Napoleon has left Elba—Aspect of Vienna—Theatricals at the Court—Mme. Edmond de PÉrigord and the Rehearsal—Napoleon’s Landing at Cannes—The Interrupted Dance—Able Conduct of M. de Talleyrand—Declaration of the 13th March—Fauche Borel—The Congress is Dissolved.

My task is nearly at an end. Five-and-twenty years have gone by since the occurrence of the magic scenes part of which I have endeavoured to reproduce. There only remains to sketch the last one.

Prince Koslowski, to whom I went after Ypsilanti bade me such a hurried farewell in the Prater by jumping on his horse, confirmed the news told me by the latter. Napoleon had indeed left Elba. ‘The master and the prisoner of Europe in one,’ as he had been energetically called, had left his prison armed with nothing but his own glory, and, like CÆsar, had entrusted himself and his fortunes to a frail barque.

‘The news,’ said Koslowski, ‘was brought here by a courier despatched by the English ambassador in Florence to Lord Stewart. The English consul at Leghorn had in the first instance transmitted it. Lord Stewart, who naturally was the first to open the despatch, informed M. de Metternich and the sovereigns. The ministers of the great Powers were told immediately afterwards. It is not known which road Napoleon has taken. Is he coming to France, or does he wish, as has been stated, to get to the United States? For the moment there is nothing but conjecture. But who shall preserve him from the storm rumbling and gathering over his head? Will fortune be able to place on his brow the lightning-conductor to avert the course of that storm? The high and mighty arbiters of the Congress desire that the news shall not be spread before they are able to take measures dictated by the gravity of the circumstances.’

Whether the secret had been carefully kept, or whether the intoxication consequent upon the many months of festivities had not altogether worn off, it is impossible to say; but the capital preserved its usual aspect. The ramparts and the Leopoldstadt faubourg leading to the Prater were teeming with strollers, evidently anxious to profit by the first rays of the spring sun. There was no sign of the thunderbolt having produced its echo: joy and careless gaiety everywhere.

In the evening the company of amateur comedians was to give a performance in the palace of the Barbier de Seville and of a vaudeville very popular at that time, entitled La Danse Interrompue. The Prince Koslowski had offered to accompany me to the imperial residence. Anxious to study the general physiognomy of the illustrious gathering, and also hoping to gather some fresh news in connection with the great event, I had accepted. The gathering was as brilliant and as numerous as usual. There was, however, no longer the careless calm of the morning. Slight clouds, but clouds for all that, darkened their brows. The company stood chatting in groups, and here and there the probable consequences of Napoleon’s departure were discussed with more than ordinary warmth. ‘He cannot elude the English cruisers,’ said one. ‘M. Pozzo di Borgo maintains,’ replied another, ‘that if he sets foot in France, he’ll be hanged on the nearest tree.’102

Everybody, it seemed, wished to shirk the reality of the awakening. ‘We ought to think ourselves very lucky,’ said some partisans of the Bourbons of Sicily. ‘Truly Bonaparte is playing our game admirably. He may set his helm for Naples; and if so, the Congress will be obliged to take measures for the expulsion of that usurper and intruder, Murat.’

Suddenly the conversations ceased. The Empress of Austria had entered the room and taken her seat, and at a signal from her the curtain rose. ‘We’ll just see,’ I said to Prince Koslowski, ‘if this event, apparently so unforeseen, has not bred confusion in the illustrious company of players.’

‘You may spare yourself such a mistake,’ was the answer. ‘It would need the enemy at the gates of Vienna and the thunder of the cannon to rouse them from their obstinate sleep. When the news came this morning to M. de Talleyrand, he was still in bed. Mme. Edmond de PÉrigord was seated by his pillow and brightly conversing with him when a letter was brought in from M. de Metternich. “This is to tell me the hour fixed for the Congress to-day,” said the prince, leaving the handsome comtesse to open the epistle, which, as a matter of course, she does mechanically. In a moment or so, though, she opens her eyes very wide and reads the big tidings. She also had to go during the day to M. de Metternich’s, but it was merely to rehearse a farce—Le Sourd, ou l’Auberge pleine. “Bonaparte has left Elba,” she exclaims. “Oh, uncle, and my rehearsal!” “Your rehearsal, madame,” is the quiet reply, “will take place all the same.” And the prince was right; the rehearsal took place just the same. Europe is, perhaps, on the verge of a general conflagration, but the confidence of our comedians will not be disturbed by so small a matter as that.’

