Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 2 (of 3)

In the month of July, 1815, there was a frequent intercourse of parlementaires between the commissioners of the French government and the allies. Davoust, Prince d’Eckmuhl, commanded the French army assembled at Vilette and about the Canal d’Ourk, a neighbourhood where many thousand Russians had fallen in the battle of the preceding summer. I had the greatest anxiety to see the French army; and Col. Macirone informing me that he was to be sent out with one of Fouché’s despatches to the Duke of Wellington, I felt no apprehension, being duly armed with my sauf-conduit, and thought I might take that opportunity of passing the Barrier de Roule, and strolling about until Macirone’s carriage should come up. It however drove rapidly by me, and I was consequently left in rather an awkward situation, not knowing the localities, and the sentry refusing to suffer me to re-enter.

I did not remain long in suspense, being stopped by two officers, who questioned me in French somewhat tartly as to my presumption in passing the sentries, “who,” said they, “must have mistaken you for one of the commissaries’ attendants.” I produced my passport, which stood me in no further advantage than to ensure a very civil arrest. I was directly taken a long way to the quarters of Marshal Davoust, who was at the time breakfasting on grapes and bread in a very good hotel near the canal. He showed at first a sort of austere indifference that was extremely disagreeable to me: but on my telling him who I was, and every thing relating to the transaction, the manifestation of my candour struck him so forcibly, that he said I was at liberty to walk about, but not to repass the lines till the return of the parlementaires, and further inquiry made about me. I was not altogether at my ease: the prince was now very polite; but I knew nobody, and was undoubtedly a suspicious person. However, I was civilly treated by the officers who met me, and on the contrary received many half-English curses from several soldiers who, I suppose, had been prisoners in England. I was extremely hungry and much fatigued, and kept on the bank of the canal, as completely out of the way of the military as I could.

I was at length accosted in my own language by an elderly officer, tall and distingué in his appearance.

“Sir,” said he, “I think I have seen you in England?”

“I have not the honour to recollect having met you, sir,” replied I.

“I shall not readily forget it,” rejoined the French officer: “do you remember being, about two years since, in the town of Odiham?”

“Very well,” said I.

“You recollect some French officers who were prisoners there? There were two ladies with you.”

These words at once brought the circumstance to my mind, and I answered, “I do now recollect seeing you perfectly.”

“Yes,” said my interlocutor, “I was one of the three officers who were pelted with mud by the garçons in the streets of Odiham; and do you remember striking one of the garçons who followed us, for their conduct?”

“I do not forget it, sir,” said I.

“Come with me then,” pursued he, “and we’ll talk it over in another place.”

The fact had been as he represented. A few French officers, prisoners at Odiham, were sometimes, as they told me, roughly treated by the mob. Passing by chance one day with Lady Barrington and my daughter through the streets of that town, I saw a great number of boys following, hooting and hissing the French officers, and throwing dirt at them. I struck two or three of these idle dogs with my cane, and rapped at the constable’s door, who immediately came out and put them to flight, – interfering, however, rather reluctantly on the part of what he called the “d – d French * * * *.” I expressed and felt great indignation; the officers thanked me warmly, and I believe were all shortly after removed to Oswestry: they were much disliked on that side of London.

My French friend told me that his two comrades at Odiham were killed – the one at Waterloo, and the other by a waggon passing over him at Charleroi, on the 16th of June; and that scarcely an officer who had been prisoner at his dépôt at Oswestry had survived the last campaign. He gave me in his room near Vilette wine, bread, and grapes, with dried sausages well seasoned with garlic, and a glass of eau-de-vie. I was highly pleased at this rencontre. My companion was a most intelligent person, and communicative to the utmost extent of my curiosity. His narrative of many of the events of the battles of the 16th and 18th ult. was most interesting, and carried with it every mark of candour. The minutes rolled away speedily in his company, and seemed to me indeed far too fleeting.

