CHAPTER XII.
THE CENT JOURS.
The extraordinary rapidity of events during the Cent fours, or Hundred
Days of Napoleon's reign in 1815, and the startling changes in the parts
previously filled by the chief personages, make it difficult to consider
it as an historical period; it more resembles a series of sudden
theatrical transformations, only broken by the great pause while the
nation waited for news from the army.
The first Restoration of the Bourbons had been so unexpected, and was
so rapidly carried out, that the Bonapartists, or indeed all France,
had hardly realized the situation before Napoleon was again in the
Tuileries; and during the Cent Jours both Bonapartists and Royalists
were alike rubbing their eyes, asking whether they were awake, and
wondering which was the reality and which the dream, the Empire or the
Restoration.
It is both difficult and interesting to attempt to follow the history
of the chief characters of the period; and the reader must pardon some
abrupt transitions from person to person, and from group to group, while
the details of some subsequent movements of the Bonaparte family must
be thrown in to give a proper idea of the strange revolution in their
fortunes. We may divide the characters with which we have to deal into
five groups,--the Bonaparte family, the Marshals, the Statesmen of the
Empire, the Bourbons, and the Allied Monarchs. One figure and one name
will be missing, but if we omit all account of poor, bleeding, mutilated
France, it is but leaving her in the oblivion in which she was left at
the time by every one except by Napoleon.
The disaster of 1814 had rather dispersed than crushed the Bonaparte
family, and they rallied immediately on the return from Elba. The final
fall of the Empire was total ruin to them. The provisions of the Treaty
of Fontainebleau, which had been meant to ensure a maintenance to them,
had not been carried out while Napoleon was still a latent power, and
after 1815 the Bourbons were only too happy to find a reason for not
paying a debt they had determined never to liquidate; it was well for
any of the Bourbons in their days of distress to receive the bounty of
the usurper, but there was a peculiar pleasure in refusing to pay the
price promised for his immediate abdication.
The flight of the Bonapartes in 1815 was rapid. Metternich writes
to Maria Louisa in July 1815: "Madame Mere and Cardinal Fesch left
yesterday for Tuscany. We do not know exactly where Joseph is. Lucien
is in England under a false name, Jerome in Switzerland, Louis at Rome.
Queen Hortense has set out for Switzerland, whither General de Flahault
and his mother will follow her. Murat seems to be still at Toulon; this,
however, is not certain." Was ever such an account of a dynasty given?
These had all been among the great ones of Europe: in a moment they were
fugitives, several of them having for the rest of their lives a bitter
struggle with poverty. Fortunately for them the Pope, the King of
Holland, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, were not under heavy obligations
to Napoleon, and could thus afford to give to his family the protection
denied them by those monarchs who believed themselves bound to redeem
their former servility.
When Napoleon landed Maria Louisa was in Austria, and she was eager to
assist in taking every precaution to prevent her son, the young King
of Rome, being spirited off to join his father, whose fortunes she had
sworn to share: She herself was fast falling under the influence of the
one-eyed Austrian General, Neipperg, just then left a widower, who
was soon to be admitted to share her bed. By 1823 she seemed to have
entirely forgotten the different members of the Bonaparte family,
speaking of her life in France as "a bad dream." She obtained the
Grand-Duchy of Parma, where she reigned till 1847, marrying a third
time, it is said, the Count Bombellea, and dying, just too soon to be
hunted from her Duchy by the Revolution of 1848.
There is something very touching in most that we know of the poor young
King of Rome, from his childish but strangely prescient resistance to
his removal from Paris to Blois on the approach of the Allies in 1814,
to the message of remembrance sent in after years to the column of the
Place Vendome, "his only friend in Paris."
At four years of age Meneval describes him as gentle, but quick in
answering, strong, and with excellent health. "Light curly hair in
ringlets set off a fresh face, while fine blue eyes lit up his regular
features: He was precociously intelligent, and knew more than most
children older than himself." When Meneval--the former secretary of his
father, giving up his post in Austria with Maria Louisa, as he was about
to rejoin Napoleon--took farewell of the Prince in May 1815, the poor
little motherless child drew me towards the window, and, giving me a
touching look, said in a low tone, "Monsieur Meva, tell him (Napoleon)
that I always love him dearly." We say "motherless," because Maria
Louisa seems to have yielded up her child at the dictates of policy to
be closely guarded as easily as she gave up her husband. "If," wrote
Madame de Montesquieu, his governess, "the child had a mother, I would
leave him in her hands, and be happy, but she is nothing like a mother,
she is more indifferent to his fate than the most utter stranger in her
service." His grandfather, the Emperor Francis, to do him justice, seems
to have been really kind to the lad, and while, in 1814, 1816, and
in 1830, taking care to deprive him of all chance of, his glorious
inheritance, still seems to have cared for him personally, and to
have been always kind to him. There is no truth in the story that
the Austrians neglected his education and connived at the ruin of his
faculties. Both his tutor, the Count Maurice Dietrichstein, and Marshal
Marmont, who conversed with him in 1831, agree in speaking highly of
him as full of promise: Marmont's evidence being especially valuable as
showing that the Austrians did not object to the Duke of Reichstadt (as
he had been created by his grandfather in 1818), learning all he could
of his father's life from one of the Marshals. In 1831 Marmont describes
him: "I recognised his father's look in him, and in that he most
resembled Napoleon. His eyes, not so large as those of Napoleon, and
sunk deeper in their sockets, had the same expression, the same fire,
the same energy. His forehead was like that of his father, and so was
the lower part of his face and his chin. Then his complexion was that of
Napoleon in his youth, with the same pallor and the same colour of the
skin, but all the rest of his face recalled his mother and the House of
Austria. He was taller than Napoleon by about three inches."
As long as the Duke lived his name was naturally the rallying-point
of the Bonapartes, and was mentioned in some of the many conspiracies
against the Bourbons. In 1830 Joseph Bonaparte tried to get the sanction
of the Austrians to his nephew being put forward as a claimant to the
throne of France, vacant by the flight of Charles X., but they held
their captive firmly. A very interesting passage is given in the
'Memoirs of Charles Greville', who says that Prince Esterhazy told him
a great deal about the Duke of Reichstadt, who, if he had lived, would
have probably played a great part in the world. He died of a premature
decay, brought on, apparently, by over-exertion and over-excitement; his
talents were very conspicuous, he was 'petri d'ambition', worshipped the
memory of his father, and for that reason never liked his mother; his
thoughts were incessantly turned towards France, and when he heard of
the Days of July (overthrow of Charles X.) he said, "Why was I not
there to take my chance? He evinced great affection and gratitude to
his grandfather, who, while he scrupulously observed all his obligations
towards Louis Philippe, could not help feeling a secret pride in the
aspiring genius of Napoleon's son. He was well educated, and day
and night pored over the history of his father's glorious career. He
delighted in military exercises, and not only shone at the head of his
regiment, but had already acquired the hereditary art of ingratiating
himself with the soldiers." Esterhazy went on to describe how the Duke
abandoned everything at a ball when he met there Marshals Marmont and
Maison. "He had no eyes or ears but for them; from nine in the evening
to five the next morning he devoted himself to these Marshals." There
was the true Napoleonic ring in his answer to advice given by Marmont
when the Duke said that he would not allow himself to be put forward by
the Sovereigns of Europe. "The son of Napoleon should be too great to
serve as an instrument; and in events of that nature I wish not to be an
advanced guard, but a reserve,--that is, to come as a succour, recalling
great memories."
His death in 1832, on the 22d of July, the anniversary of the battle
of Salamanca, solved many questions. Metternich visited the Duke on his
deathbed: "It was a heartrending sight. I never remember to have seen a
more mournful picture of decay." When Francis was told of the death of
his grandson he answered, "I look upon the Duke's death as a blessing
for him. Whether it be detrimental or otherwise to the public good I do
not know. As for myself, I shall ever lament the loss of my grandson."
