r February r8r3, in which he declared that he would accept the
Revolutionary and Bonapartist land settlements and not attempt to
tamper with 'national property'.
It was therefore in an atmosphere of high tension that the Legislative
Body met in plenary session on 19 December r8r3. Apparently
conciliatory, Napoleon promised to consult the Legislature on all peace
proposals and two commissions were elected to study Allied overtures.
The Senate gave the Emperor its full backing, but the Chamber censured
him for continuing the war, and a charter incorporating the criticism was
adopted by 229 votes to 31 -a clear warning to Napoleon had he been
minded to heed it. He responded by declining to print the charter,
refusing even to contemplate peace, and finally by dissolving the
Legislature. 'You are not the representatives of the nation. The true
representative of the nation is myself. France has more need of me than I
have need of France.' On New Year's Day r8r4 he made his intransigent
attitude clear by hinting that, if the war effort was impeded by the
notables, he himself would head a Jacobin revolution to sweep away all
existing privilege in France.
Napoleon's position seemed hopeless, but the Allies were far from
unanimous in their intentions after Leipzig. In November r8r3 a
conference at Frankfurt broke up in dissension. The stumbling block was
the western European powers' increasing unease with the presence of
Russia in the West; the sleeping giant that had been aroused from its
slumbers on the steppes could turn out to be as great a threat to them as
to Napoleon. Austria, having regained all her possessions, wanted to offer
Bonaparte the natural frontiers, foreseeing that his downfall would
benefit Russia and Prussia but not herself. Why should she collude in the
Czar's dream of a triumphal entry into Paris, sweet revenge for Napoleon
in Moscow in r8r2? For balance-of-power reasons, too, Britain was
inclined to go along with Austria, always provided France did not retain
Antwerp and the Scheidt. The machiavellian Bernadotte, representing
Sweden, had his own reasons for opposing an invasion of France: he
actually hoped he would be summoned back as the next Emperor after a
coup by the notables dislodged Bonaparte.
To save face, the fe uding Allies offered Napoleon the natural fr ontiers
in November r8r3, imagining that the Emperor would refuse and that in
the meantime they could hammer out a common policy. Napoleon
dithered, then surprised everyone by accepting the terms though, oddly,
he would not allow his acceptance to be promulgated in France.
Meanwhile in Britain there were second thoughts, once it was understood
that 'natural frontiers' must inevitably collide with British insistence on a
marcin
(Marcin)
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