At Nogent, six weeks earlier, Ney and Oudinot had endeavored to bully Napoleon in a similar way; then they were easily cowed. But now Napoleon's manner was conciliatory and his speech argumentative. Long and eloquently he set forth his situation. Enumerating all the forces immediately and remotely at his disposal, describing minutely the plan of attack which Macdonald had stamped with his approval, explaining the folly of the course pursued by the allies, contrasting the perils of their situation with the advantages of his own, he sought to justify his assurance of victory. The eloquence of a Napoleon, calm, collected, clear, but pleading for the power which was dearer to him than life, can only be imagined. But his arguments fell on deaf ears; not one of his audience gave any sign of emotion. Macdonald was the only one present not openly committed, and he too was sullen; during the last twenty-four hours he had received, through Marmont, a letter from Beurnonville, the contents of which, though read to Napoleon then and there, have not been transmitted to posterity. What happened or what was said thereafter is far from certain, so conflicting and so biased are the accounts of those present. Contemporaries thought that in this crisis, when Ney declared the army would obey its officers and would not march to Paris in obedience to the Emperor, there were menacing gestures which betrayed a more or less complete purpose of assassination on the part of some. If so, Napoleon was never greater; for, commanding a calm by his dignified self-restraint, he dismissed the faithless officers one and all. They went, and he was left alone with Caulaincourt to draw up the form of his abdication.
The Meaning of Napoleon's Abdication — The Paper and its Bearers — Progress of Marmont's Conspiracy — Alexander Influenced by Napoleon's Embassy — Marmont's Soldiers Betrayed — Marmont's Reputation and Fate — Napoleon's Scheme for a Last Stroke — Revolt of the Marshals — Napoleon's First Attempt at Suicide — Unconditional Abdication — Restoration of the Bourbons — Napoleon's New Realm — Flight of the Napoleons — Good-by to France, but not Farewell.
There is no doubt that Napoleon sincerely and dearly loved his "growlers"; there is no doubt that with grim humor he constantly circumvented and used them for his own ends; even in his agony he contemplated a course which, leaving them convinced of their success, would yet render their action of no effect. After a short conference with his minister he took a pen and wrote: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the establishment of peace in Europe, and since the Emperor cannot assuredly, without violating his oath, surrender any one of the departments which were united with France when he ascended the throne, the Emperor Napoleon declares himself ready to abdicate and leave France, even to lay down his life for the welfare of his country and for the preservation of the rights of his son the King, of the Empress-regent, and of the laws and institutions, which shall be subject to no change until the definite conclusion of peace and while foreign armies stand upon our soil."
But these words carried too plainly a meaning which was not intended to be conspicuous, and the paper, as finally written and executed, runs as follows: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reëstablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France, and even to lay down his life for the good of the country, [which is] inseparable from the rights of his son, from those of the Empress's regency, and from the laws of the Empire." Who should constitute the embassy to present the document to the Czar? Caulaincourt, of course, would necessarily be one; Ney, dangerous if thwarted, must be the second; and the third? Marmont certainly, was Napoleon's first thought, and he ordered full powers to be made out for him. But on second thought he felt that his aide-de-camp in Egypt, his trusted friend from then onward, his confidential adviser, "brought up in his tent," as he said, might injure the cause as being too certainly influenced by personal considerations. Macdonald, therefore, was named in his stead. The embassy should, however, pass by Essonnes, and if Marmont desired to go he might send back for his credentials.
This was the company which, arriving about four in the afternoon at Marmont's headquarters, presented Napoleon's message. The busy conspirator was stunned, but he had already won at least five of his generals—Souham, Merlin, Digeon, Ledru des Essarts, and Megnadier, his chief of staff; the tide of treason was in full flow, and could not be stemmed. Should the Czar assent to the regency, where would Marmont be? Or, on the other hand, should Napoleon learn the truth, there was no question but that a few hours might see the emulator of Monk a corpse. In quick decision, the traitorous marshal confessed the steps already taken, and then at the loud cry of reprobation with which his statement was met, he falsely asserted that he was not yet committed, and demanded to join the embassy. The others, willing to remove their colleague from further temptation, assented; and Souham was left in command, with strict injunctions to inform the troops of Napoleon's abdication, but to take no further steps. At Schwarzenberg's headquarters Marmont found means to betray the situation to that general. The Austrian, by Marmont's own account, absolved his fellow-intriguer from all engagements so far made; but somehow that very evening about nine Talleyrand knew the whole story, and hastening, pale with terror, to Alexander's presence, poured out a bitter remonstrance against the regency. The Czar listened, but contemptuously dismissed the petitioner with the non-committal remark that no one would repent having trusted him.
