I had, on the inauguration, (as already stated,) fully satisfied myself as to the demeanour both of the emperor and the senators; but I had not seen the grand procession which had preceded; and on this occasion, as it was to be much more of a military character, and the emperor’s last public appearance before he joined the army to decide the fate of Europe, I was desirous of witnessing the spectacle, and accordingly engaged a window on the quay for my family, in a house close to the Pont de Jena, over which the whole must pass. We had thence a full view of the Champ de Mars, of the amphitheatre, and of the artificial mount whence the constitution was to be proclaimed by the emperor in person to the people.
Napoleon well knew the great importance of leaving a strong impression on public feeling. His posting from the coast to the Tuileries without interruption was the most extraordinary event in history, ancient or modern: but it was not immediately followed up by any unusual circumstance, or any very splendid spectacle to rouse or gratify Parisian volatility. The retired official life of the emperor after his return (necessarily absorbed in business night and day) had altogether excited little or no stir, and still less expression of public feeling in the metropolis: in fact, the Parisians did not seem to feel so much interest about the state of affairs as they would have done upon the most unimportant occurrences: they made light of every thing except their pleasure, which always was and always will be the god of Paris: and never was any deity more universally and devoutly worshipped! The king’s flight to Ghent was then as little thought of or regarded as if he had gone to St. Cloud; and Napoleon’s arrival made as little stir as Louis’s departure. But the emperor was now about to go to battle; he was well aware of the treachery which surrounded him, and that on his success or discomfiture depended its explosion. He determined, therefore, as he had not time to counteract, to dissemble; and I have no doubt that to this circumstance alone Fouché knew he owed his existence. The month preceding Napoleon’s departure from Paris he became thoroughly acquainted with the intrigues of his minister; and I firmly believe that each was determined on the destruction of the other upon the first feasible opportunity, as the only means of securing himself. I do believe that Fouché would not have survived Bonaparte’s successful return more than four-and-twenty hours, and I equally believe that Fouché had actually meditated, and made some progress in providing for, Napoleon’s assassination. I made up my mind on these points, not from any direct information, but from a process yclept by our great-grandmothers spelling and putting together; and if the reader will be good enough to bear in mind what I have already told him, he will not be at a loss to understand how my suspicions were excited.
In truth, the army alone was sincerely and unanimously attached to the reinstated monarch. By his soldiers Bonaparte was, in every part of his career, almost worshipped. They seemed to regard him rather as a demigod; and nobody could be deceived as to their entire devotion to the divinity which they had set up. But it was not so with the civil ranks of Paris.
I should tire myself and readers were I to describe the almost boyish anxiety which I felt when the firing of the ordnance announced the first movement of the emperor from the Tuileries to the Champ de Mars. I shall leave to the supposition of the reader the impression I received from the passing of the cortége. Let him picture to himself an immense army pouring along the spacious quays of Paris, in battalions and squadrons:—the enthusiasm of the soldiers, the bright cuirasses, the multitude of waving plumes, the magnificence of the marshals and their staff:—these, set off by the glowing sun, combined to implant in the mind of a person unaccustomed to such a sight the idea of almost certain victory.
What struck me most, was the appearance of a splendid, but not numerous regiment, in the costume of Turkish cavalry, mounted upon small barbs and dashingly accoutred: their officers rode, for the most part, piebald horses, many of which were caparisoned with breast armour, and decked with gaudy trappings. The uniform of the men was scarlet, with green cossack trowsers, immense turbans, and high plumes of feathers; the whole ornamented and laced in as splendid and glittering a style as ingenuity could dictate: their stirrups were foot-boards, and they had very crooked sabres and long lances. I believe these men were accoutred en Mamelück, and I mention them the more particularly, because I believe they did not go to Waterloo—at least not in that uniform. In calling to my recollection this superb scene, the hundred bands of martial music seem even at this moment to strike my ear. It seemed as if every instrument in Paris was in requisition! The trumpets and kettle-drums of the gaudy heralds; the deep sackbuts; the crashing cymbals; and the loud gongs of the splendid Mamelukes, bewildered both the ear and the imagination: at first they astonished, then gratified, and at length fatigued me. About the centre of this procession appeared its principal object, who, had he lived in times of less fermentation, would, in my opinion, have been a still greater statesman than he was a warrior. It is indisputable that it was Bonaparte who definitively freed the entire continent of Europe from that democratic mania, of all other tyrannies the most cruel, savage, and unrelenting; and which was still in full, though less rapid progress, when he, by placing the diadem of France on his own brow, restored the principle of monarchy to its vigour, and at one blow overwhelmed the many-headed monster of democratic revolution.
It has been the fashion, in England, to term Napoleon a “Corsican usurper.” We should have recollected Paoli before we reproached him for being a Corsican, and we should have recurred to our own annals and our great King William, who dethroned his father, before we called Napoleon a usurper. He mounted a throne which had long been vacant; the decapitation of Louis, in which he could have had no concern, had completely overwhelmed the dynasty of Bourbon, and Napoleon in a day re-established that monarchical form of government which we had, with so much expense of blood and treasure, been for many years unsuccessfully attempting to restore. I cannot avoid repeating this pointed example of our own inconsistency. We actually made peace and concluded treaties with Napoleon Bonaparte when he was acting as a republican (the very species of government against which we had so long combated); and we refused to listen to his most pacific demonstrations when he became a monarch![[46]]
[46]. Another observation I cannot but make on this subject.—As events have turned out, Napoleon only sat down on the throne of France to keep it for the Bourbons. Had he remained a republican, as when we acknowledged and made peace with him, the names of the whole family of Louis would still have appeared on the pension list of England.
This has I confess been a sad digression: but when I call to mind that last scene of Bonaparte’s splendour, I cannot altogether separate from it the prior portion of his history and that of Europe. I have mentioned that about the centre of the cortége the emperor and his court appeared. It was the custom in France for every person of a certain rank to keep a sort of state-coach gaudily gilded and painted, and, in addition to the footmen, a chasseur to mount behind, dressed en grande toilette, with huge mustaches, immense feathers in his hat, and a large sabre depending from a broad-laced belt, which crossed his shoulder:—he was generally a muscular, fine-looking man, and always indicated rank and affluence in his master. Napoleon liked this state to be preserved by all his ministers, &c. He obliged every man in office to appear at court and in public according to the station he held; and instances were not wanting where the emperor, having discovered that an officer of rank had not pecuniary means to purchase a coach of ceremony, had made him a present of a very fine one. He repeatedly paid the debts of several of his marshals and generals, when he thought their incomes somewhat inadequate; and a case has been mentioned, where a high officer of his household had not money to purchase jewels for his wife, of Napoleon ordering a set to be presented to her with an injunction to wear them at court.