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[Footnote 1156: 200 years after the death of Napoleon Sir Alfred Ayer thus writes in "LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC": 'Actually, we shall see that the only test to which a form of scientific procedure which satisfies the necessary condition of self-consistency is subject, is the test of its success in practice. We are entitled to have faith in our procedure just so long as it does the work it is designed to do—that is, enables us to predict future experience, and so to control our environment.' And on the Purpose of Inquiry: 'The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be the purpose and the method of philosophical inquiry.' (SR.)]
[Footnote 1157: An expression of Mollien.]
[Footnote 1158: Meneval, I., 210, 213.—Roederer, III., 537, 545 (February and March, 1889): Words of Napoleon: "At this moment it was nearly midnight."—Ibid., IV., 55 (November, 1809). Read the admirable examination of Roederer by Napoleon on the Kingdom of Naples. His queries form a vast systematic and concise network, embracing the entire subject, leaving no physical or moral data, no useful circumstance not seized upon.—Segur, II., 231: M. De Segur, ordered to inspect every part of the coast-line, had sent in his report: "'I have seen your reports,' said the First Consul to me, 'and they are exact. Nevertheless, you forgot at Osten two cannon out of the four.'—And he pointed out the place, 'a roadway behind the town.' I went out overwhelmed with astonishment that among thousands of cannon distributed among the mounted batteries or light artillery on the coast, two pieces should not have escaped his recollection."—"Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, August 6, 1806: "The admirable condition of my armies is due to this, that I give attention to them every day for an hour or two, and, when the monthly reports come in, to the state of my troops and fleets, all forming about twenty large volumes. I leave every other occupation to read them over in detail, to see what difference there is between one month and another. I take more pleasure in reading those than any young girl does in a novel."—Cadet de Gassicourt, "Voyage en Autriche"(1809). On his reviews at Schoenbrunn and his verification of the contents of a pontoon-wagon, taken as an example.]
[Footnote 1159: One ancient French league equals app. 4 km. (SR.)]
[Footnote 1160: Bourrienne, II., 116; IV., 238: "He had not a good memory for proper names, words, and dates, but it was prodigious for facts and localities. I remember that, on the way from Paris to Toulon, he called my attention to ten places suitable for giving battle.... It was a souvenir of his youthful travels, and he described to me the lay of the ground, designating the positions he would have taken even before we were on the spot." March 17, 1800, puncturing a card with a pin, he shows Bourrienne the place where he intends to beat Melas, at San Juliano. "Four months after this I found myself at San Juliano with his portfolio and dispatches, and, that very evening, at Torre-di-Gafolo, a league off, I wrote the bulletin of the battle under his dictation" (of Marengo).—De Segur, II., 30 (Narrative of M. Daru to M. De Segur Aug. 13, 1805, at the headquarters of La Manche, Napoleon dictates to M. Daru the complete plan of the campaign against Austria): "Order of marches, their duration, places of convergence or meeting of the columns, attacks in full force, the various movements and mistakes of the enemy, all, in this rapid dictation, was foreseen two months beforehand and at a distance of two hundred leagues.... The battle-field, the victories, and even the very days on which we were to enter Munich and Vienna were then announced and written down as it all turned out.... Daru saw these oracles fulfilled on the designated days up to our entry into Munich; if there were any differences of time and not of results between Munich and Vienna, they were all in our favor."—M. de La Vallette, "Memoires," II., p. 35. (He was postmaster-general): "It often happened to me that I was not as certain as he was of distances and of many details in my administration on which he was able to set me straight."—On returning from the camp at Bologna, Napoleon encounters a squad of soldiers who had got lost, asks what regiment they belong to, calculates the day they left, the road they took, what distance they should have marched. and then tells them, "You will find your battalion at such a halting place."—At this time, "the army numbered 200,000 men."]
[Footnote 1161: Madame de Remusat, I., 103, 268.]
[Footnote 1162: Thibaudeau, p.25, I (on the Jacobin survivors): "They are nothing but common artisans, painters, etc., with lively imaginations, a little better instructed than the people, living amongst the people and exercising influence over them."—Madame de Remusat, I., 271 (on the royalist party): "It is very easy to deceive that party because its starting-point is not what it is, but what it would like to have."—I., 337: "The Bourbons will never see anything except through the Oeil de Boeuf."—Thibaudeau, p.46: "Insurrections and emigrations are skin diseases; terrorism is an internal malady." Ibid., 75: "What now keeps the spirit of the army up is the idea soldiers have that they occupy the places of former nobles."]
[Footnote 1163: Thibaudeau, pp.419 to 452. (Both texts are given in separate columns.) And passim, for instance, p.84, the following portrayal of the decadal system of worship under the Republic: "It was imagined that citizens could be got together in churches, to freeze with cold and hear, read, and study laws, in which there was already but little fun for those who executed them." Another example of the way in which his ideas expressed themselves through imagery (Pelet de la Lozere, p. 242): "I am not satisfied with the customs regulations on the Alps. They show no life. We don't hear the rattle of crown pieces pouring into the public treasury." To appreciate the vividness of Napoleon's expressions and thought the reader must consult, especially, the five or six long conversations, noted on the very evening of the day they occurred by Roederer; the two or three conversations likewise noted by Miot de Melito; the scenes narrated by Beugnot; the notes of Pelet de la Lozere and by Stanislas de Girardin, and nearly the entire volume by Thibaudeau.]
[Footnote 1164: Pelet de la Lozere, 63, 64. (On the physiological differences between the English and the French.)—Madame de Remusat, I., 273, 392: "You, Frenchmen, are not in earnest about anything, except, perhaps, equality, and even here you would gladly give this up if you were sure of being the foremost.... The hope of advancement in the world should be cherished by everybody.... Keep your vanity always alive The severity of the republican government would have worried you to death. What started the Revolution? Vanity. What will end it? Vanity, again. Liberty is merely a pretext."—III., 153 "Liberty is the craving of a small and privileged class by nature, with faculties superior to the common run of men; this class, therefore, may be put under restraint with impunity; equality, on the contrary, catches the multitude."—Thibaudeau, 99: "What do I care for the opinions and cackle of the drawing-room? I never heed it. I pay attention only to what rude peasants say." His estimates of certain situations are masterpieces of picturesque concision. "Why did I stop and sign the preliminaries of Leoben? Because I played vingt-et-un and was satisfied with twenty." His insight into (dramatic) character is that of the most sagacious critic. "The 'Mahomet' of Voltaire is neither a prophet nor an Arab, only an impostor graduated out of the Ecole Polytechnique."—"Madame de Genlis tries to define virtue as if she were the discoverer of it."—(On Madame de Stael): "This woman teaches people to think who never took to it, or have forgotten how."—(On Chateaubriand, one of whose relations had just been shot): "He will write a few pathetic pages and read them aloud in the faubourg Saint-Germain; pretty women will shed tears, and that will console him."—(On Abbe Delille): "He is wit in its dotage."—(On Pasquier and Mole): "I make the most of one, and made the other."—Madame de Remusat, II., 389, 391, 394, 399, 402; III., 67.]
[Footnote 1165: Bourrienne, II., 281, 342: "It pained me to write official statements under his dictation, of which each was an imposture." He always answered: "My dear sir, you are a simpleton—you understand nothing!"—Madame de Remusat, II., 205, 209.]
[Footnote 1166: See especially the campaign bulletins for 1807, so insulting to the king and queen of Prussia, but, owing to that fact, so well calculated to excite the contemptuous laughter and jeers of the soldiers.]
