NARRATIVE OF NAPOLEON’S ADVENTURES, FROM HIS ESCAPE FROM ELBA UNTIL HIS ARRIVAL AT THE TUILLERIES.

(Abridged from the Moniteur of the 26th of March, 1815.)

On the 26th of February, at five in the evening, he embarked on board a brig, carrying 26 guns, with 400 men of his guard. Three other vessels which happened to be in the port, and which were seized, received 200 infantry, 100 Polish light horse, and the battalion of flankers of 200 men. The wind was south, and appeared favourable; Captain Chaubard was in hopes that before break of day the isle of Capraia would be doubled, and that he should be out of the track of the French and English cruisers who watched the coast. This hope was disappointed. He had scarcely doubled Cape St. Andre, in the isle of Elba, when the wind fell, and the sea became calm; at break of day he had only made six leagues, and was still between the isle of Capraia and the isle of Elba, in sight of the cruisers.—The peril appeared imminent; several of the mariners were for returning to Porto Ferrajo. The Emperor ordered the voyage to be continued, having for a resource, in the last resort, to seize the French cruisers. They consisted of two frigates and a brig, but all that was known of the attachment of the crews to the national glory would not admit of a doubt that they would have hoisted the tri-coloured flag and ranged themselves on our side. Towards noon the wind freshened a little. At four in the afternoon we were off the heights of Leghorn; a frigate appeared five leagues to windward, another was on the coast of Corsica, and farther off a vessel of war was coming right before the wind, in the track of the brig. At six o’clock in the evening, the brig, which had on board the Emperor, met with a brig which was recognised to be Le ZÉphir, commanded by Captain Andrieux, an officer distinguished as much by his talents as by his true patriotism. It was proposed to speak the brig, and cause it to hoist the tri-coloured flag. The Emperor, however, gave orders to the soldiers of the guard to take off their caps, and conceal themselves on the deck, preferring to pass the brig without being recognised, and reserving to himself the measure of causing the flag to be changed, if obliged to have recourse to it. The two brigs passed side by side. The Lieutenant de Vaisseau Taillade, an officer of the French marine, was well acquainted with Captain Andrieux, and from this circumstance was disposed to speak him. He asked Captain Andrieux if he had any commissions for Genoa; some pleasantries were exchanged, and the two brigs going contrary ways, were soon out of sight of each other, without Captain Andrieux having the least knowledge of who was on board this frail vessel.

During the night between the 27th and 28th, the wind continued fresh. At break of day we observed a 74-gun ship, which seemed to be making for Saint Florent or Sardinia. We did not fail to perceive that this vessel took no notice of the brig.

The 28th, at seven in the morning, we discovered the coast of Noli; at noon, Antibes; at three on the 1st of March we entered the Gulf of Juan. The Emperor ordered that a captain of the guard, with twenty-five men, should disembark before the troops in the brig, to secure the battery on the coast, if any one was there. This captain took into his head the idea of causing to be changed the cockade of the battalion which was at Antibes. He imprudently threw himself into the place; the officer who commanded for the king caused the drawbridges to be drawn up, and shut the gates; his troops took arms, but they respected these old soldiers, and the cockade which they cherished. The operation, however, of the captain failed, and his men remained prisoners at Antibes. At five in the afternoon the disembarkation in the Gulf of Juan was effected. We established a bivouac on the seashore until the moon rose.

At eleven at night the Emperor placed himself at the head of his handful of brave men, to whose fate were attached such high destinies. He proceeded to Cannes, from thence to Grasse, and by Saint Vallier; he arrived on the evening of the 2nd at the village of Cerenon, having advanced twenty leagues in the course of the first day. The people of Cannes received the Emperor with sentiments which were the first presage of the success of the enterprise. The 3rd the Emperor slept at Bareme; the 4th he dined at Digue. From Castellane to Digue, and throughout the department of the Lower Alps, the peasants, informed of the march of the Emperor, assembled from all sides on the route, and manifested their sentiments with an energy that left no longer any doubt. The 5th, General Cambronne, with an advanced guard of forty grenadiers, seized the bridge and the fortress of Sisteron. The same day, the Emperor slept at Gap, with ten men on horseback and forty grenadiers. The enthusiasm which the presence of the Emperor inspired amongst the inhabitants of the Lower Alps, the hatred which they evinced to the noblesse, sufficiently proved what was the general wish of the province of Dauphine.—At two in the afternoon of the 6th the Emperor set out from Gap, accompanied by the whole population of the town. At Saint Bonnet the inhabitants, seeing the small number of his troop, had fears, and proposed to the Emperor to sound the tocsin to assemble the villages, and accompany him en masse:—“No,” said the Emperor, “your sentiments convince me that I am not deceived. They are to me a sure guarantee of the sentiments of my soldiers. Those whom I shall meet will range themselves on my side; the more there is of them the more my success will be secured. Remain, therefore, tranquil at home.”—At Gap were printed several thousand proclamations, addressed by the Emperor to the army and to the people, and from the soldiers of the Guards to their comrades. These proclamations were spread with the rapidity of lightning throughout Dauphine.

