Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 369, July 1846

Count Montholon makes a remark on the facility with which courtiers make their escape from a falling throne, which has been so often exemplified in history. But it was never more strikingly exemplified than in the double overthrow of Napoleon. "At Fontainbleau, in 1814," says the Count, "when I hastened to offer to carry him off with the troops under my command, I found no one in those vast corridors, formerly too small for the crowd of courtiers, except the Duke of Bassano and two aides-de-camp." His whole court, down to his Mameluke and valet, had run off to Paris, to look for pay and place under the Bourbons. In a similar case in the next year, at the Elysée Bourbon, he found but two counts and an equerry. It was perfectly plain to all the world but Napoleon himself that his fate was decided.

There certainly seems to have been something in his conduct at this period that can scarcely be accounted for but by infatuation. His first act, the desertion of his army, was degrading to his honour, but his conduct on his arrival was not less degrading to his sagacity. Even his brother Lucien said that he was blinded with the smoke of Waterloo. He seems to have utterly lost that distinct view and fierce decision which formerly characterised all his conduct. It was no more the cannon-shot or the thunder-clap, it was the wavering of a mind suddenly perplexed by the difficulties which he would once have solved by a sentence and overwhelmed by resistance – which he would have once swept away like a swarm of flies. The leader of armies was crushed by a conspiracy of clerks, and the sovereign of the Continent was sent to the dungeon by cabal of his own slaves.

While Napoleon was thus lingering in the Elysée Bourbon, the two chambers of the Legislature were busily employed between terror and intrigue. The time was delicate, for the Bourbons and the Allies were approaching. But, on the other hand, the fortunes of Napoleon might change; tardiness in recognising the Bourbons might be fatal to their hopes of place, but the precipitancy of abandoning Napoleon might bring their heads under the knife of the guillotine. All public life is experimental, and there never was a time when the experiment was of a more tremulous description.

At length they began to act; and the first precaution of the Chamber of Deputies was to secure their own existence. Old Lafayette moved a resolution, that the man should be regarded as a traitor to the country who made any attempt to dissolve the Chamber. This was an obvious declaration against the authority of the Empire. The next motion was, that General Beker should be appointed commandant of the guard ordered to protect the Legislature. This was a provision against the mob of Paris. The Legislature was now safe on its two prominent perils. In the mean time, Napoleon had made another capital blunder. He had held a council of the ministers, to which he proposed the question, whether he should proceed in person to the Chamber of Deputies, and demand supplies, or send his brothers and ministers to make the communication. Three of the ministers approved of his going in person, but the majority disapproved of it – on the plea of its being a dangerous experiment, in the excited state of the public passions. If Napoleon had declined this counsel, which arose from either pusillanimity or perfidy, it is perfectly possible that he might have silenced all opposition. The known attachment of the troops, the superstition connected with his fortunes, the presence of the man whom they all so lately worshipped, as the Indians worship the serpent for the poison of its fang, might have produced a complete revulsion. Napoleon, too, was singularly eloquent – his language had a romantic splendour which captivates the artificial taste of the nation; and with an imperial figure before them, surrounded with more powerful incidents than the drama could ever offer, and threatening a fifth act which might involve the fate of France and Europe, the day might have finished by a new burst of national enthusiasm, and the restoration of Napoleon to the throne, with all his enemies in the Legislature chained to its footstool.

But he sent his brother Joseph to the Chamber of Peers, and received the answer to his mission next morning, in a proposal which was equivalent to a demand for his abdication.

