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

by Thomas E. Watson

Let it be remembered that the rallying cry of the people who had flocked to the returning Emperor had been: “Down with the nobles! Down with the priests!” So intense had been this feeling, this terrible antagonism to the abuses of the Old Order, that Napoleon himself, at Lyons, had whispered, “This is madness.” In Paris he had found the same spirit. Nobles and priests were furiously hated, not so much on personal grounds, as because they stood for an abominable system.

By tens of thousands the workmen of Paris had paraded before the Tuileries, making the air ring with the old war cries of the Revolution, and chanting fiercely the song whose burden is “With the guts of the last of the priests we will strangle the last of the kings!”

Now, of all men, Napoleon was the least likely to throw himself into the arms of men like these. He had no objection to nobles if they were his nobles; nor to priests if they were his priests; nor, indeed, to kings if they were his kings. Perfectly willing that the opportunities of life should be offered to all men alike, whether peasants or princes, and democrat enough to wish that all men should be equal in the eye of the law,—free to choose their vocations, their religion, and their political creed,—he had not the slightest idea of opening the flood-gates of that pent-up democracy, socialism, and communism which had horrified him in the days of his youth.

In the “Act Additional” provisions were made for a representative government and for the responsibility of ministers. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, security for person and property, were also guaranteed.

The good effects of these concessions were nullified by the creation of a hereditary House of Lords, which, it is said, Napoleon opposed, but which was adopted in spite of him. General Thiébault thought that this unpopular feature of the new Constitution lost the Emperor two hundred thousand men, who, otherwise, would have joined his army.

This “Act Additional” was submitted to the people, and adopted, but the vote was light.

By a decree which he had issued from Lyons, he had abolished the Senate and the legislative body. In their place was to be put the new House of Lords, and a legislative assembly. Urged by Lafayette, and other Liberals whose support he could not throw away, Napoleon ordered the elections much earlier than he had intended—and much earlier than was good for him, as it afterward appeared.

One by one grievous disappointments fell upon Napoleon and his people. It became evident that his return meant war. The Congress of Vienna declared that he had broken the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and declared him an outlaw. The armies of the kings were ordered to halt in their homeward march, and to set out for France again. Napoleon’s letters to the Allies could not even be delivered; his couriers were turned back at the frontier.

If Austria had made a secret agreement with him, it became apparent that nothing was to be hoped for in that quarter.

Murat had ruined everything by madly plunging into the papal states, proclaiming Italian unity and independence, and dashing himself to pieces in an attempt far beyond his means and his ability. Austria believed that Murat was acting at the instigation of Napoleon, and this unfounded suspicion led her to think, as Napoleon said, that he had played her false.