The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Memoirs of Napoleon--1815, v15
#15 in our series by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
#15 in our Napoleon Bonaparte series
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Title: Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v15
Author: Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
Release Date: December, 2002 [Etext #3565]
[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
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The Project Gutenberg Etext of Memoirs of Napoleon, by Bourrienne, v15
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MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, VOLUME 15.
By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE
His Private Secretary
Edited by R. W. Phipps
Colonel, Late Royal Artillery
1891
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER XI. to CHAPTER XII. 1815
CHAPTER XI.
1815.
My departure from Hamburg-The King at St. Denis--Fouche appointed
Minister of the Police--Delay of the King's entrance into Paris--
Effect of that delay--Fouche's nomination due to the Duke of
Wellington--Impossibility of resuming my post--Fouche's language
with respect to the Bourbons--His famous postscript--Character of
Fouche--Discussion respecting the two cockades--Manifestations of
public joy repressed by Fouche--Composition of the new Ministry--
Kind attention of Blucher--The English at St. Cloud--Blucher in
Napoleon's cabinet--My prisoner become my protector--Blucher and the
innkeeper's dog--My daughter's marriage contract--Rigid etiquette--
My appointment to the Presidentship of the Electoral College of the
Yonne--My interview with Fouche--My audience of the King--His
Majesty made acquainted with my conversation with Fouche--The Duke
of Otranto's disgrace--Carnot deceived by Bonaparte--My election as
deputy--My colleague, M. Raudot--My return to Paris--Regret caused
by the sacrifice of Ney--Noble conduct of Macdonald--A drive with
Rapp in the Bois de Boulogne--Rapp's interview with Bonaparte in
1815--The Due de Berri and Rapp--My nomination to the office of
Minister of State--My name inscribed by the hand of Louis XVIII.--
Conclusion.
The fulfilment of my prediction was now at hand, for the result of the
Battle of Waterloo enabled Louis XVIII. to return to his dominions. As
soon as I heard of the King's departure from Ghent I quitted Hamburg, and
travelled with all possible haste in the hope of reaching Paris in time
to witness his Majesty's entrance. I arrived at St. Denis on the 7th of
July, and, notwithstanding the intrigues that were set on foot, I found
an immense number of persons assembled to meet the King. Indeed, the
place was so crowded that it was with the greatest difficulty I could
procure even a little garret for my lodging.
Having resumed my uniform of a captain of the National Guard, I proceeded
immediately to the King's palace. The salon was filled with ladies and
gentlemen who had come to congratulate the King on his return. At St.
Denis I found my family, who, not being aware that I had left Hamburg,
were much surprised to see me.
They informed me that the Parisians were all impatient for the return of
the King--a fact of which I could judge by the opposition manifested to
the free expression of public feeling. Paris having been declared in a
state of blockade, the gates were closed, and no one was permitted to
leave the capital, particularly by the Barriere de la Chapelle. It is
true that special permission might be obtained, and with tolerable ease,
by those who wished to leave the city; but the forms to be observed for
obtaining the permission deterred the mass of the people from proceeding
to St. Denis, which, indeed, was the sole object of the regulation. As
it had been resolved to force Fouche and the tri-coloured cockade upon
the King, it was deemed necessary to keep away from his Majesty all who
might persuade him to resist the proposed measures. Madame de Bourrienne
told me that on her arrival at St. Denis she called upon M. Hue and M.
Lefebvre, the King's physician, who both acquainted her with those fatal
resolutions. Those gentlemen, however, assured her that the King would
resolutely hold out against the tri-coloured cockade, but the nomination
of the ill-omened man appeared inevitable.
Fouche Minister of the Police! If, like Don Juan, I had seen a statue
move, I could not have been more confounded than when I heard this news.
I could not credit it until it was repeated to me by different persons.
How; indeed, could I think that at the moment of a reaction the King
should have entrusted the most important ministerial department to a man
to whose arrest he had a hundred days before attached so much
consequence? to a man, moreover, whom Bonaparte had appointed, at Lyons,
to fill the same office! This was inconceivable! Thus, in less than
twenty-four hours, the same man had been entrusted to execute measures
the most opposite, and to serve interests the most contradictory. He was
one day the minister of usurpation, and the next the minister of
legitimacy! How can I express what I felt when Fouche took the oath of
fidelity to Louis XVIII. when I saw the King clasp in his hands the hands
of Fouche! I was standing near M. de Chateaubriand, whose feelings must
have been similar to mine, to judge from a passage in his admirable work,
'La Monarchie selon la Charte'. "About nine in the evening," he says, "I
was in one of the royal antechambers. All at once the door opened, and I
saw the President of the Council enter leaning on the arm of the new
minister. Oh, Louis-le-Desire! Oh, my unfortunate master! you have
proved that there is no sacrifice which your people may not expect from
your paternal heart!"
Fouche was resolved to have his restoration as well as M. de Talleyrand,
who had had his the year before; he therefore contrived to retard the
King's entry into Paris for four days. The prudent members of the
Chamber of Peers, who had taken no part in the King's Government in 1814,
were the first to declare that it was for the interest of France to
hasten his Majesty's entrance into Paris, in order to prevent foreigners
from exercising a sort of right of conquest in a city which was a prey to
civil dissension and party influence. Blucher informed me that the way
in which Fouche contrived to delay the King's return greatly contributed
to the pretensions of the foreigners who, he confessed, were very well
pleased to see the population of Paris divided in opinion, and to hear
the alarming cries raised by the confederates of the Faubourgs when the
King was already at St. Denis.
I know for a fact that Louis XVIII. wished to have nothing to do with
Fouche, and indignantly refused to appoint him when he was first
proposed. But he had so nobly served Bonaparte during the Hundred Days
that it was necessary he should be rewarded. Fouche, besides, had gained
the support of a powerful party among the emigrants of the Faubourg St.
Germain, and he possessed the art of rendering himself indispensable.
I have heard many honest men say very seriously that to him was due the
tranquillity of Paris. Moreover, Wellington was the person by whose
influence in particular Fouche was made one of the counsellors of the
King. After all the benefits which foreigners had conferred upon us
Fouche was indeed an acceptable present to France and to the King.
I was not ignorant of the Duke of Wellington's influence upon the affairs
of the second Restoration, but for a long time I refused to believe that
his influence should have outweighed all the serious considerations
opposed to such a perfect anomaly as appointing Fouche the Minister of a
Bourbon. But I was deceived. France and the King owed to him Fouche's
introduction into the Council, and I had to thank him for the
impossibility of resuming a situation which I had relinquished for the
purpose of following the King into Belgium. Could I be Prefect of Police
under a Minister whom a short time before I had received orders to
arrest, but who eluded my agents? That was impossible. The King could
not offer me the place of Prefect under Fouche, and if he had I could not
have accepted it. I was therefore right in not relying on the assurances
which had been given me; but I confess that if I had been told to guess
the cause why they could not be realised I never should have thought that
cause would have been the appointment of Fouche as a Minister of the King
of France. At first, therefore, I was of course quite forgotten, as is
the custom of courts when a faithful subject refrains from taking part in
the intrigues of the moment.
I have already frequently stated my opinion of the pretended talent of
Fouche; but admitting his talent to have been as great as was supposed,
that would have been an additional reason for not entrusting the general
police of the kingdom to him. His principles and conduct were already
sufficiently known. No one could be ignorant of the language he held
respecting the Bourbons, and in which be indulged as freely after he
became the Minister of Louis XVIII. as when he was the Minister of
Bonaparte. It was universally known that in his conversation the
Bourbons were the perpetual butt for his sarcasms, that he never
mentioned them but in terms of disparagement, and that he represented
them as unworthy of governing France. Everybody must have been aware
that Fouche, in his heart, favoured a Republic, where the part of
President might have been assigned to him. Could any one have forgotten
the famous postscript he subjoined to a letter he wrote from Lyons to his
worthy friend Robespierre: "To celebrate the fete of the Republic
suitably, I have ordered 250 persons to be shot?" And to this man, the
most furious enemy of the restoration of the monarchy, was consigned the
task of consolidating it for the second time! But it would require
another Claudian to describe this new Rufinus!
Fouche never regarded a benefit in any other light than as the means of
injuring his benefactor. The King, deceived, like many other persons, by
the reputation which Fouche's partisans had conjured up for him, was
certainly not aware that Fouche had always discharged the functions of
Minister in his own interest, and never for the interest of the
Government which had the weakness to entrust him with a power always
dangerous in his hands. Fouche had opinions, but he belonged to no
party, and his political success is explained by the readiness with which
he always served the party he knew must triumph, and which he himself
overthrew in its turn. He maintained himself in favour from the days of
blood and terror until the happy time of the second Restoration only by
abandoning and sacrificing those who were attached to him; and it might
be said that his ruling passion was the desire of continual change. No
man was ever characterised by greater levity or inconstancy of mind. In
all things he looked only to himself, and to this egotism he sacrificed
both subjects and Governments. Such were the secret causes of the sway
exercised by Fouche during the Convention, the Directory, the Empire, the
Usurpation, and after the second return of the Bourbons. He helped to
found and to destroy every one of those successive Governments. Fouche's
character is perfectly unique. I know no other man who, loaded with
honours, and almost escaping disgrace, has passed through so many
eventful periods, and taken part in so many convulsions and revolutions.
On the 7th of July the King was told that Fouche alone could smooth the
way for his entrance into Paris, that he alone could unlock the gates of
the capital, and that he alone had power to control public opinion. The
reception given to the King on the following day afforded an opportunity
of judging of the truth of these assertions. The King's presence was the
signal for a feeling of concord, which was manifested in a very decided
way. I saw upon the boulevards, and often in company with each other,
persons, some of whom had resumed the white cockade, while others still
retained the national colours, and harmony was not in the least disturbed
by these different badges.
Having returned to private life solely on account of Fouche's presence in
the Ministry, I yielded to that consolation which is always left to the
discontented. I watched the extravagance and inconsistency that were
passing around me, and the new follies which were every day committed;
and it must be confessed that a rich and varied picture presented itself
to my observation. The King did not bring back M. de Blacas. His
Majesty had yielded to prudent advice, and on arriving at Mons sent the
unlucky Minister as his ambassador to Naples. Vengeance was talked of,
and there were some persons inconsiderate enough to wish that advantage
should be taken of the presence of the foreigners in order to make what
they termed "an end of the Revolution," as if there were any other means
of effecting that object than frankly adopting whatever good the
Revolution had produced. The foreigners observed with satisfaction the
disposition of these shallow persons, which they thought might be turned
to their own advantage. The truth is, that on the second Restoration our
pretended allies proved themselves our enemies.
But for them, but for their bad conduct, their insatiable exactions, but
for the humiliation that was felt at seeing foreign cannon planted in the
streets of Paris, and beneath the very windows of the Palace, the days
which followed the 8th of July might have been considered by the Royal
Family as the season of a festival. Every day people thronged to the
garden of the Tuileries, and expressed their joy by singing and dancing
under the King's windows.
This ebullition of feeling might perhaps be thought absurd, but it at
least bore evidence of the pleasure caused by the return of the Bourbons.
