and a considerable party which desired independence. By representing that Napoleon had brought with him fabulous sums, the Austrian and English commissioners easily won the Elbans to a fervor of loyalty for their new emperor. Before nightfall of the fourth the court was established, and the new administration began its labors. After mastering the resources and needs of his pygmy realm, the Emperor began at once to deploy all his powers, mending the highways, fortifying the strategic points, and creating about the nucleus of four hundred guards which were sent from Fontainebleau an efficient little army of sixteen hundred men. His expenses were regulated to the minutest detail, the salt-works and iron-mines, which were the bulwarks of Elban prosperity, began at once to increase their output, and taxation was regulated with scrupulous nicety. By that supereminent virtue of the French burgher, good management, the island was made almost independent of the remnants of the Tuileries treasure, the sum of about five million francs, which Napoleon had brought from France. The same powers which had swayed a world operated with equal success in a sphere almost microscopic by comparison. To many this appeared a sorry commentary on human grandeur, but the great exile did not intend to sink into a contemptible lethargy. If the future had aught in store for him, his capacities must have exercise and their bearings be kept smooth by use. The Princess Borghese had been separated from her second husband soon after the marriage, and since 1810 she had lived an exile from Paris, having been banished for impertinent conduct to the Empress. But she cherished no malice, and before long, according to promise, she arrived and took up her abode as her brother's companion. Madame Mere, though distant in prosperity, came likewise to soothe her son in adversity. The intercepted letters of the former prove her to have been at least as loose in her life at Elba as ever before, but they do not afford a sufficient basis for the scandals concerning her relations with Napoleon which were founded upon them and industriously circulated at the court of Louis XVIII. The shameful charge, though recently revived and ingeniously supported, appears to have no adequate foundation.
Napoleon's economies were rendered not merely expedient, but imperative, by the fact that none of the moneys from France were forthcoming which had been promised in his treaty with the powers. After a short stay Koller frankly stated that in his opinion they never would be paid, and departed. The island swarmed with Bourbon spies, and the only conversation in which Napoleon could indulge himself unguardedly was with Sir Neil Campbell, the English representative, or with the titled English gentlemen who gratified their curiosity by visiting him. During the summer heat, when the court was encamped on the heights at Marciana for refreshment, there appeared a mysterious lady with her child. Both were well received and kindly treated, but they withdrew themselves entirely from the public gaze. Common rumor said it was the Empress, but this was not true; it was the Countess Walewska, with one of the two sons she bore her host, whom she still adored. They remained but a few days, and departed as mysteriously as they had come. Base females thronged the precincts of the imperial residence, openly struggling for Napoleon's favor as they had so far never dared to do; success too frequently attended their efforts.
But the one woman who should have been at his side was absent.[15] It is certain that she made an honest effort to come, and apartments were prepared for her reception in the little palace at Porto Ferrajo. Her father, however, thwarted her at every turn, and finally she was a virtual prisoner at Schoenbrunn. So manifest was the restraint that her grandmother Caroline, Queen of the Two Sicilies, cried out in indignation: "If I were in the place of Maria Louisa, I would tie the sheets of my bed to the window-frame and flee." Committed to the charge of the elegant and subtle Neipperg, a favorite chamberlain whom she had first seen at Dresden, she was plied with such insidious wiles that at last her slender moral fibre was entirely broken down, and she fell a victim to his charms. As late as August, Napoleon received impassioned letters from her; then she grew formal and cold; at last, under Metternich's urgency, she ceased to write at all. Her French attendant, Meneval, managed to convey the whole sad story to her husband; but the Emperor was incredulous, and hoped against hope until December. Then only he ceased from his incessant and urgent appeals.
[Footnote 15: See Welschinger: Le roi de Rome, ch. vi, p. 17.]
The number of visitors to Elba was sometimes as high as three hundred in a single day. Among these were a few English, fewer French, but many Italians. As time passed the heaviness of the Austrian yoke had begun to gall the people of Napoleon's former kingdom, and considerable numbers from among them, remembering the mild Eugene with longing, joined in an extensive though feeble conspiracy to restore Napoleon to the throne of Italy. Lucien returned to Rome in order to foster the movement, and Murat, observing with unease the general faithlessness of the great powers in small matters, began to tremble for the security of his own seat. With them and others Napoleon appears to have corresponded regularly. He felt himself entirely freed from the obligations he had taken at Fontainebleau, for he was sure the people of southern France had been instigated to take his life by royalist agents, and while one term after another passed, not a cent was paid of the promised pension; his own fortune, therefore, was steadily melting away. For months he behaved as if really determined to make Elba his "isle of repose," as he designated it just before landing; but under such provocations his temper changed. The corner-stone of his treaty was his complete sovereignty; otherwise the paper was merely a promise without any sanction, not even that of international law. This perfect sovereignty had been recognized by the withdrawal of all the commissioners as such, Campbell insisting that he remained merely as an ambassador.
In a treaty concluded on May thirtieth between Louis XVIII and the powers of the coalition, the boundaries of France were fixed substantially as they had been in 1792, and the destiny of the lands brought under her sway by the Revolution and by Napoleon was to be determined by a European congress. This body met on November first, 1814, at Vienna. It was soon evident that the four powers of the coalition were to outdo Napoleon's extreme endeavors in their reckless disposition of European territories. Before the close of the month, however, Talleyrand, by his adroit manipulations and his conjurings with the sacrosanct word "legitimacy," had made himself the moving spirit of the congress, and had so inflamed the temper of both Metternich and Castlereagh against the dictatorial attitude of Russia and Prussia as to induce Austria and Great Britain to sign, on January third, 1815, a secret treaty with France whereby the parties of the first part bound themselves to resist the aggressiveness of the Northern powers, and that by force if necessary. This restored France to the position of a great power. By the middle of February the Northern allies were brought to terms, and in return for their concessions it was agreed that Murat was to be deposed. This spirit of compromise menaced, or rather finally destroyed, the sovereignty of Napoleon, petty as it was. On the charge of conspiring with Murat, he could easily be removed from Elba, and deported to some more remote spot from which he could exert no influence on European politics.
From the opening sessions of the congress there had been a general consensus of opinion as to this course. As to the place opinions varied. Castlereagh favored the Azores, but others the Cape Verde islands; St. Helena, then well known as a place of call on the long voyage to the Cape, had been suggested much earlier, even before Elba was chosen, but when or by whom is not known. It is quite possible that Wellington, who succeeded Castlereagh as English plenipotentiary in February, may have mentioned the name; he had been there, and knew it as almost the remotest spot of land in the world. The formal proposition to that effect appears to have been made by the Prussian cabinet. The congress took no definite action in the matter, but the understanding was so clear and general that a proclamation to the national guard was printed in the "Moniteur" of March eighth, 1815, stating that measures had been taken at the Congress of Vienna to remove Napoleon farther away. It was easy for everybody, including the captive himself, to believe that, all the other articles of the agreement at Fontainebleau having been violated, that which guaranteed the sovereignty of Elba was equally worthless.
It cannot be doubted that Napoleon was fully aware of whatever was proposed at Vienna, and it is absolutely certain that he was thoroughly informed as to the changed state of public opinion in France. Having promised a fairly liberal constitution as the price of his throne, Louis XVIII, with colossal stupidity, undertook to ignore the past and promulgated the charter as his own gracious act, done in the nineteenth year of his reign! The upper chamber, or House of Peers, was his creature, since he could create members at will. Feeble in mind and body, he was unable to check the reactionary assumptions of his family, who, having deserted their country, had returned to it by the aid of invaders despised and feared by the nation. These and the returning emigrants were provided with rich sinecures, and began to talk of restoring estates to their rightful owners; in some cases the possessors, on their death-beds, were intimidated into making such restitution. The extreme clerical party began even to hamper the ministry in its efforts to grant the freedom of worship guaranteed by the constitution. Secular business was forbidden on certain holy days, and funeral masses were celebrated for Pichegru, Moreau, and Cadoudal, that for the latter at the King's expense. When, finally, Christian burial was refused to an actress, there were riots in Paris.
But the government continued its suicidal course; even the Vendee grew disaffected, and, the suffrage having been greatly restricted, there were murmurings about oligarchies and tyrants. At Nimes the Protestants feared another St. Bartholomew, and said so. Even moderate royalists grew troubled, and could not retort when they heard the new order stigmatized by the fitting name of "paternal anarchy." Both veterans and conscripts deserted in great numbers from the army as they saw their officers discharged by the score to make places for the young aristocracy, or their comrades retired, nominally on half-pay, in reality to eke out a subsistence as best they could. It was not long before men showed each other pocket-pieces bearing Napoleon's effigy, whispering as watchwords, "Courage and hope," or "He has been and will be," or "Frenchmen, awake; the Emperor is waking." As early as July, 1814, rumors of his return were rife in country districts, and by autumn the longing for it was outspoken and general. In Paris there was greater caution, but as Marmont was called "Judas" for having betrayed his master, so Berthier was known as "Peter" in that he had denied him, and it was a common joke to tie a white cockade to the tail of a dog. Before the Chamber met the various factions openly avowed themselves as either royalists, Bonapartists, liberals, or Jacobins. The money estimates presented made it clear that a king was more expensive than an emperor, and when the peers not only voted to indemnify the emigrants for the lands held by their families, but likewise passed a bill establishing the censorship of the press, it was common talk that the present state of things could not last.
The number of French prisoners of war and of soldiers released from the besieged fortresses in central Europe was about three hundred thousand, of whom a third were veterans of the Empire. To these must be added the army which Soult, ignorant of Napoleon's abdication, had led to defeat at Toulouse, and the soldiers who had served in Italy. These men, long accustomed to much consideration, found themselves on their return to be persons of no consequence. They learned that the great officers of the Empire were everywhere treated with scant courtesy, and that the great ladies of the imperial court were now virtually driven from the Tuileries by the significant questions and loud asides of the royal personages who had supplanted them. It was told in all public resorts how Ney had resented the rude affronts put on his wife by the Duchess of Angouleme. The well-trained subordinate officers of these contingents were turned adrift by thousands on the same terms as those of Napoleon's own army, half-pay if they showed themselves good Catholics, otherwise nothing. For the most part, again, this promise was empty; young royalists were put in their places, the pay of the old guard was reduced, a new noble guard was organized, promotion was refused to those who had received commissions during the operations of war, and the asylums established for the orphans of those who had belonged to the Legion of Honor were abolished. So bitter was the outcry that the King felt compelled to dismiss his minister of war, and, not daring to substitute Marmont, who demanded the place, appointed Soult. He too was speedily discredited for harshness to Exelmans, a subordinate who was discovered to have been in correspondence with Napoleon; and by the middle of February, 1815, nearly all the soldiers were at heart Bonapartists, their friends for the most part abetting them.
In less than two months after Louis XVIII took his seat, Talleyrand and Fouche were deep in their element of plot and intrigue. They thought of the son of Philippe Egalite as a possible constitutional ruler; they talked of reestablishing the imperial regency; with Napoleon placed beyond the possibility of returning, the latter course would be safe. During the succeeding months they continued to juggle with this double intrigue, and around their plots clustered minor ones in mass. Lord Liverpool actually called Wellington to London for fear the duke should be seized, and Marmont put the Paris garrison under arms. On January twenty-first, 1815, the death of Louis XVI was commemorated by the royalists with the wildest talk; and such was the general fury over Exelmans's treatment that Fouche at last stepped forward to give his conspiracy some form. Carnot and Davout were both expected to cooeperate; but although they refused, enough officers of influence were secured to make a plan for an extended insurrection entirely feasible. For this all parties were willing to unite; no one knew or cared what was to supplant the existing government--anything was better than "paternal anarchy."
How accurate the information was which reached Napoleon at Elba we cannot ascertain, for his feelings were masked and his conduct was non-committal. He had entirely recovered his health, and though old in experience, he was only forty-five years of age, and still appeared like one in the prime of life. He was apparently vigorous, being short, thick-necked, and inclined to corpulence. His cheeks were somewhat heavy and sensuous, his hair receded far back on the temples, his limbs were powerful, his hands and feet were delicately formed and noticeably small. His movements were nervous and well controlled, his eye was clear and bright, his passions were strong, his self-control was apparent, and the cooerdination of his powers was easy. To the Elban peasant he was gracious; with his subordinates he was dignified; among his many visitors he moved with good humor and tact; his kindness to his mother and sister made both of them devoted and happy.
The only anxiety he displayed was in regard to assassination and kidnapping: the former he said he could meet like a soldier; of the latter he spoke with anxious foreboding. He had reason to fear both. Every week either in France or Italy or both, there was a plot among fanatical royalists and priests to kill him; and though the Barbary pirates were eager to seize him and win a great ransom, they were excelled in their zeal both by Mariotte, Talleyrand's agent in Leghorn, and by Bruslart, a bitter and ancient enemy, who had been appointed governor of Corsica for the purpose. For these reasons, probably, the Emperor of Elba lived as far as possible in seclusion. As time passed he grew less intimate with Campbell, but the Scotch gentleman did not attribute the fact to discontent. Before leaving Elba, on February sixteenth, to reside for a time in Florence and perform the duties of English envoy in that place, he gave it as his opinion that if Napoleon received the pension stipulated for in the treaty he would remain tranquilly where he was.
XIII. NAPOLEON THE LIBERATOR[16]
[Footnote 16: References: Sorel, A.: Le traite de Paris du 20 novembre, 1815. I. Les cent jours. Lacretelle: Histoire de France depuis la restauration. Nettement: Histoire de la litterature francaise sous la restauration. Constant: Memoires sur les cent jours en forme de lettres. Lucien Bonaparte: La verite sur les cent jours.]
Napoleon Ready to Reappear -- Reasons for his Determination -- The Return to France -- The Northward March -- Grenoble Opens its Gates -- The Lyons Proclamations -- The Emperor in the Tuileries -- The Emperor of the French -- The Additional Act -- Effects of the Return in France and Elsewhere -- The Congress of Vienna Denounces Napoleon.
It has lately been recalled that as early as July, 1814, the Emperor of Elba remarked to an English visitor that Louis XVIII, being surrounded by those who had betrayed the Empire, would in turn probably be himself betrayed by them. For the ensuing four months, however, the exile gave no sign of any deep purpose; to those who wished to leave him, he gave a hearty good-by. In December, however, he remarked to one of his old soldiers, pointedly, as the man thought: "Well, grenadier, you are bored; ... take the weather as it comes." Slipping a gold piece into the veteran's hand, he then turned away, humming to a simple air the words, "This will not last forever." Thereafter he dissuaded all who sought to depart, saying: "Be patient. We'll pass these few winter days as best we may; then we'll try to spend the spring in another fashion." This vague language may possibly have referred to the Italian scheme, but on February tenth he received a clear account of what had happened at Vienna, and on the evening of the twelfth Fleury de Chaboulon, a confidential friend of Maret, arrived in the disguise of a sailor, and revealed in the fullest and most authentic way the state of France. When he heard of the plan to reestablish the regency, Napoleon burst out hotly: "A regency! What for? Am I, then, dead?" Two days later, after long conferences, the emissary was despatched to do what he could at Naples, and the Emperor began his preparations.
This was soon known on the mainland, and three days later a personage whose identity has never been revealed arrived in the guise of a Marseilles merchant, declaring that, except the rich and the emigrants, every human being in France longed for the Emperor's return. If he would but set up his hat on the shores of Provence, it would draw all men toward it. When Napoleon turned pseudo-historian he declared in one place that the breaches of the Fontainebleau treaty and his fears of deportation had nothing to do with his return from Elba; in another he states the reverse. Since the legend he was then studiously constructing required the unbroken devotion of the French to the standard-bearer of the Revolution for the sake of consistency, he probably recalled only the feelings awakened by Fleury's report that opportunity was ripe, and that, too, earlier than had been expected. But there were other motives at the time, for Peyrusse, keeper of Napoleon's purse during the Elban sojourn, heard his master asseverate that it would be more dangerous to remain in Porto Ferrajo than to return to France. In any case, so far as France and the world at large were concerned, the contemptuous indifference of Louis and his ministers to their obligations under the treaty powerfully justified Napoleon's course. Even Alexander and Castlereagh had early made an indignant protest to Talleyrand; but the latter, already deep in conspiracy, turned them off with a flippant rejoinder.
With great adroitness and secrecy Napoleon collected and fitted out his little flotilla, which consisted of the Inconstant, a stout brig assigned to him at Fontainebleau, and seven smaller craft. During the preparations the French and English war-vessels patrolling the neighboring waters came and went, but their captains suspected nothing. Campbell's departure created a false rumor among the islanders that England was favoring some expedition on which the Emperor was about to embark, thus allaying all suspicion. When, on the twenty-sixth, a little army of eleven hundred men found itself afloat, with eighty horses and a number of cannon, no one seemed to realize what had happened; except Drouot, who pleaded against Napoleon's rashness, all were enthusiastic. To avoid suspicion, each captain steered his own course, and the various craft dotting the sea at irregular intervals looked no way unlike the other boats which plied those waters. Several men-of-war were sighted, but they kept their course. As one danger after another was averted, the great adventurer's spirits rose until he was exuberant with joy, and talked of Austerlitz. It was March first when land was finally sighted from the Inconstant; as if by magic, the other vessels hove in sight immediately, and by four the men were all ashore on the strand of the Gulf of Jouan. Cambronne, a colonel of the imperial guards, was sent to requisition horses at Cannes, with the strict injunction that not a drop of blood be shed. As the great actor had theatrically said on board his brig, he was "about to produce a great novelty," and he counted upon dazzling the beholders into an enthusiasm they had ceased to feel for the old plays. Among others brought to Napoleon's bivouac that night was the Prince of Monaco, who had been found by Cambronne at St. Pierre traveling in a four-horse carriage, and had been taken as a prisoner into Napoleon's presence. "Where are you going?" was, according to tradition, the greeting of Napoleon. "I am returning to my domains," came the reply. "Indeed! and I too," was the merry retort.
Recalling the mortal agony he had endured on the highway through Aix but a short year before, and its causes, and having been informed how bitter was the anti-royalist feeling in the Dauphine, Napoleon set his little army in march direct toward Grenoble. At Cannes there was general indifference; at Grasse it was found that the division general in command had fled, and there were a few timid shouts of "Long live the Emperor!" Thence to Digne on the Grenoble highway was a mountain track over a ridge twelve thousand feet above the sea. In twenty hours the slender column marched thirty-five miles. The "growlers" joked about the "little corporal" who trudged at their side, the Alpine hamlets provided abundant rations, and the government officials furnished blank passports which enabled Napoleon to send emissaries both to Grenoble and to Marseilles, where Massena was in command. The little garrison of Digne was Bonapartist in feeling, but it was not yet ready to join Napoleon, and withdrew; that at Sisteron was kept from meddling by a body of troops which had been despatched as a corps of observation from Marseilles, while the populace shouted heartily for the Emperor. At Gap the officials strove to organize resistance, but they desisted before the menaces of the people. By this time the peasantry were coming in by hundreds. So far Napoleon's enterprise had received but four recruits: two soldiers from Antibes, a tanner from Grasse, and a gendarme. Now he was so confident that he dismissed the peasantry, assuring them that the soldiers in front would join his standards.
