CHAPTER VII

Waterloo--The Élysée--La Malmaison.

I believe I was the first to say that Waterloo was not only a great political disaster, but a great blessing for humanity. Waterloo, like Marengo, was a providential event; only instead this time of being a victory it was a defeat, and we lost Waterloo from the same cause that made us gain Marengo. At Marengo, we were defeated by five in the afternoon. Desaix arrived, unexpected by the enemy; by six o'clock we had won.

At Waterloo we were victorious up to five o'clock in the afternoon, then Blücher came, unexpected by us, and by six o'clock we were beaten.

Never had the hand of God been more visibly extended over Europe, whose fate hung in the balance on that famous day of Waterloo, the 18th of June.

Napoleon, a man who gave his orders rapidly, clearly, and with precision, left Grouchy without orders.

Then, when he needed Grouchy, when he realised that the success of the day depended on Grouchy, he sent an orderly officer to hasten his arrival. The officer was taken, and Grouchy remained at Gembloux.

Why did he only send one orderly instead of ten or twenty? Was Napoleon short of orderlies?

And Grouchy heard the firing, but did not stir! Grouchy persisted in remaining where he was, in spite of the prayers and entreaties of his generals, and all the time Blücher was marching on.

There was one more cause, which I ought to have put first. I had it from his nearest relative, his most faithful friend, his last general, who never despaired, when everyone else despaired. True, the event is unworthy of a place in a historical account; but I am not writing a history, I am writing memoirs.

Have you remarked that at Ligny, Quatre-Bras, and Waterloo, Napoleon, who on days of battle never left his saddle, hardly mounted a horse?

Have you noticed that when, by a last and supreme effort, he tried to grasp the victory which was slipping from him, and put himself at the head of his Old Guard to charge the enemy himself, it was on foot that he charged?

Why was this? I will tell you.

When the battle was lost, when the English charge broke into the heart of our squares, when Blücher's batteries hailed bullets all round Napoleon; when the whole of that vast plain was like a furnace, a cemetery, or a valley of Jehoshaphat; when in the midst of all the shouts the fatal cry _Sauve qui peut!_ was heard above all else; when the bravest were flying; when General Cambronne and the Guard alone stopped to die; Napoleon threw one last look on the vast extent over which the angel of extermination was hovering, and he called his brother Jérôme to him.

"Jérôme," he said, "the battle of Mont-Saint-Jean is lost, but that of Laon is won. Go and rally all the men you can, forty thousand, thirty thousand, even twenty thousand; stop at Laon with them; the position is impregnable, and I leave it to you not to let it be taken. In the meantime I will cross the country with twenty-five men and two good guides, and rejoin Grouchy, who is not more than five or six leagues from here, with thirty-five thousand men; then, while you arrest the progress of the enemy before Laon, I will fall on their flanks and scatter them into the centre of France: French patriotism will do the rest."

Then, like Richard III., after the battle in which he lost his crown and finally his life, he cried:

"A horse! a horse!"

His horse was brought him; he got up into the saddle with difficulty, selected his escort, called up his guides, and set his horse to a gallop.

But when he had gone about twenty-five steps he suddenly pulled up.

"Impossible," he said--"it hurts me too much!"

And he dismounted.

Jérôme ran to his side.

"Do your best," he said; "I cannot ride on horseback."

Napoleon, on his return from the isle of Elba, like François the First, had had his _belle Ferronnière_; the difference was, that she had not brought him the vengeance of a husband, but the advice of a diplomatist.

Man of destiny, thou hast finished thy work,--now thou must fall!

See him at the Élysée--the man with an eagle's glance, full of quick resolves, tenacious and masterful of purpose! Is this the hero of Toulon, of Lodi, of the Pyramids, of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Jena, and of Wagram? Is this the hero of Lutzen and of Bautzen? Is this even the man of Montmirail and of Montereau? No, all his energy has been expended over his miraculous return from the isle of Elba.

At first he did not at all realise his defeat. He returned to that day unceasingly in St. Helena, drinking again the bitter cup to the dregs.

"An incomprehensible day! an unheard-of combination of misfortunes! Grouchy! Ney! d'Erlon! Had there been treason? Was it ill luck?... And though everything that skill could suggest had been done, everything failed just when it should have succeeded!"

It was the hand of Providence, sire!

"A strange campaign!" he murmured another time, "in which in less than a week I saw the assured triumph of France and the determination of her destiny slip thrice through my fingers! I should have annihilated the enemy at the beginning of the campaign, had not a traitor abandoned me; I should have crushed them at Ligny, if my left wing had done its duty; I should have crushed them again at Waterloo if my right wing had not failed me."

Sire, it was Providence!

Then, again, on another occasion:

"A singular defeat wherein, in spite of the most horrible catastrophe, the glory of the conquered did not suffer, nor was that of the conqueror increased! The memory of the one will survive in its destruction; the memory of the other may be buried in its triumph!"