This manifestation of joy by numbers of persons of both sexes, most of
them belonging to the better classes of society, displeased Fouche, and
he determined to put a stop to it. Wretches were hired to mingle with
the crowd and sprinkle corrosive liquids on the dresses of the females
some of them were even instructed to commit acts of indecency, so that
all respectable persons were driven from the gardens through the fear of
being injured or insulted: As it was wished to create disturbance under
the very eyes of the King, and to make him doubt the reality of the
sentiments so openly expressed in his favour, the agents of the Police
mingled the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" with that of "Vive le Roi!" and it
happened oftener than once that the most respectable persons were
arrested and charged by Fouche's infamous agents with having uttered
seditious cries. A friend of mine, whose Royalist opinions were well
known, and whose father had been massacred during the Revolution, told me
that while walking with two ladies he heard some individuals near him
crying out "Vive l'Empereur!" This created a great disturbance. The
sentinel advanced to the spot, and those very individuals themselves had
the audacity to charge my friend with being guilty of uttering the
offensive cry. In vain the bystanders asserted the falsehood of the
accusation; he was seized and dragged to the guard-house, and after being
detained for some hours he was liberated on the application of his
friends. By dint of such wretched manoeuvres Fouche triumphed. He
contrived to make it be believed that he was the only person capable of
preventing the disorders of which he himself was the sole author: He got
the Police of the Tuileries under his control. The singing and dancing
ceased, and the Palace was the abode of dulness.
While the King was at St. Denis he restored to General Dessoles the
command of the National Guard. The General ordered the barriers to be
immediately thrown open. On the day of his arrival in Paris the King
determined, as a principle, that the throne should be surrounded by a
Privy Council, the members of which were to be the princes and persons
whom his Majesty might appoint at a future period. The King then named
his new Ministry, which was thus composed:
Prince Talleyrand, peer of France, President of the Council of Ministers,
and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Baron Louis, Minister of Finance.
The Duke of Otranto, Minister of the Police.
Baron Pasquier, Minister of Justice, and Keeper of the Seals.
Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, War Minister.
Comte de Jaucourt, peer of France, Minister of the Marine.
The Duc de Richelieu, peer of France, Minister of the King's Household.
The portfolio of the Minister of the Interior, which was not immediately
disposed of, was provisionally entrusted to the Minister of Justice. But
what was most gratifying to the public in the composition of this new
ministry was that M. de Blacas, who had made himself so odious to
everybody, was superseded by M. de Richelieu, whose name revived the
memory of a great Minister, and who, by his excellent conduct throughout
the whole course of his career, deserves to be distinguished as a model
of honour and wisdom.
General satisfaction was expressed on the appointment of Marshal
Macdonald to the post of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour in lieu
of M. de Pradt. M. de Chabrol resumed the Prefecture of the Seine,
which, during the Hundred Days, had been occupied by M. de Bondi, M. de
Mole was made Director-General of bridges and causeways. I was
superseded in the Prefecture of Police by M. Decazes, and M. Beugnot
followed M. Ferrand as Director-General of the Post-office.
I think it was on the 10th of July that I went to St. Cloud to pay a
visit of thanks to Blucher. I had been informed that as soon as he
learned I had a house at St. Cloud he sent a guard to protect it. This
spontaneous mark of attention was well deserving of grateful
acknowledgment, especially at a time when there was so much reason to
complain of the plunder practised by the Prussians. My visit to Blucher
presented to observation a striking instance of the instability of human
greatness. I found Blucher residing like a sovereign in the Palace of
St. Cloud, where I had lived so long in the intimacy of Napoleon, at a
period when he dictated laws to the Kings of Europe before he was a
monarch himself.
--[The English occupied St. Cloud after the Prussians. My large
house, in which the children of the Comte d'Artois were inoculated,
was respected by them, but they occupied a small home forming part
of the estate. The English officer who commanded the troops
stationed a guard at the large house. One morning we were informed
that the door had been broken open and a valuable looking-glass
stolen. We complained to the commanding officer, and on the affair
being inquired into it was discovered that the sentinel himself had
committed the theft. The man was tried by a court-martial, and
condemned to death, a circumstance which, as may naturally be
supposed, was very distressing to us. Madame de Bourrienne applied
to the commanding officer for the man's pardon, but could only
obtain his reprieve. The regiment departed some weeks after, and we
could never learn what was the fate of the criminal.--Bourrienne.]--
In that cabinet in which Napoleon and I had passed so many busy hours,
and where so many great plans had their birth, I was received by the man
who had been my prisoner at Hamburg. The Prussian General immediately
reminded me of the circumstance. "Who could have foreseen," said he,
"that after being your prisoner I should become the protector of your
property? You treated me well at Hamburg, and I have now an opportunity
of repaying your kindness. Heaven knows what will be the result of all
this! One thing, however, is certain, and that is, that the Allies will
now make such conditions as will banish all possibility of danger for a
long time to come. The Emperor Alexander does not wish to make the
French people expiate too dearly the misfortunes they have caused us.
He attributes them to Napoleon, but Napoleon cannot pay the expenses of
the war, and they must be paid by some one. It was all very well for
once, but we cannot pay the expense of coming back a second time.
However," added he, "you will lose none of your territory; that is a
point on which I can give you positive assurance. The Emperor Alexander
has several times repeated in my presence to the King my master,
'I honour the French nation, and I am determined that it shall preserve
its old limits.'"
The above are the very words which Blucher addressed to me. Profiting by
the friendly sentiments he expressed towards me I took the opportunity of
mentioning the complaints that were everywhere made of the bad discipline
of the troops under his command. "What can I do?" said he. "I cannot
be present everywhere; but I assure you that in future and at your
recommendation I will severely punish any misconduct that may come to my
knowledge."
Such was the result of my visit to Blucher; but, in spite of his
promises, his troops continued to commit the most revolting excesses.
Thus the Prussian troops have left in the neighbourhood of Paris
recollections no less odious than those produced by the conduct of
Davoust's corps in Prussia.--Of this an instance now occurs to my
memory, which I will relate here. In the spring of 1816, as I was going
to Chevreuse, I stopped at the Petit Bicetre to water my horse. I seated
myself for a few minutes near the door of the inn, and a large dog
belonging to the innkeeper began to bark and growl at me. His master, a
respectable-looking old man, exclaimed, "Be quiet, Blucher!"--"How came
you to give your dog that name?" said I.--"Ah, sir! it is the name of a
villain who did a great deal of mischief here last year. There is my
house; they have left scarcely anything but the four walls. They said
they came for our good; but let them come back again . . . . we will
watch them, and spear them like wild boars in the wood." The poor man's
house certainly exhibited traces of the most atrocious violence, and he
shed tears as he related to me his disasters.
Before the King departed for Ghent he had consented to sign the contract
of marriage between one of my daughters and M. Massieu de Clerval, though
the latter was at that time only a lieutenant in the navy. The day
appointed for the signature of the contract happened to be Sunday, the
19th of March, and it may well be imagined that in the critical
circumstances in which we then stood, a matter of so little importance
could scarcely be thought about. In July I renewed my request to his
Majesty; which gave rise to serious discussions in the Council of
Ceremonies. Lest any deviation from the laws of rigid etiquette should
commit the fate of the monarchy, it was determined that the marriage
contract of a lieutenant in the navy could be signed only at the petty
levee. However, his Majesty, recollecting the promise he had given me,
decided that the signature should be given at the grand levee. Though
all this may appear exceedingly ludicrous, yet I must confess that the
triumph over etiquette was very gratifying to me.
A short time after the King appointed me a Councillor of State; a title
which I had held under Bonaparte ever since his installation at the
Tuileries, though I had never fulfilled the functions of the office.
In the month of August; the King having resolved to convoke a new Chamber
of Deputies, I was appointed President of the Electoral College of the
department of the Yonne. As soon as I was informed of my nomination I
waited on M. de Talleyrand for my instructions, but he told me that, in
conformity with the King's intentions, I was to receive my orders from
the Minister of Police. I observed to M. de Talleyrand that I must
decline seeing Fouche, on account of the situation in which we stood with
reference to each other. "Go to him, go to him," said M. de Talleyrand,
"and be assured Fouche will say to you nothing on the subject."
I felt great repugnance to see Fouche, and consequently I went to him
quite against my inclination. I naturally expected a very cold
reception. What had passed between us rendered our interview exceedingly
delicate. I called on Fouche at nine in the morning, and found him
alone, and walking in his garden. He received me as a man might be
expected to receive an intimate friend whom he had not seen for a long
time. On reflection I was not very much surprised at this, for I was
well aware that Fouche could make his hatred yield to calculation. He
said not a word about his arrest, and it may well be supposed that I did
not seek to turn the conversation on that subject. I asked him whether
he had any information to give me respecting the elections of the Yonne.
"None at all," said he; "get yourself nominated if you can, only use your
endeavours to exclude General Desfouinaux. Anything else is a matter of
indifference to me."--"What is your objection to Desfournaux?"--"The
Ministry will not have him."
I was about to depart when Fouche; called me back saying, "Why are you in
such haste? Cannot you stay a few minutes longer?" He then began to
speak of the first return of the Bourbons, and asked me how I could so
easily bring myself to act in their favour. He then entered into details
respecting the Royal Family which I conceive it to be my duty to pass
over in silence: It may be added, however, that the conversation lasted a
long time, and to say the least of it, was by no means in favour of
"divine right."
I conceived it to be my duty to make the King acquainted with this
conversation, and as there was now no Comte de Blacas to keep truth and
good advice from his Majesty's ear, I was; on my first solicitation,
immediately admitted to, the Royal cabinet. I cautiously suppressed the
most startling details, for, had I literally reported what Fouche said,
Louis XVIII. could not possibly have given credit to it. The King
thanked me for my communication, and I could perceive he was convinced
that by longer retaining Fouche in office he would become the victim of
the Minister who had been so scandalously forced upon him on the 7th of
July. The disgrace of the Duke of Otranto speedily followed, and I had
the satisfaction of having contributed to repair one of the evils with
which the Duke of Wellington visited France.
Fouche was so evidently a traitor to the cause he feigned to serve, and
Bonaparte was so convinced of this,--that during the Hundred Days, when
the Ministers of the King at Ghent were enumerated in the presence of
Napoleon, some one said, "But where is the Minister of the Police?"
"E-h! Parbleu," said Bonaparte, "that is Fouche?" It was not the same
with Carnot, in spite of the indelible stain of his vote: if he had
served the King, his Majesty could have depended on him, but nothing
could shake the firmness of his principles in favour of liberty. I
learned, from a person who had the opportunity of being well informed,
that he would not accept the post of Minister of the Interior which was
offered to him at the commencement of the Hundred Days until he had a
conversation with Bonaparte, to ascertain whether he had changed his
principles. Carnot placed faith in the fair promises of Napoleon, who
deceived him, as he had deceived others.
Soon after my audience with the King I set off to discharge my duties in
the department of the Yonne, and I obtained the honour of being elected
to represent my countrymen in the Chamber of Deputies. My colleague was
M. Raudot, a man who, in very trying circumstances, had given proofs of
courage by boldly manifesting his attachment to the King's Government.
The following are the facts which I learned in connection with this
episode, and which I circulated as speedily as possible among the
electors of whom I had the honour to be President. Bonaparte, on his way
from Lyons to Paris, after his landing at the gulf of Juan, stopped at
Avalon, and immediately sent for the mayor, M. Raudot. He instantly
obeyed the summons. On coming into Napoleon's presence he said, "What do
you want, General? "This appellation displeased Napoleon, who
nevertheless put several questions to M. Raudot, who was willing to
oblige him as a traveller, but not to serve him as an Emperor. Napoleon
having given him some orders, this worthy servant of the King replied,
"General, I can receive no orders from you, for I acknowledge no
sovereign but the King, to whom I have sworn allegiance." Napoleon then
directed M. Raudot, in a tone of severity, to withdraw, and I need not
add that it was not long before he was dismissed from the mayoralty of
Avalon.
The elections of the Yonne being over, I returned to Paris, where I took
part in public affairs only as an amateur, while waiting for the opening
of the session. I was deeply grieved to see the Government resort to
measures of severity to punish faults which it would have been better
policy to attribute only to the unfortunate circumstances of the times.
