# The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 1/Number 7/The Hundred Days

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
[Concluded.]
The most remarkable event of the "Hundred Days" was the celebrated "Champ de Mai," where Napoleon met deputies from the Departments, and distributed eagles to representatives of his forces. He intended it as an assembly of the French people, which should sanction and legalize his second accession to the throne, and pledge itself, by solemn adjuration, to preserve the sovereignty of his family. It was a day of wholesale swearing, and the deputies uttered any quantity of oaths of eternal fidelity, which they barely kept three weeks. The distribution of the eagles was the only real and interesting part of the performance, and the deep sympathy between both parties was very evident. The Emperor stood in the open field, on a raised platform, from which a broad flight of steps descended; and pages of his household were continually running up and down, communicating with the detachments from various branches of the army, which passed in front of him, halting for a moment to receive the eagles and give the oath to defend them.
I was present during the whole of this latter ceremony. Through the forbearance of a portion of the Imperial Guard, into whose ranks I obtruded myself, I had a very favorable position, and felt that in this part of the day's work there was no sham.
I would here bear testimony to the character of those veterans known as the "Old Guard." I frequently came in contact with individuals of them, and liked so well to talk with them, that I never lost a chance of making their acquaintance. One, who was partial to me because I was an American, had served in this country with Rochambeau, had fought under the eye of Washington, and was at the surrender of Cornwallis. He had borne his share in the vicissitudes of the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire. He was scarred with wounds, and his breast was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor, which he considered an ample equivalent for all his services. My intercourse with these old soldiers confirmed what has been said of them, that they were singularly mild and courteous. There was a gentleness of manner about them that was remarkable. They had seen too much service to boast of it, and they left the bragging to younger men. Terrible as they were on the field of battle, they seemed to have adopted as a rule of conduct, that
On this memorable day, I saw Napoleon more distinctly than at any other time. I was frequently present when he was reviewing troops, but either he or they were in motion, and I had to catch a glimpse of him as opportunities offered. At this time, as he passed through the Champs Elysées, I stood among my friends, the soldiers, who lined the way, and who suffered me to remain where a man would not have been tolerated. He was escorted by the Horse Grenadiers of the Guard. His four brothers preceded him in one carriage, while he sat alone in a state coach, all glass and gold, to which pages clung wherever they could find footing. He was splendidly attired, and wore a Spanish hat with drooping feathers. As he moved slowly through the crowd, he bowed to the right and left, not in the hasty, abrupt way which is generally attributed to him, but in a calm, dignified, though absent manner. His face was one not to be forgotten. I saw it repeatedly; but whenever I bring it up, it comes before me, not as it appeared from the window of the Tuileries, or when riding among his troops, or when standing, with folded arms or his hands behind him, as they defiled before him; but it rises on my vision as it looked that morning, under the nodding plumes,--smooth, massive, and so tranquil, that it seemed impossible a storm of passion could ever ruffle it. The complexion was clear olive, without a particle of color, and no trace was on it to indicate what agitated the man within. The repose of that marble countenance told nothing of the past, nor of anxiety for the deadly struggle that awaited him. The cheering sounds around him did not change it; they fell on an ear that heard them not. His eye glanced on the multitudes; but it saw them not. There was more machinery than soul in the recognition, as his head instinctively swayed towards them. The idol of stone was there, joyless and impassive amidst its worshippers, taking its lifeless part in this last pageant. But the thinking, active man was elsewhere, and returned only when he found himself in the presence of delegated France, and in the more congenial occupation which succeeded.
Immediately after this event, all the available troops remaining in Paris were sent toward the Belgian frontier, and in a few days were followed by the Emperor. Then came an interval of anxious suspense, which Rumor, with her thousand tongues, occupied to the best of her ability. I was in the country when news of the first collision arrived, and a printed sheet was sent to the château where I was visiting, with an account of the defeat of the Prussians at Ligny and the retreat of the British at Quatre Bras. Madame Ney was staying in the vicinity; and, as the Marshal had taken an active part in the engagement, I was sent to communicate to her the victory. She was ill, and I gave the message to a lady, her connection, much pleased to be the bearer of such welcome intelligence. I returned that day to Paris, and found my schoolmates in the highest exhilaration. Every hour brought confirmation of a decisive victory. It was thought that the great battle of the campaign had been fought, and that the French had only to follow up their advantage. Letters from officers were published, representing that the Allies were thoroughly routed, and describing the conflict so minutely, that there could be no doubt of the result. All was now joy and congratulation; and conjectures were freely made as to the terms to be vouchsafed to the conquered, and the boundary limits which should be assigned to the territory of France.
