Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815 Volume II Part 18

He appeared at first uncertain on the determination it would be proper to take; and, after having brought all the parties on the stage, and placed in the balance the hopes and fears, with which each might inspire the nation, he exclaimed: "But is it an individual, then, is it a family, that is in question? No; it is our country. Why should we deprive ourselves of the means of saving it? Already we have made one great stride[68]: but do we know, whether it will be great enough, whether it will be sufficiently complete, to obtain from it the results we wish? Let us leave it to time to act. In accepting the abdication of Napoleon, you accepted the condition it carries with it; and we ought to acknowledge Napoleon II., since the forms of the const.i.tution require it: but, in conforming to them in this respect, it is impossible for us not to deviate from them, when the object is to secure our independence; and it is to attain this object, that you have thought proper, to place authority in the hands of men, who particularly possess your confidence; in order that this or that prince, appointed by the laws the guardian of the sovereign during a minority, may not claim his rights, and become the arbiter of the fate of France.

[Footnote 68: That of forcing Napoleon to abdicate.]

"I move, therefore, the order of the day, for the following reasons: 1st, that Napoleon II. is become Emperor of the French, by the fact of the abdication of Napoleon I., and by virtue of the const.i.tution of the empire.

"2dly, That the two chambers have willed and intended, by naming a committee of government, to secure to the nation the guarantees it requires, under the extraordinary circ.u.mstances, in which it is placed, to preserve its liberty and tranquillity."

This specious proposal seduced the a.s.sembly. It was adopted amid the most vociferous acclamations, and shouts of "Long live Napoleon II." a thousand times repeated; without its suspecting, that this order of the day, which appeared to it so decisive, signified nothing, except that it proclaimed Napoleon II. because the const.i.tution required it; but that it declared, at the same time, that it was merely a matter of form, and that it would be ready to give it up, when the provisional government should deem it necessary.

This was the second time of the chamber's being the dupe of its eagerness: yet it reckoned among its members men of great judgment and talents; but the greater number, and it is the majority always that gives the law, never having had a seat in our a.s.semblies, allowed themselves to be subjugated by the illusions of eloquence, and with so much the more facility, because there existed in the a.s.sembly no fixed notion, no paramount will, that might serve it as a beacon and guide.

The provisional government, influenced by M. Fouche, soon evinced, that it had caught the true sense of M. Manuel's proposal. Two days after, its acts were issued in the name of the French people. This insult to the sincerity of the chamber, and to the sovereign it had acknowledged, excited its astonishment, and its complaints. The capital and the patriots murmured. The president of the government was summoned, to explain and justify this strange proceeding. He answered: "That it had never been the intention of the committee, to disavow Napoleon II.; but this prince not having been yet acknowledged as sovereign of France by any of the foreign powers, they could not treat with them in his name; and the committee had thought it its duty, to act provisionally in the name of the French people, in order to deprive the enemy of every pretext for refusing to admit the negotiation."

This explanation, strengthened by the hacknied support of the potent words, our country, the public safety, foreign armies, appeared plausible; and no more was said.

The Emperor himself, stunned by the force and rapidity of the blows, that his enemies inflicted on him, thought no longer of defending himself; and seemed to leave to Providence the care of watching over him and his son. He complained: but his dissatisfaction expired on his lips, and excited in him none of those resolutions, that might have been expected from the fire and energy of his character.

The Duke of Otranto, however, and the deputies who had concurred with him in pulling down Napoleon from his throne, did not look on his residence at the Elyseum without alarm. They dreaded, lest, emboldened by the daring counsels of Prince Lucien, by the attachment the army retained for him, by the acclamations of the federates, and citizens of all cla.s.ses, who a.s.sembled daily under the walls of his palace, he should attempt to renew a second 18th Brumaire. They demanded of the chamber, therefore, by the mouth of M. d.u.c.h.esne, that the _ex-Emperor_ should be desired, in the name of their country, to remove from the capital. This demand having no effect, recourse was had to other means. Endeavours were made to frighten him. Every day officious advisers warned him, that attempts were making against his life: and to give more probability to this clumsy scheme, his guard was suddenly reinforced. Nay, one night, we were roused out of our beds by a messenger from the commandant of Paris, General Hulin, who warned us to be on our guard, as the Elyseum was going to be attacked, &c. But so great was our contempt for these wretched impositions, we did not even think it necessary, to mention it to Napoleon; and saw the return of day, without having lost a single moment's rest. Nothing however could have been more easy, than to carry off or a.s.sa.s.sinate Napoleon.

