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Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V
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Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V

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Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V

DOULANCOURT – TROYES

At the bridge of Doulancourt, on the banks of the Aube, the Emperor received despatches, informing him that an assault on Paris was hourly be expected. Napoleon dismissed his aide-de-camp, Dejean, to ride post to Paris, and spread the news of his speedy arrival. He gave him two bulletins, describing in extravagant colours a pretended victory at Arcis, and the skirmish at St. Dizier. He then advanced to Troyes, which he reached on that same night (29th March,) the imperial guard marching fifteen leagues in one day. On the 30th, Maréchal Macdonald gave to Berthier the following sound and striking opinion: – "It is too late," he said, "to relieve Paris; at least by the route we follow. The distance is fifty leagues; to be accomplished by forced marches, it will require at least four days; and then in what condition for combat is the army like to arrive, for there are no depôts, or magazines, after leaving Bar-sur-Seine. The allies being yesterday at Meaux, must have pushed their advanced guards up to the barriers by this time. There is no good reason to hope that the united corps of the Dukes of Treviso and Ragusa could check them long enough to allow us to come up. Besides, at our approach, the allies will not fail to defend the passage of the Marne. I am then of opinion, that if Paris fall under the power of the enemy, the Emperor should direct his march on Sens, in order to retreat upon Augereau, unite our forces with his, and, after having reposed our troops, give the enemy battle on a chosen field. If Providence has then decreed our last hour, we will at least die with honour, instead of being dispersed, pillaged, taken, and slaughtered by Cossacks." Napoleon's anxiety for the fate of his capital, did not permit him to hearken to this advice; though it seems the best calculated to have placed him in a condition, either to make a composition with the allies, or to carry on a formidable war in their rear.

From Troyes, Napoleon despatched to Paris another aide-de-camp, General Girardin, who is said to have carried orders for defending the city to the last, and at all risks – an accusation, however, which, considering the mass of unimaginable mischief that such an order must have involved, is not to be received without more proof than we have been able to obtain.

On the 30th March, Napoleon left Troyes, and, finding the road entirely unoccupied by the enemy, threw himself into a post-carriage, and travelled on at full speed before his army, with a very slight attendance. Having in this way reached Villeneuve L'Archeveque, he rode to Fontainbleau on horseback, and though it was then night, took a carriage for Paris, Berthier and Caulaincourt accompanying him. On reaching an inn, called La Cour de France, at a few miles' distance from Paris, he at length met ample proof of his misfortune in the person of General Belliard, with his cavalry. The fatal intelligence was communicated.

CONVERSATION WITH BELLIARD

Leaping from his carriage, Napoleon turned back with Belliard, exclaiming – "What means this? Why here with your cavalry, Belliard? And where are the enemy?" – "At the gates of Paris." – "And the army?" – "It is following me." – "Where are my wife and son? – Where Marmont? – Where Mortier?" – "The Empress set out for Rambouillet, and thence for Orleans. The maréchals are busy completing their arrangements at Paris." He then gave an account of the battle; and Napoleon instantly ordered his carriage for Paris. They had already proceeded a mile and a half on the road. The same conversation proceeded, and we give it as preserved, because it marks the character of the principal personage, and the tone of his feeling, much better than these can be collected from his expressions upon more formal occasions, and when he had in view some particular purpose.31

General Belliard reminded him there were no longer any troops in Paris. "It matters not," said Napoleon; "I will find the national guard there. The army will join me to-morrow, or the day after, and I will put things on a proper footing." – "But I must repeat to your Majesty, you cannot go to Paris. The national guard, in virtue of the treaty, mount guard at the barriers, and though the allies are not to enter till seven o'clock in the morning, it is possible they may have found their way to the outposts, and that your Majesty may find Russian or Prussian parties at the gates, or on the Boulevards." – "It is all one – I am determined to go there – My carriage! – Follow me with your cavalry." – "But, Sire, your Majesty will expose Paris to the risk of storm or pillage. More than 20,000 men are in possession of the heights – for myself, I have left the city in consequence of a convention, and cannot therefore return." – "What is that convention? who has concluded it?" – "I cannot tell, Sire; I only know from the Duke of Treviso that such exists, and that I must march to Fontainbleau." – "What is Joseph about? – Where is the minister at war?" – "I do not know; we have received orders from neither of them during the whole day. Each maréchal acted on his own responsibility. They have not been seen to-day with the army – At least not with the Duke of Treviso's corps." – "Come, we must to Paris – nothing goes right when I am absent – they do nothing but make blunders."

