CHAPTER XIISTARS OF LESSER MAGNITUDE

MARIA LETIZIA RAMOLINO BONAPARTE.MATER REGUM.

MARIA LETIZIA RAMOLINO BONAPARTE.

MATER REGUM.

CAROLINE MURAT(née BONAPARTE)

‟BAD troops do not exist,” said Napoleon on one occasion. “There are only bad officers.” Napoleon did his best therefore to find good officers, and trusted that the rank and file would through them become good soldiers. And yet, was he successful either in his end or in his method? The army of 1796, which he did not train, was timid in retreat though terrible in advance. The men were fanatics, and similar strengths and weaknesses are typical of fanatics in large bodies. In 1800 Napoleon had an army which he could manœuvre in line, and which bore the dreadful strain of Marengo without breaking. Half the men in the ranks, however, were untrained boys, who, as Napoleon’s despatches tell us, were ignorant a few days before the battle as to which eye they should use to aim their muskets. Marengo was largely a personal triumph for Napoleon; it was his vehement encouragement, coupled with the confident expectation of Desaix’ arrival, which held the men together during that long-drawn agony.

The peace which followed Hohenlinden gave Napoleon a chance to train an army as he wished, and the Austerlitz campaign found him at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men, half of them veterans, all of them of very considerable length of service, who were to a man inspired withthe utmost enthusiasm for him and for the Empire. Yet at Austerlitz the line was abandoned almost entirely in favour of the column; the columns showed evident signs of disintegration even when victorious. It was already a little obvious that the Imperial armies were only adapted to a furious offensive effort, and that failure of this effort meant unlimited catastrophe. At Jena the Prussians were too heavily outnumbered to offer any serious resistance, but at Eylau the French army was only saved from destruction after the failure of their first offensive by the fact that Napoleon held ready at hand eighteen thousand cavalry, and by the constitutional sluggishness of the Russian army.

Friedland offered the last example of a really heroic defensive by an Imperial force, but the soul of that defensive was Lannes. Few other men could have held a French army corps together against superior forces as did Lannes on that fateful anniversary of Marengo. After Friedland we find the French army growing progressively poorer and more unreliable. We read of panics at Wagram, of the introduction of regimental artillery to give the infantry confidence, of shameless skulking on the field of battle and of heavy desertion while on the march. Discipline was fading at the same time as devotion to the Emperor was losing some of its force. In the Russian campaign of 1812 the Grand Army had barely crossed the frontier before it began to go to pieces. Napoleon could not trust his men to manœuvre at Borodino, and in consequence he had to rely on frontal attacks made against elaborate fieldworks defended by the most stubborn of all Continental infantry. At the crisis of the battle he refused to fling the Imperial Guard into the struggle; some thought it was because he was too far from his base to risk his best reserve; somesuspected Bessières of having implored him not to waste his best troops; but perhaps the reason was a more logical one. Had the Guard been sent forward and been beaten back, the whole army would have fallen back routed; at Waterloo Napoleon took the risk and lost; at Borodino he refused to take it and was satisfied with an indecisive gain.

The Grand Army perished in Russia, but in three months Napoleon raised, trained and equipped three hundred thousand more men and was for a time once more successful. Curiously enough, this raw infantry of 1813 was to all intents and purposes of greater military value than the two or three year trained infantry of 1812. The army of 1812 possessed the little knowledge proverbially dangerous, and would not willingly expose itself to sacrifice, but the novices of 1813 knew nothing of war, and suffered losses and privations which would have roused veterans to mutiny. At Lützen Ney’s corps of half-grown boys endured for hours the attack of the whole Allied force, and fought like demons in the shelter of the villages of Gorschen and Kaya. At Bautzen the French attacked with a dash and fury reminiscent of Elchingen or Saalfeld. Before Dresden they accomplished a march which easily bears comparison with anything achieved in 1796. But the decline of their fame had already begun. At the Katzbach, at Gross Beeren, at Dennewitz, the conscripts fled in panic. They had discovered by this time that a battle generally implies the sacrifice of one portion of the army while the rest gains the victory, and they were one and all determined not to be the sacrifice. At Leipzig what was left of the army of 1813 lost the greater part of its numbers—a new lesson to the effect that it is easier to surrender than to fight had been learned. Napoleon’s last victorious phase, in thecampaign of France in 1814, coincides with his use of a fresh army of raw conscripts, and his surrender took place when the men of the ranks had once more learnt the lessons of their predecessors.

Waterloo, the last battle of the Empire, epitomizes all these observations. The French attacked with dash, but a single reverse was sufficient to weaken the infantry so much that no support was forthcoming for the later cavalry attacks. A powerful counter-attack by the enemy brought about, not merely retreat, but unspeakable panic. Practically every battalion which had been in action broke and fled. The Guard, which had moved forward so majestically, dispersed like the merest conscripts. The only troops which held together were the reserve battalions of the Old Guard, which had not yet been engaged, and for a time Lobau’s corps at Planchenoit. The Prussians after Jena were not so hopelessly disorganized as were the French after Waterloo.

Napoleon undoubtedly appreciated this weakness of his army, and this explains the reckless manner in which he sought battle at all costs, and the risks he cheerfully ran in his endeavour to get to grips with his enemy. His headlong, energetic strategy gave him the initiative, and this initiative he retained on the field of battle. Jena, Eylau, Eckmühl, Aspern, Wagram, Borodino, were all examples of a fierce tactical offensive. On the two principal occasions, at Austerlitz and Friedland, when he confined some part of his force to a dogged defensive, he saw that the generals in command were men of wide personal influence, and that the troops they led were the best available. Davout and Lannes were certainly successful. At Lützen Ney’s necessarily defensive rôle was not fully foreseen, but he was able to hold on, partly through the enthusiasm of his young men, partly through theadvantage they possessed in holding the villages, and partly through Wittgenstein’s bungling of the attack.

At no period in its development will Napoleon’s army bear comparison with, say, the army of Cromwell, or the original force of Gustavus Adolphus, or with the army of the Third Republic. It incidentally follows that Napoleon’s military achievements should be rated even higher than they usually are, seeing that the immense successes he gained were gained with inferior troops.

