The Bronze Eagle: A Story of the Hundred Days

St. Genis recognised them at a glance: they were Victor de Marmont, Surgeon-Captain Emery and their friend the glovemaker, Dumoulin. The next moment these three men were at the feet of their beloved hero.

"Sire," said Dumoulin the glovemaker, "in the name of the citizens of Grenoble we hereby offer you our services and one hundred thousand francs collected in the last twenty-four hours for your use."

"I accept both," replied the Emperor, while he grasped vigorously the hands of his three most devoted friends.

St. Genis uttered a loud and comprehensive curse: then he pulled his horse abruptly round and with such a jerk that it reared and plunged madly forward ere it started galloping away with its frantic rider in the direction of Grenoble.

III

And Grenoble itself was in a turmoil.

In the barracks the cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" were incessant; Général Marchand was indefatigable in his efforts to still that cry, to rouse in the hearts of the soldiers a sense of loyalty to the King.

"Your country and your King," he shouted from barrack-room to barrack-room.

"Our country and our Emperor!" responded the soldiers with ever-growing enthusiasm.

The spirit of the army and of the people were Bonapartist to the core. They had never trusted either Marchand or préfet Fourier, who had turned their coats so readily at the Restoration: they hated the émigrés—the Comte de Cambray, the Vicomte de St. Genis, the Duc d'Embrun—with their old-fashioned ideas of the semi-divine rights of the nobility second only to the godlike ones of the King. They thought them arrogant and untamed, over-ready to grab once more all the privileges which a bloody Revolution had swept away.

To them Napoleon, despite the brilliant days of the Empire, despite his autocracy, his militarism and his arrogance, represented "the people," the advanced spirit of the Revolution; his downfall had meant a return to the old regime—the regime of feudal rights, of farmers general, of heavy taxation and dear bread.

"Vive l'Empereur!" was cried in the barracks and "Vive l'Empereur!" at the street corners.

A squadron of Hussars had marched into Grenoble from Vienne just before noon: the same squadron which a few months ago at a revue by the Comte d'Artois in the presence of the King had shouted "Vive l'Empereur!" What faith could be put in their loyalty now?

But two infantry regiments came in at the same time from Chambéry and on these Général Marchand hoped to be able to reckon. The Comte Charles de la Bédoyère was in command of the 7th regiment, and though he had served in Prussia under Napoleon he had tendered his oath loyally to Louis XVIII. at the Restoration. He was a tried and able soldier and Marchand believed in him. The General himself reviewed both infantry regiments on the Place d'Armes on their arrival, and then posted them upon the ramparts of the city, facing direct to the southeast and dominating the road to La Mure.

De la Bédoyère remained in command of the 7th.

For two hours he paced the ramparts in a state of the greatest possible agitation. The nearness of Napoleon, of the man who had been his comrade in arms first and his leader afterwards, had a terribly disturbing effect upon his spirit. From below in the city the people's mutterings, their grumbling, their sullen excitement seemed to rise upwards like an intoxicating incense. The attitude of the troops, of the gunners, as well as of the garrison and of his own regiment, worked more potently still upon the Colonel's already shaken loyalty.

Then suddenly his mind is made up. He draws his sword and shouts: "Vive l'Empereur!"

"Soldiers!" he calls. "Follow me! I will show you the way to duty! Follow me! Vive l'Empereur!"

"Vive l'Empereur!" vociferate the troops.

"After me, my men! to the Bonne Gate! After me!" cries De la Bédoyère.

And to the shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" the 7th regiment of infantry passes through the gate and marches along the streets of the suburb on towards La Mure.

Général Marchand, hastily apprised of the wholesale defection, sends Colonel Villiers in hot haste in the wake of De la Bédoyère. Villiers comes up with the latter two kilomètres outside Grenoble. He talks, he persuades, he admonishes, he scolds, De la Bédoyère and his men are firm.

"Your country and your king!" shouts Villiers.

"Our country and our Emperor!" respond the men. And they go to join the Old Guard at Laffray while Villiers in despair rides back into Grenoble.

In the town the desertion of the 7th has had a very serious effect. The muttered cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" are open shouts now. Général Marchand is at his wits' ends. He has ordered the closing of every city gate, and still the soldiers in batches of tens and twenties at a time contrive to escape out of the town carrying their arms and in many cases baggage with them. The royalist faction—the women as well as the men—spend the whole day in and out of the barrack-rooms talking to the men, trying to infuse into them loyalty to the King, and to cheer them up by bringing them wine and provisions.