A day or two after this, we made a customary visit to a swimming-school on the Seine, and some of us entered into conversation with the gendarme, or police soldier, placed there to preserve order. He was very reserved and unwilling to say much; but, at last, when we dwelt on the recent successes, he shook his head mournfully, and said he feared there had been some great disaster; adding, "The Emperor is in Paris. I saw him alight from his carriage this morning, when on duty; he had very few attendants, and it was whispered that our army had been defeated." That my companions did not seek relief at the bottom of the river can be ascribed only to their entire disbelief of the gendarme's story. But, as they returned home, discussing his words at every step, fears began to steal over them when they reflected how seriously he talked and how sorrowful he looked.
The gendarme spoke the truth. Napoleon was in Paris. His army no longer existed, and his star had been blotted from the heavens. His plans, wonderfully conceived, had been indifferently executed; a series of blunders, beyond his control, interrupted his combinations, and delay in important movements, added to the necessity of meeting two enemies at the same moment, destroyed the centralization on which he had depended for overthrowing both in succession. The orders he sent to his Marshals were intercepted, and they were left to an uncertainty which prevented any unity of action. The accusation of treason, sometimes brought against them, is false and ungenerous; and the insinuations of Napoleon himself were unworthy of him. They may have erred in judgment, but they acted as they thought expedient, and they never showed more devotion to their country and to their chief than on the fatal day of Waterloo.
I have been twice over that field, and have heard remarks of military men, which have only convinced me that it is easier to criticize a battle than to fight one. Had Grouchy, with his thirty thousand men, joined the Emperor, the British would have been destroyed. But he stopped at Wavre, to fight, as he supposed, the whole Prussian army, thinking to do good service by keeping it from the main battle. Blücher outwitted him, and, leaving ten thousand men to deceive and keep him in check, hurried on to turn the scale. The fate of both contending hosts rested on the cloud of dust that arose on the eastern horizon, and the eyes of Napoleon and Wellington watched its approach, knowing that it brought victory or defeat. The one was still precipitating his impetuous columns on the sometimes penetrated, but never broken, squares of infantry, which seemed rooted to the earth, and which, though torn by shot and shell, and harassed by incessant charges of cavalry, closed their thinned ranks with an obstinacy and determination such as he had never before encountered. The other stood amidst the growing grain, seeing his army wasting away before those terrible assaults; and when the officers around him saw inevitable ruin, unless the order for retreat was given, he tore up the unripened corn, and, grinding it between his hands, groaned out, in his agony,--"Oh, that Blücher, or night, would come!"
The last time I was at Waterloo, many years ago, the guide who accompanied me told me, that, a short time before, a man, whose appearance was that of a substantial farmer, and who was followed by an attendant, called on him for his services. The guide went his usual round, making his often-repeated remarks and commenting severely on Grouchy. The stranger examined the ground attentively, and only occasionally replied, saying, "Grouchy received no orders." At last, the servant fell back, detaining the guide, and, in a low tone, said to him, "Speak no more about Marshal Grouchy, for that is he." The man told me, that, after that, he abstained from saying anything offensive; but that he watched carefully the soldier's agitation, as the various positions of the battle became apparent to him. He, doubtless, saw how little would have turned the current of the fight, and knew that the means of doing it had been in his own hands. The guide seemed much impressed with the deep feeling of the Marshal, and said to me, "I will never speak ill of him again."
The battle of Waterloo is often mentioned as the sole cause of Napoleon's downfall; and it is said, that, had he gained that day, he would have secured his throne. It seems to be forgotten that a complete victory would have left him with weakened forces, and that he had already exhausted the resources of France in his preparations for this one campaign; that the masses of Austria and Russia were advancing in hot haste, which, with the rallied remains of Prussia, and the indomitable perseverance and uncompromising hostility of England, quickened by a reverse of her arms, would have presented an array against which he could have had no chance of success. The hour of utter ruin would only have been procrastinated, involving still greater waste of life, and augmenting the desolation which for so many years had been the fate of Europe.
