His bearings in Society.—His deportment toward Women.—Hisdisdain of Politeness.
There are very few monarchs, even absolute, who persistently, and from morning to night, maintain a despotic attitude. Generally, and especially in France, the sovereign makes two divisions of his time, one for business and the other for social duties, and, in the latter case, while always head of the State, he is also head of his house: for he welcomes visitors, entertains his guests, and, that his guests may not be robots, he tries to put them at their ease.—That was the case with Louis XIV.1286—polite to everybody, always affable with men, and sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and some times gallant, carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a story—such was his drawing-room constitution. The drawing-room as well as every human society needs one, and a liberal one; otherwise life dies out. Accordingly, the observance of this constitution in by-gone society is known by the phrase savoir-vivre, and, more rigidly than anybody else, Louis XIV. submitted himself to this code of proprieties. Traditionally, and through education, he had consideration for others, at least for the people around him; his courtiers becoming his guests without ceasing to be his subjects.
There is nothing of this sort with Napoleon. He preserves nothing of the etiquette he borrows from the old court but its rigid discipline and its pompous parade. "The ceremonial system," says an eyewitness, "was carried out as if it had been regulated by the tap of a drum; everything was done, in a certain sense, 'double-quick.'1287... This air of precipitation, this constant anxiety which it inspires," puts an end to all comfort, all ease, all entertainment, all agreeable intercourse; there is no common bond but that of command and obedience. "The few individuals he singles out, Savary, Duroc, Maret, keep silent and simply transmit orders.... We did not appear to them, in doing what we were ordered to do, and we did not appear to ourselves, other than veritable machines, all resembling, or but little short of it, the elegant gilded arm-chairs with which the palaces of Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries had just been embellished."
For a machine to work well it is important that the machinist should overhaul it frequently, which this one never fails to do, especially after a long absence. Whilst he is on his way from Tilsit, "everybody anxiously examines his conscience to ascertain what he has done that this rigid master will find fault with on his return. Whether spouse, family, or grand dignitary, each is more or less disturbed; while the Empress, who knows him better than any one, naively says, 'As the Emperor is so happy it is certain that he will do a deal of scolding!'"1288Actually, he has scarcely arrived when he gives a rude and vigorous wrench of the bolt; and then, "satisfied at having excited terror all around, he appears to have forgotten what has passed and resumes the usual tenor of his life." "Through calculation as well as from taste,1289he never ceases to be a monarch"; hence, "a mute, frigid court.... more dismal than dignified; every face wears an expression of uneasiness... a silence both dull and constrained." At Fontainebleau, "amidst splendors and pleasures," there is no real enjoyment nor anything agreeable, not even for himself. "I pity you," said M. de Talleyrand to M. de Rémusat, "you have to amuse the unamusable." At the theatre he is abstracted or yawns. Applause is prohibited; the court, sitting out "the file of eternal tragedies, is mortally bored.... the young ladies fall asleep, people leave the theatre, gloomy and discontented."—There is the same constraint in the drawing-room. "He did not know how to appear at ease, and I believe that he never wanted anybody else to be so, afraid of the slightest approach to familiarity, and inspiring each with a fear of saying something offensive to his neighbor before witnesses.... During the quadrille, he moves around amongst the rows of ladies, addressing them with some trifling or disagreeable remark," and never does he accost them otherwise than "awkwardly and ill at his ease." At bottom, he distrusts them and is ill-disposed toward them.1290It is because "the power they have acquired in society seems to him an intolerable usurpation.—"Never did he utter to a woman a graceful or even a well-turned compliment, although the effort to find one was often apparent on his face and in the tone of his voice.... He talks to them only of their toilet, of which he declares himself a severe and minute judge, and on which he indulges in not very delicate jests; or again, on the number of their children, demanding of them in rude language whether they nurse them themselves; or again, lecturing them on their social relations."1291Hence, "there is not one who does not rejoice when he moves off."1292He would often amuse himself by putting them out of countenance, scandalizing and bantering them to their faces, driving them into a corner the same as a colonel worries his canteen women. "Yes, ladies, you furnish the good people of the Faubourg Saint-Germain with something to talk about. It is said, Madame A..., that you are intimate with Monsieur B..., and you Madame C...., with Monsieur D." On any intrigue chancing to appear in the police reports, "he loses no time in informing the husband of what is going on."—He is no less indiscreet in relation to his own affairs;1293when it is over he divulges the fact and gives the name; furthermore, he informs Josephine in detail and will not listen to any reproach: "I have a right to answer all your objections with an eternal I!"
This term, indeed, answers to everything, and he explains it by adding: "I stand apart from other men. I accept nobody's conditions," nor any species of obligation, no code whatever, not even the common code of outward civility, which, diminishing or dissimulating primitive brutality, allows men to associate together without clashing. He does not comprehend it, and he repudiates it. "I have little liking,"1294he says, "for that vague, leveling word propriety (convenances), which you people fling out every chance you get. It is an invention of fools who want to pass for clever men; a kind of social muzzle which annoys the strong and is useful only to the mediocre... Ah, good taste! Another classic expression which I do not accept." "It is your personal enemy"; says Talleyrand to him, one day, "if you could have shot it away with bullets, it would have disappeared long ago!"—It is because good taste is the highest attainment of civilization, the innermost vestment which drapes human nudity, which best fits the person, the last garment retained after the others have been cast off, and which delicate tissue continues to hamper Napoleon; he throws it off instinctively, because it interferes with his natural behavior, with the uncurbed, dominating, savage ways of the vanquisher who knocks down his adversary and treats him as he pleases.
