Napoleon
Page 68
As he contemplated the defence of France itself, Napoleon did what he could to improve her defences by closing off potential points of entry. He pressed the Diet of the Helvetic Republic to declare its neutrality (without going so far as to recall the Swiss troops in his own ranks), withdrew all French forces and renounced his role as Mediator.
He also belatedly tried to lance the Spanish ulcer, instructing Joseph to abdicate (which he at first refused to do, waxing indignant about being forced to ‘sacrifice’ sacred rights to ‘his’ throne, and complaining that he was not accorded the honours due to his royal rank), and freed Ferdinand, still a guest of Talleyrand at Valençay. He was to return to Spain, having first married Joseph’s twelve-year-old daughter Zenaïde and signed an alliance with France promising to expel British troops from the Peninsula. By the time Ferdinand set off, in March 1814, he could no longer be of any use to Napoleon, even if he had wished to be. Soult at Bayonne and Suchet further south, with 50,000 and 15,000 men respectively, faced a combined Anglo-Spanish force three times that number.26
Eugène was only just holding out in Italy, with 30,000 troops of questionable quality and allegiance against a more numerous Austro-Bavarian army. Only Augereau’s reserve of about 20,000 stationed in the region of Lyon stood between that and Paris. In the north-east, apart from the troops besieged in fortresses in Holland, Belgium and along the Meuse, Napoleon had only around 70,000 men. They faced at least 300,000 allies who had reached the Rhine and threatened to cross it at any moment.
While he was still at Dresden he had instructed Cambacérès to make the Senate bring forward the call-up of 1815, and on 12 November, after his return to Paris, it voted the conscription of another 300,000 men. Napoleon estimated that he would soon have 900,000 under arms, but his calculations were as fictitious as those concerning available funds. As the area under his control shrank, so did his manpower pool, and resistance to conscription increased; the number evading it by going into hiding rose drastically, and according to some estimates reached 100,000. Few of the class of 1815 ever reached the ranks. Even if they had, they would not have been of much use, as there was nothing to arm them with. Given an annual production of 120,000 muskets, the losses of 500,000 in 1812 and 200,000 in 1813 could not easily be made up. At the end of 1813, the 153rd Regiment of the Line had 142 muskets for 1,100 men, the 115th regiment 289 for 2,300 men. The situation in the cavalry was no better, with the 17th Dragoons having to share 187 sabres and even fewer horses between 349 men.27
Napoleon was back at Saint-Cloud on 10 November. The following day he held a Council of State during which he complained that he had been betrayed by everyone, venting particular rage against King Maximilian of Bavaria and vowing vengeance. ‘Munich shall be burned!’ he ranted repeatedly. He put on a brave face, and only a few days after getting back to Paris he went hunting. Ten days later he rode around with Fontaine inspecting the new post office and corn market, and progress on the extravagant project of a palace for the King of Rome at Chaillot. Nobody was fooled. ‘Despite his efforts to hide them, it was evident to all those accompanying him that other thoughts were occupying him more than these grand building projects,’ noted Bausset. Napoleon relieved his stress with outbursts against people, and also used his feigned rages to show that he was still the roaring lion. He tried to bully the Pope into accepting his ‘new concordat’; when he refused, the old man was bundled off back to detention in Savona. Seeing Talleyrand at the first lever, Napoleon threatened him that if he were brought down, Talleyrand would be the first to die. On 9 December at the opening of the Legislative Body he lectured it on the need for more men, more money and more determination. Court life continued as usual; the receptions were as glittering and crowded as ever, but Joseph and Jérôme were kept away, as Napoleon did not want dethroned monarchs spoiling the show.28
‘The master was there as always, but the faces around him, the looks and the words were no longer the same,’ recorded one official who attended the imperial lever at the Tuileries. ‘There was something sad and tired about the demeanour of the soldiers, and even the courtiers.’ The mood in Paris was despondent. ‘People were anxious about everything, foreseeing only misfortune on all sides,’ wrote Pasquier. ‘The court was gloomy,’ wrote Cambacérès. ‘With the exception of a very small number, all the men with positions anticipated the impending catastrophe and were secretly occupied in trying to avoid it and secure their political existence.’ Many were expecting a change of regime.29
