by Philip Dwyer
Anonymous, La Consultation (The consultation), August 1815.
The Last Plebiscite
Given the manner in which Napoleon resumed power and the poor reception accorded the new Constitution, the question of Napoleon’s legimitacy was raised once again. He attempted to appease public opinion by adopting a strategy that had worked well at the beginning of his career – asking the people to approve of the new Constitution through a plebiscite. The Council of State reminded Napoleon that the source of all legimitate power was the people. ‘The Prince was the first citizen of the State.’ Napoleon’s response – sovereignty was hereditary only in so far as the interests of the people demanded it.11
The polls for the plebiscite remained open from 26 April till the end of May. The relatively poor turnout for the plebiscite has been used to point to the lack of general support for the regime, or at the very least to the indifference most people felt about politics. In fact, it was not as bad as all that. There were around 1.5 million ‘yes’ votes, a far cry from the 3.2 million votes of 1804 certainly (although the Empire was greatly reduced in size), but comparable to the 1799 figures.12 A little more than one in five voters turned out, once again a figure comparable to 1799.13 Only one regiment in the army voted, almost unanimously, against the new Constitution, the 1st Legère. All record of the vote, however, disappeared so that, as in previous referenda, the army’s vote appeared unanimous. In any event, the official figures were never published. Napoleon was nevertheless able to use the results to claim that he was legitimate and the Bourbon monarchy was not. He represented the people who had chosen him.14
It would be wrong to conclude that turnout demonstrated a lack of support for the regime, or that more people supported the Bourbons than were prepared to support the Additional Act.15 The turnout can in part be explained by the regime failing to put pressure on people to vote. We know that royalists, on the other hand, threatened those who did with proscription once the king returned. However, neither of those reasons explains the general lack of enthusiasm.16 It is probably safer to assume that the majority of French people remained indifferent to the new Constitution, not least because it would exclude them from voting in future elections. Besides, these kinds of figures can be deceptive. In Paris, 10,000–15,000 workers demonstrated on 14 May 1815 in favour of Napoleon, and yet we know that only 2,000 bothered to vote.17 Even bourgeois liberals who fundamentally supported the regime failed to vote.18 And yet Napoleon was warmly applauded whenever he went to the theatre. Every day people gathered outside the Tuileries to catch a glimpse of him, so that he felt compelled to change residence in order to avoid having to respond to the crowds – he took over the Elysée Palace on 18 April. Once the residence of the Marquise de Pompadour, it now belonged to Joseph, who was ousted to make way for his brother.19
If the plebiscite showed that there was at least some support for Napoleon, the results of the elections held in May 1814 positively demonstrated that the elites had turned against him. The electorate, limited to 100,000 people, had to elect 629 members to the lower house, dubbed the Chamber of Representatives. The majority of deputies returned were liberals of various colours (around 500), wary if not hostile towards Napoleon, while the rest were made up of an assortment of monarchists, Jacobins and republicans. Only about sixty deputies were what might be called Bonapartist. A number of prominent personalities, such as Lafayette, were openly hostile to Napoleon. Rather than elect Lucien as its first president, the deputies chose Comte Jean-Denis Lanjuinais, a man who had led the Senate’s vote to depose Napoleon in 1814, and who refused to swear an oath of loyalty on Napoleon’s return from Elba.20 Lanjuinais was, in other words, an enemy in a Chamber of Representatives that was hardly compliant. One deputy expressed the mood of both the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of Peers by asserting, ‘It is the dictatorship of the law that we must establish, and not that of one man.’21
The Champ de Mai
Napoleon faced tremendous problems. What was needed was a man of action. What France got was a man whose inaction paralysed the country. This was not the Napoleon of 1796, or even of 1805. The decisiveness, the vigour and the zeal had gone. Carnot pointed out that Napoleon had become ‘vacillating, he hesitates. Instead of acting, he talks . . . he asks for everyone’s advice . . . he has become somnolent.’22 Some even began to doubt his state of mind. Carnot found him staring at a portrait of his son with tears streaming down his face, and stated that he was unable to say the name of former companions in arms without a certain ‘sadness’. The ‘ungrateful abandonment’ of 1814 had, apparently, deeply affected him.23 He was certainly a good deal more emotional than he once had been, at least when it came to his private life. When he learnt of Berthier’s death at the beginning of June – he fell to his death from the third floor of the residence he had retired to in Bamberg – Napoleon gave full vent to his pain.24 Fontaine confided in his journal that ‘his walk, his bearing, his expression, and his speech were characterized by an insensitivity that could be considered to be “an absence of reason”. Prestige was destroyed; the extraordinary man was no longer recognizable and regret at seeing such a famous person embarrassingly survive his fall was the only feeling he inspired.’25 Worried himself by this behaviour, and possibly urged by some in his entourage, Napoleon consulted a doctor, Foureau de Beauregard, whose sole recommendation was to work less and to get more exercise.26 It was no doubt sound advice, and the symptoms Napoleon displayed were probably the result of nothing more than intense anxiety. Despite his state of mind, Napoleon was still capable of putting in eighteen-hour days, catching up with his sleep in a couple of three-hour slots.
