by Emil Ludwig
Josephine makes a great deal, as she needs to do. From Martinique, her tropical home, she was able to save nothing when she lost her husband, Vicomte de Beauharnais. For years she was separated from him, but was reunited with him after her return to Paris from a prolonged visit to her native island. During the Terror, he was executed as a royalist; and she spent three terrible months in gaol, to be liberated after Robespierre's fall on the very day when Buonaparte was imprisoned. Friends came to her assistance in her difficulties; but her position and that of her two lovely young children, Hortense and Eugene, was precarious.
In this genteel poverty, it is expedient for her to make the best use of her charms. In any case, she is a born coquette, and is urged towards amorous adventures by the spur of her own love of pleasure. At this time, she is Barras' mistress, her handsome friend Tallien having taken up with a wealthy banker, handing over the man of might to Josephine. However, the two women hold Barras in joint control. The Committee of Public Safety supplies them with horses and carriages. But Beauharnais, being of gentle birth, knows how to give attractive dinner parties, and associates with members of both factions,
The Lady Hesitates
although the counts and marquises who frequent her house leave their wives at home. She has become an adventuress of the revolution.
Well, what about Buonaparte himself ? Any change in the political situation may cost him his position. What more is he, as yet, than an adventurer of the revolution ? If Murat had failed to shark up those guns the other night, the general would have been shot. Life is insecure, both for him and for Josephine.
What can be easier than to befool this misanthropic and misogynistic man in whose dumb soul the schoolmaster at Brienne had long ago discovered the hidden volcano ? For the first time in his life he is in the toils of a woman, an expert in love; he is consumed by his passion for the Creole beauty. To Josephine, it seems a stroke of luck, and in cold blood she decides on marriage.
" You have seen General Buonaparte at my house. He is to become a father to my orphaned children, a husband to my widowed self. ... I admire the general's courage, and I wonder how much he knows. . . . But, I must confess, I am alarmed at the energy which animates all his doings. In his questing glance there is something inexplicable, which intimidates even our Directors. What ought to please me most, the passionate ardour he displays, is the very thing which makes me hesitate. Now that I am past my first youth, can I hope that I shall be able to keep alive in him an affection so stormy that it borders on madness ? "
This lady of refinement does not fully understand what threatens her, and yet in the depths of her soul she shudders at the foreboding that she is to become the play of elemental forces. For, if this man who covets all or nothing and cannot rest until he has all, this man who has never given himself up to any one person or any one thing because it has been his unceasing wish to gain every one and everything, if Napoleon now gives himself for the first and only time in his life, he will stake
" Mio Dolce Amor "
his whole being, and will fetter it to the personality of the woman whom he clasps in his arms.
" I am waiting for you ; I am wholly filled with you ; your picture and the intoxicating evening leave my senses no peace. Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what have you done to my heart ? Are you angry with me ? Do you look sad ? Are you ill at ease ? . . . But I find calm when I give myself up to my passion, that on your lips, at your heart, I may fan the flames which burn me. How plain it was to me last night that your picture can never replace the real you. At noon you will start; in three hours I shall see you; till then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses ! But you must not give me kisses, for they burn my blood ! "
He does not tell her his plans, and yet he tells her something more. " These Directors fancy that I need their protection. They will consider themselves happy, some day, to secure mine. I shall make my way with the sword."—" What do you think," writes Josephine, " of this faith in success ? Can such self-confidence be based on anything else than immeasurable conceit ? A brigadier general is to protect the heads of the government! I don't know what to make of it; and yet, often enough, this ludicrous self-assurance makes me believe that anything is possible which the strange man wants to achieve."
We feel as if we were standing in front of the iron door which guards a glowing human heart, and looking through the key-hole into the fiery furnace of a soul.
But this woman, whom he possesses, why does he take her to wife ? That he may possess her for himself alone ? His egotism is against it, and, besides, he would be deluding himself. To gain advantages ? In respect of money, and in respect of influence with the powerful, she can offer him nothing that he does not already enjoy. Of course she might prove useful to him; he is certainly flattered that she is of noble birth; and beyond doubt he has taken into consideration the fact that if she, who had a place in the days of the old regime,
Reasons for the Marriage
becomes his wife, this will put an end to the whispers that he is " only a Corsican." Yet it is as a Corsican, with the family feeling of an Italian (a feeling that has come down to him through the generations, and masters even him), that he desires marriage with a woman of birth. Finally, is it not obvious that this man who is so utterly self-centred must passionately long for a perpetuation of his own ego ?
The one thing in the world which Napoleon cannot make without another's aid is an heir, and this heir must be made out of good materials. He is no man of the people. He has come into being amid the struggles of old families, and beneath a coat-of-arms bearing two stars which he now wishes to fuse into one. If he has helped to break down the prejudices against the masses, he has been moved along this course by delight in the elemental energy of action, and never by humanist feelings. Why should he wish to mix his blood with that of the people ? When he marries the woman who long ere this has granted him all, he does so because, in both branches of her ancestry, she is the offspring of a long line of noble forebears. It is her birth, in addition to her charms, which makes her a welcome figure in a drawing-room, despite her reputation and her position. Since the Thirteenth Vendemiaire, Barras, the most powerful of the Directors, has regarded Buonaparte as his main prop—and he wishes to bind the general to his service by handing over Josephine. In this realm of erotic freedoms, a man who should wish, of a sudden, to insist on points of honour would simply make himself ridiculous. There are no knights and ladies now, but only citizens and citizenesses, who pair and separate as they please.