His tone and bearing towards Sovereigns.—His Policy.—Hismeans and ends.—After Sovereigns he sets populationsagainst him.—Final opinion of Europe.
Such behavior render social intercourse impossible, especially among the independent and armed personages known as nations or States. This is why they are outlawed in politics and in diplomacy and every head of a State or representative of a country, carefully and on principle, abstains from them, at least with those on his own level. He is bound to treat these as his equals, humor them, and, accordingly, not to give way to the irritation of the moment or to personal feeling; in short, to exercise self-control and measure his words. To this is due the tone of manifestos, protocols, dispatches, and other public documents the formal language of legations, so cold, dry, and elaborated, those expressions purposely attenuated and smoothed down, those long phrases apparently spun out mechanically and always after the same pattern, a sort of soft wadding or international buffer interposed between contestants to lessen the shocks of collision. The reciprocal irritations between States are already too great; there are ever too many unavoidable and regrettable encounters, too many causes of conflict, the consequences of which are too serious; it is unnecessary to add to the wounds of interest the wounds of imagination and of pride; and above all, it is unnecessary to amplify these without reason, at the risk of increasing the obstacles of to-day and the resentments of to-morrow.—With Napoleon it is just the opposite: his attitude, even at peaceful interviews, remains aggressive and militant; purposely or in-voluntarily, he raises his hand and the blow is felt to be coming, while, in the meantime, he insults. In his correspondence with sovereigns, in his official proclamations, in his deliberations with ambassadors, and even at public audiences,1295he provokes, threatens, and defies.1296He treats his adversary with a lofty air, insults him often to his face, and charges him with the most disgraceful imputations.1297He divulges the secrets of his private life, of his closet, and of his bed; he defames or calumniates his ministers, his court, and his wife;1298he purposely stabs him in the most sensitive part. He tells one that he is a dupe, a betrayed husband; another that he is an abettor of assassination; he assumes the air of a judge condemning a criminal, or the tone of a superior reprimanding an inferior, or, at best, that of a teacher taking a scholar to task. With a smile of pity, he points out mistakes, weak points, and incapacity, and shows him beforehand that he must be defeated. On receiving the envoy of the Emperor Alexander at Wilna,1299be says to him:
"Russia does not want this war; none of the European powers are in favor of it; England herself does not want it, for she foresees the harm it will do to Russia, and even, perhaps, the greatest... I know as well as yourself, and perhaps even better, how many troops you have. Your infantry in all amounts to 120,000 men and your cavalry to about 60,000 or 70,000; I have three times as many.... The Emperor Alexander is badly advised. How can he tolerate such vile people around him—an Armfeld, an intriguing, depraved, rascally fellow, a ruined debauchee, who is known only by his crimes and who is the enemy of Russia; a Stein, driven from his country like an outcast, a miscreant with a price on his head; a Bennigsen, who, it is said, has some military talent, of which I know nothing, but whose hands are steeped in blood?12100.... Let him surround himself with the Russians and I will say nothing.... Have you no Russian gentlemen among you who are certainly more attached to him than these mercenaries? Does he imagine that they are fond of him personally? Let him put Armfeld in command in Finland and I have nothing to say; but to have him about his person, for shame!.... What a superb perspective opened out to the Emperor Alexander at Tilsit, and especially at Erfurt!.... He has spoilt the finest reign Russia ever saw.... How can he admit to his society such men as a Stein, an Armfeld, a Vinzingerode? Say to the Emperor Alexander, that as he gathers around him my personal enemies it means a desire to insult me personally, and, consequently, that I must do the same to him. I will drive all his Baden, Wurtemburg, and Weimar relations out of Germany. Let him provide a refuge for them in Russia!"
Note what he means by—personal insult12101, how he intends to avenge himself by reprisals of the worst kind, to what excess he carries his interference, how he enters the cabinets of foreign sovereigns, forcibly entering and breaking, to drive out their councilors and control their meetings: like the Roman senate with an Antiochus or a Prusias, like an English Resident with the King of Oude or of Lahore. With others as at home, he cannot help but act as a master. The aspiration for universal dominion is in his very nature; it may be modified, kept in check, but never can it be completely stifled."12102
It declares itself on the organization of the Consulate. It explains why the peace of Amiens could not last; apart from the diplomatic discussions and behind his alleged grievances, his character, his exactions, his avowed plans, and the use he intends making of his forces form the real and true causes of the rupture. In comprehensible sometimes even in explicit terms, he tells the English: Expel the Bourbons from your island and close the mouths of your journalists. If this is against your constitution so much the worse for it, or so much the worse for you. "There are general principles of international law to which the (special) laws of states must give way."12103Change your fundamental laws. Suppress the freedom of the press and the right of asylum on your soil, the same as I have done. "I have a very poor opinion of a government which is not strong enough to interdict things objectionable to foreign governments."12104As to mine, my interference with my neighbors, my late acquisitions of territory, that does not concern you: "I suppose that you want to talk about Piedmont and Switzerland? These are trifles"12105"Europe recognizes that Holland, Italy, and Switzerland are at the disposition of France.12106On the other hand, Spain submits to me and through her I hold Portugal. Thus, from Amsterdam to Bordeaux, from Lisbon to Cadiz and Genoa, from Leghorn to Naples and to Tarentum, I can close every port to you; no treaty of commerce between us. Any treaty that I might grant to you would be trifling: for each million of merchandise that you would send into France a million of French merchandise would be exported;12107in other words, you would be subject to an open or concealed continental blockade, which would cause you as much distress in peace as if you were at war." My eyes are nevertheless fixed on Egypt; "six thousand Frenchmen would now suffice to re-conquer it";12108forcibly, or otherwise, I shall return there; opportunities will not be lacking, and I shall be on the watch for them; "sooner or later she will belong to France, either through the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, or through some arrangement with the Porte."12109Evacuate Malta so that the Mediterranean may become a French lake; I must rule on sea as on land, and dispose of the Orient as of the Occident. In sum, "with my France, England must naturally end in becoming simply an appendix: nature has made her one of our islands, the same as Oleron or Corsica."12110Naturally, with such a perspective before them, the English keep Malta and recommence the war. He has anticipated such an occurrence, and his resolution is taken; at a glance, he perceives and measures the path this will open to him; with his usual clear-sightedness he has comprehended, and he announces that the English resistance "forces him to conquer Europe...."12111—"The First Consul is only thirty-three and has thus far destroyed only the second-class governments. Who knows how much time he will require to again change the face of Europe and resurrect the Western Roman Empire?"