On March seventh the head of the column of imperial adventurers reached La Mure, a short day's march from Grenoble. They were received with enthusiasm, and a bucket of the poor native wine was brought for the refreshment of the men. When all had been served Napoleon reached out for the cheap little glass, and swallowed his ration like the rest. There was wild delight among both his men and the onlookers as the "army" set out for Laffray, the next hamlet, where was a small detachment sent from Grenoble to destroy a bridge over the Drac. With inscrutable faces they stood across the highway, lances set and muskets charged, under orders to fire on Napoleon the moment he should appear. At length the critical moment arrived. "There he is! Fire!" cried a royalist officer. The soldiers clutched their arms, their faces blanched, their knees shook, and they--disobeyed! Napoleon, walking slowly, advanced within pistol-shot. He wore the old familiar gray surtout, the well-known cocked hat, and a tricolor cockade. "Soldiers of the Fifth," he said in a strong, calm voice, "behold me!" Then advancing a few paces farther, he threw open his coat and displaying the familiar uniform, he called: "If there be one soldier among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, he can. I come to offer myself to your assaults." In an instant the opposing ranks melted into a mob of sobbing, cheering men, kissing Napoleon's shoes, struggling to touch the skirts of his shabby garments. The surrounding throng crowded near in sympathy. "Soldiers," cried the magician, "I come with a handful of brave men because I count on you and the people. The throne of the Bourbons is illegitimate because it was not erected by the nation. Your fathers are threatened by a restoration of titles, of privilege, and of feudal rights; is it not so?" "Yes, yes," shouted the multitude. At that instant appeared a rider arrayed in the uniform of the national guard, but wearing a huge tricolor cockade. Alighting at Napoleon's feet, he said: "Sire, I am Jean Dumoulin the glove-maker; I bring to your majesty a hundred thousand francs and my arm." At that instant likewise an imperial proclamation denouncing traitors, and promising that under the old standards victory would return like the storm-wind, was passing from hand to hand in the garrison of Grenoble. Labedoyere, the colonel, of the Seventh of the line, first announced his purpose to support his Emperor, and the royalist officers saw the imperialist feeling spread with dismay. They arranged to evacuate the place next morning. At seven in the evening Napoleon summoned the town; the commandant, unable to resist the pressure of both soldiers and populace, fled with a few adherents, and at ten the gates were opened. The reception of the returning exile was hearty and impressive. It was with an army of seven thousand men that, after a rest of thirty-six hours, he started for Lyons.
"As far as Grenoble I was an adventurer; at Grenoble I was a prince," wrote Napoleon at St. Helena. If this were true, at Lyons he was an Emperor in fact as well as in name, that great city receiving him with plaudits as energetic as were the execrations with which they dismissed Artois and Macdonald. Recalling the lessons of his youth, some learned in Corsica, some in the Rhone valley, the returning Emperor carefully felt the pulse of public opinion as he journeyed. He found the longing for peace to be universal, and even before entering Lyons he began to promise peace with honor. But this he quickly found was not enough: it must be peace with liberty as well. The sole task before him, therefore, he declared to be that of protecting the interests and principles of the Revolution against the returning emigrants. France, restored to her glory, was to live in harmony with other European powers as long as they minded their own affairs. Napoleon, the liberator of France! To terrify foreign invaders and intestine foes a great united nation was to speak in trumpet notes. From Lyons, therefore, second city of the Empire, was summoned a popular assembly to revise the constitution. To convey the impression that Austria was in secret accord with the Emperor's course, three delegates from the eastern capital were summoned to assist at a significant ceremony which was to occur almost immediately, the coronation of the Empress and the King of Rome. Still further, a decree was issued which banished the returned emigrants and swept away the pretensions of the arrogant nobles. Talleyrand, Marmont, Augereau, and Dalberg were attainted, and the noble guard of the King was abolished. Under these influences Bonapartist feeling grew so intense and spread so widely that the army of Soult, which had been assembled in the southeast to oppose Murat, turned imperialist almost to a man. Massena, who seems to have followed the lead of Fouche, waited to see what was coming, and remained neutral. Ney fell in with the general movement, and joined Napoleon at Auxerre. "Embrace me, my dear general," were the Emperor's words of greeting. "I am glad to see you; and I want neither explanations nor justifications."
All resistance disappeared before Napoleon's advance as he passed Autun and descended the Yonne valley toward Paris. Everywhere there were dissensions among the populace, but the enthusiasm of the soldiers and their sympathizers triumphed. The troops despatched by the King's government to overpower the "usurper" sooner or later went over to the "usurper's" standards. One morning a placard was found on the railing around the Vendome column: "Napoleon to Louis XVIII. My good brother, it is useless to send me any more troops; I have enough." Paris was in a storm of suppressed excitement. The measures of resistance were half-hearted; the King made lavish concessions and the chambers passed excellent laws without attracting any attention or sympathy; volunteers were raised, but there was no energy in their organization. When Napoleon reached Fontainebleau on the eighteenth, the reserves stationed in and near Paris on the south came over to him in a body. On the nineteenth Louis issued a despairing address to the army, and fled to Lille; on the morning of the twentieth the capital found itself without any vestige of government. The streets were thronged with people, but there was no disorder until a band of royalists attacked a half-pay officer wearing the imperial cockade. At once the city guard formed and intervened to quell the disturbance. Thereupon the imperialists endeavored to seize the Tuileries; they, too, were checked, and a double force, royalist and imperial, was set to defend that important spot. Over other public buildings the imperial colors waved alone and undisturbed. During the afternoon the crowds dispersed and the imperial officials quietly resumed their places. At nine in the evening a post-chaise rolled up to the Tuileries gate, Napoleon alighted, and the observers thought his smile was like that of one walking in a dream. At once he was caught in the brawny arms of his admirers, and handed upward from step to step, from landing to landing. So fierce was the affection of his friends that his life seemed to be in danger from their embraces, and it was with relief that he entered his cabinet and closed the door, to find himself among a few of his old stanch and tried servants, with Caulaincourt at their head. This reception had been in sharp contrast to the apathy displayed on the streets, where the people were few in number, unenthusiastic, and indifferent. "They let me come," said Napoleon to Mollien, "as they let the other go." Finding himself unable to endure the loneliness of the Tuileries, and depressed by the associations of the familiar scenes, he withdrew in a few days to the comparative seclusion of the Elysee, then a suburban mansion dubbed by courtesy a palace.
Some portion of Napoleon's leisure in Elba had been devoted, as was mentioned in another connection, to sketching the outline of a treatise intended to prove that his dynasty was quite as legitimate as any other which had ruled over France. His illusions of European empire were dismissed either permanently or temporarily, and for the moment he was the apostle of nationality and popular sovereignty in France. Before laying his head on his pillow in the Tuileries he displayed this fact to the world in the constitution of his cabinet, which would in our day be designated as a cabinet of concentration, representative of various shades of opinion. Maret, Davout, Cambaceres, Gaudin, Mollien, Decres, Caulaincourt, Fouche, and Carnot accepted the various portfolios; most surprising of all, Benjamin Constant, the constitutional republican, became president of a reconstructed council of state. In connection with the announcement of these names, the nation was informed that the constitution was to be revised, and that the censorship of the press was abolished. In reference to the latter, Napoleon remarked that, since everything possible had been said about him during the past year, he could himself be no worse off than he was, but the editors could still find much to say about his enemies. To Constant he frankly explained what he meant by revision. The common people had welcomed his return because he was one of themselves, and at a signal he could have the nobles murdered. But he wanted no peasants' war, and, as the taste had returned for unrestricted discussion, public trials, emancipated elections, responsible ministers, and all the paraphernalia of constitutional government, the public must be gratified. For all this he was ready, and with it for peace. But peace he could win only by victory, for, although in his conduct, in the Lyons decrees, and in casual talk, he hinted at negotiations with foreign powers, those negotiations were purely imaginary.
With a clear comprehension of the situation, the ministers went to work. On April twenty-third was promulgated the Additional Act, whereby the franchise was extended, the state church abolished, liberty of worship guaranteed, and every wretched remnant of privilege or divine right expunged. The two chambers were retained, many imperial dignitaries being assigned to the House of Peers, the Bonaparte brothers, Lucien, Joseph, and Jerome, among the number. It was, as Chateaubriand sarcastically said, a revised and improved edition of Louis's constitution. The preamble, however, was new; it set forth that Napoleon, having been long engaged in constructing a great European federal system suited to the spirit of the time and favorable to the spirit of civilization, had now abandoned it, and would henceforth devote himself to a single aim, the perfect security of public liberty. This specious representation, half true and half false, awakened no enthusiasm in France; it was accepted, along with the Additional Act, by a plebiscite, but by only a million three hundred thousand votes--less than half the number cast for the Consulate and the Empire. This was largely due to a curious apathy, induced by a still more curious but firm conviction that at last France had secured peace with honor. Reference has been made to a military conspiracy fomented by Fouche in the North; before the hostile public feeling thus engendered in that quarter Louis fled to Ghent within five days after Napoleon reached Paris, and, though the royal princes were able to carry on civil war in the South a little longer, it was generally felt that the nation now had a ruler of its own choosing, and that if they attended strictly to their own affairs they would be left in peace. For considerable time there was little news from abroad, and so swift was the rush of internal affairs that no heed was given to what there was.
This was suddenly changed in April, when it was brought home to the nation that the specter of war had again been raised, and that the dynasties were finally a unit in their determination to extirpate the Napoleonic regime as a measure of self-defense. Every man with any means saw himself beggared, and every mother felt her son slipping from her arms to swim once more that sea of blood in which for a generation the hope of the nation had been submerged. The depression was general and terrible, for the prospect was appalling. England, entangled with dynastic alliances in order to preserve her prosperity and dignity, had lost most of her serious and trusted leaders, and the few who survived were so panic-stricken as to have little perspicacity. The King's illness having at last removed him from public life, he had been succeeded by the most profligate and frivolous of all the line of English kings, the Prince Regent, who was later George IV. Percival and Liverpool were not merely conservative from principle; they were negative from the love of negatives. Already they had laid the basis, in their mismanagement of domestic affairs, for the social turbulence which within a short time was to compel the most sweeping reforms. Castlereagh had not even an inkling of what the treaty of Chaumont might mean to Great Britain in the end. To destroy Napoleon he was perfectly content that his own free country should support a system of dynastic politics destructive of every principle of liberty.
The Congress of Vienna represented, not a confederation of states, but a league of dynasties posing as nations and banded for mutual self-preservation. To them the permanent restoration of Napoleon could mean only one thing, the recognition of a nation's right to choose its own rulers, and that would be the end of absolutism in Europe. To Great Britain it would mean the destruction of her prosperity, or at least a serious diminution of both power and prestige. The late coalition, therefore, was re-cemented without difficulty, but on a basis entirely new. The account of Napoleon's escape reached Vienna on March sixth. Within the week Maria Louisa, now entirely under Neipperg's influence, wrote declaring herself a stranger to all Napoleon's schemes, and a few days later the French attendants of the little King of Rome were dismissed; the child's last words to Meneval were a message of affection to his father.[17] At that time negotiations among the powers were progressing famously, each having secured its main object; on March thirteenth the Congress, under Castlereagh's instigation, publicly denounced Napoleon as the "enemy and disturber of the world's peace," and proclaimed him an outlaw. The Whigs stigmatized the paper in parliament as provocative of assassination and a disgrace to the English character, but, of all the important journals, the "Morning Chronicle" alone was courageous enough to sustain them, asserting that it was a matter of complete indifference to England whether a Bourbon or a Bonaparte reigned in France. These manly protests were unheeded, and by the twenty-fifth all Europe, except Naples, was united against France alone.
[Footnote 17: See Welschinger: Le roi de Rome, ch. vii.]
XIV. THE DYNASTIES IMPLACABLE[18]
[Footnote 18: References: for this and the following chapters see d'Angeberg: Le congres de Vienne et les traites de 1815, precede et suivi des actes diplomatiques qui s'y rattachent, avec introduction historique par Capefigue; Castlereagh's Correspondence; Capefigue: Le congres de Vienne dans ses rapports avec la circonstance actuelle de l'Europe; Davout: Correspondance, Vol. IV.; de Pradt: Du congres de Vienne; Flassan: Histoire du congres de Vienne; Hardenberg's Memoirs; Humboldt's Memoirs; Villemain: Souvenirs contemporains d'histoire et de litterature; Gerard: Quelques documents sur la bataille de Waterloo; Gourgaud: La campagne de 1815; Grouchy: Observations sur la relation de la campagne de 1815, publ. par le G{en.} Gourgaud, et refutation de quelques-unes des assertions et ecrits relatifs a la bataille de Waterloo.]
The Vienna Coalition -- Its Purpose -- Napoleon as a Liberal -- The Fiasco -- France on the Defensive -- Napoleon's Health -- War Preparations of the Combatants -- Their Respective Forces -- Qualities and Achievements of the French -- The Armies of Bluecher and Wellington -- The French Strategy -- Napoleon's First Misfortune.
[Sidenote: 1815]
The supreme effort of the dynasties to outlaw Napoleon, and restore France to the Bourbons, was made by what was nominally an alliance of eight members--Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, France, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. The last was, however, absorbed in her struggle with Norway, and, though Spain and Portugal were signatories, the real strength of the coalition arranged at Vienna lay in a virtual renewal of the treaty of Chaumont: Austria, Prussia, and Russia were each to put a hundred and eighty thousand men in the field, and Great Britain was to continue her subsidies.
On April fourth, the sovereigns of Europe were notified that the Empire meant peace; they retorted by the mobilization of their forces, and by denouncing in a joint protocol the treaty of Paris. In his extremity Napoleon appealed to Talleyrand, but that minister knew too well the temper of the Congress at Vienna, and refused to cooeperate. The versatile Fouche thereupon initiated a new plot, this time against Napoleon, and sounded Metternich; but Metternich was dumb. The other diplomats asseverated that they did not wish to interfere with the domestic affairs of France; but they prevaricated, intending nothing less than the complete restoration of the Bourbons.
Under the shadow of this storm-cloud Napoleon regulated his domestic affairs of state with intrepid calmness. He had no easy task. It was the revived hatred of the masses for priests and nobles to which he had appealed on his progress from Grenoble, and, observing the wild outbursts of the populace at Lyons, he had whispered, "This is madness." It was with studied deliberation, therefore, that in Paris he cast himself completely upon the moderate liberals. This alienated the Jacobin elements throughout the country, and they, in turn, stirred up the royalists. When it became clear that neither Maria Louisa nor the King of Rome was to be crowned, and that there was no help in Austria, even the imperialists displayed a dangerous temper. Such was the general uneasiness about war that the first measures of army reorganization were taken almost stealthily. It was easy enough to establish the skeleton of formation, and not very difficult to find trustworthy officers, commissioned and non-commissioned; but to summon recruits was to announce the coming war. Of the three hundred thousand veterans now returned home, less than one fifth responded to the call for volunteers; the Emperor had reckoned on four fifths at least. The National Guard was so surly that many felt it would be bravado for Napoleon to review them. But he was determined to do so, and on April sixteenth the hazardous ceremony took place. Until at least half the companies had been reviewed not a cheer was heard; then there were a few scattering shouts here and there in the ranks; finally there was some genuine enthusiasm.
By the middle of May the national deputies summoned at Lyons began to arrive. They were to meet, after the fashion of Charles the Great's assemblies, in the open field. Their task was to be the making of a new constitution. It was not reassuring news that they brought from their various homes, and their accounts disturbed public opinion in Paris sadly. Before long it was known that civil war had again broken out in Vendee; the consequences would have been most disastrous had not La Rochejacquelein, the insurgent leader, been killed on June fourth. As it was, the ignoble slaughter of one of their order intensified the bitterness of the nobles. Worse still, it had been found that of the six hundred and twenty-nine deputies five hundred were ardent constitutionalists indifferent to Napoleon, and that only fifty were his devoted personal friends; there were even between thirty and forty who were Jacobins, and at Fouche's command. Under these circumstances the Emperor dared not hold the promised national congress. What could be substituted for it? The great dramatic artist was not long at a loss. He determined to summon the electoral deputies to a gorgeous open-air ceremony on June first, and have them stamp with their approval the Additional Act. A truly impressive spectacle would pass muster for the promised "field of May," and profoundly affect the minds of all present. But, unfortunately, though Segur made the plan, and though every detail was carefully studied by Napoleon, the affair was not impressive. About eighteen thousand persons assembled on the benches, and there was a vast crowd in the field. The cannon roared their welcome, and the people cheered the imperial carriage, the marshals, the body-guard, and the procession. But when Napoleon and his brothers stepped forth, clad like actors in theatrical costumes of white velvet, wearing Spanish cloaks embroidered with the imperial device of golden bees, and with great plumed hats on their heads, there was a hush of disappointment. The populace had expected a soldier in a soldier's uniform; many had felt sure "he" would wear that of the National Guard.
There was, however, no sign of disrespect while the ministers and the reconstituted corps of marshals filed to their places. Among the latter were familiar faces--Ney, Moncey, Kellermann, Serurier, Lefebvre, Grouchy, Oudinot, Jourdan, Soult, and Massena. A committee of the deputies then stood forth, and their chairman read an address declaring that France desired a ruler of her own selection, and promising loyalty in the coming war. Napoleon arose, and in spite of his absurd clothes commanded attention while he set forth his reasons for offering a ready-made constitution instead of risking interminable debate. Although he declared that what was offered could, of course, be amended, there was no applause, except from a few soldiers. When the chambers met, a week later, Lanjuinais, one of Napoleon's lifelong opponents, was chosen president of the House of Deputies. The speech from the throne was clever and conciliatory, and in spite of evident distrust both houses promised all the strength of France for defense--but for defense only. The peers declared that under her new institutions France could never be swept away by the temptations of victory; the deputies asserted that nothing could carry the nation beyond the bounds of its own defense, not even the will of a victorious prince.
