The seat of the Congress had been removed from Vienna to Frankfort, to be near the theatre of war. The Emperors of Russia and Austria, with the King of Prussia, had once more placed themselves at the head of their respective armies. The whole eastern frontier was menaced by immense forces. One hundred and fifty thousand Austrians, disengaged from Murat, might enter France through Switzerland, the Cantons having acceded to the coalition. An army equal in strength menaced the higher Rhine. Schwartzenberg commanded the Austrians in chief, having under him Bellegarde, and Frimont, Bianchi, and Vincent. Two hundred thousand Russians were pressing towards the frontiers of Alsace. The Archduke Constantine was nominated generalissimo, but Barclay de Tolly, Sacken, Langeron, &c. were the efficient commanders. One hundred and fifty thousand Prussians, under Blucher, occupied Flanders, and were united with about eighty thousand troops, British, or in British pay, under the Duke of Wellington. There were also to be reckoned the contingents of the different princes of Germany, so that the allied forces were computed grossly to amount to upwards of one million of men. The reader must not, however, suppose that such an immense force was, or could be, brought forward at once. They were necessarily disposed on various lines for the convenience of subsistence, and were to be brought up successively in support of each other.
To meet this immense array, Napoleon, with his usual talent and celerity, had brought forward means of surprising extent. The regular army, diminished by the Bourbons, had been, by calling out the retired officers and disbanded soldiers, increased from something rather under 100,000 men, to double that number of experienced troops, of the first quality. But this was dust in the balance; and the mode of conscription was so intimately connected with Napoleon's wars of conquest and disaster, that he dared not propose, nor would the Chamber of Representatives have agreed, to have recourse to the old and odious resource of conscription, which, however, Buonaparte trusted he might still find effectual in the month of June, to the number of 300,000. In the meantime, it was proposed to render moveable, for active service, two hundred battalions of the national guard, choosing those most fit for duty, which would make a force of 112,000 men. It was also proposed to levy as many Federates, that is, volunteers of the lower orders, as could be brought together in the different departments. The levy of the national guards was ordered by an Imperial decree of 5th April, 1815, and commissioners, chiefly of the Jacobin faction, were sent down into the different departments, Buonaparte being well pleased at once to employ them in their own sphere, and to get rid of their presence at Paris. Their efforts were, however, unable to excite the spirit of the country; for they had either survived their own energies, or the nation had been too long accustomed to their mode of oratory, to feel any responsive impulse. Liberty and fraternity was no longer a rallying sound, and the summons to arms, by decrees as peremptory as those relating to the conscription, though bearing another name, spread a general spirit of disgust through many departments in the north of France. There and in Brittany the disaffection of the inhabitants appeared in a sullen, dogged stubbornness, rather than in the form of active resistance to Napoleon's decrees. The national guards refused to parade, and, if compelled to do so, took every opportunity to desert and return home; so that it often happened that a battalion, which had mustered six hundred men, dwindled down to a fifth before they had marched two leagues.
In the departments of La Garde, of the Marne, and the Nether Loire, the white flag was displayed, and the tree of liberty, which had been replanted in many places after the political regeneration of Buonaparte, was cut down. The public mind in many provinces displayed itself as highly unfavourable to Napoleon.
DISAFFECTION.
A report drawn up by Fouché, stated in high-coloured language the general disaffection. Napoleon always considered this communication as published with a view of prejudicing his affairs; and as that versatile statesman was already in secret correspondence with the allies, it was probably intended as much to encourage the Royalists, as to dismay the adherents of Napoleon. This arch-intriguer, whom, to use an expression of Junius, treachery itself could not trust, was at one moment nearly caught in his own toils; and although he carried the matter with infinite address, Napoleon would have made him a prisoner, or caused him to be shot, but for the intimation of Carnot, that, if he did so, his own reign would not last an hour longer.[132]
Thus Buonaparte was already, in a great measure, reduced to the office of Generalissimo of the State; and there were not wanting many, who dared to entreat him to heal the wounds of the country by a second abdication in favour of his son—a measure which the popular party conceived might avert the impending danger of invasion.
In the meantime, about the middle of May, a short insurrection broke out in La Vendée, under De Autechamp, Suzannet, Sapineau, and especially the brave La Rochejacquelein. The war was neither long nor bloody, for an overpowering force was directed against the insurgents, under Generals Lamarque and Travot. The people were ill prepared for resistance, and the government menaced them with the greatest severities, the instructions of Carnot to the military having a strong tincture of his ancient education in the school of terror. Yet the Chamber of Deputies did not in all respects sanction the severities of the government. When a member, called Leguevel, made a motion for punishing with pains and penalties the Royalists of the west, the assembly heard him with patience and approbation, propose that the goods and estates of the revolters (whom he qualified as brigands, priests, and Royalists) should be confiscated; but when he added, that not only the insurgents themselves, but their relations in the direct line, whether ascendants or descendants, should be declared outlaws, a general exclamation of horror drove the orator from the tribune.
After a battle near La Roche Servière, which cost the brave La Rochejacquelein his life, the remaining chiefs signed a capitulation, by which they disbanded their followers, and laid down their arms, at the very time when holding out a few days would have made them acquainted with the battle of Waterloo. Released from actual civil war, Napoleon now had leisure to prepare for the external conflict.
The means resorted to by the French government, which we have already alluded to, had enabled Carnot to represent the national means in a most respectable point of view. By his report to the two Chambers, he stated, that on 1st April 1814, the army had consisted of 450,000 men, who had been reduced by the Bourbons to 175,000. Since the return of Napoleon, the number had been increased to 375,000 combatants of every kind; and before the 1st of August, was expected to amount to half a million. The Imperial Guards, who were termed the country's brightest ornament in time of peace, and its best bulwark in time of war, were recruited to the number of 40,000 men.