Josephine was in her grave at Rueil when Napoleon returned. She had died
on the 29th of May 1814, at Malmaison, while the Allies were exhibiting
themselves in Paris. It seems hard that she should not have lived
to enjoy a triumph, however brief, over her Austrian rival. "She, at
least," said Napoleon truly, "would never have abandoned me."
Josephine's daughter, Hortense, separated from her husband, Louis
Bonaparte, and created Duchess of St Leu by Louis XVIII., was in Paris,
much suspected by the Bourbons, but really engaged in a lawsuit with her
husband about the custody of her sons. She had to go into hiding when
the news of the landing arrived, but her empty house, left unwatched,
became very useful for receiving the Bonapartists, who wished for a
place of concealment, amongst them, as we shall see, being, of all
people, Fouché! Hortense was met by Napoleon with some reproaches for
accepting a title from the Bourbons, but she did the honours of the
Elysee for him, and it is creditable to both of them that, braving the
vile slanders about their intercourse, she was with him to the end;
and that one of the last persons to embrace him at Malmaison before
he started for the coast was his adopted daughter, the child of his
discarded wife. Hortense's presence in Paris was thought to be too
dangerous by the Prussian Governor; and she was peremptorily ordered to
leave. An appeal to the Emperor Francis received a favourable answer,
but Francis always gave way where any act against his son-in-law was
in question, and she had to start at the shortest notice on a wandering
life to Aix, Baden, and Constance, till the generosity of the small
but brave canton of Thurgau enabled her to get a resting-place at the
Chateau of Arenenberg.
In 1831 she lost her second son, the eldest then surviving, who died
from fever in a revolutionary attempt in which he and his younger
brother, the future Napoleon. III., were engaged. She was able to visit
France incognito, and even to see Louis Philippe and his Queen; but her
presence in the country was soon thought dangerous, and she was urged to
leave. In 1836 Hortense's last child, Louis Napoleon, made his attempt
at an 'emeule' at Strasburg, and was shipped off to America by the
Government. She went to France to plead for him, and then, worn out by
grief and anxiety, returned to Arenenberg, which her son, the future
Emperor, only succeeded in reaching in time to see her die in October
1837. She was laid with Josephine at Rueil.
Hortense's brother, Prince Eugène, the Viceroy of Italy, was at Vienna
when Napoleon returned, and fell under the suspicion of the Allies of
having informed the Emperor of the intention of removing him from Elba.
He was detained in Bavaria by his father-in-law the King, to whose Court
he retired, and who in 1817 created him Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince
of Eichstadt. With the protection of Bavaria he actually succeeded in
wringing from the Bourbons some 700,000 francs of the property of his
mother. A first attack of apoplexy struck him in 1823, and he died from
a second in February 1824 at Munich. His descendants have intermarried
into the Royal Families of Portugal, Sweden, Brazil, Russia, 'and
Wartemberg; his grandson now (1884) holds the title of Leuchtenberg.
Except Louis, an invalid, all the brothers of the Emperor were around
him in the Cent Jours, the supreme effort of their family. Joseph had
left Spain after Vittoria, and had remained in an uncomfortable and
unrecognised state near Paris until in 1814 he was again employed, and
when, rightly or not, he urged the retreat of the Regency from Paris to
Blois. He then took refuge at his chateau of Prangins in the canton Vaud
in Switzerland, closely watched by the Bourbonists, who dreaded danger
from every side except the real point, and who preferred trying to
hunt the Bonapartists from place to place, instead of making their life
bearable by carrying out the engagements with them.
In 1816, escaping from the arrest with which he was threatened, after
having written to urge Murat to action with fatal effect, Joseph joined
Napoleon in Paris, and appeared at the Champ de Mai, sitting also in the
Chamber of Peers, but, as before, putting forward ridiculous pretensions
as to his inherent right to the peerage, and claiming a special seat.
In fact, he never could realise how entirely he owed any position to the
brother he wished to treat as an equal.
He remained in Paris during the brief campaign, and after Waterloo
was concealed in the house of the Swedish Ambassador, where his
sister-in-law, the Crown Princess of Sweden, the wife of Bernadotte, was
living. Muffling, the Prussian Governor of Paris, wished to arrest him,
but as the Governor could not violate the domicile of an Ambassador,
he had to apply to the Czar, who arranged for the escape of the ex-King
before the Governor could seize him Joseph went to the coast, pretty
much following the route of Napoleon. He was arrested once at Saintes,
but was allowed to proceed, and he met his brother on the 4th of July,
at Rochefort.
It is significant as to the possibility of the escape of Napoleon that
Joseph succeeded in getting on the brig Commerce as "M. Bouchard," and,
though the ship was thrice searched by the English, he got to New York
on the 28th of August, where he was mistaken for Carnot. He was well
received, and, taking the title of Comte de Survilliers, he first lived
at Lansdowne, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, where he afterwards always
passed part of the year while he was in America. He also bought the
property of Point Breeze, at Bordentown, on the Delaware, where he built
a house with a fine view of the river. This first house was burnt
down, but he erected another, where he lived in some state and in great
comfort, displaying his jewels and pictures to his admiring neighbours,
and showing kindness to impecunious nephews.
The news of the Revolution of July in 1830, which drove Charles X. from
the throne, excited Joseph's hopes for the family of which he considered
himself the Regent, and he applied to Metternich to get the Austrian
Government to allow or assist in the placing his nephew, the Duke of
Reichstadt, on the throne of France. Austria would not even answer.
In July 1832 Joseph crossed to England, where he met Lucien, just
arrived from Italy, bringing the news of the death of his nephew.
Disappointed, he stayed in England for some time, but returned to
America in 1836. In he finally left America, and again came to England,
where he had a paralytic stroke, and in 1843 he went to Florence, where
he met his wife after a long separation.
Joseph lived long enough to see the two attempts of another nephew,
Louis Napoleon, at Strasburg in 1836, and at Boulogne in 1840, which
seem to have been undertaken without his knowledge, and to have much
surprised him. He died in Florence in 1844; his body was buried first
in Santa Croce, Florence, but was removed to the Invalides in 1864. His
wife the ex-Queen, had retired in 1815 to Frankfort and to Brussels,
where she was well received by the King, William, and where she stayed
till 1823, when she went to Florence, dying there in 1845. Her monument
is in the Cappella Riccardi, Santa Croce, Florence.
Lucien had retired to Rome in 1804, on the creation of the Empire, and
had continued embroiled with his brother, partly from his so-called
Republican principles, but chiefly from his adhering to his marriage,
his second one, with Madame Jouberthon,--a union which Napoleon steadily
refused to acknowledge, offering Lucien anything, a kingdom or the hand
of a queen (if we take Lucien's account), if he would only consent to
the annulment of the contract.
In August 1810, affecting uneasiness as Napoleon stretched his power
over Rome, Lucien embarked for America, but he was captured by the
English and taken, first to Malta and then to England, where he passed
the years till 1814 in a sort of honourable captivity, first at Ludlow
and then at Thorngrove, not far from that town.
In 1814 Lucien was released, when he went to Rome, where he was welcomed
by the kindly old Pope, who remembered the benefits conferred by
Napoleon on the Church, while he forgot the injuries personal to
himself; and the stiff-necked Republican, the one-time "Brutus"
Bonaparte, accepted the title of Duke of Musignano and Prince of Canino.
