The last time I was at Waterloo, many years ago, the guide who accompanied me told me, that, a short time before, a man, whose appearance was that of a substantial farmer, and who was followed by an attendant, called on him for his services. The guide went his usual round, making his often-repeated remarks and commenting severely on Grouchy. The stranger examined the ground attentively, and only occasionally replied, saying, "Grouchy received no orders." At last, the servant fell back, detaining the guide, and, in a low tone, said to him, "Speak no more about Marshal Grouchy, for that is he." The man told me, that, after that, he abstained from saying anything offensive; but that he watched carefully the soldier's agitation, as the various positions of the battle became apparent to him. He, doubtless, saw how little would have turned the current of the fight, and knew that the means of doing it had been in his own hands. The guide seemed much impressed with the deep feeling of the Marshal, and said to me, "I will never speak ill of him again."
The battle of Waterloo is often mentioned as the sole cause of Napoleon's downfall; and it is said, that, had he gained that day, he would have secured his throne. It seems to be forgotten that a complete victory would have left him with weakened forces, and that he had already exhausted the resources of France in his preparations for this one campaign; that the masses of Austria and Russia were advancing in hot haste, which, with the rallied remains of Prussia, and the indomitable perseverance and uncompromising hostility of England, quickened by a reverse of her arms, would have presented an array against which he could have had no chance of success. The hour of utter ruin would only have been procrastinated, involving still greater waste of life, and augmenting the desolation which for so many years had been the fate of Europe.
Yes, Napoleon was in Paris,—a general without soldiers, and a sovereign without subjects. The prestige of his name was gone; and had the Chamber of Deputies invested him with the Dictatorship, as was suggested, it would have been "a barren sceptre in his gripe," and the utmost stretch of power could not have collected materials to meet the impending invasion. At no period did he show such irresolution as at this time. He tendered his abdication, and it was accepted. He offered his services as a soldier, and they were declined. He had ceased, for the moment, to be anything to France. Yet he lingered for days about the capital, the inhabitants of which were too intent in gazing at the storm, ready to burst upon them, to be mindful of his existence. There was, however, one exception. The boys were still faithful to him, and were more interested in his position than in that of the enemy at their gates.
There was a show of resistance. The fragments of the army of Belgium gathered round Paris; the National Guard, or militia of the city, was marched out; and the youth of the colleges were furnished with field-pieces and artillery officers, who drilled them into very effective cannoneers, and they took naturally to the business, pronouncing it decidedly better fun than hard study. They were of an age which is full of animal courage, and their only fear was a peremptory order from parents or guardians to leave college and return home. Some of my school-fellows, anticipating such an injunction, joined the camp outside the city, and saw service enough to talk about for the remainder of their lives.
One morning, I was at the Lyceum, where all were prepared for an immediate order to march, and each one was making his last arrangements. No person could have supposed that these young men expected to be engaged, within a few hours, in mortal combat. They were in the highest spirits, and looked forward to the hoped-for battle as though it were to be the most amusing thing imaginable. While I was there, a false report came in that Napoleon had resumed the command of the army. The excitement instantly rose to fever-heat, and the demonstration told what hold he still had on these his steadfast friends. From our position the rear of the army was but a short distance, while the advanced portions of it were engaged. Versailles had been entered by the Allies, who were attacked and driven out by the French under Vandamme. The cannonade was at one time as continuous as the roll of a drum. Prisoners were guarded through the streets, and wagons, conveying wounded men, were continually passing.
Stragglers from the routed army of Waterloo were to be met in all directions, many of them disabled by their pursuers, or the fatigues of a harried retreat. Pride was forgotten in extreme misery, and they were grateful for any attention or assistance. One of them was taken into our institution as a servant. He had been in the army eighteen years, fifteen of which he had served as drummer. He had been in some of the severest battles, had gone through the Russian campaign, and was among the few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and who at times talked as though he were a perfect tornado in the field, was as arrant a poltroon as ever skulked.
