Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete

by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

Davoust might have expected high command in the army, but, to his annoyance, Napoleon fixed on him as War Minister. For several years the War Minister had been little more than a clerk, and neither had nor was expected to have much influence with the army. Napoleon now wanted a man of tried devotion, and of stern enough character to overawe the capital and the restless spirits in the army. Much against his will Davoust was therefore forced to content himself with the organisation of the forces being hastily raised, but he chafed in his position; and it is characteristic of him that Napoleon was eventually forced to send him the most formal orders before the surly Minister would carry out the Emperor's unlucky intention of giving a command to Bourmont, whom Davoust strongly and rightly suspected of treachery. When Napoleon left the capital Davoust became its governor, and held his post unmoved by the intrigues of the Republicans and the Royalists. When Napoleon returned from the great disaster Davoust gave his voice for the only wise policy,—resistance and the prorogation of the factious Chambers. On the abdication of Napoleon the Provisional Government necessarily gave Davoust the command of the army which was concentrated round Paris.

If Davoust had restricted himself less closely to his duty as a soldier, if he had taken more on himself, with the 100,000 men he soon had under him, he might have saved France from much of her subsequent humiliation, or at least he might have preserved the lives of Ney and of the brave men whom the Bourbons afterwards butchered. Outwitted by Fouché, and unwilling to face the hostility of the Chambers, Davoust at last consented to the capitulation of Paris, though he first gave the Prussian cavalry a sharp lesson. While many of his comrades were engaged in the great struggle for favour or safety, the stern Marshal gave up his Ministry, and, doing the last service in his power to France, stopped all further useless bloodshed by withdrawing the army, no easy task in their then humour, behind the Loire, where he kept what the Royalists called the "Brigands of the Loire" in subjection till relieved by Macdonald. He was the only one of the younger Marshals who had not been tried in Spain, and so far he was fortunate; but, though he was not popular with the army, his character and services seem to point him out as the most fit of all the Marshals for an independent command. Had Napoleon been successful in 1812, Davoust was to have received the Viceroyalty of Poland; and he would probably have left a higher name in history than the other men placed by Napoleon to rule over his outlying kingdoms. In any case it was fortunate for France and for the Allies that a man of his character ruled the army after Napoleon abdicated; there would otherwise have been wild work round Paris, as it was only with the greatest difficulty and by the force of his authority and example that Davoust succeeded in getting the army to withdraw from the capital, and to gradually adopt the white cockade. When superseded by Macdonald he had done a work no other man could have accomplished. He protested against the proscription, but it was too late; his power had departed. In 1819 he was forgiven for his services to France, and was made a peer, but he died in 1823, only fifty-three years old.

Among the Marshals who gave an active support to Napoleon Ney takes the leading part in most eyes; if it were only for his fate, which is too well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to go to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off, not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as most grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an iron cage." It had been intended to have sent the Duc de Berry, the second son of the Comte d'Artois, with Ney; and it was most unfortunate for the Marshal that this was not done. There can be no possible doubt that Ney spoke and acted in good faith when he left Paris. One point alone seems decisive of this. Ney found under him in command, as General of Division, Bourmont, an officer of well-known Royalist opinions, who had at one time served with the Vendean insurgents, and who afterwards deserted Napoleon just before Waterloo, although he had entreated to be employed in the campaign. Not only did Ney leave Bourmont in command, but, requiring another Divisional General, instead of selecting a Bonapartist, he urged Lecourbe to leave his retirement and join him. Now, though Lecourbe was a distinguished General, specially famed for mountain warfare—witness his services in 1799 among the Alps above Lucerne—he had been long left unemployed by Napoleon on account of his strong Republican opinions and his sympathy with Moreau. These two Generals, Bourmont and Lecourbe, the two arms of Ney as commander, through whom alone he could communicate with the troops, he not only kept with him, but consulted to the last, before he declared for Napoleon. This would have been too dangerous a thing for a tricky politician to have attempted as a blind, but Ney was well known to be only too frank and impulsive. Had the Duc de Berry gone with him, had Ney carried with him such a gage of the intention of the Bourbons to defend their throne, it is probable that he would have behaved like Macdonald; and it is certain that he would have had no better success. The Bonapartists themselves dreaded what they called the wrong-headedness of Ney. It was, however, thought better to keep the Duc de Berry in safety.