The anxieties and exertions of two months were manifest in Napoleon's appearance. His features, though impressive, were drawn, and his long jaw grew prominent. He lost flesh everywhere except around the waist, so that his belly, hitherto inconspicuous, looked almost pendulous. When standing, he folded his hands sometimes in front, sometimes behind, but separated them frequently to take snuff or rub his nose. Sometimes he heaved a mechanical sigh, swallowing as if to calm inward agitation. Often he scowled, and looked out through half-closed lids as if growing far-sighted; the twitching of his eye and ear on the left side grew more frequent. With thickening difficulties and increasing annoyance, serious urinary and stomach troubles set in; there was also a persistent hacking cough. Recourse was again had to protracted warm baths in order to alleviate the accompanying nervousness; but as the ailments were refractory, a mystery soon attached to the malady, and his enemies said it was a loathsome disease. In spite of the statements both of the Prussian commissioner at Fontainebleau, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, and of Sir Hudson Lowe, it is highly improbable that Napoleon's health was undermined by sexual infection. He was surrounded all his life by malignant attendants, and among the sweepings of their minds, which in recent years have been scattered before the public, there would be some proof of the fact. In the utter absence of any reliable information, some have guessed that the trouble was the preliminary stage in the disease of which he died; and others, again, in view of his quick changes of mood, his depressions, exaltations, sharpened sensibilities, and abrupt rudeness, have explained all his peculiarities in disease and health by attributing them to a recondite form of epilepsy. Exhausted and nervous, the sufferer might well, as was the case, be found in tears before the portrait of his son; he might well lift up his voice, as he was heard to do, against the destiny which had played him false. But he was quite shrewd enough to see that during his absence no regency could be trusted, and he arranged to conduct affairs by special messengers. Joseph was to preside and give the casting-vote in the council of state; to Lucien was given a seat in the same body; but the supreme power rested in Napoleon.
When Wellington replaced Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna, it was quickly apparent that he was greater in the field than at the council-board. Both he and Bluecher desired to assume the offensive quickly; but inasmuch as Alexander was determined to retain his ascendancy in the coalition, and as each power insisted on its due share in the struggle, it was arranged to begin hostilities on June twenty-seventh, the earliest date at which the Russian troops could reach the confines of France. There were to be three armies. Schwarzenberg, with two hundred and fifty thousand men, comprising the Austrian, Russian, and Bavarian contingents, was to attack across the upper Rhine; Bluecher, with one hundred and fifty thousand Prussians, was to advance across the lower Rhine; and Wellington in the Netherlands was to collect an army of one hundred and fifty thousand, compounded of Dutch, Belgians, Hanoverians, and some thirty-eight thousand British, who could be there assembled. The two latter armies were in existence by the first of June, but Wellington was dissatisfied with the quality of his motley force; even the English contingent was not the best possible, for his Peninsular veterans had been sent to find their match in Jackson's riflemen at the battle of New Orleans.
On the eve of hostilities Napoleon had one hundred and twenty-four thousand effective men, and three thousand five hundred more in his camp train; Wellington had one hundred and six thousand, but of these four thousand Hanoverians were left in garrison; Bluecher had about one hundred and seventeen thousand. Neither of the two allied generals dreamed that Napoleon would choose the daring form of attack upon which he decided--that of a wedge driven into the broken line nearly a hundred miles in length upon which his enemy lay--for to do so he must pass the Ardennes. But he did choose it, and selected for the purpose the valleys of the Sambre and the Meuse. Allowing for the differences in topography, the idea was identical with that which, nineteen years before, he had executed splendidly in Piedmont and repeated in Germany. The twin enemy seemed unaware that its long and straggling line must, in case of activity, either be broken to maintain the respective bases or else abandon one base for concentration and be cut off from supplies. Wellington's base was westward at Antwerp, Bluecher's eastward through Liege toward the Rhine. Vacillation would ensue, Napoleon felt, on a central attack, and in that vacillation he intended to repeat with Bluecher what he had done with Brunswick at Jena.
The opening of the campaign was sufficiently auspicious. By a superb march during the night of June thirteenth, Napoleon's army had gained a most advantageous position. The first corps under d'Erlon was at Solre on the Sambre, the second under Reille was at Leers. The guard, the sixth corps under Lobau, the line cavalry and the third corps under Vandamme, stood in that order on a line northeasterly from Beaumont, and due east of that place were four cavalry corps; the fourth corps under the young and dashing Gerard had marched from Metz and were at Philippeville; to the south lay the guard cavalry and the reserve artillery under Grouchy. In front was Charleroi, whence a broad turnpike led almost direct to Brussels, thirty-four miles due north; another turned eastward toward Liege. Thirteen miles distant on this was Sombreffe; somewhat farther on that, Quatre Bras, both on the highway running east and west between Namur and Nivelles. To have accomplished such marches as it did, the French army must have been fine; to have secured such a brilliant strategic position its general must have been almost inspired. He commanded the operating lines of both Wellington and Bluecher, while they were far distant from each other, separated by serious obstacles, both alike instinct with centrifugal rather than centripetal tendency. The same high qualities which shone in their general distinguished the subordinate French commanders. Though many of the famous names are absent from the list,--Mortier, for instance, having fallen ill on the frontier,--yet Soult was present as chief of staff, and Ney was coming up to take command of the left wing. Reille, d'Erlon, and Foy were veterans of the Peninsular war; what twenty-two years of service had done for the "wild Hun," Vandamme, is known. Kellermann was made famous by Marengo, Lobau was noted for daring, Gerard had earned distinction in Russia, and though Grouchy's merit has been the theme of much discussion, yet he had been famous under Jourdan and Moreau, and nothing had occurred in the long interval to tarnish his reputation.
Nearly half of Bluecher's troops were irregular reserves, and many of the regulars were recruits, but all were thoroughly drilled and well equipped. The passion of hatred which animated them was comparable only to the "French fury" with which Napoleon's army would fight for national existence. Such was the reverence for routine among the Prussian officers, and so bitter were the jealousies of the petty aristocracy from which they sprang, that the King dared not promote on any basis except that of seniority. In order to make Gneisenau second in command, York, Kleist, and Tauenzien were stationed elsewhere, and Buelow was put in command of a reserve to hold Belgium when Bluecher should advance to Paris. The aged but fiery marshal had not mended his health by the self-indulgence of a year; the three division generals, Ziethen, Pirch, and Thielemann were capable men of local renown. Gneisenau and Buelow were the only first-rate men among the Prussian commanders, but for rousing enthusiasm Bluecher's name was a word to conjure with. Wellington was felt by his officers and soldiers to be a man of real power; his British recruits were well drilled, and his veterans were good. His associate generals were no more famous than those of Gneisenau, but they were, for the most part, English gentlemen with a high sense of duty and much executive ability. One of his corps was commanded by the Prince of Orange, a respectable soldier, whose name, however, was more valuable than the experience he had gained in the Peninsula as aide-de-camp; the other corps was under Lord Hill, an admirable subordinate and an excellent commander. The only English general whose name is a familiar one abroad was Picton, who died on the field. As to the quality of the respective armies, it has become the fashion of each nation to decry that of its own and overrate that of the other two. Thus they condone their own blunders, and yet heighten the renown of victory. Napoleon was superior in organization, in cavalry, and in artillery to either Wellington or Bluecher, but he was inferior to both in infantry. He was in wretched health, and he had a desperate cause. Taking fully into account his consummate ability and personal prestige, it yet remains true that the odds against him were high, certainly eight to five.
Ziethen's posts before Charleroi saw the French camp-fires in the early hours of June fourteenth; that evening they began to withdraw toward Fleurus, whither the remainder of the Prussian army was gradually set in motion. It seems incredible that this should have been the first move of the allies toward concentrating their widely scattered forces, for neither Wellington nor Bluecher was completely surprised. Both commanders had for two days been aware, in a general way, of Napoleon's movements, but they were awaiting developments. It was Wellington's opinion, carefully set forth in his old age, that it would have been better strategy for the French to advance so as to turn his right, seize his munitions, and cut off his base; but as this would have rolled up the entire allied force, ready to deliver battle with odds of two to one, the statement may perhaps be accepted as an explanation, but certainly not as a justification.
In the dawn of the fifteenth a ringing, rousing proclamation, like those of the olden time, and written the day before on the anniversary of Marengo, was read to the French soldiers. It was in high spirits that the army, in three columns, began to march. The left, under Reille, dislodged the Prussian outposts from Thuin, and, forcing them back through Marchiennes, seized the bridge at that place, and crossed to the left bank of the Sambre. The movement was complete by ten in the morning. The center under Napoleon comprised the mass of the army: Pajol, Vandamme, Lobau, the Guard, Exelmans, Kellermann, and Milhaud. Soult despatched his orders by a solitary aide, who broke his leg by a fall from his horse, and failed to deliver them. Though at equally critical moments before both Eylau and Wagram, Berthier had done as Soult did, with identical results, yet the latter was justly and severely blamed. Had Vandamme been found, the movements of the center would have been greatly accelerated, the speedy capture of Charleroi would have enabled the third corps to reach Fleurus in time to intercept Ziethen, and thus the whole course of events would have been changed. The marshal's ill success was, therefore, as Napoleon called it, a "deplorable mischance," and it was high noon before Pajol, with the van, reached Charleroi and, after a smart engagement, drove out the Prussians. The right wing, under Gerard, was in motion at five in the morning, but it also was detained by a serious disaster. Shortly after starting it was found that Bourmont, the commander of its best division, a man who had been Chouan, imperialist, and royalist by turns, had deserted with his chief of staff and eight soldiers. Having been at the council of war, he had the latest information of Napoleon's secret plans, and his treason demoralized the troops he so basely abandoned. It was long before confidence could be restored; the crossing at Charleroi had been delayed too long, and it was nightfall when Gerard at last reached Chatelet, four miles below, secured the bridge, and crossed with only half his men. The campaign opened, if not in disaster, at least with only partial success.
XV. LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS[19]
[Footnote 19: The most important works dealing with the military side of the Waterloo campaign are those of Mueffling, Berton, Gourgaud, Clausewitz, Siborne, Charras, Chesney, Hooper, Maurice, Mercer, Morris, Jomini, Ollech, Vaudoncourt, Ropes, and Houssaye. Further, there are controversial discussions of importance by Grouchy, Gerard, Heymes, Knoop, Loben-Sels, and Bornstedt. The most complete bibliography is, as usual, that of Kircheisen.]
Napoleon's Orders -- Ney's Failure to Seize Quatre Bras -- Wellington Surprised -- Napoleon's Fine Strategy -- The Meeting at Ligny -- Bluecher's Defeat -- The Hostile Forces at Quatre Bras -- Wellington Withdraws -- Napoleon's Over-confidence -- His Instructions to Grouchy -- His Advance from Quatre Bras.
For four hours after his arrival at Charleroi, Napoleon, uneasy as to the whereabouts of his detachments, stood in idleness waiting for news. During this interval the first Prussian corps under Ziethen, retreating from Charleroi, reached Fleurus unmolested, all except a small body, which gathered at Gosselies, on the Brussels road, but was easily dispersed by Reille. It seemed as if the road to Quatre Bras was open, and when, at half-past four, Ney appeared, he was put in command of the left, with verbal instructions, as Napoleon asserted some years later, to seize that strategic point. Within these limits he was to act independently. If Quatre Bras were surprised and held, the second move could be attempted: the seizure of Sombreffe. Since the highway between the two was the only line by which the allied armies could quickly unite, the possibility of attacking them separately would be assured even if the successive attacks should follow each other so closely as to be substantially one battle. Either Ney misunderstood, or Napoleon recorded what he intended to say, not what he actually said. Colonel Heymes, Ney's chief of staff, declared that the Emperor's final words were, "Go, and drive back the enemy"; the Emperor asserted that his orders to go and hold Quatre Bras were positive.
It is also a matter of dispute whether or not Napoleon had hoped, after seizing the bridges and crossing the Sambre, to complete his movement by surprising both Quatre Bras and Sombreffe on that same day, the fifteenth. Had he done so, Bluecher might possibly have withdrawn to effect a junction with Wellington for the decisive conflict, and thus have thwarted Napoleon's strategy; but it is not likely, for that move, as finally executed, was the work not of Bluecher but of Gneisenau; at this stage of the campaign the Prussians would probably have retreated toward Namur. Whatever may have been Napoleon's intention, Ney hurried to Gosselies, stationed Reille to hold the place, and then, despatching one division to pursue the Prussians, and another, with Pire's cavalry, toward Quatre Bras, put himself at the head of the cavalry of the guard to help in seizing this latter important point. But at seven his force, to their astonishment, was confronted by a strong body of Nassauers from Wellington's army, who, having passed Quatre Bras, had seized Frasnes, a village two and a half miles in advance. These made no stand, but Ney, instead of proceeding immediately to attack Quatre Bras itself, left his men to hold the position at Frasnes, and hurried away to consult his superior. For this he had excellent reasons: his staff was not yet organized, and d'Erlon's corps was not within call; he was therefore too weak for the movement contemplated by his orders. At the same moment Napoleon, who had been in the saddle since three in the morning, and who had become convinced that the retreating Prussians would not halt at Fleurus, but would rejoin their main army, turned back to Charleroi, and, on reaching his quarters an hour later, flung himself in utter exhaustion upon his couch. In fact, he was in exquisite torture from the complication of urinary, hemorrhoidal, and other troubles which his long day's ride had aggravated, and, as he declared at St. Helena,--probably the truth,--he had lost his assurance of final success. The day had been fairly successful, but at what a cost of energy! No one, he least of all, could feel that there had been any buoyancy in the movements or favoring fate in the combinations of his armies.
Throughout the day Bluecher had displayed a fiery zeal. Since early in May he had had no serious consultation with Wellington, and in a general conversation held at that time there had been merely a vague understanding as to a union at some point south of Sombreffe. That town was accordingly selected by him for concentration, and in general his orders had been well executed. Why the bridges of Marchiennes and Chatelet were not undermined and blown up by the Prussians has never been explained. Moreover, the language of Gneisenau's orders to Buelow being vague, the latter misinterpreted it, and his much-needed force was not brought in, as expected. Wellington's conduct is a riddle. He displayed little anxiety and found time for social enjoyment as well as for the activities of military command in a supreme crisis. About the middle of the afternoon he was informed, through the Prince of Orange, as to his enemy's movements. With perfect calm, he commanded that his troops should be ready in their cantonments; at five he issued orders for the divisions to march with a view to concentration at Nivelles, the easternmost point which he intended to occupy; at ten, just as he was setting out for the noted ball which the Duchess of Richmond was giving on the eve of decision, he gave definite instructions for the concentration to begin. These were his very first steps toward concentration, although twenty-seven years later he made the assertion, supported only by his despatch to Bathurst of the nineteenth, that he had ordered the Anglo-allied army to concentrate to the left, as Bluecher had ordered the Prussians to concentrate to the right. As a matter of fact, he was twenty-four hours behind Bluecher in ordering his first defensive movements. This is not excused by the fact that his movement of concentration was completed somewhat earlier than Bluecher's. About twenty minutes after the Prince of Orange had reached the ball-room, Wellington sent him away quietly, and then, summoning the Duke of Richmond, who, it is doubtfully said, was to have command of the reserve when completely formed, he asked for a map. The two withdrew to an adjoining room. Wellington closed the door, and said, with an oath, "Napoleon has humbugged me." He then explained that he had ordered his army to concentrate at Quatre Bras, adding, "But we shall not stop him there; and if so, I must fight him here," marking Waterloo with his thumb-nail on the map as he spoke. It was not until the next morning that he left for the front. Though Napoleon, on the evening of the fifteenth, had neither Quatre Bras nor Sombreffe, he held all the debatable ground; and if, next morning, he could seize the two towns simultaneously, the first move in his great game would be won. It seems as if he must risk everything to that end.
What passed between Napoleon and Ney from midnight until two in the morning is unknown. There is no evidence that the Emperor expressed serious dissatisfaction, although he may have been exasperated. He was not exactly in a position to give vent to his feelings. Whatever was the nature of their conversation, Ney was again at his post long before dawn, and not a soldier moved from Charleroi until nearly noon! It seems that Napoleon, or Ney, or both, must have been stubbornly convinced that Wellington could not concentrate within twenty-four hours. That Napoleon was not incapacitated by prostration is proved by his acts: about five he sent a preliminary order to Ney; very early, also, he took measures to complete Gerard's crossing at Chatelet; and then, having considered at length the alternatives of pushing straight on to Brussels or of taking the course he did, he had reached a decision as early as seven o'clock. It seems almost certain that he delayed chiefly to get his troops well in hand, partly to give them a much-needed rest. They had been seventeen hours afoot the previous day. Toward nine, believing that more of Ney's command was assembled than was yet the case, he sent a fretful order commanding the marshal to seize Quatre Bras, and stating that a semi-independent command, under Grouchy, would stand at Sombreffe, while he himself would hold Gembloux. This done, he settled into apparent lethargy. To Grouchy he wrote that he intended to attack the enemy at Sombreffe, and "even at Gembloux," and then to operate immediately with Ney "against the English." His scheme was able, for if at either salient angle, Quatre Bras or Sombreffe, his presence should be necessary, he could, at need, quickly join either Ney or Grouchy; but his senses must have been dulled. When informed that the enemy was at Fleurus in force, he hesitated long before resolving to move, being crippled by the inability of his left to move on Quatre Bras and behaving as if sure that the soldiers before him were only a single corps of Bluecher's army, which he could sweep away at his convenience. Meanwhile Vandamme had advanced. The Prussians withdrew from Fleurus, and deployed at the foot of the hillock on which the village of Ligny stands. When, about midday, Napoleon arrived at Fleurus, he had to experience the unpleasant surprise of finding a strong force ready to oppose him. Eighty-seven thousand men, all Bluecher's army, except Buelow's corps and a portion of Ziethen's which had been dispersed by the right wing and cavalry of the French near Gilly, were drawn up in battle array to oppose him. This was a loss to the foe of possibly two thousand men, a serious weakening at a fateful moment. But the Emperor was not yet ready to meet them, much as he had desired just such a contingency. He was not aware of the full strength of his enemy, but he was not sure of annihilating even those he believed to be in presence, for he had left ten thousand men at Charleroi, under Lobau, as a reserve, and the troops most available for strengthening his line were moving toward Quatre Bras.
