Napoleon's Return From Elba
All was quiet in Elba. Nothing was talked of at Porto-Ferrajo but the
ball to be given by Pauline, the sister of Napoleon, who had exchanged
his imperial dominion over half Europe for kingship over that little
Mediterranean island. Evening came. The fete was a brilliant one.
Napoleon was present, gay, cheerful, easy, to all appearance fully
satisfied with his little kingdom, and without thought of wider empire
or heavi
his old generals, Bertrand and Drouet, to tell them the news which had
come to him from the continent. This news was not altogether to his
liking. The Congress at Vienna had decreed his transportation to the
Azores. Elba was too near France.
Such was the state of affairs on the night of February 25, 1815. At
sunset of the next day there might have been seen a small flotilla
moving before a south wind along the shores of Elba. It consisted of a
brig, the Inconstant by name, a schooner, and five smaller vessels. The
brig evidently carried guns. The decks of the other vessels were crowded
with men in uniform. On the deck of the Inconstant stood Napoleon, his
face filled with hope and joy, his hand waving an adieu to his sister
Pauline, who watched him from the chateau windows, on the island shore.
The next day came. The sea was motionless. Not a breath of wind could be
felt. The island was still close at hand. At a distance might be seen
the French and English cruisers which guarded that side of the island,
now moveless upon a moveless sea. It was doubtful if the flotilla had
not better return. But the wind rose again, and their progress was
resumed.
Four in the afternoon found them off the heights of Leghorn. Five
leagues to leeward lay one frigate; near the shores of Corsica was
another; to windward could be seen a third, making its way towards the
flotilla. It was the Zephyr, of the French navy, commanded by Captain
Andrieux. Now had come a vital moment in the enterprise. Should the
Emperor declare himself and seek to gain over Andrieux? It was too
dangerous a venture; he bade the grenadiers on the deck to conceal
themselves; it was a situation in which strategy seemed better than
boldness. At six the two vessels were close together. Lieutenant
Taillade of the Inconstant knew and saluted Captain Andrieux. A
speaking-trumpet colloquy followed.
"Where are you bound?" asked Taillade.
"To Leghorn. And you?"
"To Genoa. Have you any commissions I can execute there?"
"Thanks, not any. How is the Emperor?"
"Very well."
"So much the better."
The two vessels moved on, and soon lost sight of each other in the
growing darkness. The other frigates had disappeared.
The next day dawned. There was visible a large frigate in the distance,
but it was not moving towards the flotilla. No danger was to be feared
from this source. But the vessel's head had been turned to the
southward, to Taillade's surprise.
"Gentlemen," he called to the officers on the bridge, "are we bound for
Spain or for Africa?"
Napoleon, who had perceived the same thing, summoned Taillade from his
conference with the officers.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"Sire, we are headed for Africa."
"I don't wish to go there. Take me to France."
"Your Majesty shall be there before noon to-morrow."
The face of Napoleon beamed on hearing these words. He turned to the
soldiers of the Old Guard who accompanied him, and said,--
"Yes, grenadiers, we are going to France, to Paris." Enthusiastic
"vivas" followed his announcement, which told a tale of future glory
to those war-hardened veterans. They had fought for the Emperor on many
a mighty field. They were ready to dare new dangers in the hope of new
triumphs.
On the morning of Wednesday, March 1, the shores of France were visible
from the vessel's deck. At three in the afternoon anchor was dropped in
the Bay of Juan. Cheers and salvos of artillery greeted those welcome
shores; the boats were quickly dropped, and by five o'clock the whole
expedition was on shore. The soldiers made their bivouac in an olive
grove on the borders of the bay.
"Happy omen!" said Napoleon; "the olive is the emblem of peace."
He plucked some violets, and then sat down and consulted his maps, which
were spread on a table before him. There were two routes which might be
taken; an easy one through Provence, and a difficult one over the snowy
mountains of Dauphiny. But on the former he could not count on the
loyalty of the people; on the latter he could: the difficult route was
chosen.
