There is no doubt that Napoleon sincerely and dearly loved his ‘growlers’; there is no doubt that with grim humor he constantly circumvented and used them for his own ends; even in his agony he contemplated a course which, leaving them convinced of their success, would yet render their action of no effect. After a short conference with his minister he took a pen and wrote: “The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the establishment of peace in Europe, and since the Emperor cannot assuredly, without violating his oath, surrender any one of the departments which were united with France when he ascended the throne, the Emperor Napoleon declares himself ready to abdicate and leave France, even to lay down his life for the welfare of his country and for the preservation of the rights of his son the King, of the Empress-regent, and of the laws and institutions, which shall be subject to no change until the definite conclusion of peace and while foreign armies stand upon our soil.”
But these words carried too plainly a meaning which was not intended to be conspicuous, and the paper, as finally written and executed, runs as follows: “The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reestablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France, and even to lay down his life for the good of the country, which is inseparable from the rights of his son, from those of the Empress’s regency, and from the laws of the Empire.” Who should constitute the embassy to present the document to the Czar? Caulaincourt, of course, would necessarily be one; Ney, dangerous if thwarted, must be the second; and the third? Marmont certainly, was Napoleon’s first thought, and he ordered full powers to be made out for him. But on second thought he felt that his aide-de-camp in Egypt, his trusted friend from then onward, his confidential adviser, “brought up in his tent,” as he said, might injure the cause as being too certainly influenced by personal considerations. Macdonald, therefore, was named in his stead. The embassy should, however, pass by Essonnes, and if Marmont desired to go he might send back for his credentials.
This was the company which, arriving about four in the afternoon at Marmont’s headquarters, presented Napoleon’s message. The busy conspirator was stunned, but he had already won at least five of his generals—Souham, Merlin, Digeon, Ledru des Essarts, and Megnadier, his chief of staff; the tide of treason was in full flow, and could not be stemmed. Should the Czar assent to the regency, where would Marmont be? Or, on the other hand, should Napoleon learn the truth, there was no question but that a few hours might see the emulator of Monk a corpse. In quick decision, the traitorous marshal confessed the steps already taken, and then at the loud cry of reprobation with which his statement was met, he falsely asserted that he was not yet committed, and demanded to join the embassy. The others, willing to remove their colleague from further temptation, assented; and Souham was left in command, with strict injunctions to inform the troops of Napoleon’s abdication, but to take no further steps.
At Schwarzenberg’s headquarters Marmont found means to betray the situation to that general. The Austrian, by Marmont’s own account, absolved his fellow-intriguer from all engagements so far made; but somehow that very evening about nine Talleyrand knew the whole story, and hastening, pale with terror, to Alexander’s presence, poured out a bitter remonstrance against the regency. The Czar listened, but contemptuously dismissed the petitioner with the non-committal remark that no one would repent having trusted him.
It was almost midnight when Alexander gave audience to the embassy. Marmont was not of the number, having slunk away in guilty uneasiness to await the event at Ney’s house. To Caulaincourt, as the spokesman of the Empire, the Czar listened attentively and sympathetically. He now felt himself to have taken a false step when, five days earlier, he had virtually assented to the restoration of the Bourbons. In the interval their cause had steadily grown more and more unpopular; neither people nor soldiers, not even the national guard, would give any declaration of adherence to the acts of the provisional government; the imperial army, on the other hand, stood firm. His own and Russia’s honour having been redeemed, the earlier instincts of hatred for absolutism had returned; the feeling that the Empire was better for his purposes than any dynasty welled up as he listened to Caulaincourt’s powerful argument that France as a nation, and her undivided army, alike desired the regency. In fact, the listener wavered so much that, two days later, Ney and Macdonald asserted their belief that at a certain instant their cause had been won.
But at 2 in the morning an aide-de-camp entered and spoke a few words in Russian. The Czar gave a startled attention, and the officer repeated his words. “Gentlemen,” said the monarch, “you base your claim on the unshaken attachment of the army to the imperial government. The vanguard of Napoleon’s army has just deserted. It is at this moment within our lines.” The news was true. The announcement of Napoleon’s abdication had spread consternation among Marmont’s men, and they were seriously demoralized. When a routine message came from Fontainebleau requiring Souham’s presence there, his guilty conscience made him tremble; and when Gourgaud requested an interview the uneasy general foresaw his own arrest and was terror-stricken. Summoning the others who, like himself, were partly committed, he told his fears, and the soldiers were ordered under arms. Toward midnight the march began. Ignorant at first of whither they were going, the men were silent; but finding themselves before long between two Austrian lines, they hooted their officers. Thereupon they were told that they were to fight beside these same Austrians in defence of the Empire, and, believing the lie, were reconciled.