To subjugate the Continent in order to form a coalition against England, such, henceforth, are his means, which are as violent as the end in view, while the means, like the end, are given by his character. Too imperious and too impatient to wait or to manage others, he is incapable of yielding to their will except through constraint, and his collaborators are to him nothing more than subjects under the name of allies.—Later, at St. Helena, with his indestructible imaginative energy and power of illusion, he plays on the public with his humanitarian illusions.12112But, as he himself avows, the accomplishment of his retrospective dream required beforehand the entire submission of all Europe; a liberal sovereign and pacificator, "a crowned Washington, yes," he used to say, "but I could not reasonably attain this point, except through a universal dictatorship, which I aimed at."12113In vain does common sense demonstrate to him that such an enterprise inevitably rallies the Continent to the side of England, and that his means divert him from the end. In vain is it repeatedly represented to him that he needs one sure great ally on the Continent;12114that to obtain this he must conciliate Austria; that he must not drive her to despair, but rather win her over and compensate her on the side of the Orient; place her in permanent conflict with Russia, and attach her to the new French Empire by a community of vital interests. In vain does he, after Tilsit, make a bargain of this kind with Russia. This bargain cannot hold, because in this arrangement Napoleon, as usual with him, always encroaching, threatening, and attacking, wants to reduce Alexander to the role of a subordinate and a dupe.12115No clear-sighted witness can doubt this. In 1809, a diplomat writes: "The French system, which is now triumphant, is directed against the whole body of great states,"12116not alone against England, Prussia, and Austria, but against Russia, against every power capable of maintaining its independence; for, if she remains independent, she may become hostile, and as a precautionary step Napoleon crushes in her a probable enemy.
All the more so because this course once entered upon he cannot stop; at the same time his character and the situation in which he has placed himself impels him on while his past hurries him along to his future.12117At the moment of the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he is already so strong and so aggressive that his neighbors are obliged, for their own security, to form an alliance with England; this leads him to break down all the old monarchies that are still intact, to conquer Naples, to mutilate Austria the first time, to dismember and cut up Prussia, to mutilate Austria the second time, to manufacture kingdoms for his brothers at Naples, in Holland and in Westphalia.—At this same date, all the ports of his empire are closed against the English, which leads him to close against them all the ports of the Continent, to organize against them the continental blockade, to proclaim against them an European crusade, to prevent the neutrality of sovereigns like the Pope, of lukewarm subalterns like his brother Louis, of doubtful collaborators or inadequate, like the Braganzas of Portugal and the Bourbons of Spain, and therefore to get hold of Portugal, Spain, the Pontifical States, and Holland, and next of the Hanseatic towns and the duchy of Oldenburg, to extending along the entire coast, from the mouths of the Cattaro and Trieste to Hamburg and Dantzic, his cordon of military chiefs, prefects, and custom-houses, a sort of net of which he draws the meshes tighter and tighter every day, even stifling not alone his home consumer, but the producer and the merchant.12118—And all this sometimes by a simple decree, with no other alleged motive than his interest, his convenience, or his pleasure,12119brusquely and arbitrarily, in violation of international law, humanity, and hospitality. It would take volumes to describe his abuses of power, the tissue of brutalities and knaveries,12120the oppression of the ally and despoiling of the vanquished, the military brigandage exercised over populations in time of war, and by the systematic exactions practiced on them in times of peace.12121
Accordingly, after 1808, these populations rise against him. He has so deeply injured them in their interests, and hurt their feelings to such an extent,12122he has so trodden them down, ransomed, and forced them into his service. He has destroyed, apart from French lives, so many Spanish, Italian, Austrian, Prussian, Swiss, Bavarian, Saxon, and Dutch lives, he has slain so many men as enemies, he has enlisted such numbers at home, and slain so many under his own banners as auxiliaries, that nations are still more hostile to him than sovereigns. Unquestionably, nobody can live together with such a character; his genius is too vast, too baneful, and all the more because it is so vast. War will last as long as he reigns; it is in vain to reduce him, to confine him at home, to drive him back within the ancient frontiers of France; no barrier will restrain him; no treaty will bind him; peace with him will never be other than a truce; he will use it simply to recover himself, and, as soon as he has done this, he will begin again;12123he is in his very essence anti-social. The mind of Europe in this respect is made up definitely and unshakably. One petty detail alone shows how unanimous and profound this conviction was. On the 7th of March the news reached Vienna that he had escaped from the island of Elba, without its being yet known where he would land. M. de Metternich12124brings the news to the Emperor of Austria before eight o'clock in the morning, who says to him, "Lose no time in finding the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia, and tell them that I am ready to order my army to march at once for France." At a quarter past eight M. de Metternich is with the Czar, and at half-past eight, with the King of Prussia; both of them reply instantly in the same manner. "At nine o'clock," says M. de Metternich, "I was back. At ten o'clock aids flew in every direction countermanding army orders.... Thus was war declared in less than an hour."
