Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
Rome till his death in 1839, a few days before Caroline Bonaparte's. He
was buried in S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. He had for years been a great
collector of pictures, of which he left a large number (1200) to the
town of Ajaccio. The Cardinal, buying at the right time when few men had
either enough leisure or money to think of pictures, got together a most
valuable collection. This was sold in 1843-44 at Rome. Its contents now
form some of the greatest treasures in the galleries of Dudley House
and of the Marquis of Hertford, now Sir Richard Wallace's. In a large
collection there are generally some daubs, but it is an amusing instance
of party spirit to find the value of his pictures run down by men who
are unwilling to allow any one connected with Napoleon to have even
taste in art. He always refused the demands of the Restoration that he
should resign his see of Lyons, though under Louis Philippe he offered
to do so, and leave his pictures to France, if the Bonaparte family were
allowed to enter France: this was refused.
It can hardly be denied that the fate of the Bonapartes was a hard one.
Napoleon had been undisputed sovereign of France for fourteen years,
Louis had been King of Holland for four years, Jerome was King of
Westphalia for six years, Caroline was Queen of Naples for seven years.
If Napoleon had forfeited all his rights by leaving Elba after the
conditions of his abdication had been broken by the Allies, still there
was no reason why the terms stipulated for the other members of the
family should not have been carried out, or at least an ordinary income
insured to them. With all Napoleon's faults he was always ready to
shower wealth on the victims of his policy:--The sovereigns of the
Continent had courted and intermarried with the Bonapartes in the fame
of that family's grandeur: there was neither generosity nor wisdom
in treating them as so many criminals the moment fortune had declared
against them. The conduct of the Allies was not influenced simply by the
principle of legitimacy, for the King of Saxony only kept his throne
by the monarchs falling out over the spoil. If sovereigns were to
be respected as of divine appointment, it was not well to make their
existence only depend on the fate of war.
Nothing in the history of the Cent Jours is more strange than the small
part played in it by the Marshals, the very men who are so identified
in our minds with the Emperor, that we might have expected to find that
brilliant band playing a most prominent part in his last great struggle,
no longer for mere victory, but for very existence. In recording how the
Guard came up the fatal hill at Waterloo for their last combat, it would
seem but natural to have to give a long roll of the old historic names
as leading or at least accompanying them; and the reader is apt to
ask, where were the men whose very titles recalled such glorious
battle-fields, such achievements, and such rewards showered down by the
man who, almost alone at the end of the day, rode forward to invite that
death from which it was such cruel kindness to save him?
Only three Marshals were in Belgium in 1815, and even of them one did
but count his promotion from that very year, so it is but natural for
French writers to dream of what might have been the course of the battle
if Murat's plume had waved with the cavalry, if Mortier had been with
the Guard, and if Davoust or one of his tried brethren had taken the
place of Grouchy. There is, however, little real ground for surprise at
this absence of the Marshals. Death, time, and hardships had all done
their work amongst that grand array of commanders. Some were old men,
veterans of the Revolutionary wars, when first created Marshals in 1804;
others, such as Massena, were now but the wreck of themselves; and even
before 1812 Napoleon had been struck with the failing energy of some of
his original companions: indeed, it might have been better for him if
he had in 1813, as he half resolved, cast away his dislike to new faces,
and fought his last desperate campaigns with younger men who still had
fortunes to win, leaving "Berthier to hunt at Grosbois," and the other
Marshals to enjoy their well-deserved rest in their splendid hotels at
Paris.
Davoust, Duke of Auerstadt, Prince of Eckmuhl, whose name should be
properly spelt Davout, was one of the principal personages at the end
of the Cent Jours. Strict and severe, having his corps always in good
order, and displaying more character than most of the military men under
Napoleon, one is apt to believe that the conqueror at Auerstadt bade
fair to be the most prominent of all the Marshals. In 1814 he had
returned from defending Hamburg to find himself under a cloud of
accusations, and the Bourbons ungenerously and unwisely left him
undefended for acts which they must have known were part of his duty
as governor of a besieged place. At the time he was attacked as if
his first duty was not to hold the place for France, but to organise
a system of outdoor relief for the neighbouring population, and to
surrender as soon as he had exhausted the money in the Government chest
and the provisions in the Government stores. Sore and discontented,
practically proscribed, still Davoust would not join in the too hasty
enterprise of the brothers Lallemand, who wished him to lead the
military rising on the approach of Napoleon; but he was with the Emperor
on the day after his arrival in Paris.
