Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  At a later date, he spoke more decisively.

  " War is an anachronism. Some day, victories will be won without cannon and without bayonets. . . . Whoever troubles the peace of Europe, wants civil war."

  Contempt for His Fellows

  Remember that these are the words of Napoleon, the military commander.

  VI

  His energy is concentrated on human beings. Very rarely does he come into conflict with natural forces ; and whenever he does so, he is beaten. But, in general, all he has to do is to compel men to conquer, for him, the mountains and the miles. Human beings are the material in working with which the energy and the imagination of this artist are destined to become weary ; them he must overcome if he is to do his work at all. No mortal ever conquered more men than did Napoleon. He subjugated, not only armies and peoples, but something more : individuals, and the best of these.

  To achieve his goal, he followed the road of contempt; and used as his means; glory and money. Self-confidence and experience had convinced him that every one acts only from self-interest; that some are driven to grasp at money through love of pleasure, or avarice, or clannishness; that others seek public recognition in order to gratify their vanity, their jealousy, or their ambition. Denying the force of ideal motives, Napoleon relied exclusively upon material means ; and if the spur of ambition occasionally assumed the aspect of a desire for eternal glory, this occurred against his will, but the magic of his personality sometimes exercised a more puissant lure than the well-calculated material attractions offered by others. To quote Goethe : " Napoleon, who lived wholly for ideas, was nevertheless unable to grasp the nature of ideal motives; he repudiated the ideal, denied that there was any such thing, at the very time when he himself was eagerly trying to realise the ideal."

  Yet to Napoleon the Mephistophelian conception of men was as alien as it was to Goethe. He said : " Most people bear within themselves the seeds of good and evil, of courage and of

  The Psychologist

  cowardice. Thus is human nature created: upbringing and circumstance do the rest." Since, for twenty years, he needed this human nature, daily and in quantities of a hundred at a time, the subtlest knowledge of it was a primary condition of his success. Among all the materials which Napoleon bent to his uses, the human heart was the most familiar.

  " I am a great friend of analysis. . . . ' Why' and ' How,' are such useful questions, that they cannot be uttered too often." Coldly and clearly as a nerve specialist, he controls all psychical symptoms, utilises every method for the attainment of such control, and trusts especially to physiognomy—for he knows his Lavater. He is fond of reproving people. " According as they react, I discover the pitch of their souls. If I strike brass with a glove, it gives back no tone : but if I strike with a hammer, it rings out." A person meeting Napoleon for the first time, is gripped by the magnetism of his glance.

  By talking and questioning, he makes himself acquainted with the atlas of human types, an atlas he is ever enlarging. He questions so long that a stranger grows embarrassed, confused, and alarmed; he questions until his questions become ridiculous; but he must at all costs get the information he needs, even if he is not negotiating. In what way can the twenty minutes that a doctor sits at Napoleon's table in St. Helena be put to the best use by the ex-Emperor ?

  " How many patients suffering from ailments affecting the liver had you on board ? How many cases of dysentery ? What is the fee for a consultation in England ? What is the pension awarded to an army surgeon ? . . . What is death, or how would you define it ? When does the soul quit the body ? When does a body first receive a soul ? "

  Another means is monologue. One of his intimates declares that the right of the Emperor to hold forth in monologue was the only real pleasure his high estate awarded him ! We have testimonies concerning other men of action: but who ever talked

  Talking and Questioning

  so much as Napoleon ! Since he always faces the world alone, he must continually hold forth that he may convey his suggestions to the world. His conversations often lasted from five to eight hours, some of them ten or eleven hours; and during the greater part of them Napoleon took the floor. We must admit that this was more in accordance with the Italian manner than the Roman; Italian, too, were the rapidity of his utterance, and his foreign accent: but he gesticulated little; and only when much moved did he unclasp his hands— generally they were clasped behind his back, as if he wished to throw out his chest against the world.

  Upon all who serve him, he lavishes money with oriental profusion. But as far as his personal expenditure is concerned, he is thrifty. During the Consulate he says: " A man who has been through so many wars will have acquired a little property whether he will or no. I have a private income of from frs. 80,000 to frs. 100,000, with a house in town and a country mansion. What more do I need ? If I should get out of humour with France, or France with me, I should retire from public life without a qualm. . . . But every one round me is stealing; the ministers are weak. Some people must be laying by vast sums . .. What is to be done about it ? France is corrupt through and through. It has always been like that; as soon as a man becomes a minister, he builds himself a palace. ... Do you know what they are trying to make me pay for my installation in the Tuileries ? Two millions ! ... It must be cut down to eight hundred thousand. I am surrounded by a pack of scoundrels."

  " Your great operations," answers Roederer, " must cost you much more than these domestic defalcations."

  " All the more reason why I should watch over my personal expenditure."

  This conversation tells us how the head of the State, a man of thirty, regards money. He needs nothing for himself, and complains of the venality and profusion of those by whom he is

  Money

  surrounded; acknowledges that he has himself made money out of the wars ; rails at the tradesmen who want to charge two millions for the equipment of a palace, when, as far as his own taste is concerned, he sees no reason for spending anything at all. Amid the frightful corruption which is a heritage of the revolution, he fights with the army contractors and war profiteers; but as soon as, by drastic punishments, he has succeeded in putting an end to this scandal, he assigns preposterous incomes to his marshals, some of whom receive more than a million francs a year. As Consul, he rids the State of the thieves who are making away with the national property; and then, as Emperor, he burdens this same State with extortionate salaries.

