Before and after Waterloo Part 8

But yet there appears to be less vice than in England, I should rather say less organised vice; I have not heard of a single Robbery, public or private--I walk without fear of pickpockets; I should be inclined to say they seemed rather against themselves than against each other. Their principles may be more relaxed on some points than ours, but I doubt much whether a Frenchman would not be as much disgusted in England as an Englishman could possibly be in France; we call them a profligate race and condemn them in toto--something like Hudibras' John Bull--

"Compounds for sin he is inclined to By d.a.m.ning those he has no mind to."

Their public walks and Theatres are less offensive to decency than ours.

Drunkenness is scarcely known; at first sight I should p.r.o.nounce them an idle, indolent people; the streets are almost always full; the gardens, public walks, &c., swarm at all hours with saunterers. According to my ideas a Frenchman's life must be wretched, for he does not seem at all to enter into the charms of home--their houses are not calculated for it; they huddle together in nooks and corners, and the male part (judging from the mult.i.tudes I daily see) leave the women and children to get through the day as they can.

Their coffee-houses are some of them quite extraordinary; most of them are ornamented with Mirrors in abundance, but some shine with more splendour. In the Palais Royal there is one called "Le Cafe de mille Colonnes," which merits some description. It consists of three or four rooms--the largest is almost one ma.s.s of plate-gla.s.s Mirrors, beautiful clocks at each end, and magnificent chandeliers; behind a raised Table of most superb structure, composed of slabs of marble and plate-gla.s.s, sat a lady dressed in the richest manner, Diamonds on head and hand, Lace, Muslin, &c. This is the Landlady; by her a little boy, about 4 years old, stood in charge of a drawer from whence the small change was issued; this, if it happened to be copper, was delicately touched by the fair hand, which was immediately washed in a gla.s.s of water as if contaminated by the vulgar metal. She never spoke to the waiters, but rung a golden bell; her inkstands, flower jars--in short, every article on the table was of the same metal or of silver gilt. The tables for the company were fine marble slabs; the room was from the reflection of all the mirrors, as you may suppose, a perfect blaze of light, and yet altogether the place looked dirty, from the undress and shabby coats of the company. The French never dress for the evening unless going out to parties, and they always look dirty and unlike gentlemen; the former is not the case, in fact for they are constantly washing and bathing. An hour or two before I was in this extraordinary coffee-house I had traversed a spot as opposite to it as could well be--the Catacombs!--a range of vaults nearly half a mile long, about 80 feet under ground, in which are deposited all the bones from all the cemeteries in Paris. I suppose we were in company with some millions of skeletons, whose skulls are so arranged as to form regular patterns, and here and there was an altar made of bones fancifully piled up, on the sides an inscription in Latin, French, &c. Behind one wall the bodies of all who perished in the ma.s.sacres in Paris were immured. They were brought in carts at night and thrown in, and there they rest, festering not in their shrouds but in clothes. Such a ma.s.s of corrupt flesh would soon have infested all the vaults, so they were bricked up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Catacombs Paris, July 8, 1814]

I wish to recommend our hotel to any people you may hear of coming to Paris--Hotel des Estrangers, Rue du Hazard, kept by Mr. Meriel. Its situation is both quiet and convenient; it is really not five minutes'

walk from the leading objects of Paris, and the people have been civil to us beyond measure.

CHAPTER IV

ON THE TRACK OF NAPOLEON'S ARMY

The Ex-Imperial Guard--Anecdotes of the last days at Fontainebleau--Invalided Cossacks--"Trahison"--Ruin and desolation--Roast dog--An English soldier--A Trappist veteran--Jack boots--Polytechnic cadets--A Russian officer--Cossacks, Kalmucks, and sparrows--Prussians and British lions--Rhine Castles--Rival inscriptions--Diligence atmosphere--Brisemaison--Sociable English.

On leaving Paris, Edward Stanley planned to follow the traces of the desperate campaign which Napoleon had fought in the early months of that year (1814) against the Allies, and in which he so nearly succeeded in saving his crown for a time.

As, however, the English travellers did not intend to return again to Paris, they reversed Napoleon's line of march and started to Fontainebleau by the road along which the Emperor rode back in hot haste on the night of March 30th, to take up the command of the force which should have been defending his capital, and where the sight of Mortier's flying troops convinced him that all hope was at an end.