He had not been wounded, though in the heat of both engagements. He attributed the loss of the battle to three causes: – the wanton expenditure of the cavalry; the uncovering of the right wing by Grouchy; and the impetuosity of Napoleon, in ordering the last attack by the old guard, which he should have postponed till next day. He said he had no doubt that the Belgian troops would all have left the field before morning. He had been engaged on the left, and did not see the Prussian attack; but said, that it had the effect of consolidating all the different corps of the French army into a confused mass, which lost the battle.

He told me that Napoleon was forced off the field by the irresistible crowds which the advance of the English cavalry had driven into disorder, while there was not a possibility of rallying a single squadron of their own. His episodes respecting the occurrences of that day were most affecting, and I believe true.

In this agreeable society my spirits mounted again, and I soon acquired courage sufficient to express my great anxiety to see the army, adding, that I durst not go alone. My friend immediately took me under his arm, and walked with me through the whole lines, introducing me to several of his comrades, and acting throughout in the kindest and most gentlemanly manner. This was precisely the opportunity I had so long wished for of viewing the French troops, which were then full of impetuosity and confidence, and eager for battle. Neither the Russians nor Austrians had reached Paris, and it was supposed Davoust would anticipate the attack of the other allies, who only waited for the junction of these powers and their heavy artillery to recommence operations. The scene was so new to me, so impressive, and so important, that it was only on my return home my mind got steady enough to organise its ideas, and permit me to take coherent notes of what I had witnessed.

The battle of Waterloo was understood to have dispersed so entirely the French army, – that powerful and glorious display of heroes and of arms which a very few days previously had passed before my eyes, – that scarcely ten men (except Grouchy’s division) returned in one body to Paris; and those who did return were in such a state of wretchedness and depression, that I took for granted the spirit of the French army had been extinguished– their battalions never to be rallied – their courage thoroughly cooled! I considered that the assembly in the vicinity of Vilette could not be numerous, and was more calculated to make a show for better terms than to resist the conquerors. How great then must have been my astonishment when the evening parades turned out, as the officers informed me, above sixty-five thousand infantry, which, with artillery and cavalry, reached together near 80,000 men. I thought several of the privates had drunk rather too much: but whether sober or not, they seemed to be all in a state of wild, enthusiastic excitement – little removed from insubordination, but directly tending to hostility and battle. Whole companies cried aloud, as the superior officers passed them, “Mon Général – à l’attaque! – l’ennemi! l’ennemi! – allons! allons!” others shouted “Nous sommes trahis! trahison! trahison! à la bataille! à la bataille!” Crowds of them, as if by instinct or for pastime, would rush voluntarily together, and in a moment form a long column, then disperse and execute some other manœuvre; while others, dispersed in groups, sang in loud chorus sundry war songs, wherein les Prusses and les Anglais were the general theme.

I had no conception how it was possible that, in a few days after such a total dispersion of the French army, another could be so rapidly collected, and which, though somewhat less numerous, the officer told me evinced double the enthusiasm of those who had formed the defeated corps. They had now it is true the stimulus of that defeat to urge them desperately on to retrieve that military glory which had been so awfully obscured; their artillery was most abundant; and we must never forget that the French soldier is always better informed, and possessed of more morale than our own. In truth, I really do believe there was scarcely a man in that army at Vilette who would willingly have quitted the field of battle alive, unless victorious.

Though their tumultuous excitement certainly at this time bore the appearance of insubordination, my conductor assured me I was mistaken in forming such a judgment: he admitted that they durst not check that exuberant zeal on the instant; but added, that when the period arrived to form them for battle, not a voice would be heard – not a limb move, till the attack commenced, except by order of their leaders; and that if the traitors in Paris suffered them once more to try their fortune, he did not think there was an individual in that army who entertained a doubt of the result.

