In that city the people were a prey, first to sheer incredulity, then to the wildest dismay. To them history was but a melodrama and war a romance. Never since the time of Jeanne d'Arc had a foreign enemy come within sight of their spires. For ramparts they had octroi walls, and in place of the death-dealing defiance of 1792 they now showed only the spasmodic vehemence or ironical resignation of an over-cultivated stock. As M. Charles de Remusat finely remarks on their varying moods, "The despotism which makes a constant show of prosperity gives men little fortitude to meet adversity." Doubtless the royalists, with Talleyrand as their factotum, worked to paralyze the defence; but they formed a small minority, and the masses would have fought for Napoleon had he been present to direct everything. But he was far away, rushing back through Champagne to retrieve his blunder, and in his place they had Joseph. The ex-King of Spain was not the man for the hour. He was no hero to breathe defiance into a bewildered crowd, nor was he well seconded. Clarke, and Moncey, the commander of the 12,000 National Guards, had not armed one-half of that doubtful militia. Marmont and Mortier were at hand, and, with the garrison and National Guards, mustered some 42,000 men.

But what were these against the trained host of more than 100,000 men now marching against the feeble barriers on the north and east? Moreover, Joseph and the Council of Regency had dispirited the defenders by causing the Empress Regent and the infant King of Rome to leave the capital along with the treasure. In Joseph's defence it should be said that Napoleon had twice warned him to transfer the seat of Government to the south of the Loire if the allies neared Paris, and in no case to allow the Empress and the King of Rome to be captured. "Do not leave the side of my son: I had rather know that he was in the Seine than in the hands of the enemies of France." The Emperor's views as to the effect of the capture of Paris were also well known. In January he remarked to Mollien, the Minister of the Treasure, "My dear fellow, if the enemy reaches the gates of Paris, the Empire is no more."[445]

Oppressed by these gloomy omens, the defenders awaited the onset of the allies at Montreuil, Romainville Pantin, and on the northern plain (March 30th). At some points French valour held up successfully against the dense masses; but in the afternoon Marmont, seeing his thin lines overlapped, and in imminent danger of being cut off at Belleville, sent out a request for a truce, as Joseph had empowered him to do if affairs proved to be irretrievable. At all points resistance was hopeless; Mortier was hard pressed on the north-east; at the Clichy gate Moncey and his National Guards fought only for honour; and so, after a whole day of sanguinary conflicts, the great city surrendered on honourable terms.

And thus ended the great impulse which had gone forth from Paris since 1789, which had flooded the plains of Germany, the plateaux of Spain, the cities of Italy, and the steppes of Russia, levelling the barriers of castes and creeds, and binding men in a new and solid unity. The reaction against that great centrifugal and international movement had now become centripetal and profoundly national. Thanks to Napoleon's statecraft, the peoples of Europe from the Volga to the Tagus were now embattled in a mighty phalanx, and were about to enter in triumph the city that only twenty-five years before had heralded the dawn of their nascent liberties.

And what of Napoleon, in part the product and in part the cause, of this strange reaction? By a strange Nemesis, his military genius and his overweening contempt of Schwarzenberg drew him aside at the very time when the allies could strike with deadly effect at the heart of his centralized despotism. On the 29th he hears of disaffection at Paris, of the disaster at La Fere Champenoise, and of the loss of Lyons by Augereau. He at once sees the enormity of his blunder. His weary Guards and he seek to annihilate space. They press on by the unguarded road by way of Troyes and Fontainebleau, thereby cutting off all chance of the Emperor Francis and Metternich sending messages from Dijon to Paris. By incredible exertions the men cover seventeen leagues on the 29th and reach Troyes.

Napoleon, accompanied by Caulaincourt, Drouot, Flahaut, and Lefebvre, rushes on, wearing out horses at every stage: at Fontainebleau on the 30th he hears that his consort has left Paris; at Essonne, that the battle is raging. Late at night, near Athis, he meets a troop of horse under General Belliard: eagerly he questions this brave officer, and learns that Joseph has left Paris, and that the battle is over. "Forward then to Paris: everywhere where I am not they act stupidly."—"But, sire," says the general, "it is too late: Paris has capitulated."

The indomitable will is not yet broken. He must go on; he will sound the tocsin, rouse the populace, tear up the capitulation, and beat the insolent enemy. The sight of Mortier's troops, a little further on, at last burns the truth into his brain: he sends on Caulaincourt with full powers to treat for peace, and then sits up for the rest of the night, poring over his maps and measuring the devotion of his Guard against the inexorable bounds of time and space. He is within ten miles of Paris, and sees the glare of the enemy's watch-fires all over the northern sky.

On the morrow he hears that the allied sovereigns are about to enter Paris, and Marmont warns him by letter that public opinion has much changed since the withdrawal, first of the Empress, and then of Joseph, Louis, and Jerome. This was true. The people were disgusted by their flight; Bluecher now had eighty cannon planted on the heights of Montmartre; and men knew that he would not spare Paris if she hazarded a further effort. And thus, when, on that same morning, the Czar, with the King of Prussia on his right, and Schwarzenberg on his left, rode into Paris at the head of the Russian and Prussian Guards, they met with nothing worse than sullen looks on the part of the masses, while knots of enthusiastic royalists shouted wildly for the Bourbons, and women flung themselves to kiss the boots of the liberating Emperor. The Bourbon party, however, was certainly in the minority; but at places along the route their demonstrations were effective enough to influence an impressionable populace, and to delight the conquerors.—"The white cockade appeared very universally:"—wrote Stewart with suspicious emphasis—"many of the National Guards, whom I saw, wore them."[446]

Fearing that the Elysee Palace had been mined, the Czar installed himself at Talleyrand's mansion, opposite the Place de la Concorde; and forthwith there took place a most important private Council. The two monarchs were present, along with Nesselrode and Napoleon's Corsican enemy, Pozzo di Borgo. Princes Schwarzenberg and Lichtenstein represented Austria; while Talleyrand and Dalberg were there to plead for the House of Bourbon: De Pradt and Baron Louis were afterwards summoned. The Czar opened the deliberations by declaring that there were three courses open, to make peace with Napoleon, to accept Marie Louise as Regent for her son, or to recall the Bourbons.[447] The first he declared to be impossible; the second was beset by the gravest difficulties; and, while stating the objections to the Bourbons, he let it be seen that he now favoured this solution, provided that it really was the will of France. He then called on Talleyrand to speak; and that pleader set forth the case of the Bourbons with his usual skill. The French army, he said, was more devoted to its own glory than to Napoleon. France longed for peace, and she could only find it with due sureties under her old dynasty. If the populace had not as yet declared for the Bourbons, who could wonder at that, when the allies persisted in negotiating with Napoleon? But let them declare that they will no more treat with him, and France would at once show her real desires. For himself, he would answer for the Senate. The Czar was satisfied; Frederick William assented; the Austrian princes said not a word on behalf of the claims of Marie Louise; and the cause of the House of Bourbon easily triumphed.[448]

On the morrow appeared in the "Journal des Debats" a decisive proclamation, signed by Alexander on behalf of all the allied Powers; but we must be permitted to doubt whether the Emperor Francis, if present, would have allowed it to appear, especially if his daughter were present in Paris as Regent. The proclamation set forth that the allies would never again treat with "Napoleon Bonaparte" or any member of his family; that they would respect the integrity of France as it existed under its lawful kings, and would recognize and guarantee the constitution which the French nation should adopt.

Accordingly, they invited the Senate at once to appoint a Provisional Government. Talleyrand, as Grand Elector of the Empire, had the power to summon that guardian of the commonwealth, whose vote would clearly be far more expeditious than the plebiscite on which Alexander had previously set his heart. Of the 140 Senators only 64 assembled, but over them Talleyrand's influence was supreme. He spake, and they silently registered his suggestions. Thus it was that the august body, taught by ten years of despotism to bend gracefully before every breeze, fulfilled its last function in the Napoleonic regime by overthrowing the very constitution which it had been expressly charged to uphold. The date was the 1st of April. Talleyrand, Dalberg, Beurnonville, Jaucourt, and l'Abbe de Montesquiou at once formed a Provisional Government; but the soul of it was Talleyrand. The Czar gave the word, and Talleyrand acted as scene-shifter. The last tableau of this constitutional farce was reached on the following day, when the Senate and the Corps Legislatif declared that Napoleon had ceased to reign.

Such was the ex-bishop's revenge for insults borne for many a year with courtly tact, but none the less bitterly felt. Napoleon and he had come to regard each other with instinctive antipathy; but while the diplomatist hid his hatred under the cloak of irony, the soldier blurted forth his suspicions. Before leaving Paris, the Emperor had wound up his last Council-meeting by a diatribe against enemies left in the citadel; and his words became all the hotter when he saw that Talleyrand, who was then quietly conversing with Joseph in a corner, took no notice of the outburst. From Champagne he sent off an order to Savary to arrest the ex-Minister, but that functionary took upon himself to disregard the order. Probably there was some understanding between them. And thus, after steering past many a rock, the patient schemer at last helped Europe to shipwreck that mighty adventurer when but a league or two from port.

But all was not over yet. Napoleon had fallen back on Fontainebleau, in front of which town he was assembling a force of nearly 60,000 men. Marie Louise, with the Ministers, was at Blois, and desired to make her way to the side of her consort. Had she done so, and had her father been present at Paris, a very interesting and delicate situation would have been the result; and we may fancy that it would have needed all Metternich's finesse and Castlereagh's common sense to keep the three monarchs united. But Francis was still at Dijon; and Metternich and Castlereagh did not reach Paris until April 10th; so that everything in these important days was decided by the Czar and Talleyrand, both of them irreconcilable foes of Napoleon. It was in vain that Caulaincourt (April 1st) begged the Czar to grant peace to Napoleon on the basis of the old frontiers. "Peace with him would only be a truce," was the reply.

