THE EIGHT EPOCHS OF THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON.
This original series of hats presented in different significant positions is from the pencil of Steuben, one of the most fertile painters of the First Empire, and symbolizes the eight principal epochs in Napoleon’s career.
1. Vendémiaire.
2. Consulate.
3. Empire.
4. Austerlitz.
5. Wagram.
6. Moscow.
7. Waterloo.
8. St. Helena.
The defeat was complete; and when the emperor saw it, he threw himself into the battle in search of death. As eagerly as he had sought victory at Arcola, Marengo, Austerlitz, he sought death at Waterloo. “I ought to have died at Waterloo,” he said afterwards; “but the misfortune is that when a man seeks death most he cannot find it. Men were killed around me, before, behind—everywhere. But there was no bullet for me.”
He returned immediately to Paris. There was still force for resistance in France. There were many to urge him to return to the struggle, but such was the condition of public sentiment that he refused. The country was divided in its allegiance to him; the legislative body was frightened and quarrelling; Talleyrand and Fouché were plotting. Besides, the allies proclaimed to the nation that it was against Napoleon alone that they waged war. Under these circumstances Napoleon felt that loyalty to the best interest of France required his abdication; and he signed the act anew, proclaiming his son emperor under the title of Napoleon II.
Leaving Paris, the fallen emperor went to Malmaison, where Josephine had died only thirteen months before. A few friends joined him—Queen Hortense, the Duc de Rovigo, Bertrand, Las Cases, and Méneval. He remained there only a few days. The allies were approaching Paris, and the environs were in danger. Napoleon offered his services to the provisional government, which had taken his place, as leader in the campaign against the invader, promising to retire as soon as the enemy was repulsed, but he was refused. The government feared him, in fact, more than it did the allies, and urged him to leave France as quickly as possible. In his disaster he turned to America as a refuge, and gave his family rendezvous there.
Various plans were suggested for getting to the United States. Among the offers of aid to carry out his desire which were made to Napoleon, Las Cases speaks of one coming from an American in Paris, who wrote:
“While you were at the head of a nation you could perform any miracle, you might conceive any hopes; but now you can do nothing more in Europe. Fly to the United States! I know the hearts of the leading men and the sentiments of the people of America. You will there find a second country and every source of consolation.”
Mr. S. V. S. Wilder, an American shipping merchant who lived in France during the time of Napoleon’s power, and who had been much impressed by the changes brought about in society and politics under his rule, offered to help him to escape. He proposed that the emperor disguise himself as a valet for whom he had a passport. On board the ship the emperor was to conceal himself in a hogshead until the danger-line was crossed. This hogshead was to have a false compartment in it. From the end in view, water was to drip incessantly. Mr. Wilder proposed to take Napoleon to his own home in Bolton, Massachusetts, when they arrived in America. It is said that the emperor seriously considered this scheme, but finally declined, because he would leave his friends behind him, and for them Mr. Wilder could not possibly provide. Napoleon explained one day to Las Cases at St. Helena what he intended to do if he had reached America. He would have collected all his relatives around him, and thus would have formed the nucleus of a national union, a second France. Such were the sums of money he had given them that he thought they might have realized at least forty millions of francs. Before the conclusion of a year, the events of Europe would have drawn to him a hundred millions of francs and sixty thousand individuals, most of them possessing wealth, talent, and information.
“America [he said] was, in all respects, our proper asylum: It is an immense continent, possessing the advantage of a peculiar system of freedom. If a man is troubled with melancholy, he may get into a coach and drive a thousand leagues, enjoying all the way the pleasures of a common traveller. In America you may be on a footing of equality with everyone; you may, if you please, mingle with the crowd without inconvenience, retaining your own manners, your own language, your own religion.”