It was almost midnight when Alexander gave audience to the embassy. Marmont was not of the number, having slunk away in guilty uneasiness to await the event at Ney's house. To Caulaincourt, as the spokesman of the Empire, the Czar listened attentively and sympathetically. He now felt himself to have taken a false step when, five days earlier, he had virtually assented to the restoration of the Bourbons. In the interval their cause had steadily grown more and more unpopular; neither people nor soldiers, not even the national guard, would give any declaration of adherence to the acts of the provisional government; the imperial army, on the other hand, stood firm. His own and Russia's honor having been redeemed, the earlier instincts of hatred for absolutism had returned; the feeling that the Empire was better for his purposes than any dynasty welled up as he listened to Caulaincourt's powerful argument that France as a nation, and her undivided army, alike desired the regency. In fact, the listener wavered so much that, two days later, Ney and Macdonald asserted their belief that at a certain instant their cause had been won.
But at two in the morning an aide-de-camp entered and spoke a few words in Russian. The Czar gave a startled attention, and the officer repeated his words. "Gentlemen," said the monarch, "you base your claim on the unshaken attachment of the army to the imperial government. The vanguard of Napoleon's army has just deserted. It is at this moment within our lines." The news was true. The announcement of Napoleon's abdication had spread consternation among Marmont's men, and they were seriously demoralized. When a routine message came from Fontainebleau requiring Souham's presence there, his guilty conscience made him tremble; and when Gourgaud requested an interview the uneasy general foresaw his own arrest and was terror-stricken. Summoning the others who, like himself, were partly committed, he told his fears, and the soldiers were ordered under arms. Toward midnight the march began. Ignorant at first of whither they were going, the men were silent; but finding themselves before long between two Austrian lines, they hooted their officers. Thereupon they were told that they were to fight beside these same Austrians in defense of the Empire, and, believing the lie, were reconciled.
Arriving finally at Versailles, and learning the truth, they mutinied; but Marmont soon appeared, and partly cowed them, partly persuaded them to bend before necessity. After learning of Souham's deed he had hurried to the Czar's antechamber. In an adjoining room were assembled the members of the provisional government. Like Marmont, they had learned the result of Souham's efforts and had regained their equanimity. After grasping the appalling fact that twelve thousand men, the whole sixth corps, with arms and baggage, were prisoners within the Austrian lines, of course there had been nothing left for Caulaincourt and the marshals but to withdraw. With much embarrassment the Czar promised an answer to their request on the following afternoon. All knew that the knell of the Empire had struck. To the waiting royalists it seemed a fit moment for pleasantry as the members of the embassy came filing out with stony gaze. The thwarted imperialists sternly repulsed their tormentors. Marmont breathed hard as his colleagues passed without a glimpse of recognition, and murmured: "I would give an arm if this had not happened." "An arm? Sir, say your head," rejoined Macdonald, bitterly. For some time after the first Restoration Marmont was a hero, but soon his vanity and true character combined to bring out his conduct into clear view, and from his title of Ragusa was coined the word "ragusade" as a synonym for treason. During the "Hundred Days" his name was of course stricken from the list of marshals. Loaded with honors in the second Restoration, he proved a second time faithless, and in 1830 betrayed his trust to the republicans. The people called him "Judas," and he died in exile, honored by nobody.
There can be little doubt of Napoleon's conviction that his offer to abdicate would be rejected by Alexander. No sooner was it signed than, with his characteristic astuteness, he set about preparing an alternative course. At once he despatched a messenger requesting the Empress to send Champagny immediately to Dijon as an ambassador to intercede with her father. Then, on April fourth, he summoned a conclave of his officers to secure their assent to the battle which he believed inevitable. It was the call to this meeting which had stampeded Souham and his colleagues in desertion. The greater officers being absent from Fontainebleau, the minor ones were unanimous and hearty in their support of Napoleon's plans. But at the very close of the session came the news of what had happened at Essonnes. When finally assured of every detail, Napoleon took measures at once to repair as best he could the breaches in his defense, saying of Marmont quietly and without a sign of panic: "Unhappy man, he will be more unhappy than I." Only a few days before he had declared to Caulaincourt: "There are no longer any who play fair except my poor soldiers and their officers that are neither princes nor dukes nor counts. It is an awful thing to say, but it is true. Do you know what I ought to do? Send all these noble lords of yesterday to sleep in their beds of down, to strut about in their castles. I ought to rid myself of these frondeurs, and begin the war once more with men of youthful, unsullied courage." He was partly prepared, therefore, even for the defection of Marmont. Next morning, on the fifth, was issued the ablest proclamation ever penned by him; at noon the veterans from Spain were reviewed, and in the afternoon began the movements necessary to array beyond the Loire what remained of the army and rally it about the seat of imperial government. But at nine the embassy returned from Paris with its news—the Czar had refused to accept the abdication; the senate was about to proclaim Louis XVIII; Napoleon was to reign thereafter over the little isle of Elba. To this the undaunted Emperor calmly rejoined that war henceforth offered nothing worse than peace, and began at once to explain his plans.