In 1815 Lucien joined his brother, whom he wished to abdicate at the
Champ de Mai in favour of the King of Rome, placing his sword only at
the disposal of France. This step was seriously debated, but, though
it might have placed the Allies in a more difficult position, it would
certainly have been disregarded by them, at least unless some great
victory had given the dynasty firmer footing. After Waterloo he was
in favour of a dissolution of the Chambers, but Napoleon had become
hopeless and almost apathetic, while Lucien himself, from his former
connection with the 18th and 19th Brumaire, was looked on with great
distrust by the Chambers, as indeed he was by his brother. Advantage was
taken of his Roman title to taunt him with not being a Frenchman; and
all his efforts failed. At the end he fled, and failing to cross to
England or to get to Rochefort, he reached Turin on the 12th of July
only to find himself arrested. He remained there till the 15th of
September, when he was allowed to go to Rome. There he was interned and
carefully watched; indeed in 1817 the Pope had to intervene to prevent
his removal to the north of Germany, so anxious were the Allies as to
the safety of the puppet they had put on the throne of France.
The death of Napoleon in 1821 released Lucien and the Bonaparte family
from the constant surveillance exercised over them till then. In 1830 he
bought a property, the Croce del Biacco, near Bologna. The flight of the
elder branch of the Bourbons from France in 1830 raised his hopes, and,
as already said, he went to England in 1832 to meet Joseph and to plan
some step for raising Napoleon II. to the throne. The news of the death
of his nephew dashed all the hopes of the family, and after staying in
England for some time he returned to Italy, dying at Viterbo in 1840,
and being buried at Canino, where also his second wife lies. Lucien had
a taste for literature, and was the author of several works, which a
kindly posterity will allow to die.
Louis Bonaparte had fled from his Kingdom of Holland in 1810, after a
short reign of four years, disgusted with being expected to study the
interests of the brother to whom he owed his throne, and with being
required to treat his wife Hortense with ordinary consideration. He had
taken refuge in Austria, putting that Court in great anxiety how to
pay him the amount of attention to be expected by the brother of the
Emperor, and at the same time the proper coldness Napoleon might wish
shown to a royal deserter. Thanks to the suggestions of Metternich, they
seem to have been successful in this task. Taking the title of Comte de,
St. Len from an estate in France; Louis went first to Toplitz, then to
Gratz, and in 1813 he took refuge in Switzerland. In 1814 he went to
Rome; and then to Florence, where the Grand-Duke Ferdinand received any
of the family who came there with great kindness.
Louis was the least interesting of the family, and it is difficult to
excuse his absence from France in 1815. After all, the present of a
kingdom is not such an unpardonable offence as to separate brothers for
ever, and Napoleon seems to have felt deeply the way in which he was
treated by a brother to whom he had acted as a father; still ill-health
and the natural selfishness of invalids may account for much. While his
son Louis Napoleon was flying about making his attempts on France, Louis
remained in the Roman Palace of the French Academy, sunk in anxiety
about his religious state. He disclaimed his son's proceedings, but this
may have been due to the Pope, who sheltered him. Anyhow, it is strange
to mark the difference between the father and his two sons who came of
age, and who took to revolution so kindly.
In 1846 Louis was ill at Leghorn when his son escaped from Ham, where he
had been imprisoned after his Boulogne attempt. Passports were refused
to the son to go from Italy to his father, and Louis died alone on the
25th of July 1846. He was buried at Santa Croce, Florence, but the body
was afterwards removed to the village church of St. Leu Taverny, rebuilt
by his son Napoleon III.
Jerome, the youngest of the whole family, the "middy," as Napoleon liked
to call him, had been placed in the navy, in which profession he passed
as having distinguished himself, after leaving his admiral in rather a
peculiar manner, by attacking an English convoy, and eventually escaping
the English by running into the port of Concarneau, believed to be
inaccessible. At that time it was an event for a French man-of-war to
reach home.
Jerome had incurred the anger of Napoleon by marrying a beautiful young
lady of Baltimore, a Mica Paterson, but, more obedient than Lucien, he
submitted to have this marriage annulled by his all-powerful brother,
and in reward he received the brand-new Kingdom of Westphalia, and the
hand of a daughter of the King of Wartemberg, "the cleverest King in
Europe," according to Napoleon. Jerome is said to have ruled rather more
as a Heliogabalus than a Solomon, but the new Kingdom had the advantage
of starting with good administrators, and with the example of "the
Code."
In 1812 Jerome was given the command of the right wing of the Grand Army
in its advance against Russia, but he did not fulfil the expectations
of his brother, and Davoust took the command instead. Every king feels
himself a born general: whatever else they cannot do, war is an art
which comes with the crown, and Jerome, unwilling to serve under a mere
Marshal, withdrew in disgust. In 1813 he had the good feeling and the
good sense to refuse the treacherous offer of the Allies to allow him
to retain his kingdom if he joined them against his brother, a snare his
sister Caroline fell into at Naples.
On the downfall of Napoleon, Jerome, as the Count of Gratz, went to
Switzerland, and then to Gratz and Trieste.
His wife, the ex-Queen Catherine, fell into the hands of Maubreuil, the
officer sent on a mysterious mission, believed to be intended for
the murder of Napoleon, but which only resulted in the robbery of the
Queen's jewels and of some 80,000 francs. The jewels were for the most
part recovered, being fished up from the bed of the Seine, but not the
cash.
In 1815 Jerome joined his brother, and appeared at the Champ de Mai. A
true Bonaparte, his vanity was much hurt, however, by having--he, a real
king--to sit on the back seat of the carriage, while his elder brother
Lucien; a mere Roman-prince, occupied a seat of honour by the side
of Napoleon. In the Waterloo campaign he was given the 6th division,
forming part of Reille's corps, General Guilleminot being sent with him
to prevent any of the awkwardnesses of 1812. His division was engaged
with the Prussians on the 15th of June, and at Quatre Bras he was
severely wounded. At Waterloo his division formed the extreme left of
the French infantry, opposite Hougomont, and was engaged in the struggle
for that post. Whatever his failings may have been, he is acknowledged
to have fought gallantly. After the battle he was given the command
of the army by his brother, and was told to cover the retreat to Laon,
which he reached on the 21st of June, with 18,000 infantry, 3000 cavalry
and two batteries which he had rallied. This, be it observed, is a
larger force than Ney told the Chambers even Grouchy (none of whose men
are included) could have, and Jerome's strength had swollen to 25,000
infantry and 6000 cavalry when he handed over the army to Soult at Laon.
Napoleon had intended to leave Jerome with the command of the army, but
he eventually took him to Paris.
When Napoleon left the country Jerome was assured by the ambassador
of Wurtemberg that he would find a refuge in the dominions of his
father-in-law; but when he arrived there he was informed that if he
did not wish to be, according to the original intentions of the Allies,
handed over to the Prussians, and separated from his wife, he must sign
an engagement to remain in Wurtemberg under strict surveillance. He was
then imprisoned at Guppingen, and afterwards at Ellwangen, where he was
not even allowed to write or receive letters except through the captain
of the chateau.
Part of Jerome's troubles came from the conduct of his wife Catherine,
who had the idea that, as she had been given in marriage by her father
to Jerome, as she had lived for seven years as his wife, and as she had
borne a child to him, she was really his wife, and bound to remain
with him in his misfortunes! The royal family of Wurtemberg, however,
following the illustrious example of that of Austria, looked on her past
life as a mere state of concubinage, useful to the family, and to be
respected while her husband could retain his kingdom, but which should
end the moment there was nothing more to be gained from Napoleon or his
brother. It was all proper and decorous to retain the title of King of
Wurtemberg, which the former Duke and then Elector had owed to the exile
of St. Helena, but King Frederick, and still less his son William, who
succeeded him in 1816, could not comprehend Catherine's clinging to her
husband when he had lost his kingdom. "I was a Queen; I am still a
wife and mother," wrote the Princess to her disgusted father. Another
complaint against this extraordinary Princess was that she actually saw
Las Cases on his return from St. Helena, and thus obtained news of the
exile.