No consideration can ever make me cease to regret the memory of Ney, who
was the victim of the influence of foreigners. Their object, as Blucher
intimated to me at St. Cloud, was to disable France from engaging in war
for a long time to come, and they hoped to effect that object by stirring
up between the Royal Government and the army of the Loire that spirit of
discord which the sacrifice of Ney could not fail to produce. I have no
positive proofs of the fact, but in my opinion Ney's life was a pledge of
gratitude which Fouche thought he must offer to the foreign influence
which had made him Minister.
About this time I learned a fact which will create no surprise, as it
affords another proof of the chivalrous disinterestedness of Macdonald's
character. When in 1815 several Marshals claimed from the Allied powers
their endowments in foreign countries, Madame Moreau, to whom the King
had given the honorary title of 'Madame la Marechale', and who was the
friend of the Duke of Tarentum, wrote, without Macdonald's knowledge, to
M. de Blacas; our ambassador at Naples, begging him to endeavour to
preserve for the Marshal the endowment which had been given him in the
Kingdom of Naples. As soon as Macdonald was informed of this
circumstance he waited upon Madame Moreau, thanked her for her kind
intentions, but at the same time informed her that he should disavow all
knowledge of her letter, as the request it contained was entirely averse
to his principles. The Marshal did, in fact, write the following letter
to M. de Blacas:--"I hasten to inform you, sir, that it was not with my
consent that Madame Moreau wrote to you, and I beg you will take no step
that might expose me to a refusal. The King of Naples owes me no
recompense for having beaten his army, revolutionised his kingdom, and
forced him to retire to Sicily." Such conduct was well worthy of the man
who was the last to forsake Napoleon in, 1814, and the first to rejoin
him, and that without the desire of accepting any appointment in 1815.
M. de Blacas, who was himself much surprised at Macdonald's letter,
communicated it to the King of Naples, whose answer deserves to be
recorded. It was as follows:--"If I had not imposed a law upon myself to
acknowledge none of the French endowments, the conduct of Marshal
Macdonald would have induced me to make an exception in his favour." It
is gratifying to see princes such scrupulous observers of the laws they
make for themselves!
About the end of August 1815, as I was walking on the Boulevard des
Capucines, I had the pleasure of meeting Rapp, whom I had not seen for a
long time. He had just come out of the house of Lagrenee, the artist,
who was painting his portrait. I was on foot, and Rapp's carriage was
waiting, so we both stepped into it, and set off to take a drive in the
Bois de Boulogne. We had a great deal to say to each other, for we had
not met since the great events of the two Restorations. The reason of
this was, that in 1814 I passed a part of the year at Sens, and since the
occurrences of March 1815 Rapp himself had been absent from Paris. I
found him perfectly resigned to his change of condition, though indulging
in a few oaths against the foreigners. Rapp was not one of those,
generals who betrayed the King on the 20th of March. He told me that he
remained at the head of the division which he commanded at Ecouen, under
the orders of the Due de Berry, and that he did not resign it to the War
Minister until after the King's departure. "How did Napoleon receive
you?" I inquired. "I waited till he sent for me. You know what sort of
fellow I am: I know nothing about politics; not I. I had sworn fidelity
to the King. I know my duty, and I would have fought against the
Emperor."--"Indeed!"--"Yes, certainly I would, and I told him so
myself."--"How! did you venture so far?"--"To be sure. I told him that
my resolution was definite. 'Pshaw! . . . replied he angrily.
'I knew well that you were opposed to me. If we had come to an action I
should have sought you out on the field of battle. I would have shown
you the Medusa's head. Would you have dared to fire on me?'--'Without
doubt,' I replied. `Ah! parbleu this is too much,' he said. 'But your
troops would not have obeyed you. They had preserved all their affection
for me.'--'What could I do?' resumed I. 'You abdicated, you left France,
you recommended us to serve the King--and then you return! Besides; I
tell you frankly, I do not augur well of what will happen. We shall have
war again. France has had enough of that.' Upon this," continued Rapp,
"he assured me that he had other thoughts; that he had no further desire
for war; that he wished to govern in peace, and devote himself solely to
the happiness of his people. When I hinted opposition on the part of the
Foreign Powers, he said that he had made alliances. He then spoke to me
of the King, and I said I had been much pleased with him; indeed, the
King gave me a very gratifying reception on my return from Kiow, and I
see no reason why I should complain, when I am so well used. During the
conversation the Emperor much extolled the conduct of the Duke of
Orleans. He then gave me some description of his passage from the Isle
of Elba and his journey to Paris. He complained of being accused of
ambition; and observing that I looked astonished and doubtful--`What?' he
continued, 'am I ambitious then?' And patting his belly with both his
hands, 'Can a man,' he asked, 'so fat as I am be ambitious?' I could not
for my soul help saying, 'Ah! Sire, your Majesty is surely joking.'
He pretended, however, to be serious, and after a few moments, noticing
my decorations, he began to banter me about the Cross of St. Louis and
the Cross of the Lily, which I still wore."
I asked Rapp whether all was true that had been said about the enthusiasm
which was manifested along the whole of Napoleon's route from the Gulf of
Juan to Paris. "Ma foe!" he replied, "I was not there any more than you,
but all those who accompanied him have assured me of the truth of the
details which have been published; but I recollect having heard Bertrand
say that on one occasion he was fearful for the safety of the Emperor, in
case any assassin should have presented himself. At Fossard, where the
Emperor stopped to breakfast on his way to Paris, his escort was so
fatigued as to be unable to follow, so that he was for some time almost
alone on the road, until a squadron which was in garrison at Melun met
him and escorted him to Fontainebleau. As to anything else, from all I
have heard, the Emperor was exposed to no danger."
We then began to talk of our situation, and the singular chances of our
fortune. Rapp told me how, within a few days only, he had ceased to be
one of the discontented; for the condition of the generals who had
commanded army corps in the campaign of Waterloo was very different in
1815 from what it had been in 1814. "I had determined," he said, "to
live a quiet life, to meddle with nothing, and not even to wear my
uniform. I had, therefore, since the King's return never presented
myself at Court; when, a week ago, while riding on horseback two or three
hundred paces from this spot, I saw a group of horsemen on the other
side of the avenue, one of whom galloped towards me. I immediately
recognised the Duc de Berry, 'How, Monseigneur, is it you?' I exclaimed.
'It is, my dear General; and since you will not come to us, I must come
to you. Will you breakfast with me tomorrow morning?'--'Ma foi!"
continued Rapp, "what could I do? The tone of kindness in which he gave
this invitation quite charmed me. I went, and I was treated so well that
I shall go again. But I will ask for nothing: I only want these
Prussians and English rascals out of the way! "I complimented Rapp on
his conduct, and told him that it was impossible that so loyal and honest
a man as he should not, at some time or other, attract the King's notice.
I had the happiness to see this prediction accomplished. Since that time
I regularly saw Rapp whenever we both happened to be in Paris, which was
pretty often.
I have already mentioned that in the month of August the King named me
Councillor of State. On the 19th of the following month I was appointed
Minister of State and member of the Privy Council. I may close these
volumes by relating a circumstance very flattering to me, and connected
with the last-mentioned nomination. The King had directed M. de
Talleyrand to present to him, in his official character of President of
the Council of Ministers, a list of the persons who might be deemed
suitable as members of the Privy Council. The King having read the list,
said to his Minister, "But, M. de Talleyrand, I do not see here the names
of two of our best friends, Bourrienne and Alexis de Noailles."--" Sire,
I thought their nomination would seem more flattering in coming directly
from your Majesty." The King then added my name to the list, and
afterwards that of the Comte Alexis de Noailles, so that both our names
are written in Louis XVIII.'s own hand in the original Ordinance.
I have now brought to a conclusion my narrative of the extraordinary
events in which I have taken part, either as a spectator or an actor,
during the course of a strangely diversified life, of which nothing now
remains but recollections.
--[I discharged the functions of Councillor of State until 1818, at
which time an Ordinance appeared declaring those functions
Incompatible with the title of Minister of State--Bourrienne.]--
CHAPTER XII.
THE CENT JOURS.
The extraordinary rapidity of events during the Cent fours, or Hundred
Days of Napoleon's reign in 1815, and the startling changes in the parts
previously filled by the chief personages, make it difficult to consider
it as an historical period; it more resembles a series of sudden
theatrical transformations, only broken by the great pause while the
nation waited for news from the army.
The first Restoration of the Bourbons had been so unexpected, and was so
rapidly carried out, that the Bonapartists, or indeed all France, had
hardly realized the situation before Napoleon was again in the Tuileries;
and during the Cent Jours both Bonapartists and Royalists were alike
rubbing their eyes, asking whether they were awake, and wondering which
was the reality and which the dream, the Empire or the Restoration.
It is both difficult and interesting to attempt to follow the history of
the chief characters of the period; and the reader must pardon some
abrupt transitions from person to person, and from group to group, while
the details of some subsequent movements of the Bonaparte family must be
thrown in to give a proper idea of the strange revolution in their
fortunes. We may divide the characters with which we have to deal into
five groups,--the Bonaparte family, the Marshals, the Statesmen of the
Empire, the Bourbons, and the Allied Monarchs. One figure and one name
will be missing, but if we omit all account of poor, bleeding, mutilated
France, it is but leaving her in the oblivion in which she was left at
the time by every one except by Napoleon.
The disaster of 1814 had rather dispersed than crushed the Bonaparte
family, and they rallied immediately on the return from Elba. The final
fall of the Empire was total ruin to them. The provisions of the Treaty
of Fontainebleau, which had been meant to ensure a maintenance to them,
had not been carried out while Napoleon was still a latent power, and
after 1815 the Bourbons were only too happy to find a reason for not
paying a debt they had determined never to liquidate it was well for any
of the Bourbons in their days of distress to receive the bounty of the
usurper, but there was a peculiar pleasure in refusing to pay the price
promised for his immediate abdication.
The flight of the Bonapartes in 1815 was rapid. Metternich writes to
Maria Louisa in July 1815: "Madame Mere and Cardinal Fesch left yesterday
for Tuscany. We do not know exactly where. Joseph is. Lucien is in
England under a false name, Jerome in Switzerland, Louis at Rome. Queen
Hortense has set out for Switzerland, whither General de Flahault and his
mother will follow her. Murat seems to be still at Toulon; this,
however, is not certain." Was ever such an account of a dynasty given?
These had all been among the great ones of Europe: in a moment they were
fugitives, several of them having for the rest of their lives a bitter
struggle with poverty. Fortunately for them the Pope, the King of
Holland, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, were not under heavy obligations
to Napoleon, and could thus afford to give to his family the protection
denied them by those monarchs who believed themselves bound to redeem
their former servility.
When Napoleon landed Maria Louisa was in Austria, and she was eager to
assist in taking every precaution to prevent her son, the young King of
Rome, being spirited off to join his father, whose fortunes she had sworn
to share: She herself was fast falling under the influence of the one-
eyed Austrian General, Neipperg, just then left a widower, who was soon
to be admitted to share her bed. By 1823 she seemed to have entirely
forgotten the different members of the Bonaparte family, speaking of her
life in France as "a bad dream." She obtained the Grand-Duchy of Parma,
where she reigned till 1847, marrying a third time, it is said, the Count
Bombellea, and dying, just too soon to be hunted from her Duchy by the
Revolution of 1848.
There is something very touching in most that we know of the poor young
King of Rome, from his childish but strangely prescient resistance to his
removal from Paris to Blois on the approach of the Allies in 1814, to the
message of remembrance sent in after years to the column of the Place
Vendome, "his only friend in Paris."
