At Doulevant Napoleon received cipher despatches from La Valette, the postmaster-general in Paris, a trusted friend. These were the first communications since the twenty-second; the writer said not a moment must be wasted, the Emperor must come quickly or all would be lost. His decision once taken, Napoleon had grown more feverish with every hour; this message gave wings to his impatience. With some regard for such measures as would preclude his capture by wandering bands of Cossacks, he began almost to fly. New couriers were met at Doulaincourt with despatches which contained a full history of the past few days; in consequence the troops were spurred to fresh exertions, their marches were doubled, and at nightfall of the twenty-ninth Troyes was reached. Snatching a few brief hours of sleep, Napoleon at dawn next morning threw discretion to the winds, and started with an insufficient escort, determined to reach Villeneuve on the Vanne before night. The task was performed, but no sooner had he arrived than at once he flung himself into a post-chaise, and, with Caulaincourt at his side, sped toward Paris; a second vehicle, with three adjutants, followed as best it might; and a third, containing Gourgaud and Lefebvre, brought up the rear. It will be remembered that Gourgaud was an able artillerist; Lefebvre, it was hoped, could rouse the suburban populations for the defense of Paris. At Sens Napoleon heard that the enemy was ready to attack; at Fontainebleau that the Empress had fled toward the Loire; at Essonnes he was told that the decisive battle was raging; and about ten miles from the capital, at the wretched posting-station of La Cour de France, deep in the night, fell the fatal blow. Paris had surrendered. The terrible certainty was assured by the bearer of the tidings, Belliard, a cavalry officer despatched with his troop by Mortier to prepare quarters for his own and Marmont's men.
Maria Louisa had played her rôle of Empress-regent as well as might be expected from a woman of twenty-three with slender abilities; only once in his letters did the Emperor chide her, and that was for a fault at that time venial in European royalty: receiving a high official, in this case the arch-chancellor, in her bedchamber. On the whole, she had been dignified and conciliatory; once she rose to a considerable height, pronouncing before the senate with great effect a stirring speech composed by her husband and forwarded from his headquarters. About her were grouped a motley council: Joseph, gentle but efficient; Savary, underhanded and unwarlike; Clarke, working in the war ministry like a machine; Talleyrand, secretly plotting against Napoleon, whose title of vice-grand elector he wore with outward suavity; Cambacérès, wise but unready; Montalivet, adroit but cautious. Yet, while there was no one combining ability, enthusiasm, and energy, the equipment of troops had gone on with great regularity, and each day regiments of half-drilled, half-equipped recruits had departed for the seat of war. The national guards who garrisoned the city, some twelve thousand in all, had forgotten their imperialism, having grown very sensitive to the shafts of royalist wit; yet they held their peace and had performed the round of their duties. Everything had outwardly been so quiet and regular that Napoleon actually contemplated a new levy, but the emptiness of the arsenals compelled him to dismiss the idea. Theoretically a fortified military depot, Paris was really an antiquated fortress with arsenals of useless weapons. Spasmodic efforts had been made to throw up redoubts before the walls, but they had failed from lack of energy in the military administration.
A close examination of what lay beneath the surface of Parisian society revealed much that was dangerous. Talleyrand's house was a nest of intrigue. Imperial prefects like Pasquier and Chabrol were calm but perfunctory. The Talleyrand circle grew larger and bolder every day. Moreover, it had influential members—de Pradt, Louis, Vitrolles, Royer-Collard, Lambrecht, Grégoire, and Garat, together with other high functionaries in all departments. Bourrienne developed great activity as an extortioner and briber; the great royalist irreconcilables, Montmorency, Noailles, Denfort, Fitz-James, and Montesquiou, were less and less careful to conceal their activity. Jaucourt, one of Joseph's chamberlains, was a spy carrying the latest news from headquarters to the plotters. "If the Emperor were killed," he wrote on March seventeenth, "we should then have the King of Rome and the regency of his mother.... The Emperor dead, we could appoint a council which would satisfy all opinions. Burn this letter." The program is clear when we recall that the little King of Rome was not three years old. Napoleon was well aware of the increasing chaos, and smartly reproved Savary from Rheims.
