Part 6

On Oct. 19, 1812, the Grand Army of France, one hundred thousand strong, commenced its heart-breaking retreat. Deep snow had already come, earlier than usual. Kutusof, the Russian general, moved his army parallel to the French, and fought them at every available point. Marshal Ney covered the rear, and made for himself an immortal record. Napoleon rightly called him "The Bravest of the Brave." When they reached Borodino they sadly turned their heads away from the battle-fields where the bodies of thirty thousand men were half devoured by wolves. The cold became intense. Horses slipped and fell on the icy ground. Artillery and baggage were abandoned. There was no food in the devastated country. Where Napoleon had left provisions on his way to Moscow the enemy had destroyed them. Men ate their horses for food. They lay down at night on the snow to sleep, and never rose. "Every morning," says Marbot, "we left thousands of dead in our bivouacs.... So intense was the cold that we could see a kind of vapor rising from men's ears and eyes. Condensing, on contact with the air, this vapor fell back on our persons with a rattle such as grains of millet might have made. We had often to halt and clear away from the horses' bits the icicles formed by their frozen breath.... Many soldiers of all ranks blew out their brains to put an end to their misery.... All ranks were confounded; there were no arms, no military bearings; soldiers, officers, generals, were clad in rags, and for boots had nothing but strips of leather or cloth, hardly fastened together with a string." The Emperor himself was grave, calm, and self-controlled, with no diminution of courage.

The soldiers of the allies of Napoleon, Austria, Prussia, Spain, and others, deserted by the thousands, the Russians having sent proclamations in various languages into the camps, telling them they should be returned to their homes.

Finally they reached the river Beresina, the bridge over which had been destroyed by the Russians. Tearing down the hovels in the village, the French built two bridges at night, the men standing for six or seven hours in the water. Then the troops surged upon them, and one bridge broke under the weight of guns and men. In rushing upon the other, great crowds were forced into the river and drowned. The Russians meantime swept them with cannon. From twenty to twenty-five thousand men perished in this dreadful crossing of the Beresina.

On Dec. 5, 1812, they were within the borders of Poland; and Napoleon, having learned that his death had been proclaimed in Paris, and that a man had tried to usurp the power, left his army in charge of Murat, and, with two officers, hastened by sledges to Paris, which he reached Dec. 18.

The loss of the French army and its allies in the Russian campaign Thiers estimates as 300,000 men; other authorities make it 350,000; 100,000 were killed in the advance and retreat from Moscow; 150,000 died of hunger, fatigue, and cold; 100,000 were taken prisoners. The Russian losses were also heavy.

Prussia now joined herself to Russia, and declared war against France. Napoleon at once raised another army of nearly two hundred thousand by conscription, and defeated the enemy at Lützen, or Gross-Beeren, and Bautzen. His young conscripts fought heroically. His beloved Marshal Duroc was killed just after the latter battle. Napoleon wept as he left him dying, saying, "Duroc, there is another life.... We shall one day meet again."

Austria offered to be a mediator, but failing, hastened to join Prussia and Russia. The marriage with Marie Louise had not won Napoleon friends, as he had fondly hoped.

The allies now had five hundred thousand men, the Prussians under Blücher, the Austrians under Schwarzenberg. Upon Aug. 27, 1813, Napoleon defeated them at Dresden, where they left forty thousand on the field, half of whom were prisoners, but was himself defeated in the dreadful battle of Leipsic, Oct. 16-19.

Bavaria and Westphalia had been compelled to join the allies, whose forces thrice outnumbered the French. The Swedes, under Bernadotte, had now turned against France. "In the three days' battle," says Alison, "the French lost 60,000 men, and the allies nearly as many."

In the retreat of the French from Leipsic they were obliged to cross the Elster river. The bridge had been mined, and by a mistake was exploded before all the French had passed over. Marbot says, of those who were left in Leipsic, about 13,000 were killed, and 25,000 made prisoners.

Meantime the English had been victorious over the French in Spain and Portugal, and Joseph Bonaparte had been driven from the throne. He came to the United States and lived at Bordentown, New Jersey, for some years, dying at Florence, Italy, July 28, 1844, at the age of seventy-six.

