Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 by Various

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The last time I was at Waterloo, many years ago, the guide who
accompanied me told me, that, a short time before, a man, whose
appearance was that of a substantial farmer, and who was followed by
an attendant, called on him for his services. The guide went his usual
round, making his often-repeated remarks and commenting severely
on Grouchy. The stranger examined the ground attentively, and only
occasionally replied, saying, "Grouchy received no orders." At last, the
servant fell back, detaining the guide, and, in a low tone, said to him,
"Speak no more about Marshal Grouchy, for that is he." The man told me,
that, after that, he abstained from saying anything offensive; but that
he watched carefully the soldier's agitation, as the various positions
of the battle became apparent to him. He, doubtless, saw how little
would have turned the current of the fight, and knew that the means of
doing it had been in his own hands. The guide seemed much impressed with
the deep feeling of the Marshal, and said to me, "I will never speak ill
of him again."

The battle of Waterloo is often mentioned as the sole cause of
Napoleon's downfall; and it is said, that, had he gained that day, he
would have secured his throne. It seems to be forgotten that a complete
victory would have left him with weakened forces, and that he had
already exhausted the resources of France in his preparations for this
one campaign; that the masses of Austria and Russia were advancing
in hot haste, which, with the rallied remains of Prussia, and the
indomitable perseverance and uncompromising hostility of England,
quickened by a reverse of her arms, would have presented an array
against which he could have had no chance of success. The hour of utter
ruin would only have been procrastinated, involving still greater waste
of life, and augmenting the desolation which for so many years had been
the fate of Europe.

Yes, Napoleon was in Paris,--a general without soldiers, and a sovereign
without subjects. The prestige of his name was gone; and had the Chamber
of Deputies invested him with the Dictatorship, as was suggested, it
would have been "a barren sceptre in his gripe," and the utmost stretch
of power could not have collected materials to meet the impending
invasion. At no period did he show such irresolution as at this time. He
tendered his abdication, and it was accepted. He offered his services as
a soldier, and they were declined. He had ceased, for the moment, to
be anything to France. Yet he lingered for days about the capital, the
inhabitants of which were too intent in gazing at the storm, ready to
burst upon them, to be mindful of his existence. There was, however,
one exception. The _boys_ were still faithful to him, and were more
interested in his position than in that of the enemy at their gates.

There was a show of resistance. The fragments of the army of Belgium
gathered round Paris; the National Guard, or militia of the city,
was marched out; and the youth of the colleges were furnished with
field-pieces and artillery officers, who drilled them into very
effective cannoneers, and they took naturally to the business,
pronouncing it decidedly better fun than hard study. They were of an age
which is full of animal courage, and their only fear was a peremptory
order from parents or guardians to leave college and return home. Some
of my school-fellows, anticipating such an injunction, joined the camp
outside the city, and saw service enough to talk about for the remainder
of their lives.

One morning, I was at the Lyceum, where all were prepared for an
immediate order to march, and each one was making his last arrangements.
No person could have supposed that these young men expected to be
engaged, within a few hours, in mortal combat. They were in the highest
spirits, and looked forward to the hoped-for battle as though it were to
be the most amusing thing imaginable. While I was there, a false
report came in that Napoleon had resumed the command of the army. The
excitement instantly rose to fever-heat, and the demonstration told what
hold he still had on these his steadfast friends. From our position the
rear of the army was but a short distance, while the advanced portions
of it were engaged. Versailles had been entered by the Allies, who were
attacked and driven out by the French under Vandamme. The cannonade was
at one time as continuous as the roll of a drum. Prisoners were guarded
through the streets, and wagons, conveying wounded men, were continually
passing.

Stragglers from the routed army of Waterloo were to be met in all
directions, many of them disabled by their pursuers, or the fatigues of
a harried retreat. Pride was forgotten in extreme misery, and they were
grateful for any attention or assistance. One of them was taken into
our institution as a servant. He had been in the army eighteen years,
fifteen of which he had served as drummer. He had been in some of the
severest battles, had gone through the Russian campaign, and was among
the few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet
this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and
who at times talked as though he were a perfect tornado in the field,
was as arrant a poltroon as ever skulked.

