Citizen Emperor (103 page)

The first day’s fighting petered out when it became dark. The next morning, Napoleon still thought he was fighting the allied rearguard. In fact, Schwarzenberg had fought with only a fraction of the allied army. When Napoleon understood what was before him, there could be no question of continuing the fight; he withdrew during the day, helped by the fact that Schwarzenberg, as cautious as ever, did not attack until three in the afternoon. It is astonishing that the allies did not press home their advantage – a Blücher or a Wellington certainly would have – but such was the quality of allied leadership, and such their fear of Napoleon’s military prowess, that an opportunity to end the war there and then was lost. Napoleon retreated with only 12,000 of his men left.

The allies knew what Napoleon was planning to do next. Cossacks had captured a letter from Napoleon to Marie-Louise stating that he intended to draw the allies away from Paris by pushing towards the Marne.
²⁷
The advantage in terms of information gathering and reconnaissance was decidedly in favour of the allies. On 23–24 March, more letters were captured that revealed the poor state of morale of Napoleon’s troops, as well as the lack of preparations for a siege in Paris. Most important of all, though, was a letter from Savary to Napoleon declaring that he could not answer for the loyalty of the people of Paris.
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It coincided with news from Bordeaux, just occupied by Wellington, that the white Bourbon flag had been raised.
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Castlereagh may have thought this to be ‘providential’ for the Bourbons,
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but one should not read too much into this.

As a result of these captured dispatches, as well as other reports, an allied council of war was held on the morning of 24 March. The allies faced two possible courses of action: they could pursue Napoleon or they could march on Paris. It was Alexander who, after consulting with his generals, decided that it would be preferable to ignore Napoleon and to march on Paris as soon as possible, convincing Frederick William and Schwarzenberg in the process (although neither needed too much persuading).
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It was the sensible thing to do from the allied perspective: supplies were running short after three months’ campaigning in Champagne and Napoleon seemed as unyielding as ever. The only means of obtaining a secure peace was through a military solution. Paris thus became the central focus of the allied armies, in the belief that if it fell so too would the regime.

On 28 March, the allied plenipotentiaries who were gathered at Dijon openly drank to the success of the Bourbon cause.
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The next day, 200,000 troops under Blücher and Schwarzenberg approached Paris, and began their attack on the heights of Belleville and Montmartre at five in the morning.
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‘Everyone Has Lost their Heads’
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On a cold, overcast winter’s day in March – it was one of the coldest months on record
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– a mournful line of victims of war wound its way from the Villette towards the Champs-Elysées and the Ecole Militaire.
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It was made up of the wounded, the sick, prisoners and peasant refugees with their families and whatever they could carry with them. Veterans of the Guard rode by on skinny horses, their white capes covered in mud and blood, their haggard looks revealing what they had just lived through; the wounded were placed on wagons requisitioned for the purpose. The curious came out to see them walk by. Some of the onlookers gave them what little bread and wine they could; some gave money. All the while, the thunder of cannon could be heard in the distance. This was a population used to seeing its soldiers march past in victory parades. It was the first time in living memory that the people of Paris had looked upon a French army in defeat. They were, generally speaking, antagonistic. General Pelleport, wounded in the fighting, wrote that at first no one at Belleville wanted to take care of him but that finally a group of workers from the
faubourg
broke down the door of a hotel to let him in.
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Colonel Girard, also wounded, was no more successful in getting himself looked after. When his domestics told people that he might succumb, they replied, ‘Good’ (
Tant mieux
). Nor were the people of Paris happy with Napoleon, whom they blamed for bringing this disaster upon them. ‘For the first time,’ wrote one British witness who had been a prisoner in France since 1803, ‘I heard the people openly dare to venture complaints against the Emperor as the sole cause of the impending calamity.’
³⁸

