Ney returned in a fury from the army. Napoleon’s bulletins of the battle had censured him. The marshal angrily replied in the Moniteur, and he now from his place in the House of Peers struck back at his late master. When Labédoyère, Davoust, and others told the chambers that Grouchy’s army was intact, and that thirty or forty thousand of Napoleon’s own troops had rallied,—all of which was true,—Ney hotly denied it. Passionate and positive, he declared that the army no longer existed; that all talk of defence was idle; that terms must be made with the enemy. Unfortunate man, whom Bourbon hatred had marked for a traitor’s death! His one chance for life was to continue the fight for the Emperor; his headstrong folly and falsehood ruined both Napoleon and himself.
Nothing would satisfy the Lafayette party but Napoleon’s abdication. The ground must be cleared for a republic or a limited monarchy. Freed of Napoleon, Lafayette believed that France could make peace with the Allies, and would be suffered to choose her own ruler and form of government. Fouché slyly encouraged this dream of the man whom Napoleon justly termed “a political ninny.” No one knew better than Fouché that Napoleon’s vacant throne would be filled by the king whom Napoleon had driven from it.
The plots that were at work became known throughout Paris, and created an immense sensation. The masses of the people wanted no Bourbons, no Lafayette experiments. In the face of such national danger, they wanted Napoleon. Great crowds began to collect, and the streets rang with cries of “Live the Emperor!” The multitude thronged the avenues to the Élysée palace, and clamored for Napoleon to assert himself.
But at last the great man’s energy was dead. He cared no longer for anything. He was sick in mind and body, disgusted, worn out, utterly discouraged. The enemies of France he could fight—yes, a world full of them!—but France itself he would not fight. He would head no faction; would wage no civil war for his crown. It had come to that, and his heart failed him. Let the factions rage, let his French enemies combine: he would not stoop to such a combat. At last he was vanquished: this greater Percy’s spur was cold.
Behind the armies of Blücher and Wellington blazed the campfires of more than five hundred thousand soldiers marching under their kings upon France: how could any human being combat half of France and the whole of Europe besides? The great head sank upon his breast, and the beaten Emperor muttered, “Let them do as they will.”
He gave in his abdication in favor of his son, when abdication was demanded. He submitted when his son was set aside. He made no effort to prevent the formation of Fouché’s provisional government. He warned the erring statesmen that they were playing Fouché’s game, and were making a huge mistake; but he lifted no hand to check the movement. Soldiers as well as citizens clamored for him to lead them; he answered their shouts with lifted hat and bowed head, but in no other way. When Fouché, fearing him, ordered him away, he went.
Stopping at Malmaison, it was the same. He took no interest in anything, was apathetic, slept much, talked at random, and strolled idly about the grounds. Soldiers, passing in the road, cheered him with as much enthusiasm as ever, but he merely said, “It would have been better had they stood and fought at Waterloo.”
There was one flash of his old spirit. The armies of Wellington and Blücher, marching upon Paris, had become widely separated. He saw that they could be beaten in detail, and he offered his services as a general to the Fouché government to drive back the invaders. The offer was refused.
The army which had been operating in La Vendée clamored for him to put himself at its head; the army of the Loire sent envoys; citizens thronged about him and besought him to rouse himself and fight. “No. It would only be civil war. I will not shed the blood of the French in a purely personal cause.”
He formed no plans. He lingered at Malmaison when he could have escaped. Finally he went to the coast, and again he wasted time in uncertainty when he might have safely taken ship to America.[4]