By the independent action of their own generals a substantial force of several thousand Dutch-Belgians, virtually the whole of Perponcher's division, was concentrated at Quatre Bras early that same morning. To be sure, Wellington had simultaneously determined on the same step, but it was taken long before his orders arrived. Indeed, he seems to have reached Quatre Bras before his orderly. Scarcely halting, he rapidly surveyed the situation and, leaving the troops in command of the Prince of Orange, rode away to visit Bluecher. The two commanders met at about one o'clock in the windmill of Bry. They parted in the firm conviction that the mass of the French army was at Ligny, and with the verbal understanding that Wellington, if not himself attacked, would come to Bluecher's support. On leaving, the English commander sharply criticized the tactical disposition of his ally's army; but Bluecher, with the fixed idea that, in any case, the duke was coming to his aid, determined to stand as he was. With similar obstinacy, Napoleon, still certain that what he had before him, although a great force, was only a screen for the retreat of the main army of the allies, now despatched an order (the second) for Ney to combine Reille, d'Erlon, and Kellermann in order to destroy whatever force was in opposition at Quatre Bras. This was at two. The French attack was opened at half-past two by Gerard and Vandamme; the resistance was such as to leave no doubt of the real Prussian strength. This being clear, Napoleon immediately wrote two despatches of the same tenor--one he sent to Ney by an aide, and one to d'Erlon by a subofficer of the guard.[20] The former (the third for the same destination) urged Ney to come for the sake of France; the other summoned d'Erlon from Ney's command to the Emperor's own immediate assistance: "You will save France, and cover yourself with glory," were its closing words. This last order, the original of which has but lately been revealed, came nigh to ruining the whole day's work. Before Wellington could return to Quatre Bras, Ney's force was engaged with the Prince of Orange, and before three o'clock a fierce conflict was raging at that place. D'Erlon appears to have been in a frightful quandary as to his duty. He marched away toward St. Amand and in his dilemma detached his best division, that of Durutte, toward Bry. Neither superior nor subordinate did anything to the purpose. Ney was without the support of an entire corps and did not therefore literally obey his orders. Napoleon was unassisted by the wandering force and even confused by their unexpected appearance at a critical moment. They were mistaken at Ligny for enemies; d'Erlon's vacillation had so detained them.
[Footnote 20: For the text of the order to d'Erlon and a full discussion of the whole subject, see Houssaye, 1815, p. 201.]
Bluecher, who was determined to fight, come what would, had held in as long as his impatient temper permitted; but when no reinforcement from Wellington appeared, he first fumed, and then about six gave his fatal orders to prepare for the offensive. The nature of the ground was such as necessarily to weaken his center by the initial movements. Napoleon marked this at once, and summoned his guard in order to break through. For a moment the Emperor hesitated; a mysterious force had appeared on the left; perhaps they were foes. But when once assured that they were d'Erlon's men, he waited not an instant longer; at eight the crash came, and the Prussian line was shattered. Retreat was turned into a momentary rout so quickly that Bluecher could not even exchange his wounded horse for another, and in the first mad rush he was so stunned and overwhelmed that his staff gave him up for lost. The few moments before he was found were the most precious for the allies of the whole campaign, since Gneisenau directed the flight northward on the line to Wavre, a route parallel with that on which Wellington, whatever his success, must now necessarily withdraw. This move, which abandoned the line to Namur, is Gneisenau's title to fame.[21] The lines were quickly formed to carry it out, and the rest of the retrograde march went on with great steadiness. Napoleon did not wait until d'Erlon arrived and thereupon order an immediate, annihilating pursuit, but came to the conclusion that the Prussians were sufficiently disorganized, and would seek to reorganize on the old line to the eastward. They were thus, he thought, completely and finally cut off from Wellington. It was not until early next morning that he despatched Pajol, with his single cavalry corps, to follow the foe, for he was confirmed in his fatal conjecture by the false report of five thousand Prussians having been seen on the Namur road, and exerting themselves to hold it. The Prussians seen were merely a horde of stragglers. The truth was not known until next day.
[Footnote 21: Long regarded as a more or less haphazard decision, it has been established at last that the officers of the Prussian general staff were able by the light of a horn lantern so to exhibit their maps, explain their study of the ground, and develop the necessary strategy as to determine with considerable accuracy where they were and what the scientific move should be. When this was duly set forth in the history of the general staff, the exultation of the Emperor William II was expressed in his public speeches, and the Germans of the empire were convinced that by this decision the result of the Waterloo campaign was determined.]
Almost simultaneously with the battle of Ligny was fought that of Quatre Bras. At eleven Ney received orders outlining a general plan for the day; about half an hour later came the specific command to unite the forces of d'Erlon, Reille, and Kellermann, and carry Quatre Bras; at five arrived in hot haste the messenger with the third order. At two o'clock there were not quite seven thousand Anglo-Belgians in Quatre Bras, but, successive bodies arriving in swift succession, by half-past six o'clock there were over thirty thousand. At two Ney had seventeen thousand men, and though he sought to recall d'Erlon, yet, owing to the withdrawal of Durutte, and to d'Erlon's indecision, he had at half-past six not more than twenty thousand. Not one of d'Erlon's men had reached him: Girard's division of Reille's corps was with Vandamme before St. Amand. Gerard's corps had been kept at Ligny. Had he advanced on the position the previous evening, or had he attacked between eleven and two on the sixteenth, the event of the campaign might have been different from what it was. But if he really believed, as Heymes afterward asseverated was the case, that his orders were merely to push and hold the enemy, then his conduct throughout was gallant and correct.[22] The weight of evidence favors the claim of Napoleon that the marshal was perverse in his refusal to take Quatre Bras according to verbal orders. Whatever the truth, the behavior of Ney's men was admirable when they did advance, but they were forced back to Frasnes before superior numbers.
[Footnote 22: Ropes: The Campaign of Waterloo, p. 191.]
Next morning Wellington was conversing with Colonel Bowles when a staff officer drew up, his horse flecked with foam, and whispered the news of Ligny. Without a change of countenance, the commander said to his companion: "Old Bluecher has had a ---- good licking, and gone back to Wavre, eighteen miles. As he has gone back, we must go, too. I suppose in England they will say we have been licked. I can't help it; as they have gone back, we must go, too." Accordingly, he issued his orders, and his army began to march at ten. On the whole, therefore, the events of June sixteenth seemed favorable to Napoleon, since, fighting at two points with inferior numbers, he had been victorious at one, and had thereby secured the other also. We, of course, know that by Gneisenau's move this apparent success was rendered nugatory. It is useless to surmise what would have happened had Buelow been with Bluecher, and d'Erlon and Lobau with Napoleon, or if either of these possibilities had happened without the other; as it was, Napoleon's strategy gained both Quatre Bras and Sombreffe.
The Prussians had lost twenty thousand men, missing, wounded, and dead, and it required vigorous treatment to restore Bluecher. But all night the army marched, and in the morning Buelow, having found his direction, was near Beauderet and Sauvinieres, within easy reach at Gembloux. The retreat continued throughout the seventeenth. It was a move of the greatest daring, since the line was over a broken country almost destitute of roads, and, the old base of supplies having been abandoned, the men had to starve until Gneisenau could secure another by way of Louvain. The army bore its hardships well; there was no straggling or demoralization, and the splendor of success makes doubly brilliant the move which confounded Napoleon's plans. Never dreaming at first that his foe had withdrawn elsewhere than along his natural line of supply toward Liege, the Emperor considered the separation of the two allies as complete, and after carefully deliberating throughout the long interval he allowed for collecting his troops and giving them a thorough rest, he determined to wheel, join Ney, and attack Wellington, wherever found. It was serious and inexplicable slackness which he showed in not taking effective measures to determine immediately where his defeated enemy was. Being, nevertheless, well aware of the Prussian resources and character, he made up his mind to detail Grouchy, with thirty-three thousand men, for the purpose of scouring the country toward Liege at least as far as Namur. Then, to provide for what he considered a possible contingency,--namely, that which had actually occurred,--this adjunct army was to turn north, and hasten to Gembloux, in order to assure absolutely the isolation of Wellington; in any and every case the general was to keep his communications with Napoleon open.
It was eight in the morning of the seventeenth when Napoleon issued from his quarters at Fleurus. Flahaut was waiting for the reply to an inquiry which he had just brought from Ney concerning the details of Ligny. The Emperor at once dictated a despatch, the most famous in the controversial literature of Waterloo, in which his own achievements were told and Ney was blamed for the disconnected action of his subordinates the previous day; in particular the marshal was instructed to take position at Quatre Bras, "as you were ordered," and d'Erlon was criticized for his failure to move on St. Amand. The wording of the hastily scribbled order to the latter he had probably forgotten; it was: "Portez-vous ... a la hauteur de Ligny, et fondez sur St. Amand--ou vice versa; c'est ce que je ne sais bien." ("Betake yourself ... to the heights of Ligny, pounce on St. Amand--or the reverse; I am not quite sure which.") Further, the Emperor now declared that, had Ney kept d'Erlon and Reille together, not an Englishman would have escaped, and that, had d'Erlon obeyed his orders, the Prussian army would have been destroyed. In case it were still impossible to seize Quatre Bras with the force at hand, Napoleon would himself move thither. Then, entering a carriage, he drove to Ligny; Lobau was ordered at once to Marbais, on the road to Quatre Bras. After haranguing the troops and prisoners, Napoleon was informed, about noon, that Wellington was still in position. At once a second order was sent, commanding Ney to attack; the Emperor, it ran, was already under way to Marbais. This was not quite true, for while he was giving detailed instructions to Grouchy before parting, that general had seemed uneasy, and had finally pleaded that it would be impossible further to disorganize the Prussians, since they had so long a start. These scruples were peremptorily put down, and the chief parted amicably from his subordinate, but with a sense of uneasiness, lest he had left nice and difficult work in unwilling hands. Scouts soon overtook him, and expressed doubt as to the Prussians having gone to Namur. In case they had not, Grouchy must act cautiously. Accordingly, positive instructions were then dictated to Bertrand, and sent to Grouchy, whose movements were now doubly important. The latter general was to reconnoiter toward Namur, but march direct to Gembloux; his chief task was to discover whether Bluecher was seeking to join Wellington or not. For the rest, he was free to act on his own discretion.
Napoleon then entered his carriage, and drove to Quatre Bras. Mounting his horse, he led the pursuit of the English rear. Indignant that Ney had lost the opportunity to overwhelm at least a portion of Wellington's force, he exclaimed to d'Erlon, "They have ruined France!" But he said nothing to Ney himself. So active and energetic was the Emperor that he actually exposed himself to the artillery fire with which the English gunners sought to retard the pursuit. It was not an easy matter for Grouchy to carry out his instructions; at two o'clock began a steady downpour, which lasted well into the next morning; the roads to Gembloux were lanes, and the rain turned them into sticky mud. Not until that night was Grouchy's command assembled at Gembloux; it was ten o'clock before the leader gained an inkling of where the Prussians were, and then, though uncertain as to their exact movements, he immediately despatched a letter, received by Napoleon at two in the morning. The marshal explained that he would pursue as far as Wavre, so as to cut off Bluecher from Brussels, and to separate him from Wellington. Some hours later, about seven in the morning, when finally convinced that the Prussians were retiring on Wavre, Grouchy set his columns in motion in a straight line toward that place by Sart-a-Walhain, choosing, with very poor judgment, to advance by the right bank of the Dyle, and thus jeopardizing the precious connections he had been repeatedly and urgently instructed to keep open.
XVI. THE EVE OF WATERLOO[23]
[Footnote 23: References for this and the following two chapters: Houssaye: 1815, Waterloo; Ussher: Napoleon's last voyage; Ropes: Waterloo; Bustelli: L'Enigma di Ligny e di Waterloo; York: Napoleon als Feldherr; Gardner: Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo; Gourgaud: La Campagne de 1815; Siborne: History of the War in France and Belgium, 1815; Cotton, A Voice from Waterloo; Loben-Sels: Precis de la campagne 1815 dans les Pays-Bas.]
Wellington's Choice of Position -- State of the Two Armies -- The Orders of Napoleon to Grouchy -- Grouchy's Interpretation of Them -- Napoleon Surprised by the Prussian Movements -- His Inactivity -- The Battle-field -- Wellington's Position -- Napoleon's Battle Array -- His Personal Health -- His Plan.
On the night of June seventeenth Wellington's army reached the heights at Mont St. Jean, on the northern edge of what was destined to be the most talked of battle-field in modern times. His retreat, masked by a strong body of cavalry, with some horse-artillery and a single infantry division, had been slow and regular, being retarded somewhat by the heavy rain. Ney had held his position at Frasnes, well aware that what was before him was far more than a rear-guard--in fact, owing to the arrival of strong reinforcements during the night, it was the larger portion of the Anglo-Belgian army. But the instant the French marshal was informed of his enemy's retrograde movements he threw forward a strong force of cavalry to cooeperate with Napoleon. When reunited, the French army numbered seventy-one thousand five hundred men, with two hundred and forty guns, excluding of course, the whole of Gerard's corps, which had been left at Ligny to cooeperate with Grouchy. That Wellington was far on his way to the defensive position chosen by himself was probably in accord with Napoleon's calculations; his only fear was lest his foe should have withdrawn behind the forest of Soignes, where free communication with Bluecher and the junction of the two allied armies would be assured, as would not be the case at Mont St. Jean.
This anxiety was set at rest by a cavalry reconnaissance, and at dusk the French van bivouacked at Belle Alliance, separated by a broad, shallow vale from their foe. The rest of the army followed with great difficulty, some by the road; some through plowed or swampy fields, wading the swollen tributaries of the Dyle, and floundering through the meadows on their banks. The army of Wellington had seized, in passing, what provisions and forage they found, and they had camp-fires to comfort them in the steady rain. The French had scanty or no rations, and lay throughout the night in the grain-fields, without fire or shelter. All told, Wellington had sixty-eight thousand men; ten miles on his right, at Hal, lay eighteen thousand more; ten miles on his left, twelve from his headquarters at Waterloo, was Bluecher. Wellington, who had informed the Prussian commander that unless support reached him he would fall back to Brussels, at two o'clock in the morning had assurance of Bluecher's cooeperation. There is an unsupported statement of Napoleon's that he twice sent to Grouchy on the night of the seventeenth, by two separate officers, a definite order to detach seven thousand men from his camp at Wavre (where the Emperor affected to believe that Grouchy was), and make connection by St. Lambert with the right of the main army. This would entirely cut off Bluecher from Wellington. The motive of this statement is transparent--with the allies separated, they were outmanoeuvered; with the possibility of their union, and an understanding between them to that effect, he was himself outmanoeuvered.
Grouchy denied having received this order; neither of the officers intrusted with it ever revealed himself; the original of it has never been found; and in subsequent orders issued next day there is no mention of, or reference to, any such message. Either the declaration, twice made at St. Helena, was due to forgetfulness, being an account of intentions not carried out, or else it was put forward to explain the result of the campaign as due to his lieutenant's inefficiency. Grouchy must have had an uneasy conscience, since for thirty years he suppressed the text of the Bertrand order, which was not on the order-book because it had not been dictated to Soult; and when, after falsely claiming for the duration of an entire generation that he had acted under verbal instructions, he did publish it, he gave, at the same time, a mutilated version of his own report from Gembloux, sent on the night of the seventeenth, changing his original language so as to show that he had never looked upon the separation of the allies as his chief task, but that what was uppermost in his mind was an attack on the Prussians.
It was two in the morning of the eighteenth when the letter of Grouchy, written about four hours earlier, arrived at Napoleon's headquarters. Both the Emperor and Soult knew by that time that the whole of Bluecher's army was moving to Wavre; yet they did not give this information, nor any minute directions, to the returning messenger. Grouchy, therefore, was left to act on his own discretion, his superior doubtless believing that the inferior would by that time himself be fully informed, and would hasten to throw himself, like an impenetrable wall, between the Prussians and the Anglo-Belgian army. By the defenders of Napoleon Grouchy is severely criticized for not having marched early in the morning of the eighteenth to Moustier, where, if energetic, he could have carried over his army to the left bank of the river by eleven o'clock, thus placing his force within the sphere of Napoleon's operations. Perhaps he would have been able to prevent the union of the opposing armies, or, if not that, to strengthen Napoleon in his struggle. It is proved by Marbot's memoirs that this is what Napoleon expected. On the other hand, excellent critics present other very important considerations: the line to Moustier was over a country so rough and miry that after a torrential rain the artillery would have been seriously delayed, and Prussian scouts might well have brought down a strong Prussian column in time to oppose the crossing there or elsewhere. Grouchy, moreover, could not know that Wellington would offer battle in front of the forest of Soignes--a resolution which, in the opinion of Napoleon and many lesser experts, was a serious blunder. He appears to have been positive that the two armies were aiming to combine for the defense of Brussels; finally, when from Walhain the sound of the firing at Waterloo was distinctly heard, and Gerard fiercely urged an immediate march toward the field of battle, Grouchy was acting strictly within the limits of the Bertrand order, and according to what he then held to be explicit instructions, when he pressed on to concentrate at Wavre, and thus, if Napoleon had already defeated Wellington, to prevent any union between Wellington and the Prussian army. It is almost certain that Grouchy would in no way have changed the event by marching direct to Mont St. Jean, for the cross-roads were soaked, his troops were already exhausted, and the distance was approximately fourteen and a half miles as the crow flies: the previous day he had been able to make somewhat less than half that distance in nine hours.
Napoleon himself did not apparently expect the Prussians to rally as they did. He spent the hours from dawn, when the rain ceased, in careful reconnoitering. The mud was so thick in places that he required help to draw his feet out of his own tracks. At breakfast, according to a contemporary anecdote, he expressed himself as having never been more favored by fortune; and when reminded that Bluecher might effect a union with the English, he replied that the Prussians would need three days to form again. This opinion is in accord with his exaggerated but reiterated estimates of the disaster produced in Bluecher's ranks after Ligny, and taken in connection with the difficulty of moving artillery, which is not a sufficient explanation in itself, affords the only conceivable reason for his delay in attacking on the eighteenth. It also explains his remissness in leaving Grouchy to exercise full discretion as to his movements. At eight the plan of battle was sketched; at nine the orders for the day were despatched throughout the lines; about ten the weary but self-confident Emperor threw himself down and slept for an hour; at eleven he mounted, and rode by the Brussels highway to the farm of Belle Alliance. It was probably during the Emperor's nap that Soult forwarded to Grouchy a despatch, marked ten in the morning, instructing that general to manoeuver toward the main army by way of Wavre. Although, according to Marbot, Napoleon expected Grouchy in the afternoon by way of Moustier, at one o'clock a second despatch, of which the Emperor certainly had cognizance, was forwarded to Grouchy, expressing approval of his intention to move on Wavre by Sart-a-Walhain, but instructing him "always to manoeuver in our direction." The postscript of this second order enjoins haste, since it was thought Buelow was already on the heights of St. Lambert.