A council of ministers was again held on this proposal. The same three who had voted for his presence in the Chamber, now voted for his rejection of the proposal. The majority, however, were against them. Napoleon yielded to the majority. He had lost his opportunity – and in politics opportunity is every thing. He had now nothing more to lose. He drew up an acknowledgment of his abdication; but appended to it the condition of proclaiming his son, Napoleon Second, emperor of the French. This was an artifice, but it was unworthy even of the art of Napoleon. He must have been conscious that the Allies would have regarded this appointment as a trick to ensure his own restoration. His son was yet a child; a regent must have been appointed; Napoleon would have naturally been that regent; and in six months, or on the first retreat of the Allies, he would as naturally have reappointed himself emperor. The trick was too shallow for his sagacity, and it was impossible to hope that it could have been suffered by the Allies. Yet it passed the Chamber, and Napoleon Second was acknowledged within the walls. But the acknowledgment was laughed at without them; the Allies did not condescend to notice it; and the Allies proceeded to their work of restoration as if he had never existed. In fact, the dynasty was at an end; a provisional government was appointed, with Fouché at its head, and the name of Napoleon was pronounced no more.

Count Montholon gives a brief but striking description of the confusion, dismay, and despair, into which Waterloo had thrown the Bonapartists. He had hurried to the Elysée a few hours after the arrival of Bonaparte from the field. He met the Duke of Vicenza coming out, with a countenance of dejection, and asked him what was going on. "All is lost," was the answer. "You arrived to-day, as you did at Fontainbleau, only to see the emperor resign his crown. The leaders of the Chambers desire his abdication. They will have it; and in a week Louis XVIII. will be in Paris. At night on the 19th, a short note in pencil was left with my Swiss, announcing the destruction of the army. The same notice was given to Carnot. The last telegraphic dispatch had brought news of victory; we both hastened to the Duke of Otranto; he assured us with all his cadaverous coldness that he knew nothing. He knew all, however, I am well assured. Events succeeded each other with the rapidity of lightning; there is no longer any possible illusion. All is lost, and the Bourbons will be here in a week."

The Count remained forty-eight hours at the palace. The fallen Emperor had now made up his mind to go to America, and the Count promised to accompany him. A couple of regiments, formed of the workmen of the Faubourg St Germain, marching by the palace, now demanded that Napoleon should put himself at their head, and take vengeance on his enemies. But he well knew the figure which the volunteers of the mob would make in front of the bayonets which had crushed his guard at Waterloo, and he declined the honour of this new command. A few courtiers, who adhered to him still, continued to talk of his putting himself at the head of the national force. But Waterloo had effectually cured him of the passion for soldiership, and he constantly appealed to his unwillingness to shed the blood of Frenchmen. It was at least evident that he intended to tempt the field no more, but after being the cause of shedding the blood of two millions of the people, his reserve was romantic.

The Count was sent to dismiss the volunteers, and they having performed their act of heroism, and offered to challenge the whole British army, were content with the glory of the threat, and heroically marched home to their shops.

But Montholon, on returning again, addressed Napoleon on the feasibility of attacking Wellington and Blucher with the battalions of the Messrs Calicot, upon which the Ex-Emperor made the following solemn speech: "To put into action the brute force of the masses, would without doubt save Paris, and ensure me the crown, without having recourse to the horrors of a civil war. But this would be also to risk the shedding of rivers of fresh blood. What is the compressive force which would be sufficiently strong to regulate the outburst of so much passion, hatred, and vengeance? No, I never can forget one thing, that I have been brought from Cannes to Paris in the midst of cries for blood, 'Down with the priests!' 'Down with the nobles!' I would rather have the regrets of France than possess its crown."

There is no country in the world, where Napoleon's own phrase, that from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step, is more perpetually and practically realised than in France. Here was a man utterly ruined, without a soldier on the face of the earth, all but a prisoner, abandoned by every human being who could be of the slightest service to him, beaten in the field, beaten on his own ground, and now utterly separated from his remaining troops, and with a hundred thousand of the victors rushing after him, hour by hour, to Paris. Yet he talks as if he had the world still at his disposal, applauds his own magnanimity in declining the impossible combat, vaunts his own philosophy in standing still, when he could neither advance nor retreat, and gives himself credit as a philanthropist, when he was on the very point of being handed over to the enemy as a prisoner. Some unaccountable tricks of a lower description now began to be played on the goods and chattels of the Elysée Bourbon. A case containing snuff-boxes adorned with portraits set in diamonds, was laid by Bertrand on the mantel-piece. He accidentally turned to converse with General Montholon at the window. Only one person entered the room. The Count does not give his name, – he was evidently a person of rank. On turning to the mantel-piece again, the case was gone.