But he was interrupted—exactly how we cannot tell; for, though the embassy returned as it left, in a body, the memoirs of each member strive to convey the impression that it was he alone who said and did everything. If only the narrative attributed to Caulaincourt were of undoubted authenticity, cumulative evidence might create certitude; but it is not. The sorry tale of what probably occurred makes clear that all three were now royalists more or less ardent, for in passing they had concluded a truce with Schwarzenberg on that basis. Macdonald asserts that his was the short and brutal response to Napoleon's exhibition of his plans; to wit, that they must have an abdication without conditions. Ney was quite as savage, declaring that the confidence of the army was gone. Napoleon at first denounced such mutiny, but then, with seeming resignation, promised an answer next day. He did not yet know that in secret convention the generals were resolving not to obey the orders issued for the morrow; but as the door closed behind the marshals the mind so far clear seemed suddenly eclipsed, and murmuring, "These men have neither heart nor bowels; I am conquered less by fortune than by the egotism and ingratitude of my companions in arms," the great, homeless citizen of the world sank into utter dejection.
It appears to have been a fixed purpose with Napoleon never to fall alive into his enemy's hands. Although they acted under legal forms, yet some European monarchs of the eighteenth century were no more trustworthy in dealing with foes than their great prototype Julius Cæsar in his faithlessness to a certain canton of the Helvetians. They did not display sufficient surprise when enemies were assassinated. Since 1808 the European colossus had worn about his neck as a kind of amulet a little bag which was said to contain a deadly poison, one of the salts of prussic acid. During the night, when the terrors of a shaken reason overpowered him, he swallowed the drug. Whether it had lost its efficacy, or whether the agitated victim of melancholy did not take the entire dose, in either case the effects were imperfect. Instead of oblivion came agony, and his valet, rushing to his master's bedside at the sound of a bitter cry, claimed to catch the words: "Marmont has struck me the final blow! Unhappy man, I loved him! Berthier's desertion has broken my heart! My old friends, my comrades in arms!" Ivan, the Emperor's body physician, was summoned, and administered an antidote; the spasm was allayed, and after a short sleep reason resumed her seat. It is related in the memoirs of Caulaincourt, and probably with a sort of Homeric truth, that when the minister was admitted in the early morning, Napoleon's "wan and sunken eyes seemed struggling to recall the objects round about; a universe of torture was revealed in the vaguely desolate look." Napoleon is reported as saying: "God did not will it. I could not die. Why did they not let me die? It is not the loss of the throne that makes existence unendurable; my military career suffices for the glory of a single man. Do you know what is more difficult to bear than the reverses of fortune? It is the baseness, the horrible ingratitude, of men. Before such acts of cowardice, before the shamelessness of their egotism, I have turned away my head in disgust and have come to regard my life with horror.... Death is rest.... Rest at last.... What I have suffered for twenty days no one can understand."
What throws some shadow on this account is the fact that on the following morning Napoleon appeared outwardly well and perfectly calm when he assembled his marshals and made a final appeal. It is certain, from the testimony of his secretary and his physician, that he had been violently ill, but the sobriety of the remaining chronicle is to be doubted. Possibly, too, the empty sachet had contained a preparation of opium intended to relieve sharp attacks like that at Pirna; but in view of the second attempt at suicide made after Waterloo, this is not likely. Yet the circumstances may easily have been exaggerated; for the evident motive of what has been called the imperial legend is to heighten all the effects in the Napoleonic picture. Whatever was the truth as to that gloomy night, Napoleon's appeal next morning, though eloquent, was in vain; the marshals were unshaken in their determination, though less bitter and violent in their language. "You deserve repose," were the Emperor's last words to them; "well, then, take it." Thereupon the act of unconditional abdication was written in these words: "The allied powers having declared the Emperor Napoleon to be the sole obstacle to the reëstablishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that for himself and his heirs he renounces the thrones of France and of Italy, because there is no personal sacrifice which he is not ready to make for the welfare of the nation." These last words were, after some consideration, erased, and the phrase "in the interest of France" was substituted for them. Some think, and it may well be true, that this change of form, taken in connection with Napoleon's calmness, was another proof of his deep purpose. Unable to thwart his "growlers," he may have recollected that once before he had crossed the Mediterranean to give a feeble government full scope for its own destruction. France might easily recall her favorite son in her own interest. He was scarcely more than forty-four, a young man still, and this he probably recalled as he made ready to play a new rôle.
