CHAPTER XII.
THE CENT JOURS
The extraordinary rapidity of events during the Cent fours, or Hundred Days of Napoleon's reign in 1815, and the startling changes in the parts previously filled by the chief personages, make it difficult to consider it as an historical period; it more resembles a series of sudden theatrical transformations, only broken by the great pause while the nation waited for news from the army.
The first Restoration of the Bourbons had been so unexpected, and was so rapidly carried out, that the Bonapartists, or indeed all France, had hardly realized the situation before Napoleon was again in the Tuileries; and during the Cent Jours both Bonapartists and Royalists were alike rubbing their eyes, asking whether they were awake, and wondering which was the reality and which the dream, the Empire or the Restoration.
It is both difficult and interesting to attempt to follow the history of the chief characters of the period; and the reader must pardon some abrupt transitions from person to person, and from group to group, while the details of some subsequent movements of the Bonaparte family must be thrown in to give a proper idea of the strange revolution in their fortunes. We may divide the characters with which we have to deal into five groups,—the Bonaparte family, the Marshals, the Statesmen of the Empire, the Bourbons, and the Allied Monarchs. One figure and one name will be missing, but if we omit all account of poor, bleeding, mutilated France, it is but leaving her in the oblivion in which she was left at the time by every one except by Napoleon.
The disaster of 1814 had rather dispersed than crushed the Bonaparte family, and they rallied immediately on the return from Elba. The final fall of the Empire was total ruin to them. The provisions of the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which had been meant to ensure a maintenance to them, had not been carried out while Napoleon was still a latent power, and after 1815 the Bourbons were only too happy to find a reason for not paying a debt they had determined never to liquidate it was well for any of the Bourbons in their days of distress to receive the bounty of the usurper, but there was a peculiar pleasure in refusing to pay the price promised for his immediate abdication.
The flight of the Bonapartes in 1815 was rapid. Metternich writes to Maria Louisa in July 1815: "Madame Mere and Cardinal Fesch left yesterday for Tuscany. We do not know exactly where. Joseph is. Lucien is in England under a false name, Jerome in Switzerland, Louis at Rome. Queen Hortense has set out for Switzerland, whither General de Flahault and his mother will follow her. Murat seems to be still at Toulon; this, however, is not certain." Was ever such an account of a dynasty given? These had all been among the great ones of Europe: in a moment they were fugitives, several of them having for the rest of their lives a bitter struggle with poverty. Fortunately for them the Pope, the King of Holland, and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, were not under heavy obligations to Napoleon, and could thus afford to give to his family the protection denied them by those monarchs who believed themselves bound to redeem their former servility.
When Napoleon landed Maria Louisa was in Austria, and she was eager to assist in taking every precaution to prevent her son, the young King of Rome, being spirited off to join his father, whose fortunes she had sworn to share: She herself was fast falling under the influence of the one- eyed Austrian General, Neipperg, just then left a widower, who was soon to be admitted to share her bed. By 1823 she seemed to have entirely forgotten the different members of the Bonaparte family, speaking of her life in France as "a bad dream." She obtained the Grand-Duchy of Parma, where she reigned till 1847, marrying a third time, it is said, the Count Bombellea, and dying, just too soon to be hunted from her Duchy by the Revolution of 1848.
There is something very touching in most that we know of the poor young King of Rome, from his childish but strangely prescient resistance to his removal from Paris to Blois on the approach of the Allies in 1814, to the message of remembrance sent in after years to the column of the Place Vendome, "his only friend in Paris."