[Footnote 1167: In "La Correspondance de Napoleon," published in thirty-two volumes, the letters are arranged under dates.—In his '"Correspondance avec Eugene, vice-roi d'Italie," they are arranged under chapters; also with Joseph, King of Naples and afterwards King of Spain. It is easy to select other chapters not less instructive: one on foreign affairs (letters to M. de Champagny, M de Talleyrand, and M. de Bassano); another on the finances (letters to M. Gaudin and to M. Mollien); another on the navy (letters to Admiral Decres); another on military administration (letters to General Clarke); another on the affairs of the Church (letters to M. Portalis and to M. Bigot de Preameneu); another on the Police (letters to Fouche), etc.—Finally, by dividing and distributing his letters according as they relate to this or that grand enterprise, especially to this or that military campaign, a third classification could be made.—In this way we can form a concept of the vastness of his positive knowledge, also of the scope of his intellect and talents. Cf. especially the following letters to Prince Eugene, June II, 1806 (on the supplies and expenses of the Italian army); June 1st and 18th, 1806 (on the occupation of Dalmatia, and on the military situation, offensive and defensive). To Gen. Dejean, April 28, 1806 (on the war supplies); June 27, 1806 (on the fortifications of Peschiera) July 20, 1806 (on the fortifications of Wesel and of Juliers).—"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon", p. 353 by the Count Chaptal: "One day, the Emperor said to me that he would like to organize a military school at Fontainebleau; he then explained to me the principal features of the establishment, and ordered me to draw up the necessary articles and bring them to him the next day. I worked all night and they were ready at the appointed hour. He read them over and pronounced them correct, but not complete. He bade me take a seat and then dictated to me for two or three hours a plan which consisted of five hundred and seventeen articles. Nothing more perfect, in my opinion, ever issued from a man's brain.—At another time, the Empress Josephine was to take the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Emperor summoned me. 'The Empress,' said he, 'is to leave to-morrow morning. She is a good-natured, easy-going woman and must have her route and behavior marked out for her. Write it down.' He then dictated instructions to me on twenty-one large sheets of paper, in which everything she was to say and to do was designated, even the questions and replies she was to make to the authorities on the way."]
[Footnote 1168: One French league equals approximately 4 km. 70,000 square leagues then equal 1,120,000 km.2, or 400,000 square miles or 11% of the United States but 5 times the size of Great Britain. (SR.)]
[Footnote 1169: Cf. in the "Correspondance" the letters dated at Schoenbrunn near Vienna, during August and September, 1809, and especially: the great number of letters and orders relating to the English expeditions to Walcheren; the letters to chief-judge Regnier and to the arch-chancellor Cambaceres on expropriations for public benefit (Aug. 21, Sept. 7 and 29); the letters and orders to M. de Champagny to treat with Austria (Aug. 19, and Sept. 10, 15, 18, 22, and 23); the letters to Admirable Decres, to despatch naval expeditions to the colonies (Aug.17 and Sept. 26); the letter to Mollien on the budget of expenditure (Aug. 8); the letter to Clarke on the statement of guns in store throughout the empire (Sept. 14). Other letters, ordering the preparation of two treatises on military art (Oct. 1), two works on the history and encroachments of the Holy See (Oct. 3), prohibiting conferences at Saint-Sulpice (Sept. 15), and forbidding priests to preach outside the churches (Sept. 24).—From Schoenbrunn, he watches the details of public works in France and Italy; for instance, the letters to M. le Montalivet (Sept.30), to send an auditor post to Parma, to have a dyke repaired at once, and (Oct. 8) to hasten the building of several bridges and quays at Lyons.]
[Footnote 1170: He says himself; "I always transpose my theme in many ways."]
[Footnote 1171: Madame de Remusat, I., 117, 120. "1 heard M. de Talleyrand exclaim one day, some what out of humor, 'This devil of a man misleads you in all directions. Even his passions escape you, for he finds some way to counterfeit them, although they really exist.'"—For example, immediately prior to the violent confrontation with Lord Whitworth, which was to put an end to the treaty of Amiens, he was chatting and amusing himself with the women and the infant Napoleon, his nephew, in the gayest and most unconcerned manner: "He is suddenly told that the company had assembled. His countenance changes like that of an actor when the scene shifts. He seems to turn pale at will and his features contract"; he rises, steps up precipitately to the English ambassador, and fulminates for two hours before two hundred persons. (Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. XXVI, dispatches of Lord Whitworth, pp. 1798, 1302, 1310.)—"He often observes that the politician should calculate every advantage that could be gained by his defects." One day, after an explosion he says to Abbe de Pradt: "You thought me angry! you are mistaken. Anger with me never mounts higher than here (pointing to his neck)."]
[Footnote 1172: Roederer, III. (The first days of Brumaire, year VIII.)]
[Footnote 1173: Bourrienne, III., 114.]
[Footnote 1174: Bourrienne, II., 228. (Conversation with Bourrienne in the park at Passeriano.)]
[Footnote 1175: Ibid., II., 331. (Written down by Bourrienne the same evening.)]
[Footnote 1176: Madame de Remusat, I., 274.—De Segur, II., 459. (Napoleon's own words on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz): "Yes, if I had taken Acre, I would have assumed the turban, I would have put the army in loose breeches; I would no longer have exposed it, except at the last extremity; I would have made it my sacred battalion, my immortals. It is with Arabs, Greeks, and Armenians that I would have ended the war against the Turks. Instead of one battle in Moravia I would have gained a battle of Issus; I would have made myself emperor of the East, and returned to Paris by the way of Constantinople."—De Pradt, p.19 (Napoleon's own words at Mayence, September, 1804): "Since two hundred years there is nothing more to do in Europe; it is only in the East that things can be carried out on a grand scale."]
[Footnote 1177: Madame de Remusat, I., 407.—Miot de Melito, II., 214 (a few weeks after his coronation): "There will be no repose in Europe until it is under one head, under an Emperor, whose officers would be kings, who would distribute kingdoms to his lieutenants, who would make one of them King of Italy, another King of Bavaria, here a landmann of Switzerland, and here a stadtholder of Holland, etc."]
[Footnote 1178: "Correspondance de Napoleon I.," vol. XXX., 550, 558. (Memoirs dictated by Napoleon at Saint Helene.)—Miot de Melito, II., 290.—D'Hausonvillc, "l'Eglise Romaine et le Premier Empire, passim.— Memorial." "Paris would become the capital of the Christian world, and I would have governed the religious world as well as the political world."]
[Footnote 1179: De Pradt, 23.]
[Footnote 1180: "Memoires et Memorial." "It was essential that Paris should become the unique capital, not to be compared with other capitals. The masterpieces of science and of art, the museums, all that had illustrated past centuries, were to be collected there. Napoleon regretted that he could not transport St. Peter's to Paris; the meanness of Notre Dame dissatisfied him."]
[Footnote 1181: Villemain, "Souvenir contemporaines," I., 175. Napoleon's statement to M. de Narbonne early in March, 1812, and repeated by him to Villemain an hour afterwards. The wording is at second hand and merely a very good imitation, while the ideas are substantially Napoleon's. Cf. his fantasies about Italy and the Mediterranean, equally exaggerated ("Correspondence," XXX., 548), and an admirable improvisation on Spain and the colonies at Bayonne.—De Pradt. "Memoires sur les revolutions d'Espagne," p.130: "Therefore Napoleon talked, or rather poetised; he Ossianized for a long time... like a man full of a sentiment which oppressed him, in an animated, picturesque style, and with the impetuosity, imagery, and originality which were familiar to him,... on the vast throne of Mexico and Peru, on the greatness of the sovereigns who should possess them.. .. and on the results which these great foundations would have on the universe. I had often heard him, but under no circumstances had I ever heard him develop such a wealth and compass of imagination. Whether it was the richness of his subject, or whether his faculties had become excited by the scene he conjured up, and all the chords of the instrument vibrated at once, he was sublime."]
[Footnote 1182: Roederer, III., 541 (February 2, 1809): "I love power. But I love it as an artist.... I love it as a musician loves his violin, for the tones, chords, and harmonies he can get out of it."]
CHAPTER II. HIS IDEAS, PASSIONS AND INTELLIGENCE.
I. Intense Passions.
Personality and character during the Italian Renaissance and during the present time.—Intensity of the passions in Bonaparte.—His excessive touchiness.—His immediate violence.—His impatience, rapidity, and need of talking. —His temperament, tension, and faults.
