by Emil Ludwig
Never since the days of Plutarch's heroes did a commander talk like this. It was the conqueror's first speech from the throne, and was compounded of all the elements with which, in his speeches and letters, he was to work upon the mind of Europe for twenty years to come. Everything is simple and definite; there is so much fixity of purpose that every one wishes to comply. You are vassals, but free. I am your master, but I will protect you. Five hundred pieces of ordnance and the friendship of France. " Such is my will." Then it is all over.
Through the May night, the wealthy town blazed with fireworks and resounded with music. The young commander-in-chief has moved on to the Palazzo Serbelloni; the banquet is over, and he stands at the window. The triumphal entry of which he dreamed in youth, towards which his virginal fancy strained, has now been accomplished. Does he look forward or back ? With what is his mind busied ?
" What do you imagine the Parisians are thinking of us ? "
Josephine Cometh Not!
he asks his adjutant. " Do you expect they are satisfied ? " When Marmont makes the conventional reply, Napoleon goes on: " But Paris has seen nothing, so far. The future hides much greater victories. The goddess of fortune has not smiled on me that I may scorn her. The more she favours me, the greater shall be my demands. In a few days we shall reach the Adige ; then Italy will be at our feet. Perhaps we shall cross the river, and press onward. Our age has produced nothing great. I want to set an example."
IV
A royal couch in the Serbelloni Palace ; never has he lain so soft before. But it is far too wide for one ! Where is Josephine ? What are triumphal entries and victories worth, without her ? Fireworks and flags ! Why has she not come ? Is she really ill ? Has she a lover ?—He lies awake for hours.
From the very first this man, who inspired respect even in the veterans among the generals, imperilled that respect by his way of showing his wife's picture to all and sundry, and when he was in the middle of a conversation about service matters. " You will come soon, won't you ? " So he wrote in one of his almost daily letters. " You must come to me. I want you on my heart, in my arms ! Quick ! Fly, fly ! " He knows her frivolous disposition; that her senses are easily aroused ; that she is always ready to give herself up to new impressions, new admirers. But now, now ! What can be keeping her ? He had expected her to come to Milan. His ambition had been to escape thither from the savagery of the campaign, that in one of the palaces of that city he might give her capricious charms a splendid setting worthy of her and himself.
But there is something which our great calculator has left out of his calculations. By his very feats of arms, he has kept her away from his side. For years in Paris she has been living in the half-world. Now, in this city which she loves, she wishes to
"IHave Lost All Hope"
shine forth in an assured position, as wife of the great commander whose name is in every newspaper, on every one's lips. Does the little general really think she married him for love ? When the first captured colours are exhibited, she drives out among the people, and, while she is loudly cheered, she thinks to herself how much more gratifying this is than to rough it in foreign towns surrounded by unmannerly soldiers. She seldom writes to him. His own words grow ever more urgent. " Have you a lover, have you taken up with some stripling of nineteen ? If so, you have reason to dread Othello's fist! " She laughs, and says to Tallien : " A queer fellow, this Bonaparte ! "
Another day, in the middle of a letter to Carnot dealing with urgent affairs, he writes : " I am in despair. My wife won't come here. I am sure she must have a lover, and that that is what keeps her in Paris. I loathe women, one and all! " Then comes a letter in which she grasps at an expedient. Since there is no other way of avoiding the dangers and the dirt of camp life, she writes to him that she has hopes. . . .
Thunder and lightning ! Have all the spirits of good fortune united to shower blessings on him ? Among his successes, that was the only thing he lacked to complete his happiness. For, if destiny is to carry him to the lofty altitudes he foresees, to the heights he has resolved to scale, then his greatest need is to have heirs. But this battle is only planned, not yet won ; new dangers are impending. He shudders. Is it true ? Is it his child ?
