CHAPTER VI

Napoleon and the Allies--The French army and the Emperor pass through Villers-Cotterets--Bearers of ill tidings.

As the courier had said, His Majesty the Emperor and King had re-entered the Tuileries on the 20th March at eight o'clock in the evening, the birthday of the King of Rome.

Napoleon was as superstitious as the ancients, and would have his omens.

This one was somewhat incomplete. He re-entered the Tuileries on the King of Rome's birthday, but where was that crowned child who was to cost him so many paternal tears at St. Helena?

Alas! the very evening of the day on which I had seen him through Carrousel's palings he left never to return; and his empty cradle had been banished to a corner of the lumber-room. The man who in twenty days re-conquered thirty-two millions of men in so miraculous a fashion searched in vain among all the faces he cared so little about, for the beloved face of his child.

That face was to become pale and to fade away when he was far from it; Schönbrunn was endowed with two qualities which kill quickly: too chilly a sunshine and too fiery a love.

Was it in order to lull his own grief that this all-powerful man attempted to lie, by announcing to France that his child was to be given back to him? Did he stoop to feign an alliance with Austria to strengthen trembling hearts?

He had not yet finished his work; after re-conquering France, there was still Europe to fight.

The saying of the woman who had insulted General Lallemand when he passed through Villers-Cotterets free and triumphant, "Never you mind, you villain! our turn will come again!" was true enough.

Meanwhile a singular thing came to pass; my mother and I, who were daily threatened by the Royalists, had ended by desiring that the emperor should triumph, and, in fact, we, who had no reason at all for loving the man, delighted in his return to the Tuileries.

But justice should be rendered to the Bonapartists of the department of Aisne, and to those who had been compelled to become of that party: they exulted quietly, and, instead of making a great-to-do, as the Royalists would certainly have done, their behaviour wore almost the appearance of an apology.

Besides, no one knew what might be the upshot of all these events. At the first invasion the enemy had actually come from Moscow to Paris--that is to say, a distance of six hundred leagues; at the second it would only have to come from Brussels--that is to say, sixty leagues.

We were two days' journey from Paris upon that road, and only three days' distance from the Dutch and the Prussians.

True, the news received was good, and the emperor did not appear to be at all uneasy.

On the 4th April he had written an autograph letter to the allied sovereigns, in which he announced his return to Paris and his re-establishment at the head of the French people, with a charming ingenuousness, just as though it were not a European revolution he was proclaiming.

On the 6th he visited the Museum, probably for the purpose of seeing what sort of animals they had found to stuff during his absence. Then he paid a visit to David in his studio.

On the 7th he re-established the house of Écouen.

On the 8th the duc d'Angoulême was taken prisoner at Pont-Saint-Esprit.

On the 10th, he published the decree with reference to the armament of the National Guard.

On the 11th he ordered the duc d'Angoulême to be taken to Cette and there set at liberty.

On the 12th the business was of a more serious nature! He heard the report of the duc de Vicence on the armament of the foreign Powers.

On the 14th he received Benjamin Constant.

On the 17th he appointed Grouchy marshal of the Empire.

Finally, on the 20th, a volley of a hundred cannon proclaimed that the tricoloured flag floated over every town in France.

True, Louis XVIII. addressed his manifesto to the French nation on the 24th, and the Allies on the 25th entered into an agreement not to lay down their arms until after they had beaten Napoleon. Also, on the 30th, England offered to supply the Allies with a hundred million francs for three years; on May 3rd, Murat was defeated near Tolentino; on the 12th the Austrians entered Naples; on the 14th the King of Prussia issued his decree concerning the landwehr; on the 19th the Russians threw my father's old enemy, Berthier, out of the windows of his hotel at Bumberg; and, finally, on the 26th, the emperors of Russia and Austria and the King of Prussia left Vienna to march on France.

So there was no longer any hope of preserving peace, everything was again to be put to the test of war; and troops began to pass through Villers-Cotterets for Soissons, Laon, and Mézières.

It must be admitted it gave us great pleasure to see the old uniforms once again, and the old cockades moving along the road from the isle of Elba to Paris, and the grand standards, riddled with the bullets of Austerlitz, Wagram, and Moskova, in their cylindrical-shaped cases.