On taking a near view of the contemporaries of Dante and Michael Angelo, we find that they differ from us more in character than in intellect.[1201] With us, three hundred years of police and of courts of justice, of social discipline and peaceful habits, of hereditary civilization, have diminished the force and violence of the passions natural to Man. In Italy, in the Renaissance epoch, they were still intact; human emotions at that time were keener and more profound than at the present day; the appetites were ardent and more unbridled; man's will was more impetuous and more tenacious; whatever motive inspired, whether pride, ambition, jealousy, hatred, love, envy, or sensuality, the inward spring strained with an energy and relaxed with a violence that has now disappeared. All these energies reappear in this great survivor of the fifteenth century; in him the play of the nervous machine is the same as with his Italian ancestors; never was there, even with the Malatestas and the Borgias, a more sensitive and more impulsive intellect, one capable of such electric shocks and explosions, in which the roar and flashes of tempest lasted longer and of which the effects were more irresistible. In his mind no idea remains speculative and pure; none is a simple transcript of the real, or a simple picture of the possible; each is an internal eruption, which suddenly and spontaneously spends itself in action; each darts forth to its goal and would reach it without stopping were it not kept back and restrained by force[1202] Sometimes, the eruption is so sudden, that the restraint does not come soon enough. One day, in Egypt,[1203] on entertaining a number of French ladies at dinner, he has one of them, who was very pretty and whose husband he had just sent off to France, placed alongside of him; suddenly, as if accidentally, he overturns a pitcher of water on her, and, under the pretence of enabling her to rearrange her wet dress, he leads her into another room where he remains with her a long time, too long, while the other guests seated at the table wait quietly and exchange glances. Another day, at Paris, toward the epoch of the Concordat,[1204] he says to Senator Volney: "France wants a religion." Volney replies in a frank, sententious way, "France wants the Bourbons." Whereupon he gives Volney a kick in the stomach and he falls unconscious; on being moved to a friend's house, he remains there ill in bed for several days.—No man is more irritable, so soon in a passion; and all the more because he purposely gives way to his irritation; for, doing this just at the right moment, and especially before witnesses, it strikes terror; it enables him to extort concessions and maintain obedience. His explosions of anger, half-calculated, half-involuntary, serve him quite as much as they relieve him, in public as well as in private, with strangers as with intimates, before constituted bodies, with the Pope, with cardinals, with ambassadors, with Talleyrand, with Beugnot, with anybody that comes along,[1205] whenever he wishes to set an example or "keep the people around him on the alert." The public and the army regard him as impassible; but, apart from the battles in which he wears a mask of bronze, apart from the official ceremonies in which he assumes a necessarily dignified air, impression and expression with him are almost always confounded, the inward overflowing in the outward, the action, like a blow, getting the better of him. At Saint Cloud, caught by Josephine in the arms of another woman, he runs after the unlucky interrupter in such a way that "she barely has time to escape";[1206] and again, that evening, keeping up his fury so as to put her down completely, "he treats her in the most outrageous manner, smashing every piece of furniture that comes in his way." A little before the Empire, Talleyrand, a great mystifier, tells Berthier that the First Consul wanted to assume the title of king. Berthier, in eager haste, crosses the drawing-room full of company, accosts the master of the house and, with a beaming smile, "congratulates him."[1207] At the word king, Bonaparte's eyes flash. Grasping Berthier by the throat, he pushes him back against the wall, exclaiming, "You fool! who told you to come here and stir up my bile in this way? Another time don't come on such errands."—Such is the first impulse, the instinctive action, to pounce on people and seize them by the throat; we divine under each sentence, and on every page he writes, out-bursts and assaults of this description, the physiognomy and intonation of a man who rushes forward and knocks people down. Accordingly, when dictating in his cabinet, "he strides up and down the room," and, "if excited," which is often the case, "his language consists of violent imprecations, and even of oaths, which are suppressed in what is written."[1208] But these are not always suppressed, for those who have seen the original minutes of his correspondence on ecclesiastical affairs find dozens of them, the b..., the p... and the swearwords of the coarsest kind.[1209]
Never was there such impatient touchiness. "When dressing himself,[1210] he throws on the floor or into the fire any part of his attire which does not suit him.... On gala-days and on grand ceremonial occasions his valets are obliged to agree together when they shall seize the right moment to put some thing on him... He tears off or breaks whatever causes him the slightest discomfort, while the poor valet who has been the means of it meets with a violent and positive proof of his anger. No thought was ever more carried away by its own speed. "His handwriting, when he tries to write, "is a mass of disconnected and undecipherable signs;[1211] the words lack one-half of their letters." On reading it over himself, he cannot tell what it means. At last, he becomes almost incapable of producing a handwritten letter, while his signature is a mere scrawl. He accordingly dictates, but so fast that his secretaries can scarcely keep pace with him: on their first attempt the perspiration flows freely and they succeed in noting down only the half of what he says. Bourrienne, de Meneval, and Maret invent a stenography of their own, for he never repeats any of his phrases; so much the worse for the pen if it lags behind, and so much the better if a volley of exclamations or of oaths gives it a chance to catch up.—Never did speech flow and overflow in such torrents, often without either discretion or prudence, even when the outburst is neither useful nor creditable the reason is that both spirit and intellect are charged to excess subject to this inward pressure the improvisator and polemic, under full headway,[1212] take the place of the man of business and the statesman.
"With him," says a good observer,[1213] "talking is a prime necessity, and, assuredly, among the prerogatives of high rank, he ranks first that of speaking without interruption."
Even at the Council of State he allows himself to run on, forgetting the business on hand; he starts off right and left with some digression or demonstration, some invective or other, for two or three hours at a stretch,[1214] insisting over and over again, bent on convincing or prevailing, and ending in demanding of the others if he is not right, "and, in this case, never failing to find that all have yielded to the force of his arguments." On reflection, he knows the value of an assent thus obtained, and, pointing to his chair, he observes:
"It must be admitted that it is easy to be brilliant when one is in that seat!"
Nevertheless he has enjoyed his intellectual exercise and given way to his passion, which controls him far more than he controls it.
"My nerves are very irritable," he said of himself, "and when in this state were my pulse not always regular I should risk going crazy."[1215]
The tension of accumulated impressions is often too great, and it ends in a physical break-down. Strangely enough in so great a warrior and with such a statesman, "it is not infrequent, when excited, to see him shed tears." He who has looked upon thousands of dying men, and who has had thousands of men slaughtered, "sobs," after Wagram and after Bautzen,[1216] at the couch of a dying comrade. "I saw him," says his valet, "weep while eating his breakfast, after coming from Marshal Lannes's bedside; big tears rolled down his cheeks and fell on his plate." It is not alone the physical sensation, the sight of a bleeding, mangled body, which thus moves him acutely and deeply; for a word, a simple idea, stings and penetrates almost as far. Before the emotion of Dandolo, who pleads for Venice his country, which is sold to Austria, he is agitated and his eyes moisten.[1217] Speaking of the capitulation of Baylen, at a full meeting of the Council of State,[1218] his voice trembles, and "he gives way to his grief, his eyes even filling with tears." In 1806, setting out for the army and on taking leave of Josephine, he has a nervous attack which is so severe as to bring on vomiting.[1219] "We had to make him sit down," says an eye-witness, "and swallow some orange water; he shed tears, and this lasted a quarter of an hour." The same nervous and stomachic crisis came on in 1808, on deciding on the divorce; he tosses about a whole night, and laments like a woman; he melts, and embraces Josephine; he is weaker than she is: "My poor Josephine, I can never leave you!" Folding her in his arms, he declares that she shall not quit him; he abandons himself wholly to the sensation of the moment; she must undress at once, sleep alongside of him, and he weeps over her; "literally," she says, "he soaked the bed with his tears."—Evidently, in such an organism, however powerful the superimposed regulator, there is a risk of the equilibrium being destroyed. He is aware of this, for he knows himself well; he is afraid of his own nervous sensibility, the same as of an easily frightened horse; at critical moments, at Berezina, he refuses to receive the bad news which might excite this, and, on the informer's insisting on it, he asks him again,[1220] "Why, sir, do you want to disturb me?"—Nevertheless, in spite of his precautions, he is twice taken unawares, at times when the peril was alarming and of a new kind; he, so clear headed and so cool under fire, the boldest of military heroes and the most audacious of political adventurers, quails twice in a parliamentary storm and again in a popular crisis. On the 18th of Brumaire, in the Corps Legislatif, "he turned pale, trembled, and seemed to lose his head at the shouts of outlawry.... they had to drag him out.... they even thought for a moment that he was going to faint."[1221] After the abdication at Fontainebleau, on encountering the rage and imprecations which greeted him in Provence, he seemed for some days to be morally shattered; the animal instincts assert their supremacy; he is afraid and makes no attempt at concealment.[1222] After borrowing the uniform of an Austrian colonel, the helmet of a Prussian quartermaster, and the cloak of the Russian quartermaster, he still considers that he is not sufficiently disguised. In the inn at Calade, "he starts and changes color at the slightest noise"; the commissaries, who repeatedly enter his room, "find him always in tears." "He wearies them with his anxieties and irresolution"; he says that the French government would like to have him assassinated on the road, refuses to eat for fear of poison, and thinks that he might escape by jumping out of the window. And yet he gives vent to his feelings and lets his tongue run on about himself without stopping, concerning his past, his character, unreservedly, indelicately, trivially; like a cynic and one who is half-crazy; his ideas run loose and crowd each other like the anarchical gatherings of a tumultuous mob; he does not recover his mastery of them until he reaches Frejus, the end of his journey, where he feels himself safe and protected from any highway assault; then only do they return within ordinary limits and fall back in regular line under the control of the sovereign intellect which, after sinking for a time, revives and resumes its ascendancy.—There is nothing in him so extraordinary as this almost perpetual domination of the lucid, calculating reason; his willpower is still more formidable than his intelligence; before it can obtain the mastery of others it must be master at home. To measure its power, it does not suffice to note its fascinations; to enumerate the millions of souls it captivates, to estimate the vastness of the obstacles it overcomes: we must again, and especially, represent to ourselves the energy and depth of the passions it keeps in check and urges on like a team of prancing, rearing horses—it is the driver who, bracing his arms, constantly restrains the almost ungovernable steeds, who controls their excitement, who regulates their bounds, who takes advantage even of their viciousness to guide his noisy vehicle over precipices as it rushes on with thundering speed. If the pure ideas of the reasoning brain thus maintain their daily supremacy it is due to the vital flow which nourishes them; their roots are deep in his heart and temperament, and those roots which give them their vigorous sap constitute a primordial instinct more powerful than intellect, more powerful even than his will, the instinct which leads him to center everything on himself, in other words egoism.[1223]
