Imagine the situation of this officer, with no friends in that country, not daring to recommend himself to his own government, by whom his well-known opinions had rendered him suspected, accused of a horrible crime, well aware of all the proofs against him, and, above all, completely crushed by the last words of the dying man! Like all men of firm and resolute character, he accepted the situation without complaint, saw that it was without remedy, and resigned himself to his fate. Meanwhile, a special commission had been appointed, in order to make at least a pretense of justice; but when he was led before this commission, he could only repeat what he had already said; that is to say, give an exact account of the occurrence, protest his innocence, and admit at the same time that appearances were entirely against him. What could he reply when asked wherefore, and with what motive, he had been found alone in the night, armed with a sword, in the thickest of the wood? Here his oath as Carbonari sealed his lips, and his hesitation was taken as additional proof. What could he reply to the deposition of the gendarmes who had arrested him in the very act? He was consequently unanimously condemned to death, and reconducted to his prison until the time fixed for the execution of his sentence.
A priest was first sent to him. The officer received him with the utmost respect, but refused to make confession, and was next importuned by the visit of a brotherhood of penitents. At last the executioner came to conduct him to the place of punishment; and while he was on the way, accompanied by several gendarmes and a long line of penitents, the funeral procession was interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the colonel of the gendarmerie, whom chance brought to the scene. This officer bore the name of Colonel Boizard, a man well known in all upper Italy, and the terror of all malefactors. The colonel ordered a halt, for the purpose of himself questioning the condemned, and made him give an account of the circumstances of the crime and the sentence. When he was alone with the officer, he said, "You see that all is against you, and nothing can save you from the death which awaits you. I can, nevertheless, save you, but only on one condition. I know that you belong to the society of the Carbonari. Give me the names of your accomplices in these terrible conspiracies and your life shall be the reward."—"Never!"—"Consider, nevertheless."—"Never, I tell you; lead me to execution."
It was then necessary to set out anew for the place of execution. The executioner was at his post; and as the officer with a firm step mounted the fatal scaffold, Colonel Boizard rushed up to him and begged him still to save his life on the conditions he had offered. "No! no! never!" Instantly the scene changed; the colonel, the executioner, the gendarmes, the priest, penitents, and spectators, all gathered round the officer, each one eager to press him to their hearts, and he was conducted in triumph to his dwelling. All that had passed was simply an initiation. The assassins in the forest and their victim, as well as the judges and the pretended Colonel Boizard, had been playing a role; and the most suspicious Carbonari now knew how far their new brother would carry the constancy of his heroism and the observance of his oath.
This is almost exactly the recital which I heard, as I have said, with the deepest interest, and which I take the liberty of repeating, though I well understand how much it will lose by being written. Can it be implicitly believed? This is what I would not undertake to decide; but I can affirm that my informant gave it as the truth, and was perfectly certain that the particulars would be found in the archives of Milan, since this extraordinary initiation was at the time the subject of a circumstantial report addressed to the vice-king, whom fate had determined should nevermore see the Emperor.
CHAPTER XVIII.
I digressed considerably, in the preceding chapter, from my recollections of Paris subsequent to our return from Germany after the battle of Leipzig, and the Emperor's short sojourn at Mayence. I cannot even now write the name of the latter town without recalling the spectacle of tumult and confusion which it presented after the glorious battle of Hanau, where the Bavarians fought so bravely on this the first occasion when they presented themselves as enemies before those in whose ranks they had so recently stood. It was, if I am not mistaken, in this last engagement that the Bavarian general, Wrede, was, with his family, the immediate victims of their treachery. The general, whom the Emperor had overwhelmed with kindness, was mortally wounded, all his relatives in the Bavarian army were slain, and his son-in-law, Prince of Oettingen, met the same fate. It was one of those events which never failed to make a deep impression on the mind of his Majesty, since it strengthened his ideas of fatality. It was also at Mayence that the Emperor gave orders for the assembling of the Corps Legislatif on the 2d of December. The opening was delayed, as we shall see; and far better would it have been had it been indefinitely postponed; since in that case his Majesty would not have experienced the misfortunes he afterwards endured from their opposition, symptoms of which now manifested themselves for the first time in a manner which was, to say the least, intemperate.