At four years of age Meneval describes him as gentle, but quick in answering, strong, and with excellent health. "Light curly hair in ringlets set off a fresh face, while fine blue eyes lit up his regular features: He was precociously intelligent, and knew more than most children older than himself." When Meneval—the former secretary of his father, giving up his post in Austria with Maria Louisa, as he was about to rejoin Napoleon—took farewell of the Prince in May 1815, the poor little motherless child drew me towards the window, and, giving me a touching look, said in a low tone, "Monsieur Meva, tell him (Napoleon) that I always love him dearly." We say "motherless," because Maria Louisa seems to have yielded up her child at the dictates of policy to be closely guarded as easily as she gave up her husband. "If," wrote Madame de Montesquiou, his governess, "the child had a mother, I would leave him in her hands, and be happy, but she is nothing like a mother, she is more indifferent to his fate than the most utter stranger in her service." His grandfather, the Emperor Francis, to do him justice, seems to have been really kind to the lad, and while, in 1814, 1816, and in 1830, taking care to deprive him of all chance of, his glorious inheritance, still seems to have cared for him personally, and to have been always kind to him. There is no truth in the story that the Austrians neglected his education and connived at the ruin of his faculties. Both his tutor, the Count Maurice Dietrichstein, and Marshal Marmont, who conversed with him in 1831, agree in speaking highly of him as full of promise: Marmont's evidence being especially valuable as showing that the Austrians did not object to the Duke of Reichstadt (as he had been created by his grandfather in 1818), learning all be could of his father's life from one of the Marshals. In 1831 Marment describes him: "I recognised his father's look in him, and in that he most resembled Napoleon. His eyes, not so large as those of Napoleon, and sunk deeper in their sockets, had the same expression, the same fire, the same energy. His forehead was like that of his father, and so was the lower part of his face and his chin. Then his complexion was that of Napoleon in his youth, with the same pallor and the same colour of the skin, but all the rest of his face recalled his mother and the House of Austria. He was taller than Napoleon by about three inches." `
As long as the Duke lived his name was naturally the rallying-point of the Bonapartes, and was mentioned in some of the many conspiracies against the Bourbons. In 1830 Joseph Bonaparte tried to get the sanction of the Austrians to his nephew being put forward as a claimant to the throne of France, vacant by the flight of Charles X., but they held their captive firmly. A very interesting passage is given in the 'Memoirs of Charles Greville', who says that Prince Esterhazy told him a great deal about the Duke of Reichstadt, who, if he had lived, would have probably played a great part in the world. He died of a premature decay, brought on, apparently, by over-exertion and over-excitement; his talents were very conspicuous, he was 'petri d'ambition', worshipped the memory of his father, and for that reason never liked his mother; his thoughts were incessantly turned towards France, and when he heard of the Days of July (overthrow of Charles X.) he said, "Why was I not there to take my chance? He evinced great affection and gratitude to his grandfather, who, while he scrupulously observed all his obligations towards Louis Philippe, could not help feeling a secret pride in the aspiring genius of Napoleon's son. He was well educated, and day and night pored over the history of his father's glorious career. He delighted in military exercises, and not only shone at the head of his regiment, but had already acquired the hereditary art of ingratiating himself with the soldiers." Esterhazy went on to describe how the Duke abandoned everything at a ball when he met there Marshals Marmont and Maison." He had no eyes or ears but for them; from nine in the evening to five the next morning he devoted himself to these Marshals." There was the true Napoleonic ring in his answer to advice given by Marmont when the Duke said that he would not allow himself to be put forward by the Sovereigns of Europe. "The son of Napoleon should be too great to serve as an instrument; and in events of that nature I wish not to be an advanced guard, but a reserve,—that is, to come as a succour, recalling great memories."
His death in 1832, on the 22d of July, the anniversary of the battle of Salamanca, solved many questions. Metternich visited the Duke on his deathbed: "It was a heartrending sight. I never remember to have seen a more mournful picture of decay." When Francis was told of the death of his grandson he answered, "I look upon the Duke's death as a blessing for him. Whether it be detrimental or otherwise to the public good I do not know. As for myself, I shall ever lament the loss of my grandson."
Josephine was in her grave at Rueil when Napoleon returned. She had died on the 29th of May 1814, at Malmaison, while the Allies were exhibiting themselves in Paris. It seems hard that she should not have lived to enjoy a triumph, however brief, over her Austrian rival. "She, at least," said Napoleon truly, "would never have abandoned me."
Josephine's daughter, Hortense, separated from her husband, Louis Bonaparte, and created Duchess of St Leu by Louis XVIII., was in Paris, much suspected by the Bourbons, but really engaged in a lawsuit with her husband about the custody of her sons. She had to go into hiding when the news of the landing arrived, but her empty house, left unwatched, became very useful for receiving the Bonapartists, who wished for a place of concealment, amongst them, as we shall see, being, of all people, Fouche! Hortense was met by Napoleon with some reproaches for accepting a title from the Bourbons, but she did the honours of the Elysee for him, and it is creditable to both of them that, braving the vile slanders about their intercourse, she was with him to the end; and that one of the last persons to embrace him at Malmaison before he started for the coast was his adopted daughter, the child of his discarded wife. Hortense's presence in Paris was thought to be too dangerous by the Prussian Governor; and she was peremptorily ordered to leave. An appeal to the Emperor Francis received a favourable answer, but Francis always gave way where any act against his son-in-law was in question, and she had to start at the shortest notice on a wandering life to Aix, Baden, and Constance, till the generosity of the small but brave canton of Thurgau enabled her to get a resting-place at the Chateau of Arenenberg.
