Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [331]
The break-up of the congress was inevitable. I had long anticipated this, and had foretold it to the emperor, who, deceiving himself with his habitual and unhappy illusions, was doubtless unwilling to believe it. He kept flattering himself that a military success would drive the enemy away from the capital, that after the enemy had had the slightest reverse, the exasperation and courage of the citizens would force a withdrawal from France. He wrote to the Emperor of Austria, and he had the Prince of Neuchâtel write to Prince Schwarzenberg, as though the negotiations were being held 150 leagues from Paris, as though there were some hope of disuniting powers that had been brought together by a common peril, regardless of any concern other than to escape from the supremacy and sway of the cabinet of the Tuileries . . . For the time being there was but one aim: to subdue France - to chain up Napoleon’s power and reach a state of rest . . . But the emperor . . . did not submit to sacrificing for his personal safety the departments which the arms of the Republic had won . . . As I have said already, he gauged everyone’s zeal by his own . . . Hoping for a piece of luck, he wished to make time for it to happen, and, instead of answering my dispatches, he sent me nothing but bulletins of victories, so-called . . . as if . . . the winning of a fight against a single corps could change the basis of affairs . . . Dangers crowded upon him, encompassed him, oppressed him, from every side, but he thought to escape from them, and even to hide them from others, by misrepresenting them to himself.101
This analysis was confirmed by the reception Caulaincourt received on his return to Napoleon’s headquarters. As reported by the unfortunate envoy, the emperor’s talk had become even more rambling and incoherent than it had been in the wake of the retreat from Moscow:
To humble us - that is what our enemies wish, but death is better. I am too old a campaigner to hang on to life: I will never sign away France’s honour . . . All the high officials are frightened, even the ministers . . . The peasants of Burgundy and the Champagne have more spirit than all the men on my council: you all have the shivers. The word runs that the counter-revolution is complete because the mayor of Bordeaux has turned traitor. No one understands the French but me: indignation will follow on the heels of dejection. You will see what is going to happen before a week is out. The whole population will be under arms; we shall have to come to the enemy’s rescue to stop the violence; they will slaughter everything that has a foreign look to it. We will make a fight of it, Caulaincourt. If the nation supports me, the enemy is nearer ruin than I am for anger is running high. I cut the allied communications: they have numbers, but no support. I rally some of my garrisons, wipe out one of their corps, and the slightest reverse can drive them away. They know what their last retreat has already cost them: another move like that and not one of them escapes. If I am beaten, it is better to fall gloriously than subscribe to terms such as the Directory would not have accepted after their Italian reverses. If I have support, I can regain everything. If fortune deserts me, the country will not be able to reproach me with the breaking of my coronation oath.102
The reality, though, was one of misery and horror. The populace of eastern France was not, as Napoleon kept insisting, turning on the invaders, but rather trying desperately to survive. Among them was the writer Charles de Pougens and his niece, Louise de Saint-Léon. Caught in Soissons by the invasion, they first experienced the terrors of siege and assault:
Taking refuge . . . in a ground-level room whose firmly sealed shutters kept us plunged in complete darkness, we listened with many shudders to the explosion of the bombs that rained around us; one shell fell with