Lefebvre Georges. Napoleon

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

the fall of napoleon (1812–1815)

524

Central Europe was being reopened to colonial produce and to manufac-

tured goods, which poured into it. Prices recovered, the index ﬁ gure rising

from 158 in 1811 to 185 in 1813 and 198 in 1814. A fever of speculation

ran through the business world, in a recovery which put an end to unem-

ployment and restored the level of wages. In 1814 the export trade produced

more than £70 million, much more than in 1802 (£60.2 million), which

had been the best year up till then. At the same time, the resumption of corn

imports and the abundant harvest brought back the price of bread to the

level of 1808, and working-class agitation died down. Thus reassured,

England was now able to contemplate new efforts of ﬁ nancial aid. Under

Vansittart new taxes were voted and in 1813 a loan of £105 million was

negotiated. Expenses in that year were the greatest in this period, reaching

£177 million; subsidies rose sharply from £3 million to more than

£8 million, and payments abroad to more than £26 million. At this point,

the national debt was nearly £834 million. The only difﬁ culty was the rate

of exchange, which remained low. In 1813 the Spanish piastre gained

thirty-eight per cent, and in order to provide for Wellington’s campaign, the

Bank of England had to set aside £1,400,000 in gold from its cash reserves.

Once again, the Rothschilds came to the rescue. Nathan in Holland, James

in Paris and their brothers in Frankfurt drew heavily on their French funds,

and thanks to what they made available, Wellington was able as he entered

France to pay cash for all his purchases. In 1814 the Rothschilds also acted

as intermediaries for transmitting the promised subsidies to the allies; and

it was for these services that the Rothschilds of Frankfurt were raised to the

nobility by the emperor of Austria in 1817. From now onwards England,

although she lacked troops, could make her will prevail by arguing with

good ringing coin.

In Castlereagh’s opinion, it was high time for England to make her inﬂ u-

ence felt. Although the continental powers had promised not to treat without

England, they had kept her out of their Prague and Frankfurt negotiations,

and appeared to be ignoring her colonial and maritime claims. Metternich

was negotiating with Murat without much regard for King Ferdinand.

Several of the English diplomats were proving ineffective, and it was not

possible at that distance to change their instructions in order to keep pace

with the ups and downs of the war. The government were of the opinion

that Castlereagh ought to be on the spot. He drew up his own instructions

on 26 December. England was to demand that peace with France should be

concluded in concert, in which case she would offer £5 million for 1814.

She ruled out any discussion of the freedom of the seas, and would make the

restitution of the conquered colonies depend upon the solution adopted for

525

the disintegration of the continental system (1812–1814)

the Low Countries. Spain and Portugal were to be restored, and Ferdinand

was to receive compensation. Nothing was said about the rest of the

Continent, so that Castlereagh had a free hand, enabling him to pose as a

mediator between the continental powers and to see that the traditional

policy of the Foreign Ofﬁ ce – in effect, Pitt’s policy – should prevail. He

now at last stood on the threshold of the career that was to bring him so

much fame. On arrival in Basle, he at once set up a barrier against France.

Holland should have Belgium under a European guarantee and Prussia

should take possession of the territory between the Meuse and the Moselle,

which would make it impossible for her in the future to have any under-

hand dealings with France. At this juncture, however, Castlereagh was still

prepared for the frontier of France to advance as far as Trier if the military

situation required it.

On 24 January, in company with the Austrians, he joined the Russians at

Langres. Immediately he had to intervene between Alexander and Metternich.

The general opinion was that Napoleon’s cause was lost. The tsar refused to

negotiate and wanted to dethrone him in favour of Bernadotte, while

Metternich was willing to negotiate with the emperor, and wished to open

the conference promised to Caulaincourt at Châtillon-sur-Seine. In any case,

he ruled out Bernadotte in favour of a regency.

As to the wisdom of treating

with Napoleon, the British government were divided. Although Castlereagh

would take no deﬁ nite line, he knew that the prince regent and public

opinion were becoming more and more hostile to the Corsican. He

succeeded in turning down Bernadotte, and in exchange managed to

persuade Metternich to give up the regency [proposal], in the ﬁ rm belief

that this would make the restoration of the Bourbons inevitable. In this way,

he obliged the tsar to accept the conference, postponing its opening till 5

February in order to leave the way open for the decisive battle that was

generally expected. Finally, he insisted on agreement about the conditions of

peace, and on 29 January succeeded in reducing France to the boundaries of

1792. At this point, the diplomats left for Châtillon, just as the campaign in

France was beginning.