Inward principle of his outward deportment.—He subordinatesthe State to him instead of subordinating himself to theState.—Effect of this.—His work merely a life-interest.—It is ephemeral.—Injurious.—The number of lives it cost.—The mutilation of France.—Vice of construction in hisEuropean edifice.—Analogous vice in his French edifice.
Other heads of states have similarly passed their lives in doing violence to mankind; but it was for something that was likely to last, and for a national interest. What they deemed the public good was not a phantom of the brain, a chimerical poem due to a caprice of the imagination, to personal passions, to their own peculiar ambition and pride. Outside of themselves and the coinage of their brain a real and substantial object of prime importance existed, namely, the State, the great body of society, the vast organism which lasts indefinitely through the long series of interlinked and responsible generations. If they drew blood from the passing generation it was for the benefit of coming generations, to preserve them from civil war or from foreign domination.12125They have acted generally like able surgeons, if not through virtue, at least through dynastic sentiment and family traditions; having practiced from father to son, they had acquired the professional conscience; their first and only aim was the safety and health of their patient. It is for this reason that they have not recklessly undertaken extravagant, bloody, and over-risky operations; rarely have they given way to temptation through a desire to display their skill, through the need of dazzling and astonishing the world, through the novelty, keenness, and success of their saws and scalpels. They felt that a longer and superior existence to their own was imposed upon them; they looked beyond them-selves as far as their sight would reach, and so took measures that the State after them might do without them, live on intact, remain independent, vigorous, and respected athwart the vicissitudes of European conflict and the uncertain problems of coming history. Such, under the ancient régime, was what were called reasons of state; these had prevailed in the councils of princes for eight hundred years; along with unavoidable failures and after temporary deviations, these had become for the time being and remained the preponderating motive. Undoubtedly they excused or authorized many breaches of faith, many outrages, and, to come to the word, many crimes; but, in the political order of things, especially in the management of external affairs, they furnished a governing and a salutary principle. Under its constant influence thirty monarchs had labored, and it is thus that, province after province, they had solidly and enduringly built up France, by ways and means beyond the reach of individuals but available to the heads of States.
Now, this principle is lacking with their improvised successor. On the throne as in the camp, whether general, consul, or emperor, he remains the military adventurer, and cares only for his own advancement. Owing to the great defect in the education of both conscience and sentiments, instead of subordinating himself to the State, he subordinates the State to him; he does not look beyond his own brief physical existence to the nation which is to survive him. Consequently, he sacrifices the future to the present, and his work is not to be enduring. After him the deluge! Little does he care who utters this terrible phrase; and worse still, he earnestly wishes, from the bottom of his heart that everybody should utter it.
"My brother," said Joseph, in 1803,12126"desires that the necessity of his existence should be so strongly felt, and the benefit of this considered so great, that nobody could look beyond it without shuddering. He knows, and he feels it, that he reigns through this idea rather than through force or gratitude. If to-morrow, or on any day, it could be said, 'Here is a tranquil, established order of things, here is a known successor; Bonaparte might die without fear of change or disturbance,' my brother would no longer think himself secure.... Such is the principle which governs him."
In vain do years glide by, never does he think of putting France in a way to subsist without him; on the contrary, he jeopardizes lasting acquisitions by exaggerated annexations, and it is evident from the very first day that the Empire will end with the Emperor. In 1805, the five per cents being at eighty francs, his Minister of the Finances, Gaudin, observes to him that this is a reasonable rate.12127"No complaint can now be made, since these funds are an annuity on Your Majesty's life."—"What do you mean by that?"—"I mean that the Empire has become so great as to be ungovernable without you."—"If my successor is a fool so much the worse for him!"—"Yes, but so much the worse for France!" Two years later, M. de Metternich, by way of a political summing up, expresses his general opinion: "It is remarkable that Napoleon, constantly disturbing and modifying the relations of all Europe, has not yet taken a single step toward ensuring the maintenance of his successors."12128In 1809, adds the same diplomat:12129"His death will be the signal for a new and frightful upheaval; so many divided elements all tend to combine. Deposed sovereigns will be recalled by former subjects; new princes will have new crowns to defend. A veritable civil war will rage for half a century over the vast empire of the continent the day when the arms of iron which held the reins are turned into dust." In 1811, "everybody is convinced12130that on the disappearance of Napoleon, the master in whose hands all power is concentrated, the first inevitable consequence will be a revolution." At home, in France, at this same date, his own servitors begin to comprehend that his empire is not merely a life-interest and will not last after he is gone, but that the Empire is ephemeral and will not last during his life; for he is constantly raising his edifice higher and higher, while all that his building gains in elevation it loses in stability. "The Emperor is crazy," said Decrees to Marmont,12131"completely crazy. He will ruin us all, numerous as we are, and all will end in some frightful catastrophe." In effect, he is pushing France on to the abyss, forcibly and by deceiving her, through a breach of trust which willfully, and by his fault, grows worse and worse just as his own interests, as he comprehends these, diverge from those of the public from year to year.