At four years of age Meneval describes him as gentle, but quick in
answering, strong, and with excellent health. "Light curly hair in
ringlets set off a fresh face, while fine blue eyes lit up his regular
features: He was precociously intelligent, and knew more than most
children older than himself." When Meneval--the former secretary of his
father, giving up his post in Austria with Maria Louisa, as he was about
to rejoin Napoleon--took farewell of the Prince in May 1815, the poor
little motherless child drew me towards the window, and, giving me a
touching look, said in a low tone, "Monsieur Meva, tell him (Napoleon)
that I always love him dearly." We say "motherless," because Maria
Louisa seems to have yielded up her child at the dictates of policy to be
closely guarded as easily as she gave up her husband. "If," wrote Madame
de Montesquiou, his governess, "the child had a mother, I would leave him
in her hands, and be happy, but she is nothing like a mother, she is more
indifferent to his fate than the most utter stranger in her service."
His grandfather, the Emperor Francis, to do him justice, seems to have
been really kind to the lad, and while, in 1814, 1816, and in 1830,
taking care to deprive him of all chance of, his glorious inheritance,
still seems to have cared for him personally, and to have been always
kind to him. There is no truth in the story that the Austrians neglected
his education and connived at the ruin of his faculties. Both his tutor,
the Count Maurice Dietrichstein, and Marshal Marmont, who conversed with
him in 1831, agree in speaking highly of him as full of promise:
Marmont's evidence being especially valuable as showing that the
Austrians did not object to the Duke of Reichstadt (as he had been
created by his grandfather in 1818), learning all be could of his
father's life from one of the Marshals. In 1831 Marment describes him:
"I recognised his father's look in him, and in that he most resembled
Napoleon. His eyes, not so large as those of Napoleon, and sunk deeper
in their sockets, had the same expression, the same fire, the same
energy. His forehead was like that of his father, and so was the lower
part of his face and his chin. Then his complexion was that of Napoleon
in his youth, with the same pallor and the same colour of the skin, but
all the rest of his face recalled his mother and the House of Austria.
He was taller than Napoleon by about three inches." `
As long as the Duke lived his name was naturally the rallying-point of
the Bonapartes, and was mentioned in some of the many conspiracies
against the Bourbons. In 1830 Joseph Bonaparte tried to get the sanction
of the Austrians to his nephew being put forward as a claimant to the
throne of France, vacant by the flight of Charles X., but they held their
captive firmly. A very interesting passage is given in the 'Memoirs of
Charles Greville', who says that Prince Esterhazy told him a great deal
about the Duke of Reichstadt, who, if he had lived, would have probably
played a great part in the world. He died of a premature decay, brought
on, apparently, by over-exertion and over-excitement; his talents were
very conspicuous, he was 'petri d'ambition', worshipped the memory of his
father, and for that reason never liked his mother; his thoughts were
incessantly turned towards France, and when he heard of the Days of July
(overthrow of Charles X.) he said, "Why was I not there to take my
chance? He evinced great affection and gratitude to his grandfather,
who, while he scrupulously observed all his obligations towards Louis
Philippe, could not help feeling a secret pride in the aspiring genius of
Napoleon's son. He was well educated, and day and night pored over the
history of his father's glorious career. He delighted in military
exercises, and not only shone at the head of his regiment, but had
already acquired the hereditary art of ingratiating himself with the
soldiers." Esterhazy went on to describe how the Duke abandoned
everything at a ball when he met there Marshals Marmont and Maison."
He had no eyes or ears but for them; from nine in the evening to five the
next morning he devoted himself to these Marshals." There was the true
Napoleonic ring in his answer to advice given by Marmont when the Duke
said that he would not allow himself to be put forward by the Sovereigns
of Europe. "The son of Napoleon should be too great to serve as an
instrument; and in events of that nature I wish not to be an advanced
guard, but a reserve,--that is, to come as a succour, recalling great
memories."
His death in 1832, on the 22d of July, the anniversary of the battle of
Salamanca, solved many questions. Metternich visited the Duke on his
deathbed: "It was a heartrending sight. I never remember to have seen a
more mournful picture of decay." When Francis was told of the death of
his grandson he answered, "I look upon the Duke's death as a blessing for
him. Whether it be detrimental or otherwise to the public good I do not
know. As for myself, I shall ever lament the loss of my grandson."
Josephine was in her grave at Rueil when Napoleon returned. She had died
on the 29th of May 1814, at Malmaison, while the Allies were exhibiting
themselves in Paris. It seems hard that she should not have lived to
enjoy a triumph, however brief, over her Austrian rival. "She, at
least," said Napoleon truly, "would never have abandoned me."
Josephine's daughter, Hortense, separated from her husband, Louis
Bonaparte, and created Duchess of St Leu by Louis XVIII., was in Paris,
much suspected by the Bourbons, but really engaged in a lawsuit with her
husband about the custody of her sons. She had to go into hiding when
the news of the landing arrived, but her empty house, left unwatched,
became very useful for receiving the Bonapartists, who wished for a place
of concealment, amongst them, as we shall see, being, of all people,
Fouche! Hortense was met by Napoleon with some reproaches for accepting
a title from the Bourbons, but she did the honours of the Elysee for him,
and it is creditable to both of them that, braving the vile slanders
about their intercourse, she was with him to the end; and that one of the
last persons to embrace him at Malmaison before he started for the coast
was his adopted daughter, the child of his discarded wife. Hortense's
presence in Paris was thought to be too dangerous by the Prussian
Governor; and she was peremptorily ordered to leave. An appeal to the
Emperor Francis received a favourable answer, but Francis always gave way
where any act against his son-in-law was in question, and she had to
start at the shortest notice on a wandering life to Aix, Baden, and
Constance, till the generosity of the small but brave canton of Thurgau
enabled her to get a resting-place at the Chateau of Arenenberg.
In 1831 she lost her second son, the eldest then surviving, who died from
fever in a revolutionary attempt ill which he and his younger brother,
the future Napoleon. III., were engaged. She was able to visit France
incognita, and even to see Louis Philippe and his Queen; but her presence
in the country was soon thought dangerous, and she was urged to leave.
In 1836 Hortense's last child, Louis Napoleon, made his attempt at an
'emeule' at Strasburg, and was shipped off to America by the Government.
She went to France to plead for him, and then, worn out by grief and
anxiety, returned to Arenenberg, which her son, the future Emperor, only
succeeded in reaching in time to see her die in October 1837. She was
laid with Josephine at Rueil.
Hortense's brother, Prince Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy, was at Vienna
when Napoleon returned, and fell under the suspicion of the Allies of
having informed the Emperor of the intention of removing him from Elba.
He was detained in Bavaria by his father-in-law the King, to whose Court
he retired, and who in 1817 created him Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince
of Eichstadt. With the protection of Bavaria he actually succeeded in
wringing from the Bourbons some 700,000 francs of the property of his
mother. A first attack of apoplexy struck him in 1823, and he died from
a second in February 1824 at Munich. His descendants have intermarried
into the Royal Families of Portugal, Sweden, Brazil, Russia, 'and
Wartemberg; his grandson now (1884) holds the title of Leuchtenberg.
Except Louis, an invalid, all the brothers of the Emperor were around him
in the Cent Jours, the supreme effort of their family. Joseph had left
Spain after Vittoria, and had remained in an uncomfortable and
unrecognised state near Paris until in 1814 he was again employed, and
when, rightly or not, he urged the retreat of the Regency from Paris to
Blois. He then took refuge at his chateau of Prangins in the canton Vaud
in Switzerland, closely watched by the Bourbonists, who dreaded danger
from every side except the real point, and who preferred trying to hunt
the Bonapartists from place to place, instead of making their life
bearable by carrying out the engagements with them.
In 1816, escaping from the arrest with which he was threatened, after
having written to urge Murat to action with fatal effect, Joseph joined
Napoleon in Paris, and appeared at the Champ de Mai, sitting also in the
Chamber of Peers, but, as before, putting forward ridiculous pretensions
as to his inherent right to the peerage, and claiming a special seat. In
fact, he never could realise how entirely he owed any position to the
brother he wished to treat as an equal.
He remained in Paris during the brief campaign, and after Waterloo was
concealed in the house of the Swedish Ambassador, where his sister-in-
law, the Crown Princess of Sweden, the wife of Bernadotte, was living.
Muffling, the Prussian Governor of Paris, wished to arrest him, but as
the Governor could not violate the domicile of an Ambassador, he had to
apply to the Czar, who arranged for the escape of the ex-King before the
Governor could seize him Joseph went to the coast, pretty much following
the route of Napoleon. He was arrested once at Saintes, but was allowed
to proceed, and he met his brother on the 4th of July, at Rochefort.
It is significant as to the possibility of the escape of Napoleon that
Joseph succeeded in getting on the brig Commerce as "M. Bouchard," and,
though the ship was thrice searched by the English, he got to New York on
the 28th of August, where he was mistaken for Carnot. He was well
received, and, taking the title of Comte de Survilliers, he first lived
at Lansdowne, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, where he afterwards always
passed part of the year while he was in America. He also bought the
property of Point Breeze, at Bordentown, on the Delaware, where he built
a house with a fine view of the river. This first house was burnt down,
but he erected another, where he lived in some state and in great
comfort, displaying his jewels and pictures to his admiring neighbours,
and showing kindness to impecunious nephews.
The news of the Revolution of July in 1830, which drove Charles X. from
the throne, excited Joseph's hopes for the family of which he considered
himself the Regent, and he applied to Metternich to get the Austrian
Government to allow or assist in the placing his nephew, the Duke of
Reichstadt, on the throne of France. Austria would not even answer.
In July 1832 Joseph crossed to England, where he met Lucien, just arrived
from Italy, bringing the news of the death of his nephew. Disappointed,
he stayed in England for some time, but returned to America in 1836. In
he finally left America, and again came to England, where he had a
paralytic stroke, and in 1843 he went to Florence, where he met his wife
after a long separation.
Joseph lived long enough to see the two attempts of another nephew, Louis
Napoleon, at Strasburg in 1836, and at Boulogne in 1840, which seem to
have been undertaken without his knowledge, and to have much surprised
him. He died in Florence in 1844; his body was buried first in Santa
Croce, Florence, but was removed to the Invalides in 1864. His wife the
ex-Queen, had retired in 1815 to Frankfort and to Brussels, where she was
well received by the King, William, and where she stayed till 1823, when
she went to Florence, dying there in 1845. Her monument is in the
Cappella Riccardi, Santa Croce, Florence.
Lucien had retired to Rome in 1804, on the creation of the Empire, and
had continued embroiled with his brother, partly from his so-called
Republican principles, but chiefly from his adhering to his marriage,
his second one, with Madame Jouberthon,--a union which Napoleon steadily
refused to acknowledge, offering Lucien anything, a kingdom or the hand
of a queen (if we take Lucien's account), if he would only consent to the
annulment of the contract.
In August 1810, affecting uneasiness as Napoleon stretched his power over
Rome, Lucien embarked for America, but he was captured by the English and
taken, first to Malta and then to England, where he passed the years till
1814 in a sort of honourable captivity, first at Ludlow and then at
Thorngrove, not far from that town.
In 1814 Lucien was released, when he went to Rome, where he was welcomed
by the kindly old Pope, who remembered the benefits conferred by Napoleon
on the Church, while he forgot the injuries personal to himself; and the
stiff-necked Republican, the one-time "Brutus" Bonaparte, accepted the
title of Duke of Musignano and Prince of Canino.
In 1815 Lucien joined his brother, whom he wished to abdicate at the
Champ de Mai in favour of the King of Rome, placing his sword only at the
disposal of France. This step was seriously debated, but, though it
might have placed the Allies in a more difficult position, it would
certainly have been disregarded by them, at least unless some great
victory had given the dynasty firmer footing. After Waterloo he was in
favour of a dissolution of the Chambers, but Napoleon had become hopeless
and almost apathetic, while Lucien himself, from his former connection
with the 18th and 19th Brumaire, was looked on with great distrust by the
Chambers, as indeed he was by his brother. Advantage was taken of his
Roman title to taunt him with not being a Frenchman; and all his efforts
failed. At the end he fled, and failing to cross to England or to get to
Rochefort, he reached Turin on the 12th of July only to find himself
arrested. He remained there till the 15th of September, when he was
allowed to go to Rome. There he was interned and carefully watched;
indeed in 1817 the Pope had to intervene to prevent his removal to the
north of Germany, so anxious were the Allies as to the safety of the
puppet they had put on the throne of France.
