Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
return from that city. He has acknowledged that he brought a letter for
Fouché from Metternich, and that the answer was to be sent at a fixed
time to Bale, where a man was to wait for the bearer on the bridge:
I sent for Fouché a few days ago, and kept him three hours long in my
garden, hoping that in the course of a friendly conversation he would
mention that letter to me, but he said nothing. At last, yesterday
evening, I myself opened the subject.' (Here the Emperor repeated to me
the words I had heard the night before, 'You are a traitor,' etc.) He
acknowledged, in fact, continued the Emperor, 'that he had received such
a letter, but that it was not signed and that he had looked upon it as a
mystification. He showed it me. Now that letter was evidently an answer,
in which the writer again declared that he would listen to nothing more
concerning the Emperor, but that, his person excepted, it would be easy
to agree to all the rest. I expected that the Emperor would conclude his
narrative by expressing his anger against Fouché, but our conversation
turned on some other subject, and he talked no more of him.
"Two days afterwards I went to Fouché to solicit the return to Paris of
an officer of musqueteers who had been banished far from his family.
I found him at breakfast, and sat down next to him. Facing him sat a
stranger. 'Do you see this man?' he said to me; pointing with his spoon
to the stranger; 'he is an aristocrat, a Bourbonist, a Chouan; it is the
Abbe -----, one of the editors of the Journal des Debats--a sworn enemy
to Napoleon, a fanatic partisan of the Bourbons; he is one of our men.
I looked, at him. At every fresh epithet of the Minister the Abbe
bowed his head down to his plate with a smile of cheerfulness and
self-complacency, and with a sort of leer. I never saw a more ignoble
countenance. Fouché explained to me, on leaving the breakfast table, in
what manner all these valets of literature were men of his, and while
I acknowledged to myself that the system might be necessary, I scarcely
knew who were really more despicable--the wretches who thus sold
themselves to the highest bidder, or the minister who boasted of having
bought them, as if their acquisition were a glorious conquest. Judging
that the Emperor had spoken to me of the scene I have described above,
Fouché said to me, 'The Emperor's temper is soured by the resistance
he finds, and he thinks it is my fault. He does not know that I have
no power but by public opinion. To morrow I might hang before my door
twenty persons obnoxious to public opinion, though I should not be able
to imprison for four-and-twenty hours any individual favoured by it. As
I am never in a hurry to speak I remained silent, but reflecting on what
the Emperor had said concerning Fouché I found the comparison of their
two speeches remarkable. The master could have his minister hanged with
public applause, and the minister could hang--whom? Perhaps the master
himself, and with the same approbation. What a singular situation!--and
I believe they were both in the right; so far public opinion, equitable
in regard to Fouché, had swerved concerning the Emperor."
The wrath of Napoleon was confined to the Lower House, the Peers, from
the nature of their composition, being complacent and passive enough.
The vast majority of them were in fact mere shadows gathered round
the solid persons of Joseph, Lucien, Louis, and Jerome Bonaparte, and
Sieyès, Carnot, and the military men of the Revolution. As a political
body Napoleon despised them himself, and yet he wanted the nation to
respect them. But respect was impossible, and the volatile Parisians
made the Peers a constant object of their witticisms. The punsters of
Paris made the following somewhat ingenious play upon words. Lallemand,
Labedogure, Drouot, and Ney they called Las Quatre Pairs fides
(perfides), which in pronunciation may equally mean the four faithful
peers or the four perfidious men. The infamous Vandamme and another
were called Pair-siffles, the biased peers, or the biased pair, or
(persiffles) men made objects of derision. It was thus the lower orders
behaved while the existence of France was at stake.
By this time the thunder-cloud of war had gathered and was ready to
burst. Short as the time at his disposal was Napoleon prepared to meet
it with his accustomed energy. Firearms formed one of the most important
objects of attention. There were sufficient sabres, but muskets were
wanting. The Imperial factories could, in ordinary times, furnish
monthly 20,000 stands of new arms; by the extraordinary activity and
inducements offered this number was doubled. Workmen were also employed
in repairing the old muskets. There was displayed at this momentous
period the same activity in the capital as in 1793, and better directed,
though without the same ultimate success. The clothing of the army was
another difficulty, and this was got over by advancing large sums of
money to the cloth manufacturers beforehand. The contractors delivered
20,000 cavalry horses before the 1st of June, 10,000 trained horses had
been furnished by the dismounted gendarmerie. Twelve thousand artillery
horses were also delivered by the 1st of June, in addition to 6000 which
the army already had.
The facility with which the Ministers of Finance and of the Treasury
provided for all these expenses astonished everybody, as it was
necessary to pay for everything in ready money. The system of public
works was at the same time resumed throughout France. "It is easy to
see," said the workmen, "that 'the great contractor' is returned; all
was dead, now everything revives."
