by Emil Ludwig
Time f s Revenge
But whereas the contempt with which he regarded the decadence of the European princes was mingled with amusement, Stein's attitude towards them was purely one of rancour. Their innate impotence, which encouraged the self-confidence of the brilliant upstart, was a challenge to the self-respect of Stein, the man who would fain believe in the knightly order to which he belonged ; and just as the Corsican used his own career as an argument to strengthen his conviction that a new and splendid epoch was in the making, the German could not fail to consider the behaviour of his fellow-princes as melancholy evidence of the collapse of the old order, and must perforce regard the king of Prussia with a contempt no less hearty than the hatred he cherished for the emperor of the French.
Thus Napoleon's pronouncement of outlawry against Stein was symbolic of the differences between the two men in respect of nationality, class, and epoch. Had the imperial baron been a king, he would, far more worthily than any Habsburg, or Hohenzollern, or other among the defeated monarchs, have embodied, in opposition to the son of the revolution, that idea of legitimacy for which the German nation was willing to battle with no less ardour than it would display in the fight against the foreigner. Apart from the duke of Brunswick and one or two of the younger princes, Stein stood alone in those days as saviour of the pride and dignity of the German rulers.
Now his great moment has come. From Madrid, the Emperor had sent forth his decree of banishment against the Prussian minister. Twice, for this, time was to exact vengeance. Now was the first occasion. Nothing but the sentence of outlawry had brought Stein into contact with the tsar, for whose soul he was wrestling with his old enemy. In all Alexander's vacillations, no influence did more to strengthen him than the indomitable spirit of the German exile. When the Emperor, not long before, holding forth to the Russian general, had spoken with so much acerbity about Stein, it was because, from afar, he had sensed this influence, and because he was afraid of the imperial baron.
Stein's Decisive Influence
He knew Stein to be a vigorous idealist, an undismayed monarchist; and he knew that in the decisive hour such a man was likely to exercise a potent suggestive influence upon the tsar, also an idealist, though irresolute and timid. Stein, knowing human character as he did, and knowing that the tsar, in a hazy fashion, was eager to live in accordance with the moral law, would dilate upon Napoleon's contempt for morality and itch for dictatorship. Stein would not tempt Alexander with countries to be annexed, but with principles to be obeyed; and would rouse to action a modern monarch who would know better than the German princes how to defend rule by right divine.
This German was the only person at the tsarist court who had no axe to grind. Driven from his own home by the homeless Napoleon, he was ready betwixt night and morning to change his present hospitable asylum for any other. The tsar knew that Stein was not a place-hunter, but an independent foreigner whose counsel was not tainted by any thought of personal advantage; for this reason, he had more trust in the German baron than in his own Francophil minister. Perhaps he had heard of the splendid words uttered by the German, when the news of the burning of Moscow had arrived. Stein, sitting at table, had raised his glass, and had exclaimed : " Three or four times, ere this, I have lost my baggage. We must get used to throwing away such things. Since we must die, let us be valiant."
His enemy in Moscow will soon make up his mind to the same thing. He throws away the baggage of the past, and marches on; he makes up his mind to retreat. Not a word has come from St. Petersburg. Five weeks have been wasted, and the winter draws near ! He has been waiting on events, waiting and listening; this is ill suited to his temperament, out of keeping with his energetic nature. The novels he has ordered from Paris have not yet come to hand, so he hunts up whatever can be found in the Kremlin. But he reads very little. After meals, which, contrary to his usual custom, he protracts to the
That Is the Advice of a Lion
uttermost, he sometimes lies for hours, book in hand, but meditating with fixed gaze.
What is there to do in a burned city where nothing is left to organise! On one or two evenings, the Emperor has some French plays performed by a troupe of actors which had remained behind at the time of the evacuation. This reminds the holiday-making ruler of the charter of the Comedie Francaise, and he sends instructions for its amendment. Half the day is whiled away in issuing army orders which by no means appear to emanate from a wearied brain, and are far from being commonplace ; on the contrary, they are as crystal clear as in earlier days. But since nothing remains to be hoped for, since provisions are dwindling and the cold season is imminent, he calls a council of war in mid-October, although he knows that only one way lies open to him.