No, sire, your glory did not suffer, for you struggled against fate. The conquerors called Wellington, Bülow, Blücher, were but mere shades of men, they were genii sent by the Almighty to defeat you.

Providence, sire, Providence!

Jacob wrestled a whole night against an angel whom he took to be a man; three times was he thrown down, and, when morning broke, as he pondered over his triple defeat, he thought he must have gone mad.

Three times, sire, were you also beaten down, three times did you feel the knee of the divine conqueror press upon your breast.

At Moscow, at Leipzig, and at Waterloo!

You, sire, who loved the poetry of Ossian so much, do you not remember the story of Thor, son of Odin? One day he reached a subterranean town, the name of which was unknown to him. He saw an arena in full play filled with spectators; a horseman clothed in black armour had thrown down his challenge, but had waited in vain since morning for an adversary.

Thor entered, rode straight up to the funereal rider, and said to him:

"I do not know thee, but I will fight thee nevertheless!"

And they fought from midday till nightfall. It was the first time Thor had encountered a champion who could withstand him. Not only could this adversary withstand him, but, every moment, Thor felt himself losing ground, and although his body trembled from head to foot with the blows he dealt, his blood seemed to freeze within his veins, and not a step was gained; then, when his strength failed him, when he felt himself falling, he fell on one knee, then on both, then on one hand, ever trying to fight, and he ended by lying in the dust of the arena, breathless, conquered, dying--he--Thor, he, the son of Odin!

"Because of thy courage and because thou hast done what none other has done before thee, I will spare thee," said the black rider. "But the next time you meet me and we wrestle together, you will not escape me."

"Who then art thou, conquering stranger?" asked the son of Odin.

"I am Death," said the dark horseman, raising the vizor of his helmet.

And it took Thor nigh a year to recover his strength after having struggled thus with Death.

It was with you, sire, as with Jacob and Thor; you thought you had lost your senses, and it took you a year to return to your old strength.

But let us return to him at the Élysee.

He arrived there at seven o'clock in the morning; later he saw what he ought to have done.

Listen to his own words:

"When I reached Paris I was exhausted, for I had neither eaten nor slept for three days. I had a bath whilst waiting for the ministers, whom I had summoned. I ought no doubt to have gone direct to the Chambers; but I was worn out with fatigue. Who would have believed they would have taken action so quickly? I reached Paris at seven o'clock; by noon the Chambers were in a state of insurrection."

Then, passing his hand slowly across his face, he added in a hollow voice:

"After all, I am but a man."

Cromwell and Louis XIV. were also but men, sire, and one entered Parliament with his hat on his head, the other with a whip in his hand.

But the one was full of faith, and the other was very young, whilst you, sire, had neither youth nor faith.

"I am growing old," he said to Benjamin Constant: "one is no longer at forty-five what one was at thirty. I ask nothing better than to be enlightened."

Sire, oh! sire, where had the fire of your genius gone that you should ask Benjamin Constant to enlighten you?

He arrived on the 21st, and on the 22nd he abdicated in favour of his son.

Why did he abdicate?

The Chambers demanded it. Think of Napoleon as a constitutional king hastening to yield to the wish of the Chambers!

Sire, was not the man of the 22nd June the same as the man of the 18th Brumaire?

But wait ... perhaps he believed all was lost? perhaps a ray of hope had sprung up, and it was to re-kindle the extinct light which caused him, in the darkness in which he found himself, to have recourse to the lantern of Benjamin Constant?

Jérôme arrived on the evening of the 22nd. It was high time, for Lucien had just insulted his brother. Lucien, the unambitious, the simple Republican, who had refused the title of King of Portugal, which the emperor had offered him, to accept that of Prince of Canino, offered him by the pope, had come to him and had made conditions at the Élysee, as Napoleon had made to him at Mantua.

"France," he said, "no longer believes in the magic of the Empire. She wants liberty, even if she abuses it; she prefers the Charter to the splendours of your rule; she, like myself, desires a Republic, because she has faith in it. _I will give you the chief command of the army_, and I will prevent a Revolution by the help of your sword."

You see, the moment was propitious. Jérôme was a young soldier, and had accomplished things which Napoleon would not have looked for from an old general. By dint of activity, perseverance, and determination, he had stayed the fugitives; he had rallied them under the walls of Laon; he had placed them under command of Marshal Soult, and he came, exhausted with fatigue, bleeding still from the wounds he had received, not like Lucien to impose conditions on his brother, but to inform the emperor of the reorganisation of the 1st, 2nd, and 6th corps, which, united to the 42,000 men under Marshal Grouchy, would make a total of over 80,000 men, an army with which he could begin operations immediately, and take a sanguinary revenge upon the Duke of Wellington.

Eighty thousand men was more than he had ever had during the campaign of 1814.

Sire, sire, we shall have to say, as was said at Montereau, "Come, Bonaparte, save Napoleon."

