It was not until eight days after that Murat officially declared war against the Emperor; and immediately several general and superior officers, and many French troops, who were in his service, abandoned him, and repaired to the headquarters of the Viceroy. Murat made endeavours to detain them; they replied, that as he had declared war against France, no Frenchman who loved his country could remain in his service. "Do you think," returned he, "that my heart is less French than yours? On the contrary, I am much to be pitied. I hear of nothing but the disasters of the Grand Army. I have been obliged to enter into a treaty with the Austrians, and an arrangement with the English, commanded by Lord Bentinck, in order to save my Kingdom from a threatened landing of the English and the Sicilians, which would infallibly have excited an insurrection."
There could not be a more ingenuous confession of the antipathy which Joachim knew the Neapolitans to entertain towards his person and government. His address to the French was ineffectual. It was easy to foresee what would ensue. The Viceroy soon received an official communication from Napoleon's War Minister, accompanied by an Imperial decree, recalling all the French who were in the service of Joachim, and declaring that all who were taken with arms in their hands should be tried by a courtmartial as traitors to their country. Murat commenced by gaining advantages which could not be disputed. His troops almost immediately took possession of Leghorn and the citadel of Ancona, and the French were obliged to evacuate Tuscany.
The defection of Murat overthrew one of Bonaparte's gigantic conceptions. He had planned that Murat and Eugène with their combined forces should march on the rear of the Allies, while he, disputing the soil of France with the invaders, should multiply obstacles to their advance; the King of Naples and the Viceroy of Italy were to march upon Vienna and make Austria tremble in the heart of her capital before the timid million of her Allies, who measured their steps as they approached Paris, should desecrate by their presence the capital of France. When informed of the vast project, which, however, was but the dream of a moment, I immediately recognised that eagle glance, that power of discovering great resources in great calamities, so peculiar to Bonaparte.
Napoleon was yet Emperor of France; but he who had imposed on all Europe treaties of peace no less disastrous than the wars which had preceded them, could not now obtain an armistice; and Caulaincourt, who was sent to treat for one at the camp of the Allies, spent twenty days at Luneville before he could even obtain permission to pass the advanced posts of the invading army. In vain did Caulaincourt entreat Napoleon to sacrifice, or at least resign temporarily, a portion of that glory acquired in so many battles, and which nothing could efface in history. Napoleon replied, "I will sign whatever you wish. To obtain peace I will exact no condition; but I will not dictate my own humiliation." This concession, of course, amounted to a determination not to sign or to grant anything.
In the first fortnight of January 1814 one-third of France was invaded, and it was proposed to form a new Congress, to be held at Chatillon-sur-Seine. The situation of Napoleon grew daily worse and worse. He was advised to seek extraordinary resources in the interior of the Empire, and was reminded of the fourteen armies which rose, as if by enchantment, to defend France at the commencement of the Revolution. Finally, a reconciliation with the Jacobins, a party who had power to call up masses to aid him, was recommended. For a moment he was inclined to adopt this advice. He rode on horseback through the surburbs of St. Antoine and St. Marceau, courted the populace, affectionately replied to their acclamations, and he thought he saw the possibility of turning to account the attachment which the people evinced for him. On his return to the Palace some prudent persons ventured to represent to him that, instead of courting this absurd sort of popularity it would be more advisable to rely on the nobility and the higher classes of society. "Gentlemen," replied he, "you may say what you please, but in the situation in which I stand my only nobility is the rabble of the faubourgs, and I know of no rabble but the nobility whom I have created." This was a strange compliment to all ranks, for it was only saying that they were all rabble together.
At this time the Jacobins were disposed to exert every effort to serve him; but they required to have their own way, and to be allowed freely to excite and foster revolutionary sentiments. The press, which groaned under the most odious and intolerable censorship, was to be wholly resigned to them. I do not state these facts from hearsay. I happened by chance to be present at two conferences in which were set forward projects infected with the odour of the clubs, and these projects were supported with the more assurance because their success was regarded as certain. Though I had not seen Napoleon since my departure for Hamburg, yet I was sufficiently assured of his feeling towards the Jacobins to be convinced that he would have nothing to do with them. I was not wrong. On hearing of the price they set on their services he said, "This is too much; I shall have a chance of deliverance in battle, but I shall have none with these furious blockheads. There can be nothing in common between the demagogic principles of '93 and the monarchy, between clubs of madmen and a regular Ministry, between a Committee of Public Safety and an Emperor, between revolutionary tribunals and established laws. If fall I must, I will not bequeath France to the Revolution from which I have delivered her."
These were golden words, and Napoleon thought of a more noble and truly national mode of parrying the danger which threatened him. He ordered the enrolment of the National Guard of Paris, which was placed under the command of Marshal Moncey. A better choice could not have been made, but the staff of the National Guard was a focus of hidden intrigues, in which the defence of Paris was less thought about than the means of taking advantage of Napoleon's overthrow. I was made a captain in this Guard, and, like the rest of the officers, I was summoned to the Tuileries, on the 23d of January, when the Emperor took leave of the National Guard previously to his departure from Paris to join the army.
Napoleon entered with the Empress. He advanced with a dignified step, leading by the hand his son, who was not yet three years old. It was long since I had seen him. He had grown very corpulent, and I remarked on his pale countenance an expression of melancholy and irritability.
The habitual movement of the muscles of his neck was more decided and more frequent than formerly. I shall not attempt to describe what were my feelings during this ceremony, when I again saw, after a long separation, the friend of my youth, who had become master of Europe, and was now on the point of sinking beneath the efforts of his enemies. There was something melancholy in this solemn and impressive ceremony. I have rarely witnessed such profound silence in so numerous an assembly. At length Napoleon, in a voice as firm and sonorous as when he used to harangue his troops in Italy or in Egypt, but without that air of confidence which then beamed on his countenance, delivered to the assembled officers an address which was published in all the journals of the time. At the commencement of this address he said, "I set out this night to take the command of the army. On quitting the capital I confidently leave behind me my wife and my son, in whom so many hopes are centred." I listened attentively to Napoleon's address, and, though he delivered it firmly, he either felt or feigned emotion. Whether or not the emotion was sincere on his part, it was shared by many present; and for my own part I confess that my feelings were deeply moved when he uttered the words, "I leave you my wife and my son." At that moment my eyes were fixed on the young Prince, and the interest with which he inspired me was equally unconnected with the splendour which surrounded and the misfortunes which threatened him. I beheld in the interesting child not the King of Rome but the son of my old friend. All day long afterwards I could not help feeling depressed while comparing the farewell scene of the morning with the day on which we took possession of the Tuileries. How many centuries seemed the fourteen years which separated the two events.
It may be worth while to remind those who are curious in comparing dates that Napoleon, the successor of Louis XVI., and who had become the nephew of that monarch by his marriage with the niece of Marie Antoinette, took leave of the National Guard of Paris on the anniversary of the fatal 21st of January, after twenty-five years of successive terror, fear, hope, glory, and misfortune.