Arriving finally at Versailles, and learning the truth, they mutinied; but Marmont soon appeared, and partly cowed them, partly persuaded them to bend before necessity. After learning of Souham’s deed he had hurried to the Czar’s antechamber. In an adjoining room were assembled the members of the provisional government. Like Marmont, they had learned the result of Souham’s efforts and had regained their equanimity.
After grasping the appalling fact that 12 thousand men, the whole sixth corps, with arms and baggage, were prisoners within the Austrian lines, of course there had been nothing left for Caulaincourt and the marshals but to withdraw. With much embarrassment the Czar promised an answer to their request on the following afternoon. All knew that the knell of the Empire had struck. To the waiting royalists it seemed a fit moment for pleasantry as the members of the embassy came filing out with stony gaze. The thwarted imperialists sternly repulsed their tormentors.
Marmont breathed hard as his colleagues passed without a glimpse of recognition, and murmured: “I would give an arm if this had not happened.” “An arm? Sir, say your head,” rejoined Macdonald, bitterly. For some time after the first Restoration Marmont was a hero, but soon his vanity and true character combined to bring out his conduct into clear view, and from his title of Ragusa was coined the word ‘ragusade’ as a synonym for treason. During the ‘Hundred Days’ his name was of course stricken from the list of marshals. Loaded with honors in the second Restoration, he proved a second time faithless, and in 1830 betrayed his trust to the republicans. The people called him ‘Judas,’ and he died in exile, honored by nobody.
There can be little doubt of Napoleon’s conviction that his offer to abdicate would be rejected by Alexander. No sooner was it signed than, with his characteristic astuteness, he set about preparing an alternative course. At once he despatched a messenger requesting the Empress to send Champagny immediately to Dijon as an ambassador to intercede with her father. Then, on April fourth, he summoned a conclave of his officers to secure their assent to the battle which he believed inevitable.
It was the call to this meeting which had stampeded Souham and his colleagues in desertion. The greater officers being absent from Fontainebleau, the minor ones were unanimous and hearty in their support of Napoleon’s plans. But at the very close of the session came the news of what had happened at Essonnes. When finally assured of every detail, Napoleon took measures at once to repair as best he could the breaches in his defence, saying of Marmont quietly and without a sign of panic: “Unhappy man, he will be more unhappy than I.”
Only a few days before he had declared to Caulaincourt: “There are no longer any who play fair except my poor soldiers and their officers that are neither princes nor dukes nor counts. It is an awful thing to say, but it is true. Do you know what I ought to do? Send all these noble lords of yesterday to sleep in their beds of down, to strut about in their castles. I ought to rid myself of these frondeurs, and begin the war once more with men of youthful, unsullied courage.” He was partly prepared, therefore, even for the defection of Marmont. Next morning, on the fifth, was issued the ablest proclamation ever penned by him; at noon the veterans from Spain were reviewed, and in the afternoon began the movements necessary to array beyond the Loire what remained of the army and rally it about the seat of imperial government. But at nine the embassy returned from Paris with its news—the Czar had refused to accept the abdication; the senate was about to proclaim Louis XVIII; Napoleon was to reign thereafter over the little isle of Elba. To this the undaunted Emperor calmly rejoined that war henceforth offered nothing worse than peace, and began at once to explain his plans.
But he was interrupted—exactly how we cannot tell; for, though the embassy returned as it left, in a body, the memoirs of each member strive to convey the impression that it was he alone who said and did everything. If only the narrative attributed to Caulaincourt were of undoubted authenticity, cumulative evidence might create certitude; but it is not. The sorry tale of what probably occurred makes clear that all three were now royalists more or less ardent, for in passing they had concluded a truce with Schwarzenberg on that basis. Macdonald asserts that his was the short and brutal response to Napoleon’s exhibition of his plans; to wit, that they must have an abdication without conditions. Ney was quite as savage, declaring that the confidence of the army was gone.
Napoleon at first denounced such mutiny, but then, with seeming resignation, promised an answer next day. He did not yet know that in secret convention the generals were resolving not to obey the orders issued for the morrow; but as the door closed behind the marshals the mind so far clear seemed suddenly eclipsed, and murmuring, “These men have neither heart nor bowels; I am conquered less by fortune than by the egotism and ingratitude of my companions in arms,” the great, homeless citizen of the world sank into utter dejection.
It appears to have been a fixed purpose with Napoleon never to fall alive into his enemy’s hands. Although they acted under legal forms, yet some European monarchs of the 18th century were no more trustworthy in dealing with foes than their great prototype Julius Caesar in his faithlessness to a certain canton of the Helvetians. They did not display sufficient surprise when enemies were assassinated. Since 1808 the European colossus had worn about his neck as a kind of amulet a little bag which was said to contain a deadly poison, one of the salts of prussic acid.
