CHAPTER I

In 1815 the Emperor was no longer a lean, sinewy, tireless, eternally vigilant human tiger--the Napoleon of Rivoli and Marengo. He was no longer the consummate General-in-Chief of Austerlitz and Wagram. The mysterious lethargy which had overwhelmed him at the critical hour of Borodino, when he withheld the order for the Old Guard to charge and convert the Russian defeat into a decisive disaster, had been the first visit of the Evil Genius which was to come again. The strange loss of _the power to decide_ between two totally different lines of action, which, at the Château Düben had kept him idle two days, lolling on a sofa, or sitting at his writing-table tracing on the paper big school-boy letters, was to become a recurrent calamity, puzzling all who knew him, and paralyzing the action of his lieutenants in the most critical emergencies.

At Leipsic the reins had fallen from his hands; only one permanent bridge over the deep river in his rear had been provided to let him out of the death trap; and when the strong currents of the rout tore through the frantic city, the great Napoleon drifted with the furious tide, whistling vacantly.

The same unexplainable _eclipse of genius_, which General E. P. Alexander described as occurring to Stonewall Jackson, in the Malvern Hill movements of our Civil War, happened to the French Emperor, time and again, after that first collapse at Borodino.

In Spain he ordered a madly reckless charge of his Polish Light Cavalry against the heights of Sommo Sierra, where the Spanish army was entrenched and where the position easily admitted of successful flanking, got his best troops wastefully butchered--and could not afterward remember who gave the order to charge!

In Dresden, in 1813, he had won a brilliant victory which needed only to be ruthlessly pushed; and he was pushing it with all his tremendous driving power when, in the twinkle of an eye, his Evil Genius descended upon him, took his strength away, held him in invisible but inexorable bonds;--and when the spell passed, the fruits of the glorious triumph were all gone, and Despair had thrown its baleful shadow athwart every possible line of action.

The mighty Emperor, in years gone by, had overdrawn his account at the bank of Nature, and his drafts were now coming back on him, protested. He who had once slept too little, now slept too much. Often in the earlier campaigns he had abstained from eating; now he over-ate. The reckless exposures and the intensely sustained labor of sixteen hours out of the twenty-four were taking their revenge. The corpulent Napoleon now loved his ease, was soon fatigued, spent hours in the tepid bath, and slept away the early morning when every advance of the sunbeam meant lost ground to the eagles of France.

Talkative, when he had once been reticent; undecided, where he had been resolute; careless, where he had been indefatigable and cautious; despondent, where he had been serenely confident, the Emperor who had sprung with hawk-like determination upon the plotting Bourbons, had clutched their unsuspecting Duc D’Enghien, dragged him to Paris in the night, shot him, and buried him in a ditch before day--this Emperor did not have enough of that terrific energy left to even fling the traitors, Fouché and Talleyrand, into prison.

He knew that these two men were at their old tricks again, but he could not act. Looking at Fouché calmly, Napoleon said, “I ought to have you shot.” Nothing could prove more conclusively that the Napoleon of old no longer lived. Had he been the man of Brumaire, or Lodi, or Jena, he would have shot the traitor first, and talked about it afterward.

In the sere and yellow leaf of life, but still Titanic in his proportions, the Emperor, once the charity-boy of Brienne,--he who fought the whole school when the young aristocrats of France made fun of his shabby clothes and Corsican birth,--_stood at bay against a world in arms_.

Feudalism against him: Caste against him: Hereditary Aristocracy against him: The Divine Right of Kings against him; and above all, the ignorance, the prejudice, and _the unwillingness of mankind to be forced out of old ruts_ were against him. Against him was a Church hierarchy which panted for ancient powers and immunities and wealth. Against him were the Privileged Few of every government on earth--_those who feast on Class legislation and resent interruption_. Against him were all those who denied the right of a nation to choose its own ruler, those who hated the dogma that the true foundation to government is the consent of the governed. To meet so powerful a combination, the _one_ sure resource was that from which Napoleon shrank in horror--an appeal to the Jacobins, the Sansculottes, the fierce men of the masses who hated the priest and the aristocrat.

