Chapter X: Deposition

Although it was mid-June, the day touched its close towards eight o'clock in the evening. The shadows of night were already mingling with the thick shade of the Elysian Garden, where Napoleon dismounted on his return from Waterloo. A compact mass of people filled Marigny Alley, one of whose sides was formed by the terrace of the palace, on which trees and verdure grew in profusion.

The throng was composed almost to a man of artisans or federated troops of the suburbs. From time to time the buzzing of the vast multitude was dominated by the cry from thousands of throats--"Down with the Bourbons!"--"Down with the foreigners!"--"Down with the traitors!"--"Arms!"--"To the front!"--"Long live the Emperor!"

As the evening wore on, however, that last cry of "Long live the Emperor," became more and more infrequent. The people understood at last that Napoleon, whose return they had acclaimed with such hopefulness, preferred rather to abandon France to the woes which hung over her than to make an appeal to the spirit of Revolution. The Corsican ceased to be the idol of the people. Cursed be the name of Napoleon!

At his post, gun on shoulder, John Lebrenn paced up and down the length of the terrace of the Elysian Garden. He heard the cries of the crowd--"Down with the traitors"--"Down with the Bourbons"--"The Emperor, the Emperor!"--"War to the knife against the invaders!"

At that moment Napoleon, in a round hat and plain citizen's cloak, turned out of the alley which abutted on the terrace. The dethroned Emperor was walking, in a revery, his hands crossed behind his back. In the dark, and under the trees, he did not notice the sentry until close upon him. When he did, he stopped short, and, falling into his usual habit of questioning those whom he met, he said to Lebrenn, who presented arms:

"Have you been in the service?"

"Yes, Sire," replied John. The thought flashed through his mind that he had in the same words answered Louis Capet in his prison in the Temple; now he was calling Napoleon "Sire" on the day of his deposition.

"What campaigns were you in? Answer," commanded Napoleon.

"The campaign of 1794, in the Army of the Rhine and Moselle."

"Under the Republic! Have you served since?"

"No, Sire; I was married. I served the Republic."

"What is your profession?"

"I am a cloth merchant."

"In what quarter?"

"St. Denis Street."

"What say they of the Emperor among the merchants of St. Denis Street? Answer me without hunting for phrases."

At that moment a new cry burst from the throng below and reached the ears of Napoleon:

"Down with the Bourbons!"

"Down with the traitors!"

"Arms! Arms! To the frontiers!"

"The Emperor, long live the Emperor!"

"Again?" said Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders; and then to Lebrenn, "Well, what do they say of me in St. Denis Street?"

"The most of the burghers look with repugnance upon a new Restoration; but for the commercial bourgeoisie, the Restoration, if it will only assure peace, means a renewal of business," replied Lebrenn.

"Always the same, these bourgeois," muttered Napoleon; "peace, business. Their mouths can shape no other words. Among them never the shadow of national sentiment! And what is the attitude of the people, the workingmen of your quarter?"

"Some are astonished at your inaction, Sire; others are more severe; they arraign your general policies."

"Have I not always had my hands tied by the Chamber of Deputies, by babblers, lawyers, and rainbow-chasers! They think only of orating, of overwhelming me with their reproaches, instead of aiding me to save the country. They balanced opinions like the Greeks in the lower world, while here the barbarians were at the gates of Paris. They are the wretches!"

"I was at St. Cloud in the days of Brumaire, Sire, when with your grenadiers you drove the Representatives of the people from their seats. Now, when the safety of the fatherland is at stake, why do you not employ the same measures against the deputies who prevent your saving France?"

"The Five Hundred were Terrorists, malcontents, seditionists, assassins," said Napoleon quickly; "they merited death."

"I arrived shortly after the session of the Five Hundred. You ran no danger. No poniard was raised against you. The Five Hundred were no malcontents; they defended the law and the Constitution."

"You are a Jacobin."

"Yes, Sire; ever since '93; and I believe that to-day, as in '93, the Republic single-handed could cope with coalized Europe--especially had the Republic your sword!"

Napoleon's face changed, and he smiled with that inscrutability mingled with grace and good-fellowship which gave him, more than anything else, such influence over the simple-minded. "Ah, ah, Sir Jacobin," he said, "well for you it is that I find out so late what you are. You have no doubt some influence in your quarter; I would have sent you to rot in Vincennes, my new prison of state, at the bottom of a pit!"

Anew the cries from below broke out: "Down with the Bourbons!" "Arms!" "To the frontiers!" "Long live the Emperor--War to the death against the foreigners!"

"Brave people!" said Napoleon. "They would let themselves still be hewed to pieces for me; and still they bear the weight of imposts, of munitions of war, while my Marshals and all the military chiefs whom I covered with riches betray me. My role is played out. I shall go to America and turn planter, and philosophize on the emptiness of human events! I shall write my campaigns, like Caesar."

"Sire, you forget France. Place your sword at her service; become again General Bonaparte, as you were in the glorious days of Arcola and Lodi--"

"Sir," broke in the Emperor impatiently and with emphasis, "when one has been Emperor of the French, he does not step down. To fall, smitten by the thunderbolt, is not debasement. Never shall I consent to become again a simple general."

An aide-de-camp came up and joined the General. "Sire," he said, "Colonel Gourgaud awaits your Majesty's commands."

"Let him harness the six-horse coach and make his way out through the large gate of the Elysian Garden, to draw the attention of the mob about the palace. I shall take the single-horse carriage and leave by the equerries' gate. Hold, I have another order for you."

Napoleon grasped the aide by the arm, addressed him in a low voice, and walked off with him. Soon they both disappeared around the corner of the alley. The night was now black as pitch. Below, the cries of the people ascended again:

"Arms! Arms!"

"To the frontiers!"

"The Emperor, the Emperor! War to the bitter end against the invaders!"

"Your Emperor, O people! is fleeing from you by night," soliloquized John Lebrenn as he paced his weary round on the terrace. "He flees the duties to which your voice would call him. He might have enshrined his name in a new glory, that would have been pure and bright forever. But fate drives him on to terrible retribution--captivity, perhaps death. And thus will be avenged the coup d'etat of Brumaire, thus his attempts against the liberty of the people. May the same fate fall upon all the monarchs of the world!"