Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon Part 51

A legion was formed in each district, and each legion was divided into four battalions subdivided into five companies.--Next the Emperor appointed the following to superior grades:

General vice-commander-in-chief.--Marshal de Moncey, Duke of Conegliano.

Aides--major-generals.--General of division, Count Hullin; Count Bertrand, grand marshal of the palace; Count of Montesquieu, grand chamberlain; Count de Montmorency, chamberlain of the Emperor.

Adjutant-commandants.--Baron Laborde, adjutant-commandant of the post of Paris; Count Albert de Brancas, chamberlain of the Emperor; Count Germain, chamberlain of the Emperor; M. Tourton.

a.s.sistant captains.--Count Lariboisiere; Chevalier Adolphe de Maussion; Messieurs Jules de Montbreton, son of the equerry of the Princess Borghese; Collin, junior, the younger; Lecordier, junior; Lemoine, junior; Cardon, junior; Malet, junior.

Chiefs of the twelve Legions.--First legion, Count de Gontaut, senior; second legion, Count Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely; third legion, Baron Hottinguer, banker; fourth legion, Count Jaubert, governor of the bank of France; fifth legion, M. Dauberjon de Murinais; sixth legion, M. de Fraguier; seventh legion, M. Lepileur de Brevannes; eighth legion, M.

Richard Lenoir; ninth legion, M. Devins de Gaville; tenth legion, the Duke of Cadore; eleventh legion, Count de Choiseul-Praslin, chamberlain of the Emperor; twelfth legion, M. Salleron.

From the names we have just read, we may judge of the incredible insight by which his Majesty was enabled to choose, among the most distinguished persons of the different cla.s.ses of society, those most popular and most influential from their positions. By the side of the names which had gained glory under the eyes of the Emperor, and by seconding him in his great undertakings, could be found those whose claim to distinction was more ancient and recalled n.o.ble memories, and finally the heads of the princ.i.p.al industries in the capital. This species of amalgamation delighted the Emperor greatly; and he must have attached to it great political importance, for this idea occupied his attention to such an extent that I have often heard him say, "I wish to confound all cla.s.ses, all periods, all glories. I desire that no t.i.tle may be more glorious than the t.i.tle of Frenchman." Why is it fate decreed that the Emperor should not be allowed time to carry out his extensive plans for the glory and happiness of France of which he so often spoke? The staff of the National Guard and the chiefs of the twelve legions being appointed, the Emperor left the nomination of the other officers, as well as the formation of the legions, to the selection of M. de Chabrol, prefect of the Seine. This worthy magistrate, to whom the Emperor was much attached, displayed under these circ.u.mstances the greatest zeal and activity, and in a short time the National Guard presented an imposing appearance. They were armed, equipped, and clothed in the best possible manner; and this ardor, which might be called general, was in these last days one of the consolations which most deeply touched the heart of the Emperor, since he saw in it a proof of the attachment of the Parisians to his person, and an additional motive for feeling secure as to the tranquillity of the capital during his approaching absence. Be that as it may, the bureau of the National Guard was soon formed, and established in the residence which Marshal Moncey inhabited on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, near the square Beauveau; and one master of requests and two auditors of the council of state were attached to it. The master of requests, a superior officer of engineers, the Chevalier Allent, soon became the soul of the whole administration of the National Guard, no one being more capable than he of giving a lively impulse to an organization which required great promptness. The person from whom I obtained this information, which I intermingle with my personal souvenirs, has a.s.sured me that following upon, that is to say, after our departure for Chalons-sur-Marne, M. Allent became still more influential in the National Guard, of which he was the real head. In fact, when King Joseph had received the t.i.tle of lieutenant-general to the Emperor, which his Majesty conferred on him during the time of his absence, M.

