BOOK XIV. the junction of the Silesian army with the grand army, to march upon Paris."

CHAP. VII.

1815.

Here Marshal' Marmont describes his operations, which he and Mortier performed with their reduced army corps, in the end of March, 1814, for covering and defending Paris. In the course of his movements, having learned that Bonaparte was before Vitry, they marched to join him, and on the 24th took a position at Sonde. "Still (says the marshal) I thought the French army at hand, for who in reality could have believed in the passage of the Marne without a bridge, and that the Emperor Napoleon, would have left, between Paris and himself, forces eight-fold more considerable than he could collect? On the morning of the 25th I had scarcely learned the certainty of this movement, when the enemy's army debouched upon me."

He then states the measures taken for the immediate defence of Paris down to the 30th; near the walls of which the successes of the allies, and his inferiority of force, had compelled him to retreat. He says-" Several infantry charges had taken place, and a number of soldiers had been killed at my side with the bayonet, at the entrance of the village of Belleville, when Joseph sent me authority, in writing, to capitulate, which authority I still have in my possession. This was at ten o'clock; at eleven Joseph was already far from Paris, and at three o'clock I was still fighting."

The negociations for the evacuation of Paris, the circumstances and terms of which have been given in a former part of this work, now took place. "On the morning of next day the troops evacuated Paris, and I proceeded to Essonne, where I took a position. I went to see the Emperor Napoleon at Fontainebleau. He seemed to me at last aware of his situation, and disposed to terminate a contest which he could no longer maintain. He resolved on the plan of entrenching himself, of uniting the little force which remained to him, of endeavouring to increase it, and to negociate. This was the only reasonable course he could pursue, and I was completely of his opinion. I immediately set off to order the commencement of those defensive works which the execution of this plan rendered necessary. The same day, April the 1st, he came to visit the position, and there he learned, by the return of some officers whom I had left to give up the barriers, the prodigious fermentation of Paris, the declaration of the Emperor Alexander, and the revolution which was in progress. At this moment the resolution of sacrificing the remains of the army to his vengeance was taken: he talked of nothing but a desperate attack, though there was not a single chance of success in his favor, with the means which remained to him. From that moment all his orders, all his

instructions, all his discourse, was in conformity to this plan, the execution of which was fixed for the 5th of April. Accounts from Paris arrived in rapid succession: the decree of forfeiture reached me. The situation of Paris and of France was deplorable, and the future presented the most gloomy prospects, unless the fall of the emperor changed their destinies, by making their moral peace with all Europe, and thus extinguishing the hatred which he had excited. The allies, supported by the insurrection of all the great towns of the kingdom, masters of the capital, and having only opposed to them a handful of brave men, who had survived so many disasters, every where proclaimed that they made war on Napoleon alone. It was necessary at once to put them to the trial, to take them at their word, and to compel them to renounce the vengeance of which they would have made France the victim; it was necessary that the army should again become national, by adopting the interests of almost the whole of the inhabitants, who declared against the emperor, and loudly called for a salutary revolution which should produce their deliverance. Was it not the duty of every good Frenchman, however situated, to contribute to a change which saved the country, and delivered it from a crusade of all Europe in arms against it, that portion of Europe even which was possessed by the family of Napoleon! Had it been possible to reckon upon the union of all the heads of the army, if it had not been probable that the private interests of some would have clashed with the most generous and patriotic measures, if the moment had not been so pressing, since the 4th of April had already arrived, and it was on the 5th that that desperate action was to have taken place, of which the object was the destruction of the last soldier and of the capital,— it was to a concert among the chiefs of the army that it would have been proper to resort; but in the actual state of things it became necessary to confine efforts to the free departure of the different corps of the army, in order to detach them from the emperor, and neutralize his projects, and to unite them to other French troops which were at a distance from him.