His palace, which ten days before could scarcely contain the bustling crowd of ambitious men and courtiers, was now one vast solitude. All those men, dest.i.tute of faith and honour, whom power attracts, and adversity keeps at a distance, had deserted it. His guard had been reduced to a few old grenadiers: and a single sentry, scarcely in uniform, watched the gate of that Napoleon, that king of kings, who lately reckoned millions of soldiers under his banners.

Napoleon himself, however, was aware, that his presence at Paris, and in an imperial palace, might give the allies room to question the sincerity of his abdication, and be detrimental to the re-establishment of peace.

He determined, therefore, to remove.

His private correspondence with the sovereigns, and some original letters, concealed from their search in 1814, he caused to be delivered into his own hands. He then directed us to burn the pet.i.tions, letters, and addresses, that had been received since the 20th of March. I was employed in this business one day, when Napoleon pa.s.sed through the closet. He came up to me, and took a letter I had in my hand. It was one from the Duke of .... He ran it over, and said to me with a smile: "Don't burn this: keep it for yourself. It will be an excellent recommendation, if you find yourself in any trouble. * * * [TN: Missing words in the book] will not fail to swear to those people, that he has maintained his fidelity toward them inviolate; and when he knows, that you have in your hands substantial proof of his having laid himself at my feet, and that I refused both him and his services, he will be ready to quarter himself to serve you, for fear you should blab." I thought the Emperor was jesting: he perceived it, and resumed: "No, I tell you; don't burn that letter, or any of those from persons of the same description: I give them to you for your protection."--"But, Sire, they will accuse me of having stolen them."--"If they complain, threaten, that you will print them all as they are, and they will say no more: I know them."--"Since it is your Majesty's desire, I will keep them." I did, in fact, set aside a certain number of these letters. After the return of the king, I had the complaisance, to restore some of them to the writers. This is not said gratuitously: scarcely had their authors, whom I could name, these letters in their possession, when they extolled their pretended fidelity to the skies; and became the most virulent detractors, both in their conversation and writing, of all who had embraced or served the cause of the 20th of March.

On the 25th, at noon, Napoleon set off for Malmaison. He was received there by the Princess Hortensia. This princess, so odiously calumniated, and so worthy of respect, set us an example of courage and resignation. Her situation, and that of Napoleon, must have wounded her to the heart: yet she found sufficient strength of mind, to suppress her sorrows, and console ours. She was attentive to the Emperor, she was attentive to us, with such constant solicitude, such perfect courteousness, that you would have supposed, she had nothing to think of but the misfortunes of others. If the fate of Napoleon and of France drew from us groans or imprecations, she ran to us; and, restraining her own tears, reminded us with the wisdom of a philosopher, and the sweetness of an angel, that we should surmount our sorrows and regrets, and submit with docility to the decrees of Providence.

Napoleon was roused by the shock, that his departure from the Elyseum gave him. At Malmaison he recovered his spirit, his activity, his energy. Accustomed to see all his wishes, all his enterprises, crowned with success, he had not learned, to contend against the sudden attacks of misfortune; and, notwithstanding the firmness of his character, they threw him occasionally into a state of irresolution, during which a thousand thoughts, a thousand designs, jostled each other in his mind, and deprived him of the possibility of coming to any decision. But this moral catalepsy was not the effect of a cowardly dejection, as has been a.s.serted. His great mind remained erect amid the temporary numbness of his faculties; and Napoleon, when he awoke, was but so much the more terrible, and the more formidable.

A few minutes after his arrival, he was desirous of addressing once more his old companions in arms, and expressing to them for the last time his sentiments and regrets. The affection he bore them, and his despair at being unable to avenge at their head the affront received at Mont St. Jean, made him forget in his first sketch of a proclamation, that he had broken with his own hands his sceptre and his sword. He soon perceived, that the impa.s.sioned style, in which he addressed his army, was not such, as his abdication imposed on him: and accordingly he subst.i.tuted the following address in the place of the too animated effusions of his heart.

"_Napoleon to the brave Soldiers of the Army before Paris._

"Malmaison, June the 25th, 1815.

"Soldiers,

"While I yield to the necessity, that compels me to retire from the brave French army, I carry with me the pleasing certainty, that it will justify, by the eminent services its country expects from it, those praises, which our enemies themselves cannot refuse it.

