Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 by Various

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

* * * * *

VOL. I.--APRIL, 1858.--NO. VI.

* * * * *

THE HUNDRED DAYS.

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.

That period of history between the 20th of March and the 28th of June,
1815, being the interregnum in the reign of Louis the Eighteenth,
caused by the arrival of Napoleon from Elba and his assumption of the
government of France, is known as "The Hundred Days."

It is as interesting as it was eventful, and has been duly chronicled
wherever facts have been gathered to gratify a curiosity that is not yet
weary of dwelling on the point of time which saw the Star of Destiny
once more in the ascendant before it sank forever.

Whatever is connected with this remarkable epoch is worthy of
remembrance, and whoever can add the interest of a personal experience,
though it be limited and unimportant, should be satisfied, in the
recital, to adopt that familiar form which may give to his recollections
the strongest impress of reality.

I was at that time a schoolboy in Paris. The institution to which I was
attached was connected with one of the National Lyceums, which were
colleges where students resided in large numbers, and where classes from
private schools also regularly attended, each studying in its respective
place and going to the Lyceum at hours of lecture or recitation. All
these establishments were, under Napoleon, to a certain degree military.
The roll of the drum roused the scholar to his daily work; a uniform
with the imperial button was the only dress allowed to be worn; and the
physical as well as the intellectual training was such, that very little
additional preparation was required to qualify the inmate of the Lyceum
for the duties and privations of the soldier's life. The transition
was not unnatural; and the boy who breakfasted in the open air, in
midwinter, on a piece of dry bread and as much water as he chose to pump
for himself,--who was turned adrift, without cap or overcoat, from the
study-room into the storm or sunshine of an open enclosure, to amuse
himself in his recess as he best might,--whose continual talk with his
comrades was of the bivouac or the battle-field,--and who considered the
great object of life to be the development of faculties best fitted to
excel in the art of destruction, would not be astonished to find himself
sleeping on the bare ground with a levy of raw conscripts.

I was in daily intercourse with several hundred young men, and it
may not be uninteresting to dwell a moment on the character of my
companions, especially as they may be considered a fair type of the
youth of France generally at that time. It is, moreover, a topic with
which few are familiar. There were not many Americans in that country at
that period. I knew of only one at school in Paris beside myself.

If the brilliant glories of the Empire dazzled the mature mind of
age, they wrought into delirium the impulsive brain of youth, whose
impressions do not wait for any aid from the judgment, but burn into the
soul, never to be totally effaced. The early boyhood of those with whom
I was associated had been one of continual excitement. Hardly had the
hasty but eloquent bulletin told the Parisians that the name of another
bloody field was to be inscribed among the victories of France, and the
cannon of the Invalides thundered out their notes of triumph, when again
the mutilated veterans were on duty at their scarcely cooled pieces and
the newswomen in the streets were shrilly proclaiming some new triumph
of the imperial arms. Then came the details, thrilling a warlike people,
and the trophies which symbolized success,--banners torn and stained
in desperate conflict, destined to hang over Christian altars until the
turning current of fortune should drift them back,--parks of artillery
rumbling through the streets, to be melted into statue or triumphal
column,--and, amid the spoils of war, everything most glorious in Art to
fill that wondrous gallery, the like of which the eye of man will never
look upon again. At last, in some short respite of those fighting days,
came back the conquerors themselves, to enjoy a fleeting period of rest
and fame ere they should stiffen on Russian snows, or swell the streams
which bathe the walls of Leipsic, or blacken, with countless dead, the
plains stretching between the Rhine and their own proud capital.