After constant ill treatment Jerome and his wife, as the Count and
Countess of Montfort, a rank the King of Wurtemberg afterwards raised
to Prince, were allowed to proceed to Hainburg near Vienna, then to
Florence, and, later to Trieste, where Jerome was when his sister Elisa
died. In 1823 they were permitted to go to Rome, and in 1835 they went
to Lausanne, where his true-hearted wife died the same year. Jerome went
to Florence, and lived to see the revival of the Empire, and to once
more enjoy the rank of a French Prince. He died in 1860 at the chateau
of Villegenis in France, and was buried in the Invalides.
The mother of the Emperor, Letitia, in 1814, had retained her title
of Imperatrice Mere, and had retired to Rome. She then went to Elba
in June, and stayed there with her daughter Pauline until Napoleon had
sailed for France. On 2d March 1814 she went from Elba to San Vicenzo
near Leghorn, and then to Rome. Her son sent a frigate for her, the
'Melpomene', which was captured by the English 'Rivoli'; another vessel,
the 'Dryade', brought her to France, and she joined Napoleon in Paris.
We must have a regard for this simple old lady, who was always careful
and saving, only half believing in the stability of the Empire; and,
like a true mother, always most attentive to the most unfortunate of her
children. Her life had been full of startling changes; and it must have
been strange for the woman who had been hunted out of Corsica, flying
from her house just in time to save her life from the adherents of
Paoli, to find herself in grandeur in Paris. She saw her son just
before he left, as she thought, for America, and then retired to the
Rinuccini--now the Bonaparte-Palace at Rome, where she died in 1836.
She had been anxious to join Napoleon at St. Helena, and had refused, as
long as Napoleon was alive, to forgive her daughter Caroline, the wife
of Murat, for her abandonment of her brother. She was buried at Albano.
Letitia's youngest daughter, the beautiful but frail Pauline, Duchess of
Guastalla, married first to General Leclerc, and then to Prince Camille
Borgelle, was at Nice when her brother abdicated in 1814. She retired
with her mother to Rome, and in October 1814 went to Elba, staying there
till Napoleon left, except when she was sent to Naples with a message of
forgiveness for Murat. There was a characteristic scene between her and
Colonel Campbell when the English Commissioner arrived to find Napoleon
gone. Pauline professed ignorance till the last of her brother's
intentions, and pressed the Colonel's hand to her heart that he might
feel how agitated she was. "She did not appear to be so," says the
battered old Colonel, who seems to have been proof against her charms.
She then went to Rome, and later to Pisa. Her health was failing, and,
unable to join her brother in France, she sent him her only means of
assistance, her jewels, which were captured at Waterloo. Her offer to go
to St. Helena, repeated several times, was never accepted by Napoleon.
She died in 1825 at Florence, from consumption, reconciled to her
husband, from whom she had been separated since 1807. She was buried at
Sta Maria Maggiore, Rome.
Elisa, the eldest sister of Napoleon, the former Grand Duchess of
Tuscany, which Duchy she had ruled well, being a woman of considerable
talent, was the first of all to die. In 1814 she had been forced to fly
from her Government, and, accompanied by her husband, she had attempted
to reach France. Finding herself cut off by the Austrians; she took
shelter with Augereau's army, and then returned to Italy. She took the
title of Comtesse de Campignana, and retired to Trieste, near which
town, at the Chateau of Sant Andrea, under a wearisome surveillance,
she expired in 1820, watched by her husband, Felix Baeciocchi, and
her sister Caroline. Her monument is in the Bacciocchi Chapel in San
Petronio, Bologna.
Caroline, the wife of Murat, was the only one of the family untrue to
Napoleon. Very ambitious, and forgetting how completely she owed
her Kingdom of Naples to her brother, she had urged Murat in 1814 to
separate from Napoleon, and, still worse, to attack Eugène, who held the
north of Italy against the Austrians. She relied on the formal treaty
with Austria that Murat should retain his Kingdom of Naples, and she may
also have trusted to the good offices of her former admirer Metternich.
When the Congress of Vienna met, the French Minister, Talleyrand, at
once began to press for the removal of Murat. A trifling treaty was
not considered an obstacle to the Heaven-sent deliverers of Europe, and
Murat, believing his fate sealed, hearing of Napoleon's landing, and
urged on by a misleading letter from Joseph Bonaparte, at once marched
to attack the Austrians. He was easily routed by the Austrians under
Neipperg, the future husband of Maria Louisa. Murat fled to France, and
Caroline first took refuge in an English man-of-war, the 'Tremendous',
being, promised a free passage to England. She was, however, handed over
to the Austrians; who kept her in confinement at Hainburg near Vienna.
In October 1815 Murat landed in Calabria in a last wild attempt to
recover his throne. He was arrested and immediately shot. After his
murder Caroline, taking the title of Countess of Lipona (an anagram of
Napoli), was permitted to retire to Trieste with Elisa, Jerome, and his
wife. Caroline was almost without means of existence, the Neapolitan
Bourbons refusing even to give up the property she had brought there.
She married a General Macdonald. When Hortense was buried at Rueil
Caroline obtained permission to attend the sad ceremony. In 1838 she
went to France to try to obtain a pension, and succeeded in getting one
of 100,000 francs. She died from cancer in the stomach in 1839, and was
buried in the Campo Santo, Bologna.
Cardinal Fesch, the half-uncle of Napoleon, the Archbishop of Lyons, who
had fallen into disgrace with Napoleon for taking the side of the Pope
and refusing to accept the see of Paris, to which he was nominated by
Napoleon, had retired to Rome in 1814, where he remained till the
return of Napoleon, when he went to Paris, and accepted a peerage. After
Waterloo he again sought the protection of the Pope, and he remained at
Rome till his death in 1839, a few days before Caroline Bonaparte's. He
was buried in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. He had for years been a great
collector of pictures, of which he left a large number (1200) to the
town of Ajaccio. The Cardinal, buying at the right time when few men had
either enough leisure or money to think of pictures, got together a most
valuable collection. This was sold in 1843-44 at Rome. Its contents now
form some of the greatest treasures in the galleries of Dudley House
and of the Marquis of Hertford, now Sir Richard Wallace's. In a large
collection there are generally some daubs, but it is an amusing instance
of party spirit to find the value of his pictures run down by men who
are unwilling to allow any one connected with Napoleon to have even
taste in art. He always refused the demands of the Restoration that he
should resign his see of Lyons, though under Louis Philippe he offered
to do so, and leave his pictures to France, if the Bonaparte family were
allowed to enter France: this was refused.
It can hardly be denied that the fate of the Bonapartes was a hard one.
Napoleon had been undisputed sovereign of France for fourteen years,
Louis had been King of Holland for four years, Jerome was King of
Westphalia for six years, Caroline was Queen of Naples for seven years.
If Napoleon had forfeited all his rights by leaving Elba after the
conditions of his abdication had been broken by the Allies, still there
was no reason why the terms stipulated for the other members of the
family should not have been carried out, or at least an ordinary income
insured to them. With all Napoleon's faults he was always ready to
shower wealth on the victims of his policy:--The sovereigns of the
Continent had courted and intermarried with the Bonapartes in the fame
of that family's grandeur: there was neither generosity nor wisdom
in treating them as so many criminals the moment fortune had declared
against them. The conduct of the Allies was not influenced simply by the
principle of legitimacy, for the King of Saxony only kept his throne
by the monarchs falling out over the spoil. If sovereigns were to
be respected as of divine appointment, it was not well to make their
existence only depend on the fate of war.
Nothing in the history of the Cent Jours is more strange than the small
part played in it by the Marshals, the very men who are so identified
in our minds with the Emperor, that we might have expected to find that
brilliant band playing a most prominent part in his last great struggle,
no longer for mere victory, but for very existence. In recording how the
Guard came up the fatal hill at Waterloo for their last combat, it would
seem but natural to have to give a long roll of the old historic names
as leading or at least accompanying them; and the reader is apt to
ask, where were the men whose very titles recalled such glorious
battle-fields, such achievements, and such rewards showered down by the
man who, almost alone at the end of the day, rode forward to invite that
death from which it was such cruel kindness to save him?