The one central idea of Napoleon and Soult was clearly to leave a wide discretion for Grouchy, provided always that he kept his communications with the main army open, and that his general direction was one which would insure easy connection, in order either to cut off or check the Prussians. But, however this may be, the hours of Napoleon's inactivity were precious to his enemies; by twelve Buelow was at St. Lambert, and at the same hour two other Prussian corps were leaving Wavre. These movements were apparently tardy, but Gneisenau, feeling that Wellington had been a poor reliance at Ligny, and very much doubting whether he really intended to stand at Waterloo, was unwilling that Bluecher should despatch his troops until it was certain that the Prussian army would not again be left in the lurch. Should the Anglo-Dutch retreat to Brussels, the Prussians must either retreat by Louvain, or be again defeated. Anxiety was not dispelled until the roar of cannon was heard between eleven and twelve. Then the Prussians first exerted themselves to the utmost; it was about four when they were within striking distance, ready to take Napoleon's army on its flank. When Grouchy reached Wavre, at the same hour, he found there but one of Bluecher's corps, the rear under Thielemann.
From Belle Alliance Napoleon returned, and took his station on the height of Rossomme. In front was a vale something less than a mile in width. The highway stretched before him in a straight line until it skirted the large farmstead of La Haye Sainte on the opposite side; then, ascending by a slant to the first crest, it passed the hamlet of Mont St. Jean, only to ascend still higher to the top of the ridge before falling again into a second depression. At Mont St. Jean was Wellington's center. The road from Nivelles to Brussels crosses the valley about a quarter of a mile westward, and on it, midway between the two slopes, lay another farm-house, with its barns, that of Hougomont. More than half a mile eastward, in the direction from which the Prussians were expected, lay scattered the farm buildings of Papelotte, La Haye, Smohain, and Frischermont. The valley was covered with rich crops. Unobstructed by ditches or hedges, it was cut longitudinally about the middle by a cruciform ridge, with spurs reaching toward Belle Alliance on one side, and past Hougomont on the other; the road passed by a cut through the longitudinal arm. Hougomont was almost a fortress, having strong brick walls and a moat; it stood in a large orchard, which was surrounded by a thick hedge. The house at La Haye Sainte was brick also, and formed one side of a quadrangle, inclosed further by two brick barns and a strong wall of the same material; though not as large or solid as Hougomont, it was a strong advance redoubt for Mont St. Jean.
The right and center of Wellington were thus well protected, the left was admirably screened by the places already enumerated. His army was deployed in three lines, the front plainly visible to the French, the second partly concealed by the crest of the hill, and the third entirely so. His headquarters were two miles north, at Waterloo; his lines of retreat, though broken by the forest of Soignes, were open either toward Wavre or toward the sea. The latter line was well protected by the troops at Hal. Uneasy about the character of his Dutch-Belgian troops, the duke had carefully disposed them among the reliable English and Germans, in order to preclude the possibility of a panic.
In the foreground of Napoleon's position was the French army, also deployed in three lines. The front, extending from the mansion of Frischermont to the Nivelles road, consisted of two infantry corps, one on each side of Belle Alliance, and of two corps of cavalry, one on the extreme right wing, one on the left; of this line Ney had command. The second was shorter, its wings being cavalry, and its center in two divisions, of cavalry and infantry respectively. The third, or reserve, was the guard. Each of the lines had its due proportion of artillery, stationed in all three along the road. This disposition gave the French array, as seen from beyond, a fan-like appearance, the sticks, or columns, converging toward the rear. The array was brilliant; every man and horse was in sight; the number was superior by about four thousand to that of the enemy; the ground was, by eleven, almost dry enough to secure the fullest advantage from superiority in artillery; deserters from the foe came in from time to time. Surely the moral effect of such a scene upon the somewhat motley throng across the valley must be very powerful. Yet the road to Charleroi was the single available line of retreat, and it passed through a deep cut; the soldiers were tired and not really first-rate, fifty per cent. of the line being recruits, and nearly a quarter of the guard untrained men; the tried officers had all been promoted, and those who replaced them needed such careful watching that deep formations had been adopted, and these must not merely diminish the volume of fire, but present vulnerable targets; the cavalry had been hastily gathered, and was far from being as efficient as the British veterans of the German legion.
For some moments after reaching his position Napoleon stood impassive. He was clad in his familiar costume of cocked hat and gray surtout. Throughout his lines he had been received with enthusiasm, and his presence was clearly magnetic, as of old. The direction of affairs in this momentous crisis was his, and he dreamed of two implacable enemies routed, of appeasing the two who were less directly interested, of glory won, of empire regained. Reason must have told him how empty was such a vision; for, since the armistice of Poischwitz, Austria and Russia had been quite as bitter, and more tortuous, than the other powers. His expression mirrored pain, both physical and intellectual; his over-confidence and consequent delay were signs of degenerate power; his exertions for three days past had been beyond any human strength, especially when the faculties of body and mind had previously been harassed for more than two months, as his had been.
It was the first day of the week, but there was a calm more profound than that of the Sabbath; the sky was dull, the misty air was heavy with summer heat; but there was the expectant silence of a great host, the deep determination of two grim and obstinate armies. Wellington, with his western lines protected, would be safe when the Prussian army should appear where he knew its van already was, and he must manoeuver eastward to keep in touch. Napoleon must crush the British center and left, and roll up the line to its right, in order to separate the parts of his dual foe. To this end he had determined to make a feint against Hougomont; should Wellington throw in his reserves at that point on his right, one strong push might create confusion among the rest, and hurl the whole force westward, away from Brussels. It was a simple plan, great in its simplicity, as had been every strategic conception of Napoleon from the opening of the campaign. But its execution was like that of every other movement attempted since the first great march of concentration--tardy, slack, and feeble. Personal bravery was abundant among the French, but the orderly cooeperation of regiment, division, and corps in all the arms, the courage of self-restraint, and the self-sacrifice of individuals in organized movement, with the invigorating ubiquity of a master mind--these were lacking from the first.
XVII. WATERLOO[24]
[Footnote 24: Further references for this and the following chapter: Batty: Historical Sketch; Baudus: Etudes sur Napoleon; Bullock: Diary; Cotton: Voice from Waterloo; Damitz: Campagne de 1815; A. S. Fraser: Letters; W. Fraser: Words, etc.; Gomm: Letters and Journals; Kennedy: Notes on Waterloo; Vaulabelle: Campagne de Waterloo; Gurwood: Wellington's Despatches; likewise the lives and memoirs of Davout, Drouot, Gneisenau, Wellington, Hill, Grouchy (par Pascallet), and Vandamme; Waterloo Letters, edited by Siborne; Waterloo Roll-call, compiled by Dalton.]
Hougomont -- La Haye Sainte -- d'Erlon Repulsed -- Ney's Cavalry Attack -- Napoleon's One Chance Lost -- Plancenoit -- Union of Wellington and Bluecher -- Napoleon's Convulsive Effort -- Charge of the Guard -- The Rout -- Napoleon's Flight.
Napoleon's salute to Wellington was a cannonade from a hundred and twenty guns. The fire was directed toward the enemy's center and left, but it was ineffectual, except as the smoke partially masked the first French movement, which was the attack on Hougomont by their left, the corps of Reille. This was in three divisions, commanded respectively by Bachelu, Foy, and the Emperor's brother Jerome, whose director was Guillemenot. Preceded by skirmishers, the column of Jerome gained partial shelter in a wood to the southwest of their goal, but the resistance to their advance was vigorous; on the skirts of the grove were Nassauers, Hanoverians, and a detachment of the English guards, all picked men, and behind, on higher ground, was an English battery. The two other divisions pressed on behind, and for a time their gains were apparently substantial. But, checked in front by artillery fire, and by a murderous fusillade from loopholes cut in the walls of Hougomont, the besiegers hesitated. Their fiery energy was not scientifically directed; but such was their zeal, and so great were their numbers, that one brigade doubled on the rear of the fortalice, drove back the English guards from before the entrance to the courtyard on the north, and charged for the opening. Some of the French actually forced a passage, and the success of Napoleon's first move was in sight when five gallant Englishmen, by sheer physical strength, shut the stout gate in the face of the assailants. A fearless French grenadier scaled the wall, but he and his comrades within were killed. A second assault on the same spot failed; so, too, a third from the west, and still another from the east, all of which were repelled by the English guards, who moved down from above, and drove the French into the wood, where they held their own. These close and bloody encounters were contrary to Reille's orders, but in the thick of combat his various detachments could not be restrained.
The second division of the battle was the main attack on Wellington's left by d'Erlon's corps. Between twelve and one a Prussian hussar was captured with a message from Bluecher to Wellington announcing the Prussian advance. At once the postscript was added to the second despatch to Grouchy, already mentioned, and Napoleon made ready for his great effort. Unable to sit his horse, he had dismounted, and, seated at the table on which his map was spread, had been frequently seen to nod and doze. Ney and d'Erlon, left to their own judgment, had evolved a scheme of formation so complex that when tried, as it now was, it proved unworkable. The confusion was veiled by a terrific, continuous, and destructive artillery fire. After some delay, and a readjustment involving preparations against the possible flank attack of the Prussians, d'Erlon's corps advanced in four columns, under Donzelot, Allix, Marcognet, and Durutte respectively. Opposed was Picton's decimated corps, with Bylandt's Dutch-Belgian brigade, which had been all along a target for the strongest French battery, one of seventy-eight guns,[25] and was now to bear the first onset of the French troops. Bylandt's men had stood firm under the awful artillery fire, but their uniforms were like those of the French, and in a melee this fact might draw upon them the fire of their own associates, as later in the day at Hougomont it actually did, and they grew very uneasy. Durutte, on the extreme right, seized Papelotte, but lost it almost immediately. The conflict then focused about La Haye Sainte, where the garden and orchard were seized by an overwhelming force. The buildings had been inadequately fortified, but Major Baring, with his garrison, displayed prodigies of valor, and held them.
[Footnote 25: Houssaye says eighty (1815, p. 338). See also Ropes, p. 305.]
The assailants, supported hitherto by batteries firing over their heads, now charged up the hill; as they reached the crest, their own guns were silenced, but their yells of defiance rent the air. The Dutch-Belgians of the first rank harkened an instant, and, followed by the jeers and menaces of the British grenadiers and Royal Scots, fled incontinently until they reached a place of safety, when they reformed and stood. Picton was thus left unsupported, but at that decisive moment Donzelot tried the new tactics again, and his ranks fell into momentary confusion. Picton charged, the British artillery opened, and though the English general fell, mortally wounded, his men hurled back the French. This first success enabled Wellington to bring in more of his infantry, with the Scots Greys, and to throw in his cavalry, the First Royal Dragoons and the Enniskillens, for action against a body of French riders, under Roussel, which, having swept the fields around La Haye Sainte, was now coming on. His order was for Somerset and Ponsonby to charge. The shock was terrific, the French cavalry yielded, and the whole of d'Erlon's line rolled back in disorder. Efforts were made by the daring Englishmen to create complete confusion, but they were not entirely successful, for Durutte's column maintained its formation, while the French lancers and dragoons wrought fearful havoc among the British infantry somewhat disorganized by victory. Ponsonby fell among his men, and it was due to Vandeleur's horse that the French advance was checked. This ended the effort upon which Napoleon had based his hope of success; there was still desultory fighting at Hougomont, and the Prussians, though not visible, were forming behind the forest of Paris.
There was a long and ominous pause before the next renewal of conflict. Wellington used it to repair his shattered left and brought in Lambert's Peninsular veterans, twenty-two hundred strong. Napoleon quickly formed a corps, under Lobau, intended to repel the flank attack of the Prussians. Ney was determined to redeem his repulse by a second front attack, and Napoleon, either by word or silence, gave consent. While the batteries kept up their fire, the marshal gathered in the center the largest mass of horsemen which had ever charged on a European battle-field--twelve thousand men, light and heavy cavalry. His aim was to supplement Reille, still engaged at Hougomont, and dash in upon the allied right center. Donzelot's column, now reformed, was hurled directly against La Haye Sainte, and the mass of the cavalry surged up the hill. The gunners of Wellington's artillery, unprotected even by breastworks, stood to their pieces until the attacking line was within forty yards; then they delivered their final salvo, and fled. Wavering for an instant, the French advanced with a cheer. Before them stood the enemy in hollow squares, four ranks deep, the front kneeling, the second at the charge, the two others ready to fire. The horsemen dared not rush on those bristling lines. In and out among the serried ranks they flowed and foamed, discharging their pistols and slashing with their sabers, until, discouraged by losses and exhausted by useless exertion, their efforts grew feeble. Dubois's brigade, according to a doubtful tradition, dashed in ignorance over the brow of a certain shallow ravine, men and horses rolling in horrid confusion into the unsuspected pit. The hollow was undoubtedly there at the time, although it has since been filled up, and, it is believed, was likewise the grave of the fifteen hundred men and two thousand horses that were eventually collected from round about. The British reserve cavalry, supported by the infantry fire and a few hastily collected batteries, completed the defeat of Ney's first charge. A second was repulsed in the same way. The undaunted marshal then waited for reinforcements. No fewer than thirty-seven squadrons came in, Napoleon sending Kellermann's heavy dragoons as a last resort. Guyot's division of the heavy cavalry of the guard was also there--some say they had been summoned by Ney, others that they came of their own accord; the question arises because, in the next stage of the battle, their absence from the station assigned to them was a serious matter. Another time, and still another, this mighty force moved against the foe. Pouring in and out, backward and forward, among the squares, they lost cohesion and force until, in the very moment of Wellington's extremity, they withdrew, as before, exhausted and spent.
The energy and zeal of the English commander had been in strange contrast to Napoleon's growing apathy; Wellington had further strengthened his line by two Brunswick regiments and Mercer's battery, and at the last by Adam's brigade with the King's Germans under Dupont. This done, his stand had been superb to the last. Yet he was now at the end of his resources. It was six, and to his repeated messages calling for Bluecher's aid there had been no response. Although a portion of Buelow's men had been fighting for more than an hour, yet the Prussian army was not yet fully engaged and he himself, having no reinforcement nor relief, seemed face to face with defeat. Baring had held La Haye Sainte with unsurpassed gallantry; his calls for men had been answered, but his requisitions for ammunition were strangely neglected. Ney, seeing how vain his cavalry charges were, withdrew before the last one took place, arrayed Bachelu's division, collected a number of field-pieces, and fell furiously, with cannonade and bayonet charge, upon the farm-house. His success was complete; the garrison fled, his pursuit was hot, and, leading in person, he broke through the opposing line at its very heart. Had he been supported by a strong reserve, the battle would have been won. Mueffling, Wellington's Prussian aide, dashed away to the Prussian lines, and, as he drew near the head of Ziethen's division, shouted: "The battle is lost if the corps do not press on and at once support the English army." Ney's adjutant, demanding infantry to complete the breach he had made, was received by Napoleon with petulance. One brigade from Buelow's corps had attacked at about half-past four; repulsed at first, their onset was growing fiercer, for two other brigades had come in. Soult had opposed Ney's waste of cavalry. But the latter was desperate, and with the other generals was displaying a wilfulness bordering on insubordination. A portion of the guard had just been detached for Lobau's support. To Ney's demand for infantry the Emperor replied: "Where do you expect me to get them from? Am I to make them?" In truth, his mind and energies were now more concerned with Bluecher than with Wellington, and he was already fighting the advance of Buelow in his plans. But had the old Bonaparte spirit moved the chieftain to put himself at the head of what remained of the guard infantry, and to make a desperate dash for Ney's support, a temporary advantage would almost certainly have been won; then, with a remnant flushed by victory, he could have turned to Lobau's assistance before the main Prussian army came in. Thus was lost Napoleon's one chance to deal Wellington a decisive blow.
It was to prevent a dangerous flank movement of the enemy--the advance, namely, of Buelow, with the cavalry corps of Prince William, upon Plancenoit--that Napoleon had detached the young guard, under Duhesme, a third of his precious reserve, for the support of Lobau's right; Durutte being in the rear of his left, that portion was already as strong as it could be made. Nevertheless the Prussians seized Plancenoit; at once the French rallied, and drove them out; Bluecher threw in eight fresh battalions, and these, with the six already engaged, dashed for the ravine leading to the village. The passage was lined with French, and for a time it was like the valley of Hinnom; but the Prussians pressed on, and the young guard reeled. Napoleon sent in two battalions of the old guard, under Morand and Pelet; their firmness restored that of their comrades, and the place was cleared, two thousand dead remaining as the victims of that furious charge and countercharge. At seven Buelow was back again in his first position, awaiting the arrival of Pirch's corps to restore his riddled ranks. Napoleon had now left only twelve of the twenty-three battalions of the guard reserve, less than six thousand men. Wellington had repaired the breach made by Ney, and, though still hard pressed on his right, Ziethen had made good the strength of his left, whence some of his cavalry, the brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur, had been detached to repair other weak spots in the line. At this moment Ziethen conceived that Buelow was further giving way, and hesitated in his advance. The brief interval was noted by Durutte, and with a last desperate effort he carried Papelotte, La Haye, and Smohain, hoping to prevent the fatal juncture. It was half an hour before Ziethen retrieved his loss, and thus probably saved Wellington's left. By that time Pirch had come up, and with this reinforcement Buelow, behind the heavy fire of his powerful batteries, charged Lobau, and advanced on the guard at Plancenoit. Lobau, the hero of Aspern, stood like a rock until Durutte's men and the remnants of d'Erlon's corps, flying past his flank, induced a panic in his ranks. Thereupon the whole French right fell into confusion: all except the guard, who stood in the churchyard of Plancenoit until surrounded and reduced in number to about two hundred and fifty men; then, under Pelet's command, they formed a square, placed their eagle in the midst, drove off the cavalry which blocked their path, and reached the main line of retreat with scarcely enough men to keep their formation. The name of Ziethen must stand in equal renown with that of Colborne among the annals of Waterloo. The rout of the French left was the beginning of Napoleon's calamity, as that of his right under Colborne was its consummation.
Before the combined armies of Wellington and Bluecher the French could not stand; but, in spite of inferior numbers and the manifest signs of defeat, General Bonaparte might have conducted an orderly retreat. The case was different with Napoleon the Emperor, even though he were now a liberator; to retreat would have been merely a postponement of the day of reckoning. Accordingly, the great adventurer, facing his destiny on the height at Rossomme, determined, in a last desperate effort, to retrieve the day, and stake all on a last cast of the dice. For an instant he appears to have contemplated a change of front, wheeling for that purpose by Hougomont, where his resistance was still strong; but he finally decided to crush the Anglo-Belgian right, if possible; roll up both armies into a confused mass, so that, perchance, they might weaken rather than strengthen each other; and then, with Grouchy's aid, strike for victory. Though indifferent to Ney's demands, he had set in array against Buelow the very choicest troops of his army; surely they might stand firm while his blow elsewhere was delivered. But he did not reckon in this with Wellington's reserve power; though the dramatic stories of the duke's mortal anxiety rest on slight foundation, there is no doubt that he felt a great relief when the Prussians entered the combat, for immediately he turned his attention, not to rest, but to the reforming of his line. Officers and men, English or German, knew nothing of Buelow's or Bluecher's whereabouts when Napoleon took his resolution; but, sensible of having been strengthened, they displayed at half-past seven that evening the same grim determination they had shown at eleven in the morning. Though Wellington's task of standing firm until Bluecher's arrival was accomplished, and though, perhaps, his soldiers heard the distant firing of the Prussian guns, yet nothing could be seen across the long interval, the noise attracted little attention, and neither he nor they could know what was yet before them. It was, therefore, splendid courage in general and army which kept them ever ready for any exertion, however desperate.
