Europe: A History (154 page)

The Allied Powers, having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces for himself and his heirs the thrones of France and of Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even of life itself, that he is unwilling to make in the interests of France.
⁵⁴

Further negotiations led to the Treaty of Fontainebleau, concluded on the 11th, whereby Napoleon was to retain his title, a pension of 2 million francs, the Isle of Elba as his personal realm, and a personal staff and escort.

The British Commissioner, Sir Neil Campbell, spent many hours talking to the stricken Emperor at this time:

I saw before me a short active-looking man who was rapidly pacing the apartment like some wild animal with epaulets, blue pantaloons, and red topboots, unshaven, uncombed, with fallen particles of snuff scattered profusely over his upper lip and breast…
⁵⁵

They discussed Wellington’s campaigns in the Peninsula. Then the Emperor reportedly said, ‘Your nation is the greatest of all… I have tried to raise up the French nation, but my plans have failed. It is fate.’
⁵⁶

The ex-Emperor’s psychological crisis came to a head when the negotiations were completed. He was convinced that he was deserted by his family as well as by the marshals. Giving command of the Guard to Marshal Ney, he had been assured: ‘We are all your friends.’ To which he replied bitterly, ‘Aye, and Caesar’s friends were also his murderers!’ His messengers to the Empress had the greatest difficulty crossing the Allied lines. At Orleans, where the Young Guard stood at her side, the imperial paymaster was hiding the remains of the Emperor’s treasure under a pile of horse manure in the bishop’s stables. On the nth, Napoleon ate a desultory evening meal with Caulaincourt, who had been acting as his go-between with the senators in Paris. He found that his valet had emptied the powder from the brace of pistols which he always kept by his bed. But he still had a phial of opiate that he had carried ever since his near-capture by Cossacks in Russia two years before. He retired to his room, and swallowed the contents. The poison had faded. It was strong enough to set him screaming from stomach cramps and convulsions, but not to kill him. Caulaincourt brought a doctor. The Emperor recovered by the morning. He said ‘How difficult it is to die in one’s bed!’ (The secret was concealed until the publication of Caulaincourt’s private memoirs in 1933.)
⁵⁷

On the 13th, Napoleon bade farewell to James Macdonald, Duke of Taranto, the last of his Marshals to stay by his side. The devoted Scotsman, son of an exiled Jacobite family, had joined Coulaincourt in the recent abdication talks with the Allied powers. He could not fail to notice that a Campbell had arrived as the Macdonald was about to leave. But his task was done. Napoleon presented him with the ceremonial sword of Murad Bey, a memento of the campaign in Egypt in 1799: ‘Receive this in remembrance of me and of my friendship.’
⁵⁸

Preparations for the journey to Elba began as soon as the Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed. The Emperor was to be escorted to the south of France by the four Allied commissioners—Colonel Campbell, Count Shuvalov, Baron von Koller, and Count Trachsess von Waldburg. They were to travel via Lyons and Avignon to a port on the Riviera, where a British frigate would be waiting for the five-day passage to Elba. A team of grooms and wagoners were hard at work at the depot of Rosnières in the Forest of Fontainebleau, cleaning and greasing the eight carriages of the convoy, painting out the imperial armorials, packing stores into the twenty vehicles of the baggage train, preparing the 101 saddle and carriage horses that were needed. A hundred wagon-loads of the Emperor’s furniture and personal effects were to follow later. The heaviest items would be sent in advance to Briare, in the south, where they would be joined by the Emperor and his escort at the end of the first day. The advance party moved off on the morning of the 14th down the Montargis road.

The selection of the escort was left to the Emperor. He was allowed a staff of thirty officers, and a garrison of 600 men. The cavalry detachment was formed under General Jerzmanowski from a squadron of Polish lancers into which a handful of Frenchmen and Mamelukes were also admitted. There was a crew of marines, an artillery battery with 100 gunners, and one infantry battalion made
up from three companies of grenadiers and three of chasseurs. The men of the battalion were to be picked out in person at the final review.

On the last Saturday, Napoleon tried to settle accounts with the women of his Ufe. To Josephine, he wrote:

In my exile, I will replace the sword with the pen … They’ve betrayed me one and all…
Adieu, ma bonne Joséphine
. Learn resignation as I have learned it, and never banish from your memory the one who has never forgotten you, and will never forget you.
⁵⁹

To Marie-Louise, his Empress, he used the formal
vousr
.

My dear wife, Providence … has given its verdict against me. I congratulate you on the course you have taken … I hardly think that Destiny will bring us together again… Of all my punishments, my separation from you is the most cruel. I make only one reproach. Why not exercise the empire on my heart that motherhood conferred on you? You feared me, and you loved me…
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The letters were not sent. They were found in his desk at Fontainebleau some days later, unsigned.

After that, there was nothing left but to await the day of departure fixed for the following Wednesday. Napoleon recovered his spirits. He caused as much trouble as possible. He flew once or twice into his customary rages. And he spoiled the Commissioners’ dinner, by telling his valet to announce his arrival at their table and making them stand, then remaining in his room.