"Soldiers, though absent, I shall mark your steps. I know all the corps; and no one of them can obtain a signal advantage over the enemy, without my doing justice to the courage it displays. Both you and I have been calumniated. Men not worthy to judge of your actions have seen, in the proofs of attachment you have given me, a zeal, of which I was the sole object: let your future successes teach them, that it was your country you served more especially in obeying me; and that, if I had any share in your affection, I owe it to my ardent love for France, our common mother.

"Soldiers, yet a few efforts, and the coalition is dissolved. Napoleon will know you by the blows you strike.

"Save the honour, the independence of France: continue to the end such as I have known you these twenty years, and you will be invincible."

The Emperor, who perhaps had intended by this proclamation, to turn the remembrance and concern of his ancient soldiers toward himself, inquired after the effect it had produced. He was informed, as was the truth, that it had not been published in the Moniteur, and that the army knew nothing of it. He showed no mark of vexation or discontent, and began to talk of the two chambers.

Since the abdication, the peers and deputies had rivalled each other, in their zeal and endeavours, to put France into a state, to awe its enemies at home and abroad.

They had declared the war national, and summoned all Frenchmen to their common defence.

They had authorized the government, to make requisitions in kind, for victualling the army, and the conveyance of subsistence.

To raise the conscription of 1815.

To suspend the laws respecting personal liberty; and to arrest, or place under inspection, every person charged with exciting disturbances, or conveying intelligence to the enemy.

In fine, they had voted it an immense credit, for defraying provisionally the expense of equipping and paying the army.

The committee, on its part, took, and executed with indefatigable care, every measure, that circ.u.mstances demanded. Its task, it must be confessed, was as difficult as perilous. Never was a government placed in similar circ.u.mstances. They required, at least in the majority of its members, great courage, great devotion, great patriotism: they required an heroic disregard of ease, of liberty, of life, to a.s.sume the responsibility incurred by power, and by events, towards the nation, and towards the king.

The first act of the committee was, to replace in the hands of the Prince of Essling the command in chief of the national guard, which had before devolved on the Emperor. The Duke of Otranto was desirous of taking the post of second in command from General Durosnel, whose rect.i.tude was embarra.s.sing to him, in order to bestow it on M. T**, who appeared to him no doubt more tractable. The Duke of Vicenza and M. Carnot opposed this; and it was left with General Durosnel, to the satisfaction of the national guard, which had already learned how to value the excellent character of this officer.

Marshal Soult not choosing to accept the command, and General Rapp having resigned his, the committee appointed Marshal Grouchy commander of the army of the North.

General Reille was appointed commander of the 1st, 2d, and 6th corps, united into one:

General Drouot commander of the guards:

Marshal Jourdan commander of the army of the Rhine.

Orders were given in all quarters, to replace the stores of the army, remount the cavalry, march out the depots, and oblige the straggling soldiers, to return to their colours.

In fine, the committee, after having had recourse to every possible means of supporting the negotiations, by the simultaneous display of the national forces, appointed MM. de la Fayette, de Pontecoulant, de la Foret, d'Argenson, Sebastiani, and Benjamin Constant, the last being added in the character of secretary, to repair to the allied sovereigns and their generals, to negotiate a suspension of hostilities, and treat of peace.

The day on which these plenipotentiaries departed, M. S*** came to congratulate Napoleon. "The allies," answered the Emperor, "are too deeply interested in imposing the Bourbons on you, to give you my son.

My son will reign over France, but his time is not yet arrived. The instructions given the deputies, I have been a.s.sured, are in favour of my dynasty: if this be true, other persons should have been chosen to defend it. La Fayette, Sebastiani, Pontecoulant, and Benjamin Constant, have conspired against me. They are my enemies: and the enemies of the father will never be the friends of the son. Besides, the chambers have not sufficient energy, to display an independent will: they obey the directions of Fouche. If they had bestowed on me what they lavish on him, I would have saved France. My presence alone at the head of the army would have done more, than all your negotiations. I would have obtained my son, as the price of my abdication: you will not obtain him. Fouche is not sincere: he has sold himself to the Duke of Orleans. He will make fools of the chambers; the allies will make a fool of him; and you will have Louis XVIII. He thinks himself able, to manage every thing as he pleases; but he is mistaken. He will find, that it requires a hand of a different stamp from his, to guide the reins of a nation, particularly when an enemy is in the land.... The chamber of peers has not done its duty: it has behaved like a chicken. It has suffered Lucien to be insulted, and my son to be dethroned. If it had stood firm, it would have had the army on its side: the generals there would have given it to it[69]. Its order of the day has ruined France, and brought you back the Bourbons, I alone could repair all: but your party-leaders will never consent to it: they would rather be swallowed up in the gulf, than join with me to close it."