But if the rank and file were of this doubtful quality, it was far otherwise with the officers, and the statement of Napoleon’s with which this chapter opens is therefore subject to doubt. Napoleon’s method of making war support war exposed his armies, as he candidly admitted, to a loss of one-half of their numbers every year, and since this loss fell far more heavily on the privates than on the officers, it followed that a very widely experienced corps of officers was built up. It was quite usual for men of good birth to serve a few months in the ranks before taking commissions; Marbot and Bugeaud are good examples of this among the younger men. Once they had gained their lieutenancy anything might happen. They might in ten years be dukes and generals, or they might still be lieutenants. The open system of promotion was stimulating, certainly, but it was undoubtedly unfair at times. Curély, who served from 1800 to 1814, and was subsequently admitted to be the best light cavalry officer in the French service, only attained his colonelcy in his last campaign. The men who received the most rapid promotion were those who had attracted Napoleon’s notice in 1796 or in the Egyptian campaign. Some of these choices were highly successful, as witness the career of Davout, but others were positively harmful. Marmont was a failure, Junot was a failure,Murat was a failure, while men of undoubted talent served in twenty campaigns without receiving promotion. Kellermann the younger fought at Waterloo with the same military rank as he had held at Marengo. Suchet, who was one of the most successful generals of division in 1799, remained a general of division until 1811. If this was the case with the higher ranks, it must have been nearly as bad with the lower ranks. When the rush of promotion of the Revolutionary era ended, advancement became very slow indeed. A man who was a captain at the battle of the Pyramids might well consider himself fortunate if he commanded a battalion at Ligny. Occasionally, however, the divisional generals were given their chance. The vast expansion of the Imperial Army for the Russian campaign increased the commands of some of the Marshals to eighty or a hundred thousand men, and generals of division similarly found themselves at the head of twenty or thirty thousand. Many of them displayed talents of a very high order. St. Cyr won the battle of Polotsk, for which he received his bâton. The most remarkable example occurred at Salamanca. Here Wellington had flung himself suddenly on the over-extended Army of Portugal, had shattered one wing, and had beaten back the remainder in dire confusion; Marmont, the commander-in-chief, was badly wounded. Bonnet had hardly succeeded to the command when he was killed. Several other generals of division were struck down. The man who took over command of the fleeing mob was already wounded. He was practically unknown; he was leading a beaten army in wild retreat from the finest troops in the world. And yet he rallied that beaten army; in the course of a few hours he had them once more in hand. He faced about time and again as he toiled across the wasted Castilianplains; in a dozen fierce rearguard actions he taught the exultant English that some Frenchmen, as well as being more than men in victory, were not less than women in defeat, and he showed Wellington that every French general was not a Marmont. Every morning found his army posted in some strong position; all day long the English marched by wretched roads and over thirsty plains to turn the flanks; every evening as the movement was nearing completion the French fell back to some new position where the English had to resume the whole weary business next day. The French survived the severest defeat they had yet received in the Peninsula at English hands with astonishingly little loss; a few weeks later they had so far recovered as to thrust fiercely forward once more, and aid in driving Wellington from Madrid. The man who was responsible for this wonderful achievement deserved reward. Bessières and Marmont had been given bâtons for much less. A title, a marshalate, a dotation of a million francs would not have seemed too much for saving for France a kingdom, an army of forty thousand men, and dependent forces numbering a quarter of a million. But Clausel was not made Marshal, nor Duke of Burgos. Instead he was recalled, and an inferior general, Souham, sent in his place. Napoleon had a prejudice against “retreating generals” dating from the days of Moreau. Clausel took the affront philosophically, and fought on for his Emperor. When it was too late, his worth was recognized, and during the Hundred Days he was given the independent command of the Pyrenees. After Waterloo he fled from France with a price on his head. Clausel went unrewarded; Murat was over-rewarded. Their lines of conduct differed greatly.

The men who were never granted the covetedrank of Marshal, but who did each as much for France as any one of half the Marshals, are in number legion. Their very names would fill a page. Kellermann the younger has already been mentioned. At Marengo his desperate charge at the head of the heavy cavalry saved the day, and “set the crown of France on Napoleon’s head.” But Napoleon found it far safer and far cheaper to praise a dead man, and he awarded the chief credit to the slain Desaix. D’Hautpoult died at the head of his Cuirassiers at Eylau, charging one army to save another. St. Hilaire, the finest of them all, died miserably at Essling, with the Empire reeling round him. Lasalle, the pride of the light cavalry, the man who captured Stettin with a few score Hussars, fell at the head of his men in the pursuit after Wagram. Montbrun, another Cuirassier, was killed in the great redoubt at Borodino.

Their names are carved upon the Arc de Triomphe, and the bourgeois peer at them with self-satisfaction. They fell in a far less worthy cause than did the myriad Frenchmen who died by poison gas and shrapnel in the trenches a few years ago. To us now it seems to be nearly blasphemy to think in the same moment of the Moskowa and the Marne, or to speak in the same breath of the sieges of Verdun and of Hamburg. The Englishman turns lightly from the great names on the Arc de Triomphe, and thinks with proud regret of the simple inscription on an empty tomb in Whitehall. And yet these men were the wonders of their time. They did their duty; more cannot be said of any man, and much less of most. They gave their lives with a smile for a country which they adored. Danger was as usual to them as was the air they breathed. They gave their blood in streams; they marched with their men into every Continental capital. Their cowed enemies regarded themtimidly, as though they were beings from another world. Their continued success and their overwhelming victories might well have led them to believe themselves superhuman. And when Waterloo was fought and lost they went back to their beloved France—such of them as survived—and nursed their wounds on pensions of thirty pounds a year.

There was one general of division who attained as near as might be to a marshalate without quite achieving this last step. He was made a duke and he gained a vast fortune. This man was Junot. Junot, indeed, is often stated to have received his bâton, but he never did, although he was as much a favourite of Napoleon’s at one time as was Marmont. It was Junot who at Toulon was writing a letter at Bonaparte’s dictation, when a cannon shot plunged near-by and scattered earth over them. “We need no sand to dry the ink now,” laughed Junot, and from that day his future was made. He married Mademoiselle Laurette Permon, whom Napoleon had once courted, and whose memoirs are one of the most interesting books of the period. Junot himself served as Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp all over Europe and in Egypt as well. He received promotion steadily, and was a general of division in a very brief while. With that rank, however, he was forced to be content, for Napoleon realized his shortcomings, while a wound in the head which he early received unbalanced him a little mentally. The one outstanding feature of his character was his passionate devotion to Napoleon. Napoleon was his God, and Junot served him with a faithfulness almost unexampled. Adventures came his way with a frequency characteristic of the period. He fell into English hands and was exchanged; he went as ambassador to Portugal and made a large fortune; he was appointed Governor of Paris, and withstoodCaroline Bonaparte’s blandishments when she tried to induce him to subvert the Government. Half dead with wounds, he travelled across Europe in November, 1805, and arrived at Austerlitz on the very morning of the battle. He was again wounded heading a charge that day. In 1807 Napoleon gave him a command which he hoped would bring him fame, and a marshalate was promised in the event of success. Junot was to lead the army of Portugal from France to Lisbon; he was to capture the Portuguese royal family and the English shipping in the harbour; he was to tear down the Portuguese Government and to rule the country himself in the name of the Emperor. Junot set out with a mixed French and Spanish force numbering nearly forty thousand men. At every stage he received frantic orders from Paris demanding greater speed from him and his men. Junot did what he could. The whole valley of the Tagus was littered with the guns, dead horses and exhausted men whom he had left behind. His army was dispersed into fragments, and it was only with four hundred men at his back that Junot burst into Lisbon. The English shipping and the Portuguese royal family had fled the day before.

Junot was in a serious position. With four hundred men he had to rule a large town simmering with rebellion, but he succeeded, and held the country down while the rest of his army trailed disconsolately into Lisbon. His astonishing march had not achieved its object, and the marshal’s bâton was therefore withheld. Napoleon offered some sort of consolation by creating Junot Duke of Abrantès, but there is no doubt that the disappointment weighed heavily upon him. Napoleon had meditated making Junot Duke of Nazareth, in memory of his victory during the Syrian campaign, but he had decided that it would be inadvisable, as the soldiers would call him “Junot of Nazareth.”

Napoleon was not quite so far-sighted when at the same time he made Victor, at the suggestion of one of the wits of his court, Duke of Belluno. Victor was commonly called the Beau Soleil of the French Army. Napoleon’s investiture made him Duke of Belle Lune.