The death of Napoleon in 1821 released Lucien and the Bonaparte family
from the constant surveillance exercised over them till then. In 1830 he
bought a property, the Croce del Biacco, near Bologna. The flight of the
elder branch of the Bourbons from France in 1830 raised his hopes, and,
as already said, he went to England in 1832 to meet Joseph and to plan
some step for raising Napoleon II. to the throne. The news of the death
of his nephew dashed all the hopes of the family, and after staying in
England for some time he returned to Italy, dying at Viterbo in 1840, and
being buried at Canino, where also his second wife lies. Lucien had a
taste for literature, and was the author of several works, which a kindly
posterity will allow to die.
Louis Bonaparte had fled from his Kingdom of Holland in 1810, after a
short reign of four years, disgusted with being expected to study the
interests of the brother to whom he owed his throne, and with being
required to treat his wife Hortense with ordinary consideration. He had
taken refuge in Austria, putting that Court in great anxiety how to pay
him the amount of attention to be expected by the brother of the Emperor,
and at the same time the proper coldness Napoleon might wish shown to a
royal deserter. Thanks to the suggestions of Metternich, they seem to
have been successful in this task. Taking the title of Comte de, St.
Len from an estate in France; Louis went first to Toplitz, then to Gratz,
and in 1813 he took refuge in Switzerland. In 1814 he went to Rome; and
then to Florence, where the Grand-Duke Ferdinand received any of the
family who came there with great kindness.
Louis was the least interesting of the family, and it is difficult to
excuse his absence from France in 1815. After all, the present of a
kingdom is not such an unpardonable offence as to separate brothers for
ever, and Napoleon seems to have felt deeply the way in which he was
treated by a brother to whom he had acted as a father; still ill-health
and the natural selfishness of invalids may account for much. While his
son Louis Napoleon was flying about making his attempts on France, Louis
remained in the Roman Palace of the French Academy, sunk in anxiety about
his religious state. He disclaimed his son's proceedings, but this may
have been due to the Pope, who sheltered him. Anyhow, it is strange to
mark the difference between the father and his two sons who came of age,
and who took to revolution so kindly.
In 1846 Louis was ill at Leghorn when his son escaped from Ham, where he
had been imprisoned after his Boulogne attempt. Passports were refused
to the son to go from Italy to his father, and Louis died alone on the
25th of July 1846. He was buried at Santa Croce, Florence, but the body
was afterwards removed to the village church of St. Leu Taverny, rebuilt
by his son Napoleon III.
Jerome, the youngest of the whole family, the "middy," as Napoleon liked
to call him, had been placed in the navy, in which profession he passed
as having distinguished himself, after leaving his admiral in rather a
peculiar manner, by attacking an English convoy, and eventually escaping
the English by running into the port of Concarneau, believed to be
inaccessible. At that time it was an event for a French man-of-war to
reach home.
Jerome had incurred the anger of Napoleon by marrying a beautiful young
lady of Baltimore, a Mica Paterson, but, more obedient than Lucien, he
submitted to have this marriage annulled by his all-powerful brother, and
in reward he received the brand-new Kingdom of Westphalia, and the hand
of a daughter of the King of Wartemberg, "the cleverest King in Europe,"
according to Napoleon. Jerome is said to have ruled rather more as a
Heliogabalus than a Solomon, but the new Kingdom had the advantage of
starting with good administrators, and with the example of "the Code."
In 1812 Jerome was given the command of the right wing of the Grand Army
in its advance against Russia, but he did not fulfil the expectations of
his brother, and Davoust took the command instead. Every king feels
himself a born general: whatever else they cannot do, war is an art which
comes with the crown, and Jerome, unwilling to serve under a mere
Marshal, withdrew in disgust. In 1813 he had the good feeling and the
good sense to refuse the treacherous offer of the Allies to allow him to
retain his kingdom if he joined them against his brother, a snare his
sister Caroline fell into at Naples.
On the downfall of Napoleon, Jerome, as the Count of Gratz, went to
Switzerland, and then to Gratz and Trieste.
His wife, the ex-Queen Catherine, fell into the hands of Maubreuil, the
officer sent on a mysterious mission, believed to be intended for the
murder of Napoleon, but which only resulted in the robbery of the Queen's
jewels and of some 80,000 francs. The jewels were for the most part
recovered, being fished up from the bed of the Seine, but not the cash.
In 1815 Jerome joined his brother, and appeared at the Champ de Mai. A
true Bonaparte, his vanity was much hurt, however, by having--he, a real
king--to sit on the back seat of the carriage, while his elder brother
Lucien; a mere Roman-prince, occupied a seat of honour by the side of
Napoleon. In the Waterloo campaign he was given the 6th division,
forming part of Reille's corps, General Guilleminot being sent with him
to prevent any of the awkwardnesses of 1812. His division was engaged
with the Prussians on the 15th of June, and at Quatre Bras he was
severely wounded. At Waterloo his division formed the extreme left of
the French infantry, opposite Hougomont, and was engaged in the struggle
for that post. Whatever his failings may have been, he is acknowledged
to have fought gallantly. After the battle he was given the command of
the army by his brother, and was told to cover the retreat to Laon, which
he reached on the 21st of June, with 18,000 infantry, 3000 cavalry and
two batteries which he had rallied. This, be it observed, is a larger
force than Ney told the Chambers even Grouchy (none of whose men are
included) could have, and Jerome's strength had swollen to 25,000
infantry and 6000 cavalry when he handed over the army to Soult at Laon.
Napoleon had intended to leave Jerome with the command of the army, but
he eventually took him to Paris.
When Napoleon left the country Jerome was assured by the ambassador of
Wurtemberg that he would find a refuge in the dominions of his father-in-
law; but when he arrived there he was informed that if he did not wish to
be, according to the original intentions of the Allies, handed over to
the Prussians, and separated from his wife, he must sign an engagement to
remain in Wurtemberg under strict surveillance. He was then imprisoned
at Guppingen, and afterwards at Ellwangen, where he was not even allowed
to write or receive letters except through the captain of the chateau.
Part of Jerome's troubles came from the conduct of his wife Catherine,
who had the idea that, as she had been given in marriage by her father to
Jerome, as she had lived for seven years as his wife, and as she had
borne a child to him, she was really his wife, and bound to remain with
him in his misfortunes! The royal family of Wurtemberg, however,
following the illustrious example of that of Austria, looked on her past
life as a mere state of concubinage, useful to the family, and to be
respected while her husband could retain his kingdom, but which should
end the moment there was nothing more to be gained from Napoleon or his
brother. It was all proper and decorous to retain the title of King of
Wurtemberg, which the former Duke and then Elector had owed to the exile
of St. Helena, but King Frederick, and still less his son William, who
succeeded him in 1816, could not comprehend Catherine's clinging to her
husband when he had lost his kingdom. "I was a Queen; I am still a wife
and mother," wrote the Princess to her disgusted father. Another
complaint against this extraordinary Princess was that she actually saw
Las Cases on his return from St. Helena, and thus obtained news of the
exile.
After constant ill treatment Jerome and his wife, as the Count and
Countess of Montfort, a rank the King of Wurtemberg afterwards raised to
Prince, were allowed to proceed to Hainburg near Vienna, then to
Florence, and, later to Trieste, where Jerome was when his sister Elisa
died. In 1823 they were permitted to go to Rome, and in 1835 they went
to Lausanne, where his true-hearted wife died the same year. Jerome went
to Florence, and lived to see the revival of the Empire, and to once mare
enjoy the rank of a French Prince. He died in 1860 at the chateau of
Villegenis in France, and was buried in the Invalides.
The mother of the Emperor, Letitia, in 1814, had retained her title of
Imperatrice Mere, and had retired to Rome. She then went to Elba in
June, and stayed there with her daughter Pauline until Napoleon had
sailed for France. On 2d March 1814 she went from Elba to San Vicenzo
near Leghorn, and then to Rome. Her son sent a frigate for her, the
'Melpomene', which was captured by the English 'Rivoli'; another vessel,
the 'Dryade', brought her to France, and she joined Napoleon in Paris.
We must have a regard for this simple old lady, who was always careful
and saving, only half believing in the stability of the Empire; and,
like a true mother, always most attentive to the most unfortunate of her
children. Her life had been full of startling changes; and it must have
been strange for the woman who had been hunted out of Corsica, flying
from her house just in time to save her life from the adherents of Paoli,
to find herself in grandeur in Paris. She saw her son just before he
left, as she thought, for America, and then retired to the Rinuccini--now
the Bonaparte-Palace at Rome, where she died in 1836. She had been
anxious to join Napoleon at St. Helena, and had refused, as long as
Napoleon was alive, to forgive her daughter Caroline, the wife of Murat,
for her abandonment of her brother. She was buried at Albano.
Letitia's youngest daughter, the beautiful but frail Pauline, Duchess of
Guastalla, married first to General Leclerc, and then to Prince Camille
Borglle, was at Nice when her brother abdicated in 1814. She retired
with her mother to Rome, and in October 1814 went to Elba, staying there
till Napoleon left, except when she was sent to Naples with a message of
forgiveness for Murat There was a characteristic scene between her and
Colonel Campbell when the English Commissioner arrived to find Napoleon
gone. Pauline professed ignorance till the last of her brother's
intentions, and pressed the Colonel's hand to her heart that lie might
feel how agitated she was. "She did not appear to be so," says the
battered old Colonel, who seems to have been proof against her charms.
She then went to Rome, and later to Pisa. Her health was failing, and,
unable to join her brother in France, she sent him her only means of
assistance, her jewels, which were captured at Waterloo. Her offer to go
to St. Helena, repeated several times, was never accepted by Napoleon.
She died in 1825 at Florence, from consumption, reconciled to her
husband, from whom she had been separated since 1807. She was buried at
Sta Maria Maggiore, Rome.
Elisa, the eldest sister of Napoleon, the former Grand Duchess of
Tuscany, which Duchy she had ruled well, being a woman of considerable
talent, was the first of all to die. In 1814 she had been forced to fly
from her Government, and, accompanied by her husband, she had attempted
to reach France. Finding herself cut off by the Austrians; she took
shelter with Augereau's army, and then returned to Italy. She took the
title of Comtesse de Campignana, and retired to Trieste, near which town,
at the Chateau of Sant Andrea, under a wearisome surveillance, she
expired in 1820, watched by her husband, Felix Baeciocchi, and her sister
Caroline. Her monument is in the Bacciocchi Chapel in San Petronio,
Bologna.
Caroline, the wife of Murat, was the only one of the family untrue to
Napoleon. Very ambitious, and forgetting how completely she owed her
Kingdom of Naples to her brother, she had urged Murat in 1814 to separate
from Napoleon, and, still worse, to attack Eugene, who held the north of
Italy against the Austrians. She relied on the formal treaty with
Austria that Murat should retain his Kingdom of Naples, and she may also
have trusted to the good offices of her former admirer Metternich. When
the Congress of Vienna met, the French Minister, Talleyrand, at once
began to press for the removal of Murat. A trifling treaty was not
considered an obstacle to the Heaven-sent deliverers of Europe, and
Murat, believing his fate sealed, hearing of Napoleon's landing, and
urged on by a misleading letter from Joseph Bonaparte, at once marched to
attack the Austrians. He was easily routed by the Austrians under
Neipperg, the future husband of Maria Louisa. Murat fled to France, and
Caroline first took refuge in an English man-of-war, the 'Tremendous',
being, promised a free passage to England. She was, however, handed over
to the Austrians; who kept her in confinement at Hainburg near Vienna.