II. Will and Egoism.
Bonaparte's dominant passion.—His lucid, calculating mind. —Source and power of the Will.—Early evidences of an active, absorbing egoism.—His education derived from the lessons of things.—In Corsica.—In France during the Revolution.—In Italy.—In Egypt.—His idea of Society and of Right.—Maturing after the 18th of Brumaire.—His idea of Man.—It conforms to his character
It is egoism, not a passive, but an active and intrusive egoism, proportional to the energy and extension of his faculties developed by his education and circumstances, exaggerated by his success and his omnipotence to such a degree that a monstrous colossal I has been erected in society. It expands unceasingly the circle of a tenacious and rapacious grasp, which regards all resistance as offensive, which all independence annoys, and which, on the boundless domain it assigns to itself, is intolerant of anybody that does not become either an appendix or a tool.—The germ of this absorbing personality is already apparent in the youth and even in the infant.
"Character: dominating, imperious, and stubborn,"
says the record at Brienne.[1224] And the notes of the Military Academy add;[1225]
"Extremely inclined to egoism,"—"proud, ambitious, aspiring in all directions, fond of solitude,"
undoubtedly because he is not master in a group of equals and is ill at ease when he cannot rule.
"I lived apart from my comrades," he says at a later date.[1226]—"I had selected a little corner in the playgrounds, where I used to go and sit down and indulge my fancies. When my comrades were disposed to drive me out of this corner I defended it with all my might. My instinct already told me that my will should prevail against other wills, and that whatever pleased me ought to belong to me."
Referring to his early years under the paternal roof at Corsica, he depicts himself as a little mischievous savage, rebelling against every sort of restraint, and without any conscience.[1227] "I respected nothing and feared nobody; I beat one and scratched another; I made everybody afraid of me. I beat my brother Joseph; I bit him and complained of him almost before he knew what he was about." A clever trick, and one which he was not slow to repeat. His talent for improvising useful falsehoods is innate; later on, at maturity, he is proud of this; he makes it the index and measure of "political superiority," and "delights in calling to mind one of his uncles who, in his infancy, prognosticated to him that he would govern the world because he was fond of lying."[1228]
Remark this observation of the uncles—it sums up the experiences of a man of his time and of his country; it is what social life in Corsica inculcated; morals and manners there adapted themselves to each other through an unfailing connection. The moral law, indeed, is such because similar customs prevail in all countries and at all times where the police is powerless, where justice cannot be obtained, where public interests are in the hands of whoever can lay hold of them, where private warfare is pitiless and not repressed, where every man goes armed, where every sort of weapon is fair, and where dissimulation, fraud, and trickery, as well as gun or poniard, are allowed, which was the case in Corsica in the eighteenth century, as in Italy in the fifteenth century.—Hence the early impressions of Bonaparte similar to those of the Borgias and of Macchiavelli; hence, in his case, that first stratum of half-thought which, later on, serves as the basis of complete thought; hence, the whole foundation of his future mental edifice and of the conceptions he subsequently entertains of human society. Afterwards, on leaving the French schools and every time he returns to them and spends any time in them, the same impressions, often renewed, intensify in his mind the same final conclusion. In this country, report the French commissioners,[1229] "the people have no idea of principle in the abstract," nor of social interest or justice. "Justice does not exist; one hundred and thirty assassinations have occurred in ten years.... The institution of juries has deprived the country of all the means for punishing crime; never do the strongest proofs, the clearest evidence, lead a jury composed of men of the same party, or of the same family as the accused, to convict him; and, if the accused is of the opposite party, the juries likewise acquit him, so as not to incur the risk of revenge, slow perhaps but always sure."—"Public spirit is unknown." There is no social body, except any number of small parties hostile to each other.... One is not a Corsican without belonging to some family, and consequently attached to some party; he who would serve none, would be detested by all.... All the leaders have the same end in view, that of getting money no matter by what means, and their first care is to surround themselves with creatures entirely devoted to them and to whom they give all the offices.... The elections are held under arms, and all with violence.... The victorious party uses its authority to avenge itself on their opponents, and multiplies vexations and outrages... . The leaders form aristocratic leagues with each other.... and mutually tolerate abuses. They impose no assessment or collection (of taxes) to curry favor with electors through party spirit and relationships.... Customs-duties serve simply to compensate friends and relatives.... Salaries never reach those for whom they are intended. The rural districts are uninhabitable for lack of security. The peasants carry guns even when at the plow. One cannot take a step without an escort; a detachment of five or six men is often sent to carry a letter from one post-office to another."
Interpret this general statement by the thousands of facts of which it is the summary; imagine these little daily occurrences narrated with all their material accompaniments, and with sympathetic or angry comments by interested neighbors, and we have the moral lessons taught to young Bonaparte.[1230] At table, the child has listened to the conversation of his elders, and at a word uttered, for instance, by his uncle, or at a physiognomic expression, a sign of approbation, a shrug of the shoulders, he has divined that the ordinary march of society is not that of peace but of war; he sees by what ruses one maintains one's-self, by what acts of violence one makes ones way, by what sort of help one mounts upward. Left to himself the rest of the day, to the nurse Ilaria, or to Saveria the housekeeper, or to the common people amongst whom he strays at will, he listens to the conversation of sailors or of shepherds assembled on the public square, and their simple exclamations, their frank admiration of well-planned ambuscades and lucky surprises, impress more profoundly on him, often repeated with so much energy, the lessons which he has already learned at home. These are the lessons taught by things. At this tender age they sink deep, especially when the disposition is favorable, and in this case the heart sanctions them beforehand, because education finds its confederate in instinct. Accordingly, at the outbreak of the Revolution, on revisiting Corsica, he takes life at once as he finds it there, a combat with any sort of weapon, and, on this small arena, he acts unscrupulously, going farther than anybody.[1231] If he respects justice and law, it is only in words, and even here ironically; in his eyes, law is a term of the code, justice a book term, while might makes right.
A second blow of the coining-press gives another impression of the same stamp on this character already so decided, while French anarchy forces maxims into the mind of the young man, already traced in the child's mind by Corsican anarchy; the lessons of things provided by a society going to pieces are the same as those of a society which is not yet formed.—His sharp eyes, at a very early period, see through the flourish of theory and the parade of phrases; they detect the real foundation of the Revolution, namely, the sovereignty of unbridled passions and the conquest of the majority by the minority; conquering or conquered, a choice must be made between these two extreme conditions; there is no middle course. After the 9th of Thermidor, the last veils are torn away, and the instincts of license and domination, the ambitions of individuals, fully display themselves. There is no concern for public interests or for the rights of the people; it is clear that the rulers form a band, that France is their prey, and that they intend to hold on to it for and against everybody, by every possible means, including bayonets. Under this civil regime, a clean sweep of the broom at the center makes it necessary to be on the side of numbers.—In the armies, especially in the army of Italy, republican faith and patriotic abnegation, since the territory became free, have given way to natural appetites and military passions.[1232] Barefoot, in rags, with four ounces of bread a day, paid in assignats which are not accepted in the markets, both officers and men desire above all things to be relieved of their misery; "the poor fellows, after three years of longing on the summits of the Alps, reach the promised land, and want to enjoy it."[1233] Another spur consists in the pride which is stimulated by the imagination and by success; add to this the necessity for finding an outlet for their energy, the steam and high pressure of youth; nearly all are very young men, who regard life, in Gallic or French fashion, as a party of pleasure and as a duel. But to feel brave and to prove that one is so, to face bullets for amusement and defiantly, to abandon a successful adventure for a battle and a battle for a ball, to enjoy ones-self and take risks to excess, without dissimulating, and with no other object than the sensation of the moment,[1234] to revel in excitement through emulation and danger, is no longer self-devotion, but giving one's-self up to one's fancies; and, for all who are not harebrained, to give one's-self up to one's fancies means to make one's way, obtain promotion, pillage so as to become rich, like Massena, and conquer so as to become powerful, like Bonaparte.—All this is understood between the general and his army from the very first,[1235] and, after one year's experience, the understanding is perfect. One moral is derived from their common acts, vague in the army, precise in the general; what the army only half sees, he sees clearly; if he urges his comrades on, it is because they follow their own inclination. He simply has a start on them, and is quicker to make up his mind that the world is a grand banquet, free to the first-comer, but at which, to be well served, one must have long arms, be the first to get helped, and let the rest take what is left.
