And again: “The army is at its last extremity. It is impossible for it to do anything, even if it were a question of defending Paris.”
The army finally reached the Nieman. The last man over was Marshal Ney. “Who are you?” he was asked. “The rear guard of the Grand Army,” was the sombre reply of the noble old soldier.
Some forty thousand men crossed the river, but of these there were many who could do nothing but crawl to the hospitals, asking for “the rooms where people die.” It was true, as Desprez said, the Grand Army was dead.
It was on this horrible retreat that Napoleon received word that a curious thing had happened in Paris. A general and an abbé, both political prisoners, had escaped, and actually had succeeded in the preliminaries of a coup d’état overturning the empire, and substituting a provisional government.
They had carried out their scheme simply by announcing that Napoleon was dead, and by reading a forged proclamation from the senate to the effect that the imperial government was at an end and a new one begun. The authorities to whom these conspirators had gone had with but little hesitation accepted their orders. They had secured twelve hundred soldiers, had locked up the prefect of police, and had taken possession of the Hôtel de Ville.
The foolhardy enterprise went, it is true, only a little way, but far enough to show Paris that the day of easy revolution had not passed, and that an announcement of the death of Napoleon did not bring at once a cry of “Long live the King of Rome!” The news of the Malet conspiracy was an astonishing revelation to Napoleon himself of the instability of French public sentiment. He saw that the support on which he had depended most to insure his institutions, that is, an heir to his throne, was set aside at the word of a worthless agitator. The impression made on his generals by the news was one of consternation and despair. The emperor read in their faces that they believed his good fortune was waning. He decided to go to Paris as soon as possible.
On December 5th he left the army, and after a perilous journey of twelve days reached the French capital. It took as great courage to face France now as it had taken audacity to attempt the invasion of Russia. The grandest army the nation had ever sent out was lying behind him dead. His throne had tottered for an instant in sight of all France. Hereafter he could not believe himself invincible. Already his enemies were suggesting that since his good genius had failed him once, it might again.
No one realized the gravity of the position as Napoleon himself, but he met his household, his ministers, the Council of State, the Senate, with an imperial self-confidence and a sang froid which are awe-inspiring under the circumstances. The horror of the situation of the army was not known in Paris on his arrival, but reports came in daily until the truth was clear to everybody. But Napoleon never lost countenance. The explanations necessary for him to give to the Senate, to his allies, and to his friends, had all the serenity and the plausibility of a victor—a victor who had suffered, to be sure, but not through his own rashness or mismanagement. The following quotation from a letter to the King of Denmark illustrates well his public attitude towards the invasion and the retreat from Moscow:
“The enemy were always beaten, and captured neither an eagle nor a gun from my army. On the 7th of November the cold became intense; all the roads were found impracticable; thirty thousand horses perished between the 7th and the 16th. A portion of our baggage and artillery wagons was broken and abandoned; our soldiers, little accustomed to such weather, could not endure the cold. They wandered from the ranks in quest of shelter for the night, and, having no cavalry to protect them, several thousands fell into the hands of the enemy’s light troops. General Sanson, chief of the topographic corps, was captured by some Cossacks while he was engaged in sketching a position. Other isolated officers shared the same fate. My losses are severe, but the enemy cannot attribute to themselves the honor of having inflicted them. My army has suffered greatly, and suffers still, but this calamity will cease with the cold.”
To every one he declared that it was the Russians, not he, who had suffered. It was their great city, not his, which was burnt; their fields, not his, which were devastated. They did not take an eagle, did not win a battle. It was the cold, the Cossacks, which had done the mischief to the Grand Army; and that mischief? Why, it would be soon repaired. “I shall be back on the Nieman in the spring.”