Berthier and Caulaincourt joined in trying to divert the Emperor from his purpose. He never ceased demanding his carriage. Caulaincourt announced it, but it did not come up. Napoleon strode on with hurried and unequal steps, asking repeated questions concerning what had been already explained. "You should have held out longer," he said, "and tried to wait for the arrival of the army. You should have raised Paris, which cannot surely like the entrance of the Russians. You should have put in motion the national guard, whose disposition is good, and intrusted to them the defence of the fortifications which the minister has caused to be erected, and which are well furnished with artillery. Surely the citizens could have defended these, while the troops of the line fought upon the heights and in the plain?" – "I repeat to you, Sire, that it was impossible. The army of 15,000 or 18,000 men has resisted one of 100,000 for four hours, expecting your arrival. There was a report of it in the city, which spread to the troops. They redoubled their exertions. The national guard has behaved extremely well, both as sharpshooters and in defence of the wretched redoubts which protected the barriers." – "It is astonishing. How many cavalry had you?" – "Eighteen hundred horse, Sire, including the brigade of Dautencour." – "Montmartre, well fortified and defended by heavy cannon, should have been impregnable." – "Luckily, Sire, the enemy were of your opinion, and approached the heights with much caution. But there was no occasion, we had not above seven six-pounders." – "What can they have made of my artillery? I ought to have had more than two hundred guns, and ammunition to serve them for a month." – "The truth is, Sire, that we had only field-artillery, and at two o'clock we were obliged to slacken our fire for want of ammunition." – "Go, go – I see every one has lost their senses. This comes of employing people who have neither common sense nor energy. Well! Joseph imagines himself capable of conducting an army; and Clarke, a mere piece of routine, gives himself the airs of a great minister; but the one is no better than a fool, and the other a – , or a traitor, for I begin to believe what Savary said of him." – The conversation going on in this manner, they had advanced a mile farther from the Cour de France, when they met a body of infantry under General Curial. Napoleon inquired after the Duke of Treviso, to whose corps d'armée they belonged, and was informed he was still at Paris.

It was then, that on the pressing remonstrances of his officers, who saw that in going on to Paris he was only rushing on death or captivity, Napoleon at length turned back; and having abandoned the strong inflexible impulse which would have carried him thither at all adventures, he seems to have considered his fate as decided, or at least to have relaxed considerably in the original vehemence which he opposed to adversity.

He returned to the Cour de France, and gave orders for disposing the forces, as they should come up, on the heights of Longjumeau, behind the little river of Essonne. Desirous at the same time of renewing the negotiation for peace, which, on successes of an ephemeral description, he had broken off at Chatillon, Napoleon despatched Caulaincourt to Paris, no longer to negotiate, but to receive and submit to such terms as the allied sovereigns might be inclined to impose upon him. He returned to Fontainbleau the same night. He did not take possession of any of the rooms of state, but chose a private and more retired apartment. Among the many strange transactions which had taken place in that venerable and ancient palace, its halls were now to witness one the most extraordinary.

CHAPTER LXXIX

The Allied Sovereigns issue a Proclamation that they will not treat with Buonaparte – A Provisional Government is named by the Conservative Senate, who also decree the forfeiture of Napoleon – This decree is sanctioned by all the Public Bodies in Paris – The legality of these proceedings discussed – Feelings towards Napoleon, of the Lower Classes, and of the Military – On 4th April, Buonaparte issues a document abdicating the Throne of France – His subsequent agitation, and wish to continue the war – The deed is finally despatched.

While Napoleon breathed nothing save the desire of recovering by war what war had taken from him, or at least that of making such a peace as should leave him at the head of the French government, political events were taking place in Paris which pointed directly at the overthrow of his power.