As a soldier, Napoleon had contemplated death and oblivion many times. On one occasion he had questioned Marshal Segur about what the people would say after he was gone. The minister recited a paean of grief and eulogy. ‘Non,’ said Napoleon, wringing his wrist in the Gallic fashion, ‘ils diront “Ouf”’ (No, they’ll just say ‘Phew’).
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On the Wednesday morning, Napoleon dressed simply for the farewell ceremony. He was the grand master of theatricality, and of timing. He had once explained that history was made up of time and space. ‘One always has a chance of recovering lost ground,’ he remarked, ‘but lost time—never.’ He must have savoured the chance to stage what historians were to dub the ‘Last Supper’ of Napoleonic iconography. According to conflicting accounts, he either wore the undress uniform of the Chasseurs de la Garde,—a cut-away tunic in green over white waistcoat and breeches,—or a blue tunic with blue pantaloons. At all events, he wore thigh-length boots, a dress sword at his side, on his breast the single star of the Legion, and on his head the legendary black hat with upturned brim at the rear. At 11 a.m. exactly, or by other accounts on the stroke of i o’clock, he made for the lobby and stepped out onto the head of the marble staircase.

There are many moments in history when it appears that an era has finished, that some long-established regime or system has finally passed away. These are dangerous moments for all concerned, not least for historians who wish to cut their subject into tidy periods. For regimes and societies and economies rarely die
overnight as individuals do. Even in times of apparently cataclysmic collapse, the forces of continuity and inertia will always contend with the motors of change. Napoleon was not dead. He had not yet passed into legend. He had bid his Guard ‘Adieu’, but not for the last time.

Map 22. Europe, 1815

DYNAMO

Powerhouse of the World, 1815–1914

T
HERE
is a dynamism about nineteenth-century Europe that far exceeds anything previously known. Europe vibrated with power as never before: with technical power, economic power, cultural power, intercontinental power. Its prime symbols were its engines—the locomotives, the gasworks, the electric dynamos. Raw power appeared to be made a virtue in itself, whether in popular views of evolution, which preached ‘the survival of the fittest’, in the philosophy of historical materialism, which preached the triumph of the strongest class, in the cult of the Superman, or in the theory and practice of imperialism.

Europeans, in fact, were made to feel not only powerful but superior. They were infinitely impressed by the unaccustomed ‘forces’ which surrounded them. They saw new physical forces, from the electric current to dynamite; new demographic forces which accompanied an unprecedented growth of population; new social forces which brought ‘the masses’ to the forefront of public concern; new commercial and industrial forces that thrived on the unparalleled expansion of markets and technology, new military forces that could mobilize millions of men and machines; new cultural forces which spawned ‘movements’ of mass appeal; new political forces which won unchallenged supremacy throughout the world.

Here, indeed, was Europe’s triumphant ‘power century’. Its leaders were in the first instance Great Britain, ‘the workshop of the world’, and in the later decades Germany, whose failure to find ‘a place in the sun’ helped reduce the whole edifice to ruins. Its losers and victims consisted of all the people and peoples who could not adapt, or could not compete—the peasants, the hand-weavers, the urban poor; the colonial peoples; the Irish, the Sicilians, and the Poles, who were forced to migrate in their millions; the three great empires of the East—Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Russia. The century began in the aftermath of one revolution, in France, and ended in the prelude to another revolution, in Russia. It began with one would-be master of all-Europe, Napoleon, proclaiming that Power was his mistress. It ended with another, Lenin, proclaiming: ‘Communism is Soviet Power plus the Electrification of the whole country.’

It can be argued, of course, that the nineteenth century’s experience of power was less than that of the twentieth century. After all, the potency of steam and electricity bears no comparison to that of nuclear fission. The marvellous speed of a railway train cannot compete with that of aeroplanes or intercontinental rockets. The oppressive capacity of imperialism and colonialism, great though it was, can hardly be likened to the totalitarian tyranny of fascism and communism. The point is that, for nineteenth-century man, power was the object of wonder and hope; for twentieth-century man, it became the object of suspicion. In the interval which separates the Industrial Revolution from Environmental-ism, attitudes have been transformed. The benefits of electricity, when discovered in 1805, were not doubted; the benefits of nuclear power provoke anguished debates. Industrialization or colonialism were once seen as a great step foward for all concerned. They are now seen, at best, to have brought mixed blessings.

The psychology of power and speed has been changed out of all recognition. In 1830, when the world’s first passenger train ran between Liverpool and Manchester, a senior British politician was knocked down and killed by the
Rocket
, which was travelling at 24 m.p.h.; despite ample warning, he had failed to comprehend the implications. In 1898, when motor vehicles were first allowed on to public roads in Britain, they were restricted to 4 m.p.h., so that a man might walk ahead with a red flag. Nowadays, no concern is shown by millions who cruise at 100 m.p.h. on the German autobahns, at 240 m.p.h. on the French TGV, or at 1,000 m.p.h. on Concorde. Since the nineteenth century power and speed have been made familiar; and familiarity has bred contempt.