Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/654

 618 FRANCE [HISTORY. 1314-15. A congress at onco assembled at Vienna, under Metter- The re- nidi s presidency, with a view to a peaceful resettlement of turn of Europe. It was, however, suddenly turned to warlike Napo- thoughts by the startling news that Napoleon, leaving Elba, i0 &quot; had landed near Cannes (1st March 1815). He appealed to citizens and soldiers alike ; he appealed to the people ; he spoke only of peace and liberty, and a popular constitu- The tion. The army at once saluted him again as its emperor ; Hundred France with a spontaneous pl6biscite restored him to his Day&amp;gt; throne, and Louis XVIII. fled to Ghent. Napoleon en tered Paris amidst delirious transports of delight. Cooler reflexions soon followed, when the declaration of the allied sovereigns was heard, and troubles began in the old royalist districts. Nor were men better pleased when it was seen that Napoleon returned at once to his old despotic manner of governing ; signs of alienation showed themselves ; the allied armies drew towards the frontiers of France. Bliicher, with his Prussians, came down to join Wellington, who had landed in Flanders, and Napoleon hastened up to pre vent their union. He sent Ney to encounter and check the English, while he himself tried to destroy the Prussians. He found them at Ligny, where, on June 16, 1815, he defeated them, though Ney was unable to force Quatre Bras, so as to be ready to fall on their flank and complete the rout. The consequence was that Bliicher drew off his army unbroken to Wavre ; and Wellington, to keep near him, also fell back to the village of Waterloo, where he could both cover Brussels and await the Prussians. There, on the 18th of June, 1815, took place the battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon and Ney made their final effort for the empire. The object of Wellington was to hold his ground till Bliicher could come up ; the object of Napoleon was, by detaching Grouchy towards Wavre, to hinder the Prussians, till he could crush the English. Grouchy, however, let him self be deluded by a single Prussian corps, while Bliicher slowly made his way towards Waterloo ; and Wellington s Englishmen and Germans, with heroic tenacity, had held their ground against all attacks. In the afternoon the Prussians began to come up, and after the repulse of the French guards towards evening, Napoleon knew that all was lost. He entrusted his shattered army to Soult, and fled headlong to Paris. There, finding all hope gone, he once more abdicated, on behalf of his son. He withdrew to Rochefort, hoping to find means of escaping to America ; but the English cruisers rendered this impossible, and he threw himself on the generosity of his hated foes. He was taken on board the Bellerophon, and conveyed as a state prisoner to the island of St Helena, where he lived, the mere shadow of his former self, in a hated and inglorious ease, till death released him in 1821, at the age of fifty- two. The char- There is a saying attributed to Talleyrand, which hits the acter of prominent characteristics of Napoleon s nature : &quot; What a Napo- p^y that so great a man was so ill brought up ! &quot; For he had genius and no breeding ; he never shook off the adven turer-element iu his life ; nor had he that high sense of honour, truthfulness, and gentleness which go with true nobility of soul. With a frame of iron, Napoleon could endure any hardships ; and in war, in artillery especially and engineering, he stands unrivalled in the world s history. His quick intelligence was altogether scientific in the colder and harder aspects of scientific knowledge. He took no interest in moral sciences or history, or the brighter works of imagination. Throughout we discern in him the pre cisian, the despot on exact principles. Even when he unbent among his intimate friends, his was &quot; a tyrant s familiarity,&quot; with a touch of Oriental ferocity under it. He was ever on the watch against rivals, ever full of distrust, treating great men with a false and feline grace of manner, which seemed to. be expecting a surprise. No one was ever so Icon. naturally untrue as he ; he never hesitated to lie and to 18H deceive ; the most important despatches he would readily falsify, if he thought there was anything to be gained by it. There was in him a swiftness of intelligence which answered to his hot and passionate nature ; the true and solid balance was wanting. He could not rest, and knew not when he had achieved success. And this was immedi ately connected with another Oriental quality, his vast and unmeasured ambition, and the schemes and dreams of a visionary, which led him to the greatest errors of his life, his expedition to Egypt and his hopes of an Eastern em pire, and his terrible attack on Piussia. The same large ness of vision showed itself in his endeavours to reconstruct the map of Europe, and to organize anew the whole of society in France. He could have in his mouth the phrases and cries of the 18th century, and with them he knew how to charm mankind. Yet with this gift, and with his amazing power of influencing his soldiers, who sacrificed themselves in myriads for him with enthusiasm, there was a coldness of moral character which enabled him to abandon those who had given up all for him, and made him show shameless ingratitude towards those who had done him the greatest services. We can gauge a man s character by his complaints against others, for those complaints are always the reflexion of his own characteristics, Napoleon was ever inveighing against the deceit of Alexander, the treachery of the Germans, the perfidy of Pitt, the warfare of savages which he had to face ; and the phrases represent the worst elements in his own character. He was, in fact, the succes sor and representative of the &quot; 18th century despots,&quot; the military follower of thePombals, the Arandas, the Struenzees of the past. He had their unbalanced energies, their fierce resistance to feudalism and the older world, their ready use of benevolent and enlightened phraseology, their willingness to wade through blood and ruin to their goal, their undying ambition, their restlessness and revolutionary eagerness to reorganize society. Like them, with well-sounding profes sions, he succeeded in alienating the peoples of Europe, in whose behalf he pretended to be acting. And when they learnt by bitter experience that he had absolutely no love for liberty, and encouraged equality only so long as it was an equality of subjects under his rule, they soon began to war against what was iu fact a world-destroying military despotism. When the popular feeling was thoroughly aroused against him in Spain, in Germany, in England, his wonderful career was at last brought to an end. VII. THE RESTORATION. While Napoleon had held together the enthusiasm of the The French army, and had flattered the national vanity, and had ro ^ ^ raised a bulwark between the peasant tiller of the soil and his ancient oppressor, the Bourbons came back, having learnt nothing, and under auspices painful to French feeling. The peasant suspected them of wishing to restore noble privilege with the ancient throne ; the army was suspicious if not hostile ; the national feeling was vexed by the patronage of the victorious hosts of Russia, England, and Germany. Paris was treated by them as a conquered capital, the whole country was garrisoned by their armies, and Louis XVIII. was little but their instrument and de pendant. The royalist reaction was violent, though not cruel ; the new legislative chambers proved vehemently Legitimist ; Fouche, who had hitherto successfully held his ground, come who might, in his dangerous department of the police, now fell and was exiled ; Talleyrand also was got rid of ; and the duke of Richelieu, grandson of that hoary old sinner who had been at the right hand of Louis XV., became chief minister. Meanwhile, the congress of Vienna had at last (20th November 1815) dictated its terms