Only three Marshals were in Belgium in 1815, and even of them one did
but count his promotion from that very year, so it is but natural for
French writers to dream of what might have been the course of the battle
if Murat's plume had waved with the cavalry, if Mortier had been with
the Guard, and if Davoust or one of his tried brethren had taken the
place of Grouchy. There is, however, little real ground for surprise at
this absence of the Marshals. Death, time, and hardships had all done
their work amongst that grand array of commanders. Some were old men,
veterans of the Revolutionary wars, when first created Marshals in 1804;
others, such as Massena, were now but the wreck of themselves; and even
before 1812 Napoleon had been struck with the failing energy of some of
his original companions: indeed, it might have been better for him if
he had in 1813, as he half resolved, cast away his dislike to new faces,
and fought his last desperate campaigns with younger men who still had
fortunes to win, leaving "Berthier to hunt at Grosbois," and the other
Marshals to enjoy their well-deserved rest in their splendid hotels at
Paris.
Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt, Prince of Eckmuhl, whose name should be
properly spelt Davout, was one of the principal personages at the end
of the Cent Jours. Strict and severe, having his corps always in good
order, and displaying more character than most of the military men under
Napoleon, one is apt to believe that the conqueror at Auerstadt bade
fair to be the most prominent of all the Marshals. In 1814 he had
returned from defending Hamburg to find himself under a cloud of
accusations, and the Bourbons ungenerously and unwisely left him
undefended for acts which they must have known were part of his duty
as governor of a besieged place. At the time he was attacked as if
his first duty was not to hold the place for France, but to organise
a system of outdoor relief for the neighbouring population, and to
surrender as soon as he had exhausted the money in the Government chest
and the provisions in the Government stores. Sore and discontented,
practically proscribed, still Davoust would not join in the too hasty
enterprise of the brothers Lallemand, who wished him to lead the
military rising on the approach of Napoleon; but he was with the Emperor
on the day after his arrival in Paris.
Davoust might have expected high command in the army, but, to his
annoyance, Napoleon fixed on him as War Minister. For several years the
War Minister had been little more than a clerk, and neither had nor was
expected to have much influence with the army. Napoleon now wanted a man
of tried devotion, and of stern enough character to overawe the capital
and the restless spirits in the army. Much against his will Davoust was
therefore forced to content himself with the organisation of the
forces being hastily raised, but he chafed in his position; and it is
characteristic of him that Napoleon was eventually forced to send him
the most formal orders before the surly Minister would carry out the
Emperor's unlucky intention of giving a command to Bourmont, whom
Davoust strongly and rightly suspected of treachery. When Napoleon left
the capital Davoust became its governor, and held his post unmoved
by the intrigues of the Republicans and the Royalists. When Napoleon
returned from the great disaster Davoust gave his voice for the only
wise policy,--resistance and the prorogation of the factious Chambers.
On the abdication of Napoleon the Provisional Government necessarily
gave Davoust the command of the army which was concentrated round Paris.
If Davoust had restricted himself less closely to his duty as a soldier,
if he had taken more on himself, with the 100,000 men he soon had under
him, he might have saved France from much of her subsequent humiliation,
or at least he might have preserved the lives of Ney and of the brave
men whom the Bourbons afterwards butchered. Outwitted by Fouché,
and unwilling to face the hostility of the Chambers, Davoust at last
consented to the capitulation of Paris, though he first gave the
Prussian cavalry a sharp lesson. While many of his comrades were engaged
in the great struggle for favour or safety, the stern Marshal gave
up his Ministry, and, doing the last service in his power to France,
stopped all further useless bloodshed by withdrawing the army, no easy
task in their then humour, behind the Loire, where he kept what the
Royalists called the "Brigands of the Loire" in subjection till relieved
by Macdonald. He was the only one of the younger Marshals who had not
been tried in Spain, and so far he was fortunate; but, though he was not
popular with the army, his character and services seem to point him
out as the most fit of all the Marshals for an independent command.
Had Napoleon been successful in 1812, Davoust was to have received the
Viceroyalty of Poland; and he would probably have left a higher name in
history than the other men placed by Napoleon to rule over his outlying
kingdoms. In any case it was fortunate for France and for the Allies
that a man of his character ruled the army after Napoleon abdicated;
there would otherwise have been wild work round Paris, as it was only
with the greatest difficulty and by the force of his authority and
example that Davoust succeeded in getting the army to withdraw from the
capital, and to gradually adopt the white cockade. When superseded by
Macdonald he had done a work no other man could have accomplished. He
protested against the proscription, but it was too late; his power had
departed. In 1819 he was forgiven for his services to France, and was
made a peer, but he died in 1823, only fifty-three years old.
Among the Marshals who gave an active support to Napoleon Ney takes the
leading part in most eyes; if it were only for his fate, which is too
well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was
commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to
go to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off,
not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as
most grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an
iron cage." It had been intended to have sent the Duc de Berry, the
second son of the Comte d'Artois, with Ney; and it was most unfortunate
for the Marshal that this was not done. There can be no possible doubt
that Ney spoke and acted in good faith when he left Paris. One point
alone seems decisive of this. Ney found under him in command, as General
of Division, Bourmont, an officer of well-known Royalist opinions, who
had at one time served with the Vendean insurgents, and who afterwards
deserted Napoleon just before Waterloo, although he had entreated to be
employed in the campaign. Not only did Ney leave Bourmont in command,
but, requiring another Divisional General, instead of selecting a
Bonapartist, he urged Lecourbe to leave his retirement and join him.
Now, though Lecourbe was a distinguished General, specially famed for
mountain warfare--witness his services in 1799 among the Alps above
Lucerne--he had been long left unemployed by Napoleon on account of
his strong Republican opinions and his sympathy with Moreau. These
two Generals, Bourmont and Lecourbe, the two arms of Ney as commander,
through whom alone he could communicate with the troops, he not only
kept with him, but consulted to the last, before he declared for
Napoleon. This would have been too dangerous a thing for a tricky
politician to have attempted as a blind, but Ney was well known to be
only too frank and impulsive. Had the Duc de Berry gone with him, had
Ney carried with him such a gage of the intention of the Bourbons to
defend their throne, it is probable that he would have behaved like
Macdonald; and it is certain that he would have had no better
success. The Bonapartists themselves dreaded what they called the
wrong-headedness of Ney. It was, however, thought better to keep the Duc
de Berry in safety.
Ney found himself put forward singly, as it were, to oppose the man whom
all France was joining; he found, as did every officer sent on a similar
mission, that the soldiers were simply waiting to meet Napoleon; and
while the Princes sought security, while the soldiers plotted against
their leaders, came the calls of the Emperor in the old trumpet tone.
The eagle was to fly--nay, it was flying from tower to tower, and
victory was advancing with a rush. Was Ney to be the one man to shoot
down his old leader? could he, as he asked, stop the sea with his hands?
On his trial his subordinate, Bourmont, who had by that time shown
his devotion to the Bourbons by sacrificing his military honour, and
deserting to the Allies, was asked whether Ney could have got the
soldiers to act against the Emperor. He could only suggest that if Ney
had taken a musket and himself charged, the men would have followed his
example. "Still," said Bourmont, "I would not dare to affirm that he
(the Marshal) would have won." And who was Ney to charge? We know how
Napoleon approached the forces sent to oppose him: he showed himself
alone in the front of his own troops. Was Ney to deliberately kill his
old commander? was any general ever expected to undergo such a test?
and can it be believed that the soldiers who carried off the reluctant
Oudinot and chased the flying Macdonald, had such a reverence for the
"Rougeot," as they called him, that they would have stood by while he
committed this murder? The whole idea is absurd: as Ney himself said at
his trial, they would have "pulverized" him. Undoubtedly the honourable
course for Ney would have been to have left his corps when he lost
control over them; but to urge, as was done afterwards, that he had
acted on a preconceived scheme, and that his example had such weight,
was only malicious falsehood. The Emperor himself knew well how little
he owed to the free will of his Marshal, and he soon had to send him
from Paris, as Ney, sore at heart, and discontented with himself and
with both sides, uttered his mind with his usual freedom. Ney was first
ordered to inspect the frontier from Dunkirk to Bale, and was then
allowed to go to his home. He kept so aloof from Napoleon that when he
appeared on the Champ de Mai the Emperor affected surprise, saying that
he thought Ney had emigrated. At the last moment Marshal Mortier fell
ill. Ney had already been sent for. He hurried up, buying Mortier's
horses (presumably the ill-fated animals who died under him at
Waterloo), and reached the army just in time to be given the command of
the left wing.