Daru counsels : make the winter quarters here ; await reinforcements from liberated Lithuania; in the spring, march upon St. Petersburg. The Emperor remains for long in a brown study. Then he says :
" That is the advice of a lion. But what will Paris say ? Who can calculate the effect of six months' separation ? France may grow accustomed to my absence; Germany and Austria might turn it to account." The only possible order is for the whole army to turn back. What trophies shall we bring back with us to Paris ? The giant cross of gold from the church of St. John within the Kremlin walls is taken down from the cupola that it may be set up on the dome of the Invalides. But can we not devise some better revenge against the false friend ? The Emperor orders the Kremlin to be blown up.
Eight miles away from Moscow he reins in, and waits for news of the explosion. The unending stream of the grand army flows steadily by the Emperor; it is flanked by the sick and the wounded ; it is laden with booty, rested but undisciplined. At last come tidings : the explosion has missed fire. He is silent.
"You Must!"
But when Rapp expresses anxiety about the approach of winter, Napoleon rebukes him, saying : " Can't you see how lovely the weather is, even to-day, on October 19th ? Do you not recognise my star ? "
Such words hardly ever fall from his lips, and this day he is full of cares. He realises that the baggage train is going to cause delay, and yet he has not the heart to order his men to leave their booty behind; they must have something to take home. Russian troops have encircled the French army, and recently they pressed so hard on Murat's squadrons as to drive these back upon the town. On the eastward march, the Emperor had longed for nothing so much as a good action to take place ; but now, on the westward march, there is nothing he dreads more than to have to put up a fight. Get to Smolensk as quickly as possible ; we will find winter quarters there !
Is the beginning of his career falling into step with the end ? Again, as in Egypt, the army marches with the baggage in the middle; again the troops have to defend themselves from the swarming enemy. Once the Emperor is saved from being made prisoner only by the presence of mind of one of his men. " Cossacks ! Turn about! " cries Rapp, pointing to a thicket. The Emperor will not follow this advice. The adjutant, thereupon, seizes the bridle-rein and turns Napoleon's horse round. " You must! " Never in his whole life has he heard such an order addressed to him. What is he to do ? Reason tells him to flee.
But the Emperor remains where he is, and draws his sword. Rapp, Berthier, Caulaincourt, do the same. They place themselves to the left of the road and await the riders, who are barely forty paces away. Then the officers of the suite cover Napoleon until the guard cavalry comes to the rescue and puts the Cossacks to flight.
New thoughts flit through his brain after this adventure. Shall Alexander harness him to a triumphal car ? He procures a dose of poison from his physician, and wears it always in a
Leaning on a Birchen Staff
black silk bag around his neck, in case he should be made a prisoner. Since the day when he was so nearly captured, the ambition of every Russian flying column is to procure the head of the " wicked infidel." Russian headquarters issues a warrant against the Emperor; it is embellished with his picture, and orders the corps leaders to have " every man
of small stature " among the prisoners brought before them for examination : any one of them may be Emperor Napoleon !
As in Egypt the heat of the march had killed hundreds of men, so now does the Russian cold devour them by thousands. Snow and ice bring down the horses, guns get stuck, munition wagons are blown up, cavalry soldiers must pad the hoof, frozen men line the roads.
Not more than fifty thousand reach Smolensk, one-tenth of all the invading host. They have no more supplies, and cannot winter here. The freezing army pushes forward. Thousands have thrown their weapons away ; now, even the guard weakens. The Emperor comes among his grenadiers :
" You see the disorder of my army. These poor deluded men are throwing their muskets away. Are you going to follow this shameful example ? If so, then there is no hope left to us ! On you the whole future of the army depends ! " He marches among them. A silent procession (thus described by one who met it): first come the generals, few of whom are mounted. Ghosts in rags, in scorched cloaks, lean, grey, with matted beards, bent and silent: prisoners of fate. These are followed by the Holy Legion, a legion composed of officers, most of them leaning upon sticks, their feet swathed in remnants of sheepskin. Then come the survivors of the cavalry guard.