Armed with the document necessary to secure his pardon, Ney hurried back to the capital. The elderly, well-meaning, but obtuse Louis XVIII was immediately proclaimed king by the senate. Having "learned nothing, and forgotten nothing," he accepted the throne, making certain concessions to the new France, sufficient, as he hoped, to secure at least the momentary support of the people. The haste to join the white standard made by men on whom Napoleon's adventurous career had heaped honor and wealth is unparalleled in history. Jourdan, Augereau, Maison, Lagrange, Nansouty, Oudinot, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Hulin, Milhaud, Latour-Maubourg, Ségur, Berthier, Belliard—such were the earliest names. Among the soldiers near by some bowed to the new order, but among the garrisons there was such widespread mutiny that royalist hate was kindled again and fanned to white heat by the scoffs and jeers of the outraged men. Their behavior was the outward sign of a temper not universal, of course, but very common among the people. At Paris both the King and the King's brother were cheered on their formal entry, but many discriminating onlookers prophesied that the Bourbons could not remain long.
Fully aware that Napoleon was yet a power in France, and challenged by the marshals to display a chivalric spirit in providing for the welfare of their former monarch, Alexander gave full play to his generous impulses. His first suggestion was that his fallen foe should accept a home and complete establishment in Russia; but this would have been to ignore the other members of the coalition. It was determined finally to provide the semblance of an empire, the forms of state, and an imperial income, and to make the former Emperor the guest of all Europe. The idea was quixotic, but Napoleon was not a prisoner; he had done nothing worthy of degradation, and throughout the civilized world he was still regarded by vast numbers as the savior of European society, who had fallen into the hands of cruel oppressors. The paper which was finally drawn up was a treaty between Napoleon, for the time and purposes of the instrument a private citizen, as one party, and the four sovereign states of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and England as the other. It had, therefore, no sanction except the public opinion of France and the good faith of those who executed it, the former being bound by her allies to a contract made by them. It was France which was to pay Napoleon two millions of francs a year, and leave him to reign undisturbed over Elba; the allies granted Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla as a realm in perpetuity to Maria Louisa and her heirs, through the King of Rome, as her successors. The agreement was unique, but so were the circumstances which brought it to pass. There was but one important protest, and that was made by Castlereagh in regard to the word Napoleon and the imperial style! His protest was vain, but to this day many among the greatest of his countrymen persistently employ "Bonaparte" in speaking of the greater, and "Napoleon" in designating the lesser, of the two men who have ruled France as emperors.
Four commissioners, one from each of the powers, proceeded to Fontainebleau. They were careful to treat Napoleon with the consideration due to an emperor. To all he was courteous, except to the representative of Prussia, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, whose presence he declared unnecessary, since there were to be no Prussian troops on the southern road toward Elba. With Colonel Campbell, the British commissioner, he was most friendly, conversing enthusiastically with the Scotch officer about the Scotch poet known as Ossian. What was particularly admired in his remarkable outpourings was their warlike tone. As the preparations for departure went forward, it became clear that of all the imperial dignitaries only Bertrand and Drouot would accompany the exile. The others he dismissed with characteristic and appropriate farewells: to Caulaincourt he assigned a gift of five hundred thousand francs from the treasure at Blois; Constant, the valet, and Rustan, the Mameluke, were dismissed at their own desire, but not empty-handed. For his line of travel, and for a hundred baggage-wagons loaded with books, furniture, and objects of art, Napoleon stipulated with the utmost nicety and persistence. With every hour he showed greater and greater anxiety for his personal safety. Indifferent to life but a few short days before, he was now timid and over-anxious. If he had been playing a part and pondering what in a few years, perhaps months, his life and person might again be worth in European politics, he could not have been more painstaking as to measures for his personal safety. The stoic could have recourse to the bowl, the eighteenth-century enthusiast must live and hope to the last. Napoleon seems to have struggled for the union of both characters. "They blame me that I can outlive my fall," he remarked. "Wrongfully.... It is much more courageous to survive unmerited bad fortune." Only once he seemed overpowered, being observed, as he sat at table, to strike his forehead and murmur: "God, is it possible?" Sometimes, too, he appeared to be lost in reverie, and when addressed started like one awakened from a dream. All was ready on the twentieth; but the Empress, who by the terms of the "treaty" was to accompany her consort as far as the harbor of St. Tropez, did not appear. Napoleon declared that she had been kidnapped, and refused to stir, threatening to withdraw his abdication. Koller, the Austrian commissioner, assured him of the truth, that she had resolved of her free will not to be present. In the certainty that all was over, the Empress had determined to take refuge with her father, and the imperial government at Blois had dispersed, Joseph and Jerome flying to Switzerland.