His great military talents, together with his extreme inflexibility of temper, had firmly impressed the allied monarchs with the belief, that no lasting peace could be made in Europe while he remained at the head of the French nation. Every concession which he had seemed willing to make at different times, had been wrung from him by increasing difficulties, and was yielded with such extreme reluctance, as to infer the strongest suspicion that they would all be again resumed, should the league of the allies be dissolved, or their means of opposing his purposes become weaker. When, therefore, Caulaincourt came to Paris on the part of his master, with power to subscribe to all and each of the demands made by the allies, he was not indeed explicitly refused audience; but, before he was admitted to a conference with the Emperor Alexander, to whom his mission was addressed, the sovereigns had come under engagements which precluded them altogether from treating with Napoleon.32

When the Emperor of Russia halted, after the progress of the allied sovereigns through the city, it was at the hotel of Talleyrand. He was scarcely arrived there ere the principal Royalists, and those who had acted with them, waited on him to crave an audience. Besides the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, and Prince Schwartzenberg, were present General Pozzo di Borgo, Nesselrode, Lichtenstein, the Duke Dalberg, Baron Louis, the Abbé de Pradt, and others. Three points were discussed, 1st, The possibility of a peace with Napoleon, upon sufficient guarantees; 2d, The plan of a regency; 3d, The restoration of the Bourbons.

PROCLAMATION OF THE ALLIES

The first proposition seemed inadmissible. The second was carefully considered. It was particularly urged that the French were indifferent to the cause of the Bourbons – that the allied monarchs would observe no mark of recollection of them exhibited by the people of France – and that the army seemed particularly averse to them. The united testimony of the French gentlemen present was offered to repel these doubts; and it was at length agreed, that the third proposition – the restoration of the ancient family, and the ancient limits – should be the terms adopted for the settlement of France.33 A proclamation was immediately dispersed, by which the sovereigns made known their determination not to treat with Buonaparte or any of his family.34

But more formal evidence, in the shape of legal procedure, was necessary to establish the desire of the French people to coincide in the proposed change of government. The public body which ought naturally to have taken the lead on such an important affair, was the Legislative Assembly, in whom Napoleon's constitution vested some ostensible right of interference when the state was in danger; but so far had the Emperor been from recognising such a power in practice, that the instant when the Assembly assumed the right of remonstrating with him, though in the most respectful terms, he suspended their functions, and spurned them from the footstool of his throne, informing them, that not they, but He, was the representative of the people, from whom there lay no appeal, and besides whom, no body in the state possessed power and efficacy. This legislative council, therefore, being dispersed and prorogued, could not take the initiative upon the present occasion.

The searching genius of Talleyrand sought an organ of public opinion where few would have looked for it – in the Conservative Senate, namely, whose members had been so long the tools of Buonaparte's wildest projects, and the echoes of his most despotic decrees – that very body, of which he himself said, with equal bitterness and truth, that they were more eager to yield up national rights than he had been to demand the surrender, and that a sign from him had always been an order for the Senate, who hastened uniformly to anticipate and exceed his demands. Yet when, on the summons of Talleyrand, who knew well with whom he was dealing, this Senate was convoked, in a meeting attended by sixty-six of their number, forming a majority of the body, they at once, and without hesitation, named a Provisional Government, consisting of Talleyrand, Bournonville, Jaucourt, Dalberg, and the Abbé de Montesquieu; men recommended by talents and moderation, and whose names, known in the Revolution, might, at the same time, be a guarantee to those who dreaded a renovation of the old despotic government with the restoration of the ancient race of kings.

