Part 14 (1/2)
The Prussian general, Thielemann, who, with a few troops, had remained behind at Wavre in order, at great hazard, to deceive Grouchy into the belief that he was still opposed by Blucher's entire force, acted a lesser, but equally honorable part on this great day. He fulfilled his commission with great skill, and so completely deceived Grouchy as to hinder his making a single attempt to throw himself in the way of the Prussians on the Paris road.
Blucher pushed forward without a moment's delay, and, on the 29th of June, stood before Paris. Napoleon had, meanwhile, a second time abdicated, and had fled from Paris in the hope of escaping across the seas. Davoust, the ancient instrument of his tyranny, who commanded in Paris, attempting to make terms of capitulation with Blucher, was sharply answered, ”You want to make a defence? Take care what you do.
You well know what license the irritated soldiery will take if your city must be taken by storm. Do you wish to add the sack of Paris to that of Hamburg, already loading your conscience?”[16] Paris surrendered after a severe engagement at Issy, and m.u.f.fling, the Prussian general, was placed in command of the city, July the 7th, 1815. It was on the occasion of a grand banquet given by Wellington shortly after the occupation of Paris by the allied troops that Blucher gave the celebrated toast, ”May the pens of diplomatists not again spoil all that the swords of our gallant armies have so n.o.bly won!”
Schwarzenberg had in the interim also penetrated into France, and the crown prince of Wurtemberg had defeated General Rapp at Strasburg and had surrounded that fortress. The Swiss, under General Bachmann, who had, although fully equipped for the field, hitherto prudently watched the turn of events, invaded France immediately after the battle of Waterloo, pillaged Burgundy, besieged and took the fortress of Huningen, which, with the permission of the allies, they justly razed to the ground, the insolent French having thence fired upon the bridges of Basel which lay close in its vicinity. A fresh Austrian army under Frimont advanced from Italy as far as Lyons. On the 17th of July, Napoleon surrendered himself in the bay of Rochefort to the English, whose s.h.i.+ps prevented his escape; he moreover preferred falling into their hands than into those of the Prussians. The whole of France submitted to the triumphant allies, and Louis XVIII. was reinstated on his throne. Murat had also been simultaneously defeated at Tolentino in Italy by the Austrians under Bianchi, and Ferdinand IV. had been restored to the throne of Naples. Murat fled to Corsica, but his retreat to France was prevented by the success of the allies, and in his despair he, with native rashness, yielded to the advice of secret intriguants and returned to Italy with a design of raising a popular insurrection, but was seized on landing and shot on the 13th of October.[17]
Blucher was greatly inclined to give full vent to his justly roused rage against Paris. The bridge of Jena, one of the numerous bridges across the Seine, the princ.i.p.al object of his displeasure, was, curiously enough, saved from destruction (he had already attempted to blow it up) by the arrival of the king of Prussia.[18] His proposal to punish France by part.i.tioning the country and thus placing it on a par with Germany, was far more practical in its tendency.
This honest veteran had in fact a deeper insight into affairs than the most wary diplomatists.[19] In 1815, the same persons, as in 1814, met in Paris, and similar interests were agitated. Foreign jealousy again effected the conclusion of this peace at the expense of Germany and in favor of France. Blucher's influence at first reigned supreme. The king of Prussia, who, together with the emperors of Russia and Austria, revisited Paris, took Stein and Gruner into his council. The crown prince of Wurtemberg also zealously exerted himself in favor of the reunion of Lorraine and Alsace with Germany.[20] But Russia and England beholding the reintegration of Germany with displeasure, Austria,[21] and finally Prussia, against whose patriots all were in league, yielded.[22] The future destinies of Europe were settled on the side of England by Wellington and Castlereagh; on that of Russia by Prince John Razumowsky, Nesselrode, and Capo d'Istria; on that of Austria by Metternich and Wessenberg; on that of Prussia by Hardenberg and William von Humboldt. The German patriots were excluded from the discussion,[23] and a result extremely unfavorable to Germany naturally followed:[24] Alsace and Lorraine remained annexed to France. By the second treaty of Paris, which was definitively concluded on the 20th of November, 1815, France was merely compelled to give up the fortresses of Philippeville, Marienburg, Sarlouis, and Landau, to demolish Huningen, and to allow eighteen other fortresses on the German frontier to be occupied by the allies until the new government had taken firm footing in France. Until then, one hundred and fifty thousand of the allied troops were also to remain within the French territory and to be maintained at the expense of the people.
