Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
yours? On the contrary, I am much to be pitied. I hear of nothing but
the disasters of the Grand Army. I have been obliged to enter into
a treaty with the Austrians, and an arrangement with the English,
commanded by Lord Bentinck, in order to save my Kingdom from a
threatened landing of the English and the Sicilians, which would
infallibly have excited an insurrection."
There could not be a more ingenuous confession of the antipathy which
Joachim knew the Neapolitans to entertain towards his person and
government. His address to the French was ineffectual. It was easy
to foresee what would ensue. The Viceroy soon received an official
communication from Napoleon's War Minister, accompanied by an Imperial
decree, recalling all the French who were in the service of Joachim,
and declaring that all who were taken with arms in their hands should be
tried by a courtmartial as traitors to their country. Murat commenced
by gaining advantages which could not be disputed. His troops almost
immediately took possession of Leghorn and the citadel of Ancona, and
the French were obliged to evacuate Tuscany.
The defection of Murat overthrew one of Bonaparte's gigantic
conceptions. He had planned that Murat and Eugène with their combined
forces should march on the rear of the Allies, while he, disputing the
soil of France with the invaders, should multiply obstacles to their
advance; the King of Naples and the Viceroy of Italy were to march upon
Vienna and make Austria tremble in the heart of her capital before the
timid million of her Allies, who measured their steps as they approached
Paris, should desecrate by their presence the capital of France. When
informed of the vast project, which, however, was but the dream of
a moment, I immediately recognised that eagle glance, that power
of discovering great resources in great calamities, so peculiar to
Bonaparte.
Napoleon was yet Emperor of France; but he who had imposed on all Europe
treaties of peace no less disastrous than the wars which had preceded
them, could not now obtain an armistice; and Caulaincourt, who was
sent to treat for one at the camp of the Allies, spent twenty days at
Luneville before he could even obtain permission to pass the advanced
posts of the invading army. In vain did Caulaincourt entreat Napoleon
to sacrifice, or at least resign temporarily, a portion of that glory
acquired in so many battles, and which nothing could efface in history.
Napoleon replied, "I will sign whatever you wish. To obtain peace I will
exact no condition; but I will not dictate my own humiliation." This
concession, of course, amounted to a determination not to sign or to
grant anything.
In the first fortnight of January 1814 one-third of France was
invaded, and it was proposed to form a new Congress, to be held at
Chatillon-sur-Seine. The situation of Napoleon grew daily worse and
worse. He was advised to seek extraordinary resources in the interior of
the Empire, and was reminded of the fourteen armies which rose, as if
by enchantment, to defend France at the commencement of the Revolution.
Finally, a reconciliation with the Jacobins, a party who had power to
call up masses to aid him, was recommended. For a moment he was inclined
to adopt this advice. He rode on horseback through the surburbs of St.
Antoine and St. Marceau, courted the populace, affectionately replied to
their acclamations, and he thought he saw the possibility of turning to
account the attachment which the people evinced for him. On his return
to the Palace some prudent persons ventured to represent to him that,
instead of courting this absurd sort of popularity it would be more
advisable to rely on the nobility and the higher classes of society.
"Gentlemen," replied he, "you may say what you please, but in the
situation in which I stand my only nobility is the rabble of the
faubourgs, and I know of no rabble but the nobility whom I have
created." This was a strange compliment to all ranks, for it was only
saying that they were all rabble together.
At this time the Jacobins were disposed to exert every effort to serve
him; but they required to have their own way, and to be allowed freely
to excite and foster revolutionary sentiments. The press, which groaned
under the most odious and intolerable censorship, was to be wholly
resigned to them. I do not state these facts from hearsay. I happened
by chance to be present at two conferences in which were set forward
projects infected with the odour of the clubs, and these projects were
supported with the more assurance because their success was regarded as
certain. Though I had not seen Napoleon since my departure for Hamburg,
yet I was sufficiently assured of his feeling towards the Jacobins to be
convinced that he would have nothing to do with them. I was not wrong.
On hearing of the price they set on their services he said, "This is too
much; I shall have a chance of deliverance in battle, but I shall have
none with these furious blockheads. There can be nothing in common
between the demagogic principles of '93 and the monarchy, between clubs
of madmen and a regular Ministry, between a Committee of Public Safety
and an Emperor, between revolutionary tribunals and established laws. If
fall I must, I will not bequeath France to the Revolution from which I
have delivered her."
These were golden words, and Napoleon thought of a more noble and truly
national mode of parrying the danger which threatened him. He ordered
the enrolment of the National Guard of Paris, which was placed under the
command of Marshal Moncey. A better choice could not have been made,
but the staff of the National Guard was a focus of hidden intrigues,
in which the defence of Paris was less thought about than the means of
taking advantage of Napoleon's overthrow. I was made a captain in
this Guard, and, like the rest of the officers, I was summoned to the
Tuileries, on the 23d of January, when the Emperor took leave of the
National Guard previously to his departure from Paris to join the army.
