Flight of the Empire.
The Regency had retired to Blois. Bonaparte had given orders for the Empress and the King of Rome to leave Paris, saying that he would rather see them at the bottom of the Seine than led back in triumph to Vienna; but, at the same time, he had enjoined Joseph to remain in the capital. His brother's retreat made him furious, and he accused the ex-King of Spain of ruining all. The ministers, the members of the Regency, Napoleon's brothers, his wife and his son arrived in disorder at Blois, swept away in the downfall; military waggons, baggage-vans, carriages, everything was there; the King's own coaches were there and were dragged through the mud of the Beauce to Chambord, the only morsel of France left to the heir of Louis XIV. Some of the ministers did not stop here, but proceeded as far as Brittany to hide themselves, while Cambacérès lolled in a sedan-chair in the steep streets of Blois. Various rumours were current: there was talk of two camps and of a general requisition. During several days, they were ignorant of what was happening in Paris; the uncertainty did not cease until the arrival of a waggoner whose pass was signed "Sacken[135]." Soon the Russian General Schouvaloff[136] alighted at the Auberge de la Galère: he was suddenly besieged by the grandees, and entreated to obtain a visa for their stampede. However, before leaving Blois, all drew upon the funds of the Regency for their travelling-expenses and their arrears of salary; they held their passports in one hand and their money in the other, taking care at the same time to send in their adhesion to the Provisional Government, for they did not lose their heads. Madame Mère[137] and her brother, Cardinal Fesch[138], left for Rome. Prince Esterhazy[139] came on behalf of Francis II. to fetch Marie-Louise and her son. Joseph and Jerome[140] withdrew to Switzerland, after vainly trying to compel the Empress to attach herself to their fate. Marie-Louise hastened to join her father: indifferently attached to Bonaparte, she found means to console herself and rejoiced at being delivered from the double tyranny of a husband and a master. When, in the following year, Bonaparte revisited that confusion of flight on the Bourbons, the latter, but lately rescued from their long tribulations, had not enjoyed fourteen years of unequalled prosperity in which to accustom themselves to the comforts of the throne.
*
However, Napoleon was not yet dethroned; more than forty thousand of the best soldiers in the world were around him; he was able to retire behind the Loire; the French armies which had arrived from Spain were growling in the South; the military population might bubble over and distribute its lava; even among the foreign leaders, there was still a question of Napoleon or his son reigning over France: for two days, Alexander hesitated. M. de Talleyrand, as I have said, secretly leant towards the policy which tended to crown the King of Rome, for he dreaded the Bourbons; if he did not then accept entirely the plan of the Regency of Marie-Louise, it was because, since Napoleon had not perished, he, the Prince de Bénévent, feared that he would not be able to retain the mastery during a minority threatened by the existence of a restless, erratic, enterprising man, still in the vigour of his age[141].
De Bonaparte et des Bourbons.
It was in those critical days that I threw down my pamphlet De Bonaparte et des Bourbons[142] to turn the scale: its result is well known. I flung myself headlong into the fray to serve as a shield to liberty reviving against tyranny still subsisting, with its strength increased threefold by despair. I spoke in the name of the Legitimacy, in order to add to my words the authority of positive affairs. I taught France what the old Royal Family was; I told her how many members of that Family existed, what their names were, and their character: it was as though I had drawn up a fist of the children of the Emperor of China, to so great an extent had the Republic and the Empire encroached upon the present and relegated the Bourbons to the past. Louis XVIII. declared, as I have already often mentioned, that my pamphlet was of greater profit to him than an army of one hundred thousand men; he might have added that it was a certificate of existence to him. I assisted in giving him the crown a second time by the fortunate issue of the Spanish War.
From the commencement of my political career, I became popular with the crowd; but, from that time also, I failed to make my way with powerful men. All who had been slaves under Bonaparte abhorred me; on the other side, I was an object of suspicion to all who wished to place France in a state of vassalage. At the first moment, among the sovereigns, I had none on my side except Bonaparte himself. He looked through my pamphlet at Fontainebleau: the Duc de Bassano[143] had brought it to him; he discussed it impartially, saying:
"This is true; that is not true. I have nothing to reproach Chateaubriand with: he resisted me when I was in power; but those scoundrels, so and so!" and he named them.