The victor did not repulse the idea of a Regency so absolutely, and the faithful Minister at once hurried to Fontainebleau to persuade his master to abdicate in favour of his son. Napoleon repulsed the offer with disdain: rather than that, he would once more try the hazards of war. He knew that the Old and the Young Guard, still nearly 9,000 strong in all, burned to revenge the insult to French pride; and at the close of a review held on the 3rd in the great court of the palace, they shouted, "To Paris!" and swore to bury themselves under its ruins. It needed not the acclaim of his veterans to prompt him to the like resolve. When, on April 1st, he received a Verbal Note from Alexander, stating that the allies would no longer treat with him, except on his private and family concerns, he exclaimed to Marmont, at the line of the Essonne, that he must fight, for it was a necessity of his position. He also proposed to that Marshal to cross the Seine and attack the allies, forgetting that the Marne, with its bridges held by them, was in the way. Marmont, endowed with a keen and sardonic intelligence, had already seen that his master was more and more the victim of illusions, never crediting the existence of difficulties that he did not actually witness. And when, on the 3rd, or perhaps earlier, offers came from the royalists, the Marshal promised to help them in the way that will shortly appear.

Napoleon's last overtures to the Czar came late on the following day. On that morning he had a long and heated discussion with Berthier, Ney, Oudinot, and Lefebvre. Caulaincourt and Maret were present as peacemakers. The Marshals upbraided Napoleon with the folly of marching on Paris. Angered by their words Napoleon at last said: "The army will obey me." "No," retorted Ney, "it will obey its commanders."

Macdonald, who had just arrived with his weary corps, took up their case with his usual frankness. "Our horses," he said, "can go no further: we have not enough ammunition for one skirmish, and no means of procuring more. If we fail, as we probably shall, the whole of France will be destroyed. We can still impose on the enemy: let us retain our attitude.... We have had enough of war without kindling civil war." Finally the Emperor gave way, and drew up a declaration couched in these terms: "The allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oaths, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France, and even give up his life, for the good of the fatherland, inseparable from the rights of his son, of those of the regency of the Empress and of the maintenance of the laws of the Empire."[449]

A careful reading of this document will show that it was not an act of abdication, but merely a conditional offer to abdicate, which would satisfy those undiplomatic soldiers and gain time. Macdonald also relates that, after drawing it up, the Emperor threw himself on the sofa, struck his thigh, and said: "Nonsense, gentlemen! let us leave all that alone and march to-morrow, we shall beat them." But they held him to his promise; and Caulaincourt, Ney, and Macdonald straightway proceeding to Paris, beset the Czar with many entreaties and some threats to recognize the Regency.

In their interview, late at night on the 4th, they seemed to make a great impression, especially when they reminded him of his promise not to force any government on France. Next, the Czar called in the members of the Provisional Government, and heard their arguments that a Regency must speedily give way before the impact of the one masterful will. Yet again Alexander listened to the eloquence of Caulaincourt, and finally to the pleadings of the now anxious provisionals. So the night wore on at Talleyrand's mansion, the Czar finally stating that, after hearing the Prussian monarch's advice, he would give his decision. And shortly before dawn came the news that Marmont's corps had marched over to the enemy. "You see," said Alexander to Pozzo di Borgo, "it is Providence that wills it: no more doubt or hesitation now."[450]

On that same night, in fact, Marmont's corps of 12,000 men was brought from Essonne within the lines of the allies, by the Marshal's generals. Marmont himself was then in Paris, having been induced by Ney and Macdonald to come with them, so as to hinder the carrying out of his treasonable design; but his generals, who were in the secret, were alarmed by the frequency of Napoleon's couriers, and carried out the original plan. Thus, at dawn of the 5th, the rank and file found themselves amidst the columns and squadrons of the allies. It was now too late to escape; the men swore at their leaders with helpless fury; and 12,000 men were thus filched from Napoleon's array.[451]

If this conduct be viewed from the personal standpoint, it must be judged a base betrayal of an old friend and benefactor; and it is usually regarded in that light alone. And yet Marmont might plead that his action was necessary to prevent Napoleon sacrificing his troops, and perhaps also his capital, to a morbid pride and desire for revenge. The Marshal owed something to France. The Chambers had pronounced his master's abdication, and Paris seemed to acquiesce in their decision: Bordeaux and Lyons had now definitely hoisted the white flag: Wellington had triumphed in the south; Schwarzenberg marshalled 140,000 men around the capital; and Marmont knew, perhaps, better than any of the Marshals, the obstinacy of that terrible will which had strewn the roads between Moscow, Paris, and Lisbon with a million of corpses. Was it not time that this should end? And would it end as long as Napoleon saw any chance of snatching a temporary success?

However we may regard Marmont's conduct, there can be no doubt that it helped on Napoleon's fall. The Czar was too subtle a diplomatist to attach much importance to Napoleon's declaration cited above. He must have seen in it a device to gain time. But he himself also wished for a few more hours' respite before flinging away the scabbard; and we may regard his lengthy balancings between the pleas of Caulaincourt and Talleyrand as prompted partly by a wish to sip to the full the sweets of revenge for the occupation of Moscow, but mainly by the resolve to mark time until Marmont's corps had been brought over.

Now that the head was struck off Napoleon's lance, the Czar repulsed all notion of a Regency, but declared that he was ready to grant generous terms to Napoleon if the latter abdicated outright. "Now, when he is in trouble," he said, "I will become once more his friend and will forget the past." In conferences with Napoleon's representatives, Alexander decided that Napoleon must keep the title of Emperor, and receive a suitable pension. The islands of Corfu, Corsica, and Elba were considered for his future abode: the last offered the fewest objections; and though Metternich later on protested against the choice of Elba, the Czar felt his honour pledged to this arrangement.[452]

Napoleon himself now began to yield to the inevitable. On hearing the news of Marmont's defection, he sat for some time as if stupefied, then sadly remarked: "The ungrateful man: well! he will be more unhappy than I." But once more, on the 6th, the fighting instinct comes uppermost. He plans to retire with his faithful troops beyond the Loire, and rally the corps of Augereau, Suchet, and Soult. "Come," he cries to his generals, "let us march to the Alps." Not one of them speaks in reply. "Ah," replies the Emperor to their unspoken thoughts; "you want repose: have it then. Alas! you know not how many disappointments and dangers await you on your beds of down." He then wrote his formal abdication:

"The allied Powers having declared that the Emperor was the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor, faithful to his oaths, declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no sacrifice, not even that of life, which he is not ready to make for the interest of France."

The allies made haste to finish the affair; for even now they feared that the caged lion would burst his bars. Indeed, the trusty secretary Fain asserts that when on Easter Monday, the 11th, Caulaincourt brought back the allies' ratification of this deed, Napoleon's first demand was to retract the abdication. It would be unjust, however, to lay too much stress on this strange conduct; for at that time the Emperor's mind was partly unhinged by maddening tumults.

His anguish increased when he heard the final terms of the allies. They allotted to him the isle of Elba; to his consort and heir, the duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastalla, and two millions of francs as an annual subsidy, divided equally between himself and her. They were to keep the title of Emperor and Empress; but their son would bear the name of Duke of Parma, etc. The other Bonapartes received an annual subsidy of 2,500,000 francs, this and the former sum being paid by France. Four hundred soldiers might accompany him to Elba. A "suitable establishment" was to be provided for Eugene outside of France.[453] For some hours Napoleon refused to ratify this compact. All hope of resistance was vain, for Oudinot, Victor, Lefebvre, and, finally, Ney and Berthier, had gone over to the royalists: even the soldiery began to waver. But a noble pride held back the mighty conqueror from accepting Elba and signing a money compact. It is not without a struggle that a Caesar sinks to the level of a Sancho Panza.

He then talked to Caulaincourt with the insight that always illumined his judgments. Marie Louise ought to have Tuscany, he said: Parma would not befit her dignity. Besides, if she had to traverse other States to come to him, would she ever do so? He next talked of his Marshals. Massena's were the greatest exploits: but Suchet had shown himself the wisest both in war and administration. Soult was able, but too ambitious. Berthier was honest, sensible, the model of a chief of the staff; and "yet he has now caused me much pain." Not a word escaped him about Davoust, still manfully struggling at Hamburg. Not one of his Ministers, he complained, had come from Blois to bid him farewell. He then spoke of his greatest enemy—England. "She has done me much harm, doubtless, but I have left in her flanks a poisoned dart. It is I who have made this debt, that will ever burden, if not crush, future generations." Finally, he came back to the hateful compact which Caulaincourt pressed him in vain to sign. How could he take money from the allies. How could he leave France so small, after receiving her so great!

That same night he sought to end his life. On February the 8th he had warned his brother Joseph that he would do so if Paris were captured. During the retreat from Moscow he had carried about a phial which was said to contain opium, and he now sought to end his miseries. But Caulaincourt, his valet Constant, and the surgeon Ivan were soon at hand with such slight cures as were possible. After violent sickness the Emperor sank into deep prostration; but, when refreshed by tea, and by the cool air of dawning day, he gradually revived. "Fate has decided," he exclaimed: "I must live and await all that Providence has in store for me."[454] He then signed the treaty with the allies, presented Macdonald with the sword of Murad Bey, and calmly began to prepare for his departure.

Marie Louise did not come to see him. Her decision to do so was overruled by her father, in obedience to whose behests she repaired from Blois to Rambouillet.

There, guarded by Cossacks, she saw Francis, Alexander, and Frederick William in turn. What passed between them is not known: but the result was that, on April 23rd, she set out for Vienna, whence she finally repaired to Parma; she manifested no great desire to see her consort at Elba, but soon consoled herself with the Count de Neipperg.