Immediately afterwards the Spanish war broke out, and Junot found himself isolated at Lisbon. He gathered his forces together, and without any help whatever from France he maintained them and re-equipped them at the cost of unfortunate Portugal. But it was not to last long, for Wellington landed in Mondego bay, and Junot, furiously attacking him, was badly beaten at Vimiero. There followed the Convention of Cintra. By it Junot and his men were transported back to France with their arms, baggage and plunder; all that the English gained was a bloodless occupation of Portugal. It is difficult now to decide who had the best of this agreement. Certainly Napoleon thought that Junot had made a good bargain, and equally certainly the English public thought that Wellington had blundered badly.

If the Convention had not been concluded, the English would have cut Junot off from France (two hundred thousand Spanish insurgents had done that already) and would have shut him up in Lisbon. Without a doubt, Junot would have made a desperate resistance there. Masséna’s holding of Genoa in 1800 might have been re-enacted, and the wretched Portuguese might have starved while Junot held out. In this event the hands of the English would have been so full that no help could have been offered to the Spanish armies; Moore’s skilful thrust at Sahagun could never have been made, and the Spaniards might have met with utter annihilation. By the Convention of Cintra, France gained an immediate benefit, but England eventually gained even more.

After Vimiero, Junot’s military career is one ofcontinued failure—failure under Masséna in the Busaco campaign, failure under Napoleon in the Russian campaign, until at last the Duke of Abrantès was sent into comparative exile as Governor of Illyria. Here his troubles, his wounds and his disappointments bore too heavily upon him. He went raving mad, and performed all sorts of lunatic actions in his Illyrian province until he was removed to France. At Dijon he flung himself from a window and killed himself. Junot is one more example of those whom Napoleon favoured, who met with horrible ends.

But Marshals and Generals alike, Napoleon’s superior officers were nearly all distinguished by one common failing—a dread of responsibility and a hopeless irresolution when compelled to act on their own initiative. The examples of this are almost too numerous to mention; the most striking perhaps is Berthier’s failure during the early period of the campaign of 1809. There are many others which had much more important results, although at first they seem trivial in comparison. Thus, Dupont’s surrender at Baylen, although it only involved twenty thousand men, was one of the principal causes of the prolongation of the Peninsular War. Dupont surrendered with twenty thousand men; his action necessitated the employment in the Peninsula of three hundred thousand men for six years afterwards.

Another incident of the same type was Vandamme’s disaster at Kulm. Vandamme was a burly, heavy-jawed soldier of the furious and thoughtless kind, who had learnt his trade thoroughly well by rule of thumb, and who had made his name a byword throughout Germany on account of his dreadful depredations. His boast was that he feared neither God nor devil, and Napoleon referred to this once when he said that Vandamme was the most valuable of all his soldiers because he was the only one hecould employ in a war against the Infernal regions, should such a contingency arise.

In July, 1813, the Armistice of Pleisswitz had come to an end, and Austria had joined the ranks of Napoleon’s enemies. The Grand Army was in Silesia when the news arrived that the Austrians were marching on Dresden. Napoleon turned back without hesitation, marched a hundred and twenty miles in four days, and by what was almost his last victory he saved the town. At the commencement of his march he had detached Vandamme with twenty thousand men to hold the passes of the Erz Gebirge against the retreating forces. The beaten Austrian army came reeling back towards them. The Emperor of Austria and the Czar of Russia were present in its ranks, and it seemed as if nothing could save them from surrender. Fortunately, perhaps, for Europe, Napoleon was unwell and did not press the pursuit as closely as he might have done, and Vandamme, who rushed into peril like a bull into the ring, without outposts, without flank guards, without any reasonable protection, was overwhelmed by forces outnumbering his by four to one, and was forced to surrender. Vandamme may have feared neither God nor devil, but he had not the brains for a command in chief, even against men.

His own honour he redeemed from all possible accusations of cowardice, when, a prisoner in Austrian hands, with all the possibilities before him of condemnation to slow death in a salt-mine or speedy death on the spot, he was led before the Czar, and he did not quail. Alexander rated him for his excesses in Prussia, and Vandamme hit back at Alexander’s tender spot—his conscience. “At least I did not kill my own father,” said Vandamme.

Indecision characterizes the actions of many French generals during the Empire. The most discussed case perhaps was Grouchy’s hesitation atWavre during the Waterloo campaign, and this, curiously enough, was not really hesitation. The sole military crime of which Grouchy was guilty was a too pedantic obedience to orders. Grouchy has been blamed for misreading the situation and for not marching from Wavre on Waterloo, but Napoleon misread the situation just as badly, as his orders to Grouchy clearly prove. Moreover, once Grouchy’s hands had been freed by the destruction of the main French army, his actions were exceedingly bold and competent. His retreat across the Allies’ rear and his capture of Namur were manœuvres of sound military skill.

Grouchy’s military career had been in every way honourable throughout his life. He had ridden bravely to destruction at the head of his dragoons during Murat’s charge at Eylau. He had fought magnificently at Friedland and elsewhere. The only other time when he had been in independent command, and when he did display genuine dilatoriness was many years before when he had found himself in command owing to the loss of Hoche on the French expedition to Bantry Bay in 1796. Grouchy’s courage failed him then, and he withdrew at the very time when his landing would have set Ireland in an inextinguishable blaze. For a series of quite strictly correct actions at Waterloo Grouchy has gone down to history as a fool and a humbug, but he was neither—to any great extent.

During the Waterloo campaign there was certainly one example of a general being overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility. Up to the moment of execution not one of Napoleon’s plans of attack had been more brilliantly conceived or better arranged. A hundred and twenty thousand men were assembled at the crossings of the Sambre by Charleroi without the enemy gathering more than a hint as to what was in the air; in fact the Allies’Intelligence completely lost sight of Gérard’s corps of sixteen thousand men. From this point, however, the arrangements rapidly grew worse and worse. Bad staff work caused delays at the crossing of the Sambre; Ney’s unexpected appointment to the command of the left wing was disturbing, in that he was without a staff and his sudden elevation annoyed d’Erlon and Reille, his subordinate corps commanders. Zieten’s stubborn rearguard actions held up the French columns for a considerable time; and finally a sort of universal misunderstanding led to everyone being more or less in the dark as to the need for a determined and immediate attack. Ney, goaded by repeated orders, at last attacked at Quatre Bras quite six hours later than he should have done, and even then he had only half his force in hand. The other half, under d’Erlon, was making its way towards him, when it was caught up by an aide-de-camp of Napoleon’s, who was bearing a message to Ney requesting him to send help to the Emperor at Ligny. The aide-de-camp, on his own responsibility, sent d’Erlon marching over towards Ligny instead of to Quatre Bras, and went on to inform Ney of his action. Ney was furious. Every moment the British army in front of him was being reinforced, and he was now being steadily pushed back. He saw defeat close upon him, and he sent off a frantic order to d’Erlon to retrace his steps and march on Quatre Bras. The order reached d’Erlon at the crisis of the battle of Ligny. For hours a fierce and sanguinary battle had raged there, and at the crucial moment d’Erlon had appeared, like a god from a machine, with twenty thousand men on the Prussian flank. Napoleon sent him urgent orders to attack, but the officier d’ordonnance returned disconsolate. D’Erlon had just received Ney’s order and had marched back towards Quatre Bras, where he arrived just as darkness fell, two hours too late. His senseof responsibility did not permit him to disregard the orders of his immediate superior, although it had lain in his power, by disregarding them, to have dealt the Prussian army a blow from which it could hardly have recovered. The attack d’Erlon should have made was later made by six thousand weary men who had fought all day long, and naturally did not have the immense success d’Erlon might have achieved.