It was a wonderful spectacle to watch the Old Guard, a military type that has completely disappeared in our day, the very embodiment of the ten years of imperial rule we had recently passed through, the active and glorious spirit of France.

In three days' time, 30,000 men--30,000 giants--resolute, composed, almost gloomy in their attitude, passed by, every one of whom realised that a share of the responsibility of the great Napoleonic dynasty weighed upon him, to be cemented by his blood, and all of whom, like those beautiful caryatides of Pujet, which so frightened the chevalier de Bernin when he landed at Toulon, seemed proud of this responsibility, although they felt that they might break down under the weight that was one day to crush them.

Those men who marched thus with such a firm tread to Waterloo, to their graves, must never be forgotten! They typified the devotion, the courage, the honour of the noblest, the warmest, the purest blood of France! they embodied twenty years of struggle against all Europe; they were of the Revolution, our mother; they were of the Empire, our nurse; they were not the French nobility, but the nobility of the French people!

I saw them all pass by, all, down to the last remnants of the Egyptian army, 200 Mamelukes with their baggy red pantaloons, their turbans, and their curved sabres.

There was something more than sublime in the spectacle: it was a religious, sacred, and holy sight to see these men, for they were as surely and as irrevocably condemned to death as were the gladiators of old, and, with them, they could have said: _Cæsar, morituri te salutant!_

Only, these were going to die, not to serve the pleasures of a people, but for its liberty, and they went to their death not by compulsion, but of their own free will, by their own unfettered choice.

The gladiator of old was but a victim; in the case of our men it was self-sacrifice.

They passed through one morning; and the sound of their steps faded, and the last strains of their music died away in the distance. I remember that the music they played was the air of _Veillons au salut de l'empire...._

The next announcement that appeared in the papers was that Napoleon had left Paris on the 12th June, to join his army.

Napoleon always followed the road his Guard had taken; so he would pass through Villers-Cotterets.

I confess I had an intense desire to see this man, who, in making his heavy hand felt throughout France, had, in a peculiarly hard fashion, ground down a poor atom like myself, lost among thirty-two millions of human beings whom he continued to crush, while forgetting my very existence.

On the 11th we received official news of his passing; horses were commanded to be in readiness at the posting stables.

He was to set off from Paris at three o'clock in the morning; so he should pass through Villers-Cotterets about seven or eight o'clock.

At six o'clock I was waiting at the end of the rue de Largny with the most able-bodied portion of the population, namely, those who could run as fast as the imperial carriages.

But really the best way to see Napoleon would be where the relays were to be changed, and not as he drove by.

I realised this, and, as soon as I caught sight of the dust of the first horses, a quarter of a league away, I set off for the posting-house.

As I approached, I heard the rumble of wheels behind me coming nearer.

I reached the posting-house, and on turning round I saw the three carriages flying over the pavement like a turbulent stream, the horses dripping with sweat, their postilions got up in fine style, powdered and be-ribboned.

Everybody rushed for the emperor's carriage, and naturally I was one of the foremost.

He was seated at the back, on the right, dressed in a green uniform with white facings, and he wore the star of the Legion of Honour.

His face was pale and sickly-looking, as though his head had been clumsily carved out of a block of ivory, and it was bent slightly forward on his chest; his brother Jérôme was seated on his left; and the aide-de-camp, Letort, was opposite Jérôme, on the front seat.

He lifted his head, looked round him, and asked:

"Where are we?"

"At Villers-Cotterets, sire," someone replied.

"Six leagues from Soissons, then," he answered.

"Yes, sire, six leagues from Soissons."

"Hurry up."

And he relapsed into the semi-stupor out of which he had roused himself while the carriage was being got ready to proceed.

When the relays were in and fresh postilions were in their saddles, the stable lads who had taken out the horses waved their caps and cried: "_Vive l'empereur!_"

The whips cracked; the emperor made a slight inclination with his head in return for the greeting. The carriages set off at full gallop, and disappeared round the corner of the rue de Soissons.

The splendid vision had vanished.

Ten days passed by, and we heard of the crossing of the Sambre, the taking of Charleroi, the battle of Ligny, and the engagement at Quatre-Bras.