Allent found himself attached on one hand to the staff of King Joseph as officer of engineers, and on the other to the vice-general-in-chief in his quality of master of requests. It resulted that he was the mediator and counselor in all communications which were necessarily established between the lieutenant-general of the Emperor and Marshal Moncey, and the promptness of his decisions was a source of great benefit to that good and grave marshal. He signed all letters, "The Marshal, Duke de Conegliano;" and wrote so slowly that M. Allent had, so to speak, time to write the correspondence while the marshal was signing his name. The auditors to the council of state duties of the two were nothing, or nearly so; but these men were by no means n.o.bodies, as has been a.s.serted, though a few of that character of course slipped into the council, since the first condition for holding this office was simply to prove an income of at least six thousand francs. These were Messieurs Ducancel, the dean of the auditors, and M. Robert de Sainte-Croix. A sh.e.l.l had broken the latter's leg during the return from Moscow; and this brave young man, a captain of cavalry, had returned, seated astride a cannon, from the banks of the Beresina to Wilna. Having little physical strength, but gifted with a strong mind, M. Robert de Sainte-Croix owed it to his moral courage not to succ.u.mb; and after undergoing the amputation of his leg, left the sword for the pen, and it was thus he became auditor to the council of state.

The week after the National Guard of the city of Paris had been called into service, the chiefs of the twelve legions and the general staff were admitted to take the oath of fidelity at the Emperor's hands. The National Guard had already been organized into legions; but the want of arms was keenly felt, and many citizens could procure only lances, and those who could not obtain guns or buy them found themselves thereby chilled in their ardor to equip themselves. Nevertheless, the Citizen Guard soon enrolled the desired number of thirty thousand men, and by degrees it occupied the different posts of the capital; and whilst fathers of families and citizens employed in domestic work were enrolled without difficulty, those who had already paid their debts to their country on the battlefield also demanded to be allowed to serve her again, and to shed for her the last drop of their blood. Invalided soldiers begged to resume their service. Hundreds of these brave soldiers forgot their sufferings, and covered with honorable wounds went forth again to confront the enemy. Alas! very few of those who then left the Hotel des Invalides were fortunate enough to return.

Meanwhile the moment of the Emperor's departure approached; but before setting out he bade a touching adieu to the National Guard, as we shall see in the next chapter, and confided the regency to the Empress as he had formerly intrusted it to her during the campaign in Dresden. Alas this time it was not necessary to make a long journey before the Emperor was at the head of his army.

CHAPTER XXII.

We are now about to begin the campaign of miracles; but before relating the events which I witnessed on this campaign, during which I, so to speak, never left the Emperor, it is necessary that I here inscribe some souvenirs which may be considered as a necessary introduction. It is well known that the Swiss cantons had solemnly declared to the Emperor that they would not allow their territory to be violated, and that they would do everything possible to oppose the pa.s.sage of the allied armies who were marching on the frontiers of France by way of the Breisgau. The Emperor, in order to stop them on their march, relied upon the destruction of the bridge of Bale; but this bridge was not destroyed, and Switzerland, instead of maintaining her promised neutrality, entered into the coalition against France. The foreign armies pa.s.sed the Rhine at Bale, at Schaffhausen, and at Mannheim. Capitulations made with the generals of the confederated troops in regard to the French garrisons of Dantzic, Dresden, and other strong towns had been, as we have seen, openly violated. Thus Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr and his army corps had been, contrary to the stipulations contained in the treaties, surrounded by superior forces, disarmed, and conducted as prisoners to Austria; and twenty thousand men, the remains of the garrison of Dantzic, were thus arrested by order of the Emperor Alexander, and conveyed to the Russian deserts. Geneva opened its gates to the enemy in the following January.

Vesoul, Epinal, Nancy, Langres, Dijon, Chalons-sur-Saone, and Bar-sur-Aube were occupied by the allies.

The Emperor, in proportion as the danger became more pressing, displayed still more his energy and indefatigable activity. He urged the organization of new levies, and in order to pay the most urgent expenses drew thirty millions from his secret treasury in the vaults of the pavilion Marsan. The levies of conscripts were, however, made with difficulty; for in the course of the year 1813 alone, one million forty thousand soldiers had been summoned to the field, and France could no longer sustain such enormous drains. Meanwhile veterans came from all parts to be enrolled; and General Carnot offered his services to the Emperor, who was much touched by this proceeding, and confided to him the defense of Antwerp. The zeal and courage with which the general acquitted himself of this important mission is well known. Movable columns and corps of partisans placed themselves under arms in the departments of the east, and a few rich proprietors levied and organized companies of volunteers, while select cavalry formed themselves into corps, the cavaliers of which equipped themselves at their own expense.

