by Will Durant
It did not help him much that on March 13, finding another Prussian army in possession of Reims, he drove out the invaders and received a heartening welcome from the populace. Then, leaving Marmont and Mortier to face Blücher, he again marched from one enemy to the other, and at Arcis-sur-Aube, on March 20, in a madness of fury, launched his remaining 20,000 men against Schwarzenberg’s army, still 90,000 strong. After two days of heroic massacre he acknowledged defeat, and crossed the Aube to find a place where his depleted army could rest.
He was again at the end of his rope. His exhaustion of flesh and nerves revealed itself in his hot temper, his angry scolding of officers who had risked their lives for him in war after war. They warned him that he could expect no reinforcements to reach him from a nation bled to apathy and tired of la gloire. The government that he had left in Paris—even his brother Joseph —was sending him appeals to make peace at any price.
In his desperation he decided to risk everything on one more dash of imaginative strategy. He would leave his best generals to halt the Allied advance as well as they could; he himself, with a modest force, would march eastward, release the French soldiers immured in German fortresses along the Rhine, add those veteran troops to his battered regiments, cut the Allies’ lines of communication and supplies, attack their rear guards, and force them to halt in their march; so Paris, again inspired by his courage, might build its defenses, and defy the invaders. In a saner moment he sent instructions to Joseph that if surrender should be imminent, the government, with Marie Louise and the King of Rome, should be removed to some security behind the Loire, where all available French troops could gather for a last stand.
While Napoleon led his wondering survivors eastward, the Allies broke down, day by day, the resistance offered by the remains of the French army, and moved closer to the end of their long journey. Francis II stayed behind at Dijon, not willing to share in the humiliation of his daughter. Frederick William III, usually so mild, felt that he might justly take revenge for the destruction of his army, the dismemberment of his country, and his years of exile from his capital. Alexander, proud and tense, taking no pleasure in the daily slaughter, saw himself as fulfilling the vow he had made at Vilna to cleanse Russia of Moscow’s defilement, and to free Europe from the power madness of the Corsican.
On March 25 Marmont and Mortier made a desperate attempt to stop the Allies, at La Fère-Champenoise, a hundred miles from Paris. Outnumbered two to one, they fought with such carelessness of death that Alexander himself, advancing into the melee, commanded the uneven slaughter to stop, crying, “Je veux sauver ces braves!”; and after the combat ended the victors restored to the defeated generals their horses and swords.29 Marmont and Mortier retreated to Paris to prepare the defense of the capital.
Blücher and Schwarzenberg reached the outskirts of Paris on March 29. The sound of their cannon, and the sight of peasants fleeing into the city, created panic among the citizens, and tremors among the 12,000 militiamen —most of them armed only with pikes—who were now called upon to aid the residual army in manning the forts and hills of the capital. Joseph had long since begged the Empress-Regent to leave the city as Napoleon had directed; now she obeyed; but “L’Aiglon” resisted until frightened by the noise of the approaching battle.
On March 30th 70,000 of the invaders began the final attack. Marmont and Mortier, with 25,000 men, defended as well as they could a city that the proud Emperor had never thought of fortifying. Old soldiers from Les Invalides, students from the École Polytechnique, workingmen and other volunteers, joined the defense. Joseph watched the resistance until he saw that it was useless and might invite the destructive bombardment of a city that was dear to its rich and poor alike. Though Alexander might behave with commiseration and charity, the Cossacks might escape control, and Blücher was not the man to keep his Prussian cohorts from taking full revenge. So Joseph transferred his authority to the marshals, and left to join Marie Louise and the French government at Blois on the Loire. Marmont, after a day of bloody resistance, saw no sense in continuing it, and signed the capitulation of the city at 2 A.M. of March 31, 1814.
Later that morning Alexander, Frederick William III, and Schwarzenberg led 50,000 soldiers in formal entry into Paris. The people greeted them with silent hostility, but the Czar softened them with undiscouraged courtesy and repeated salutations.30 When the ceremonies were over he sought out Talleyrand in the Rue St.-Florentin, and asked his advice on how to arrange an orderly change of the French government. They agreed that the Senate should reconvene, that it should draw up a constitution, and should appoint a provisional government. The Senate met on April 1, composed a constitution guaranteeing fundamental liberties, appointed a provisional government, and chose Talleyrand as its president. On April 2 the Senate declared Napoleon deposed.
