Military Career of Napoleon the Great / An Account of the Remarkable Campaigns of the "Man of Destiny"; Authentic Anecdotes of the Battlefield as Told by the Famous Marshals and Generals of the First Empire

by Montgomery B. Gibbs

Napoleon at Waterloo

Late in the evening of the 21st Napoleon held a council to which the presidents and vice presidents of both Chambers were admitted, but no decision was arrived at. Lafayette, the friend of Washington, declared that nothing could be done until "a great sacrifice could be made." The Emperor heard all in silence and broke up the meeting without having come to any decision.

"I have often asked myself," said Napoleon to Las Casas at St Helena, "whether I have done for the French people all that they could expect of me—for that people did much for me. Will they ever know all that I suffered during the night that preceded my final decision? In that night of anguish and uncertainty, I had to choose between two great courses; the one was to save France by violence, and the other to yield to the general impulse." He finally decided that abdication was the only step he could adopt, and his determination was taken.

Early next morning—the 22d—the Chambers again met, and the necessity of the Emperor's abdication was discussed with vigor. It was demanded on all hands, and without any reservation or condition whatever. Finally, Lafayette instructed that word should be sent Napoleon that he would be given an hour in which to abdicate, and be told if he had not done so by that time he would be deposed. Between noon and 1 o'clock the abdication was signed and carried by Carnot to the Chamber of Peers, and by Fouché to the Chamber of Deputies.

When Fouché appeared, the Deputies were about to declare the Emperor deposed, and he saved them that trouble by producing the following proclamation, in the handwriting of Joseph Bonaparte, to whom it had been dictated, and addressed to the French people:

"Frenchmen! When I began war for the maintenance of the national independence, I relied upon the union of all efforts, all wills and all the national authorities. I had reason to hope for success, and I braved all the declarations of the powers against my person. Circumstances appear to be changed. I offer myself as a sacrifice to the hatred against France. May they prove sincere in their declarations, and to have aimed only at me! My political life is ended. I proclaim my son under the title of Napoleon II., Emperor of the French. The present ministers will provisionally form the council of the Government. The interest which I take in my son induces me to recommend the Chambers should immediately enact a law for the organization of a Regency; unite together for the general safety, and to the end of securing your national independence. Done at the Palace of the Elysée, June the 22d, 1815.—Napoleon."

The Chambers had awaited this reply in a state of the greatest impatience in both houses. In the Chamber of Peers, Carnot, having received some exaggerated accounts of the force and success of Grouchy, endeavored to persuade the Assembly that the marshal must ere then have added 60,000 men at Laon to Soult, the relics of Waterloo, thus forming an army capable, under proper guidance, of yet effectually retrieving the affairs of France.

Ney, who had arrived in Paris the same morning, declared otherwise. "Grouchy" said he, "cannot have more than twenty, or at most, more than twenty-five thousand men; and as to Soult, I myself commanded the Guard in the last assault—I saw them all massacred before I left the field. Be assured there is but one course,—negotiate and recall the Bourbons. In their return I see nothing but the certainty of being shot as a deserter. I shall seek all I have henceforth to hope for in America. Take you the only course that remains for France."

Ney's prophecy was soon to be fulfilled, for on the return of the Bourbons to the throne he was shot as a traitor to France, although, as has been frequently said of him, he fought more than five hundred battles for his country and never raised arms against her!

A deputation from the Senate waited on the Emperor at the Elysée, and in respectful terms thanked him for the sacrifice he had made, but he was unable to exact from them the avowal that his abdication necessarily carried with it the immediate proclamation of Napoleon II.