After the Allied Troops entered Paris, and were divided among the
inhabitants, some Prussian cavalry soldiers were quartered on us.
Collisions occasionally took place between them and the scholars; and in
one instance, one of them entered a study-room in an insulting manner,
and in consequence thereof made a progress from the top of the stairs to
the bottom with a celerity that would have done credit to his regiment
in a charge. His comrades armed themselves to avenge the indignity, and
the students, eager for the fray, sallied out to meet them with pistols
and fencing-foils, the latter with buttons snapped off and points
sharpened. There was hopeful promise of a very respectable skirmish;
but it was nipped in the bud by the interposition of our peace-making
instructors, aided by the authority of a Prussian officer. When the
affair was over, some wonder was expressed why our fire-eating military
attendant had not given us his professional services; and, on search
being made, we found him snugly stowed away in a hole under the stairs,
where he had crept on the first announcement of hostilities. He
afterwards confessed to me that he was a coward, and that no one could
imagine what he had suffered in his agonies of fear during his various
campaigns. Yet he came very near being rewarded for extraordinary valor
and coolness. His regiment was advancing on the enemy, and as he was
mechanically beating the monotonous _pas de charge_, not knowing whether
he was on his head or his heels, a shot cut the band by which his drum
was suspended, and as it fell, he caught it, and without stopping, held
it in one hand while he continued to beat the charge with the other. An
officer of rank saw the action, and riding up, said, "Your name, brave
fellow? You shall have the cross of honor for that gallant deed." He
told me he really did not know what he was doing; he was too frightened
to think about anything. But he added, that it was a pity the general
was killed in that very battle, as it robbed him of the promised
decoration.

I mention this incident as an evidence of what diversified materials an
army is composed, and that the instruments of military despotism are not
necessarily endowed with personal courage, the discipline of the mass
compensating for individual imperfection. It also gives evidence that
luck has much to do in the fortunes of this world, and that many a man
who "bears his blushing honors thick upon him" would as poorly stand a
scrutiny as to the means by which they were acquired, as our friend, the
drummer, had he been enabled to strut about, in piping times of peace,
with a strip of red ribbon at his button-hole.

While preparations were making for the defence of Paris, and the alarmed
citizens feared, what was at one time threatened, that the defenders
would be driven in, and the streets become a scene of warfare, involving
all conditions in the chances of indiscriminate massacre, the powers
that were saw the futility of resistance, and opening negotiations with
the enemy, closed the war by capitulation. Whatever relief this may have
been to the people generally, it was a sad blow to the martial ardor
of my schoolmates. Their opinion of the transaction was expressed in
language by no means complimentary to their temporary rulers. To lose
such an opportunity for a fight was a height of absurdity for which
treason and cowardice were inadequate terms. Their military visions
melted away, the field-pieces were wheeled off, the army officers bade
them farewell, they were required to deliver up their arms, and they
found themselves back again to their old bondage, reduced to the
inglorious necessity of attending prayers and learning lessons.

The Hundred Days were over. The Allies once more poured into France,
and in their train came back the poor, despised, antiquated Bourbons,
identifying themselves with the common enemy, and becoming a byword and
a reproach, which were to cling to them until they should be driven into
hopeless banishment. The King reentered Paris, accompanied by foreign
soldiers. I saw him pass the Boulevard, and I then hastened across the
Garden to await his arrival at the Tuileries, standing near the spot
where, three months before, I had seen Napoleon. The tricolor was no
longer there, but the white flag again floated over the place so full of
historical recollections. Louis XVIII soon reached this ancestral abode
of his family, and having mounted, with some difficulty and expenditure
of breath, to the second story, he waddled into the balcony which
overlooked the crowd silently waiting for the expected speech, and,
leaning ponderously on the railing, he kissed his hand, and said, in a
loud voice, "Good day, my children." This was the exordiam, body, and
peroration of his address, and it struck his audience so ludicrously,
that a laugh spread among them, until it became general, and all seemed
in the best possible humor. The King laughed, too, evidently regarding
his reception as highly flattering. The affair turned out well, for the
multitude parted in a merry mood, considering his Majesty rather a jolly
old gentleman, and making sundry comparisons between him and the late
tenant, illustrative of the difference between King Stork and King Log.