So natural does this seem to him, he says so openly and to men who are not his intimates; to Miot, a diplomat, and to Melzi a foreigner:
"Do you suppose, says he to them,[1236] after the preliminaries of Leoben, "that to make great men out of Directory lawyers, the Carnots' and the Barras, I triumph in Italy? Do you suppose also that it is for the establishment of a republic? What an idea! A republic of thirty million men! With our customs, our vices, how is that possible? It is a delusion which the French are infatuated with and which will vanish along with so many others. What they want is glory, the gratification of vanity—they know nothing about liberty. Look at the army! Our successes just obtained, our triumphs have already brought out the true character of the French soldier. I am all for him. Let the Directory deprive me of the command and it will see if it is master. The nation needs a chief, one who is famous though his exploits, and not theories of government, phrases and speeches by ideologists, which Frenchmen do not comprehend.... As to your country, Monsieur de Melzi, it has still fewer elements of republicanism than France, and much less ceremony is essential with it than with any other... In other respects, I have no idea of coming to terms so promptly with Austria. It is not for my interest to make peace. You see what I am, what I can do in Italy. If peace is brought about, if I am no longer at the head of this army which has become attached to me, I must give up this power, this high position I have reached, and go and pay court to lawyers in the Luxembourg. I should not like to quit Italy for France except to play a part there similar to that which I play here, and the time for that has not yet come—the pear is not ripe."
To wait until the pear is ripe, but not to allow anybody else to gather it, is the true motive of his political fealty and of his Jacobin proclamations: "A party in favor of the Bourbons is raising its head; I have no desire to help it along. One of these days I shall weaken the republican party, but I shall do it for my own advantage and not for that of the old dynasty. Meanwhile, it is necessary to march with the Republicans," along with the worst, and' the scoundrels about to purge the Five Hundred, the Ancients, and the Directory itself, and then re-establish in France the Reign of Terror.—In effect, he contributes to the 18th of Fructidor, and, the blow struck, he explains very clearly why he took part in it:
"Do not believe[1237] I did it in conformity with the ideas entertained by those with whom I acted. I did—not want a return of the Bourbons, and especially if brought back by Moreau's army and by Pichegru... Finally, I will not take the part of Monk, I will not play it, and I will not have others play it.... As for myself, my dear Miot, I declare to you that I can no longer obey; I have tasted command and I cannot give it up. My mind is made up. If I cannot be master I will leave France."
There is no middle course for him between the two alter natives. On returning to Paris he thinks of "overthrowing the Directory,[1238] dissolving the councils and of making himself dictator"; but, having satisfied himself that there was but little chance of succeeding, "he postpones his design" and falls back on the second course. "This is the only motive of his expedition into Egypt."[1239]—That, in the actual condition of France and of Europe, the expedition is opposed to public interests, that France deprives itself of its best army and offers its best fleet to almost certain destruction, is of little consequence provided, in this vast and gratuitous adventure, Bonaparte finds the employment he wants, a large field of action and famous victories which, like the blasts of a trumpet, will swell beyond the seas and renew his prestige: in his eyes, the fleet, the army, France, and humanity exist only for him and are created only for his service.—If, in confirmation of this persuasion, another lesson in things is still necessary, it will be furnished by Egypt. Here, absolute sovereign, free of any restraint, contending with an inferior order of humanity, he acts the sultan and accustoms himself to playing the part.[1240] His last scruples towards the human species disappear; "I became disgusted with Rousseau"; he is to say, later on, "After seeing the Orient: the savage man is a dog,"[1241] and, in the civilized man, the savage is just beneath the skin; if the intellect has become somewhat polished, there is no change in his instincts. A master is as necessary to one as to the other—a magician who subjugates his imagination, disciplines him, keeps him from biting without occasion, ties him up, cares for him, and takes him out hunting. He is born to obey, does not deserve any better lot, and has no other right.
Become consul and afterward emperor, he applies the theory on a grand scale, and, in his hands, experience daily furnishes fresh verifications of the theory. At his first nod the French prostrate themselves obediently, and there remain, as in a natural position; the lower class, the peasants and the soldiers, with animal fidelity, and the upper class, the dignitaries and the functionaries, with Byzantine servility.—The republicans, on their side, make no resistance; on the contrary, among these he has found his best governing instruments—senators, deputies, state councilors, judges, and administrators of every grade.[1242] He has at once detected behind their sermonizing on liberty and equality, their despotic instincts, their craving for command, for leadership, even as subordinates; and, in addition to this, with most of them, the appetite for money or for sensual pleasures. The difference between the delegate of the Committee of Public Safety and the minister, prefect, or subprefect under the Empire is small; it is the same person in two costumes: at first in the carmagnole, and later in the embroidered coat. If a rude, poor puritan, like Cambon or Baudot, refuses to don the official uniform, if two or three Jacobin generals, like Lecourbe and Delmas, grumble at the coronation parade, Napoleon, who knows their mental grasp, regards them as ignoramuses, limited to and rigid inside a fixed idea.—As to the cultivated and intelligent liberals of 1789, he consigns them with a word to the place where they belong; they are "ideologists"; in other words, their pretended knowledge is mere drawing-room prejudice and the imagination of the study. "Lafayette is a political ninny," the eternal "dupe of men and of things."[1243] With Lafayette and some others, one embarrassing detail remains namely:
* impartiality and generosity,
* constant care for the common good,
* respect for others,
* the authority of conscience,
* loyalty,
* and good faith.
In short, noble and pure motives.
Napoleon does not accept the denial thus given to his theory; when he talks with people, he questions their moral nobleness. "General Dumas,"[1244] said he, abruptly, to Mathieu Dumas, "you were one of the imbeciles who believed in liberty?" "Yes, sire, and I was and am still one of that class." "And you, like the rest, took part in the Revolution through ambition?" "No, sire, I should have calculated badly, for I am now precisely where I stood in 1790."
"You were not sufficiently aware of the motives which prompted you; you cannot be different from other people; it is all personal interest. Now, take Massena. He has glory and honors enough; but he is not content. He wants to be a prince, like Murat and like Bernadotte. He would risk being shot to-morrow to be a prince. That is the incentive of Frenchmen."—
His system is based on this. The most competent witnesses, and those who were most familiar with him certify to his fixed idea on this point.
"His opinions on men," writes M. de Metternich,[1245] "centered on one idea, which, unfortunately for him, had acquired in his mind the force of an axiom; he was persuaded that no man who was induced to appear on the public stage, or who was merely engaged in the active pursuits of life, governed himself, or was governed, otherwise than by his interest."
According to him, Man is held through his egoistic passions, fear, cupidity, sensuality, self-esteem, and emulation; these are the mainsprings when he is not under excitement, when he reasons. Moreover, it is not difficult to turn the brain of man; for he is imaginative, credulous, and subject to being carried away; stimulate his pride or vanity, provide him with an extreme and false opinion of himself and of his fellow-men, and you can start him off head downward wherever you please.[1246]—None of these motives is entitled to much respect, and beings thus fashioned form the natural material for an absolute government, the mass of clay awaiting the potter's hand to shape it. If parts of this mass are obdurate, the potter has only to crush and pound them and mix them thoroughly.