"Such, then, was the object of the conferences which took place with the Prince of Schwartzenberg. While I was making dispositions to inform my comrades of the situation of things, and of the part which I thought it my duty to take, the Duke of Tarentum, the Prince of Moskwa, the Duke of Vicenza, and the Duke of Treviso, arrived at my quarters at Essonne. The three first told me that the emperor had been compelled to sign the promise of his abdication, and that they were going with this condition to negociate the suspension of hostilities. I made them acquain ed with the arrangements with Prince Schwart

zenberg, but which were not complete, because I had not received the written guarantee which I bad demanded; and I then declared to them, that since they were agreed upon a change, which the safety of the state required, and which was the sole object of my proceedings, I would never separate myself from them. The Duke of Vicenza expressed a desire to see me accompany them to Paris, thinking that iny junction with them, after what had happened, would be of great weight; I yielded to his desires, leaving the command of my corps to the oldest general-of-division, giving him orders not to make any movement, and announcing to him my speedy return. I explained the motives of my change to Prince Schwartzenberg, who, full of loyalty, found them legitimate and unanswerable, and I fulfilled the promise which I had made to my comrades in the interview which we had with the Emperor Alexander. At eight o'clock one of my aides-de-camp arrived, and told me that, contrary to my direct orders, and in spite of his most urgent representations, the generals had put the troops in motion for Versailles at four o'clock in the morning, terrified as they were at the personal dangers with which they thought they were threatened, and of which they had conceived an idea from the arrival and departure of several officers of the staff who bad come from Fontainebleau. The step was taken, and the thing was irreparable.

"Such is the true and faithful account of this event, which has had, and will have, so great an influence on all my life. The emperor, by accusing me, wished to save his own glory, the opinion of his talents, and the honor of the soldiery. As to the honor of the soldiers, there was no need of any care for that: it never shone with more lustre than in that campaign: but as to what concerns himself, he will deceive no dispassionate man, for it would be impossible to justify that series of operations which marked the last years of his reign. He accuses me of treason! I ask where is its reward? I rejected, with contempt, every sort of personal advantage which was offered to me, and placed myself voluntarily in the situation of the whole army. Had I any particular affection for the house of Bourbon? Whence could I derive it? I, who only entered on active life a short time before that family ceased to govern France. Whatever opinion I might have formed of the superior mind of the king, of his goodness, and of that of the princes, it was very far from the reality; this charm which is found when near them was unknown to me, and could not give birth to those sacred engagements which now bind me to them, and which their present misfortunes, so little merited, bind still closer; sacred engagements, for to men who have hearts, testimonies of regard and esteem are a thousand

1815.

What was, then, the motive of my actions? An BOOK XIV. ardent love of my country, which has all my life been the master of my heart and absorbed all CHAP. VII. my ideas. I wished to save France from destruction; I wished to preserve it from combinations which would have brought on its ruin; from those so fatal combinations, the fruit of the most strange illusions of pride, and so often renewed in Spain, in Russia, and in Germany, aud which threatened a frightful catastrophe which it was necessary instantly to prevent. A strange and mournful fatality prevented our deriving from the return of the house of Bourbon all the advantages which were hoped from it for France; but, however, we owe to them the speedy end of a fatal war, the deliverance of the capital and of the kingdom, an administration mild and paternal, and a tranquillity and liberty which were unknown to us. Some days more and this liberty, so dear, so necessary for all Frenchmen, had been consolidated for ever. The foreigners, it is said, were lost without resource, and it is I who am accused of having saved them. I am their saviour! I, who always fought them with as much energy as constancy, whose zeal was never cooled for a moment! I, who, after having attached my name to the most brilliant successes of the campaign, had already once preserved Paris by the combats of Meaux and Lissy! Let us tell him who gave such powerful aid to the foreigners in their operations, and rendered useless the devotedness of so many good soldiers and intelligent officers, he was that person; he, who with 300,000 men wished to guard and occupy Europe from the Vistula to the Cattaro and the Ebro; while France had for its defence scarcely 40,000 soldiers hastily collected; and the deliverers of France are those who, as by miracle, saved it from the crusade directed against it, and secured the return of 250,000 men, scattered throughout Europe, and of 130,000 prisoners, who now constitute its force and power.'

99

Three days after his public entry into Paris, Napoleon removed every restriction which the Bourbons, had impoliticly laid on the liberty of the press, and dismissed the censors, to whom every pamphlet, and every article in all the journals, was submitted previous to its publi

cation.

This decree excited equal surprise and satisfaction. If the freedom of the press was sincerely accorded, the dictatorial power with which Napoleon was now necessarily invested, found in that a full and sufficient counterpoise. The utmost license was given to political discussion. Compositions which censured most freely the measures of government, and the characters of which it was composed, and whose evident object was to excite discontent, and to prepare for reaction,

ment, and notwithstanding the resistance and repugnance of the people, this odious and oppressive tax continued to be levied. Napoleon was thus furnished with an opportunity of gaining much credit and popularity, by the early attention which he seemed to pay to the interests of his people.

