The destruction of his army, his crushing defeat, and Mallet’s conspiracy, all determined Napoleon to return to France, and he reached Paris about half-past eleven at night on December 18. How different from his hitherto triumphal entries! Maria Louisa had retired to rest, and was woke by the cries of her attendants, who were frightened at the sight of a man muffled up in furs, not knowing he was their august master. And thus he slunk home!
In June 1813 was published ‘Naps glorious return or the conclusion of the Russian Campaign.
A few Usurpers to the Shades descend.
By a dry death, or with a quiet end.’
In this plate we see Maria Louisa preparing to go to bed, Madame Letitia, Napoleon’s mother, pulling off her stockings. The old lady cries out, ‘Ah, de Ghost!! de Ghost of mon Nap.’ The Empress is frightened, and exclaims, ‘Jesu Maria, what is this so woe begone? It cannot be my husband, he promised to return in triumph, it must be his Ghost.’ Even his little boy, the King of Rome, doubts his identity. He is getting ready for bed, and already has his nightcap on, but he runs away in fright, crying, ‘That ain’t my Papa!! he said he would bring me some Russians to cut up. I think they have cut him up.’ Whilst Bonaparte, who enters in a most dilapidated condition, with his toes coming through his boots, his sword and scabbard broken, and his face besmeared with dirt, calls out dolefully, ‘Me voici! your poor Nap escape from de Cossack—by gar, I jump out of de window for my life, and I now jump into bed vid my wife.’ The ladies-in-waiting have fainted, and one, having left the warming-pan in the bed, has set it on fire, and it is burning brightly.
On January 1, 1813, was published another caricature of the retreat from Moscow: ‘Boney returning from Russia covered with Glory, leaving his Army in Comfortable Winter Quarters.
Nap and Joe, from France would go
To fill the world with slaughter,
Joe fell down, and broke his crown,
And Nap came tumbling after.’
Napoleon, with one of his generals, is in full retreat, in a sledge, leaving his army pursued by the Russians, and the ground strewn with dead men and horses. The general asks, ‘Will your Majesty write the Bulletin?’ ‘No,’ answers Napoleon, ‘you write it! tell them we have left the Army all well, quite gay, in excellent Quarters, plenty of provisions—that we travelled in great Style—received everywhere with congratulations, and that I have almost compleated the repose of Europe.’
George Cruikshank (February 22, 1813) produced, after a picture by David, a most laughable caricature, called ‘The Hero’s Return.
Dishonest, with lopp’d arms, the man appears,
Spoil’d of his nose, and shorten’d of his ears.
She scarcely knew him, striving to disown
His blotted form, and blushing to be known.’
Dryden’s Virgil, Book 6.