" I am sorry ! "—the words are penned in his almost illegible handwriting on the commander-in-chiefs official stationery. " I have been pestering you with complaints, and you are ill. Love had robbed me of reason. Forgive me, but I think I shall never be reasonable again. My life is an unending dream; gloomy forebodings make it hard for me to breathe; I have lost all hope. Write me ten pages, for nothing else can console me. You are ill, you love me, you are with child, and I never see you. ,Who takes care of you ? Hortense ? I love the sweet girl more than
Frenzied Energy
ever when I think of her as taking care of you. . . . Soon you are to have in your arms a child as fascinating as yourself. If I could only spend a whole day with you. You know, if I saw a lover with you, I should instantly tear the man to pieces ! "
But who is to help her through her time of trouble ? There is no friendship in the world, only the ties of blood. " I am in despair," he writes to Joseph under the same date. " My wife is ailing; I do not know whether I am standing on my head or my heels ; dreadful forebodings rack my heart. Write to me, I implore you. Since early childhood, we have been bound together by kinship and affection. Do for her what I would so eagerly do for you. . . . You know how much I love her; know her ardent nature ; know that I have never loved so passionately, that Josephine is the first woman whom I have adored. Her condition drives me crazy. . . . But as soon as she is well again, well enough to travel, she must come to me. I must have her in my arms ; I love her to distraction, and cannot live without her. If she no longer loves me, there is nothing more for me in the world. Oh, mon ami, do not keep the courier more than six hours in Paris; send him back to me with an answer which will give me new life. Be happy! For myself, nature has doomed me to win none but outward victories ! "
On the same day, he dictates, inter alia: Order to Berthier to occupy Alessandria; dispatch to the Directors concerning urgently needed reinforcements; ultimatum to the Genoese Senate anent the murder of soldiers; letter introducing Murat to the same Senate ; plan to sell some cannon which are still left on the Riviera; order to Massena to procure ammunition from the arsenal in Venice; order to Lannes to advance no farther; order to send all suspects to Tortona ; order to send a division to Toulon; report to Kellermann that money and troops are on the way.
His letter has an effect. Joseph asks Josephine to come with him to Milan. What pretext can she find for refusing ? She
The Fop and the Husband
sighs, packs her trunks, sheds tears at a farewell festival in the Luxembourg, gets into the carriage. After all, to-morrow is the thirtieth of June, the season is at an end, and she has good company for the journey. Of course Joseph, her vis-a-vis, is a homely fellow, but Junot is a dapper young man; Fortune, her lap-dog, is a darling, as ever. Then there is Charles, another young officer whose acquaintance she has recently made, and who has danced attendance on her ever since. Is he on the lookout for a career, or a conquest ? What a choice Christian name, Hippolyte ! How fine he looks in his chasseur uniform. He tells such amusing stories, has an expert knowledge of the latest shawls and wigs, and his legs are so well turned!
Milan. Bonaparte is away ? More battles near Verona ? No matter, this is a lovely place ! Such a splendid palace; they all flock to pay their respects. But Hippolyte is hors concours; no one can rival the grace with which, sword clanking, he strides up and down the Corso. What a pity one has to be circumspect in one's behaviour under so many prying eyes. But Hippolyte knows his way about, and has found a discreet staircase. . . .
Suddenly there is a stir of excitement. The commander-in-chief is coming from Verona. For two days and two nights, the lava of this volcano overwhelms her.
Thrice do the soldiers of Emperor Francis try to relieve Mantua, which Bonaparte is besieg
ing. Mantua is the key position. Old Wurmser, marching down beside Lake Garda with fresh troops, drives back the opposing forces. If Bonaparte is to make front against him, Mantua must be abandoned for a time. Meanwhile, however, the enemy has blocked the line of retreat upon Milan. A terrible reverse, and the French army is in the utmost danger. Bonaparte, hastening from Milan, rides under
A Love Letter from the Battle-field
the hot July sun across the plain, busily inspecting one division of the army after the other, gathering all his strength, for the fate of the whole campaign is at stake, A period of the utmost activity, and of extreme tension.
