CHAPTER XLVI
During the voyage from Elba to France, Napoleon had been in the best of spirits, moving about familiarly among his men, and chatting freely upon all subjects. He had not told them where they were going, but probably they little needed telling. All must have felt that they were bound for France.
The passage was full of peril, for French cruisers were often in sight. One of these came quite near, so much so that Napoleon ordered his guards to take off their bearskin caps and to lie down upon the deck. The commander of the French vessel hailed Napoleon’s brig, and recognizing it as from Elba, asked, “How’s the Emperor?” Napoleon himself seized the speaking-trumpet and replied, “He is wonderfully well.”
At length the companions of the Emperor were told that they were bound for France, and those who could write were called around him to copy two proclamations he intended to scatter abroad upon landing. He had himself written these in Elba, but nobody present could read them—not even himself.
Casting these into the sea, he dictated two others,—one for his old soldiers, the other for the nation at large. He revised these papers ten times before they satisfied him, and then he set all hands making copies. Engaged thus, they came within sight of France, and they greeted the shores with enthusiastic shouts.
It was about five o’clock in the evening of March 1, 1815, that Napoleon and his little army landed near Cannes, and bivouacked in a meadow surrounded by olive trees, close to the shore. A captain and twenty-five men, sent to Antibes to rouse the garrison and bring it over to Napoleon, entered the town crying, “Live the Emperor!” without explanation or further statement; and the people of the place, knowing nothing of Napoleon’s landing, took these men, who had suddenly come screaming through their quiet town, to be lunatics. The royal commandant had sufficient presence of mind to shut the town gates; and so the gallant twenty-six, who went to surprise and capture, got surprised and captured.
“We have made a bad beginning,” said Napoleon, when news of this mishap reached him. “We have nothing to do but to march as fast as we can, and get to the mountain passes before the news of our arrival.”
The moon rose, and at midnight the Emperor began his march. He had brought a few horses from Elba, had bought a few more from peasants after landing, and thus some of his officers were mounted, while he himself rode in a carriage given him by his sister Pauline, and which he had brought from Elba. They marched all night, passing through silent, moonlit villages, where the people, roused by reports of something unusual afoot,—the pirates had come, some said,—stood gaping at the marching troops, responding with shrugs of the shoulders to the shouts of “Live the Emperor!” It was not until the column had passed through Grasse, a town of six thousand inhabitants, and had halted on a hill beyond, that the people seemed to realize what was happening. The pirate alarm disappeared, the fires of enthusiasm began to glow, and with glad shout of “Live the Emperor!” the town-folk came running toward the camp, bearing provisions for the troops. From this time the country people were certain that Napoleon had really come back, and his march became one of triumph. Leaving cannon and carriage at Grasse, the column pressed on toward Cérénon by mountain paths still covered with snow, the Emperor marching on foot among his grenadiers. When he stumbled and fell on the rough road, they laughed at him; and he could hear them calling him, among themselves, “Our little monk.” Reaching Gap on the 5th, he printed his proclamations; and he began to scatter them by thousands. And never before did proclamations find such willing readers, or win such popular favor. Advancing toward Grenoble, the advance guard under Cambronne encountered a battalion of six thousand troops, sent to stop the march of the invaders. The royalist commander refused to parley with Napoleon’s officers, and threatened to fire. Cambronne sent to inform the Emperor of what had occurred. Napoleon was riding in an old carriage, picked up at Gap, when this report reached him. Mounting his horse, he galloped forward to within a hundred yards of the hostile battalion. Not a cheer greeted him. Turning to Bertrand, the disappointed Emperor remarked, “They have deceived me, but no matter. Forward march!” Throwing the bridle of his horse to Bertrand, he went on foot toward the royal troops.
“Fire!” shouted the officer, drawing his sword. And then Napoleon, unbuttoning that familiar gray overcoat, and fronting them with that familiar cocked hat, made the famous address which broke down all military opposition between Grenoble and Paris, sweeping thousands of bayonets out of his way with a word.
“What! My children, do you not recognize me? It is your Emperor. If there be one among you who would kill his general, he can do it. Here I am!”