Waterloo.—Napoleon had never held the illusion that the allies would permit him to reign, nor that he could reign, over a France reduced to its former boundaries. He was still subject to the law which had in the past driven him incessantly to battle. Outlawed by Europe, he prepared to fight. He could still com mand his followers, but the enthusiasm of the early days had evaporated and there were sinister forebodings. There were many abstentions from the plebiscite held, as before, to approve the supplementary Act to the constitution. The assembly of the Champ de Mai resuscitated as the festival of Federation, was gloomy. The spirit of the people was exhausted, their minds dis turbed, and Napoleon's supporters uneasy. To prevent a new invasion, the Emperor left for Belgium on June with the inten tion of separating Wellington and Bliicher, who had a hundred thousand men more than he, and defeating them successively. In spite of a success at Ligny, he failed to prevent the junction of the English and the Prussians. This was partly due to what is usually called ill-fortune, but is really the resultant of many forces. Grouchy, a second-rate general to whom Napoleon had given a command in reward for political services, blundered, and remained inactive during the great battle which took place on June 18 at Waterloo—the name of a disaster unparalleled since Trafalgar. On his return to Paris on June 20 no other course but a second abdication was open to Napoleon. All was over. The Napoleonic drama culminated in disaster.
It would appear that in order to strike the imagination of mankind a hero's life should end with a great misfortune. If he had died a natural death in his palace, or fallen on the field of battle, Napoleon would never have become to posterity the figure we know. Lives like his must end in martyrdom, which crowns them with the pity caused by human suffering and the respect due to misfortune. Saint Helena idealised the emperor's memory, and his gaolers unwittingly prepared for him a sort of poetic immor tality. Though his imprisonment in a distant island was a punish ment relatively slight as compared with the torture of Joan of Arc, and though the man who placed the imperial crown upon his own head had little in common with the young girl who led her king to his crowning at Reims, there is some similarity in the moral effect and the historical renown of their death. The last phase of Napoleon's life may be regarded as his trans figuration.
After Waterloo, the energy which his presence had re-awakened relaxed. On his return to Paris he felt himself abandoned. The Chamber declared itself against him, and appointed an executive commission to govern with the ministers. He must either forcibly dissolve it, or abdicate. He decided to abdicate in favour of his son, the king of Rome, and made known his intention of going to the United States. The executive commission replied that two
frigates, then in waiting at Rochefort, were at his disposal, and requested him to hasten his departure. He remained a week longer at Malmaison, then, as a last despairing throw of the dice, offered his sword against the invaders as a simple general. He then undertook to leave for America. His offer was refused. He left Malmaison on June 29 and arrived at Rochefort on July 3.
The two frigates were there, but the "Bellerophon" and other English ships were cruising before the harbour and blocked the outlet. One hope was left, to slip past and get out to sea. Napo leon would not run the risk of arrest as a fugitive. Thanking all those who offered to help him to escape, he decided on a plan he had had in mind several days, which seemed to him to be the most worthy of him as having an element of greatness, namely to demand asylum from the British government. Maitland, the commander of the "Bellerophon," had let him know that the request would be well received. Thus Napoleon wrote his famous letter to the prince regent : "Your Royal Highness, Exposed to the factions which distract my country and to the enmity of the greatest powers of Europe, I have ended my political career, and I come, like Themistocles, to appeal to the hospitality of the British people. I put myself under the protection of their laws, and beg your royal highness. as the most powerful, the most determined and the most generous of my enemies, to grant me this protection." The allies at this moment were in agreement on only one point of their treatment of Napoleon. There must be no new return from Elba, and it would be perhaps even easier to return from America. The victors, to tell the truth, did not know what to do with him, and every solution presented difficulties. Their secret hope was that he would commit suicide, or perish on his way, the victim of a "White Terror." Or they would have liked Louis XVIII. on his return to Paris to have him summarily tried, conXviii. on his return to Paris to have him summarily tried, con- demned and executed. "We wish," wrote Lord Liverpool to Castlereagh, "that the king of France would have Bonaparte shot or hanged. It would be the best end to the business." But no one wished to take the responsibility, and Louis XVIII. less than anyone else. And Alexander I. and Wellington were working to save Napoleon's life. So the fate of the man regarded as an outlaw, "outside human society," hostis generis humani, had still to be decided. By his surrender to England the "Corsican ogre" laid on her the task of custody which Lord Liverpool would will ingly have left to others.