Napoleon entered with the Empress. He advanced with a dignified step,
leading by the hand his son, who was not yet three years old. It was
long since I had seen him. He had grown very corpulent, and I remarked
on his pale countenance an expression of melancholy and irritability.
The habitual movement of the muscles of his neck was more decided and
more frequent than formerly. I shall not attempt to describe what
were my feelings during this ceremony, when I again saw, after a long
separation, the friend of my youth, who had become master of Europe,
and was now on the point of sinking beneath the efforts of his enemies.
There was something melancholy in this solemn and impressive ceremony. I
have rarely witnessed such profound silence in so numerous an assembly.
At length Napoleon, in a voice as firm and sonorous as when he used
to harangue his troops in Italy or in Egypt, but without that air
of confidence which then beamed on his countenance, delivered to the
assembled officers an address which was published in all the journals of
the time. At the commencement of this address he said, "I set out
this night to take the command of the army. On quitting the capital I
confidently leave behind me my wife and my son, in whom so many hopes
are centred." I listened attentively to Napoleon's address, and, though
he delivered it firmly, he either felt or feigned emotion. Whether or
not the emotion was sincere on his part, it was shared by many present;
and for my own part I confess that my feelings were deeply moved when he
uttered the words, "I leave you my wife and my son." At that moment
my eyes were fixed on the young Prince, and the interest with which he
inspired me was equally unconnected with the splendour which surrounded
and the misfortunes which threatened him. I beheld in the interesting
child not the King of Rome but the son of my old friend. All day long
afterwards I could not help feeling depressed while comparing the
farewell scene of the morning with the day on which we took possession
of the Tuileries. How many centuries seemed the fourteen years which
separated the two events.
It may be worth while to remind those who are curious in comparing
dates that Napoleon, the successor of Louis XVI., and who had become
the nephew of that monarch by his marriage with the niece of Marie
Antoinette, took leave of the National Guard of Paris on the anniversary
of the fatal 21st of January, after twenty-five years of successive
terror, fear, hope, glory, and misfortune.
Meanwhile, a Congress was opened at Chatillon-sur-Seine, at which were
assembled the Duke of Vicenza on the part of France, Lords Aderdeen
and Cathcart and Sir Charles Stewart as the representatives of England,
Count Razumowsky on the part of Russia, Count Stadion for Austria, and
Count Humboldt for Prussia. Before the opening of the Congress, the
Duke of Vicenza, in conformity with the Emperor's orders, demanded an
armistice, which is almost invariably granted during negotiations for
peace; but it was now too late: the Allies had long since determined
not to listen to any such demand. They therefore answered the Duke
of Vicenza's application by requiring that the propositions for peace
should be immediately signed. But these were not the propositions of
Frankfort. The Allies established as their bases the limits of the old
French monarchy. They conceived themselves authorised in so doing by
their success and by their situation.
To estimate rightly Napoleon's conduct during the negotiations for peace
which took place in the conferences at Chatillon it is necessary to bear
in mind the organisation he had received from nature and the ideas with
which that organisation had imbued him at an early period of life.
If the last negotiations of his expiring reign be examined with due
attention and impartiality it will appear evident that the causes of
his fall arose out of his character. I cannot range myself among those
adulators who have accused the persons about him with having dissuaded
him from peace. Did he not say at St. Helena, in speaking of the
negotiations at Chatillon, "A thunderbolt alone could have saved us: to
treat, to conclude, was to yield foolishly to the enemy." These words
forcibly portray Napoleon's character. It must also be borne in mind
how much he was captivated by the immortality of the great names which
history has bequeathed to our admiration, and which are perpetuated from
generation to generation. Napoleon was resolved that his name should
re-echo in ages to come, from the palace to the cottage. To live without
fame appeared to him an anticipated death. If, however, in this thirst
for glory, not for notoriety, he conceived the wish to surpass Alexander
and Caesar, he never desired the renown of Erostratus, and I will
say again what I have said before, that if he committed actions to be
condemned, it was because he considered them as steps which helped him
to place himself on the summit of immortality on which he wished to
place his name. Witness what he wrote to his brother Jerome, "Better
never, to have lived than to live without glory;" witness also what he
wrote later to his brother Louis, "It is better to die as a King than to
live as a Prince." How often in the days of my intimacy with Bonaparte
has he not said to me, "Who knows the names of those kings who have
passed from the thrones on which chance or birth seated them? They lived
and died unnoticed. The learned, perhaps, may find them mentioned in
old archives, and a medal or a coin dug from the earth may reveal to
antiquarians the existence of a sovereign of whom they had never before
heard. But, on the contrary, when we hear the names of Cyrus, Alexander,
Caesar, Mahomet, Charlemagne, Henry IV., and Louis XIV., we are