Soon afterwards a measure was adopted which reflects credit on the new government. Carnot addressed a memorial to the emperor, descanting on the inestimable advantages of elementary instruction, when bestowed on the lower classes of society, and stating that there were in France two millions of children destitute of primary education. "I do not speak," says he, " of that education which forms half philosophers, or men of the world, but such only as will form good artisans and moral men, by affording the elements of indispensable knowledge, good habits, and respect for the laws." He concludes with a high euloginn on Dr. Bell and Mr. Lancaster, for whose system he solicits the patronage of the emperor.

Napoleon immediately issued the following de

cree :

66

Napoleon, Emperor of the French, “Considering the importance of education for improving the state of society,-considering that the methods hitherto used in France have not attained that degree of perfection which it is possible to reach, and desiring to place this branch of our institutions on a level with the intelligence of the age, we have decreed, and do decree, as follows:

Art. 1. "Our minister of the interior shall invite around him the persons who deserve to be consulted, as to the best methods of primary education; he shall examine and decide on those methods, and direct the experiment of such as he shall deem preferable.

2. "There shall be opened at Paris an experimental school of primary education, so organized as to serve for a model, and to become a normal school to form primary teachers.

3." After satisfactory results shall have been obtained from this school of experiment, our minister of the interior shall propose to us the measures calculated to enable all the departments to enjoy the advantages of the new methods which shall have been adopted."

These acts of Napoleon astonished and confounded the superficial politicians of every nation. They had expected and wished that the dictatorship which he had established by usurpation, would have been supported by terror. Their conclusion suited with the character of Napoleon, but it was inconsistent with the policy which his peculiar circumstances and necessities demanded for whatever might be his private wishes and designs, he saw, at present, an insu

perable obstacle opposed to his ambition and im- BOOK XIV. petuosity. Those furious and insane bursts of passion, by which he had tarnished the lustre of CHAP. VII. his former achievements, were repressed by the influence of his advisers, and the difficulties which surrounded him.

Meanwhile, the south of France continued in a state of opposition to the new government. The Duke of Bourbon, the most popular of all the French princes, except perhaps the Duke of Orleans, betook himself to La Vendée to endeavour to rouse the dormant affections of the friends of royalty in that district. The people were disposed to second his views, but he had to contend with the prompt and vigilant administration of Napoleon. On his arrival at Beaupriere, he summoned the inhabitants, and powerfully and successfully appealing to their best feelings, engaged them to sanction a proclamation requiring every man from eighteen to fifty years of age to take up arms in the royal cause. Great numbers immediately flocked to his standard, but they were unarmed and undisciplined, and ere they could be rendered effective the troops of Bonaparte advanced against them. The general of Napoleon, acting under the express orders of his master, to avoid as much as possible the dreadful appeal to arms, dispatched a herald to the duke, to remonstrate with him on the folly of opposing his raw and hasty levies against the veteran troops which were marching upon him, and offering an amnesty to his followers, and passports for himself and all who chose to accompany him, if he would abandon the enterprise. After mature consideration, the duke was convinced of the inutility of resistance, and receiving safe conduct for himself and forty of his officers, proceeded to Nantes, where be embarked.

The Duke and Duchess of Angouleme were at Bourdeaux. The inhabitants of the maritime towns had suffered most by the protracted wars of the revolution. Their population had been thinned, their commerce had been destroyed, and they were almost driven to despair. They therefore welcomed the return of the Bourbons with the utmost enthusiasm. The Duke of Angouleme had lately visited all the southern provinces, and had inspected the fortifications of Bourdeaux, and the Bordelese had expressed great anxiety to see among them the daughter of their former revered Sovereign.

On the 2d of March the duke and duchess arrived at Bourdeaux. They were received with cries of joy, and with the ardent benedictions of a countless multitude which had poured in from every neighbouring town. On the 5th a fête was given by the merchants. In the midst of the festivities a courier arrived, with dispatches for the duke, containing the fearful intelligence of the landing of Napoleon. His royal highness was

1815.