The announcement staggered Napoleon, but he replied with words destined to have great significance: "Very well; I shall remain faithful to my promise; but if I have new reasons to complain, I shall consider myself absolved." Further, he touched on various topics as if seeking to talk against time, remarking that Francis had impiously sought the dissolution of his daughter's marriage; that Russia and Prussia had made Austria's position dangerous; that the Czar and Frederick William had shown little delicacy in visiting Maria Louisa at Rambouillet; that he himself was no usurper; and that he had been wrong not to make peace at Prague or Dresden. Then, suddenly changing tone and topic, he asked with interest what would occur if Elba refused to accept him. Koller thought he might still take refuge in England. Napoleon rejoined that he had thought of that; but, having always sought to do England harm, would the English make him welcome? Koller replied that, as all the projects against her welfare had come to naught, England would feel no bitterness. Finally, about noon Napoleon descended into the courtyard, where the few grenadiers of the old guard were drawn up. The officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, were called forward, and in a few touching words their former leader thanked all who had remained true for their loyalty. With their aid he could have continued the war beyond the Loire, but he had preferred to sacrifice his personal interests to those of France. "Continue to serve France," runs the Napoleonic text of this fine address: but the commissioners thought they heard "to serve the sovereign which the nation has chosen." He could have ended his life, he went on to say, but he wished to live and record for posterity the great deeds of his warriors. Then he embraced Petit, the commanding officer, and, snatching to his breast the imperial eagle, his standard in so many glorious battles, he pressed it to his lips, and entered the waiting carriage. A swelling sob burst from the ranks, and tears bedewed the weather-beaten cheeks of men who had not wept for years.
Napoleon and the Popular Frenzy — Serious Dangers Incurred — The Exile under the British Flag — The Voyage to Elba — The Napoleonic Court at Porto Ferrajo — Mysterious Visitors — Estrangement of Maria Louisa — Napoleon's "Isle of Repose" — The Congress of Vienna — Its Violation of Treaty Agreement — Discontent in France — Revival of Imperialism — Bitterness of the Army — Intrigues against the Bourbons — Napoleon's Behavior — His Fears of Assassination.
1814-15
Napoleon's journey to Elba was a series of disenchantments. As has been said, he had stipulated in his "treaty" that the Empress should accompany him to St. Tropez, where he was to embark. Her absence, he persisted in declaring, was explicable only by forced detention; and he again talked of withdrawing his abdication at this breach of the engagements made by the allies. But he grew more composed, and the journey was sufficiently comfortable as far as Lyons. Occasionally during that portion of it there were outbursts of good feeling from those who stopped to see his train pass by. But in descending the Rhone there was a marked change. As the Provençals had been the radicals of the Revolution, so now they were the devotees of the Restoration. The flood of disreputable calumny had broken loose: men said the Emperor's mother was a loose woman, his father a butcher, he himself but a bastard, his true name Nicholas. "Down with Bonaparte! down with Nicholas!" was too often the derisive shout as he traversed the villages. Maubreuil, the hired assassin, was hurrying from Paris with a desperate band, ostensibly to recover crown jewels or government funds which might be among Napoleon's effects. Recalling Alexander's boast that his best servants had been found among the assassins of his father, and recollecting that Francis sighed to Metternich for Napoleon's exile to a far-distant land, Elba being too near to France and to Europe, it is conceivable that Talleyrand might reckon on the moral support of the dynasties in conniving at Napoleon's assassination. Had he forgotten the murder of Enghien? Probably not; but his conscience was not over-tender. Near Valence, on April twenty-fourth, the imperial procession met Augereau's carriage. The arch-republican of Napoleon's earlier career had given his adhesion to the new government, and had been retained in office. He alighted, the ex-Emperor likewise: the latter exhibited all the ordinary forms of politeness, the former studiously disdained them. Napoleon, with nice irony, asked if the general were on his way to court. The thrust went home, but in a gruff retort Augereau, using the insulting "thou," declared with considerable embarrassment that he cared no more for the Bourbons than for Napoleon; that he had no motive for his conduct except love for his country.
