by Emil Ludwig
First published in England April 1927
Second and Third Printings June 1927
Fourth and Fifth Impressions July 1927
Sixth Impression (2nd Edition) September 1927
Seventh Impression November 1927
(All rights reserved)
Printed in Great Britain by Unwin Brothers, Ltd., Woking
To ELGA LUDWIG
Moscia. Summer 1924
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
THE ISLAND THE TORRENT
THE RIVER
THE SEA
THE ROCK
ENVOY
BOOK ONE
BOOK TWO
BOOK THREE
BOOK FOUR
BOOK FIVE
AUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
PAGE IX
XI
53 165
363
554 689 695 696
Vll
vm
PAGE
Buonaparte in 1783. The first known portrait,
drawn by his fellow-countryman Pontornini. Musee Nationale, Versailles 4
General Bonaparte in 1797. After a painting by Jean Guerin. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (From the "Corpus Imaginum " of the Photographic 37 Society, Charlottenburg.)
General Bonaparte in 1796. Engraving from the
Kircheisen Collection 68
General Bonaparte. Unfinished portrait by Jacques Louis David. From the collection of the Duke of Bassano. 101 (Photograph by Braun, Paris and Domach.)
General Bonaparte in 1797. Drawing by Wocher in
Basle. Town Library, Basle 142
General Bonaparte in 1798, during the voyage to Egypt. Sketch by Andre Dutertre 159
Bonaparte as First Consul. Painting by Girodet. Musee
Nationale, Versailles 198
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
Bonaparte as First Consul. Pencil sketch by J. D. A.
Ingres. Germain Bapst Collection 231
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
Bonaparte in 1802, as First Consul. Engraving by Alexandre Tardieu. After a drawing by Jean Baptiste Isabey 264
Bonaparte as First Consul. Painting by J. D. A. Ingres. Musee de Liege 297
(Photograph by Braun, Paris and Domach.)
The Coronation. Detail from the picture by Jacques
Louis David. Louvre, Paris 330
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
PAGE
Napoleon as Emperor. Painting by Vigneux. Count
Primoli Collection 362
(From the " Corpus Imaginum " of the Photographic Society, Charlottenburg.)
Napoleon as Emperor. Bust by Houdon, Musee de Dijon 394 (Photograph by J. E. Bulloz, Paris.)
The Emperor's profile. Sketched during Mass in the
Tuileries. Germain Bapst Collection 427
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
Napoleon as Emperor in 1809. Woodcut from a medal
ByJ. P.Droz 460
Napoleon as Emperor. Engraving by Bourgeois, after a
painting by Jacques Louis David 493
(From the " Corpus Imaginum " of the Photographic Society, Charlottenburg.)
Napoleon as Emperor in 1814. Painting by Horace
Vernet. Tate Gallery, London 526
(From the " Corpus Imaginum " of the Photographic Society, Charlottenburg.)
Napoleon as Emperor in 1815. Engraving by Robert
Lefevre, after a painting by Muneret 557
Napoleon as Emperor in 1815. Woodcut, after a medal 590
Napoleon at St. Helena. Watercolour painting,
Probably by a Japanese, with a marginal inscription
in Chinese ideographs concerning the owner. 623
Death mask of Napoleon. By Dr. Antommarchi 656
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
BOOK ONE
1769. August 15th, Napoleon born. 1779. At School in Brienne. 1784.. At the military academy. 1785. Sub-lieutenant of artillery. 1789. To Corsica.
1791. April, lieutenant in Valence. October, to Corsica.
1792. Putsch in Ajaccio. Banishment.
1793. Captain. Siege of Toulon.
1794. February, brigadier-general. August, arrested.
1795. June, at the Ministry for War. October, suppression of the Paris rising. Commander of the Army of the Interior.
1796. March 2nd, Commander of the Army of Italy. March 6th, married to Josephine Beauharnais.
BOOK TWO
1796-7. Battles of Millesimo, Castiglione, Areola, Rivoli, Mantua.