Drouet, Comte d’Erlon, had built himself up during twenty campaigns a reputation as a skilful and hard-fighting officer. He was neither a poltroon nor congenitally weak-minded; what was the matter with him was that he had fought twenty campaigns under Napoleon. The brilliance of the Emperor and the implicit, blind obedience he demanded had weakened d’Erlon’s initiative past all reckoning. It is interesting to compare d’Erlon’s action at Ligny with Lannes’ at Friedland, or with the daring of the subordinate Prussian officers at Mars-la-Tour and at Gravelotte in 1870.

And yet one cannot help but think, on reading military history, that the Lannes and the Davouts of this world are astonishingly few when compared with the d’Erlons and the Duponts. Military history is a history of blunders, fortunate or unfortunate. Men are found everywhere in control of the lives and destinies of ten, twenty, a hundred thousand men, and completely unable even to expend them in an efficient manner. On reading of the fumbling campaigns of Schwartzenberg, of Carlo Alberto, of Napoleon III., or even of wars waged more recently still, and of which we ourselves have had experience, one cannot help feeling overwhelming pity at the thought of the wretched men—every one of them as full of life as you or I—who were called upon to lay down everything at the call of duty or patriotism—and to lay down everythinguselessly. The argument against war which appeals most to those who mayhave to take part in it is not so much that it is expensive or that it costs lives, but that it is so blightingly inefficient. To die because one’s country is in need, that is one thing; but to die because one’s commanding officer has bad dreams, is quite another matter.

But the armies of Napoleon were at least free from a horrible slur which has been cast upon other armies. We cannot find anywhere any hint that the officers did not do all their duty as far as they visualized it. On going into action the men did not shout “Les epaulettes en avant” as did the army of the Second Empire at Solferino. No officer of Napoleon’s ever wasted his men’s lives to gratify his own pride, in the way that English marines died at Trafalgar. It was said with pride of an officer of Marlborough’s that he always said, “Come on” not “Go on” to his men. The same could be said of every one of the higher officers of the army of the First Empire. The hundreds of volumes of memoirs written by Napoleon’s men teem with examples (grudgingly given, in some cases) of valour, but there is hardly one case where an Imperial officer is accused of cowardice, or even of shirking. The officers bore exactly the same hardships as did the men, and the friendship and trust which existed between the rank and file and the commissioned officers of the army of the First Empire has never been excelled in any other army in history.

A simple calculation at any Napoleonic battle will show that the number of generals killed is proportionate to that of the privates, while of the twenty-four Marshals of the Empire who fought after the inauguration, three—Lannes, Bessières and Poniatowski—were killed in action, and all the others were wounded at various times. Napoleon himself, as is well known, was wounded during the fighting round Ratisbon in 1809, and Duroc, his trusted GrandMarshal of the Palace, was struck down at his side by a stray cannon shot at Bautzen in 1813, and died an hour later in horrible agony.

The facts about the Imperial army are curiously contradictory. The men were devoted to Napoleon, but their devotion did not hold them together in moments of panic. The officers were experienced in all the details of war, but for all their experience they lost touch with the Prussian army during the vital period following Ligny. Napoleon had laid down as essential various rules of strategy—but he departed from them during the autumn campaign of 1813. Nothing seems consistent or satisfactory during the whole period.

Yet there are hundreds upon hundreds of incidents of which one cannot read without a thrill. Cambronne at Waterloo replying with a curse when called upon to surrender in the face of certain destruction; the Red Lancers of the Guard gaining the Somo Sierra in the teeth of a tempest of cannon shot; the conscripts of 1814, in sabots and blouses, facing undaunted the savage enemy cavalry at Champaubert; Ney rallying the rearguard during the retreat from Moscow; Kellermann charging an army at Quatre Bras; the engineers dying gladly to save the army at the Beresina; all these incidents are worthy to be remembered with pride, and almost blot out the memory of the hideous ferocity of these selfsame men in Spain, in Germany and in Russia.

It is the fate of the Emperor and the Grand Army to be equally at the mercy of the panegyrics of the admirer and the insults of anyone who chooses to inveigh against them.

LETIZIA BONAPARTE(MADAME MÈRE)

ELISE BACCIOCHI(née BONAPARTE)

CHAPTER XIIIWOMEN

IT would be as easy to omit all mention of Napoleon’s mistresses in a serious history as it would be difficult to omit the king’s mistresses from a history of Louis le Grand or Louis le Bien-Aimé. Napoleon was not the man to allow his policy to be influenced by women. Not one of the many with whom he came into contact could boast that she had deflected him one hairbreadth from the path he had mapped for himself. Not all Josephine’s tears could save the life of the young d’Enghien; not all Walewska’s pleading could re-establish the kingdom of Poland.

“Adultery,” said Napoleon, “is a sofa affair,” and he was speaking for once in all honesty. He was a man blessed with a vast personality, a vast power and a vast income, and it is unusual for a man with these three to go long a-suing. Moreover, if the lady who attracted his attention proved recalcitrant, Napoleon rarely pleaded; he raised his offer, and in the event of a further refusal he turned away without a sigh and forgot all about her. That indicates Napoleon’s attitude towards women.

There were, as a matter of fact, one or two whom he honoured by more lover-like attentions. Josephine cost him many bitter hours of self-reproach; Walewska he sought long and earnestly; he displayed every sign of attachment towards Marie Louise.Yet not merely these three, but every woman who granted him favours received in return immense gifts, and, if she desired it, a husband whose path to promotion was made specially easy. The women who flit into and then out of Napoleon’s life seem to be without number, but the gossip of a thousand memoirs, and the hints of a thousand letters, combined with the painstaking care of a crowd of patient inquirers, have brought them all under notice at some time or other. And yet the most elaborate research can only prove that there was one woman who might perhaps have given much to Bonaparte before his meeting with Josephine, and that was a street-walker of the Palais Royal. This tiny incident is hinted at in a letter written by Bonaparte at the age of eighteen.

After this, we find nothing of the same nature for another nine years. Napoleon was too busy and too desperately poor to trouble about such things. He flirted with Laurette Permon, who later became Madame Junot, Duchess d’Abrantès; with his sister-in-law, Désirée Clary, afterwards Madame Bernadotte, Princess of Ponte Corvo and Queen of Sweden and Norway; and with a few young women of good social position whom he met while serving as a junior officer of artillery at Valence. That is all. He came to Josephine heartwhole and inexperienced, and he lavished upon her during the first feverish months of his married life all the stored-up passion of a man of twenty-six. Josephine baulked and thwarted this passion by her delay in joining him while he was conquering Italy, by her petty flirtations with Charles and others, and by the general light-mindedness of her behaviour; from that time forth Napoleon became passionless towards all women. Some he liked, and some he even admired, as far as it was in his nature to admire anyone, but for none did he ever exhibit the uncontrollable desire whichfor that brief space he had felt for Josephine. Unfaithfulness to her, which he would once have regarded as treason, he now thought of merely as necessary to a man of mature age.