By no portion of the people were these things gathered with such avidity
and regarded with such all-absorbing interest as by the schoolboys of
Paris. Every step of the "Grand Army" was watched with deep solicitude
and commented upon with no doubtful criticism. They made themselves
acquainted with the relative merit of each division, and could tell
which arm of the service most contributed to the result of any
particular battle. They collected information from all sources,--from
accounts in newspapers, from army letters, from casual conversation with
some maimed straggler fresh from the scene of war. Each boy, as he
made his periodical visit to his family, brought back something to the
general fund of anecdote. The fire that burned in their young bosoms was
fed by tales of daring, and there was a halo round deeds of blood which
effectually concealed the woe and misery they caused. There was but one
side of the medal visible, and the figures on that were so bold and
beautiful that no one cared for or thought of the ugly death's-head on
the reverse. The fearful consumption of human life which drained the
land, sweeping off almost one entire generation of able-bodied men, and
leaving the tillage of the fields to the decrepitude of age, feebly
aided by female hands, gave ample opportunity to gratify the ardent
minds panting to exchange the tame drudgery of school and college for
the limited, but to them world-wide, authority of the subaltern's sword
and epaulet. There seemed to them but one road to advancement. The
profession of arms was the sole pursuit which opened a career bounded
only by the wildest dreams of ambition. What had been could be; and the
fortunate soldier might find no check in the progressive honors of his
course, until his brows should be encircled by the insignia of royalty.
It required more than mortal courage for a young man to intimate a
preference for some more peaceful occupation. A learned profession might
be sneeringly tolerated; but woe to him who spoke of agriculture,
or commerce, or the mechanic arts! There was little comfort for the
luckless wight who, in some unguarded moment, gave utterance to such
ignoble aspirations. Henceforth he was, like the Pariah of India, cut
off from human sympathy, and the young gentlemen whose tastes and
tendencies led them to prefer the more aristocratic trade of butchery
felt that there was a line of demarcation which completely and
conclusively separated them from him.

This predilection for military life received no small encouragement
from the occasional visit of some young Caesar, whose uniform had been
tarnished in the experiences of one campaign, and who returned to his
former associates to indulge in an hour of unalloyed glorification.

Napoleon, when he entered the Tuileries after prostrating some hostile
kingdom, never felt more importance than did the young lieutenant in his
service when he passed the ponderous doors which ushered him into the
presence of his old schoolfellows. What a host of admirers crowded
around him! What an honor and privilege to be standing in the presence,
and even pressing the hand or rushing into the embrace, of an officer
who had really seen bayonet-charges and heard the whistling of
grapeshot! How the older ones monopolized the distinguished visitor, and
how the little boys crowded the outer circle to catch a word from the
military oracle, proudly happy if they could get a distant nod of
recognition! And then the questions which were showered upon him, too
numerous and varied to be answered. And how he described the forced
marches, and the manoeuvring, and the great battle!--how the cannonade
seemed the breaking up of heaven and earth, and the solid ground shook
under the charges of cavalry; how, yet louder than all, rang the
imperial battle-cry, maddening those who uttered it; how death was
everywhere, and yet he escaped unharmed, or with some slight wound which
trebled his importance to his admiring auditors. He would then tell how,
after hours of desperate fighting, the Emperor, seeing that the decisive
moment had arrived, ordered up the Imperial Guard; how the veterans,
whose hairs had bleached in the smoke of a hundred battles, advanced to
fulfil their mission; how with firm tread and lofty bearing, proud
in the recollections of the past and strong in the consciousness of
strength, they entered the well-fought field; and how from rank to rank
of their exhausted countrymen pealed the shout of exultation, for
they knew that the hour of their deliverance had come; and then, with
overwhelming might, all branches of the service, comprised in that
magnificent reserve, swept like a whirlwind, driving before them
horse and foot, artillery, equipage, and standards, all mingled in
irremediable confusion.

With what freedom did our young hero comment on the campaign, speaking
such names as Lannes and Ney, Murat and Massena, like household words!
He did not, perhaps, state that the favorable result of things was
entirely owing to his presence, but it might be inferred that it was
well he threw in his sword when the fortunes of the Empire trembled in
the balance.

