The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

by J. G. Lockhart

Even then Napoleon refused to halt. Leaping from his carriage, he began: "What means this? Why here with your cavalry, Belliard? And where are the enemy? Where are my wife and my boy? Where Marmont? Where Mortier?" Belliard walking by his side, told him the events of the day. He called out for his carriage—and insisted on continuing his journey. The general in vain informed him that there was no longer an army in Paris; that the regulars were all coming behind, and that neither they nor he himself, having left the city in consequence of a convention, could possibly return to it. The Emperor still demanded his carriage, and bade Belliard turn with the cavalry and follow him. "Come," said he, "we must to Paris—nothing goes aright when I am away—they do nothing but blunder." He strode on, crying, "You should have held out longer—you should have raised Paris—they cannot like the Cossacks—they would surely have defended their walls—Go! go! I see every one has lost his senses. This comes of employing fools and cowards." With such exclamations Buonaparte hurried onwards, dragging Belliard with him, until they were met, a mile from La Cour de France, by the first of the retreating infantry. Their commander, General Curial, gave the same answers as Belliard. "In proceeding to Paris," said he, "you rush on death or captivity." Perceiving at length that the hand of necessity was on him, the Emperor then abandoned his design. He sank at once into perfect composure; gave orders that the troops, as they arrived, should draw up behind the little river Essonne; despatched Caulaincourt to Paris, with authority to accept whatever terms the Allied Sovereigns might be pleased to offer; and turned again towards Fontainebleau.

It was still dark when Napoleon reached once more that venerable castle. He retired to rest immediately; not, however, in any of the state-rooms which he had been accustomed to occupy, but in a smaller apartment, in a different and more sequestered part of the building.

The Duke of Vicenza reached the Czar's quarters at Pantin early in the morning of the 31st, while he was yet asleep; and recognised, amidst the crowd in the ante-chamber, a deputation from the municipality of Paris, who were waiting to present the keys of the city, and invoke the protection of the conqueror. As soon as Alexander awoke, these functionaries were admitted to his presence, and experienced a most courteous reception. The Czar repeated his favourite expression, that he had but one enemy in France: and promised that the capital, and all within it, should be treated with perfect consideration. Caulaincourt then found his way to Alexander—but he was dismissed immediately. The countenance of the envoy announced, as he came out, that he considered the fate of his master as decided; nor, if he had preserved any hope, could it have failed to expire when he learned that Alexander had already sent to Talleyrand, requesting him on no account to quit the capital, and proposing to take up his own residence in his hotel. Nesselrode, the Russian minister, who received the municipal deputation ere the Czar awoke, entered freely into conversation with the gentleman at their head, M. Laborde. That person, being questioned as to the state of public feeling, answered that there were three parties: the army, who still adhered to Buonaparte; the republicans, who wished for his deposition, but would not object to the King of Rome being recognised as Emperor, provided a liberal constitution were established, and the regency placed in fit hands; and finally, the old nobility and the saloons of Paris, who were united in desiring the restoration of the Bourbons. "But at the Prince of Benevento's," said Laborde, "the Emperor will best acquire a knowledge of all this—it is there that our chief statesmen assemble habitually." This conversation is supposed to have fixed Alexander's choice of a residence; and as we have already seen that Talleyrand was ere now committed in the cause of Louis, the result of this choice may be anticipated.

The history of what La Vallette had called "the secret intrigues with the stranger" has not yet been cleared up—nor is it likely to be so for some time. If there was one of the Allied Princes on whose disposition to spare himself, or at least his family, Napoleon might have been supposed to count,—it must have been the Emperor of Austria; and yet, at daybreak this very morning, a proclamation was tossed in thousands over the barriers of Paris, in which several phrases occurred, not to be reconciled with any other notion than that he and all the Allies agreed in favouring the restoration of the Bourbons, ere any part of their forces entered the capital. This document spoke of the anxiety of "the sovereigns" to see the establishment of "a salutary authority in France": of the opportunity offered to the Parisians of "accelerating the peace of the world"; of the "conduct of Bordeaux" as affording "an example of the method in which foreign war and civil discord might find a common termination"; it concluded thus: "It is in these sentiments that Europe in arms before your walls addresses herself to you. Hasten then to respond to the confidence which she reposes in your love for your country, and in your wisdom;" and was signed "Schwartzenberg, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies."

