Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  The emperor's envoys arrive. The French commander meets them at the foot of the stairs, speaks of the emperor and the archduke with respect. When they beg for a ten days' truce (during which Vienna will be able to continue preparations for war), he answers by inviting them to supper. After the meal, he agrees to a five days' suspension of hostilities.

  While comparative calm now reigns in Vienna, the Directors in Paris are much perturbed. Is this general of ours going to make the Great Peace all by himself ? If he can do that, he will only have to come to Paris afterwards, and with one hand he will be able to push us from our seats. Most politely, therefore, they instruct him to await the coming of the envoy they are sending. All the more does Bonaparte press the other side for a decision. He knows what reports concerning him are current in Paris, and he cracks his whip over the Directors' heads : " I should like to have a rest. I have justified your confidence in me; in all my undertakings I have hazarded my life ; I have covered myself with more glory than the most fortunate man could wish; now I have advanced upon Vienna, leaving Italy's

  Annexations

  lovely plains behind me, as I advanced once before in search of bread for the army which the republic could no longer feed. Calumny vainly attempts to discredit my intentions. My civic career, like my military career, will be unique and simple."

  Ironies, beneath whose mask the writer is moving towards unnamed goals.

  Endless negotiations. But why should the matter drag on ? Give us Belgium and Lombardy. You can compensate the dispossessed princes with possessions in the Holy Roman Empire ! Habsburg accepts this principle, for neither the emperor nor any one of the German princes is concerned any longer about the Holy Roman Empire. It is very old, in poor health, and will soon be laid in the tomb. This plan will give France a finger in the pie across the Rhine. But how Habsburg is to be compensated for the loss of Lombardy, remains uncertain.

  Opportune is the arrival of letters from Venice reporting insurrections against the French and the murder of a number of French soldiers. At length the day of vengeance has come ! Venice, too, is outworn, and ripe for destruction. " Since the discovery of the Cape route to the Indies and the rise of Triest and Ancona, Venice has been on the decline," he writes to the Directors, to soothe their conscientious scruples—i.e., for use in a justificatory campaign. " It will hardly survive the blow. This wretched and cowardly population, unfitted for freedom, without land or water, must, of course, be handed over to those to whom the hinterland is allotted. First of all, we shall take the ships, empty the arsenal, carry off the big guns, and close the banks ; we shall also keep Corfu and Ancona." Thus weakened, the Lagoons were to pass to Habsburg.

  Bonaparte dealt in summary fashion with the old lords of the region, with the few patrician families which, as the successors of strong men, had ruled Venice for centuries, and had made of it one of the most reactionary States in the world. " You have stirred up the peasants against us," he wrote to the doge while

  Lure of the East

  the negotiations with the Austrians were in progress. " Thanks to you, every one is shouting : ' Death to the French !' Hundreds of our soldiers have already perished through your machinations. Do not lie to me ! You incited these disturbances. Do you imagine that because I am in the heart of Germany I shall be unable to enforce respect for the greatest nation in the world ? I shall take vengeance for the blood of my companions-in-arms. War or peace ! Unless you instantly hand over the ringleaders, I shall declare war."

  This is his tone when he wishes to terrify a dozen tottering old patricians. When the envoys from the Senate come to his camp, he pretends to fly into a passion : " I shall have no more constitution and no more Senate. For Venice, I shall be a second Attila. Make me no more proposals. I will be your lawgiver." When the city is being handed over, the doge, a man of ninety, falls dead—the last doge of Venice. Bonaparte never forgot this scene.

  Has he done with Italy now ? Has not he got all he wants; has not he reached his end ?

  There is no end, for every step forward opens a new vista. Venice is merely a springboard, whence he can start his swim into the open sea. The islands first; then the Adriatic ; and now he contemplates a more distant horizon. When he "was in Ancona a while back, forcing his terms of peace upon Rome, he stood on the shore, looking seaward. There were the Ionian Islands, and beyond them lay Turkey. He wrote : " From this point, we could reach Macedonia in twenty-four hours; the place would be invaluable for our influence upon the destinies of the Turkish Empire." As brigadier on the general staff he had thought of engulfing himself in Turkey. From Ancona he sends agents to open up relationships with powerful pashas in Janina, Scutari, and Bosnia.

