Roger's face showed an agony of indecision. After a moment, he said, ‘I . . . I don't really know. Your Grace must give me twenty-four hours to think it over.'
The Iron Duke's stern features relaxed into a faint smile. 'Mr. Brook, I will give you exactly two minutes.'
With a sigh Roger returned the smile. 'Your Grace leaves me no alternative. I will set out for Paris tomorrow.'
21
The Last Campaign
It was on January 20th that Roger again arrived in Paris. Having found that he could now ride considerable distances without affecting his leg, he made the journey on horseback, but by easy stages. In the cave a few miles from St. Palais, in which he and Charles had passed a night, he found his old uniform coat where he had left it, so he was able to wear it on his journey through France, and command all the facilities to which his rank entitled him.
Talleyrand, having been confident that the trick he had played on Roger would succeed, showed no surprise at his return, and only laughed when reproached for having trapped him.
On his way north Roger had picked up many rumours of the rapidly changing situation throughout Europe. The Prince confirmed many of them, and gave him a true account of what had been happening.
All Holland had now been liberated by von Billow's Prussians, with the assistance of a British expeditionary force that had landed under General Graham. The Czar had marched his army right through Switzerland, invaded eastern France and was now threatening Lyons. Schwarzenberg's army had reached and crossed the Rhine in many places. Blucher, ever to the fore, had reached Luxembourg. Davout was still holding out in Hamburg, but Bernadotte had overcome the Danes who, on the 14th, had signed a peace treaty surrendering Norway to him.
At that Roger commented with a laugh, 'So that sly rogue has secured the plum he was after all the time, and got it with very little serious fighting. How mad the Emperor must be.'
'He is, but the worst blow of all to him has been the defection of Murat.'
'What! Murat gone over to the enemy?'
'That is so, although 'tis not yet known to the public. I received private intelligence of it from Prince Metternich. On the 11th of this month Murat signed a treaty with Austria, that in exchange for his supplying a corps of thirty thousand men, he should keep his Kingdom of Naples and, in addition, be given a sizeable piece of the old Papal territories.'
'Such treachery is scarce believable. But Murat's head is solid wood. This is the work of his wife, that scheming whore, Caroline.'
‘I judge you right. She was ever the most ambitious of Napoleon's sisters and, with the possible exception of himself, the cleverest of the whole Bonaparte family. Moreover, when Metternich was ambassador in Paris he had an affair with her; so his personal inclination would be to favour her continued aggrandisement!'
Roger raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'What a brood they are! Pauline alone among them is honest, and the only one who has shown any gratitude for the wealth and favours showered upon them.'
'You forget Madame Mere."
'True, the old lady is a tower of rectitude, and at least conserved the great fortune she has been given, against a day when her wonder child should overreach himself.'
'That day has come, and he had much of it off her to pay for the two hundred thousand new uniforms he ordered when he got back to Paris last November.'
After a moment Roger said, 'I take it that, now Murat has ratted, we can count Italy lost to France, as well as all Germany, Holland and Switzerland.'
'Not altogether. When the Emperor took over the command of the Elbe from Prince Eugene, he sent him back to his old post as Viceroy of Italy. The young Beauharnais at least is loyal, and an able General. Murat's Neapolitans are not distinguished for their love of battle, so Eugene has little to fear from them; and the Alps give him a strong line of defence to hold back the Austrians when they attempt to break through into the plain of Lombardy.
'But now we must think of yourself. The Emperor is in Paris, so you must report to him. He is holding a reception at the Tuileries three days hence, before leaving for the front. That will be time enough for you to make your service to him. In the meantime I suggest you give out that your wound re-opened again recently, and go about on crutches.'
Roger gave a wry smile. 'You Highness's advice is, as ever, sound. I'll do that, and pray to God it saves me from being forced into some unwelcome post. I cannot go to the Tuileries though in this stained and threadbare uniform. So, with your permission, I'll to my tailor without delay.'
At his tailors Roger demanded and received priority; so, on the 23rd, he was able to accompany Talleyrand to the Tuileries dressed with all his old elegance; but, owing to the ministrations of the Prince's valet, his appearance was very different from what it had been when he arrived in Paris.