One of the ministers had brought some negotiable paper to the amount of several millions of francs into the Emperor's chamber. The packet was placed under one of the cushions of the sofa. Only one person, and that one a man of rank who had served in Italy, entered the chamber. Napoleon went to look for the money, calculated a moment, and a million and a half of francs, or about £60,000 sterling, had been taken in the interim. Those were times for thievery, and the plunderers of Europe were now on the alert, to make spoil of each other. The Allies were still advancing, but they were not yet in sight; and the mob of Paris, who had been at first delighted to find that the war was at an end, having nothing else to do, and thinking that, as Wellington and Blucher had not arrived within a week, they would not arrive within a century, began to clamour Vive l'Empereur! Fouché and the provisional government began to feel alarm, and it was determined to keep Napoleon out of sight of the mob. Accordingly they ordered him to be taken to Malmaison; and on the 25th, towards nightfall, Napoleon submissively quitted the Elysée, and went to Malmaison. At Malmaison he remained for the greater part of the time, in evident fear of being put to death, and in fact a prisoner. – Such was the fate of the most powerful sovereign that Europe had seen since Charlemagne. Such was the humiliation of the conqueror, who, but seven years before, had summoned the continental sovereigns to bow down to his footstool at Erfurth; and who wrote to Talma the actor these words of supreme arrogance – "Come to Erfurth, and you shall play before a pit-full of kings."

From this period, day by day, a succession of measures was adopted by the government to tighten his chain. He was ordered to set out for the coast, nominally with the intention of giving him a passage to America. But we must doubt that intention. Fouché, the head of the government, had now thrown off the mask which he had worn so many years. And it was impossible for him to expect forgiveness, in case of any future return of Napoleon to power. But Napoleon, in America, would have been at all times within one-and-twenty days of Paris. And the mere probability of his return would have been enough to make many a pillow sleepless in Paris. We are to recollect also, that the English ministry must have been perfectly aware of the arrest of Napoleon; that St Helena had been already mentioned as a place of security for his person; and that if it was essential to the safety of Europe, – a matter about which Fouché probably cared but little; it was not less essential to the safety of Fouché's own neck, – a matter about which he always cared very much, that the Ex-Emperor should never set foot in France again.

The result was, an order from the minister at war, Davoust, Prince of Eckmuhl, couched in the following terms. We give it as a document of history.

"General, I have the honour to transmit to you the subjoined decree, which the commission of government desires you to notify to the Emperor Napoleon: at the same time informing his majesty, that the circumstances are become imperative, and that it is necessary for him immediately to decide on setting out for the Isle of Aix. This decree has been passed as much for the safety of his person as for the interest of the state, which ought always to be dear to him. Should the Emperor not adopt the above mentioned resolution, on your notification of this decree, it will then be your duty to exercise the strictest surveillance, both with a view of preventing his majesty from leaving Malmaion, and of guarding against any attempt upon his life. You will station guards at all the approaches to Malmaison. I have written to the inspector-general of the gendarmerie, and to the commandant of Paris, to place such of the gendarmerie and troops as you may require at your disposal.

"I repeat to you, general, that this decree has been adopted solely for the good of the state, and the personal safety of the Emperor. Its prompt execution is indispensable, as the future fate of his majesty and his family depends upon it. It is unnecessary to say to you, general, that all your measures should be taken with the greatest possible secresy.

(Signed) "Prince of Eckmuhl,Marshal and Minister of War."

Those documents, which have now appeared, we believe, for the first time authentically, will be of importance to the historian, and of still higher importance to the moralist. Who could have once believed that the most fiery of soldiers, the most subtle of statesmen and the proudest of sovereigns, would ever be the subject of a rescript like the following? It begins with an absolute command that "Napoleon Bonaparte" (it has already dropped the emperor) "shall remain in the roads of the Isle of Aix till the arrival of passports." It then proceeds: – "It is of importance to the well-being of the state, which should not be indifferent to him, that he should remain till his fate, and that of his family, have been definitively regulated. French honour is interested in such an issue; but in the mean time every precaution should be taken for the personal safety of Napoleon, and that he must not be allowed to leave the place of his present sojourn.

