by Will Durant
In Italy the fate of Viceroy Eugène had wavered in the balance of events. His Milan base, despite his genial rule, had been made insecure by the rising discontent of the people with Napoleon’s treatment of the Pope. It was with considerable trepidation that Eugène led his army eastward to meet the Archduke Johann. He was defeated at the Tagliamento on April 16, and matters might have gone still worse for him had not Johann, on hearing of Napoleon’s victory at Eckmühl, turned back in the vain hope of saving Vienna. Eugène, risking the loss of Italy to reinforce his adoptive father, also moved north, and reached him in time to be with him at Wagram.
After the repulse at Essling, Napoleon, reinforced in troops and artillery, had new bridges built across the Danube, and strongly fortified, as camp and arsenal, the island of Lobay, situated in the river only 360 feet from the left bank. On July 4 he bade his army cross again. Seeing himself outnumbered, Karl Ludwig retreated north; Napoleon pursued him, and at Wagram 187,000 Frenchmen and allies met 136,000 Austrians and allies in one of the bloodiest battles in history. The Austrians fought well, and were at times near victory; but Napoleon’s superiority in manpower and tactics turned the tide, and after two days (July 5–6, 1809) of competitive homicide Karl, having lost 50,000 men, ordered a retreat. Napoleon had lost 34,000, but he had 153,000 left, while Karl had only 86,000; the odds were now two to one. The despondent Archduke asked for a truce, which Napoleon was glad to give.
He settled down in Schönbrunn with Mme. Walewska, and rejoiced to learn that she was pregnant; who now could say that it was his fault that Josephine had not borne him a child? Marie’s aged husband was gallant enough to forgive her distinguished infidelity; he invited her back to his estate in Poland, and prepared to acknowledge the child as his own.44
Peace negotiations dallied for three months, partly because Karl Ludwig could not persuade his brother Francis I that further resistance could not be organized, and partly because Emperor Francis hoped that Prussia and Russia would come to his aid. Napoleon helped Alexander to resist the appeal by offering him part of Galicia, and promising not to restore the kingdom of Poland; on September 1 the Czar informed Austria that he was not prepared to break with France. The Austrian negotiators still held out, until Napoleon laid down an ultimatum. On October 14 they signed the Treaty of Schönbrunn, dictated by France in the royal palace of her ancient Hapsburg foes. Austria ceded the Innviertel and Salzburg to the Bavaria that she had so often invaded. Part of Galicia went to Russia, part of it to the grand duchy of Warsaw in partial return of territory taken by Austria in the partitions of Poland. Fiume, Istria, Trieste, Venezia, part of Croatia, most of Carinthia and Carniola were taken by France. Altogether Austria lost 3,500,000 taxable souls, and had to pay an indemnity of 85 million francs. Napoleon took all this as his due, and six months later he capped his spoils by getting an Austrian archduchess as his bride.
VI. MARRIAGE AND POLITICS: 1809-II
He left Vienna on October 15, 1809, and reached Fontainebleau on the 26th. He explained to intimate relatives and councilors his decision to seek a divorce. They were almost unanimous in approving, but not till November 30 did he summon up the courage to reveal his intention to Josephine. Despite his extramarital diversions, which seemed to him the legitimate privilege of a traveling warrior, he still loved her, and the break was to cause him months of emotional misery.
