only in evidence in the east, north and rural areas. Most of all, the
reforms were misconceived because Napoleon's heart was not in them; he
admitted to Bertrand that as soon as his position was militarily secure, he
intended to rescind the more liberal concessions he had been forced to
make. But fo r the present he played along with the new image of a man
who had learned from his past mistakes: 'My system has changed- no
more war, no conquests. Can one be as fat as I am and have ambition?'
The conflict between Napoleon's real and apparent intentions was
perhaps revealed by some (surely unconscious) slips at the ceremony of
the Champ de Mai on I June, when the 'Additional Act' was formally
adopted. In a combined civil, military and religious ceremony, which
yoked together proclamation of election results, speeches, signatures, a
solemn Mass and Te Deum, and the distribution of eagles to the Army
and National Guard, Napoleon chose to appear, for the last time, in the
velvety Roman Emperor's robes he had worn at the Coronation in I8 04.
And when he addressed both houses of the Legislature on 7 June the
Emperor, angered by the way the lower chamber had passed over Lucien
as their president and refused an oath of loyalty to the Empire, spoke
these ominous words: 'Let us not imitate the example of the later Roman
Empire which, invaded on all sides by the barbarians, made itself the
laughing-stock of posterity by discussing abstract questions when the
battering-rams were breaking down the city gates.'
Napoleon had a point, for the Allies had no interest in the supposedly
liberal, Jacobin or even royalist credentials of Bonaparte's Ministers and
legislators as long as the man they had outlawed remained Emperor of
France. And the 'liberal' legislators in the Chamber of Deputies were in
any case being cynically manipulated by Fouche, who planned to deliver
France to the Bourbons. The crucial question for Napoleon was whether
he could raise enough troops to deal with the million troops the Allies
intended to pour into France. He began by raising 40 million francs in
ready cash by trading four million of the Sinking Fund bonds at so% for
credits on the National Forests. He ordered 25o,ooo stand of weapons,
and French arms factories were geared up to turn out 40,000 new
firearms a month, while the Ministry of War assured the Emperor that
46,ooo horses would be ready by I June. On 28 March all non
commissioned officers who had left the Army were recalled and by 30
April fo ur armies and three observation corps were in being.
Napoleon planned to have 8oo,ooo men fully trained and armed by
October I8I5. But could he hold out until then and keep the massive
Allied armies at bay? His first idea was to fortify Paris and Lyons heavily,
hoping to tempt the enemy into protracted sieges which would gain him
marcin
(Marcin)
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