by Alan Schom
Again the call went out for conscripts. Napoleon demanded a new army of another 300,000 men immediately, and added a levée en masse, ultimately calling up a total of 936,000 men and boys. The nation was at hazard and had to be protected. But as Méneval admitted, the country remained “inert,” well over 100,000 men actually openly fleeing the French conscripting authorities. In the end Napoleon would assemble a total of perhaps 120,000 men, adamantly rejecting the services of the former leaders of the Revolution, the Jacobins.
The Legislative Body, newly reconvened by Napoleon in the third week of December, ordered a special committee to study the situation, and on December 28 it gave its report.
Instead of calling the nation to unite firmly under its leader, the Commission...presented a list of complaints and grievances against the oppression of the French people, demanding guarantees against further arbitrary authority and insisting on the execution of laws in favor of freedom in general, including the free exercise of political rights,
an outraged Méneval, ever loyal to Napoleon complained. What is more the “Legislative Body then adopted the committee’s report by a sweeping majority of votes.” Both the Senate and the Corps Législatif demanded peace.
The leader of the rebellion, Joachim Laîné, a lawyer and royalist from Bordeaux, was personally castigated by Napoleon as he harangued the Corps Législatif for its outrageous independence. “You have done more harm to us than had we lost ten battles to the enemy. One does not wash the family’s dirty linen in public!” “What is a throne? Four pieces of wood covered by green velvet,” the unperturbed Laîné riposted, greeted by the strong applause of the delegates assembled there for the last time. It was a threat, and Napoleon did not like threats. Infuriated, he retaliated by proroguing that assembly altogether two days later. Political freedom, indeed!
There would be no more interference from that quarter. Word soon went out that Napoleon had ordered Fouché’s replacement at the Police Ministry, General Savary, to arrest the “traitors,” and most fled the city. Issuing a statement for Allied consumption, Laîné proclaimed, seeking his excuses for the past fourteen years of Franco-Napoleonic conquest: “The virtues of this country belong to it alone. All the wrongs done belong to the master [Napoleon] who still wishes to enslave her.” Laîné failed to mention, of course, that it was the French people who had been supporting Napoleon all those years, and conquering Europe.
Méneval confessed that Napoleon had been deeply hurt by this unexpected open rebellion. “I found him quite worried now...in public, however, he remained calm and reassuring...For the first time he was no longer happy. I could not help but notice this with sad interest, and seeing Napoleon so wretched only increased my admiration of him.”
“The Cossacks are coming!” the Parisians soon cried out in the streets. In fact the Austrians, the Prussians, the Italians, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the Swedes, and the English would indeed soon be advancing on the French capital. “The fate of Paris was not at all certain,” Victorine de Chastenay recalled. “The burning of Moscow let us fear the worst...‘Moscow burnt down, Paris burnt down; Moscow burnt down, Paris kaputt!’” Even the usually buoyant Colonel Marbot confessed, “It is impossible to describe the great anxiety and agitation one found in that capital.” Back on December 2, the annual celebration for the victory at Austerlitz was poorly attended, and though it was customary on that day to throw open all the theaters of the capital free to the public, attendance was sparse.
The throbbing excitement and growing frustration of all of Europe to get rid of Bonaparte and the French was, however, already being drowned out by the sound of hundreds of thousands of feet all marching in one direction — toward France. If quarrels and differences of opinion existed amid the ranks of the Coalition — Austria, for one, was not overly anxious for another clash of arms with Bonaparte — nevertheless they had finally concluded there was no other way: The Houses of Habsburg, Romanov, and Hohenzollern were agreed. Anticipating Napoleon’s now-standard arrogant defiance, by December 1813 three major armies were on the march again. The Army of the North, comprising a joint British-Prussian force, was to be launched from liberated Holland, with a separate northern force under Bernadotte, Winzingerode, and Bennigsen concentrating around Magdeburg and Hamburg (where a stubborn Davout still refused to capitulate). The second army, Prussia’s Army of Silesia, under the command of Field Marshal Blücher, had begun crossing the Rhine near Mannheim on December 29. The third force, the Austrian army, directed by Prince von Schwarzenberg, was already descending on Colmar from Basel by January 1, 1814. By February some 400,000 Allied troops could be expected on French soil.