  Still, there are a few persons who make money thanks to their relationship with him, though without his aid. " When I have nothing left," he says to Talleyrand, " I shall turn to you. Tell me honestly, how much have you made out of me ? "

  " I am not a rich man, Sire, but all that I have is at your service."

  Napoleon's way of dealing with men is modified by a hundred and one considerations. If we wish to study the variations of his technique, we must class his instruments in groups.

  Generals and marshals are the easiest to keep dependent, for they have unceasing opportunities of winning military renown; and, since he pays them so liberally for their services, they grow more and more wealthy. By loading them with money, he gains two ends, spreading effulgence around himself, and keeping his most powerful officers in a state of dependence. It delights him to see these soldiers unused to money spending extravagantly, running into debt, and then turning to him for help in their difficulties. He leads them from profusion to want, and then back to profusion again. At the same time, he gives them little scope for originality, reserving important decisions for himself, so that even the commanders of armies rarely have a chance of proving themselves men of genius. He shrewdly regulates his

  His Generals Love and Hate Him

  public mention of them in his bulletins, both in respect of time and form, so that, through their vanity and jealousy, he can get his way with his generals.

  The result is that their sentiments towards him are a mingling of hatred and love, whereby they are chained to his service m
ore firmly than if the feeling had been one of pure affection. Perhaps only two of them are wholly devoted to him, Berthier and Duroc, whose love for him he compares with that of a child and a dog. Ney speaks of himself as a loaded musket which is fired when and where the Emperor orders. Napoleon, for his part, has a personal affection for those only who have risen with him, and in his memoirs he pays his tribute to them. He extols Desaix's mental balance. Moreau has " more instinct than genius " ; whereas Lannes has " more courage than sense," though as time goes on he makes good in the latter respect. Kleber seeks glory only as a means of enjoyment. Massena is not really courageous until he is under fire. Murat " has not a spark of intelligence, but what dash ! He is a duffer and a hero." Napoleon cannot break away from these witnesses of his rise, although almost all of them have learned the weight of his anger. In his tent, after Wagram, Napoleon thunders at Marmont for having made a mess of things, and a quarter of an hour later appoints him marshal.

  Sometimes the Emperor's misanthropy got the better of him. " In those moods, I begin to distrust even my companions-inarms ; that causes me intense suffering, and I do everything I can to rid myself of such horrible suspicions." Yet he really knew. Lannes' death touched him to the quick, but he never really uttered the moving farewell words which he publishes. Indeed, he confided to Metternich : " Lannes hated me. When I heard that, on being wounded, he had called out my name, I knew it was all up with him. He called on me as a dying atheist calls on God."

  The remembrance of friendships formed in youth does not prevent him from scolding the most exalted of his marshals like

  Treatment of Subordinates

  schoolboys when he considers they have behaved foolishly or have been wanting in courage. He says to Junot: " Your conduct was unprecedented, extraordinarily indiscreet. . . . You have a strange notion of your military duties. I don't recognise you ! " To a general in Lombardy : " Under your command, there has been very little honesty and a great deal of avarice ; but I never knew until to-day that you were a coward. Leave the army, and never let me see your face again!" In Spain, one of his generals capitulated in the open field. Six months later, this man ventured to appear before Napoleon at a review. The Emperor stormed at him in full hearing of the troops; would not be appeased. The witnesses say that the scene lasted a whole hour. " A man may have to surrender a fortress. The fortune of war is uncertain, and defeat is always possible. Any one can be taken prisoner. The thing may happen to me to-morrow. But honour, before all! On the battle-field, a commander's business is to fight: and if he capitulates instead, he deserves to be shot. ... A soldier must know how to die. Have we not all to face death ? ... As a subject, you committed a crime in capitulating; as a general, a stupid blunder; as a soldier, your action was cowardly; but as a Frenchman, your surrender was dishonourable ! "

  He alarmed the diplomats of his day by a frankness which none of them trusted. " Tact, and putting all the cards on the table, will do better service in diplomacy than cunning. The tricks of the diplomats of the old school are out of date ; all their rogueries have been exposed long since. . . . Nothing betrays weakness more than the attempt to deceive."

  Just before the renewal of the war with England, he tells the British envoy how many years it will take before France can face England at sea, but he explains how quickly he can increase his army to four hundred thousand. In Schonbrunn, he says to the Austrian negotiator: " That is my last word. If you defeat me, I shall propose more favourable terms; but if I gain

  Stage Management

  the victory, I shall make them harder. What I want is peace."