There was a circumstance of another kind which assisted in stimulating the hopes and swelling the adherents of the royal cause. The Allies had, in the early part of the campaign, experienced evil from the multiplicity of uniforms worn among the troops of so many nations and tongues, and the likeness which some of the dresses, the German especially, bore to those of the French. The invading soldiers had latterly adopted the practice of binding pieces of white linen round their left arms; and this token, though possibly meant only to enable the strangers to recognise each other, was not likely to be observed with indifference by the Parisians, among whom the Bourbonists had already begun to wear openly the white cockade.

Finally, a vivid sensation was excited in Paris at this critical moment by the publication of Chateaubriand's celebrated tract, entitled "Of Buonaparte and of the Bourbons." The first symptom of freedom in the long enslaved press of Paris was not likely, whatever it might be, to meet with an unfriendly reception; but this effusion of one of the most popular writers of the time (though composed in a style not suited to sober English tastes) was admirably adapted to produce a powerful effect, at such a moment of doubt and hesitation, on the people to whom it was addressed.

The agents of Buonaparte had not been idle during the 30th: they had appealed to the passions of those wretched classes of society who had been the willing instruments of all the horrible violence of the revolution, and among whom the name of Bourbon was still detested; nor without considerable effect. The crowds of filthy outcasts who emerged from their lanes and cellars, and thronged some of the public places during the battle, were regarded with equal alarm by all the decent part of the population, however divided in political sentiments. But the battle ended ere they could be brought to venture on any combined movement; and when the defeated soldiery began to file in silence and dejection through the streets, the mob lost courage, and retreated also in dismay to the obscure abodes of their misery and vice.

The royalists welcomed with exultation the dawn of the 31st. Together with the proclamation of Schwartzenberg, they circulated one of Monsieur, and another of Louis XVIII. himself; and some of the leading gentlemen of the party, the Montmorencys, the Noailles, the Rohans, the Rochefoucalds, the Polignacs, the Chateaubriands, were early on horseback in the streets; which they paraded without interruption from any, either of the civil authorities, or of the National Guard, decorated with the symbols of their cause, and appealing with eloquence to the feelings of the onlookers. As yet, however, they were only listened to. The mass of the people were altogether uncertain what the end was to be: and, in the language of the chief orator himself, M. Sosthenes de Rochefoucald, "the silence was most dismal." At noon the first of the Allied troops began to pass the barrier and enter the city. The royalist cavaliers met them; but though many officers observing the white cockade exclaimed "la belle decoration!" the generals refused to say anything which might commit their sovereigns. Some ladies of rank, however, now appeared to take their part in the scene; and when these fair hands were seen tearing their dresses to make white cockades, the flame of their enthusiasm began to spread. Various pickets of the National Guard had plucked the tricolor badge from their caps, and assumed the white, ere many of the Allies passed the gates.

At noon, as has been mentioned, this triumphal procession began, and it lasted for several hours. The show was splendid; 50,000 troops, horse, foot, and artillery, all in the highest order and condition, marched along the boulevards; and in the midst appeared the youthful Czar and the King of Prussia, followed by a dazzling suite of princes, ambassadors, and generals. The crowd was so great that their motion, always slow, was sometimes suspended. The courteous looks and manners of all the strangers—but especially the affable and condescending air of Alexander, were observed at first with surprise; as the cavalcade passed on, and the crowd thickened, the feelings of the populace rose from wonder to delight, and ended in contagious and irresistible rapture. No sovereigns entering their native capitals were ever received with more enthusiastic plaudits; and still, at every step, the shouts of Vive L'Empereur Alexandre!—Vive le Roi de Prusse! were more and more loudly mingled with the long-forgotten echoes of Vive le Roi!—Vive Louis XVIII.—Vivent les Bourbons!

The monarchs at last halted, dismissed their soldiers to quarters in the city, saw Platoff and his Cossacks establish their bivouack in the Champs Elysées, and retired to the residences prepared for them; that of Alexander being, as we have mentioned above, in the hotel of Talleyrand.