One of the things which astonished me most at the time, and which still astonishes me when I recall it now, was the incredible activity of the Emperor, which, far from diminishing, seemed to increase each day, as if the very exercise of his strength redoubled it. At the period of which I now speak, it is impossible to describe how completely every moment of his Majesty's time was filled. Since he had again met the Empress and his son, the Emperor had resumed his accustomed serenity; and I rarely surprised him in that open abandonment to dejection to which he sometimes gave way, in the retirement of his chamber, immediately after our return from Moscow. He was occupied more ostensibly than usual in the numerous public works which were being prosecuted in Paris, and which formed a useful distraction to his engrossing thoughts of war and the distressing news which reached him from the army. Almost every day, troops, equipped as if by magic, were reviewed by his Majesty, and ordered immediately to the Rhine, nearly the whole course of which was threatened; and the danger, which we then scarcely thought possible, must have appeared most imminent to the inhabitants of the capital, not infatuated, like ourselves, by the kind of charm the Emperor exercised over all those who had the honor of approaching his august person. In fact, for the first time he was compelled to demand of the senate to anticipate the levy for the ensuing year, and each day also brought depressing news. The prince arch-treasurer returned the following autumn, forced to quit Holland after the evacuation of this kingdom by our troops; whilst Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr was compelled at Dresden to sign a capitulation for himself and the thirty thousand men whom he had held in reserve at that place.
The capitulation of Marshal Saint-Cyr will never, surely, occupy an honorable place in the history of the cabinet of Vienna. It is not my province to pass judgment on these political combinations; but I cannot forget the indignation which was generally manifested at the palace when it was learned that this capitulation had been shamelessly violated by those who had now become the stronger party. It was stated in this capitulation that the marshal should return to France with the troops under his command, carrying with him a part of his artillery, and that these troops should be exchanged for a like number of the allied troops; that the wounded French who remained at Dresden should be returned to France on their restoration to health; and that, finally, the marshal should begin these movements on the 16th of November. No part of this agreement was complied with. Imagine, then, the indignation of the Emperor, already so deeply afflicted by the capitulation of Dresden, when he learned that, contrary to every stipulation agreed upon, these troops had been made prisoners by the Prince von Swarzenberg. I remember one day the Prince de Neuchatel being in his Majesty's cabinet, which I happened to enter at the moment, the Emperor remarked to him, with considerable vehemence, "You speak to me of peace. How can I believe in the good faith of those people? You see what happened at Dresden. No, I tell you, they do not wish to treat with us; they are only endeavoring to gain time, and it is our business not to lose it." The prince did not reply; or, at least, I heard no more, as I just then left the cabinet, having executed the duty which had taken me there. Moreover, I can add, as an additional proof of the confidence with which his Majesty honored me, that when I entered he never interrupted himself in what he was saying, however important it might be; and I dare to affirm that if my memory were better, these souvenirs would contain much more valuable information.
Since I have spoken of the evil tidings which overwhelmed the Emperor in such quick succession during the last months of the year 1813, there is one I should not omit, since it affected his Majesty so painfully. I refer to the death of Count Louis de Narbonne. Of all those who had not begun their careers under the eyes of the Emperor, M. de Narbonne was the one for whom he felt the deepest affection; and it must be admitted that it was impossible to find a man in whom genuine merit was united to more attractive manners. The Emperor regarded him as a most proper person to conduct a negotiation, and said of him one day, "Narbonne is a born ambassador." It was known in the palace why the Emperor had appointed him his aide-decamp at the time he formed the household of the Empress Marie Louise. The Emperor had at first intended to appoint him chevalier of honor to the new Empress, but a skillfully concocted intrigue caused him to refuse this position; and it was in some degree to make amends for this that he received the appointment of aide-de-camp to his Majesty. There was not at that time a position more highly valued in all France; many foreign and even sovereign princes had solicited in vain this high mark of favor, and amongst these I can name Prince Leopold de Saxe-Coburg,