Wellington had no hours of luxurious ease in Paris. The abolition of the slave trade, on which Great Britain had at last determined, occupied much of his attention, and one has only to refer to his dispatches at this period to understand the many difficulties he had to contend with in this one particular. Then there were questions of compensation for private property destroyed or damaged in the late war to be considered, of American vessels of war and privateers fitted out in French ports, and what was most important of all, a diagnosis of the increasing restlessness in Paris to be made. He believed that the sentiments of the people were favourable to the Bourbon king, “but the danger is not in that quarter, but among the discontented officers of the army, and others, heretofore in the civil departments of the service, now without employment.”
It would be incorrect to state that Wellington was popular in Paris, for not a few prominent military men regarded the presence of the General who had played no small part in tarnishing the glory of France as a perpetual reminder of the country’s misfortunes. The people even went so far as to resent his coat of arms, in which there was a lion or leopard bearing a tricoloured flag. This was construed as the British lion trampling on the French national flag. There was an eagle on the Duchess’s arms, which was another cause of offence. “My coach was in danger of being torn to pieces,” says the Duke, and he was obliged to have the innocent bird painted out.
The Congress of Vienna was now sitting, bent on undoing the work of the Revolution so far as was possible with a view to upholding the Divine right of kings. This is not to be wondered at considering the members of the solemn conclave, which included the Czar, the Kings of Prussia, Bavaria, Denmark and Würtemberg, the Grand Duke Charles of Baden, the Elector William of Hesse, the Hereditary Grand Duke George of Hesse-Darmstadt, the Duke of Weimar, and Prince Eugene Beauharnais (Napoleon’s step-son). The President was Metternich, the Emperor of Austria’s right-hand man, the first representative of France was the wily Talleyrand, of Great Britain Castlereagh. A host of plenipotentiaries came to put their fingers into the political pie, including those of Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, the Pope, the Netherlands, and the smaller German States.
What with talk of projected attempts on his life and the far from pacific doings at Vienna, the Earl of Liverpool was of opinion that it would be advisable to get Wellington out of France as soon as possible. With this idea in view he was offered the command of the troops in North America, an offer he bitterly resented. However, Castlereagh solved the difficulty by asking the Duke to take his place at Vienna. The proposition was made by the Foreign Secretary in a letter dated the 18th December 1814. “I do not hesitate to comply with your desire,” the Duke replies. “As I mean to serve the King’s Government in any situation which may be thought desirable, it is a matter of indifference to me in what stage I find your proceedings.”
When Wellington reached the Austrian capital in January 1815—destined to be the greatest year in modern European history—he found that the wolves in sheep’s clothing had almost concluded their deliberations. Russia, supported by Prussia, was intent upon securing Poland, a plan bitterly opposed by Great Britain and Austria. France was wishful for Holland and Belgium. The quarrelling suddenly ceased when, on the 7th March, Metternich received the most astounding news. Napoleon, King of Elba, had left his little island state, landed on the French coast, and was marching in the direction of Paris! Wellington heard on the same day from another source, and immediately communicated the scanty news detailed to him by Lord Burghersh to the Emperor of Austria and the Czar.
“I do not entertain the smallest doubt that, if unfortunately it should be possible for Buonaparte to hold at all against the King of France, he must fall under the cordially united efforts of the Sovereigns of Europe.” Thus writes the Duke to Castlereagh, but in a dispatch of the same date, namely the 12th March, he shows that he entirely failed to appreciate the fascination still exercised by the name “Napoleon.” “It is my opinion,” he writes, “that Buonaparte has acted upon false or no information, and that the King will destroy him without difficulty, and in a short time.” We know that the ex-Emperor’s reception was at first somewhat lukewarm, but as he marched towards the capital it assumed the form of a triumphal procession, with Ney and the 6000 men who were “to bring him back in an iron cage” as enthusiastic followers. The inhabitants of the south alone refused to recognize the former Emperor of the French.
Far from Louis XVIII destroying Napoleon “without difficulty,” that brave monarch left France to its own devices on the 19th March, the day before his predecessor and successor reached the Tuileries. “What did he do in the midst of the general consternation of Paris?” asks the Baron de Frénilly. “He acted. A great crowd saw him in the morning proceeding in pomp with Monsieur to the Chamber of Deputies; he was seen to enter and throw himself into his brother’s arms, with the solemn promise to remain in Paris and be buried under the ruins of the monarchy; and on the following day the population learnt that he had fled in the night by the road to Flanders!” Soult, now Minister of War, apparently under the impression that an Army Order would tend to dispel any affection the soldiers might feel towards their former Head, issued the most stupid of nonsensical proclamations. “Bonaparte,” it reads in part, “mistakes us so far as to believe that we are capable of abandoning a legitimate and beloved sovereign in order to share the fortunes of one who is nothing more than an adventurer. He believes this—the idiot!—and his last act of folly is a convincing proof that he does so.”
Without loss of time the Fifth Coalition was formed, Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia entering into a treaty on the 17th March, whereby each of them guaranteed to put 150,000 men in the field against “the enemy and disturber of the peace of the world,” Great Britain, as usual, financing the Allies, this time to the enormous extent of £5,000,000.
With commendable dispatch Napoleon formed a new ministry and began to marshal his troops, which at first numbered 200,000 and eventually 284,000, excluding a quarter of a million of men for internal defence. “It was the finest army,” writes Professor Oman, “that Napoleon had commanded since Friedland, for it was purely French, and was composed almost entirely of veterans; but it was too small for its purpose.”[83] Murat, king of Naples, precipitated matters by invading the Papal States, and failed at the hands of Austria, thereby robbing his brother-in-law of his only possible ally. But this was finished by the beginning of May, over a month before Napoleon started for the front, leaving 10,000 of his none-too-numerous troops to quell an outburst of royalist enthusiasm in La Vendée, ever the most warlike province of France and apt to flame into insurrection on the slightest provocation.