“_When one has had misfortunes one no longer has the confidence which is necessary to success._”

With this mournful remark, made in private to that noble old Revolutionary patriot, Carnot, the Emperor made ready to leave Paris to join his army.

In gathering up the scattered remnants of his former hosts Napoleon had worked at a vast disadvantage. Time and money were what he needed most. He had not enough of either.

His escape from Elba had found the Congress of Vienna still in session. The Kings who had pulled him off his throne, in 1814, were all in Vienna, together. The armies which had outnumbered him and crushed him, were still in battle array. The traitors who had plotted his overthrow, the traitors who had deserted him on the field of battle--the Talleyrands, on the one hand, and the Marmonts on the other--were all in lusty life, ready to make sure of their guilty heads by bringing the wounded colossus down.

In the midst of the splendid festivities in Vienna; in the midst of the pomps and parades, the jubilations over the fall of the one Throned Democrat of the world; in the midst of the congratulations, the gayeties, the feasting and dancing, the illuminations and the joyous music, there comes the clap of thunder from the clear sky.

_Napoleon has left Elba!_

In Dumas’s story, “Twenty Years After,” do you remember that thrilling chapter in which the news is brought to the immortal Three that their deadly foe, Mordaunt, _whom they supposed they had killed_, is alive? Do you remember how Athos, the loftiest man of the Three, rose _and took down his sword_, which he had momentarily hung upon the wall, _gravely buckling it around him_? A desperate man is on his track; his sword must be at his hand.

So it was with the European Kings, at Vienna. They had banded themselves together to break the scepter of the Crowned Democrat whose Civil Code, with its glorious maxims, all tending to _Justice_ and to _Equality before the law_, was a deadly menace to the existence of _Divine Right_ and _Special Privilege_. They had deceived their own peoples with lies about Napoleon, and with promises of reforms which they never meant to keep; they had deluged France with a flood of foreign invasion that swept all before it; they had bought the Fouchés and Talleyrands; they had seduced the Murats and Bernadottes and Moreaus and Marmonts; they had captured Napoleon’s wife and child, and had deafened their ears and hardened their hearts to the appeals of the husband and father. They had stricken the sword out of his hand, the crown off his head. They thought that they had made an end of this “Disturber of the Public Peace”--this enthroned Democrat, whose levelling watchword of “_All careers open to talent_,” they hated as a tyrant hates a rebel, as _despotism hates liberty_. And now _Napoleon was in France again._ No wonder that consternation seized Vienna.

“_Look to yourself; the lion is loose!_” was the warning cry which a King of France had sounded in the ears of a false and affrighted King of England, ages before. If Richard Coeur de Lion’s escape from the Castle of Dürrenstein turned to water the blood of Philip and John, the sensation in Europe was as nothing compared to that created by Napoleon’s escape from Elba.

_Back to France!_ In those three words burns the purpose of the European Kings. The Russian army is far advanced on its homeward march, but it must be halted; the tired feet of the soldiers must not rest an hour. _Back to France!_ The Austrian legions are at home, ready to enjoy the well-earned rest. Must the bugles call once more?--once more the streets and the lanes thrill at the beat of the drums? _Back to France!_ The Prussian and the British armies have not had time to start home. They are in cantonments, in the Low Countries, close to the frontier of France. Old Blücher--“_that drunken hussar who has given me as much trouble as anybody_,” as Napoleon used to say--is already in the saddle, with a splendid staff which plans his campaigns for him.

The Duke of Wellington, the hero of the Congress of Vienna, must now hasten to Brussels to take command of his army. All the world believes that Napoleon will force the fighting, and that he will strike the enemy nearest him, there on the Belgian frontier.

Thus, in 1815, as the month of June lavishes its splendors on the earth, the eyes of all Christendom are fastened upon Napoleon Bonaparte. It is hardly too much to say that the world stands still, this fateful month, to watch the unequal fight--Napoleon against the Kings!

How hard it is to understand the delusion under which some of the best men of the time labored! With eyes to see, why were they so blind? With ears to hear, why were they so deaf?