" Since I left you," he writes on one of these evenings, " I have been sad. I can only be happy when I am near you. I spend my whole time thinking of your kisses, your tears, your bewitching jealousy. The charm of the incomparable Josephine is perpetually rekindling the flames of my heart and my senses. When shall I be free, at length, free from cares and duties, free to devote all my time to you, with nothing in the world but to love you ? . . . Since I have known you, I have come to respect you more day by day, which shows how wrong La Bruyere was when he said that love comes suddenly. Everything in nature runs its course, and increases by degrees. ... Be less beautiful, less tender, and above all less jealous. Your tears inflame my blood. . . . Join me quickly, so that, before we die, we may be able to say : ' We have had so many happy days !' A million kisses, even for your horrid Fortune ! "
Neither now nor later could the commander-in-chief rid his home of this lap-dog. He tells us that on his wedding night the dog was in bed with Josephine. " I had to choose between sleeping beside the beast or not sleeping with my wife. A terrible dilemma, but I had to take it or leave it. I resigned myself. The dog was less accommodating. I have the marks on my leg to show what he thought about the matter! "
Amid the hurly-burly, the general's lady arrives at Brescia. Almost immediately she has to be sent back to Milan. She has a narrow escape of being seized by the enemy, together with some recruits and cannon. Now she has an excuse, and, in the future, she will be slower to comply with his invitations.
During these weeks, Bonaparte for the first time loses courage, though it is only for a few hours of one night. Instead of simply issuing orders, he holds a council of war, much to the astonishment of his generals. In this critical situation, he
Crises
proposes to retreat across the Po, but the mad Augereau thumps the table, shouting: " For the sake of your own fame, I insist that we attack." He flings from the room. The counsels of the others are divided.
See him before the decision, brooding over his maps. He is alone. Moths are fluttering round the candles, and at last burn themselves to death. The midsummer night is sultry. As he listens to the drums and the shouting without, he thinks : " Tomorrow will settle whether we can keep Lombardy. Perhaps it will be the turning point in my fame, my destiny. Shall I stake all on one card ? What if Wurmser's strength is greater than the reports say ? Josephine is sleeping now, in the great bed. Or, who knows, she may be laughing softly in the embrace of some puppy who has bewitched her."
He decides to fight. Next day, he is victorious at
Castiglione.
Soon afterwards, he writes : " Three days without a letter from you; I have written daily. This separation is terrible ; the nights are long and savourless, the days monotonous." At this time, Josephine writes to Tallien in Paris : "I am bored to death." He is busied in battles and victories ; she is feted and honoured. To both of them life seems wearisome : to him, because she is too far away ; to her, because he is too near. Three days later : " The enemy has been beaten, my darling. Eighteen thousand prisoners, the others dead or wounded. Wurmser has only Mantua left. This is the biggest success yet: Italy, Friuli, and Tyrol are saved for the republic. In a few days we shall see one another again, that is the reward for labour and pains. A thousand glowing kisses ! "
When the commander can draw breath, the statesman must turn every moment to account. In Modena he assembles deputies from all the States as far south as Bologna, and at a formal sitting he gives them a constitution, that they may unite to form henceforward one State, the new republic. Is he happy, now that he is at work State-building ? His wife in Milan must be in love with some one, or she would write to him differently !
Jealousy
" Your letters are cold "—this is from Modena on the same day. " Their tone suggests that we must have been married for half a century at least. Friendship and winter, it is odious and spiteful. What more am I to expect of you ? That you have ceased to love me ? That is an old story. That you should hate me ? Well and good. That is what I wish. Everything degrades, save only hatred. But indifference with a heart of marble, lacklustre eyes, languid gait ? . . . A thousand kisses, tender as my heart."
Fresh crises call him northward once more. He comes, he fights, he is driven back. The gloomy November weeks, in which his fate again trembles in the balance, are not gladdened by any consolation from her. Far from it, for his most intimate friends, alive to all that goes on in Milan, venture cautious hints that my lady Josephine is having a merry time there. This is the day after the defeat at Caldiero. He sends to Paris a despairing appeal for reinforcements.