  Now, when he is in Leoben, he makes sure of the island possessions of Venice, arranges for the occupation of Corfu and Zante, " to control simultaneously the Adriatic and the East.

  "Europe Is a Mole-Hill! "

  No one will be able to save the Turkish Empire. We shall watch its death agony. The occupation of the Ionian Islands leaves us the choice between supporting Turkey and making sure of our own share of the spoils."

  The political reality underlying this is an attack on England. France has long looked forward to the acquisition of strongholds in the Mediterranean, and to thus imposing a barrier between England and India. In Bonaparte, this general aim acquires the impulsive energy of a personal ambition. He does not want the East that he may inflict a mortal wound on England as his arch enemy ; he is in search of means to injure England that thereby he may win the East. Since his imagination always runs far ahead of his achievements, Europe, of which but yesterday he first seized a corner, is already beginning to seem too small for him. He says to Bourrienne :

  " Only in the East have there been great empires and mighty changes; in the East, where six hundred million people dwell. Europe is a mole-hill! "

  VIII

  A high-arched room, in the baroque style ; the walls are white, picked out with gold. On a long couch upholstered in green silk, a sixteen-year-old lieutenant, a spoiled darling, with the fawning manners of a page, is sitting between two women of ripe beauty. One of them is the youth's mother ; but when her smiling glance roves coquettishly over the surrounding group of smartly dressed officers, we gather that she is thinking far less of maternal obligations than of hours in which such boys as hers are engendered. Without words, she seems to add : " Creole women are adepts in the art of love ! " Another connoisseur in the same art is the handsome general who stands behind her, craning forward over her shoulder that he may see far down into her corsage—as fashion and the lady's pride in her charms make it easy for him to do. This is Massena, whose talent as a soldier

  At Headquarters

  is to be ever prompt to attack, being too unrestrained and uncultured to count the cost; but his flaming impetuosity often saves his troops in moments of danger. His temperament is so ardent, that he must always have at least two women in his train; and his appetite for money is no less keen. Money and women—he steals both, whenever he has the chance.

  All the qualities that Massena lacks, you will find in the little man with the big head who stands in front of the ladies making conversation. He is ugly, touchingly grotesque in his movements, and at the moment intoxicated by his success in winning—no one knows how—the love of a pretty member of the Visconti family. This is Berthier, chief of general staff, unresting in his activity ; a man who will do administrative work one day, and take a fortress by storm the next; a great student of maps, for he is one of the few among these officers who are well grounded in the theory of their profession.

  There is Murat, theatrically decked out in green satin, twisting the huge plumed hat he holds in his hands. Of proletarian birth, like most of the men at this remarkable headquarters, he is fond of talking in asides. Now he laughs too loudly because the ribald Augereau, the avaricious and extravagant peasant's son, has been telling him an after-dinner story. Murat, though he fears neither artillery fire nor the frowns of pr
inces, is now painfully embarrassed because Josephine calls to him across the room. She wants to hear the joke !

  But Joseph, a man of the world, who dreads what the enfant terrible may blurt out, nods meaningly to Murat, implying to him that for God's sake he must hold his tongue. Elise is sitting in the embrasure of one of the windows. Not so good-looking as the other woman, and finding her husband a bore, she is apt to be censorious, and would carry tales to Mother Letizia, who abhors Josephine's loose morals.

  Now comes the bright sound of laughter from the garden.

  A Little Court

  That is Pauline's birdlike voice. She is making the most of the days of freedom left to her before her marriage to General Leclerc, the husband chosen for her by Napoleon. She is playing blind-man's-bluff with Hippolyte, and her pleasure in the game is doubled by the knowledge that she is annoying Josephine.