Partly by good fortune, partly by good management, the cortège avoided the infuriated bands who, in various places, had sworn to take the fallen Emperor's life. At Avignon his escape was almost miraculous. Near Orgon a mob of royalists beset the carriage, and Napoleon shrank in pallid terror behind Bertrand, cowering there until the immediate danger was removed by his Russian escort. A few miles out he donned a postilion's uniform and rode post through the town. At Saint-Cannat he would not touch a morsel of food for fear of poison. Rumors of the bitter feeling prevalent at Aix led him for further protection to clothe one of his aides in his own too familiar garb. In that town he was violently ill, somewhat as he had been at Fontainebleau. The attack yielded easily to remedies, and the Prussian commissioner asserted that it was due to a loathsome disease. Thereafter the hounded fugitive wore an Austrian uniform, and sat in the Austrian commissioner's carriage; thus disguised, the Emperor of Elba seemed to feel secure. From Luc onward the company was protected by Austrian hussars; but in spite of these military jailers, mob violence became stronger from day to day in each successive town. Napoleon grew morbid, and the line of travel was changed from the direction of St. Tropez to that of Fréjus in order to avoid the ever-increasing danger. The only alleviation in the long line of ills was a visit from his light and giddy but affectionate sister Pauline, the Princess Borghese, who comforted him and promised to share his exile. At length Fréjus was reached, and Napoleon resumed his composure as he saw an English frigate and a French brig lying in the harbor. Perhaps the beautiful view recalled to an outcast monarch the return, in 1799, of one General Bonaparte, who had landed on the same shore to overthrow the Directory. If not, it must have been due to unwonted dejection or dark despair.
Again Napoleon remarked a breach of his treaty. He was to have sailed from St. Tropez in a corvette; here was only a brig. Accordingly, as if to mark an intentional slight, in reality for his safety and comfort, he asked and obtained permission to embark on the English frigate, the Undaunted, as the guest of her captain. The promised corvette was at St. Tropez awaiting its passenger, but the hasty change of plan had made it impossible to bring her around in time. Possibly for this reason, too, the baggage of Napoleon had been much diminished in quantity; and of this he complained also, as being a breach of his treaty. His farewell to the Russian and Prussian commissioners was brief and dignified; the Austrian hussars paid full military honors to the party; and as the Emperor, accompanied by the English and Austrian commissioners, embarked, a salvo of twenty-four guns rang out from the Undaunted. Already he had begun to eulogize England and her civilization, and to behave as if throwing himself on the good faith of an English gentleman, exactly as a defeated knight would throw himself on the chivalric courtesy of his conqueror. This appearance of distinguished treatment heightened his self-satisfaction. His attendants said that once again he was "all emperor."
It was a serious blow when, on passing aboard ship, he discovered that the salutes had been in recognition of the commissioners, and that the polite but decided Captain Ussher was determined to treat his illustrious guest with the courtesy due to a private gentleman, and with that alone. Although chafing at times during the voyage against the restrictions of naval discipline, Napoleon submitted gracefully, and wore a subdued air. This was his first contact with English customs: sometimes they interested him; frequently, as in the matter of after-dinner amusements and Sunday observance, they irritated him, and then with a contemptuous petulance he withdrew to his cabin. In conversation with Koller, the Austrian commissioner, he once referred to his conduct in disguising himself on the road to Fréjus as pusillanimous, and admitted in vulgar language that he had made an indecent display of himself. He was convinced that all the dreadful scenes through which he had passed were the work of Bourbon emissaries. In general his talk was a running commentary on the past, a well-calculated prattle in which, with apparent spontaneity and ingenuousness, interpretations were placed on his conduct which were thoroughly novel. This was the beginning of a series of historical commentaries lasting, with interruptions, to the end of his life. There is throughout a unity of purpose in the explication and embellishment of history which will be considered later. On May fourth the Undaunted cast anchor in the harbor of Porto Ferrajo.
Elba was an island divided against itself, there being both imperialists and royalists among its inhabitants, and a considerable party which desired independence. By representing that Napoleon had brought with him fabulous sums, the Austrian and English commissioners easily won the Elbans to a fervor of loyalty for their new emperor. Before nightfall of the fourth the court was established, and the new administration began its labors. After mastering the resources and needs of his pygmy realm, the Emperor began at once to deploy all his powers, mending the highways, fortifying the strategic points, and creating about the nucleus of four hundred guards which were sent from Fontainebleau an efficient little army of sixteen hundred men. His expenses were regulated to the minutest detail, the salt-works and iron-mines, which were the bulwarks of Elban prosperity, began at once to increase their output, and taxation was regulated with scrupulous nicety. By that supereminent virtue of the French burgher, good management, the island was made almost independent of the remnants of the Tuileries treasure, the sum of about five million francs, which Napoleon had brought from France. The same powers which had swayed a world operated with equal success in a sphere almost microscopic by comparison. To many this appeared a sorry commentary on human grandeur, but the great exile did not intend to sink into a contemptible lethargy. If the future had aught in store for him, his capacities must have exercise and their bearings be kept smooth by use. The Princess Borghese had been separated from her second husband soon after the marriage, and since 1810 she had lived an exile from Paris, having been banished for impertinent conduct to the Empress. But she cherished no malice, and before long, according to promise, she arrived and took up her abode as her brother's companion. Madame Mère, though distant in prosperity, came likewise to soothe her son in adversity. The intercepted letters of the former prove her to have been at least as loose in her life at Elba as ever before, but they do not afford a sufficient basis for the scandals concerning her relations with Napoleon which were founded upon them and industriously circulated at the court of Louis XVIII. The shameful charge, though recently revived and ingeniously supported, appears to have no adequate foundation.
