Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 65

_March 29th.--Allies outside Paris. Napoleon at Troyes (125 miles off)._

_March 30th.--Battle of Paris._ The Emperor's orders disobeyed.

Heavy cannon from Cherbourg left outside Paris, also 20,000 men. Clarke deserts to the Allies. Joseph runs away, leaving Marmont permission to capitulate. After losing 5000 men (and Allies 8000) Marmont evacuates Paris and retires. _Napoleon reaches Fontainebleau in the evening, and hears the bad news._

_March 31st._--Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, and 36,000 men enter Paris. Stocks and shares advance. Emperor Alexander states, "The Allied Sovereigns will treat no longer with Napoleon Bonaparte, nor any of his family."

_April 1st._--Senate, with Talleyrand as President, inst.i.tute a Provisional Government.

_April 2nd._--Provisional Government address the army: "You are no longer the soldiers of Napoleon; the Senate and the whole of France absolve you from your oaths." They also declare Napoleon deposed from the throne, and his family from the succession.

_April 4th.--Napoleon signs a declaration of abdication in favour of his son, but after two days' deliberation, and Marmont's defection, Alexander insists on an absolute abdication._

_April 5th._--Convention of Chevilly. Marmont agrees to join the Provisional Government, and disband his army under promise that Allies will guarantee life and liberty to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Funds on March 29th at 45, now at 63.75.

_April 6th._--New Const.i.tution decreed by the Senate. The National Guard ordered to wear the White c.o.c.kade in lieu of the Tricolor.

_April 10th._--Battle of Toulouse. Hotly contested; almost a defeat for Wellington.

_April 11th.--Treaty of Paris between Napoleon and Allies (Austria, Russia, and Prussia). Isle of Elba reserved for Napoleon and his family, with a revenue of 200,000; the Duchies of Parma and Placentia for Marie Louise and her son. England accedes to this Treaty. Act of Abdication of the Emperor Napoleon._

_April 12th._--Count d'Artois enters Paris.

_April 16th._--Convention between Eugene and Austrian General Bellegarde. Emperor of Austria sees Marie Louise at the little Trianon, and decides upon his daughter's return to Vienna.

_April 18th._--Armistice of Soult and Wellington.

_April 20th.--Napoleon leaves Fontainebleau, and bids adieu to his Old Guard: "Do not mourn over my fate; if I have determined to survive, it is in order still to dedicate myself to your glory; I wish to write about the great things we have done together."_

_April 24th._--Louis XVIII. lands at Calais, and

_May 3rd._---Enters Paris.

_May 4th.---Napoleon reaches Elba._

_May 29th.--Death of Josephine, aged 51._

_May 30th.--Peace of Paris._

FOOTNOTES

[40] Averaged from early historians of the campaigns. Marbot gives the numbers 155,400 French and 175,000 Allies. Allowing for the secession of the Austrian and Prussian contingents and for 30,000 prisoners, he gives the actual French death-roll by February 1813 at 65,000. This is a minimum estimate.

NOTES

_THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGNS, 1796-97_

SERIES A

(_The numbers correspond to the numbers of the Letters._)

No. 1.

_Bonaparte made Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Italy._--Marmont's account of how this came to pa.s.s is probably substantially correct, as he has less interest in distorting the facts than any other writer as well fitted for the task. The winter had rolled by in the midst of pleasures--soirees at the Luxembourg, dinners of Madame Tallien, "nor," he adds, "were we hard to please." "The Directory often conversed with General Bonaparte about the army of Italy, whose general--Scherer--was always representing the position as difficult, and never ceasing to ask for help in men, victuals, and money. General Bonaparte showed, in many concise observations, that all that was superfluous. He strongly blamed the little advantage taken from the victory at Loano, and a.s.serted that, even yet, all that could be put right. Thus a sort of controversy was maintained between Scherer and the Directory, counselled and inspired by Bonaparte." At last when Bonaparte drew up plans--afterwards followed--for the invasion of Piedmont, Scherer replied roughly that he who had drawn up the plan of campaign had better come and execute it. They took him at his word, and Bonaparte was named General-in-Chief of the army of Italy (vol. i.

93).

"_7 A.M._"--Probably written early in March. Leaving Paris on March 11th, Napoleon writes Letourneur, President of the Directory, of his marriage with the "citoyenne Tascher Beauharnais," and tells him that he has already asked Barras to inform them of the fact. "The confidence which the Directory has shown me under all circ.u.mstances makes it my duty to keep it advised of all my actions. It is a new link which binds me to the fatherland; it is one more proof of my fixed determination to find safety only in the Republic."[41]

No. 2.