Last of all three men on foot: to the right, the king of Naples, no longer concerned about his peacock splendours; to the left, the viceroy of Italy. In the middle walks a little man, wearing a Polish fur coat and a cap of red fox, and helping himself along with a birchen staff. Thus in silence he wends his way through Russia.
A Putsch in Paris
VII
What is Paris saying ?
He does not know. For the first time since he was in Egypt, his calculations concerning Paris have no solid foundation in fact. Not to know what is going on in his capital: a dreadful position this, like that of a traveller who fancies that during his absence his wife may be betraying him! Writing to Maret in Vilna, he says : " For more than a fortnight I have had no courier, so that I am in the dark as to all that is going on ... in France and Spain. . . . The army is terribly disorganised. It would take at least a fortnight to set things straight, but we cannot possibly spare the time. Shall we be able to maintain our position in Vilna ? Only if we are not attacked during the first week. Food ! Food! . . . Make sure that there shall be no foreign envoys in Vilna, for the army is not in a fit condition to be seen. Send them all away."
Here is the courier at last. Why does the Emperor turn pale ? What terrible news can have come from Paris ? Can anything have happened there worse than what he has just been living through ? The fact is that, through English newspapers, through letters, and through rumour, France has long since learned the whole truth, which had been glossed over in the Emperor's bulletins. Many of the Parisians are fickle, and many of them are easily reduced to despair. A good part of Paris has already given up the Emperor for lost. Alarmist reports and spiteful quips are rife on the boulevards. But what is this item ?
A coup d'etat had been planned, and had been frustrated. But what a background of discontent is revealed ! Malet, who had been a general in the days of the republic, had years before been concerned in a conspiracy, imprisoned, and then committed to a lunatic asylum. Having received distorted news about the Emperor's disasters and the burning of Moscow, he had escaped. With a number of accomplices, he had published a
The Emperor's Alarm
forged dispatch announcing Napoleon's death. The conspirators had seized the Minister of Police ; had declared a provisional government; had bamboozled the National Guard, the militia, the prefects, and even veteran generals. At length, however, two undismayed officers had seen through the cheat, had seized the conspirators, and from the balcony of the governor's residence had shouted, " Vive l'Empereur." Therewith the spectre had been laid.
In his tent, on which the snow is falling, the Emperor contemplates this document with dismay. More serious news even than that which recently arrived from Salamanca! The offenders had been shot; the whole affair had fizzled out. But for a time the conspirators had been masters of the Paris police, and one who controls the Paris police is master of France ! No carriages would venture into the streets ! When an elderly nobleman had asked what was afoot, a workman had laughed, saying : " Citizen, the Emperor is dead. At noon the republic will be proclaimed ! " Greatly shaken by the tidings, the Emperor drops the newspaper containing these details, and says to his intimates :
" What about the dynasty ? Did no one think of my wife, my son, all the institutions of the Empire ? I must get back to Paris instantly ! "
The dangerous possibilities revealed by this interlude, flash like lightning through his mind. " The workman who laughs— he is the people ! I toil day and night for years at my great building ; I break with the woman I love, and take an emperor's daughter to wife, that our heir, the pledge of earthly immortality, may grow up in our palace. Then some foolhardy officer, a man no one has ever heard of, has merely to call out that the Emperor is dead, and instantly a clamour about ' citizens ' and ' republics' rises once more from the people ! The regent, the heir, the Council of State—all these count for nothing ? The bottomless cask of the Danaids ! But I will make a bottom for it. Like the Capets, I will have my son crowned in my own
Words Overheard
lifetime, crowned in my own lifetime, and muster my faithful supporters in Paris ! "
Fortified by the approach of danger, the Emperor grips the reins firmly once more. " He is pale, but his face is calm ; nothing in his features gives any sign of trouble." His health is better, too. Now the-army nears the Beresina. Having received false intelligence to the effect that the auxiliary armies are close at hand, he draws his own forces more compactly together, and has the rest of the baggage train burned, that the horses may be freed to draw the remaining guns. If only the bridge is still standing! He writes : " Should the enemy have seized the bridge-head and burned the bridge in order to prevent our crossing, it would be very serious."
