Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
unexpected address had occasioned; and I recollect having remarked at
the time that had Bonaparte, at the commencement of the campaign of
Paris, renounced his rights and returned to the rank of citizen, the
immense masses of the Allies must have yielded to the efforts of France.
General Kohler also stated that Napoleon complained of Maria Louisa not
being allowed to accompany him; but at length, yielding to the reasons
urged by those about him, he added, "Well, I prefer remaining faithful
to my promise; but if I have any new ground of complaint, I will free
myself from all my engagements."
At eleven o'clock Comte de Bussy, one of the Emperor's aides de camp,
was sent by the Grand Marshal (General Bertrand) to announce that all
was ready for departure. "Am I;" said Napoleon, "to regulate my actions
by the Grand Marshal's watch? I will go when I please. Perhaps I may not
go at all. Leave me!"
All the forms of courtly etiquette which Napoleon loved so much were
observed; and when at length he was pleased to leave his cabinet to
enter the salon, where the Commissioners were waiting; the doors were
thrown open as usual, and "The Emperor" was announced; but no sooner was
the word uttered than he turned back again. However, he soon reappeared,
rapidly crossed the gallery, and descended the staircase, and at twelve
o'clock precisely he stood at the head of his Guard, as if at a review
in the court of the Tuileries in the brilliant days of the Consulate and
the Empire.
Then took place a really moving scene--Napoleon's farewell to his
soldiers. Of this I may abstain from entering into any details, since
they are known everywhere, and by everybody, but I may subjoin the
Emperor's last address to his old companions-in-arms, because it belongs
to history. This address was pronounced in a voice as firm and sonorous
as that in which Bonaparte used to harangue his troops in the days of
his triumphs. It was as follows:
"Soldiers of my Old Guard, I bid you farewell. For twenty years I
have constantly accompanied you on the road to honour and glory. In
these latter times, as in the days of our prosperity, you have
invariably been models of courage and fidelity. With men such as
you our cause could not be lost, but the war would have been
interminable; it would have been civil war, and that would have
entailed deeper misfortunes on France. I have sacrificed all my
interests to those of the country. I go; but you, my friends, will
continue to serve France. Her happiness was my only thought.. It
will still be the object of my wishes. Do not regret my fate: if I
have consented to survive, it is to serve your glory. I intend to
write the history of the great achievements we have performed
together. Adieu, my friends. Would I could press you all to my,
heart!"
During the first day cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" resounded along the
road, and Napoleon, resorting to his usual dissimulation, censured the
disloyalty of the people to their legitimate sovereign, which he did
with ill disguised irony. The Guard accompanied him as far as Briars. At
that place Napoleon invited Colonel Campbell to breakfast with him. He
conversed on the last war in Spain, and spoke in complimentary terms of
the English nation and the military talents of Wellington. Yet by that
time he must have heard of the battle of Toulouse.
On the night of the 21st Napoleon slept at Nevers, where he was received
by the acclamations of the people, who here, as in several other towns,
mingled their cries in favour of their late sovereign with imprecations
against the Commissioners of the Allies. He left Nevers at six on the
morning of the 22d. Napoleon was now no longer escorted by the
Guards, who were succeeded by a corps of Cossacks: the cries of "Vive
l'Empereur!" accordingly ceased, and he had the mortification to hear
in its stead, "Vivent les Allies!" However, I have been informed that at
Lyons, through which the Emperor passed on the 23d at eleven at night,
the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" was still echoed among the groups who
assembled before the post-office during the change of horses.
Augereau, who was still a Republican, though he accepted the title
of Duke of Castiglione from Napoleon, had always been among the
discontented. On the downfall of the Emperor he was one of that
considerable number of persons who turned Royalists not out of love for
the Bourbons but out of hatred to Bonaparte. He held a command in the
south when he heard of the forfeiture of Napoleon pronounced by the
Senate, and he was one of the first to send his recognition to the
Provisional Government. Augereau, who, like all uneducated men, went
to extremes in everything, had published under his name a proclamation
extravagantly violent and even insulting to the Emperor. Whether
Napoleon was aware of this proclamation I cannot pretend to say, but he
affected ignorance of the matter if he was informed of it, for on the
24th, having met Augereau at a little distance from Valence, he stopped
his carriage and immediately alighted. Augereau did the same, and they
cordially embraced in the presence of the Commissioners. It was remarked
that in saluting Napoleon took off his hat and Augereau kept on his.
"Where are you going?", said the Emperor; "to Court?"--"No, I am going
to Lyons."--"You have behaved very badly to me." Augereau, finding that
the Emperor addressed him in the second person singular, adopted the
same familiarity; so they conversed as they were accustomed to do when
they were both generals in Italy. "Of what do you complain?" said he.
"Has not your insatiable ambition brought us to this? Have you not
sacrificed everything to that ambition, even the happiness of France?
