“Here is my abdication!” he said to Caulaincourt; “carry it to Paris.” He appeared to be laboring to control intense emotion, and Caulaincourt burst into tears as he took the paper.
As long as the French army appeared to be devoted to the Emperor, the Allies had not openly declared for the Bourbons. They had encouraged the idea that they would favor a regency in favor of Napoleon’s son, conceding to its fullest extent the right of the French people to select their own rulers. It was by the skilful use of this pretence that many of the French officers had been led astray. It was by this mingling of the sweet with the bitter that Napoleon’s first act of abdication had been wrung from him by the marshals. Succeeded by the son he adored, France would not be wholly lost to him, since it remained to his dynasty.
But here again Marmont ruined all. Played upon by Laffitte and Talleyrand’s clique,—flattered, cajoled, and adroitly seduced,—this marshal of France made a secret bargain with the Allies which took from the Emperor the strongest body of troops then at hand.
Thus it happened that when the Ney-Macdonald delegation, bearing the conditional abdication, returned to Paris, and were urging upon the Czar the claims of Napoleon’s son, the conference was interrupted by an excited messenger who had come to announce to Alexander that Marmont’s corps had been led into the allied lines. This astounding intelligence ended the negotiations. The Czar promptly dropped the veil, and disclosed the real policy of the Allies. The marshals went back to Fontainebleau to demand an abdication freed from conditions.
Marmont had dealt the final blow to a tottering cause—“Marmont, the friend of my youth, who was brought up in my tent, whom I have loaded with honors and riches!” as the fallen Emperor exclaimed, in accents of profound amazement and grief. Yes, when the miserable renegade sat down to plot with Talleyrand the complete ruin of the Empire, it was in a luxurious palace which Napoleon had given him.
What officer had ruined a campaign in Spain and thereby done grievous injury to the Emperor in Russia? Who had disobeyed orders, brought on the night surprise at Laon, and wrecked Napoleon’s pursuit of Blücher? Who had lost the line of communications, by movements against orders, and had let Napoleon’s most important despatches fall into the hands of the enemy? Who had caused the defeat at Fère-Champenoise; who had so feebly resisted the allied advance upon Paris that their progress astonished themselves? Who had surrendered a vast city of eight hundred thousand souls to foreigners, when he must have known that Napoleon was coming to the rescue as fast as horse could run? Marmont, the spoiled favorite; Marmont, the vainglorious weakling; Marmont, the false-hearted traitor! Verily he reaped his reward. To the Bourbons he became a hero, and so remained for a season. But France—the real France—hated him as North America hates Benedict Arnold. The time came when he who had betrayed Napoleon for the Bourbons, betrayed the elder Bourbons for the House of Orleans. Despised by all parties, he wandered about Europe as wretched as he deserved to be. And the day came when the gondoliers at Venice pointed him out scornfully to each other, and refused to bend an oar for the miscreant.
“You see him yonder! That is Marmont. Well, he was Napoleon’s friend, and he betrayed him!”
* * * * *
Undaunted even by Marmont’s defection, Napoleon issued a proclamation, and began his preparations to retire beyond the Loire, and fight it out. His conditional abdication rejected, war could not be worse than peace, and he explained his plan of campaign to his marshals. They cut him short, brusquely, menacingly. The Emperor stood alone, forsaken by all his lieutenants, and made an imploring address to them, pleading with them to make one final effort for France. His words fell on hearts that were turned to stone. They harshly declared that the confidence of the army was gone. Macdonald said that they must have unconditional abdication.
The Emperor promised to reply next day, and, as his marshals filed out, he said, in bitterness of spirit,—“Those men have neither heart nor bowels; I am conquered less by fortune than by the egotism and ingratitude of my companions-in-arms.”