In 1831 she lost her second son, the eldest then surviving, who died from fever in a revolutionary attempt ill which he and his younger brother, the future Napoleon. III., were engaged. She was able to visit France incognita, and even to see Louis Philippe and his Queen; but her presence in the country was soon thought dangerous, and she was urged to leave. In 1836 Hortense's last child, Louis Napoleon, made his attempt at an 'emeule' at Strasburg, and was shipped off to America by the Government. She went to France to plead for him, and then, worn out by grief and anxiety, returned to Arenenberg, which her son, the future Emperor, only succeeded in reaching in time to see her die in October 1837. She was laid with Josephine at Rueil.
Hortense's brother, Prince Eugene, the Viceroy of Italy, was at Vienna when Napoleon returned, and fell under the suspicion of the Allies of having informed the Emperor of the intention of removing him from Elba. He was detained in Bavaria by his father-in-law the King, to whose Court he retired, and who in 1817 created him Duke of Leuchtenberg and Prince of Eichstadt. With the protection of Bavaria he actually succeeded in wringing from the Bourbons some 700,000 francs of the property of his mother. A first attack of apoplexy struck him in 1823, and he died from a second in February 1824 at Munich. His descendants have intermarried into the Royal Families of Portugal, Sweden, Brazil, Russia, 'and Wartemberg; his grandson now (1884) holds the title of Leuchtenberg.
Except Louis, an invalid, all the brothers of the Emperor were around him in the Cent Jours, the supreme effort of their family. Joseph had left Spain after Vittoria, and had remained in an uncomfortable and unrecognised state near Paris until in 1814 he was again employed, and when, rightly or not, he urged the retreat of the Regency from Paris to Blois. He then took refuge at his chateau of Prangins in the canton Vaud in Switzerland, closely watched by the Bourbonists, who dreaded danger from every side except the real point, and who preferred trying to hunt the Bonapartists from place to place, instead of making their life bearable by carrying out the engagements with them.
In 1816, escaping from the arrest with which he was threatened, after having written to urge Murat to action with fatal effect, Joseph joined Napoleon in Paris, and appeared at the Champ de Mai, sitting also in the Chamber of Peers, but, as before, putting forward ridiculous pretensions as to his inherent right to the peerage, and claiming a special seat. In fact, he never could realise how entirely he owed any position to the brother he wished to treat as an equal.
He remained in Paris during the brief campaign, and after Waterloo was concealed in the house of the Swedish Ambassador, where his sister-in- law, the Crown Princess of Sweden, the wife of Bernadotte, was living. Muffling, the Prussian Governor of Paris, wished to arrest him, but as the Governor could not violate the domicile of an Ambassador, he had to apply to the Czar, who arranged for the escape of the ex-King before the Governor could seize him Joseph went to the coast, pretty much following the route of Napoleon. He was arrested once at Saintes, but was allowed to proceed, and he met his brother on the 4th of July, at Rochefort.
It is significant as to the possibility of the escape of Napoleon that Joseph succeeded in getting on the brig Commerce as "M. Bouchard," and, though the ship was thrice searched by the English, he got to New York on the 28th of August, where he was mistaken for Carnot. He was well received, and, taking the title of Comte de Survilliers, he first lived at Lansdowne, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, where he afterwards always passed part of the year while he was in America. He also bought the property of Point Breeze, at Bordentown, on the Delaware, where he built a house with a fine view of the river. This first house was burnt down, but he erected another, where he lived in some state and in great comfort, displaying his jewels and pictures to his admiring neighbours, and showing kindness to impecunious nephews.
The news of the Revolution of July in 1830, which drove Charles X. from the throne, excited Joseph's hopes for the family of which he considered himself the Regent, and he applied to Metternich to get the Austrian Government to allow or assist in the placing his nephew, the Duke of Reichstadt, on the throne of France. Austria would not even answer.