In the production of this confidence, party spirit was doubtless mixed up: but no impartial observer could deny, that had the troops at Vilette been heartily joined by the national guards and country volunteers then within the walls of Paris, the consequence would have been at least extremely problematical; and if the marais had been armed with pikes, the whole would have been overwhelming.

The day passed on, and I still strolled about with my polite conductor, whom I begged to remain with me. He was not an officer of high rank: I believe a captain of the eighty-first infantry – very thin and worn, gentlemanly, and had seen long service.

From this crowd of infuriated soldiers, he led me farther to the left, whither a part of the old guard, who had been I believe quartered at Montmartre, had been that evening removed. I had, as the reader will perhaps recollect, a previous opportunity of admiring that unrivalled body of veteran warriors; and their appearance this evening interested me beyond measure. Every man looked like an Ajax, exhibiting a firmness of step and of gesture at once formidable and even graceful. At the same time, I fancied that there was a cast of melancholy over their bronzed countenances. When I compare that corps to the ordinary-looking troops now generally composing the guardians of that once military nation, I can scarcely avoid sighing while I exclaim tempora mutantur! I returned to the barrier with my friend, after a long walk.

I grew at length impatient; evening was closing, and, if detained, I must I suppose have bivouacked. To be sure the weather was so fine that it would have been of no great consequence: still my situation was disagreeable, and the more so, as my family, being quite ignorant of it, must necessarily feel uneasy. I was therefore becoming silent and abstracted, (and my friend had no kind of interest to get me released,) when two carriages appeared driving toward the barrier where we stood. A shot was fired by the advanced sentry at one of them, which immediately stopped. A party was sent out, and the carriage entered: there were two gentlemen in it, one of whom had received the ball, I believe, in his shoulder. A surgeon instantly attended, and they proceeded within the lines. They proved to be two of the parlementaires who had gone out with dispatches. The wound was not mortal; and its infliction arose from a mistaken construction, on the part of the sentinel, of his orders.

The other carriage (in which I conceived was Col. Macirone) drove on without going to the head-quarters of Davoust. My kind companion said he would now go and try to get me dismissed: he did so, and procured an order from the adjutant-general for my departure, on signing my name, address, and occupation, and the name of some person who knew me in Paris. I mentioned Mr. Phillips, of Lafitte’s, and was then suffered to depart. It will be imagined that I was not dilatory in walking home, where, of course, I was received as a lost sheep, – no member of my family having the slightest idea whither I had gone.

The officer, as he accompanied me to the barrier, described to me the interview between the French parlementaires and Davoust. They had, in the morning, it seems, made progress in the negotiation, Very much against the marshal’s inclinations. He was confident of victory, and expressed himself, with great warmth, in the following emphatic words: – “Begone! and tell your employer, Fouché, when you return, that the prince of Eckmuhl will defend Paris till its flames set this handkerchief on fire!” – waving one as he spoke. From what I saw, I do believe he would have kept his word; and I cannot doubt that if the dreadful conflict had taken place, the victory on either side would have cost the conqueror half his army: – situated as they were, and with the spirit both armaments possessed, they never could have parted without an almost exterminating carnage.

PROJECTED ESCAPE OF NAPOLEON

Attack on the bridge of Charenton by the Russians – Fouché’s arrangements for the defence of Paris – Bonaparte’s retirement to Malmaison – His want of moral courage – Comparison between Napoleon and Frederick the Great – Extraordinary resolution of the ex-emperor to repair to London – Preparations for his undertaking the journey as secretary to Dr. Marshall – The scheme abandoned from dread of treachery on the road to the coast – Termination of the author’s intercourse with Dr. Marshall, and the cause thereof – Remuneration of Col. Macirone by the arch-traitor Fouché.