Davoust might have expected high command in the army, but, to his
annoyance, Napoleon fixed on him as War Minister. For several years the
War Minister had been little more than a clerk, and neither had nor was
expected to have much influence with the army. Napoleon now wanted a man
of tried devotion, and of stern enough character to overawe the capital
and the restless spirits in the army. Much against his will Davoust was
therefore forced to content himself with the organisation of the
forces being hastily raised, but he chafed in his position; and it is
characteristic of him that Napoleon was eventually forced to send him
the most formal orders before the surly Minister would carry out the
Emperor's unlucky intention of giving a command to Bourmont, whom
Davoust strongly and rightly suspected of treachery. When Napoleon left
the capital Davoust became its governor, and held his post unmoved
by the intrigues of the Republicans and the Royalists. When Napoleon
returned from the great disaster Davoust gave his voice for the only
wise policy,--resistance and the prorogation of the factious Chambers.
On the abdication of Napoleon the Provisional Government necessarily
gave Davoust the command of the army which was concentrated round Paris.
If Davoust had restricted himself less closely to his duty as a soldier,
if he had taken more on himself, with the 100,000 men he soon had under
him, he might have saved France from much of her subsequent humiliation,
or at least he might have preserved the lives of Ney and of the brave
men whom the Bourbons afterwards butchered. Outwitted by Fouché,
and unwilling to face the hostility of the Chambers, Davoust at last
consented to the capitulation of Paris, though he first gave the
Prussian cavalry a sharp lesson. While many of his comrades were engaged
in the great struggle for favour or safety, the stern Marshal gave
up his Ministry, and, doing the last service in his power to France,
stopped all further useless bloodshed by withdrawing the army, no easy
task in their then humour, behind the Loire, where he kept what the
Royalists called the "Brigands of the Loire" in subjection till relieved
by Macdonald. He was the only one of the younger Marshals who had not
been tried in Spain, and so far he was fortunate; but, though he was not
popular with the army, his character and services seem to point him
out as the most fit of all the Marshals for an independent command.
Had Napoleon been successful in 1812, Davoust was to have received the
Viceroyalty of Poland; and he would probably have left a higher name in
history than the other men placed by Napoleon to rule over his outlying
kingdoms. In any case it was fortunate for France and for the Allies
that a man of his character ruled the army after Napoleon abdicated;
there would otherwise have been wild work round Paris, as it was only
with the greatest difficulty and by the force of his authority and
example that Davoust succeeded in getting the army to withdraw from the
capital, and to gradually adopt the white cockade. When superseded by
Macdonald he had done a work no other man could have accomplished. He
protested against the proscription, but it was too late; his power had
departed. In 1819 he was forgiven for his services to France, and was
made a peer, but he died in 1823, only fifty-three years old.
Among the Marshals who gave an active support to Napoleon Ney takes the
leading part in most eyes; if it were only for his fate, which is too
well known for much to be said here concerning it. In 1815 Ney was
commanding in Franche-Comte, and was called up to Paris and ordered to
go to Besancon to march so as to take Napoleon in flank. He started off,
not improbably using the rough brags afterwards attributed to him as
most grievous sins, such as that "he would bring back Napoleon in an
iron cage." It had been intended to have sent the Duc de Berry, the
second son of the Comte d'Artois, with Ney; and it was most unfortunate
for the Marshal that this was not done. There can be no possible doubt
that Ney spoke and acted in good faith when he left Paris. One point
alone seems decisive of this. Ney found under him in command, as General
of Division, Bourmont, an officer of well-known Royalist opinions, who
had at one time served with the Vendean insurgents, and who afterwards
deserted Napoleon just before Waterloo, although he had entreated to be
employed in the campaign. Not only did Ney leave Bourmont in command,
but, requiring another Divisional General, instead of selecting a
Bonapartist, he urged Lecourbe to leave his retirement and join him.
Now, though Lecourbe was a distinguished General, specially famed for
mountain warfare--witness his services in 1799 among the Alps above
Lucerne--he had been long left unemployed by Napoleon on account of
his strong Republican opinions and his sympathy with Moreau. These
two Generals, Bourmont and Lecourbe, the two arms of Ney as commander,
through whom alone he could communicate with the troops, he not only
kept with him, but consulted to the last, before he declared for
Napoleon. This would have been too dangerous a thing for a tricky
politician to have attempted as a blind, but Ney was well known to be
only too frank and impulsive. Had the Duc de Berry gone with him, had
Ney carried with him such a gage of the intention of the Bourbons to
defend their throne, it is probable that he would have behaved like
Macdonald; and it is certain that he would have had no better
success. The Bonapartists themselves dreaded what they called the
wrong-headedness of Ney. It was, however, thought better to keep the Duc
de Berry in safety.
Ney found himself put forward singly, as it were, to oppose the man whom
all France was joining; he found, as did every officer sent on a similar
mission, that the soldiers were simply waiting to meet Napoleon; and
while the Princes sought security, while the soldiers plotted against
their leaders, came the calls of the Emperor in the old trumpet tone.
The eagle was to fly--nay, it was flying from tower to tower, and
victory was advancing with a rush. Was Ney to be the one man to shoot
down his old leader? could he, as he asked, stop the sea with his hands?
On his trial his subordinate, Bourmont, who had by that time shown
his devotion to the Bourbons by sacrificing his military honour, and