Everybody was studying the faces of the political notabilities, as a rule so very impassive; people scanned their looks and tried to read their thoughts. They all affected a confidence probably far removed from the reality. The absence of M. de Talleyrand was noticed, and the preoccupation of Emperor Alexander.

What had caused this supreme resolution on the part of Napoleon, the consequences of which were so fatal to France? Did he expect, in spite of the enfeebled condition of France, to hold his own once more against coalesced Europe? Was he so blind as to entertain the possibility of henceforth living in peace with all those sovereigns to whom he had formerly dictated, and whom he had taught the road to Paris? Or was not his flight from Elba an act of despair in order to escape a captivity which, six years later, was to make an end of him on the rock of St. Helena?

Certain was it that the presence of the Emperor of the French in the midst of the Mediterranean, and the independence, nay, the shadow of power which was left to him, had aroused the alarm of the Congress. It was well known that there existed in Paris a centre of intrigues and correspondence having for its aim the restoration of the imperial rÉgime. Queen Hortense was the soul of that conspiracy, which was known to everybody except the blind Bourbons. During the stay of Queen Hortense there, in August 1814, Madame de KrÜdener, so celebrated subsequently in consequence of her mystic connection with Emperor Alexander, had foretold to her the return of Napoleon. Hence, from the beginning of the conferences, the question of choosing another place of exile, or rather of transportation, was broached, though the strictest secrecy was kept about the matter. Nevertheless, it was only towards the end of January that St. Helena was mentioned by M. Pozzo di Borgo, who professed to have received letters informing him of the arrest at Genoa, at Florence, and on the whole of the coast, of the emissaries of Napoleon. ‘Europe,’ Pozzo had said, ‘would not be at rest until she had put the ocean between herself and that man.’

It was asserted that Prince EugÈne owed the revelation of that important secret to his intimacy with Emperor Alexander, and that he lost no time in informing Napoleon. The latter no longer hesitated, and made up his mind to return to France. From that moment, Alexander became most cool and distant towards EugÈne.

Vienna remained without further news for nearly five days, during which the receptions and entertainments went on as if nothing had happened, the general concern apparently becoming less and less. Finally, though, there was no possibility of denying the truth; the thunderclap came: Napoleon was in France. The adventurer, as Pozzo di Borgo dared to call him, was welcomed everywhere by frantically enthusiastic populations. The soldiers rushed to meet their general; there was no obstacle to his triumphal march. The fall of the Colossus, which had appeared incomprehensible, was less surprising than the resurrection of his power.

The news of Napoleon’s landing at Cannes came while the ball at M. de Metternich’s was at its height. The tidings had the effect of the stroke of the wand or the whistle of the stage-carpenter, which transforms the gardens of Armida into a wilderness. In fact, the thousands of candles seemed to have gone out simultaneously. The news spread with the rapidity of an electric current. In vain did the orchestra continue the strains of a waltz just begun; the dancers stopped of their own accord, looking at and interrogating each other; the four words, ‘He is in France,’ were like the shield of Ubaldo which, presented to the gaze of Rinaldo, suddenly destroyed all the charms of Armida.

Emperor Alexander took a few steps towards the Prince de Talleyrand. ‘I told you that it would not last,’ he said. The French plenipotentiary did not move a muscle of his face, and simply bowed without replying. The King of Prussia gave a sign to the Duke of Wellington, and both left the ball-room together, followed almost immediately by Emperors Alexander and Francis and M. de Metternich. The majority of the guests seemed bent upon disappearing unnoticed, so that finally the place became deserted save for a few apparently terror-stricken talkers.