The man was an artist in make-up, and had skilfully transformed Roger's face. A liquid had made his cheeks pale, without appearing to be painted or powdered, there were deep shadows under his eyes and little lines radiating from the corners and from the sides of his mouth. The naturally grey wings of hair above his ears now merged into grey hair all over his head. In addition, not only did he walk with crutches, which he had used during the past two days whenever he went out, but his injured leg had been strapped up behind him on a peg leg with a sling.
As the Emperor was about to defend France from invasion he had again become a hero, and everyone who was anyone in Paris had come to cheer him on to victory; so the palace was a seething mass of senators, soldiers, officials and their ladies. Slowly Talleyrand and Roger made their way up the grand staircase and into the Throne Room. Napoleon was standing with the Empress on one side of him, and on the other, their fair-haired three-year-old son, the King of Rome, dressed in the uniform of the National Guard.
When Roger at last came opposite them and awkwardly made his bow, the Emperor exclaimed:
'Why, Breuc, what a pleasant surprise to see you. I thought you lost to us at Leipzig.'
'I thank you, Sire,' Roger replied in a feeble voice. 'I got away with my life, but that is about all. My only regret is that neither physically nor mentally am I any longer capable of serving you.'
Napoleon tweaked his ear, the old familiar gesture of good will. 'I am the loser, Breuc; but I take the will for the deed. And you should not be here in Paris, but in the sunshine at your little chateau near St. Maxime, where you used to winter on account of your weak chest.'
With a murmur of thanks Roger bowed awkwardly again, and passed on, immensely relieved that his pretended inability to be of any use had been accepted.
When the last of those present had made their bows, the ushers rapped loudly on the parquet for silence. The Emperor then addressed the assembly in a loud, clear voice. He announced that he had appointed the Empress as Regent and his brother, King Joseph, Lieutenant General of France. Taking his small son by the hand he went on:
'Gentlemen, I am about to set out for the Army. I entrust to you what I hold dearest in the world—my wife and son. Let there be no political divisions.' He then lifted the boy on to his shoulder and carried him about among the great dignitaries of the Empire and the officers of the National Guard, to whom he had particularly addressed himself.
It was a most touching scene. He had not commanded, but appealed to their feelings as human beings. The great chamber rang for minutes on end with applause and fervid protestations of loyalty.
On leaving Paris the Emperor travelled swiftly eastward to Chalons. Blucher was to the south of him and, he learned, heading further south with the object of joining Schwarzenberg's Austrians. Napoleon, who throughout this campaign displayed a remarkable recovery in vitality, military genius and swiftness of decision, immediately marched south to prevent the two armies from combining against him. On January 29th, at Brienne—where, as a penniless youth of only the lowest stratum of nobility and speaking French with an atrocious Italian accent, he had been a cadet at the Military Academy—he fell upon the
Prussians, driving them from the castle and the town. Blucher retreated toward Bar-sur-Aube and there had the support of Schwarzenberg. On February 1st the Allies attacked with greatly superior numbers. Although the French fought gallantly in a snow storm, endeavouring for eight hours to hold the village of La Rothiere, they were outflanked and defeated with a loss of three thousand men and seventy-three cannon—a loss they could ill afford, in view of the hugely superior numbers of the Allies.
The immense wealth Talleyrand had acquired during his long association with the Emperor enabled him to maintain a small army of couriers. They not only brought him early news of these battles, but also kept him in communication with Prince Metternich, the Czar and Royalist agents of King Louis XVIII, who was living at Hartwell in England.
On February 3rd the Emperor entered Troyes and his distress at his defeat was much increased by his reception. Far from cheering him with their old ardour, the inhabitants, already half-starved themselves, sullenly refused to supply his troops with anything. The soldiers, too, were desperately hungry and so cast down that six thousand of them deserted.