Barras has long since decided that Napoleon shall command the Army of Italy ; and when Josephine, womanlike, is unable to make up her mind, Barras gives her a definite pledge to this effect. There are good reasons, too, why he should send the dangerous man to the most difficult front. Napoleon's great plan, the one which has procured him his position on the
"To Destiny!"
general staff, is now sent to Nice, and comes back with annotations by the commander-in-chief there. The man who has drafted the plan, says that worthy, must have been a lunatic. He had better come and try his own hand at the job. That is exactly what the Directory has been angling for. The writer of the criticism is recalled, and the " lunatic " is sent to take his place.
The position is assured ; the prudent Josephine hesitates no longer. A legal friend has to certify that no birth certificate is now obtainable from the blockaded island in the West Indies, and that the authorities must therefore take the lady's word for the statement that she is twenty-eight. Since this knocks five years off her age, the bridegroom is gallant enough to add a year to his own. Thus the marriage begins with a twofold falsification of dates. A marriage settlement arranging for the division of property is signed, although the vicomtesse owns nothing but debts, and the warrior declares that his only possessions are his clothes, his uniform.
In the wedding ring, the words " To Destiny ! " are engraved.
Two days later, he leaves Paris. Eleven crazy love letters are sent to her from elev
en halting places. In Nice he joins his army, and takes over a command which will lead him beyond the frontiers of Europe.
It is the season of the equinoctial gales. From a turret he looks across at the enemy coast, and thinks : " This is the place I have always coveted as a starting-point. Behind me lies Paris ; and her bedchamber, hung with mirrors. That is happiness. It is mine. Over there, across the mountains, in that hostile land, is fame. The goal of my desire."
As he turns away, he catches sight of a familiar line of mountains shimmering in the distant blue. No longer does this hold his attention.
It is his lost homeland. The island.
BOOK TWO
THE TORRENT
So divine an illumination is always linked with youth and productivity; and, in very truth, Napoleon was one of the most productive men that ever lived.—GOETHE.
The towering peaks form a white, serrated ridge that thrusts upward into the blue of morning. Gleaming with perpetual snows, dangerous as the adventure he has undertaken, the Alps look down threateningly upon the bay, and mock the teeming crowds of men. Invincibly does nature, in symbolic fashion, here call a halt to the commander; here she has interposed a barrier between the land of his fathers and his new fatherland.
But he, who never trusts in force alone, who always outbids force with prudence, has to good purpose been pondering the old problem. Hannibal crossed the Alps ; he, Napoleon, will go round them. If we come to grips with the enemy at the weakest point, where the Apennines press close to the Alps and a slight depression facilitates an entry, we need not wait for the summer. The earlier in the year, the firmer the snows, and the less danger from avalanches. Forward, into the land of my fathers !
Delay will be fatal. Not that the enemy is a danger to him. His foes are asleep in winter quarters: the Austrians in the east of Lombardy; the Sardinians in the west of the Lombard plain; and the numerous petty republics and duchies, the fragments of Italy, are not expecting an attack until the thaw has come. But the French soldiers are hungry. Paris, on the verge of ruin, through depreciation of the currency, can send them nothing but almost valueless assignats; and all of these disappear into the greedy maw of the army contractors. " France would tremble," said one of the generals in his letters home just before Bonaparte's arrival, " could every one know how many are dying here of famine and disease." What will the new commander do if he brings neither money nor bread with him ?
" Soldiers, you are half starved and half naked. The Government owes you much, but can do nothing for you. Your
54
Mathematician and Seer
patience, your courage, do you honour, but give you no glory, no advantage. I will lead you into the most fertile plains of the world. There you will find flourishing cities, teeming provinces. There you will reap honour, glory, and wealth. Soldiers of the Army of Italy, will you be wanting in courage and firmness ? "
A faint cheer from the ranks answered the new commander when, at the first parade, he addressed his men in the foregoing words. But when they were all back in camp, one said to another : " General doesn't look very weatherproof, with his yellow hide. Fine talk, that, about the fertile plains. He'd better let us have some boots first, so that we can march there ! " The people of Israel must have grumbled in much the same fashion when Moses spoke of the Promised Land. The new commander encounters nothing but opposition.