It has been well remarked that the very qualities which made Ney
invaluable for defence or for the service of a rear-guard weighed
against him in such a combat as Quatre Bras. Splendid as a corps leader,
he had not the commander's eye to embrace the field and surmise the
strength of the enemy at a glance. At Bautzen in 1818 his staff had been
unable to prevent him from leaving the route which would have brought
him on the very rear of the enemy, because seeing the foe, and unable
to resist the desire of returning their fire, he turned off to engage
immediately. At Quatre Bras, not seeing the force he was engaged with,
believing he had the whole English army on his hands from the first, he
let himself at the beginning of the day be imposed upon by a mere screen
of troops.
We cannot here go into Ney's behaviour at Waterloo except to point out
that too little importance is generally given to the fact of the English
cavalry having, in a happy moment, fallen on and destroyed the artillery
which was being brought up to sweep the English squares at close
quarters. At Waterloo, as in so many other combats, the account of
Ney's behaviour more resembles that of a Homeric hero than of a modern
general. To the ideal commander of to-day, watching the fight at a
distance, calmly weighing its course, undisturbed except by distant
random shots, it is strange to compare Ney staggering through the gate
of Konigsberg all covered with blood; smoke and snow, musket in hand,
announcing himself as the rear-guard of France, or appearing, a second
Achilles, on the ramparts of Smolensko to encourage the yielding troops
on the glacis, or amidst the flying troops at Waterloo, with uncovered
head and broken sword, black with powder, on foot, his fifth horse
killed under him, knowing that life, honour, and country were lost,
still hoping against hope and attempting one more last desperate rally.
If he had died--ah! if he had died there--what a glorious tomb might
have risen, glorious for France as well as for him, with the simple
inscription, "The Bravest of the Brave."
Early on the 19th June a small band of officers retreating from the
field found Ney asleep at Marchiennes, "the first repose he had had for
four days," and they did not disturb him for orders. "And indeed what
order could Marshal Ney have given?" The disaster of the day, the
overwhelming horror of the flight of the beaten army, simply crushed Ney
morally as well as physically. Rising in the Chambers he denounced all
attempt at further resistance. He did not know, he would not believe,
that Grouchy was safe, and that the army was fast rallying. Fresh from
the field, with all its traces on him, the authority of Ney was too
great for the Government. Frightened friends, plotting Royalists, echoed
the wild words of Ney brave only against physical dangers. Instead of
dying on the battle-field, he had lived to ensure the return of the
Bourbons, the fall of Bonaparte, his own death, and the ruin of France.
Before his exception from the amnesty was known Ney left Paris on
the 6th of July, and went into the country with but little attempt at
concealment, and with formal passports from Fouché. The capitulation of
Paris seemed to cover him, and he was so little aware of the thirst of
the Royalists for his blood that he let his presence be known by leaving
about a splendid sabre presented to him by the Emperor on his marriage,
and recognised by mere report by an old soldier as belonging to Ney or
Murat; and Ney himself let into the house the party sent to arrest
him on the 5th of August, and actually refused the offer of Excelmans,
through whose troops he passed, to set him free. No one at the time,
except the wretched refugees of Ghent, could have suspected, after the
capitulation, that there was any special danger for Ney, and it is very
difficult to see on what principle the Bourbons chose their victims or
intended victims. Drouot, for example, had never served Louis XVIII., he
had never worn the white cockade, he had left France with Napoleon for
Elba, and had served the Emperor there. In 1815 he had fought under his
own sovereign. After Waterloo he had exerted all his great influence,
the greater from his position, to induce the Guard to retire behind the
Loire, and to submit to the Bourbons. It was because Davoust so needed
him that Drouot remained with the army. Stilt Drouot was selected for
death, but the evidence of his position was too strong to enable the
Court to condemn him. Cambronne, another selection, had also gone with
Napoleon to Elba. Savory, another selection, had, as was eventually
acknowledged, only joined Napoleon when he was in full possession of the
reins of Government. Bertrand, who was condemned while at St. Helena,
was in the same position as Drouot. In fact, if any one were to draw up
a list of probable proscriptions and compare it with those of the 24th
of July 1815, there would probably be few names common to both except
Labedoyere, Mouton Duvernet, etc. The truth is that the Bourbons, and,
to do them justice, still more the rancorous band of mediocrities who
surrounded them, thirsted for blood. Even they could feel the full
ignominy of the flight to Ghent.
While they had been chanting the glories of the Restoration, the
devotion of the people, the valour of the Princes, Napoleon had landed,
the Restoration had vanished like a bad dream, and the Princes were the
first to lead the way to the frontier. To protest that there had been a
conspiracy, and that the conspirators must suffer, was the only possible
cloak for the shame of the Royalists, who could not see that the only
conspiracy was the universal one of the nation against the miserable men
who knew not how to govern a high-spirited people.
Ney, arrested on the 5th of August, was first brought before a Military
Court on the 9th of November composed of Marshal Jourdan (President),
Marshals Massena, Augereau, and Mortier, Lieutenants-General Gazan,
Claparede, and Vilatte (members). Moncey had refused to sit, and Massena
urged to the Court his own quarrels with Ney in Spain to get rid of
the task, but was forced to remain. Defended by both the Berryers, Ney
unfortunately denied the jurisdiction of the court-martial over him as
a peer. In all probability the Military Court would have acquitted him.
Too glad at the moment to be free from the trial of their old comrade,
not understanding the danger of the proceeding, the Court, by a majority
of five against two, declared themselves non-competent, and on the 21st
of November Ney was sent before the Chamber of Peers, which condemned
him on the 6th of December.
To beg the life of his brave adversary would have been such an obvious
act of generosity on the part of the Duke of Wellington that we maybe
pardoned for examining his reasons for not interfering. First, the
Duke seems to have laid weight on the fact that if Ney had believed the
capitulation had covered him he would not have hidden. Now, even before
Ney knew of his exception from the amnesty, to appear in Paris would
have been a foolish piece of bravado. Further, the Royalist reaction was
in full vigour, and when the Royalist mobs, with the connivance of the
authorities, were murdering Marshal Brune and attacking any prominent
adherents of Napoleon, it was hardly the time for Ney to travel in full
pomp. It cannot be said that, apart from the capitulation, the Duke had
no responsibility. Generally a Government executing a prisoner, may,
with some force, if rather brutally, urge that the fact of their being
able to try and execute him in itself shows their authority to do
so. The Bourbons could not even use this argument. If the Allies had
evacuated France Louis le Desiree would have ordered his carriage and
have been at the frontier before they had reached it. If Frenchmen
actually fired the shots which killed Ney, the Allies at least shared
the responsibility with the French Government. Lastly, it would seem
that the Duke would have asked for the life of Ney if the King, clever
at such small artifices, had not purposely affected a temporary coldness
to him. Few men would have been so deterred from asking for the life of
a dog. The fact is, the Duke of Wellington was a great general, he was
a single-hearted and patriotic statesman, he had a thousand virtues,
but he was never generous. It cannot be said that he simply shared
the feelings of his army, for there was preparation among some of his
officers to enable Ney to escape, and Ney had to be guarded by men of
good position disguised in the uniform of privates. Ney had written to
his wife when he joined Napoleon, thinking of the little vexations the
Royalists loved to inflict on the men who had conquered the Continent.
