Kohler, but expressed himself somewhat bitterly on the subject of Russia. He even hinted to the Austrian, that should he not be satisfied with his reception in Elba, he might possibly choose to retire to Great Britain;60 and asked General Kohler, whether he thought he would not receive protection from them. "Yes, sire," replied the Austrian, "the more readily, that your Majesty has never made war in that country."
Napoleon proceeded to give a farewell audience to the Duke of Bassano, and seemed nettled when an aide-de-camp, on the part of General Bertrand, announced that the hour fixed for departing was arrived. "Good," he said. "This is something new. Since when is it that my motions have been regulated by the watch of the grand maréchal? I will not depart till it is my pleasure – perhaps I will not depart at all."61 This, however, was only a momentary sally of impatience.
Napoleon left Fontainbleau the 20th April, 1814, at eleven o'clock in the morning. His retinue occupied fourteen carriages, and required relays of thirty pairs of post horses. On the journey, at least during its commencement, he affected a sort of publicity, sending for the public authorities of towns, and investigating into the state of the place, as he was wont to do on former occasions. The cries of Vive l'Empereur were frequently heard, and seemed to give him fresh spirits. On the other hand, the mayors, and sub-prefects, whom he interrogated concerning the decay of many of the towns, displeased him, by ascribing the symptoms of dilapidation to the war, or the conscription; and in several places the people wore the white cockade, and insulted his passage with shouts of Vive le Roi.
In a small barrack, near Valence, Napoleon, upon 24th April, met Augereau, his old companion in the campaigns of Italy, and in some degree his tutor in the art of war. The maréchal had resented some of the reflections which occurred in the bulletins, censuring his operations for the protection of Lyons. When, therefore, he issued a proclamation to his army, on the recent change, he announced Napoleon as one who had brought on his own ruin, and yet dared not die. An angry interview took place, and the following words are said to have been exchanged between them: – "I have thy proclamation," said Napoleon. "Thou hast betrayed me." – "Sire," replied the maréchal, "it is you who have betrayed France and the army, by sacrificing both to a frantic spirit of ambition." – "Thou hast chosen thyself a new master," said Napoleon. – "I have no account to render to you on that score," replied the general. – "Thou hast no courage," replied Buonaparte. – "'Tis thou hast none," replied the general, and turned his back, without any mark of respect, on his late master.62
At Montelimart, the exiled Emperor heard the last expressions of regard and sympathy. He was now approaching Provence, a region of which he had never possessed the affections, and was greeted with execrations and cries of – "Perish the Tyrant!" – "Down with the butcher of our children!" Matters looked worse as they advanced. On Monday, 25th April, when Sir Niel Campbell, having set out before Napoleon, arrived at Avignon, the officer upon guard anxiously inquired if the escort attending the Emperor was of strength sufficient to resist a popular disturbance, which was already on foot at the news of his arrival. The English commissioner entreated him to protect the passage of Napoleon by every means possible. It was agreed that the fresh horses should be posted at a different quarter of the town from that where it was natural to have expected the change. Yet the mob discovered and surrounded them, and it was with difficulty that Napoleon was saved from popular fury. Similar dangers attended him elsewhere; and, in order to avoid assassination, the Ex-Emperor of France was obliged to disguise himself as a postilion, or a domestic, anxiously altering from time to time the mode of his dress; ordering the servants to smoke in his presence; and inviting the commissioners, who travelled with him, to whistle or sing, that the incensed people might not be aware who was in the carriage. At Orgon, the mob brought before him his own effigy dabbled with blood, and stopped his carriage till they displayed it before his eyes; and, in short, from Avignon to La Calade, he was grossly insulted in every town and village, and, but for the anxious interference of the commissioners, he would probably have been torn to pieces. The unkindness of the people seemed to make much impression on him. He even shed tears. He showed also, more fear of assassination than seemed consistent with his approved courage; but it must be recollected, that the danger was of a new and peculiarly horrible description, and calculated to appal many to whom the terrors of a field of battle were familiar. The bravest soldier might shudder at a death like that of the De Witts. At La Calade he was equally nervous, and exhibited great fear of poison. When he reached Aix, precautions were taken by detachments of gendarmes, as well as by parties of the allied troops, to ensure his personal safety.63 At a chateau called Bouillidou, he had an interview with his sister Pauline. The curiosity of the lady of the house, and two or three females, made them also find their way to his presence. They saw a gentleman in an Austrian uniform. "Whom do you wish to see, ladies?" – "The Emperor Napoleon." – "I am Napoleon." – "You jest, sir," replied the ladies. – "What! I suppose you expected to see me look more mischievous? O yes – confess that, since fortune is adverse to me, I must look like a rascal, a miscreant, a brigand. But do you know how all this has happened? Merely because I wished to place France above England."