When they had visited Fontainebleau, where the final abdication had taken place on April 11th, they turned north-east to Melun and posted on through towns which had been the scenes of some of the most desperate fighting in that wonderful campaign, when Napoleon had seemed to be everywhere at once, dealing blows right and left against the three armies which, in the beginning of January, had advanced to threaten his Empire--Bulow in the north, Blucher on the east, and Schwarzenberg on the south.

They pa.s.sed through Guignes and Meaux, by which Napoleon's army had marched after his victory over Blucher at Vauchamps on February 14th, in the rapid movement to reinforce Marshal Victor, and to drive back Schwarzenberg from the Seine.

Through Chateau Thierry, where on the 12th of February the Emperor and Marshal Mortier had pursued Russians and Prussians from street to street till they were driven over the Marne, and whence the French leader dashed after Blucher to Vauchamps.

Through Soissons, which the Russians under Winzengerode had bombarded on March 3rd, and forced to surrender, whereby Blucher and Bulow were enabled to join hands.

Through Laon, where Blucher retreated after Craonne, and where he finally shattered Marmont's forces in a night attack.

By Berry au Bac, where the Emperor crossed the Aisne on his way to fight Blucher at Craonne, the scene on March 7th of one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

On to Rheims where, after Marmont's disaster at Laon, Napoleon beat the Russians just before he was forced to rush southwards again to contend with Schwarzenberg and his Austrians.

Finally they reached Chalons, which had been Napoleon's starting-point for the whole campaign, and where he had arrived in the closing days of January after having taken his last farewell of Marie Louise and of the King of Rome.

After Chalons they turned eastwards, following the line of fortresses for which Napoleon had staked and lost his crown, and reached the Rhine by Verdun, Metz, and Mayence; thence to Aix-la-Chapelle, Lille, and Brussels, which had by the Treaty of Paris, in May, been ceded with the whole of Belgium to the Netherlands.

_Edward Stanley to his Wife._

MELUN, _July 14th_.

We quitted our Hotel yesterday morning at six for Fontainebleau.

There is nothing particularly interesting about the road, which is almost an incessant avenue. About half-way we pa.s.sed a fine Chateau of Marshal Jourdan's.

The forest of Fontainebleau commences about four miles from the town and extends some nine or ten miles in all directions. At first I was in hopes of being gratified with the sight of fine woods, but, with the exception of a few patches of good oaks, the remainder is little better than underwood and dwarflings.

We went into the heart of the forest to see an old Hermitage now inhabited by a keeper and his family. They had been visited by Cossacks, but had received no injury whatever; on the contrary the poor woman related with all the eloquence of Truth and the French animation that from their own soldiers they had suffered all that cruelty and rapacity could devise--indeed, the house and gardens bore evidence to the facts--window shutters pierced with bullets, broken doors, furniture gone, and above 800 francs' worth of honey destroyed out of pure wantonness--in short the poor people seemed quite ruined. I received a similar account in the town. Fontainebleau is a dull, melancholy-looking place, with a very extensive ugly palace--interesting only from the late events. Scarcely a soul appeared about; we crossed the large court in which Buonaparte took his last farewell and embraced the Imperial Eagles, called by some loyal French "The vile Cuckoos." Our hostess was, I presume, a staunch imperialist, who thought she could not shew her zeal for the Emperor in a stronger manner than by imposing on Englishmen. She began by asking 16s. for a plate of 8 little wretched mutton chops; we resented the imposition, although the sudden appearance of 4 or 5 officers of the imperial guard almost rendered it doubtful whether we ought to act too warmly on the defensive, as they seemed to patronise our hostess; however, we refused to pay and retired unimposed upon.

The imperial guard here are supposed to be particularly attached to the Emperor, and of course averse to Englishmen, but I was agreeably surprised to find three out of the four really something like gentlemen in their manners; we entered into conversation, which I managed as dexterously as I could, manuvering between the evil of sacrificing my own opinions on one side, and of giving them offence on the other; it was a nice point, as I perceived a word beyond the line of demarcation would have inflamed them in a trice. One happened to differ with another on a political point, which produced a loud and rapid stamping with the feet, accompanied by a course of pirouets on the heel with the velocity of a dervish, which fully proved what might be effected on their tempers had I been disposed to try the experiment. They called themselves the Ex-Imperial Guard. On retiring I shook hands with them, and with as low a bow as the little King of Rome, said "Messieurs les Gardes d'Honneur, Je vous salue." ...