This time Napoleon had neither the breathing-space nor the means to

improvise a new army, though there was no absolute dearth of manpower.

As from 9 October he called for 120,000 men from the 1808 to 1814

classes, who had already on 24 August provided thirty thousand for the

army in Spain. There does not seem to have been any particular difﬁ culty

about this levy; but he had also called on the 1815 class to the extent of

* [On behalf of Napoleon’s son, the king of Rome.]

the fall of napoleon (1812–1815)

526

160,000 conscripts, and this operation, which had scarcely begun when he

came back from Germany, needed a good deal more time to complete. On

15 November he recalled 150,000 men from the 1803 to 1814 classes, plus

150,000 in the last resort if the eastern frontier was forced; and on the

twentieth he added forty thousand to the quota from the 1808 to 1814

classes. The National Guard was set on an active footing in the fortiﬁ ed

places on 17 December, and in Paris on 8 January 1814; and he then decided

to form volunteer regiments that would take in the Paris unemployed, and

even considered wholesale conscription. By the end of January, about

125,000 men had been collected in the depots, but were quite untrained.

Most of them, moreover, were without equipment or weapons, for the

magazines and arsenals were empty. As in 1793 requisitioning of arms,

horses, fodder and corn was set in train in a rather haphazard fashion. Above

all, there was a lack of money. In November and January Napoleon

announced tremendous increases in taxation: but when would the money

be collected? Even the receipts from indirect taxation were becoming almost

negligible. There was no money coming into the treasury. Government

stock had fallen from seventy-four to ﬁ fty-two francs after the Battle of

Leipzig; money was being hoarded and the notes simply passed back to

the Bank of France. Salaries and pensions above the level of two thousand

francs were cut by a quarter, and contractors were now paid in sinking fund

bonds which were nothing more than promissory notes, like the assignats of

the Revolution. Enclosed once more within her old frontiers, the France of

the Empire was on the same level as the much-abused Directory, and this

was natural enough. No longer able to make war at the expense of

the foreigner, Napoleon was reduced to seeking the wherewithal from his

own nation.

The nation did not take at all kindly to this process, and for the ﬁ rst time

there was resistance. The imperial aristocracy and the notables whose ranks

the emperor had ﬁ lled considered his downfall inevitable and were thinking

how to snatch the political power he had always refused to give them by

coming to terms with his successor, whoever he might be. When the Corps

Législatif assembled on 19 December, it dared to ask that the allied condi-

tions should be communicated to it, and the emperor gave way. In the name

of the committee, Lainé declared that France would ﬁ ght no more except to

defend her independence and the integrity of her territory. At the same

time, he asked the sovereign to guarantee his subjects’ civil and political

liberties. On 29 December the Corps Législatif gave its approval, and was at

once adjourned. The pact that Bonaparte had made with the middle classes

in Brumaire was ﬁ nally at an end.

527

the disintegration of the continental system (1812–1814)

As for the people, they thought it monstrous that the emperor, after losing

two huge armies in successive disasters, should presume to form another. In

the course of a few months, Napoleon became downright unpopular. The

nation wanted peace, and was rapidly coming to the conclusion that its

master did not want to give it. With a running commentary from the royal-

ists, the allied proclamation was having its effect. There was no thought of

preferring the Bourbons to Napoleon, for they symbolised the ancien régime ;

but the French were weary and discouraged, and they began to offer passive

resistance – the only right that he had left them. The malcontents, who had

been growing in number since 1812, were now beyond computation.

People stopped paying taxes; requisition orders were not obeyed. The popu-

lation looked on at the invasion and took no action, at any rate, as long as

the allies managed to hold their troops in check; and in the south-west the

English were well received, for they could be relied upon to pay their way.

In normal times, the imperial administration would have had no difﬁ -

culty in punishing the recalcitrant. But the overwhelming invasion left it no

time to act, and – what was worse – paralysed its machinery. The ofﬁ cials

who had rallied to Napoleon’s cause realised how powerless they now were

and foresaw the emperor’s downfall. They were therefore anxious to provide

for their future, and made common cause with the royalists or even came to

terms with the enemy. Napoleon tried to get the machinery working again

by sending special commissioners into the départements, as the Committee

of Public Safety had done in its day; but the pitiable result of their efforts, as

