Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.Scott, Walter
History
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.
Scott, Walter
France -- History -- 1789-1815; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
This invitation to make the last earthly sacrifices in behalf of a
military despot, to which Zaragossa had submitted in defence of her
national independence, was ill received by the inhabitants. A free state
has millions of necks, but a despotic government is in the situation
desired by the Imperial tyrant--it has but one. When it was obvious that
the Emperor Napoleon had lost his ascendency, no shop-keeper in Paris
was fool enough to risk, in his cause, his shop, his family, and his
life, or to consent to measures for preserving the capital, which were
to commence by abandoning to the allied troops, and the scum of their
own population, all that was, to him individually, worth fighting for.
The placards we have mentioned were pulled down, therefore, as fast as
they were pasted up; and there was an evident disposition, on the part
of the better class of citizens and the national guards, to discourage
all counsels which tended to stimulate resistance to the desperate
extremity therein recommended.
Nevertheless, the state of the capital continued very alarming, the
lower classes exhibiting alternately the symptoms of panic terror, of
fury, and of despair. They demanded arms, of which a few were
distributed to them; and there is no doubt, that had Napoleon arrived
among them in the struggle, there would have been a dreadful battle, in
which Paris, in all probability, would have shared the fate of Moscow.
But when the cannonade ceased, when the flight of Joseph, and the
capitulation of the city became publicly known, this conflict of jarring
passions died away into silence, and the imperturbable and impassive
composure of the national guard maintained the absolute tranquillity of
the metropolis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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