How the French Won Waterloo (or Think They Did) (5 page)

As if that weren’t bad enough, Marshal Auguste Marmont, the man who was supposed to be mounting the defence of Paris, went over to the Austrians, giving up his 16,000 troops as prisoners. (They, incidentally, shouted ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ as they surrendered their weapons – though they surrendered them all the same.)

Napoleon’s senior officers and former comrades-in-arms implored him to abdicate and end the fighting, and finally he gave in and wrote a letter of resignation, referring to himself, as he often did, in the third person: ‘Since the allied powers have proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to restoring peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, true to his vow, declares that he renounces, for himself and his descendants, his right to the crowns of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of his life, that he is not ready to make in the interests of France.’

Napoleon did actually try to make the ultimate sacrifice, swallowing a poison that had been mixed for him during the Russian campaign. However, while he was saying farewell to his advisers, he vomited it all up, and his terrified doctor refused to give him anything stronger. The palace was full of pistols, muskets, bayonets and swords, but the gunpowder had been removed from Napoleon’s personal pistols, and in any case he preferred poison, the favourite suicide method used in the tragic plays of France’s greatest dramatist, Racine. When his stomach cramps began to subside, Napoleon decided that he was destined to live.

On 20 April, officers from the Russian, Austrian, Prussian and British armies arrived to attend the Emperor’s official farewell. Napoleon walked out into the courtyard of the Château de Fontainebleau between two lines of his Old Guard in their tall bearskin hats and blue jackets, to make what was meant to be his final speech to his army:

‘Soldiers of my Old Guard, I bid you adieu. For the past 20 years I have found you constantly on the paths of honour and glory … With men like you, our cause was not lost, but the war was interminable. There would have been civil war, which would only have brought France more misfortune. I therefore sacrifice all our interests to those of the homeland. I am leaving. You, my friends, must continue to serve France. Its happiness was always my only consideration.’

As his soldiers wept – even the British officer present was seen to loosen his stiff upper lip – Napoleon kissed a tricolour flag embroidered with the names of his victories and climbed into a carriage that immediately sped away.

In fact he was going to enjoy what Marshal Lefebvre had recently prescribed for him – a rest down on the Med, with the title of King of the island of Elba and a pension of two million francs a year, payable by the French government. Napoleon’s wife and son had been more or less kidnapped by his Austrian father-in-law, Franz I, but he hoped that they would be able to meet up once he had proved to Europe that he was content to live as a simple retired soldier and, as he told his troops, ‘write about the great things we did together’.

Early retirement on an island off the Tuscan coast at only forty-four, with a fat pension and plenty of time to write a book. What normal person wouldn’t be content with that? The problem was that Napoleon wasn’t a normal person.

Neither, one might say, are his fans, because they seem to regard even this humiliating exit – rejected by his own generals, with his wife and son snatched away by his in-laws – as a kind of victory. The grand
adieu
(the French consider it so important that it gets elevated to the plural,
adieux
) is re-enacted every year in Fontainebleau, which, like every other town with a connection to Napoleon, dubs itself a
ville impériale
. For the 200th anniversary in 2014 there was a week of commemoration culminating in a declamation of the sombre speech in the chateau courtyard. But most people, especially the Napoleon fans, found it difficult to be sombre, as is the case every year, for the simple reason that they know he came back …

Elba ought to have been a very pleasant retirement home. The locals were delighted with their new resident, who had suddenly put their unknown island on the map. According to a certain Captain Jobit, on 4 May 1814, when Napoleon disembarked from the British frigate HMS
Undaunted
, he was met with cries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ and ‘Vive Napoléon le Grand!’ and given a banquet, fireworks and a display of the local ladies’
grande toilette
(which, as anyone who speaks French will know, is not a large lavatory but an outfit of smart clothing).

