CHAPTER XLI
FROM THE ELYSÉE TO ST. HELENA
Napoleon was far from accepting Waterloo as a final blow. At Philippeville on the day after the battle, he wrote to his brother Joseph that he would speedily have 300,000 men ready to defend France: he would harness his guns with carriage-horses, raise 100,000 conscripts, and arm them with muskets taken from the royalists and malcontent National Guards: he would arouse Dauphiné, Lyonnais, and Burgundy, and overwhelm the enemy. "But the people must help me and not bewilder me…. Write to me what effect this horrible piece of bad luck has had on the Chamber. I believe the deputies will feel convinced that their duty in this crowning moment is to rally round me and save France."[527]
The tenacious will, then, is only bent, not broken. Waterloo is merely a greater La Rothière, calling for a mightier defensive effort than that of 1814. Such are his intentions, even when he knows not that Grouchy is escaping from the Prussians. The letter breathes a firm resolve. He has no scruples as to the wickedness of spurring on a wearied people to a conflict with Europe. As yet he forms no magnanimous resolve to take leave of a nation whom his genius may once more excite to a fatal frenzy. He still seems unable to conceive of France happy and prosperous apart from himself. In indissoluble union they will struggle on and defy the world.
Such was the frame of mind in which he reached the Elysée Palace early on the 21st of June. For a time he was much agitated. "Oh, my God!" he exclaimed to Lavalette, raising his eyes to heaven and walking up and down the room. But after taking a warm bath—his unfailing remedy for fatigue—he became calm and discussed with the Ministers plans of a national defence. The more daring advised the prorogation of the Chambers and the declaration of a state of siege in Paris; but others demurred to a step that would lead to civil war. The Council dragged on at great length, the Emperor only once rousing himself from his weariness to declare that all was not lost; that he, and not the Chambers, could save France. If so, he should have gone to the deputies, thrilled them with that commanding voice, or dissolved them at once. Montholon states that this course was recommended by Cambacérès, Carnot, and Maret, but that most of the Ministers urged him not to expose his wearied frame to the storms of an excited assembly. At St. Helena he told Gourgaud that, despite his fatigue, he would have made the effort had he thought success possible, but he did not.[528]
The Chamber of Deputies meanwhile was acting with vigour. Agonized by the tales of disaster already spread abroad by wounded soldiers, it eagerly assented to Lafayette's proposal to sit in permanence and declare any attempt at dissolution an act of high treason. So unblenching a defiance, which recalled the Tennis Court Oath of twenty-six years before, struck the Emperor almost dumb with astonishment. Lucien bade him prepare for a coup d'état: but Napoleon saw that the days for such an act were passed. He had squandered the physical and moral resources bequeathed by the Revolution. Its armies were mouldering under the soil of Spain, Russia, Germany, and Belgium; and a decade of reckless ambition had worn to tatters Rousseau's serviceable theory of a military dictatorship. Exhausted France was turning away from him to the prime source of liberty, her representatives.
These were doubtless the thoughts that coursed through his brain as he paced with Lucien up and down the garden of the Elysée. A crowd of fédérés and workmen outside cheered him frantically. He saluted them with a smile; but, says Pasquier, "the expression of his eyes showed the sadness that filled his soul." True, he might have led that unthinking rabble against the Chambers; but that would mean civil war, and from this he shrank. Still Lucien bade him strike. "Dare," he whispered with Dantonesque terseness. "Alas," replied his brother, "I have dared only too much already." Davoust also opined that it was too late now that the deputies had firmly seized the reins and were protected by the National Guards of Paris.
And so Napoleon let matters drift. In truth, he was "bewildered" by the disunion of France. It was a France that he knew not, a land given over to idéalogues and traitors. His own Minister, Fouché, was working to sap his power, and yet he dared not have him shot! What wonder that the helpless autocrat paced restlessly to and fro, or sat as in a dream! In the evening Carnot went to the Peers, Lucien to the Deputies, to appeal for a united national effort against the Coalition, but the simple earnestness of the one and the fraternal fervour of the other alike failed. When Lucien finally exclaimed against any desertion of Napoleon, Lafayette fiercely shot at him the long tale of costly sacrifices which France had offered up at the shrine of Napoleon's glory, and concluded: "We have done enough for him: our duty is to save la patrie."
On the morrow came the news that Grouchy had escaped from the Prussians; and that the relics of Napoleon's host were rallying at Laon. But would not this encouragement embolden the Emperor to crush the contumacious Chambers? Evidently the case was urgent. He must abdicate, or they would dethrone him—such was the purport of their message to the Elysée; but, as an act of grace, they allowed him an hour in which to forestall their action. Shortly after midday, on the advice of his Ministers, he took the final step of his official career. Lucien and Carnot begged him for some time to abdicate only in favour of his son;[529] and he did so, but with the bitter remark: "My son! What a chimera! No, it is for the Bourbons that I abdicate! They at least are not prisoners at Vienna."
The deputies were of his opinion. Despite frantic efforts of the Bonapartists, they passed over Napoleon II. without any effective recognition, and at once appointed an executive Commission of five—Carnot, Caulaincourt, Fouché, Grenier, and Quinette. Three of them were regicides, and Fouché was chosen their President. We can gauge Napoleon's wrath at seeing matters thus promptly rolled back to where they were before Brumaire by his biting comment that he had made way for the King of Rome, not for a Directory which included one traitor and two babies. His indignation was just. An abdication forced on by idéalogues was hateful; to be succeeded by Fouché seemed an unforgivable insult; but he touched the lowest depth of humiliation on the 25th, when he received from that despicable schemer an order to leave Paris.