He might need Murat to lead the cavalry—nay, as it seemed, he must need him, for he could not, surely, allow a personal spite to prevent him from using that weapon of weapons when the hilt of it was held out to him! Murat was not the only one either. Ney had sworn to bring the Emperor back in a cage like a wild beast—and he had taken Ney to his heart as soon as they met. Marmont had deliberately gone over to the enemy—taking his corps with him. Indeed, of all Napoleon’s former adherents it might be said that only Soult had proved to be the true metal, for he had not laid down his arms till after the Emperor had descended from the throne, and he had fought his last fight with as high a courage and as steadfast a heart as his first. Soult had never surrendered, nor had he ever allowed it to be said that force of arms had compelled him to submit to the allies. He had obeyed the decision of his countrymen, and that was all.
The evil days upon which he had fallen had eaten into Murat’s self-confidence badly, and he dared not even proceed to Paris, but remained at Toulon. From there he wrote to Fouché, whom he still imagined to have kindly feelings towards him—Fouché!—because in his prosperity he had befriended him.
“You know,” he wrote, “the motive and the result of the war in Italy. Arrived in France. I now offer my arm to the Emperor and trust that Heaven may allow me to atone for the disasters of the King by the success of the Captain.”
Fouché presented the letter to Napoleon without comment, and the latter read it. “What treaties of peace have I concluded with the King of Naples since the war of 1814?” he asked, handing it back, and Fouché bowed himself out.
Murat remained at Toulon, growing daily more hopeless, although the inhabitants treated him with great respect. But he had passed the point where the respect or otherwise of private citizens could affect him. Then came Waterloo, and the South of France took on the political aspect of the unhappy kingdom which he had just quitted. The Monarchists rose and smote out right and left, massacring their political opponents, and looting everything that those unfortunates left behind them. Marshal Brune, who had previously been sent by the Emperor to maintain order in the south, was torn to pieces by a mob, and Joachim was forced to hide himself as best he could from the “White Terror,” which was overrunning the land.
From his hiding-place he wrote again to Fouché, but that adaptable gentleman was now Minister to Louis XVIII, and vouchsafed no answer. Fouché was one of those human chameleons that fit themselves into any colour scheme, and all the wars, plots, revolutions, and armageddons of the past years had passed him by. He had just succeeded in betraying Wellington, to whom he had promised Napoleon’s plan of campaign, by sending the plans and then taking steps to see that the messenger was delayed long enough on the frontier to make the delivery of them useless; and now he was more monarchist than the poor old monarch himself, hunting out his late associates mercilessly. Murat begged for a passport to England, but no notice was taken of his appeal.
In despair, and having escaped, by what seemed to be a miracle, from the hands of the Marquis de la Rivière, who owed his life to Joachim’s favour, he wrote to Louis himself, requesting Fouché to deliver his letter. But Fouché sent no word, and no answer came from Louis, who probably never saw the letter at all; and, seeing no other hope for him, Murat resolved to go to Paris and place himself in the hands of the allied Sovereigns. They could not, in reason, blame him for doing to them that which they had all at various periods during the past twenty years done to one another. He had been a great figure—a greater figure than any of them. They had now no reason for betraying his confidence; and they were neither vengeful nor bloodthirsty. He would be safer with them than among his own countrymen. His idea was to travel by sea—for to attempt a land journey would have been something not far removed from suicide—to Havre de Grâce, whence he could make his way to Paris with little risk. So, having made arrangements for a vessel, and chosen a wild and unfrequented part of the coast and a dark night for his embarkation, he set out.
But the vessel, for some reason or other, did not arrive at the spot that night, and Murat was compelled to retire among the rocks and vineyards for shelter, and here he remained, hoping against hope, until the darkness gave way to the summer dawn, and the light from the faint topaz-coloured east on the waters showed nothing that looked like the craft he had bargained for.
Perhaps it was meant, that crushing disappointment, for there is no saying, in the light of the conditions which reigned at the capital, whether he would ever have reached the sanctuary of the allies at all. The White Terror, a plague as fierce and irresponsible as the Red one of a quarter of a century earlier, was raging uncontrolled and uncontrollable, and the deeds of Murat, as King of Naples in 1814, would not have counted then for the Emperor’s broken Marshal. Fouché’s agents very nearly caught him that time, and he had to fly from cover to cover like a hunted hare; but he escaped from them, and a while later slipped away in a little ship that was bound for Corsica.
Even now the demon of his ill luck, still unsatiated, continued to pursue him, for, after two days, a storm overtook them which forced them to lower their single, three-cornered sail, and let the boat run under bare poles for a day and a half, at the end of which time, when the little ship was filling rapidly, they were picked up by the Corriera on her way to Bastia. A large French vessel which they had spoken a few hours earlier had refused to have anything to do with them, and, when this other one, more charitable, came alongside, Murat, uncovering his face, told the captain his name.