Complications thicken; courage wanes; every one turns for help to the chief. He seems to be thinking with thirty heads these days, when the battle of Areola is impending. It is in a crazy mood of despair that he writes to her in the evening, his pen storming over the paper : " I no longer love you, I hate you. You are hateful, stupid, inept. You do not write to me, do not love your husband. What are you doing all day, Madame ? What important business makes it impossible for you to write to the man who loves you ? . . . Who is the fairy prince that claims all your time, so that you cannot write to your husband ? Take care, Josephine : some fine night, the door will burst open, and I shall be there! Quite seriously, I am uneasy, my pretty one. Do write me four pages full of sweet words which will warm my heart with joy and happiness. In a few days I hope to clasp you in my arms, and to cover you with a million kisses, hot as the equator."
How his heart flutters, uncertain whether she is still to be trusted, miserable if she be unworthy of trust. There is a crisis in
Danger and Discouragement
his own soul as well as out there on the battle-field. Responsibility, uncertainty, storm in the heart of this man, who has perhaps already been dishonoured in his private life, and tomorrow may be dishonoured as a military commander— the man who still hopes to rule the world. During these days, when a suicide occurs among the troops, he issues an order : " The soldier must conquer the pain and the melancholy of the passions."
Two days after the date of the letter last quoted, he is standing near Areola on a bridge spanning the Adige. The enemy is bombarding this bridge. The French troops shrink back; there seems no way of forcing a passage across the river. At length, after repeated summonses, the soldiers advance once more, but there are calls from the ranks to Napoleon : " Do not go any farther, General. You will be killed and then we shall be lost! " Marmont is a little in the van. Turning round to see if his men are following, he notices that the commander is in the arms of Muiron, the adjutant, apparently wounded. Around them a group of motionless figures. Now that the movement of the vanguard is arrested, the troops seek the shelter of the embankment. Bonaparte, who has recovered, stumbles and falls into the ditch at the foot of the dyke. His brother Louis and Marmont drag him out. A horse! Confusion, shots ; Muiron covers the general with his own body, is hit, and falls. Bonaparte saves himself on horseback.
That evening in camp, he is greatly depressed. Second day's fighting, and a vain attempt to storm the enemy's position. This abominable river. Seems impossible to get across it. For a long time, the fortunes of the third day are no better than those of the first two.
At the eleventh hour, he has recourse to cunning. While the fight on the river rages uncertainly, he sends all the trumpeters and drummers he can get together, w
ith part of the guard, in a wide half-circle to reach a position in the enemy's rear. There the charge is sounded. The wearied Austrians are panic stricken,
Victory and Disillusionment
and one of their divisions draws back. The French, encouraged by the rout of part of the foe, assume that all the opposing army is retreating, and act accordingly. Courage and ruse have snatched victory out of a morass of despair. The name of another village becomes famous. Areola medals are struck in Paris. A picture is painted, showing the commander on the bridge of Areola, waving imaginary colours.
The danger is over for a time. The enemy supports are withdrawn from Mantua, and soon the town must fall. Bonaparte makes a fresh disposition of his troops, and hastens to Milan. At length he will be able to administer the province from the capital, and have Josephine and hold her fast.
But Josephine is harder to catch than Wurmser. " I reach Milan, rush to your house, having thrown aside everything in order to clasp you in my arms. You are not there ! You are gadding about somewhere, running away when I come to seek you. You care nothing about your Napoleon. A whim led you to give me your love, and now fickleness has made you indifferent. Inured to dangers, I know how to meet reverses of fortune. ... Don't put yourself about, amuse yourself, happiness is made for you, all the world is happy to have the chance of pleasing you, your husband alone is most unhappy."
Next morning. " You have no reason to trouble yourself about the happiness or unhappiness of a man whom you do not love. But it is my fate to love you. . . . Take no part in the unhappiness of your husband, who lives only for you. It would be unjust if I were to ask you to love me as I love you. Who can expect delicate lace to weigh as heavy as gold? . . . My fault is that nature has denied me the charms which might bind you to me. What I do deserve is nothing more than this, that Josephine should show me a little consideration, a little respect, for I love her to the verge of madness, her and her alone. Farewell, adorable woman. ... If I were certain that she could no longer love me, I would hide my pain, and would content myself with being useful to her whenever I could. ... I open the letter once