No doubts as to her future conduct, no qualms of conscience as to the destiny of France now ruffled Napoleon's mind. Like a sky cleared by a thunderstorm, once more it shone forth with clear radiance. Those who saw him now were astonished at his calmness, except in some moments when he declaimed at his wife and child being kept from him by Austrian schemes. Then he stormed and wept and declared that he would seek refuge in England, which General Koeller, the Austrian commissioner appointed to escort him to Elba, strongly advised him to do. But for the most part he showed remarkable composure. When Bausset sought to soothe him by remarking that France would still form one of the finest of realms, he replied: "with remarkable serenity—'I abdicate and I yield nothing.'"[455] The words hide a world of meaning: they inclose the secret of the Hundred Days.

On the 20th, he bade farewell to his Guard: in thrilling words he told them that his mission thenceforth would be to describe to posterity the wonders they had achieved: he then embraced General Petit, kissed the war-stained banner, and, wafted on his way by the sobs of these unconquered heroes, set forth for the Mediterranean. In the central districts, and as far as Lyons, he was often greeted by the well-known shouts, but, further south, the temper of the people changed.

At Orange they cursed him to his face, and hurled stones at the windows of the carriage; Napoleon, protected by Bertrand, sat huddled up in the corner, "apparently very much frightened." After forcing a way through the rabble, the Emperor, when at a safe distance, donned a plain great coat, a Russian cloak, and a plain round hat with a white cockade: in this or similar disguises he sought to escape notice at every village or town, evincing, says the British Commissioner, Colonel Campbell, "much anxiety to save his life."

By a detour he skirted the town of Avignon, where the mob thirsted for his blood; and by another device he disappointed the people of Orgon, who had prepared an effigy of him in uniform, smeared with blood, and placarded with the words: "Voila donc l'odieux tyran! Tot ou tard le crime est puni."[456] In this humiliating way he hurried on towards the coast, where a British frigate, the "Undaunted," was waiting for him. There some suspicious delays ensued, which aroused the fears of the allied commissioners, especially as bands of French soldiers began to draw near after the break-up of Eugene's army.[457]

At last, on the 28th, accompanied by Counts Bertrand and Drouot, he set sail from Frejus. It was less than fifteen years since he had landed there crowned with the halo of his oriental adventures.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXXVIII

ELBA AND PARIS

If it be an advantage to pause in the midst of the rush of life and take one's bearings afresh, then Napoleon was fortunate in being drifted to the quiet eddy of Elba. He there had leisure to review his career, to note where he had served his generation and succeeded, where also he had dashed himself fruitlessly against the fundamental instincts of mankind. Undoubtedly he did essay this mental stock-taking. He remarked to the conscientious Drouot that he was wrong in not making peace at the Congress of Prague; that trust in his own genius and in his soldiery led him astray; "but those who blame me have never drunk of Fortune's intoxicating cup." When a turn of her wheel brought him uppermost again, he confessed that at Elba he had heard, as in a tomb, the verdict of posterity; and there are signs that his maturer convictions thenceforth strove to curb the old domineering instincts that had wrecked his life.

Introspection, however, was alien to his being; he was made for the camp rather than the study; his critical powers, if turned in for a time on himself, quickly swung back to work upon men and affairs; and they found the needed exercise in organizing his Liliputian Empire and surveying the course of European politics. In the first weeks he was up at dawn, walking or riding about Porto Ferrajo and its environs, planning better defences, or tracing out new roads and avenues of mulberry trees. "I have never seen a man," wrote Campbell, "with so much activity and restless perseverance: he appears to take pleasure in perpetual movement, and in seeing those who accompany him sink under fatigue." About seven hundred of his Guards were brought over on British transports; and these, along with Corsicans and Tuscans, guarded him against royalist plotters, real or supposed. In a short time he purchased a few small vessels, and annexed the islet of Pianosa. These affairs and the formation of an Imperial Court for the delectation of his mother and his sister Pauline, who now joined him, served to drive away ennui; but he bitterly resented the Emperor Francis's refusal to let his wife and son come to him. Whether Marie Louise would have come is more than doubtful, for her relations to Count Neipperg were already notorious; but the detention of his son was a heartless action that aroused general sympathy for the lonely man. The Countess Walewska paid him a visit for some days, bringing the son whom she had borne him.[458]

Meanwhile Europe was settling down uneasily on its new political foundations. Considering that France had been at the mercy of the allies, she had few just grounds of complaint against them. The Treaties of Paris (May 30th, 1814) left her with rather wider bounds than those of 1791; and she kept the art treasures reft by Napoleon. Perfidious Albion yielded up all her French colonial conquests, except Mauritius, Tobago, and St. Lucia. Britons grumbled at the paltry gains brought by a war that had cost more than L600,000,000: but Castlereagh justified the policy of conciliation. "It is better," said he, "for France to be commercial and pacific than a warlike and conquering State." We insisted on her ceding Belgium to the House of Orange, while we retained the Dutch colonies conquered by us, the Cape, Demerara, and Curacoa—paying L6,000,000 for them.

The loss of the Netherlands, the Rhineland, and Italy galled French pride. Loud were the murmurs of the throngs of soldiers that came from the fortresses of Germany, or the prisons of Spain, Russia, and England—70,000 crossed over from our shores alone—at the harshness of the allies and the pusillanimity of the Bourbons. The return from war to peace is always hard; and now these gaunt warriors came back to a little France that perforce discharged them or placed them on half-pay. Perhaps they might have been won over by a tactful Court: but the Bourbons, especially that typical emigre, the Comte d'Artois, were nothing if not tactless, witness their shelving of the Old Guard and formation of the Maison du Roi, a privileged and highly paid corps of 6,000 nobles and royalist gentlemen. The peasants, too, were uneasy, especially those who held the lands of nobles confiscated in the Revolution. To indemnify the former owners was impossible in face of the torrent of exorbitant claims that flowed in. And the year 1814, which began as a soul-stirring epic, ended with sordid squabbles worthy of a third-rate farce.

Moreover, at this very time, the former allies seemed on the brink of war. The limits of our space admit only of the briefest glance at the disputes of the Powers at the Congress of Vienna. The storm centre of Europe was the figure of the Czar. To our ambassador at Vienna, Sir Charles Stewart, he declared his resolve to keep western Poland and never to give up 7,000,000 of his "Polish subjects."[459] Strange to say, he ultimately gained the assent of Prussia to this objectionable scheme, provided that she acquired the whole of Saxony, while Frederick Augustus was to be transplanted to the Rhineland with Bonn as capital. To these proposals Austria, England, and France offered stern opposition, and framed a secret compact (January 3rd, 1815) to resist them, if need be, with armies amounting to 450,000 men. But, though swords were rattled in their scabbards, they were not drawn. When news reached Vienna of the activity of Bonapartists in France and of Murat in Italy, the Powers agreed (February 8th) to the Saxon-Polish compromise which took shape in the map of Eastern Europe. The territorial arrangements in the west were evidently inspired by the wish to build up bulwarks against France. Belgium was tacked on to Holland; Germany was huddled into a Confederation, in which the princes had complete sovereign powers; and the Kingdom of Sardinia grew to more than its former bulk by recovering Savoy and Nice and gaining Genoa.

This piling up of artificial barriers against some future Napoleon was to serve the designs of the illustrious exile himself. The instinct of nationality, which his blows had aroused to full vigour, was now outraged by the sovereigns whom it carried along to victory. Belgians strongly objected to Dutch rule, and German "Unitarians," as Metternich dubbed them, spurned a form of union which subjected the Fatherland to Austria and her henchmen. Hardest of all was the fate of Italy. After learning the secret of her essential unity under Napoleon, she was now parcelled out among her former rulers; and thrills of rage shot through the peninsula when the Hapsburgs settled down at Venice and Milan, while their scions took up the reins at Modena, Parma, and Florence.

It was on this popular indignation that Murat now built his hopes. After throwing over Napoleon, he had looked to find favour with the allies; but his movements in 1814 had been so suspicious that the fate of his kingdom remained hanging in the balance. The Bourbons of Paris and Madrid strove hard to effect his overthrow; but Austria and England, having tied their hands early in 1814 by treaties with him, could only wait and watch in the hope that the impetuous soldier would take a false step. He did so in February, 1815, when he levied forces, summoned Louis XVIII. to declare whether he was at war with him, and prepared to march into Northern Italy.

The disturbed state of the peninsula caused the Powers much uneasiness as to the presence of Napoleon at Elba. Louis XVIII. in his despatches, and Talleyrand in private conversations, two or three times urged his removal to the Azores; but, with the exception of Castlereagh, who gave a doubtful assent, the plenipotentiaries scouted the thought of it. Metternich entirely opposed it, and the Czar would certainly have objected to the reversal of his Elba plan, had Talleyrand made a formal proposal to that effect. But he did not do so. The official records of the Congress contain not a word on the subject. Equally unfounded were the newspaper rumours that the Congress was considering the advisability of removing Napoleon to St. Helena. On this topic the official records are also silent; and we have the explicit denial of the Duke of Wellington (who reached Vienna on the 1st of February to relieve Castlereagh) that "the Congress ever had any intention of removing Bonaparte from Elba to St. Helena."[460]

Napoleon's position was certainly one of unstable equilibrium, that tended towards some daring enterprise or inglorious bankruptcy. The maintenance of his troops cost him more than 1,000,000 francs a year, while his revenue was less than half of that sum. He ought to have received 2,000,000 francs a year from Louis XVIII.; but that monarch, while confiscating the property of the Bonapartes in France, paid not a centime of the sums which the allies had pledged him to pay to the fallen House. Both the Czar and our envoy, Castlereagh, warmly reproached Talleyrand with his master's shabby conduct; to which the plenipotentiary replied that it was dangerous to furnish Napoleon with money as long as Italy was in so disturbed a state. Castlereagh, on his return to England by way of Paris, again pressed the matter on Louis XVIII., who promised to take the matter in hand. But he was soon quit of it: for, as he wrote to Talleyrand on March 7th, Bonaparte's landing in France spared him the trouble.[461]

To assert, however, that Napoleon's escape from Elba was prompted by a desire to avoid bankruptcy, is to credit him with respectable bourgeois scruples by which he was never troubled. Though "Madame Mere" and Pauline complained bitterly to Campbell of the lack of funds at Elba, the Emperor himself was far from depressed. "His spirits seem of late," wrote Campbell on December 28th, "rather to rise, and not to yield in the smallest degree to the pressure of pecuniary difficulties." Both Campbell and Lord John Russell, who then paid the Emperor a flying visit, thought that he was planning some great move, and warned our Ministers.[462] But they shared the view of other wiseacres, that Italy would be his goal, and that too, when Campbell's despatches teemed with remarks made to him by Napoleon as to the certainty of an outbreak in France. Here are two of them:

He said that there would be a violent outbreak, similar to the Revolution, in consequence of their present humiliation: every man in France considers the Rhine to be the natural frontier of France, and nothing can alter this opinion. If the spirit of the nation is roused into action nothing can oppose it. It is like a torrent.... The present Government of France is too feeble: the Bourbons should make war as soon as possible so as to establish themselves upon the throne. It would not be difficult to recover Belgium. It is only for the British troops there that the French army has the smallest awe" (sic).