  He studies every shade of expression when he wishes to influence the envoys of foreign powers. We see this especially when he is adapting his demeanour towards the Austrians with an eye to the Habsburg traditions. He waits for the formal reception on his birthday, and then, faced by the semicircle of the diplomats, he stops in front of Metternich to say: " Well, Monsieur 1 'Ambassadeur, what does your emperor want ? Would he like me to come to Vienna ? " This is calculated to intimidate the Austrian envoy, and at the same time to advertise Napoleon's threatening attitude throughout Europe. But two days later, when Metternich comes to a private interview, the Emperor says : " To-day, we won't play at being Emperor of the French and Austrian envoy. There is no audience now, so we need not make any fine speeches."

  Shortly before the conclusion of the first peace with Austria, he wishes to avoid meeting the defeated archduke in Schon-brunn, lest he should commit himself prematurely to peace terms. He therefore arranges that the meeting shall take place in a hunting lodge. " I shall spend only two hours there : one of them will be occupied in having dinner, and the other will be devoted to talk about the war and to mutual protestations of respect." When the First Consul receives Count Cobenzl, he has personally arranged the stage in the Tuileries; writing-table in the corner; no chairs, so that they will have to sit on the sofa; only one lamp, no lights in the chandelier, although it is late in the evening. When Talleyrand ushers in the Austrian, the room seems almost dark, and the Consul, on the farther side of it, is scarcely visible; the stranger is perplexed, and has to sit exactly where his host chooses.

  He is even more subtle in his dealings with the princes. During the years of his supreme power, he ceases to pay them visits. In Tilsit, he becomes the host within two days; in

  Policy Towards the Peoples

  Dresden, though he is the king of Saxony's guest, he plays the master. He avoids having anything to do with queens. When Queen Louise pathetically implores justice, he begs her to sit down. " Nothing interrupts a tragical scene more effectually than this. When people sit down, tragedy becomes comedy."

  In his dealings with the peoples he was less happy, and his only tolerable successes were secured with the French and the Italians. During the Consulate, he said in the Council of State : "My policy is to rule in accordance with the will of the majority. This, I think, implies the recognition of the sovereignty of the people. I became a good Catholic when I wanted to finish the war in Vendee; in Egypt, I was a Turk; when I wished to win over the Italians, I was an ultramontane. If I reigned over the Jews, I should rebuild Solomon's temple. That is why I propose to talk about freedom in that part of San Domingo where the slaves have been liberated, while maintaining slavery in the other part of the island."

  His policy was not very successful in the negro republic; he did better in Poland, which he tried to win over by festivities and phrases; and better still with the Jews. These had been granted equal rights by the revolution, and on the Rhine many of them were doing harm by the practice of usury. Napoleon, who knew their value as traders, did not have recourse to crude prohibitions. He bethought himself of Jewish laws and customs; summoned to Paris their highest council, the Sanhedrin, which had not met for centuries; left the decision to this body, and was able to arrange that the supreme Jewish authority should forbid usury as sinful. But in Spain he made a complete mess of things, overlooking the risks he was running, and advising Joseph to make himself agreeable to the whole nation " by instilling fear into the rabble."

  The Germans puzzled Napoleon most of all. They had everything he lacked, and none of the things he had. He therefore, even in the midst of his successes, regarded them with a mixture of fear and admiration; they seemed to him uncanny.

  Concerning the Germans

  When he went to Erfurt and wished to influence the German princes by the drama, he told the managing director not to stage any comedies. " No one understands comedies on this bank of the Rhine. Corneille's Cinna might be played, for therein great interests are portrayed; then a scene depicting royal clemency, which would certainly have a good effect." He went on to misquote Cinna. Remusat, having put him right, said: " In this sacred office, to which God's grace has appointed the king, the past is justified, and the future is free. He who is advanced to this office, cannot be held culpable ; whatever he does, he remains invulnerable."

  " Splendid! " exclaims the Emperor, " especially
for the Germans, who always cling to the same ideas, and are still talking about the death of the duke of Enghien ! We must broaden their moral outlook. That will be good for people with melancholy ideas, the sort of persons with whom Germany is filled." It is as if he were talking about German music, of which he knows practically nothing ; but really he is thinking of German philosophy. The one is as uncongenial to him as the other, for he is fond of Italian arias and the wisdom of Voltaire, but says that " Kant is an obscure writer." This misconception of his prevents him from foreseeing the possibility that so slow-moving a people may one day become inspired with a passionate enthusiasm.

  Perhaps the reason for the misinterpretation lies in the impracticability of understanding the masses of a foreign nation. In northern Italy, he did indeed make headway, for he was a young man, his ideas were naive, the yearning of the oppressed was still fresh in him ; and he was the herald of the revolution. But the dictator could no longer bring a torch to foreign peoples. Nevertheless, he continued to watch the sentiments of the masses. " A ruler should reign for the masses, without asking whether he is pleasing Mr. So-and-So. . . . Men of mark look from above, and have no party ties ; one who

  His Dealings with the Masses

  belongs to a party, is a slave." Such were his principles, but his actions told another story.

  The masses, even in France, saw a man who made himself dreaded. They feared him for a decade, but became sceptical at his first failure. " A ruler should be dignified in his demeanour towards the people," says Napoleon. " But he must not flatter the crowd, which will then think itself cheated if he does not give it everything. You ask me why I make threatening speeches ? I make them in order to avoid having to do the things I threaten ! "