by Emil Ludwig
The Old Tempo and the New
As in his recent campaigns, so now, anxious considerations hamper the boldness of his attack. Having taken Charleroi, he fails next day to make a mass onslaught on Bliicher, sends Ney with half the army along the Brussels road against the English, only to learn with alarm in the afternoon that he is faced by the whole of the Prussian army. He sends to recall the marshal, writing : " The fate of France is in your hands." Ney, instead of continuing his advance, must envelop the Prussian enemy. Too late ! Ney has become involved in the fight with Wellington at Quatre Bras, can spare only one army corps, and sends it to a place where it can be of no use. This makes it impossible for him to gain a victory over the English, and he is driven back.
Napoleon, this same day, fighting with only half his army at Ligny, secures a victory.
The last victory ! Bliicher falls from his wounded horse, and is reported killed. Gneisenau retains composure, prevents the retreat from degenerating into a rout, and sends to let his ally know that they can form a junction at Wavre the next day. With an inertia which we should wonder at did we not know that Napoleon is ailing and prematurely old, the Emperor makes no move on the day after his victory. Too late he sends Grouchy with thirty thousand men to follow up the Prussians, not believing that they can reorganise their forces speedily, or that after the heavy losses they have sustained they will be able to effect a junction with the English. Yesterday, he had dealt with the Prussians singly ; to-morrow he will be able to defeat the English, now cut off from their allies. His seventy thousand men will suffice. He fails to allow for Gneisenau's imperturbability and for Bliicher's impetuosity, For the first time, he underrates an opponent. At Friedland, Aspern-Essling, and Laon, he was not beaten. Nor was he beaten in Russia. At Leipzig and at Arcis-sur-Aube, he was defeated ; but it was because he had only a small army with
Hampered Energies
which to meet the onslaughts of vastly superior forces ; those of three great powers in one case, and those of four in the other. Never, yet, had any isolated commander been able to say : " I have defeated Napoleon."
Now he thinks too much of his victory, and too little of his opponent. For the first time he fails to focus his lens accurately, with the result that one point escapes his reckoning. But it is not that he makes a wanton and ill-considered onslaught. Nor is the trouble on this occasion that family feeling makes him entrust leadership to inefficient hands. If he had kept Grouchy's force with him, his enemy would have scarcely outnumbered him. But the course of the decisive battle shows that this error in calculation was not the main cause of the French defeat,
The final cause, as any one can recognise who studies all the elements in Napoleon's fate, was the man's advancing years.
His activity was undermined by his ailments, and that is why, on the morning of the battle of Waterloo, he failed to attack promptly. In the middle of June, the sun is above the horizon by four. If the Prussians were able to march upon the roads that had been softened by the recent heavy rains, the French veterans could have done the same—for the Emperor's soldiers on this occasion were almost all of them tried men. But he waits till noon, that he may place his guns better when the ground becomes less sodden ! At Jena, in October, in a Scotch mist, he had headed his troops, shouted to encourage them, attacking so early in the morning as to arouse many of his foes from their slumbers. To-day he waits till noon.
The loss of this half-day is to destroy him. He rides to an elevation bearing the fatal name of La Belle Alliance ; he arranges his troops in three lines, rides along the front, shouts to his men in metallic phrases ; he is going to break through the enemy and enter Brussels ; he already has the proclamation to the Belgians in his pocket. He has only wasted half a day !
In the afternoon, when battle is already joined, news comes
Defeat at Waterloo
that Biilow's corps is advancing. The Emperor turns pale, and sends Grouchy orders to come back. Will the orders reach him ? If they do, will he be able to disengage himself from the enemy ? Everything turns upon the fortune of the next hour. The English must be beaten before the Prussians can come to their aid. Napoleon delivers a great cavalry attack on the centre, but the English stand firm. Shall he use the old guard ? Not yet! Not yet! Biilow is already beginning to fire. At all costs he must keep the line of retreat open, for otherwise there may be a catastrophe. But, in fact, the English forces are already half defeated. It is five o'clock, and the guard might have finished their defeat, for at this hour Wellington sent a message to his Prussian ally: " Unless your corps keeps marching, and attacks without respite, the battle will be lost." This would have been the moment for an attack by the old guard, but once more caution makes the Emperor hold his hand at the critical moment. He sees that a second Prussian corps is about to attack.