In the midst of these preparations the Emperor received news which moved him deeply,--the King of Naples had just joined the enemies of the French. On a previous occasion, when his Majesty had seen the Prince Royal of Sweden, after having been marshal and prince of the Empire, enter into a coalition against his native country, I heard him break forth into reproaches and exclamations of indignation, although the King of Sweden had more than one reason to offer in his own defense, being alone in the north, and shut in by powerful enemies against whom he was entirely unable to struggle, even had the interests of his new country been inseparable from those of France. By refusing to enter into the coalition he would have drawn on Sweden the anger of her formidable neighbors, and with the throne he would have sacrificed and fruitlessly ruined the nation which had adopted him. It was not to the Emperor he owed his elevation. But King Joachim, on the contrary, owed everything to the Emperor; for it was he who had given him one of his sisters as a wife, who had given him a throne, and had treated him as well as, and even better than, if he had been a brother. It was consequently the duty of the King of Naples as well as his interest not to separate his cause from that of France; for if the Emperor fell, how could the kings of his own family, whom he had made, hope to stand? Both King Joseph and Jerome had well understood this, and also the brave and loyal Prince Eugene, who supported courageously in Italy the cause of his adopted father. If the King of Naples had united with him they could together have marched on Vienna, and this audacious but at the same time perfectly practicable movement would have infallibly saved France.

These are some of the reflections I heard the Emperor make in speaking of the treachery of the King of Naples, though in the first moments, however, he did not reason so calmly. His anger was extreme, and with it was mingled grief and emotions near akin to pity: "Murat!" cried he, "Murat betray me! Murat sell himself to the Englis.h.!.+ The poor creature!

He imagines that if the allies succeed in overthrowing me they would leave him the throne on which I have seated him. Poor fool! The worst fate that can befall him is that his treachery should succeed; for he would have less pity to expect from his new allies than from me."

The evening before his departure for the army, the Emperor received the corps of officers of the National Parisian Guard, and the reception was held in the great hall of the Tuileries. This ceremony was sad and imposing. His Majesty presented himself before the a.s.sembly with her Majesty the Empress, who held by the hand the King of Rome, aged three years lacking two months. Although his speech on this occasion is doubtless already well known, I repeat it here, as I do not wish that these beautiful and solemn words of my former master should be wanting in my Memoirs:

"GENTLEMEN, Officers of the National Guard,--It is with much pleasure I see you a.s.sembled around me. I leave to-night to place myself at the head of the army. On leaving the capital I place with confidence in your care my wife and my son on whom rests so many hopes. I owe you this proof of my confidence, in return for all the innumerable proofs you have repeatedly given me in the important events of my life. I shall depart with my mind free from anxiety, since they will be under your faithful protection. I leave with you what is dearest to me in the world, next to France, and I freely commit it to your care.

"It may occur that in consequence of the maneuvers I am about to make, the enemy may find the opportunity of approaching your walls.

If this should take place, remember that it will be an affair of only a few days, and I will soon come to your a.s.sistance. I recommend to you to preserve unity among yourselves, and to resist all the insinuations by which efforts will be made to divide you.

There will not be wanting endeavors to shake your fidelity to duty, but I rely upon you to repel these perfidious attempts."

At the end of this discourse, the Emperor bent his looks on the Empress and the King of Rome, whom his august mother held in her arms, and presenting both by his looks and gestures to the a.s.sembly this child whose expressive countenance seemed to reflect the solemnity of the occasion, he added in an agitated voice, "I confide him to you, Messieurs; I confide him to the love of my faithful city of Paris!" At these words of his Majesty innumerable shouts were heard, and innumerable arms were raised swearing to defend this priceless trust. The Empress, bathed in tears and pale with the emotion by which she was agitated, would have fallen if the Emperor had not supported her in his arms. At this sight the enthusiasm reached its height, tears flowed from all eyes, and there was not one present who did not seem willing as he retired to shed his blood for the Imperial family. On this occasion I again saw for the first time M. de Bourrienne at the palace; he wore, if I am not mistaken, the uniform of captain in the National Guard.

