“I had adduced plausible reasons for obtaining a sincere reconciliation with Austria, whither I had despatched agents, more or less avowed.[[8]] But Murat was there with his fatal enterprise. It was concluded, at Vienna that he was acting under my orders; and, measuring me by their own scale, they regarded my whole conduct as a complication of artifice, and determined to overreach me by counter-intrigue.
“The opening of my campaign was well managed and proved most successful. I should have surprised the enemy in detail; had not a deserter from among our generals given him timely notice of my plans.
“I gained the brilliant victory of Ligni; but my lieutenant robbed me of its fruits. Finally, I triumphed even at Waterloo, and was immediately hurled into the abyss. Yet I must confess that all these strokes of fate distressed me more than they surprised me. I felt the presentiment of an unfortunate result. Not that this in any way influenced my determinations and measures; but the foreboding certainly haunted my mind.”
That such was really Napoleon’s state of feeling at the period here alluded to is evident from the following anecdote, which is so very remarkable that I cannot forbear presenting it to the reader. When on the banks of the Sambre, the Emperor early one morning approached a bivouac fire, accompanied only by his aide-de-camp on duty (General C—--); some potatoes were boiling on the fire, and the Emperor asked for one, and began to eat it. Then, with a meditative and somewhat melancholy expression, he uttered the following broken sentences:—“After all, it is good, it is endurable.... Man may live in any place, and in any way.... The moment perhaps is not far distant.... Themistocles!...” The aide-de-camp above mentioned, who himself related this circumstance to me, since my return to Europe, observed that, had the Emperor been successful, these words would have passed away without leaving any impression on him; but that, after the catastrophe, and particularly after reading the celebrated letter to the Prince Regent, he had been struck with the recollection of the bivouac of the Sambre; and Napoleon’s manner, tone, and expression, had since so haunted his mind, that he could never banish the circumstance from his memory.
It is a mistake to suppose that Napoleon was on all occasions inspired by that internal confidence which his acts and decisions seemed to denote. When he quitted the Tuileries, in January 1814, to enter upon his immortal but unfortunate campaign in the environs of Paris, his mind was depressed by gloomy apprehensions:—and a circumstance that bears evidence of his penetration and foresight is that, at the period in question, he felt convinced of what the majority of those about him were far from suspecting;—namely, that if he fell, it would be by the Bourbons. This idea he communicated to a few of his particular friends, who vainly endeavoured to rouse his confidence by representing that the Bourbons were forgotten, that they were wholly unknown to the present generation:—“There is the real danger,” was his invariable reply. Thus, immediately after his eloquent and impressive harangue to the officers of the national guard, in which among other things he said:—“You elected me, I am your work, and it is for you to defend me;” and which he concluded by presenting to them the Empress and the King of Rome, saying, “I[“I] go to oppose the enemy, and I consign to your care all that I hold most dear:”—immediately after delivering this address, when on the point of quitting the Tuileries, he foresaw at that decisive moment the treachery and perfidy that awaited him, and he resolved to secure the person of him who proved to be the main-spring of the plot, by which his overthrow was effected. He was prevented from executing his intention only by representations, and it may even be said, offers of personal responsibility, on the part of some of his Ministers, who assured him that the individual suspected had more reason than any one else to dread the return of the Bourbons. Napoleon yielded; at the same time emphatically expressing fears that he might have cause to regret his forbearance!...
