Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  " All that you say to my son, or all that he learns, will be of little use to him, unless he has in the depths of his heart that

  In the Elysian Fields

  sacred fire and love of good which alone can achieve great things.

  " I hope, however, that he will be worthy of his destiny. " If they refuse you permission to go to Vienna ..." The document suddenly breaks off; Napoleon's powers have flagged; like the utterance of an oracle, the soothsaying ends in the middle of a sentence. But what this man on his deathbed designed for the instruction of his poor little son, can serve to instruct Europe a century after it was written. The political problems of our own day, however we may attempt to solve them, are in truth solved here by the sovereignty of genius.

  XIX

  After this brilliant outpouring, the productive spring dries up. Agreeable visions float before his mind. It seems as if fate intends him to enjoy the euthanasia. The day after writing his political testament, he lies free from pain and care, surrounded by the mist-wreaths of hope :

  " When I am dead, each of you will have the sweet consolation of returning to Europe. You will see again, the one his relatives, the other his friends ; but for my part, I shall meet my brave warriors in the Elysian Fields. Yes," he continued, raising his voice, " Kleber, Desaix, Bessieres, Duroc, Ney, Murat, Massena, Berthier; all will come to meet me : they will talk to me of the deeds we did together. I shall recount to them the later events of my life. When they see me, they will be inspired with their old enthusiasm, their old passion for glory. We shall talk of our battles to the Scipios, to Hannibal, Csesar, and Frederick. What a delight that will be. If only people here on earth are not terrified at seeing so many soldiers put their heads together ! "

  Such is the dying man's flight of fancy. In all the thousands of his recorded utterances, there is none that shows the naivete of his mind more plainly than this reverie. He looks into a world

  Slow Murder

  peopled by the shades of the heroes, sees his generals there in familiar converse with those of ancient Rome, enters an idyllic paradise in which they talk of big guns. While Napoleon is speaking, the English doctor (whose ministrations the Emperor has at length consented to accept) enters the room.

  At this moment, the music of flutes, to which he has, in fancy, been listening, breaks off; once more he hears the rattle of the drums. The statesman recurs to the present. Without transition, he passes into a new register, after his manner, and makes a formal oration which embodies what he wishes to be the official view of his death :

  " Come nearer, Bertrand, and translate what I say word for word to this gentleman. My death is the result of injuries worthy of the hands that have inflicted them. I surrendered to the British people, that I might settle down at a British fireside. In defiance of international law, I was loaded with chains. . . . England overpersuaded the princes, and the world saw an unprecedented sight. Four great powers hurled themselves upon one solitary man. How shamefully you have treated me on this rock ! There is no possible mortification to which you have not subjected me ! . . . With cold calculation, you have slowly done me to death ! The vile governor has been the executioner appointed by your ministers ! I end like the proud republic of Venice ! I bequeath the shame of my death to the royal family of England ! "

  After this outburst, he sinks back upon his pillows. The doctor stands there dumbfounded, and Napoleon's companions are in little better case. What was it ? An epilogue ; a protest; a commination ? Pure politics ! In the evening, he has an account of Hannibal's campaigns read aloud to him.

  Next day, April 21 st, a fortnight before the end, he sends for the Corsican abbate. Since this man's coming, Napoleon has had Mass read every Sunday, but otherwise has had nothing to do with the priest. Now he says :

  " Do you know what a ' chapelle ardente' is ? Have you ever officiated at one before ? Never ? Well, now you will

  Justifies Himself on His Deathbed

  officiate at mine." Details follow. " After my death, you will set up your altar at my bedside, and will say Mass with the usual ceremonies until I am under ground."

  In the evening, the priest spends nearly an hour with him. Since, we are told, Vignali was not dressed for the occasion, he can only have conversed with Napoleon, and cannot have confessed him. Napoleon has not communicated for forty years, and does not do so now.