The ceremony held on 1 June 1815 to celebrate the Additional Act was a pale replica of the Festival of the Federation during the Revolution, but Napoleon was also evoking two other traditions: an imperial Roman tradition, that of the Champ de Mai in which the people of Gaul supposedly united to elect their leader; and a Carolingian tradition in which free men bearing arms would renew their oath of loyalty to the regime.27 In a bloated constitutional demonstration in the middle of the Champ de Mars that was a cross between the coronation and the Distribution of the Eagles, 20,000 troops and National Guard and deputations from various regions of the Empire filed past. The response of the National Guard to Napoleon’s request, ‘Swear to defend your eagles,’ was not particularly keen, but that is hardly surprising when we know the Guard was made up of royalist sympathizers, and that it had refused to be integrated into the Grande Armée.28 When Napoleon asked the military to swear to protect the eagles, there too the response was less enthusiastic than expected. An officer by the name of Pétiet remarked how disillusioned was the army over the new Constitution.29
The 200,000-odd people who turned out to see the ceremony came away disheartened by what they saw, or rather by what they had been unable to see.30 The people had in fact largely been excluded from the proceedings. The huge pentagonal amphitheatre that was built in front of the Ecole Militaire seated about 20,000 people – invited dignitaries of the Empire – but entirely obscured the view of the people who had gathered in the Champ de Mars. Fontanes devised the ceremony but he was no David. A British witness described it as a ‘specimen of imperial charlatanry’, though he was hardly likely to be an objective observer.31 Not all the provincial dignitaries managed to get to Paris in time, so tickets were handed out by the court, resulting in what one witness described as a descent into ‘plebeian amusements’ – drinking and loud behaviour.32
Napoleon appeared incredibly late, dressed in Roman garb that was so tight he had difficulty moving. Jules Michelet recalled his ‘astonishment’ at seeing him in this costume. ‘It suited neither his age, nor his Moorish complexion [he was tanned from Elba], nor the circumstances, for he had not come to give us peace.’33 This was reiterated in a set speech, a dialogue of sorts between one of the 500 electors, speaking in the name of the French people, and Napoleon. The message was clear: if the foreign powers rejected Napoleon’s
peace offers and left the French people no choice other than war or shame, then the whole nation would rise for war. ‘Every Frenchman is a soldier: victory will follow your eagles, and our enemies, which were counting on a divided country, will soon regret having provoked us.’34 The endless salvoes of artillery, the incredible pomp and the absurd luxury of the costumes worn by Napoleon and his brothers (which most people found bizarre)35 revealed a complete misreading of what the people of Paris had been expecting and indeed wanted – that is, a return to simpler times, to the beginning of the Consulate when Bonaparte had been renowned for his simplicity. Instead, Napoleon had set out to impress the sovereigns of Europe. He may have uttered the words, ‘My will is that of the people,’ but the ceremony and the manner in which the people had been physically excluded from the proceedings were vastly at odds with the idea of any kind of political symbiosis.36
Napoleon himself appears to have realized this when, halfway through the ceremony, he walked from his throne away from the enclosed semicircle of officials and towards a platform in the middle of the Champ de Mars where, spontaneously, he quickly became surrounded both by the people who had come to see him and by his troops. It was only then, as he handed out eagles to the men who were to defend his regime, that the crowd responded with enthusiasm.
