Cardinal Fesch, the half-uncle of Napoleon, the Archbishop of Lyons, who had fallen into disgrace with Napoleon for taking the side of the Pope and refusing to accept the see of Paris, to which he was nominated by Napoleon, had retired to Rome in 1814, where he remained till the return of Napoleon, when he went to Paris, and accepted a peerage. After Waterloo he again sought the protection of the Pope, and he remained at Rome till his death in 1839, a few days before Caroline Bonaparte's. He was buried in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. He had for years been a great collector of pictures, of which he left a large number (1200) to the town of Ajaccio. The Cardinal, buying at the right time when few men had either enough leisure or money to think of pictures, got together a most valuable collection. This was sold in 1843-44 at Rome. Its contents now form some of the greatest treasures in the galleries of Dudley House and of the Marquis of Hertford, now Sir Richard Wallace's. In a large collection there are generally some daubs, but it is an amusing instance of party spirit to find the value of his pictures run down by men who are unwilling to allow any one connected with Napoleon to have even taste in art. He always refused the demands of the Restoration that he should resign his see of Lyons, though under Louis Philippe he offered to do so, and leave his pictures to France, if the Bonaparte family were allowed to enter France: this was refused.
It can hardly be denied that the fate of the Bonapartes was a hard one. Napoleon had been undisputed sovereign of France for fourteen years, Louis had been King of Holland for four years, Jerome was King of Westphalia for six years, Caroline was Queen of Naples for seven years. If Napoleon had forfeited all his rights by leaving Elba after the conditions of his abdication had been broken by the Allies, still there was no reason why the terms stipulated for the other members of the family should not have been carried out, or at least an ordinary income insured to them. With all Napoleon's faults he was always ready to shower wealth on the victims of his policy:—The sovereigns of the Continent had courted and intermarried with the Bonapartes in the tame of that family's grandeur: there was neither generosity nor wisdom in treating them as so many criminals the moment fortune had declared against them. The conduct of the Allies was not influenced simply by the principle of legitimacy, for the King of Saxony only kept his throne by the monarchs falling out over the spoil. If sovereigns were to be respected as of divine appointment, it was not well to make their existence only depend on the fate of war.
Nothing in the history of the Cent Jours is more strange than the small part played in it by the Marshals, the very men who are so identified in our minds with the Emperor, that we might have expected to find that brilliant band playing a most prominent part in his last great struggle, no longer for mere victory, but for very existence. In recording how the Guard came up the fatal hill at Waterloo for their last combat, it would seem but natural to have to give a long roll of the old historic names as leading or at least accompanying them; and the reader is apt to ask, where were the men whose very titles recalled such glorious battle- fields, such achievements, and such rewards showered down by the man who, almost alone at the end of the day, rode forward to invite that death from which it was such cruel kindness to save him?
Only three Marshals were in Belgium in 1815, and even of them one did but count his promotion from that very year, so it is but natural for French writers to dream of what might have been the course of the battle if Murat's plume had waved with the cavalry, if Mortier had been with the Guard, and if Davoust or one of his tried brethren had taken the place of Grouchy. There is, however, little real ground for surprise at this absence of the Marshals. Death, time, and hardships had all done their work amongst that grand array of commanders. Some were old men, veterans of the Revolutionary wars, when first created Marshals in 1804; others, such as Massena, were now but the wreck of themselves; and even before 1812 Napoleon had been struck with the failing energy of some of his original companions: indeed, it might have been better for him if he had in 1813, as he half resolved, cast away his dislike to new faces, and fought his last desperate campaigns with younger men who still had fortunes to win, leaving "Berthier to hunt at Grosbois," and the other Marshals to enjoy their well-deserved rest in their splendid hotels at Paris.
Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt, Prince of Eckmuhl, whose name should be properly spelt Davout, was one of the principal personages at the end of the Cent Jours. Strict and severe, having his corps always in good order, and displaying more character than most of the military men under Napoleon, one is apt to believe that the conqueror at Auerstadt bade fair to be the most prominent of all the Marshals. In 1814 he had returned from defending Hamburg to find himself under a cloud of accusations, and the Bourbons ungenerously and unwisely left him undefended for acts which they must have known were part of his duty as governor of a besieged place. At the time he was attacked as if his first duty was not to hold the place for France, but to organise a system of outdoor relief for the neighbouring population, and to surrender as soon as he had exhausted the money in the Government chest and the provisions in the Government stores. Sore and discontented, practically proscribed, still Davoust would not join in the too hasty enterprise of the brothers Lallemand, who wished him to lead the military rising on the approach of Napoleon; but he was with the Emperor on the day after his arrival in Paris.
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 Fouche, 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 Due 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 Due 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 Due 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.