During the night, when the terrors of a shaken reason overpowered him, he swallowed the drug. Whether it had lost its efficacy, or whether the agitated victim of melancholy did not take the entire dose, in either case the effects were imperfect. Instead of oblivion came agony, and his valet, rushing to his master’s bedside at the sound of a bitter cry, claimed to catch the words: “Marmont has struck me the final blow! Unhappy man, I loved him! Berthier’s desertion has broken my heart! My old friends, my comrades in arms!” Ivan, the Emperor’s body physician, was summoned, and administered an antidote; the spasm was allayed, and after a short sleep reason resumed her seat.
It is related in the memoirs of Caulaincourt, and probably with a sort of Homeric truth, that when the minister was admitted in the early morning, Napoleon’s “wan and sunken eyes seemed struggling to recall the objects round about; a universe of torture was revealed in the vaguely desolate look.” Napoleon is reported as saying: “God did not will it. I could not die. Why did they not let me die? It is not the loss of the throne that makes existence unendurable; my military career suffices for the glory of a single man. Do you know what is more difficult to bear than the reverses of fortune? It is the baseness, the horrible ingratitude, of men. Before such acts of cowardice, before the shamelessness of their egotism, I have turned away my head in disgust and have come to regard my life with horror…. Death is rest…. Rest at last…. What I have suffered for 20 days no one can understand.”
What throws some shadow on this account is the fact that on the following morning Napoleon appeared outwardly well and perfectly calm when he assembled his marshals and made a final appeal. It is certain, from the testimony of his secretary and his physician, that he had been violently ill, but the sobriety of the remaining chronicle is to be doubted. Possibly, too, the empty sachet had contained a preparation of opium intended to relieve sharp attacks like that at Pirna; but in view of the second attempt at suicide made after Waterloo, this is not likely. Yet the circumstances may easily have been exaggerated; for the evident motive of what has been called the imperial legend is to heighten all the effects in the Napoleonic picture.
Whatever was the truth as to that gloomy night, Napoleon’s appeal next morning, though eloquent, was in vain; the marshals were unshaken in their determination, though less bitter and violent in their language. “You deserve repose,” were the Emperor’s last words to them; “well, then, take it.” Thereupon the act of unconditional abdication was written in these words: “The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reestablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that for himself and his heirs he renounces the thrones of France and of Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice which he is not ready to make for the welfare of the nation.”
These last words were, after some consideration, erased, and the phrase “in the interest of France” was substituted for them. Some think, and it may well be true, that this change of form, taken in connection with Napoleon’s calmness, was another proof of his deep purpose. Unable to thwart his ‘growlers,’ he may have recollected that once before he had crossed the Mediterranean to give a feeble government full scope for its own destruction. France might easily recall her favorite son in her own interest. He was scarcely more than forty-four, a young man still, and this he probably recalled as he made ready to play a new role.
Armed with the document necessary to secure his pardon, Ney hurried back to the capital. The elderly, well-meaning, but obtuse Louis XVIII was immediately proclaimed king by the senate. Having “learned nothing, and forgotten nothing,” he accepted the throne, making certain concessions to the new France, sufficient, as he hoped, to secure at least the momentary support of the people. The haste to join the white standard made by men on whom Napoleon’s adventurous career had heaped honour and wealth is unparalleled in history.
Jourdan, Augereau, Maison, Lagrange, Nansouty, Oudinot, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Hulin, Milhaud, Latour-Maubourg, Segur, Berthier, Belliard—such were the earliest names. Among the soldiers near by some bowed to the new order, but among the garrisons there was such widespread mutiny that royalist hate was kindled again and fanned to white heat by the scoffs and jeers of the outraged men. Their behaviour was the outward sign of a temper not universal, of course, but very common among the people. At Paris both the King and the King’s brother were cheered on their formal entry, but many discriminating onlookers prophesied that the Bourbons could not remain long.
Fully aware that Napoleon was yet a power in France, and challenged by the marshals to display a chivalric spirit in providing for the welfare of their former monarch, Alexander gave full play to his generous impulses. His first suggestion was that his fallen foe should accept a home and complete establishment in Russia; but this would have been to ignore the other members of the coalition. It was determined finally to provide the semblance of an empire, the forms of state, and an imperial income, and to make the former Emperor the guest of all Europe. The idea was quixotic, but Napoleon was not a prisoner; he had done nothing worthy of degradation, and throughout the civilized world he was still regarded by vast numbers as the saviour of European society, who had fallen into the hands of cruel oppressors.