On the 25th of January the Emperor set out for the army, after conferring the regency on her Majesty the Empress; and that night we reached Chalons-sur-Marne. His arrival stopped the progress of the enemy's army and the retreat of our troops. Two days after he, in his turn, attacked the allies at Saint-Dizier. His Majesty's entrance into this town was marked by most touching manifestations of enthusiasm and devotion. The very moment the Emperor alighted, a former colonel, M. Bouland, an old man more than seventy years old, threw himself at his Majesty's feet, expressing to him the deep grief which the sight of foreign bayonets had caused him, and his confidence that the Emperor would drive them from the soil of France. His Majesty a.s.sisted the old veteran to rise, and said to him cheerfully that he would spare nothing to accomplish such a favorable prediction. The allies conducted themselves in the most inhuman manner at Saint-Dizier: women and old men died or were made ill under the cruel treatment which they received; and it may be imagined what a cause of rejoicing his Majesty's arrival was to the country.

The enemy having been repulsed at Saint-Dizier, the Emperor learned that the army of Silesia was being concentrated on Brienne, and immediately set out on the march through the forest of Deo, the brave soldiers who followed him appearing as indefatigable as he. He halted at the village of Eclaron, where his Majesty paid a certain sum to the inhabitants to repair their church, which the enemy had destroyed. The surgeon of this town advanced to thank the Emperor; and his Majesty examining him attentively said to him, "You have served in the army, Monsieur?"--"Yes, Sire; I was in the army of Egypt."--"Why have you no cross?"--"Sire, because I have never asked for it."--"Monsieur, you are only the more worthy of it. I hope you will wear the one I shall give you." And in a few moments his certificate was signed by the Emperor, and handed to the new chevalier, whom the Emperor recommended to give the most careful attention to the sick and wounded of our army who might be committed to his care.

[It is known that the Emperor was not lavish in the distribution of the Cross of Honor. Of this fact I here give an additional proof. He was much pleased with the services of M. Veyrat, inspector general of police, and he desired the Cross. I presented pet.i.tions to this effect to his Majesty, who said to me one day, "I am well satisfied with Veyrat. He serves me well, and I will give him as much money as he wishes; but the Cross, never!"

--CONSTANT.]

On entering Mezieres his Majesty was received by the authorities of the city, the clergy, and the National Guard. "Messieurs," said the Emperor to the National Guard who pressed around him, "we fight to day for our firesides; let us defend them in such a manner that the Cossacks may not come to warm themselves beside them. They are bad guests, who will leave no place for you. Let us show them that every Frenchman is born a soldier, and a brave one!" His Majesty on receiving the homage of the curate, perceiving that this ecclesiastic regarded him with extreme interest and agitation, consequently considered the good priest more attentively, and soon recognized in him one of the former regents of the college of Brienne. "What! is it you, my dear master?" cried the Emperor. "You have, then, never left your retirement! So much the better, since for that reason you will be only the better able to serve the cause of your native land. I need not ask if you know the country around here."--"Sire," replied the curate, "I could find my way with my eyes shut."--"Come with us, then; you will be our guide, and we will converse." The worthy priest immediately saddled his well-broken horse, and placed himself in the center of the Imperial staff.

The same day we arrived before Brienne. The Emperor's march had been so secret and so rapid that the Prussians had heard nothing of it until he suddenly appeared before their eyes. A few general officers were made prisoners; and Blucher himself, who was quietly coming out of the chateau, had only time to turn and fly as quickly as he could, under a shower of b.a.l.l.s from our advance guard. The Emperor thought for a moment that the Prussian general had been taken, and exclaimed, "We have got that old swash-buckler. Now the campaign will not be long." The Russians who were established in the village set it on fire, and an engagement took place in the midst of the flames. Night arrived, but the combat still continued; and in the s.p.a.ce of twelve hours the village was taken and retaken many times. The Emperor was furious that Blucher should have escaped. As he returned to headquarters, which had been established at Mezieres, his Majesty narrowly escaped being pierced through with the lance of a Cossack; but before the Emperor perceived the movement of the wretch, the brave Colonel Gourgaud, who was marching behind his Majesty, shot the Cossack dead with his pistol.