At the treaty of Luneville and before the rupture of the peace of Amiens,12132this variance was already considerable. It becomes manifest at the treaty of Presbourg and still more evident at the treaty of Tilsit. It is glaring in 1808, after the deposition of the Spanish Bourbons; it becomes scandalous and monstrous in 1812, when the war with Russia took place. Napoleon himself admits that this war is against the interests of France and yet he undertakes it.12133Later, at St. Helena, he falls into a melting mood over "the French people whom he loved so dearly."12134The truth is, he loves it as a rider loves his horse; as he makes it rear and prance and show off its paces, when he flatters and caresses it; it is not for the advantage of the animal but for his own purposes, on account of its usefulness to him; to be spurred on until exhausted, to jump ditches growing wider and wider, and leap fences growing higher and higher; one ditch more, and still another fence, the last obstacle which seems to be the last, succeeded by others, while, in any event, the horse remains forcibly and for ever, what it already is, namely, a beast of burden and broken down.—For, on this Russian expedition, instead of frightful disasters, let us imagine a brilliant success, a victory at Smolensk equal to that of Friedland, a treaty of Moscow more advantageous than that of Tilsit, and the Czar brought to heel. As a result the Czar is probably strangled or dethroned, a patriotic insurrection will take place in Russia as in Spain, two lasting wars, at the two extremities of the Continent, against religious fanaticism, more irreconcilable than positive interests, and against a scattered barbarism more indomitable than a concentrated civilization. At best, a European empire secretly mined by European resistance; an exterior France forcibly superposed on the enslaved Continent;12135French residents and commanders at St. Petersburg and Riga as at Dantzic, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Barcelona, and Trieste. Every able-bodied Frenchman that can be employed from Cadiz to Moscow in maintaining and administering the conquest. All the able-bodied youth annually seized by the conscription, and, if they have escaped this, seized again by decrees.12136The entire male population thus devoted to works of constraint, nothing else in prospect for either the cultivated or the uncultivated, no military or civil career other than a prolonged guard duty, threatened and threatening, as soldier, customs-inspector, or gendarme, as prefect, sub-prefect, or commissioner of police, that is to say, as subaltern henchman and bully restraining subjects and raising contributions, confiscating and burning merchandise, seizing grumblers, and making the refractory toe the mark.12137In 1810, one hundred and sixty thousand of the refractory were already condemned by name, and, moreover, penalties were imposed on their families to the amount of one hundred and seventy millions of francs In 1811 and 1812 the roving columns which tracked fugitives gathered sixty thousand of them, and drove them along the coast from the Adour to the Niemen; on reaching the frontier, they were en-rolled in the grand army; but they desert the very first month, they and their chained companions, at the rate of four or five thousand a day.12138Should England be conquered, garrisons would have to be maintained there, and of soldiers equally zealous. Such is the dark future which this system opens to the French, even with the best of good luck. It turns out that the luck is bad, and at the end of 1812 the grand army is freezing in the snow; Napoleon's horse has let him tumble. Fortunately, the animal has simply foundered; "His Majesty's health was never better";12139nothing has happened to the rider; he gets up on his legs, and what concerns him at this moment is not the sufferings of his broken-down steed, but his own mishap; his reputation as a horseman is compromised; the effect on the public, the hooting of the audience, is what troubles him, the comedy of a perilous leap, announced with such a flourish of trumpets and ending in such a disgraceful fall. On reaching Warsaw12140he says to himself, ten times over:
"There is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous."
The following year, at Dresden, he exposes still more foolishly, openly, and nakedly his master passion, the motives which determine him, the immensity and ferocity of his pitiless pride.
"What do they want of me?" said he to M. de Metternich.12141"Do they want me to dishonor myself? Never! I can die, but never will I yield an inch of territory! Your sovereigns, born to the throne, may be beaten twenty times over and yet return to their capitals: I cannot do this, because I am a parvenu soldier. My domination will not survive the day when I shall have ceased to be strong, and, consequently, feared."
In effect, his despotism in France is founded on his European omnipotence; if he does not remain master of the Continent," he must settle with the corps législatif.12142Rather than descend to an inferior position, rather than be a constitutional monarch, controlled by parliamentary chambers, he plays double or quits, and will risk losing everything.
"I have seen your soldiers," says Metternich to him, "they are children. When this army of boys is gone, what will you do then?"
At these words, which touch his heart, he grows pale, his features contract, and his rage overcomes him; like a wounded man who has made a false step and exposes himself, he says violently to Metternich:
"You are not a soldier You do not know the impulses of a soldier's breast! I have grown up on the battle-field, and a man like me does not give a damn for the lives of a million men!"12143
His imperial pipe-dreams has devoured many more. Between 1804 and 1815 he has had slaughtered 1,700,000 Frenchmen, born within the boundaries of ancient France,12144to which must be added, probably, 2,000,000 men born outside of these limits, and slain for him, under the title of allies, or slain by him under the title of enemies. All that the poor, enthusiastic, and credulous Gauls have gained by entrusting their public welfare to him is two invasions; all that he bequeaths to them as a reward for their devotion, after this prodigious waste of their blood and the blood of others, is a France shorn of fifteen departments acquired by the republic, deprived of Savoy, of the left bank of the Rhine and of Belgium, despoiled of the northeast angle by which it completed its boundaries, fortified its most vulnerable point, and, using the words of Vauban, "made its field square," separated from 4,000,000 new Frenchmen which it had assimilated after twenty years of life in common, and, worse still, thrown back within the frontiers of 1789, alone, diminished in the midst of its aggrandized neighbors, suspected by all Europe, and lastingly surrounded by a threatening circle of distrust and rancor.
Such is the political work of Napoleon, the work of egoism served by genius. In his European structure as in his French structure this sovereign egoism has introduced a vice of construction. This fundamental vice is manifest at the outset in the European edifice, and, at the expiration of fifteen years, it brings about a sudden downfall: in the French edifice it is equally serious but not so apparent; only at the end of half a century, or even a whole century, is it to be made clearly visible; but its gradual and slow effects will be equally pernicious and they are no less sure.