Napoleon listened to Jérôme, but made him no reply, and dismissed him; a moment later, a great tumult was heard on the terrace of the Élysee; two regiments of sharp-shooters from the guard of volunteers drawn from the working classes of the faubourg Saint-Antoine threaded their way through the garden in disorder; they were the forerunners of a vast column of men, the rank and file of the nation, who came demanding with loud shouts that the emperor should place himself at their head and lead them against the enemy.

These regiments were part of those of which General Montholon had just received command.

The emperor ordered him to make them return to their post, and he himself went out to them, not to excite but to calm their patriotic zeal.

One of these men called out:

"Sire, remember the 18th Brumaire."

You would think that at that word, that date, and that recollection, his heart would have leapt, his eye flashed? You would think that his horse would rear under him at the prick of his spur?

No.

"You recall the 18th Brumaire to me," he said; "but you forget that circumstances are different now. On the 18th Brumaire the nation was unanimous in desiring a change; it only needed a feeble effort to get what it wanted; to-day, it would take rivers of French blood, and I will never shed a single drop to defend my personal cause." He realised then that there were now two causes--his own, and the cause of France.

Ah! you are right this time, sire! You foresaw the first glimmerings of that great light which caused you to say at St. Helena:

"In fifty years Europe will be either Republican or Cossack."

The two regiments withdrew, murmuring, "What has come to the emperor? He no longer recognises us."

And, as a matter of fact, he was no longer recognisable. He fled from Paris on the 25th for Malmaison, where fresh dilemmas awaited him.

He seemed unconscious of anything around him. The calmness, or rather the dejection, he had shown at the Élysee terrified both friends and foes.

"The lion is sleeping," they said in low tones, for fear of awaking him.

His departure for Malmaison was looked upon as meaning something important. The emperor had left Paris to have a free hand; he would make a detour, he would reach the road to Laon again, by way of St. Denis and, before three days were over, the sound of cannon, of a fresh Montmirail, would be heard.

General Becker was therefore sent to watch his movements.

They might have kept calm, for he was only going as far as Malmaison! All the vanquished man wanted was a fast sailing vessel to take him quickly to America; he longed to retire into private life and to become a citizen of New York or of Philadelphia: to be a planter, a squatter, a labourer.

Sire, the stuff wherewith to build a consul, an emperor, and a king was in you, but you could not make a Cincinnatus.

The men who governed in your stead knew this well, and they issued order upon order to expedite your departure. Whilst you remained at Malmaison there was no security for the Bourbons, with whom they were already in treaty.

And yet they were mistaken; for what was the emperor doing at Malmaison? With his feet on the window-sill he was reading Montaigne.

All at once there was a great noise, and beating of drums and fanfare of trumpets, and the air resounded with cries of _"Vive l'empereur! Down with the Bourbons! Down with traitors!"_

"What is that, Montholon?" asked the emperor.

"Sire, it is Brayer's division: twenty thousand men who have returned from la Vendée; they have stopped in front of the Castle palings."

"What do they want?"

"They demand their emperor again, and if he will not come to them, they declare they will come and take him."

The emperor remained wrapped in thought for a moment; he was probably calculating that with the 80,000 men under Soult, the 20,000 men under Brayer, 50,000 of the federated army and 3,000,000 of National Guard, he would still have a splendid means of defence at his disposal, and could maintain a fine struggle.

He was told that General Brayer wished to speak to the emperor.

"Let him come in."

"Sire, sire, in the name of my soldiers, in my own name, and in the name of France, come, sire,--we are waiting for you."

"What to do?"

"To march against the enemy; to avenge Waterloo; to save France! Come, sire, come!"

A year later, his feet on the window-sill at Longwood, a book in his hand as at Malmaison, he said:

"History will reproach me for letting myself be taken too easily. I confess there was some spite in my decision. When at Malmaison I offered the Provisional Government to place myself at the head of the army in order to take advantage of the imprudence of the Allies and to annihilate them under the walls of Paris: before the end of the day, twenty-five thousand Prussians would have laid down their arms. But they did not want me. I sent the leaders away, and I left the place myself. I was wrong: my good countrymen have the right to reproach me for it. _I ought to have mounted on horseback when Braye's division appeared before Malmaison; allowed myself to be taken back by it to the army; fought the enemy and taken command of affairs, rallying round me the people of the faubourgs of Paris. That twenty-four hours' crisis would have saved France a second Restoration._

"I should have destroyed the effect of Waterloo by a great victory, and I should have been able to make terms for my son, if the Allies had insisted on setting me aside."

Therein, sire, you were mistaken. No, your good countrymen had nothing to reproach you with. No, you were not wrong to leave. No, we needed the second Restoration, the Revolution of 1830 and that of 1848; we needed the Republic; degenerate though it is, it will be godmother to all the other European republics. And you needed the hospitality of the _Bellérophon_, the voyage in the _Northumberland_, the exile to St. Helena; you needed the persecutions at Longwood; you needed Hudson-Lowe; your long agony was as necessary to you as the crown of thorns and Pilate and Calvary were to Christ.

You would not have been so god-like had you not suffered your passion.