In the afternoon the Vicomte de St. Genis, sick, exhausted, his horse covered with lather, comes back with the story of the pass of Laffray, and Napoleon's triumphant march toward Grenoble. Marchand seriously contemplates evacuating the city in order to save the garrison and his stores.

Préfet Fourier congratulates himself on his foresight and on that he has transferred the twenty-five million francs from the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville into the safe keeping of M. le Comte de Cambray. He and Général Marchand both hope and think that "the brigand and his horde" cannot possibly be at the gates of Grenoble before the morrow, and that Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen would be well on her way to Paris with the money by that time.

Marchand in the meanwhile has made up his mind to retire from the city with his troops. It is only a strategical measure, he argues, to save bloodshed and to save his stores, pending the arrival of the Comte d'Artois at Lyons, with the army corps. He gives the order for the general retreat to commence at two o'clock in the morning.

Satisfied that he has done the right thing, he finally goes back to his quarters in the Hotel du Dauphiné close to the ramparts. The Comte de Cambray is his guest at dinner, and toward seven o'clock the two men at last sit down to a hurried meal, both their minds filled with apprehension and not a little fear as to what the next few days will bring.

"It is, of course, only a question of time," says the Comte de Cambray airily. "Monseigneur le Comte d'Artois will be at Lyons directly with forty thousand men, and he will easily crush that marauding band of pirates. But this time the Corsican after his defeat must be put more effectually out of harm's way. I, personally, was never much in favour of Elba."

"The English have some islands out in the Atlantic or the Pacific," responds Général Marchand with firm decision. "It would be safest to shoot the brigand, but failing that, let the English send him to one of those islands, and undertake to guard him well."

"Let us drink to that proposition, my dear Marchand," concludes M. le Comte with a smile.

Hardly had the two men concluded this toast, when a fearful din is heard, "regular howls" proceeding from the suburb of Bonne. The windows of the hotel give on the ramparts and the house itself dominates the Bonne Gate and the military ground beyond it. Hastily Marchand jumps up from the table and throws open the window. He and the Comte step out upon the balcony.

The din has become deafening: with a hand that slightly trembles now Général Marchand points to the extensive grounds that lie beyond the city gate, and M. le Comte quickly smothers an exclamation of terror.

A huge crowd of peasants armed with scythes and carrying torches which flicker in the frosty air have invaded the slopes and flats of the military zone. They are yelling "Vive l'Empereur!" at the top of their voices, and from walls and bastions reverberates the answering cry "Vive l'Empereur!" vociferated by infantrymen and gunners and sapeurs, and echoed and re-echoed with passionate enthusiasm by the people of Grenoble assembled in their thousands in the narrow streets which abut upon the ramparts.

And in the midst of the peasantry, surrounded by them as by a cordon, Napoleon and his small army, just reinforced by the 7th regiment of infantry, have halted—expectant.

Napoleon's aide-de-camp, Capitaine Raoul, accompanied by half a dozen lancers, comes up to the palisade which bars the immediate approach to the city gates.

"Open!" he cries loudly, so loudly that his young, firm voice rises above the tumult around. "Open! in the name of the Emperor!"

Marchand sees it all, he hears the commanding summons, hears the thunderous and enthusiastic cheers which greet Captain Raoul's call to surrender. He and the Comte de Cambray are still standing upon the balcony of the hotel that faces the gate of Bonne and dominates from its high ground the ramparts opposite. White-cheeked and silent the two men have gazed before them and have understood. To attempt to stem this tide of popular enthusiasm would inevitably be fatal. The troops inside Grenoble were as ready to cross over to "the brigand's" standard as was Colonel de la Bédoyère's regiment of infantry.

The ramparts and the surrounding military zone were lit up by hundreds of torches; by their flickering light the two men on the balcony could see the faces of the people, and those of the soldiers who were even now being ordered to fire upon Raoul and the Lancers.

Colonel Roussille, who is in command of the troops at the gate, sends a hasty messenger to Général Marchand: "The brigand demands that we open the gate!" reports the messenger breathlessly.