compared with the work done by the committee’s travelling representatives,

shows how low public morale had sunk. The royalists put the ﬁ nishing

touches to the disintegration. As in the days of the Republic, the country’s

misfortunes gave them new hope, and they did their best to help ‘our good

friends the enemy’. Their announcements and public notices spread discour-

agement and fostered the spirit of disobedience. Once again the West was

stirring. In Flanders, Fruchart armed the recalcitrants in order to help the

invasion, and everywhere the allies found guides, spies and traitors. By 3

December Count de Scey had reached Freiburg and in the name of the royal-

ists of Franche-Comté was offering his province to Austria. On 12 March the

mayor of Bordeaux handed the city over to the English, who had brought

the duc d’Angoulême along with them. At moments, Napoleon would talk

of once again becoming the soldier of the Revolution and rekindling the

national spirit; but it was hardly more than words. How could he reconcile

the memories of 1793 with the aristocratic monarchy he had undertaken to

set up? His subservient ministers might remind him imperiously that it was

his duty to see to the preservation of the social order and warn him against

the fall of napoleon (1812–1815)

528

the ‘dregs of the people’; yet the only national resistance was in Champagne,

where in the heat of battle the foreign troops ran riot in appalling excesses.

But the resistance had no time to develop, and no one came forward as a

leader.

When Napoleon left Paris on 25 January, he handed over to the care of

Joseph, as lieutenant-general, his wife and his son, whom he was destined

never to see again. He had at his disposal only about sixty thousand men,

and even these were not in a concentrated formation. He hastened to meet

the Prussians, whom he thought to be at Saint-Dizier; but Blücher was

already reaching the Aube, well on the way to linking up with Schwarzenberg.

The emperor pursued him and beat him at Brienne on the twenty-ninth but

was unable to prevent his joining up with the Austrians. On 1 February he

was overwhelmed by a force three times as large at La Rothière. He fell back

on Troyes, then on Nogent. But it was a hopeless contest: there was only one

thing for him to do if he wished to save his throne – to negotiate uncondi-

tionally. During the night of 4 February he gave Caulaincourt a free hand;

and on the seventh at Châtillon Caulaincourt was given the allied condi-

tions, which reduced France to her frontiers of 1792. He protested, appealing

to the preliminary negotiations at Frankfurt, though he had no illusions

about the probable result. Here, then, was a unique opportunity offered to

this statesman, who had always been a man of peace, and who was this time

– most unusually – armed with full powers, to settle his country’s destiny.

But he dared not take the responsibility, not through fear of being a traitor,

but because he was a little man: he referred the decision to his master. In the

night of the seventh, after hours of anguish, Napoleon ﬁ nally gave in. But by

the morning he had changed his mind, for he had just discovered the

enemy’s military mistake. There was a new situation, and with it, new hope.

To satisfy Blücher and to facilitate their progress and their supplies, the

allies had in fact once more separated. Leaving Schwarzenberg to follow the

Seine, Blücher had advanced on 2 February by way of Sézanne and the Petit

Morin valley, where his divisions were strung out in Indian ﬁ le. He was

aiming at cutting off the retreat of Macdonald, who was falling back before

Yorck on the Marne and succeeded in reaching the Ourcq. During this time,

Napoleon was hurrying towards them. On 10 February, at Champaubert, he

routed Olsuviev’s corps and cut the enemy’s army in two. He then made for

Montmirail, and on the eleventh completely defeated Sacken’s corps there.

Its remnants rejoined Yorck in front of Château-Thierry. Yorck was attacked

and his front driven in on the twelfth, forcing him to recross the Marne

with all speed, while Napoleon turned back against Blücher, who was

pressing on Marmont at Vauchamps. On the fourteenth Blücher, ﬁ nding

529

the disintegration of the continental system (1812–1814)

himself under attack, retreated; but his forces were cut through in retreat,

and he lost some ten thousand men. Napoleon had won a brilliant victory;

but he had not destroyed the enemy, for their divisions managed to join up

again at Châlons. Moreover, Schwarzenberg’s troops were crossing the Seine,

driving Victor and Oudinot as far back as the Yerres, where Macdonald

joined them, and also on to the Yonne and the Loing, till he had reached

Montargis and Fontainebleau.

By marching on Montereaux from Vauchamps, Napoleon could have

carried out one of his favourite manoeuvres, but he lacked the necessary

forces. He made for the Yerres, throwing the enemy back on the Seine,

and on the eighteenth managed with difﬁ culty to recapture Montereau.

Schwarzenberg had time to reassemble his forces and retire on Troyes,

continuing his retreat via Chaumont and Langres, although Blücher had

already withdrawn to the Aube.