The Emperor had with him only fifteen thousand men, and they had waged an equal struggle with eighty thousand foreign soldiers. At the close of the combat the Prussians retreated to Bar-sur-Aube; and his Majesty established himself in the chateau of Brienne, where he pa.s.sed two nights. I recalled during this stay the one that I had made ten years before in this same chateau of Brienne, when the Emperor was on his way to Milan with the intention of adding the t.i.tle of King of Italy to that of Emperor of the French. "To-day," I said to myself, "not only is Italy lost to him, but here in the center of the French Empire, and a few leagues from his capital, the Emperor is defending himself against innumerable enemies!" The first time I saw Brienne, the Emperor was received as a sovereign by a n.o.ble family who fifteen years before had welcomed him as a protege. He had there revived the happiest remembrances of his childhood and youth; and in comparing himself in 1805 with what he had been at the Ecole Militaire had spoken with pride of the path he had trod. In 1814, on the 31st of January, the end to which this path was tending began to be seen. It is not that I wish to announce myself as having foreseen the Emperor's fall, for I did not go so far as that. Accustomed to see him trust to his star, the greater part of those who surrounded him trusted it no less than he; but nevertheless we could not conceal from ourselves that great changes had taken place. To delude ourselves in this respect it would have been necessary to close our eyes that we might neither see nor hear this mult.i.tude of foreigners, whom we had until now seen only in their own country, and who, in their turn, were now in our midst.

At each step, in fact, we found terrible proofs of the enemy's presence.

After taking possession of the towns and villages, they had arrested the inhabitants, maltreated them with saber-strokes and the b.u.t.t ends of their guns, stripping them of their clothing, and compelling those to follow them whom they thought capable of serving as guides on their march; and if they were not guided as they expected they killed with the sword or shot their unfortunate prisoners. Everywhere the inhabitants were made to furnish provisions, drink, cattle, forage, in a word, everything that could be useful to an army making enormous requisitions; and when they had exhausted all the resources of their victims, they finished their work of destruction by pillage and burning. The Prussians, and above all the Cossacks, were remarkable for their brutal ferocity. Sometimes these hideous savages entered the houses by main force, shared among themselves everything that fell into their hands, loaded their horses with the plunder, and broke to pieces what they could not carry away. Sometimes, not finding sufficient to satisfy their greed, they broke down the doors and windows, demolished the ceiling in order to tear out the beams, and made of these pieces and the furniture, which was too heavy to be carried away, a fire, which being communicated to the roofs of neighboring houses consumed in a moment the dwellings of the unhappy inhabitants, and forced them to take refuge in the woods.

Sometimes the more wealthy inhabitants gave them what they demanded, especially brandy, of which they drank eagerly, thinking by this compliance to escape their ferocity; but these barbarians, heated by drink, then carried their excesses to the last degree. They seized girls, women, and servants, and beat them unmercifully, in order to compel them to drink brandy until they fell in a complete state of intoxication. Many women and young girls had courage and strength to defend themselves against these brigands; but they united three or four against one, and often to avenge themselves for the resistance of these poor creatures mutilated and slew them, after having first violated them, or threw them into the midst of the bivouac fires. Farms were burned up, and families recently opulent or in comfortable circ.u.mstances were reduced in an instant to despair and poverty. Husbands and old men were slain with the sword while attempting to defend the honor of their wives and daughters; and when poor mothers attempted to approach the fires to warm the children at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, they were burned or killed by the explosion of packages of cartridges, which the Cossacks threw intentionally into the fire; and the cries of pain and agony were stifled by the bursts of laughter from these monsters.

I should never end if I attempted to relate all the atrocities committed by these foreign hordes. It was the custom at the time of the Restoration to say that the complaints and narrations of those who were exposed to these excesses were exaggerated by fear or hatred. I have even heard very dignified persons jest pleasantly over the pretty ways of the Cossacks. But these wits always kept themselves at a distance from the theater of war, and had the good fortune to inhabit departments which suffered neither from the first nor second invasion. I would not advise them to address their pleasantries to the unfortunate inhabitants of Champagne, or of the departments of the east in general. It has been maintained also that the allied sovereigns and the general officers of the Russian and Prussian army severely forbade all violence in their regular troops, and that the atrocities were committed by undisciplined and ungovernable bands of Cossacks. I have been in a position to learn, on many occasions, especially at Troves, proofs to the contrary. This town has not forgotten, doubtless, how the Princes of Wurtemberg and Hohenlohe and the Emperor Alexander himself justified the burnings, pillage, violations, and numerous a.s.sa.s.sinations committed under their very eyes, not only by the Cossacks, but also by regularly enlisted and disciplined soldiers. No measures were taken by the sovereigns or by their generals to put an end to such atrocities, and nevertheless when they left a town there was needed only an order from them to remove at once the hordes of Cossacks who devastated the country.