Napoleon only confided in a very few. ‘In the evenings, he would call me to his apartment, as he sat in his dressing gown warming himself by the fire,’ recalled Lavalette. ‘We would chat (I can find no other word for this hour-long talk which preceded his sleep). The first days I found him so prostrate, so despondent, that I was horrified.’ Marmont, who saw him often, noted that he was ‘gloomy and silent’, but would always buoy himself up with hopes that the allies would pause on the Rhine long enough for him to raise a new army; he could envisage no other means of salvation.30
‘Come back to France, Sire, identify yourself with the French and every heart will be yours, and you will be able to do what you wish with them,’ Josephine had written to him on hearing news of Leipzig. But Napoleon could not bring himself to trust the French people. He knew that Bernadotte had contacted his Jacobin friends in the hope of taking power, and saw the despair to which his entourage had given way as weakness at a moment when the state they had all laboured to build was about to crumble like the Bastille. He was convinced that only he could safeguard the new order he had created, and that only by a show of force.31
He desperately wanted peace, but he had based his right to rule so exclusively on glory and his supposedly miraculous ‘star’ that he felt he would be betraying it by making what he saw as a humiliating peace. ‘In that, he underestimated the generosity of the French and was not able to trust in a quality which was alien to his own character,’ commented Pasquier. ‘He did not even do himself justice, for he possessed, in the memory of his brilliant record, and even in his mistakes and his reversals, an éclat and a grandeur that would always have sustained him.’ He could envisage only one way of reasserting his right to rule, by redeeming himself on the battlefield, and as a result threw away his last chance of keeping the throne of France.32
41
The Wounded Lion
Up to now, the allies had concentrated on forcing Napoleon out of Germany, and only envisaged military operations as far as the Rhine. Having reached that, they hesitated; to carry the war into France would lend their enterprise a different character. Alexander was keen to keep going and take Paris, but neither his ministers nor his generals were, and his troops were more interested in going home. Frederick William was also wary of continuing, and although Blücher was bent on dealing further damage to the French, his army was in poor condition. Metternich, who was now in Frankfurt with the other allied ministers, did not wish to weaken France further and was wary of the tsar’s plans, while Francis wanted peace.
Through a returning French diplomat, the baron de Saint-Aignan, Metternich sent Napoleon a peace proposal on the basis of France giving up her conquests in Italy, Spain and Germany, and returning to her so-called natural frontiers on the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees, thereby keeping Belgium and Savoy as well as the left bank of the Rhine. The status of the rest of the Netherlands was left unspecified, and there was talk of negotiation on the subject of colonies and maritime matters. Although the British representative in the allied camp, Lord Aberdeen, was aware of it, the initiative was taken by Metternich and Nesselrode, so it had only a semi-official character.
Saint-Aignan reached Paris on 14 November, and the following day presented these proposals to Napoleon. He was quick to spot that as there was no mention of maritime matters, and as Belgium was left in French hands, they would not be acceptable to Britain. They therefore represented an opportunity to split the allies, so he responded positively; but, not wishing to appear too eag
er, and encouraged by Maret, one of the few who still trusted that his ‘genius’ would triumph, he did so in the vaguest terms, suggesting a peace congress and bringing up additional points.1
It did not take him long to realise that this was a mistake. He moved Maret back to his old job as secretary of state and, after briefly considering Talleyrand, replaced him with a reluctant Caulaincourt. Caulaincourt spent the best part of a week persuading Napoleon to accept the Frankfurt proposals as they stood, and it was not until 2 December that he was able to write to Metternich that he had. His letter arrived too late. On 19 November the allies had agreed a plan of campaign, and on 7 December they published their ‘Frankfurt Declaration’, which suggested that the ‘natural frontiers’ were no longer on offer, and, more ominously, that they were fighting not France but Napoleon.2
Had he accepted the proposals immediately, the allies would have been obliged to halt their offensive and a peace conference would have been convened, at which he could have bargained and played for time. It would have given him the breathing space he needed to rebuild his forces, and even if he did not manage to get his way at the conference (he had already drawn up all his demands, which were extensive) he would be in a position to start extending his influence again once peace had been made. Above all, he would have avoided the crucial development of his fate being separated from that of France.