A dread decision! A brilliant gamester staking his last coins, but to-day he must not be beaten. At length, towards seven, he sends the last five thousand guardsmen, the veterans, to the attack. Now, it is only a forlorn hope. " Vive l'Empereur! "
This cry has shaken half Europe. Is it not a century old ? In a decade it has gained a legendary force throughout the Continent. But what is imperishable ? Even the eagles of Marengo are not imperishable. Is the mythical energy of this cry, Vive l'Empereur, to subside with the setting of today's sun ? Yes, to-morrow it will be heard no more!
The second Prussian corps pours a deadly fire on the guard, which yields ground. The opposing force continues to grow; at eight, the third army corps appears on the scene, and a hundred and twenty thousand of the allies are now attacking half that number of Frenchmen. The battered French army takes to flight, and Bonaparte, in his last hour as a commander, is for the first
Back to Paris
time in his life commander of a routed army. After an hour on horseback in the open, exposed to the British fire, the Emperor rides into the centre of one of the two remaining French squares. When these, likewise, break up, he gallops across country protected only by mounted grenadiers. Though in bodily pain, he has to stay in the saddle until five in the morning, when he is able at length to secure a few hours' rest in an old cart.
Is he discouraged ?
By no means ! What is Paris saying ? This is the thought which continually drives him onward. He does not venture, as he had done last year, to assemble the guards in Laon or Sois-sons, or to betake himself to one of the fortresses. He thinks only of Paris, as the place from which more soldiers can be gathered. Calculations, as of old: " I can still mobilise a hundred and fifty thousand men; with the National Guard, there will be three hundred thousand in all. That will be enough to stop the advance of the enemy." The last orders he sends to Paris end with the words : " Courage ! Firmness ! "
Two days later, he is once more in the Elysee, which he had left so recently. Has the whole campaign been a dream ? In nine days he has lost the empire which he had fought nine years to win.
XIX
Not lost yet!
In the cabinet and in the Chambers, opinions are divided. He sits in council with his brothers and his ministers; he is worn out, but there is no sign of collapse. What does he propose ? To work hand in hand with the Chambers ? Far from it; he proposes dictatorship. In this national crisis, he needs, for a short time, full freedom of movement. Some of the ministers point out to him that the Chambers no longer trust him. Then Lucien takes the floor, and with all the fire of a youth urges the
The Chambers Take the Initiative
Emperor to dissolve the Chambers, declare Paris in a state of siege, take all power into his hands, get together the remaining troops—thus alone, now, can France be saved!
He listens. Sixteen years have passed since that November day at Saint-Cloud when this very Lucien had made the same proposal, and, with a single speech, had snatched his brother from the abyss. Then Lucien had raised Napoleon higher than he had wished. The Emperor approves the plan, but does not instantly act on it. Instead, he listens while Davoust, the Minister for
War, refuses to place the remnants of the armed forces at his disposal. While they are disputing, news comes from the Chamber of Deputies. It has declared itself in permanent session, will regard any attempt to dissolve it as high treason, and will impeach any one who may dare to try. " I can see only one man between us and peace," said old Lafayette from the rostrum. " If we rid ourselves of him, peace will be ours for the asking ! "
Is this the cry of the people ? Paris is perfectly calm, so it is nothing more than the cry of a liberated democracy. But it is also the cry of a society which loves change and bears adversity badly, for the House of Peers now passes a vote identical with that of the Chamber of Deputies. The Chambers demand that the Emperor shall appear before them. Why does he not go ? Who would venture to oppose him openly ? " I ought to have gone," he said subsequently, " but I was tired out. I could have dissolved them, but I lacked courage; I am only a man, after all. My memories of the Nineteenth Brumaire terrified me."