VI. TO PEACE
He was at St.-Dizier, 150 miles from Paris, when the news reached him (March 27) that the Allies were investing the city. He set out with his army the next morning. That afternoon he received a more urgent message: “The presence of the Emperor is necessary if he wishes to prevent his capital from being delivered to the enemy. There is not a moment to lose.” He left his army at Troyes and rode most of the remaining miles on horseback, ailments notwithstanding. Nearing Paris (March 31), he said to Caulaincourt, “I shall put myself at the head of the National Guard and the Army; we shall reestablish things.” He was shocked to be informed that it was too late; the capitulation had been signed that morning. He sent Caulaincourt to Paris in the hope that this “Russian” might persuade Alexander to a compromise settlement. Fearing arrest if he himself entered the city, the Emperor rode on to Fontainebleau. There, that evening, he received word from Caulaincourt: “I am repulsed.”31 On April 2 he learned that he had been deposed. He thought for a moment how pleasant it might be to yield. “I do not cling to the throne,” he said; “born a soldier, I can without complaint become a citizen.” But the arrival of his army, still numbering 50,000 men,32 struck a more congenial chord in his nature. He bade it pitch its camp along the River Essonne (a tributary of the Seine), and hold itself ready for further orders. To this camp Marmont led the survivors of the troops that had defended Paris.
On April 3 Napoleon reviewed the Imperial Guard in the court of the Fontainebleau Palace. He told them, “I have offered the Emperor Alexander a peace sought by great sacrifices…. He has refused…. In a few days I shall go to attack him in Paris. I count on you.” At first they made no answer, but when he asked them, “Am I right?” they responded, “Vive l’Empereur! À Paris!” and the grenadiers’ band struck up the old revolutionary anthems “Le Chant du départ” and “La Marseillaise.”
The generals were skeptical. In private conference with them he found them opposed to a Bourbon restoration, but cold to an attempt to drive the Allies out of Paris. On April 4 Marshals Ney, Oudinot, Moncey, and Lefebvre entered his room uninvited, and told him that since the Senate had deposed him they could not follow him in an attack upon the Allied forces and the Provisional Government. He answered that he would lead the Army without them. Ney retorted, “The Army will obey its leaders.” Napoleon asked what they wanted him to do. Ney and Oudinot answered, “Abdicate.” Napoleon wrote a conditional abdication, leaving the throne to his son under the regency of Marie Louise. He sent Caulaincourt, Macdonald, and Ney to Paris to present this offer. On the way they stopped at the Essonne camp to consult Marmont, and were startled to find that he had been negotiating privately with Schwarzenberg for terms of surrender. That night (April 4–5) Marmont led his 11,000 men across the city line in full acceptance of Schwarzenberg’s easy terms. On April 5 the Allied leaders notified Caulaincourt that there would be no further dealings with Napoleon until he had abdicated unconditionally. Meanwhile they sent troops to surround Fontainebleau and prevent his escape.
Alexander graced these severities by protecting Paris from pillage, and paying courtesy visits to Marie Louise, Josephine, and Hortense. The Russian was th
e most civilized of the conquerors. He persuaded his colleagues to sign with him the “Treaty of Fontainebleau,” which offered Napoleon an island in the Mediterranean as a spacious prison, brightened with an Italian sky and a French income. The essential text:
His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon on the one part, and their Majesties the Emperor of Austria,… the Emperor of all the Russias, and the King of Prussia, stipulating in their own names and those of all their Allies on the other…
Article I. His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon renounces for himself, his successors and descendants, as well as for all the members of his family, all rights of sovereignty and dominion as well in the French Empire as… in every other country.
Article II. Their Majesties the Emperor Napoleon and Empress Marie Louise shall retain their titles and rank to be enjoyed during their lives. The mother, brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces of the Emperor shall also retain, wherever they reside, the titles of Princes of the Emperor’s Family.