The allies now pushed into France, determined to enter Paris and dethrone Napoleon. The Emperor raised a new army, and with prodigious energy and courage fought against the coalition of Europe. Often with his forces greatly inferior in number to the allies, he defeated them, but finally he was overborne. Marie Louise fled to Blois. The young King of Rome refused to go. "They are betraying my papa," he said, "and I will not go away. I do not wish to leave the palace." He wept as he was taken to the carriage. His governess promised that he should come back, but she was never able to keep her promise.

Paris capitulated March 30, 1814; and the Senate, through the lead of Talleyrand, declared that Napoleon and his family had forfeited the throne.

Napoleon arrived at Paris a few hours after the capitulation, stunned at the news. Fearless as ever, he wished to attack the allies, but was persuaded by his marshals to desist.

With agony of soul, but calmness of demeanor, he signed his abdication at Fontainebleau, April 6, 1814: "The Emperor Napoleon declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the throne of France and Italy; and that there is no personal sacrifice, not even that of life itself, which he is not willing to make for the interests of France."

By the will of the allies, Louis XVIII. was recalled, and Napoleon was banished to the Island of Elba, east of Corsica, with an annual income from France of $500,000. He bade the Old Guard an affectionate good-by. "Adieu, my children," he said. "I would that I could press you all to my heart. Let me at least embrace your general and your eagle." He put his arms around General Petit, and kissed the eagle on its silver beak. Amid the tears and sobs of his brave soldiers, on April 20, Napoleon drove away from Fontainebleau to Fréjus, and in the British frigate, The Undaunted, set sail for Elba, April 27, 1814.

He had frequently written to Josephine through these melancholy months. Once he wrote: "To me death would now be a blessing. But I would once more see Josephine," and he saw her before his departure.

Four days before he left Fontainebleau for Elba, he wrote, "Adieu, my dear Josephine. Be resigned, as I am, and never forget him who never forgot, and who never will forget you. Farewell, Josephine."

She longed to follow him to Elba, but waited to see if Marie Louise would join him. At first Marie Louise desired to go to him, but was prevailed upon by her father, the Emperor Francis, to return to Austria, where she and her son became virtually prisoners. She finally retired to the Duchy of Parma, which the allies had given her, and later married her chamberlain, Count de Neipperg, an Austrian general.

Josephine wrote to Napoleon: "I have been on the point of quitting France to follow your footsteps, and to consecrate to you the remainder of an existence which you so long embellished. A single motive restrains me, and that you may divine.... Say but the word, and I depart."

As soon as Napoleon went to Elba, Josephine's health rapidly declined. She caught cold in driving in the park at Malmaison. When near death she said to Hortense, "I can say with truth, in this, my dying hour, that the first wife of Napoleon never caused a single tear to flow."

Napoleon landed at Elba, May 4, 1814. A month later, May 29, Josephine died, uttering, with her last breath, "Napoleon! Elba!"

"I have seen," said Mademoiselle Avrillon, the first lady of her bedchamber, "the Empress Josephine's sleeplessness and her terrible dreams. I have known her to pass whole days buried in the gloomiest thought. I know what I have seen and heard, and I am sure that grief killed her!"

Napoleon's mother, a woman of sixty-four, and his sister Pauline, joined him at Elba. The latter had married Prince Borghese in 1803, but they soon separated. After several years they were reconciled to each other. She died at Florence in 1825.

Napoleon remained at Elba ten months, when he escaped, landed at Cannes, Mar. 1, 1815, raised an army in France as if by magic, and entered Paris at its head, Mar. 20.

The people seemed glad to be rid of Louis XVIII., who fled at midnight, Mar. 19. Napoleon said, with much truth, "The Bourbons, during their exile, had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing." The Grand Army joyously received their leader. The people shouted themselves hoarse. They wept, and sang songs of thanksgiving. Paris was brilliant with illuminations. When he reached the Tuileries, he was seized and borne aloft above the heads of the throng. The ladies of the court, says Alison, "received him with transports, and imprinted fervent kisses on his cheeks, his hands, and even his dress. Never was such a scene witnessed in history." Hortense and her two children were at the Tuileries to welcome Napoleon.