Paris was crowded with foreign soldiers. The streets swarmed with them;
their encampments filled the public gardens; they drilled in the open
squares and on the Boulevards; their sentinels stood everywhere. Their
presence was a perpetual commentary on the vanity of that glory which
is dependent on the sword. They gazed at triumphal monuments erected to
commemorate battles which had subjected their own countries to the iron
rule of conquest. They stood by columns on which the history of their
defeat was cast from their captured cannon, and by arches whose friezes
told a boastful tale of their subjugation. They passed over bridges
whose names reminded them of fields which had witnessed their headlong
rout. They strolled through galleries where the masterpieces of art hung
as memorials that their political existence had been dependent on the
will of a victorious foe. Attempts were made to destroy these trophies
of national degradation; but, in some instances, the skill of the
architect and the fidelity of the builder were an overmatch for the
hasty ire of an incensed soldiery, and withstood the attacks until
admiration for the work brought shame on their efforts to demolish it.

But for the Parisians there was a calamity in reserve, which sank
deeper into their souls than the fluttering of hostile banners in their
streets, or the clanging tread of an armed enemy on their door-stones.
It was decided that the Gallery of the Louvre should be despoiled, and
that the works of art, which had been collected from all nations, making
that receptacle the marvel of the age, should be restored to their
legitimate owners. A wail went up from the universal heart of France
at this sad judgment. It was felt that this great loss would be
irreparable. Time, the soother of all sorrow, might restore her
worn energies, recruit her wasted population, cover her fields with
abundance, and, turning the activity of an intelligent people into
industrial channels, clothe her with renewed wealth and power. But the
magnificence of that collection, once departed, could never come to
her again; and the lover of beauty, instead of finding under one roof
whatever genius had created for the worship of the ages, would have
to wander over all Europe, seeking in isolated and widely-separated
positions the riches which at the Louvre were strewed before him in
congregated prodigality. But lamentations were in vain. The miracles of
human inspiration were borne to the congenial climes which originated
them, to have, in all after time, the tale of their journeyings an
inseparable appendage to their history, and even their intrinsic merit
to derive additional lustre from the perpetual boast, that they had been
considered worthy a place in the Gallery of Napoleon.

In the general amnesty which formed an article in the capitulation of
Paris, there was no apprehension that revenge would demand an atonement.
But hardly had the Bourbons recommenced their reign, when, in utter
disregard of the faith of treaties, they sought satisfaction for their
late precipitate flight in assailing those who had been instrumental
in causing it. Many of their intended victims found safety in foreign
lands. Labedoyere, who joined the Emperor with his regiment, was tried
and executed. Lavalette was condemned, but escaped through the heroism
of his wife and the generous devotion of three Englishmen. Ney was
shot in Paris. I would dwell a moment on his fate, not only because
circumstances gave me a peculiar interest in it, but from the fact that
it had more effect in drawing a dividing line between the royal family
and the French people than any event that occurred during their reign.
It was treasured up with a hate that found no fit utterance until the
memorable Three Days of 1830; and when the insurgents stormed the
Tuileries, their cries bore evidence that fifteen years had not
diminished the bitter feeling engendered by that vindictive,
unnecessary, and most impolitic act.