After the Allied Troops entered Paris, and were divided among the inhabitants, some Prussian cavalry soldiers were quartered on us. Collisions occasionally took place between them and the scholars; and in one instance, one of them entered a study-room in an insulting manner, and in consequence thereof made a progress from the top of the stairs to the bottom with a celerity that would have done credit to his regiment in a charge. His comrades armed themselves to avenge the indignity, and the students, eager for the fray, sallied out to meet them with pistols and fencing-foils, the latter with buttons snapped off and points sharpened. There was hopeful promise of a very respectable skirmish; but it was nipped in the bud by the interposition of our peace-making instructors, aided by the authority of a Prussian officer. When the affair was over, some wonder was expressed why our fire-eating military attendant had not given us his professional services; and, on search being made, we found him snugly stowed away in a hole under the stairs, where he had crept on the first announcement of hostilities. He afterwards confessed to me that he was a coward, and that no one could imagine what he had suffered in his agonies of fear during his various campaigns. Yet he came very near being rewarded for extraordinary valor and coolness. His regiment was advancing on the enemy, and as he was mechanically beating the monotonous pas de charge, not knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, a shot cut the band by which his drum was suspended, and as it fell, he caught it, and without stopping, held it in one hand while he continued to beat the charge with the other. An officer of rank saw the action, and riding up, said, "Your name, brave fellow? You shall have the cross of honor for that gallant deed." He told me he really did not know what he was doing; he was too frightened to think about anything. But he added, that it was a pity the general was killed in that very battle, as it robbed him of the promised decoration.
I mention this incident as an evidence of what diversified materials an army is composed, and that the instruments of military despotism are not necessarily endowed with personal courage, the discipline of the mass compensating for individual imperfection. It also gives evidence that luck has much to do in the fortunes of this world, and that many a man who "bears his blushing honors thick upon him" would as poorly stand a scrutiny as to the means by which they were acquired, as our friend, the drummer, had he been enabled to strut about, in piping times of peace, with a strip of red ribbon at his button-hole.
While preparations were making for the defence of Paris, and the alarmed citizens feared, what was at one time threatened, that the defenders would be driven in, and the streets become a scene of warfare, involving all conditions in the chances of indiscriminate massacre, the powers that were saw the futility of resistance, and opening negotiations with the enemy, closed the war by capitulation. Whatever relief this may have been to the people generally, it was a sad blow to the martial ardor of my schoolmates. Their opinion of the transaction was expressed in language by no means complimentary to their temporary rulers. To lose such an opportunity for a fight was a height of absurdity for which treason and cowardice were inadequate terms. Their military visions melted away, the field-pieces were wheeled off, the army officers bade them farewell, they were required to deliver up their arms, and they found themselves back again to their old bondage, reduced to the inglorious necessity of attending prayers and learning lessons.
The Hundred Days were over. The Allies once more poured into France, and in their train came back the poor, despised, antiquated Bourbons, identifying themselves with the common enemy, and becoming a byword and a reproach, which were to cling to them until they should be driven into hopeless banishment. The King reentered Paris, accompanied by foreign soldiers. I saw him pass the Boulevard, and I then hastened across the Garden to await his arrival at the Tuileries, standing near the spot where, three months before, I had seen Napoleon. The tricolor was no longer there, but the white flag again floated over the place so full of historical recollections. Louis XVIII soon reached this ancestral abode of his family, and having mounted, with some difficulty and expenditure of breath, to the second story, he waddled into the balcony which overlooked the crowd silently waiting for the expected speech, and, leaning ponderously on the railing, he kissed his hand, and said, in a loud voice, "Good day, my children." This was the exordiam, body, and peroration of his address, and it struck his audience so ludicrously, that a laugh spread among them, until it became general, and all seemed in the best possible humor. The King laughed, too, evidently regarding his reception as highly flattering. The affair turned out well, for the multitude parted in a merry mood, considering his Majesty rather a jolly old gentleman, and making sundry comparisons between him and the late tenant, illustrative of the difference between King Stork and King Log.