The same day the Emperor came to sleep at Gorp. The forty men of the advanced guard of General Cambronne went to sleep at Mure. They fell in with the advanced guard of a division of 6,000 men, troops of the line, who had come from Grenoble to arrest their march. General Cambronne wished to speak with the advanced posts. He was answered that they were prohibited from communicating with him. This advanced guard, however, of the division of Grenoble, fell back three leagues, and took a position between the lakes at the village of ——.

The Emperor, being informed of this circumstance, went to the place, and found there a battalion of the 5th of the line; a company of sappers, a company of miners; in all from seven to eight hundred men. He sent an officer of ordnance, the chef d’escadron Roul, to make known to these troops the intelligence of his arrival; but that officer could not obtain a hearing, the prohibition being still urged against having any communication. The Emperor alighted and went to the right of the battalion, followed by the guard with their arms reversed. He made himself known, and said that the first soldier who wished to kill his Emperor might do it: an unanimous cry of Vive l’Empereur was their answer. This brave regiment had been under the orders of the Emperor from his first campaign in Italy. The guard and the soldiers embraced. The soldiers of the 5th immediately tore off their cockade, and requested, with enthusiasm and tears in their eyes, the tri-coloured cockade. When they were arranged in order of battle, the Emperor said to them—“I come with a handful of brave men, because I reckon on the people and on you—the throne of the Bourbons is illegitimate, because it has not been raised by the nation; it is contrary to the national will, because it is contrary to the interests of our country, and exists only for the interests of a few families. Ask your fathers, ask all the inhabitants who arrive here from the environs, and you will learn from their own mouths the true situation of affairs; they are menaced with the return of tithes, of privileges, of feudal rights, and of all the abuses from which your successes had delivered them. Is it not true, peasants?”—“Yes, Sire,” answered all of them with an unanimous cry, “they wish to chain us to the soil—you come as the angel of the Lord to save us!”

The brave soldiers of the battalion of the 5th demanded to march the foremost in the division that covered Grenoble. They commenced their march in the midst of a crowd of inhabitants, which augmented every moment. Vizille distinguished itself by its enthusiasm. “It was here that the Revolution was born,” said these brave people. “It was we who were the first that ventured to claim the privileges of men; it is again here that French liberty is resuscitated, and that France recovers her honour and her independence.”

Fatigued as the Emperor was, he wished to enter Grenoble the same evening. Between Vizille and Grenoble, the young adjutant-major of the 7th of the line, came to announce that Colonel Labedoyere, deeply disgusted with the dishonour which covered France, and actuated by the noblest sentiments, had detached himself from the division of Grenoble, and had come with the regiment, by a forced march, to meet the Emperor. Half an hour afterwards this brave regiment doubled the force of the imperial troops. At nine o’clock in the evening, the Emperor made his entry into the Faubourg de——.

The troops had re-entered Grenoble, and the gates of the city were shut. The ramparts which defended the city were covered by the 3rd regiment of engineers; consisting of 2,000 sappers, all old soldiers covered with honourable wounds; by the 4th of artillery of the line, the same regiment in which, twenty-five years before, the Emperor had been a captain; by the two other battalions of the 5th of the line, by the 11th of the line, and the faithful hussars of the 4th.—The national guard and the whole population of Grenoble were placed in the rear of the garrison, and made all the air ring with shouts of Vive l’Empereur. They opened the gates, and at ten at night the Emperor entered Grenoble, in the midst of an army and a people animated by the most lively enthusiasm.

The next day the Emperor was addressed by the municipality and all the departmental authorities. The military chiefs and the magistrates were unanimous in their sentiments. All said that princes imposed by a foreign force were not legitimate princes, and that they were not bound by any engagement to princes for whom the nation had no wish. At two the Emperor reviewed the troops, in the midst of the population of the whole department, shouting A bas les Bourbons! A bas les ennemis du peuple! Vive l’Empereur, et un gouvernement de notre choix. The garrison of Grenoble immediately afterwards put itself in a forced march to advance upon Lyons. It is a remark that has not escaped observers, that every one of these 6,000 men were provided with a national cockade, and each with an old and used cockade, for, in discontinuing their tri-coloured cockade, they had hidden it at the bottom of their knapsacks; not one was purchased, at least in Grenoble. It is the same, said they in passing before the Emperor, it is the same that we wore at Austerlitz. This, said the others, we had at Marengo.

The 9th the Emperor slept at Bourgoin. The crowd, and the enthusiasm with it, if possible increased. “We have expected you a long time,” said these brave people to the Emperor; “you have at length arrived to deliver France from the insolence of the noblesse, the pretensions of the priests, and the shame of a foreign yoke.” From Grenoble to Lyons the march of the Emperor was nothing but a triumph. The Emperor, fatigued, was in his carriage, going at a slow pace, surrounded by a crowd of peasants, singing songs which expressed to all the noblesse the sentiments of the brave Dauphinois. “Ah,” said the Emperor, “I find here the sentiments which for twenty years induced me to greet France with the name of the Grand Nation; yes, you are still the Grand Nation, and you shall always be so.”

