BOOK FIFTH.

Napoleon at the village of La Cour de France, near Paris, on the evening of the 30th March-Meeting between the retreating French troops of General Belliard and the Emperor-Napoleon learns the capitulation of Paris-His indignation-He sends Caulaincourt to ParisCaulaincourt tries in vain to enter Paris-He returns to the Emperor -He is sent a second time to the Allies-Napoleon goes to Fontainebleau - Meeting of Caulaincourt and the Grand Duke Constantine at the Barriers-He takes Caulaincourt into Paris-Alexander receives him-Interview between Alexander and Caulaincourt.

I.

We must now ask what the Emperor was doing on the night preceding the triumphal entry of the foreign sovereigns into Paris?

We have seen that after having ordered the assembling by forced marches of the remains of his army on the 2nd of April, under the walls of Paris, he had quitted Troyes on the 30th of March, at daybreak; and that, accompanied only by Berthier, his major-general, and by Caulaincourt, his confidential negociator, he had precipitated his course towards Paris. Uncertain of the success or reverses of Marmont and Mortier, he trembled for the heart of his Empire, for his wife, for his son, for his brothers, for his throne, and for his glory. He hoped that his presence and his name alone would be equal to an army for the defence of Paris. He only asked two days from Time, and a respite from Destiny. If time and destiny had granted his request, 60,000 men concentrated under the walls, an immense artillery, ready supplies, a popular enthusiasm communicated by his soldiers, one or two brilliant successes over Schwartzenburg or Blucher, and negociations taken up by Caulaincourt on the basis of Chatillon, might still leave him, not his greatness but his throne. He no longer denied the necessity of peace, and he hastened to grasp it, after having so frequently disdained it.

Napoleon at the village of La Cour de France.

But peace, the Empire, the throne, and glory were about to quit him all at the same time. He flew to learn as quick as possible the decree of destiny, so frequently dictated by him, and now recorded against him.

II.

In two hours the chance carriage he had procured near Montereau brought him at a gallop by the country roads across the plains between the village of Essonne and that of Villejuif, nearly to the gates of Paris. He had avoided Fontainebleau, for fear of finding the town occupied by detachments of Schwartzenburg's army. Nobody on the deserted roads, by which his guide had conducted him, could give him a word of intelligence as to the fate of Paris and his armies. The night was gloomy, the cold excessive, and the Emperor silent between the two last companions of his fortune. This carriage contained the master of the world flying to meet his destiny.

It stopped at the village of La Cour de France, built upon the last hill of a chain which commands the river and the valley of the Seine on one side, and the river and valley of the Essonne on the other. But the obscurity of the night only allowed him to see, to the right and left of these two vast horizons, the distant glimmer of bivouac fires, extending in lines on the hills of Villeneuve Saint George and of Charenton, and prolonged still nearer to the banks of the Seine, without being able to distinguish if these fires belonged to the troops of Mortier and Marmont, or to the enemy's camp.

III.

He threw himself out of the carriage, and ran to the Posting House, to inquire about what he was ardent and trembled to learn. Before he could meet a single man to interrogate, he saw, at some distance in the wide street of the village, disbanded soldiers, marching in groups towards Fontainebleau. He was astonished and indignant. "How!" he exclaimed; "what is the reason these soldiers are not marching on Paris ?"

The Emperor's indignation on learning the capitulation of Paris.

On hearing the voice of the Emperor, General Belliard, one of his most devoted lieutenants, issued forth from the obscurity of the door, and explained the fatal mystery of this contradictory march. 66 Paris," he said, "has capitulated; the enemy enters to-morrow, two hours after sunrise; and these troops are the remains of Marmont and Mortier's armies, falling back on Fontainebleau, in order to join the Emperor's army at Troyes."

A dead silence was the only answer of Napoleon, resembling the momentary hush which follows the sudden crushing of a lofty edifice. It was, in fact, the annihilation of his last hope. He passed his hands several times across his forehead, to wipe off the cold perspiration in which it was bathed; then, like a man who collects his fortitude to place him on a level with his misfortunes, he recomposed his features, strengthened his voice, resumed his firmness, and feigning against men an anger which he had only a right to feel against events, he broke out in an explosion of contempt and imprecations against his lieutenants, against his ministers, and against his brother, whose incapacity and want of character had allowed his enemies to get before him. He walked backwards and forwards with abrupt steps, followed by Caulaincourt, Berthier, and Belliard, on the open rugged place which extends in front of the hotel. He stopped-he rushed on again-he seemed to hesitate then retraced his steps. He appeared to communicate to his walk, sometimes slow, and sometimes rapid, all the indecision, every impulse, every turn, and every confused movement of his thoughts. His lieutenants looked at each other, but did not dare to mingle their advice with the counsel he was holding in his own mind. Then he poured forth a volley of interrogatories.