Yes, Napoleon was in Paris,--a general without soldiers, and a sovereign without subjects. The prestige of his name was gone; and had the Chamber of Deputies invested him with the Dictatorship, as was suggested, it would have been "a barren sceptre in his gripe," and the utmost stretch of power could not have collected materials to meet the impending invasion. At no period did he show such irresolution as at this time. He tendered his abdication, and it was accepted. He offered his services as a soldier, and they were declined. He had ceased, for the moment, to be anything to France. Yet he lingered for days about the capital, the inhabitants of which were too intent in gazing at the storm, ready to burst upon them, to be mindful of his existence. There was, however, one exception. The _boys_ were still faithful to him, and were more interested in his position than in that of the enemy at their gates.
There was a show of resistance. The fragments of the army of Belgium gathered round Paris; the National Guard, or militia of the city, was marched out; and the youth of the colleges were furnished with field-pieces and artillery officers, who drilled them into very effective cannoneers, and they took naturally to the business, pronouncing it decidedly better fun than hard study. They were of an age which is full of animal courage, and their only fear was a peremptory order from parents or guardians to leave college and return home. Some of my school-fellows, anticipating such an injunction, joined the camp outside the city, and saw service enough to talk about for the remainder of their lives.
One morning, I was at the Lyceum, where all were prepared for an immediate order to march, and each one was making his last arrangements. No person could have supposed that these young men expected to be engaged, within a few hours, in mortal combat. They were in the highest spirits, and looked forward to the hoped-for battle as though it were to be the most amusing thing imaginable. While I was there, a false report came in that Napoleon had resumed the command of the army. The excitement instantly rose to fever-heat, and the demonstration told what hold he still had on these his steadfast friends. From our position the rear of the army was but a short distance, while the advanced portions of it were engaged. Versailles had been entered by the Allies, who were attacked and driven out by the French under Vandamme. The cannonade was at one time as continuous as the roll of a drum. Prisoners were guarded through the streets, and wagons, conveying wounded men, were continually passing.
Stragglers from the routed army of Waterloo were to be met in all directions, many of them disabled by their pursuers, or the fatigues of a harried retreat. Pride was forgotten in extreme misery, and they were grateful for any attention or assistance. One of them was taken into our institution as a servant. He had been in the army eighteen years, fifteen of which he had served as drummer. He had been in some of the severest battles, had gone through the Russian campaign, and was among the few of his regiment who survived the carnage of Waterloo. And yet this man, who had been familiar with death more than half his life, and who at times talked as though he were a perfect tornado in the field, was as arrant a poltroon as ever skulked.
After the Allied Troops entered Paris, and were divided among the inhabitants, some Prussian cavalry soldiers were quartered on us. Collisions occasionally took place between them and the scholars; and in one instance, one of them entered a study-room in an insulting manner, and in consequence thereof made a progress from the top of the stairs to the bottom with a celerity that would have done credit to his regiment in a charge. His comrades armed themselves to avenge the indignity, and the students, eager for the fray, sallied out to meet them with pistols and fencing-foils, the latter with buttons snapped off and points sharpened. There was hopeful promise of a very respectable skirmish; but it was nipped in the bud by the interposition of our peace-making instructors, aided by the authority of a Prussian officer. When the affair was over, some wonder was expressed why our fire-eating military attendant had not given us his professional services; and, on search being made, we found him snugly stowed away in a hole under the stairs, where he had crept on the first announcement of hostilities. He afterwards confessed to me that he was a coward, and that no one could imagine what he had suffered in his agonies of fear during his various campaigns. Yet he came very near being rewarded for extraordinary valor and coolness. His regiment was advancing on the enemy, and as he was mechanically beating the monotonous _pas de charge_, not knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, a shot cut the band by which his drum was suspended, and as it fell, he caught it, and without stopping, held it in one hand while he continued to beat the charge with the other. An officer of rank saw the action, and riding up, said, "Your name, brave fellow? You shall have the cross of honor for that gallant deed." He told me he really did not know what he was doing; he was too frightened to think about anything. But he added, that it was a pity the general was killed in that very battle, as it robbed him of the promised decoration.