(Signed) "The Duke of Otranto."The Prince of Eckmuhl."

A similar document was issued to General Beker, signed by Carnot and Caulaincourt. Count Montholon remarks, with sufficient justice, on the signature of Caulaincourt to this paper, that the Emperor would have been extremely astonished to see that name subscribed to a letter in which he was called Napoleon – if any thing could have astonished the former exile of Elba, and the future exile of St Helena.

This must have been a period of the deepest anxiety to the imperial prisoner. He evidently regarded his life as unsafe; thought that he discovered in the project of his journey a determination to throw him either into the hands of assassins or of the French king, and formally announced his refusal to leave Malmaison "until informed of his fate by the Duke of Wellington." He was now reduced to the lowest ebb. He acknowledged himself powerless, hopeless, and utterly dependent on the will of his conqueror. The bitterness of heart which dictated such words must have been beyond all description. He was now abandoned by the few who had followed him from the Elysée.

But time was pressing; Wellington was advancing with rapid steps, and there was a possibility that he might capture Napoleon at Malmaison. Troops were sent to burn the neighbouring bridge, and precautions were taken to prevent the catastrophe. A division of the army coming from the Vendée halted before the palace, and insisted on seeing Napoleon, and on being led by him to battle. This was rodomontade, with the advanced troops of the whole army now within sight of Paris. But it was enough to betray him into the absurdity of proposing to try another chance for his crown. Beker was dispatched to Paris to try the effect of this communication. Fouché gave for answer, the simple fact that the Prussians were advancing on Versailles. The sitting of the provisional government would have been worth the hand of a great painter. Fouché, after sharply rebuking the general for bringing in his proposal from Malmaison, made him sit down at his side, while he wrote a peremptory and decided refusal. Carnot was walking gloomily up and down the room. Caulaincourt, Baron Quinette, and General Grenier, sat silently around the table. Not a word was uttered except by the Duke of Otranto. The general received his dispatch and departed. On passing through the anterooms, he found them filled with generals and high civil officers, who all expressed but one opinion on the necessity of getting rid of Napoleon. "Let him set off, let him go," was the universal cry. "We can undertake nothing for either his personal good or Paris." There was now no alternative. Napoleon must either remain and fall into the hands of Louis XVIII., who had already proclaimed him a traitor and an outlaw, or he must try to make his escape by sea. On the 29th of June, at five o'clock in the evening, he entered the carriage which was to convey him to the coast, leaving Paris behind, to which he was never to return alive, but to which his remains have returned in a posthumous triumph twenty-six years after, on the 15th of September 1840.

On his arrival at Rochfort, all the talent of the French for projects was immediately in full exercise. Never were there so many castles in the air built in so short a time. Proposals were made to smuggle the prisoner to the United States in a Danish merchant vessel, in which, in case of search, he was to be barrelled in a hogshead perforated with breathing holes.

Another project was, to put him on board a kind of fishing-boat manned by midshipmen, and thus escape the English. A third project proposed, that the two French frigates anchored under the guns of the Isle of Aix should put to sea together; that one of them should run alongside Captain Maitland's ship, and attack her fiercely, with the hope of distracting her attention, even with the certainty of being destroyed, while the other frigate made her escape with Napoleon on board. This is what the French would call a grande pensée, and quite as heroic as any thing in a melodrama of the Porte St Martin. But the captain of the leading frigate declined the distinction, and evidently thought it not necessary that he and his crew should be blown out of the water, as they certainly would have been if they came in contact with the Bellerophon; so this third project perished.

