room, silent, abstracted, thoughtful, he did not appear to heed the talk going on around him touching dissolution and abdication, His troubled features were the index of a disturbed, an anxious mind— men; "Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike." He seemed to be waiting for a fortunate moment, for a lucky turn of events, for some unforeseen accident, which would give him rule and dominance once more. He clung tenaciously to power, yet he took no active measures to grasp it firmly. From this frame of mind he was aroused for a moment by news from the army. Grouchy, he learned, had evaded the Prussians, and had placed his column beyond their reach. A flash of courage crossed his mind. "You see all is not lost!" he exclaimed, and forthwith sent Davoust to the Chambers with an exaggerated statement from the frontier. The Guard had rallied at Avesnes; 20,000 men were between that place and Laon; Grouchy had beaten the Prussians, and had retreated with 35,000 Soult was at Philippeville; there were 60,000 men in arms, and 10,000 more, with 200 guns, might be sent from Paris. Davoust, returning from the Chamber, reported that the Deputies would not listen to him. Thus another chance disappeared. Regnault entered, described the scene he had witnessed in the Chamber, and the ultimatum of General Solignac. "What!" cried Napoleon, bursting with rage, they threaten violence! Then I will not abdicate. The Chamber is composed of Jacobins, whom I ought to have denounced and turned out; but the past may yet be repaired." Regnault besought him to give way, I have never refused to abdicate," he said, softening. "but eight days after I have abdicated the foreigner will be in Paris." Lucien, Joseph, the Duke of Bassano, now conjured him to abdicate. General Solignac entered and 66 gave in his terrible offer of an hour's grace. Lanjuinais sent word that the Chamber would wait no longer, and threatened to declare him hors la loi. The game was up. "Write to these gentlemen, said the Emperor to Fouché, “and tell them to be quiet-they shall be satisfied." And he forthwith dictated to Lucien his abdication. He simply vacated the throne in favour of his son-then in the hands of the Austrians-and he prayed the Chambers to provide a Regency without delay. The document was forwarded to both the Chambers, and they sent a deputation to express the gratitude and respect with which they accepted the "noble sacrifice." But neither House would fairly recognize Napoleon II., although the Imperialists insisted that, unless Napoleon II. were recognized, the abdication was null; and, after fierce debates, instead of a Regency they set up a Commission composed of three deputies and two peers, charged with the executive functions of government. They were Fouché, Carnot, Grenier, Caulaincourt, and Quinette. The ex-Emperor still for a few days remained in the solitude of the Elysée. On the 12th of June he had quitted Paris; on the 15th he invaded Belgium; on the 18th he fled from Waterloo; on the morning of the 21st he was once more in Paris; and ere sunset on the evening of the 22nd he had ceased to be Emperor of the French. But the struggle was not yet over. During the sitting of the 23rd the Imperialists attempted to induce the Deputies to recognize Napoleon II., and Lucien, at the Elysée, renewed his exhortations to Napoleon to withdraw his abdication and have recourse to arms. At one moment, so mobile is a French assembly, the Imperialists nearly succeeded in carrying the direct recognition of the young Napoleon by acclamation. The counsels of Fouché and the oratory of Manuel led to a different result-a qualified and delusive recognition of Napoleon II., by both Chambers, which practically decided nothing. However the Elysée might threaten, whatever the Chambers might determine, the Empire had ended. The leaders of the movement which overthrew Napoleon thought that, in dethroning him, they had removed the sole obstacle to peace. But they forgot that Napoleon-worship involved many consequences; they forgot that Europe, when it determined to make neither peace nor truce with Napoleon Bonaparte, also determined to take securities from France against a future disruption of peace and a resumption of the policy in which the nation rejoiced so long as it was enforced by victory, illuminated by glory, and sweetened by the plunder of Europe. France had to make restitution and give securities. From her Napoleon had derived his power to overrun Europe; he claimed it as a merit that he had known and had appreciated the character of the French nation; it could not be permitted that she should secure the quiet enjoyment of the fruits of victory simply by sacrificing the victor. Hence the news of the abdication of Napoleon did not arrest the allied generals in their march. § 4. March on Paris. It has been said, indeed, by Jomini, that the allied commanders determined to try and cut off Soult and Grouchy from Paris, because they had been informed by Fouché that Napoleon had abdicated. The error is repeated by later and more accurate French historians, although Charras, for one, had Wellington's Despatches before him. But the dates correct the mistake. It was on the 23rd, at Cattillon, that Wellington and Blucher agreed to march their armies by the right bank of the Oise, as far as Com piègne, Port St. Maxence, and Criel, turning the line of the Ainse et Oise. It was during the halt on the 24th that Wellington received, from Prince Frederick of Orange, then before Valencienes, a despatch in which was enclosed a copy of a letter from the governor of the place, requesting a suspension of hostilities, on the ground that Napoleon had abdicated in favour of his son. The Prussian marshal received like news from Ziethen, to whom General Morand had addressed a like demand. But at this moment the plan of the campaign was fixed and in process of execution. Wellington and Blucher hardly credited the report; "it appeared to me and Prince Blucher these measures were a trick; and at all events, were not calculated to satisfy the just pretensions of the Allies, and therefore that we ought not to discontinue our operations." Hence, the plan of a rapid march upon Paris by Compiègne was not a consequence of the news of Napoleon's abdication. The real reason was the confidence of both chiefs that they had "given Napoleon his death-blow.' Yet that march was a bold measure, for Wellington has declared that he had got "not only the worst troops, but the worst equipped army, with the worst staff, that ever was brought together." 3 But as he knew there was nothing to be beaten in France but the army, and as he believed the army to have been beaten already, he ventured boldly, and he ventured rightly. 1 The Allies, in their progress towards Paris, encountered no obstacles. Soult had not forseen an advance by the right bank of the Oise, and indeed so great were the confusion and moral discouragement in the French camps, and 1 Wellington to Bathurst, June 25. 2 Wellington to Uxbridge, June 23. U so decided was the progress of the Allies, that we cease to wonder at the absence of ordinary precautions, much less skilful dispositions. Napoleon fell, and none filled the void he left. The keystone dropped, and the Imperial arch collapsed almost in silence. The Prussians, in three columns, formed the left of the combined army, and were in advance. Laon and La Fere resisted the detachments sent against them; but they captured Ham, and Sir John Byng, with the Guards, carried the maiden fortress of Peronne by storm. Soult, obtaining some glimpse of the project of the Allies, withdrew his head-quarters on the 23rd to Soissons, and there he was joined by Grouchy, who, by the orders of the new provisional government at Paris, relieved him of the command of the army. But the troops of both generals were still on the march, and did not arrive until the 25th and 26th. At this time the heads of the allied columns were, the British at Mattignies, on the Somme, pointing to Roye, and the Prussians at Noyon, pointing to Compiègne. Grouchy, eager to save the bridge at that place, sent D'Erlon to occupy it, and Ziethen, eager to seize it, had launched forward Von Jagow, with directions to make a forced march and anticipate the French. there was a race for the bridge of Compiègne; the French moving along the left bank of the Aisne, the Prussians on the right bank of the Oise. Von Jagow won. On the 27th the French approached the place, but they recoiled before the fire of the Prussians, who had already reached and established themselves in this important passage. About the same time Bulow, coming from Ressons, occupied Pont St. Maxence and Creil, and when D'Erlon, guessing at what had occurred, retired by Verberie upon Senlis, he found Bulow's advanced guard across his path, and was compelled again to diverge from the road. Grouchy, informed by D'Erlon that the enemy had passed the Oise, directed Van Thus |