"You will no longer weep when you leave the Tuileries." The unfortunate
lady wept now as she vainly sought some mercy for her husband. Arrested
on the 5th of August, sentenced on the 6th of December, Ney was shot on
the 7th of December, and the very manner of his execution shows that, in
taking his life there was much more of revenge than of justice.
If Ney were to be shot, it is obvious that it should have been as a high
act of justice. If neither the rank nor the services of the criminal
were to save him, his death could not be too formal, too solemn, too
public. Even an ordinary military execution is always carried out with
grave and striking forms: there is a grand parade of the troops, that
all may see with their own eyes the last act of the law. After the
execution the troops defile past the body, that all may see the criminal
actually dead: There was nothing of all this in the execution of Ney.
A few chance passers, in the early morning of the 7th of December 1815,
saw a small body of troops waiting by the wall of the garden of the
Luxemburg. A fiacre drove up, out of which got Marshal Ney in plain
clothes, himself surprised by the everyday aspect of the place. Then,
when the officer of the firing party (for such the spectators now knew
it to be) saw whom it was he was to fire on, he became, it is said,
perfectly petrified; and a peer, one of the judges of Ney, the Duke de
la Force, took his place. Ney fell at the first volley with six balls
in his breast, three in the head and neck, and one in the arm, and in
a quarter of an hour the body was removed; "plain Michel Ney" as he had
said to the secretary enunciating his title in reading his sentence,
"plain Michel Ney, soon to be a little dust."
The Communists caught red-handed in the streets of Paris in 1870 died
with hardly less formality than was observed at the death-scene of the
Prince of the Moskowa and Duke of Elchingen, and the truth then became
plain. The Bourbons could not, dared not, attempt to carry out the
sentence of the law with the forms of the law. The Government did not
venture to let the troops or the people face the Marshal. The forms of
the law could not be carried out, the demands of revenge could be. And
if this be thought any exaggeration, the proof of the ill effects of
this murder, for its form makes it difficult to call it anything else,
is ready to our hands. It was impossible to get the public to believe
that Ney had really been killed in this manner, and nearly to this day
we have had fresh stories recurring of the real Ney being discovered in
America. The deed, however, had really been done. The Marshals now knew
that when the Princes fled they themselves must remain to die for the
Royal cause; and Louis had at last succeeded in preventing his return
to his kingdom amongst the baggage waggons of the Allies from being
considered as a mere subject for jeers. One detail of the execution of
Ney, however, we are told nothing of: we do not know if his widow, like
Madame Labedoyere, had to pay three francs a head to the soldiers of
the firing party which shot her husband. Whatever were the faults of the
Bourbons, they at least carried out their executions economically.
The statesmen of France, distinguished as they were, certainly did not
rise to a level with the situation either in 1814 or in 1815. In 1814,
it is true, they were almost stunned by the crash of the Empire, and
little as they foresaw the restoration of the Bourbons, still less
could they have anticipated the extraordinary follies which were to be
perpetrated. In 1815 there was less excuse for their helplessness, and,
overawed as they were by the mass of foes which was pouring on them to
complete the disaster of Waterloo, still it is disappointing to find
that there was no one to seize the helm of power, and, confronting the
Allies, to stipulate proper terms for France, and for the brave men who
had fought for her. The Steady Davoust was there with his 100,000 men
to add weight to their language, and the total helplessness of the older
line of the Bourbons had been too evidently displayed to make their
return a certainty, so that there is no reason to doubt that a
firm-hearted patriot might have saved France from much of the
degradation and loss inflicted on her when once the Allies had again got
her at their mercy. At-the least the Bourbons might have been deprived
of the revenge they sought for in taking some of the best blood of
France. Better for Ney and his comrades to have fallen in a last
struggle before Paris than to be shot by Frenchmen emboldened by the
presence of foreign troops.
Talleyrand, the most prominent figure among the statesmen, was away. His
absence at Vienna during the first Restoration was undoubtedly the cause
of many of the errors then committed. His ability as displayed under
Napoleon has been much exaggerated, for, as the Duke of Wellington said,
it was easy enough to be Foreign Minister to a Government in military
possession of Europe, but at least he was above the petty trivialities
and absurdities of the Bourbon' Court. On the receipt of the news of the
landing of Napoleon he really seems to have believed that the enterprise
would immediately end in disaster, and he pressed on the outlawing of
the man who had overwhelmed him with riches, and who had, at the worst,
left him when in disgrace in quiet possession of all his ill-gotten
wealth. But, as the power of Napoleon became more and more displayed,
as perhaps Talleyrand found that the Austrians were not quite so firm as
they wished to be considered, and as he foresaw the possible chances of
the Orleans family, he became rather lukewarm in his attention to
the King, to whom he had recently been bewailing the hardships of his
separation from his loved monarch. He suddenly found that, after a
Congress, the first duty of a diplomatist was to look after his liver,
and Carlsbad offered an agreeable retreat where he could wait till he
might congratulate the winner in the struggle.
Louis deeply resented this conduct of his Foreign Minister, and when
Talleyrand at last joined him with all his doubts resolved, the
King took the first opportunity of dismissing him, leaving the calm
Talleyrand for once stuttering with rage. Louis soon, however, found
that he was not the free agent he believed. The Allies did not want to
have to again replace their puppet on the throne, and they looked
on Talleyrand and Fouché as the two necessary men. Talleyrand was
reinstated immediately, and remained for some time at the head of the
Ministry. He was, however, not the man for Parliamentary Government,
being too careless in business, and trying to gain his ends more by
clever tricks than straightforward measures. As for the state into which
he let the Government fall, it was happily characterised by M.
Beugnot. "Until now," said he, "we have only known three sorts of
governments--the Monarchical, the Aristocratic, and the Republican.
Now we have invented a new one, which has never been heard of
before,--Paternal Anarchy."
In September 1815 the elections to the Chamber were bringing in deputies
more Royalist than the King, and Talleyrand sought to gain popularity
by throwing over Fouché. To his horror it appeared that, well contented
with this step, the deputies next asked when the former Bishop was to be
dismissed. Taking advantage of what Talleyrand conceived to be a happy
way of eliciting a strong expression of royal support by threatening to
resign, the King replaced him by the Duc de Richelieu. It was well to
cut jokes at the Duke and say that he was the man in France who knew
most of the Crimea (the Duke had been long in the Russian service, with
the approval of Napoleon), but Talleyrand was overwhelmed. He received
the same office at Court which he had held under Napoleon, Grand
Chamberlain, and afterwards remained a sardonic spectator of events,
a not unimposing figure attending at the Court ceremonials and at the
heavy dinners of the King, and probably lending a helping hand in 1830
to oust Charles X. from the throne. The Monarchy of July sent him as
Ambassador to England, where he mixed in local politics, for example,
plotting against Lord Palmerston, whose brusque manners he disliked; and
in 1838 he ended his strange life with some dignity, having, as one of
his eulogists puts it, been faithful to every Government he had served
as long as it was possible to save them.
With the darker side of Talleyrand's character we have nothing to do
here; it is sufficient for our purposes to say that the part the leading
statesman of France took during the Cent Jours was simply nil. In 1814,
he had let the reins slip through his hands; 1815 he could only follow
the King, who even refused to adopt his advice as to the proper way
in which to return to France, and though he once more became Chief
Minister, Talleyrand, like Louis XVIII., owed his restoration in 1815
solely to the Allies.
The Comte d'Artois, the brother of the King, and later King himself as
Charles X., was sent to Lyons, to which place the Duc d'Orleans followed
him, and where the two Princes met Marshal Macdonald. The Marshal did
all that man could do to keep the soldiers true to the Bourbons, but he
had to advise the Princes to return to Paris, and he himself had to
fly for his life when he attempted to stop Napoleon in person. The
Duc d'Orleans was then sent to the north to hold Lille, where the King
intended to take refuge, and the Comte d'Artois remained with the Court.