Grattan!--why did _your_ electric oratory smite with its lightnings this great enemy of tyranny, when Ireland, _your own home_, was bleeding under the remorseless cruelty of the very system which Napoleon had struggled to tear down? La Fayette!--why were _you_ throwing stumbling blocks in this big man’s way, fettering him with shackles and cords, when your French Samson needed the uttermost length of his locks?

Why was it that every Liberal in Europe could not realize as Carnot did,--he of the Great Committee which piloted France through the storm of the Revolution!--that in Napoleon’s fate, _at that time_, was bound up the best interests of the human race?

Behind the confederated Kings _lurked the Ancient Régime_. It panted for life. It wanted to re-establish the blessed order of things in which the Few, booted and spurred, put into governmental form their modest claim to the privilege of riding the Many. It wanted to stamp out the revolutionary principles which had been _lifting the masses_, and lowering the monstrous pretensions of the classes.

Had not Metternich declared, “There can be no peace with such principles”? Had not the restored Bourbons of 1814 proved to an astonished world that they had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing? Had they not set about annihilating the glorious work of reform which had cost France so much--so much in consecrated toil, so much in well-spent treasure, so much in patriotic sacrifice, so much in heroic blood? Had they not done their level best, in 1814, to blow the trump of resurrection for every abuse, every wrong which France had buried amid the rejoicings of the Progressives all over the world?

What was the “Revolution of July, 1848,” but the final triumph of Napoleon Bonaparte? _It was that and nothing more._ Had France been true to herself in 1815 there would have been no Bourbon Charles the Tenth; there would have been no Bourbon Louis Philippe; there would have been no occasion for the long postponement of the supremacy of the Revolutionary Principles.

“_With such principles there can be no peace_,” said Metternich, the favorite minister of the Confederated Kings; and what La Fayette ought to have known, and Grattan ought to have known, and the Progressives everywhere ought to have known, was that _the war of the allied Kings was against those democratic principles_.

Had Napoleon been willing to be _just a king as they were_, there would have been for him no Waterloo.

“_Emperor, Consul, Soldier!_--I owe everything _to the people_!”--declared Napoleon, throwing down the gauntlet of duel-to-the-death at the feet of Legitimacy, Divine Right and Absolutism.

No wonder the crafty Metternich, who guided the policies of hereditary kings, snatched up the glove and said, “_With such principles there can be no peace._”

In America the masses of the people sympathized with the French Emperor, and hoped that he would win. At the Hermitage, in Tennessee, the dauntless warrior who had recently whipped the flower of Wellington’s army at New Orleans, ardently hoped that Napoleon would win.

In Great Britain tens of thousands of the followers of Fox hoped that the right of the French to select their own rulers would be vindicated. Throughout Continental Europe a powerful minority yearned for the system of the Code Napoleon, and secretly prayed for the great Law-giver’s success.

Byron’s friend, Hobhouse, wrote June 12, 1815: “Regarding Napoleon and his warriors as the partisans of the cause of peoples against the Conspiracy of Kings, I cannot help wishing that the French may meet with as much success as will not compromise the military character of my own countrymen. As an Englishman, I will not be a witness of their triumphs; as a lover of liberty, I would not be a spectator of their reverses. I leave Paris to-morrow.”

Wherever men understood the tremendous issues that were about to be fought out; wherever there was an intelligent comprehension of the consequences that were inevitably connected with the triumph of the Allied Kings, there was intense longing for the triumph of the French.

The French masses eagerly besought the Emperor to give them arms--but he shrank from the menace of Communism, even as he had done when he refused to arm the Russian serf against his lord.

* * * * *

In the hours of trial, three of Napoleon’s brothers had drawn to him again. They had been much to blame for his downfall. Joseph had abandoned Paris in 1814, when there was no urgent necessity for it, and when Napoleon was flying toward it, on horseback, at headlong speed. Lucien had been wrong-headed, turbulent, making trouble at Rome and elsewhere. Jerome’s management in Westphalia had incensed and disgusted Germany. As to Louis, the fourth brother, that impossible dolt and ingrate did not show his face, but retired into Switzerland. He was the younger brother with whom Napoleon had shared his slender pay when lieutenant, and who had lived with the elder brother and been taught by him, and in every way treated by him as a father treats a son.

