by Emil Ludwig
There was no political opposition. " No reaction is possible," he prophesied. " I have not relied upon the credit or upon the strength of a party, and am therefore indebted to no one.—The men of intelligence who, a little while ago, were perpetrating crimes, are now being used by me to upbuild a new social
The Revolution is at an End
edifice. There are excellent workmen among them, but the trouble is that they would all like to be master builders. Typically French, that trait; every one thinks himself competent to rule the country!" Being careful to satisfy all parties, he gives the two most coveted portfolios to two rogues, mutually hostile, but both men of remarkable ability. Having done this, he is able to say: " What revolutionist can fail to have confidence in the social system when Fouche, the Jacobin, is Minister of Police ? What nobleman would be unwilling to live under Talleyrand as Minister for Foreign Affairs ? I have one of them on my right, and the other on my left. I open a wide road, in which all can find room."
To all the prefects and all the generals the order went forth: " No more clubs ; no more parties. Tell the National Guardsmen and the citizens whenever you can, if a few ambitious fellows still feel the need to hate, that the rudder of State is now in strong hands, accustomed to overcome obstacles." A few weeks after the coup d'etat, he issued a great proclamation, commending the new constitution to the people. It closed with the simple and lofty words : " Citizens, the revolution has returned to the principles with which it began. It is at an end."
II
It is not war.
"Returning to Europe after eighteen months' absence, I find that war has broken out once more between the French Republic and Your Majesty. The French people summons me to the first position in the State." In these terms, shortly after the coup d'etat, he addresses the German emperor, just before marching against him. Napoleon writes as proudly as any monarch, as if before the journey he had already been the first man in the State ; and he writes with the natural dignity to which, in large measure, he owes his success. That is his way. In this manner
The Modern Hannibal
he puts his adversary in the wrong. But the emperor is unmoved. Well, Bonaparte's plans were made long since ; he has only to carry them out.
First of all he surrounds himself with a guard, every member of which must have been through four campaigns—as many as the commander, but no more. Then, while he sends Moreau to fight on the Rhine, he makes his own preparations for an adventure in Italy If he were to come along the coast, as he did four years ago, they would be ready for him He must find a new plan! At Dijon, in full view of the Austrian spies, he collects from the rawest levies a pitiful reserve corps, and smiles as he reads the mocking comments in the Viennese papers. Meanwhile, he prepares a force of 82,000 men, no more, but the finest soldiers under his command. They are for a bold venture of which no one dreams, any more than they dreamed of his Egyptian campaign. Did not Hannibal cross the Alps, bidding the mountains make way for him ? But nowadays a general must get cannon through the passes ! Cut down trees, then, and make huge sleighs on which to drag the ordnance over the snows !
Thus in the spring after the coup d'etat an army climbs the Great St. Bernard, for the first time in two thousand years. The old monks in the hospice can hardly believe their eyes. The herdsman who guides the commander's mule, prattling the while about his wishes and his troubles, will soon afterwards learn that he has been talking to a fairy godmother, will be enriched by the gift of a house and a farm. Even the common soldiers seem to realise the epic character of this campaign, and vie with one another in their zeal to drag the guns. They are following their tried and trusted leader; they are returning to that Lombardy whither, four years ago, he had led them as to the Promised Land ; these reflections, and the urgency of the occasion, increase the mysterious suggestiveness of the expedition. So little do the Austrians realise what is impending, that their chief, writing to a lady friend in Pavia, tells her she is quite
Marengo
safe there ; no need to leave. Twelve hours later, Bonaparte enters the town.
Nevertheless, the great blow seems to him a questionable success. When, in the middle of June, he attacks the Austrians in the plain, the enemy, whose forces greatly outnumber his, drives him back. Where is Desaix with the promised reserves ? The affair begins to have the look of a general rout. The commander, by the roadside, flicks the dust nervously with his riding-whip, as he watches the beaten army pass by. " Stand firm! Wait a little ! Reinforcements are coming! Only an hour! " But the fight continues. Has fortune, too, been routed ? At length Desaix arrives, and hurls himself on the dismayed Austrians; the dragoons charge; the enemy's lines are broken. The battle of Marengo, which Bonaparte had lost at five o'clock, was won by Desaix at seven—but Desaix fell in the hour of triumph.
Sad at heart, Napoleon remained on the field of battle. The best of his generals was dead; but an even more painful thought was that Desaix, not himself, had won the victory. He himself had been defeated. Maybe he was consoled by the knowledge that he alone had designed the whole campaign, and that he alone was responsible for the plan of battle in accordance with which Desaix had arrived in time to snatch success out of the jaws of failure. Perhaps he realised that this great battle, which opened and closed the campaign, had been won by him no otherwise than the Eighteenth Brumaire. Then, also, he had lost the day, and the crown of victory had been gained for him by another !