I mention this incident as an evidence of what diversified materials an army is composed, and that the instruments of military despotism are not necessarily endowed with personal courage, the discipline of the mass compensating for individual imperfection. It also gives evidence that luck has much to do in the fortunes of this world, and that many a man who "bears his blushing honors thick upon him" would as poorly stand a scrutiny as to the means by which they were acquired, as our friend, the drummer, had he been enabled to strut about, in piping times of peace, with a strip of red ribbon at his button-hole.
While preparations were making for the defence of Paris, and the alarmed citizens feared, what was at one time threatened, that the defenders would be driven in, and the streets become a scene of warfare, involving all conditions in the chances of indiscriminate massacre, the powers that were saw the futility of resistance, and opening negotiations with the enemy, closed the war by capitulation. Whatever relief this may have been to the people generally, it was a sad blow to the martial ardor of my schoolmates. Their opinion of the transaction was expressed in language by no means complimentary to their temporary rulers. To lose such an opportunity for a fight was a height of absurdity for which treason and cowardice were inadequate terms. Their military visions melted away, the field-pieces were wheeled off, the army officers bade them farewell, they were required to deliver up their arms, and they found themselves back again to their old bondage, reduced to the inglorious necessity of attending prayers and learning lessons.
The Hundred Days were over. The Allies once more poured into France, and in their train came back the poor, despised, antiquated Bourbons, identifying themselves with the common enemy, and becoming a byword and a reproach, which were to cling to them until they should be driven into hopeless banishment. The King reentered Paris, accompanied by foreign soldiers. I saw him pass the Boulevard, and I then hastened across the Garden to await his arrival at the Tuileries, standing near the spot where, three months before, I had seen Napoleon. The tricolor was no longer there, but the white flag again floated over the place so full of historical recollections. Louis XVIII soon reached this ancestral abode of his family, and having mounted, with some difficulty and expenditure of breath, to the second story, he waddled into the balcony which overlooked the crowd silently waiting for the expected speech, and, leaning ponderously on the railing, he kissed his hand, and said, in a loud voice, "Good day, my children." This was the exordiam, body, and peroration of his address, and it struck his audience so ludicrously, that a laugh spread among them, until it became general, and all seemed in the best possible humor. The King laughed, too, evidently regarding his reception as highly flattering. The affair turned out well, for the multitude parted in a merry mood, considering his Majesty rather a jolly old gentleman, and making sundry comparisons between him and the late tenant, illustrative of the difference between King Stork and King Log.
Paris was crowded with foreign soldiers. The streets swarmed with them; their encampments filled the public gardens; they drilled in the open squares and on the Boulevards; their sentinels stood everywhere. Their presence was a perpetual commentary on the vanity of that glory which is dependent on the sword. They gazed at triumphal monuments erected to commemorate battles which had subjected their own countries to the iron rule of conquest. They stood by columns on which the history of their defeat was cast from their captured cannon, and by arches whose friezes told a boastful tale of their subjugation. They passed over bridges whose names reminded them of fields which had witnessed their headlong rout. They strolled through galleries where the masterpieces of art hung as memorials that their political existence had been dependent on the will of a victorious foe. Attempts were made to destroy these trophies of national degradation; but, in some instances, the skill of the architect and the fidelity of the builder were an overmatch for the hasty ire of an incensed soldiery, and withstood the attacks until admiration for the work brought shame on their efforts to demolish it.
But for the Parisians there was a calamity in reserve, which sank deeper into their souls than the fluttering of hostile banners in their streets, or the clanging tread of an armed enemy on their door-stones. It was decided that the Gallery of the Louvre should be despoiled, and that the works of art, which had been collected from all nations, making that receptacle the marvel of the age, should be restored to their legitimate owners. A wail went up from the universal heart of France at this sad judgment. It was felt that this great loss would be irreparable. Time, the soother of all sorrow, might restore her worn energies, recruit her wasted population, cover her fields with abundance, and, turning the activity of an intelligent people into industrial channels, clothe her with renewed wealth and power. But the magnificence of that collection, once departed, could never come to her again; and the lover of beauty, instead of finding under one roof whatever genius had created for the worship of the ages, would have to wander over all Europe, seeking in isolated and widely-separated positions the riches which at the Louvre were strewed before him in congregated prodigality. But lamentations were in vain. The miracles of human inspiration were borne to the congenial climes which originated them, to have, in all after time, the tale of their journeyings an inseparable appendage to their history, and even their intrinsic merit to derive additional lustre from the perpetual boast, that they had been considered worthy a place in the Gallery of Napoleon.