Napoleon's economies were rendered not merely expedient, but imperative, by the fact that none of the moneys from France were forthcoming which had been promised in his treaty with the powers. After a short stay Koller frankly stated that in his opinion they never would be paid, and departed. The island swarmed with Bourbon spies, and the only conversation in which Napoleon could indulge himself unguardedly was with Sir Neil Campbell, the English representative, or with the titled English gentlemen who gratified their curiosity by visiting him. During the summer heat, when the court was encamped on the heights at Marciana for refreshment, there appeared a mysterious lady with her child. Both were well received and kindly treated, but they withdrew themselves entirely from the public gaze. Common rumor said it was the Empress, but this was not true; it was the Countess Walewska, with one of the two sons she bore her host, whom she still adored. They remained but a few days, and departed as mysteriously as they had come. Base females thronged the precincts of the imperial residence, openly struggling for Napoleon's favor as they had so far never dared to do; success too frequently attended their efforts.
But the one woman who should have been at his side was absent.[15] It is certain that she made an honest effort to come, and apartments were prepared for her reception in the little palace at Porto Ferrajo. Her father, however, thwarted her at every turn, and finally she was a virtual prisoner at Schönbrunn. So manifest was the restraint that her grandmother Caroline, Queen of the Two Sicilies, cried out in indignation: "If I were in the place of Maria Louisa, I would tie the sheets of my bed to the window-frame and flee." Committed to the charge of the elegant and subtle Neipperg, a favorite chamberlain whom she had first seen at Dresden, she was plied with such insidious wiles that at last her slender moral fibre was entirely broken down, and she fell a victim to his charms. As late as August, Napoleon received impassioned letters from her; then she grew formal and cold; at last, under Metternich's urgency, she ceased to write at all. Her French attendant, Méneval, managed to convey the whole sad story to her husband; but the Emperor was incredulous, and hoped against hope until December. Then only he ceased from his incessant and urgent appeals.
The number of visitors to Elba was sometimes as high as three hundred in a single day. Among these were a few English, fewer French, but many Italians. As time passed the heaviness of the Austrian yoke had begun to gall the people of Napoleon's former kingdom, and considerable numbers from among them, remembering the mild Eugène with longing, joined in an extensive though feeble conspiracy to restore Napoleon to the throne of Italy. Lucien returned to Rome in order to foster the movement, and Murat, observing with unease the general faithlessness of the great powers in small matters, began to tremble for the security of his own seat. With them and others Napoleon appears to have corresponded regularly. He felt himself entirely freed from the obligations he had taken at Fontainebleau, for he was sure the people of southern France had been instigated to take his life by royalist agents, and while one term after another passed, not a cent was paid of the promised pension; his own fortune, therefore, was steadily melting away. For months he behaved as if really determined to make Elba his "isle of repose," as he designated it just before landing; but under such provocations his temper changed. The corner-stone of his treaty was his complete sovereignty; otherwise the paper was merely a promise without any sanction, not even that of international law. This perfect sovereignty had been recognized by the withdrawal of all the commissioners as such, Campbell insisting that he remained merely as an ambassador.
In a treaty concluded on May thirtieth between Louis XVIII and the powers of the coalition, the boundaries of France were fixed substantially as they had been in 1792, and the destiny of the lands brought under her sway by the Revolution and by Napoleon was to be determined by a European congress. This body met on November first, 1814, at Vienna. It was soon evident that the four powers of the coalition were to outdo Napoleon's extreme endeavors in their reckless disposition of European territories. Before the close of the month, however, Talleyrand, by his adroit manipulations and his conjurings with the sacrosanct word "legitimacy," had made himself the moving spirit of the congress, and had so inflamed the temper of both Metternich and Castlereagh against the dictatorial attitude of Russia and Prussia as to induce Austria and Great Britain to sign, on January third, 1815, a secret treaty with France whereby the parties of the first part bound themselves to resist the aggressiveness of the Northern powers, and that by force if necessary. This restored France to the position of a great power. By the middle of February the Northern allies were brought to terms, and in return for their concessions it was agreed that Murat was to be deposed. This spirit of compromise menaced, or rather finally destroyed, the sovereignty of Napoleon, petty as it was. On the charge of conspiring with Murat, he could easily be removed from Elba, and deported to some more remote spot from which he could exert no influence on European politics.