In October 1815 Murat landed in Calabria in a last wild attempt to
recover his throne. He was arrested and immediately shot. After his
murder Caroline, taking the title of Countess of Lipona (an anagram of
Napoli), was permitted to retire to Trieste with Elisa, Jerome, and his
wife. Caroline was almost without means of existence, the Neapolitan
Bourbons refusing even to give up the property she had brought there.
She married a General Macdonald. When Hortense was buried at Rueil
Caroline obtained permission to attend the sad ceremony. In 1838 she
went to France to try to obtain a pension, and succeeded in getting one
of 100,000 francs. She died from cancer in the stomach in 1839, and was
buried in the Campo Santo, Bologna.
Cardinal Fesch, the half-uncle of Napoleon, the Archbishop of Lyons, who
had fallen into disgrace with Napoleon for taking the side of the Pope
and refusing to accept the see of Paris, to which he was nominated by
Napoleon, had retired to Rome in 1814, where he remained till the return
of Napoleon, when he went to Paris, and accepted a peerage. After
Waterloo he again sought the protection of the Pope, and he remained at
Rome till his death in 1839, a few days before Caroline Bonaparte's. He
was buried in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. He had for years been a great
collector of pictures, of which he left a large number (1200) to the town
of Ajaccio. The Cardinal, buying at the right time when few men had
either enough leisure or money to think of pictures, got together a most
valuable collection. This was sold in 1843-44 at Rome. Its contents now
form some of the greatest treasures in the galleries of Dudley House and
of the Marquis of Hertford, now Sir Richard Wallace's. In a large
collection there are generally some daubs, but it is an amusing instance
of party spirit to find the value of his pictures run down by men who are
unwilling to allow any one connected with Napoleon to have even taste in
art. He always refused the demands of the Restoration that he should
resign his see of Lyons, though under Louis Philippe he offered to do so,
and leave his pictures to France, if the Bonaparte family were allowed to
enter France: this was refused.
It can hardly be denied that the fate of the Bonapartes was a hard one.
Napoleon had been undisputed sovereign of France for fourteen years,
Louis had been King of Holland for four years, Jerome was King of
Westphalia for six years, Caroline was Queen of Naples for seven years.
If Napoleon had forfeited all his rights by leaving Elba after the
conditions of his abdication had been broken by the Allies, still there
was no reason why the terms stipulated for the other members of the
family should not have been carried out, or at least an ordinary income
insured to them. With all Napoleon's faults he was always ready to
shower wealth on the victims of his policy:--The sovereigns of the
Continent had courted and intermarried with the Bonapartes in the tame of
that family's grandeur: there was neither generosity nor wisdom in
treating them as so many criminals the moment fortune had declared
against them. The conduct of the Allies was not influenced simply by the
principle of legitimacy, for the King of Saxony only kept his throne by
the monarchs falling out over the spoil. If sovereigns were to be
respected as of divine appointment, it was not well to make their
existence only depend on the fate of war.
Nothing in the history of the Cent Jours is more strange than the small
part played in it by the Marshals, the very men who are so identified in
our minds with the Emperor, that we might have expected to find that
brilliant band playing a most prominent part in his last great struggle,
no longer for mere victory, but for very existence. In recording how the
Guard came up the fatal hill at Waterloo for their last combat, it would
seem but natural to have to give a long roll of the old historic names as
leading or at least accompanying them; and the reader is apt to ask,
where were the men whose very titles recalled such glorious battle-
fields, such achievements, and such rewards showered down by the man who,
almost alone at the end of the day, rode forward to invite that death
from which it was such cruel kindness to save him?
Only three Marshals were in Belgium in 1815, and even of them one did but
count his promotion from that very year, so it is but natural for French
writers to dream of what might have been the course of the battle if
Murat's plume had waved with the cavalry, if Mortier had been with the
Guard, and if Davoust or one of his tried brethren had taken the place of
Grouchy. There is, however, little real ground for surprise at this
absence of the Marshals. Death, time, and hardships had all done their
work amongst that grand array of commanders. Some were old men, veterans
of the Revolutionary wars, when first created Marshals in 1804; others,
such as Massena, were now but the wreck of themselves; and even before
1812 Napoleon had been struck with the failing energy of some of his
original companions: indeed, it might have been better for him if he had
in 1813, as he half resolved, cast away his dislike to new faces, and
fought his last desperate campaigns with younger men who still had
fortunes to win, leaving "Berthier to hunt at Grosbois," and the other
Marshals to enjoy their well-deserved rest in their splendid hotels at
Paris.
Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt, Prince of Eckmuhl, whose name should be
properly spelt Davout, was one of the principal personages at the end of
the Cent Jours. Strict and severe, having his corps always in good
order, and displaying more character than most of the military men under
Napoleon, one is apt to believe that the conqueror at Auerstadt bade fair
to be the most prominent of all the Marshals. In 1814 he had returned
from defending Hamburg to find himself under a cloud of accusations, and
the Bourbons ungenerously and unwisely left him undefended for acts which
they must have known were part of his duty as governor of a besieged
place. At the time he was attacked as if his first duty was not to hold
the place for France, but to organise a system of outdoor relief for the
neighbouring population, and to surrender as soon as he had exhausted the
money in the Government chest and the provisions in the Government
stores. Sore and discontented, practically proscribed, still Davoust
would not join in the too hasty enterprise of the brothers Lallemand, who
wished him to lead the military rising on the approach of Napoleon; but
he was with the Emperor on the day after his arrival in Paris.
Davoust might have expected high command in the army, but, to his
annoyance, Napoleon fixed on him as War Minister. For several years the
War Minister had been little more than a clerk, and neither had nor was
expected to have much influence with the army. Napoleon now wanted a man
of tried devotion, and of stern enough character to overawe the capital
and the restless spirits in the army. Much against his will Davoust was
therefore forced to content himself with the organisation of the forces
being hastily raised, but he chafed in his position; and it is
characteristic of him that Napoleon was eventually forced to send him the
most formal orders before the surly Minister would carry out the
Emperor's unlucky intention of giving a command to Bourmont, whom Davoust
strongly and rightly suspected of treachery. When Napoleon left the
capital Davoust became its governor, and held his post unmoved by the
intrigues of the Republicans and the Royalists. When Napoleon returned
from the great disaster Davoust gave his voice for the only wise policy,
--resistance and the prorogation of the factious Chambers. On the
abdication of Napoleon the Provisional Government necessarily gave
Davoust the command of the army which was concentrated round Paris.
If Davoust had restricted himself less closely to his duty as a soldier,
if he had taken more on himself, with the 100,000 men he soon had under
him, he might have saved France from much of her subsequent humiliation,
or at least he might have preserved the lives of Ney and of the brave men
whom the Bourbons afterwards butchered. Outwitted by Fouche, and
unwilling to face the hostility of the Chambers, Davoust at last
consented to the capitulation of Paris, though he first gave the Prussian
cavalry a sharp lesson. While many of his comrades were engaged in the
great struggle for favour or safety, the stern Marshal gave up his
Ministry, and, doing the last service in his power to France, stopped all
further useless bloodshed by withdrawing the army, no easy task in their
then humour, behind the Loire, where he kept what the Royalists called
the "Brigands of the Loire" in subjection till relieved by Macdonald.
He was the only one of the younger Marshals who had not been tried in
Spain, and so far he was fortunate; but, though he was not popular with
the army, his character and services seem to point him out as the most
fit of all the Marshals for an independent command. Had Napoleon been
successful in 1812, Davoust was to have received the Viceroyalty of
Poland; and he would probably have left a higher name in history than the
other men placed by Napoleon to rule over his outlying kingdoms. In any
case it was fortunate for France and for the Allies that a man of his
character ruled the army after Napoleon abdicated; there would otherwise
have been wild work round Paris, as it was only with the greatest
difficulty and by the force of his authority and example that Davoust
succeeded in getting the army to withdraw from the capital, and to
gradually adopt the white cockade. When superseded by Macdonald he had
done a work no other man could have accomplished. He protested against
the proscription, but it was too late; his power had departed. In 1819
he was forgiven for his services to France, and was made a peer, but he
died in 1823, only fifty-three years old.
Among the Marshals who gave an active support to Napoleon Ney takes the
leading part in most eyes; if it were only for his fate, which is too
well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was
commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to go
to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off,
not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as most
grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an iron
cage." It had been intended to have sent the Due de Berry, the second
son of the Comte d'Artois, with Ney; and it was most unfortunate for the
Marshal that this was not done. There can be no possible doubt that Ney
spoke and acted in good faith when he left Paris. One point alone seems
decisive of this. Ney found under him in command, as General of
Division, Bourmont, an officer of well-known Royalist opinions, who had
at one time served with the Vendean insurgents, and who afterwards
deserted Napoleon just before Waterloo, although he had entreated to be
employed in the campaign. Not only did Ney leave Bourmont in command,
but, requiring another Divisional General, instead of selecting a
Bonapartist, he urged Lecourbe to leave his retirement and join him.
Now, though Lecourbe was a distinguished General, specially famed for
mountain warfare--witness his services in 1799 among the Alps above
Lucerne--he had been long left unemployed by Napoleon on account of his
strong Republican opinions and his sympathy with Moreau. These two
Generals, Bourmont and Lecourbe, the two arms of Ney as commander,
through whom alone he could communicate with the troops, he not only kept
with him, but consulted to the last, before he declared for Napoleon.
This would have been too dangerous a thing for a tricky politician to
have attempted as a blind, but Ney was well known to be only too frank
and impulsive. Had the Due de Berry gone with him, had Ney carried with
him such a gage of the intention of the Bourbons to defend their throne,
it is probable that he would have behaved like Macdonald; and it is
certain that he would have had no better success. The Bonapartists
themselves dreaded what they called the wrong-headedness of Ney. It was,
however, thought better to keep the Due de Berry in safety.
Ney found himself put forward singly, as it were, to oppose the man whom
all France was joining; he found, as did every officer sent on a similar
mission, that the soldiers were simply waiting to meet Napoleon; and
while the Princes sought security, while the soldiers plotted against
their leaders, came the calls of the Emperor in the old trumpet tone.
The eagle was to fly--nay, it was flying from tower to tower, and victory
was advancing with a rush. Was Ney to be the one man to shoot down his
old leader? could he, as he asked, stop the sea with his hands? On his
trial his subordinate, Bourmont, who had by that time shown his devotion
to the Bourbons by sacrificing his military honour, and deserting to the
Allies, was asked whether Ney could have got the soldiers to act against
the Emperor. He could only suggest that if Ney had taken a musket and
himself charged, the men would have followed his example. "Still," said
Bourmont, "I would not dare to affirm that he (the Marshal) would have
won." And who was Ney to charge? We know how Napoleon approached the
forces sent to oppose him: he showed himself alone in the front of his
own troops. Was Ney to deliberately kill his old commander? was any
general ever expected to undergo such a test? and can it be believed
that the soldiers who carried off the reluctant Oudinot and chased the
flying Macdonald, had such a reverence for the "Rougeot," as they called
him, that they would have stood by while he committed this murder? The
whole idea is absurd: as Ney himself said at his trial, they would have
"pulverized" him. Undoubtedly the honourable course for Ney would have
been to have left his corps when he lost control over them; but to urge,
as was done afterwards, that he had acted on a preconceived scheme, and
that his example had such weight, was only malicious falsehood. The
Emperor himself knew well how little he owed to the free will of his
Marshal, and he soon had to send him from Paris, as Ney, sore at heart,
and discontented with himself and with both sides, uttered his mind with
his usual freedom. Ney was first ordered to inspect the frontier from
Dunkirk to Bale, and was then allowed to go to his home. He kept so
aloof from Napoleon that when he appeared on the Champ de Mai the Emperor
affected surprise, saying that he thought Ney had emigrated. At the last
moment Marshal Mortier fell ill. Ney had already been sent for. He
hurried up, buying Mortier's horses (presumably the ill-fated animals who
died under him at Waterloo), and reached the army just in time to be
given the command of the left wing.