The Prince Koslowski, whom I saw during the evening, was unable to add anything to the news already current among the public. ‘This is an excellent opportunity for the players to give us a second performance of that charming vaudeville La Danse Interrompue. Comte Palfi, who played the part of Wasner so brightly, might well sing:

The chorus, I am afraid, will probably be accompanied in a short time by the thunder of a hundred thousand firearms. This news,’ he went on, ‘will no doubt remind you of the tidings of the taking of Amiens by the Spaniards, told to Henri IV. in the midst of a ballet in which both he and Sully were dancing, though it is difficult to imagine Sully disporting himself in that way: he was certainly not famed for that kind of thing. “Mistress mine,” said the king to “la belle Gabrielle” (d’EstrÉes), taking her hand, “we are bound to give up our dancing and our games; we must to horse, and recommence another war. There’s a truce to the joys of love.” It would be well, perhaps, to translate the phrase into several languages for the benefit of some of the would-be Henri Quatres assembled here.’

It would be impossible to depict the aspect of the Austrian capital from that moment. Vienna was like an individual who, lulled to sleep by dreams of love and ambition, suddenly found himself violently awakened by the rattle of the watchman or the clanging of the belfry warning him that his house was on fire. The various guests from all parts of Europe could not recall without dread the phases of the period that had just gone by. The constantly renewed disasters of a quarter of a century of war; the invaded capitals; the battlefields bestrewn with the dead; commerce and industry paralysed; whole families, nay, whole nations, in mourning—all this presented itself simultaneously to their minds; and the recollection of the lurid flames of Moscow lent additional terror to the picture. No doubt there had been recent reprisals on their part; and the presence of the Allied Armies in Paris proved to a certain extent that the terms ‘unvanquished’ and ‘invincible’ were by no means synonymous. This, however, rendered their anxiety all the greater. To fell the Colossus to the ground, it had required a conjunction of circumstances, and, moreover, an accord of sentiments and ideas, which had increased the strength of each individual nation tenfold. At present those nations had assumed an observant attitude towards each other; the stern reality only showed the certainty of evils which had been considered as dispelled for ever.

Under those grave circumstances, M. de Talleyrand gave proof of an ability and a strength of will that had the effect of carrying all before it. Never was there a more difficult rÔle than his. He was, as it were, the buffer betwixt the government he represented and France, whose interest he wished to save, and the inimical Powers, which confounded in the self-same ban Napoleon and the country which once more had welcomed him. I was not in Paris at the time of the first Restoration; Talleyrand’s conduct, therefore, only came to me through contemporary accounts, not always to be depended on for their veracity. But having been an eye-witness of what he did in March 1815 for his country and for the Bourbons, I have no hesitation in saying that the latter were indebted to him a second time for their crown; and that France, perhaps, owed to him her existence as a nation. He understood, with marvellous intuition, that these two facts were narrowly bound up with and emanated from each other. Hence his attitude, and his efforts to obtain the declaration of the 13th March.

That famous act, so differently appreciated, claims its mention here. The irritation in Vienna was at its height, and kept up by the prospect of a relentless war. The enthusiasm aroused by Napoleon’s presence, the welcome given to him by the various populations, the rallying around him of the army—all these things combined caused the French nation to be looked upon as an accomplice to the breaking of the much desired peace. There was, moreover, the dread of a revival of the Revolutionary ideas, the delirium of which had struck terror throughout Europe. The Emperor of Austria, addressing the czar, had said ‘Behold, sire, the result of your holding your hand over your Paris Jacobins.’ ‘That’s true, sire,’ was the answer, ‘but to repair the wrong, I hold myself and my armies at your Majesty’s disposal.’

The quarrel on the point of breaking out was, therefore, between France on the one side, and the whole of Europe on the other; a duel to the bitter end, which could only cease with the death of one of the combatants. I also heard the word ‘partition’ mentioned, and the example of Poland was there to prove that a nation may be struck off the European family register.