Yet in neither case can this judgment be maintained when all the circumstances are reviewed. Only three or four miles from the spot where this evening he dictates to Bourrienne the report of the battle, is the point on the map into which, four months earlier, he had thrust a pin, saying (to this same Bourrienne) : " Crossing the Alps at the Great St. Bernard, I shall fall upon Melas, cut off his communications with Austria, and meet him
Further Peace Proposals
here in the plains of the River Scrivia at San Giuliano."
This was no time for reminiscences ! Statesman as well as commander, he was already parleying with Vienna, acting on the principle : " We must fight and negotiate at the same time." Now, on the battle-field, he writes again to Emperor Francis :
" The cunning of the English has neutralised the effect which my simple and frank advances must otherwise have had on Your Majesty's heart. War has become actual. Thousands of Frenchmen and Austrians are no more.—The prospect of the continuance of such horrors is so great a distress to me, that I have decided to make another personal appeal to you.—On the battle-field of Marengo, amid grief and pain, surrounded by fifteen thousand corpses, I implore Your Majesty, it behooves me to give you an urgent warning. You are far from the scene, and your heart cannot be so deeply moved as mine is on the spot. You rule over many States.— Let us give our generation peace and tranquillity. If the men of later days are such fools as to come to blows, they will learn wisdom after a few years' fighting, and will then live at peace one with another."
This long letter, of which only a few of the most weighty sentences have been quoted here, is as brilliant as had been his plan for the battle of Marengo, and it was as fruitful as his victory. For the first time it gave plain expression to his longing for peace. In days to come, he will write half a dozen such letters after as many decisive victories. Is Bonaparte, the great military commander, a pacifist after all ?
By no means, but he is not a swashbuckler either. His nerves always remain sensitive to the impressions of the battlefield ; and he has an unfailing reserve of scepticism as regards successes won merely by the sword. He is fond of camp life, and he has a chessplayer's love for the great game of war; but, before all, he is a statesman. It was in this very plain of Lom-bardy that the sense of statecraft first awakened in him. It was
Statesman and Commander
there that, with kings and countries as pieces, he began to play that other great game of chess, the diplomatic game. Delight in the use of spiritual force has taken possession of his soul. He will never renounce the swo
rd, will never allow its edge to become blunted. It is as the wielder of the sword that he is acclaimed as the hero of Europe. But he also has the Golden Goblet, and does not wish to risk it anew every year.
He knows, too, that, while France is always eager for glory, an even greater need at the moment is tranquillity. Above all, the country has need of him, personally ; but he has enemies in his rear. Before, it mattered little that he should be away for a year or two at a time ; but now, when he is dictator, so long an absence would be fatal. These multiple considerations explain his letter to Emperor Francis—surely an unparalleled despatch from a conqueror on the battle-field. As soon as he has written it, he hastens to Milan.
What is Paris saying ?
Is the capital satisfied at length ? Is it not like Josephine, before whom one can pour out all the treasures of the world— to find only that she takes them as a matter of course, and holds out her hand for more ? Paris is by no means enthusiastic about the new master. " For eleven years," writes Roederer in his diary, " the Parisian's first thought on waking in the morning had been : ' When shall we be able to rid ourselves of tyrants ? ' Now, the Parisians were saying : ' Everything seems to be going on well. But these enterprises that are being started, this capital that is being invested, these houses that they are building, these trees that they are planting—what will happen to the lot of them, if the Man should perish ? '—His supreme calling was not the general's, but the statesman's. His victories, indeed, had made him the cynosure of all eyes ; but it was his talent for statecraft that had raised men's hopes." Thus the Parisians are uneasy, but wellwishing. One among them, however, foresees the future, and writes to Napoleon at the theatre of war:
Talleyrand and Fouche
" General, I have just returned from the Tuileries, and shall not attempt to describe either the enthusiasm of the French or the amazement of foreigners. . . . Will posterity believe the miracle of this campaign ? Favourable, indeed, are the auspices that preside over your homecoming! Never has there been an empire that was not founded upon miracle. In this instance, miracle has become reality."