His final resolve to put everything to the hazard was formed about February 13th, when, shortly after receiving tidings as to the unrest in Italy, the discords of the Powers, and the resolve of the allied sovereigns to leave Vienna on the 20th, he heard news of the highest importance from France. On that day one of his former officials, Fleury de Chaboulon, landed in Elba, and informed him of the hatching of a plot by military malcontents, under the lead of Fouche, for the overthrow of Louis XVIII.[463] Napoleon at once despatched his informant to Naples, and ordered his brig, "L'Inconstant," to be painted like an English vessel. Most fortunately for him, Campbell on the 16th set sail for Tuscany—"for his health and on private affairs"—on the small war-vessel, "Partridge," to which the British Government had intrusted the supervision of Napoleon. Captain Adye, of that vessel, promised, after taking Campbell to Leghorn, to return and cruise off Elba. He called at Porto Ferrajo on the 24th, and to Bertrand's question, when he was to bring Campbell back, returned the undiplomatic answer that it was fixed for the 26th. The news seems to have decided Napoleon to escape on that day, when the "Partridge" would be absent at Leghorn. Meanwhile Campbell, alarmed by the news of the preparations at Elba, was sending off a request to Genoa that another British warship should be sent to frustrate the designs of the "restless villain."

But it was now too late. On that Sunday night at 9 p.m., the Emperor, with 1,050 officers and men, embarked at Porto Ferrajo on the "Inconstant" and six smaller craft. Favoured by the light airs that detained the British vessel, his flotilla glided away northwards; and not before the 28th did Adye and Campbell find that the imperial eagle had flown. Meanwhile Napoleon had eluded the French guard-ship, "Fleur-de-Lys," and ordered his vessels to scatter. On doubling the north of Corsica, he fell in with another French cruiser, the "Zephyr," which hailed his brig and inquired how the great man was. "Marvellously well," came the reply, suggested by Napoleon himself to his captain. The royalist cruiser passed on contented. And thus, thanks to the imbecility of the old Governments and of their servants, Napoleon was able to land his little force safely in the Golfe de Jouan on the afternoon of March 1st.[464] Is it surprising that foreigners, who had not yet fathomed the eccentricities of British officialdom, should have believed that we connived at Napoleon's escape? It needed the blood shed at Waterloo to wipe out the misconception.

"I shall reach Paris without firing a shot." Such was the prophecy of Napoleon to his rather questioning followers as they neared the coast of Provence. It seemed the wildest of dreams. Could the man, who had been wellnigh murdered by the rabble of Avignon and Orgon, hope to march in peace through that royalist province? And, if he ever reached the central districts where men loved him better, would the soldiery dare to disobey the commands of Soult, the new Minister of War, of Ney, Berthier, Macdonald, St. Cyr, Suchet, Augereau, and of many more who were now honestly serving the Bourbons? The King and his brothers had no fears. They laughed at the folly of this rash intruder.

At first their confidence seemed justified. Napoleon's overtures to the officer and garrison of Antibes were repulsed, and the small detachment which he sent there was captured. Undaunted by this check, he decided to hurry on by way of Grasse towards Grenoble, thus forestalling the news of his first failure, and avoiding the royalist districts of the lower Rhone.

Napoleon was visibly perturbed as he drew near to Grenoble. There the officer in command, General Marchand, had threatened to exterminate this "band of brigands"; and his soldiers as yet showed no signs of defection. But, by some bad management, only one battalion held the defile of Laffray on the south. As the bear-skins of the Guard came in sight, the royalist ranks swerved and drew back. Then the Emperor came forward, and ordered his men to lower their arms. "There he is: fire on him," cried a royalist officer. Not a shot rang out.—"Soldiers," said the well-known voice, "if there is one among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, he can do so. Here I am." At once a great shout of "Vive l'Empereur" burst forth: and the battalion broke into an enthusiastic rush towards the idol of the soldiery.

That scene decided the whole course of events. A little later, a young noble, Labedoyere, leads over his regiment; at Grenoble the garrison stands looking on and cheering while the Bonapartists batter in the gates; and the hero is borne in amidst a whirlwind of cheers. At Lyons, the Comte d'Artois and Macdonald seek safety in flight; and soldiers and workmen welcome their chief with wild acclaim; but amidst the wonted cries are heard threats of "The Bourbons to the guillotine," "Down with the priests!"

The shouts were ominous: they showed that the Jacobins meant to use Napoleon merely as a tool for the overthrow of the Bourbons. The "have-nots" cheered him, but the "haves" shivered at his coming, for every thinking man knew that it implied war with Europe.[465] Napoleon saw the danger of relying merely on malcontents and sought to arouse a truly national feeling. He therefore on March 13th issued a series of popular decrees, that declared the rule of the Bourbons at an end, dissolved the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, and summoned the "electoral colleges" of the Empire to a great assembly, or Champ de Mai, at Paris. He further proscribed the white flag, ordered the wearing of the tri-colour cockade, disbanded the hated "Maison du Roi," abolished feudal titles, and sequestered the domains of the Bourbon princes. In brief, he acted as the Bonaparte of 1799. He then set forth for Paris, at the head of 14,000 men.

Ney was at the same time marching with 6,000 men from Besancon. He had lately assured Louis XVIII. that Napoleon deserved to be brought to Paris in an iron cage. But now his soldiers kept a sullen silence. At Bourg the leading regiment deserted; and while beset by difficulties, the Marshal received from Napoleon the assurance that he would be received as he was on the day after the Moskwa (Borodino). This was enough. He drew his troops around him, and, to their lively joy, declared for the Emperor (March 14th). Napoleon was as good as his word. Never prone to petty malice, he now received with equal graciousness those officers who flung themselves at his feet, and those who staunchly served the King to the very last. Before this sunny magnanimity the last hopes of the Bourbons melted away. Greeted on all sides by soldiers and peasants, the enchanter advances on Paris, whence the King and Court beat a hasty retreat towards Lille.

Crowds of peasants line and almost block the road from Fontainebleau to catch a glimpse of the gray coat; and, to expedite matters, he drives on in a cabriolet with his faithful Caulaincourt. Escorted by a cavalcade of officers he enters Paris after nightfall; but there the tone of the public is cool and questioning, until the front of the Tuileries facing the river is reached.[466] Then a mighty shout arises from the throng of jubilant half-pay officers as the well-known figure alights: he passes in, and is half carried up the grand staircase, "his eyes half closed," says Lavalette, "his hands extended before him like a blind man, and expressing his joy only by a smile." Ladies are there also, who have spent the weary hours of waiting in stripping off fleurs-de-lys, and gleefully exposing the N's and golden bees concealed by cheap Bourbon upholstery. Anon they fly back to this task; the palace wears its wonted look; and the brief spell of Bourbon rule seems gone for ever.

To his contemporaries this triumph of Napoleon appeared a miracle before which the voice of criticism must be dumb. And yet, if we remember the hollowness of the Bourbon restoration, the tactlessness of the princes and the greed of their partisans, it seems strange that the house of cards reared by the Czar and Talleyrand remained standing even for eleven months. Napoleon correctly described the condition of France when he said to his comrades on the "Inconstant": "There is no historic example that induces me to venture on this bold enterprise: but I have taken into account the surprise that will seize on men, the state of public feeling, the resentment against the allies, the love of my soldiers, in fine, all the Napoleonic elements that still germinate in our beautiful France."[467]

Still less was he deceived by the seemingly overwhelming impulse in his favour. He looked beyond the hysteria of welcome to the cold and critical fit which follows; and he saw danger ahead. When Mollien complimented him on his return, he replied, alluding to the general indifference at the departure of the Bourbons: "My dear fellow! People have let me come, just as they let the others go." The remark reveals keen insight into the workings of French public opinion. The whole course of the Revolution had shown how easy it was to destroy a Government, how difficult to rebuild. In truth, the events of March, 1815, may be called the epilogue of the revolutionary drama. The royal House had offended the two most powerful of French interests, the military and the agrarian, so that soldiers and peasants clutched eagerly at Napoleon as a mighty lever for its overthrow.

The Emperor wisely formed his Ministry before the first enthusiasm cooled down. Maret again became Secretary of State; Decres took the Navy; Gaudin the finances; Mollien was coaxed back to the Treasury, and Davoust reluctantly accepted the Ministry of War. Savary declined to be burdened with the Police, and Napoleon did not press him: for that clever intriguer, Fouche, was pointed out as the only man who could rally the Jacobins around the imperial throne: to him, then, Napoleon assigned this important post, though fully aware that in his hands it was a two-edged tool. Carnot was finally persuaded to become Minister for Home Affairs.