The allies cared little whom France wished to rule her. They preferred the conservative Bourbons or indeed anybody who would not disturb the so-called balance of power in Europe. They at once banded themselves together, England, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, to crush this "enemy and disturber of the world."

A million men were soon raised by the allies, and Napoleon brought together over 200,000. He decided at once to take the offensive rather than let the allies invade France. He left Paris for Belgium, June 12, 1815, taking with him about 120,000 men. He drove the Prussians out of Charleroi, and on June 16 gained a victory over the Prussian marshal, Blücher, at Ligny. Jomini, who is usually authentic, says Napoleon had 72,000 in the battle, and Blücher from 80,000 to 90,000. It was a hotly contested battle-field in which the Prussians lost from 12,000 to 20,000 men. Thiers says 30,000.

Blücher had his gray charger, given him by the Prince Regent of England, shot under him, and was nearly killed in the retreat.

The same day occurred the desperate battle of Quatre-Bras, in which Marshal Ney was defeated.

On June 18, 1815, the decisive battle of Waterloo was fought, nine miles south-east of Brussels. Napoleon's forces, according to Jomini and Thiers, were 70,000 in number; Seeley and Ropes say 72,000. Wellington had about 68,000.

The ground was so drenched by rains that the battle was not begun till a little past eleven. Both sides fought desperately. Blücher, a few miles to the right of Wellington, at Wavre, had promised to join him. Napoleon had told Marshal Grouchy to follow the Prussians and thus prevent their union with the English. He started too late for Wavre; he did not take the advice of some of his officers to hasten to Napoleon when they heard the sound of battle, and his 33,000 men failed to help at Waterloo. Ropes gives an interesting account of this in the _Atlantic Monthly_, June, 1881, "Who lost Waterloo?"

All day long the battle raged. Hand to hand combats were constant. The battle seemed in favor of the French. Meantime Blücher was coming from Wavre, with his guns sinking axle-deep in the mud. "We shall never get on," was heard on all sides. "We _must get on_," said the bluff Blücher; "I have given my word to Wellington."

Napoleon kept watching for Grouchy. Early in the afternoon about 30,000 Prussians under Bulow had come to Wellington's assistance. Night came on and the firing of musketry was heard. "There's Grouchy!" said the Emperor. His aide-de-camp, Labédoyère, rushed to announce it to the army. "Marshal Grouchy is arriving, the Guard is going to charge. Courage! courage! 'tis all over with the English."

"One last shout of hope burst from every rank," says M. Fleury de Chaboulon, ex-secretary of the Emperor; "the wounded who were still capable of taking a few steps returned to the combat, and thousands of voices eagerly repeated, Forward! forward!"

It was not Grouchy, but Blücher with thirty or forty thousand fresh troops. The Imperial Guard did indeed charge with all their wonted impetuosity. They were mowed down like grain. Ney, with five horses shot under him, marched on foot with his drawn sword. Napoleon watched them, pale, yet calm. "All is lost!" said he, "the Guard recoils!"

The Emperor was everywhere in the battle. "Death shuns you. You will be made a prisoner," said his generals, and an officer seized the bridle of his horse and dragged him away.

The French were completely overcome, and the Prussians pursued them with great vigor. It is estimated that the French lost thirty thousand on the field of Waterloo, and the loss of the allies was probably not much less. It was one of the most bloody battles of modern times.

Napoleon returned to Paris, and then retired to Malmaison. He abdicated in favor of his son, Napoleon II.; but the allies, when they captured Paris a second time, July 7, 1815, placed Louis XVIII. again on the throne.

Napoleon repaired to Rochefort with the hope that he might embark for America, but the coast was so blockaded by the English steamers that this was impossible. He surrendered himself to go on board the English ship, Bellerophon, July 15, with the hope that he should find a generous foe. He soon learned, to his inexpressible grief, that he was destined for St. Helena. On Aug. 7 he was transferred to the Northumberland, and sailed for his lonely place of exile, which he reached Oct. 16, 1815.