The Count d’Artois, the Duc d’OrlÉans, and several marshals, had arrived at Lyons. Money had been distributed to the troops, and promises to the officers. They wished to break down the bridge de la GuillotiÈre and the bridge Moraud. The Emperor smiled at these ridiculous preparations. He could have no doubt of the disposition of the Lyonnois, still less of the disposition of the soldiers. He gave orders, however, to General Bertrand to assemble the boats at Misbel, with the intention of passing in the night, and intercepting the roads of Moulins and of Macon to the prince who wished to prevent him from passing the Rhone. At four a reconnaissance of the 4th hussars arrived at la GuillotiÈre, and were received with shouts of Vive l’Empereur! by the immense population of a faubourg which is still distinguished by its attachment to the country. The passage of Misbel was countermanded, and the Emperor advanced at a gallop upon Lyons, at the head of the troops which were to have defended it against him. The Count d’Artois had done everything to secure the troops. He was ignorant that nothing is possible in France to an agent of a foreign power, and one who is not on the side of national honour and the cause of the people. Passing in front of the 13th regiment of dragoons, he said to a brave soldier covered with scars, and decorated with three chevrons, “Let us march, comrade; shout, therefore, Vive le Roi!” “No, monsieur,” replied this brave dragoon, “no soldier will fight against his father. I can only answer you by crying Vive l’Empereur!” The Count d’Artois mounted his carriage and quitted Lyons, escorted by a single gendarme. At nine o’clock at night the Emperor traversed the GuillotiÈre almost alone, but surrounded by an immense population.

The following day, the 11th, he reviewed the whole division of Lyons, and the brave General Brayer, at their head, put them in march to advance upon the capital. The sentiments which the inhabitants of this great city and the peasants of the vicinity, during the space of two hours, evinced towards the Emperor, so touched him, that it was impossible for him to express his feelings otherwise than by saying, “People of Lyons, I love you.” This was the second time that the acclamations of this city had been the presage of new destinies reserved for France.

On the 13th, at three in the afternoon, the Emperor arrived at Villefranche, a little town of 4,000 souls, which included at that moment more than 60,000. He stopped at the hÔtel de ville. A great number of wounded soldiers were presented to him. He entered Macon at seven o’clock in the evening, always surrounded by the people of the neighbouring districts. He expressed his astonishment to the natives of Macon at the slight efforts they made in the last war to defend themselves against the enemy, and support the honour of Burgundy.—“Sire, why did you appoint a bad mayor?”

At Tournies the Emperor had only praises to bestow upon the inhabitants, for their excellent behaviour and patriotism, which under the same circumstances have distinguished Tournies, Chalons, and St. Jean-de-Lone. At Chalons, which during forty days resisted the force of the enemy, and defended the passage of the Saone, the Emperor took notice of all the instances of valour; and not being able to visit St. Jean-de-Lone, he sent the decoration of the Legion of Honour to the worthy mayor of that city. On that occasion the Emperor exclaimed, “It is for you, brave people, that I have instituted the Legion of Honour, and not for emigrants pensioned by our enemies.”

The Emperor received at Chalons the deputation of the town of Dijon, who came to drive from among them the prefect and the wicked mayor, who, during the last campaign, had dishonoured Dijon and its inhabitants. The Emperor removed this mayor and appointed another, confiding the command of the division to the brave General Devaux.

On the 15th the Emperor slept at Autun, and from Autun he went to Avallon, and slept there on the night of the 16th. He found upon this road the same sentiments as among the mountains of Dauphiny. He re-established in their office all the functionaries who had been deprived for having united to defend their country against foreigners. The inhabitants of Chiffey had been peculiarly the object of persecution by an upstart sub-prefect at Semur, for having taken up arms against the enemies of our country. The Emperor gave orders to a brigadier of gendarmerie to arrest this sub-prefect, and to conduct him to the prison of Avallon.

On the 17th, the Emperor breakfasted at Vermanton, and went to Auxerre, where the prefect remained faithful to his post. The noble 14th had trampled under foot the white cockade. The Emperor likewise heard that the 6th regiment of lancers had likewise mounted the tri-coloured cockade, and was gone to Montereau to protect that point against a detachment of the body-guard who wished to pass it. The young men of this body-guard, unaccustomed to the effects of lancers, took flight on the first appearance of this corps, which made two prisoners. At Auxerre, Count Bertrand, major-general, gave orders to collect all the boats to embark the army, which was already four divisions strong, and to convey them the same night to Fossard, so that they would be able to arrive at one o’clock in the morning at Fontainbleau. Before he left Auxerre the Emperor was rejoined by the Prince of Moskwa. This marshal had mounted the tri-coloured cockade among all the troops under his command.

The Emperor reached Fontainbleau on the 20th, at four o’clock in the morning. At seven o’clock he learned that the Bourbons had left Paris, and that the capital was free. He immediately set off thither, and at nine o’clock at night he entered the Tuilleries, at the moment when he was least expected.