Such is the final conception on which Napoleon has anchored himself, and into which he sinks deeper and deeper, no matter how directly and violently he may be contradicted by palpable facts. Nothing will dislodge him; neither the stubborn energy of the English, nor the inflexible gentleness of the Pope, nor the declared insurrection of the Spaniards, nor the mute insurrection of the Germans, nor the resistance of Catholic consciences, nor the gradual disaffection of the French; the reason is, that his conception is imposed on him by his character;[1247] he sees man as he needs to see him.
III. Napoleon's Dominant Passion: Power.
His mastery of the will of others.—Degree of submission required by him.—His mode of appreciating others and of profiting by them.—Tone of command and of conversation.
We at last confront his dominant passion, the inward abyss into which instinct, education, reflection, and theory have plunged him, and which is to engulf the proud edifice of his fortune—I mean, his ambition. It is the prime motor of his soul and the permanent substance of his will, so profound that he no longer distinguishes between it and himself, and of which he is sometimes unconscious.
"I," said he to Roederer,[1248] "I have no ambition," and then, recollecting himself, he adds, with his ordinary lucidity, "or, if I have any, it is so natural to me, so innate, so intimately associated with my existence, that it is like the blood which flows in my veins and the atmosphere I breathe."—
Still more profoundly, he likens it to that unconscious, savage, and irresistible emotion which vibrates the soul from one end to the other, to this universal thrill moving all living beings, animal or moral, to those keen and terrible tremors which we call the passion of love.
"I have but one passion,[1249] one mistress, and that is France. I sleep with her. She has never been false to me. She lavishes her blood and treasures on me. If I need 500,000 men, she gives them to me."
Let no one come between him and her. Let Joseph, in relation to the coronation, abstain from claiming his place, even secondary and prospective, in the new empire; let him not put forth his fraternal rights.[1250] "It is to wound me in the most tender spot." This he does, and, "Nothing can efface that from my souvenirs. It is as if he had told an impassioned lover that he had slept with his mistress, or merely that he hoped to succeed with her. My mistress is power. I have worked too hard to obtain her, to let her be ravished from me, or even suffer anybody to covet her." This ambition, as avid as it is jealous, which becomes exasperated at the very idea of a rival, feels hampered by the mere idea of setting a limit to it; however vast the acquired power, he would like to have it still more vast; on quitting the most copious banquet, he still remains insatiate. On the day after the coronation he said to Decres:[1251]
"I come too late, there is no longer anything great to accomplish. I admit that my career is brilliant and that I have made my way successfully. But what a difference alongside of antiquity! Take Alexander! After having conquered Asia, and proclaimed himself to the people as the son of Jupiter, with the exception of Olympias, who knew what all this meant, and Aristotle, and a few Athenian pedants, the entire Orient believed him. Very well, should I now declare that I was the son of God Almighty, and proclaim that I am going to worship him under this title, every market woman would hoot at me as I walked along the streets. People nowadays know too much. Nothing is left to do."
And yet, even on this secluded, elevated domain, and which twenty centuries of civilization keeps inaccessible, he still encroaches, and to the utmost, in a roundabout way, by laying his hand on the Church, and next on the Pope; here, as elsewhere, he takes all he can get. Nothing in his eyes, is more natural; he has a right to it, because he is the only capable one.
"My Italian people[1252] must know me well enough not to forget that there is more in my little finger than in all their brains put together."
Alongside of him, they are children, "minors," the French also, and likewise the rest of mankind. A diplomat, who often saw him and studied him under all as aspects, sums up his character in one conclusive phrase:
"He considered himself an isolated being in this world, made to govern and direct all minds as he pleased."[1253]
Hence, whoever has anything to do with him, must abandon his independence and become his tool of government.
"That terrible man," often exclaimed Decres[1254] "has subjugated us all! He holds all our imaginations in his hands, now of steel and now of velvet, but whether one or the other during the day nobody knows, and there is no way to escape from them whatever they seize on they never let go!"
Independence of any kind, even eventual and merely possible, puts him in a bad mood; intellectual or moral superiority is of this order, and he gradually gets rid of it;[1255] toward the end he no longer tolerates alongside of him any but subject or captive spirits. His principal servants are machines or fanatics, a devout worshipper, like Maret, a gendarme, like Savary,[1256] ready to do his bidding. From the outset, he has reduced his ministers to the condition of clerks; for he is administrator as well as ruler, and in each department he watches details as closely as the entire mass. Accordingly, he requires simply for head of departments active pen pushers, mute executors, docile and special hands, no need for honest and independent advisers.
"I should not know what to do with them," he said, "if they were not to a certain extent mediocre in mind and character."
As to his generals, he admits himself that "he likes to award fame only to those who cannot stand it." In any event, "he must be sole master in making or unmaking reputations," according to his personal requirements. Too brilliant a soldier would become too important; a subordinate should never be tempted to be less submissive. To this end he studies what he will omit in his bulletins, what alterations and what changes shall be made in them.
"It is convenient to keep silent about certain victories, or to convert the defeat of this or that marshal into a success. Sometimes a general learns by a bulletin of an action that he was never in and of a speech that he never made."
If he complains, he is notified to keep still, or by way of recompense he is allowed to pillage, levy contributions, and enrich himself. On becoming duke or hereditary prince, with half a million or a million of revenue from his estate, he is not less held in subjection, for the creator has taken precautions against his own creations.
"There are men,"[1257] he said, "who I have made independent, but I know well where to find them and keep them from being ungrateful."
In effect, if he has endowed them magnificently it is with domains assigned to them in conquered countries, which insures their fortune being his fortune. Besides, in order that they may not enjoy any pecuniary stability, he expressly encourages them and all his grand dignitaries to make extravagant outlays; thus, through their financial embarrassments be holds them in a leash. "We have seen most of his marshals, constantly pressed by their creditors, come to him for assistance, which he has given as he fancied, or as he found it for his interest to attach some one to him."[1258]
Thus, beyond the universal ascendancy which his power and genius have conferred on him, he craves a personal, supplementary, and irresistible hold on everybody. Consequently,[1259] "he carefully cultivates all the bad passions.... he is glad to find the bad side in a man, so as to get him in his power"; the thirst for money in Savary, the Jacobin defects of Fouche, the vanity and sensuality of Cambaceres, the careless cynicism and "the easy immorality" of Talleyrand, the "dry bluntness" of Duroc, the courtier-like insipidity of Maret, "the silliness" of Berthier; he brings this out, diverts himself with it, and profits by it. "Where he sees no vice, he encourages weaknesses, and, in default of anything better, he provokes fear, so that he may be ever and continually the strongest.. ..He dreads ties of affection, and strives to alienate people from each other.... He sells his favors only by arousing anxiety; he thinks that the best way to attach individuals to him is to compromise them, and often, even, to ruin them in public opinion."—"If Caulaincourt is compromised," said he, after the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, "it is no great matter, he will serve me all the better."
Once that the creature is in his clutches, let him not imagine that he can escape or withhold anything of his own accord; all that he has belongs to him. Zeal and success in the performance of duty, punctual obedience within limits previously designated, is not enough; behind the functionary he claims the man. "All that may well be," he replies, to whatever may be said in praise of him,[1260] "but he does not belong to me as I would like." It is devotion which he exacts, and, by devotion, he means the irrevocable and complete surrender "of the entire person, in all his sentiments and opinions." According to him, writes a witness, "one must abandon every old habit, even the most trifling, and be governed by one thought alone, that of his will and interests."[1261] For greater security, his servitors ought to extinguish in themselves the critical sense. "What he fears the most is that, close to him or far off, the faculty of judging should be applied or even preserved."
