Array Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - The Collected Works of Napoleon Bonaparte

Louis XVIII, the new king, tried to adapt himself to the greatly altered circumstances of the country to which he now returned in the wake of foreign armies after an absence of twenty-two years. He saw that he could not be an absolute king as his ancestors had been, and he therefore granted a charter to the French, giving them a legislature and guaranteeing certain rights which they had won and which he saw could not safely be withdrawn. His regime assured much larger liberty than France had ever experienced under Napoleon. Nevertheless certain attitudes of his and ways of speaking, and the actions of the royalists who surrounded him, and several unwise measures of government, soon rendered him unpopular and irritated and alarmed the people. He spoke of himself as King by the grace of God, thus denying the sovereignty of the people; he dated his first document, the Constitutional Charter, from "the nineteenth year of my reign," Bourbons as if there had never been a Republic and a Napoleonic Empire; he restored the white flag and banished the glorious tricolor which had been carried in triumph throughout Europe. What was much more serious, he offended thousands of Napoleon's army officers by retiring or putting them on half pay, many thus being reduced to destitution, and all feeling themselves dishonored. Moreover many former nobles who had early in the Revolution emigrated from France and then fought against her received honors and distinctions. Then, in addition, the Roman Catholic clergy and the nobles of the court talked loudly and unwisely about getting back their lands which had been confiscated and sold to the peasants, although both the Concordat of 1802 and the Charter of 1814 distinctly recognized and ratified these changes and promised that they should not be disturbed. The peasants were far and away the most numerous class in France and they were thus early alienated from the Bourbons by these threats at their most vital interest, their property rights, which Napoleon had always stoutly maintained. Thus a few months after Napoleon's abdication the evils of his reign were forgotten, the terrible cost in human life, the burdensome taxation, the tyranny of it all, and he was looked upon as a friend, as a hero to whom the soldiers had owed glory and repute and the peasants the secure possession of their farms. In this way a mental atmosphere hostile to Louis XVIII, and favorable to Napoleon was created by a few months of Bourbon rule.

Napoleon, penned up in his little island, took note of all this. He also heard of the serious dissensions of the allies now that they were trying to divide the spoils at Vienna, of their jealousies and animosities, which, in January, 1815, rose to such a pitch that Austria, France, and England prepared to go to war with Prussia and Russia over the allotment of the booty. He also knew that they were intriguing at the Congress for his banishment to some place remote from Europe.

For ten months he had been in his miniature kingdom. The psychological moment had come for the most dramatic action of his life. Leaving the island with twelve hundred guards, and escaping the vigilance of the British cruisers, he landed at Cannes on March 1. That night he started on the march to Paris and on March 20 entered the Tuileries, ruler of France once more. The return from Elba will always remain one of the most romantic episodes of history. With a force so small that it could easily have been taken prisoner, he had no alternative and no other wish than to appeal directly to the confidence of the people. Never was there such a magnificent response. All along the route the peasants received him enthusiastically. But his appeal was particularly to the army, to which he issued one of his stirring bulletins. "Soldiers," it began, "we have not been conquered. We were betrayed. Soldiers! Come and range yourselves under the banner of your chief: his existence depends wholly on yours: his interests, his honor, and his glory are your interests, your honor, your glory. Come! Victory will march at double quick. The eagle with the national colors shall fly from steeple to steeple to the towers of Notre Dame. Then you will be able to show your scars with honor: then you will be able to boast of what you have done: you will be the liberators of your country."

Regiment after regiment went over to him. The royalists thought he would be arrested at Grenoble where there, was a detachment of the army under a royalist commander. Napoleon went straight up to them, threw open his grey coat and said, "Here I am: you know me. If there is a soldier among you who wishes to shoot his Emperor, let him do it." The soldiers flocked over to him, tearing off the white cockades and putting on the tricolor, which they had secretly carried in their knapsacks. Opposition melted away all along the route. It became a triumphant procession. When lies would help, Napoleon told them among others that it was not ambition that brought him back, that "the forty-five best heads of the government of Paris have called me from Elba and my return is supported by the three first powers of Europe." He admitted that he had made mistakes and assured the people that henceforth he desired only to follow the paths of peace and liberty. He had come back to protect the threatened blessings of the Revolution. The last part of this intoxicating journey he made in a carriage attended by only a half dozen Polish lancers. On March 20, Louis XVIII fled from the Tuileries. That evening Napoleon entered it.

"What was the happiest period of your life as Emperor?" some one asked him at St. Helena. "The march from Cannes to Paris," was the quick reply. His happiness was limited to less than the 'Hundred Days' which this period of his reign is called. Attempting to reassure France and Europe, he met from the former, tired of war, only half-hearted support, from the allies only remorseless opposition. When the diplomats at the Congress of Vienna heard of his escape from Elba they immediately ceased their contentions and banded themselves together against 'this disturber of the peace of Europe.' They declared him an outlaw and set their armies in motion. He saw that he must fight to maintain himself. He resolved to attack before his enemies had time to effect their union. The battlefield was in Belgium, as Wellington with an army of English, Dutch, Belgians, and Germans, and, at some distance from them, Blucher with a large army of Prussians, were there. If Napoleon could prevent their union, then by defeating each separately, he would be in a stronger position when the Russian and Austrian armies came on. Perhaps, indeed, they would think it wiser not to come on at all but to conclude peace. In Belgium consequently occurred a four days' campaign culminating on the famous field of Waterloo, twelve miles south of Brussels. There, on a hot Sunday in June, Napoleon was disastrously defeated (June 18, 1815). The sun of Austerlitz set forever. The battle began at half past eleven in the morning, was characterized by prodigies of valor, by tremendous charges of cavalry and infantry back and forth over a sodden field. Wellington held his position hour after hour as wave after wave of French troops rushed up the hill, foaming in and about the solid unflinching British squares, then, unable to break them, foamed back again. Wellington held on, hoping, looking for the Prussians under Blucher, who, at the beginning of the battle, were eleven miles away. They had promised to join him, if he accepted battle there, and late in the afternoon they kept the promise. Their arrival was decisive, as Napoleon was now greatly outnumbered. In the early evening, as the sun was setting, the last charge of the French was repulsed. Repulse soon turned into a rout and the demoralized army streamed from the field in utter panic, fiercely pursued by the Prussians. The Emperor, seeing the utter annihilation of his army, sought death, but sought in vain. "I ought to have died at Waterloo," he said later, "but the misfortune is that when a man seeks death most he cannot find it. Men were killed around me, before, behind everywhere. But there was no bullet for me." He fled to Paris, then toward the western coast of France hoping to escape to the United States, but the English cruisers off the shore rendered that impossible. Making the best of necessity he threw himself upon the generosity of the British. "I have come," he announced, "like Themistocles, to seek the hospitality of the British nation." Instead of receiving it, however, he was sent to a rock in the South Atlantic, the island of St. Helena, where he was kept under a petty and ignoble surveillance. Six years later he died of cancer of the stomach at the age of fifty-two, leaving an extraordinary legend behind him to disturb the future. He was buried under a slab that bore neither name nor date and it was twenty years before he was borne to his final resting-place under the dome of the Invalides in Paris, although in his last will and testament he had said: "My wish is to be buried on the banks of the Seine in the midst of the French people whom I have loved so well."