"We have just learnt," says a writer who was at Brussels at this time,
"that Napoleon had left the capital of France on the 12th; on the 15th
the frequent arrival of couriers excited extreme anxiety, and towards
evening General Muffing presented himself at the hotel of the Duke of
Wellington with despatches from Blücher. We were all aware that the
enemy was in movement, and the ignorant could not solve the enigma of
the Duke going tranquilly to the ball at the Duke of Richmond's--his
coolness was above their comprehension. Had he remained at his own hotel
a panic would have probably ensued amongst the inhabitants, which would
have embarrassed the intended movement of the British division of the
army.
"I returned home late, and we were still talking over our uneasiness
when we heard the trumpets sound. Before the sun had risen in full
splendour I heard martial music approaching, and soon beheld from
my windows the 5th reserve of the British army passing; the Highland
brigade were the first in advance, led by their noble thanes, the
bagpipes playing their several pibrochs; they were succeeded by the
28th, their bugles' note falling more blithely upon the ear. Each
regiment passed in succession with its band playing."
The gallant Duke of Brunswick was at a ball at the assembly-rooms in the
Rue Ducale on the night of the 15th of June when the French guns, which
he was one of the first to hear, were clearly distinguished at Brussels.
"Upon receiving the information that a powerful French force was
advancing in the direction of Charleroi. 'Then it is high time for me to
be off,' he exclaimed, and immediately quitted, the ball-room."
"At four the whole disposable force under the Duke of Wellington was
collected together, but in such haste that many of the officers had no
time to change their silk stockings and dancing-shoes; and some, quite
overcome by drowsiness, were seen lying asleep about the ramparts, still
holding, however, with a firm hand, the reins of their horses, which
were grazing by their sides.
"About five o'clock the word march' was heard in all directions, and
instantly the whole mass appeared to move simultaneously. I conversed
with several of the officers previous to their departure, and not one
appeared to have the slightest idea of an approaching engagement.
"The Duke of Wellington and his staff did not quit Brussels till past
eleven o'clock, and it was not till some time after they were gone that
it was generally known the whole French army, including a strong corps
of cavalry, was within a few miles of Quatre Bras."
CHAPTER VIII.
--[Like the preceding, this chapter first appeared in the 1836
edition, and is not from the pen of M. de Bourrienne.]--
1815.
THE BATTLES OF LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS.
The moment for striking a decisive blow had now come, and accordingly, early on the morning of the 15th, the whole of the French army was in motion. The 2d corps proceeded to Marchiennes to attack the Prussian outposts at Thuin and Lobes, in order to secure the communication across the Sambre between those places. The 3d corps, covered by General Pajol's cavalry, advanced upon Charleroi, followed by the Imperial Guard and the 6th corps, with the necessary detachments of pontoniers. The remainder of the cavalry, under Grouchy, also advanced upon Charleroi, on the flanks of the 3d and 6th corps. The 4th corps was ordered to march upon the bridge of Chatelet.
On the approach of the French advanced guards an incessant skirmish
was maintained during the whole morning with the Prussians, who, after
losing many men, were compelled to yield to superior numbers. General
Zieten, finding it impossible, from the extent of frontier he had to
cover, to check the advance of the French, fell back towards Fleurus by
the road to Charleroi, resolutely contesting the advance of the enemy
wherever it was possible. In the repeated attacks sustained by him
he suffered considerable loss. It was nearly mid-day before a passage
through Charleroi was secured by the French army, and General Zieten
continued his retreat upon Fleurus, where he took up his position for
the night. Upon Zieten's abandoning, in the course of his retreat, the
chaussee which leads to Brussels through Quatre Bras, Marshal Ney, who
had only just been put in command on the left of the French army, was
ordered to advance by this road upon Gosselies, and found at Frasnes
part of the Duke of Wellington's army, composed of Nassau troops
under the command of Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, who, after some
skirmishing, maintained his position. "Notwithstanding all the exertions
of the French at a moment when time was of such importance, they had
only been able to advance about fifteen English miles during the day,
with nearly fifteen hours of daylight."
It was the intention of Napoleon during his operations on this day to
effect a separation between the English and Prussian armies, in which
he had nearly succeeded. Napoleon's plan for this purpose, and the
execution of it by his army, were alike admirable, but it is hardly
probable that the Allied generals were taken by surprise, as it was
the only likely course which Napoleon could have taken. His line
of operation was on the direct road to Brussels, and there were no
fortified works to impede his progress, while from the nature of the
country his numerous and excellent cavalry could be employed with great
effect.
In the French accounts Marshal Ney was much blamed for not occupying
Quatre Bras with the whole of his force on the evening of the 16th. "Ney
might probably have driven back the Nassau troops at Quatre Bras, and
occupied that important position, but hearing a heavy cannonade on his
right flank, where General Zieten had taken up his position, he thought
it necessary to halt and detach a division in the direction of Fleurus.
He was severely censured by Napoleon for not having literally followed
his orders and pushed on to Quatre Bras." This accusation forms a
curious contrast with that made against Grouchy, upon whom Napoleon
threw the blame of the defeat at Waterloo, because he strictly fulfilled