1815
Interview with Lavallette--Proceedings in the French Chambers--Second abdication of Napoleon--He retires to Rochefort, negotiates with Captain Maitland, and finally embarks in the 'Bellerophon'.
One of the first public men to see Napoleon after his return from Waterloo was Lavallette. "I flew," says he, "to the Elysee to see the Emperor: he summoned me into his closet, and as soon as he saw me, he came to meet me with a frightful epileptic 'laugh. `Oh, my God!' he said, raising his eyes to heaven, and walking two or three times up and down the room. This appearance of despair was however very short. He soon recovered his coolness, and asked me what was going forward in the Chamber of Representatives. I could not attempt to hide that party spirit was there carried to a high pitch, and that the majority seemed determined to require his abdication, and to pronounce it themselves if he did not concede willingly. 'How is that?' he said. 'If proper measures are not taken the enemy will be before the gates of Paris in eight days. Alas!' he added, 'have I accustomed them to such great victories that they knew not how to bear one day's misfortune? What will become of poor France? I have done all I could for her!' He then heaved a deep sigh. Somebody asked to speak to him, and I left him, with a direction to come back at a later hour.
"I passed the day in seeking information among all my friends and acquaintances. I found in all of them either the greatest dejection or an extravagant joy, which they disguised by feigned alarm and pity for myself, which I repulsed with great indignation. Nothing favourable was to be expected from the Chamber of Representatives. They all said they wished for liberty, but, between two enemies who appeared ready to destroy it, they preferred the foreigners, the friends of the Bourbons, to Napoleon, who might still have prolonged the struggle, but that he alone would not find means to save them and erect the edifice of liberty.
The Chamber of Peers presented a much sadder spectacle. Except the intrepid Thibaudeau, who till, the last moment expressed himself with admirable energy against the Bourbons, almost all the others thought of nothing else but getting out of the dilemma with the least loss they could. Some took no pains to hide their wish of bending again under the Bourbon yoke."
On the evening of Napoleon's return to Paris he sent for Benjamin Constant to come to him at the Elysee about seven o'clock. The Chambers had decreed their permanence, and proposals for abdication had reached the Emperor. He was serious but calm. In reply to some words on the disaster of Waterloo he said, "The question no longer concerns me, but France. They wish me to abdicate. Have they calculated upon the inevitable consequences of this abdication? It is round me, round my name, that the army rallies: to separate me from it is to disband it.
If I abdicate to-day, in two days' time you will no longer have an army.
These poor fellows do not understand all your subtleties. Is it believed that axioms in metaphysics, declarations of right, harangues from the tribune, will put a stop to the disbanding of an army? To reject me when I landed at Cannes I can conceive possible; to abandon me now is what I do not understand. It is not when the enemy is at twenty-five leagues' distance that any Government can be overturned with impunity. Does any one imagine that the Foreign Powers will be won over by fine words? If they had dethroned me fifteen days ago there would have been some spirit in it; but as it is, I make part of what strangers attack, I make part, then, of what France is bound to defend. In giving me up she gives up herself, she avows her weakness, she acknowledges herself conquered, she courts the insolence of the conqueror. It is not the love of liberty which deposes me, but Waterloo; it is fear, and a fear of which your enemies will take advantage. And then what title has the Chamber to demand my abdication? It goes out of its lawful sphere in doing so; it has no authority. It is my right, it is my duty to dissolve it."
"He then hastily ran over the possible consequences of such a step.
Separated from the Chambers, he could only be considered as a military chief: but the army would be for him; that would always join him who can lead it against foreign banners, and to this might be added all that part of the population which is equally powerful and easily, led in such a state of things. As if chance intended to strengthen Napoleon in this train of thought, while he was speaking the avenue of Marigny resounded with the cries of 'Vive l'Empereur!' A crowd of men, chiefly of the poor and labouring class, pressed forward into the avenue, full of wild enthusiasm, and trying to scale the walls to make an offer to Napoleon to rally round and defend him. Bonaparte for some time looked attentively at this group. 'You see it is so,' said he; "those are not the men whom I have loaded with honours and riches. What do these people owe me? I found them--I left them--poor. The instinct of necessity enlightens them; the voice of the country speaks by their months; and if I choose, if I permit it, in an hour the refractory Chambers will have ceased to exist. But the life of a man is not worth purchasing at such a price: I did not return from the Isle of Elba that Paris should be inundated with blood: He did not like the idea of flight. 'Why should I not stay here?' he repeated. 'What do you suppose they would do to a man disarmed like me? I will go to Malmaison: I can live there in retirement with some friends, who most certainly will come to see me only for my own sake.'
"He then described with complacency and even with a sort of gaiety this new kind of life. Afterwards, discarding an idea which sounded like mere irony, he went on. 'If they do not like me to remain in France, where am I to go? To England? My abode there would be ridiculous or disquieting.