Napoleon's fate, however, was to be decided, not at Paris, but by the statesmen assembled at Vienna. There time was hanging somewhat heavily, and the news of Napoleon's escape was welcomed at first as a grateful diversion. Talleyrand asserted that Napoleon would aim at Italy, but Metternich at once remarked: "He will make straight for Paris." When this prophecy proved to be alarmingly true, a drastic method was adopted to save the Bourbons. The plenipotentiaries drew up a declaration that Bonaparte, having broken the compact which established him at Elba—the only legal title attaching to his existence—had placed himself outside the bounds of civil and social relations, and, as an enemy and disturber of the peace of the world, was consigned to "public prosecution" (March 13th).[468] The rigour of this decree has been generally condemned. But, after all, it did not exceed in harshness Napoleon's own act of proscription against Stein; it was a desperate attempt to stop the flight of the imperial eagle to Paris and to save France from war with Europe.

Public considerations were doubtless commingled with the promptings of personal hatred. We are assured that Talleyrand was the author of this declaration, which had the complete approval of the Czar. But Napoleon had one enemy more powerful than Alexander, more insidious than Talleyrand, and that was—his own past. Everywhere the spectre of war rose up before the imagination of men. The merchant pictured his ships swept off by privateers: the peasant saw his homestead desolate: the housewife dreamt of her larder emptied by taxes, and sons carried off for the war. At Berlin, wrote Jackson, all was agitation, and everybody said that the work of last year would have to be done over again.

In England the current of public feeling was somewhat weakened by the drifts and eddies of party politics. Many of the Whigs made a popular hero of Napoleon, some from a desire to overthrow the Liverpool Ministry that proscribed him; others because they believed, or tried to believe, that the return of Napoleon concerned only France, and that he would leave Europe alone if Europe left him alone. Others there were again, as Hazlitt, who could not ignore the patent fact that Napoleon was an international personage and had violated a European compact, yet nevertheless longed for his triumph over the bad old Governments and did not trouble much as to what would come next. But, on the whole, the judgment of well-informed people may be summed up in the conclusion of that keen lawyer, Crabb Robinson: "The question is, peace with Bonaparte now, or war with him in Germany two years hence."[469] The matter came to a test on April 28th, when Whitbread's motion against war was rejected by 273 to 72.[470]

If that was the general opinion in days when Ministers and diplomatists alone knew the secrets of the game, it was certain that the initiated, who remembered his wrongheaded refusals to make peace even in the depressing days of 1814, would strive to crush him before he could gather all his strength. In vain did he protest that he had learnt by sad experience and was a changed man. They interpreted his pacific speeches by their experience of his actions; and thus his overweening conduct in the past blotted out all hope of his crowning a romantic career by a peaceful and benignant close. The declaration of outlawry was followed, on March 25th, by the conclusion of treaties between the Powers, which virtually renewed those framed at Chaumont. In quick succession the smaller States gave in their adhesion; and thus the coalition which tact and diplomacy had dissolved was revivified by the fears which the mighty warrior aroused. Napoleon made several efforts to sow distrust among the Powers; and chance placed in his hands a veritable apple of discord.

The Bourbons in their hasty flight from Paris had left behind several State papers, among them being the recent secret compact against Russia and Prussia. Napoleon promptly sent this document to the Czar at Vienna; but his hopes of sundering the allies were soon blighted. Though Alexander and Metternich had for months refused to exchange a word or a look, yet the news of Napoleon's adventure brought about a speedy reconciliation; and when the compromising paper from Paris was placed in the Czar's hands, he took the noble revenge of sending for Metternich, casting it into the fire, and adjuring the Minister to forget recent disputes in the presence of their common enemy. Napoleon strove to detach Austria from the Coalition, as did also Fouche on his own account; but the overtures led to no noteworthy result, except that Napoleon, on finding out Fouche's intrigue, threatened to have him shot—a threat which that necessary tool treated with quiet derision.

A few acts of war occurred at once; but Austria and Russia pressed for delay, the latter with the view of overthrowing Murat. That potentate now drew the sword on behalf of Napoleon, and summoned the Italians to struggle for their independence. But he was quickly overpowered at Tolentino (May 3rd), and fled from his kingdom, disguised as a sailor, to Toulon. There he offered his sword to Napoleon; but the Emperor refused his offer and blamed him severely, alleging that he had compromised the fortunes of France by rendering peace impossible. The charge must be pronounced not proven. The allies had taken their resolve to destroy Napoleon on March 13th, and Murat's adventure merely postponed the final struggle for a month or so.

Napoleon used this time of respite to form his army and stamp out opposition in France. The French royalist bands gave him little trouble. In the south-west the fleur-de-lys was speedily beaten down; but in La Vendee royalism had its roots deep-seated. Headed by the two Larochejacqueleins, the peasants made a brave fight; and 20,000 regulars failed to break them up until the month of June was wearing on. What might not those 20,000 men, detained in La Vendee, have effected on the crest of Waterloo?

Napoleon's preoccupation, however, was the conduct of the Jacobins in France, who had been quickened to immense energy by the absurdities of the royalist reaction and felt that they had the new ruler in their power. A game of skill ensued, which took up the greater part of the "Hundred Days" of Napoleon's second reign. His conduct proved that he was not sure of success. He felt out of touch with this new liberty-loving France, so different from the passively devoted people whom he had left in 1814; he bridled his impetuous nature, reasoning with men, inviting criticism, and suggesting doubts as to his own proposals, in a way that contrasted curiously with the old sledge-hammer methods.

"He seemed," writes Mollien, "habitually calm, pensive, and preserved without affectation a serious dignity, with little of that old audacity and self-confidence which had never met with insuperable obstacles.... As his thoughts were cramped in a narrow space girt with precipices instead of soaring freely over a vast horizon of power, they became laborious and

This Pegasus in harness chafed at the unwonted yoke; and at times the old instincts showed themselves. On one occasion, when the subject turned on the new passion for liberty, he said to Lavalette with a question in his voice: "All this will last two or three years?" "Your Majesty," replied the Minister, "must not believe that. It will last for ever."

The first grave difficulty was to frame a constitution, especially as his Lyons decrees led men to believe that it would emanate from the people, and be sanctioned by them in a great Champ de Mai. Perhaps this was impossible. A great part of France was a prey to civil strifes; and it was a skilful device to intrust the drafting of a constitution to Benjamin Constant.

This brilliant writer and talker had now run through the whole gamut of political professions. A pronounced Jacobin and free-thinker during the Consulate, he subsequently retired to Germany, where he unlearnt his politics, his religion, and his philosophy. The sight of Napoleon's devastations made him a supporter of the throne and altar, compelled him to recast his treatises, and drove him to consort with the quaint circle of pietists who prayed and grovelled with Madame de Krudener. Returning to France at the Restoration, he wielded his facile pen in the cause of the monarchy, and fluttered after the fading charms of Madame Recamier, confiding to his friend, De Broglie, that he knew not whether to trust most to divine or satanic agencies for success in this lawless chase. In March, 1815, he thundered in the Press against the brigand of Elba—until the latter won him over in the space of a brief interview, and persuaded him to draft, with a few colleagues, the final constitution of the age.

Not that Constant had a free hand: he worked under imperial inspiration. The present effort was named the Additional Act—additional, that is, to the Constitutions of the Empire (April 22nd, 1815). It established a Chamber of Peers nominated by Napoleon, with hereditary rights, and a Chamber of Representatives elected on the plan devised in August, 1802. The Emperor was to nominate all the judges, including the juges de paix; the jury system was maintained, and liberty of the Press was granted. The Chambers also gained somewhat wider control over the Ministers.[471]

This Act called forth a hail of criticisms. When the Council of State pointed out that there was no guarantee against confiscations, Napoleon's eyes flashed fire, and he burst forth:

"You are pushing me in a way that is not mine. You are weakening and chaining me. France looks for me and does not find me. Public opinion was excellent: now it is execrable. France is asking what has come to the Emperor's arm, this arm which she needs to master Europe. Why speak to me of goodness, abstract justice, and of natural laws? The first law is necessity: the first justice is the public safety."

The councillors quailed under this tirade and conceded the point—though we may here remark that Napoleon showed a wise clemency towards his foes, and confiscated the estates of only thirteen of them.

Public opinion became more and more "execrable." Some historians have asserted that the decline of Napoleon's popularity was due, not to the Additional Act, but to the menaces of war from a united Europe: this may be doubted. Miot de Melito, who was working for the Emperor in the West, states that "never had a political error more immediate effects" than that Act; and Lavalette, always a devoted adherent, asserts That Frenchmen thenceforth "saw only a despot in the Emperor and forgot about the enemy."