He knew her faults—her lazy, languid ways, her leisurely toilette, her extravagance in dress and jewelry, her inability to say no to milliners coming to display their wares. “She purchased all that was brought to her, at no matter what price.”45 Her debts repeatedly reached levels that brought storms from her husband; he drove the saleswomen from her rooms, scolded her, and paid the debts. He allowed her 600,000 francs per year for her personal expenses, and 120,000 more for her charities, for he knew that she was a compulsive giver.46 He indulged her love for diamonds, perhaps because they made her fascinating despite her forty-two years. She was all feeling and no intellect, except the wisdom that nature gives to women for handling men. “Josephine,” he told her, “you have an excellent heart and a weak head.”47 He seldom let her talk politics, and when she persisted he soon forgot her views. But he was grateful for the sensuous warmth of her embraces, for the “unfailing sweetness of her disposition,”48 and for the modesty and grace with which she fulfilled her many functions as an empress. She loved him beyond idolatry, and he loved her this side of power. When Mme. de Staël accused him of not liking women, he replied, simply, “I like my wife.”49 Antoine Arnault marveled at “the empire exercised by the gentlest and most indolent of Creoles over the most willful and despotic of men. His determination, before which all men quailed, could not resist the tears of a woman.”50 As Napoleon put it at St. Helena, “I generally had to give in.”51
She had long known his yearning for an heir of his blood as the legitimate and accepted inheritor of his rule; she knew his fear that without such a traditional transmission of power his capture, death, or serious illness would lead to a mad scramble of factions and generals for supremacy, and that in the resultant chaos the orderly, prosperous, and powerful France which he was building could disintegrate into another such terror—red or white—as that from which he had rescued it in 1799.
When, finally, he told her that they must part, she fainted, sincerely enough to be unconscious for many minutes. Napoleon carried her to her rooms, summoned his doctor, Jean-Nicolas Corvisart des Marets, and asked for Hortense’s help in appeasing her mother. For a week Josephine refused consent; then, on December 7, Eugène arrived from Italy, and persuaded her. Napoleon comforted her with every tenderness. “I shall always love you,” he told her, “but politics has no heart; it has only a head.”52 She was to have full title to the château and grounds of Malmaison, the title of empress, and a substantial annuity. He assured her children that he would be, to the end, their loving father.
On December 16 the Senate, after hearing the requests of both the Emperor and the Empress for the dissolution of their marriage, issued a decree of divorce, and on January 12 the Metropolitan Archbishop of Paris pronounced their marriage annulled. Many Catholics questioned the canonical validity of the annulment; in most of France the population disapproved of the separation; and many prophesied that from this time the good fortune that had so regularly followed Napoleon would seek other favorites.53
Politics having prevailed over love, Napoleon proceeded to seek a mate who not only would give promise of motherhood, but would bring with her some imperial connections helpful to the security of France and his rule. On November 22 (eight days before asking Josephine for a divorce) Napoleon instructed Caulaincourt, his ambassador in St. Petersburg, to present an official request to Alexander for the hand of his sixteen-year-old sister, Anna Pavlova. The Czar knew that his mother, who called Napoleon “that atheist,” would never approve such a union, but he delayed replying, hoping to secure from Napoleon, as a quid pro quo, some territorial concessions in Poland. Impatient with the negotiations, and fearing a refusal, Napoleon acted on Metternich’s hint that Austria would receive favorably a proposal for the Archduchess Marie Louise. Cambacérès opposed the plan, predicting that it would end the Russian alliance and lead to war.54
Marie Louise, then eighteen years old, was not beautiful, but her blue eyes, pink cheeks, and chestnut hair, her mild temper and simple tastes, were well adjusted to Napoleon’s needs; all the evidence vouched for her present virginity and future fertility. She had considerable education, knew several languages, was skilled in music, drawing, and painting. From her childhood she had been taught to hate her suitor as the most wicked man in Europe, but also she had learned that a princess was a political commodity, whose tastes in men must be subordinated to the good of the state. After all, this famous infamous monster must be an exciting change from the dull routine of a guarded girl longing for a wider world.
So, on March 11, 1810, at Vienna, she was formally married to the absent Napoleon, who was represented by
Marshal Berthier. Repeating Marie Antoinette’s bridal procession of 1770, she moved with eighty-three coaches and carriages through fifteen days and ceremonial nights to reach Compiègne on March 27. Napoleon had arranged to meet her there, but—curious or courteous—he drove out to welcome her at nearby Courcelles. On seeing her—but let him tell the story:
I got out of the carriage quickly and kissed Marie Louise. The poor child had learned by heart a long speech, which she was to repeat to me kneeling. … I had asked Metternich and the Bishop of Nantes whether I could spend the night under the same roof with Marie Louise. They removed all my doubts, and assured me that she was now Empress and not Archduchess. … I was only separated from her bedroom by the library. I asked her what they had told her when she left Vienna. She answered me very naively that her father and Frau Lazansky had directed her as follows: “As soon as you are alone with the Emperor you must do absolutely everything that he tells you. You must agree to everything that he asks of you.” She was a delightful child.