The Court was very badly off for money, the King, and Clarke, Duke of
Feltre, the War Minister, were the only happy possessors of carriages.
They passed their time, as the Abbe Louis once bitterly remarked, in
saying foolish things till they had a chance of doing them.
The Comte d'Artois, who, probably wisely, certainly cautiously, had
refused to go with De Vitrolles to stir up the south until he had placed
the King in safety, had ended by going to Ghent too, while the Duc de
Berry was at Alost, close by, with a tiny army composed of the remains
of the Maison du Roi, of which the most was made in reports. The Duc
d'Orleans, always an object of suspicion to the King, had left France
with the Royal party, but had refused to stay in Belgium, as he alleged
that it was an enemy's country. He crossed to England where he remained,
greatly adding to the anxiety of Louis by refusing to join him.
The end of these Princes is well known. Louis died in 1824, leaving his
throne to his brother; but Charles only held it till 1830, when after
the rising called "the three glorious days of July," he was civilly
escorted from France, and took shelter in England. The Duc Angouleme
died without issue. The Duc de Berry was assassinated in 1820, but his
widow gave birth to a posthumous son the Duc de Bordeaux, or, to fervid
Royalists, Henri V., though better known to us as the Comte de Chambord,
who died in 1883 without issue, thus ending the then eldest line of
Bourbons, and transmitting his claims to the Orleans family. On the fall
of Charles X. the Duc d'Orleans became King of the French, but he was
unseated by the Revolution of 1848, and died a refugee in England. As
the three Princes of the House of Condé, the Prince de Condé, his son,
the Duc de Bourbon, and his: grandson, the Duc d'Enghien, all died
without further male issue, that noble line is extinct.
When the news of the escape of Napoleon from Elba reached Vienna on
the 7th of March 1815, the three heads of the Allies, the Emperors of
Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia, were still there. Though
it was said that the Congress danced but did not advance, still a great
deal of work had really been done, and the news of Napoleon's landing
created a fresh bond of union between the Allies which stopped all
further chances of disunion, and enabled them to practically complete
their work by the 9th of June 1815, though the treaties required
cobbling for some years afterwards.
France, Austria, and England had snatched the greater part of Saxony
from the jaws of Prussia, and Alexander had been forced to leave the
King of Saxony to reign over half of his former subjects, without, as
he wished, sparing him the pain of such a degradation by taking all
from him. Russia had to be contented with a large increase of her Polish
dominions, getting most of the Grand-Duchy of Westphalia. Austria had,
probably unwisely, withdrawn from her former outlying provinces in
Swabia and the Netherlands, which had before the Revolution made her
necessarily the guardian of Europe against France, preferring to take
her gains in Italy, gains which she has gradually lost in our days;
while Prussia, by accepting the Rhine provinces, completely stepped into
the former post of Austria. Indeed, from the way in which Prussia was,
after 1815, as it were, scattered across Germany, it was evident that
her fate must be either to be crushed by France, or else, by annexing
the states enclosed in her dominions, to become the predominating power
in Germany. It was impossible for her to remain as she was left.
The Allies tightly bound France. They had no desire to have again to
march on Paris to restore Louis to the subjects who had such unfortunate
objections to being subjected to that desirable monarch. By the second
Treaty of Paris, on the 20th of November 1815, France was to be occupied
by an Allied force, in military positions on the frontier, not to exceed
150,000 men, to be taken from all the Allied armies, under a commander
who was eventually the Duke of Wellington. Originally the occupation was
not to exceed five years, but in February 1817 the army was reduced
by 30,000 men, one-fifth of each contingent; and by the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle of 9th October 1818, France was to-be evacuated by the
30th of November 1818.
The three monarchs were probably not sorry to get the Congress over
on any terms. Alexander had had his fill of displaying himself in the
salons in his favourite part of an Agamemnon generous towards Troy, and
he had worn out his first popularity. He was stung by finding some of
his favourite plans boldly opposed by Talleyrand and by Metternich,
and, indeed, was anxious to meet the last in open combat. Francis had
required all the firmness of what he called his Bohemian head to resist
the threats, entreaties, and cajoleries employed to get him to acquiesce
in the dethronement of the King of Saxony, and the wiping out of the
Saxon nationality by the very alliance which professed to fight only for
the rights of nations and of their lawful sovereigns.
All three monarchs had again the satisfaction of entering Paris, but
without enjoying the full glories of 1814. "Our friends, the enemies"
were not so popular then in France, and the spoliation of the Louvre was
not pleasant even to the Royalists. The foreign monarchs soon returned
to their own drained and impoverished States.
The Emperor Francis had afterwards a quiet reign to his death in 1835,
having only to assist his Minister in snuffing out the occasional
flashes of a love of freedom in Germany.
The King of Prussia returned in a triumph well won by his sturdy
subjects, and, in the light of his new honours, the Countess Von Voss
tells us he was really handsome. He was now at leisure to resume the
discussions on uniform, and the work of fastening and unfastening the
numerous buttons of his pantaloons, in which he had been so roughly
interrupted by Jena. The first institution of the Zollverein, or
commercial union with several States, gradually extended, was a
measure which did much for the unification of Germany. With his brother
sovereigns he revisited Paris at the end of the military occupation
in 1818, remaining there longer than the others, "because," said the
Parisians, "he had discovered an actor at a small theatre who achieved
the feat of making him laugh." He died in 1840. His Queen--heartbroken,
it was said--had died in 1810.
Alexander was still brimming over with the best and most benevolent
intentions towards every one. The world was to be free, happy, and
religious; but he had rather vague ideas as to how his plans were to be
carried out. Thus it is characteristic that when his successor desired
to have a solemn coronation as King of Poland it was found that
Alexander had not foreseen the difficulties which were met with in
trying to arrange for the coronation of a Sovereign of the Greek Church
as King of a Roman Catholic State. The much-dreaded but very misty Holy
Alliance was one of the few fruits of Alexander's visions. His mind
is described as passing through a regular series of stages with
each influence under which he acted. He ended his life, tired out,
disillusioned, "deceived in everything, weighed down with regret;"
obliged to crush the very hopes of his people he had encouraged, dying
in 1825 at Taganrog, leaving his new Polish Kingdom to be wiped out
by-his successors.
The minor sovereigns require little mention. They retained any titles
they had received from Napoleon, while they exulted, at being free from
his heavy hand and sharp superintendence. Each got a share, small or
great, of the spoil except the poor King of Denmark, who, being assured
by Alexander on his departure that he carried away all hearts, answered,
"Yes, but not any souls."
The reintroduction of much that was bad in the old system (one country
even going so far as to re-establish torture), the steady attack on
liberty and on all liberal ideas, Wurtemberg being practically the
only State which grumbled at the tightening of the reins so dear to
Metternich,--all formed a fitting commentary on the proclamations by
which the Sovereigns had hounded on their people against the man they
represented as the one obstacle to the freedom and peace of Europe. In
gloom and disenchantment the nations sat down to lick their wounds: The
contempt shown by the monarchs for everything but the right of conquest,
the manner in which they treated the lands won from Napoleon as a
gigantic "pool" which was to be shared amongst them, so many souls to
each; their total failure to fulfil their promises to their subjects of
granting liberty,--all these slowly bore their fruits in after years,
and their effects are not even yet exhausted. The right of a sovereign
to hold his lands was now, by the public law of Europe, to be decided
by his strength, The rights of the people were treated as not existing.
Truly, as our most gifted poetess has sung--
"The Kings crept out--the peoples sat at home,
And finding the long invocated peace
(A pall embroidered with worn images
Of rights divine) too scant to cover doom
Such as they suffered, nursed the corn that grew
Rankly to bitter bread, on Waterloo."