LETTER VII.

_Monday, July 19th._

...The history of Buonaparte immediately preceding, and subsequent to the surrender of Paris, was never actually known--I will give it you.

The capitulation took place on the 30th (March). In the evening of that day he arrived at Fontainebleau without his army. Rumours of fighting near Paris had reached him. He almost immediately set off with Berthier in his carriage for Paris, and actually arrived at Villejuif, only 6 miles from the capital; when he heard the result he turned about and appeared again at Fontainebleau at 9 the next morning. When he alighted, the person who handed him out, a sort of head-porter of the Palace, who was our guide, told me he looked "triste, bien triste"; he spoke to n.o.body, went upstairs as fast as he could, and then called for his plans and maps; his occupation during the whole time he staid consisted in writing and looking over papers, but to what this writing and these papers related the world may feel but will never know; his spirits were by no means broken down; in a day or two he was pretty much as usual, and it is said he signed the Abdication without the least apparent emotion. We heard he was mad, but I can a.s.sure you from undoubted authority that he was perfectly well in mind and body the whole time, and, notwithstanding his excessive fatigues, as corpulent as ever; indeed, said our guide, "War seems to agree with him better than with any man I ever knew." Buonaparte laid out immense sums in furnishing and beautifying the Palais here. I got into his library, the snuggest room you ever saw, immediately below a little study in which he always sat and settled his affairs; his arm-chair was a very comfortable, honest, plain arm-chair, but I looked in vain for all the gashes and notches which it was said he was wont to inflict upon it. I could not perceive a scratch, he was too busily employed in that said chair in forming plans for cutting up Europe; within three yards of his table was a little door, or rather trap door, by which you descended down the oddest spiral staircase you ever beheld into the Library, which was low and small; the books were few of them new, almost all standard works upon history--at least I am sure 4 out of 5 were historical--all of his own selection, and each stamped, as in fact was everything else from high to low, far and wide, with his N., or his Bees or his Eagle--all of which Louis XVIII is as busily employed in effacing, which alone will give him ample employment: but to return to the books. Amongst the rest I found--Shakespeare ... and a whole range of Ecclesiastical History, which, if ever read, might account in some degree for his shutting up the Pope as the existing representative of the animals who have occasioned half the feuds and divisions therein recorded. There was a Chapel, which he regularly attended on Sundays and Saints' days. His State bed was a sort of State business, very uncomfortable, consisting of 5 or 6 mattresses under a royal canopy with 2 Satin Pillows at each end.

During his residence he never stirred beyond the gates, though I could not discover that he was at all under restraint, or in any way looked upon as a prisoner; we were told in England (what are we not told there?) that he feared the people, who would have torn him in pieces; this is an idle story. I rather suspect the people liked him too well, besides which his Guards were there, and by them he is idolised. He generally took exercise in a long and beautiful Gallery, called the Gallery of Francis I., on both sides of which were busts of his great Generals on panels ornamented with the N., and some name above alluding to a victory; thus above one N. was _Nazareth_, which puzzled me at first, but I afterwards heard he had cut up some Turks there; besides the Gallery, he walked every day up and down a Terrace; he dined every day in a miserable (I speak comparatively) little pa.s.sage room without any shew of state; he was affable to his attendants and is liked by them. His abdication room is not one of the state apartments--it is a shabby ante-room; I could almost fancy that in performing this humiliating deed he had retired as far as possible from the Halls and Saloons which were decorated by his hand, and had witnessed his Imperial magnificence. Most of the Marshals were in the room, and it would have been a tour indeed to have glided through the hearts of each when such an extraordinary performance was transacting. It was in the great Court before the Palace that he took his leave, not above 1,500 troops were present. At such a moment to have heard such a speech, delivered with the dignity and stage effect Buonaparte well knew how to give, must have produced a strong effect--how great (how sad I had almost said) the contrast!