It was the received opinion that the allies would form a blockade rather than venture an assault on Paris: their mortars or heavy artillery had not arrived, and the numerical strength and morale of the French army at Vilette the reader has already seen. The English army was within view of, and occupied, St. Denis; the Prussians were on the side of Sevres; and the Russians were expected in the direction of Charenton, along the Marne; while a Brunswick corps at Versailles had been surprised and cut up. That Paris might have been taken by storm is possible, but not more, if they fought; but had the French army been augmented by one half of the national guard, the effort would surely have been most sanguinary, and the result most doubtful. Had the streets been intersected, mines sunk, the bridges broken down, and the populace armed as well as circumstances would permit (the heights being at the same time duly defended), though I am not a military man, and therefore very liable to error on such a subject, I have little doubt the allied forces would have presented but a scanty army before they arrived in the centre of the French metropolis. The defence of Saragossa by Palafox (though but a chieftain of Guerilla) proved the possibility of defending an open town against a valorous enemy. However, this was not the course meditated by Davoust: he wished to attack; and no doubt, considering the humour of the French army at the time, the offensive was the best system.

I was breakfasting in Dr. Marshall’s garden when we heard a heavy firing commence: it proceeded from Charenton, about three miles from Paris, where the Russian advanced-guard had attacked the bridge, which had not been broken up, although it was one of the leading avenues to the Castle of Vincennes. Fouché indeed had contrived to weaken this post effectually, so that the defence there could not be long protracted; and he had also ordered ten thousand stand of arms to be taken secretly out of Paris and lodged in the Castle of Vincennes (to prevent the Parisians from arming) the day before.

The discharges continuing in occasional volleys, like a sort of running fire of platoons, I was most anxious to go to some spot which would command a view of that part of the country; but the doctor dissuaded me, saying it could not be a severe or lengthened struggle, as Fouché had taken care of that matter. I led him gradually into conversation on the business, and he made known to me, though equivocally, much more than I had ever suspected. Every dispatch, every negotiation, every step which it was supposed by such among the French as had their country’s honour and character at heart, might operate to prevent the allies from approaching Paris after the second abdication, had been either accompanied by counter-applications, or defeated by secret instructions from Fouché.

While mock negotiations were carrying on at a distance, and before the English army had reached St. Denis, Bonaparte was already at Malmaison. It had become quite clear that he was a lost man; and this most celebrated of all soldiers on record proved by his conduct, at that crisis, the distinction between animal and mental courage: the first is an instinctive quality, enjoyed by us in common with many of the brute creation; the latter is the attribute of man alone. The first Napoleon eminently possessed; in the latter he was certainly defective. Frederick the Great, in mental courage, was altogether superior to Napoleon. He could fight and fly, and rally and fight again; his spirit never gave in; his perseverance never flagged: he seemed, in fact, insusceptible of despondency, and was even greater in defeat than in victory: he never quitted his army whilst a troop could be rallied; and the seven years’ war proved that the king of Prussia was equally illustrious, whether fugitive or conqueror.

Napoleon reversed those qualities. No warrior that history records was ever so great while successful: his victories were followed up with the rapidity of lightning: in overwhelming an army, he in fact often subdued a kingdom, and profited more by each triumph than any general that had preceded him. But he could not stand up under defeat! – except at Vienna.

Several plans for Napoleon’s escape I heard as they were successively formed: such of them as had an appearance of plausibility Fouché found means to counteract. It would not be amusing to relate the various devices which were suggested for this purpose. Napoleon was meanwhile almost passive and wrapped in apathy. He clung to existence with even a mean tenacity; and it is difficult to imagine but that his intellect must have suffered before he was led to endure a life of ignominious exile.

At Doctor Marshall’s hotel one morning, I remarked his travelling carriage as if put in preparation for a journey, having candles in the lamps, &c. A smith had been examining it, and the servants were all in motion. I suspected some movement of consequence, but could not surmise what. The doctor did not appear to think that I had observed these preparations.

On a sudden, while walking in the garden, I turned short on him.

“Doctor,” said I, at a venture, “you are going on an important journey to-night.”

“How do you know?” said he, thrown off his guard by the abruptness of my remark.