However, throughout the years 1796 and 1797 one cannot find any proof of genuine inconstancy. It was only in 1798, when Napoleon found himself the unrestrained ruler of Egypt, with the whole East apparently at his feet, that he left the narrow path of strict physical virtue. The native ladies did not appeal to him, and he turned with disgust from their over opulent charms. The same cannot be said of some of his officers, a few of whom actually married Egyptian beauties and later brought them back to France. Menou, who succeeded to the chief command after Napoleon’s departure and Kléber’s assassination, was one of these. Others, again, married and settled down in Egypt after the evacuation. Their descendants were supporters of Mehemet Ali, and even nowadays many rich Egyptian proprietors can trace back their descent to a Frankish ancestor who became a Mohammedan a hundred and twenty years ago.

But although, as has been said, Napoleon found no charms behind the yashmaks, the possibilities were by no means exhausted, as his aides-de-camp hastened to point out to him. A few Frenchwomen, by donning male attire, had evaded the strict regulation that no women should accompany the Army of the Orient. The most attractive of these was Marguerite Pauline, wife of a lieutenant of Chasseurs, by name Fourès. To a Commander-in-Chief all things are possible, and young Fourès was packed off in one of the frigates which had escaped from the disaster of the Nile with orders to carry despatches to the Directory. The night of his departure Madame Fourès (la Bellîlote, as she was called, from her maiden name of Belleisle) was entertained byNapoleon at a gay little dinner party; the proceedings, however, were cut short by the General upsetting iced water over her dress and carrying her off under the pretext of having the damage attended to.

After this la Bellîlote was established in a Cairo palace close to General Headquarters, and the little idyll seemed to be progressing famously when a most indignant intruder in the person of Lieutenant Fourès appeared on the scene. He had been captured by the English on his way to Italy, and had been returned for the express purpose of inconveniencing the Général-en-chef. The English were, however, doomed to disappointment, for Napoleon, exercising his dictatorial powers, had a divorce pronounced between Fourès and his wife, and then sent the wretched man back once more to France. From this time forth la Bellîlote had an almost regal dominion in Cairo. The finest silks in the land were confiscated for her adornment, and she drove about the streets amid cries from the soldiers of “Vive la Générale!” and “Vive Clioupatre!” At times she even appeared on horseback in a general’s uniform and cocked hat. The whole proceeding savours of some of the doings of the early Roman Emperors. Suetonius tells us very similar stories of Nero and Caligula. Little adverse comment was caused among the French; it was a very usual thing during the Revolutionary era for officers to be accompanied by women in this fashion. Some women even served generals as aides-de-camp and orderlies, while the Army of Portugal during 1810-11 was frequently hindered because Masséna, commanding, had hischère amiewith him.

Madame Fourès’ experience of the delights of being the left-handed queen of the uncrowned king of an unacknowledged kingdom was not destined to endure long; Napoleon returned to France, and she, following him, by his orders, as soon as possible,fell into the hands of the English just as her husband had done. When at last she reached France Bonaparte refused to see her, for he was now reconciled to Josephine, besides being First Consul and having to be careful of his moral reputation. Napoleon did whatever else he could for her; he gave her large sums of money, bought her houses, and secured a new husband for her, whose agreement he ensured by means of valuable appointments under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Napoleon and la Bellîlote never met again; after 1815 she eloped with another man, built up a substantial fortune in the South American trade, and finally died quite in the odour of sanctity at the venerable age of ninety-one.

On Bonaparte’s return to France Josephine had contrived to win him once more to her, despite the efforts of his family, and his own half-determination to end the business there and then, but matters were never the same between them. Napoleon indulged more and more frequently in petty amours with various women, and Josephine, instead of appreciating her helplessness, as is the more usual way with queens and empresses, caused frequent furious scenes by spying on his actions and upbraiding him when any rumour came to her notice. Napoleon cared no whit; he was, moreover, able, by virtue of his supreme power, frequently to ensure that Josephine knew nothing of his infidelity. In 1800 he was peculiarly successful in this way. Marengo had been fought and won, and the First Consul was enjoying, at Milan, the fruits of his dramatic success. The most eminent contralto of the time, Grassini, sang at concerts hurriedly arranged in his honour. Grassini had endeavoured to force herself on his notice three years before, without success, for Josephine held power over him then. The circumstances were different now, and Napoleon, hisItalian temperament inexpressibly charmed by her magnificent voice, honoured her by a summons to his apartments. She obeyed gladly; she came at his request to Paris; and finally Napoleon had the effrontery to command her to sing at the thanksgiving festival in the Invalides for the Marengo campaign, where he appeared accompanied by his wife and by all the notabilities of the Consulate. Later she appeared at the Théâtre de la République, and was given a large allowance, both publicly as a singer and secretly as a friend of Napoleon’s. The arrangement ended abruptly, for Grassini was detected in an intrigue with an Italian musician, and left France for a Continental tour.

It was not till 1807 that she returned, and although Napoleon never renewed the old relationship, he gave her an official title, a large salary and employment under his Bureau of Music.

Grassini spent the rest of her days mainly in Paris, and she enjoyed a vast reputation all her life. Money troubles, due to her passion for gambling, and wild adventures of the heart, engaged most of her attention. It has even been said that after Waterloo she condescended to grant Wellington the same favours as Napoleon had enjoyed thirteen years before. Despite the obvious bias of many of the witnesses, the evidence to this end seems conclusive. If it really was true, then Grassini might claim a distinction as notable as Alava’s, who was the only man who fought both at Trafalgar and at Waterloo.

After Grassini passed out of Napoleon’s life, a long period ensued during which no woman received the Emperor’s favour for any continuous length of time. At intervals various hooded figures slipped through the postern door of the Tuileries, past Roustam the Mameluke, and through a secret passage to the Imperial apartments, but the visits were irregular and were merely the results of passingwhims on the part of the Emperor. Not one of the women concerned had need of much pressure to become agreeable to the invitations brought them by Duroc, the faithful Grand Marshal of the Palace. They were actresses mainly, and since most of them appeared at theatres managed or subsidized by the Government, Napoleon, if not their direct employer, had in his gift important acting parts and desirable salaries. Many of them were already the mistresses of dandies of the town, and some of them passed on to act in the same capacity for various crowned heads of Europe, while one was actually requested by a powerful party in Russia to win Alexander the Czar from an objectionablechère amieso that he might return to the Czarina!

Napoleon did all he could to keep these liaisons secret, but he was rarely successful. The women boasted far and wide of their success, and it is likely that many of those who boasted had nothing to boast about. Some even went so far as to publish their memoirs after the Restoration, and to make capital of their own dishonour. Another factor which militated against secrecy was Josephine’s jealousy. Josephine, with the spectre of divorce always before her eyes, was in continual terror lest Napoleon should experience a lasting attachment for one of his stray lights o’ love. Consequently she spied upon him incessantly, battered on his locked doors, wrote frantic appeals to her friends for help and information, and generally acted with less than her usual dignity. Napoleon disregarded her appeals, and stormed back at her whenever she ventured to remonstrate. He was above all law, he declared, and he would allow no human being to judge his actions. Nevertheless, he took care to interfere with the most intimate affairs of all his friends. He tried to bully Berthier, his trusted Chief of Staff, into separating from the lady with whom he had lived for years. Atfirst it seemed as if he was successful, and he consoled his friend by giving him as wife a Princess of the royal House of Bavaria. However, Berthier contrived to obtain his young bride’s agreement to the presence of the other lady, and the three of them ran a perfectly happyménage à troisfor the rest of his life. Napoleon meddled with many other people’s domestic affairs, and it is darkly hinted that Talleyrand’s enmity for the Emperor began when Napoleon first disturbed the tranquillity which existed between the great diplomat and Madame Grand.

