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Informed of all that was passing in France, in Italy, and at the Vienna Congress, Napoleon prepared to make a bold dash for his throne. He communicated secretly with Murat, with various Italian friends, with various friends in France. Vague rumors began to circulate among his old soldiers that he would reappear in the spring.
Did he make a secret treaty with Austria, detaching her from the European alliance? There is some reason to believe that he did. He repeatedly declared at St. Helena that such a treaty had been made; and the author of the Private Memoirs of the Court of Louis XVIII. corroborates him. In that curious, interesting book a copy of the alleged treaty is given.
Napoleon himself is reported to have said that the conspiracy which Fouché had been organizing among the army officers forced him to leave Elba three months earlier than he had intended. This is important, if true, for it is conceded that had he waited three months longer his chances of success would have been immensely improved—provided that he had not in the meantime been seized as a prisoner of war or assassinated.
Concealing his design to the last moment, Napoleon gathered up his little army of eleven hundred men, went on board a small flotilla at Porto Ferrajo, February 15, 1815, and set sail for France. His mother and his sister looked on in tears while the troops were embarking, and the Emperor himself was deeply affected. As he embraced his mother and bade her farewell, he said, “I must go now, or I shall never go.”
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At the Tuileries on the night of March 2, 1815, a curious scene was witnessed in the saloon of the Abbé d’André, director-general of the royal police.
Quite a number of people being present, conversation fell upon certain ugly rumors concerning Elba. A gentleman just from Italy spoke of the active movements of Napoleon’s agents. It was said that the Emperor was engaged in some hostile preparations. The gentleman from Italy evidently made an impression upon the company, and created a feeling of uneasiness. The mere thought of Napoleon Bonaparte breaking loose from Elba, and landing in France, was enough of itself to materially increase the chilliness of a night in March to the Bourbon group.
But the Abbé d’André was equal to the emergency. As director-general of police it was his business to know what Napoleon was doing, and he knew.
Rising from his chair, and striding to the fireplace, he faced the company, and harangued them thus:—