“Well!” continued I, smiling, “I wish you well out of it!”

“Out of what?” exclaimed he, recovering his self-possession, and sounding me in his turn.

“Oh, no matter, no matter,” said I, with a significant nod, as if I was already acquainted with his proceedings.

This bait took in some degree; and after a good deal of fencing, (knowing that he could fully depend on my secrecy,) the doctor led me into his study, where he said he would communicate to me a very interesting and important matter. He then unlocked his desk, and produced an especial passport for himself and his secretary to Havre de Grace, thence to embark for England; and he showed me a very large and also a smaller bag of gold, which he said he was about to take with him.

At length he informed me that it was determined Napoleon should go to England; that he had himself agreed to it; and that he was to travel in Dr. Marshall’s carriage, as his secretary, under the above-mentioned passport. It was arranged that, at twelve o’clock that night, the emperor with the queen of Holland were to be at Marshall’s house (Rue Pigale), and that Napoleon and the doctor were to set off thence immediately; that on arriving in England he was forthwith to repair to London, preceded by a letter to the Prince Regent, stating that he threw himself on the protection and generosity of the British nation, and required permission to reside therein as a private individual during his life.

The thing seemed to me too romantic to be serious; and the doctor could not avoid perceiving my incredulity. He however enjoined me to secrecy, which by the bye was on my own account quite unnecessary; I should have mentioned it only to one member of my family, whom I knew to be to the full as cautious as myself. But I determined to ascertain the fact; and before twelve o’clock at night repaired to the Rue Pigale, and stood up underneath a door somewhat further on the opposite side of the street to Dr. Marshall’s house.

A strong light shone through the curtains of the first floor windows, and lights were also moving about in the upper story. The court meantime was quite dark, and the indications altogether bespoke that something unusual was going forward in the house. Every moment I expected to see Napoleon come to the gate. He came not: – but about half after twelve an elderly officer buttoned up in a blue surtout rode up to the porte cochère, which, on his ringing, was instantly opened. He went in, and after remaining about twenty minutes, came out on horseback as before, and went down the street. I thought he might have been a precursor, and still kept my ground until some time after, when the light in the first floor was extinguished; and thence inferring what subsequently proved to be the real state of the case, I returned homeward disappointed.

Next day Dr. Marshall told me that Napoleon had been dissuaded from venturing to Havre de Grace – he believed by the queen of Holland: some idea had occurred either to him or her that he might not be fairly dealt with on the road. Marshall seemed much hurt. I own the same suspicion had struck me when I first heard of the scheme, and reflected on what I had long before heard from my valet, Henry Thevenot, as already mentioned. I was far from implicating the doctor in any proceeding of a decidedly treacherous nature. I believed, and still believe him to be utterly incapable of countenancing in any way such an action. His disposition always appeared to me gentle and humane. The incident was, however, in all its bearings, an extraordinary one.

My intimacy with Doctor Marshall at length ceased, and in a manner very disagreeable. I liked the man, and I do not wish to hurt his feelings; but certain mysteries respecting his lady, and that alone, terminated our connexion.

A person with whom I was extremely intimate happened to be in my drawing-room one day when Mrs. Marshall called. I observed nothing of a particular character except that Mrs. Marshall went suddenly away; and as I handed her into her carriage, she said, “You promised to dine with us to-morrow, and I requested you to bring any friend you liked: but do not let it be that fellow I have just seen; I have taken a great dislike to his countenance!” No further observation was made, and the lady departed.

On the next morning I received a note from Mrs. Marshall, stating that she had reason to know some malicious person had represented me as being acquainted with certain affairs very material for the government to understand, and as having papers in my possession which might be required from me by the minister Fouché; advising me therefore to leave town for awhile, sooner than be troubled respecting business so disagreeable; and adding that, in the mean time, Colonel Macirone would endeavour to find out the facts, and apprise me of them. This note was curious, and I retain it.