Napoleon knew, as did everyone present at the festival, that war awaited him. Some of the very first measures introduced after he arrived at the Tuileries in March were directed at reorganizing the army.37 On 3 May, the ministry of war addressed a letter to all prefects, sub-prefects and mayors urging them to defend the national territory.38 This was a radical departure from 1814 when Napoleon had shown just how reluctant he was to involve the people in the defence of his Empire. Now he was asking for the co-operation of all French people to harass allied convoys, and defend local towns and villages. Felix Le Peletier proposed in the Chamber of Representatives on 7 June 1815 that Napoleon be declared ‘Saviour of the Patrie’.39 The war was meant to be ‘national’; it was anything but. There was no conscription in 1815. The Chamber refused to allow it. Napoleon was therefore forced to resort to a legislative sleight of hand. He categorized the class of 1815 as discharged soldiers who were therefore obliged to serve.40 It was a neat trick but did not raise all that many troops – around 46,000 men – none of whom were ever used in the field. The inhabitants of a number of provinces simply refused to comply; the defeat of 1814 was still fresh in people’s minds.41
‘Never Did I See Such a Pounding Match’
It was not in Napoleon’s make-up, nor for that matter in his interests, to sit and wait. There was every advantage to be gained from going on the offensive and defeating the enemy piecemeal, before the allies had time to amass large numbers of troops and invade France, as they had done in 1814. If that were to happen, Napoleon would once again be obliged to fight a defensive campaign that would almost inevitably lead to defeat. As things stood, it was a difficult situation, but his only hope of survival was to defeat the English and the Prussians in the north, before turning to the Austrians and Russians in Germany.
Napoleon’s Army of the North comprised around 124,000 men and 358 cannon. There were almost twice as many men facing him in Belgium – 130,000 Prussians and Saxons under Blücher, and another 112,000 British, German and Dutch troops under Wellington – not to mention the numbers of allied troops converging on France, another 200,000 Austrians and Bavarians, and 250,000 Russians in the vicinity of Frankfurt.42 As in 1813–14, there is a debate about the quality of the troops at Napoleon’s disposal. Then, most contemporary opinions of the troops were negative, but these accounts are coloured by the aftermath of defeat.43 Later, some historians have gone so far as to assert that, on the contrary, the troops were among the best Napoleon had ever commanded.44 It is true that of the troops at his disposal, almost all of them had fought in at least one other campaign. There were, however, two overriding problems, not crucial in themselves, but likely to contribute to a collapse in morale if allied pressure were sustained long enough. Many of the veterans did not know each other and were thrown among a high percentage of young recruits who had never seen the face of battle. This does not make for poor troops, but it meant that they had not had time to form the personal bonds that often lead to unshakeable group cohesion.45 The other problem was the lack of depth in the French army command. Of the twenty-three marshals that had been in the field at the time of the first abdication, only eight had rallied to Napoleon on his return. Berthier, Napoleon’s chief of staff since 1796, had been replaced by a not-so-brilliant Soult. Ney and the newly appointed Marshal Emmanuel de Grouchy were competent commanders, but their weaknesses showed through at a time when Napoleon needed them to perform remarkable feats.