Ney found himself put forward singly, as it were, to oppose the man whom all France was joining; he found, as did every officer sent on a similar mission, that the soldiers were simply waiting to meet Napoleon; and while the Princes sought security, while the soldiers plotted against their leaders, came the calls of the Emperor in the old trumpet tone. The eagle was to fly—nay, it was flying from tower to tower, and victory was advancing with a rush. Was Ney to be the one man to shoot down his old leader? could he, as he asked, stop the sea with his hands? On his trial his subordinate, Bourmont, who had by that time shown his devotion to the Bourbons by sacrificing his military honour, and deserting to the Allies, was asked whether Ney could have got the soldiers to act against the Emperor. He could only suggest that if Ney had taken a musket and himself charged, the men would have followed his example. "Still," said Bourmont, "I would not dare to affirm that he (the Marshal) would have won." And who was Ney to charge? We know how Napoleon approached the forces sent to oppose him: he showed himself alone in the front of his own troops. Was Ney to deliberately kill his old commander? was any general ever expected to undergo such a test? and can it be believed that the soldiers who carried off the reluctant Oudinot and chased the flying Macdonald, had such a reverence for the "Rougeot," as they called him, that they would have stood by while he committed this murder? The whole idea is absurd: as Ney himself said at his trial, they would have "pulverized" him. Undoubtedly the honourable course for Ney would have been to have left his corps when he lost control over them; but to urge, as was done afterwards, that he had acted on a preconceived scheme, and that his example had such weight, was only malicious falsehood. The Emperor himself knew well how little he owed to the free will of his Marshal, and he soon had to send him from Paris, as Ney, sore at heart, and discontented with himself and with both sides, uttered his mind with his usual freedom. Ney was first ordered to inspect the frontier from Dunkirk to Bale, and was then allowed to go to his home. He kept so aloof from Napoleon that when he appeared on the Champ de Mai the Emperor affected surprise, saying that he thought Ney had emigrated. At the last moment Marshal Mortier fell ill. Ney had already been sent for. He hurried up, buying Mortier's horses (presumably the ill-fated animals who died under him at Waterloo), and reached the army just in time to be given the command of the left wing.

It has been well remarked that the very qualities which made Ney invaluable for defence or for the service of a rear-guard weighed against him in such a combat as Quatre Bras. Splendid as a corps leader, he had not the commander's eye to embrace the field and surmise the strength of the enemy at a glance. At Bautzen in 1818 his staff had been unable to prevent him from leaving the route which would have brought him on the very rear of the enemy, because seeing the foe, and unable to resist the desire of returning their fire, he turned off to engage immediately. At Quatre Bras, not seeing the force he was engaged with, believing he had the whole English army on his hands from the first, he let himself at the beginning of the day be imposed upon by a mere screen of troops.

We cannot here go into Ney's behaviour at Waterloo except to point out that too little importance is generally given to the fact of the English cavalry having, in a happy moment, fallen on and destroyed the artillery which was being brought up to sweep the English squares at close quarters. At Waterloo, as in so many other combats, the account of Ney's behaviour more resembles that of a Homeric hero than of a modern general. To the ideal commander of to-day, watching the fight at a distance, calmly weighing its course, undisturbed except by distant random shots, it is strange to compare Ney staggering through the gate of Konigsberg all covered with blood; smoke and snow, musket in hand, announcing himself as the rear-guard of France, or appearing, a second Achilles, on the ramparts of Smolensko to encourage the yielding troops on the glacis, or amidst the flying troops at Waterloo, with uncovered head and broken sword, black with powder, on foot, his fifth horse killed under him, knowing that life, honour, and country were lost, still hoping against hope and attempting one more last desperate rally. If he had died—ah! if he had died there—what a glorious tomb might have risen, glorious for France as well as for him, with the simple inscription, "The Bravest of the Brave."