1797. At the castle of Montebello. Peace of Campo Formio.
1798. In Paris till May.
May 19th, embarcation for Egypt Battle of the Pyramids.
1799. Jaffa, Acre, Aboukir. October 7th, landing in France.
November 9th, coup d'etat of the eighteenth Brumaire. December 24th, First Consul.
BOOK THREE
1800. June 14th, battle of Marengo. December 24th, attempted assassination.
1801. Peace of Luneville. Concordat with Pius VII.
Chronological Table
Consul for life. Legion of Honour.
1804. March 21st, duke of Enghien shot. May 18th, assumption of imperial title. December 2nd, coronation.
1805. October, Trafalgar. November, Vienna taken. December 2nd, battle of Austerlitz.
Peace of Pressburg.
1806. Confederation of the Rhine. Joseph, King of Naples. Louis, King of Holland.
October 14th, battle of Jena. Berlin. Continental System.
1807. Battles of Preussisch-Eylau and Friedland. June 7th, treaty of Tilsit.
Jerome, King of Westphalia.
1808. Home. Madrid. Bayonne. Joseph, King of Spain. Murat, King of Naples.
1809. Excommunication. Battles of Aspern-Essling, Wagram, and Vienna.
1810. January, divorce.
April, married to Marie Louise.
1811. March 20th, birth of his son.
BOOK FOUR
1812. Battles of Smolensk, Borodino, Vittoria, Moscow. December, return to Paris.
1813. April, battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. July, battle of Dresden.
Ocober 16th to 18th, battle of Leipzig.
1814. Battles of Brienne, La Rothiere, Champaubert, Montereau, Bas-sur-Aube, Laon, Arcis-sur-Aube. April 6th, abdication in Fontainebleau.
April 20th, embarcation for Elba.
Chronological Table
1815. February 26th, sails from Elba. March 13th, outlawed. March 20th, Paris. June, battles of Ligny and Waterloo. June 23rd, second abdication. July 13th, letter to the prince regent. July 31st, declared a prisoner
BOOK FIVE
1815. October 17th, arrival in St. Helena 1821. May 5th, death.
BOOK ONE
THE ISLAND
The story of Napoleon produces on me an impression like that produced by the Revelation of Saint John the Divine. We all feel there must be something more in it, but we do not know what.—GOETHE.
A young woman is sitting in a tent. Wrapped in a shawl, she is suckling her baby, and listening to a distant rumbling and roaring. Are they still shooting, though night has fallen ? Maybe it is only the sound of one of those autumn thunderstorms whose echoes reverberate from the mountains ; or perhaps it is nothing more than the murmur from the surrounding forest of pines and evergreen oaks, where foxes and wild swine have their lairs. She looks like a gipsy, sitting there with her white breast half covered by the shawl, brooding within the murky tent, uncertain what the fate of the day may have been. Now she hears the sound of hoof-beats. Is it he ? He promised to come ; but it is a long way from the fighting line, and the mists are rising.
The flap of the tent is
thrown open, letting in a breath of night air. A man enters. An officer in a coloured tunic and wearing a plumed head-dress; a slim fellow, nimble of movement ; a young patrician, in the middle twenties. He greets the woman ardently. Springing to her feet, she gives the nursling to her maid. Wine is brought. Taking the kerchief from her head, she stands before him, showing chestnut ringlets astray on a smooth, white brow. An eager question is on her well-shaped lips. Add to the picture that she has a long chin, a sign of energy; that her aquiline nose is thrown into relief by the firelight; and that on her hip there gleams the dagger which in this mountain land she never lays aside. We see a lovely amazon, daughter of an ancient race, sprung from men of action and resolution. The woman's forebears, like the man's, have for centuries been leaders and warriors; first across the water in Italy, and then in this craggy island.
But now, when all have gathered together against the
Corsica's Struggle
hated enemy, have joined forces in the attempt to drive out the French, here, in the wildest part of the mountains, whither the brave girl of nineteen has followed the husband fighting for their fatherland; who, now, could recognise in her the brilliant patrician, the magnet of all eyes? Here, nothing but pride and courage show that she is of noble birth.
