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Updated: May 6, 2025
On the 20th, the Emperor, whom this idea filled with the deepest dejection, arrived at Basanoni, and was dining in company with the Prince of Neuchatel and the Duke of Dantzic, when General Gourgaud rushed in with the announcement that Marshal Ney and his troops were only a few leagues distant. The Emperor exclaimed with inconceivable joy, "Can it be true?"
Her letters to him were passionate, and Napoleon told Gourgaud at St. Helena that she even threatened to kill her son if Benjamin would do what she wished him to. This fussy female intriguer suggested to Napoleon that if he would give her two million francs she would write anything he wished. She was immediately packed about her business.
The tidings of Murat's miserable fate, at the close of his mad expedition to Calabria, leave Napoleon equally cold. "I announce the fatal news," writes Gourgaud, "to His Majesty, whose expression remains unchanged, and who says that Murat must have been mad to attempt a venture like that." Here again his thoughts seem to fly back to Murat's defection in 1814.
The tidings of Murat's miserable fate, at the close of his mad expedition to Calabria, leave Napoleon equally cold. "I announce the fatal news," writes Gourgaud, "to His Majesty, whose expression remains unchanged, and who says that Murat must have been mad to attempt a venture like that." Here again his thoughts seem to fly back to Murat's defection in 1814.
But notwithstanding the tactics and the deplorable use made of the traitor Gourgaud, sympathetic feeling increases. Questions are frequently asked in the House of Commons, to which evasive answers are given, but reaction is so obviously gaining ground that Lords Liverpool, Castlereagh, and the immortal Bathurst become perturbed.
He is also said to have sent word to the Emperor that "he was occupying Quatre Bras by an advanced guard, and that his main body was close behind." If he deceived his chief by any such report, he deserves the severest censure; but the words quoted above were written later at St. Helena by General Gourgaud, when Ney had come to figure as the scapegoat of the campaign.
The Prince de Joinville placed himself at the rudder, Commandant Guyet at the head of the boat; Generals Bertrand and Gourgaud, Baron Las Cases, M. Marchand, and the Abbe Coquereau occupied the same places as during the march. Count Chabot and Commandant Hernoux were astern, a little in advance of the Prince.
Napoleon had placed himself in one of these squares: Marshal Soult, Generals Bertrand, Drouot, Corbineau, De Flahaut, and Gourgaud, were with him. The Colonel states that he heard these details from General Gourgaud himself. Meanwhile the Duke of Wellington still rode forward with the van of his victorious troops, until he reined up on the elevated ground near Rossomme.
He had been treated with every courtesy and had met with only one rebuff. He prompted Mme. This the captain very properly refused. In Torbay troubles began to thicken upon the party. Gourgaud rejoined them on the 24th: he had not been allowed to land. Orders came on the 26th for the "Bellerophon" to proceed to Plymouth; and the rumour gained ground that St. Helena would be their destination.
Helena he told Gourgaud that, despite his fatigue, he would have made the effort had he thought success possible, but he did not. The Chamber of Deputies meanwhile was acting with vigour. Agonized by the tales of disaster already spread abroad by wounded soldiers, it eagerly assented to Lafayette's proposal to sit in permanence and declare any attempt at dissolution an act of high treason.
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