Under such influences, and with the excitement produced by the
marvellous success of the French armies, it is not singular that young
men looked eagerly forward to a participation in the prodigies and
splendors of their time,--that they should turn disdainfully from the
paths of honest industry, and that everything which constitutes the true
wealth and greatness of a state should have been despised or forgotten
in the lurid and blood-stained glare of military glory, which cowered
like an incubus on the breast of Europe. The battle-fields were beyond
the frontiers of their own country; the calamities of war were too far
distant to obtrude their disheartening features; and no lamentations
mingled with the public rejoicings. Many a broken-hearted mother mourned
in secret for her son lying in his bloody grave; but individual grief
was disregarded in the madness which pervaded all classes, vain-glorious
from repeated and uninterrupted success.

But the time had come when the storm was to pour in desolation over the
fields of France, and the nations which had trembled at her power were
to tender back to her the bitter cup of humiliation. The unaccustomed
sound of hostile cannon broke in on the dreams of invincibility which
had entranced the people, and deeds of violence and blood, which had
been complacently regarded when the theatre of action was on foreign
territory, seemed quite another thing when the scene was shifted to
their own vineyards and villages.

The genius of Napoleon never exhibited such vast fertility of resources
as when he battled for life and empire in his own dominions. Every foot
of ground was wrested from him at an expense of life which thinned the
innumerable hosts pressing onward to his destruction. He stood at bay
against all Europe in arms; and so desperately did he contend against
the vast odds opposed to him, and so rapidly did he move from one
invading column to another, successively beating back division upon
division, that his astonished foes, awed by his superhuman exertions,
had wellnigh turned their faces to the Rhine in panic-stricken retreat.
But the line of invasion was so widely extended that even his ubiquity
could not compass it. His wonderful power of concentration was of little
avail to him when the mere skeletons of regiments answered to his call,
and, along his weakened line, the neglected gleanings left by the
conscription, now hastily garnered in this last extremity, greeted him
in the treble notes of childhood. The voices of the bearded men, which
once hailed his presence, were hushed in death. They had shouted his
name in triumph over Europe, and it had quivered on their lips when
parched with the moral agony. Their bones were whitening the sands of
Egypt, the harvests of Italy had long waved over them, their
unnumbered graves lay thick in the German's Fatherland, and
the floods of the Berezina were yet giving up their unburied
dead. The remnant of that once invincible army did all that
could be done; but there were limits to endurance, and exhaustion
anticipated the hour of combat. Men fell dead in their ranks, untouched
by shot or steel; and yet the survivors pressed on to take up the
positions assigned by their leader, who seemed to be proof against
either fatigue or despair. His last bold move, on which he staked his
empire, was a splendid effort, but it failed him. It was the daring play
of a desperate gamester, and nearly checkmated his opponents. But when,
instead of pursuing him, they marched on Paris, he left his army to
follow as it could, and hastened to anticipate his enemies. When about
fifteen miles from Paris, he received news of the battle of Montmartre
and the capitulation of the city. The post-house where he encountered
this intelligence was within sight of the place where I passed my
vacations. I often looked at it with interest, for it was there that the
vision first flashed before him of his broken empire and the utter ruin
which bade farewell to hope. He had become familiar with reverses. His
veteran legions had perished in unequal strife with the elements, or
melted away in the hot flame of conflict; his most devoted adherents
had fallen around him; yet his iron soul bore up against his changing
fortunes, and from the wrecks of storm and battle there returned

-------"the conqueror's broken car,
The conqueror's yet unbroken heart."

But the spirit which had never quailed before his enemies was crushed
by the desertion of his friends. He had now to feel that treason and
ingratitude are attendants on adversity, and that the worshippers of
power, like the Gheber devotee, turn their faces reverently towards the
rising sun.

There are few things in history so touching as the position of Napoleon
at Fontainebleau, during the few days which preceded his abdication
and departure for the Island of Elba. Nearly all his superior officers
forsook him, not even finding time to bid him adieu. Men whom he had
covered with wealth and honors, who had most obsequiously courted his
smiles, and been most vehement in their protestations of fidelity, were
the first to leave him in his misfortune, forgetting, in their anxiety
to conciliate his successor, to make the slightest stipulation for the
protection of their benefactor. He was left in the vast apartments of
that deserted palace, with hardly the footsteps of a domestic servant to
break its monastic stillness; and, for the first time in his eventful
life, he sat, hour after hour, without movement, brooding over his
despair. At last, when all was ready for his departure, he called up
something of his old energy, and again stood in the presence of what
remained of the Imperial Guard, which was faithful to the end. These
brave men had often encircled him, like a wall of granite, in the hour
of utmost peril, and they were now before him, to look upon him, as they
thought, for the last time. He struggled to retain his firmness, but
the effort was beyond human resolution; his pride gave way before his
bursting heart, and the stern vanquisher of nations wept with his old
comrades.