As to Madame Mère, the heroic old mother, she had refused to come to Paris to take part in the gorgeous ceremonial of Napoleon’s Coronation; she stayed away, at Rome, where Lucien Bonaparte, in temporary disgrace, drew the maternal sympathy to the less fortunate son. No, she would not go to Napoleon in 1800, when all Europe was at his feet, and he was the King of Kings. She stayed at Rome with Lucien. But when the awful reverses came, when the scepters were broken in the hands of the Bonapartes, when Napoleon was prostrate and outlawed, Madame Letitia,--Madame Mère,--remembered only that he was her son. Josephine, frail at first, but at last loyal and loving, could not go to Elba; she was dead. Maria Louise, the Austrian wife, frail as well as false, would not go to Elba; she had already turned her lewd eyes toward the gallant Neipperg. But Madame Mère could go to Elba, and she went. And when Napoleon left for France, she soon followed. So, she is with him now, heart and soul. For the day is dark and dreary. The somber clouds hang low. Thunder rolls in the distance--rolls with sullen menace and ominous reverberation. And because the whole world is against her son, Madame Mère turns from the whole world _to him_! Heroic old woman! From her adamantine character was drawn the strength which laid Europe at Napoleon’s feet.

In the “Barrington Sketches” is drawn a vivid picture of the last public occasion on which appeared together the most remarkable mother and son that ever lived. It was on the 8th of June, four days before Napoleon left Paris to join his army.

The dignitaries of the Empire were assembled in the Chamber of Deputies to take the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. It was a magnificent ceremonial. In the streets, on the quays and in the parks were great throngs of people, and among the military the enthusiasm was unbounded. No longer crying “_Vive l’Empereur_,” their shouts rolled in thunder tones, “_Empereur! Empereur!_” The roar of cannon shook the earth, and the air thrilled with the music of the bands. In the great and splendid Chamber of Deputies were assembled a brilliant array of the nobility of France--those who had been born great, those who had achieved greatness, and those who had had greatness thrust upon them. They had assembled to swear loyalty to their Emperor, Napoleon--and not one of those who were present knew better the frailty of such a bond of allegiance than the Emperor himself. And when Fouché took the oath, Napoleon turned his head and looked fixedly, calmly at the traitor. Sir Jonah Barrington says that Fouché faltered and flushed. But I doubt it. Sir Jonah Barrington says that he watched Napoleon’s countenance, intently studying its every detail. He says that the Emperor sat unmoved, his face somewhat shaded by the ostrich plumes of his black Spanish hat, the size of his bust concealed by “the short cloak of purple velvet, embroidered with golden bees.” Sir Jonah speaks of the “high and ungraceful shoulders,” and declares that he was “by no means a majestic figure.” “I watched his eye. It was that of a hawk.” He then describes how this brilliant glance swept from one face to another, throughout the assemblage, without a movement of the Emperor’s head.

Sir Jonah describes Napoleon’s mother as “a very fine old lady, apparently about sixty, but looking strong and in good health, well looking, and possessing a cheerful, _comfortable_ countenance. In short, I liked her appearance; it was plain and unassuming.” Then Sir Jonah tells how he settled down to study her expression to learn her sensations during the splendid ceremonial. And after the most critical attention to the varying expressions of the “comfortable countenance” of this fine old lady, Sir Jonah reaches the conclusion that the emotions which move her as the brilliant function progresses, are just those _of a mother proud of her son_!

“I could perceive no lofty sensations of gratified ambition, no towering pride, no vain and empty arrogance, as she viewed underneath her the peers and representatives of her son’s dominions.”

What emotion was it, then, that filled her bosom on that last great day in Paris? “A tear occasionally moistened her cheek, but it evidently proceeded from a happy rather than a painful feeling--it was the tear of parental ecstasy.”

After Napoleon had been caged at St. Helena, and was being denied comforts that had become necessary to him, his mother was one of those who supplied the captive with funds. Some one remonstrated with her, telling her that she would reduce herself to poverty, and that she would be destitute in her old age. The heroic old Corsican answered, “What does it matter? When I shall have nothing more, I will take my stick and go about _begging alms for Napoleon’s mother_.”