Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  Moodiness

  titles, too, should be hereditary. Thus in a generation, several thousand, and in three generations, as many as twenty thousand, would bear these new titles, not for services rendered, not for deeds splendidly performed, but with the semblance of superiority, and, if not with the political privileges attaching of old to birth and title, still with the social privileges which in former days had aroused revolt in the masses.

  The treason and ingratitude which he is here laying up in store will in due time open his eyes to his mistake. In truth, the death sentence he passes on equality will prove to have been a more grievous blunder than the execution of the duke of Enghien. Then he was destroying a scion of the past; now he is creating forebears who will resuscitate that past.

  The resolve issues from a moody mind ; for this is a dark year in Napoleon's soul, although nothing seems to be going awry. '' You do not understand the nature of human motives," he said at this period to an honest democrat. " You democrats are unable to draw distinctions between one another, whereas personal interest plays its part in what every one does. Look at Masse'na. He has won an abundance of fame ; but what he wants now is to become a prince, like Murat and Bernadotte. Soon he will get himself killed in the forefront of the battle, thanks to his eagerness to win this distinction. Ambition is what spurs the French ! "

  He grows colder in his manner, forbids his brothers to speak to him uninvited, is less regular in the arrangement of his work, needlessly extends sittings far into the night. Even at Fon-tainebleau, in the interludes between hunting and festivities, he will have nothing but tragedies staged; rises from his bed at midnight, and dictates to his secretaries till morning; can only soothe the increasing irritability of his nerves by spending hours in a hot bath. The cramps in his stomach trouble him more frequently and grow more severe.

  He has periods of gloom like those from which he suffered in youth, speaks of the roaring of the sea and the moaning of the

  The Tragedy of Fulfilment

  wind, has the candles shaded when he is listening to the mournful songs of Italian singers. None of his associates understand these moods ; they can only wonder, and they guess at political motives. They do not realise that now, when the dream of his fancy is being fulfilled, he cannot but be disillusioned by the fulfilment, which comes otherwise than he had dreamed, and far too slowly. " You are just like all the rest of them," he says roughly to one of his ministers who congratulates him on the treaty of Tilsit. " I shall not be master until I have signed the peace of Constantinople ! "

  Worldwide power! Asia! These are the thoughts that continue to pulse in his brain. If he, who is always studying the tragical figures of the heroes of antiquity in search of his own image, could find the true reflexion of his own soul, it would be in the verses at this time being written by a German poet to describe the inner aspect of the Faustian unrest which he, the Emperor, with ever more violent blows, is now producing in the countries of Europe.

  But these dark hours are followed by others in which his mind recovers the wonted clarity of its calculations. Thus, to the tsar, the other ruler of vast territories, he writes this imaginative programme :

  " An army of fifty thousand Frenchmen and Russians, with perhaps a few Austrians, could march to Constantinople, and thence hurl itself upon Asia. Once it had reached the Euphrates, England would lie at the feet of the Continent. . . . Within a month of our coming to an understanding, our armies can be at the Bosphorus : the influence will make itself felt as far as India. ... Of course the arrangements could only be concluded in a personal interview with Your Majesty. Everything can be signed and sealed before the middle of March. By May 1st, our troops will be in Asia, yours in Stockholm. England will collapse beneath the weight of the events with which the atmosphere will be charged. It is true that Your Majesty and I have proposed to enjoy peace within our far-flung empires.

  Fantastic Schemes

  . . . But it is always wise and politic to do what destiny commands. . . . That will make this crowd of pygmies bow their heads, the pygmies who cannot see that the prototype of the present age must be sought in the remote periods of history, and not in the newspaper articles of the century that has just closed. ... In these few lines I am pouring out all my soul before Your Majesty."

  All his soul ? Part of it, since the jewels are cut for the delectation of a muddle-headed idealist whose own dreams will be reflected with rainbow tints from their sparkling facets. But the undertaking has its elements of well-considered realism. At about this time he has an interview with a general who has been in India. This expert declares the scheme practicable, and the Emperor's hesitations superfluous. Thereupon, the latter repeatedly strokes his visitor's face with both hands, and " bubbles over with an almost childlike joy."