Article III. The Island of Elba, adopted by his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon as his place of residence, shall form during his life a separate principality, which shall be possessed by him in full sovereignty and property.
There shall besides be granted, in full property to the Emperor Napoleon, an annual revenue of 2,000,000 francs in rent charge, in the great book of France, of which 1,000,000 shall be in reversion to the Empress.33
Napoleon signed this on April 13, and signed his First Abdication; the Allies then signed the treaty. He had hoped for Corsica as his island of exile, but knew that this, a very incubator of revolt, would not be allowed, and Elba had been his own second choice.34 Marie Louise was not permitted to go with him there. She had tried to join him at Fontainebleau, but the Allies had forbidden this, and Napoleon had discouraged it.35 On April 27, unwillingly, she and her son left Rambouillet for Vienna.
Perhaps Napoleon had dissuaded her from coming to him because he had decided to kill himself. As before noted, he had been given a phial of poison by Dr. Yvan on the return from Russia. On the night of April 12–13 he swallowed the contents. Apparently the poison had lost efficacy; Napoleon suffered, but recovered, much to his shame. He excused his continuance by proposing to write an autobiography that would give his side of the story, and would celebrate the deeds of “mes braves.”36
On April 16 he wrote a farewell to Josephine: “Never forget him who has never forgotten you and will never forget you.”37 She died a month later, May 29. On April 19 he bade goodbye to his valet Constant and his Mameluke bodyguard Roustam. On the 20th he delivered les adieux to the soldiers of the Old Guard, who had remained with him to the end:
“Soldiers, I bid you farewell. For twenty years that we have been together your conduct has left me nothing to desire. I have always found you on the road to glory…. With you and the brave men who still are faithful, I might have carried on a civil war, but France would be unhappy. Be faithful, then, to your new king, be obedient to your new commanders, and desert not our beloved country.
“Do not lament my lot. I will be happy when I know that you are so. I might have died;… if I consent to live it is still to promote your glory. I will write the great things that we have achieved.
“I cannot embrace you all, but I embrace your general. Come, General Petit, that I may press you to my heart. Bring me the Eagle [the standard of the Guard] that I may embrace it also. Ah, dear Eagle, may this kiss which I give thee find an echo to the latest posterity! Adieu, my children; the best wishes of my heart shall be always with you. Do not forget me!”38
Four hundred of the Guard chose to accompany him to Elba.
He stepped into a carriage with General Bertrand, who would stay with him to the end. For assurance’ sake he was accompanied by four Allied officers—Russian, Prussian, Austrian, English; and, for protection, a small escort of French troops.39 He needed protection as he passed through Provence, where the population, strongly Catholic and partly royalist, hurled insults at him as he passed. At Orgon, near Arles, he saw himself hanging in effigy, and was threatened by a crowd; it commanded him to say “Vive le Roi!” and he obeyed, as Louis XVI, contrariwise, had done. Thereafter, for safety, he disguised himself with a uniform and cloak lent him by Austrian and Russian officers. His spirits were raised, April 26, by finding his sister Pauline waiting for him at Le Luc. She had abandoned the French Riviera, and an invitation to Rome, to stay at a little farmhouse. “The Emperor will shortly pass through here,” she wrote to Felice Bacciocchi, “and I wish to see him and offer him my sympathy…. I have not loved him because he was a sovereign, but because he is my brother.”40 She refused to embrace him in his humiliating disguise; he discarded it, and for four hours basked in her devotion.
On the 27th he proceeded to Fréjus. There, on April 28, he was received, with a salute of twenty-one guns, on board the British ship Undaunted, and sailed for Elba. For the next nine months he would try the healing simplicities of peace.