The weather also inflicted the most terrible hardship on the combatants. It was the worst winter for many years, and so cold that oxen were being roasted on the ice that had formed over the rivers. Blizzards frequently hid opposing bodies of troops from one another, deep drifts of snow hampered their movements, wood for the camp fires was so difficult to obtain that they often went out long before dawn and the men were compelled to sleep in huddles to keep the life in their bodies.
The situation in Paris was also grim. The funds had dropped five points, and the rich, now fearing that the capital would be sacked by the ferocious Russians, were fleeing with their jewels to their chateaux in the country.
Up to the end of the year Lord Aberdeen had been Britain's ambassador to Austria, but early in January Lord Castlereagh, the Foreign Minister, had decided to take over negotiations himself, and travelled in great discomfort to join Metternich in Basle. They liked each other and found much common ground on how Europe should be reconstituted after Napoleon had been finally defeated.
Before leaving England Castlereagh, who dominated the Cabinet, had secured its approval of his own views. The most important of these were : no interference with Britain's 'Maritime Rights'; complete independence for Spain, Portugal and Holland, the latter to be given as a barrier Belgian lands which positively must exclude the French from the great port of Antwerp; that France should become a Limited Monarchy; no undue hardships to be inflicted on the French people, so that they might the sooner become reconciled to their late enemies; and that the Grand Alliance should be kept in being after the war to preserve the peace of Europe.
Metternich, both from fear of Russia and because his sovereign's daughter was Empress of the French, also wished France to remain strong and become a friendly Power. He was, too, willing to forgo Austria's claim to Belgium in exchange for a free hand in northern Italy. But the two statesmen knew that their wish to grant France a lenient Peace would meet with strong opposition from Prussia, as that country, so harshly treated by Napoleon, was determined to exact vengeance and intended to demand territorial expansion in several directions.
It was, however, the Czar's attitude that gave them most concern. The liberal principles of which he had long believed himself to be the champion, were in direct conflict with his ambitions. He talked with apparent sincerity of re-creating Poland as a Kingdom and restoring their liberty to the Poles; but the fact was that he meant to make the new Poland a satellite state subject to himself. Moreover this would have entailed Austria and Prussia giving up to him great areas of territory that they had acquired by the partitions of Poland.
To compensate Prussia he proposed to abolish the Kingdom of Saxony; which, to the end, had remained loyal to Napoleon. But these measures would have been of no benefit to Austria. On the contrary, they would give Russia a huge increase in manpower, bring her frontier many hundred miles closer to Central Europe and eliminate the buffer state of Saxony.
Having discussed these matters with mutual satisfaction, Castlereagh and Metternich took the icy road to Langres where the Czar had set up his headquarters with his principle advisers, Count Nesselrode and the Prussian statesman Stein who was Napoleon's most bitter enemy.
As Britain, alone among the Allies, had remained for twenty years in arms against Napoleon and again and again poured out her treasure to finance Coalitions against him, Castlereagh was in a very strong position and his influence did much to bring the disputants closer together. The prickly questions of Poland and Saxony were tactfully ignored, but Alexander agreed that France should be treated leniently and her people given the liberty of deciding for themselves on their future form of government. He also gave way to Castlereagh's insistence that France should be restricted to her 'ancient' as opposed to her 'natural' limits; that is to the territories she possessed in 1792 instead of her frontiers being the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees. Thus she would be deprived of her Belgian lands and Antwerp. These understandings were set forth on January 29th in a document called 'The Langres Protocol'.
On the day following his victory at Brienne, Napoleon attempted to open negotiations with the Austrians, but while awaiting their reply he, in his turn, was caught napping.
The Allies had called a conference at Chatillon, which opened on February 5 th. Napoleon sent Caulaincourt to it with instructions to accept the terms offered at Frankfurt the previous November, by which France would have retained her 'natural' frontiers. But the Allies had since advanced into the heart of France and were much more confident of victory. They now demanded the reduction of France to her 'ancient' boundaries, and that Napoleon should abdicate.
Caulaincourt fought hard for his master, to whom he was devoted, but on the 9th gave way and sent a despatch to the Emperor informing him that he had done so. On receiving it Napoleon erupted in ungovernable rage and vowed that he would yet destroy his enemies.