  The sick man is much wasted ; for several weeks he has not been shaved ; his face is sunken and dusky. Now he has his bed carried into the drawing-room, for he finds the bedroom too confined. He is racked by terrible attacks of gastric spasm. In the intervals of calm, he continues to speak of persons to whom he wishes to leave legacies. Sometimes he dozes and dreams. In these dreams, women appear to him; Marie Louise is not one of them : " I saw my good Josephine, but she would not put her arms round me. . . . She was unchanged, loving as always. She said we should soon meet to part no more. She assured me— Did you see her too ? " Just like the dream about his generals ; from the paradise of children, from the land of faery.

  When he feels better, he has the latest newspapers read aloud. An attack on him in one of them excites him, and he has his will brought to him. Breaking the seals he has laboriously affixed, without saying a word he writes with tremulous hand :

  " I had the duke of Enghien arrested and brought to trial because this trial was necessary for the safety, the interest, and the honour of the French people, at a time when the count of Artois, according to his own admission, was maintaining sixty assassins in Paris."

  Like two ghosts, they face one another; the dead Bourbon and the dying Bonaparte.

  On the 27th., he asks for the will once more, and laboriously

  Last Gifts

  reseals it. He has inventories made of the contents of his boxes and cupboards ; valuable documents are put into envelopes, on which he writes the inscriptions. All this is done in the intervals between attacks of vomiting. His companions have to affix their seals, and every one of them must verify a written record of the packets. So great is his mistrust of England.

  Is there anything still to do ? Various articles which have not yet been dealt with are lying on the counterpane. " I am very weak; there is not much time left; we must finish things off." What is that ? Hortense's diamond necklace, which used to gleam from her neck on festal occasions in the Tuileries, and was sewn into his waistband the day he left Malmaison. This he gives to Marchand. There is a plain golden snuff-box. Toilsomely, with the point of a penknife, he scratches his initial N on the lid, and gives the box to the doctor, saying :

  " I expressly demand that a post-mortem shall be made, and, in especial, that the stomach shall be examined. I believe that I am dying of the same illness as my father. Ask Louis to send you the report about that, and compare it with what you find at the autopsy. Then you may at least be able to spare my son this horrible illness. Tell him how he can guard against it, and how he can be saved from the dread of it which has so afflicted me."

  For six years he has been blaming the climate of the rock for his liver trouble ; only a few days ago he had charged England with killing him in the unwholesome prison-house. By ordering a post-mortem examination, he is risking the collapse of this theory; indeed, that is what he expects. All is done for his son's safety. He hopes that the lad can be saved from the family disorder.

  Is everything ready ? Can we start ? Wait a moment! There is still lacking an official address to the authorities. He dictates the following letter:

  " Monsieur le Gouverneur! Emperor Napoleon died on the — —, after a long and painful illness. I have the honour to inform

  A Letter with an Open Date

  you of the fact. . . . Please let me know what arrangements your government has made for the conveyance of his body to Europe, and also in respect of the members of his suite."

  " Count Montholon, you will sign that."

  Napoleon had dictated sixty thousand political letters. Perhaps this one, the formal report of his own death wit
h the date left open, is the most remarkable of them all; for who would have expected that destiny would leave so much time and so much tranquillity of mind in face of approaching death to a man who had faced sudden death on sixty battle-fields ? The lines above quoted seem rather a grotesque close to his domineering career, and we feel a hope that this gruesome epistle will not be his last.

  It is not the last. On the 29th., after a feverish night, he dictates the drafts of two communications. One deals with the utilisation of Versailles ; the other with a reorganisation of the National Guard. But these are not addressed, as they would have been before his abdication, to the Minister for Public Works and to the Minister for War. He dictates the superscriptions : " First Dream " ; and " Second Dream." Then he says : " I feel so wonderfully well now ; I could go for a thirty-mile ride." Next day, he becomes icy cold and sinks into a delirium, which lasts five days till the end.