France was, moreover, condemned to pay seven hundred millions of francs toward the expenses of the war and to restore the _chef d'oeuvres_ of which she had deprived every capital in Europe. The sword of Frederick the Great was not refound: Marshal Serrurier declared that he had burned it.[25] On the other hand, however, almost all the famous old German ma.n.u.scripts, which had formerly been carried from Heidelberg to Rome, and thence by Napoleon to Paris, were sent back to Heidelberg. One of the most valuable, the Manessian Code of the Swabian Minnesingers, was left in Paris, where it had been concealed. Blucher expired, in 1819, on his estate in Silesia.[26]
The French were now sufficiently humbled to remain in tranquillity, and designedly displayed such submission that the allied sovereigns resolved, at a congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the autumn of 1818, to withdraw their troops. Napoleon was, with the concurrence of the a.s.sembled powers, taken to the island of St. Helena, where, surrounded by the dreary ocean, several hundred miles from any inhabited spot, and guarded with petty severity by the English, he was at length deprived of every means of disturbing the peace of Europe.
Inactivity and the unhealthiness of the climate speedily dissolved the earthly abode of this giant spirit. He expired on the 5th of May, 1821. His consort, Maria Louisa, was created d.u.c.h.ess of Parma; and his son lived, under the t.i.tle of Duke of Reichstadt, with his imperial grandfather at Vienna, until his death in 1832. Napoleon's stepson, Eugene Beauharnais, the former viceroy of Italy, the son-in-law to the king of Bavaria, received the newly-created mediatized princ.i.p.ality of Eichstadt, which was dependent upon Bavaria, and the t.i.tle of Duke of Leuchtenberg. Jerome, the former king of Westphalia, became Count de Montfort;[27] Louis, ex-king of Holland, Count de St. Leu.
[Footnote 1: From London, Frederick William went to Switzerland and took possession of his ancient hereditary territory, Walsch-Neuenburg or Neufchatel, visited the beautiful Bernese Oberland, and then returned to Berlin, where, on the 7th of August, he pa.s.sed in triumph through the Brandenburg gate, which was again adorned with the car of victory and the fine group of horses, and rode through the lime trees to an altar, around which the clergy belonging to every religious sect were a.s.sembled. Here public thanks were given and the whole of the citizens present fell upon their knees.--_Allgemeine Zeitung, 262_. On the 17th of September, the preparation of a new liturgy was announced in a ministerial proclamation, ”by which the solemnity of the church service was to be increased, the present one being too little calculated to excite or strike the imagination.”]
[Footnote 2: Oxford conferred a doctor's degree upon Blucher, who, upon receiving this strange honor, said, ”Make Gneisenau apothecary, for he it was who prepared my pills.” On his first reception at Carlton House, the populace pushed their way through the guards and doors as far as the apartments of the prince-regent, who, taking his gray-headed guest by the hand, presented him to them, and publicly hung his portrait set in brilliants around his neck. On his pa.s.sing through the streets, the horses were taken from his carriage, and he was drawn in triumph by the shouting crowd. One fete succeeded another. During the great races at Ascot, the crowd breaking through the barriers and insisting upon Blucher's showing himself, the prince-regent came forward, and, politely telling them that he had not yet arrived, led forward the emperor Alexander, who was loudly cheered, but Blucher's arrival was greeted with thunders of applause far surpa.s.sing those bestowed upon the sovereigns, a circ.u.mstance that was afterward blamed by the English papers. In the Freemasons' Lodge, Blucher was received by numbers of ladies, on each of whom he bestowed a salute. At Portsmouth, he drank to the health of the English in the presence of an immense concourse of people a.s.sembled beneath his windows.--The general rejoicing was solely clouded by the domestic circ.u.mstances of the royal family, by the insanity of the aged and blind king and by the disunion reigning between the prince-regent and his thoughtless consort, Caroline of Brunswick.--Although the whole of the allied sovereigns, some of whom were unable to speak English, understood German, French was adopted as the medium of conversation.-- _Allgemeine Zeitung, 174._]
[Footnote 3: ”There are moments in the life of nations on which the whole of their future destiny depends. The children are destined to expiate their fathers' errors with their blood. Germany has everything to fear from the foreigner, and yet she cannot arrange her own affairs without calling the foreigner to her aid.--Who, in the congress, chiefly oppose every well-laid plan? Who, with the dagger's point pick out and reopen all our wounds, and rub them with salt and poison? Who promote confusion, provoke, insinuate, and attempt to creep into every committee, to interfere in every discussion? who but those sent thither by France?”--_The Rhenish Mercury._]
[Footnote 4: Fate willed that Stein should not be called upon to act with firmness, but Hardenberg to make concessions. Stein disappeared from the theatre of events and was degraded to a lower sphere.