The paper which was finally drawn up was a treaty between Napoleon, for the time and purposes of the instrument a private citizen, as one party, and the four sovereign states of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England as the other. It had, therefore, no sanction except the public opinion of France and the good faith of those who executed it, the former being bound by her allies to a contract made by them. It was France which was to pay Napoleon two millions of francs a year, and leave him to reign undisturbed over Elba; the allies granted Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla as a realm in perpetuity to Maria Louisa and her heirs, through the King of Rome, as her successors.
The agreement was unique, but so were the circumstances which brought it to pass. There was but one important protest, and that was made by Castlereagh in regard to the word Napoleon and the imperial style! His protest was vain, but to this day many among the greatest of his countrymen persistently employ ‘Bonaparte’ in speaking of the greater, and ‘Napoleon’ in designating the lesser, of the two men who have ruled France as emperors.
Four commissioners, one from each of the powers, proceeded to Fontainebleau. They were careful to treat Napoleon with the consideration due to an emperor. To all he was courteous, except to the representative of Prussia, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, whose presence he declared unnecessary, since there were to be no Prussian troops on the southern road toward Elba. With Colonel Campbell, the British commissioner, he was most friendly, conversing enthusiastically with the Scotch officer about the Scotch poet known as Ossian. What was particularly admired in his remarkable outpourings was their warlike tone.
As the preparations for departure went forward, it became clear that of all the imperial dignitaries only Bertrand and Drouot would accompany the exile. The others he dismissed with characteristic and appropriate farewells: to Caulaincourt he assigned a gift of five hundred thousand francs from the treasure at Blois; Constant, the valet, and Rustan, the Mameluke, were dismissed at their own desire, but not empty-handed. For his line of travel, and for a hundred baggage-wagons loaded with books, furniture, and objects of art, Napoleon stipulated with the utmost nicety and persistence. With every hour he showed greater and greater anxiety for his personal safety. Indifferent to life but a few short days before, he was now timid and over-anxious.
If he had been playing a part and pondering what in a few years, perhaps months, his life and person might again be worth in European politics, he could not have been more painstaking as to measures for his personal safety. The stoic could have recourse to the bowl, the eighteenth-century enthusiast must live and hope to the last. Napoleon seems to have struggled for the union of both characters. “They blame me that I can outlive my fall,” he remarked. “Wrongfully…. It is much more courageous to survive unmerited bad fortune.” Only once he seemed overpowered, being observed, as he sat at table, to strike his forehead and murmur: “God, is it possible?”
Sometimes, too, he appeared to be lost in reverie, and when addressed started like one awakened from a dream. All was ready on the twentieth; but the Empress, who by the terms of the “treaty” was to accompany her consort as far as the harbor of St. Tropez, did not appear. Napoleon declared that she had been kidnapped, and refused to stir, threatening to withdraw his abdication. Koller, the Austrian commissioner, assured him of the truth, that she had resolved of her free will not to be present. In the certainty that all was over, the Empress had determined to take refuge with her father, and the imperial government at Blois had dispersed, Joseph and Jerome flying to Switzerland.
The announcement staggered Napoleon, but he replied with words destined to have great significance: “Very well; I shall remain faithful to my promise; but if I have new reasons to complain, I shall consider myself absolved.” Further, he touched on various topics as if seeking to talk against time, remarking that Francis had impiously sought the dissolution of his daughter’s marriage; that Russia and Prussia had made Austria’s position dangerous; that the Czar and Frederick William had shown little delicacy in visiting Maria Louisa at Rambouillet; that he himself was no usurper; and that he had been wrong not to make peace at Prague or Dresden. Then, suddenly changing tone and topic, he asked with interest what would occur if Elba refused to accept him. Koller thought he might still take refuge in England. Napoleon rejoined that he had thought of that; but, having always sought to do England harm, would the English make him welcome?
Koller replied that, as all the projects against her welfare had come to naught, England would feel no bitterness. Finally, about noon Napoleon descended into the courtyard, where the few grenadiers of the old guard were drawn up. The officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, were called forward, and in a few touching words their former leader thanked all who had remained true for their loyalty. With their aid he could have continued the war beyond the Loire, but he had preferred to sacrifice his personal interests to those of France. “Continue to serve France,” runs the Napoleonic text of this fine address: but the commissioners thought they heard “to serve the sovereign which the nation has chosen.”
He could have ended his life, he went on to say, but he wished to live and record for posterity the great deeds of his warriors. Then he embraced Petit, the commanding officer, and, snatching to his breast the imperial eagle, his standard in so many glorious battles, he pressed it to his lips, and entered the waiting carriage. A swelling sob burst from the ranks, and tears bedewed the weather-beaten cheeks of men who had not wept for years.
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