As a display of military enthusiasm, the Champ de Mai, of June 1st, recalled the palmy days gone by. Veterans and conscripts hailed their chief with jubilant acclaim, as with a few burning words he handed them their eagles. But the people on the outskirts cheered only when the troops cheered. Why should they, or the "electors" of France, cheer? They had hoped to give her a constitution; and they were now merely witnesses to Napoleon's oath that he would obey the constitution of his own making. As a civic festival, it was a mockery in the eyes of men who remembered the "Feast of Pikes," and were not to be dazzled by the waving of banners and the gorgeous costumes of Napoleon and his brothers. The opening of the Chambers six days later gave an outlet to the general discontent. The report that Napoleon designed his brother Lucien for the Presidency of the Lower House is incorrect. That honest democrat Lanjuinais was elected. Everything portended a constitutional crisis, when the summons to arms rang forth; and the chief, warning the deputies not to imitate the Greeks of the late Empire by discussing abstract propositions while the battering-ram thundered at their gates, cut short these barren debates by that appeal to the sword which had rarely belied his hopes.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXXIX

LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS

A less determined optimist than Napoleon might well have hoped for success over the forces of the new coalition. True, they seemed overwhelmingly great. But many a coalition had crumbled away under the alchemy of his statecraft; and the jealousies that had raged at the Congress of Vienna inspired the hope that Austria, and perhaps England, might speedily be detached from their present allies. Strange as it seems to us, the French people opined that Napoleon's escape from Elba was due to the connivance of the British Government; and Captain Mercer states that, even at Waterloo, many of the French clung to the belief that the British resistance would be a matter of form. Napoleon cherished no such illusion: but he certainly hoped to surprise the British and Prussian forces in Belgium, and to sever at one blow an alliance which he judged to be ill cemented. Thereafter he would separate Austria from Russia, a task that was certainly possible if victory crowned the French eagles.[472]

His military position was far stronger than it had been since the Moscow campaign. The loss of Germany and Spain had really added to his power. No longer were his veterans shut up in the fortresses of Europe from Danzig to Antwerp, from Hamburg to Ragusa; and the Peninsular War no longer engulfed great armies of his choicest troops. In the eyes of Frenchmen he was not beaten in 1814; he was only tripped up by a traitor when on the point of crushing his foes. And, now that peace had brought back garrisons and prisoners of war, as many as 180,000 well-trained troops were ranged under the imperial eagles. He hoped by the end of June to have half a million of devoted soldiers ready for the field.

The difficulties that beset him were enough to daunt any mind but his. Some of the most experienced Marshals were no longer at his side. St. Cyr, Macdonald, Oudinot, Victor, Marmont, and Augereau remained true to Louis XVIII. Berthier, on hearing of Napoleon's return from Elba, forthwith retired into Germany, and, in a fit of frenzy, threw himself from the window of a house in Bamberg while a Russian corps was passing through that town. Junot had lost his reason. Massena and Moncey were too old for campaigning; Mortier fell ill before the first shots were fired. Worst of all, the unending task of army organization detained Davoust at Paris. Certainly he worked wonders there; but, as in 1813 and 1814, Napoleon had cause to regret the absence of a lieutenant equally remarkable for his acuteness of perception and doggedness of purpose, for a good fortune that rarely failed, and a devotion that never faltered. Doubtless it was this last priceless quality, as well as his organizing gifts, that marked him out as the ideal Minister of War and Governor of Paris. Besides him he left a Council charged with the government during his absence, composed of Princes Joseph and Lucien and the Ministers.

But, though the French army of 1815 lacked some of the names far famed in story, numbers of zealous and able officers were ready to take their place. The first and second corps were respectively assigned to Drouet, Count d'Erlon, and Reille, the former of whom was the son of the postmaster of Varennes, who stopped Louis XVI.'s flight. Vandamme commanded the third corps; Gerard, the fourth; Rapp, the fifth; while the sixth fell to Mouton, better known as Count Lobau. Rapp's corps was charged with the defence of Alsace; other forces, led by Brune, Decaen, and Clausel, protected the southern borders, while Suchet guarded the Alps; but the rest of these corps were gradually drawn together towards the north of France, and the addition of the Guard, 20,800 strong, brought the total of this army to 125,000 men.

There was one post which the Emperor found it most difficult to fill, that of Chief of the Staff. There the loss of Berthier was irreparable. While lacking powers of initiative, he had the faculty of lucidly and quickly drafting Napoleon's orders, which insures the smooth working of the military machine. Who should succeed this skilful and methodical officer? After long hesitation Napoleon chose Soult. In a military sense the choice was excellent. The Duke of Dalmatia had a glorious military record; in his nature activity was blended with caution, ardour with method; but he had little experience of the special duties now required of him; and his orders were neither drafted so clearly nor transmitted so promptly as those of Berthier.

The concentration of this great force proceeded with surprising swiftness; and, in order to lull his foes into confidence, the Emperor delayed his departure from Paris to the last moment possible. As dawn was flushing the eastern sky, on June 12th, he left his couch, after four hours' sleep, entered his landau, and speedily left his slumbering capital behind. In twelve hours he was at Laon. There he found that Grouchy's four cavalry brigades were not sharing in the general advance owing to Soult's neglect to send the necessary orders. The horsemen were at once hurried on, several regiments covering twenty leagues at a stretch and exhausting their steeds. On the 14th the army was well in hand around Beaumont, within striking distance of the Prussian vanguard, from which it was separated by a screen of dense woods. There the Emperor mounted his charger and rode along the ranks, raising such a storm of cheers that he vainly called out: "Not so loud, my children, the enemy will hear you." There, too, on this anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, he inspired his men by a stirring appeal on behalf of the independence of Poles, Italians, the smaller German States, and, above all, of France herself. "For every Frenchman of spirit the time has come to conquer or die."

What, meanwhile, was the position of the allies? An Austro-Sardinian force threatened the south-east of France. Mighty armies of 170,000 Russians and 250,000 Austrians were rolling slowly on towards Lorraine and Alsace respectively; 120,000 Prussians, under Bluecher, were cantoned between Liege and Charleroi; while Wellington's composite array of British, German, and Dutch-Belgian troops, about 100,000 strong, lay between Brussels and Mons.[473] The original plan of these two famous leaders was to push on rapidly into France; but the cautious influences of the Military Council sitting at Vienna prevailed, and it was finally decided not to open the campaign until the Austrians and Russians should approach the frontiers of France. Even as late as June 15th we find Wellington writing to the Czar in terms that assume a co-operation of all the allies in simultaneous moves towards Paris—movements which Schwarzenberg had led him to expect would begin about the 20th of June.[474]

From this prolonged and methodical warfare Europe was saved by Napoleon's vigorous offensive. His political instincts impelled him to strike at Brussels, where he hoped that the populace would declare for union with France and severance from the detested Dutch. In this war he must not only conquer armies, he must win over public opinion; and how could he gain it so well as in the guise of a popular liberator?

But there were other advantages to be gained in Belgium. By flinging himself on Wellington and the Prussians, and driving them asunder, he would compel Louis XVIII. to another undignified flight; and he would disorganize the best prepared armies of his foes, and gain the material resources of the Low Countries. He seems even to have cherished the hope that a victory over Wellington would dispirit the British Government, unseat the Ministry, and install in power the peace-loving Whigs.

And this victory was almost within his grasp. While his host drew near to the Prussian outposts south of Charleroi and Thuin, the allies were still spread out in cantonments that extended over one hundred miles, namely, from Liege on Bluecher's left to Audenarde on Wellington's right. This wide dispersion of troops, when an enterprising foe was known to be almost within striking distance, has been generally condemned. Thus General Kennedy, in his admirable description of Waterloo, admits that there was an "absurd extension" of the cantonments. Wellington, however, was bound to wait and to watch the three good high-roads, by any one of which Napoleon might advance, namely, those of Tournay, Mons, and Charleroi. The Duke had other causes for extending his lines far to the west: he desired to cover the roads from Ostend, whence he was expecting reinforcements, and to stretch a protecting wing over the King of France at Ghent.

There are many proofs, however, that Wellington was surprised by Napoleon. The narratives of Sir Hussey Vivian and Captain Mercer show that the final orders for our advance were carried out with a haste and flurry that would not have happened if the army had been well in hand, or if Wellington had been fully informed of Napoleon's latest moves.[475] There is a wild story that the Duke was duped by Fouche, on whom he was relying for news from Paris. But it seems far more likely that he was misled by the tidings sent to Louis XVIII. at Ghent by zealous royalists in France, the general purport of which was that Napoleon would wage a defensive campaign.[476] On the 13th June, Wellington wrote: "I have accounts from Paris of the 10th, on which day he [Bonaparte] was still there; and I judge from his speech to the Legislature that his departure was not likely to be immediate. I think we are now too strong for him here." And, in later years, he told Earl Stanhope that Napoleon "was certainly wrong in attacking at all"; for the allied armies must soon have been in great straits for want of food if they had advanced into France, exhausted as she was by the campaign of 1814. "But," he added, "the fact is, Bonaparte never in his life had patience for a defensive war."



The Duke's forces would, at the outset of the campaign, have been in less danger, if the leaders at the Prussian outposts, Pirch II. and Doernberg of the King's German Legion, had warned him of the enemy's massing near the Sambre early on the 15th. By some mischance this was not done; and our leader only heard from Hardinge, at the Prussian headquarters, that the enemy seemed about to begin the offensive. He therefore waited for more definite news before concentrating upon any one line.

About 6 p.m. on the 15th he ordered his divisions and brigades to concentrate at Vilvorde, Brussels, Ninove, Grammont, Ath, Braine-le-Comte, Hal, and Nivelles—the first four of which were somewhat remote, while the others were chosen with a view to defending the roads leading northwards from Mons. Not a single British brigade was posted on the Waterloo-Charleroi road, which was at that time guarded only by a Dutch-Belgian division, a fact which supports Mr. Ropes's contention that no definite plan of co-operation had been formed by the allied leaders. Or, if there was one, the Duke certainly refused to act upon it until he had satisfied himself that the chief attack was not by way of Mons or Ath. More definite news reached Brussels near midnight of the 15th, whereupon he gave a general left turn to his advance, namely, towards Nivelles.

