my commis Vergniauds, the Dantons? Besides, what does France require at this moment? It is not an Assembly, it is not orators it is a general. Is there one among you capable of becoming such? If there was, where is his mandate? France knew me, and gave me sion; has it done the same to any of you? you? Are Are any of you known to her? She has twice over elected me for her chief by the voice of several millions, and there is none of you who have been elected by the suffrages of more than a few hundreds, in some narrow department, to give your sanction to laws which I make and you do not. I look into your titles and find no such authority. A throne is nothing but a few pieces of wood covered with velvet. A throne is a man, and I am that man, with my will, my character, and my renown. It is I who must and can alone save France, and not you. You complain of faults in the administration of government; in what you say there is some truth and much falsehood. If you have complaints to prefer, you should choose some other occasion for stating them, and I would myself have offered you such a one, and there, with my counsellors of state, I would have discussed your grievances, and remedied such as appeared well founded. But the explanation should take place between ourselves; for it is in private and not in public that we wash our dirty linen. So far from doing so, you are desirous of throwing dirt in my face. Be assured I am a man whom you may kill, but not insult. M. Lainé is a wicked man, in correspondence with the Bourbons, by means of the advocate Desèze. I shall keep my eye upon him, and upon such as I believe are capable of executing criminal designs. For the rest, I am far from distrusting you all. Eleven twelfths of Eleven twelfths of you are excellent; but you have let yourselves be misled by conspirators. Return into your departments; assure your neighbours that whatever they may say to the contrary, it is against France that our enemies make war, and not against me; CHAP. XII. 1813. XII. 1813. 1 Thiers, xvii. 179 and that it is necessary that it should defend not my person, but the national existence. Soon I shall put myself at the head of the army; I shall chase the enemy from our territory, and conclude peace, whatever it may cost, to 181 Hist. what you are pleased to call my ambition. I shall then France, summon you back; I shall then order the printing of your report; and you will then yourselves be astonished you could have held such language in such circumstances."1 de xxxix. 460, 461. 38. speech to The Emperor held a very different language to the His noble Senators, a commission of whom he sent with extraordinary the Senators. powers into the provinces, with instructions to stimulate the ardour, and appease, as far as possible, the complaints of the people. "I am not ashamed to confess," said he to them, "that I have been too prone to war. I had formed immense projects. I would have made France the empress of the world. I now see I was wrong. These projects were not proportioned to the numerical strength of our population. To realise them I would have required to have called the whole male inhabitants to arms; and the humanising of manners has rendered it no longer possible to convert an entire nation into soldiers. I must expiate the fault of having trusted too much to my fortune, and I shall expiate it. I shall make peace, and such a peace as the circumstances demand, and which will be mortifying to me alone. France has committed no fault, if it be not one to have been too devoted to me, and too prodigally poured out its blood in my support. Let her, therefore, have the entire glory of my enterprises; I bequeath it to her as my last testament. For myself, I reserve only the honour of showing a courage, perhaps still more difficult, that of sacrificing the grandest objects of ambition that ever presented themselves to mortal man, and of renouncing, for the happiness of my people, views of grandeur which could no longer be entertained but by efforts on their part which I shall no longer demand. Depart then gentlemen; announce to your departments that I am about to conclude peace; that I no longer demand the blood of 1 CHAP. XII. 1813. Jan. 2,1814; xvii. 182, 39. on these Napoleon. the French to carry out my projects, nor for myself, as my enemies say, but for the integrity of the country, and the protection of our frontiers; that all I ask is the means of expelling the enemy from Alsace, Franche-Comté, Navarre, and Béarn, which are invaded; that I call the French to the assistance of the French; that I am willing to treat, but it shall be on the frontier, and not in the in- Moniteur, terior of our provinces, desolated by these barbarians. I and Thiers, shall be with them as a general, as a soldier. Depart, and 183. convey to France the true expression of my sentiments."1 Nothing can paint the character of the extraordinary man who now ruled the destinies of France, better than Reflections these speeches. In the first is to be seen the clearest proof speeches of of his arbitrary and despotic character, and impatience of any control on his actions or government-qualities which rendered him altogether unsuited for the checks and restraints of a constitutional monarchy. In the last is presented a noble specimen of the use which he could make of the generous affections, and the skill with which