The Island of St. Helena, ten miles broad and seven long, is in the Atlantic Ocean, fourteen hundred miles west of the west coast of South Africa. It is composed of rugged mountains of volcanic origin, with little vegetation. Wherever a vessel could approach a fort was planted, so that the island formed a complete prison.

Lieutenant John R. Glover, who accompanied the British admiral who took Napoleon to St. Helena, said of the island (_Century_, for November, 1893): "Nothing can possibly be less prepossessing, nay, more horribly forbidding, than the first appearance of this isolated and apparently burnt up barren rock, which promises neither refreshment nor pleasure.... During our eight months' residence we experienced little variation, and had continued rains. The climate is by no means healthy, ... the children being sickly, and the adults suffering from the liver, of which complaint many of our men died."

Here Napoleon lived for six years, till his death, May 5, 1821, at the age of fifty-two, of a cancer in the stomach, the same disease which had killed his father. He was allowed to take with him to St. Helena three of his generals and their families, and a secretary, Las Cases.

His jailer, Sir Hudson Lowe, seems to have been a most unfortunate choice in the surveillance of a high-spirited and remarkable man.

Napoleon was allowed to walk or ride only within certain limits, with a British officer near at hand. His accommodations were poor and plain. "The rats," says Dr. O'Meara, "are in numbers almost incredible. I have frequently seen them assemble like broods of chickens round the offal thrown out of the kitchen." Besides he says, through the roof "the rain entered in torrents." Napoleon's letters were all opened, both those sent or received. He was never addressed as Emperor, England ungenerously insisting that he be called simply General Bonaparte. Books addressed to "The Emperor" were not delivered to him. William O'Connor Morris says: "His humiliation was degrading and needless.... Admitting that the allies had a right to deprive him of liberty, they had no right to subject him to insult and wrong; and St. Helena is a blot on the fair fame of England." From his idolized son he was not permitted to hear.

He said to Countess Montholon, at St. Helena, "On receiving into my arms that infant, so many times fervently implored of Heaven, could I have believed that one day he would have become the source of my greatest anguish? Yes, madame, every day he costs me tears of blood. I imagine to myself the most horrid events, which I cannot remove from my mind. I see either the potion or the empoisoned fruit which is about to terminate the days of that young innocent by the most cruel sufferings."

The boy worshipped his father. "Tell him," said the little King of Rome, then four years old, when Meneval, Napoleon's former secretary, left Marie Louise in Austria, "that I love him dearly." He looked like his father, had his ambition, and, as he grew to manhood, longed to return to France. When Charles X. was overthrown in 1830, he said, "Why was I not there to take my chance?" He was then nineteen. Napoleon had foreseen the fall of the Bourbons, as he said at St. Helena, "They will not maintain their position after my death; a reaction in my favor will take place everywhere, even in England."

Napoleon II. died at Vienna, July 22, 1832, at the age of twenty-one, of consumption, at Schönbrunn, the summer home of the Emperor. He expired upon the same narrow bed on which his father slept when he came as the conqueror of Austria. General Hartmann said, "Having passed my life on battle-fields, I have often seen death, but I never saw a soldier die more bravely."

When near death, Napoleon II. said, "So young, and is there no remedy? My birth and my death will be the only points of remembrance." He lies buried in the plain Church of the Capucines, beside his mother. His heart is in a small silver urn in St. Augustine's Church.

For six years Napoleon lived in this prison at St. Helena, dictating his memoirs and commentaries to Count Montholon, Baron Gourgaud, and Count Las Cases. His health failed rapidly after the first year. Not taking exercise, on account of the constant espionage, he was finally prevailed upon by the physician to work a little in a garden, which he found a relief.

At the end of a year, Las Cases was banished with his son to England, because he had forwarded a letter to Lady Clavering, telling how badly the Emperor was treated, and it had not passed through the hands of Sir Hudson Lowe. This was a great blow to Napoleon, as he was the only one who could read, speak, and understand English. Dr. O'Meara was also obliged to leave St. Helena on account of Sir Hudson Lowe's treatment of him.