Clausewitz maintains that he should already have removed his headquarters to Nivelles; had he done so and hurried up all available troops towards the Soignies-Quatre Bras line, his Waterloo fame would certainly have gained in solidity. A dash of romance was added by his attending the Duchess of Richmond's ball at Brussels on the night of the 15th-16th; lovers of the picturesque will always linger over the scene that followed with its "hurrying to and fro and tremblings of distress"; but the more prosaic inquirer may doubt whether Wellington should not then have been more to the front, feeling every throb of Bellona's pulse.[477]

Bluecher's army, comprising 90,000 men, also covered a great stretch of country. The first corps, that of Ziethen, held the bridges of the Sambre at and near Charleroi; but the corps of Pirch I. and Thielmann were at Namur and Ciney; while, owing to a lack of stringency in the orders sent by Gneisenau, chief of the staff, to Buelow, his corps of 32,000 men was still at Liege. Early on the 15th, Pirch I. and Thielmann began hastily to advance towards Sombref; and Ziethen, with 32,000 men, prepared to hold the line of the Sambre as long as possible. His chief of staff, General Reiche, states that one-third of the Prussians were new troops, drafted in from the Landwehr; but all the corps gloried in their veteran Field-Marshal, and were eager to fight.

Such, then, was the general position. Wellington was unaware of his danger; Bluecher was straining every nerve to get his army together; while 32,000 Prussians were exposed to the attack of nearly four times their number. It is clear that, had all gone well with the French advance, the fortunes of Wellington and Bluecher must have been desperate. But, though the concentration of 125,000 French troops near Beaumont and Maubeuge had been effected with masterly skill (except that Gerard's and D'Erlon's corps were late), the final moves did not work quite smoothly. An accident to the officer who was to order Vandamme's corps to march at 2 a.m. on the 15th caused a long delay to that eager fighter.[478] The 4th corps, that of Gerard, was also disturbed and delayed by an untoward event. General Bourmont, whose old Vendean opinions seemed to have melted away completely before the sun of Napoleon's glory, rewarded his master by deserting with several officers to the Prussians, very early on that morning. The incident was really of far less importance than is assigned to it in the St. Helena Memoirs, which falsely ascribe it to the 14th: the Prussians were already on the qui vive before Bourmont's desertion; but it clogged the advance of Gerard's corps and fostered distrust among the rank and file. When, on the morrow, Gerard rejoined his chief at the mill of Fleurus, the latter reminded him that he had answered for Bourmont's fidelity with his own head; and, on the general protesting that he had seen Bourmont fight with the utmost devotion, Napoleon replied: "Bah! A man who has been a white will never become a blue: and a blue will never be a white." Significant words, that show the Emperor's belief in the ineradicable strength of instinct and early training.[479]

Despite these two mishaps, the French on the morning of the 15th succeeded in driving Ziethen's men from the banks of the Sambre about Thuin, while Napoleon in person broke through their line at Charleroi. After suffering rather severely, the defenders fell back on Gilly, whither Napoleon and his main force followed them; while the left wing of the French advance, now intrusted to Ney, was swung forward against the all-important position of Quatre Bras.

We here approach one of the knotty questions of the campaign. Why did not Ney occupy the cross-roads in force on the evening of the 15th? We may note first that not till the 11th had Napoleon thought fit to summon Ney to the army, so that the Marshal did not come up till the afternoon of this very day. He at once had an interview with the Emperor, who, according to General Gourgaud, gave the Marshal verbal orders to take command of the corps of Reille and D'Erlon, to push on northwards, take up a position at Quatre Bras, and throw out advanced posts beyond on the Brussels and Namur roads; but it seems unlikely that the Emperor would have given one of the most venturesome of his Marshals an absolute order to push on so far in advance, unless the French right wing had driven the Prussians back beyond the Sombref position. Otherwise, Ney would have been dangerously far in advance of the main body and exposed to blows either from the Prussians or the British.

However this may be, Ney certainly felt insecure, and did not push on with his wonted dash; while, fortunately for the allies, an officer was at hand Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, who saw the need of holding Quatre Bras at all costs.[480] The young leader imposed on the foe by making the most of his men—they were but 4,500 all told, and had only ten bullets apiece—and he succeeded. For once, Ney was prudent to a fault, and did not push home the attack. In his excuse it may be said that the men of Reille's corps, on whom he had to rely—for D'Erlon's corps was still far to the rear—had been marching and fighting ever since dawn, and were too weary for another battle. Moreover, the roar of cannon on the south-east warned him that the right wing of the French advance was hotly engaged between Gilly and Fleurus; until it beat back the Prussians, his own position was dangerously "in the air"; and, as but two hours of daylight remained, he drew back on Frasnes. He is also said to have sent word to the Emperor that "he was occupying Quatre Bras by an advanced guard, and that his main body was close behind." If he deceived his chief by any such report, he deserves the severest censure; but the words quoted above were written later at St. Helena by General Gourgaud, when Ney had come to figure as the scapegoat of the campaign.[481] Ney sent in a report on that evening; but it has been lost.[482] Judging from the orders issued by Napoleon and Soult early on the 16th, there was much uncertainty as to Ney's position. The Emperor's letter bids him post his first division "two leagues in front of les Quatres Chemins"; but Soult's letter to Grouchy states that Ney is ordered to advance to the cross-roads. Confusion was to be expected from the circumstances of the case. Ney did not know his staff-officers, and he hastily took command of the left wing when in the midst of operations whose success, as Janin points out, largely depended on that of the right. He therefore played a cautious game, when, as we now know, caution meant failure and daring spelt safety.

Meanwhile the French right wing, of which Grouchy had received the command, though Napoleon in person was its moving force, had been pressing the Prussians hard near Gilly. Yet here, too, the assailants were weakened by the absence of the corps of Vandamme and Gerard. Irritated by Ziethen's skilful withdrawal, the Emperor at last launched his cavalry at the Prussian rear battalions, four of which were severely handled before they reached the covert of a wood. With the loss, on the whole, of nearly 2,000 men, the Prussians fell back towards Ligny, while Grouchy's vanguard bivouacked near the village of Fleurus.

Napoleon might well be satisfied with the work done on June 15th: he rode back to his headquarters at Charleroi, "exhausted with fatigue," after spending wellnigh eighteen hours in the saddle, but confident that he had sundered the allies. This was certainly his aim now, as it had been in the campaign of 1796. After two decisive blows at their points of connection, he purposed driving them on divergent lines of retreat, just as he had driven the Austrians and Sardinians down the roads that bifurcate near Montenotte. True, there were in Belgium no mountain spurs to prevent their reunion; but the roads on which they were operating were far more widely divergent.[483] He also thought lightly of Wellington and Bluecher. The former he had pronounced "incapable and unwise"; as for Bluecher, he told Campbell at Elba that he was "no general"; but that he admired the pluck with which "the old devil" came on again after a thrashing.

Unclouded confidence is seen in every phrase of the letters that he penned at Charleroi early on the 16th. He informs Ney that he intends soon to attack the Prussians at Sombref, if he finds them there, to clear the road as far as Gembloux, and then to decide on his further actions as the case demands. Meanwhile Ney is to sweep the road in front of Quatre Bras, placing his first division two leagues beyond that position, if it seemed desirable, with a view to marching on Brussels during the night with his whole force of about 50,000 men. The Guard is to be kept in reserve as much as possible, so as to support either Napoleon on the Gembloux road, or Ney on the Brussels road; and "if any skirmish takes place with the English, it is preferable that the work should fall on the Line rather than on the Guard." As for the Prussian resistance, Napoleon rated it almost as lightly as that of the English; for he regards it as probable that he will in the evening march on Brussels with his Guard.

While he pictured his enemies hopelessly scattered or in retreat, they were beginning to muster at the very points which he believed to be within his grasp. At 11 a.m. only Ziethen's corps, now but 28,000 strong, was in position at Sombref, but the corps of Pirch I. and Thielmann came up shortly after midday. Had Napoleon pushed on early on the 16th, he must easily have gained the Ligny-Sombref position. What, then, caused the delay in the French attack? It can be traced to the slowness of Gerard's advance, to the Emperor's misconception of the situation, and to his despatch to Grouchy.



In this he reckoned the Prussians at 40,000 men, and ordered Grouchy to repair with the French right wing to Sombref.

" ... I shall be at Fleurus between 10 and 11 a.m.: I shall proceed to Sombref, leaving my Guard, both infantry and cavalry, at Fleurus: I would not take it to Sombref, unless it should be necessary. If the enemy is at Sombref, I mean to attack him: I mean to attack him even at Gembloux, and to gain this position also, my aim being, after having known about these two positions, to set out to-night, and to operate with my left wing, under the command of Marshal Ney, against the English."

The Emperor did not reach Fleurus until close on 11 a.m., and was undoubtedly taken aback to find Grouchy still there, held in check by the enemy strongly posted around Ligny. Grouchy has been blamed for not having already attacked them; but surely his orders bound him to wait for the Emperor before giving battle: besides, the corps of Gerard, which had been assigned to him was still far away in the rear towards Chatelet.[484] The absence of Gerard, and the uncertainty as to the enemy's aims, annoyed the Emperor. He mounted the windmill situated on the outskirts of Fleurus to survey the enemy's position.

It was a fair scene that lay before him. Straight in front ran the high-road which joined the Namur-Nivelles chaussee, some six miles away to the north-east. On either side stretched cornfields, whose richness bore witness alike to the toils and the warlike passions of mankind. Further ahead might be seen the dark lines of the enemy ranged along slopes that formed an irregular amphitheatre, dotted with the villages of Bry and Sombref. In the middle distance, from out a hollow that lay concealed, rose the steeples and a few of the higher roofs of Ligny. Further to the left and on higher ground lay St. Amand, with its outlying hamlets. All was bathed in the shimmering, sultry heat of midsummer, the harbinger, as it proved, of a violent thunderstorm. The Prussian position was really stronger than it seemed. Napoleon could not fully see either the osier beds that fringed the Ligny brook, or its steep banks, or the many strong buildings of Ligny itself. He saw the Prussians on the slope behind the village, and was at first puzzled by their exposed position. "The old fox keeps to earth," he was heard to mutter. And so he waited until matters should clear up, and Gerard's arrival should give him strength to compass Bluecher's utter overthrow while in the act of stretching a feeler towards Wellington. From the time when the Emperor came on the scene to the first swell of the battle's roar, there was a space of more than four hours.