‘The strange thing is that Napoleon, whose common sense was equal to his genius, could never discern at which point possibility ended,’ noted Mathieu Molé, who had worked closely with him since 1809. He went on to say that on encountering an obstacle Napoleon would look no further than surmounting it, seeing in the process a test for his will, and thinking only of the present, not the future. These characteristics were on display in the speech he made on 19 December, opening the session of the Legislative. He described the ‘resounding victories’ he had won in the recent campaign, which had only been annulled by the defection of his German allies. Ten days later, in the course of a debate on the unfortunate outcome of the Frankfurt negotiations, one member made a speech suggesting that peace should be made on the basis of the interests of France, not those of the emperor. An outraged Napoleon wanted to close down the assembly. ‘France needs me more than I need France,’ he ranted. Cambacérès managed to calm him, but a number of members were invited to leave Paris.3
The allied advance had resumed: in the north Blücher’s Prussians crossed the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne, in the south the Austrians moved against Eugène in Italy, and in the centre Schwarzenberg with the main Austro-Russian forces crossed into France from Switzerland to deploy on the plateau of Langres. Metternich, who hoped to avoid unnecessary fighting, had suggested fresh talks, with the participation of Britain, whose foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh was on his way, and Napoleon had agreed; only the venue still needed to be fixed. As the allied advance had not been halted, Napoleon meant to strengthen his hand with a military victory. On 4 January 1814 he decreed the levée en masse in the departments threatened with invasion, mobilising customs officials, police officers, gamekeepers, foresters and veterans to organise a territorial defence. He showed a degree of reluctance to call up the Paris National Guard, as he was no longer sure whom he could trust.
A few days later, on 7 January, unbeknown to Napoleon, Murat signed a treaty of alliance with Austria. As recently as 12 December 1813 he had written asking for instructions, assuring the emperor that ‘I will for the rest of my life be your best friend’. Napoleon had been aware of Murat’s contacts with the Austrians, but he realised that he and Caroline had only been hedging their bets, and would revert to him in the event of a change in his fortunes. Murat was being pressed by Austria to take the field openly, but delayed as long as he could. Napoleon had sent Fouché to Naples in November to keep an eye on him, but Fouché was looking to his own future, and advised Murat to join the Austrians. The decision was probably made by Caroline, who was more intelligent and hard-nosed, as was Élisa, who did her best to hang on to Lucca by breaking off relations with France. Meanwhile, Eugène continued to give Napoleon assurances of loyalty but resisted his suggestion that his pregnant wife come to Paris – where she would have been a hostage to his good behaviour. Napoleon asked Josephine to write to him, which she did, enjoining him to remain loyal to Napoleon and to France.4
On Sunday, 23 January, after attending mass, Napoleon made his way to the Hall of Marshals in the Tuileries. There he presented the King of Rome to the officers of the Paris National Guard. The same day he signed letters patent naming Marie-Louise regent in his absence. The next morning he nominated Joseph Lieutenant-General of the Empire, and that evening, after burning his most secret papers, he embraced his wife and son; at six in the morning on 25 January he rode out of Paris to join the army. ‘He appeared in a good mood, determined and in perfect health,’ noted Lavalette. To Pontécoulant he declared that unless a cannonball struck him down, within three months there would not be a single foreign soldier on French soil. He rebuked those around him who thought the war lost. ‘They think they can already see cossacks in the streets,’ he had quipped over dinner a few days earlier. ‘Well, they’re not here yet and we haven’t forgotten our trade.’ He assured his wife that he would defeat the allies and dictate peace to her father. ‘I’ll beat Papa François again,’ he repeated as he hugged her for the last time. ‘Don’t cry, I’ll be back soon.’ He would never see her or his son again.5