The stones were overgrown with gra.s.s; n.o.body appeared, no voice was heard except the clacking of half a dozen old women who were weeding on their knees, and all the windows were closed. The dreary, deserted present compared with the magnificent past excited nearly the same feelings as if I had been looking on Tadmor in the wilderness. After pa.s.sing the Imperial prison we were ushered into the apartments of the Imperial prisoners, the poor Pope and his 16 Cardinals. I had quite forgotten the place of their confinement, and was a little surprised when the man said, "Here, Sir, dwelt for 19 months the holy Conclave of St. Peter." He must have led a miserable life, for though he was allowed two carriages, with 6 and 8 horses to each, he neither stirred out himself nor allowed any of the Cardinals to so do, saying he did not think it right for prisoners. Buonaparte saw him in January, I think the man said, for the last time. So much for Fontainebleau. Few have followed their master to Elba. Roustan the Mameluke and Constant his Valet were certainly very ungrateful; one of them--I forget which--to whom Buonaparte had given 25,000 fr. (about 1,200) the day before he left Fontainebleau, applied to the Duc de Berri for admission into his service; in reply the Duc told him his grat.i.tude ought to have carried him to Elba, but though it had not, if he (the Duke) ever heard that Buonaparte wished to have him there, he would bind him hand and foot and send him immediately. None of the Royal allies have been to Fontainebleau at the time or since, except the King of Prussia, who came incog. a few days ago. This the guide said he had heard since; he had, indeed, seen three persons walking about, but he had not shewn them the Palace nor spoken to them. That it was the King of Prussia was confirmed by a curious little memorandum I found wafered over a high gla.s.s on the top of the room in which we dined, and which caught my eye immediately; I shewed it to the people of the house, who said they had not observed it before, but remembered three gentlemen dining there on that day. "Sa Majeste le Roi de Prusse accompagne du Prince Guillaume son fils a dine en cette appartement avec son premier Chambellan Mr.

Baron D'Ambolle, le 8 Juillet, 1814." ... This is the way the King of Prussia always went about in Paris, n.o.body knew him or saw him....

From Fontainebleau we went to Melun and kept proceeding through Guignes to Meaux. At Guignes we began to hear of the effects of war: 15,000 Russians had been bivouacked above the town for a week. Buonaparte advanced with his troops, on which they retired, but troops do not walk up and down the earth like lambs, but rather like roaring lions, seeking whom they may devour; however, here let us insert once for all the account I have invariably received from sufferers throughout the whole Theatre of war--that the conduct of the Russians and French was widely different; the former generally behaving as well as could possibly be expected, and pillaging only from necessity; the latter seem to have made havoc and devastation their delight. They might perhaps act on principle, conceiving that it was better for the treasure and good things of the land to fall into their hands than the enemy's.

At a little shabby inn at Guignes where we breakfasted Buonaparte had slept. The people described him dressed "comme un perruquier" in a grey great-coat; he clattered into the house, bustled about, went to his room early, and appeared again at 9 the next morning, but "J'en reponds bien"

that he was not sleeping all that time. If from Guignes we traversed a country where we heard of war, at Meaux we began to see the effects--before a picturesque gateway we descended to cross the bridge over a stone arch which had been blown up. Shot-holes marked the wall, and within the houses were well bespattered with musket b.a.l.l.s. It was the first visible field of battle we had crossed, and to heighten the interest, while we were looking about and asking particulars of the people, up came bands of Russian troops of all descriptions, Cossacks included, 1,500 having just entered the town invalided from Paris on their return home. To be sure, a more filthy set I never beheld. The country is pretty well stocked with Cossack horses; they were purchased at a very cheap rate--from 25 shillings to 50 a piece. We have had several of them in our carriage, and find them far more active and rapid than the French, though smaller and more miserable in appearance. My conversation with the Russians (for I made it a point to speak to everybody) was rather laconic, and generally ran thus, "Vous Russe, moi Inglis"--the answer, "You Inglis, moi Russe, we brothers"--and then I generally got a tap on the shoulder and a broad grin of approbation which terminated the conference.

You know the chief event which occurred at Meaux was the explosion of the powder magazines by the French on their retreat, for which they were most severely, and, I think, unjustly, censured in our despatches--indeed, after seeing and hearing with my own eyes and ears, I feel less than ever inclined to put implicit faith in these public doc.u.ments. The Magazine was in a large house where wines had been stored in the cellar--about half a mile to the west of the town upon a hill.

About 3 o'clock in the morning the explosion took place with an "_ebranlement_" which shook the town to its very foundation. In an instant every pane of gla.s.s was shattered to atoms, but the cathedral windows, which were composed of small squares in lead, escaped tolerably well, only here and there some patches being forced out. The tiles also partook of the general crash. Many, of course, were broken by the shower of shot, stones, &c., which fell, but the actual concussion destroyed the greater part. Numbers of houses were remaining in their dilapidated state, and presented a curious scene. We went to see the spot where the house stood, for the house itself, like the temple of Loretto, disappeared altogether. Some others near it were on their last legs--top, beams, doors, all blown away. Even the trees in a garden were in part thrown down, and the larger ones much excoriated. Only one person was killed on the spot, supposed to have been a marauder who was pillaging near the place. Another person about half a mile off, driving away his furniture to a place of safety, was wounded, and died soon afterwards.