Napoleon’s new subjects didn’t mind that he had been unilaterally appointed their
souverain
(sovereign),
^fn9
especially when he began to help them improve their economy. No doubt recalling his days at the military academy, he got the Elbans to plant Corsican chestnut trees on sloping land to prevent soil erosion, and to grow a variety of vegetables. He also encouraged the islanders to bottle and sell the naturally sparkling water from a spring. And, ever the organiser, he had the roads paved and set up a rubbish-collection system so that people would stop filling the streets with rotting refuse. The new sovereign even expanded Elba’s borders by annexing a neighbouring unpopulated island and leaving a garrison of troops there. Not that Napoleon had begun to conscript the local men – rather unwisely, the allies had allowed him to take a thousand of his Guards along, so that it felt almost like being out on campaign again. Napoleon even slept on his old camp bed.

It would all have been fun except that he quickly realised his wife and son would never be joining him. In addition, he heard the sad news that his first wife Josephine had died, in tragically ironic circumstances. Apparently she had been giving Czar Alexander a guided tour of her rose garden – which was probably not a euphemism because she was a skilled creator of hybrid roses – when she contracted a chill that developed into pneumonia and what one French historian gruesomely describes as a ‘gangrenous throat infection’.

Worse still for Napoleon was the news that France itself was also suffering from a gangrenous infection – its royal family, in the gout-ridden shape of King Louis XVIII, who had been imposed ‘by foreign bayonets’ and was now in the process of reducing the French army by 100,000 men, and retiring 12,000 officers on half pay.

Some of Napoleon’s treacherous generals had been rewarded by Louis with new lands and titles, but they were all suffering the indignity of occupation. The hated Cossacks were camping on the Champs-Elysées, and the new British ambassador, Wellington, the man who had kicked the French army out of Spain, was becoming famous for his anti-French jibes. At one dinner he was snubbed by a group of Frenchmen and, suspecting that there were ex-soldiers among them, quipped, ‘’Tis of no matter, I have seen their backs before.’ Nothing hurts a French snob like a well-aimed insult. Especially an English insult.

The British and the other occupying forces were enjoying themselves too much. They paraded through Paris with Louis XVIII, their over-inflated puppet, whom even the Russian Czar secretly (or not so secretly) scorned – after a first state banquet with Louis in 1814, Alexander had announced that he had ‘just met the most useless
^fn10
man in Europe’. And much of this chaos was being fomented – organised, even – by the traitor Talleyrand, who, so Napoleon heard via his faithful informers, was now lobbying that the exiled Emperor of France be sent even further away – to the Azores.

By the end of 1814, Napoleon was already thinking that he had been away for long enough. France clearly needed him. He later told one of his marshals, ‘I knew that the homeland was unhappy. I came back to free it from the émigrés and the Bourbons’ (that is, the returning aristocrats and the exiled royal family).

Patriotism aside, it should also be pointed out that Napoleon was furious with Louis and Talleyrand because they had never paid him a cent of his huge pension. He was having to finance his lavish lifestyle (he had a hundred servants on the island, as well as his Guards) out of his own money, which was now running low. Soon he would not have enough to pay his soldiers, and without them he would be defenceless against Talleyrand’s attempts to kidnap him.

As any Frenchman knows, if you want to claim your pension rights, it is best to go straight to the central office in Paris. He had no choice but to leave Elba.

Like everything else in his life, Napoleon planned his escape with military precision. He ordered his grenadiers to start digging new flowerbeds, as if preparing for a long spring on the island. He had a ship, the
Inconstant
(‘Unfaithful’), painted in British naval colours. Knowing that the island was infested with Talleyrand’s spies disguised as monks, tourists and merchants, he started a rumour that he might be leaving for Naples. He even told his own men to put enough food and wine on the
Inconstant
for a trip to America.

On 26 February 1815, while the British military governor of the island, Colonel Neil Campbell, was away in Italy supposedly seeing a doctor but more probably visiting his mistress, Napoleon boarded the
Inconstant
and set sail for the French mainland with a flotilla of six smaller ships carrying his 1,000 soldiers. He told his men that he would ‘retake [his] crown without spilling a single drop of blood’. He must have known that if it did come to a fight, his thousand-strong bodyguard wouldn’t be much use against a million allied invaders.