"Tell the Colonel to give the order to fire," is Marchand's peremptory response.

"Are you coming with me, M. le Comte?" he asks hurriedly. But he does not wait for a reply. Wrapping his cloak around him, he goes in the wake of the messenger. M. le Comte de Cambray is close on his heels.

Five minutes later the General is up on the ramparts. He has thrown a quick, piercing glance round him. There are two thousand men up here, twenty guns, ammunition in plenty. Out there only peasants and a heterogeneous band of some fifteen hundred men. One shot from a gun perhaps would send all that crowd flying, the first fusillade might scatter "the band of brigands," but Marchand cannot, dare not give the positive order to fire; he knows that rank insubordination, positive refusal to obey would follow.

He talks to the men, he harangues, he begs them to defend their city against this "horde of Corsican pirates."

To every word he says, the men but oppose the one cry: "Vive l'Empereur!"

The Comte de Cambray turns in despair to M. de St. Genis, who is a captain of artillery and whose men had hitherto been supposed to be tried and loyal royalists.

"If the men won't fire, Maurice," asks the Comte in despair, "cannot the officers at least fire the first shot?"

"M. le Comte," replies St. Genis through set teeth, for his heart was filled with wrath and shame at the defection of his men, "the gunners have declared that if the officers shoot, the men will shatter them to pieces with their own batteries."

The crowds outside the gate itself are swelling visibly. They press in from every side toward the city loudly demanding the surrender of the town. "Open the gates! open!" they shout, and their clamour becomes more insistent every moment. Already they have broken down the palisades which surround the military zone, they pour down the slopes against the gate. But the latter is heavy, and massive, studded with iron, stoutly resisting axe or pick.

"Open!" they cry. "Open! in the Emperor's name!"

They are within hailing distance of the soldiers on the ramparts: "What price your plums?" they shout gaily to the gunners.

"Quite cheap," retort the latter with equal gaiety, "but there's no danger of the Emperor getting any."

The women sing the old couplet:

"Bon! Bon! NapoléonVa rentrer dans sa maison!"

and the soldiers on the ramparts take up the refrain:

"Nous allons voir le grand NapoléonLe vainqueur de toutes les nations!"

"What can we do, M. le Comte?" says Général Marchand at last. "We shall have to give in."

"I'll not stay and see it," replies the Comte. "I should die of shame."

Even while the two men are talking and discussing the possibilities of an early surrender, Napoleon himself has forced his way through the tumultuous throng of his supporters, and accompanied by Victor de Marmont and Colonel de la Bédoyère he advances as far as the gate which still stands barred defiantly against him.

"I command you to open this gate!" he cries aloud.

Colonel Roussille, who is in command, replies defiantly: "I only take orders from the General himself."

"He is relieved of his command," retorts Napoleon.

"I know my duty," insists Roussille. "I only take orders from the General."

Victor de Marmont, intoxicated with his own enthusiasm, maddened with rage at sight of St. Genis, whose face is just then thrown into vivid light by the glare of the torches, cries wildly: "Soldiers of the Emperor, who are being forced to resist him, turn on those treacherous officers of yours, tear off their epaulettes, I say!"

His shrill and frantic cries seem to precipitate the inevitable climax. The tumult has become absolutely delirious. The soldiers on the ramparts tumble over one another in a mad rush for the gate, which they try to break open with the butt-end of their rifles; but they dare not actually attack their own officers, and in any case they know that the keys of the city are still in the hands of Général Marchand, and Général Marchand has suddenly disappeared.

Feeling the hopelessness and futility of further resistance, he has gone back to his hotel, and is even now giving orders and making preparations for leaving Grenoble. Préfet Fourier, hastily summoned, is with him, and the Comte de Cambray is preparing to return immediately to Brestalou.

"We shall all leave for Paris to-morrow, as early as possible," he says, as he finally takes leave of the General and the préfet, "and take the money with us, of course. If the King—which God forbid!—is obliged to leave Paris, it will be most acceptable to him, until the day when the allies are once more in the field and ready to crush, irretrievably this time, this Corsican scourge of Europe."

One or two of the royalist officers have succeeded in massing together some two or three hundred men out of several regiments who appear to be determined to remain loyal.

St. Genis is not among these: his men had been among the first to cry "Vive l'Empereur!" when ordered to fire on the brigand and his hordes. They had even gone so far as to threaten their officers' lives.