The Emperor continued serenely on his way, acting up to his dictum that women were merely incidents in a man’s life. His Court was thronged with greedily ambitious women who threw themselves in his path at every opportunity. At the least hint of a preference on his part, officious courtiers hurried to assist in the negotiations in the hope either of favour or perquisites. The astonishing thing is that the list of the chosen is not many times longer. These intrigues all ran much the same course—a brief partnership, generally without a hint of affection on either side; a minor place in Court for the lady; then a marriage was arranged, an ample dowry provided by the Emperor, and the incident was closed. Not merely did people endeavour to gain their private ends in this manner, but even political parties made use of similar tools. During the Consulate the Bourbons despatched a lady to Paris for the sole purpose of ensnaring Bonaparte, and it is hinted that Metternich endeavoured to place a friend at Court in the same fashion. The great example of this political manœuvre, however, occurs later.

But before Madame Walewska’s name, even, was known to Napoleon, he formed an attachment of some slight historical importance. Eléonore Denuelle was an exceedingly beautiful girl, daughter of parents of a doubtful mode of life, who had beeneducated at Madame Campan’s famous school along with Caroline Bonaparte and various other great ladies of the Court. Her parents designed a great marriage for her, but they met with poor success, for a certain graceless ex-officer, by name Revel, succeeded in making her believe that he was a good match, and the couple were married early in 1805. Revel believed that Eléonore was an heiress; Eléonore believed that Revel was a rich man; they were both of them woefully disappointed, and separated after two months of married life. Eléonore in despair applied for help to Caroline Murat, and received a minor post in that princess’s household. Napoleon noticed her in January, 1806, and from that time the affair moved rapidly, for in February Eléonore applied for a divorce from Revel (who was now in gaol), and in December a son was born to her whose father, almost without a doubt, was Napoleon.

By the time of his birth, however, Napoleon had formed a new attachment, and Eléonore was never again admitted to his rooms. Napoleon saw that both his son and his ex-mistress were suitably provided for; he settled a thousand pounds a year on Eléonore and married her to a prominent politician (a Monsieur Augier), while he invested large sums of money in trust for her son, Léon. He further mentioned him in his will. Eléonore’s later career was unlucky; her second husband died, a prisoner in Russian hands, and when she married for a third time she was blackmailed for the rest of her life by her first husband and by her scapegrace illegitimate son. Léon ruined all his chances of success in life by his reckless way of living. He gambled away all he possessed, and then lived on what small sums he could beg from his mother and from his Bonaparte relations. He plunged into politics, and even considered for a while standing as a candidate for theposition of President of the Second Republic in opposition to Louis Napoleon. He induced the latter to give him a small pension; he made all manner of claims upon the Government, and squandered whatever he obtained in a wild fashion. He issued all sorts of remarkable suggestions, not one of them of the slightest value, on every conceivable subject, and he raised the most frightful clamour when they were disregarded. There is no doubt that he was mentally deranged. He died in 1881 without having accomplished a single noteworthy action.

There is a faint doubt as to Léon’s paternity, due to his mother’s way of living, but the doubts are countered by his striking physical resemblance to the Emperor. Napoleon himself certainly believed him to be his own child; perhaps if he could have foreseen the later career of the child in question he would have been more chary of his acknowledgment. The whole affair seems to be very much wrapped in doubt; Napoleon evinced for young Léon not half the care which he displayed for his other sons, while Léon’s birth (perhaps because it took place while Napoleon was away in Poland) did not rouse nearly as much interest as Walewski’s three years later.

It has already been said that at the time of Léon’s birth Napoleon’s attention was occupied by a new mistress; it was this particular mistress who has been elevated by some writers to the proud position of being “the only woman Napoleon ever loved,” and who certainly held whatever affection the Emperor was able to display for a longer period than any other woman. To begin with, she was of a rank and class far different from any of her predecessors, Josephine not excepted, while secondly she was far fonder of him than was any other woman. The circumstances in which the two met were romantic. Napoleon had just overturned the Prussian monarchy; he hadadvanced like lightning from the Rhine to the Niemen, and he burst at the head of the Grand Army into Poland, where never before had a French army appeared. The Poles were in ecstasy. They had not the least doubt that their period of slavery was ended, and that the young conqueror would once more unchain the White Eagle. Deputations thronged to meet him, and mobs gave him homage in the villages. At the little town of Bronia, not far from Warsaw, a lady was presented to him at her earnest request, for she had braved all the terrors of the hysterical mob in order to meet him. She proved to be hardly more than a child, and dazzlingly beautiful. Napoleon thanked her for her kindness, and said that he was anxious to see her again. The whole interview barely lasted a minute, for it was imperative that Napoleon should press on to Warsaw, but it made a deep impression on both of them.

Marie Laczinska was the daughter of one of the old noble families of Poland, and she had recently married Anastase Colonna de Walewice-Walewska. Although Marie’s family was noble, it was hardly to be compared with that of her husband, for Anastase was not only the head of a house in whose veins ran the bluest blood of Poland, but he also traced his descent to the Roman family of Colonna, and through them his line ran back into the mists of history beyond the Carolings and the Merovings until one could trace its source among the patrician families of republican Rome. He was rich, he was famous, he held vast power. The only objections to him as a husband were that he was seventy years old and already had grandchildren who were older than Marie. In the minds of Marie’s guardians such objections were trivial, and the young girl was forced into marriage with the old noble, to play the part of Abishag to Walewska’s David. She was not fated to endure this for long, becauseNapoleon had not forgotten the meeting at Bronia, and sought her at all the fêtes at which he appeared in Warsaw. The secret could not be kept, and soon all Poland was aware that the great Emperor was in love with the Polish lady. The nationalist party heard the news with wild exultation, and Poniatowski, the hope of Poland, called upon her to sacrifice herself for her country. The other great nobles pressed her feverishly, and they contrived to persuade Walewska (who, naturally, was the only man who was ignorant of what was going on) to bring his wife to a ball which Poniatowski was giving in the Emperor’s honour.

Marie came reluctantly. She was dressed as plainly as possible, in white satin without jewels, and, once in the ballroom, she kept herself as far in the background as she could. To no purpose, however. Napoleon, overjoyed, observed her as soon as she appeared, and immediately sent to her and requested her to dance with him. She refused. Duroc and Poniatowski remonstrated with her, but she remained adamant. Many other French officers had already noticed her dazzling beauty, her rich fair hair and the blueness of her eyes, and they swarmed round her. Napoleon watched the proceedings jealously from the other end of the room. As soon as any one of his officers appeared to have made any progress, he called to his Chief of Staff, and that particular officer was sent off post haste to carry a message somewhere out in the bleak countryside a hundred miles away. The situation verged on the impossible. Napoleon in desperation made a tour of the room, speaking to all the hundreds of women present merely in order to exchange half a dozen words with the one who was the cause of all this trouble. When at last he reached Madame Walewska the interview was unsatisfactory. She was as pale as death, and said nothing. He wasvastly and unusually embarrassed. “White upon white is a mistake, Madame,” he said, looking at her pale cheeks. Then—“This is not the sort of reception I expected after——” Then he passed on, and left the ballroom soon after.

