Mademoiselle Georges, as we have remarked, found, it seems, the Théâtre-Français pretty much as she had left it. She resumed her old repertory. Is it not curious that during the nine years she was at the Théâtre-Français Mademoiselle Georges, who has created so many rôles since, only created those of Calypso and of Mandane there?...
All this time, the horizon in the North was growing darker and darker: Prussia had betrayed us; Sweden had deserted us; Saxony had been involved in the rout at Leipzig; Austria was recruiting her forces against us. On 6 January 1814, Joachim Murat, King of Naples, signed an armistice with England, the expiration of which had to be notified three months in advance. On the 11th, he promised the Emperor of Austria to go to war against France with thirty thousand men; in exchange for which the Austrian monarch guaranteed the throne of Naples to him and his heirs.
Napoleon then began the marvellous campaign of 1814, that titanic struggle in which a single man and one nation faced two emperors, four kings and six nations of the first rank, including Russia, England, Prussia and Spain.
If we turn over the pages of the repertory of the Théâtre-Français for the whole of the year 1814, the only new play we shall find is the Hôtel garni, a comedy in one act, and in verse, by Désaugiers.
Meanwhile, at each fresh victory, Napoleon lost a province. Driven-to bay at Fontainebleau, he abdicated. Three days later, the allied forces marched into Paris, and Napoleon left for the isle of Elba. There were still two factions at the Comédie-Française, as there had been during the time of the Revolution. Talma, Mars and Georges remained loyally faithful to the emperor. Raucourt, Mademoiselle Levert, Madame Volnais espoused the Royalist cause. Raucourt was the first to tear down the eagle which decorated the imperial box. Poor soul! she little knew that those whom she helped to recall would refuse her Christian burial, one year later!
The same kings who had been present at the Erfürt representations, as Napoleon's guests and friends, came as enemies and conquerors to see the same plays in Paris. Everybody knows the terrible reaction that took place at first against the Empire. The actors who remained faithful to the emperor were not persecuted, but they were made to exclaim as they came on the stage, "Vive le roi!"
One day Mademoiselle Levert and Madame Volnais outdid even the exacting demands of the public: they came on the stage, in the Vieux Célibataire, with huge bouquets of lilies in their hands.
So things went on until 6 March 1815. On that day a strange, incredible, unheard-of rumour spread through Paris, and, from Paris, to all the four quarters of the earth. Napoleon had landed. Many hearts trembled at the news; but few were more agitated than those of the faithful actors who had not forgotten that once, when he was master of the world and emperor he had conversed upon art and poetry with them.
Nevertheless, nobody dared express his joy: hope was faint, the truth of the rumour uncertain.
According to the official newspapers, Napoleon was wandering, hunted and beaten, among the mountains, where he could not avoid being captured before long. Truth, like everything that is real, makes itself seen in the end. A persistent rumour came from Gap, from Sisteron, from Grenoble; the fugitive of the Journal des Débats was a conqueror round whom the people rallied in intoxicated delight. Labédoyère and his regiment, Ney and his army corps rallied round him. Lyons had opened its gates to him, and from the heights of Fourvières the imperial eagle had started on the flight which, from tower to tower, was to bring it at last to the towers of Nôtre Dame.