It has been well remarked that the very qualities which made Ney
invaluable for defence or for the service of a rear-guard weighed against
him in such a combat as Quatre Bras. Splendid as a corps leader, he had
not the commander's eye to embrace the field and surmise the strength of
the enemy at a glance. At Bautzen in 1818 his staff had been unable to
prevent him from leaving the route which would have brought him on the
very rear of the enemy, because seeing the foe, and unable to resist the
desire of returning their fire, he turned off to engage immediately. At
Quatre Bras, not seeing the force he was engaged with, believing he had
the whole English army on his hands from the first, he let himself at the
beginning of the day be imposed upon by a mere screen of troops.
We cannot here go into Ney's behaviour at Waterloo except to point out
that too little importance is generally given to the fact of the English
cavalry having, in a happy moment, fallen on and destroyed the artillery
which was being brought up to sweep the English squares at close
quarters. At Waterloo, as in so many other combats, the account of Ney's
behaviour more resembles that of a Homeric hero than of a modern general.
To the ideal commander of to-day, watching the fight at a distance,
calmly weighing its course, undisturbed except by distant random shots,
it is strange to compare Ney staggering through the gate of Konigsberg
all covered with blood; smoke and snow, musket in hand, announcing
himself as the rear-guard of France, or appearing, a second Achilles, on
the ramparts of Smolensko to encourage the yielding troops on the glacis,
or amidst the flying troops at Waterloo, with uncovered head and broken
sword, black with powder, on foot, his fifth horse killed under him,
knowing that life, honour, and country were lost, still hoping against
hope and attempting one more last desperate rally. If he had died--ah!
if he had died there--what a glorious tomb might have risen, glorious for
France as well as for him, with the simple inscription, "The Bravest of
the Brave."
Early on the 19th June a small band of officers retreating from the field
found Ney asleep at Marchiennes, "the first repose he had had for four
days," and they did not disturb him for orders. "And indeed what order
could Marshal Ney have given? "The disaster of the day, the overwhelming
horror of the flight of the beaten army, simply crushed Ney morally as
well as physically. Rising in the Chambers he denounced all attempt at
further resistance. He did not know, he would not believe, that Grouchy
was safe, and that the army was fast rallying. Fresh from the field,
with all its traces on him, the authority of Ney was too great for the
Government. Frightened friends, plotting Royalists, echoed the wild
words of Ney brave only against physical dangers. Instead of dying on
the battle-field, he had lived to ensure the return of the Bourbons, the
fall of Bonaparte, his own death, and the ruin of France.
Before his exception from the amnesty was known Ney left Paris on the 6th
of July, and went into the country with but little attempt at
concealment, and with formal passports from Fouche. The capitulation of
Paris seemed to cover him, and he was so little aware of the thirst of
the Royalists for his blood that he let his presence be known by leaving
about a splendid sabre presented to him by the Emperor on his marriage,
and recognised by mere report by an old soldier as belonging to Ney or
Murat; and Ney himself let into the house the party sent to arrest him on
the 5th of August, and actually refused the offer of Excelmans, through
whose troops he passed, to set him free. No one at the time, except the
wretched refugees of Ghent, could have suspected, after the capitulation,
that there was any special danger for Ney, and it is very difficult to
see on what principle the Bourbons chose their victims or intended
victims. Drouot, for example, had never served Louis XVIII., he had
never worn the white cockade, he had left France with Napoleon for Elba,
and had served the Emperor there. In 1815 he had fought under his own
sovereign. After Waterloo he had exerted all his great influence, the
greater from his position, to induce the Guard to retire behind the
Loire, and to submit to the Bourbons. It was because Davoust so needed
him that Drouot remained with the army. Stilt Drouot was selected for
death, but the evidence of his position was too strong to enable the
Court to condemn him. Cambronne, another selection, had also gone with
Napoleon to Elba. Savory, another selection, had, as was eventually
acknowledged, only joined Napoleon when he was in full possession of the
reins of Government. Bertrend, who was condemned while at St. Helena,
was in the same position as Drouot. In fact, if any one were to draw up
a list of probable proscriptions and compare it with those of the 24th of
July 1815, there would probably be few names common to both except
Labedoyere, Mouton Duvernet, etc. The truth is that the Bourbons, and,
to do them justice, still more the rancorous band of mediocrities who
surrounded them, thirsted for blood. Even they could feel the full
ignominy of the flight to Ghent.
While they had been chanting the glories of the Restoration, the devotion
of the people, the valour of the Princes, Napoleon had landed, the
Restoration had vanished like a bad dream, and the Princes were the first
to lead the way to the frontier. To protest that there had been a
conspiracy, and that the conspirators must suffer, was the only possible
cloak for the shame of the Royalists, who could not see that the only
conspiracy was the universal one of the nation against the miserable men
who knew not how to govern a high-spirited people.
Ney, arrested on the 5th of August, was first brought before a Military
Court on the 9th of November composed of Marshal Jourdan (President),
Marshals Massena, Augereau, and Mortier, Lieutenants-General Gazan,
Claparede, and Vilatte (members). Moncey had refused to sit, and Massena
urged to the Court his own quarrels with Ney in Spain to get rid of the
task, but was forced to remain. Defended by both the Berryers, Ney
unfortunately denied the jurisdiction of the court-martial over him as a
peer. In all probability the Military Court would have acquitted him.
Too glad at the moment to be free from the trial of their old comrade,
not understanding the danger of the proceeding, the Court, by a majority
of five against two, declared themselves non-competent, and on the 21st
of November Ney was sent before the Chamber of Peers, which condemned him
on the 6th of December.
To beg the life of his brave adversary would have been such an obvious
act of generosity on the part of the Duke of Wellington that we maybe
pardoned for examining his reasons for not interfering. First, the Duke
seems to have laid weight on the fact that if Ney had believed the
capitulation had covered him he would not have hidden. Now, even before
Ney knew of his exception from the amnesty, to appear in Paris would have
been a foolish piece of bravado. Further, the Royalist reaction was in
full vigour, and when the Royalist mobs, with the connivance of the
authorities, were murdering Marshal Brune and attacking any prominent
adherents of Napoleon, it was hardly the time for Ney to travel in full
pomp. It cannot be said that, apart from the capitulation, the Duke had
no responsibility. Generally a Government executing a prisoner, may,
with some force, if rather brutally, urge that the fact of their being
able to try and execute him in itself shows their authority to do so.
The Bourbons could not even use this argument. If the Allies had
evacuated France Louis le Desiree would have ordered his carriage and
have been at the frontier before they had reached it. If Frenchmen
actually fired the shots which killed Ney, the Allies at least shared the
responsibility with the French Government. Lastly, it would seem that
the Duke would have asked for the life of Ney if the King, clever at such
small artifices, had not purposely affected a temporary coldness to him.
Few men would have been so deterred from asking for the life of a dog.
The fact is, the Duke of Wellington was a great general, he was a single-
hearted and patriotic statesman, he had a thousand virtues, but he was
never generous. It cannot be said that he simply shared the feelings of
his army, for there was preparation among some of his officers to enable
Ney to escape, and Ney had to be guarded by men of good position
disguised in the uniform of privates. Ney had written to his wife when
he joined Napoleon, thinking of the little vexations the Royalists loved
to inflict on the men who had conquered the Continent. "You will no
longer weep when you leave the Tuileries." The unfortunate lady wept now
as she vainly sought some mercy for her husband. Arrested on the 5th of
August, sentenced on the 6th of December, Ney was shot on the 7th of
December, and the very manner of his execution shows that, in taking his
life there was much more of revenge than of justice.
If Ney were to be shot, it is obvious that it should have been as a high
act of justice. If neither the rank nor the services of the criminal
were to save him, his death could not be too formal, too solemn, too
public. Even an ordinary military execution is always carried out with
grave and striking forms: there is a grand parade of the troops, that all
may see with their own eyes the last act of the law. After the execution
the troops defile past the body, that all may see the criminal actually
dead: There was nothing of all this in the execution of Ney. A few
chance passers, in the early morning of the 7th of December 1815, saw a
small body of troops waiting by the wall of the garden of the Luxemburg.
A fiacre drove up, out of which got Marshal Ney in plain clothes, himself
surprised by the everyday aspect of the place. Then, when the officer of
the firing party (for such the spectators now knew it to be) saw whom it
was he was to fire on, he became, it is said, perfectly petrified; and a
peer, one of the judges of Ney, the Duke de la Force, took his place.
Ney fell at the first volley with six balls in his breast, three in the
head and neck, and one in the arm, and in a quarter of an hour the body
was removed; "plain Michel Ney" as he had said to the secretary
enunciating his title in reading his sentence, "plain Michel Ney, soon to
be a little dust."
The Communists caught red-handed in the streets of Paris in 1870 died
with hardly less formality than was observed at the death-scene of the
Prince of the Moskowa and Duke of Elchingen, and the truth then became
plain. The Bourbons could not, dared not, attempt to carry out the
sentence of the law with the forms of the law. The Government did not
venture to let the troops or the people face the Marshal. The forms of
the law could not be carried out, the demands of revenge could be. And
if this be thought any exaggeration, the proof of the ill effects of this
murder, for its form makes it difficult to call it anything else, is
ready to our hands. It was impossible to get the public to believe that
Ney had really been killed in this manner, and nearly to this day we have
had fresh stories recurring of the real Ney being discovered in America.
The deed, however, had really been done. The Marshals now knew that when
the Princes fled they themselves must remain to die for the Royal cause;
and Louis had at last succeeded in preventing his return to his kingdom
amongst the baggage waggons of the Allies from being considered as a mere
subject for jeers. One detail of the execution of Ney, however, we are
told nothing of: we do not know if his widow, like Madame Labedoyere, had
to pay three francs a head to the soldiers of the firing party which shot
her husband. Whatever were the faults of the Bourbons, they at least
carried out their executions economically.
The statesmen of France, distinguished as they were, certainly did not
rise to a level with the situation either in 1814 or in 1815. In 1814,
it is true, they were almost stunned by the crash of the Empire, and
little as they foresaw the restoration of the Bourbons, still less could
they have anticipated the extraordinary follies which were to be
perpetrated. In 1815 there was less excuse for their helplessness, and,
overawed as they were by the mass of foes which was pouring on them to
complete the disaster of Waterloo, still it is disappointing to find that
there was no one to seize the helm of power, and, confronting the Allies,
to stipulate proper terms for France, and for the brave men who had
fought for her. The Steady Davoust was there with his 100,000 men to add
weight to their language, and the total helplessness of the older line of
the Bourbons had been too evidently displayed to make their return a
certainty, so that there is no reason to doubt that a firm-hearted
patriot might have saved France from much of the degradation and loss
inflicted on her when once the Allies had again got her at their mercy.
At-the least the Bourbons might have been deprived of the revenge they
sought for in taking some of the best blood of France. Better for Ney
and his comrades to have fallen in a last struggle before Paris than to
be shot by Frenchmen emboldened by the presence of foreign troops.