In the general amnesty which formed an article in the capitulation of Paris, there was no apprehension that revenge would demand an atonement. But hardly had the Bourbons recommenced their reign, when, in utter disregard of the faith of treaties, they sought satisfaction for their late precipitate flight in assailing those who had been instrumental in causing it. Many of their intended victims found safety in foreign lands. Labedoyère, who joined the Emperor with his regiment, was tried and executed. Lavalette was condemned, but escaped through the heroism of his wife and the generous devotion of three Englishmen. Ney was shot in Paris. I would dwell a moment on his fate, not only because circumstances gave me a peculiar interest in it, but from the fact that it had more effect in drawing a dividing line between the royal family and the French people than any event that occurred during their reign. It was treasured up with a hate that found no fit utterance until the memorable Three Days of 1830; and when the insurgents stormed the Tuileries, their cries bore evidence that fifteen years had not diminished the bitter feeling engendered by that vindictive, unnecessary, and most impolitic act.
During the Hundred Days, and shortly before the battle of Waterloo, I was, one Sunday afternoon, in the Luxembourg Garden, where the fine weather had brought out many of the inhabitants of that quarter. The lady I was accompanying remarked, as we walked among the crowd, "There is Marshal Ney." He had joined the promenaders, and his object seemed to be, like that of the others, to enjoy an hour of recreation. Probably the next time he crossed those walks was on the way to the place of his execution, which was between the Garden and the Boulevard. At the time of his confinement and trial at the Luxembourg Palace, the gardens were closed. I usually passed through them twice a week, but was now obliged to go round them. Early one morning, I stopped at the room of a medical student, in the vicinity, and, while there, heard a discharge of musketry. We wondered at it, but could not conjecture its cause; and although we spoke of the trial of Marshal Ney, we had so little reason to suppose that his life was in jeopardy, that neither of us imagined that volley was his death-knell. As I continued on my way, I passed round the Boulevard, and reaching the spot I have named, I saw a few men and women, of the lowest class, standing together, while a sentinel paced to and fro before a wall, which was covered with mortar, and which formed one side of the place. I turned in to the spot and inquired what was the matter. A man replied,--"Marshal Ney has been shot here, and his body has just been removed." I looked at the soldier, but he was gravely going through his monotonous duty, and I knew that military rule forbade my addressing him. I looked down; the ground was wet with blood. I turned to the wall, and seeing it marked by balls, I attempted, with my knife, to dig out a memorial of that day's sad work, but the soldier motioned me away. I afterwards revisited the place, but the wall had been plastered over, and no indications remained where the death-shot had penetrated.
The sensation produced by this event was profound and permanent. Many a heart, inclined towards the Bourbons, was alienated by it forever. Families which had rejoiced at the Restoration now cursed it in their bitterness, and from that day dated a hostility which knew no reconciliation. The army and the youth of France demanded, why a soldier, whose whole life had been passed in her service, should be sacrificed to appease a race that was a stranger to the country, and for which it had no sympathy. A gloom spread like a funeral pall over society, and even those who had blamed the Marshal for joining the Emperor were now among his warmest defenders. The print-shops were thronged with purchasers eager to possess his portrait and to hang it in their homes, with a reverence like that attaching to the image of a martyred saint. Had he died at Waterloo, as he led on the Imperial Guard to their last charge, when five horses were shot under him, and his uniform, riddled by balls, hung about him in tatters, he would not have had such an apotheosis as was now given him, with one simultaneous movement, by all classes of his countrymen.
The inveterate intention of the reigning family was to obliterate every mark that bore the impress of Napoleon. Wherever the initial of his name had been inserted on the public edifices, it was carefully erased; his statues were broken or removed; prints of him could not be exposed for sale; and it appeared to be their fixed determination to drive him from men's memories. But he had left mementos which jealousy could not conceal nor petty malice destroy. His Code was still the law of the land; the monuments of his genius were thickly scattered wherever his dominion had extended; his mighty name was on every tongue; and as time mellowed the remembrance of him, the good he had done survived and the evil was forgotten or extenuated.
