Walter Scott - Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume V

This invitation to make the last earthly sacrifices in behalf of a military despot, to which Zaragossa had submitted in defence of her national independence, was ill received by the inhabitants. A free state has millions of necks, but a despotic government is in the situation desired by the Imperial tyrant – it has but one. When it was obvious that the Emperor Napoleon had lost his ascendency, no shop-keeper in Paris was fool enough to risk, in his cause, his shop, his family, and his life, or to consent to measures for preserving the capital, which were to commence by abandoning to the allied troops, and the scum of their own population, all that was, to him individually, worth fighting for. The placards we have mentioned were pulled down, therefore, as fast as they were pasted up; and there was an evident disposition, on the part of the better class of citizens and the national guards, to discourage all counsels which tended to stimulate resistance to the desperate extremity therein recommended.

Nevertheless, the state of the capital continued very alarming, the lower classes exhibiting alternately the symptoms of panic terror, of fury, and of despair. They demanded arms, of which a few were distributed to them; and there is no doubt, that had Napoleon arrived among them in the struggle, there would have been a dreadful battle, in which Paris, in all probability, would have shared the fate of Moscow. But when the cannonade ceased, when the flight of Joseph, and the capitulation of the city became publicly known, this conflict of jarring passions died away into silence, and the imperturbable and impassive composure of the national guard maintained the absolute tranquillity of the metropolis.

On the morning of the 31st, the Royalists were seen in groups in the Place Louis Quinze, the Garden of the Tuileries, the Boulevards, and other public places. They distributed the proclamations of the allies, and raised the long-forgotten cry of Vive le Roi! At first, none save those engaged in the perilous experiment, durst echo back a signal so dangerous; but by degrees the crowds increased, the leaders got on horseback, and distributed white cockades, lilies, and other emblems of loyalty, displaying banners, at the same time, made out of their own handkerchiefs. The ladies of their party came to their assistance. The Princess of Leon, Vicomtesse of Chateaubriand, Comtesse of Choiseuil, and other women of rank, joined the procession, distributing on all hands the emblems of their party, and tearing their dress to make white cockades, when the regular stock was exhausted. The better class of the bourgeois began to catch the flame, and remembered their old royalist opinions, and by whom they were defeated on the celebrated day of the Sections, when Buonaparte laid the foundation of his fame in the discomfiture of the national guard. Whole pickets began to adopt the white, instead of the three-coloured cockade; yet the voices were far from unanimous, and, on many points, parties of different principles met and skirmished together in the streets. But the tendency to discord was diverted, and the attention of the Parisians, of all classes and opinions, suddenly fixed upon the imposing and terrible spectacle of the army of the allies, which now began to enter the city.

The sovereigns had previously received, at the village of Pantin, the magistrates of Paris, and Alexander had expressed himself in language still more explicit than that of their proclamation. He made war, he said, on Napoleon alone; one who had been his friend, but relinquished that character to become his enemy, and inflict on his empire great evils. He was not, however, come to retaliate those injuries, but to make a secure peace with any government which France might select for herself. "I am at peace," said the Emperor, "with France, and at war with Napoleon alone."

These gracious expressions were received with the more gratitude by the citizens of Paris, that they had been taught to consider the Russian prince as a barbarous and vindictive enemy. The measure of restoring the Bourbons seemed now to be regarded by almost every one, not particularly connected with the dynasty of Napoleon, like a haven on the leeward, unexpectedly open to a tempest-tossed and endangered vessel. There was no loss of honour in adopting it, since the French received back their own royal family – there was no compulsion, since they received them upon their own free choice. They escaped from a great and imminent danger, as if it had been by a bridge of gold.

An immense crowd filled the Boulevards (a large wide open promenade, which, under a variety of distinctive names, forms a circuit round the city,) in order to witness the entrance of the allied sovereigns and their army, whom, in the succession of four-and-twenty hours, this mutable people were disposed to regard as friends rather than enemies – a disposition which increased until it amounted to enthusiasm for the persons of those princes, against whom a bloody battle had been fought yesterday under the walls of Paris, in evidence of which mortal strife, there still remained blackening in the sun the unburied thousands who had fallen on both sides. There was in this a trait of national character. A Frenchman submits with a good grace, and apparent or real complaisance, to that which he cannot help; and it is not the least advantage of his philosophy, that it entitles him afterwards to plead, that his submission flowed entirely from good-will, and not from constraint. Many of those who, on the preceding day, were forced to fly from the heights which defend Paris, thought themselves at liberty next morning to maintain, that the allies had entered the capital only by their consent and permission, because they had joined in the plaudits which accompanied their arrival. To vindicate, therefore, their city from the disgrace of being entered by force, as well as giving way to the real enthusiasm which was suddenly inspired by the exchange of the worst evils which a conquered people have to dread for the promised blessings of an honourable peace and internal concord, the Parisians received the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia with such general and unremitting plaudits, as might have accompanied their triumphal entrance into their own capitals. Even at their first entrance within the barriers, we learn from Sir Charles Stewart's official despatch, 26 26 London Gazette Extraordinary, April 9. the crowd was already so enormous, as well as the acclamations so great, that it was difficult to move forward; but before the monarchs had reached the porte St. Martin to turn on the Boulevards, there was a moral impossibility of proceeding; all Paris seemed to be assembled and concentrated in one spot – one spring evidently directed all their movements. They thronged around the monarchs, with the most unanimous shouts of " Vive l'Empereur Alexandre! — Vive le Roi de Prusse! " mingled with the loyal exclamations, " Vive le Roi! — Vive Louis XVIII.! — Vivent les Bourbons! " To such unexpected unanimity might be applied the words of Scripture, quoted by Clarendon on a similar occasion – "God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly." The procession lasted several hours, during which 50,000 chosen troops of the Silesian and grand army filed along the Boulevards in broad and deep columns, exhibiting a whole forest of bayonets, mingled with long trains of artillery, and preceded by numerous regiments of cavalry of every description. Nothing surprised those who witnessed this magnificent spectacle, more than the high state of good order and regular equipment in which the men and horses appeared. They seemed rather to resemble troops drawn from peaceful quarters to some grand or solemn festival, than regiments engaged during a long winter campaign in constant marches and countermarches, as well as in a succession of the fiercest and most sanguinary conflicts, and who had fought a general action but the day before. 27 27 "This magnificent pageant far surpassed any idea I had formed of military pomp. The cavalry were fifteen abreast, the artillery five, and the infantry thirty. All the men were remarkably clean, healthy, and well clothed. The bands of music were very fine. The people, astonished at the prodigious number of troops, repeatedly exclaimed, 'Oh! how we have been deceived.'" — Memorable Events , p. 106. After making the circuit of half of Paris by the interior Boulevards, the monarchs halted in the Champs Elysées, and the troops passed in review before them as they were dismissed to their quarters in the city. The Cossacks of the guard established their bivouac in the Champs Elysées themselves, which may be termed the Hyde Park of Paris, and which was thus converted into a Scythian encampment.