The field of the La Rothiere was, as I have said, the rendezvous of the pupils of the military school of Brienne. It was there that the Emperor, when a child, had foreshadowed in his engagement with the scholars his gigantic combats. The engagement at La Rothiere was hotly contested; and the enemy obtained, only at the price of much blood, an advantage which they owed entirely to their numerical superiority. In the night which followed this unequal struggle, the Emperor ordered the retreat from Troves. On returning to the chateau after the battle, his Majesty narrowly escaped an imminent danger. He found himself surrounded by a troop of uhlans, and drew his sword to defend himself. M. Jardin, junior, his equerry, who followed the Emperor closely, received a ball in his arm. Several cha.s.seurs of the escort were wounded, but they at last succeeded in extricating his Majesty. I can a.s.sert that his Majesty showed the greatest self-possession in all encounters of this kind. On that day, as I unbuckled his sword-belt, he drew it half out of the scabbard, saying, "Do you know, Constant, the wretches have made me cut the wind with this? The rascals are too impudent. It is necessary to teach them a lesson, that they may learn to hold themselves at a respectful distance."

It is not my intention to write the history of this campaign in France, in which the Emperor displayed an activity and energy which excited to the highest point the admiration of those who surrounded him.

Unfortunately, the advantages which he had obtained gradually exhausted his own troops, while only creating losses in the enemy's, which they easily repaired. It was, as M. Bourrienne has well said, a combat of an Alpine eagle with a flock of ravens: "The eagle may kill them by hundreds. Each blow of his beak is the death of an enemy; but the ravens return in still greater numbers, and continue their attack on the eagle until they at last overcome him." At Champ-Aubert, at Montmirail, at Nangis, at Montereau, and at Arcis, and in twenty other engagements, the Emperor obtained the advantage by his genius and by the courage of our army; but it was all in vain. Hardly had these ma.s.ses of the enemy been scattered, before fresh ones were formed again in front of our soldiers, exhausted by continuous battles and forced marches. The army, especially that which Blucher commanded, seemed to revive of itself, and whenever beaten reappeared with forces equal, if not superior, to those which had been destroyed or dispersed. How can such an immense superiority of numbers be indefinitely resisted?

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Emperor had never shown himself so worthy of admiration as during this fatal campaign in France, when, struggling against misfortunes, he performed over again the prodigies of his first wars in Italy, when fortune smiled on him. His career had begun with an attack, and the end was marked by the most magnificent defense recorded in the annals of war.

And it may be said with truth that at all times and everywhere his Majesty showed himself both the perfect general and the soldier, under all circ.u.mstances furnis.h.i.+ng an example of personal courage to such an extent, indeed, that all those who surrounded him, and whose existence was dependent on his own, were seriously alarmed. For instance, as is well known, the Emperor, at the battle of Montereau, pointed the pieces of artillery himself, recklessly exposed himself to the enemy's fire, and said to his soldiers, who were much alarmed at his danger and attempted to remove him, "Let me alone, my friends; the bullet which is to kill me has not yet been molded."

At Arcis the Emperor again fought as a common soldier, and more than once drew his sword in order to cut his way through the midst of the enemy who surrounded him. A sh.e.l.l fell a few steps from his horse. The animal, frightened, jumped to one side, and nearly unhorsed the Emperor, who, with his field-gla.s.s in his hand, was at the moment occupied in examining the battlefield. His Majesty settled himself again firmly in his saddle, stuck his spurs in the horse's sides, forced him to approach and put his nose to it. Just then the sh.e.l.l burst, and, by an almost incredible chance, neither the Emperor nor his horse was even wounded.

In more than one similar circ.u.mstance the Emperor seemed, during this campaign, to put his life at a venture; and yet it was only in the last extremity that he abandoned the hope of preserving his throne. It was a painful sacrifice to him to treat with the enemy so long as they occupied French territory; for he wished to purge the soil of France of the presence of foreigners before entering into any agreement with them whatever. And this feeling was the reason of his hesitation and refusal to accept the peace which was offered him on various occasions.