But Talleyrand was undaunted. At first he appears to have desired a violent death for Napoleon, in the hope of furthering his own schemes during a long imperial regency. At all events, he ardently opposed the departure of the Empress and the King of Rome from Paris. Nevertheless it was he who despatched Vitrolles, the passionate royalist, to Nesselrode with a letter in invisible ink which, when deciphered, turned out to be an inscrutable riddle capable of two interpretations. "The bearer of this deserves all confidence. Hear him and know me. It is time to be plain. You are walking on crutches; use your legs and will to do what you can." Lannes had long before stigmatized the unfrocked bishop as a mess of filth in a silk stocking; Murat said he could take a kick from behind without showing it in his face; in the last meeting of the council of state before the renewal of hostilities, Napoleon fixed his eyes on the sphinx-like cripple and said: "I know I am leaving in Paris other enemies than those I am going to fight." His fellow-conspirators were scarcely less bitter in their dislike than his avowed enemies. "You don't know the monkey," said Dalberg to Vitrolles; "he would not risk burning the tip of his paw even if all the chestnuts were for himself." Yet, master of intrigue, he pursued the even tenor of his course, scattering innuendos, distributing showers of anonymous pamphlets, smuggling English newspapers into the city, in fact working every wire of conspiracy. Surprised by the minister of police in an equivocal meeting with de Pradt, he burst out into hollow laughter, his companion joined in the peal, and even Savary himself found the merriment infectious.
Toward the close of March the populace displayed a perilous sensitiveness to all these influences. The London "Times" of March fifteenth, which was read by many in the capital, asked what pity Blücher and the Cossacks would show to Paris on the day of their vengeance, the editor suggesting that possibly as he wrote the famous town was already in ashes. Such suggestions created something very like a panic, and a week later the climax was reached. When the fugitive peasants from the surrounding country began to take refuge in the capital they found business at a standstill, the shops closed, the streets deserted, the householders preparing for flight. From the twenty-third to the twenty-eighth there was no news from Napoleon; the Empress and council heard only of Marmont's defeat. They felt that a decision must be taken, and finally on the twenty-eighth the imperial officials held a council. The facts were plainly stated by Clarke; he had but forty-three thousand men, all told, wherewith to defend the capital, and in consequence it was determined to send the Empress and her son to Rambouillet on the very next day. This fatal decision was taken partly through fear, but largely in deference to Napoleon's letter containing the classical allusion to Astyanax. The very men who took it believed that the Parisian masses would have died for the young Napoleon, and deplored the decision they had reached. "Behold what a fall in history!" said Talleyrand to Savary on parting. "To attach one's name to a few adventures instead of affixing it to an age.... But it is not for everybody to be engulfed in the ruins of this edifice." From that hour the restoration of the Bourbons was a certainty.
It was a mournful procession of imperial carriages which next morning filed slowly through the city, attracting slight attention from a few silent onlookers, and passed on toward Rambouillet. The baby king had shrieked and clutched at the doors as he was torn away from his apartments in the Tuileries, and would not be appeased; his mother and attendants were in consternation at the omen, and all thoughtful persons who considered the situation were convinced that the dissolution of the Empire was at hand. A deputation from the national guard had sought in vain to dissuade the Empress from her course; their failure and the distant booming of cannon produced widespread depression throughout the city, which was not removed by a spirited proclamation from Joseph declaring that his brother was on the heels of the invaders. All the public functionaries seemed inert, and everybody knew that, even though the populace should rise, there was no adequate means of resistance either in men or in arms or in proper fortifications.
Clarke alone began to display energy; with Joseph's assistance, what preparations were possible at so late an hour were made: six companies were formed from the recruits at hand, the national guard was put under arms, the students of the polytechnic school were called out for service, communication with Marmont was secured, and by late afternoon Montmartre, Belleville, and St. Denis were feebly fortified. The allies had been well aware that what was to be done must be done before the dreaded Emperor should arrive, and on that same morning their vanguard had summoned the town; but during the parley their generals began to feel the need of greater strength, and further asked an armistice of four hours. This was granted on the usual condition that within its duration no troops should be moved; but the implied promise was perfidiously broken, and at nightfall both Alexander and Frederick William, accompanied by their forces, were in sight of the far-famed city. Dangers, hardships, bygone insults and humiliations, all were forgotten in a general tumult of joy, wrote Danilevsky, a Russian officer. Alexander alone was pensive, well knowing that, should the city hold out two days, reinforcements from the west might make its capture impossible until Napoleon should arrive. Accordingly he took virtual command, and issued stringent orders preparatory for the assault early next morning.
CHAPTER X
The Fall of Paris[12]
The Battle before Paris — The Armistice — The Position of Marmont — Legitimacy and the Bourbons — The Provisional Government — Napoleon's Fury — Suggestions of Abdication — Napoleon's New Policy Foreshadowed — His Troops and Officers — The Treason of Marmont — The Marshals at Fontainebleau — Napoleon's Despair.