Now, covered with shame, and boiling with wrath at the defection, St. Genis asks leave of the General to escort M. le Comte de Cambray and his party to Paris.

"We shall be better off for extra protection," urges M. le Comte de Cambray in support of St. Genis' plea for leave. "I shall only have the coachman and two postillions with me. M. de St. Genis would be of immense assistance in case of footpads."

"The road to Paris is quite safe, I believe," says Général Marchand, "and at Lyons you will meet the army of M. le Comte d'Artois. But perhaps M. de St. Genis had better accompany you as far as there, at any rate. He can then report himself at Lyons. Twenty-five millions is a large sum, of course, but the purpose of your journey has remained a secret, has it not?"

"Of course," says M. le Comte unhesitatingly, for he has completely erased Victor de Marmont from his mind.

"Well then, all you need fear is an attack from footpads—and even that is unlikely," concludes Général Marchand, who by now is in a great hurry to go. "But M. de St. Genis has my permission to escort you."

The General entrusts the keys of the Bonne Gate to Colonel Roussille. He has barely time to execute his hasty flight, having arranged to escape out of Grenoble by the St. Laurent Gate on the north of the town. In the meanwhile a carter from the suburb of St. Joseph outside the Bonne Gate has harnessed a team of horses to one of his wagons and brought along a huge joist: twenty pairs of willing and stout arms are already manipulating this powerful engine for the breaking open of the resisting gate. Already the doors are giving way, the hinges creak; and while Général Marchand and préfet Fourier with their small body of faithful soldiers rush precipitately across the deserted streets of the town, Colonel Roussille makes ready to open the Gate of Bonne to the Emperor and to his soldiers.

"My regiment was prepared to turn against me," he says to his men, "but I shall not turn against them."

Then he formally throws open the gate.

Ecstatic delight, joyful enthusiasm, succeeds the frantic cries of a while ago. Napoleon entering the city of Grenoble was nearly crushed to death by the frenzy of the crowd. Cheered to the echoes, surrounded by a delirious populace which hardly allowed him to move, it was hours before he succeeded in reaching the Hôtel des Trois-Dauphins, where he was resolved to spend the night, since it was kept by an ex-soldier, one of his own Old Guard of the Italian campaign.

The enthusiasm was kept up all night. The town was illuminated. Until dawn men and women paraded the streets singing the "Marseillaise" and shouting "Vive l'Empereur!"

In a small room, simply furnished but cosy and comfortable, the great adventurer, who had conquered half the world and lost it and had now set out to conquer it again, sat with half a dozen of his most faithful friends: Cambronne and Raoul, Victor de Marmont and Emery.

On the table spread out before him was an ordnance map of the province; his clenched hand rested upon it; his eyes, those eagle-like, piercing eyes which had so often called his soldiers to victory, gazed out straight before him, as if through the bare, white-washed walls of this humble hotel room he saw the vision of the brilliant halls of the Tuileries, the imperial throne, the Empress beside him, all her faithlessness and pusillanimity forgiven, his son whom he worshipped, his marshals grouped around him; and with a gesture of proud defiance he threw back his head and said loudly:

"Until to-day I was only an adventurer. To-night I am a prince once more."

IV

It was the next morning in that same sparsely-furnished and uncarpeted room of the Hôtel des Trois-Dauphins that Napoleon spoke to Victor de Marmont, to Emery and Dumoulin about the money which had been stolen last year from the Empress and which he understood had been deposited in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville.

"I am not going," he said, "to levy a war tax on my good city of Grenoble, but my good and faithful soldiers must be paid, and I must provision my army in case I encounter stronger resistance at Lyons than I can cope with, and am forced to make a détour. I want the money—the Empress' money, which that infamous Talleyrand stole from her. So you, de Marmont, had best go straight away to the Hôtel de Ville and in my name summon the préfet to appear before me. You can tell him at once that it is on account of the money."

"I will go at once, Sire," replied de Marmont with a regretful sigh, "but I fear me that it is too late."

"Too late?" snapped out the Emperor with a frown, "what do you mean by too late?"

"I mean that Fourier has left Grenoble in the trail of Marchand, and that two days ago—unless I'm very much mistaken—he disposed of the money."

"Disposed of the money? You are mad, de Marmont."