From the opening sessions of the congress there had been a general consensus of opinion as to this course. As to the place opinions varied. Castlereagh favored the Azores, but others the Cape Verde islands; St. Helena, then well known as a place of call on the long voyage to the Cape, had been suggested much earlier, even before Elba was chosen, but when or by whom is not known. It is quite possible that Wellington, who succeeded Castlereagh as English plenipotentiary in February, may have mentioned the name; he had been there, and knew it as almost the remotest spot of land in the world. The formal proposition to that effect appears to have been made by the Prussian cabinet. The congress took no definite action in the matter, but the understanding was so clear and general that a proclamation to the national guard was printed in the "Moniteur" of March eighth, 1815, stating that measures had been taken at the Congress of Vienna to remove Napoleon farther away. It was easy for everybody, including the captive himself, to believe that, all the other articles of the agreement at Fontainebleau having been violated, that which guaranteed the sovereignty of Elba was equally worthless.
It cannot be doubted that Napoleon was fully aware of whatever was proposed at Vienna, and it is absolutely certain that he was thoroughly informed as to the changed state of public opinion in France. Having promised a fairly liberal constitution as the price of his throne, Louis XVIII, with colossal stupidity, undertook to ignore the past and promulgated the charter as his own gracious act, done in the nineteenth year of his reign! The upper chamber, or House of Peers, was his creature, since he could create members at will. Feeble in mind and body, he was unable to check the reactionary assumptions of his family, who, having deserted their country, had returned to it by the aid of invaders despised and feared by the nation. These and the returning emigrants were provided with rich sinecures, and began to talk of restoring estates to their rightful owners; in some cases the possessors, on their death-beds, were intimidated into making such restitution. The extreme clerical party began even to hamper the ministry in its efforts to grant the freedom of worship guaranteed by the constitution. Secular business was forbidden on certain holy days, and funeral masses were celebrated for Pichegru, Moreau, and Cadoudal, that for the latter at the King's expense. When, finally, Christian burial was refused to an actress, there were riots in Paris.
But the government continued its suicidal course; even the Vendée grew disaffected, and, the suffrage having been greatly restricted, there were murmurings about oligarchies and tyrants. At Nîmes the Protestants feared another St. Bartholomew, and said so. Even moderate royalists grew troubled, and could not retort when they heard the new order stigmatized by the fitting name of "paternal anarchy." Both veterans and conscripts deserted in great numbers from the army as they saw their officers discharged by the score to make places for the young aristocracy, or their comrades retired, nominally on half-pay, in reality to eke out a subsistence as best they could. It was not long before men showed each other pocket-pieces bearing Napoleon's effigy, whispering as watchwords, "Courage and hope," or "He has been and will be," or "Frenchmen, awake; the Emperor is waking." As early as July, 1814, rumors of his return were rife in country districts, and by autumn the longing for it was outspoken and general. In Paris there was greater caution, but as Marmont was called "Judas" for having betrayed his master, so Berthier was known as "Peter" in that he had denied him, and it was a common joke to tie a white cockade to the tail of a dog. Before the Chamber met the various factions openly avowed themselves as either royalists, Bonapartists, liberals, or Jacobins. The money estimates presented made it clear that a king was more expensive than an emperor, and when the peers not only voted to indemnify the emigrants for the lands held by their families, but likewise passed a bill establishing the censorship of the press, it was common talk that the present state of things could not last.
The number of French prisoners of war and of soldiers released from the besieged fortresses in central Europe was about three hundred thousand, of whom a third were veterans of the Empire. To these must be added the army which Soult, ignorant of Napoleon's abdication, had led to defeat at Toulouse, and the soldiers who had served in Italy. These men, long accustomed to much consideration, found themselves on their return to be persons of no consequence. They learned that the great officers of the Empire were everywhere treated with scant courtesy, and that the great ladies of the imperial court were now virtually driven from the Tuileries by the significant questions and loud asides of the royal personages who had supplanted them. It was told in all public resorts how Ney had resented the rude affronts put on his wife by the Duchess of Angoulême. The well-trained subordinate officers of these contingents were turned adrift by thousands on the same terms as those of Napoleon's own army, half-pay if they showed themselves good Catholics, otherwise nothing. For the most part, again, this promise was empty; young royalists were put in their places, the pay of the old guard was reduced, a new noble guard was organized, promotion was refused to those who had received commissions during the operations of war, and the asylums established for the orphans of those who had belonged to the Legion of Honor were abolished. So bitter was the outcry that the King felt compelled to dismiss his minister of war, and, not daring to substitute Marmont, who demanded the place, appointed Soult. He too was speedily discredited for harshness to Exelmans, a subordinate who was discovered to have been in correspondence with Napoleon; and by the middle of February, 1815, nearly all the soldiers were at heart Bonapartists, their friends for the most part abetting them.