This delay was doubly precious to the allies. It gave Bluecher time to bring up the corps of Pirch I. and Thielmann under cover of the high ground near Sombref, thereby raising his total force to about 87,000 men; and it enabled the two allied commanders to meet and hastily confer on the situation. Wellington had left Brussels that morning at 8 o'clock, and thanks to Ney's inaction, was able to reach the crest south of Quatre Bras a little after 10, long before the enemy showed any signs of life. There he penned a note to Bluecher, asking for news from him before deciding on his operations for the day.[485] He then galloped over to the windmill of Bussy to meet Bluecher.

It was an anxious meeting; the heads of the advancing French columns were already in sight; and the Duke saw with dismay the position of the Prussians on a slope that must expose them to the full force of Napoleon's cannon—or, as he whispered to Hardinge, "they will be damnably mauled if they fight here."[486] In more decorous terms, but to the same effect, he warned Gneisenau, and said nothing to encourage him to hold fast to his position. Neither did he lead him to expect aid from Quatre Bras. The utmost that Gneisenau could get from him was the promise, "Well! I will come provided I am not attacked myself." Did these words induce the Prussians to accept battle at Ligny? It is impossible to think so. Everything tends to show that Bluecher had determined to fight there. The risk was great; for, as we learn from General Reiche, the position was seen to admit of no vigorous offensive blows against the French. But fortune smiled on the veteran Field-Marshal, and averted what might have been an irretrievable disaster.[487]

It would seem that the inequalities of the ground hid the strength of Pirch I. and Thielmann; for Napoleon still believed that he had ranged against him at Ligny only a single corps. At 2 p.m. Soult informed Ney that the enemy had united a corps between Sombref and Bry, and that in half an hour Grouchy would attack it. Ney was therefore to beat back the foes at Quatre-Bras, and then turn to envelop the Prussians. But if these were driven in first, the Emperor would move towards Ney to hasten his operations.[488] Not until the battle was about to begin does the Emperor seem to have realized that he was in presence of superior forces.[489] But after 2 p.m. their masses drew down over the slopes of Bry and Sombref, their foremost troops held the villages of Ligny and St. Amand, while their left crowned the ridge of Tongrines. Napoleon reformed his lines, which had hitherto been at right angles to the main road through Fleurus. Vandamme's corps moved off towards St. Amand; and Gerard, after ranging his corps parallel to that road, began to descend towards Ligny, Grouchy meanwhile marshalling the cavalry to protect their flank and rear. Behind all stood the imposing mass of the Imperial Guard on the rising ground near Fleurus.

The fiercest shock of battle fell upon the corps of Vandamme and Gerard. Three times were Gerard's men driven back by the volleys of the Prussians holding Ligny. But the French cannon open fire with terrific effect. Roofs crumble away, and buildings burst into flame. Once more the French rush to the onset, and a furious hand-to-hand scuffle ensues. Half stifled by heat, smoke, and dust, the rival nations fight on, until the defenders give way and fall back on the further part of the village behind the brook; but, when reinforced, they rally as fiercely as ever, and drive the French over its banks; lane, garden, and attic once more become the scene of struggles where no man thinks of giving or taking quarter.

Higher up the stream, at St. Amand, Vandamme's troops fared no better; for Bluecher steadily fed that part of his array. In so doing, however, he weakened his reserves behind Ligny, thereby unwittingly favouring Napoleon's design of breaking the Prussian centre, and placing its wreckage and the whole of their right wing between two fires. The Emperor expected that, by 6 o'clock, Ney would have driven back the Anglo-Dutch forces, and would be ready to envelop the Prussian right. That was the purport of Soult's despatch of 3.15 p.m. to Ney: "This army [the Prussian] is lost, if you act with vigour. The fate of France is in your hands."

But at 5.30, when part of the Imperial Guard was about to strengthen Gerard for the decisive blow at the Prussian centre, Vandamme sent word that a hostile force of some twenty or thirty thousand men was marching towards Fleurus. This strange apparition not only unsteadied the French left: it greatly perplexed the Emperor. As he had ordered first Ney and then D'Erlon to march, not on Fleurus, but against the rear of the Prussian right wing, he seems to have concluded that this new force must be that of Wellington about to deal the like deadly blow against the French rear.[490] Accordingly he checked the advance of the Guard until the riddle could be solved. After the loss of nearly two hours it was solved by an aide-de-camp, who found that the force was D'Erlon's, and that it had retired.

Meanwhile the battle had raged with scarcely a pause, the French guns working frightful havoc among the dense masses on the opposite slope. And yet, by withdrawing troops to his right, Bluecher had for a time overborne Vandamme's corps and part of the Young Guard, unconscious that his insistence on this side jeopardized the whole Prussian army. His great adversary had long marked the immense extension of its concave front, the massing of its troops against St. Amand, and the remoteness of its left wing, which Grouchy's horsemen still held in check; and he now planned that, while Bluecher assailed St. Amand and its hamlets, the Imperial Guard should crush the Prussian centre at Ligny, thrust its fragments back towards St. Amand, and finally shiver the greater part of the Prussian army on the anvil which D'Erlon's corps would provide further to the west. He now felt assured of victory; for the corps of Lobau was nearing Fleurus to take the place of the Imperial Guard; and the Prussians had no supports. "They have no reserve," he remarked, as he swept the hostile position with his glass. This was true: their centre consisted of troops that for four hours had been either torn by artillery or exhausted by the fiendish strife in Ligny.

And now, as if the pent-up powers of Nature sought to cow rebellious man into awe and penitence, the artillery of the sky pealed forth. Crash after crash shook the ground; flash upon flash rent the sulphur-laden rack; darkness as of night stole over the scene; and a deluge of rain washed the blood-stained earth. The storm served but to aid the assailants in their last and fiercest efforts. Amidst the gloom the columns of the Imperial Guard crept swiftly down the slope towards Ligny, gave new strength to Gerard's men, and together with them broke through the defence. A little higher up the stream, Milhaud's cuirassiers struggled across, and, animated by the Emperor's presence, poured upon the shattered Prussian centre. No timely help could it now receive either from Bluecher or Thielmann; for the darkness of the storm had shrouded from view the beginnings of the onset, and Thielmann had just suffered from a heedless assault on Grouchy's wing.

As the thunder-clouds rolled by, the gleams of the setting sun lit up the field and revealed to Bluecher the full extent of his error.[491] His army was cut in twain. In vain did he call in his troops from St. Amand: in vain did he gallop back to his squadrons between Bry and Sombref and lead them forward. Their dashing charge was suddenly checked at the brink of a hollow way; steady volleys tore away their front; and the cuirassiers completed their discomfiture. Bluecher's charger was struck by a bullet, and in his fall badly bruised the Field-Marshal; but his trusty adjutant, Nostitz, managed to hide him in the twilight, while the cuirassiers swept onwards up the hill. Other Prussian squadrons, struggling to save the day, now charged home and drove back the steel-clad ranks. Some Uhlans and mounted Landwehr reached the place where the hero lay; and Nostitz was able to save that precious life. Sorely battered, but still defiant like their chief, the Prussian cavalry covered the retreat at the centre; the wings fell back in good order, the right holding on to the village of Bry till past midnight; but several battalions of disaffected troops broke up and did not rejoin their comrades. About 14,000 Prussians and 11,000 French lay dead or wounded on that fatal field.[492]

Napoleon, as he rode back to Fleurus after nightfall, could claim that he had won a great victory. Yet he had not achieved the results portrayed in Soult's despatch of 3.15 to Ney. This was due partly to Ney's failure to fulfil his part of the programme, and partly to the apparition of D'Erlon's corps, which led to the postponement of Napoleon's grand attack on Ligny.

The mystery as to the movements of D'Erlon and his 20,000 men has never been fully cleared up. The evidence collected by Houssaye leaves little doubt that, as soon as the Emperor realized the serious nature of the conflict at Ligny, he sent orders to D'Erlon, whose vanguard was then near Frasnes, to diverge and attack Bluecher's exposed flank. That is to say, D'Erlon was now called on to deal the decisive blow which had before been assigned to Ney, who was now warned, though very tardily, not to rely on the help of D'Erlon's corps. Misunderstanding his order, D'Erlon made for Fleurus, and thus alarmed Napoleon and delayed his final blow for wellnigh two hours. Moreover, at 6 p.m., when D'Erlon might have assailed Bluecher's right with crushing effect, he received an urgent command from Ney to return. Assuredly he should not have hesitated now that St. Amand was almost within cannon-shot, while Quatre Bras could scarcely be reached before nightfall; but he was under Ney's command; and, taking a rather pedantic view of the situation, he obeyed his immediate superior. Lastly, no one has explained why the Emperor, as soon as he knew the errant corps to be that of D'Erlon, did not recall him at once, bidding him fall on the exposed wing of the Prussians. Doubtless he assumed that D'Erlon would now fulfil his instructions and march against Bry; but he gave no order to this effect, and the unlucky corps vanished.

At that time a desperate conflict was drawing to a close at Quatre Bras. Ney had delayed his attack until 2 p.m.; for, firstly, Reille's corps alone was at hand—D'Erlon's rearguard early on that morning being still near Thuin—and, secondly, the Marshal heard at 10 a.m. that Prussian columns were marching westwards from Sombref, a move that would endanger his rear behind Frasnes. Furthermore, the approach to Quatre Bras was flanked by the extensive Bossu Wood, and by a spinney to the right of the highway. Reille therefore counselled caution, lest the affair should prove to be "a Spanish battle where the English show themselves only when it is time." When, however, Reille's corps pushed home the attack, the weakness of the defence was speedily revealed. After a stout stand, the 7,000 Dutch-Belgians under the Prince of Orange were driven from the farm of Gemioncourt, which formed the key of the position, and many of them fled from the field.