Next day they come to the river. No bridge, no boats ; two armies outnumbering the French are waiting on the other shore ; between runs the broad river with marshy banks. Is there any way out of the difficulty ?
He makes a shrewd plan, like those of his early days as general. He will decoy the Russians away. Out of eighteen hundred horseless cavalrymen of the guard, of whom only eleven hundred still have their weapons, he forms two battalions. Then he has all the regimental eagles burned, for even in this dread hour Napoleon thinks of honour and glory, and he will not risk the loss of colours to the enemy. After midnight, he at length lies down in his tent, where he overhears Duroc and Daru, who believed him to be asleep, discussing in an undertone the possibility of a catastrophe. The phrase " State prisoner " has caught his ear. He fingers the black bag he is wearing round his neck, and sits up in bed :
" You think they would dare ? "
" I would not trust the enemy's magnanimity," says Daru, composedly.
" But France ! What would France do ? "
Dam's answer is evasive ; but when pressed, he says : " I
The Beresina
think, Sire, the sooner you are in Paris, the better. When you are there, you will have a better chance of saving us all."
" Then you feel I am a burden on you here ? "
" Yes, Sire."
" And you don't want to be State prisoners ? "
There is a long silence. Then the Emperor resumes :
" Have my ministers' reports been destroyed ? "
" Hitherto you have always refrained from giving us the order."
" It must be done. Destroy the lot of them. We are in a very difficult position."
This is the only admission of the kind made by the Emperor during all the weeks of the Russian campaign. It is the voice of a man who regards himself as a moriturus. But nature is more sensible than fate, and in a few moments he is fast asleep.
Next morning, while the enemy has been lured down stream and is being kept at a distance by artillery fire, the sappe
rs, neck-deep in the freezing water and amid the drifting ice, hastily build two bridges. The crossing of the river takes two days more. With the cavalry, which swims the stream, the army still numbers about twenty-five thousand men. The Emperor, though the risk of his being taken prisoner is imminent, remains until all have crossed ; and then, on the third day, surrounded by the old guard, he too makes his way over the river. But there are still stragglers to come, and these perish during the next few days betwixt ice and fire.
In the ensuing week the Emperor's life is twice in danger. The first peril is from a Cossack attack. On the next occasion the trouble is an assassination plot in which one of his own Frenchmen is engaged. It is early on the morning of December 5th when Major Lapie meets the officers of the Prussian guard of honour in front of the Emperor's tent. " Now then, gentlemen, the hour has come ! " The senior captain is to cut down the Mameluke, and then to make an end of Napoleon. Presumably the conspirators have seen Schiller's Wallenstein on the German
Last Bulletin from Russia
stage! The Prussian wants the Frenchman to do the deed, but Lapic says he is not sure of his men. Then Caulaincourt, to whom the conspirators' behaviour seems suspicious, comes forward, claps his hands, and says :
" Now, gentlemen, it is time to start! "
That evening the Emperor, who has not heard a word of the affair, summons his marshals. " I shall be stronger when I can speak from my throne in the Tuileries than I am at the head of an army which has been destroyed by the cold. . . . Had I been a Bourbon, born to rule, it would have been easy for me to avoid making mistakes." He takes the marshals aside by turns, asking each for his advice; he flatters, praises, and encourages ; he smiles and charms. Obviously his design is to counteract the possibility of revolt.
Next, he tells Eugene to read them his latest bulletin, the first in which he admits disaster. " Men who had not been sufficiently steeled by nature to rise superior to all vicissitudes of fate and fortune, lost courage and equanimity, and could dream of nothing but misfortune and defeat. But those who were equal to the occasion were able to keep up their spirits, and regarded every fresh difficulty as a fresh opportunity for glory."