The Count was sent to dismiss the volunteers, and they having performed their act of heroism, and offered to challenge the whole British army, were content with the glory of the threat, and heroically marched home to their shops.
But Montholon, on returning again, addressed Napoleon on the feasibility of attacking Wellington and Blucher with the battalions of the Messrs Calicot, upon which the Ex-Emperor made the following solemn speech: "To put into action the brute force of the masses, would without doubt save Paris, and ensure me the crown, without having recourse to the horrors of a civil war. But this would be also to risk the shedding of rivers of fresh blood. What is the compressive force which would be sufficiently strong to regulate the outburst of so much passion, hatred, and vengeance? No, I never can forget one thing, that I have been brought from Cannes to Paris in the midst of cries for blood, 'Down with the priests!' 'Down with the nobles!' I would rather have the regrets of France than possess its crown."
There is no country in the world, where Napoleon's own phrase, that from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step, is more perpetually and practically realised than in France. Here was a man utterly ruined, without a soldier on the face of the earth, all but a prisoner, abandoned by every human being who could be of the slightest service to him, beaten in the field, beaten on his own ground, and now utterly separated from his remaining troops, and with a hundred thousand of the victors rushing after him, hour by hour, to Paris. Yet he talks as if he had the world still at his disposal, applauds his own magnanimity in declining the impossible combat, vaunts his own philosophy in standing still, when he could neither advance nor retreat, and gives himself credit as a philanthropist, when he was on the very point of being handed over to the enemy as a prisoner. Some unaccountable tricks of a lower description now began to be played on the goods and chattels of the Elysée Bourbon. A case containing snuff-boxes adorned with portraits set in diamonds, was laid by Bertrand on the mantel-piece. He accidentally turned to converse with General Montholon at the window. Only one person entered the room. The Count does not give his name,—he was evidently a person of rank. On turning to the mantel-piece again, the case was gone.
One of the ministers had brought some negotiable paper to the amount of several millions of francs into the Emperor's chamber. The packet was placed under one of the cushions of the sofa. Only one person, and that one a man of rank who had served in Italy, entered the chamber. Napoleon went to look for the money, calculated a moment, and a million and a half of francs, or about £60,000 sterling, had been taken in the interim. Those were times for thievery, and the plunderers of Europe were now on the alert, to make spoil of each other. The Allies were still advancing, but they were not yet in sight; and the mob of Paris, who had been at first delighted to find that the war was at an end, having nothing else to do, and thinking that, as Wellington and Blucher had not arrived within a week, they would not arrive within a century, began to clamour Vive l'Empereur! Fouché and the provisional government began to feel alarm, and it was determined to keep Napoleon out of sight of the mob. Accordingly they ordered him to be taken to Malmaison; and on the 25th, towards nightfall, Napoleon submissively quitted the Elysée, and went to Malmaison. At Malmaison he remained for the greater part of the time, in evident fear of being put to death, and in fact a prisoner.—Such was the fate of the most powerful sovereign that Europe had seen since Charlemagne. Such was the humiliation of the conqueror, who, but seven years before, had summoned the continental sovereigns to bow down to his footstool at Erfurth; and who wrote to Talma the actor these words of supreme arrogance—"Come to Erfurth, and you shall play before a pit-full of kings."
From this period, day by day, a succession of measures was adopted by the government to tighten his chain. He was ordered to set out for the coast, nominally with the intention of giving him a passage to America. But we must doubt that intention. Fouché, the head of the government, had now thrown off the mask which he had worn so many years. And it was impossible for him to expect forgiveness, in case of any future return of Napoleon to power. But Napoleon, in America, would have been at all times within one-and-twenty days of Paris. And the mere probability of his return would have been enough to make many a pillow sleepless in Paris. We are to recollect also, that the English ministry must have been perfectly aware of the arrest of Napoleon; that St Helena had been already mentioned as a place of security for his person; and that if it was essential to the safety of Europe,—a matter about which Fouché probably cared but little; it was not less essential to the safety of Fouché's own neck,—a matter about which he always cared very much, that the Ex-Emperor should never set foot in France again.
The result was, an order from the minister at war, Davoust, Prince of Eckmuhl, couched in the following terms. We give it as a document of history.
"General, I have the honour to transmit to you the subjoined decree, which the commission of government desires you to notify to the Emperor Napoleon: at the same time informing his majesty, that the circumstances are become imperative, and that it is necessary for him immediately to decide on setting out for the Isle of Aix. This decree has been passed as much for the safety of his person as for the interest of the state, which ought always to be dear to him. Should the Emperor not adopt the above mentioned resolution, on your notification of this decree, it will then be your duty to exercise the strictest surveillance, both with a view of preventing his majesty from leaving Malmaion, and of guarding against any attempt upon his life. You will station guards at all the approaches to Malmaison. I have written to the inspector-general of the gendarmerie, and to the commandant of Paris, to place such of the gendarmerie and troops as you may require at your disposal.
"I repeat to you, general, that this decree has been adopted solely for the good of the state, and the personal safety of the Emperor. Its prompt execution is indispensable, as the future fate of his majesty and his family depends upon it. It is unnecessary to say to you, general, that all your measures should be taken with the greatest possible secresy.
(Signed) "Prince of Eckmuhl,
Marshal and Minister of War."
Those documents, which have now appeared, we believe, for the first time authentically, will be of importance to the historian, and of still higher importance to the moralist. Who could have once believed that the most fiery of soldiers, the most subtle of statesmen and the proudest of sovereigns, would ever be the subject of a rescript like the following? It begins with an absolute command that "Napoleon Bonaparte" (it has already dropped the emperor) "shall remain in the roads of the Isle of Aix till the arrival of passports." It then proceeds:—"It is of importance to the well-being of the state, which should not be indifferent to him, that he should remain till his fate, and that of his family, have been definitively regulated. French honour is interested in such an issue; but in the mean time every precaution should be taken for the personal safety of Napoleon, and that he must not be allowed to leave the place of his present sojourn.