become an 'Emperor of the rabble' and claimed that to harness the people
to his cause would simply plunge France into civil war even as the Allies
began their invasion. His continuing loyalty to the interests and
principles of the bourgeoisie who had betrayed him is more than just
strange, and suggests a kind of morbid, even pathological, political
conservatism that transcended his own self-interest. He was also
confused, indecisive, unrealistic and out of touch, and irritated his
supporters by claiming that such-and-such a thing was 'impossible' when
it was already an accomplished fact. Instinctively, the hyenas seemed to
sense that the lion was wounded, for when Lucien went to the Chamber
to try to talk the Deputies round, he got nowhere. Lafayette, in
particular, played a leading role in stiffening the resolve of his colleagues
against a possible second Brumaire, and outpointed Lucien in the debate,
winning an ovation for his charge that since 1805 Napoleon had
compassed the deaths of three million Frenchmen. The debate ended
with an explicit demand for the Emperor's abdication and the appoint
ment of a provisional government under Fouche.
With tension running high, it was largely a question of whose nerve
would crack first. In private Napoleon raged to Benjamin Constant that
the demand for his abdication - which would have as one of its
consequences the disbandment of the Grand Army while the enemy were
at the gates of Paris - was peculiarly absurd and gutless: if the Assembly
did not want him, they should have made this plain when he was
marching fr om Antibes to Paris or before he set out on the Waterloo
campaign; to do so now was tantamount to betraying France to her
enemies. But in public he bowed his head: on 22 June he formally
abdicated in fa vour of his son the King of Rome. Disgusted and
disillusioned, Davout began to think of his own future and allowed
himself to be become a pawn in Fouche's devious game.
Fouche sent Davout to the Emperor on 24 June, urging him to leave
Paris at once to avoid bloodshed; Fouche's real fear was that his own
plans might still be scuppered by a spontaneous popular uprising in
favour of the Emperor or by a pro-Bonaparte military coup by one of the
marshals; it was known that the 7o,ooo men who had rendezvoused with
Grouchy at Laon were angry at news of the abdication. The passive and
flaccid Napoleon fell in meekly with his plans and departed for
Malmaison on 25 June, but not before he had expressed anger that
Davout was doing Fouche's dirty work for him. The transparent story
that the Emperor was leaving the capital because of assassination fears
fooled nobody.
At Malmaison Napoleon was the guest of his stepdaughter Hortense de
marcin
(Marcin)
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