Against this army, in this temper, Napoleon despatched what was left of that force which was the peculiar product of his life and genius, the old and middle guard. Most of its members were the children of peasants, and had been born in ante-Revolution days. Neither intelligent in appearance nor graceful in bearing, they nevertheless had the look of perfect fighting-machines. Their huge bearskin caps and long mustaches did not diminish the fierceness of their aspect. They had been selected for size, docility, and strength; they had been well paid, well fed, and well drilled; they had, therefore, no ties but those to their Emperor, no homes but their barracks, and no enthusiasm but their passion for imperial France. They would have followed no leader unless he were distinguished in their system of life; accordingly, Ney was selected for that honor; and as they came in proud confidence up the Charleroi road, their Emperor passed them in review. Like every other division, they had been told that the distant roar was from Grouchy's guns; when informed that all was ready for the finishing-stroke, that there was to be a general advance along the whole line, and that no man was to be denied his share in certain victory, even the sick, it is said, rose up, and hurried into the ranks. The air seemed rent with their hoarse cheers as their columns swung in measured tread diagonally across the northern spur of the cruciform elevation which divided the surface of the valley.
Wellington, informed of the French movement, as it is thought by a deserter, issued hurried orders to the center, ordered Maitland's brigade to where the charge must be met, and posted himself, with Napier's battery, somewhat to its right. While yet his words of warning were scarcely uttered, the head of the French column appeared. The English batteries belched forth a welcome; but although Ney's horse, the fifth that day, was shot, the men he led suffered little, and with him on foot at their side they came steadily onward. The British guards were lying behind the hill-crest, and the French could discern no foe--only a few mounted officers, of whom Wellington was one. Astonished and incredulous, the assailants pressed steadily on until within twenty yards of the English line. "Up, guards! make ready!" rang out the duke's well-known call. The British jumped up and fired; about three hundred of Ney's gallant soldiers fell. But there was no confusion; on both sides volley succeeded volley, and this lasted until the British charged. Then, and then only, the French withdrew. Simultaneously Donzelot had fallen upon Alten's division; but he was leading a forlorn hope, and making no impression.
As Ney fell back, a body of French cuirassiers advanced upon the English batteries. Their success was partial, and behind them a second column of the guard was formed. Again the assault was renewed; but the second attempt fared worse than the first. To the right of Maitland, Adam's brigade, with the Fifty-second regiment, had taken stand; wheeling now, these drove a deadly flank fire into the advancing French, while the others poured in a devastating hail of bullets from the front. The front ranks of the French replied with spirit, but when the British had completed their manoeuver, Colborne gave the order, his men cheered in response, and the countercharge began. "Vive l'Empereur!" came the responsive cheer from the thinning ranks of the assailants, and still they came on. But in the awful crash they reeled, confusion followed, and almost in the twinkling of an eye the rout began. A division of the old guard, the two battalions under Cambronne, retreated in fair order to the center of the valley, where they made their last gallant stand against the overwhelming numbers of Hugh Halkett's German brigade. They fought until but a hundred and fifty survived. From far away the despairing cry of "Sauve qui peut!" seemed to ring on their ears. To the first summons of surrender the leader had replied with dogged defiance; the second was made soon after, about three in the afternoon, and to this he yielded. He and his men filed to the English rear without a murmur, but in deep dejection. This occurrence has passed into tradition as an epic event; what Cambronne might well have said, "The guard dies, but never surrenders," was not uttered by him, but it epitomizes their character, and in the phrase which seems to have been shouted by the men themselves in their last desperate struggle, they and their leader have found immortality.
The last charge of what remained of the guard took place almost at the moment when Durutte was finally routed. Wellington then sent in the fresh cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur against the column of Donzelot and the remnants of the French cavalry. These swept all before them, and then the duke gave the order for a general advance. The French left fell into panic, and fled toward Belle Alliance. Before La Haye Sainte stood two squares of French soldiers, the favored legion chosen to protect the imperial headquarters. In the fatal hour it splendidly vindicated the choice, and amid the chaos stood in perfect order. Throughout the famous charge of his devoted men Napoleon rode hither and thither, from Rossomme to Belle Alliance. His looks grew dark, but at the very last he called hoarsely to the masses of disorganized troops that came whirling by, bidding them to stand fast. All in vain; and as the last square came on he pressed inside its serried wall. It was not too soon, for the Prussians had now joined the forward movement, and in the supreme disorder consequent the other square dissolved. Napoleon's convoy withstood the shock of a charge from the Twelfth British light dragoons, and again of a Prussian charge at Rossomme, where Gneisenau took up the fierce pursuit. Though assaulted, and hard beset by musketry, the square moved silently on. There were no words except an occasional remark addressed by Napoleon to his brother Jerome, or to one of the officers. At eleven Genappe was reached; there, such was the activity of the pursuers, all hope of an orderly retreat vanished, and the square melted away. Napoleon had become an object of pity--his eyes set, his frame collapsed, his great head rolling in a drowsy stupor. Monthyon and Bertrand set him as best they could upon a horse, and, one on each side, supported him as they rode. They had an escort of forty men. At Quatre Bras they despatched a messenger to summon Grouchy, bidding him to retire on Namur. The Prussians were only one hour behind. At daybreak the hunted Emperor reached Charleroi, but his attendants dared not delay; two rickety carriages were secured, and it was not until the wretched caravan reached Philippeville that the fugitives obtained a few hours' repose.
XVIII. THE SURRENDER[26]
[Footnote 26: References: Ernouf: Histoire de la derniere capitulation de Paris, 1815. Redigee sur des documents officiels et inedits. Houssaye: 1815, La seconde abdication. La terreur blanche.]
Nature of Napoleon's Defeat -- Its Political Consequences -- Napoleon's Fatal Resolution -- The State of Paris -- Napoleon at the Elysee -- His Departure for Rochefort -- Thoughts of Return -- Procrastination -- Wild Schemes of Flight -- A Refuge in England -- His Only Resource -- The White Terror and the Allies.
The battle of Waterloo is so called because Wellington's despatch to England was dated from his headquarters at that place. The world-wide celebrity of the fight was due to the failure of a tremendous cause and the extinction of a tremendous genius. That genius had been so colossal as to confuse human judgment. Even yet mankind forgets that its possessor was a finite being and attributes his fall to any cause except the true one. Western Europe had paid dearly for the education, but it had been educated, learning his novel and original methods in both war and diplomacy. We have followed the gradual decline of the master's ability, physical, mental, and moral; we have noted the rise of the forces opposed to him, military, diplomatic, and national. Waterloo is a name of the highest import because it marks the final collapse of personal genius, the beginning of reaction toward an order old in name but new in spirit. Waterloo was not great by reason of the numbers engaged, for on the side of the allies were about a hundred and thirty thousand men, on the other seventy-two thousand approximately; nor was there any special brilliancy in its conduct. Wellington defended a strong position well and carefully selected. But he wilfully left himself with inferior numbers; he did not heartily cooeperate with Bluecher; both were unready; Gneisenau was suspicious; and the battle of Ligny was a Prussian blunder. Napoleon committed, between dawn and dusk of June eighteenth, a series of petty mistakes, each of which can be explained, but not excused. He began too late; he did not follow up his assaults; he did not retreat when beaten; he could attend to only one thing at a time; he failed in control of his subordinates; he was neither calm nor alert. His return from Elba had made him the idol of the majority in France, but his conduct throughout the Hundred Days was that of a broken man. His genius seemed bright at the opening of his last campaign, but every day saw the day's task delayed. His great lieutenants grew uneasy and untrustworthy, though, like his patient, enduring, and gallant men, they displayed prodigies of personal valor. Ney and Grouchy used their discretion, but it was the discretion of caution most unlike that of Desaix at Marengo, or of Ney himself at Eylau. Their ignorance cannot be condoned; Grouchy's decision at Walhain, though justified in a measure by Soult's later order, was possibly the immediate cause of final disaster. But such considerations do not excuse Napoleon's failure to give explicit orders, nor his nervous interference with Ney's formation before Quatre Bras, nor his deliberate iterations during his captivity that he had expected Grouchy throughout the battle. Moreover, the interest of Waterloo is connected with its immediate and dramatic consequences rather than with its decisive character. If Napoleon had won on that day, the allies would have been far from annihilation; both Wellington and Bluecher had kept open their respective lines of retreat. The national uprising of Europe would have been more determined than ever; 1815 would have been but a repetition of 1814. Finally, the losses, though terrible, were not unparalleled. Grouchy won at Wavre, and, hearing of the disaster at Mont St. Jean, first contemplated falling on the Prussian rear as they swept onward in pursuit. But he quickly abandoned this chimerical idea, and on receipt of Napoleon's order from Quatre Bras, withdrew to Namur, and thence, by a masterly retreat, conducted his army back into France. Including those who fell at Wavre, the allies lost about twenty-two thousand five hundred men, of whom seven thousand were British and a like number Prussians. The records at Paris are very imperfect, but they indicate that the French losses were about thirty-one thousand.
The booty captured after Waterloo was unimportant; but the political spoils were immense, and they belonged to the Prussians. Their high expectation of seizing Napoleon's person was disappointed; but the one great result--the realization, namely, of all the tyrannical plans formed at Vienna for the humiliation of liberal France--that they secured by their instant, hot pursuit. It is hard to discern the facts in the dust of controversy. Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain have each the national conviction of having laid the Corsican specter; France has long been busy explaining the facts of her defeat, but seems to have at last completed the task; the most conspicuous monument on the battle-field is that to the Dutch-Belgians!
Napoleon was fully aware that at Waterloo he had made the last cast of the dice and that he had lost. It cannot be proven, but the charge is made, that far earlier he had ceased to reckon with facts and had begun to juggle with unrealities. The return from Elba has all the elements of romance, but events proved that it was based on a sound judgment. Had the allied powers been willing to give France the privilege of choosing her own government, which in spite of all that had occurred was hers by every principle known to international law, Europe would have enjoyed some years of repose, at any rate; considering Napoleon's shattered health and premature old age, France might for a long period have ceased to be a disturber of the public peace, working out then as now, perhaps in equal tribulation, the enduring principles of the Revolution; forty years of turmoil might have been spared to the Continent and the gory floods poured on the ground at Quatre Bras, Ligny, and Waterloo might have coursed unmolested in the veins of the innocent men from which they welled out. The responsibility for all the blood which was shed after the first treaty of Paris must be shared with Napoleon by dynastic Europe, in particular by the diplomatists who represented the hate of Russia, Austria, and Prussia and suffered it to find an outlet in a war of revenge; a portion too belongs to the factious bitterness which reigned supreme in the various French parties, awakening civil strife and endangering French nationality. From first to last there had been little consistency or continuity in Napoleon's character--it is by no means certain that he might not well have played, and perhaps magisterially, the role of a national ruler; it is of course also possible that he might have remained the same untamed, cosmopolitan adventurer to the end. In view of the political history of France during the Hundred Days, the former is more probable. But after Waterloo he was clearly aware that he could no longer be either the one or the other. It was not to be expected that every instinct would disappear at once, that he would resign himself to obscurity without an effort.
After a short rest at Philippeville, Napoleon composed the customary bulletins concerning his campaign, and despatched them to the capital, together with a letter counseling Joseph to stand firm and keep the legislature in hand. If Grouchy had escaped, he wrote, he could already array fifty thousand men on the spot; with the means at hand, he could soon organize a hundred and fifty thousand; the troops in regimental depots, together with the national guard, would raise the number to three hundred thousand. These representations were based on a habit of mind, and not on genuine conviction. He believed Grouchy's force to have been annihilated, and though he paused at Laon as if to reorganize an army, he went through the form of consulting such officers as he could collect, and then, under their advice, pressed on to Paris. The officers urged that the army and the majority of the people were loyal, but that the aristocracy, the royalists, and the liberal deputies were utterly untrustworthy. "My real place is here," was the response. "I shall go to Paris, but you drive me to a foolish course." This was the voice of reason, but he obeyed the behest of inclination. Yet he halted at the threshold, and, entering the city on the night of June twenty-first, made no public announcement of his presence. On the contrary, he almost slunk into the silent halls of the Elysee, where a sleepy attendant or two received the unexpected guest without realizing what had happened. He must have felt that the moral effect of Waterloo had been his undoing; unlike any other of his defeats, it had not ruined him as general alone, nor as ruler alone: his prestige as both monarch and soldier was gone.
The news of Ligny had been received in the city with jubilations; at the instant of Napoleon's arrival the truth about Mont St. Jean was passing all too swiftly on the thousand tongues of rumor from quarter to quarter throughout the town, creating consternation everywhere. Early in the morning, Davout, fully aware of public sentiment, and true to his instincts, advised the shrinking Emperor to prorogue the chambers, and throw himself on the army; Carnot believed the public safety required a dictatorship, and urged it; Lucien was strongly of the same opinion. But the old Napoleon was no more; vacillating almost as if in partial catalepsy, murmuring empty phrases in quick, indistinct utterance, he refused to decide. Members of the council began to gain admittance, and, waxing bolder as Napoleon grew more silent, the word "abdication" was soon on every tongue. At last a decision was taken, and such a one! Lucien was sent to parley with the chambers, and Fouche was summoned. The latter, with insidious eloquence, argued that in the legislature alone could Napoleon find a support to his throne. The talk was reported, as if by magic, in the assembly halls, and Lafayette, supported by Constant, put through a motion that any attempt to dissolve the chambers would be considered treason. Lucien pleaded in vain for a commission to treat with the invaders in his brother's name; the deputies appointed a committee of public safety, and adjourned.
Broken in spirit, Napoleon spent the evening in moody speculation, weighing and balancing, but never deciding. Should he appear at dawn before the Tuileries, summon the troops already in Paris, and prorogue the hated chambers, or should he not? The notion remained a dream. Early in June the court apothecary, Cadet de Gassicourt, had been ordered by the Emperor to prepare an infallible poison. This was done, and during this night of terrible vacillation the dose was swallowed by the desperate fugitive. But, as before at Fontainebleau, the theory of the philosopher was weaker than his instincts. In dreadful physical and mental agony, the would-be suicide summoned his pharmacist, and was furnished with the necessary antidotes. But the morning brought no courage, and when the chambers met at their accustomed hour, on the motion of an obscure member they demanded the Emperor's abdication. The message was borne by the military commander of the Palais Bourbon, where the legislature, which had now usurped the supreme power, was sitting, and he asserted of his own motion that, if compliance were refused, the chambers would declare Napoleon outlawed. The Emperor at first made a show of fierce wrath, but in the afternoon he dictated his final abdication to Lucien. No sooner was this paper received than the wild excitement of the deputies and peers subsided, and at once a new Directory, consisting of Carnot, Fouche, Caulaincourt, and Quinette, took up the reins of government. The city acquiesced, and hour after hour nothing interrupted the deep seclusion of the Elysee, except occasional shouts from passing groups of working-men, calling for Napoleon as dictator.
But there was a change as the stragglers from Waterloo began to arrive, vowing that they still had an arm for the Emperor, and denouncing those whom they believed to have betrayed him. The notion of sustaining Napoleon by force began to spread, and when the soldiers who were coming in, after suppressing the insurrection in Vendee, added their voices to those of their comrades from Waterloo, the new authorities feared Napoleon's presence as a menace to their power. Davout had been the first to suggest an appeal to force, but when Napoleon recurred at last to the idea, the marshal opposed it. On June twenty-fifth, therefore, the fallen man withdrew to Malmaison; where, in the society of Queen Hortense and a few faithful friends, during three days he abandoned himself for long intervals to the sad memories of the place. But he also wrote a farewell address to the army, and, in constant communication with a committee of the government, completed a plan for escaping to the United States, "there to fulfil his destiny," as he himself said. For this purpose two frigates were put at the disposal of "him who had lately been Emperor." All was ready on the twenty-ninth. That day a passing regiment shouted, "Long life to the Emperor," and, in a last despairing effort, Napoleon sent an offer of his services, as a simple general, to save Paris, and defeat the allies, who, though approaching the capital, were now separated. Fouche returned an insulting answer to the effect that the government could no longer be responsible for the petitioner's safety. Then, at last, Napoleon knew that all was over in that quarter. Clad in civilian's clothing, and accompanied by Bertrand, Savary, and Gourgaud, he immediately set out for Rochefort. General Becker led the party as commissioner for the provisional government.
It was the exile's intention to hurry onward, but at Rambouillet he halted, and spent the evening composing two requests, one for a supply of furniture from Paris, the other for the library in the Petit Trianon, together with copies of Visconti's "Greek Iconography" and the great work on Egypt compiled from materials gathered during his ill-starred sojourn in that country. Next morning a courier arrived from Paris with news. "It is all up with France," he exclaimed, and set out once more. Crowds lined the highways; sometimes they cheered, and they were always respectful. Such was the enthusiasm of two cavalry regiments at Niort that Becker was induced to send a despatch to the government, pleading that an army, rallied in Napoleon's name, might still exert an important influence in public affairs. Just as the general was closing the document there arrived the news of the cannonade heard before the capital on the thirtieth. Napoleon dictated a postscript: "We hope the enemy will give you time to cover Paris and bring your negotiations to an issue. If, in that case, an English cruiser stops the Emperor's departure, you can dispose of him as a common soldier."
By a strange coincidence, English cruisers had, as a matter of fact, appeared within a few days in the offing before Rochefort. Whatever the relation between this circumstance and his suggestion, Napoleon studied every possible means of delaying his journey, and actually opened a correspondence with the commanders in Bordeaux and the Vendee, with a view to overthrowing the "traitorous" government. It was July third when he finally reached Rochefort. Again for five days he procrastinated. But the allies were entering Paris; Wellington was bringing Louis XVIII back to his throne; in forty-eight hours the monarchs of the coalition would arrive. Bluecher had commissioned a Prussian detachment to seize and shoot his hated opponent, wherever found. On the eighth, therefore, the outcast Emperor embarked; but for two days the frigates were detained by unfavorable winds. On the tenth, English cruisers hove in sight, and on the eleventh Las Cases, who had been appointed Napoleon's private secretary, was sent to interview Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, concerning his instructions from the British government. The envoy returned, and stated that the English commander would always be ready to receive Napoleon, and conduct him to England, but he could not guarantee that the ex-Emperor could settle there, or be free to betake himself to America.
