Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

by Thomas E. Watson

Do all this, O high-born ladies of France, for the triumph of to-day is yours! But when passion has cooled and reason returned; when overwhelming pressure from without has been removed and France has become herself again, your excesses of servility to-day will but have hastened the speed of the To-morrow in which your precious Bourbons, and your precious feudalism will be driven forever forth from the land into which foreign bayonets have brought them. The man who lingers at Fontainebleau is to-day no longer Emperor to the high and mighty ones in Paris. To confederated monarchs he is “Bonaparte”; to banded conspirators he is “Bonaparte”; to recreant marshals, ungrateful nobles, grasping clericals, treacherous Dalbergs and Talleyrands, he is “Bonaparte.” Foreign and domestic foes make their appointment at his triumphal column in the Place Vendome, tugging and pulling to drag his statue down, as they have dragged him down.

The Empire is a wreck, the Napoleonic spell broken for all time to come. Down with the Corsican and his works! Up with the Bourbon lilies, and the glories of the Old Régime!

So runs the current—the shouts of the honest devotee and of the time-server whose only aim in life is to find out which is the winning side. Far-seeing, indeed, would be the sage,—wise as well as brave,—who, in this hour of national degradation, should dare to say that all this carnival of royalism would pass like a dream;—would dare to say that the fallen Emperor would rise again and would sweep his enemies from his path, and would come once more to rule the land—with the majesty and the permanence which belongs to none but the immortal dead.

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Troops had collected in the neighborhood of Fontainebleau to the number of forty or fifty thousand. The younger officers and the men of the rank and file were still devoted to the Emperor. Whenever he appeared he was met with the same old acclamations; and shouts of “To Paris” indicated the readiness of the army for the great battle which it was thought he would fight under the walls of Paris. After his first torpor, Napoleon had recovered himself, had formed his plans, and had convinced himself that the allied army could be cut off and destroyed. But in order for him to succeed it was necessary that treason in Paris should give him a chance to win, and treason gave him no such chance. The high-priests and the nobles whose hands Napoleon had strengthened by his Concordat and the recall of the émigrés, made the streets of Paris hot with the hurry of their feet as they ran here, there, and yonder, marshalling their partisans. The Abbés Montesquieu and Louis, the Archbishop of Malines, cordially working with Talleyrand and Dalberg, and assisted by banker Laffitte and others of that kind, honeycombed the Senate and the various public bodies with conspiracy, drawing into one common net those who merely wished to end the war by getting rid of Napoleon, as well as those who were original Bourbonites. In this crisis there was none to take the lead for Napoleon. He had deprived the masses of the people of all initiative; had given them civil liberty, but had taken away from them all political importance. Into the hands of the nobles and the priests he had replaced power, wealth, influence, class organization. When the Church and the aristocracy turned upon him, where was the power of resistance to come from? The army was a tower of strength to the Emperor, it is true; but even here there was mortal weakness, for the higher officers, who had been ennobled, were imbued with the spirit of their class. If the Senate, and the Church, and the aristocracy should declare against Napoleon, it soon became evident that his marshals would declare against him also. He had so bedizened them with titles, loaded them with honors, and gorged them with riches, that they could get nothing more by remaining loyal, even though he should finally triumph. Upon the other hand, should he fail, they would lose everything; hence to desert him was plainly the safe thing to do.

Napoleon was holding a review of his troops at Fontainebleau when Caulaincourt was seen to approach him, and whisper something in his ear. He drew back as though he had been struck, and bit his lips, while a slight flush passed over his face. Recovering himself at once, he continued the review. Caulaincourt’s whispered news had been that the Senate had deposed him.

“The allied sovereigns will no longer treat with Bonaparte nor any member of his family.” This declaration had cleared the way for the creation (April 1) of a provisional government by the French Senate, which provisional government was composed of Talleyrand and four other clerical and aristocratic conspirators.

The beginning having been made, the rest was easy. On April 3 the Senate decreed the Emperor’s deposition, alleging against him certain breaches of the Constitution, which breaches the Senate had unmurmuringly sanctioned at the time of their commission. Various public bodies in and around Paris began to declare against him, having no more right to depose him than the Senate possessed, but adding very sensibly to the demoralization of his supporters. Even yet the army was true; even yet when he appealed to the troops, the answering cry was, “Live the Emperor!” Thus while in Paris his petted civil functionaries, his restored clericals, and his nobles were jostling one another in the tumultuous rush of desertion, and while the swelling stream of the great treason was rolling onward as smoothly as Talleyrand could wish, there was one cause of anxiety to the traitors,—the attitude of the French army.

On April 4 the Emperor held his usual review; it proved to be the last. The younger officers and the troops were as enthusiastic as ever, but the marshals were cold. After the parade they followed Napoleon to his room. Only in a general way is known what passed at this conference. The marshals were tired of the war, and were determined that it should come to an end. Napoleon had formed his plans to march upon Paris and fight a great battle to save his crown. Marshal Macdonald had approved the plan and was ready to second his chief; the others would listen to no plans, and were resolute in their purpose to get rid of this chief. It seems to be certain that if a surrender could not be got from Napoleon by fair means, the marshals were ready to try those that were foul. If he could not be persuaded, he was to be intimidated; and if threats failed, he was to be assassinated. Talleyrand’s provisional government was equally determined and unscrupulous. Napoleon was to be killed if he could not otherwise be managed. Foremost among the marshals demanding his abdication, and apparently threatening his life, was Marshal Ney, whose tone and bearing to his chief are said to have been brutally harsh.

After having exhausted argument and persuasion upon these officers, Napoleon dismissed them, and drew up his declaration that he resigned the throne in favor of his son.