"His idea is a marble groove," out of which no mind should diverge.[1262] Especially as no two minds could think of diverging at the same time, and on the same side, their concurrence, even when passive, their common understanding, even if kept to themselves, their whispers, almost inaudible, constitute a league, a faction, and, if they are functionaries, "a conspiracy." On his return from Spain he declares, with a terrible explosion of wrath and threats,[1263] "that the ministers and high dignitaries whom he has created must stop expressing their opinions and thoughts freely, that they cannot be otherwise than his organs, that treason has already begun when they begin to doubt, and that it is under full headway when, from doubt, they proceed to dissent." If, against his constant encroachments, they strive to preserve a last refuge, if they refuse to abandon their conscience to him, their faith as Catholics or their honor as honest men, he is surprised and gets irritated. In reply to the Bishop of Ghent, who, in the most respectful manner, excuses himself for not taking a second oath that is against his conscience, he rudely turns his back, and says, "Very well, sir, your conscience is a blockhead!"[1264] Portalis, director of the publishing office,[1265] having received a papal brief from his cousin, the Abbe d'Astros, respected a confidential communication; he simply recommended his cousin to keep this document secret, and declared that, if it were made public, he would prohibit its circulation; by way of extra precaution he notified the prefect of police. But he did not specially denounce his cousin, have the man arrested and the document seized. On the strength of this, the Emperor, in full council of state, apostrophizes him to his face, and, "with one of those looks which go straight through one,"[1266] declares that he has committed "the vilest of perfidies"; he bestows on him for half an hour a hailstorm of reproaches and insults, and then orders him out of the room as if a lackey who had been guilty of a theft. Whether he keeps within his function or not, the functionary must be content to do whatever is demanded of him, and readily anticipate every commission. If his scruples arrest him, if he alleges personal obligations, if he had rather not fail in delicacy, or even in common loyalty, he incurs the risk of offending or losing the favor of the master, which is the case with M. de Remusat,[1267] who is unwilling to become his spy, reporter, and denunciator for the Faubourg Saint-Germain, who does not offer, at Vienna, to pump out of Madame d'Andre the address of her husband so that M. d'Andre may be taken and immediately shot. Savary, who was the negotiator for his being given up, kept constantly telling M. de Remusat, "You are going against your interest—I must say that I do not comprehend you!" And yet Savary, himself minister of the police, executor of most important services, head manager of the murder of the Duc d'Enghien and of the ambuscade at Bayonne, counterfeiter of Austrian bank-notes for the campaign of 1809 and of Russian banknotes for that of 1812,[1268] Savary ends in getting weary; he is charged with too many dirty jobs; however hardened his conscience it has a tender spot; he discovers at last that he has scruples. It is with great repugnance that, in February, 1814, he executes the order to have a small infernal machine prepared, moving by clock-work, so as to blow up the Bourbons on their return into France.[1269] "Ah," said he, giving himself a blow on the forehead, "it must be admitted that the Emperor is sometimes hard to serve!"
If he exacts so much from the human creature, it is because, in playing the game he has to play, he must absorb everything; in the situation in which he has placed himself, caution is unnecessary. "Is a statesman," said he, "made to have feeling? Is he not wholly an eccentric personage, always alone by himself, he on one side and the world on the other?"[1270]
In this duel without truce or mercy, people interest him only whilst they are useful to him; their value depends on what he can make out of them; his sole business is to squeeze them, to extract to the last drop whatever is available in them.
"I find very little satisfaction in useless sentiments," said he again,[1271] "and Berthier is so mediocre that I do not know why I waste my time on him. And yet when I am not set against him, I am not sure that I do not like him."
He goes no further. According to him, this indifference is necessary in a statesman. The glass he looks through is that of his own policy;[1272] he must take care that it does not magnify or diminish objects.—Therefore, outside of explosions of nervous sensibility, "he has no consideration for men other than that of a foreman for his workmen,"[1273] or, more precisely, for his tools; once the tool is worn out, little does he care whether it rusts away in a corner or is cast aside on a heap of scrap-iron. "Portalis, Minister of Justice,[1274] enters his room one day with a downcast look and his eyes filled with tears. 'What's the matter with you, Portalis?' inquired Napoleon, 'are you ill? 'No, sire, but very wretched. The poor Archbishop of Tours, my old schoolmate...' 'Eh, well, what has happened to him?' 'Alas, sire, he has just died.' 'What do I care? he was no longer good for anything.'" Owning and making the most of men and of things, of bodies and of souls, using and abusing them at discretion, even to exhaustion, without being responsible to any one, he reaches that point after a few years where he can say as glibly and more despotically than Louis XIV. himself,
"My armies, my fleets, my cardinals, my councils, my senate, my populations, my empire."[1275]
Addressing army corps about to rush into battle:
"Soldiers, I need your lives, and you owe them to me."
He says to General Dorsenne and to the grenadiers of the guard:[1276]
"I hear that you complain that you want to return to Paris, to your mistresses. Undeceive yourselves. I shall keep you under arms until you are eighty. You were born to the bivouac, and you shall die there."
How he treats his brothers and relations who have become kings; how he reins them in; how he applies the spur and the whip and makes them trot and jump fences and ditches, may be found in his correspondence; every stray impulse to take the lead, even when justified by an unforeseen urgency and with the most evident good intention, is suppressed as a deviation, is arrested with a brusque roughness which strains the loins and weakens the knees of the delinquent. The amiable Prince Eugene, so obedient and so loyal,[1277] is thus warned:
"If you want orders or advice from His Majesty in the alteration of the ceiling of your room you should wait till you get them; were Milan burning and you asked orders for putting out the fire, you should let Milan burn until you got them... His Majesty is displeased, and very much displeased, with you; you must never attempt to do his work. Never does he like this, and he will never forgive it."
This enables us to judge of his tone with subalterns. The French battalions are refused admission into certain places in Holland:[1278]
"Announce to the King of Holland, that if his ministers have acted on their own responsibility, I will have them arrested and all their heads cut off."
He says to M. de Segur, member of the Academy commission which had just approved M. de Chateaubriand's discourse:[1279]
"You, and M. de Fontaines, as state councillor and grand master, I ought to put in Vincennes.... Tell the second class of the Institute that I will have no political subjects treated at its meetings.....If it disobeys, I will break it up like a bad club.
Even when not angry or scolding,[1280] when the claws are drawn in, one feels the clutch. He says to Beugnot, whom he has just berated, scandalously and unjustly,—conscious of having done him injustice and with a view to produce an effect on the bystanders,—
"Well, you great imbecile, you have got back your brains?"
On this, Beugnot, tall as a drum-major, bows very low, while the smaller man, raising his hand, seizes him by the ear, "a heady mark of favor," says Beugnot, a sign of familiarity and of returning good humor. And better yet, the master deigns to lecture Beugnot on his personal tastes, on his regrets, on his wish to return to France: What would he like? To be his minister in Paris? "Judging by what he saw of me the other day I should not be there very long; I might die of worry before the end of the month." He has already killed Portalis, Cretet, and almost Treilhard, even though he had led a hard life: he could no longer urinate, nor the others either. The same thing would have happened to Beignot, if not worse....
"Stay here.... after which you will be old, or rather we all shall be old, and I will send you to the Senate to drivel at your ease."
Evidently,[1281] the nearer one is to his person the more disagreeable life becomes.[1282] "Admirably served, promptly obeyed to the minute, he still delights in keeping everybody around him in terror concerning the details of all that goes on in his palace." Has any difficult task been accomplished? He expresses no thanks, never or scarcely ever praises, and, which happens but once, in the case of M. de Champagny, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is praised for having finished the treaty of Vienna in one night, and with unexpected advantages;[1283] this time, the Emperor has thought aloud, is taken by surprise; "ordinarily, he manifests approbation only by his silence."—When M. de Remusat, prefect of the palace, has arranged "one of those magnificent fetes in which all the arts minister to his enjoyment," economically, correctly, with splendor and success, his wife never asks her husband[1284] if the Emperor is satisfied, but whether he has scolded more or less.
"His leading general principle, which he applies in every way, in great things as well as in small ones, is that a man's zeal depends upon his anxiety."
How insupportable the constraint he exercises, with what crushing weight his absolutism bears down on the most tried devotion and on the most pliable characters, with what excess he tramples on and wounds the best dispositions, up to what point he represses and stifles the respiration of the human being, he knows as well as anybody. He was heard to say,
"The lucky man is he who hides away from me in the depths of some province."
And, another day, having asked M. de Segur what people would say of him after his death, the latter enlarged on the regrets which would be universally expressed. "Not at all," replied the Emperor; and then, drawing in his breath in a significant manner indicative of universal relief, he replied,
"They'll say, 'Whew!'"[1285]
IV. His Bad Manners.
His bearings in Society.—His deportment toward Women.—His disdain of Politeness.
There are very few monarchs, even absolute, who persistently, and from morning to night, maintain a despotic attitude. Generally, and especially in France, the sovereign makes two divisions of his time, one for business and the other for social duties, and, in the latter case, while always head of the State, he is also head of his house: for he welcomes visitors, entertains his guests, and, that his guests may not be robots, he tries to put them at their ease.—That was the case with Louis XIV.[1286]—polite to everybody, always affable with men, and sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and some times gallant, carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a story—such was his drawing-room constitution. The drawing-room as well as every human society needs one, and a liberal one; otherwise life dies out. Accordingly, the observance of this constitution in by-gone society is known by the phrase savoir-vivre, and, more rigidly than anybody else, Louis XIV. submitted himself to this code of proprieties. Traditionally, and through education, he had consideration for others, at least for the people around him; his courtiers becoming his guests without ceasing to be his subjects.