The man, full of life and vigour, ever in movement, tells her all his news. The enemy has been beaten, driven back towards the coast. There is no escape. Envoys have been sent to Paoli.
" There will be a truce to-morrow. Letizia, we are winning ! Corsica will be free ! "
Every Corsican longs for many children. It is a land where an affront is instantly avenged by a dagger thrust; where the vendetta is sacred; where family feuds last from decade to decade and from century to century. The man before us wants many children, to ensure that his race shall persist; and the woman has learned from mother and grandmother that children are tokens of honour. She had become a mother at fifteen ; but the baby she has just been nursing was her first boy.
The thought of freedom glows afresh, for the officer is adjutant to Paoli, the leader of the people.
"No longer shall our children be the slaves of France !"
II
With the coming of spring, despondency prevails. The enemy has landed reinforcements ; the children of the island take up arms once more; again the young wife accompanies her husband to the war ; this time she carries a child beneath her heart, the child conceived during the storms of the previous autumn.
" Often, in search of news, I would steal forth from our mountain nook to the battle-field ; I heard the bullets whistling, but I put my trust in Our Lady "—so she would tell the story in later years.
In May, the Corsicans were defeated. There was
Buonaparte in 1783. The first known portrait, drawn by
his fellow-countryman Pontornini. Musee Nationale,
Versailles
Napolione
a terrible retreat through the dense forests and the rugged mountains. Among the multitude of men and the few women, rode Letizia, big with child, carrying her one-year-old boy in her arms, seated on a mule. They reached the coast safely. In June the defeated Paoli, accompanied by a few hundred of his faithful followers, had to flee to Italy. In July Paoli's adjutant, Letizia's husband, with other envoys, capitulated to the conqueror. The insular pride was humbled. But in August his wife brought the avenger into the world.
She named him Napolione.
This woman, who during the campaign had played the heroine and had shown a man's courage, must now, in the great house by the seashore, become a prudent and thrifty housewife. Her young husband, fanciful by temperament, lived more on plans than on income. For years his energies were mainly devoted to the great lawsuit concerning his inheritance. As a student in Pisa, where among his fellows he was known as Count Buonaparte, he had lived well but learned little. After the birth of his second son, he cut his studies short. How was he to make a living ? In troublous times, a man of the world takes the world as it is ; comes to terms with the conqueror; all the more since the French, in order to secure their footing in the island, are inclined to show favour to the Corsican nobility.
Soon he becomes assessor in the new lawcourts ; superintendent of a nursery in which the king of France, eager to turn the new possessions to account, wishes to grow mulberries ; and when the distinguished marshal comes to stay, no expense must be spared. There are still flocks of sheep in the hills and vineyards along the coast; his brother, archdeacon at the cathedral, is well-to-do; and his wife's half brother, another priest, a merchant's son, is skilled in worldly affairs.
By the time his proud and beautiful wife has reached her thirties, five boys and three girls have been born to her. This is well accordant to the notions of the islanders, for whom rivalries and vendettas are supreme virtues. But the
A Kingdom in a Garden
rearing of eight children is a costly matter; so, day by day, the youngsters hear their parents talking about money. At length, however, the father finds a way out of his difficulties. Accompanied by his two eldest sons, now ten and eleven years of age, he sails to France, and journeys from Toulon to Versailles.
He brings recommendations from the marshal in Corsica. The Buonapartes' Italian title of nobility is confirmed by the Heralds' College in Paris. To the Corsican official who has been loyal for a decade, King Louis makes a grant of two thousand francs. The two sons and one of the daughters are given scholarships in the Nobles' Schools. One son is to be a priest; the other, an officer.
