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The twenty-fifth bulletin from the Grand Army told France that the retreat from Moscow had begun. The twenty-eighth bulletin, dated from Smolensk, and made public in Paris on November 29, 1812, announced that winter had set in. After this, France was left for eighteen days without news—eighteen days filled with dread. Then on December 17 came the avalanche. The twenty-ninth bulletin, revealing much, suggested all—the Grand Army was no more! The consternation, the dismay, the stupor of grief and terror which overspread the stricken land, can be imagined; it passes the power of words.
And the home-coming of the Emperor—what was it like, this time?
It was midnight in Paris, the 18th of December, 1812. The Empress Maria Louisa, at the Tuileries, sad and unwell, had gone to bed. The imperial babe, the infant King of Rome, was asleep. It was a mournful time in France. Where was the hut from one end of the Empire to the other which did not hear sobs this bitter, bitter night? How many women, at cheerless firesides, wept and prayed for sons, husbands, lovers, shrouded in motionless snow on far Russian plains! Even the Empress was sorrowful. She knew nothing of the fate of the army or its chief. Napoleon himself might get rest for his unresting spirit from Cossack lance or Russian gun—in which event the Empress Maria might find untold calamity for her imperial self.
A common cab rolled into the courtyard below, and steps were heard hastily ascending the stairs. Two men hooded and wrapped up in furs, pushed their way into the anteroom to the Empress’s bedchamber. Voices were heard in this anteroom, and the Empress, frightened, was just getting out of bed, when Napoleon burst in, rushed up to her, and caught her in his arms.
On the following day, according to Pasquier, the Emperor admitted no one but his archchancellor, his ministers, and his intimates. On the 20th, which was Sunday, he attended divine service, and then held the usual levee; after which he formally received the Senate and the Council. Seated upon his throne, enveloped in his robes of state, this wonderful man, so recently a fugitive fleeing almost alone through the wilds of Poland, never presented a serener face to the world, nor looked down upon the grandees who bowed before him with haughtier glance, than upon this memorable Sabbath. Loyal addresses were listened to with dignity and composure; imperial responses were made in a tone which convinced France and Europe that Napoleon remained unconquered. Such was the grandeur of his attitude, so powerfully did his fortitude, courage, magnetic audacity appeal to this gallant nation, that it rallied to him with almost universal sympathy and enthusiasm. Towns, cities, corporate bodies, imperial dependencies, sent in loyal addresses, offers of cordial support. From Italy, Holland, the Rhine provinces, poured in warm expressions of attachment and fidelity. Rome, Milan, Florence, Turin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Mayence, testified their sense of the benefits his rule had conferred upon them, and tendered him “arms, armies, gold, fidelity, and constancy.”
Napoleon had said that he would be back in Germany in the spring with three hundred thousand men. He lost no time in getting ready to keep his promise. It was an awful task—this creation of a new army; but he set about it with a grim resolution, a patient persistence, which accomplished wonders. Skeleton regiments of veterans were filled in with youthful recruits, and hurriedly drilled. The twelve hundred cannon lost in Russia were replaced by old guns from the arsenals, or new ones from the foundries. The enormous loss of war material was made good from the reserves in the military depots. But where could the Emperor get horses to supply the mighty number frozen or starved in Russia? He could not get them. His utmost exertions could but supply teams for the artillery. Of cavalry he could mount almost none.
Meditate a moment on the situation. The civilized world stood arrayed against one man, one people. England on the seas, in Portugal, in Spain; Russia marching on with a victorious host; Sweden (having been promised Norway and English money) uniting with the Czar; Prussia and Austria leaving the side of France,—Prussia joining in the crusade, and Austria preparing to do so,—smaller German powers threatened with ruin if they did not declare war upon Napoleon; Murat at Naples betraying the man who had given him the crown; the Pope doing his utmost to sow disaffection by troubling the conscience of Catholics throughout the Empire; royalists in France beginning to stir, covertly and stealthily, in the tortuous ways of intrigue and conspiracy. All this we see upon one side. And upon the other, what? One man of supreme genius and courage,—backed by one gallant nation,—preparing to lead forth, to meet a world in arms, an army composed largely of boys, almost without cavalry, and almost without drill.
“I noticed at this epoch,” says Constant, “that the Emperor had never hunted so frequently.” Two or three times a week the hunting suit was donned, and the imperial party would seek the pleasures of the chase. As Napoleon had no real fondness for hunting, his valet was surprised. One day he learned the explanation. English newspapers, as the Emperor told Duroc, had been repeating that he was ill, could not stir, and was no longer good for anything. “I’ll soon make them see that I am as sound in body as in mind!”
One of these hunts, Napoleon endeavored to turn to a particularly good account. The Pope was at Fontainebleau, to which place he had been removed from Savona at the opening of the Russian campaign. His quarrel with the Emperor had become most annoying in its consequences. Disaffection, because of it, had found its way into the very Council of State. All attempt at negotiation had been fruitless. On the eve of another great war, here was a question which demanded settlement; and the Emperor determined to go in person to the Pope.