Napoleon was gone. His empire was in the dust. The streets of his capital
were filled with strangers, and the volatile Parisians were almost
compensated for the degradation, in their wonder at the novel garb and
uncouth figures of their enemies. The Cossacks of the Don had made their
threatened "hurra," and bivouacked on the banks of the Seine. Prussian
and Austrian cannon pointed down all the great thoroughfares, and by
their side, day and night, the burning match suggested the penalty of
any popular commotion. The Bourbons were at the Tuileries, and France
appeared to have moved back to the place whence she had started on her
course of redemption. At length, slowly and prudently, the allied armies
commenced their homeward march, and the reigning family were left to
their own resources, to reconcile as they could the heterogeneous
materials stranded by the receding tide of revolution. But concession
formed no part of their character, and reconciliation was an unknown
element in their plan of government. They took possession of the throne
as though they had only been absent on a pleasure excursion, and,
ignoring twenty years of _parvenu_ glory, affected to be merely
continuing an uninterrupted sovereignty. The pithy remark of Talleyrand,
that "they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing," was abundantly
verified. Close following in their wake, came hordes of emigrants
famished by long exile and clamorous for the restitution of ancient
privileges. There was nothing in common between them and the men of the
Republic, or of the Empire. They assumed an air of superiority, which
the latter answered with the most undisguised contempt. Ridicule, that
fearful political engine, which, especially in France, is sufficient to
batter down the hopes of any aspirant who lays himself open to it, and
which Napoleon himself, in his greatest power, feared more than foreign
armies or intestine conspiracies, was most unsparingly directed against
them. The print-shops exposed them in every possible form of caricature,
the theatres burlesqued their pretensions, songs and epigrams
contributed to their discomfiture, and all the ingenuity of a witty
and laughter-loving people was unmercifully poured out upon this
resurrection of antediluvian remains. Their royal patrons came in for a
full share of the general derision, but they seemed entirely unmindful
that there was such a thing as popular opinion, or any other will than
their own. There were objects all around them which might have preached
to them of the uncertainty of human grandeur and the vanity of kingly
pride, reminding them that there is but a step from the palace to the
scaffold, which step had been taken by more than one of their family.
The walls of their abode were yet marked by musket-balls, mementos of
a day of appalling violence, and from the windows they could see the
public square where the guillotine had permanently stood and the
pavement had been crimsoned with the blood of their race. They had
awakened from a long sleep, among a new order of men, who were strangers
to them, and who looked upon them as beings long since buried, but
now, unnaturally and indecorously, protruded upon living society. They
commenced by placing themselves in antagonism to the nation, and erected
a barrier which effectually divided them from the people. The history of
the Republic and the Empire was to be blotted out; it was a forbidden
theme in their presence, and whatever reminded them of it was carefully
hidden from their legitimate vision. The remains of the Old Guard were
removed to the provinces or drafted into new regiments; leaders, whose
very names stirred France like the blast of a trumpet, were almost
unknown in the royal circle; and the great Exile was never to be
mentioned without the liability to a charge of treason.