From Meaux, I may say almost all the way to Chalons, a distance of above 150 miles, the country bore lamentable marks of the scourge with which it has been afflicted. I will allow you--I would allow myself perhaps, when I look back to the circ.u.mstances connected with the war--to wish that all the country, Paris included, had been sacked and pillaged as a just punishment, or rather as the sole mode of convincing these infatuated people that they are the conquered and not the Conqueror of the Allies. Wherever I go, whatever field of battle I see--be it Craon, Laon, Soissons, or elsewhere--victory is never accorded to the Russians.

"Oh non, les Russes etaient toujours vaincus." One fellow who had been one of Buonaparte's guides at Craon had the impudence to a.s.sure me that the moment he appeared the Allies ran away. "Aye, but," said I, "how came the French to retreat and leave them alone?" "Oh, because just then the _trahison_ which had been all arranged 19 months before began to appear."

Again, at Laon I was a.s.sured that the French drove all before them, and gained the heights. "Then," said I, "why did not they stay there?" "Oh, then reappeared '_la pet.i.te trahison_,'" and so they go on, and well do they deserve, and heartily do I wish, to have their pride and impudence lowered. But when I see what war is, when I see the devastation this comet bears in its sweeping tail, its dreadful impartiality involving alike the innocent and the guilty, I should be very sorry if it depended on me to p.r.o.nounce sentence, or cry "havoc and let loose." ...

On the 14th we slept at Chateau Thierry--such an Inn, and such insolent pigs of people! Spain was scarcely worse ... added to the filthiness of the place, a diligence happened at the same time to pour forth its contents in the shape of a crew of the most vulgar, dirty French officers I ever saw. It was well we had no communication with them, for by the conversation I overheard in the next room there would have been little mutual satisfaction: "Oh! voici un regiment (alluding to us 5) de ces Anglois dans la maison! ou vont-ils les Coquins?" "Moi je ne sais pas, les vilains!" Luckily they all tumbled upstairs to bed very soon, each with a cigar smoking and puffing from beneath the penthouse of their huge moustachios, during their ascent, by the by, keeping the Landlady in hot water lest they should break into her best bedroom, of which she carefully kept the key, telling me at the same time she was afraid of their insisting upon having clean sheets. By their appearance, however, I did not conceive her to be in much danger of so unfair a demand. We had the clean sheets, damp enough, but no matter--she remembered them in the Bill most handsomely, and when I remonstrated against some of her charges, for I must observe that we dined in a wretched hole with our postillions, she checked me by saying, "Comment, Monsieur, c'est trop! Cela ne se peut pas; comme tout ici est si charmant." ... There was no reply to be made to such an appeal, so I bowed, paid, and retired. Then the bridge was blown up, the streets speckled with bullets. Near the bridge, which had been smartly contested, the houses were actually riddled, yet here the Emperor stood exposed as quiet and unconcerned amidst the b.a.l.l.s as if (to use their own expression) he had been "chez lui."

As we advanced the marks of war became stronger and stronger, every village wore a rueful aspect, and every individual told a tale more and more harrowing to the feelings. The Postmasters seem to have been the greatest sufferers, as their situation demanded a large supply of corn, horses and forage, all of which, even to the chickens, were carried off.

One poor woman, wife of a postmaster, a very well-behaved, gentlewoman-like sort of person, told me that when 80,000 Russians came to their town she escaped into the woods (you will remember the snow was then deep on the ground and the cold excessive) where for two days she and her family had nothing to eat. The Cossacks then found her, but did no harm, only asking for food. I mention her case not as singular, for it was the lot of thousands, but merely to shew what people must expect when Enemies approach.

Soissons was the next place, and compared with the scene of desolation there presented all that we had hitherto seen was trifling.

I little thought last February that in July I should witness such superlatively interesting scenes. With the exception of Elba alone, ours has been the very best tour that could have been taken, and exactly at the right time, for I apprehend that a month ago we could not have pa.s.sed the country....

LETTER VIII.