he would not be seeing again. There is no reason to doubt that he
reduced them to floods of tears by his sentimental oratory. The moment
was one of the great setpieces of Napoleonic iconography, a famous
inspiration to poets and painters of the Romantic movement, and the
speech, possibly reported apocryphally, contained all the well-known
elements of Bonapartist rhetoric:Soldiers of my Old Guard, I bid you goodbye. For twenty years I have
found you continuously on the path of honour and glory ... I have
sacrificed all my rights, and am ready to sacrifice my life, for my one
aim has always been the happiness and glory of France ... If I have
chosen to go on living it is so that I can write about the great things we
have done together and tell posterity of your great deeds ... Goodbye,
my children! I should like to press you all to my heart; at least I shall
kiss your flag.The convoy set out southwards, following the road through Nemours,
Montargis, Briare, Nevers and Roanne to Lyons. Then the imperial party
headed down the RhOne Valley. With hindsight, in the knowledge of the
White Terror that swept through Provence after 1815 , it was ill-advised
to proceed through this fanatically royalist territory. As they trekked
through Vienne and Orange there were hostile demonstrations, hangings
of the Emperor in effigy and finally, in Avignon, physical violence when
the coaches were stopped by a mob and an attempt made to take him out
and lynch him. On his own admission, Napoleon, who had always feared
and loathed the vulgar crowd, lost his nerve. He said to the Austrian
Commissioner, General Koller: 'As you know, my dear General, I
showed myself at my very worst.'
He insisted on going in disguise after that, and refused to eat in local
inns for fear of being poisoned (strange behaviour, for a man who had
allegedly tried to kill himself by the same means two weeks earlier). His
physical cowardice was noted with disdain by Campbell, who wrote: 'It
was evident during his stay at Fontainebleau and the following journey
that he entertained great apprehension of attacks upon his life, and he
certainly exhibited more timidity than one would have expected from a
man of his calibre.' After staying overnight with his sister Pauline at Le
Luc, Napoleon's party reached Frejus. Still disguised, this time in a
servant's blue livery with a tiny round hat on his head, he flatly refused to
cross to Elba on a French warship, knowing the particular animus French
naval officers felt for him. Instead, he embarked on 29 April on the
British vessel HMS Undaunted.