This language was almost fatal to the notion of a final refuge in England, which Napoleon had begun to discuss and consider during the days spent in Rochefort; so Las Cases sought a second interview. According to his account, Maitland then changed his tone, remarking that in England the monarch and his ministers had no arbitrary power; that the generosity of the English people, and their liberal views, were superior to those entertained by sovereigns. To the speaker this was a platitude; to the listeners it was a weighty remark. A prey to uncertainty, Napoleon entertained various schemes. He bought two small, half-decked fishing-boats, with a view to boarding a Danish ship that lay outside, but the project was quickly dropped. Two young officers of the French frigate suggested sailing all the way to New York in the little craft. Napoleon seriously considered the possibility, but recalling that such vessels must get their final supplies on the coasts of Spain or Portugal, rejected the plan, for he dared not risk falling into the hands of embittered foes. Word was brought that an American ship lay near by, in the Gironde. General Lallemand galloped in hot haste to see whether an asylum for the outlawed party could be secured under her flag. He returned with a reply that the captain would be "proud and happy to grant it."
But in the interim Napoleon had determined to throw himself on the "generosity of England." On the thirteenth Gourgaud was sent to London, with a request to the Prince Regent that the Emperor should be permitted to live unknown in some provincial English place, under the name of General Duroc. On the fifteenth Napoleon embarked on the Bellerophon, where he was received with all honors; next day the vessel sailed, and on the twenty-fourth she cast anchor in Torbay. During the voyage the passenger was often somnolent, and seemed exhausted; but he was affable in his intercourse with the officers, and to Maitland, who unwisely yielded the expected precedence. To his kindly keeper, in a sort of beseeching confidence, the prisoner showed portraits of his wife and child, lamenting with tender sensibility his enforced separation from them. The scenes in Torbay were curious. Crowds from far and near lined the shores, and boats of all descriptions thronged the waters; the sight-seers dared everything to catch a glimpse of the awful monster under the terrors of whose power a generation had reached manhood. If, perchance, they succeeded, the air was rent with cheers. After two days the ship was ordered round into Plymouth Sound, but the reckless sensation-seekers gathered there in still greater numbers.
Many have wondered at Napoleon's surrender of his person to the English. There was no other course open which seemed feasible to a broken-spirited man in his position. His admirers are correct in thinking that it was more noble for him to have survived his greatness than to have taken his own life. To have entered on a series of romantic adventures such as were suggested--concealment on the Danish vessel, flight in open boats, concealment in a water-cask on an American merchantman, and the like--would have been merely the addition of ignominy to his capture; for his presence under the American flag would have been reported by spies, and at that day the standard of the United States would have afforded him little immunity. It is possible that on the morrow of Waterloo Napoleon might, with Grouchy's army, the other survivors, and the men from Vendee, have reassembled an army in Paris, but it is doubtful. Nothing in Revolutionary annals can surpass the horror of royalist frenzy, known as the White Terror, which broke out in Provence and southern France on receipt of the news from Waterloo. The ghastly distemper spread swiftly, and when Napoleon embarked the tricolor was floating only at Rochefort, Nantes, and Bordeaux; his family was proscribed, Ney and Labedoyere were imprisoned and doomed to execution. To have surrendered either to Wellington or Bluecher would have been seeking instant death; to have collected such desperate soldiers as could be got together would have been an attempt at guerrilla warfare. To take refuge with the officers of England's navy was the only dignified course with any element of safety in it, since Great Britain was the only land in Europe which afforded the privileges of asylum to certain classes of political offenders. Naturally, the negotiators did not proclaim their extremity. Considering the date of Gourgaud's embassy, it is clear they were in no position to demand formal terms, and Maitland's character forbids the conclusion that he made them. It is unfortunate that he did not commit to writing all his transactions with Lallemand, Savary, and Las Cases; perhaps he was injudiciously polite, but it is certain that, contrary to their representations, he made no promise, even by implication, that under England's flag Napoleon should find a refuge, and not a prison.
XIX. ST. HELENA[27]
[Footnote 27: References: Abell, Mrs. L. E. (late Miss Balcombe), Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon; Cockburn: Diary of Buonaparte's voyage to St. Helena in 1815; Lowe, Memorial relatif a la captivite de Napoleon a Sainte-Helene; Maitland: Narrative of the surrender of Buonaparte and his residence on board the Bellerophon between May 24th and August 8th, 1815; O'Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or, a Voice from St. Helena: being the opinions and reflections of Napoleon on the most important events of his life and government in his own words; Rosebery: Napoleon, the Last Phase; Silvestre: De Waterloo a Sainte-Helene; Gourgaud: Sainte-Helene, journal inedit de 1815 a 1818; Masson: Autour de Sainte-Helene; Las Cases: Memorial de Sainte-Helene; Antommarchi: Les derniers moments de Napoleon; Henry: Events of a Military Life; Montholon: Recits de la captivite de l'empereur Napoleon; Montholon: Souvenirs de la comtesse; Montholon: Lettres du comte et de la comtesse (ed. P. Gonnard); Fremaux: Napoleon prisonnier; Planat de la Faye: Souvenirs; Gonnard: Origines de la legende napoleonienne.]
Embarrassment of the English Ministry -- A Strange Embassy -- Napoleon's Attitude -- The Transportation -- The Prison and its Governor -- Occupations of the Prisoner -- Napoleon's Historical Writings -- Failing Health and Preparations for Death -- His Last Will and Testament -- The End -- Imprisoned Genius -- The St. Helena Period -- The Insatiate Curiosity of Europe -- First Communications from the Island -- Napoleon's Appeal -- Gourgaud in Europe -- His Undeserved Notoriety -- Futile Efforts of Las Cases -- O'Meara's Activities -- Confusion During the Last Years -- Documentary Evidence -- The Legend as a Historical Force.
[Sidenote: 1815-21]
The ministry of Lord Liverpool, though ultra-Tory, was nevertheless embarrassed by the course of affairs. On June twentieth the premier wrote to Castlereagh that he wished Napoleon had been captured by Louis XVIII, and executed as a rebel. This amazing suggestion was the result of the progress made within a year by the doctrine of legitimacy. Although Talleyrand had observed the Hundred Days from the safe seclusion of Carlsbad, and was coldly received by his "legitimate" sovereign when he returned to Paris under Wellington's aegis, yet there was no one equally able to restore a "legitimate" government, and, with the aid of Wellington, who assumed without question the chief place in reconstructing France, he was soon in full activity. In strict logic, the allies reasoned that Napoleon was their common prisoner, and, as the chief malefactor, he should meet the fate which was to be Ney's, and later that of Murat. By long familiarity with such notions, the Czar had finally been converted to the once abhorrent idea of legitimacy, and was hatching the scheme of the Holy Alliance; even he would have made no objection. But English opinion, however irritated, would not tolerate the idea of death as a penalty for political offenses. Whatever ministers felt or said, they dared consider no alternative in dealing with Napoleon except that of imprisonment. Accordingly, St. Helena, the spot suggested at Vienna as being the most remote in the habitable world, was designated and the island was borrowed from the East India Company. Acts of Parliament were passed which established a special government for it, and cut it off from all outside communication, "for the better detaining in custody Napoleon Bonaparte." The Continental allies, therefore, on August second, declared the sometime Emperor to be their common prisoner. To England they yielded the right to determine his place of detention, but to each of themselves--Austria, Russia, and Prussia--was reserved the right of sending thither a commissioner who should determine the fact of actual imprisonment.
It was in Torbay that the newspapers brought on board the Bellerophon first announced what was under consideration. On July thirty-first, with inconsistent ceremony, the determination was formally announced by an embassy consisting of Lord Keith, the admiral; Sir Henry Bunbury, an under-secretary of state; and Mr. Meike, secretary to the admiral. To whom did this highest official authority address itself? To General Bonaparte, a private citizen! Their message was read in French, and Napoleon displayed perfect self-control. Asked if he had anything to say, the ex-Emperor, without temper or bitterness, appealed against the judgment of governments both to posterity and to the British people. He was, he said, a voluntary guest; he wished to be received as such under the law of nations, and to be domiciled as an English citizen (sic). During the interval before naturalization he would dwell under superintendence anywhere in England, thirty leagues from any seaport. He could not live in St. Helena; he was accustomed to ride twenty miles a day; what could he do on that little rock at the end of the world? He could have gone to his father-in-law, or to the Czar, but while the tricolor was still flying he had confided in British hospitality. Though defeated, he was still a sovereign, and deserved to be treated as such. With emphasis he declared that he preferred death to St. Helena.
The embassy withdrew in silence from the moving scene. Lord Keith had previously expressed gratitude to Napoleon for personal attentions to a young relative who had been captured at Waterloo. Him, therefore, the imperial prisoner now recalled, and asked if there were any tribunal to which appeal might be made. The answer was a polite negative, with the assurance that the British government would mitigate the situation as far as prudence would permit. "How so?" said Napoleon. "Surely St. Helena is preferable to a smaller space in England," answered Keith, "or being sent to France, or perhaps to Russia." "Russia!" exclaimed Napoleon, taken off his guard. "God preserve me from it!" This was the only moment of excitement; the witnesses of the long and trying scene have left on record the profound impression made on them by Napoleon's dignity and admirable conduct throughout. Subsequently the prisoner composed a written protest appealing to history. An enemy who for twenty years had waged war against the English people had come voluntarily to seek an asylum under English laws; how did England respond to such magnanimity? In his own mind, at least, he instituted and therefore wrote a comparison between-himself and Themistocles, who took refuge with the Persians, and was kindly treated. The parallel broke down in that the great Greek had never forced his enemy into entangling alliances, as Napoleon had forced England into successive coalitions for self-preservation. Moreover, his surrender was not voluntary: his life would not have been worth a moment's purchase either in France or elsewhere on the Continent, to have fled by sea would have been to invite capture. "Wherever," as he himself repeatedly said--"wherever there was water to float a ship, there was to be found a British standard." Still there were many in England who took his view; much sympathy was aroused, and some futile efforts for his release were made.
For the journey to St. Helena, Napoleon was transferred to Admiral Cockburn's ship, the Northumberland. The suite numbered thirty, and was chosen by Napoleon himself. Its members were Bertrand, Montholon, and Las Cases, with their families, together with Gourgaud and, following in a later ship, a Pole of doubtful duty and dubious personality, the self-styled Colonel Piontkowski. There were sixteen servants, of whom twelve were Napoleon's. The voyage was tedious and uneventful. The admiral adhered to English customs, and discarded the etiquette observed toward crowned heads; but he remained on the best of terms with his illustrious prisoner. There were occasional misunderstandings, and sometimes ill-natured gossip, in which the admiral was denounced behind his back as a "shark"; but such little gusts of temper passed without permanent consequences. Napoleon had secured the excellent library he desired, and every day read or wrote during most of the morning; the evenings he devoted to games of hazard for low stakes, or to chess, which he played very badly. He was careful as to his diet, took abundant regular exercise, and, since his health was excellent, he appeared in the main cheerful and resigned.
The island of St. Helena is the craggy summit of an ancient volcano, rising two thousand seven hundred feet above the sea, and contains forty-five square miles. Its shores are precipitous, but it has an excellent harbor, that of Jamestown, which was then a port of call on the voyage from England, by the Cape of Good Hope, to India. It lies four thousand miles from London, one thousand one hundred and forty from the coast of Africa, one thousand one hundred and eighty from the nearest point in South America. There were a few thousand inhabitants of mixed race, and the tropical climate, though moist and enervating, is fairly salubrious. Under the act passed by Parliament, England increased the territorial waters around the island to a ring three times the usual size, and policed them by "hovering" vessels, which made the approach of suspicious craft virtually impossible. This, with numerous other precautionary measures of minor importance, made St. Helena an impenetrable jail. It was October sixteenth, 1815, when Napoleon landed on its shores.
The residence provided for the imperial captive was a rather ordinary farm-house in the center of the island, on a plateau two thousand feet high. The grounds were level, and bounded by natural limits, so that they were easy to guard, and could be observed in all their extent by sentries; eventually a circuit of twelve miles was marked out, and within this the prisoner might move at will; if he wished to pass the line, he must be attended by an English officer. Considering the conceptions of state and chivalry then prevalent, the place was mean; long after, when enlarged and repaired, the house was thought not unsuitable for the entertainment of an imprisoned Zulu chieftain. Longwood, for this is the familiar name, might at a pinch have sufficed for the lodging of General Bonaparte; it was certainly better than a dungeon; but its modest comfort was far from the luxurious elegance which had become a second nature to the Emperor Napoleon. Such as it was to be, however, it was still uninhabitable in October, and its destined occupant was, until December ninth, the guest of a hospitable merchant, Mr. Balcombe, at his villa known as The Briars. The sentinels and patrols remained six hundred paces from the door during the day; at night the cordon of guards was drawn close around the house; twice in twenty-four hours the orderly must assure himself of the prisoner's actual presence, and human ingenuity could devise no precaution which was not taken by land and sea to make impossible any secret communication, inward or outward. Cockburn's serene good-nature rendered it out of the question for the captive to do more than declare his policy of protest and exasperation, until April, 1816, when the admiral departed, and was replaced by Sir Hudson Lowe. The latter was a vulnerable foe. A creature of routine, and fresh from a two years' residence as English commissioner in Bluecher's camp, he had thoroughly absorbed the temper both of the Tory ministry and of the Continental reactionaries. Neither irascible, severe, nor ill-natured, he was yet punctilious, and in no sense a match for the brilliant genius of his antagonist. With the arrival of this unfortunate official properly begins the St. Helena period of Napoleon's life--a period considered by many to be instructive; but, as regards the talk and futile calculations in which he indulged, comparable only to that of his ineffectual agitations in Corsica.
Napoleon, the prisoner, had a double object--release and self-justification. The former he hoped to gain by working on the feelings of the English Liberals; the latter by writing an autobiography which, in order to win back the lost confidence of France, should emphasize the democratic, progressive, and beneficent side of his career, and consign to oblivion his tyrannies and inordinate personal ambitions. The dreary chronicle of the quarrel between a disarmed giant and a potent pygmy is uninteresting in detail, but very illuminating in its large outlines. The routine of a court was instituted and for a time was rigidly observed at Longwood. The powerless monarch so successfully simulated the wisdom and judgment of a chastened soul that the accounts which reached the distant world awakened a great pity among the disinterested. As on shipboard and at The Briars, he gave his mornings to literature, clad in a studied, picturesque dishabille. The afternoon he devoted to amusement and exercise; but a distaste for more physical exertion than was actually essential to health grew steadily, until he became sluggish and corpulent. At table he was always abstemious; his sleep was irregular and disturbed. The evenings he spent with favorite authors, Voltaire, Corneille, and Ossian; frequently, also, in reading the Bible. The opinions he expressed were in the main those of his pseudoscientific days; among other questions discussed was that of polygamy, which he upheld as an excellent institution theoretically. Much time was spent by the household in abusing Longwood, and so effectually that a wooden house was constructed in England, and erected near by; but the prisoner made difficulties about every particular, and never occupied it. There were continuous schemings for direct intercourse with friends in France, and partial success ended in the dismissal of Las Cases. Gourgaud, too, departed, ostensibly because of a quarrel with Montholon, really, as he represented, to agitate with Alexander, Francis, and Maria Louisa for Napoleon's release. The exile confessed, in an unguarded moment, that no man alive could have satisfied him in the relation of governor of St. Helena, but yet he was adroit and indefatigable in his efforts to discredit Lowe. The "Letters from the Cape of Good Hope," published in England anonymously, but now incorporated in the official edition of Napoleon's works as the thirty-first volume, abuse the climate of St. Helena, depict the injustice of the imprisonment, and heap scorn on the governor. The book was widely read, and furnished the Whigs in Parliament with many shafts of criticism. This success emboldened the author, and further compositions by his hand were mysteriously published in Europe.
For three years Napoleon's self-appointed task as a historian was unremittingly pursued, and the results, while he had the assistance of Las Cases and Gourgaud, were voluminous; thereafter the output was a slender rill. Most of the volumes which record his observations and opinions bear the names of the respective memorialists, Montholon, Las Cases, Gourgaud, O'Meara, and Antommarchi, the two latter his attendant physicians. The period he took pains to elucidate most fully in these writings was that between Toulon and Marengo. Over his own name appeared monographs on Elba, the Hundred Days, and Waterloo. His professional ability is shown by short studies on the "Art and History of War," on "Army Organization," and on "Fortification"; likewise by his full analyses of the wars waged by Caesar, Turenne, and Frederick the Great. These are not unworthy of the author's reputation; his versatility is displayed in a few commonplace notes--some on Voltaire's "Mahomet," some on suicide, and others on the second book of the AEneid. A widely circulated treatise, the "Manuscript from St. Helena," was long attributed to him, but was a clever forgery. As will be explained, its effect on history was important.
For nearly four years Napoleon's health was fair. O'Meara, the physician appointed to attend him, was assiduous and skilful, but when he became his patient's devoted slave he was dismissed by Lowe. Thereupon certain disquieting symptoms, which had been noted from time to time, became more pronounced, and the prisoner began to brood and mope in seclusion. In the autumn of 1819, Dr. Antommarchi, a Corsican physician chosen by Fesch, was installed at Longwood. For a time, as he claimed, he had some success in ameliorating the ex-Emperor's condition, and to what the writer records as their confidential talks we owe our knowledge of Napoleon's infancy. But from month to month the patient's strength diminished, and the ravages of his mysterious disease at length became very apparent. The obstinacy of Lowe in carrying out the letter of his instructions, by intruding on the sufferer to secure material for a daily report, seriously aggravated Napoleon's miseries. Two priests accompanied Antommarchi: one only remained for some time, and after his arrival mass was celebrated almost every morning in the chapel adjoining the sick-room. "Not every man is an atheist who would like to be," was a remark Napoleon dropped to Montholon. Yet, though preparing for death, he was making ready simultaneously to speed his Parthian arrow.