"Not altogether, Sire. When I say that Fourier disposed of the Empress' money I only mean that he deposited it in what he would deem a safe place."

"The cur!" exclaimed Napoleon with a yet tighter clenching of his hand and mighty fist, "turning against the hand that fed him and made him what he is. Well!" he added impatiently, "where is the money now?"

"In the keeping of M. le Comte de Cambray at Brestalou," replied de Marmont without hesitation.

"Very well," said the Emperor, "take a company of the 7th regiment with you to Brestalou and requisition the money at once."

"If—as I believe—the Comte no longer has the money by him?–"

"Make him tell you where it is."

"I mean, Sire, that it is my belief that M. le Comte's sister and daughter will undertake to take the money to Paris, hoping by their sex and general air of innocence to escape suspicion in connection with the money."

"Don't worry me with all these details, de Marmont," broke in Napoleon with a frown of impatience. "I told you to take a company with you and to get me the Empress' money. See to it that this is done and leave me in peace."

He hated arguing, hated opposition, the very suggestion of any difficulty. His followers and intimates knew that; already de Marmont had repented that he had allowed his tongue to ramble on quite so much. Now he felt that silence must redeem his blunder—silence now and success in his undertaking.

He bent the knee, for this homage the great Corsican adventurer and one-time dictator of civilised Europe loved to receive: he kissed the hand which had once wielded the sceptre of a mighty Empire and was ready now to grasp it again. Then he rose and gave the military salute.

"It shall be done, Sire," was all that he said.

His heart was full of enthusiasm, and the task allotted to him was a congenial one: the baffling and discomfiture of those who had insulted him. If—as he believed—Crystal would be accompanying her aunt on the journey toward Paris, then indeed would his own longing for some sort of revenge for the humiliation which he had endured on that memorable Sunday evening be fully gratified.

It was with a light and swinging step that he ran down the narrow stairs of the hotel. In the little entrance hall below he met Clyffurde.

In his usual impulsive way, without thought of what had gone before or was likely to happen in the future, he went up to the Englishman with outstretched hand.

"My dear Clyffurde," he said with unaffected cordiality, "I am glad to see you! I have been wondering what had become of you since we parted on Sunday last. My dear friend," he added ecstatically, "what glorious events, eh?"

He did not wait for Clyffurde's reply, nor did he appear to notice the latter's obvious coldness of manner, but went prattling on with great volubility.

"What a man!" he exclaimed, nodding significantly in the direction whence he had just come. "A six days' march—mostly on foot and along steep mountain paths! and to-day as fresh and vigorous as if he had just spent a month's holiday at some pleasant watering place! What luck to be serving such a man! And what luck to be able to render him really useful service! The tables will be turned, eh, my dear Clyffurde?" he added, giving his taciturn friend a jovial dig in the ribs, "and what lovely discomfiture for our proud aristocrats, eh? They will be sorry to have made an enemy of Victor de Marmont, what?"

Whereupon Clyffurde made a violent effort to appear friendly and jovial too.

"Why," he said with a pleasant laugh, "what madcap ideas are floating through your head now?"

"Madcap schemes?" ejaculated de Marmont. "Nothing more or less, my dear Clyffurde, than complete revenge for the humiliation those de Cambrays put upon me last Sunday."

"Revenge? That sounds exciting," said Clyffurde with a smile, even while his palm itched to slap the young braggart's face.

"Exciting, par Dieu! Of course it will be exciting. They have no idea that I guessed their little machinations. Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen travelling to Paris forsooth! Aye! but with five and twenty millions sewn somewhere inside her petticoats. Well! the Emperor happens to want his own five and twenty millions, if you please. So Mme. la Duchesse or M. le Comte will have to disgorge. And I shall have the pleasing task of making them disgorge. What say you to that, friend Clyffurde?"

"That I am sorry for you," replied the other drily.

"Sorry for me? Why?"

"Because it is never a pleasing task to bully a defenceless woman—and an old one at that."

De Marmont laughed aloud. "Bully Mme. la Duchesse d'Agen?" he exclaimed. "Sacré tonnerre! what do you take me for. I shall not bully her. Fifty soldiers don't bully a defenceless woman. We shall treat Mme. la Duchesse with every consideration: we shall only remove five and twenty millions of stolen money from her carriage, that is all."