In July 1832 Joseph crossed to England, where he met Lucien, just arrived from Italy, bringing the news of the death of his nephew. Disappointed, he stayed in England for some time, but returned to America in 1836. In he finally left America, and again came to England, where he had a paralytic stroke, and in 1843 he went to Florence, where he met his wife after a long separation.
Joseph lived long enough to see the two attempts of another nephew, Louis Napoleon, at Strasburg in 1836, and at Boulogne in 1840, which seem to have been undertaken without his knowledge, and to have much surprised him. He died in Florence in 1844; his body was buried first in Santa Croce, Florence, but was removed to the Invalides in 1864. His wife the ex-Queen, had retired in 1815 to Frankfort and to Brussels, where she was well received by the King, William, and where she stayed till 1823, when she went to Florence, dying there in 1845. Her monument is in the Cappella Riccardi, Santa Croce, Florence.
Lucien had retired to Rome in 1804, on the creation of the Empire, and had continued embroiled with his brother, partly from his so-called Republican principles, but chiefly from his adhering to his marriage, his second one, with Madame Jouberthon,—a union which Napoleon steadily refused to acknowledge, offering Lucien anything, a kingdom or the hand of a queen (if we take Lucien's account), if he would only consent to the annulment of the contract.
In August 1810, affecting uneasiness as Napoleon stretched his power over Rome, Lucien embarked for America, but he was captured by the English and taken, first to Malta and then to England, where he passed the years till 1814 in a sort of honourable captivity, first at Ludlow and then at Thorngrove, not far from that town.
In 1814 Lucien was released, when he went to Rome, where he was welcomed by the kindly old Pope, who remembered the benefits conferred by Napoleon on the Church, while he forgot the injuries personal to himself; and the stiff-necked Republican, the one-time "Brutus" Bonaparte, accepted the title of Duke of Musignano and Prince of Canino.
In 1815 Lucien joined his brother, whom he wished to abdicate at the Champ de Mai in favour of the King of Rome, placing his sword only at the disposal of France. This step was seriously debated, but, though it might have placed the Allies in a more difficult position, it would certainly have been disregarded by them, at least unless some great victory had given the dynasty firmer footing. After Waterloo he was in favour of a dissolution of the Chambers, but Napoleon had become hopeless and almost apathetic, while Lucien himself, from his former connection with the 18th and 19th Brumaire, was looked on with great distrust by the Chambers, as indeed he was by his brother. Advantage was taken of his Roman title to taunt him with not being a Frenchman; and all his efforts failed. At the end he fled, and failing to cross to England or to get to Rochefort, he reached Turin on the 12th of July only to find himself arrested. He remained there till the 15th of September, when he was allowed to go to Rome. There he was interned and carefully watched; indeed in 1817 the Pope had to intervene to prevent his removal to the north of Germany, so anxious were the Allies as to the safety of the puppet they had put on the throne of France.
The death of Napoleon in 1821 released Lucien and the Bonaparte family from the constant surveillance exercised over them till then. In 1830 he bought a property, the Croce del Biacco, near Bologna. The flight of the elder branch of the Bourbons from France in 1830 raised his hopes, and, as already said, he went to England in 1832 to meet Joseph and to plan some step for raising Napoleon II. to the throne. The news of the death of his nephew dashed all the hopes of the family, and after staying in England for some time he returned to Italy, dying at Viterbo in 1840, and being buried at Canino, where also his second wife lies. Lucien had a taste for literature, and was the author of several works, which a kindly posterity will allow to die.
Louis Bonaparte had fled from his Kingdom of Holland in 1810, after a short reign of four years, disgusted with being expected to study the interests of the brother to whom he owed his throne, and with being required to treat his wife Hortense with ordinary consideration. He had taken refuge in Austria, putting that Court in great anxiety how to pay him the amount of attention to be expected by the brother of the Emperor, and at the same time the proper coldness Napoleon might wish shown to a royal deserter. Thanks to the suggestions of Metternich, they seem to have been successful in this task. Taking the title of Comte de, St. Len from an estate in France; Louis went first to Toplitz, then to Gratz, and in 1813 he took refuge in Switzerland. In 1814 he went to Rome; and then to Florence, where the Grand-Duke Ferdinand received any of the family who came there with great kindness.