After a few days of this busy foolery, the prisoner, startled by new reports of the success of the Allies every where, and too sagacious not to feel that the hands of the French king might be the most dangerous into which the murderer of the Duc D'Enghien could fall; looking with evident contempt upon the foolish projects for his escape, and conscious that his day was done, resolved to throw himself into the hands of Captain Maitland, the commander of the Bellerophon, then anchored in Basque roads. On the night of the 10th, Savary and Las Cases were sent on board the English ship, to inquire whether the captain would allow a French or neutral ship, or the frigates with Napoleon on board, to pass free? Captain Maitland simply answered, that he had received no orders except those ordinarily given in case of war; but that he should attack the frigates if they attempted to pass; that if a neutral flag came in his way, he would order it to be searched as usual. But that, in consequence of the peculiar nature of the case, he would communicate with the admiral in command.

A circumstance occurred on this occasion, which brought M. Las Cases into no small disrepute afterwards. The captain hospitably asked Las Cases and Savary to lunch with him, and, while at table, inquired whether they understood English. He was answered that they did not; and the captain, though of course relying upon the answer, made his observations in English to his officers, while he addressed the Frenchman in his own tongue. It was afterwards ascertained that Las Cases, who had been an emigrant for some years in England, understood English perfectly. Nothing could therefore be more pitiful than his conduct in suffering the captain to believe that he was ignorant on the subject, and thus obtain a confidence to which he had no right. The circumstance, as Count Montholon says, – "was afterwards made a bitter reproach against Las Cases; the English charging him with a violation of honour; because, as they affirmed, he had positively declared that he was unacquainted with their language, when the question was put to him at the commencement of the conference. This, however," says Count Montholon, "is not correct." And how does he show that it is not correct? "The question," says he, "was put collectively, that is, to both alike, and Savary alone answered in the negative." Of course the answer was understood collectively, and comprised M. Las Cases as well as M. Savary. In short, the conduct was contemptible, and the excuse not much better. Las Cases, of course, should not have allowed any other person's word to be taken, when it led to a delusion. It is possible that Savary was unacquainted with his companion's knowledge of English, – though when we recollect that Savary was minister of police, and that Las Cases was about the court of Napoleon, it is difficult to conceive his ignorance on the subject. But in all instances, there could be no apology for his fellow-Frenchman's sitting to hear conversations of which he was supposed, on the credit of Savary's word, and his own silence, to comprehend nothing.

It happily turns out, however, that all this dexterity had only the effect of blinding the parties themselves.

"This mystification and piece of diplomatic chicanery" – we use the language of the volume – "proved, in fact, rather detrimental than useful; for, no doubt, the information thus gained by surprise from Captain Maitland and his officers, contributed to induce the Emperor to decide on surrendering himself to the English." The captain was too honourable a man to think of practising any chicane on the subject; but if the two employés overreached themselves, so much the better.

But events now thickened. On the 12th, the Paris journals arrived, announcing the entrance of the Allies into Paris, and the establishment of Louis XVIII. in the Tuileries! All was renewed confusion, consternation, and projects. On the next day Joseph Bonaparte came to the Isle of Aix, to propose the escape of his fallen brother in a merchant vessel from Bordeaux, for America, and remain in his place. This offer was generous, but it could scarcely be accepted by any human being, and it was refused. But delay was becoming doubly hazardous. It was perfectly possible that the first measure of the new government would be an order for his seizure, and the next, for his execution. On that evening he decided to accept the offer of the chasse-marées, to go on board before morning, and trust to the young midshipmen and chance for his passage across the Atlantic.

We know no history more instructive than these "last days" of a fugitive Emperor. That he might have escaped a week before, is certain, for the harbour was not then blockaded; that he might have made his way among the channels of that very difficult and obstructed coast even after the blockade, is possible; that he might have found his way, by a hundred roads, out of France, or reached the remnant of his armies, is clear, for all his brothers escaped by land. But that he still hesitated – and alone hesitated; that this man – the most memorable for decision, famed for promptitude, for the discovery of the true point of danger, daring to the height of rashness, when daring was demanded – should have paused at the very instant when his fate seemed to be in his own hand, more resembles a preternatural loss of faculty than the course of nature. His whole conduct on the shore of France is to be equalled only by his conduct among the ashes of Moscow, – it was infatuation.