He had already written the speech he intended to give to the nation:

‘People of France, a prince imposed by a temporarily victorious enemy is relying upon a few enemies of the people who have been condemned by all French governments for the last 25 years. During my exile, I have heard your complaints and your wishes. You have been demanding the government of your choice. I have crossed the sea and am here to reclaim my rights, which are also yours.’

And he didn’t only mean his pension.

Napoleon’s triumphant march north to Paris is the favourite story among pro-Bonaparte historians. They savour every detail. Reading their accounts, you get to know everything Napoleon ate en route (half a roast chicken in the village of Roccavignon near Grasse, for example, and roast duck and olives in Sisteron, in the foothills of the Alps), how little he slept (he would set off every morning at four a.m.), and the flattering speeches he gave in every town he crossed (‘my dearest wish was to arrive with the speed of an eagle in this good town of Gap/Grenoble/what’s its name again?’).

The descriptions of how French soldiers, supposedly in the service of Louis XVIII, defied their officers and joined Napoleon are the stuff of a propaganda film. These are the Bonapartists’ fondest memories.

Just outside Grenoble, for example, the returning Emperor was faced by 700 soldiers sent to stop his advance. Obeying orders, they raised their muskets and pointed them at Napoleon. Telling his musicians to play ‘La Marseillaise’, the revolutionary song that had been the exit music for Louis XVIII’s predecessor in 1789, Napoleon walked alone towards the line of 700 rifles. When he was within easy shooting range, he opened his famous grey overcoat and called out, ‘If there is among you one soldier who wants to kill his Emperor, here I am.’

In reply came a volley of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ The order to fire was ignored and the men rushed to greet Napoleon. Boney was back.

In Lyon, there was a similar scene of defiance. Louis XVIII’s brother Charles came to lead the defence of the city. He inspected the 1,500-strong garrison, who were treated to a patriotic speech by their commanding officer and then ordered to shout ‘Vive le Roi!’ None obeyed. Charles went out into the ranks and politely asked a dragoon to give the shout. The man bravely stayed mute, and the King’s brother leapt straight into his carriage and left for Paris. The monarchy, he realised, was finished (again).

Back in Paris, Napoleon’s old friend Marshal Ney was less supportive than the lower ranks. He declared that the fallen Emperor ‘deserved to be brought back [to Paris] in an iron cage’.
^fn11
He told Louis that ‘every Frenchman should repel him’, and suggested to the King that his troops would be more loyal if Louis himself was seen going into battle. Not on a horse, of course (it would have needed an elephant to carry him), but perhaps carried on a litter? No doubt aware that his bulk would make a large target for Napoleon’s guns, Louis decided that it was wiser for him to escape back into exile.

This all sounds like a hero’s return for Napoleon, but it would be a mistake to ignore the voices of dissent, even among his supporters. One officer, a certain Colonel Le Bédoyère, a veteran of the Russian campaign, brought his soldiers over to Napoleon but warned him, ‘No more ambition, Sire, no more despotism. Your Majesty must abandon the system of conquests and extreme power that brought misfortune to France and yourself.’

The newspapers of the time were also largely against Napoleon. Louis XVIII had only recently granted freedom of the press, and the editors didn’t want to lose it again to their deposed dictator. The papers embarked on a campaign of disinformation, claiming for example that Napoleon had been stopped at Digne in the French Alps and chased off by local peasants. The problem was that by the time a report was published in the papers, rumours had outrun it. On the day Napoleon was supposedly turned back at Digne, he was already 200 kilometres north of there, in Grenoble.

What is not always pointed out in French history books is that Napoleon chose a Hannibal-like route through the French Alps because he was afraid of meeting hostile crowds in large towns along the south coast, like Toulon, where he had suppressed the pro-royalist revolt in 1793.

In a recent study of private letters written at the time, a French historian called Aurélien Lignereux revealed that Napoleon was right to be afraid of opposition. Ordinary middle-class French people were reacting to the news of his return with trepidation. They saw it as yet another upheaval, and suspected that war would be around the corner yet again.