In fact Blücher alone was soon approaching the Meuse River with 107,500 troops, and Schwarzenberg with another 209,000 was heading for Champagne. Then there was the Anglo-Spanish Army, under the successful Lord Wellington, pouring over the Pyrenees, closing in on Soult and Suchet at Toulouse. In Italy another Austrian army under Bellegarde, 74,000 strong, was approaching Prince Eugène’s 50,000 north Italians. To make matters worse, on January 11, King Joachim Murat of Naples (with Caroline Bonaparte’s prodding and blessing) went over to the Allies, imitated by King Frederick VI of Denmark three days later. Murat’s declaration of war against France was too much for Napoleon, calling his brother’s-in-law action “infamous, and as for that of the queen...there is no name for it! I hope I live long enough to wreak full vengeance on them for this outrage!” In brief France would shortly be invaded from just about every direction except from the sea, and there the mighty Channel Fleet of the Royal Navy lay in wait, several dozen of its men of war with thousands of marines prepared to land at a moment’s notice.
With fewer than 70,000 men, what could Napoleon do? Augereau was attempting to form another “army” at Lyons, but one does not begin forming an army from scratch when already under attack. There were also Marshal Mortier’s Old Guard of 9,000 men and perhaps 30,000 National Guardsmen. That was about it.
Still the enemy kept coming, unhindered, Blücher crossing the Meuse and already well into France by January 22. As for Paris, almost nothing had been done for its defense, so fearful was Napoleon of adding to the panic already too visible on the faces of the people. The city’s old fortifications were patchy at best, left over from the days of earlier Bourbon triumphs. “Make no preparations for the abandonment of Paris,” Napoleon warned. “If worst comes to worst we will bury ourselves under its ruins.”
“I attended mass at the Tuileries,” ex-Queen Hortense recalled.
The Duchess of Montebello [Marshal Lannes’s widow], looking most anxious, came up to me and whispered, “Madame, have you heard the news? The Allies have crossed the Rhine. Paris is in a panic. What on earth is the Emperor doing?”...Returning for dinner with the family that evening I found the Emperor alone with the Empress. He was holding her in his arms, making fun of her. “Well then, Hortense!” he said with a teasing smile as I approached. “Everyone in Paris is afraid, are they? They have already seen the Cossacks there. Well, they are not yet there, I can assure you, and we still have not forgotten our profession. Stay calm,” he admonished his wife, “we are going to go to Vienna to beat Papa François [Franz I] yet.”
Then during dinner his son was brought in for the dessert. “Napoleon repeated several times to the boy: ‘Let’s go beat Papa François,’ and the child repeated this phrase so often and so well that the Emperor burst into laughter.” For Marie-Louise, caught between her husband, child, and new country on the one hand, and her father and Austrian family and friends on the other, the scene was no doubt extremely painful.
After dinner they retired to a small salon, and Napoleon had Berthier summoned. “Sit down over there,” he commanded, pointing to the green card table. “We are going to have to prepare another Italian campaign.” An unsmiling Berthier, still looking haggard after a severe illness the previous year, took a seat as Napoleon
dictated to him before us for the next hour, outlining the entire organization a
nd plan of attack for the army...He then had four generals of his Guard come in, questioning them on the number of men available, or ill, going into great detail about each of their corps. That lasted quite a while, then, after dismissing them, he turned to us again and said: ‘Well now, Mesdames, do you feel better about the situation? Do you still think we are going to let them take us so easily?
This “Note on the Actual Situation of France” prepared on January 12, 1814, predicted that the Allies would have a difficulty in breaking through French defenses along the frontiers, resulting in a considerable delay before they could possibly be in a position to threaten the French capital, by which time Napoleon anticipated having a minimal force of 120,000 men ready, along with a city garrison of another 30,000. By that time Schwarzenberg and Blücher combined would be reduced to a total of only 80,000, the analysis optimistically reported.
As for Napoleon’s campaign plan, in its final phase it was to drive hard and fast to Lorraine and Alsace, to attack and separate the Prussians and Austrians before they could join forces, and at the same cut them off from their supply lines on the other side of the Rhine. In doing this he hoped to draw them away from Paris itself. It sounded so simple when he explained it, but then it always did.