Talleyrand, the most prominent figure among the statesmen, was away. His
absence at Vienna during the first Restoration was undoubtedly the cause
of many of the errors then committed. His ability as displayed under
Napoleon has been much exaggerated, for, as the Duke of Wellington said,
it was easy enough to be Foreign Minister to a Government in military
possession of Europe, but at least he was above the petty trivialities
and absurdities of the Bourbon' Court. On the receipt of the news of the
landing of Napoleon he really seems to have believed that the enterprise
would immediately end in disaster, and he pressed on the outlawing of the
man who had overwhelmed him with riches, and who had, at the worst, left
him when in disgrace in quiet possession of all his ill-gotten wealth.
But, as the power of Napoleon became more and more displayed, as perhaps
Talleyrand found that the Austrians were not quite so firm as they wished
to be considered, and as he foresaw the possible chances of the Orleans
family, he became rather lukewarm in his attention to the King, to whom
he had recently been bewailing the hardships of his separation from his
loved monarch. He suddenly found that, after a Congress, the first duty
of a diplomatist was to look after his liver, and Carlsbad offered an
agreeable retreat where he could wait till he might congratulate the
winner in the struggle.
Louis deeply resented this conduct of his Foreign Minister, and when
Talleyrand at last joined him with all his doubts resolved, the King took
the first opportunity of dismissing him, leaving the calm Talleyrand for
once stuttering with rage. Louis soon, however, found that he was not
the free agent he believed. The Allies did not want to have to again
replace their puppet on the throne, and they looked on Talleyrand and
Fouche as the two necessary men. Talleyrand was reinstated immediately,
and remained for some time at the head of the Ministry. He was, however,
not the man for Parliamentary Government, being too careless in business,
and trying to gain his ends more by clever tricks than straightforward
measures. As for the state into which he let the Government fall, it was
happily characterised by M. Beugnot. "Until now," said he, "we have
only known three sorts of governments--the Monarchical, the Aristocratic,
and the Republican. Now we have invented a new one, which has never been
heard of before,--Paternal Anarchy."
In September 1815 the elections to the Chamber were bringing in deputies
more Royalist than the King, and Talleyrand sought to gain popularity by
throwing over Fouche. To his horror it appeared that, well contented
with this step, the deputies next asked when the former Bishop was to be
dismissed. Taking advantage of what Talleyrand conceived to be a happy
way of eliciting a strong expression of royal support by threatening to
resign, the King replaced him by the Duc de Richelieu. It was well to
cut jokes at the Duke and say that he was the man in France who knew most
of the Crimea (the Duke had been long in the Russian service, with the
approval of Napoleon), but Talleyrand was overwhelmed. He received the
same office at Court which he had held under Napoleon, Grand Chamberlain,
and afterwards remained a sardonic spectator of events, a not unimposing
figure attending at the Court ceremonials and at the heavy dinners of the
King, and probably lending a helping hand in 1830 to oust Charles X.
from the throne. The Monarchy of July sent him as Ambassador to England,
where he mixed in local politics, for example, plotting against Lord
Palmerston, whose brusque manners he disliked; and in 1838 he ended his
strange life with some dignity, having, as one of his eulogists puts it,
been faithful to every Government he had served as long as it was
possible to save them.
With the darker side of Talleyrand's character we have nothing to do
here; it is sufficient for our purposes to say that the part the leading
statesman of France took during the Cent Tours was simply nil. In 1814,
he had let the reins slip through his hands; 1815 he could only follow
the King, who even refused to adopt his advice as to the proper way in
which to return to France, and though he once more became Chief Minister,
Talleyrand, like Louis XVIII., owed his restoration in 1815 solely to the
Allies.
The Comte d'Artois, the brother of the King, and later King himself as
Charles X., was sent to Lyons, to which place the Duc d'Orleans followed
him, and where the two Princes met Marshal Macdonald. The Marshal did
all that man could do to keep the soldiers true to the Bourbons, but he
had to advise the Princes to return to Paris, and he himself had to fly
for his life when he attempted to stop Napoleon in person. The Duc
d'Orleans was then sent to the north to hold Lille, where the King
intended to take refuge, and the Comte d'Artois remained with the Court.
The Court was very badly off for money, the King, and Clarke, Duke of
Feltre, the War Minister, were the only happy possessors of carriages.
They passed their time, as the Abbe Louis once bitterly remarked, in
saying foolish things till they had a chance of doing them.
The Comte d'Artois, who, probably wisely, certainly cautiously, had
refused to go with De Vitrolles to stir up the south until he had placed
the King in safety, had ended by going to Ghent too, while the Duc de
Berry was at Alost, close by, with a tiny army composed of the remains of
the Maison du Roi, of which the most was made in reports. The Duc
d'Orleans, always an object of suspicion to the King, had left France
with the Royal party, but had refused to stay in Belgium, as he alleged
that it was an enemy's country. He crossed to England where he remained,
greatly adding to the anxiety of Louis by refusing to join him.
The end of these Princes is well known. Louis died in 1824, leaving his
throne to his brother; but Charles only held it till 1830, when after the
rising called "the three glorious days of July," he was civilly escorted
from France, and took shelter in England. The Due Angouleme died without
issue. The Duc de Berry was assassinated in 1820, but his widow gave
birth to a posthumous son the Duc de Bordeaux, or, to fervid Royalists,
Henri V., though better known to us as the Comte de Chambord, who died in
1883 without issue, thus ending the then eldest line of Bourbons, and
transmitting his claims to the Orleans family. On the fall of Charles X.
the Duc d'Orleans became King of the French, but he was unseated by the
Revolution of 1848, and died a refugee in England. As the three Princes
of the House of Conde, the Prince de Conde, his son, the Duc de Bourbon,
and his: grandson, the Due d'Enghien, all died without further male
issue, that noble line is extinct.
When the news of the escape of Napoleon from Elba reached Vienna on the
7th of March 1815, the three heads of the Allies, the Emperors of Austria
and Russia, and the King of Prussia, were still there. Though it was
said that the Congress danced but did not advance, still a great deal of
work had really been done, and the news of Napoleon's landing created a
fresh bond of union between the Allies which stopped all further chances
of disunion, and enabled them to practically complete their work by the
9th of June 1815, though the treaties required cobbling for some years
afterwards.
France, Austria, and England had snatched the greater part of Saxony from
the jaws of Prussia, and Alexander had been forced to leave the King of
Saxony to reign over half of his former subjects, without, as he wished,
sparing him the pain of such a degradation by taking all from him.
Russia had to be contented with a large increase of her Polish dominions,
getting most of the Grand-Duchy of Westphalia. Austria had, probably
unwisely, withdrawn from her former outlying provinces in Swabia and the
Netherlands, which had before the Revolution made her necessarily the
guardian of Europe against France, preferring to take her gains in Italy,
gains which she has gradually lost in our days; while Prussia, by
accepting the Rhine provinces, completely stepped into the former post of
Austria. Indeed, from the way in which Prussia was, after 1815, as it
were, scattered across Germany, it was evident that her fate must be.
either to be crushed by France, or else, by annexing the states enclosed
in her dominions, to become the predominating power in Germany. It was
impossible for her to remain as she was left.
The Allies tightly bound France. They had no desire to have again to
march on Paris to restore Louis to the subjects who had such unfortunate
objections to being subjected to that desirable monarch. By the second
Treaty of Paris, on the 20th of November 1815, France was to be occupied
by an Allied force, in military positions on the frontier, not to exceed
150,000 men, to be taken from all the Allied armies, under a commander
who was eventually the Duke of Wellington. Originally the occupation.
was not to exceed five years, but in February 1817 the army was reduced
by 30,000 men, one-fifth of each contingent; and by the Treaty of Aix-la-
Chapelle of 9th October 1818, France was to-be evacuated by the 30th of
November 1818.
The three monarchs were probably not sorry to get the Congress over on
any terms. Alexander had had his fill of displaying himself in the
salons in his favourite part of an Agamemnon generous towards Troy, and
he had worn out his first popularity. He was stung by finding some of
his favourite plans boldly opposed by Talleyrand and by Metternich, and,
indeed, was anxious to meet the last in open combat. Francis had
required all the firmness of what he called his Bohemian head to resist
the threats, entreaties, and cajoleries employed to get him to acquiesce
in the dethronement of the King of Saxony, and the wiping out of the
Saxon nationality by the very alliance which professed to fight only for
the rights of nations and of their lawful sovereigns.
All three monarchs had again the satisfaction of entering Paris, but
without enjoying the full glories of 1814. "Our friends, the enemies"
were not so popular then in France, and the spoliation of the Louvre was
not pleasant even to the Royalists. The foreign monarchs soon returned
to their own drained and impoverished States.
The Emperor Francis had afterwards a quiet reign to his death in 1835,
having only to assist his Minister in snuffing out the occasional flashes
of a love of freedom in Germany.
The King of Prussia returned in a triumph well won by his sturdy
subjects, and, in the light of his new honours, the Countess Von Voss
tells us he was really handsome. He was now at leisure to resume the
discussions on uniform, and the work of fastening and unfastening the
numerous buttons of his pantaloons, in which he had been so roughly
interrupted by Jena. The first institution of the Zollverein, or
commercial union with several States, gradually extended, was a measure
which did much for the unification of Germany. With his brother
sovereigns he revisited Paris at the end of the military occupation in
1818, remaining there longer than the others, "because," said the
Parisians, "he had discovered an actor at a small theatre who achieved
the feat of making him laugh." He died in 1840. His Queen--heartbroken,
it was said--had died in 1810.
Alexander was still brimming over with the best and most benevolent
intentions towards every one. The world was to be free, happy, and
religious; but he had rather vague ideas as to how his plans were to be
carried out. Thus it is characteristic that when his successor desired
to have a solemn coronation as King of Poland it was found that Alexander
had not foreseen the difficulties which were met with in trying to
arrange for the coronation of a Sovereign of the Greek Church as King of
a Roman Catholic State. The much-dreaded but very misty Holy Alliance
was one of the few fruits of Alexander's visions. His mind is described
as passing through a regular series of stages with each influence under
which he acted. He ended his life, tired out, disillusioned, "deceived
in everything, weighed down with regret;" obliged to crush the very hopes
of his people he had encouraged, dying in 1825 at Taganrog, leaving his
new Polish Kingdom to be wiped out by-his successors.
The minor sovereigns require little mention. They retained any titles
they had received from Napoleon, while they exulted, at being free from
his heavy hand and sharp superintendence. Each got a share, small or
great, of the spoil except the poor King of Denmark, who, being assured
by Alexander on his departure that he carried away all hearts, answered,
"Yes, but not any souls."
The reintroduction of much that was bad in the old system (one country
even going so far as to re-establish torture), the steady attack on
liberty and on all liberal ideas, Wurtemberg being practically the only
State which grumbled at the tightening of the reins so dear to
Metternich,--all formed a fitting commentary on the proclamations by
which the Sovereigns had hounded on their people against the man they
represented as the one obstacle to the freedom and peace of Europe.
In gloom and disenchantment the nations sat down to lick their wounds:
The contempt shown by the monarchs for everything but the right of
conquest, the manner in which they treated the lands won from Napoleon as
a gigantic "pool" which was to be shared amongst them, so many souls to
each; their total failure to fulfil their promises to their subjects of
granting liberty,--all these slowly bore their fruits in after years, and
their effects are not even yet exhausted. The right of a sovereign to
hold his lands was now, by the public law of Europe, to be decided by his
strength, The rights of the people were treated as not existing. Truly,
as our most gifted poetess has sung--
"The Kings crept out--the peoples sat at home,
And finding the long invocated peace
(A pall embroidered with worn images
Of rights divine) too scant to cover doom
Such as they suffered, nursed the corn that grew
Rankly to bitter bread, on Waterloo."
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Kings feel they are born general: whatever else they cannot do
That consolation which is always left to the discontented
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Memoirs of Napoleon, v15, 1815
by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