During all this time of change, the youth of France, shut up in schools
and colleges, kept pace with the outer world in information, and
outstripped it in manifestations of feeling. I can judge of public
sentiment only by inferences drawn from occasional observation, or the
recorded opinions of others. I believe that many did not regret the fall
of Napoleon, being weary of perpetual war, and hoping that the accession
of the Bourbons would establish permanent peace. I believe that those
who had attained the summit of military rank were not unwilling to pass
some portion of their lives in the luxury of their own homes. I believe
that there were mothers who rejoiced that the dreaded conscription had
ended, and that their sons were spared to them. I believe all this,
because I understood it so to be. But whatever may have been the hopes
of the lovers of tranquillity, or the wishes of warriors worn out in
service, or the maternal instincts which would avert the iron hand
clutching at new victims for the shrine of Moloch, I can answer that the
boys remained staunch Bonapartists, for I was in the midst of them, and
I have the fullest faith that those about me were exponents of the whole
generation just entering on the stage of action. During the decline of
the Empire, when defeat might be supposed to have quenched the fire of
their enthusiasm, they remained unchanged, firmly trusting that glory
would retrace her steps and once more follow the imperial eagles. And
now, when their idol was overthrown, their veneration had not diminished
nor wavered. Napoleon, with his four hundred grenadiers, at Elba, was
still the Emperor; and those who, as they conceived, had usurped his
government, received no small share of hatred and execration. Amidst
abandonment and ingratitude, when some deserted and others reviled him,
the boys were true as steel. It was not solely because the career which
was open to them closed with his abdication, but a nobler feeling of
devotion animated them in his hour of trial, and survived his downfall.

Many of our instructors were well satisfied with the new state of
things. Some of the older ones had been educated as priests, and were
officiating in their calling, when the Revolution broke in upon them,
trampling alike on sacred shrine and holy vestment. The shaven crown was
a warrant for execution, and it rolled beneath the guillotine, or fell
by cold-blooded murder at the altar where it ministered. Infuriated
mobs hunted them like bloodhounds; and the cloisters of convent and
monastery, which had hitherto been disturbed only by footsteps gliding
quietly from cell to chapel, or the hum of voices mingling in devotion,
now echoed the tread of armed ruffians and resounded with ribaldry and
imprecations. An old man, who was for a time my teacher, told me many a
tale of those days. He had narrowly escaped, once, by concealing himself
under the floor of his room. He said that he felt the pressure, as
his pursuers repeatedly passed over him, and could hear their avowed
intention to hang him at the next lamp-post,--a mode of execution not
uncommon, when hot violence could not wait the slow processes of law.

These men saw in the Restoration a hope that the good old times would
come back,--that the crucifix would again be an emblem of temporal
power, mightier than the sword,--that the cowled monk would become the
counsellor of kings, and once more take his share in the administration
of empires.

But if they expected to commence operations by subjecting their pupils
to their own legitimate standard, and to bring about a tame acquiescence
in the existing order of things, they were wofully mistaken.
Conservatism never struggled with a more determined set of radicals.
Their life and action were treason. They talked it, and wrote it, and
sang it. There was no form in which they could express it that they left
untouched. They covered the walls with grotesque representations of the
royal family; they shouted out parodies of Bourbon songs; and there was
not a hero of the old _regime_, from Hugh Capet down, whose virtues were
not celebrated under the name of Napoleon. It was in vain that orders
were issued not to mention him. They might as well have told the young
rebels not to breathe. "Not mention him! They would like to see who
could stop them!" And they yelled out his name in utter defiance of
regulation and discipline.

Wonder was occasionally expressed, whether the time would come which
would restore him to France. And now "the time had come, and the man."

While the assembled sovereigns were parcelling out the farm of Europe,
in lots to suit purchasers, its late master decided to claim a few acres
for his own use, and, as he set foot on his old domain, he is said to
have exclaimed,--"The Congress of Vienna is dissolved!"

It was a beautiful afternoon of early spring, when a class returned from
the Lyceum with news almost too great for utterance. One had in his hand
a coarse, dingy piece of paper, which he waved above his head, and
the others followed him with looks portending tidings of no ordinary
character. That paper was the address of Napoleon to the army, on
landing from Elba. It was rudely done, the materials were of the most
common description, the print was scarcely legible,--but it was headed
with the imperial eagle, and it contained words which none of his old
soldiers could withstand. How it reached Paris, simultaneously with the
intelligence of his landing, is beyond my comprehension; but copies of
it were rapidly circulated, and all the inhabitants of Paris knew its
contents before they slept that night.

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