  Thus imaginative was Napoleon.

  The present leads him once more to the shade of Charlemagne. The previous year he had thought of visiting Rome to have himself crowned Emperor of the West, The pope was to lose all temporal authority, and to content himself with a few millions as revenue ; but the cardinals had vetoed the scheme. Thereupon he had rancorously exclaimed : " The whole of Italy will be subject to my laws. I will not disturb the independence of the Holy See, if Your Holiness will pay me the like consideration in temporal matters. No doubt Your Holiness is sovereign in Rome, but I am Emperor of Rome ! " This threatening demeanour, this Carlovingian defiance, is in sharp conflict with the constitutional law on which his power is assumedly based. In Rome, as in India, he aims at the forcible realisation of things which only the vision of his great forerunners created.

  More and more frequent become the signs which show that Napoleon's historical fantasies are tending to outsoar the limits which, were he still an accurate calculator, he would regard as attainable—and terrible will be the ultimate result.

  He Threatens Rome

  In Rome, for the time being, he is still the stronger; but so much has the habit of command grown upon him, so overweening has his belief in his unconquerable sword become, that he has lost sight of the moral canons which, ten years earlier, he (then a mere military commander with no experience in political matters) had with clear insight defended against the hectoring Directors, and had subsequently, though at considerable risk to his popularity, incorporated in the Concordat. Now he writes to Eugene that one of the cardinals has died leaving a history of the popes. " If it represents an attempt to set forth all the harm the popes have done to the Church and to Christendom, let it be published forthwith."

  Because the pope refused to exclude English ships from his ports, the Emperor occupied Ancona, relying " upon the protection of God, who crowns all my enterprises with his glory— If Your Holiness would like to give my envoy his papers, you are at liberty to do so. I should even prefer that you should receive the English, or the caliph of Constantinople.—In conclusion I pray to God that he may keep you for many years more at the head of our Holy Mother the Church. Your pious son, the Emperor of the French and the king of Italy, Napoleon."

  The year before, simultaneously with these burlesque menaces, he had sent warnings through Uncle Fesch that his own role resembled that of Constantine, and had touched upon the old struggle of the Middle Ages about investiture : " For the pope, I am Charlemagne, seeing that I have joined the crowns of France and Lombardy, and that my dominions border on the East. . . . On condition of good behaviour, I shall make no change in the outward semblance of things, but if the pope thwarts me I shall degrade him to the status of a Roman bishop, ... and shall introduce the Concordat into Italy ; for whatever can make people happy in France, can make them happy in Italy as well; and what does not contribute to the happiness of life in one land, cannot do so in the other."

  Lutheran Terminology

  This is truly Lutheran terminology ! The man who lets his imagination riot when his temporal affairs are merged in historical mysticism, becomes circumstantially clear when religious mysticism is a cloak for worldly concerns. Napoleon's reasoning
inclined him towards Protestantism throughout life, and it was only on grounds of policy that he resisted the inclination to impose Lutheranism on France. Having determined to make short work of it with the Head Shepherd (since the pope hesitated to give England the go-by), he proposes to sweep away the hindrance that severs the North Italian and the South Italian kingdoms, that he may at length have all Italy for his own—the Italy of which he wrongfully calls himself king.

  Now he writes to Eugene, the viceroy, in the style of his military decrees : " The present pope has too much power. Priests are not made to rule. Why will he not render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's, and refrain from troubling my States ? Perhaps the time is not far distant when I ... shall summon the Churches of France, Germany, Italy, and Poland to a council, and settle matters without the pope." He wants to secure a majority among the cardinals by the appointment of French cardinals, but the pope will not allow their number to be increased, and proposes to make up for this refusal by agreeing to crown Napoleon Emperor of the West. Now, however, what he had vainly asked for a year earlier has ceased to charm his imagination. Since it has become possible, he regards it as already achieved ; and when the pope shows himself pliable in money matters, Napoleon makes this an occasion for further exactions. He threatens " to reunite this group of my crown lands with the Empire at once, and to revoke the gift of Charlemagne."

