On the 1st of March, 1815, the Emperor landed from Elba, and again Europe vibrated with war. The followers of the Bourbons were struck with consternation, and the soldiers to whom Louis XVIII. looked for protection and defence, were naturally enough flocking to the standard of their old leader; and he could turn to none, in his desertion and dismay, save a few officers of high rank, whose spirit of honour made them adhere to their oath of allegiance. The first to whom he addressed himself was Marshal Macdonald. He sent that officer to Lyons, where he arrived on the 8th of March, and found the Comte d'Artois in despair at the sullen and mutinous spirit exhibited by the troops he commanded.
Macdonald, of course, could not be surprised at this conduct in the soldiers, while his own heart led him towards the Emperor, and an oath tied him to the throne of the Bourbons; but he ordered a general parade of all the troops, and reviewed them before the prince. Still the same sullenness and the same silence, so unusual in French soldiers during a time of excitement, were apparent in the officers and men. So strong did this feeling become, that the Comte d'Artois (according to the Voice from St. Helena) had to withdraw in haste from Lyons, accompanied by one solitary dragoon, while Macdonald marched with a regiment of cavalry and two battalions of infantry of the line towards the bridge of the Rhone, which Napoleon was approaching at the head of a few soldiers of the Old Guard and a force increasing every hour by the regiments which deserted as they were despatched against him.
The marshal seized and barricaded the bridge, his soldiers still obeying in silence, till the brass drums of the Emperor were heard ringing on the highway; again the old tri-colour was seen, and the eagles that had spread their gilded wings over so many fatal fields were glittering in the sun. The marshal ordered his troops to fix bayonets and load with ball-cartridge.
Where was then the memory of that farewell at Fontainebleau? and where the sword of Murad Bey—the souvenir of Mount Tabor? The marshal was deeply moved at that moment, but he remembered the oath he had sworn to Louis XVIII.
The 4th Hussars, who formed the imperial advanced guard, dashed boldly up to the bridge at full speed, and, brandishing their sabres, shouted their old battle-cry, "Vive l'Empereur!"
The effect was electric. The soldiers of Macdonald could no longer restrain their long-smothered enthusiasm. They, at least, had sworn no fealty to King Louis. With a shout they responded, and, waving their caps and muskets in welcome, tore aside the barricade, and rushed to meet the Emperor, leaving the marshal on horseback, and by the roadside alone.
The 4th Hussars wished to seize and deliver him to the Emperor, but, animated by a high sense of chivalry, his own dragoons, who had come with him from Lyons, would by no means permit this, and drew their ranks across the road until he escaped. He returned immediately to Paris, and was desired by Louis XVIII. to command in the army formed under the Duc de Berri. This army proved, however, but a phantom, as the soldiers composing it almost to a man joined the banner of the Emperor.
Left thus alone, Macdonald repaired to the unfortunate king, and on the night of the 20th of March accompanied him on his retreat to Menin; but he again returned to Paris, where pleading his oath of fidelity, sworn by the Emperor's desire to the Bourbons, he declined to serve the imperial cause or become one of the Chamber of Peers under it—a refusal, doubtless, most painful to one who knew that he owed all his rank and honours to Napoleon. Relinquishing all these, as it were, for a time, the marshal duke enrolled himself as a simple grenadier in the National Guard of Paris, and as such did military duty during the usurpation, as it was named; and in the plain uniform of this corps, divested of medals, crosses, and epaulettes, he appeared as a private sentinel before Louis XVIII. on his return to the Tuileries.
On the capitulation of Paris to the allies the remains of Napoleon's army, then encamped beyond the Loire, were placed under the command of Macdonald, whose instructions were to remodel and re-organize the regiments, a difficult and arduous mission, which he accomplished with equal fidelity and address; but the soldiers, dispirited by the defeat at Waterloo, awed into submission by the flight of their idol Napoleon, and the presence of the overwhelming masses of the allies, obeyed him in silence and dejection. All was over now with the Bonapartists. The army of the Empire was broken and scattered, like the marshal dukes who had led it to those glories and conquests of which there remained but the memory now!
In the words of M. Fleury de Chabulon, "Marshal Ney was the first to give the alarm and despair of the safety of his country. Marshal Soult had abjured his command, Marshal Massena, exhausted by victory, had no longer the strength required by circumstances; Marshal Macdonald, deaf to the war-cry of his old companions, left his sword peacefully in its scabbard; Marshal Jourdan was on the Rhine; Marshal Mortier had the gout at Beaumont; Marshal Suchet evinced repugnance and irresolution; and finally, the Marshals Davoust and Grouchy no longer enjoyed the confidence of the army."