That same evening she received a wild, urgent note from Napoleon. Others followed in rapid succession. Poniatowski and all the fiery patriots of Poland implored her to yield. Her blind husband, infatuated by this remarkable new popularity, bore her to reception after reception. A mercenary old aunt of hers, tampered with by Poniatowski, flung herself into the business as well, and offered herself as go-between. At last she received a letter from Napoleon hinting that he would restore Poland if she would yield. She yielded. Napoleon did not restore Poland.

For Poland’s sake she had broken her marriage vows and violated all the dictates of her conscience. Napoleon, in return, temporized and compromised. He erected the Grand Duchy of Warsaw out of territory torn from Prussia, but the Grand Duchy was not autonomous, it was not called Poland, it was only one-third the size of the old land of the White Eagle. Poor Marie protested to the best of her ability, to be soothed by fair words from the Emperor. At Napoleon’s request she left Poland after Tilsit, and came to Paris, where she lived in extreme retirement, visited by Napoleon as often as he could manage. Her gentleness and dislike of display must have been grateful to Napoleon after his other experiences, and he passed many happy hours with her. She was by his side during the maelstrom of the Essling campaign, and at Schönbrunn, the Palace of the Cæsars, she told him she was about to bear him a child. She did not realize then that from that selfsame palace Napoleon would summon, in a few months’ time, a young girl whowould supplant her in his affections, and who would also bear him a son, who, in place of being a nameless bastard, would bear the title of King of Rome. She went back to her dear Poland for the event, and at Walewice, in May, 1810, Alexander-Florian-Joseph-Colonna-Walewski was born. On her return to Paris Napoleon had married Marie Louise.

Napoleon softened the blow for her as well as he could. He heaped wealth upon her; he gave her town houses and country houses; the Imperial officials were always at her orders, and the Imperial theatres were always open to her. Her son, young Walewski, was made a Count of the Empire. Perhaps this was some consolation to her. Perhaps—seeing that it was her son’s birth which had determined Napoleon to make a new marriage—not. Napoleon even found time during the turmoil of the Campaign of France to make additional arrangements in their favour, but by this time whatever remained of the affair had long since burnt itself out.

After the fall of the Empire, Marie Walewska seems to have considered herself free. She paid a mysterious visit to Napoleon at Elba in 1814, accompanied by her little son, and she was present at the Tuileries on Napoleon’s arrival there during the Hundred Days, but apparently on neither occasion was the old relationship renewed. In 1816 she married a distant cousin of the Bonapartes, a certain d’Ornano, a Colonel of the Guard, but she was not destined long to enjoy her new happiness. Marie de Walewska died in December, 1817.

Poor Marie! Her life was short, but it must have been full of bitterness. Napoleon’s affairs of the heart (if they are even worthy of that name) all seem inexpressibly harsh and matter-of-fact. He seemed to have a kind of Midas touch in these matters, whereby everything honourable andromantic with which he came into contact turned, not into gold, but into lead. Various authors have tried to infuse into his association with Marie de Walewska some gleam of romance, some essence of the self-sacrificing spirit which is noticeable in the parallel deeds of other monarchs, but they have failed. Marie certainly seems at first to have believed him to be a hero, a knight without reproach as well as without fear, but as soon as she was disillusioned she resigned herself to an existence as drab as if she had been once more a septuagenarian’s wife, and not the mistress of an Emperor. Contemporary Parisian society was almost entirely ignorant of her existence. She paid no calls, and she received none. The few appearances she made at Court were such as were only to be expected from a Polish lady of high rank. Napoleon could not keep her love for long, and, though she was faithful to him as long as the Empire endured, she obviously considered herself free as soon as Napoleon was sent to St. Helena. It was not the long-drawn, heroic romance some writers have endeavoured to make it appear; rather was it a brief burst of passion, and then—monotony.

The baby Count of the Empire whom she left behind enjoyed a distinguished career. In appearance he certainly resembled his great father, but his talents never seem to have risen above a mediocre standard. Alexander-Florian-Joseph-Colonna-Walewski was mainly educated in France, but he was a Pole by birth, and he fought for Poland at the age of twenty during the rising of 1830-31. When Poland fell once more before the might of Russia, he returned to France, became a Frenchman, and served in the French army. The revolution of 1848 brought Napoleon III. to the front, and the new Emperor, with his power based on the frail fabric of a legend, saw fit to surround himself with names which recalled to men’s minds the old splendours ofthe First Empire. Walewski received honours in plenty; he was Ambassador to the most important Courts of Europe, a Senator, and a Minister of State. He wrote learnedly on various subjects. But all his glory was only a pale reflection of his father’s and cousin’s; he suffered eclipse after Sedan, and when he died, aged seventy-two, he had, after all, made very little mark in the world. He had not played the part of a Don John of Austria, or even of a Monmouth. De Morny quite outshone him.

With Napoleon’s marriage to Marie Louise and association with Madame Walewska, his casual amorous adventures came to a more or less abrupt end. It has been suggested that this was on account of increasing age, but Napoleon was only in the early forties, and this cannot be the true reason. However, the explanation is just as simple. Napoleon was devoted to his new wife, and he was frightfully busy. From the summer of 1812, two years after his second marriage, he was almost continuously in the field. His exertions and worries thenceforward were sufficient to occupy even him, without any other complications. One likes to think of him turning with relief from the agonizing strain of ruling Europe to snatch a few quiet minutes in the placid peace surrounding Marie Louise and her child. That is all. He had no other mistress. At Elba he lived with his sister and mother, with no woman to share his inner life. Perhaps this was policy, for Napoleon was trying hard to induce Marie Louise to join him, and he would naturally be chary of doing anything which might annoy her—ignorant as he was of her unfaithfulness. This may be the explanation of the briefness of Madame Walewska’s visit; she may have come intending to join him, and he may have sent her away again, but the fact that she was accompanied by her brother and other relations militates against this theory. Moreover, Marie wasalready close friends with d’Ornano. After the Hundred Days Napoleon was sent to St. Helena, and once again no woman accompanied him. The manifold rumours about Madame de Montholon and others at St. Helena seem to have no foundation whatever in fact. Thus practically all Napoleon’s illicit loves are confined to the decade 1800-10, while the last decade is entirely clear of them.

Thus far we have only treated of women who were Napoleon’s mistresses; but considerable interest also attaches to a large number of women who, although members of the Imperial circle, never attained this dubious honour. Perhaps of these the one who attained the greatest heights (and who, incidentally, did least to deserve it) was Désirée Clary. She was the sister of the lady whom Joseph Bonaparte made his wife, and whose dowry of six thousand pounds was so welcome to the struggling family. Désirée’s own dowry would have been of the same amount, and Joseph and various other Bonapartes tried to induce Napoleon to marry her. He seems to have dallied with the idea; indeed, it is frequently stated that a contract of betrothal was drawn up, but, however it was, Napoleon broke off the negotiations rather abruptly when he went to Paris in 1795. There is hardly any doubt that he had flirted with Désirée rather excessively, and that, after making a deep impression upon her, he had wounded her deeply by his precipitate abandonment. Subsequently he tried to make amends in much the same manner as he employed with his discarded mistresses—he tried to find her a husband to whom he could give substantial promotion. But Désirée was once more unlucky, for the man Napoleon sent to her, General Duphot, was murdered almost on her threshold while she was staying at Joseph Bonaparte’s Embassy in Rome.