Who knows him among the soldiers of this army, which has now been encamped for three years on the crests of the hills ? Those of them who remain, that is to say: for a fourth of the men are in hospital; and an equal number have been killed, or taken prisoner, or have deserted ! The officers ? Will not they, like those captains in Auxonne seven years ago, be inclined to encounter this wonderful young man's orders with passive resistance rather than ready obedience ? Look at him as he sits there writing and calculating; his powdered hair is cut in a fringe over his forehead, but lengthens towards the back of the head to hang down over his shoulders ; his coat is simple and scantily embroidered ; he walks up and down and issues dictatorial orders, this foreigner whose French is still faulty. Not an officer in his staff is well-disposed towards him, except the three or four faithful followers whom he has brought with him. One of these latter tells us : " They looked upon him as a mathematician or a visionary."
What if he be both at once, and for this very reason a man of genius ?
A Tatterdemalion Army
At first, he seems to be nothing but a calculator. Consider one of his early letters to the Directors—for he promptly opens an epistolary campaign, carried on side by side with a campaign of cavalry and big guns, waged with the same ardour and the same success. " You are asking me to perform miracles, and I cannot do that. . . . Only with prudence and foresight can we achieve great ends. It is but a step from victory to defeat. In affairs of magnitude I have learned that, in the last resort, everything invariably turns upon a trifle." But to Carnot, the great army organiser, to whom he can say much that is unsuitable for his official dispatches, he writes, gnashing his teeth: " Would you believe it, that I have not a single engineer officer here, not one who has ever taken part in a siege ! . . . You can hardly conceive how furious I am that I have no artillery! " His actual resources totalled 24 mountain guns, 4,000 underfed horses, frs. 300,000 in silver, and enough food to supply his 30,000 men for a month on half rations. With these vestiges of an equipment, he is to conquer Italy!
Nevertheless, having undertaken the venture, he makes the best of the materials at his disposal. Getting to work like a hurricane upon this crowd of pitiful men who have run to seed, upon corps some of which have already begun to sing the royal anthem again, with indefatigable energy he succeeds in transforming them into a republican army.
Here are some of his doings on the third day after his arrival. Sending a hundred and ten workmen to make a road. Suppression of a mutiny in a brigade. Quartering of two artillery divisions. Orders to two generals in case of horse stealing. Answer to the requests of two others concerning their commands. Order to a general in Toulon to bring his men to Nice. Order to another general to call up the National Guard of Antibes. Order to a general to find the most efficient officers in the mutinous brigade. Address to the general staff. Review of troops, with orders of the day.—During the first twenty days, one hundred and twenty-three written orders relate solely to the
provisioning of the troops ; among them are numerous complaints concerning peculation, short weight, and inferior goods; and these orders are issued on the march, from twelve different headquarters, in the interludes between six skirmishes.
For hardly has he passed through the narrow defiles than, in accordance with his new principle, he has massed his forces to attack first one and then the other of the allied foes, and in two battles he defeats and separates them. In truth, these were mere advance-guard skirmishes, as becomes the nature of the French, and the previous training of these troops, which as yet know nothing of a great movement in open lines. At this stage of his campaign, speed and boldness are more important than elaborate strategy.
When he is on one of these breathless rides, in the deep mountain valleys, through the passes, amid the thunder of his own and the enemy cannon, suddenly the glass covering Josephine's miniature (which he carries in the inner pocket of his tunic, and has kissed hundreds of times) shivers into fragments. Growing paler than ever, he reins in his charger, and says to Bourrienne : " The glass is broken. My wife is ill or unfaithful. Forward! "
Everything depends upon the fulfilment of his first old pledge. He knows that if, this once, he is able to do what he has promised, the army will believe him; and if it believes him, it will soon believe in him. In actual fact, a fortnight after his prophecy had been uttered, the army, which had won its first victories on entering the downward grades, found itself on the last elevation. The soldiers raised a hearty cheer. After the weary days in the narrow valleys, they at length caught sight of the plains of Piedmont lying at their feet, stretching out into the imme
asurable distance, blossoming in the spring weather, offering all that they had gone short of for so long. The Po and other rivers were flowing towards the horizon, and at length the
57
The Promised Land
world of snows lay behind. " As if by a magician's spell, they had been enabled to cross the gigantic barrier, which had seemed to them like the frontier of another world."
" All this is yours ! " Their commander has forced one of the two opponents, the king of Sardinia, to make truce, thus compelling the surrender of everything that grows on Sardinian territory. This first truce of his campaigns was secured by Bonaparte through cunning and bluff, for he threatened the enemy with the use of overwhelming forces, which he did not possess, and, indeed, could not have used, pressed as he was on both sides. The soldiers are amazed ; their general is a man of his word ! Literally, in a fortnight, he has fulfilled his promise.
Henceforward, the men under his command put their trust in Bonaparte. It is as Bonaparte that he begins to sign himself from the outset of the campaign. Since Italy is the enemy, he will have nothing more to do with an Italian name.
Ere long, he will change his name again.
II
Why was he victorious ? How can we explain that during the next few weeks he was able to deliver blow after blow ? What is the solution of this riddle ?
First of all, he owes his success to youth and health. A body that can endure interminable riding without fatigue; the power to sleep at any moment, and to wake whenever he pleases ; a stomach which can digest anything, and makes no complaint at being put on short commons; eyes that see and arrange everything.
