On January 19, 1813, the hunt was directed to Grosbois, the fine estate which had belonged to Barras, then to Moreau, and then to Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel. At Grosbois, accordingly, the imperial party hunted. “But what was the surprise of all his suite when, at the moment of reëntering the carriages, his Majesty ordered them to be driven toward Fontainebleau.”
The Empress and the ladies, having no raiment with them other than hunting costumes, were in some confusion at the prospect. The Emperor teased them for a while, and then let them know that by his orders the necessary change of clothes had been sent from Paris beforehand and would be ready for them at Fontainebleau. Taking up his quarters in the ancient palace, Napoleon and Maria Louisa went informally to call upon the Pope. The meeting was affectionate. Again there were huggings and kissings; again it was “My father!” “My son!” And again the magnetism, the adroit winsomness of Napoleon, swept the aged pontiff off his feet. He signed a new compact with his “son”; and once more there came to them both the bliss due to the peacemakers.
Radiant with pleasure, Napoleon returned to Paris; and, quick as couriers could speed, went the good news to all parts of the Empire. But he had been too fast. He had given permission that the rebellious cardinals—“the black cardinals,” who, refusing to attend the celebration of the religious marriage with Maria Louisa, had been forbidden to wear the red robes—might attend the Pope. And these black cardinals had not changed their color,—were still black,—and they began immediately to urge the Holy Father to break his plighted word. The Holy Father did so, pleading by way of excuse, that the paper he had signed was not a contract or treaty, but only the basis of one; and that Napoleon had acted in bad faith in making it public. But the Emperor inserted the treaty in the official gazette, keeping up the pretence that all was peace between him and the Pope; so that the French people at large knew no better until a much later date.
There are critics who say that Napoleon was too hasty in setting out to join his army in April, 1813. But the plain facts of the case would seem to show that Napoleon knew what he was about. Prussia had issued her declaration of war on March 17, 1813, and Blücher pushed forward to the Elbe. Russian troops had likewise reached the Elbe, and Cossacks raided in the vicinity of Dresden, which the French, under Davoust, evacuated. Blücher entered the Saxon capitol; the Saxon king was a fugitive; and the Prussians passed on toward Leipsic.
By the 24th of April the Czar of Russia and the King of Prussia were in Dresden. Bernadotte, at the head of thirty thousand Swedes, had joined Bülow, and was covering Berlin.
In view of these events, how can it be said with assurance that Napoleon was overhasty in taking the field?
Remembering that the Allies had threatened war upon those minor German powers who would not join them, and that Saxony was already in their grasp, it seems that Napoleon’s conduct admits of easy explanation. Unless he checked the Allies, and that speedily, the Rhine Confederation would go to pieces; the French garrisons in various German cities would be lost. Eugène and his army would be cut off at Magdeburg, and the fabric of Napoleonic Empire would fall without a blow having been struck in its defence.
To accomplish these very purposes, the Allies had pressed forward; and great must have been the confusion in both armies; for Napoleon, as well as his enemies, was surprised when the two armies struck each other at Lützen, May 2, 1813. A bloody struggle followed; the Allies were outgeneralled, and they retreated from the field. Having no cavalry, the Emperor lost the usual fruits of victory; but the mere fact that he, so recently the fugitive from a lost army, now appeared at the head of another host, and had driven Russians and Prussians back in defeat, produced a moral effect which was immense. The enemy was driven beyond the Elbe; all hopes of breaking up the Rhine Confederation were at an end; Eugène and Napoleon would now unite; Saxony was redeemed. Napoleon entered Dresden in triumph. His friend and ally, the Saxon king, returned to his capital. The French army was full of confidence: the Allies made no effort to stand their ground till they reached Bautzen, on the Spree. Here, on May 21 and 22, they were assailed by the French, and again overthrown.
So competent a judge as Lord Wolseley is of the opinion that a mistake of Marshal Ney in this battle saved the allied army from total ruin. The Russians and Prussians held a strong fortified position resting on the Bohemian Mountains, from which there was only one line of retreat. Napoleon’s quick eye took in the situation, and he sent Ney to the rear of the enemy with seventy thousand men, while he assailed their front with eighty thousand. In executing this turning movement, Ney became engaged with a small force of Prussians, which Blücher had detached to protect his rear. “Instead of pressing his march along the rear of the allied army to cut off its retreat, and attack it in the rear, whilst Napoleon assailed it in front, Ney allowed his movements to be checked, and his direction diverted by this insignificant Prussian detachment. This fighting soon roused Blücher to a sense of his extreme danger, and he at once fell back and made good his retreat.” The Russians made the best of a bad situation till dark, and then escaped during the night. “Ney had, in fact, only succeeded in manœuvring the Allies out of a position in which Napoleon intended to destroy them, and where they must have been destroyed had his orders been skilfully obeyed.”
As it was, the Allies drew off without losing a gun, and Napoleon, looking over the thousands of dead that cumbered the field, exclaimed in rage and grief, “What a massacre for nothing!”