Eventually she was approached by Bernadotte, during Napoleon’s absence in Egypt, and married him. Subsequently she declared that she had done this because Bernadotte was the only man who could injure Bonaparte, but she must have been far-sighted indeed if she could perceive the career which was awaiting Bernadotte. Moreau, and half a dozen other generals, such as Augereau, were more powerful than Bernadotte at the time. Désirée’s statement was probably made in the light of subsequent events.

It was Bernadotte who gained most by the marriage. He acquired at one stroke a venomous, if inert, ally in his wife, an enthusiastic supporter in Joseph, his brother-in-law, and a sure refuge in case of trouble in Napoleon’s dislike of a scandal in his family. From this time on, Désirée received distinction after distinction, and soon she was Son Altesse Serène la Maréchale Princesse de Ponte Corvo, sister of the Queen of Spain, and a leading figure in Imperial society. Then came the greatest distinction of all, and she found herself Princess Royal of Sweden. This last she found rather upsetting, for she discovered she was expected to leave her beloved Paris to live in the bleakness of the Stockholm palaces. She said, tearfully and truthfully, that she had thought at first that her new rank was merely a titular distinction, of the same class as her sovereignty of Ponte Corvo. She refused absolutely to leave France, and so Bernadotte went alone to Stockholm, thence to lead his Swedes against the Empire, while his wife stayed on in Paris. It certainly was an anomalous position, and some authors have said that Désirée acted as a spy on behalf of the Allies during the war of liberation. However, we can be quite sure that Napoleon, whatever tenderness he still felt towards her, would not have tolerated her sending news of any value toher husband; incidentally, it is obvious that a woman to whose mind Ponte Corvo, with its six thousand inhabitants, was in the same class as Sweden, with its millions, could not have been of much use as a spy.

After 1815, fate overtook her, and she was borne away to spend the rest of her life in the spartan splendour of the palace in the Staden. From that time forth she and her husband were a disappointed couple, distrusted and despised by all Europe, he with his eyes turned lingeringly towards the France whose crown he believed he had so nearly attained, she thinking longingly of the gaiety and careless freedom of the Paris she had left behind, which now hated her with true Parisian virulence.

Napoleon’s sisters married before the plenitude of his power, and the matches they made were not as splendid as they might have been later; it was for his younger but much more distant connections that Napoleon was able to find husbands of royal rank. It is curious to notice the extraordinary marriages which were arranged while the Empire was at its height. A niece of Murat’s, who had been brought up as the ragged and bare-footed daughter of a small farmer, married Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and among her grandchildren and great-grandchildren at the present day are the King of Rumania, the King of the Belgians and the Queen of Portugal. Several of the petty princelings of Germany, with thirty generations of royal descent behind them, married obscure little Beauharnais and Taschers de la Pagerie. Eugène de Beauharnais and Berthier married princesses of Bavaria, and Jerome received as bride a daughter of the King of Würtemberg.

Eugène’s marriage had caused a difficult situation, for Augusta of Bavaria was already affianced to the Hereditary Prince of Baden, heir apparent tothe reigning Grand Duke. Napoleon had caused the marriage contract to be broken, but he was in no way disconcerted; he straightway found a new bride for the Hereditary Prince. He selected Stéphanie de Beauharnais, a “thirty-second cousin” of Josephine’s. Stéphanie was the merest child, who had had the most extraordinary upbringing. Her parents were of a shiftless character, like various other Beauharnais, and after the Revolution Stéphanie had been dependent on an English peeress, Lady de Bathe, who had arranged with two nuns from the suppressed houses to look after her. As soon as Napoleon heard of her existence, he summoned her to Court, and in accordance with his pronounced ideas on family loyalty, made himself responsible for her support. Next he announced to her that he had secured her a royal husband. Stéphanie immediately became a person of consequence, because as yet royal marriages were by no means common in the Bonaparte family. Their Imperial Highnesses, Napoleon’s sisters, naturally turned like tigresses upon the interloper, and reduced the fifteen-year-old child to tears more than once in the presence of the Court. This was more than Napoleon could stand, and by a single decree he gave the girl precedence over the whole Imperial family save himself and Josephine. He wished to keep the House of Baden as satisfied as possible. With the same idea he gave Stéphanie a marvellous trousseau, a dowry of sixty thousand pounds, and jewels costing the same amount. Her wretched father, who had returned from exile, received an income of three thousand pounds a year and a lump sum of two hundred thousand francs. He had done nothing to earn it; he was merely the father of the girl who was marrying an ally of the Emperor’s.

The period was one of general rejoicing, for Austerlitz had just been won, and French dominationover Europe seemed assured. The fêtes of the marriage were of unexampled splendour; there were illuminations; there were fireworks; and there were balls without number, at one of which over two thousand persons appeared. But behind all the rejoicings there was a curious tragi-comedy being played, for poor Stéphanie, married at sixteen to a man she had never met, displayed a disconcerting reluctance to complete all the accompanying formalities. Night after night she insisted on a girl friend sharing her room with her. The Hereditary Prince grew restive; the whole Court knew of the deadlock, and were proportionately amused. But international politics cannot wait on a girl’s whim; war clouds were appearing again across the Rhine; Prussia seemed bent on war, and it was important for Napoleon to be sure of Baden’s friendship. Napoleon admonished Stéphanie with all the severity of which he was capable; he terrified the wretched girl into passivity, and when at last the newly-married couple set off for Carlsruhe Baden’s support of France was assured.

But the unhappiness which awaited all Napoleon’s favourites dogged poor Stéphanie to her grave. The House of Zaehringen hated her as an intruder; her male children all died in infancy, and when in 1818 her husband died she found herself without any established position in a hostile land. Hints have not been lacking that Charles of Baden died through poison administered by the Hochberg family (of morganatic descent from an earlier Elector), which ultimately obtained the throne. But the strangest story is that concerning Kaspar Hauser. In 1828 a young man was found wandering in the streets of Nuremberg, who had never seen the sunlight, and whose whole appearance seemed to indicate that he had been shut up in a cellar all his life. He did not long survive his freedom. Stéphanie jumped to theconclusion that he was her second son, born in 1811, who was supposed to have died as an infant while she was seriously ill. Many people have agreed with her, and have supposed that he had been kidnapped by the Hochbergs to prevent his inheritance of the throne. Some people go further, and boldly declare that after his escape he was poisoned. The whole matter has an aura of peculiarity, and it has attracted the attention of many writers of authority, among them Mr. Baring Gould. The most obvious counter to the theory that Kaspar Hauser was a son of Stéphanie is that the people who would be bold enough to kidnap him would have had the sense to kill him outright, and not to keep him as living evidence of their guilt. If they murdered him in 1828, they would certainly not have flinched from murdering him in 1811.

But Stéphanie always believed that Kaspar was her son, and she passed the last thirty years of her life in mourning a murdered husband, a murdered son, a lost throne, and the utter ruin of her whole life.

This is only one more example of the blight which Napoleon left upon the lives of nearly everyone with whom he came into close contact. All the people who were indebted to him for their entire personal advancement lived to see the day when they paid for a few golden hours with the most utter regret and bitterness. The only ones who “lived happily ever after” were those who had always regarded him with suspicion, like Macdonald, or those of inferior mental calibre, like Marie Louise, whom a strange Providence seemed to take under its own special care.

So much for Napoleon’s relations with women. Nowhere can one find the least trace of romance or self-sacrifice on his part, and it can safely be said that no woman ever loved him devotedly. Never couldNapoleon have said of any woman’s beauty, as Richard III. said,

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