Hardenberg was created prince.]
[Footnote 5: Napoleon had such good friends among the Rhenish confederated princes that Augustus, duke of Gotha, for instance, even after the second occupation of Paris, on the return of his troops in the November of 1815, prohibited any demonstrations of triumph and even deprived the _Landwehr_ of their uniforms, so that the poor fellows had to return in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves to their native villages during the hard winter.--_Jacob's Campaigns._]
[Footnote 6: An attack upon Berne had already been concerted. Colonel Bar marched with the people of Aargau in the night time upon Aarburg, but his confederates failing to make their appearance, he caused the nearest Bernese governor to be alarmed and hastily retraced his steps.
The Bernese instantly sent an armed force to the frontier, where, finding all tranquil, the charge of aggression was thrown upon their shoulders.]
[Footnote 7: Vide Muralt's Life of Reinhard.]
[Footnote 8: Blucher was at Berlin at the moment when the news of Napoleon's escape arrived. He instantly roused the English amba.s.sador from his sleep by shouting in his ear, ”Have the English a fleet in the Mediterranean?”]
[Footnote 9: The blame was entirely upon the Prussian side. The Saxons, as good soldiers, naturally revolted at the idea that they would at once be faithless to their oath and mutinied. General m.u.f.fling was insulted for having spoken of ”Saxon hounds.” Blucher even was compelled secretly to take his departure. The Saxon troops were, however, reduced to obedience by superior numbers of Prussians, and their colors were burned. The whole corps was about to be decimated, when Colonel Romer came forward and demanded that the sentence of death should be first executed on him. Milder measures were in consequence reverted to, and a few of the men were condemned to death by drawing lots. Kanitz, the drummer, a youth of sixteen, however, threw away the dice, exclaiming, ”It is I who beat the summons for revolt, and I will be the first to die.” He and six others were shot. Borstel, the Prussian general, the hero of Dennewitz, who had steadily refused to burn the Saxon colors, was compelled to quit the service.]
[Footnote 10: For a refutation of Menzel's absurdly perverted relation of these great events, the reader is referred not only to the Duke of Wellington's despatches and to Colonel Siborne's well-established account of the battles of Ligny, Wavre, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo, but also to those of his countrymen, m.u.f.fling, the Prussian general, and Wagner.--_Trans._]
[Footnote 11: Shortly before the battle, Bourmont, the French general, set up the white c.o.c.kade (the symbol of Bourbon) and deserted to Blucher, who merely said, ”It is all one what symbol the fellows set up, rascals are ever rascals!”]
[Footnote 12: The surgeon, when about to rub him with some liquid, was asked by him what it was, and being told that it was spirits, ”Ah,”
said he, ”the thing is of no use externally!” and s.n.a.t.c.hing the gla.s.s from the hand of his attendant, he drank it off.]
[Footnote 13: Against all expectation to aid an ally who on the previous day had against all expectation been unable to give him aid, evinced at once magnanimity, sense, and good feeling.--_Clausewitz_.]
[Footnote 14: A Prussian battery, that on its way from Namur turned back on receiving news of this disaster and was taken by the French, is said to have chiefly led to the commission of this immense blunder by Napoleon.]
[Footnote 15: The Hanoverian legion again covered itself with glory by the steadiness with which it opposed the enemy. It lost three thousand five hundred men, the Dutch eight thousand; the German troops consequently lost collectively as many as the English, whose loss was computed at eleven or twelve thousand men. The Prussians, whose loss at Ligny and Waterloo exceeded that of their allies, behaved with even greater gallantry.]