The night before his departure from the Tuileries, Napoleon summoned the officers of the newly formed National Guard to the impressive Salle des Maréchaux, presenting the empress and his son to them, closing with, “I am leaving to fight the enemy now. I confide for your safe keeping what I prize most in this world, the Empress, my wife, and the King of Rome, my son.” On January 25, under the usual Imperial Guard escort, Napoleon set out for Châlons-sur-Marne on his first campaign on French soil, fighting for his nation’s very existence. In his absence the queen and the Regency Council, presided over by the faithful Cambacérès, would rule in his stead.
Napoleon was drawing in all available units, Marmont from Metz, to join Ney and Victor behind the Meuse, and Macdonald from south of Strasbourg. Meanwhile the Allies had plans of their own, permitting them to close on their ultimate objective from at least four different routes. Bulow’s combined corps, added to the 10,000-man English division, was advancing south from Holland to the French frontier near Mézières, while Blücher’s Prussians were thrusting from Metz and Nancy, heading for Châlons-sur-Marne, the principal route from the east to Paris along the Marne via Château-Thierry and la Ferté, which Napoleon now hoped to stop. To the south Schwarzenberg’s large army was concentrating along the main road from Langres to Bar-sur-Aube, another important route to Paris via Troyes, Nogent-sur-Seine, the Marne, and the capital. Finally the southernmost of the main easterly roads leading to Paris extended from Châtillon to Auxerre, up the Yonne toward Fontainebleau.
Once again Napoleon was taken by surprise, not so much by the numbers — the Allied forces swollen by all of Napoleon’s former allies — but by the unusual rapidity of both the Prussian and Austrian armies. Even as Napoleon was finally setting out from the Tuileries on the twenty-fifth, Schwarzenberg’s 150,000 men were nearing Bar-sur-Aube, and Blücher with 50,000 men was near Napoleon’s old school at Brienne, defended by the remnants of Victor’s and Macdonald’s men. Napoleon had between 34,000 and 42,000 men under his immediate command, Mortier with another 20,000 at Troyes, and Macdonald with 10,000 closing in. On January 29 Bonaparte made his bid to prevent the linkup of the major Allied forces by attacking Blücher, who fell back on Bar-sur-Aube. But on February 1 it was Blücher’s turn to send Napoleon reeling with bloody losses from La Rothière to Troyes.
At a war council that followed, the Allies argued among themselves, the czar insistent on crushing France, leaving it permanently a second-rate power, while both Castlereagh and Metternich argued for a moderately strong France, to help maintain the balance of power in Europe, which in turn would result in a more lasting peace. They did not want to see Europe again left with one or two menacing superpowers. Thinking Napoleon finished after his flight from La Rothière, Schwarzenberg at the head of his 150,000 troops began his march on Paris via Sens. Blücher, whose command included Russian corps, now resumed his advance in three columns.
Despite the inferior number of his troops, Napoleon, to the consternation of the Allies, struck hard, with all his old skill, even as Marmont and Ney destroyed the enemy at Champaubert on February 10, while Bonaparte himself with only 20,000 men defeated Sacken’s Corps at Montmirail the next day. Reinforced by Marmont, Napoleon succeeded in pushing back Blücher’s third column toward Bergeres. Within a matter of days, with fewer than 30,000 troops, he had not only sent Blücher’s 50,000 men falling back but had inflicted 15,000 casualties on them. It was only now, however, that Napoleon learned of Schwarzenberg’s advance via Fontainebleau and Bray-sur-Seine, seriously threatening Paris for the first time.
Amid much distrust among themselves, on February 5, 1814, the Allies opened the Congress of Châtillon-sur-Seine. Present were the czar and his dour, aloof foreign minister, Nesselrode, the foppish, elegant Metternich, a determined Hardenberg attending Friedrich Wilhelm, and the calm, phlegmatic British foreign secretary, Lord Castelreagh. Here they prepared their list of demands, handing them to Caulaincourt two days later. France was to withdraw everywhere and French boundaries were thus to return to those of 1792. (Earlier the Spanish Regency and the Cortes had rejected Napoleon’s proposal for the return of Fernando VII.) Czar Alexander, invariably a poor judge of men, however, wanted to see Bernadotte as the new French monarch, an idea dismissed out of hand by his amazed fellow Allies.