Thus the first echoes were those of victory.

We only learnt the results of the events of the 15th and the 16th on the 18th--the day of the battle of Waterloo.

We awaited further news eagerly. The 19th passed by without bringing any; the papers reported that the emperor had visited the battlefield of Ligny, and had ordered assistance to be given to the wounded.

General Letort, who faced the emperor in his carriage, was killed at the taking of Charleroi, and Jérôme, who had sat with them, had had his sword hilt broken by a bullet.

The 20th rolled by slowly and sadly; the sky looked black and threatening; it poured with rain for three whole days, and it was said that doubtless no fighting could take place in such weather.

All at once the rumour spread that some men who had brought bad news had been arrested and taken before the mayor; they declared, we were assured, that a decisive battle had been fought and lost, that the French army had been annihilated, and that the English, Prussians, and Dutch were marching on Paris.

Everybody rushed to the town hall, I, of course, one of the first.

And there we found ten or a dozen men, some still in their saddles, others standing by their horses, surrounded by the crowd, which was watching them; they were covered with blood, covered with mud, and were in rags.

They said they were Poles.

We could scarcely make out what they said; they spoke a few words of French, but with difficulty.

Some made out that they were spies; others that they were German prisoners who had escaped and who wanted to rejoin Blücher's army, pretending to be Polish.

An old officer who spoke German came up and interrogated them in German.

They were more at home in that language, and replied more coherently. According to them, Napoleon had engaged the English on the 18th. The battle began at noon; at five o'clock the English were defeated; but at six o'clock Blücher had marched _au canon_, arrived with 40,000 men, and decided the day in the enemy's favour: it was a decisive battle, they said; the retirement of the French army was a rout; they were the advance-guard of the fugitives.

No one believed such disastrous news; they only replied, "You will soon see."

We threatened to arrest them, to fling them into prison, and to shoot them, if they lied; they gave up their arms, and declared they were at the mercy of the authorities of the town.

Two of them who were badly wounded were taken to the hospital; the rest were put in the prison adjoining the town hall.

It was nearly three or four o'clock in the afternoon; these men had come from Planchenoit in forty-eight hours; they had ridden more than a league and a half per hour, for the bearers of ill tidings travel on wings.

When some of the men had been sent off to the hospital and others to prison, everybody dispersed to spread the bad news over the town.

As the posting-house is always the most reliable place at which to obtain news, my mother and I installed ourselves there.

At seven o'clock a courier arrived; he was covered with mud, his horse shook from head to foot, and was ready to drop with fatigue. He ordered four horses to be ready for a carriage which was following him, then he leapt on his horse and set off on his journey again.

It was in vain we questioned him: he either knew nothing or would not say anything.

The four horses were taken out of the stables and harnessed in readiness for the carriage: a rapidly approaching heavy rumble announced it was coming, soon we saw it appear round the corner of the street and draw up at the door.

The master of the post came forward and stood stupefied. I took hold of his coat tails and asked: "Is it he? the emperor?"

"Yes."

It was indeed the emperor, just in the same place and carriage, with one aide-de-camp near him and one opposite him, as I had seen him before.

But his companions were neither Jérôme nor Letort.

Letort was killed, and Jérôme was commissioned to rally the army by Laon.

It was just the same man, it was just the same pale, sickly, impassive face, but his head was bent a little more forward on his chest.

Was it merely from fatigue, or from grief at having staked the world and lost it?

As on the first occasion, he raised his head when he felt the carriage pull up, and threw exactly the same vague look around him which became so penetrating when he fixed it upon a person or scanned the horizon, those two unknown elements behind which danger might always lurk.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"At Villers-Cotterets, sire."

"Good! eighteen leagues from Paris?"

"Yes, sire."

"Go on."

Thus, as on the former occasion, when he put a similar question in almost the same words, he gave the same order and set off as rapidly.

That same night Napoleon slept at the Élysée.

It was exactly three months to the day since his return from the isle of Elba and his re-entrance into the Tuileries.

Only, between the 20th March and the 20th of June, an abyss had opened which had swallowed up his fortunes.

That abyss was Waterloo!