Early on the 19th June a small band of officers retreating from the field found Ney asleep at Marchiennes, "the first repose he had had for four days," and they did not disturb him for orders. "And indeed what order could Marshal Ney have given?" The disaster of the day, the overwhelming horror of the flight of the beaten army, simply crushed Ney morally as well as physically. Rising in the Chambers he denounced all attempt at further resistance. He did not know, he would not believe, that Grouchy was safe, and that the army was fast rallying. Fresh from the field, with all its traces on him, the authority of Ney was too great for the Government. Frightened friends, plotting Royalists, echoed the wild words of Ney brave only against physical dangers. Instead of dying on the battle-field, he had lived to ensure the return of the Bourbons, the fall of Bonaparte, his own death, and the ruin of France.

Before his exception from the amnesty was known Ney left Paris on the 6th of July, and went into the country with but little attempt at concealment, and with formal passports from Fouché. The capitulation of Paris seemed to cover him, and he was so little aware of the thirst of the Royalists for his blood that he let his presence be known by leaving about a splendid sabre presented to him by the Emperor on his marriage, and recognised by mere report by an old soldier as belonging to Ney or Murat; and Ney himself let into the house the party sent to arrest him on the 5th of August, and actually refused the offer of Excelmans, through whose troops he passed, to set him free. No one at the time, except the wretched refugees of Ghent, could have suspected, after the capitulation, that there was any special danger for Ney, and it is very difficult to see on what principle the Bourbons chose their victims or intended victims. Drouot, for example, had never served Louis XVIII., he had never worn the white cockade, he had left France with Napoleon for Elba, and had served the Emperor there. In 1815 he had fought under his own sovereign. After Waterloo he had exerted all his great influence, the greater from his position, to induce the Guard to retire behind the Loire, and to submit to the Bourbons. It was because Davoust so needed him that Drouot remained with the army. Stilt Drouot was selected for death, but the evidence of his position was too strong to enable the Court to condemn him. Cambronne, another selection, had also gone with Napoleon to Elba. Savory, another selection, had, as was eventually acknowledged, only joined Napoleon when he was in full possession of the reins of Government. Bertrand, who was condemned while at St. Helena, was in the same position as Drouot. In fact, if any one were to draw up a list of probable proscriptions and compare it with those of the 24th of July 1815, there would probably be few names common to both except Labedoyere, Mouton Duvernet, etc. The truth is that the Bourbons, and, to do them justice, still more the rancorous band of mediocrities who surrounded them, thirsted for blood. Even they could feel the full ignominy of the flight to Ghent.

While they had been chanting the glories of the Restoration, the devotion of the people, the valour of the Princes, Napoleon had landed, the Restoration had vanished like a bad dream, and the Princes were the first to lead the way to the frontier. To protest that there had been a conspiracy, and that the conspirators must suffer, was the only possible cloak for the shame of the Royalists, who could not see that the only conspiracy was the universal one of the nation against the miserable men who knew not how to govern a high-spirited people.

Ney, arrested on the 5th of August, was first brought before a Military Court on the 9th of November composed of Marshal Jourdan (President), Marshals Massena, Augereau, and Mortier, Lieutenants-General Gazan, Claparede, and Vilatte (members). Moncey had refused to sit, and Massena urged to the Court his own quarrels with Ney in Spain to get rid of the task, but was forced to remain. Defended by both the Berryers, Ney unfortunately denied the jurisdiction of the court-martial over him as a peer. In all probability the Military Court would have acquitted him. Too glad at the moment to be free from the trial of their old comrade, not understanding the danger of the proceeding, the Court, by a majority of five against two, declared themselves non-competent, and on the 21st of November Ney was sent before the Chamber of Peers, which condemned him on the 6th of December.