Meanwhile Joseph, while supporting Napoleon, nevertheless realized what his brother failed to acknowledge, the impossibility of their situation. He wrote to him on February 9, explaining that the position of Paris alone was untenable. There were only six thousand muskets available, apart from the arms of the regular troops and
thus it is impossible to create a new reserve force of 30 to 40 thousand men in Paris. Some things are quite beyond the power of man, Sire, and when that becomes self-evident, as it now does, it seems to me that the only true glory left to us is to make the best possible peace terms, to keep as much as we realistically can. To endanger even one human life against an overwhelming threat is not a glorious or praiseworthy act, because it will bring no advantage to the great masses of men who cherish their own existence as well as yours...One must face reality with courage, which will either permit you to bring happiness to the people, or else by forcing you to commit yourself, no longer leaving you with the choice between death and dishonor.
Yet at the same time he continued to counsel Napoleon to retain his throne, for if he abandoned it "that would bring misfortune upon a people protected by, and dependent upon, your government.” But for all that the only real solution was peace. He must end the fighting. “If you can possibly make peace [at Châtillon], do so at whatever the price. If that is not possible, you must be prepared to perish.” Never before had Joseph spoken out so strongly, so directly, so honestly.
Replying from Nangis, Napoleon seemed to concur — in part. “I hope to reach a peace settlement promptly, based on the Frankfurt proposals [that is, natural frontiers], which is the minimum I can accept with honor.” In other words he still demanded to retain western Switzerland, the left bank of the Rhine (including Aachen), and Belgium right up to the Dutch frontier. If this could not be, Napoleon went on, “I have decided to win or perish...with one more battle to stop the Allied threat to my capital...” After that “I owe it to the best interests of the Empire and to my own glory to enter into negotiations for an enduring peace.” But, he stressed, if the Allies forced him to evacuate Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, he would sign nothing. “If I had accepted the reduced old frontier [of 1792], I would have been forced to resort to arms again in a couple of years to regain that land. I therefore hope to be able to conclude a favorable peace accord, one that any reasonable man might be expected to desire.”
Joseph continued to go along with him. “Peace is absolutely in
dispensable now!” he wrote from Paris on March 4:
Therefore make a temporary truce, since the injustice of our enemies will not allow you to make a lasting just peace, and since our present situation in France and public opinion will not support the great effort needed [to raise a large enough army]...By so doing you will be able to remain in France...and you who saved the country once [in 1799] will be in a position to save it a second time, by signing a peace treaty today. Once done you will be recognized by England, when you will be free to liberate France of the Cossacks and Prussians.”
After rebuilding his army, in a couple of years he could reconquer those natural frontiers. “But whether or not you have won a battle today, you must agree to a peace settlement. That is the conclusion I have drawn, that is what everyone I have discussed this with thinks and wants here.” Peace above all, they must have peace.
When Blücher also resumed his advance toward the capital, however, Napoleon resumed his attack against the Prussians, now at Craonne, on March 7, sending them falling back to Laon, where Blücher got his revenge by defeating Marmont’s corps, which now fled for safety toward Paris. Although he was then on the Else River, when he learned of a renewed threat to Paris by the Austrians, Napoleon diverted his 23,000 men to Arcis-sur-Aube, where he was defeated by 60,000 Austrians.
Too greatly outnumbered to prevent the Austrians and Prussians from joining, Napoleon decided to put into effect his earlier plan for driving far to the northeast, to Lorraine, to cut off Schwarzenberg’s line of communications. “I am expecting great results by this movement, which should cause chaos and confusion among the enemy’s rear guard and general staff,” he boasted to Joseph from Epernay on March 17.
This letter, with details of his plans, was intercepted by the Allies, however, and the czar was able to persuade Schwarzenberg, who had actually begun to withdraw from his attack on Paris, to turn around and work in a concerted push with Blücher and his own troops, concentrating on Paris. With Napoleon well out of harm’s way to the northeast, they had their best shot at capturing the French capital. Napoleon’s ruse had backfired. As for Bernadotte and Sweden, Napoleon’s last-minute attempt to woo him away from the Allies failed, and the Châtillon Peace Congress ended on March 19, after dismissing Foreign Minister Caulaincourt’s plea for an armistice. With a new twenty-year mutual defense pact signed by England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and guaranteed by another £5 million subsidy and hence a hardening of their resolve to continue, it was now a complete French surrender they demanded, and no more of Bonaparte’s ruses.[772]