Monsieur Ségur wanted me to keep away from her for form’s sake, but as I was already surely married, everything was all right, and I told him to go to the devil.55
The pair were united by a civil marriage at St.-Cloud on April 1, and, on the next day, by a religious marriage in the great hall of the Louvre. Nearly all the cardinals refused to attend this service, on the ground that the Pope had not annulled the marriage to Josephine; Napoleon exiled them to the provinces. Otherwise he was exuberantly happy. He found his bride sensually and socially pleasing—modest, obedient, generous and kind; she never learned to love him, but she was a cheerful companion. As empress she never achieved the popularity of Josephine, but she was accepted as symbolizing the triumph of France over the hostile royalties of Europe.
Napoleon did not forget Josephine. He visited her so often at Malmaison that Marie began to pout, whereupon he desisted; but then he sent Josephine comforting letters, nearly all addressed to “My love.”56 To one of these she replied from Navarre in Normandy on April 21, 1810:
A thousand, thousand thanks for not having forgotten me. My son has just brought me your letter. With what ardor have I read it! … There is not a word in it which has not made me weep; but those tears were very sweet. …
I wrote to you on leaving Malmaison, and how many times thereafter did I wish to write! But I felt the reasons for your silence, and I feared to be importunate. …
Be happy, be happy as you deserve; it is my whole heart that speaks. You have given me too my share of happiness, and a share very keenly felt. … Adieu, my friend. I thank you as tenderly as I shall love you always.57
She consoled herself with finery and hospitality. He allowed her three million francs a year; she spent four million; after her death in 1814 some bills for her unpaid purchases pursued him to Elba.58 At Malmaison she collected a gallery of art, and entertained without counting costs. Invitations to her receptions were valued next to Napoleon’s. Mme. Tallien—now the fat and forty Princesse de Chimay—came, and together they recalled the days when they were queens of the Directory. Countess Walewska came; she was well received, and joined with Josephine in mourning their lost lover.
He was granted two years of happiness and relative peace. The Treaty of Schönbrunn had enlarged his realm, enriched his Treasury, and stimulated his appetite. He had annexed the Papal States (May 17, 1809), and had restored Joseph to his royal seat in Madrid. In January, 1810, Sweden, long an enemy, signed peace with France, and joined the Continental Blockade; in June, with Napoleon’s solicited consent, she accepted Bernadotte as heir apparent to the Swedish throne. In December Napoleon absorbed Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Berg, and Oldenburg into the French Empire. His anxiety to close all Continental ports to British trade made him, in the eyes of his foes, an insatiable conqueror accumulating debts to the jealous gods.
Domestically, matters were quiet and comforting; France was prosperous and proud; the only ripple on the stream was the final dismissal of Fouché for exceeding his powers. Savary succeeded him as minister of police, while Fouché retired to Aix-en-Provence to plan revenge. External affairs were not so smooth. Holland was cursing the embargo on British goods; Italy, proud of the Papacy, was losing patience with Napoleon; Wellington was building an army in Portugal for an invasion of Spain; and beyond the Rhine the German states under Bonapartist rule were complaining of impositions, and were only waiting for some imperial blunder to let them return to more congenial masters.
Nevertheless Marie Louise was with child, and the happy Emperor counted the days to her fulfillment. When the great event approached, he surrounded it with all the ceremony and solemnity that had traditionally greeted a Bourbon birth. Announcement was made that if the child was a daughter Paris would hear a salvo of twenty-one guns; if it was a son the salvos would continue to 101. The delivery was extremely painful; the fetus proposed to come into the world feet first. Dr. Corvisart told Napoleon that either the mother or the child might have to be sacrificed; he was told to save the mother at any cost.59 Another physician used instruments to invert the fetus; Marie for some minutes was near death. Finally the child agreed to emerge head first; both mother and child survived (March 20, 1811). The 101 cannon shots sent their message over Paris, echoing through France; and there were not many persons in Europe who could begrudge the Emperor his happiness. All the rulers of Continental Europe sent their congratulations to the fond father and to the already proclaimed “King of Rome.”60 Now, for the first time in his career, Napoleon could feel tolerably secure; he had founded a dynasty that, in his hopes, would be as splendid and beneficent as any in history, and might even make Europe one.