  But Napoleon Bonaparte's vital energies do not subside so easily. During these five days, there is a lucid interval, and he seizes the opportunity for issuing orders and making declarations :

  " When I lose consciousness, you must on no account admit an English doctor. . . . You will remain true to my memory, and will not do anything that might harm it. All my laws and all my actions were based upon the strictest principles. Unfortunately, the circumstances were so grave that I could not be lenient, and had to postpone many good things. Then came the disasters. I could not string the bow more tightly; . . . that was why France

  The Last Command

  never secured the liberal institutions I had intended to introduce. But the country credits me with my good intentions ; it loves my name and my victories. You will do the same ! Be true to our principles and to our fame ! "

  His thoughts are still circling round his work. With the mournful glance of a dying sculptor, he sees before him nothing but a fragment; and with his last breath he tells those around him what he had designed to fashion.

  Next day, his mind is wandering once more amid memories of youth and of Corsica. But still, from time to time, there revives the wish to be useful to his son. His fantasy creates possessions on the island, and the faithful Marchand takes down from dictation these mind-wanderings that are so precise in their details :

  " I leave to my son my house in Ajaccio with its outbuildings ; two houses adjacent to the saltpits with their gardens ; and all my estates in the Ajaccio district. These will bring him an income of frs. 50,000.1 bequeath. . . ."

  This is Napoleon's last command. He has won and lost half the world; but in his dying visions he sees the Corsican home of his ancestors, together with the son to whom he had intended to leave half the world as heirloom. The strains mingle ; to keep his son from want, he bequeaths the lad a house which he does not own. Then his mind turns back from his kin. He is once more the soldier, on his first campaign, in Italy. Around him flit the wraiths of his earliest comrades. He shouts :

  " Desaix ! Massena ! Victory is ours ! Quick ! Forward ! We have them. ..."

  Next day the abbate goes to him unsummoned. Beneath a layman's dress, the priest carries something he seeks to hide. He demands to be left alone with the dying man. After a while he comes out, saying : " I have given him extreme unction. Owing to the condition of the stomach, no other sacrament was possible."

  Death

  A terrible last night. Towards morning, when he is murmuring in delirium, Montholon hears the words :

  " France ! . . . Armee ! . . . Tete d'armee. . . . Josephine ! "

  This is Napoleon's last utterance.

  Next moment, with amazing energy, he springs out of bed, overpowering Montholon, who is alone with him. The two fall to the floor, and he grips Montholon so fiercely that the count cannot even cry for help. Archambaud, who is in the next room, hears the noise, comes in, and releases Montholon. No one knows what enemy the Emperor was trying to strangle in this last fight.

  The rest of the day he lies breathing quietly. By signs he seems to ask for water, but since he can no longer swallow they must be content with holding a sponge moistened with vinegar to his lips. Mist and rain drive fiercely round the house. A count of the old noblesse and a man of the people watch by the camp-bed of Austerlitz.

  At five o'clock, the rage of the south-east trade wind is redoubled, and two trees of the latest planting are uprooted.

  At this moment, the man on the bed is in the throes of a prolonged rigor. There is no sign of pain; his eyes are widely opened, staring into vacancy; the death-rattle is in his throat. As the tropical sun sinks into the sea the Emperor's heart stops beating.

  XX

  On the study table, in the garish light of noon, lies the naked corpse of Napoleon. Five English surgeons, three English army officers, and the three Frenchmen, surround the extemporized post-mortem table, where Antommarchi is performing the autopsy. The Corsican doctor has removed the liver and incised it. He holds up the organ for the others' inspection, and demonstrates, as if to a class of students. " You see, gentlemen, how this ulcerated part of the stomach has become adherent to

  Epilogue

  the liver. What are we to infer ? That the climate of St. Helena has intensified the gastric disorder, and has thus brought about the Emperor's premature death."

  A vote is taken: England against France. The majority declare the viscera to be healthy, while the Corsican is ostentatiously thrusting his finger through the perforated wall of the stomach. Medical report.