These checks disconcerted the allies. On the seventeenth the Austrians

took it upon themselves to offer an armistice, and repeated the attempt on

the twenty-fourth. In the letter he addressed to his father-in-law on the

twenty-second, and in his instructions to Flahaut, commissioned to go and

negotiate at Lusigny, Napoleon declared that he would only treat on the

basis of the Frankfurt proposals, for he could not reduce France to smaller

proportions than when he had assumed control. Moreover, Castlereagh had

protested against the Austrians’ separately taking the initiative. Although

Schwarzenberg had sent ﬁ fty thousand men to the rescue of Bubna, who

could not get the better of Augereau, ﬁ nal success was no longer in doubt

now that Bernadotte’s army was approaching. Bülow and Wintzingerode

were already entering Champagne, while Langeron and Saint-Priest were

bringing two fresh army corps from Germany. On 24 February Blücher set

out again, this time with the valley of the Grand Morin as his objective.

Castlereagh did not despair, but on the contrary pressed on with the ﬁ nal

discussions. It had already been agreed on the ﬁ fteenth that if Napoleon

would not negotiate before the fall of Paris, it might be necessary to consider

a possible ‘vote’ of the capital in order to refuse to treat with him. It was

agreed at Chaumont on the twenty-sixth to make a last communication of

these conditions to Caulaincourt, ﬁ xing 10 March as the ﬁ nal date for reply.

On 9 March, just as this fatal respite was about to expire, Castlereagh

obtained the signature of a pact which bound the four powers together

against France for a period of twenty years. In order to ensure respect for the

new European order they intended to work out by themselves, they agreed

each to provide 150,000 men. Only at this point did Castlereagh grant the

£5 million he had offered for 1814 – now that he had at last formed the

the fall of napoleon (1812–1815)

530

Coalition for which he had been hoping for over twenty years. On 10 March

Caulaincourt, who had not succeeded in making Napoleon give in, asked

for further time, and on the ﬁ fteenth produced a counter-plan, by which

France would retain Eugène in Italy, keep Saxony in the hands of its king and

have a voice in a congress to reorganise Europe. Negotiations were ﬁ nally

broken off at Châtillon on the nineteenth. Vitrolles, who had come from

Paris, had already been received by the allies. They had authorised him to go

to the comte d’Artois, whom he met at Nancy. Meanwhile, royalist demon-

strations in the occupied areas were more or less openly encouraged. On 22

March the English government ﬁ nally decided not to negotiate any further

with Napoleon.

The drama was now drawing to its close. On 28 February Napoleon had

once again dashed off in pursuit of Blücher, who was driving Marmont and

Mortier before him until he was brought up short by the Ourcq on 1 March.

Realising that he was in danger of being caught between two ﬁ res, he turned

northwards to join Bülow and Wintzingerode, who were attacking Soissons.

But he would not have escaped disaster if the place had not suddenly capitu-

lated on the third, making it possible for his whole army to re-form behind

the Aisne around Laon, while the French were compelled to look for a

crossing-place at Berry-au-Bac. After repulsing an attack by Blücher at

Craonne, Napoleon divided his forces into two columns and marched upon

Laon, where the enemy had now massed one hundred thousand men. On

the ninth, he was thrown back to the south of the town. Marmont, who had

been held up to the east, was surprised during the night and put to rout.

And now, on the tenth, the attack fell upon Napoleon, who withdrew

towards Soissons, giving Saint-Priest’s corps a pounding at Reims.

Nonetheless, the manoeuvre had failed. Thereupon Schwarzenberg, who

now only faced Macdonald and Oudinot, had slowly recovered all the lost

ground. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth, Napoleon left Blücher and

hastened from Reims to Méry in an attempt to take him in the ﬂ ank. But

once again his enemy made off, this time with even greater speed; and by

the nineteenth he was in safe shelter between the Seine and the Aube.

At this juncture, Napoleon did not give up the ﬁ ght, but ceased any

attempt to prevent the allies marching on Paris. He decided to make for

Lorraine, where he would regroup the garrison forces and cut the enemy’s

communications, after which he would come back and attack them under

the walls of a beleaguered Paris. But Schwarzenberg suddenly made up his

mind to act, and overwhelmed him on the twentieth and twenty-ﬁ rst as he

was crossing the Aube at Arcis, while Blücher was also on the way via

Châlons. Napoleon managed to cut free, though not without some difﬁ culty,

531

the disintegration of the continental system (1812–1814)

and retired to Saint-Dizier. Now that they had come together again, the two

generals agreed to march on Paris side by side along the valleys of the two

Morins. Mortier and Marmont, whose troops had been decimated on the

twenty-ﬁ fth at Fère-Champenoise, fell back on the outskirts of Paris, which

had just been abandoned by Marie-Louise on the twenty-ninth. After being

attacked on the thirtieth and slowly driven back, they surrendered during

the night. Napoleon was hurrying to their assistance in a state of agitation,

and when he reached Fontainebleau on the thirty-ﬁ rst, he still would not

admit defeat, but set about making arrangements for continuing the struggle.