Now the Chambers send for the ministers. The Emperor replies that he has forbidden them to go. The Chambers rejoin that they will depose him unless the ministers come. He gives way. He sends Lucien and the ministers to the Chamber of Deputies, and they report that he has formed a commission to negotiate with the enemy. " The powers will not treat with him ! " cry the Chambers. " They have outlawed him. He must
Demand for Abdication
abdicate. If he refuses, we shall depose him ! "
While this is going on in the Chambers, the Emperor, much agitated, is walking to and fro in the garden with Constant. At length he is roused, and flames out:
" Not my own future, but that of France is at stake ! Have they considered the consequences of my abdication ? The army is grouped round me. Do they think they can fight the general dissolution with ideology ? I could have understood it if I had been repelled when I landed three months ago. But to-day, when the foe is only a hundred miles from Paris, they cannot overthrow a government without suffering for it. A fortnight back, to repudiate me would have been a bold action. Now, I am part of what the enemy is attacking, a part of France which it is their business to defend. France will sacrifice itself if it sacrifices me ! It is not liberty which would fain depose me, it is Waterloo—fear! . . . All I want now is to be the commander ; but even if part of the troops were to fall away, I should promptly replace them by workmen, who can readily be moved to revolt."
At this moment, the two men in the garden hear shouts from the avenue, " Vive l'Empereur ! " Whose are these last voices raised for Napoleon ? The workers from Saint-Antoine; men whose troubles he had remembered in days of need, men who cared little about the suppression of liberty, for equality had made them free. There they were, peering through the railings which separated the son of the revolution from them just as it had separated the kings, but shouting through the bars of the cage into which he had shut himself: " Dictatorship ! National Guard ! Vive l'Empereur ! "
" You see ? " said Napoleon to Constant. " I never loaded those fellows with honours. What have they got to thank me for ? I left them poor men, just as I had found them. Nothing but instinct leads them to me. If I liked, these rebellious Chambers would be dissolved within the hour. ... I need merely say the word, and all the deputies who oppose me would be butchered!
Deputies in Secret Session
But for one man, the price is too high. Blood must not flow in Paris ! "
This mood of renunciation, which is akin to justice, this refusal to employ brute force in his extremity, just as he had refused (to begin with) sixteen years earlier, resembles the mood of Brumaire. But what was then the prudence of a statesman who did not wish to tarnish the origins of his long career of power, is now a prudence which does not beseem the adventurer he is to-day. Nevertheless, his unwillingness to use the bayonets with which, to-day, he could again have cleared the Chambers, is one more sign of his recognition of the new epoch, which wants more freedom and less force.
Meanwhile, the Chamber of Deputies is in secret session. Lucien has presented the imperial message. The deputies are willing to discuss matters. Some of them speak, in civil terms, of the abdication as a sacrifice necessary for France. Honest Carnot mounts the rostrum, and, in this moment of disaster, is almost alone in espousing the cause of the Emperor whom almost alone he had openly attacked in the days when all others had been subservient to the man of the hour. But now Sieyes, too, speaks in favour of the Emperor, speaks like a Roman of old: " Napoleon has lost a battle. . . . Let us help him to drive the barbarians from our country, for no one else is equal to the task. If, when he has done it, he wants to play the despot, we can hang him. But to-day we must march with him shoulder to shoulder ! "
Lafayette springs to the rostrum once more : " Have you forgotten where the bones of our sons and our brothers whiten ? In Africa, on the Tagus, on the Vistula, amid the snows of Russia. Two million have been the victims of this one man who wanted to fight all Europe ! Enough!" In the small hours, the Chamber demands Napoleon's abdication.
The Emperor hesitates. In the morning there is another cabinet council. Much agitated, he paces the room, uttering gibes about these Jacobins, foreseeing a new Directory. Then
Napoleon II.
the commandant of the Palais Bourbon arrives with a message from the Chambers. He stammers when he attempts to discharge his commission, but at length manages to get the words out. If the Emperor does not abdicate, the Chambers will outlaw him. Savary and Caulaincourt come in. All present urge him to the step, for even Lucien has given up the game. The Emperor says :
" I have accustomed them to great victories, and now they do not know how to endure a single day of adversity. What will happen to France ? " He adds in low tones : " I have done what I could."
