To give a more favourable impulse to the mind of the nation, Napoleon had recourse to an expedient which, in the time of the Republic, had been attended with universal effect. He sent special commissioners, twenty-seven in number, into the different departments, to arouse the dormant energies of the inhabitants, and induce them to take up arms. But the senators and counsellors, chosen for this purpose, were altogether void of the terrible energies of the Republican proconsuls; and, though endowed like them with the most arbitrary powers, they had neither the furious zeal, nor the contempt of all the prejudices of humanity, which had been displayed by those ferocious demagogues. Their mission, therefore, produced but little effect. The conscription, too, failed to be the ready source of levies which it had so often proved. The lancet had been so often used, that the blood no longer followed it so readily.
HIS UNCEASING EXERTIONS.
The unceasing activity of Napoleon laboured to supply these deficiencies. By day he was incessantly engaged in actively reviewing troops, inspecting stores, and all the preparations for a desperate resistance. By night, the lights were seen to glimmer late and long in the windows of his private apartment, in the upper story of the Tuileries.[317] He succeeded in levying twelve fresh regiments, and prepared to augment his veteran force by withdrawing Suchet from Catalonia, and making draughts from Soult's army on the frontiers, which he designed to supply by fresh levies.
The Moniteur, and the other newspapers, magnified the success of the Emperor's exertions, described armies in reserve which had no existence, and dilated upon the beau desespoir which was driving all France to arms, while, in fact, most of the provinces waited with apathy the events of the war.
One of the strongest symptoms of Napoleon's own consciousness of approaching danger, was his calling out and arming the national guard of Paris, a force to which he would not have appealed, save in the case of the last necessity, but to which he now felt himself obliged to have recourse. Aware, however, that to mark any want of confidence in the armed citizens at this moment, would be to give occasion to the disaffection which he dreaded, he solemnized his departure to the frontier by convoking a meeting of the officers of the national guard at the Tuileries. He appeared among them with his Empress and his infant child, and in a tone which penetrated every bosom, announced that, being about to place himself at the head of his army, he committed to the faith of the citizens of Paris, the security of his capital, his wife, and his child. Whatever complaints might be justly entertained against Napoleon's political conduct, none were so ungenerous as to remember them at that moment. Many of the officers shared in the emotion which he testified, and some mingled their tears with those of the alarmed and sorrowing Empress.[318]
This scene took place on the 23d of January; on the 25th,[319] Napoleon left that abode of royalty, to which he was doomed not to return until he had undergone strange changes of fortune. His mind was agitated with unusual apprehensions and anticipations of misfortune; feeling also, what was unsuspected by many, that the real danger of his situation arose from the probability of the nation's wishing to recall the Bourbons. He had even, according to his own account, resolved to arrest "the person of a man of great influence,"[320] whom he supposed most likely to promote this design. His counsellors persuaded him to forbear this arbitrary action at a moment when his power was becoming daily more obnoxious, and reminded him that the suspected person had as much reason to fear the restoration of the Bourbons as he himself had. The Emperor yielded the point, but not without strongly repeating his fears that his advisers and himself would both have to repent of it; and not without charging Cambacérès to make sure of that individual's person in case any crisis should take place in the capital.
Thus, full of melancholy presages, he hastened to the field, where he had but inadequate means to oppose to the accumulated force which was now precipitating itself upon France.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
Declaration of the Allies on entering France—Switzerland—Schwartzenberg crosses the Rhine—Apathy of the French—Junction of Blucher with the Grand Army—Crown Prince of Sweden—Inferiority of Napoleon's numerical Force—Battles of Brienne—and La Rothière—Difficulties of Buonaparte, during which he meditates to resign the Crown—He makes a successful Attack on the Silesian Army at Champ-Aubert—Blucher is compelled to retreat—The Grand Army carries Nogent and Montereau—Buonaparte's violence to his Generals—The Austrians resolve on a general Retreat, as far as Nancy and Langres—Prince Wenceslaus sent to Buonaparte's headquarters—The French enter Troyes—Execution of Goualt, a Royalist—A Decree of Death against all wearing the Bourbon emblems, and all Emigrants who should join the Allies.