• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2490 0

it seemed as if the world had tumbled to pieces, and three-fourths of everything [had been] destroyed in the wreck.’49 As Blücher famously remarked to Wellington when they encountered one another, ‘Quelle affaire!’ Caught up in the rout of the French army was Captain Coignet of the Guard: ‘We had the greatest difficulty in getting away. We could not make way through the panic-stricken multitude. And it was worse when we arrived at Jemappes. The emperor tried to re-establish some kind of order among the retreating troops, but his efforts were in vain. Men of all units from every corps struggled and fought their way through the streets of the little town . . . The one thought uppermost in the minds of all was to get across the little bridge which had been thrown over the river Dyle. Nothing could stand in the way of them.’50

The French were right to take to their heels. As the Prussians came on, they behaved with terrible brutality. To quote the British guards officer Gronow:

We perceived, on entering France, that our allies the Prussians had committed fearful atrocities on the defenceless inhabitants of the villages and farms which lay in their line of march. Before we left La Belle Alliance, I had already seen the brutality of some of the Prussian infantry, who hacked and cut up all the cows and pigs which were in the farmyards . . . On our line of march, whenever we arrived at towns or villages through which the Prussians had passed, we found that every article of furniture in the houses had been destroyed in the most wanton manner: looking-glasses, mahogany bedsteads, pictures . . . and mattresses had been hacked, cut, half-burned and scattered about in every direction, and, on the slightest remonstrance of the wretched inhabitants, they were beaten in the most shameful manner and sometimes shot.51

Guerrilla resistance, however, was non-existent. ‘From what I have seen of these people,’ wrote the Royal Horse Artillery officer, Cavalié Mercer, ‘it appears very doubtful whether they care a farthing who reigns over them. Be that as it may, we undoubtedly entered France amidst cheers and greetings of the populace . . . The arrival of strangers attracted a concourse of villagers to our bivouac, many old women and young girls bringing quantities of very fine cherries for sale . . . Nor have we seen any trace of [an enemy], having found the peasantry everywhere as peaceably occupied as if no war existed.’52

Here and there a few minor skirmishes persisted, but for Napoleon all was lost, and, in a rare moment of realism, on 22 June he abdicated for a second time. There followed several weeks of confusion in which neither the emperor nor the provisional government that had been formed in Paris seem to have known what to do. But on 15 July the emperor finally surrendered to the British at Rochefort in the hope that he might be able to persuade them to treat him leniently. Far to the east, meanwhile, six allied armies had been pouring over the frontier in the face of scattered resistance. Desperate to end the fighting, the provisional government sued for peace, but the Allies insisted on pressing on until they had captured Paris, which fell on 7 July without the much-vaunted fédérés firing a shot: ‘The good people of Paris began to pour out of the city and mix among us as if nothing had been the matter . . . Refreshments of all sorts came into our camp: it was truly astonishing to see what confidence the inhabitants placed in us.’53 A few diehard garrisons held on throughout the summer - the very last, Montmédy, did not surrender until 13 September - but the Napoleonic Wars were finally at an end.

There is little left to tell. Undisturbed by the return of Napoleon, the process of peace-making had continued in Vienna, the most important piece of business being the organization of the loose confederation that it had been decided should take the place of Napoleon’s Rheinbund. By the time Waterloo was fought, in fact, the final act of agreement was already ten days old. As for France, Napoleon was sent to end his days on