Before leaving Paris he dictated a letter to his father-in-law suggesting that he make a separate peace. He pointed out that if the allies were to lose, Austria would lose more than the others, while every allied victory only diminished her influence, since it increased that of the other allies disproportionately. He meant to drive the point home with a victory, and having narrowly escaped being killed on the way by a patrol of cossacks, he took command of the 45,000 men camped at Châlons-sur-Marne. ‘Despite the disasters of the campaign in Saxony, despite the allies’ passage of the Rhine, the army was convinced that it would defeat the enemy,’ recalled the colonel of one of the Guard regiments, noting at the same time that the senior commanders were more sceptical. They had good reason to be: while the allied generals could be defeated, the allied statesmen had become accustomed to defeat, and each new one confirmed them in their conviction that the only way to obtain a lasting peace was to be rid of Napoleon. He was sanguine that he could rout the allies and drive them back, and thereby recover the 90,000 men stuck behind their lines in fortresses along the Rhine or just beyond the borders of France.6
Blücher had drawn ahead of the other allied forces, and Napoleon attacked him near Brienne, where he had begun his military career. He dealt him a heavy blow and drove him back, but, reinforced by Schwarzenberg, Blücher counter-attacked and, outnumbered by more than two to one, Napoleon was defeated at La Rothière on 1 February. He fell back on Troyes behind the Seine.
This emboldened the allies, and when Caulaincourt met their plenipotentiaries at Châtillon for negotiations a week later, he was flatly told that the best he could expect was France’s pre-revolutionary frontiers. When Napoleon heard of this on the evening of 7 February he protested that he could never agree to such terms, as he would be breaking his coronation oath and giving his enemies grounds to dethrone him. He was in desperate mood, and did not sleep. When, in the early hours, a messenger brought news that Blücher had drawn away from Schwarzenberg and was marching on Paris, he decided to take him on a second time. Maret, coming in with a letter to Caulaincourt for him to sign, found him lying on a map with a pair of compasses, all thoughts of negotiation banished. Napoleon moved fast, gathering up every unit he could find along the way. On 10 February he defeated Blücher’s advance guard at Champaubert, the following day another of his corps at Montmirail, and the day after that a third at Château-Thierry. On 14 February he defeated Blücher himself at Vauchamps. He was in fine spirits, and all who saw him took heart. On 18 February he scored another victory at Montereau, in the co
urse of which he aimed a cannon himself.
‘They thought the lion was dead and it was safe to piss on him,’ he exclaimed. He sent instructions to Caulaincourt at Châtillon to settle for nothing less than France’s ‘natural’ frontiers, to hold out for Italy, to give as little ground as possible, and above all to refer back before agreeing to anything. He wrote to Francis once again, hoping to persuade him to make a separate peace, but he himself had only thoughts of war. On 21 February he wrote to Augereau, chiding him for dragging his heels: ‘If you are still the Augereau of Castiglione, keep your command; if your sixty years weigh on you, leave it and hand over to the most senior of your general officers. […] we must recover our boots and our resolve of ’93!’7
Blücher’s defeat had come as a shock to the allies, and panic spread through some units. Schwarzenberg fell back and requested an armistice as the allied monarchs and their ministers raced for safety. Bernadotte was in contact with his French friends, raising fears of his defection. Morale on the French side soared, despite the heavy losses and the exhausting forced marches in the atrocious conditions of the winter campaign, and in the countryside in which he operated Napoleon was greeted with enthusiasm. The behaviour of the German troops, seeking revenge for years of humiliation, had aroused the anger of the locals, and there was some spontaneous partisan resistance in the areas affected by the war. But while Napoleon made sure that the cannon of the Tuileries thundered out the good news of every victory and enemy prisoners were paraded through the streets along with captured standards, the Parisians were increasingly fatalistic. ‘Everyone is hiding their most precious possessions, burying them in the ground, sealing them up in the thickness of walls or up their chimneys,’ noted the architect Fontaine. The director of the Louvre was badgering Joseph to have its treasures safeguarded.8