After some months of illness, the friends of Napoleon were permitted to send Dr. Antommarchi, a Corsican, to him. In the spring of 1821, Napoleon grew feeble and emaciated. He made his will, remembering his friends most generously. April 22, from perspiration on account of his great pain, Count Montholon writes, "On this night I changed the Emperor's linen seven times." April 25, as Montholon watched by his bedside, at four o'clock in the morning, Napoleon exclaimed, "I have just seen my good Josephine, but she would not embrace me. She disappeared at the moment when I was about to take her in my arms. She was seated there.... She is not changed. She is still the same, full of devotion to me. She told me that we were about to see each other again, never more to part. Did you see her?"

Three days later he gave directions about his death, asking that his heart might be put in spirits of wine, and carried to Parma, to Marie Louise. "You will tell her that I tenderly loved her," he said, "that I never ceased to love her."

Five days before his death he dictated for two hours his desires about the Palace of Versailles, and the organization of the National Guard for the defence of Paris. To the last he carried out his chosen motto, "Everything for the French people."

He remembered his servants, and wished to see them and say good-by. One of them exclaimed excitedly, "I will die for him."

May 2 the Emperor was delirious, and, thinking he was with his army, shouted, "Desaix! Massena! Ah! victory is declaring. Run! hasten! press the charge! They are ours!" He sprang from the bed and fell prostrate upon the floor.

On the night of May 4 a tornado swept the island, uprooting the trees which the Emperor had planted. During the night, says Count Montholon, "Twice I thought I distinguished the unconnected words, '_France--armée, tête d'armée_ (head of the army)--Josephine.'"

During the whole of May 5 he lay quiet and peaceful, conscious, his right hand out of bed, seemingly absorbed in deep meditation. At eleven minutes before six o'clock he died.

England would not permit his body to be embalmed or to be carried to France, as he had requested, or his heart to be given to Marie Louise; so, at half-past twelve, on May 8, he was buried under some willows at St. Helena. The English garrison, two thousand five hundred strong, which had been on the island to keep Napoleon from escaping, now followed his body to the grave. Three volleys of fifteen guns each were fired over it. The soldiers had unbounded admiration for the unrivalled leader, and begged to kiss the blue cloak which he wore at Marengo, and which was thrown over the coffin.

"We were not allowed," says Dr. Antommarchi, "to place over the grave either a stone or a modest inscription, the governor [Sir Hudson Lowe] opposing this pious wish."

The Emperor had written in his will, "It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well."

On May 5, 1840, nineteen years after Napoleon's death, the French, now that Louis Philippe had become king, asked England that his body might be removed to France. Consent being given, Prince de Joinville, the son of the king, with Gourgaud, Bertrand, and the son of Las Cases, with two armed ships, proceeded on their sad errand, bearing an ebony coffin, with the one word, "Napoleon," on it in gold letters. Within was a coffin of lead. The funeral pall was of purple velvet, embroidered with bees, and bordered with ermine.

At midnight, Oct. 5, 1840, the work of exhuming the body of the Emperor was begun. At ten o'clock in the forenoon the coffin was reached, so difficult had it been to remove the heavy stones and cement which covered the vault. The first coffin of mahogany was opened, then the leaden one, then one of mahogany, then one of tin. The body was found wonderfully preserved, and seemed as though recently interred. The hands were perfect, with the smooth skin as if in life. The clothes retained their color,--the dark green coat faced with red, the white pantaloons, and the hat, resting on the thigh. The body was exposed to the air only two minutes; the coffins were re-sealed and placed in those brought from France.

The ships reached France early in December. Never was there such a funeral in Paris. One hundred and fifty thousand soldiers and more than a million citizens assisted at the magnificent obsequies. The funeral car, its cenotaph rising fifty feet from the ground, was drawn by sixteen black horses, four abreast, covered with cloth of gold. The Emperor's war-horse was draped with a veil of purple crape, embroidered with bees. The remnants of the Old Guard were there--the hosts who idolized Napoleon and would have died for him; but the son, the King of Rome, was sleeping in a coffin in Austria, and Josephine was resting in the church at Rueil, two miles from Malmaison.