a day without loving you. I have not passed a night without clasping you
in my arms ... No woman was ever loved with more devotion, ardour
and tenderness ... only death could break a union formed by sympathy,
love and true feeling.'
Napoleon spent a lot of time on Elba brooding on where he had gone
wrong. He had certainly not been defeated by a people in arms, as
romantic nationalists were starting to claim. Even in the alleged fervour
of German nationalism in 1813, the sober truth was that resistance inside
Prussia to conscription was still widespread. No, surely the truth was that
he had rated human nature too highly, had been deceived by Metternich
and Emperor Francis and thus been faced by a coalition of four powers
(Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria) no one nation should contend
against. Sheer weight of numbers had beaten him in the battlefield, but
by this time his Empire had already collapsed from within. The implicit
'social contract' of 1799 was that foreign policy should never harm the
interests of the notables. This meant, as a minimum, that he had to avoid
conflict with the Catholic Church, maintain living standards and keep
taxation and conscription to a reasonable level. As he now ruefully
realized, he had failed in all three areas.
Alongside the notables, the peasantry, too, had been alienated. His
imperial policies demanded mass conscription, but the peasantry had
never known the draft before 1793 and hated it with a rare fervour.
Napoleon could have no defence on this issue, fo r the warning signs were
there for all to see, even in the consular period, with an estimated 25o,ooo
draft dodgers even in the comparatively quiet military period of
1799-1805. One study finds no less than 119 riots occurring between
Napoleon's coronation and the 1806 campaign against Prussia on this one
issue alone. Although conscription did not fall on the notables before
1813, even they felt its consequences in the gangs of criminalized
deserters roaming the countryside, looting the substance of the bour
geoisie and threatening their physical security.
Napoleon also meditated long and hard on the present political
situation in France. Talleyrand and his supporters in the Senate offered
Louis XVIII Bourbon restoration on the understanding that the clock
would be put back to 1791 rather than 1798. The offer to Louis was
always a pis aller. There was no enthusiasm for Bernadotte as a 'saviour',
no real support for the due d'Orleans and a regency under Marie-Louise
would have allowed Napoleon to direct matters fr om afar and settle
accounts with his betrayers. The worry for Talleyrand and his minions
was whether Louis XVIII would accept a conditional restoration.
Early signs were not propitious. Louis reached Compiegne on 29 April
marcin
(Marcin)
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