I care no more for the Bourbons than for you. All I care for is the
country." Upon this Napoleon turned sharply away from the Marshal,
lifted his hat to him, and then stepped into his carriage. The
Commissioners, and all the persons in Napoleon's suite, were indignant
at seeing Augereau stand in the road still covered, with his hands
behind his back, and instead of bowing, merely making a contemptuous
salutation to Napoleon with his hand. It was at the Tuileries that these
haughty Republicans should have shown their airs. To have done so on the
road to Elba was a mean insult which recoiled upon themselves.
--[The following letter, taken from Captain Bingham's recently
published selections from the Correspondence of the first Napoleon,
indicates in emphatic language the Emperor's recent dissatisfaction
with Marshal Augereau when in command at Lyons during the "death
struggle" of 1814:
To Marshal Augereau.
NOGENT, 21st February, 1814,
....What! six hours after having received the first troops coming
from Spain you were not in the field! Six hours repose was
sufficient. I won the action of Naugis with a brigade of dragoons
coming from Spain which, since it had left Bayonne, had not
unbridled its horses. The six battalions of the division of Nimes
want clothes, equipment, and drilling, say you? What poor reasons
you give me there, Augereau! I have destroyed 80,000 enemies with
conscripts having nothing but knapsacks! The National Guards, say
you, are pitiable; I have 4000 here in round hats, without
knapsacks, in wooden shoes, but with good muskets, and I get a great
deal out of them. There is no money, you continue; and where do you
hope to draw money from! You want waggons; take them wherever you
can. You have no magazines; this is too ridiculous. I order you
twelve hours after the reception of this letter to take the field.
If you are still Augereau of Castiglione, keep the command, but if
your sixty years weigh upon you hand over the command to your senior
general. The country is in danger; and can be saved by boldness and
alacrity alone....
(Signed) NAPOLEON]--
At Valence Napoleon, for the first time, saw French soldiers with the
white cockade in their caps. They belonged to Augereau's corps. At
Orange the air resounded with tunes of "Vive le Roi!" Here the gaiety,
real or feigned, which Napoleon had hitherto evinced, began to forsake
him.
Had the Emperor arrived at Avignon three hours later than he did there
is no doubt that he would have been massacred.--[The Royalist mob of
Avignon massacred Marshal Brune in 1816.]--He did not change horses
at Avignon, through which he passed at five in the morning, but at St.
Andiol, where he arrived at six. The Emperor, who was fatigued with
sitting in the carriage, alighted with Colonel Campbell and General
Bertrand, and walked with them up the first hill. His valet de chambre,
who was also walking a little distance in advance, met one of the mail
couriers, who said to him, "Those are the Emperor's carriages coming
this way?"--"No, they are the equipages of the Allies."--"I say they are
the Emperor's carriages. I am an old soldier. I served in the campaign
of Egypt, and I will save the life of my General."--"I tell you again
they are not the Emperor's carriages."--"Do not attempt to deceive me;
I have just passed through Organ, where the Emperor has been hanged in
effigy. The wretches erected a scaffold and hanged a figure dressed in
a French uniform covered with blood. Perhaps I may get myself into a
scrape by this confidence, but no matter. Do you profit by it." The
courier then set off at full gallop. The valet de chambre took General
Drouot apart, and told him what he had heard. Drouot communicated the
circumstance to General Bertrand, who himself related it to the Emperor
in the presence of the Commissioners. The latter, justly indignant, held
a sort of council on the highway, and it was determined that the Emperor
should go forward without his retinue. The valet de chambre was asked
whether he had any clothes in the carriage. He produced a long blue
cloak and a round hat. It was proposed to put a white cockade in the
hat, but to this Napoleon would not consent. He went forward in the
style of a courier, with Amaudru, one of the two outriders who had
escorted his carriage, and dashed through Orgon. When the Allied
Commissioners arrived there the assembled population were uttering
exclamations of "Down with the Corsican! Down with the brigand!" The
mayor of Orgon (the same man whom I had seen almost on his knees to
General Bonaparte on his return from Egypt) addressed himself to
Pelard, the Emperor's valet de chambre, and said, "Do you follow that
rascal?"--"No," replied Pelard, "I am attached to the Commisairiers of
the Allied powers."--Ah! that is well! I should like to hang the villain
with my own hands.
"Ah! if you knew, sir, how the scoundrel has deceived us! It was I who
received him on his return from Egypt. We wished to take his horses
out and draw his carriage. I should like to avenge myself now for the
honours I rendered him at that time."
The crowd augmented, and continued to vociferate with a degree of fury
which may be imagined by those who have heard the inhabitants of the
south manifest, by cries, their joy or their hatred. Some more violent
than the rest wished to force Napoleon's coachman to cry "Vive le Roi!"
He courageously refused, though threatened with a stroke of a sabre,
when, fortunately; the carriage being ready to start, he whipped the
horses and set off at full gallop. The Commissioners would not
breakfast at Orgon; they paid for what had been prepared, and took some
refreshments away with them. The carriages did not overtake the Emperor
until they came to La Calade, where he had arrived a quarter of an hour
before with Amaudru.
They found him standing by the fire in the kitchen of the inn talking