During the Hundred Days, and shortly before the battle of Waterloo, I
was, one Sunday afternoon, in the Luxembourg Garden, where the fine
weather had brought out many of the inhabitants of that quarter. The
lady I was accompanying remarked, as we walked among the crowd, "There
is Marshal Ney." He had joined the promenaders, and his object seemed to
be, like that of the others, to enjoy an hour of recreation. Probably
the next time he crossed those walks was on the way to the place of his
execution, which was between the Garden and the Boulevard. At the time
of his confinement and trial at the Luxembourg Palace, the gardens were
closed. I usually passed through them twice a week, but was now obliged
to go round them. Early one morning, I stopped at the room of a medical
student, in the vicinity, and, while there, heard a discharge of
musketry. We wondered at it, but could not conjecture its cause; and
although we spoke of the trial of Marshal Ney, we had so little reason
to suppose that his life was in jeopardy, that neither of us imagined
that volley was his death-knell. As I continued on my way, I passed
round the Boulevard, and reaching the spot I have named, I saw a few
men and women, of the lowest class, standing together, while a sentinel
paced to and fro before a wall, which was covered with mortar, and which
formed one side of the place. I turned in to the spot and inquired what
was the matter. A man replied,--"Marshal Ney has been shot here, and his
body has just been removed." I looked at the soldier, but he was gravely
going through his monotonous duty, and I knew that military rule forbade
my addressing him. I looked down; the ground was wet with blood. I
turned to the wall, and seeing it marked by balls, I attempted, with my
knife, to dig out a memorial of that day's sad work, but the soldier
motioned me away. I afterwards revisited the place, but the wall had
been plastered over, and no indications remained where the death-shot
had penetrated.

The sensation produced by this event was profound and permanent. Many
a heart, inclined towards the Bourbons, was alienated by it forever.
Families which had rejoiced at the Restoration now cursed it in
their bitterness, and from that day dated a hostility which knew no
reconciliation. The army and the youth of France demanded, why a
soldier, whose whole life had been passed in her service, should be
sacrificed to appease a race that was a stranger to the country, and
for which it had no sympathy. A gloom spread like a funeral pall over
society, and even those who had blamed the Marshal for joining the
Emperor were now among his warmest defenders. The print-shops were
thronged with purchasers eager to possess his portrait and to hang it
in their homes, with a reverence like that attaching to the image of a
martyred saint. Had he died at Waterloo, as he led on the Imperial Guard
to their last charge, when five horses were shot under him, and his
uniform, riddled by balls, hung about him in tatters, he would not have
had such an apotheosis as was now given him, with one simultaneous
movement, by all classes of his countrymen.

The inveterate intention of the reigning family was to obliterate every
mark that bore the impress of Napoleon. Wherever the initial of his name
had been inserted on the public edifices, it was carefully erased; his
statues were broken or removed; prints of him could not be exposed for
sale; and it appeared to be their fixed determination to drive him
from men's memories. But he had left mementos which jealousy could not
conceal nor petty malice destroy. His Code was still the law of the
land; the monuments of his genius were thickly scattered wherever his
dominion had extended; his mighty name was on every tongue; and as time
mellowed the remembrance of him, the good he had done survived and the
evil was forgotten or extenuated.

Whoever would judge this man should consider the times which produced
him and the fearful authority he wielded. He came to take his place
among the rulers of the earth, while she was rocking with convulsions,
seeking regeneration through the baptism of blood. He came as a
connecting link between anarchy and order, an agent of destiny to act
his part in the great tragedy of revolution, the end of which is not
yet. His mission was to give a lesson to sovereigns and people,
to humble hereditary power, and to prove by his own career the
unsubstantial character of a government which deludes the popular will
that creates it. During his captivity, he understood the true causes of
his overthrow, and talked of them with an intelligence which misfortune
had saddened down into philosophy. He saw that the secret of his
reverses was not to be found in the banded confederacy of kings, but in
the forfeited sympathy of the great masses of men, who felt with him,
and moved with him, and bade him God-speed, until he abandoned the
distinctive principle which advanced him, and relinquished their
affection for royal affiances and the doubtful friendship of monarchs.
His better nature was laid aside, his common sense became merged in
court etiquette, he sacrificed his conscience to his ambition, and the
Man was forgotten in the Emperor.

It is creditable to the world, that his divorce did more, perhaps, than
anything else to alienate the respect and attachment of mankind; and
many who could find excuses for his gravest public misdeeds can never
forgive this impiety to the household gods.