At their last Council of War it had been decided by the Allies that they should divide their forces. Blucher, with fifty thousand men, was to march direct on Paris, while the timid Schwarzenberg, who had three times that number, was to continue to engage Napoleon. Sound strategy would have dictated that the much larger army should have been that to advance against the capital; but the decision had been reached owing to dissension among the Allies.
By this time Blucher was well on his way to Paris but the Czar, determined not to be deprived of a personal triumph, sent him an order that he was not to enter the capital until the arrival of the Allied sovereigns.
His order proved unnecessary. Only a few hours after receiving Caulaincourt's despatch Napoleon learned the whereabouts of Blucher's army. With his old energy and flair for assessing military situations, he ordered Marmont to occupy Sezanne and set off with Ney to support him. On die 10th at Champoutert the corps of both Marshals struck at a division of Russians about five thousand strong, and almost annihilated it. This attack on Blucher's army cut it in half. His leading corps, under Sacken, was west of Montmirail, while that of Yorck was far to the north. With the speed he had displayed in his best years, Napoleon followed up by hurling his troops against Sacken. In and about the village of Marchair there was the most appalling slaughter on both sides. Mortier with the Imperial Guard overcame their enemies and Sacken's corps was routed; its remnants being saved only by the tardy arrival of Yorck, whose men also gave way before the French.
Next day the Emperor drove the Russians from Chateau Thierry, to the surprise and joy of its inhabitants who believed him to have been defeated and awaiting the end at Troyes. On the 13th, leaving Mortier to continue the pursuit of Sacken and Yorck, Napoleon marched to reinforce Marmont, who was having to give ground before Blucher. The Emperor's arrival changed the tide of battle. Many Prussian and Russian formations were overwhelmed, but others fought with the greatest stubbornness, and only the veteran Blucher's courageous leadership enable
d the greater part of his infantry to carry out an orderly retreat.
Never had Napoleon shown his mastery of the art of war to greater effect than in these battles. With thirty thousand hungry and ill-supplied men he had defeated fifty thousand, and eliminated the threat to Paris. His troops had again become jubilant, in the capital the fickle mobs were once more acclaiming him as a hero and predicting that he would drive the enemy from the soil of France.
Throughout this whirlwind campaign Napoleon found time to write to his Empress daily, and she sent him most affectionate replies. He seemed positively indefatigable and fought six battles in nine days.
But the odds were heavily against him. The Czar had browbeaten Schwarzenberg into taking the offensive. One of his columns defeated Oudinot in his attempts to hold the bridge over the Seine at Bray, the other advanced toward Fontainebleau. To his fury, Napoleon was forced to abandon his pursuit of Blucher and endeavour to halt these columns. By superhuman efforts he transported his troops by way of Meaux to support Victor and Macdonald and together they succeeded in checking the Austrian advance. On the 17th and 18th his activities were almost unbelievable. In addition to writing a dozen despatches and directing three battles, he laid and fired a number of cannon himself. When his artillerymen endeavoured to dissuade him from exposing his person, he inflamed their devotion to him by crying, 'Do not fear! The ball is not yet cast that will kill me.'
On the 21st he took advantage of his amazing succession of victories to attempt to detach Austria from her allies. From Nogent he wrote to his father-in-law, the Emperor Francis, asserting that Britain and Russia were using him as a cat's-paw, and that Austria had nothing to gain by continuing the war. They meant to grab all Poland and Saxony and give Austria's old Belgian lands to the Dutch.
The Austrians, more than ever alarmed by the highhanded attitude of the Czar, who had declared that when he reached Paris he intended to appoint a Russian Military Governor of the city, were inclined to listen favourably to Napoleon. The Conference at Chatillon had been suspended on the 10th. On the 18th it resumed its sittings and, towards the end of the month, alarmed by Napoleon's victories, was prepared to make concessions to Caulaincourt. But everything remained in the melting pot because Napoleon would give no firm undertaking that he would relinquish Belgium and the territories on the French side of the Rhine.
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