There is nothing of this sort with Napoleon. He preserves nothing of the etiquette he borrows from the old court but its rigid discipline and its pompous parade. "The ceremonial system," says an eyewitness, "was carried out as if it had been regulated by the tap of a drum; everything was done, in a certain sense, 'double-quick.'[1287]... This air of precipitation, this constant anxiety which it inspires," puts an end to all comfort, all ease, all entertainment, all agreeable intercourse; there is no common bond but that of command and obedience. "The few individuals he singles out, Savary, Duroc, Maret, keep silent and simply transmit orders.... We did not appear to them, in doing what we were ordered to do, and we did not appear to ourselves, other than veritable machines, all resembling, or but little short of it, the elegant gilded arm-chairs with which the palaces of Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries had just been embellished."
For a machine to work well it is important that the machinist should overhaul it frequently, which this one never fails to do, especially after a long absence. Whilst he is on his way from Tilsit, "everybody anxiously examines his conscience to ascertain what he has done that this rigid master will find fault with on his return. Whether spouse, family, or grand dignitary, each is more or less disturbed; while the Empress, who knows him better than any one, naively says, 'As the Emperor is so happy it is certain that he will do a deal of scolding!'"[1288] Actually, he has scarcely arrived when he gives a rude and vigorous wrench of the bolt; and then, "satisfied at having excited terror all around, he appears to have forgotten what has passed and resumes the usual tenor of his life." "Through calculation as well as from taste,[1289] he never ceases to be a monarch"; hence, "a mute, frigid court.... more dismal than dignified; every face wears an expression of uneasiness... a silence both dull and constrained." At Fontainebleau, "amidst splendors and pleasures," there is no real enjoyment nor anything agreeable, not even for himself. "I pity you," said M. de Talleyrand to M. de Remusat, "you have to amuse the unamusable." At the theatre he is abstracted or yawns. Applause is prohibited; the court, sitting out "the file of eternal tragedies, is mortally bored.... the young ladies fall asleep, people leave the theatre, gloomy and discontented."—There is the same constraint in the drawing-room. "He did not know how to appear at ease, and I believe that he never wanted anybody else to be so, afraid of the slightest approach to familiarity, and inspiring each with a fear of saying something offensive to his neighbor before witnesses.... During the quadrille, he moves around amongst the rows of ladies, addressing them with some trifling or disagreeable remark," and never does he accost them otherwise than "awkwardly and ill at his ease." At bottom, he distrusts them and is ill-disposed toward them.[1290] It is because "the power they have acquired in society seems to him an intolerable usurpation.—"Never did he utter to a woman a graceful or even a well-turned compliment, although the effort to find one was often apparent on his face and in the tone of his voice.... He talks to them only of their toilet, of which he declares himself a severe and minute judge, and on which he indulges in not very delicate jests; or again, on the number of their children, demanding of them in rude language whether they nurse them themselves; or again, lecturing them on their social relations."[1291] Hence, "there is not one who does not rejoice when he moves off."[1292] He would often amuse himself by putting them out of countenance, scandalizing and bantering them to their faces, driving them into a corner the same as a colonel worries his canteen women. "Yes, ladies, you furnish the good people of the Faubourg Saint-Germain with something to talk about. It is said, Madame A..., that you are intimate with Monsieur B..., and you Madame C...., with Monsieur D." On any intrigue chancing to appear in the police reports, "he loses no time in informing the husband of what is going on."—He is no less indiscreet in relation to his own affairs;[1293] when it is over he divulges the fact and gives the name; furthermore, he informs Josephine in detail and will not listen to any reproach: "I have a right to answer all your objections with an eternal I!"
This term, indeed, answers to everything, and he explains it by adding: "I stand apart from other men. I accept nobody's conditions," nor any species of obligation, no code whatever, not even the common code of outward civility, which, diminishing or dissimulating primitive brutality, allows men to associate together without clashing. He does not comprehend it, and he repudiates it. "I have little liking,"[1294] he says, "for that vague, leveling word propriety (convenances), which you people fling out every chance you get. It is an invention of fools who want to pass for clever men; a kind of social muzzle which annoys the strong and is useful only to the mediocre... Ah, good taste! Another classic expression which I do not accept." "It is your personal enemy"; says Talleyrand to him, one day, "if you could have shot it away with bullets, it would have disappeared long ago!"—It is because good taste is the highest attainment of civilization, the innermost vestment which drapes human nudity, which best fits the person, the last garment retained after the others have been cast off, and which delicate tissue continues to hamper Napoleon; he throws it off instinctively, because it interferes with his natural behavior, with the uncurbed, dominating, savage ways of the vanquisher who knocks down his adversary and treats him as he pleases.
V. His Policy.
His tone and bearing towards Sovereigns.—His Policy.—His means and ends.—After Sovereigns he sets populations against him.—Final opinion of Europe.
Such behavior render social intercourse impossible, especially among the independent and armed personages known as nations or States. This is why they are outlawed in politics and in diplomacy and every head of a State or representative of a country, carefully and on principle, abstains from them, at least with those on his own level. He is bound to treat these as his equals, humor them, and, accordingly, not to give way to the irritation of the moment or to personal feeling; in short, to exercise self-control and measure his words. To this is due the tone of manifestos, protocols, dispatches, and other public documents the formal language of legations, so cold, dry, and elaborated, those expressions purposely attenuated and smoothed down, those long phrases apparently spun out mechanically and always after the same pattern, a sort of soft wadding or international buffer interposed between contestants to lessen the shocks of collision. The reciprocal irritations between States are already too great; there are ever too many unavoidable and regrettable encounters, too many causes of conflict, the consequences of which are too serious; it is unnecessary to add to the wounds of interest the wounds of imagination and of pride; and above all, it is unnecessary to amplify these without reason, at the risk of increasing the obstacles of to-day and the resentments of to-morrow.—With Napoleon it is just the opposite: his attitude, even at peaceful interviews, remains aggressive and militant; purposely or in-voluntarily, he raises his hand and the blow is felt to be coming, while, in the meantime, he insults. In his correspondence with sovereigns, in his official proclamations, in his deliberations with ambassadors, and even at public audiences,[1295] he provokes, threatens, and defies.[1296] He treats his adversary with a lofty air, insults him often to his face, and charges him with the most disgraceful imputations.[1297] He divulges the secrets of his private life, of his closet, and of his bed; he defames or calumniates his ministers, his court, and his wife;[1298] he purposely stabs him in the most sensitive part. He tells one that he is a dupe, a betrayed husband; another that he is an abettor of assassination; he assumes the air of a judge condemning a criminal, or the tone of a superior reprimanding an inferior, or, at best, that of a teacher taking a scholar to task. With a smile of pity, he points out mistakes, weak points, and incapacity, and shows him beforehand that he must be defeated. On receiving the envoy of the Emperor Alexander at Wilna,[1299] be says to him:
"Russia does not want this war; none of the European powers are in favor of it; England herself does not want it, for she foresees the harm it will do to Russia, and even, perhaps, the greatest... I know as well as yourself, and perhaps even better, how many troops you have. Your infantry in all amounts to 120,000 men and your cavalry to about 60,000 or 70,000; I have three times as many.... The Emperor Alexander is badly advised. How can he tolerate such vile people around him—an Armfeld, an intriguing, depraved, rascally fellow, a ruined debauchee, who is known only by his crimes and who is the enemy of Russia; a Stein, driven from his country like an outcast, a miscreant with a price on his head; a Bennigsen, who, it is said, has some military talent, of which I know nothing, but whose hands are steeped in blood?[12100].... Let him surround himself with the Russians and I will say nothing.... Have you no Russian gentlemen among you who are certainly more attached to him than these mercenaries? Does he imagine that they are fond of him personally? Let him put Armfeld in command in Finland and I have nothing to say; but to have him about his person, for shame!.... What a superb perspective opened out to the Emperor Alexander at Tilsit, and especially at Erfurt!.... He has spoilt the finest reign Russia ever saw.... How can he admit to his society such men as a Stein, an Armfeld, a Vinzingerode? Say to the Emperor Alexander, that as he gathers around him my personal enemies it means a desire to insult me personally, and, consequently, that I must do the same to him. I will drive all his Baden, Wurtemburg, and Weimar relations out of Germany. Let him provide a refuge for them in Russia!" |
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