  Here is the chief, coming slowly along the passage. For two long hours he has been walking up and down with the Parisian dramatist Arnault. This companion has been carefully chosen. The newcomer has asked many questions about the army and the battles. Bonaparte has answered them with' a detailed report of his own doings, which he knows that Arnault will spread far and wide. Now he has steered the conversation to the topic of the governmental crisis, long drawn out. As the two come into the reception room, he says, ostensibly with indifference, and yet with emphasis enough to fix the words in Arnault's memory : " I can hardly conceive any other way out of their difficulties than that they should bend before the power of one strong man. But where is such a man to be found ? "

  As Bonaparte enters, the officers rise to their feet, break off all conversation, and look expectantly at this man of twenty-seven, though most of them are older than he and all of them a good deal taller. Only the page continues to loll on the couch, for Eugene knows that his mother is unchallenged mistress of the house.

  We are at Montebello, the huge castle near Milan, where Bonaparte is passing the summer. He is almost wholly the statesman now, for the war has been ended by the arrangement entered into at Leoben, and nothing more is needed than a formal ratification. He might be in Paris, receiving the adulation of which he dreamed in youth; but he prefers to stay in Italy. He will not return to Paris until the political consequences of his victories have assumed a concrete form, until the new States are consolidated and the Italian business over and done with.

  Mother Letizia

  Meanwhile, during the many months he spends at Montebello, the life there is not so much that of a military headquarters, as that of a minor court.

  But in no respect does he behave like an upstart. There are no pretences. In everything he will make his influence felt as one who is a child of the revolution that established a regime of equality. He has appointed sons of the people to the leading positions in his army ; but he has no fear of what his noble guests, the dukes and princes of Italy, may think of it, should one of his valiant generals commit a solecism. He sees no reason for hiding his origin like a parvenu, although his adoption of French nationality might well incline him to conceal his Corsican birth. In actual fact, he parades it. Before the close of the previous year, he had summoned the whole family to Milan. Now, with lavish oriental hospitality, he has invited them all to Montebello, and those who seek his favour must show his relatives due honour. Half Italy pays court to him, for his name is already acquiring the mythical power of that of a man of destiny. Besides the numerous persons who wish to harness their fortunes to his chariot, not a few come from afar to ask the sage's advice concerning family matters and private affairs.

  He has found it hard to persuade his mother, proud and a woman of strict principles, to make friends with Josephine, whose reputation is an offence to her. Josephine reciprocates Madame Letizia's dislike ; but Napoleon, though he idolises his wife and can refuse her nothing, compels her to observe the outward forms of respect. Now the friction between the two women has become even greater than at first. " This Creole says soft nothings to every man, and kisses every woman, instead of attending to her business of bearing children." The Corsican mother has given birth to thirteen. Josephine's barrenness dishonours Napoleon and his family. Letizia fancies that in the eyes of many of his adversaries she can read satisfaction and mockery because the great man cannot procreate a child. But it

  This Island, This Province

  is not his fault. Josephine has led, and still leads, too loose a life. That is what is amiss.

  When Letizia first met Napoleon again, after his battles and victories, she embraced him and said:

  " You are thinner than ever ! You are wearing yourself out! "

  " Not a bit of it. 1 am really living, now ! "

  " Yes, for posterity. ..."

  " Well, do you call that dying ? "

  When he leaves her, he says to her: " Do take good care of yourself, Mother. If you die, there will be no one left with any authority over me." His Corsican clannishness is almost as strong as his cosmopolitan self-confidence.

  Three sisters, three brothers, and Uncle Fesch are, in their various ways, enjoying themselves at Montebello. The fascinating Pauline, sixteen years of age, cannot forgive Josephine, who, in deference to Napoleon's wishes, has interfered with her plans for a love marriage. She weds Leclerc in the castle chapel, and at the same time Elise and Bacciochi have to resolemnise their union in church, for the chief is eager to keep in the good graces of the Vatican. After the ceremony Letizia, who has no interest in these intrigues, returns to Corsica.

