Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Volume 14
CHAPTER VII
—[By the Editor of the 1836 edition]—
1815.
Napoleon at Paris—Political manoeuvres—The meeting of the Champ- de-Mai—Napoleon, the Liberals, and the moderate Constitutionalists —His love of arbitrary power as strong as ever—Paris during the Cent Jours—Preparations for his last campaign—The Emperor leaves Paris to join the army—State of Brussels—Proclamation of Napoleon to the Belgians—Effective strength of the French and Allied armies —The Emperor's proclamation to the French army.
Napoleon was scarcely reseated on his throne when he found he could not resume that absolute power he had possessed before his abdication at Fontainebleau. He was obliged to submit to the curb of a representative government, but we may well believe that he only yielded, with a mental reservation that as soon as victory should return to his standards and his army be reorganised he would send the representatives of the people back to their departments, and make himself as absolute as he had ever been. His temporary submission was indeed obligatory.
The Republicans and Constitutionalists who had assisted, or not opposed his return, with Carnot, Fouche, Benjamin Constant, and his own brother Lucien (a lover of constitutional liberty) at their head, would support him only on condition of his reigning as a constitutional sovereign; he therefore proclaimed a constitution under the title of "Acte additionnel aux Constitutions de l'Empire," which greatly resembled the charter granted by Louis XVIII. the year before. An hereditary Chamber of Peers was to be appointed by the Emperor, a Chamber of Representatives chosen by the Electoral Colleges, to be renewed every five years, by which all taxes were to be voted, ministers were to be responsible, judges irremovable, the right of petition was acknowledged, and property was declared inviolable. Lastly, the French nation was made to declare that they would never recall the Bourbons.
Even before reaching Paris, and while resting on his journey from Elba at Lyons, the second city in France, and the ancient capital of the Franks, Napoleon arranged his ministry, and issued sundry decrees, which show how little his mind was prepared for proceeding according to the majority of votes in representative assemblies.
Cambaceres was named Minister of Justice, Fouche Minister of Police (a boon to the Revolutionists), Davoust appointed Minister of War. Decrees upon decrees were issued with a rapidity which showed how laboriously Bonaparte had employed those studious hours at Elba which he was supposed to have dedicated to the composition of his Memoirs. They were couched in the name of "Napoleon, by the grace of God, Emperor of France," and were dated on the 13th of March, although not promulgated until the 21st of that month. The first of these decrees abrogated all changes in the courts of justice and tribunals which had taken place during the absence of Napoleon. The second banished anew all emigrants who had returned to France before 1814 without proper authority, and displaced all officers belonging to the class of emigrants introduced into the army by the King. The third suppressed the Order of St. Louis, the white flag, cockade, and other Royal emblems, and restored the tri-coloured banner and the Imperial symbols of Bonaparte's authority. The same decree abolished the Swiss Guard and the Household troops of the King. The fourth sequestered the effects of the Bourbons. A similar Ordinance sequestered the restored property of emigrant families.
The fifth decree of Lyons suppressed the ancient nobility and feudal titles, and formally confirmed proprietors of national domains in their possessions. (This decree was very acceptable to the majority of Frenchmen). The sixth declared sentence of exile against all emigrants not erased by Napoleon from the list previously to the accession of the Bourbons, to which was added confiscation of their property. The seventh restored the Legion of Honour in every respect as it had existed under the Emperor; uniting to its funds the confiscated revenues of the Bourbon order of St. Louis. The eighth and last decree was the most important of all. Under pretence that emigrants who had borne arms against France had been introduced into the Chamber of Peers, and that the Chamber of Deputies had already sat for the legal time, it dissolved both Chambers, and convoked the Electoral Colleges of the Empire, in order that they might hold, in the ensuing month of May, an extraordinary assembly—the Champ-de-Mai.
This National Convocation, for which Napoleon claimed a precedent in the history of the ancient Franks, was to have two objects: first, to make such alterations and reforms in the Constitution of the Empire as circumstances should render advisable; secondly, to assist at the coronation of the Empress Maria Louisa. Her presence, and that of her son, was spoken of as something that admitted of no doubt, though Bonaparte knew there was little hope of their return from Vienna. These various enactments were well calculated to serve Napoleon's cause. They flattered the army, and at the same time stimulated their resentment against the emigrants, by insinuating that they had been sacrificed by Louis to the interest of his followers. They held out to the Republicans a prospect of confiscation, proscription, and, revolution of government, while, the Imperialists were gratified with a view of ample funds for pensions, offices, and honorary decorations. To proprietors of the national domains security was promised, to the Parisians the grand spectacle of the Champ-de-Mai, and to. France peace and tranquillity, since the arrival of the Empress and her son, confidently asserted to be at hand, was taken as a pledge of the friendship of Austria.
Napoleon at the same time endeavoured to make himself popular with the common people—the, mob of the Faubourg St. Antoine and other obscure quarters of Paris. On the first evening of his return, as he walked round the glittering circle met to welcome him, in the State apartments of the Tuileries, he kept repeating, "Gentlemen, it is to the poor and disinterested mass of the people that I owe everything; it is they who have brought me back to the capita. It is the poor subaltern officers and common soldiers that have done all this. I owe everything to the common people and the ranks of the army. Remember that! I owe everything to the army and the people!" Some time after he took occasional rides through the Faubourg St. Antoine, but the demonstrations of the mob gave him little pleasure, and, it was easy to detect a sneer in his addresses to them. He had some slight intercourse with the men of the Revolution—the fierce, bloodthirsty Jacobins—but even now he could not conceal his abhorrence of them, and, be it said to his honour, he had as little to do with them as possible.
When Napoleon, departed for the summer campaign he took care beforehand to leave large sums of money for the 'federes'; in the hands of the devoted Real; under whose management the mob was placed. These sums were to be distributed at appropriate seasons, to make the people cry in the streets of Paris, "Napoleon or death." He also left in the hands of Davoust a written authority for the publication of his bulletins, many clauses of which were written long before the battles were fought that they were to describe. He gave to the same Marshal a plan of his campaign, which he had arranged for the defensive. This was not confided to him without an injunction of the strictest secrecy, but it is said that Davoust communicated the plan to Fouche. Considering Davoust's character this is very unlikely, but if so, it is far from improbable that Fouche communicated the plan to the Allies with whom, and more particularly with Prince Metternich, he is well known to have been corresponding at the time.
Shortly after the Emperor's arrival in Paris Benjamin Constant, a moderate and candid man, was deputed by the constitutional party to ascertain Napoleon's sentiments and intentions. Constant was a lover of constitutional liberty, and an old opponent of Napoleon, whose headlong career of despotism, cut out by the sword, he had vainly endeavoured to check by the eloquence of his pen.
The interview took place at the Tuileries. The Emperor, as was his wont, began the conversation, and kept it nearly all to himself during the rest of the audience. He did not affect to disguise either his past actions or present dispositions.
"The nation," he said, "has had a respite of twelve years from every kind of political agitation, and for one year has enjoyed a respite from war. This double repose has created a craving after activity. It requires, or fancies it requires, a Tribune and popular assemblies. It did not always require them. The people threw themselves at my feet when I took the reins of government You ought to recollect this, who made a trial of opposition. Where was your support—your strength? Nowhere.