Unity of allied command in the north of France was given to Wellington, who rushed back from Vienna to Brussels, arriving on 4 April, as soon as he heard of Napoleon’s return. He had his job cut out for him as the few troops to hand were mainly militia who had never seen active service. He set about trying to knock them into shape, but there were few officers he could rely on. He pestered the new prime minister, Lord Liverpool, to send him more over the coming weeks.46 By the start of the campaign he had managed to cobble together British, Dutch and German contingents of about 112,000 men and 230 cannon. Then there were the Prussians to deal with. An army of about 130,000 men and 304 cannon based in eastern Belgium was centred on Liège. Their conduct throughout the campaign for France in 1814 had been deplorable, but that was perhaps understandable considering how much they had suffered over the years at the hands of the French occupier. In 1815, their behaviour was just as disgraceful. Marching through Holland on their way to Belgium, they behaved as if in enemy territory, looting everything they could along the way and, whenever anyone complained, telling them the British would foot the bill. The Prussian troops’ attitude towards the Saxon contingents in Belgium was so bad that in May 1815 the Saxons mutinied and attacked Prussian headquarters. Blücher and Gneisenau were forced to flee.47 The mutiny was put down – seven officers were shot and 14,000 Saxon troops were sent home – but it was a telling sign of the divisions that rent the allied armies. Given the recent history of relations between Prussia and Saxony, and the fact that the Prussians had occupied part of Saxony even before the Congress of Vienna had come to an end, it is understandable that they hated each other.
The allies under Wellington had briefly considered attacking France but decided to wait until they had overwhelming numerical superiority. As a consequence, Napoleon struck first. His strategy was typical when faced with crushing odds – to drive a wedge between the two armies and to defeat them one after the other. This he would have done if he had managed to defeat Blücher and the Prussians soundly. On 16 June 1815, he met them some forty-five kilometres south of Brussels, at Ligny, ‘a village built of stone and thatched with straw, on a small stream which flows through flat meadows’.48 The French were slightly outnumbered – 76,000 to the Prussians’ 83,000 – while the Prussians had managed to dig themselves into the farmhouses, enclosed within walls and gates. Four times the French attacked and were driven back until finally the Prussians withdrew in good order. Napoleon had managed to maul them badly. At Ligny, the French lost 10,000–12,000 men, to the Prussians’ 12,000 men killed and and 20,000 wounded.49 Another 8,000–10,000 Prussians deserted. It was to be Napoleon’s last victory. Because he was unable to press home his advantage, the Prussians escaped and would return to the fray at Waterloo on 18 June, turning the tide of battle against him. Grouchy was ordered to pursue Blücher with 33,000 men. That same day, ten kilometres to the north-west, Ney attacked Wellington’s forces at Quatre Bras, with casualties of around 4,000 to 5,000 men on each side.
At Waterloo – the battlefield lay in a valley about sixteen kilometres south of Brussels – Napoleon’s army slightly outnumbered and significantly outgunned the allies: 72,000 French troops and 246 cannon faced some 68,000 British, German and Dutch troops and 157 cannon.50 The advantage was
virtually negated, however, by the terrain and Wellington’s positioning of his troops. They were placed on the reverse side of hills so that cannon fire proved ineffective. Rain before the battle turned much of the field into mud. Commenting on this, Victor Hugo wrote many years later, ‘A little rain, and an unseasonable cloud crossing the sky, sufficed for the overthrow of the world.’51 The battle was one of the most concentrated of the era, nearly 200,000 men fighting over an area of four square kilometres. It perhaps explains the incredibly high casualty rates, even for a Napoleonic battle. Forty-five per cent of the men involved in Waterloo would be either killed or wounded.52
The battle of Waterloo is one of the most written about in history, to the point where it has become synonymous with defeat.53 In the English-language literature, Waterloo is often recounted from a British triumphalist perspective that until recently left little room for the role of the Prussian, Dutch or German contingents.54 The British contingent made up less than one-quarter of the army facing Napoleon’s forces that day. Certainly, Wellington was familiar with the terrain; he had examined the lie of the land on two occasions, in 1814 and again in 1815 when it became apparent that Napoleon was going to attack and that he would have to defend Brussels.55 Wellington dug in his heels and performed well on the day, but Waterloo was not so much a British as an allied victory. Wellington would not have been able to carry the day had it not been for the Dutch and the Prussians.56