  " This island, this province," as Bonaparte now calls it, as if it were an island or a province like any other, has now been regained from the English, who had occupied it in response to Paoli's call for aid. Bonaparte managed the affair from a distance, while busied in his campaign on the mainland. One foggy night, a couple of dozen Frenchmen, taking with them plenty of money and an abundance of weapons, landed in Corsica " to encourage the patriots," circulate pamphlets, and so on. Napoleon also sent Saliceti, his friend and his opponent of earlier days. Thus, by proxy and from afar, he was able to achieve what he had thrice failed to do in person.

  " Can it really be only four years ? " thinks Signora Letizia, when those who had driven her and hers into exile receive her with acclamations. Is this the very citadel which was for so long the

  centre of Napoleon's thoughts and feelings ? Now, simply because he orders it, Elise's husband is to be commandant there. For a long while, already, Lucien has been intendant of the forces. To Napoleon, in Italy, his native island now seems an ancient family seat, a romantic and medieval spot where his kindred can dwell when convenient. With a contemptuous smile, not long ago, he had read a letter from the Bourbon pretender, in which Louis offered him the title of duke, or even hereditary viceroy, of Corsica, if he would espouse the royalist cause.

  In Montebello, Bonaparte first learns how to separate his private life from his public life—a lesson which those born in the purple learn from childhood upwards.

  The guardianship of the castle, strangely enough, is entrusted, not to French soldiers, but to three hundred Polish legionaries. In several of his battles, there had been danger that he would be taken prisoner, so he has formed a bodyguard, forty strong. They are called guides, are chosen from among the tallest and best of his soldiers, and have a dare-devil for their leader.

  The castle is thronged with orderlies and couriers. Envoys are flocking from all quarters. The lion of St. Mark and the key of St. Peter gleam on foreign epaulettes; Vienna, Leghorn, and Genoa are also represented at Montebello. Napoleon lives in state. Following the custom of the country, he keeps open house. Interested spectators are admitted to the gallery of the banqueting hall; and he drops a hint, lest they should forget to spread the news when they return home, that like them he drinks the wine of the country.

  The reports of those who come to see him on service matters or other official business express astonishment that this young commander-in-chief is never embarrassed. He is dignified and yet perfectly
natural; always the most simply dressed man in the company. None the less, he knows quite well how to keep people at a distance. Though nearly every one who comes to see

  96

  To the Savants

  him towers over him in stature, he never tries to appear taller than he is. Instead, those conversing with him are inclined to stoop a little, and thus seem to be paying court to him. Henceforward, throughout life, he is able from his natural defect to derive an advantage whose ultimate psychical consequences are incalculable. One of the visitors to Montebello wrote : " Should this man have the luck to escape death in battle, within four years he will be in exile or seated on a throne." The writer was only three years out in his reckoning.

  A student of his epoch, one who knows how fame is manufactured, he has in attendance an able journalist, the first publicity agent in history, whose business it is to blow Napoleon's trumpet in Paris and subtly to discredit the Directors. Being a disciple of Plutarch, Bonaparte knows through whose agency the story of great men's deeds is handed down to posterity ; that is why the faces of poets, historians, artists, and men of science are so often seen at his Italian castle. A year before, a few days after the triumphal entry into Milan, and when overwhelmed with urgent business, he had found time to pen the following remarkable lines to a great astronomer:

  " The sciences which are the glory of the human mind, the arts which beautify the world and bequeath great deeds to our offspring, must be cherished with especial care in free States. All men of genius, all those who are famous in the world of learning, are Frenchmen, no matter to what country they may belong." Hitherto, such men have had to lead a retired life. Now, freedom of thought prevails ; intolerance is a thing of the past, there are no despots left. The talented can foregather under his patronage, and fearlessly tell him all their wishes. Any such person who wants to go to France may be sure of a cordial reception, " for the French people would rather win a great mathematician, painter, or other man of note, than win the wealthiest of provinces. That is why, Citizen, I ask you to make these sentiments widely known among the great men of Milan ! "