Ill
A taciturn boy, small, shy, and lonely, sits reading in a corner of the garden. It is his own plot in the school garden at Brienne, and he has made a fence round it. Really, only a third of the enclosure is his own, for he has fenced in the plots of neighbours on either side. They may come in too; but woe to any one else who disturbs his privacy! He rushes furiously at the intruder. A little while ago, when the boys had had a fireworks' display, two of his schoolmates, who had been slightly burned, had run away to his garden for refuge. He had driven them out, flourishing a hoe at them.
No punishment will bring him to reason in this matter. The masters shake their heads and let him go his own way.
" The youngster is made of granite," says one of them, " but there is a volcano inside."
No one may touch this little kingdom of his in the garden, though part of it is usurped. He has an ardent feeling for his own independence. Writing to his father, he says : " I would rather be the first among the workmen in a factory than the last among the artists in the Academy." Did he get the idea out of Plutarch ? Certainly he has an enthusiasm
Poverty
for that author, the lives of the great men as sketched by Plutarch, especially the Roman heroes. Of these, he is always dreaming. No one tells us that he ever saw this boy laugh.
To his schoolfellows he seems half a savage, or at best a queer foreigner. He knows scarcely a word of French, and has little inclination to learn the language of the foe. What a tiny little chap he is, and what a ridiculous name ! His coat is too long. No pocket-money, nothing to spend, and yet he claims to be of noble birth! The scions of the French nobility laugh. Who cares about Corsican noblemen ?
" If you Corsicans are such brave fellows, why did you let yourselves be beaten by our unconquerable troops ? "
" We were one to ten," the lad angrily exclaims. "You just wait till I'm grown up, and I will pay you Frenchmen out! "
"Your father is nothing more than a sergeant, after all!"
An outburst of wrath from the boy, who challenges his tormentor. The young Napoleon is " kept in." He writes to his father : "I am tired of explaining my poverty ; of having to endure the mockery of these foreign boys, whose only superiority is in respect of money, for in nobility of feeling they are far beneath me. Must I really humble myself before these purse-proud fellows ? " The answer from the island is : " We have no money. You must stay where you are."
He stays five years; and, just as his revolution
ary feeling is intensified by every slight, so does his self-confidence grow proportionally with the growth of his contempt for his fellows. The masters, indeed, monks one and all, have a good opinion of him, although he does not make much headway except in mathematics, history, and geography—subjects which appeal to a precise mind, a seeing eye, and also to the bitterness of spirit characteristic of one who belongs to a conquered race.
For always his thoughts turn back to his native island. In secret, he is angry with his father for having come to terms with the French. He has made up his own mind. He will get all he can out of the king at whose cost he now
The Brooding Lad
pursues his studies, so that in due time he may use the knowledge against his patron. He has a presentiment that some day he will set-Corsica free. As yet all the lad of fourteen can do is to pore over books about his homeland, for he who would make history must first study history. He devours, too, all that Voltaire, Rousseau, and the great king of Prussia shortly before his death, have written on behalf of the liberation of Corsica.
Such a boy as this—solitary, suspicious, questing and rebellious, brooding rancorously over vast designs—what is he likely to become ? Precociously thoughtful; endowed with a knowledge of men that is beyond his years. When Joseph, his elder brother, wishes to abandon the priestly career and to adopt the profession of arms, the youngster writes of him : " 1. He lacks courage to brave the perils of the battle-field.—He will be a good garrison officer: well-grown and handsome, quick-witted and therefore inclined to pay frivolous compliments, with his talents he will always make a good impression in society. But in battle ? 2. 'Tis too late to make a change. He might have got a rich benefice, and what an advantage that would have been to the family ! 3. What branch of the service will he enter ? The navy ? (a) He knows nothing of mathematics; (b) his health could never endure life at sea. He is too light-minded for the sustained work that will be needed if he is to be an artillery officer." These are the reflections of a fifteen-year-old observer, who sees in himself the qualities that his brother lacks ; and it is a perfect description of Joseph, who was, indeed, his father's son.
From this same father, Napoleon had inherited versatility and a vigorous imagination; from his mother came pride, courage, and accuracy; from both was derived his strong family feeling.
His First Sword IV