  In a word, having a large appetite, he will make one mouthful of all the Papal States. Thereupon the enraged pope breaks off the negotiations, the Emperor has Rome occupied, and in April the Papal States become a province.

  The Eternal City

  Napoleon, who has ranged from Cairo to Vienna, and will range from Madrid to Moscow, Napoleon, who has often been in Italy, hesitates to set foot in Rome ; caution or circumstance always keeps him away. He never confirms by actual inspection the image he has carried in his mind from boyhood upwards. Now for the second time his generals take possession of what he had been wont to regard as the Eternal City. No member of his entourage protests against the occupation. But his mother feels it to be a mistake, and her distress affects her health. Whereas formerly she had been content to say sceptically of her son's great fortune : "if only it lasts ! " now, with a presage of destruction, she confides her misgivings to her intimates :

  " I foresee that he will bring disaster on himself and all his family. He should be content with what he has. He tries to grasp too much, and will lose all! "

  XVII

  " What the German peoples ardently desire is that persons who are not of noble birth but are talented shall have equal rights to your consideration and to office, so that there may be an end, once and for all, to any kind of subordination, and to all intermediaries between the ruler and the lowest classes of the population. The advantages brought by the Code Napoleon, publicity of legal procedure, and trial by jury, will be characteristics of your monarchy. To lay my whole thought before you : for the consolidation of this monarchy, I look more to the effects just named than to the results of the greatest victories. Your people must have a liberty, an equality, and a prosperity hitherto unknown in Germany. This way of ruling will be a stronger barrier between you and Prussia than the Elbe, than fortresses, than the protection of France. What nation would ever wish to go back to Prussian rule when it had once experienced the advantages of a liberal government ? "

  The Kingdom of Westphalia

  In these sentences (which are written as a private lesson, and are not penned with an eye to public effect), the Emperor expounds to his youngest brother the great mission that is being entrusted to the latter when he takes charge of the new kingdom of Westphalia. Jerome's task was to plant the fundamental ideas of the revolution on German soil, a pioneer work, this introduction of the first glimmer of self-government in a part of western Europe where hitherto the inhabitants had known only how to obey. In Holland and Italy, ideas of self-government were by no means new. But as far as concerned the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine, although, acting under orders, they could introduce the new legal codes, they lacked the traditions and the talents that might have made it possible to initiate such changes from within. We can now understand the historic mission of the youngest of the Bonapartes. He was to make a great experiment in democracy ; he was to transform four million Germans from subjects into citizens. Had this impetus been successful, the whole nation might have been spared resubjugation to princely arrogance after the War of Liberation.

  But the young man of twenty-three who, coming at the end of this long family, had been reared as a prince, regarded his kingship as a gallant adventure, in which money and vital energy could be squandered. Youth was like champagne, which bubbles when the cork is drawn. He forsook the arms of his Wurttemberg consort for those of innumerable mistresses ; ran into debt, became involved in manifold scandals, and procreated children all over the place ; amused himself more than his subjects ; and, by this traditional deportment of one born in the purple, succeeded for decades to come in discrediting the fine notion of the choice of the fittest. There was something to be said for the German view that, if they must have a prince to ride across fields and men, they would like him to be one who had inherited the position. Jerome, however, laughed at the world's mockery, and even laughed at his great brother's exhortations.