At length he arrived at Frejus, the very port that received him, when, coming from Egypt, he was on the verge of commencing that astonishing career, now about to terminate, to all earthly appearance, at the very point from which he had started. He shut himself up in a solitary apartment, which he traversed with impatient and hasty steps, sometimes pausing to watch from the window the arrival of the vessels, one of which was to transport him from France, as it then seemed, for ever. The French frigate, the Dryade, and a brig called the Inconstant, had come from Toulon to Frejus, and lay ready to perform this duty. But, reluctant perhaps to sail under the Bourbon flag, Napoleon preferred embarking on board his Britannic Majesty's ship the Undaunted, commanded by Captain Usher.64 This vessel being placed at the direction of the British commissioner, Sir Niel Campbell, he readily acquiesced in Napoleon's wish to have his passage in her to Elba. It was eleven at night on the 28th ere he finally embarked, under a salute of twenty-one guns. "Adieu, Cæsar, and his fortune," said the Russian envoy. The Austrian and British commissioners accompanied him on his voyage.65
During the passage, Buonaparte seemed to recover his spirits, and conversed with great frankness and ease with Captain Usher and Sir Niel Campbell. The subject chiefly led to high-coloured statements of the schemes which he had been compelled to leave unexecuted, with severe strictures on his enemies, and much contempt for their means of opposition. The following particulars are amusing, and, so far as we know, have never appeared:
He was inquisitive about the discipline of the vessel, which he commended highly, but assured Captain Usher, that had his power lasted for five years longer, he would have had three hundred sail of the line. Captain Usher naturally asked how they were to be manned. Napoleon replied, that he had resolved on a naval conscription in all the seaports and sea-coast frontier of France, which would man his fleet, which was to be exercised in the Zuyder Zee, until fit for going to the open sea. The British officer scarce suppressed a smile as he replied, that the marine conscripts would make a sorry figure in a gale of wind.
To the Austrian envoy, Napoleon's constant subject was the enlarged power of Russia, which, if she could by any means unite Poland into a healthful and integral part of her army, would, he stated, overwhelm Europe.
On a subsequent occasion, the Emperor favoured his auditors with a new and curious history of the renewal of the war with England. According to this edition, the isle of Malta was a mere pretext. Shortly after the peace of Amiens, he said, Mr. Addington, then the English Prime Minister, proposed to him a renewal of Mr. Pitt's commercial treaty with France; but that he, Napoleon, desirous to encourage the interior industry of France, had refused to enter into such a treaty, excepting upon terms of reciprocity; namely, that if France received so many millions of English import, England was to be obliged to take
General Sir Edward Paget and Lord Louvain, both informed me that Lord Castlereagh told them, that Napoleon had written to him for permission to retire to England, "it being the only country possessing great and liberal ideas." —
Memorable Events, p. 326; Bourrienne, tom. x., p. 217.
Itineraire de Buonaparte, p. 235. – Augereau was an old republican, and had been ready to oppose Buonaparte on the day he dissolved the Legislative Body. He submitted to him during his reign, but was a severe censurer of his excessive love of conquest. – See
This, indeed, had been previously arranged, as troops in considerable numbers were posted for his protection at Grenoble, Gap, and Sisteron, being the road by which he was expected to have travelled; but, perhaps with a view to try an experiment on his popularity, he took the route we have detailed. – S.
When they came alongside of the Undaunted, Napoleon desired the captain to ascend, and then followed; the officers were on deck to receive him; they mutually bowed, and the Emperor instantly went forward alone among the men, most of whom spoke French, having been on this station for some years. They all kept their hats on; but he so fascinated them by his manner, that in a few minutes they, of their own accord, took them off. Captain Usher was very glad of this, as he was apprehensive the sailors might have thrown him overboard. —
The Prussian commissioner wrote an account of their journey, called "Itineraire de Buonaparte, jusqu'à son embarquement à Frejus, Paris, 1815." The facts are amply confirmed by the accounts of his fellow-travellers. Napoleon always reckoned the pamphlet of General Truchsess Waldbourg, together with the account of De Pradt's Embassy to Poland, as the works calculated to do him most injury. Perhaps he was sensible that during this journey he had behaved beneath the character of a hero, or perhaps he disliked the publication of details which inferred his extreme unpopularity in the south of France. – S.