DECREE OF FORFEITURE

On the 2d and 3d of April the axe was laid to the roots. A decree of the Senate sent forth the following statement: – 1st, That Napoleon, after governing for some time with prudence and wisdom, had violated the constitution, by raising taxes in an arbitrary and lawless manner, contrary to the tenor of his oath. – 2d, That he had adjourned without necessity the Legislative Body, and suppressed a report of that assembly, besides disowning its right to represent the people. – 3d, That he had published several unconstitutional decrees, particularly those of 5th March last, by which he endeavoured to render national a war, in which his own ambition alone was interested. – 4th, That he had violated the constitution by his decrees respecting state prisons. – 5th, That he had abolished the responsibility of ministers, confounded together the different powers of the state, and destroyed the independence of judicial authorities. – 6th, That the liberty of the press, constituting one of the rights of the nation, had been uniformly subjected to the arbitrary censure of his police; while, at the same time, he himself had made use of the same engine to fill the public ear with invented fictions, false maxims, doctrines favourable to despotism, and insults upon foreign governments. – 7th, That he had caused acts and reports, adopted by the Senate, to be altered by his own authority, before publication. – 8th, That instead of reigning, according to his oath, for the honour, happiness, and glory of the French nation, he had put the finishing stroke to the distresses of the country, by a refusal to treat on honourable conditions – by the abuse which he had made of the means intrusted to him, in men and money – by abandoning the wounded, without dressing or sustenance – and by pursuing measures of which the consequences have been the ruin of towns, the depopulation of the country, famine and pestilence. From all these inductive causes, the Senate, considering that the Imperial government, established by the decree of 28th Floreal, in the year XII., had ceased to exist, and that the manifest desire of all Frenchmen was to obtain an order of things, of which the first result should be peace and concord among the great members of the European family: Therefore, the Senate declared and decreed, 1st, That Napoleon Buonaparte had forfeited the throne, and the right of inheritance established in his family. – 2d, That the people and army of France were disengaged and freed from the oath of fidelity, which they had taken to Napoleon and his constitution.35

DECLARATIONS OF PUBLIC BODIES

About eighty members of the Legislative Body, at the summons of the Provisional Government, assembled on the 3d April, and formally adhered to the above decree of forfeiture. The consequences of these bold measures showed, either that Napoleon had in reality never had more than a slight hold on the affections of the people of France, or that the interest they took in his fortunes had been in a great degree destroyed by the fears and passions excited by the immediate crisis. Even before the Senate could reduce its decree into form, the council-general of the department of the Seine had renounced Napoleon's authority, and imputed to him alone the present disastrous state of the country. The decree of the Senate was followed by declarations from all the public bodies in and around Paris, that they adhered to the Provisional Government, and acquiesced in the decree of forfeiture. Numerous individuals, who had been favoured and enriched by Buonaparte, were among the first to join the tide when it set against him. But it had been always his policy to acquire adherents, by addressing himself rather to men's interests than to their principles; and many of his friends so gained, naturally became examples of the politic observation, "that if a prince places men in wealthy circumstances, the first thing they think of, in danger, is how to preserve the advantages they have obtained, without regard to his fate to whom they owe them."

We do not believe that it occurred to any person while these events were passing, to question either the formality or the justice of the doom of forfeiture against Napoleon; but Time has called out many authors, who, gained by the brilliancy of Napoleon's reputation, and some of them bound to him by ties of gratitude or friendship, have impugned, more or less directly, the formality of the Senate's procedure, as well as the justice of their sentence. We, therefore, feel it our duty to bestow some consideration upon this remarkable event in both points of view.

The objection proposed against the legality of the Senate's acting as the organ of the people, in pronouncing the doom of forfeiture, rests upon the idea, that the right of dethroning the sovereign, who shall be guilty of oppression beyond endurance, can only be exercised in a peculiar and formal manner, or, as our law-phrase goes, "according to the statute made and provided in that case." This seems to take a narrow view of the subject. The right of redressing themselves under such circumstances, does not belong to, and is not limited by, any peculiar forms of civil government. It is a right which belongs to human nature under all systems whatever. It exists in every government under the sun, from that of the Dey of Algiers to the most free republic that ever was constructed. There is, indeed, much greater latitude for the exercise of arbitrary authority in some governments than in others. An Emperor of Morocco may, with impunity, bathe his hands to the elbows in the blood of his subjects shed by his own hand; but even in this the most absolute of despotisms, there are peculiar limits which cannot be passed by the sovereign without the exercise of the natural right of resistance on the part of his subjects, although their system of government be as arbitrary as words can declare it to be, and the Emperor is frequently dethroned and slain by his own guards.

In limited governments, on the other hand, like that of Great Britain, the law imposes bounds, beyond which the royal authority shall not pass; but it makes no provision for what shall take place, should a monarch, as in the case of James II., transgress the social compact. The constitution averts its eyes from contemplating such an event – indeed it is pronounced impossible; and when the emergency did arrive, and its extrication became a matter of indispensable necessity, it was met and dealt with as a concurrence of circumstances which had not happened before, and ought never to be regarded as being possible to occur again. The foreigner who peruses our constitution for the forms of procedure competent in such an event as the Revolution, might as well look in a turnpike act for directions how to proceed in a case resembling that of Phaeton.