I was most forcibly impressed with the relation between him and
Josephine, in a visit I made to Malmaison a short time subsequent to her
death, which occurred soon after his first abdication. It was the place
where they had lived together, before the imperial diadem had seared
his brain; and it was the chosen spot of her retreat, when he, "the
conqueror of kings, sank to the degradation of courting their alliance."
The house was as she left it. Not a thing had been moved, the servants
were still there, and the order and comfort of the establishment were
as though her return were momently expected. The plants she loved were
carefully tended, and her particular favorites were affectionately
pointed out. The old domestic who acted as my guide spoke low, as if
afraid of disturbing her repose, or as if the sanctity of death still
pervaded the apartments. He could not mention her without emotion; and
he told enough of her quiet, unobtrusive life, of her kindness to the
poor, of her gentleness to all about her, to account for the devotion of
her dependants. The evidences of her refined taste were everywhere,
and there were tokens that her love for her husband had survived his
injustice and desertion. After his second marriage, he occasionally
visited her, and she never allowed anything to be disturbed which
reminded her that he had been there. Books were lying open on the table
as he had left them; the chair on which he sat was still where he had
arisen from it; the flower he had plucked withered where he had dropped
it. Every article he had touched was sacred, and remained unprofaned
by other hands. Doubtless, long after he had returned to his brilliant
capital, and all remembrance of her was lost in the glittering court
assembled about the fair-haired daughter of Austria, that lone woman
wandered, in solitary sadness, through the places which had been
hallowed by his presence, and gazed on the senseless objects consecrated
by his passing attention.

After his last abdication, he retired once more to Malmaison, where he
passed the few days that remained, until he bade a final farewell to the
scenes which he had known at the dawn of his prosperity. No man can tell
his thoughts during those lonely hours. His wife was in the palace of
her ancestors, and his child was to know him no more. He could hear the
din of marching soldiers, and the roar of distant battle, but they were
nothing to him now. His wand was broken, the spell was over, the
spirits that ministered to him had vanished, and the enchanter was left
powerless and alone. But, in the still watches of the night, a familiar
form may have stood beside him, and a well-known voice again whispered
to him in the kindly tones of by-gone years. The crown, the sceptre, the
imperial purple, the long line of kings, for which he had renounced a
woman worth them all, must have faded from his memory in the swarming
recollections of his once happy home. He could not look around him
without seeing in every object an accusing angel; and if a human heart
throbbed in his bosom, retribution came before death.

Yet call him not up for judgment, without reflecting that his awful
elevation and the gigantic task he had assumed had perverted a heart
naturally kind and affectionate, and left him little leisure to devote
to the virtues which decorate domestic life. The numberless anecdotes
related of him, the charm with which he won to himself all whom he
attempted to conciliate, the warm attachment of those immediately about
him, tend to the belief that there was much of good in him. But his eye
was continually fixed on the star he saw blazing before him, and in his
efforts to follow its guidance, he heeded not the victims he crushed in
his onward progress. He considered men as mere instruments to extend his
dominion, and he used them with wasteful expenditure, to advance his
projects or to secure his conquests. But he was not cruel, nor was he
steeled to human misery. Had he been what he is sometimes represented,
he never could have retained the ascendency over the minds of his
followers, which, regardless of defeat and suffering and death, lived on
when even hope had gone.

Accusatory words are easily spoken, and there is often a disposition to
condemn, without calculating the compelling motives which govern human
actions, or the height of place which has given to surrounding objects a
coloring and figure not to be measured by the ordinary rules of ethics.
Many a man who cannot bear a little brief authority without abusing it,
who lords it over a few dependants with insolent and arbitrary rule,
whose temper makes everybody uncomfortable within the limited sphere
of his government and whose petty tyranny turns his own home into a
despotic empire, can pronounce a sweeping doom against one who was
clothed with irresponsible power, who seemed elevated above the
accidents of humanity, whose audience-chamber was thronged by princes,
whose words were as the breath of life, and who dealt out kingdoms to
his kindred like the portions of a family inheritance. Let censure,
then, be tempered with charity, nor be lightly bestowed on him who will
continue to fill a space in the annals of the world when the present
shall be merged in that shadowy realm where fact becomes mingled with
fable, and the reality, dimmed by distance, shall be so transfigured by
poetry and romance, that it may even be doubted whether he ever lived.

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