[Footnote 69: Most of the peers held commands in the army.]

The complaints, the regrets, the menaces, that Napoleon allowed continually to escape him, alarmed the promoters of his fall more and more. In the first moments of their warmth they had displayed some boldness; but after their heads had grown cool, they appeared themselves to be astonished at their own courage. They turned pale at the very name of Napoleon and conjured the government night and day, to make him embark as speedily as possible.

From the very day of his abdication, the Emperor had thought of seeking an asylum in a foreign country. Accustomed to powerful emotions, to extraordinary events, he familiarized himself to this idea without difficulty; and appeared to take a momentary pleasure in calculating the hazards of the present, and the chances of the future; and balancing the fictions of hope against the dangers of reality.

The Emperor had never confounded the English nation with the political system of its government. He considered the heart of a Briton as the inviolable sanctuary of honour, generosity, and all the public and private virtues, that stamp on man loftiness and dignity. This high opinion prevailed in his mind over the fears, with which the known principles and sentiments of the cabinet of London could not fail to inspire him: and his first intention was, to retire to England, and there place himself under the protection of hospitality and the laws.

He opened his mind to the Dukes of Ba.s.sano and Vicenza. The former did not appear to relish this determination. The latter, without condemning of approving it, advised him, if he persisted in taking this step, to go on board a smuggling vessel; and, as soon as he landed, to present himself to the magistrate of the place, and declare, that he came with confidence to invoke the protection of the English nation. Napoleon appeared, to relish this advice; but the counsels of other persons induced him, to incline to the United States. He then sent to the minister of marine for an account of the American vessels, that were in our ports. The minister sent it to him immediately. "Take notice, Sire," he wrote, "of the vessel at Havre.

Her captain is in my antechamber; his postchaise at my door. He is ready to depart. I will answer for him. To-morrow, if you please, you may be out of the reach of your enemies."

M. de Vicenza pressed the Emperor, to avail himself of this opportunity. "I am well aware," answered the Emperor, "that there are people, who wish me already gone; who want to get rid of me, and to have me taken prisoner." The duke gave signs of surprise and reproach.

"Ah! Caulincourt, it is not you I am speaking of." The Duke of Vicenza replied, that his advice came from his heart; and that he had no other motive, than to see him safe from the dangers, with which he was threatened by the approach of the allies.--The Emperor stopped him.

"What have I to fear? I have abdicated; _it is the business of France to protect me!_"

Several Americans, who were at Paris, wrote of their own accord to Napoleon, to offer him their services, and a.s.sure him, in the name of their fellow-citizens, that he would be received at Was.h.i.+ngton with the sentiments of respect, admiration, and devotion, that were his due. Napoleon refused their offers. Not that he had any intention of withdrawing himself from the effects of his abdication: but he had changed his opinion; and considered, that it was his duty, not to quit the country, unless it were exacted of him, till it was no longer in danger.

The government, however, yielding to the continual importunities of the deputies, and of M. Fouche, caused it to be hinted to him, that it was proper he should come to some decision. The Emperor then declared, that he was ready to repair with his family to the United States; and that he would embark, as soon as two frigates were placed at his disposal. The minister of marine was immediately authorized, to fit out these two frigates. Baron Bignon received orders, to demand from Lord Wellington the necessary pa.s.sports and safeconducts: but the committee, under pretence of not exposing the _frigates_ to fall into the enemy's hands, decreed, that they should not put to sea, till the safeconducts were arrived: a singular condition, that cannot be explained honourably but by the supposition, that the government was not desirous at bottom of letting Napoleon depart; no doubt considering his presence in France as a circ.u.mstance, that would render the allies more docile, and less exacting.

The promise made by the Emperor, and the measures taken to ensure his departure, were not sufficient, to quiet the apprehensions of his enemies. They were afraid, that he would avail himself of the delay, which must take place before the safeconducts could arrive, to seize on the sovereign authority by main force. Accordingly, they returned to the charge; and the government, to put an end to their importunate fears, and answer by antic.i.p.ation the objections of the foreign powers, consented to appoint a guardian to the late head of the state.