Already, however, he had been betrayed and deserted.

On 31 March an allied proclamation invited the inhabitants of Paris to

pronounce on the kind of government France wished to have, and pointed to

the example of Bordeaux, which had greeted the duc d’Angoulême with

acclamation. The royalists went out to applaud the enemy’s entry into the city

and wore the white cockade, though they were few in number. On the

evening of the thirty-ﬁ rst at Talleyrand’s house, the sovereigns conﬁ rmed

their resolve not to treat with Napoleon and required the Senate to set up a

provisional government, of which Talleyrand naturally became the head. The

municipal council and the various constitutional bodies immediately began

to call for the return of the Bourbons. On 2 April the Senate decided that the

emperor was deposed, and this was proclaimed on the third with the agree-

ment of the Corps Législatif. The senators hastily patched together a constitu-

tion, taking good care to preserve their own hereditary status and endowments,

and on the sixth they called Louis XVIII to the throne. Meanwhile, the

marshals at Fontainebleau were refusing to follow their chief and were urging

him to abdicate in favour of his son. Napoleon gave way, and on 4 April sent

Caulaincourt, Ney and Macdonald to the tsar, picking up on the way Marmont,

who had withdrawn to Essonne. Alexander would not give an immediate

answer. But Marmont had accepted Schwarzenberg’s offer to go over to the

allies; and though he had put off taking this step, he went over to the enemy

with his forces in the night of the fourth, thus leaving Fontainebleau unde-

fended. There and then the tsar demanded outright abdication; and on the

sixth Napoleon ﬁ nally gave his consent.

But the war still went on in Italy and in the south. In January Murat had

thrown off his mask and occupied Rome, then Tuscany, and had ﬁ nally

invaded the Romagna. He then hesitated, indignant at the actions of

Bentinck, who had only agreed to an armistice with him on Castlereagh’s

orders, and, feigning ignorance, was landing troops at Leghorn in order to

march on Genoa. Eugène was able to halt Bellegarde on the Mincio. In the

hope of keeping the kingdom of Italy for himself, he began to negotiate

the fall of napoleon (1812–1815)

532

with Murat. But no agreement was reached and on 13 April the king

launched an offensive towards the Taro, and an insurrection broke out in

Milan. On the sixteenth Eugène signed a convention allowing him to leave

Italy. In the Pyrenees, Soult, after a fruitless attempt to free Pamplona and

San Sebastian, had successively lost the line of the Bidassoa in October 1813,

the Nivelle in November and the Nive in December. He had then fallen back

on the Gave at Pau, leaving the road to Bordeaux open to Wellington. Though

he was beaten at Orthez at the end of February, he manoeuvred around

Tarbes for the whole of March, and then retreated on Toulouse, where he

was ﬁ nally defeated on 10 April.

The Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on the eleventh, sealed the fate of

Napoleon. He was given the island of Elba and an annual allowance, Parma

was given to Marie-Louise and his son, and his relatives were granted an

income in national funds. On the twentieth he said farewell to the troops

that he had driven so relentlessly, who were yet the only people to remain

faithful to the last.

1 0

THE RESTORATION AND

THE HUNDRED DAYS

The victorious sovereigns assembled in Vienna to reorganise Europe

according to their desires. In France, Louis XVIII conﬁ rmed the principles of

1789 and the institutions of Napoleon; but it was not long before the

protests of a disappointed aristocracy began to be an embarrassment to his

government. This was just what Napoleon had hoped for. He was incapable

of resigning himself to his fate, and afraid that his conditions would be

made worse; and so he resolved to try his fortune one last time. His return

involved France in a fresh catastrophe, and led to his permanent captivity in

St Helena.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA AND THE SUCCESS OF THE

COUNTER-REVOLUTION

The allies, who were now complete masters of France, began by imposing

their conditions on the Bourbons. On 20 April the comte d’Artois, who had

just been appointed lieutenant-general by the Senate, signed an armistice

surrendering the fortiﬁ ed ports still held by the French, together with all

their equipment and stores. Peace was signed in Paris on 30 May. As well as

Montbéliard and Mulhouse, Talleyrand managed to save Chambéry and

Annecy, together with part of the Saar region, where he had special interests.

The allies did not ask for any war indemnity, and did not even claim the

return of the artistic treasures removed by Napoleon from the conquered

countries. As the boundaries of 1792 to which the allies had decided to