It proved a cold and wearying journey. The men were obliged to march in
single file along narrow roads which bordered precipices. Several mules,
one of them laden with gold, lost their footing and were plunged down
the cliff. Napoleon was forced to dismount and go on foot to keep warm.
For a short time he rested beside the brush-wood fire of a cabin whose
only tenant was an old woman.
"Have you any news from Paris?" he asked her. "Do you know what the king
is doing?"
"The king? You mean the Emperor," answered the old woman. "He is always
down yonder."
So, here was a Frenchwoman who had not heard a word of the last year's
doings. Was this the stuff of glory? Napoleon looked at General Drouet,
and said, in pensive tones, "Do you hear this, Drouet? What, after all,
is the good of troubling the world in order to fill it with our name?"
We cannot follow their progress step by step. That small army of a
thousand men was marching to conquer a kingdom, but for days it had only
the mountains and the snows to overcome. As yet not a soldier had been
encountered, and they had been a week on shore. But the news of the
landing had now spread far and wide, and soldiers were marching to stop
the advance of the "Brigand of Elba," as the royalists in Paris called
Napoleon. How would they receive him,--with volleys or acclamations?
That was soon to be learned. The troops in that part of France were
concentrated at Grenoble and its vicinity. The Emperor was approaching
them. The problem would soon be solved.
At nine o'clock of March 7 Napoleon separated his small force into three
divisions, himself taking station in the midst of the advance-guard, on
horseback, wearing his famous gray overcoat and the broad ribbon of the
Legion of Honor. About one o'clock the small battalion approached a
regiment of the troops of the king, who were drawn up in line across the
road. Napoleon dismounted.
"Colonel Mallet," he said, "tell the soldiers to put their weapons under
their left arms, points down."
"Sire," said the colonel, "is it not dangerous to act thus in presence
of troops whose sentiments we do not know, and whose first fire may be
so fatal?"
"Mallet, tell them to put the weapons under their arms," repeated
Napoleon.
The order was obeyed. The two battalions faced each other, at short
pistol-shot, in absolute silence. Napoleon advanced alone towards the
royal troops.
"Present arms!" he commanded.
They obeyed, levelling their guns at their old commander. He advanced
slowly, with impassive face. Reaching their front, he touched his cap
and saluted.
"Soldiers of the Fifth," he cried, loudly, "do you recognize me?"
"Yes, yes," came from some voices, filled with barely-repressed
enthusiasm.
"Soldiers, behold your general; behold your emperor," he continued. "Let
any of you who wishes to kill him, fire."
Fire?--Their guns went to the earth; they flung themselves on their
knees before him, called him father, shed tears, shouted as if in
frenzy, waved their shakos on their bayonets and sabres.
"All is over," said Napoleon to Bertrand and Drouet. "In ten days we
shall be in the Tuileries."
In a brief time the Emperor moved on, the king's regiment, now wearing
the tricolor cockade, following with his former troop. As they drew near
Grenoble throngs of peasantry gathered, with enthusiastic cheers.
Another regiment approached, the seventh of the line, commanded by
Colonel de Labedoyere. He had taken the eagle of the regiment from a
chest, brandished his sword, and crying "Long live the Emperor! Those
who love me follow me!" led the way from Grenoble. The whole regiment
followed. Meeting Napoleon, the colonel and the Emperor sprang from
their horses and warmly embraced.
"Colonel," said Napoleon, "it is you who will replace me on the throne."
It was night when they reached Grenoble. The royalist authorities had
closed the gates, but the ramparts were thronged with men. The darkness
was profound, but Labedoyere called out loudly,--
"Soldiers, it is I, Labedoyere, colonel of the Seventh. We bring you
Napoleon. He is yonder. It is for you to receive him and to repeat with
us the rallying-cry of the former conquerors of Europe: Live the
Emperor!"
His words were followed by a ringing shout from the ramparts. Many ran
to the gates. Finding them closed and barred they furiously attacked
them with axes, while the peasants outside hammered on them as fiercely.
Thus doubly assailed they soon gave way, and the stream of new-comers
rushed in, torches and flambeaux illuminating the scene. Napoleon had no
little difficulty in making his way through the crowd, which was
delirious with joy, and reaching an inn, the Three Dauphins, where he
designed to pass the night.