CHAPTER XXXVII
To Waterloo
1814-15
I. LOUIS XVIII
HE was the fourth—as Louis XVI was the third—son of Louis the Dauphin, son of Louis XV. Till 1791, when he was already thirty-six, he was apparently content to be the Comte de Provence, handsome, genial, enjoying and supporting literature, and contributing elegant conversation to the salon of his mistress.1 When Louis XVI tried to escape from France (1791) the Comte tried also, succeeded, and joined his younger brother, the Comte d’Artois, at Brussels. When Louis XVII, wasting away in imprisonment and grief, died at the age of ten (1795), the Comte de Provence, as the next legitimate heir to the throne of France, took the title of Louis XVIII, and considered himself the king of France through all the years of the Revolution and Napoleon. As their influence spread, Louis had to change his domicile from place to place—from Germany to Russia to Poland to Russia to England (1811). There he was supported by the government, and acquired a respect for the British Constitution.
On April 14, 1814, the French Senate, led by Talleyrand, issued the following resolution:
In conformity with the proposition of the Provisional Government, and the report of a special committee of seven members, the Senate resigns the provisional government of France to His Royal Highness the Comte d’Artois, with the title of Lieutenant General of the Kingdom, until Louis-Stanislaus-Xavier, called to the throne of France, shall have accepted the constitutional charter.2
The constitution formulated by the Senate called for amnesty to the surviving revolutionists, the prohibition of feudal dues and ecclesiastical tithes, the confirmation of purchases made from “national” property (confiscated from the Church and the émigrés), the maintenance of a Chamber of Deputies and a House of Peers, and respect for civil liberty and the sovereignty of the people.
Pleased by this invitation, disturbed by its conditions, Louis asked time for consideration. On April 24 he left England for France. From St.-Ouen, on May 2, he announced that he would respect most of the proposed constitution, but had to reject the sovereignty of the people as inconsistent with his hereditary rights as king by the grace of God. He proposed to “grant” to France and the Senate a “charter” instead of a constitution. The Senate would be a Chamber of Peers chosen by the king; the Corps Législatif would become a Chamber of Deputies elected by voters paying three hundred or more francs annually in direct taxes; and these two chambers were to control the revenues and expenditures of the government. Charmed by the power of the purse, the two chambers accepted the charter, the King pledged his cooperation, and the Bourbon Restoration began (June 4, 1814).
Amid this changing of the guards the Allied Powers, by the “First Treaty of Paris” (May 30, 1814), reduced France to her boundaries of 1792, and gave her Chambéry, Annecy, Mulhouse, and Montbéliard. France surrendered important colonies to England and Spain, recognized Austrian rule in north Italy, and agreed in advance to any decisions that the coming Congress of Vienna would reach about territory taken by France since 1792.
Settled down in the Tuileries, Louis XVIII felt that he had earned the right to relax and enjoy the restitution of his property. He spoke of 1814 as “the nineteenth year of my reign.” He was now fifty-nine years old, genial and courteous, lazy and slow, fat and gouty, and not every ounce a king. He resigned himself to constitutional government, and complaisantly adjusted himself to votes, oratory, factions, and a press freer than under the Directory or Napoleon. Salons for the discussion of literature and politics flourished. Mme. de Staël, triumphant, resumed her Paris gatherings, and entertained kings.
More generally enjoyed by the people was the economic success of the new regime. Louis had the good sense to leave unaltered the Napoleonic Code, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and the structure of the economy. As Napoleon had been blessed in finding, for the vital Ministry of Finance, a man of high competence and integrity in François Mollien, so Louis XVIII found for the same office Baron Joseph-Dominique Louis, who met promptly all obligations of the Treasury, and resisted all temptations to fiscal chicanery.
The King’s court symbolized his efforts to smooth the transition between the two regimes. There was, in the first year of the reign, little retaliation against those who had served Napoleon; the Emperor’s marshals, excepting Davout, mingled freely with pedigreed royalists at the Bourbon court. Members of the lower nobility, like M. and Mme. de Rémusat, who. had been favorites with Napoleon, rushed to worship at the refurbished shrine. Talleyrand’s quip that the Bourbons had “learned nothing and forgotten nothing” might have been true of the Comte d’Artois—good-natured and good-looking, but foolishly proud; but it could not justly be applied to Louis XVIII. Napoleon himself, at St. Helena, testified to the rapidity with which most of the French people accepted the ancien régime nouveau, as if falling readily into old habits too long established to have been completely displaced.