1201 (return)[ See my "Philosophy of Art" for texts and facts, Part II., ch. VI.—Other analogies, which are too long for development here, may be found, especially in all that concerns the imagination and love. "He was disposed to accept the marvelous, presentiments, and even certain mysterious communications between beings.... I have seen him excited by the rustling of the wind, speak enthusiastically of the roar of the sea, and sometimes inclined to believe in nocturnal apparitions; in short, leaning to certain superstitions." (Madame de Rémusat, I., 102, and III., 164.)—Meneval (III., 114) notes his "crossing himself involuntarily on the occurrence of some great danger, on the discovery of some important fact." During the consulate, in the evening, in a circle of ladies, he sometimes improvised and declaimed tragic "tales," Italian fashion, quite worthy of the story-tellers of the XVth and XVIth centuries. (Bourrienne, VI., 387, gives one of his improvisations. Cf. Madame de Rémusat, I., 102.)—As to love, his letters to Josephine during the Italian campaign form one of the best examples of Italian passion and "in most piquant contrast with the temperate and graceful elegance of his predecessor M. de Beauharnais." (Madame de Rémusat, I., 143).—His other amours, simply physical, are too difficult to deal with; I have gathered some details orally on this subject which are almost from first hands and perfectly authentic. It is sufficient to cite one text already published: "According to Josephine, he had no moral principle whatever; did he not seduce his sisters one after the other? "—"I am not a man like other men, he said of himself, "and moral laws and those of propriety do not apply to me." (Madame de Rémusat, I., 204, 206.)—Note again (II., 350) his proposals to Corvisart.—Such are everywhere the sentiments, customs, and morality of the great Italian personages of about the year 1500.]
1202 (return)[ De Pradt, "Histoire de l'ambassade dans le grand-duché de Varsovie," p.96. "with the Emperor, desire springs out of his imagination; his idea becomes passion the moment it comes into his head."]
1203 (return)[ Bourrienne, II., 298.—De Ségur, I., 426.]
1204 (return)[ Bodin, "Recherches sur l'Anjou," II., 325.—"Souvenirs d'un nonagénaire," by Besnard.—Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," article on Volney.—Miot de Melito, I., 297. He wanted to adopt Louis's son, and make him King of Italy. Louis refused, alleging that this marked favor would give new life to the reports spread about at one time in relation to this child." Thereupon, Napoleon, exasperated, "seized Prince Louis by the waist and pushed him violently out of the room."—" Mémorial," Oct.10, 1816. Napoleon relates that at the last conference of Campo-Fermio, to put an end to the resistance of the Austrian plenipotentiary, he suddenly arose, seized a set of porcelain on a stand near him and dashed it to the floor, exclaiming, "Thus will I shatter your monarchy before a month is over!" (Bourrienne questions this story.)]
1205 (return)[ Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewahlte Schriften," III., 77 (Public reception of July 22, 1810). Napoleon first speaks to the Austrian Ambassador and next to the Russian Ambassador with a constrained air, forcing himself to be polite, in which he cannot persist. "Treating with I do not know what unknown personage, he interrogated him, reprimanded him, threatened him, and kept him for a sufficiently long time in a state of painful dismay. Those who stood near by and who could not help feeling a dismayed, stated later that there had been nothing to provoke such fury, that the Emperor had only sought an opportunity to vent his ill-humor; that he did it purposely on some poor devil so as to inspire fear in others and to put down in advance any tendency to opposition. Cf. Beugnot, "Mémoires," I., 380, 386, 387.—This mixture of anger and calculation likewise explains his conduct at Sainte Helena with Sir Hudson Lowe, his unbridled diatribes and insults bestowed on the governor like so many slaps in the face. (W. Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint Helena, from the letters and journals of Sir Hudson Lowe," III., 306.)]
1206 (return)[ Madame de Rémusat, II., 46.]
1207 (return)[ "Les Cahiers de Coignat." 191. "At Posen, already, I saw him mount his horse in such a fury as to land on the other side and then give his groom a cut of the whip."]
1208 (return)[ Madame de Rémusat, I., 222.]
1209 (return)[ Especially the letters addressed to Cardinal Consalvi and to the Préfet of Montenotte (I am indebted to M. d'Haussonville for this information).—Besides, he is lavish of the same expressions in conversation. On a tour through Normandy, he sends for the bishop of Séez and thus publicly addresses him: "Instead of merging the parties, you distinguish between constitutionalists and non-constitutionalists. Miserable fool! You are a poor subject,—hand in your resignation at once!"—To the grand-vicars he says, "Which of you governs your bishop—who is at best a fool?"—As M. Legallois is pointed out to him, who had of late been absent. "Fuck, where were you then?" "With my family." "With a bishop who is merely a damned fool, why are you so often away, etc.?" (D'Haussonville,VI., 176, and Roederer, vol. III.)]
1210 (return)[ Madame de Rémusat—I., 101; II., 338.]
1211 (return)[ Ibid., I., 224.—M. de Meneval, I., 112, 347; III., 120: "On account of the extraordinary event of his marriage, he sent a handwritten letter to his future father-in-law (the Emperor of Austria). It was a grand affair for him. Finally, after a great effort, he succeeded in penning a letter that was readable."—Meneval, nevertheless, was obliged "to correct the defective letters without letting the corrections be too plainly seen."]