he could employ the language of self-denial and repentance to conceal the most resolute determination to persevere in error, and drain, it might be, the last drop of the blood of France in the furtherance of his passion for universal dominion. It will immediately appear from the decisive evidence of his secret correspondence and overt acts, that while holding this language to the Senators, and through them to France, he had not the remotest intention of abandoning his ambitious projects, but was determined to risk all, his crown and life, on their vigorous prosecution. He made use of this generous and noble language merely to procure the assistance from France which was necessary for their development. by which The Emperor, however, had need of all his genius and 40. all his dissimulation to resist the dangers with which he vast forces was threatened, for the forces by which his dominions were France was now invaded were formidable in the extreme. Lorraine, pa Alsace, and Franche-Comté were inundated by the multi now assail CHAP. XII. 1813. tudes of Prince Schwartzenberg; the Rhine was passed at Mannheim, Mayence, and Coblentz, by Blucher's men; and the distant mountains of Béarn were crowded with the soldiers of Wellington. It does not enter into the plan of this work to give a detailed account of any of these military operations, as neither Lord Castlereagh nor Sir Charles Stewart was personally engaged in them, being both at the moment charged with diplomatic duties of the very highest importance at the Allied headquarters and the Congress of Chatillon. The events of the campaign, therefore, can only be considered as they modified or altered the views of the diplomatists; but in this respect their influence was great and important. Suffice it to say, therefore, that the invasion of the Allies was made with 210,000 men, of whom 140,000 were under Prince Schwartzenberg, advancing from the Jura frontier; and 70,000 led by Blucher, direct from Mannheim and the Middle Rhine. Schwartzenberg's left moved on Geneva, his centre on Langres and Dijon, and his right on Colmar; Blucher was to join him between Chaumont and Langres. The utmost which the united armies of Marmont, Macdonald, Ney, and Victor could oppose to this mass was under 50,000; and this, with 30,000 collecting at Paris, the Old Guard, under Mortier, and the depôts in the interior, and forming the reserve on which the Emperor relied for striking a decisive blow when the Allies approached Paris, formed the whole regular force on which he could rely to repel the invaders. As it was evident it was altogether overmatched, especially in the first instance, their generals carefully obeyed the orders of the Emperor, which were, to retire slowly, and impeding the enemy as much as possible, by converging lines towards Paris, where the Emperor, with the Guards and cuirassiers, would be at hand to support them, and prepared to strike, with a concentrated force, at whichever of the approaching armies presented the fairest opportunity. So literally and skilfully were these orders executed, that the French armies fell back-Victor and Ney through Lorraine, Alsace, Franche- CHAP. Comté, and over the Jura; Marmont and Macdonald over XII. the Vosges mountains into Champagne, without any serious 1813. encounter. By these movements a third of France was abandoned, almost without firing a shot, and the Allied standards were successively seen in Langres, Chaumont, and in the environs of Metz, Nancy, and Epinal. But these retrograde movements were not accomplished without a very serious loss, and a diminution of the armed force in the field in the highest degree alarming. The conscripts, discouraged by this long-continued retreat in the depth of winter, and unacquainted with the profound design of the Emperor to counterbalance inferiority of number by a concentrated retrograde movement and the skilful use of an internal line of communication, deemed the game lost, and ix. 110-112; abandoned their colours in crowds. Nearly a third of the 186-190; efficient force round the eagles was lost to the French 81. during this calamitous retreat.1 1 Cast. Cor. Thiers, xvii. Koch, i. 80, 41. ment of minister plenipoten. sovereigns. These important events, which evidently were bringing matters to a crisis, and accelerating the period when diplo- Appointmacy would be called on finally to adjust the affairs of Lord Castlenations, suggested alike to the British Cabinet and the reagh as Allied sovereigns, the expedience of having some plenipo-Piary with tentiary on the spot, in whose talents and judgment they the Allied could thoroughly confide; who might take part in the Dec. 28. deliberations of the Allied Cabinets; and modify his views according to the rapidly changing events in the field. It was at first thought of sending Lord Harrowby out in this important character, from an idea that Lord Castlereagh, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, could not be spared from post in the Cabinet; and still more, from the lead in the House of Commons, with which he had been intrusted since his restoration to office in spring 1812. But upon further consideration the Cabinet came to be of opinion that, important as these duties were, they yielded in moment to that of having a confidential plenipotentiary on the spot who might be brought into contact with the Allied his |