On the 8th of February, the Emperor, at the end of a long discussion with two or three of his intimate advisers, retired very late, and in a state of extreme preoccupation. He woke me often during the night, complaining of being unable to sleep, and made me extinguish and relight his lamp again and again. About five o'clock in the morning I was called again.

I was almost fainting with fatigue, which his Majesty noticed, and said to me kindly, "You are worn out, my poor Constant; we are making a severe campaign, are we not? But hold out only a little longer; you will soon rest."

Encouraged by the sympathizing tones of his Majesty, I took the liberty of replying that no one could think of complaining of the fatigue or privations he endured, since they were shared by his Majesty; but that, nevertheless, the desire and hope of every one were for peace. "Ah, yes," replied the Emperor, with a kind of subdued violence, "they will have peace; they will realize what a dishonorable peace is!" I kept silence; his Majesty's chagrin distressed me deeply; and I wished at this moment that his army could have been composed of men of iron like himself, then he would have made peace only on the frontiers of France.

The tone of kindness and familiarity in which the Emperor spoke to me on this occasion recalls another circ.u.mstance which I neglected to relate in its proper place, and which I must not pa.s.s over in silence, since it furnishes such a fine example of his Majesty's conduct towards the persons of his service, and especially myself. Roustan witnessed the occurrence, and it was from him I learned the opening details.

In one of his campaigns beyond the Rhine (I do not remember which), I had pa.s.sed several nights in succession without sleep, and was exhausted.

The Emperor went out at eleven o'clock, and remained three or four hours; and I seated myself in his armchair, near his table, to await his return, intending to rise and retire as soon as I heard him enter, but was so exhausted with fatigue that sleep suddenly overtook me, and I dropped into a deep slumber, my head resting on my arm, and my arm on his Majesty's table. The Emperor returned at last with Marshal Berthier, and followed by Roustan. I heard nothing. The Prince de Neuchatel wished to approach and shake me that I might awake and resign to his Majesty his seat and table; but the Emperor stopped him, saying, "Let the poor fellow sleep; he has pa.s.sed many nights with none." Then, as there was no other chair in the apartment, the Emperor seated himself on the edge of the bed, made the marshal also seat himself there, and they held a long conversation while I continued to sleep. At length, needing one of the maps from the table on which my arm rested, his Majesty, although he drew it out most cautiously, awoke me; and I immediately sprang to my feet, overwhelmed with confusion, and excusing myself for the liberty I had so involuntarily taken. "Monsieur Constant," the Emperor then said with an exceedingly kind smile, "I am distressed to have disturbed you. Pray, excuse me." I trust that this, in addition to what I have already related of the same nature, may serve as an answer to those who have accused him of harshness to his servants. I resume my recital of the events of 1814.

On the night of the 8th the Emperor seemed to have decided on making peace; and the whole night was spent in preparing dispatches, which on the morning of the 9th at nine o'clock were brought to him to sign; but he had changed his mind. At seven o'clock he had received news from the Russian and Prussian army; and when the Duke of Ba.s.sano entered, holding in his hand the dispatches to be signed, his Majesty was asleep over the maps where he had stuck his pens. "Ah, it is you," said he to his minister; "we will no longer need those. We are now laying plans to attack Blucher; he has taken the road from Montmirail. I am about to start. To-morrow I will fight, and again the next day. The aspect of affairs is on the point of changing, as we shall see. Let us not be precipitate; there is time enough to make such a peace as they propose."

An hour after we were on the road to Sezanne.

For several days in succession after this, the heroic efforts of the Emperor and his brave soldiers were crowned with brilliant success.

Immediately on their arrival at Champ-Aubert, the army, finding itself in presence of the Russian army corps, against which they had already fought at Brienne, fell on it without even waiting to take repose, separated it from the Prussian army, and took the general-in-chief and several general officers prisoners. His Majesty, whose conduct towards his conquered foes was always honorable and generous, made them dine at his table, and treated them with the greatest consideration.

The enemy were again beaten at the Farm des Frenaux by Marshals Ney and Mortier, and by the Duke of Ragusa at Vaux-Champs, where Blucher again narrowly escaped being made prisoner. At Nangis the Emperor dispersed one hundred and fifty thousand men commanded by the Prince von Schwarzenberg, and ordered in pursuit of them Marshals Oudinot, Kellermann, Macdonald, and Generals Treilhard and Gerard.