  The Emperor's body was embalmed, and at the lying-in-state was covered with the gold-embroidered cloak of Marengo. The whole garrison, by its own wish, marched past. All who saw the body testify to the calm and serenity of the features. In mysterious fashion, his face, which, since the days of the coronation, had tended to assume the robust maturity of the Roman emperors, had now returned to the delicacy of youth.

  The British authorities refused to allow the shipment to Europe. The grave was dug in a secluded valley, beside a spring shaded by two weeping willows. He was accorded the honours of a British general; salvos of artillery and musketry were fired over the grave, what time there fluttered in the breeze the colours on which were emblazoned the names of the English victories in Spain. The governor was present, and declared that he had forgiven the Emperor.

  Six stone slabs from gun emplacements cover the tomb. A seventh was needed for the artillery officer's grave ; but, since it was not available at the moment, three glazed tiles were taken from the cooking-stove of a new house. The governor would not allow the inscription " Napoleon " to be placed on the tomb, but insisted upon " Napoleon Bonaparte." There was, therefore, no inscription. The furniture of Longwood was sold by auction ; the house was bought by a farmer, who turned the place into a mill; the two rooms in which the Emperor had lived for six years were restored to their former uses, .becoming a byre and a pig-sty.

  One thing only did England do in honour of the dead: a sentry was posted at the grave. For nineteen years, the guard

  Letizia

  was relieved at the proper intervals ; then the dead Emperor was brought home to Paris.

  Without waiting for this, all the others return to Europe. The governor was publicly horsewhipped in London by Las Cases' son; he died in obscurity. Castlereagh, the statesman who had been predominantly responsible for the treatment of Napoleon, ultimately killed himself in an access of melancholia. All England was writing and talking about the barbarous treatment of the great exile.

  The Corsican doctor goes to Italy. Lucien refuses to see him. In Parma, Marie Louise also shuts her door against him, but he sees her in her box at the theatre. In Rome, Antommarchi visits Letizia Bonaparte, and for three days she makes him tell her all his news. He leaves the silver lamp with her, and sails back to Corsica. Letizia sits by the fireside, weeping over the fate of her second son, Napolione.

  She has still fifteen years to live. She outlives Elise ; outlives Pauline, who dies with a mirror in her hands ; outlives several of her grandchildren, and three popes. She is ha
lf paralysed, and has become blind. But she sits there facing her son's bust, her spirit unbroken, mourning her dead.

  Like a princess, she welcomes to her palace all those who have remained faithful to the Emperor. Her servants are the last persons in Europe to wear his colours ; her carriage is the last to bear his escutcheon. She has news at times from Vienna and her grandson, but the young man is not allowed to visit her. When he is one-and-twenty, he dies. Now, Marie Louise writes to her. She does not answer the letter. At last she is told that she may return home, but she refuses to go, since the same right is not accorded to her children.

  Nine years after the Emperor's death, the Bourbon dynasty is overthrown, and the Orleans monarchy is established. The new king knows how strong the Bonapartists are, and he orders that the statue of Napoleon, which fifteen years before had been removed, shall be replaced on the Vendome column. When

  Letter to Countess Walewska

  Resurrexit

  Jerome brings his bed-ridden mother these tidings, she has a renewal of health and is able to leave her bed. For the first time after a long interval she makes her way into the drawing-room, and her blind eyes turn towards the bust. She says in a toneless voice :

  " Once again the Emperor is in Paris."

  ENVOY

  To write the history of a man, or the history of an epoch, these are two distinct undertakings, differing both in name and technique. Vain has been the attempt to combine them. Plutarch renounced the one, and Carlyle renounced the other; that is why both these masters were able to achieve their respective tasks. It would be fair to say that Plutarch's example has found no imitators ; no one, after Plutarch, has made it his specific task to write the history of great minds upon a strictly historical foundation.

  Such a work does not come within the domain of the historian, seeing that the search for truth demands other talents than those requisite for the art of portrayal. Artists have sometimes dramatised historical figures with a free hand; sometimes they have produced one of those horrible mishmashes which pass by the name of" historical novel "—of which Goethe, like Napoleon, said that they confuse everything.