Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna by David King

Author:David King [King, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Royalty, 19th Century, Nonfiction, History, Europe, Social Sciences, Politics & Government
ISBN: 9780307337177
Publisher: Broadway Books
Published: 2009-03-24T07:00:00+00:00

ON HIS WAY from Elba, Napoleon had enjoyed good fortune in eluding several ships patrolling the waters. The Inconstant passed the French frigates Melpomène and Fleur-de-Lys without incident, and then, rounding Corsica, Napoleon passed yet another enemy warship, the Zéphir, without any difficulties. Even the British vessel carrying Campbell back to Elba, the Partridge, was sighted on the horizon. No one had stopped him. Conspiracy theories would proliferate for years. Had the winds blown differently, others have speculated, Napoleon might easily have been seized or sunk.

By the first of March, when Napoleon’s brig had approached Golfe-Juan, people at first thought it was a small band of pirates about to make a raid. Learning the true identity of the crew, however, did not seem to please them any more. Some scoffed at the ragtag gang that had just been “vomited up from the sea.”

But Napoleon had safely disembarked, and managed to pass through the streets without harm. To the thrill of his supporters, at first mainly soldiers and peasants, the initial surprise and cold reception was beginning to thaw. Gradually, there were more cheers and shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!”

At this beautiful medieval town, Napoleon faced another major decision. Examining his map sprawled out on a table in the middle of an olive garden, Napoleon calculated his chances either way. He could continue through southern France, a hotbed of royal support, or chance a dangerous mountain path through the French Alps into Grenoble. It was steep and narrow, hardly fit for his cumbersome baggage trains and cannon pieces, and it was covered with ice. Still, that one was deemed the least risky route.

Southern France had suffered tremendously during his empire. Ports like Marseille had been crippled under Napoleon’s unsuccessful attempt to boycott English goods, and their shipping business decimated. Taxes had been crushing, and extended to all sorts of items, including alcohol and tobacco. Farmers there, and elsewhere, complained of being forced to furnish the army with supplies, their fields stripped down to the “last kernel of corn and the last forkful of fodder.” And, of course, like so many others, they resented the conscriptions into the army and the heavy loss of life in his wars, all of which seemed a high price to pay for Napoleon’s so-called glory.

While preparing for the mountain passageway, and abandoning his cannons, which he figured he would not need, anyway, Napoleon finished his own proclamations, one to the French people and another to his soldiers. Both sounded like rallying speeches straight out of those stirring addresses of his early campaigns: “Frenchmen, in my exile, I heard your plaints and prayers; I have crossed the sea amid perils of every kind; I [have] come to you to assert my rights, which are ours.”

To the soldiers, he reminded them that they had been not defeated, but rather betrayed by a few marshals who sold out the country, the army, and its glory. He had been summoned back to France by the will of the people, and his symbol, the eagle, would soon “fly steeple to steeple all over the country to Notre Dame.

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