1212 (return)[ For example, at Bayonne and at Warsaw (De Pradt); the outrageous and never-to-be forgotten scene which, on his return from Spain, occurred with Talleyrand—("Souvenirs", by PASQUIER Etienne-Dennis, duc, Chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 357);—The gratuitous insult of M. de Metternich, in 1813, the last word of their interview ("Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 230).—Cf. his not less gratuitous and hazardous confidential communications to Miot de Melito, in 1797, and his five conversations with Sir Hudson Lowe, immediately recorded by a witness, Major Gorrequer. (W. Forsyth, I.,147, 161, 200.)]
1213 (return)[ De Pradt, preface X]
1214 (return)[ Pelet de la Lozére, p. 7.—Mollien, "Mémoires," II., 222.—"Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 66, 69.]
1215 (return)[ "Madame de Rémusat," I., 121: I have it from Corvisart that the pulsations of his arteries are fewer than is usual with men. He never experienced what is commonly called giddiness." With him, the nervous apparatus is perfect in all its functions, incomparable for receiving, recording, registering, combining, and reflecting, but other organs suffer a reaction and are very sensitive." (De Ségur, VI., 15 and 16, note of Drs. Yvan and Mestivier, his physicians.) "To preserve the equilibrium it was necessary with him that the skin should always fulfill its functions; as soon as the tissues were affected by any moral or atmospheric cause.... irritation, cough, ischuria." Hence his need of frequent prolonged and very hot baths. "The spasm was generally shared by the stomach and the bladder. If in the stomach, he had a nervous cough which exhausted his moral and physical energies." Such was the case between the eve of the battle of Moscow and the morning after his entry into Moscow: "a constant dry cough, difficult and intermittent breathing; the pulse sluggish, weak, and irregular; the urine thick and sedimentary, drop by drop and painful; the lower part of the legs and the feet extremely oedematous." Already, in 1806, at Warsaw, "after violent convulsions in the stomach," he declared to the Count de Loban, "that he bore within him the germs of a premature death, and that he would die of the same disease as his father's." (De Ségur, VI., 82.) After the victory of Dresden, having eaten a ragout containing garlic, he is seized with such violent gripings as to make him think he was poisoned, and he makes a retrograde movement, which causes the loss of Vandamme's division, and, consequently, the ruin of 1813. "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Etienne-Dennis, duc, chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893, (narrative of Daru, an eye-witness.)—This susceptibility of the nerves and stomach is hereditary with him and shows itself in early youth. "One day, at Brienne, obliged to drop on his knees, as a punishment, on the sill of the refectory, he is seized with sudden vomiting and a violent nervous attack." De Segur, I., 71.—It is well known that he died of a cancer in the stomach, like his father Charles Bonaparte. His grandfather Joseph Bonaparte, his uncle Fesch, his brother Lucien, and his sister Caroline died of the same, or of an analogous disease.]
1216 (return)[ Meneval, I., 269. Constant, "Mémoires," V., 62. De Ségur, VI., 114, 117.]
1217 (return)[ Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I., 306. Bourrienne, II., 119: "When off the political field he was sensitive, kind, open to pity."]
1218 (return)[ Pelet de la Lozére, p.7. De Champagny, "Souvenirs," p.103. At first, the emotion was much stronger. "He had the fatal news for nearly three hours; he had given vent to his despair alone by himself. He summoned me.... plaintive cries involuntarily escaped him."]
1219 (return)[ Madame de Rémusat, I., 121, 342; II., 50; III., 61, 294, 312.]
1220 (return)[ De Ségur, V., 348.]
1221 (return)[ Yung, II., 329, 331. (Narrated by Lucien, and report to Louis XVIII.)]
1222 (return)[ "Nouvelle relation de l'Itinéraire de Napoléon, de Fontainebleau à l'Ile de l'Elbe," by Count Waldberg-Truchsees, Prussian commissioner (1885), pp.22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 37.—The violent scenes, probably, of the abdication and the attempt at Fontainebleau to poison himself had already disturbed his balance. On reaching Elba, he says to the Austrian commissioner, Koller, "As to you, my dear general, I have let you see my bare rump."—Cf. in "Madame de Rémusat," I., 108, one of his confessions to Talleyrand: he crudely points out in himself the distance between natural instinct and studied courage.—Here and elsewhere, we obtain a glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian buffoon; M. de Pradt called him "Jupiter Scapin." Read his reflections before M. de Pradt, on his return from Russia, in which he appears in the light of a comedian who, having played badly and failed in his part, retires behind the scenes, runs down the piece, and criticize the imperfections of the audience. (De Pradt, p.219.)]
1223 (return)[ The reader may find his comprehension of the author's meaning strengthened by the following translation of a passage from his essay on Jouffroy (Philosophes classiques du XIXth Siécle," 3rd ed.): "What is a man, master of himself? He is one who, dying with thirst, refrains from swallowing a cooling draft, merely moistening his lips: who insulted in public, remains calm in calculating his most appropriate revenge; who in battle, his nerves excited by a charge, plans a difficult maneuver, thinks it out, and writes it down with a lead-pencil while balls are whistling around him, and sends it to his colonels. In other words, it is a man in whom the deliberate and abstract idea of the greatest good is stronger than all other ideas and sensations. The conception of the greatest good once attained, every dislike, every species of indolence, every fear, every seduction, every agitation, are found weak. The tendency which arise from the idea of the greatest good constantly dominates all others and determines all actions." TR.]
1224 (return)[ Bourrienne, I. 21.]
1225 (return)[ Yung, 1., 125.]
1226 (return)[ Madame de Rémusat, I., 267.—Yung, II., 109. On his return to Corsica he takes upon himself the government of the whole family. "Nobody could discuss with him, says his brother Lucien; he took offence at the slightest observation and got in a passion at the slightest resistance. Joseph (the eldest) dared not even reply to his brother."]