"_Our good Ossian._"--The Italian translation of Ossian by Cesarotti was a masterpiece; better, in fact, than the original. He was a friend of Macpherson, and had learnt English in order to translate his work.

Cesarotti lived till an advanced age, and was sought out in his retirement in order to receive honours and pensions from the Emperor Napoleon.

"Our good Ossian" speaks, like Homer, of the joy of grief.

No. 4.

"_Chauvet is dead._"--Chauvet is first mentioned in Napoleon's correspondence in a letter to his brother Joseph, August 9, 1795.

Mdme. Junot, _Memoirs_, i. 138, tells us that Bonaparte was very fond of him, and that he was a man of gentle manners and very ordinary conversation. She declares that Bonaparte had been a suitor for the hand of her mother shortly before his marriage with Josephine, and that because the former rejected him, the general had refused a favour to her son; this had caused a quarrel which Chauvet had in vain tried to settle. On March 27th Bonaparte had written Chauvet from Nice that every day that he delayed joining him, "takes away from my operations one chance of probability for their success."

No. 5.

St. Amand notes that Bonaparte begins to suspect his wife in this letter, while the previous ones, especially that of April 3rd, show perfect confidence. Napoleon is on the eve of a serious battle, and has only just put his forces into fighting trim. On the previous day (April 6th) he wrote to the Directory that the movement against Genoa, of which he does not approve, has brought the enemy out of their winter quarters almost before he has had time to make ready. "The army is in a state of alarming dest.i.tution; I have still great difficulties to surmount, but they are surmountable: misery has excused want of discipline, and without discipline never a victory. I hope to have all in good trim shortly--there are signs already; in a few days we shall be fighting. The Sardinian army consists of 50,000 foot, and 5000 horse; I have only 45,000 men at my disposal, all told. Chauvet, the commissary-general, died at Genoa: it is a heavy loss to the army, he was active and enterprising."

Two days later Napoleon, still at Albenga, reports that he has found Royalist traitors in the army, and complains that the Treasury had not sent the promised pay for the men, "but in spite of all, we shall advance." Ma.s.sena, eleven years older than his new commander-in-chief, had received him coldly, but soon became his right-hand man, always genial, and full of good ideas. Ma.s.sena's men are ill with too much salt meat, they have hardly any shoes, but, as in 1800,[42] he has never a doubt that Bonaparte will make a good campaign, and determines to loyally support him. Poor Laharpe, so soon to die, is a man of a different stamp--one of those, doubtless, of whom Bonaparte thinks when he writes to Josephine, "Men worry me." The Swiss, in fact, was a chronic grumbler, but a first-rate fighting man, even when his men were using their last cartridges.

"_The lovers of nineteen._"--The allusion is lost. Aubenas, who reproduces two or three of these letters, makes a comment to this sentence, "Nous n'avons pu trouver un nom a mettre sous cette fantasque imagination" (vol. i. 317).

"_My brother_," viz. Joseph.--He and Junot reached Paris in five days, and had a great ovation. Carnot, at a dinner-party, showed Napoleon's portrait next to his heart, because "I foresee he will be the saviour of France, and I wish him to know that he has at the Directory only admirers and friends."

No. 6.

_Unalterably good._--"C'est Joseph peint d'un seul trait."--Aubenas (vol. i. 320).

"_If you want a place for any one, you can send him here. I will give him one._"--Bonaparte was beginning to feel firm in the saddle, while at Paris Josephine was treated like a princess. Under date April 25th, Letourneur, as one of the Directory, writes him, "A vast career opens itself before you; the Directory has measured the whole extent of it." They little knew! The letter concludes by expressing confidence that their general will never be reproached with the shameful repose of Capua. In a further letter, bearing the same date, Letourneur insists on a full and accurate account of the battles being sent, as they will be necessary "for the history of the triumphs of the Republic." In a private letter to the Directory (No. 220, vol. i. of the _Correspondence_, 1858), dated Carru, April 24th, Bonaparte tells them that when he returns to camp, worn-out, he has to work all night to put matters straight, and repress pillage. "Soldiery without bread work themselves into an excess of frenzy which makes one blush to be a man."[43]... "I intend to make terrible examples. I shall restore order, or cease to command these brigands. The campaign is not yet decided. The enemy is desperate, numerous, and fights well. He knows I am in want of everything, and trusts entirely to time; but I trust entirely to the good genius of the Republic, to the bravery of the soldiers, to the harmony of the officers, and even to the confidence they repose in me."