His testament displays his qualities in their entirety. The language sounds simple and sincere; there is a hidden meaning in almost every line. His religion had been outwardly that of a deist; he now professed a piety which he always felt but rarely practised. During his life France had been caressed and used as a skilful artificer caresses and uses his tools; the last words of his will suggest a passionate devotion. To his son he recommended the "love of right, which alone can incite to the performance of great deeds"; for his faithless wife he expressed the tenderest sentiments, and probably felt them. It was his hope that the English people would avenge itself on the English oligarchy, and that France would forgive the traitors who betrayed her--Marmont, Augereau, Talleyrand, and Lafayette--as he forgave them. Louis he pardoned in the same spirit for the "libel published in 1820; it is full of falsehoods and falsified documents." The blame for Enghien's murder he took to himself. The second portion of the document is a series of munificent-sounding bequests to a list of legatees which includes every one who had done the testator any important service since his earliest childhood. France under the Bourbons confiscated the imperial domain of about a hundred and eighty millions, which Napoleon had estimated at over two hundred and twenty. When the nation passed again under the Bonapartes it appropriated eight millions toward the unpaid legacies. In the end his executors collected three and a half millions of francs wherewith to pay bequests amounting on their face to over nine and a half. In a codicil he remembers a certain Cautillon, who had undergone trial for an alleged attempt to assassinate Wellington. "Cautillon had as much right to assassinate that oligarch as he [Wellington] to send me to the rock of St. Helena to perish there." Such was the nature and substance of an appeal to a generous, forgiving nation, and to posterity, by one who wrote in the same document that he wished to die in the bosom of the Christian church, whose central doctrine is love, and whose ethic is forgiveness of enemies.
"I closed the abyss of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I cleansed the Revolution, ennobled the people, and made the kings strong. I have awakened all ambitions, rewarded all merit, and enlarged the borders of glory." These were the words of Napoleon in 1816; he Lived in this hallucination to the end. In the autumn of 1820 he realized his condition, and throughout the winter he was feeble and depressed. In February, 1821, he began to fail rapidly, and the symptoms of his disease, cancer in the stomach, multiplied; but, in spite of feebleness, he faced death with courage. On May third two English physicians, recently arrived, came in for consultation; they could only recommend palliatives, and under the influence of that treatment the imperial patient kept an uncertain hold on his faculties. Two days later a violent storm of wind and rain set in. A spreading willow, under which Napoleon had spent many hours, was overturned; the trees planted by his hands were uprooted; and a whirlwind devastated the garden in which he had worked for exercise. The death of the sufferer was coincident, and scarcely less violent. The last words uttered were caught by listening ears as the sun rose; they were "Tete ... armee." Mme. Bertrand and her children were present; at the sight of their friend's suffering the boy fainted and the little girls broke into loud lamentation. At eleven in the morning the supreme agonies began; a little before six in the evening the heart put forth its last convulsive effort, and ceased to beat. The mournful band of watchers within bowed their heads. Without the door another watch was set--that of the orderly. During the first outburst of grief among those at the bedside two officers entered silently, felt the cold limbs, marked the absence of life, and left without a word. England's prisoner had escaped.
* * * * *
It requires a complex environment to develop a man of any sort; for the exhibition of his personality and identity he must live in family, church, and state, and beyond all these surroundings even the meanest of mankind is subject to some cosmopolitan influence. How much more true is this of a historical and political personage, who is and can be himself only under the conditions which permit the play of his powers. Removed from these, his soul and spirit sicken, his character becomes morbid, his capacities are crippled, his identity is distorted. Nothing could be more fatuous and simple than the effort to read the true character of Napoleon Bonaparte from his talk and behavior when an exile; a prisoner of time and space, as world communications then were; an exhausted body; a crippled, outraged spirit, reduced for attack and defense to the weapons of the pen and the tongue wielded on and over an immensity of apartness. Yet exactly this has been the self-imposed task of many investigators and writers. The literature of his prison-house has grown to vast dimensions, and readers feel cheated when the bald outline of all that may even be considered history is offered for their consideration. The narrative of the St. Helena epoch in his life just given is probably accurate, and there are portions of it that rest on historical evidence both objective and internal, as trustworthy as most of what passes for history.
But when this is said the statement must be carefully guarded, for the reason that substantially all our evidence is virtually such as would be given about himself by a convict behind the bars, his sympathizing accomplices, his jailer, and his prosecutors. The simile is not strained. The surgeon of the Northumberland, ignorant of French, gathered from those of Napoleon's attendants who spoke English such scraps regarding the prisoner as he could, published them, and lost his government employment. The book was widely read and proved a very lucrative enterprise. Outside its pages there was profound silence and complete ignorance in Europe regarding the now mysterious convict, buried to the world. Craving for information was universal and insatiate; if only Napoleon himself would speak! It appeared as if the longing were satisfied in a published "Manuscript arrived from St. Helena by unknown means." The volume was difficult to procure, although edition followed edition in swift succession; many a precious copy was used in reading circles and there are still in existence a considerable number of the very numerous reproductions made at the time with pen and ink. One of these was actually sold not long ago to an unsuspecting editor in the United States and published in his magazine as a rarity. It fell flat because so many knew the truth: that it was apocryphal, the merry jest of a Genevese gentleman, Lullin de Chateauvieux, who lived to see his sport a dangerous element in the falsification of history. It was not only Napoleonic in style, but too Napoleonic; and, considered as an imperialist pamphlet, an anti-royalist pronunciamento, brought into being the embryo of a legend such as men crave and which the loyal efforts of many historians have utterly failed to destroy. Its contents, of course, are utterly worthless except as a comedy, a mask of literature which influenced public opinion.
The first known opportunity of the Napoleon court for communication with the outside world was afforded by the British government. The guarding and maintenance of Napoleon proved a source of great expenditure. The garrison and military staff, the hovering vessels of the navy, the entertainment of the continental commissioners, and especially the allowance for the establishment of Longwood, miserable as it was--the total cost appeared to the London authorities exorbitant. Prices of supplies at St. Helena were enormous because of its remoteness. So the subordinates of the ministry, with the assent of their superiors, determined upon reductions, and they began with the household of the Emperor, issuing orders that four of its members should be dismissed. These were, first, the Polish adventurer Piontkowski, part gentleman, part domestic, and wholly emissary and spy, who had been sent out by the English government in a vessel which followed the Northumberland, for reasons best known to themselves. He appears to have accepted a charge from Napoleon; that, namely, of laying before the Czar a formal protest against the treaties which made Napoleon the joint prisoner of the allies, entrusted to the charge of Great Britain. The next to leave were Archambaud and Rousseau, one a huntsman, one a chief butler; they were to visit Joseph Bonaparte in the United States and give him the fullest information. The fourth was the chamberlain Santini, a Corsican, and, though a soldier, utterly illiterate. To him was confided a protest for use either in London or in Italy, as the event should determine. A copy was made in Chinese ink on white satin ribbon for concealment about his person, but the chief reliance was, that "verbally and literally" he was drilled in its repetition until he could neither forget nor mistake in its recital. The faithful servants reached Joseph's home in America, the Pole on arrival in England styled himself Count and Colonel, became the hero of a social season in London, and vanished from history as mysteriously as he entered it. But Santini with Italian adroitness gained not only the presence of Lord Holland but his attentive ear; his recital was translated into English and published, the matter was brought before Parliament by interpellation of the great Whig statesman and caused great excitement throughout the world.
Napoleon's "Appeal to the English Nation," as printed from Santini's copy, recited the stupidity of his jailer, the unhealthiness of the climate, the expense and difficulty of living. His statements were not merely confirmed, the conditions of life on St. Helena were monstrously exaggerated by Montchenu, the French commissioner, in a private letter which was published soon after the arrival of Santini in London. This, too, was circulated all abroad. Public opinion was further agitated. The allied dynasties were made to feel ashamed by their subjects, and in Great Britain there was a fierce surge of reprobation, the resonance of which has not yet died away. The exile was chained to a horrid rock, in a climate Europeans could not endure, his miserable existence in hovels overrun with vermin must be eked out by loans from friends and the sale of his silver tableware, he was put to needless shame by the stupid regulations of a stupid government, stupidly enforced by a stupid governor, he was sick of body and heart, very sick and might die. Whose was the responsibility for this disgrace to civilization? Somewhat in this way men talked and questioned; soon his faults were forgotten in the pitiful recital of his woes; the legend was further advanced, once more the glory of Napoleon's epoch became a powerful force in Europe.
On the fourteenth of March, 1818, there arrived in England a member of the St. Helena court, whose name and fame bid fair to rival if not to obliterate those of all his companions in exile, though most undeservedly. This was General Gourgaud, styled Master of Ordinance. He was thirty-five years old and had been a soldier for sixteen, winning promotion for intelligence and intrepidity, securing Napoleon's affection by personal charm and by services which once at least, and probably twice, directly saved the Emperor's life, until at last he was a baron, a general at Waterloo, and a companion in St. Helena. This all seems passing strange because he was a high officer of Louis XVIII before Napoleon's return from Elba; made obeisance to established authority as soon as he returned from captivity, and during the successive governments of France to his death in 1852 found favor with each in turn. Whatever he was before and after, his life in St. Helena was that of a sentimental, jealous, sensitive child, scarcely a male at that. Every word and every act of every one gave him such pangs of wounded vanity that at last his presence was intolerable and by the influence of the Montholons it was arranged that he should leave. No sooner was the dust of Longwood shaken from his feet than within sight of its doors he accepted the kindly attentions of his former jailers with eagerness, and no sooner were those feet ashore in England than he began to woo the ministry, to make advances to the Bourbons, and to fawn on the Holy Alliance itself. It was not until he experienced certain chills and got his groping finger on the pulse of public opinion that he found himself utterly mistaken and in danger of mortal error. He then wrote, and gave to the public prints, a curious letter, addressed to Marie Louise, asserting that Napoleon was dying in the torments of a frightful agony. This amounted to a recantation. In consequence he was banished from England under the Alien Bill. At once he hurried away to Prince Eugene (Napoleon's treasurer) and from him reclaimed and received, for four years certainly, his arrears of imperial pay and pension. In 1822 he was permitted to return to France.
The notoriety of his name is due to two sets of circumstances. Sir Walter Scott told the truth about his conduct, just when the noble general was beginning to swim in the refulgence of the Napoleonic legend. There ensued a wordy warfare. The weapons on one side were official papers; on the other denials, insinuations, and finally the assertion of some vague commission or another given by the great captive, impossible of fulfilment in any way other than by the mysterious course of the plenipotentiary. This mystery is still unsolved and the commission undiscovered, but in France at least the conflict still rages. As late as 1908 a caustic critic was challenged to a duel by the testy and furious family head of the Gourgauds. The other set of circumstances is equally curious. Gourgaud left behind him a journal of his St. Helena life. Its contents are certainly authentic evidence of the writer's character, and as there is no means of checking the authenticity of what is recorded about Napoleon and his Longwood household, the record may possibly be and probably is accurate. The sore spirit of the writer required a confidant, and since there was no congenial soul to receive his outpourings he relieved himself as other sentimental egoists have done in the pages of a journal. From these the most conscientious efforts have been made to construct a psychology of the Emperor. The result is a morbid psychology of a caged falcon, the revival of bitter controversy as to the treatment of the great prisoner by a Tory ministry, and generally of a rather abstracted but intense interest in the Napoleonic legend. Hence the prolonged vogue of a celebrity which should have been ephemeral. The general is in no proper sense a historical factor except as the influence of his behavior in Europe served to quicken the existing lively interest in Napoleon. As far as his earliest testimony went, and many inclined to heed it, the master he had served was in excellent health, was kindly treated, and in general was better off than could have been expected. This of course lashed the imperialists to fury; their information was to the diametrically opposite effect.
Antecedent to Gourgaud's departure was that of Las Cases, but his journey was so impeded, his health so shaken, and his devotion so discounted, that whatever he accomplished in molding public opinion was logically subsequent to the work of the general. Spanish by origin, French by six centuries of devotion, his family was of the higher nobility. He himself had been an emigrant, but had returned to become a member of the Council of State. As a great civil official he had learned to love Napoleon and deliberately chose exile with him rather than honors and service under the restored Bourbons. In 1816 he wrote, and endeavored to forward secretly, letters containing his views as to the disgraceful treatment of Napoleon. These were intercepted and the writer was condemned in Lowe's first fury to depart. On second thought the governor begged him to remain under certain restrictions; these Las Cases would not accept, possibly because he saw himself of greater use in Europe than in St. Helena. He reached the Cape of Good Hope in January, 1817, was there detained eight months, was then forwarded to England, where he was forbidden to land, thence to Belgium, and finally, in December, a physical derelict, he found shelter in Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he lived for a time under the strictest surveillance. His faculties were soon restored to a certain rather impaired activity, and in 1818 he laid a powerful protest against the treatment of Napoleon before the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. No less a person than the Emperor's mother was his agent and intermediary. A meeting of reactionary sovereigns and their ministers, terrified by the throes of a revolutionary spirit more and more personified in Bonaparte, could in no case be receptive to such a remonstrance, and was utterly cold and scornful in the face of Gourgaud's evidence to the well-being and kind treatment of Napoleon, already published. Even with the most enlightened and liberal public of Europe, that of Great Britain, Las Cases' controversial publications fell rather flat. Readers were weary of the theme, since O'Meara was now and had been for some time past in possession of the Napoleonic field.
Dr. O'Meara, the Emperor's body-physician, was a warm-hearted Irishman, faithful, able, and devoted. That he received substantial gratuities from his patient is no longer questioned, and these transfers of money have been called by a harsh name; yet it is easy for a loyal but illogical devotee to confuse salary, gifts, fees, bribes, each with each, and one with the other; the crime was not quite so heinous with a man of his character as it would have been in persons of severer quality and mold. It seems equally certain that the stern pedant acting as governor would gladly have employed the same inducements to secure him as a spy. At least he did not qualify as the channel of a double espionage, and for that reason fell under the grave suspicion of authority. The diagnosis of Napoleon's malady as very grave, which he had made, was confirmed in January, 1819, by Stokoe, the ship's surgeon of the Conqueror, the British flag vessel then in the harbor. But from O'Meara it was not accepted; he was dismissed from service and on July twenty-fifth, 1818, sailed homeward. On August seventeenth the London "Morning Post" began to print communications sent from St. Helena by him, and shortly after he landed, in October, there appeared a pamphlet by him attacking Sir Hudson Lowe. His voluminous "Voice from St. Helena" was not published until after Napoleon's death. Like the rest of the contemporary memoirs and memorials, the value of his writings lies in their effect on the liberal sentiment of the world. The Metternich system of repression and intervention, which worked its will in dynastic government for a generation after Napoleon, engendered a newer liberalism which forgot the tyranny of Napoleonic imperialism and remembered the Consulate as expressing a well-organized form of government, adapted superbly for crushing systems, dynastic or aristocratic or plutocratic, which oppressed mankind by denying the only possible equality, equality of opportunity, the Napoleonic "carriere ouverte aux talents." By all sympathetic nationalists, constitutionalists, and radicals these books were literally devoured, and in France particularly their effect was lasting. There could never have been a second Napoleon except as he was thought likely to reproduce the Consulate; when his rule had proved to be imperialistic the country was disenchanted. Liberty with order is so ardently desired! but too often the devices to secure it beget license with chaos. The literal correctness of O'Meara's reporting, like that of the rest, cannot be controverted by any rebutting testimony, but the nature portrayed is the same morbid, sensational, notoriety-seeking, unwholesome, and pathological specimen as that furnished by the others.
Dr. Stokoe was speedily disgraced because it was now certain that any bulletin of serious illness was evidence of conspiracy by the Emperor and his friends for his escape. It is still affirmed that this second physician yielded to the Emperor's blandishments and disobeyed Lowe's orders. His successor, Dr. Verling, was Lowe's man, and, finding his position intolerable, resigned with the insinuation that he could not accept bribes. The party strife demanded either that Napoleon must be entirely well and well treated, or else utterly moribund and abominably used. Neither was the case, but a mortal disease had declared itself, his grand marshal was seriously alarmed, and the members of the Bonaparte family in Europe were dreaming of Napoleon's escape or planning the renewal of his household by fresh blood. The Bertrands and the Montholons, though faithful and devoted, were simply worn out. A Corsican physician, Dr. Antommarchi, and an Italian priest, Buonavita, were added to the household in September, 1819. Mme. Montholon with her child was already at home seeking substitutes, having departed from St. Helena in July. Neither event had any special consequences. Mme. Montholon found a possible successor to the grand marshal in the person of Planat, an officer of the Hundred Days. Negotiations for his sailing were protracted; such was Napoleon's condition before they were concluded that Montholon would not consider deserting his post, though Bertrand was quite willing to see Planat supplant himself. Buonavita was ill and returned to Europe. Antommarchi was detested by his patient, a new priest and a new doctor were found, and the faithful Pauline desired to join her exiled brother. By this time the year 1820 had passed and the fateful spring of 1821 was well advanced. All preparations for relieving the household and the guard at St. Helena were now, of course, futile. Three years of suffering had culminated in the death of the exile.
The documentary material for the St. Helena epoch is very scanty. The "Memorial" of Las Cases and the "Voice" of O'Meara are both valuable as works but not as transcripts. Of Gourgaud's "Journal" the value is greater, but the medium of transmission most abnormal. The volumes of Mrs. Abell and Lady Malcolm furnish very slight material; the papers of the outsiders like Montchenu, Balmain, and Sturmer, like even Lowe himself, furnish side-lights only; the souvenirs of Mme. Montholon are trifling and cannot bear critical examination. The recitals of Montholon were thought of importance until careful scrutiny showed how he had drawn on Las Cases and O'Meara, how scanty, scrappy, and confused his own notes were, and finally, when his letters to his wife were printed, how completely these unfalsified documents contradicted the other publications in the few interesting points on which they touch, both in the English edition of Colburn and the carefully edited and reedited French edition. The more the slight authentic material is examined the more certain it appears that it is hopeless to read from it Napoleon's character, even in the unnatural environment of St. Helena, least of all for the years of real life. Conduct is the only test of belief, not the invalid lamentations or cynical banter of dreary, hopeless imprisonment. And when all this talk of a man in anguish is dubiously reported, distorted by the medium of a heart-sick listener, or by the transcription of men bored to extinction, its value is obviously still further diminished. The story has been briefly narrated of how the legend was engendered, of how it was planted and watered on the continent of Europe, and its influence on subsequent generations has been indicated. This is the sum total of what history finds as its material during the closing years of Napoleon's life. The souvenirs of Bertrand and Marchand are as yet inaccessible, if indeed they exist. Some day their possible publication may shed a few rays of new light on minor points: they cannot greatly enlarge or substantively reconstruct the slight historical material we have been able to discover. For valuable generalizations we must fall back on the many abundant facts of Napoleon's long career, on the very few facts of his conduct when mewed and exasperated at St. Helena, on the effects which these in sum have produced in history. The world at large marvels at the general, the statesman, the conqueror, the emperor; it is apt to pass unnoticed the judge and tamer of two epochs, the mediator between a ruined past, a chaotic present, and a future, orderly at least, though streaked with the stains of tyranny.