If the mode of shaking off an oppressive yoke, by declaring the monarchy abdicated or forfeited, be not a fixed form in a regular government, but left to be provided for by a convention or otherwise, as a case so calamitous and so anomalous should demand, far less was it to be supposed that a constitution like that of France, which Buonaparte had studiously deprived of every power and means of checking the executive, should contain a regular form of process for declaring the crown forfeited. He had been as careful as despot could, to leave no bar in existence before which the public might arraign him; but will it be contended, that the public had therefore forfeited its natural right of accusing and of obtaining redress? If he had rendered the Senate the tame drudges which we have described, and prorogued the Legislative Body by an arbitrary coup d'état, was he therefore to escape the penalty of his misgovernment? On the contrary, the nation of France, like Great Britain at the time of the Revolution 1688, was to proceed as it best could in taking care, Ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat. The Senate was not, perhaps, the best organ for expressing public opinion, but it was the only one Napoleon had left within reach, and therefore it was seized upon and made use of. That it was composed of men who had so long gone on with Napoleon's interest, and now were able to keep up in course with him no longer, made his misrule even yet more glaring, and the necessity of the case more evident.

It is of far more importance to be enabled to form an accurate judgment respecting the justice of the sentence of forfeiture pronounced against this eminent man, than upon its mere formality. That we may examine this question with the impartiality it deserves, we must look upon it not only divested of our feelings as Britons, but as unconnected with the partisans either of the Bourbons or of Buonaparte. With these last there could be no room either for inquiry or conviction. The Royalist must have been convinced that Napoleon deserved, not deprivation only, but death also, for usurping the throne of his rightful sovereign; and the Buonapartist, on the other hand, would hold it cowardly treason to desert the valiant Emperor, who had raised France to such a state of splendour by his victories, more especially to forsake him in the instant when Fortune was looking black upon his cause. There could be no argument between these men, save with their good swords in a fair field.

But such decided sentiments were not entertained upon the part of the great bulk of the French nation. A large number of the middle classes, in particular, remembering the first terrors of the Revolution, had showed their willingness to submit to the yoke which gradually assumed a despotic character, rather than, by a renewed struggle for their liberties, to run the risk of reviving the days of Terror and Proscription. It is in the person of such an individual, desirous of the honour and advantage of his country, and anxious at the same time for the protection of his own family and property, that we now endeavour to consider the question of Napoleon's forfeiture.

The mind of such a person would naturally revert to the period when Buonaparte, just returned from Egypt, appeared on the stage like a deity descending to unloose a perplexing knot, which no human ingenuity could extricate. Our citizen would probably admit, that Napoleon used the sword a little too freely in severing the intricacies of the noose; or, in plain words, that the cashiering the Council of Five Hundred, at the head of his grenadiers, was an awkward mode of ascending to power in a country which still called itself free. This feeling, however, would be greatly overbalanced by recollecting the use which was made of the power thus acquired; the subjugation, to wit, of foreign enemies, the extinction of civil dissensions, the protection of property, and, for a time, of personal liberty also. Napoleon's having elevated France from the condition of a divided and depressed country, in the immediate apprehension of invasion, into that of arbitress of Europe, would at once justify committing the chief authority to such able hands, and excuse the means he had used for attaining it; especially in times when the violent and successive changes under which they had long suffered, had made the nation insensible to irregularities like those attached to the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. Neither would our citizens probably be much shocked at Napoleon's assuming the crown. Monarchy was the ancient government of France, and successive changes had served to show that they could not fix on any other form of constitution, labour how they would, which was endowed with the same degree of permanence. The Bourbons had, indeed, the claim by birth to mount that throne, were it to be again erected. But they were in exile, separated by civil war, party prejudices, the risk of reaction, and a thousand other difficulties, which seemed at the time absolutely insurmountable. Buonaparte was standing under the canopy, he grasped the regal sceptre in his hand, his assuming the royal seat passed almost as a matter of course.

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