  Jerome Makes Himself Ridiculous

  Napoleon had a predilection for his youngest brother, the sort of weakness that fathers are apt to have for the latest born of their sons. The brio of the young man's life was in keeping with his own tempo. Besides, Jerome was always amiable, took nothing amiss. For instance, on one occasion he asked Napoleon to make him commander-in-chief, and showed no offence at a refusal couched in the following terms : " Are you serious ? After you have been through six campaigns, and after you have had a half a dozen horses shot under you, you can ask me again ! "

  When Jerome went to war, he took his whole court with him —not the queen, indeed, but all the prettiest of her ladies. He issued proclamations in the style of the Roi Soleil. But he was not mortified to receive the following imperial admonition :

  " I have read an order of the day issued by you, in which you make yourself ridiculous. You are king, and the Emperor's brother ! Fine qualities in war ! In war, a man must be a soldier before everything. When I am in camp, I need neither ministers nor luxury. You must camp with the advance guard, be in the saddle day and night, march with the advance guard, so that you may get all the news without delay. If you don't like that, you had better stay at home in your palace ! You make war like a satrap ! God in heaven, you never learned that from me ! I ride in front of the skirmishers, and do not allow even my minister for foreign affairs to follow me. . . . You make vast claims; you have a certain amount of talent and a few good qualities, but these are put quite in the shade by your follies. Furthermore, you are insufferably conceited, and know absolutely nothing of public affairs."

  The king sticks the letter into his jabot with a laugh. But the Emperor ? Cannot he realise, while he talks to his brother like a father, that every one to whom he gives unmerited power endangers the very essence of power ? That these golden crowns and the extemporised coats-of-arms he provides for them create very unstable kings and princes ? That homunculus

  " You Are So Frightfully Young!"

  escapes from the phial and makes fun of his master ? This perennial weakness where his relatives are concerned leads him, at times, to assume what is a very unusual role for him, that of the good-natured man ; for, though he begins by issuing orders to his brothers, he very often gives way to them in the end. " My brother, inclosed you will find the constitution of your kingdom "—thus he begins a missive of instruction in matters of high politics, with a sentence that might have been taken out of a comic opera. When he is in a friendly humour, he will end a letter full of reproaches with a paternal smile : " Mon ami, I love you, but you are so frightfully young! "

  Napoleon is no longer young. Inevitably, as his plans grow, there must be an
increase in that harshness which, in him, is mainly the outcome of overwork. When, twelve years earlier, he had come down from the Alps as a conqueror and his fame had spread before him across the plain of Lombardy, his youth had endowed the novelty of this campaign with a sort of romantic innocence which carried his contemporaries off their feet. Now, when the mountain torrent has long since widened into a river, bearing on its broad bosom ships freighted with the treasures of the world, and when the river is drawing near to the ocean in which its waters will soon mingle with all the waters of the earth ; now, the gravity of this labour of Atlas has stamped its imprint upon his features, has written its message in his heart. Rare have become the hours of tranquillity, few the moments of merriment and sportive humour ; and the heroical cynicism of his mission moulds him before the eyes of the world into a statue of bronze.

  True, he had sent for his Polish countess. She was installed in the very street where Josephine had first charmed him, and where, again and again, a quaint superstition led him to house; his lady friends. Walewska is munificently provided for, and Napoleon's physician visits her every day. But, though there is no secret about the matter, she leads a retired life, does not use the box at the opera he has reserved for her, and seldom sees

  Leon

  him now that she has come to Paris. This is an interlude between one idyll and the next. He has made up his mind that the child she is to bear him will be a son; and the event may have still greater consequences to-day than it would have had yesterday.

  For the first of his illegitimate children, the one of whose birth he had received tidings in Berlin (when he had been reassured to learn that there was no justification for the common belief that he was sterile), has been put out of court by the mother's unwise importunity. Shortly after his return to Paris, she had called. He would not see her, sending a message to say that he received no one whom he had not summoned. He provided her with a house and an income, and would have nothing more to do with her. But he had the boy brought to him, and playfully teased the little chap. For a moment, he even thought of adopting him. All had to be done secretly. The invisible master, whom he called the " nature of things " and on rare occasions " fate," forbade him the unconcealed enjoyment of this most natural of scenes in our human life, one in which Napoleon could not play his part until he was nearly forty. At length he had a son of his body, who might become his heir. Yet he, Emperor of the West, could not step forward and say : " This is my son ! " Wishing to give the boy at least half his own name, he called him Leon.