CHAPTER X
Napoleon Himself
I. BODY
WE must not picture him as Gros painted him in 1796—standard in one hand, drawn sword in the other, costume ornate with colored sash and official insignia, long chestnut hair wild in the wind, eyes, brow, and lips fixed in determination; this seems too ideal to be true. Two years younger than his twenty-seven-year-old hero, Gros is said to have seen him planting that standard on the bridge at Arcole,1 but the painting is probably the product of ardent idolatry—the man of art worshiping the men of deeds. And yet, two years later, Guérin portrayed Napoleon with essentially the same features: hair falling over forehead and shoulders, brows arched over eyes somber and resolute, nose going straight to the point like his will, lips closed tight as of a mind made up. This too is but one aspect of the man—the martial; there were many other moods that could relax those lineaments, as in his playful pulling of his secretary’s ears, or in his paternal ecstasy over the infant “King of Rome.” By 1802 he had discarded those long locks2—all but one which dangled over a receding forehead. He put on weight after forty years, and sometimes used his paunch to support his hand. Frequently, especially when walking, he clasped his hands behind his back; this became so habitual that it almost always betrayed him at a masquerade. Throughout his life his hands attracted attention by the perfection of their skin and the tapering fingers; indeed, he was quite proud of all four of his extremities. However, Las Cases, who thought him a god, could not help smiling at those “ridiculously handsome hands.”3
He was absurdly short for a general, being only five feet and six inches in height;4 the command had to be in the eyes. Cardinal Caprara, coming to negotiate the Concordat, wore “an immense pair of green spectacles” to soften the glare of Napoleon’s eyes. General Vandamme, fearing their hypnosis, confessed, “That devil of a man exercises upon me a fascination that I cannot explain to myself; and in such degree that though I fear neither God nor devil, I am ready to tremble like a child when I am in his presence, and he could make me go through the eye of a needle to throw myself into the fire.”5 The Emperor’s complexion was sallow, brightened, however, by facial muscles quickly reflecting—if he wished—each turn of feeling or idea. Napoleon’s head was large for his stature, but was well shaped; his shoulders were broad, his chest well developed, suggesting
a strong constitution. He dressed simply, leaving finery to his marshals; his complex hat, spreading like a folded waffle, had no adornment but a tricolor cockade.*Usually he wore a gray coat over the uniform of a colonel of his guard. He carried a snuffbox on his waistband, and resorted to it occasionally. He preferred knee breeches and silk stockings to pantaloons. He never wore jewelry, but his shoes were lined with silk and bound with buckles of gold. In dress, as in his final political philosophy, he belonged to the Ancien Régime.
He was “scrupulously neat in his person.”7 He had a passion for warm baths, sometimes lingering in them for two hours; probably he found in them some relief from nervous tensions, muscular pains, and an itching skin disease that he had contracted at Toulon.8 He used eau-de-cologne on his neck and torso as well as on his face.9 He was “exceedingly temperate” in food and drink; diluted his wine with water,10 like the ancient Greeks; and usually gave only ten or fifteen minutes to his lunch. On campaigns he ate as chance allowed, and often hurriedly; sometimes this led to indigestion, and at the most critical moments, as at the battles of Borodino and Leipzig.11 He suffered from constipation; in 1797 he added hemorrhoids, which he claimed to have cured with leeches.12 “I never saw him ill,” said Méneval, but he added: “He was only occasionally subject to vomiting bile, which never left any aftereffects. … He had feared, for some time, that he was affected with a disease of the bladder, because the keen air of the mountains caused him a kind of dysuria; but this fear was found to be without foundation.”13 However, there is considerable evidence that in his later life Napoleon was afflicted with inflammation of the urinary tract, sometimes leading to painful and inconveniently frequent urination.14 His overstrung nerves sometimes (as at Mainz in 1806) collapsed into convulsions partly resembling epileptic seizures; but it is now generally agreed that he was not subject to epilepsy.15