M. de Talleyrand, on the contrary, laid down the principle that in 1815, as in the previous year, Europe could be at war with Napoleon only and not with France. He manoeuvred with so much skill or so much luck as to overcome all obstacles and entirely to change the intentions hostile to France, and finally to obtain the acceptance of his principle. A score of times the Congress was about to separate without having made up its mind to anything save a blind and relentless war; a score of times he rallied around him opinions fundamentally opposed to each other. I am aware of the repugnance of certain dogmatic minds to these compromises inspired by prudence. Over and again it has been said that it would have been better for France to accept a declaration of war—a threat of extermination addressed to herself. In her hour of despair, the country would have found a supernatural force; she would have perished in the struggle or obtained a glorious triumph.

M. de Talleyrand was swayed by too much moderation to risk this; he had too correct a notion of the enfeebled condition of France to fling her once more into violent and desperate adventures. He himself beheld Europe ready to rise as one man; he directed the rise against an individual instead of against a people. And in this he acted rightly. His conduct was appreciated and admired in Vienna as the triumph of reason and of an enlightened patriotism. More than once he returned from the Congress to his residence utterly discouraged. On the morning of the 13th March, the day appointed for the signing of this important act, he was by no means sure of his success. Meanwhile, everything depended on it. When he was ready to go to M. de Metternich, his entourage could not refrain from showing a natural anxiety. ‘Wait for me here,’ he said, ‘and in order not to try your patience by as much as a minute, watch for my return at the windows. If I have succeeded, I’ll show you from the carriage the treaty on which shall depend the fate of Europe and of France.’

A few hours later, when coming back, he waved the roll containing the signatures of the arbiters of peace who had become the arbiters of war. For a moment, though, the accord obtained with so much labour was on the point of being broken. It was when the Congress heard of the flight of Louis XVIII. from the Tuileries without an attempt at striking a blow, and of Napoleon’s taking possession of the palace. Emperor Alexander, in particular, failed to understand the tame submission of the Bourbon family and the absence of a single defender.

One morning I ran up against General Ouwaroff. ‘The czar,’ he said, ‘has not recovered from his surprise. He is tired of war, and just now he repeated to me at least a dozen times, “Never shall I draw the sword for them.”’

M. de Talleyrand, in addition to this, performed wonders of skill and patience in the retying of the loosened ‘Congress bundle’ and in directing the various wills of which it was composed towards one common aim. If, on the one hand, the masses beheld with terror the horizon becoming once more dark with threatening clouds, the men devoured with ambition rejoiced at the probable revival of a time of glory. For, disguise it as one will, the intrigues which were already set on foot to overthrow or to support Napoleon offered a prospect of a prompt result in the way of grandeur and riches. Among the many ambitious ones of various ranks who rushed in crowds to Vienna, the ubiquitous Fauche-Borel, the secret agent of the Bourbon princes during the emigration, was foremost. He came once more to offer his fortune, his devotion, and even the blood of his family for a cause in which he had sacrificed everything. No one had a greater right than he to call kings ‘the illustriously ungrateful.’ His adventurous life, his expensive tastes, had promptly swallowed all the sums he received from the house of Bourbon and from the British Government. His was indeed a strange destiny. The crowning of his efforts turned out to be a disaster to his personal fortune. For twenty years his numberless creditors had awaited patiently the day of his success. Scarcely were the Bourbons seated on the throne, the access to which had been facilitated by him, than everybody imagined the ill-fated bookseller of NeufchÂtel to be loaded with gold and honours. Pressed on all sides and but meanly remunerated, his position was a thousand times harder than it had been before. Hence, he was going to resume his life of intriguing and hopes. If a warning were needed for the ambitious against their all-engrossing craving to be somebody or to appear to be somebody, no more striking example could be advanced than that of Fauche-Borel putting an end to his disappointed ambition by committing suicide, and by that death setting the seal on everything that has been said about the ingratitude of princes.

‘The Congress is dissolved,’ Napoleon had said, on setting his foot on French soil at Cannes. Meanwhile, on the 11th March, in the midst of the general consternation, a company of amateurs still played in the Redotto hall Le Calife de Bagdad and Les Rivaux d’eux-mÊmes, and, strange though it may appear, there was a larger audience than might have been expected. It was, however, the final flicker of the expiring lamp; the last feeble sound of the broken instrument. Pleasure took flight. ‘The Congress is dissolved.’

THE END