The following circumstance, which is but little known, is important, since it proves how much, in the height of the crisis. Napoleon’s thoughts were directed towards the Bourbons. After the check sustained at Brienne, the evacuation of Troyes, the forced retreat on the Seine, and the degrading[degrading] conditions which were transmitted from Chatillon, but which were so generously rejected, the Emperor, who was closeted with one of his friends, overpowered at sight of the miseries that were impending on France, suddenly rose from his chair, exclaiming with warmth:—“Perhaps I still possess the means of saving France.... What if I were myself to recal the Bourbons! The Allies would then be compelled to arrest their course, under pain of being overwhelmed with disgrace and detected in their duplicity; under pain of being forced to acknowledge that their designs were directed against our territory rather than against my person. I should sacrifice all to the country. I should become the mediator between the French people and the Bourbons. I should oblige the latter to accede to the national laws, and to swear fidelity to the existing compact: my glory and name would be a guarantee to the French people. As for me, I have reigned long enough. My career is filled with acts of glory; and this last will not be esteemed the least. I shall rise the higher by descending thus far....” Then, after a pause of some moments, he added:—“But can a repulsed dynasty ever forgive?... Can it ever forget?... Can the Bourbons be trusted?... May not Fox be right in his famous maxim respecting restorations?...”
Overcome by grief and anxiety, he threw himself on his couch, and was shortly after roused to be made acquainted with the march of the flank of Blucher’s corps, on which he had for some time been secretly keeping watch. He rose to put into action that new spring of resources, energy, and glory, which will for ever consecrate the names of Champ-Aubert, Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Vaux-Champ, Nangis, Montereau, Craon, &c. These marvellous successes dismayed Alexander and the English, and suggested to them the expediency of treating: they might indeed have entirely changed the face of affairs, had not Napoleon’s designs been thwarted by accidents beyond the reach of human calculation. For example, the important orders which did not reach the Viceroy, the defection of Murat, the indolence and negligence of certain Chiefs, and finally, even the successful movements of the French, which, by separating the Emperor of Austria from the other Allied Sovereigns, left the latter entirely free to plan the abdication of Fontainebleau, an event which will ever be celebrated in the history of our destiny and our moral character.
Philosophic thinkers, painters of the human heart, turn your eyes to Fontainebleau, and contemplate the fall of the greatest of monarchs! Observe how the retinue by which the unfortunate hero was surrounded,—those whom he had loaded with favours, honours, and riches,—at the first frown of fortune, forsook, betrayed, and even sought to insult him!... Mark how the first among them in rank, in favour, in confidence—he whom the great Prince had vainly sought to inspire with exalted sentiment, by treating him as his companion and his friend,—mark how this man degraded himself to the level of the Mameluke, whose native manners rendered him perhaps more excusable, and who thought it perfectly natural to forsake his fallen master.
At Fontainebleau, the crisis being accomplished, and while Napoleon was earnestly engaged, this favourite companion presented himself before him to solicit permission to proceed to Paris, only, as he said, for a short time, and for the purpose of settling some business, after which, he declared that he should return to the Emperor, never again to leave him. But Napoleon could read the secrets of the human mind, and that person had scarcely withdrawn, when the Emperor, breaking from the subject on which he was engaged, said to him with whom he had been conversing:—“There he goes to seal his own degradation; and, in spite of all his protestations, he will never come back again,“ He spoke truly; the deserter hastened to greet the first rays of the rising sun; and no sooner had it shone upon him than he renounced his benefactor, his friend, and master!... In speaking of the Emperor, he was even known to use the expression that man! And yet Napoleon so readily forgave human weakness, and was so superior to every feeling of rancour and resentment, that, on his return from Elba, he expressed regret at not seeing the individual who had acted so treacherous a part, adding, with a smile:—“The rogue is afraid of me, I suppose; but he has no reason to be so. The only punishment I should have inflicted on him would have been to require him to appear before me in his new costume. They tell me he looks even uglier than usual.“
And how many instances of private turpitude might not be mentioned! I myself can attest that an important personage, who had been most remarkable for his base conduct on returning from Fontainebleau, appeared one of the most forward at the Tuileries, on the 20th of March. He appeared very much disconcerted at the accidental or intended solitude in which he was left by all the rest. A witness of his late misconduct, burying the recollection of past troubles in the present joy, hastened to him and relieved him from his embarrassment. Such generosity cost little at that moment.