"Where is my wife? where is my son? where is the army? What is become of the National Guard of Paris, and of the battle they were to have fought, to the last man, under its walls? and the marshals? and Mortier? and Marmont ?-Where shall I find them again?"

He received answers to some of these questions; but without listening to them he went on.

"The night is still mine," he cried.

"The enemy only

His determination to recapture Paris.

enters at daybreak! My carriage! my carriage! Let us go this instant! Let us get before Blucher and Schwartzenburg! Let Belliard follow me with the cavalry! Let us fight even in the streets and squares of Paris! My presence, my name, the courage of my troops, the necessity of following me, or of dying, will arouse Paris. My army, which is following me, will arrive in the midst of the struggle; it will take the enemy in rear, while we are fighting them in front! Come on! Success awaits me, perhaps, in my last reverse." And, stamping his feet with impatience, he hastened with voice and gesture the carriage he had ordered.

Berthier, Belliard, and Caulaincourt, confounded at the extent of a disaster, of which they had only revealed to him onehalf, trembled at the idea of a battle of extermination in the midst of a great capital. It would be the war of ancient barbarism, with its conflagrations, its massacres, and its cities and people obliterated from the soil. They were obliged to remind him that the rights of men, no less than the laws of humanity, were decidedly opposed to a design so extreme and so fatal. They acknowledged to him that the army of Paris and the generals were already bound by a convention which made it their duty to fall back upon Fontainebleau. "Madmen!" exclaimed Napoleon to himself. "Joseph! My ministers! What! with a formidable artillery in their arsenals, they had only a battery of six pieces, and an empty magazine on Montmartre. They ought to have had 200 pieces there. What have they done with them? Men without hearts, or without heads, to let everything go to destruction where I am not!"

IV.

Then still more earnestly he demanded a carriage and horses, to fly to the assistance of the capital. "I must go there at every risk!" he said; "I shall never quit it but dead or a conqueror!"

But while Napoleon thus abandoned himself to this extremity of anger, impatience, and heroism, in presence of the three companions of his fortunes, who were standing immoveably before him, some generals, colonels, and troopers of his guard,

He sends Caulaincourt to Paris to negociate.

in their retreat, arrived successively in groups on the road from Paris, stopped, dismounted on hearing his name, and closed sorrowfully around their Emperor. He interrogated them one by one, and heard from them, one after another, the details of the battle, the retreat of their corps, the loss of their regiments, and the breaking up of their forces. The bodies of 4000 men strewed the environs of Paris.

At these recitals, which were mutually confirmed and even aggravated by the different relators, Napoleon at length gave up the idea of sending back this wreck of the army upon Paris, or of going thither himself. He reverted to the idea of negociating again, for a remnant of the Empire, before the enemy should occupy his palace. He recollected that he was the friend of Alexander, that he was the son-in-law of the Emperor Francis. He thought that these titles, and the shadow of his own name, would arrest in time the last profanation of his crown. He took Caulaincourt aside, and ordered him to get a horse saddled, and to penetrate before daybreak to the quarter-general of the allies. Ride full speed," he said to his confidential negociator. "Ride! I am given up and sold! See if I have time yet to intervene in the treaty which is signing, perhaps already, without me and against me. I give you full powers! Do not lose an instant! I await you here! Return at a moment, and let me know my fate!" Caulaincourt rode off, and cleared at a gallop the short distance which separated them from Villejuif. Napoleon ordered Belliard to bivouac the troops, as they arrived from the other side of the river Essonne. He then entered the hotel, followed by Belliard and Berthier.

66

V.

Meanwhile Caulaincourt arrived at the advanced posts of the enemy, gave his name, and demanded in vain a passage, as being charged with a mission from the Emperor. He was obliged to give up the hope of passing, and returned, two hours after his departure, to find his master, and acquaint him with his fruitless attempt. But nothing satisfied Napoleon, who wished, at every hazard, that his name should appear in the