Whoever would judge this man should consider the times which produced him and the fearful authority he wielded. He came to take his place among the rulers of the earth, while she was rocking with convulsions, seeking regeneration through the baptism of blood. He came as a connecting link between anarchy and order, an agent of destiny to act his part in the great tragedy of revolution, the end of which is not yet. His mission was to give a lesson to sovereigns and people, to humble hereditary power, and to prove by his own career the unsubstantial character of a government which deludes the popular will that creates it. During his captivity, he understood the true causes of his overthrow, and talked of them with an intelligence which misfortune had saddened down into philosophy. He saw that the secret of his reverses was not to be found in the banded confederacy of kings, but in the forfeited sympathy of the great masses of men, who felt with him, and moved with him, and bade him God-speed, until he abandoned the distinctive principle which advanced him, and relinquished their affection for royal affiances and the doubtful friendship of monarchs. His better nature was laid aside, his common sense became merged in court etiquette, he sacrificed his conscience to his ambition, and the Man was forgotten in the Emperor.
It is creditable to the world, that his divorce did more, perhaps, than anything else to alienate the respect and attachment of mankind; and many who could find excuses for his gravest public misdeeds can never forgive this impiety to the household gods.
I was most forcibly impressed with the relation between him and Josephine, in a visit I made to Malmaison a short time subsequent to her death, which occurred soon after his first abdication. It was the place where they had lived together, before the imperial diadem had seared his brain; and it was the chosen spot of her retreat, when he, "the conqueror of kings, sank to the degradation of courting their alliance." The house was as she left it. Not a thing had been moved, the servants were still there, and the order and comfort of the establishment were as though her return were momently expected. The plants she loved were carefully tended, and her particular favorites were affectionately pointed out. The old domestic who acted as my guide spoke low, as if afraid of disturbing her repose, or as if the sanctity of death still pervaded the apartments. He could not mention her without emotion; and he told enough of her quiet, unobtrusive life, of her kindness to the poor, of her gentleness to all about her, to account for the devotion of her dependants. The evidences of her refined taste were everywhere, and there were tokens that her love for her husband had survived his injustice and desertion. After his second marriage, he occasionally visited her, and she never allowed anything to be disturbed which reminded her that he had been there. Books were lying open on the table as he had left them; the chair on which he sat was still where he had arisen from it; the flower he had plucked withered where he had dropped it. Every article he had touched was sacred, and remained unprofaned by other hands. Doubtless, long after he had returned to his brilliant capital, and all remembrance of her was lost in the glittering court assembled about the fair-haired daughter of Austria, that lone woman wandered, in solitary sadness, through the places which had been hallowed by his presence, and gazed on the senseless objects consecrated by his passing attention.
After his last abdication, he retired once more to Malmaison, where he passed the few days that remained, until he bade a final farewell to the scenes which he had known at the dawn of his prosperity. No man can tell his thoughts during those lonely hours. His wife was in the palace of her ancestors, and his child was to know him no more. He could hear the din of marching soldiers, and the roar of distant battle, but they were nothing to him now. His wand was broken, the spell was over, the spirits that ministered to him had vanished, and the enchanter was left powerless and alone. But, in the still watches of the night, a familiar form may have stood beside him, and a well-known voice again whispered to him in the kindly tones of by-gone years. The crown, the sceptre, the imperial purple, the long line of kings, for which he had renounced a woman worth them all, must have faded from his memory in the swarming recollections of his once happy home. He could not look around him without seeing in every object an accusing angel; and if a human heart throbbed in his bosom, retribution came before death.
Yet call him not up for judgment, without reflecting that his awful elevation and the gigantic task he had assumed had perverted a heart naturally kind and affectionate, and left him little leisure to devote to the virtues which decorate domestic life. The numberless anecdotes related of him, the charm with which he won to himself all whom he attempted to conciliate, the warm attachment of those immediately about him, tend to the belief that there was much of good in him. But his eye was continually fixed on the star he saw blazing before him, and in his efforts to follow its guidance, he heeded not the victims he crushed in his onward progress. He considered men as mere instruments to extend his dominion, and he used them with wasteful expenditure, to advance his projects or to secure his conquests. But he was not cruel, nor was he steeled to human misery. Had he been what he is sometimes represented, he never could have retained the ascendency over the minds of his followers, which, regardless of defeat and suffering and death, lived on when even hope had gone.