Two days previously, on 28 March at 8.30 in the evening, the guns firing on the outskirts of Paris could be heard in the Tuileries Palace where a meeting of the Regency Council was taking place. They had met to decide the fate of the Empire. Everyone, with the exception of Henri Clarke, asserted that Marie-Louise had to stay in the capital and that for her to leave would risk seeing the Empire collapse. It was then that Joseph pulled out two letters he had received from his brother. In the first of these, dated 8 February 1814, Napoleon stated that in the event of his death or the capture of Paris, Marie-Louise and his son should be taken to the Château de Rambouillet, in the Loire Valley, and that under no circumstances should the Empress and his son be allowed to fall into enemy hands.
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The second letter, dated from Rheims on 16 March, reiterated his desire not to see his wife and son fall into enemy hands. ‘I would rather know that he is in the Seine than in the hands of the enemies of France.’
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Part of the problem here was Napoleon’s pride; this was not about protecting his wife and child. They would have been perfectly safe in an occupied city. It was because he could not bear the thought, if ever he were defeated, of having to put himself under the protection of his wife.
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The letters shook the confidence of the Council, which decided, with some regret, that Napoleon’s orders had to be followed and that Marie-Louise should leave for Rambouillet the next day (accompanied by Cambacérès). Talleyrand remarked at the end of the meeting, which finished well after midnight, ‘Goodness me, that is to lose a fine game.’
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To his credit, Joseph went to the heights of Montmartre the next day to see the fighting for himself, after which he wrote a note to Mortier and Marmont instructing them to negotiate, if they could not hold out. At three or four o’clock in the afternoon, Marmont informed the Russian commander, Barclay, that he was prepared to discuss an armistice.
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After the two marshals had negotiated with the allies for several hours in a little cabaret just outside the Saint-Denis barrier, they signed the capitulation at two in the morning on 31 March. It was a decision Marmont would spend the rest of his life justifying.
⁴⁴
During the nineteenth century, the verb
raguser
, a pun on Marmont’s title, the Duc de Raguse, became synonymous with betrayal. Napoleon and his followers later needed a scapegoat; Marmont conveniently fitted the bill. In that manner, Napoleon, as we shall see, was always able to argue that he was not defeated but betrayed. It was an idea that was as rife in the France of 1814 as the myth of the ‘stab in the back’ in Germany at the end of the First World War. The people of Paris were convinced that they had not capitulated, but that Marmont had betrayed them.
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A similar sentiment was expressed in the towns and villages to the north and east of Paris, such as Craonne, Laon and Soissons. It was a sentiment that pervaded the army as well, and was perpetuated by Napoleon who may have believed it himself.
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The accusation of betrayal directed at Marmont is, however, excessive.
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When the 200,000-strong allied army reached the village of Clichy, then a little town not far from Paris, they faced around 38,000 French troops, many of whom were National Guardsmen, ill equipped and ill trained. Under the circumstances, and despite making some mistakes, Marmont and Mortier did remarkably well on 29 March to hold off the allied assaults for as long as they did.
⁴⁸

The decision to leave Paris was made against the Empress’s better judgement. Marie-Louise had kept in touch with Napoleon by correspondence the whole time he was away, writing to him, for example, on 10 March – it was their child’s birthday – to say how much she had been thinking about him.
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She wrote to her husband immediately after the Regency Council to inform him of the decision. ‘I confess that I am quite against the idea, I am sure it will have a terrible effect on the Parisians.’
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And later that day she wrote again: ‘everyone has lost their head, except me, and I hope that in a few days you can tell me that I was right not to want to evacuate the capital.’
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The next day, the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting could be seen through the windows of the palace, running from room to room, some weeping, as they gathered their things.
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Marie-Louise set off with her entourage in the evening of 29 March, in about twelve berlines plus a number of baggage wagons that contained the imperial treasury, watched by the people of Paris in the ‘most profound silence’.
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What followed, to paraphrase Marshal Oudinot’s wife, was the government, the Empire.
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They headed for Chartres via Rambouillet, but finally settled on Blois, where they arrived on 2 April. The departure of the court caused a slight panic among some in the Parisian upper classes. The roads to Rouen, Chartres and Dreux were blocked with traffic as the wealthy attempted to get out of the capital and find refuge in quieter country towns.
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The city itself was relatively calm, if not deserted. Few shops were open, although the Café Tortoni on the Boulevard des Italiens continued to serve ices and punch while French wounded and allied prisoners filed past in front of an indifferent clientele.
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Those fleeing were joined by Joseph and Jérôme, who had left Paris even before Marmont had officially capitulated, and later by Louis, Letizia and Fesch. Louis was, according to Marie-Louise, ‘in such a state of panic . . . and so demented that it was embarrassing’.
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Hortense received the order to follow Marie-Louise, but before doing so she wrote to her mother to say that she too should flee to Normandy. Josephine wrote to her daughter about how unhappy she was being separated from her children, to the point where she did not care about her own fate. ‘I am only worried about you,’ she added.
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She left Malmaison on 29 March with three carriages and travelled about twenty leagues over two days. She reached Navarre in Normandy the next day and was joined by her daughter on the 31st. The trip was ‘sad and painful’, wrote her chambermaid.

The same morning the capitulation was signed, the 31st, the allies marched into Paris. Not since the days of Joan of Arc had the city fallen to a foreign invader (it would occur twice more, in 1870 and again in 1940). The allied troops marched through Montmartre into the centre of the city and eventually down the Champs-Elysées. It was a stark reminder to the people of Paris that the allies were indeed the stronger of the two forces and that, contrary to Napoleonic propaganda over the past few weeks, they had won the day. It is often said that Frederick William and Alexander (Francis was not there) were greeted by huge enthusiastic crowds, some bearing the white cockades and waving the white flag of the Bourbons, but it was not that clear-cut.
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The people of the Faubourg Saint-Martin, working class, were sullen (and were later known to harass and even attack small groups of military).
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As the allies passed through the triumphal arch at Saint-Denis, however, cheers started to be heard. By the time they got to the Tuileries, there was a veritable festival.
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That same evening, a conference was held at Talleyrand’s house in the rue Saint-Florentin between a number of French politicians and the allied leaders, Alexander, Frederick William and Schwarzenberg (filling in for Francis). They decided to draft a proclamation to the French people announcing that the allies would no longer treat with Napoleon (or any member of his family), that they would respect the integrity of France as it had existed in 1792 and that they would recognize any constitution the French decided to give themselves.
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The declaration, signed by Alexander and pasted on the walls of Paris, also called on the Senate to elect a provisional government, which it did under Talleyrand’s guidance on 1 April. The very next day, the Senate deposed Napoleon and his family.