After this epilogue of six words, which tells the whole story, at noon he dictates his declaration to the people. He is making the sacrifice, his political life is at an end, he proclaims his son emperor as Napoleon II., the Chambers must establish a regency. To whom does he dictate these words ? Who among his intimates can hold the pen firmly enough to write them down ?
Lucien ! The brother who for years from the enemy coast had gazed enviously at this city and this throne ; who, if he had been a little less of a poet, might long since have collected the malcontents around him; and who might even now come to the front, not indeed as a second Napoleon, but at least as a second Bonaparte—and that would be something. Lucien sits there, a man of forty now. He had been no less ambitious than the Emperor, but had had to content himself with the modest career of a virtuoso and a Mascenas. For four whole weeks, now, he has been an imperial prince! Smiling inwardly, he pens his great brother's abdication; writes from dictation, still a mere hodman, but this time animated with a humorous sympathy which atones for the old discords.
For, in truth, it is the eternal recurrence of the similar. As before, come cries from the Chambers, " Outlaw him! " As before, five Directors, like those Bonaparte had once deposed, are appointed. They call themselves a provisional government.
Fouche's Rise
But when they proceed to elect from among their own number one to function as president of the Directory, who is chosen to take over the authority from Napoleon's hands ? Who, by his own vote, has decided his own choice as president ?
Fouche.
But the Chamber has become less turbulent. Those who, yesterday, were thirsting for Napoleon's blood, to-day send a deputation to thank him for his abdication. To these polite gentlemen the Emperor says : " I fear things will turn out badly, now that there is no head. I trust France will never forget that my sole object in abdicating was to promote the welfare of the nation, and that I have abdicated in favour of my son. Only under my dynasty, will France remain free and happy."
At the very time when he is saying this, Fouche and the others are considering the possibility of having one of the Orleanist Bourbons, a member of the Brunswick family, or even the king of Saxony, as Napoleon's successor. Moreover, the five Directors are appointed t
o form a government, not a regency; and, in his decrees, Fouche often speaks of the nation, but never of Napoleon II. The Emperor notes all this, but holds his peace. Slowly his dream of a dynasty vanishes, the dream for whose realisation he has fought half a lifetime. It has become for ever unattainable. When Lavalette comes to see him in the evening, he is in a hot bath, has been there for several hours.
" Where am I going ? Why not to America ? "
" Because Moreau went there."
To the Emperor this answer seems surcharged with emotion, for he has serious thoughts of seeking an asylum in the United States, and he asks the government for a frigate. But the only answer is a request that he should leave Paris, for crowds are flocking round the Elysee, clamouring for a dictatorship. He burns a number of documents, and then betakes himself to Malmaison.
Reveries at Malmaison
In the garden there, the garden that is full of memories of Josephine, he passes two whole days in a state of reverie. The few who remain faithful to him are there : his mother, Hortense, Caulaincourt, Lavalette, Lucien, even Joseph. But when the Emperor asks who will go with him, the answers are evasive. Letizia, indeed, will go gladly, but he thinks that at her age it would be dangerous. Lavalette has a daughter growing up, and his wife is expecting another child; perhaps he will follow later. Drouot, who shared the Elba exile, is wanted in France. The secretary had promised the day before to accompany Napoleon into exile, but now his mother, who is blind, has implored him not to leave her. " You are right; you must stay with your mother," says the Emperor, turning away.
Pauline, before the last campaign, had pressed her jewels on him ; now Hortense offers him a diamond necklace ; a quixotic return of imperial gifts, a gesture suitable to the strange turn in his fortunes. He tells Hortense she will have a million, but no one knows if it will ever be paid. Lucien and Eugene get money, and he gives little Leon something for his mother—still dealing in hundreds of thousands.