Accusatory words are easily spoken, and there is often a disposition to condemn, without calculating the compelling motives which govern human actions, or the height of place which has given to surrounding objects a coloring and figure not to be measured by the ordinary rules of ethics. Many a man who cannot bear a little brief authority without abusing it, who lords it over a few dependants with insolent and arbitrary rule, whose temper makes everybody uncomfortable within the limited sphere of his government and whose petty tyranny turns his own home into a despotic empire, can pronounce a sweeping doom against one who was clothed with irresponsible power, who seemed elevated above the accidents of humanity, whose audience-chamber was thronged by princes, whose words were as the breath of life, and who dealt out kingdoms to his kindred like the portions of a family inheritance. Let censure, then, be tempered with charity, nor be lightly bestowed on him who will continue to fill a space in the annals of the world when the present shall be merged in that shadowy realm where fact becomes mingled with fable, and the reality, dimmed by distance, shall be so transfigured by poetry and romance, that it may even be doubted whether he ever lived.
Seventeen years after the period which I have attempted to illustrate by a few incidents, I stood by his grave at St. Helena. I was returning from a long residence in the East, and, having doubled the stormy Cape of Good Hope, looked forward with no little interest to a short repose at the halting-place between India and Europe. But when I saw its blue mass heaving from the ocean, the usual excitement attendant on the cry of "Land!" was lost in the absorbing feeling, that there Napoleon Bonaparte died and was buried. The lonely rock rose in solitary barrenness, a bleak and mournful monument of some rude caprice of Nature, which has thrown it out to stand in cheerless desolation amidst the broad waters of the Atlantic. The day I passed there was devoted to the place where the captive wore away the weary and troubled years of his imprisonment, and to the little spot which he himself selected when anticipating the denial of his last wish,--now fully answered,--"that his ashes might repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of that French people whom he had so much loved."
There was nothing in or about the house to remind one of its late occupant. It was used as a granary. The apartments were filled with straw; a machine for threshing or winnowing was in the parlor; and the room where he died was now converted into a stable, a horse standing where his bed had been. The position was naked and comfortless, being on the summit of a hill, perpetually swept by the trade-winds, which suffered no living thing to stand, except a few straggling, bare, shadeless trees, which contributed to the disconsolate character of the landscape. The grave was in a quiet little valley. It was covered by three plain slabs of stone, closely surrounded by an iron railing; a low wooden paling extended a small distance around; and the whole was overhung by three decaying willows. The appearance of the place was plain and appropriate. Nothing was wanting to its unadorned and affecting simplicity. Ornament could not have increased its beauty, nor inscription have added to its solemnity.
The mighty conqueror slept in the territory of his most inveterate foes; but the path to his tomb was reverently trodden, and those who had stood opposed to him in life forgot that there had been enmity between them. Death had extinguished hostility; and the pilgrims who visited his resting-place spoke kindly of his memory, and, hoarding some little token, bore it to their distant homes to be prized by their posterity as having been gathered at his grave.
The dome of the Invalides now rises over his remains; his statue again caps the column that commemorates his exploits; and one of his name, advanced by the sole magic of his glory, controls, with arbitrary will and singular ability, the destinies, not of France only, but of Europe.
The nations which united for his overthrow now humbly bow before the family they solemnly pledged themselves should never again taste power, and, with ill-concealed distrust and anxiety, deprecate a resentment that has not been weakened by years nor forgotten in alliances.
Not to them alone has Time hastened to bring that retributive justice which falls alike on empires and individuals. The son of "The Man" moulders in an Austrian tomb, leaving no trace that he has lived; while the lineal descendant of the obscure Creole, of the deposed empress, of the divorced wife, sits on the throne of Clovis and Charlemagne, of Capet and Bonaparte. Within the brief space of one generation, within the limit of one man's memory, vengeance has revolved full circle; and while the sleepless Nemesis points with unresting finger to the barren rock and the insulted captive, she turns with meaning smile to the borders of the Seine, where mausoleum and palace stand in significant proximity,--the one covering the dust of the first empire, the other the home of the triumphant grandson of Josephine.