1227 (return)[ Mémorial, August 27-31, 1815.]
1228 (return)[ "Madame de Rémusat," I., 105.—Never was there an abler and more persevering sophist, more persuasive, more eloquent, in order to make it appear that he was right. Hence his dictations at St. Helena; his proclamations, messages, and diplomatic correspondence; his ascendancy in talking as great as through his arms, over his subject and over his adversaries; also his posthumous ascendancy over posterity. He is as great a lawyer as he is a captain and administrator. The peculiarity of this disposition is never submitting to truth, but always to speak or write with reference to an audience, to plead a cause. Through this talent one creates phantoms which dupe the audience; on the other hand, as the author himself forms part of the audience, he ends in not along leading others into error but likewise himself, which is the case with Napoleon.]
1229 (return)[ Yung, II., 111. (Report by Volney, Corsican commissioner, 1791.—II., 287.) (Mémorial, giving a true account of the political and military state of Corsica in December, 1790.)—II., 270. (Dispatch of the representative Lacombe Saint-Michel, Sept. 10, 1793.)—Miot de Melito I.,131, and following pages. (He is peace commissioner in Corsica in 1797 and 1801.)]
1230 (return)[ Miot de Melito, II., 2. "The partisans of the First consul's family... regarded me simply as the instrument of their passions, of use only to rid them of their enemies, so as to center all favors on their protégés."]
1231 (return)[ Yung., I., 220. (Manifest of October—31, 1789.)—I., 265. (Loan on the seminary funds obtained by force, June 23, 1790.)—I., 267, 269. (Arrest of M. de la Jaille and other officers; plan for taking the citadel of Ajaccio.)—II., 115. (letter to Paoli, February 17, 1792.) "Laws are like the statues of certain divinities—veiled on certain occasions."—II., 125. (Election of Bonaparte as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of volunteers, April 1, 1792.) The evening before he had Murati, one of the three departmental commissioners, carried off by an armed band from the house of the Peraldi, his adversaries, where he lodged. Murati, seized unawares, is brought back by force and locked up in Bonaparte's house, who gravely says to him "I wanted you to be free, entirely at liberty; you were not so with the Peraldi."—His Corsican biographer (Nasica, "Mémoires sur la jeunesse et l'enfance de Napoléon,") considers this a very praiseworthy action]
1232 (return)[ Cf. on this point, the Memoirs of Marshal Marmont, I., 180, 196; the Memoirs of Stendhal, on Napoleon; the Report of d'Antraigues (Yung, III., 170, 171); the "Mercure Britannique" of Mallet-Dupan, and the first chapter of "La Chartreuse de Parme," by Stendhal.]
1233 (return)[ "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter of Napoleon to the Directory, April 26, 1796.)—Proclamation of the same date: "You have made forced marches barefoot, bivouacked without brandy, and often without bread."]
1234 (return)[ Stendhal, "Vie de Napoléon," p. 151. "The commonest officers were crazy with delight at having white linen and fine new boots. All were fond of music; many walked a league in the rain to secure a seat in the La Scala Theatre.... In the sad plight in which the army found itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the knowing officers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to quit Italy."—"Marmont," I., 296: "We were all of us very young,... all aglow with strength and health, and enthusiastic for glory.... This variety of our occupations and pleasures, this excessive employment of body and mind gave value to existence, and made time pass with extraordinary rapidity."]
1235 (return)[ "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. Proclamation of March 27, 1796: "Soldiers, you are naked and poorly fed. The government is vastly indebted to you; it has nothing to give you.... I am going to lead you to the most fertile plains in the world; rich provinces, large cities will be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and wealth."—Proclamation of April 26, 1796:—"Friends, I guarantee that conquest to you!"—Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses, an opportunity to rob a treasury chest.]
1236 (return)[ Miot de Melito, I., 154. (June, 1797, in the gardens of Montebello.) "Such are substantially the most remarkable expressions in this long discourse which I have recorded and preserved."]
1237 (return)[ Miot de Melito, I. 184. (Conversation with Bonaparte, November 18, 1797, at Turin.) "I remained an hour with the general tête-à-tête. I shall relate the conversation exactly as it occurred, according to my notes, made at the time."]
1238 (return)[ Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," III., 156. "It is certain that he thought of it from this moment and seriously studied the obstacles, means, and chances of success." (Mathieu Dumas cites the testimony of Desaix, who was engaged in the enterprise): "It seems that all was ready, when Bonaparte judged that things were not yet ripe, nor the means sufficient."—Hence his departure. "He wanted to get out of the way of the rule and caprices of these contemptible dictators, while the latter wanted to get rid of him because his military fame and influence in the army were obnoxious to them."]
1239 (return)[ Larevellière-Lepaux (one of the five directors on duty), "Mémoires," II., 340. "All that is truly grand in this enterprise, as well as all that is bold and extravagant, either in its conception or execution, belongs wholly to Bonaparte. The idea of it never occurred to the Directory nor to any of its members.... His ambition and his pride could not endure the alternative of no longer being prominent or of accepting a post which, however eminent, would have always subjected him to the orders of the Directory."]
1240 (return)[ Madame de Rémusat, I., 142. "Josephine laid great stress on the Egyptian expedition as the cause of his change of temper and of the daily despotism which made her suffer so much."—"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon," 325 by the count Chaptal. (Bonaparte's own words to the poet Lemercier who might have accompanied him to the Middle East and there would have learned many things about human nature): "You would have seen a country where the sovereign takes no account of the lives of his subjects, and where the subject himself takes no account of his own life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic 'notions."]