On the 9th he left Grenoble, followed by six thousand of his old
soldiers. His march was an ovation. He reached Lyons on the 10th.
Several regiments had been collected here to oppose him, but they all
trampled the white cockade of the king underfoot, assumed the tricolor,
and fraternized with the Emperor's troops.
Marshal Ney was the only hope left to the royalists. He had, they said,
promised Louis XVIII. to bring back Napoleon in an iron cage. This hope
vanished when Ney issued a proclamation beginning, "The cause of the
Bourbons is lost forever;" which was followed, on March 18, by his
embracing the Emperor openly at Auxerre.
All was over for Louis XVIII. Near midnight of March 19 some travelling
carriages rolled away from the court-yard of the Touileries in a torrent
of rain, and amid a furious wind-storm that extinguished the carriage
lights. It was Louis XVIII. going into exile. On the 20th, at nine
o'clock in the evening, the Emperor Napoleon drove through the streets
of Paris towards the abandoned palace through hosts of shouting soldiers
and a population that was wild with joy. The officers tore him from his
carriage and carried him on their arms, kissing his hands, embracing his
old gray overcoat, not letting his feet touch ground till they had borne
him to the foot of the grand stairway of the Tuileries.
It was twenty days since he had landed, and France was his, the people,
the soldiers, alike mad with delight, none, to all appearance, dreaming
of what renewed miseries this ill-omened return of their worshipped
emperor meant.
It meant, as we now know, bloodshed, slaughter, and ruin; it meant
Waterloo and St. Helena; it meant a hundred days of renewed empire, and
then the final end of the power of the great conqueror. On August 7,
less than five months from the date of the triumphant entry to the
Tuileries, Napoleon stepped on board the British frigate Northumberland,
to be borne to the far-off isle of St. Helena, his future home.
Twenty-five years after the date of these events Napoleon returned again
to France, but under very different auspices from those described. On
the 29th of November, 1840, there anchored at Cherbourg, amid the
salutes of forts and ships, a French war-vessel called the Belle Poule,
on which were the mortal remains of the great conqueror, long since
conquered by death, and now brought back to the land over which he had
so long reigned. On December 8 the coffin was transferred to the steamer
Normandie, amid a salute of two thousand guns, and taken by it to the
Seine. On December 15 the coffin, placed on a splendid car drawn by
sixteen horses, moved in solemn procession through the streets of Paris,
attended by the noblest escort the city could provide, and passing
through avenues thronged with adoring multitudes, who forgot the
injuries the great soldier had done to France and remembered only his
fame. The funeral train was received by King Louis Philippe, the royal
family, and all the high dignitaries of the government at the Church of
the Invalides, in which a noble and worthy final resting-place had been
prepared for the corpse of the once mighty emperor. "Napoleon," says
Bourrienne, "had again and finally conquered. While every throne in
Europe was shaking, the Great Conqueror came to claim and receive from
posterity the crown for which he had sacrificed so much. In the
Invalides the Emperor had at last found a resting-place, 'by the banks
of the Seine, among the French people whom he had loved so well.'"
More
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Solyman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, had collected an army of dimensions as magnificent as his name, and was on his march to overwhelm Austria and perhaps subject all western Europe to his arms. A few years before he had swept Hungary with h... Some Adventures Of Major Putnam
The vicinity of the mountain-girdled, island-dotted, tourist-inviting Lake George has perhaps been the scene of more of the romance of war than any other locality that could be named. Fort Ticonderoga, on the ridge between that beautiful sheet of... Spain's Greatest Victory At Sea
On the 16th of September, 1571, there sailed from the harbor of Messina one of the greatest fleets the Mediterranean had ever borne upon its waves. It consisted of more than three hundred vessels, most of them small, but some of great bulk for tha... St Bartholomew's Day
"Kill! kill! kill!" was the cry in Paris. "Blood! blood! death to the Huguenots!" came from the lips of thousands of maddened murderers. Blood flowed everywhere; men dabbled in blood, almost bathed in blood. A crimson tide flowed in the streets of P...