Napoleon smiles, thinking: " In truth, Talleyrand is more than a flatterer; he is a soothsayer ! But why does he give a name to my secret thoughts ? Would he play the part of the Roman of old, who tempted Csesar with a crown ? "
Here is another missive from Paris. A police report from Fouche, who tells how Talleyrand had recently summoned a few intimates to discuss what had better be done should the Consul have a misadventure, or perchance be defeated. The news of Marengo had come while they were at supper! "So he was alarmed! " thinks Bonaparte. " There were stirrings of what remained of a conscience. Good friends ! Fine confidants ! Their alleged concern for my safety, is but the mask for their secret longing to rid themselves of their master! "
Is it a mocking smile or is it an expression of pensive anxiety that purses Napoleon's lips ? Certainly, he must be back in Paris as soon as possible ! But this evening he goes to the Scala, where the heroine is the lovely Grassini—whose advances he had scorned a year or two back. Now she sings for his ear, has eyes for him alone ; and though she may be piqued that his beckoning nod comes so late, the handsome Italian prima donna gives herself to the conqueror of Italy for the asking. She shall go to the Paris opera. As star, or as his mistress ? Time will show!
Since in Germany, too, the enemy has been defeated, the subsequent peace of Luneville is extremely favourable to France, the Rhine frontier being conceded, and the re-establishment of the Cisalpine Republic agreed to. Could more have possibly been achieved by a few weeks' campaign ? His colleagues and other false friends make ready to receive him
Peace Policy
as hero of the hour; they write to him about plans for a triumph. " I shall make an unlooked-for entry into Paris," he rejoins, with malicious double meaning; " and I have no desire for triumphal arches or any kind of ceremonial. I have a sufficiently good conceit of myself to scorn such flummery. The only genuine triumph is public content."
A little later, he writes in a vein that is equally modest, or equally proud : " I accept the offer to erect a monument in my honour and should like a site to be chosen. But I would rather leave the actual building of the monument to future centuries, should these confirm your good opinion of me." It is as if he could sense the coming storm of iconoclasm, could foresee that in less than twenty years his idolaters of to-day will be rolling his eagles in the dust!
After his return, the dictator devotes all his energies to the consolidation of peace. He outsoars himself: for whereas formerly, by forced marches and crashing blows, he has imposed his will on one country after another, now, by shrewd negotiation, he cements peace with his sometime foes. Within two years of his seizure of power, France is at peace with Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Russia, Naples, Spain, Portugal and even with England.
Nine legitimate and therefore ardently legitimist rulers now recognise the republic which they had been fighting for a decade. France, which two years before had been threatened by disruption from within and by dangerous impacts from without, had become the leading power on the Continent.
It is as First Consul, not as general and not as emperor, that Bonaparte leads the revolution to victory. In a Europe all the rest of which (except for Switzerland) is ruled by kings and princes, he not only establishes peace between the new ideas and the old forces, but also, unchallenged, compels his border States, Holland and northern Italy, to adopt the consular constitution. Neither Austria nor England attempts to interfere
Bonaparte and Europe
with a turn of the hand, he extends his grip over Piedmont, Genoa, Lucca and Elba. At the same time, when the compensation of the princes on the left bank of the Rhine is in question, the members of the oldest reigning houses of Germany throng around the great huckster, the man who has robbed them of their lands—thus teaching him to despise birth and heritage, nobles and crowns.
Only one chasm gapes in the structure he is building, but he will be able to close it.
At the opening of the revolution, Reason took the place of Christ. Indeed, this anti-Christian notion became extremely popular. Bonaparte stood almost alone in his rejection of it. Four years earlier, in Italy, he had granted the pope all kinds of things which Paris wished to refuse; and, for reasons of his own, he had always been chivalrous in his attitude towards the clergy. Now he wished to heal the breach that had existed for ten years between France and the Church. He did not do this because he was a believer. " Among the Turks, I was a Mohammedan ; now I shall become a Catholic." He knew that this oldest of the powers could not be conquered either by the sword or by the spirit. He must come to terms with it in order to make use of it. " Catholicism kept the pope in being for me," he said later : " and, in view of my grip upon Italy, I continued to hope that sooner or later I should be able to bend him to my will. What immense influence I should then wield! What a means to have at my disposal in my dealings with Europe ! "
It will be difficult to make Paris accept the rehabilitation of the Church ! As a preliminary step, he is actually willing to present himself before the bishops in the guise of a philosopher : " I am aware that in no State can a man be truly virtuous and upright unless he knows whence he comes and whither he is going. Unaided reason cannot tell us these things. Without religion, we grope in the dark. But the Catholic faith throws a clear light upon the origin and the destiny of human beings." Rome is dumbfounded for a time, when this and
Peace with Rome
similar speeches are reported; but the shrewdest of worldly sages can find his master in the Vatican. When Cardinal Consalvi comes to Paris in order to discuss matters with Napoleon, and, at the first official audience, the Consul wishes to browbeat him, the prince of the Church smilingly stands his ground. What a spectacle for Talleyrand, who looks on in silence! Still, agreement is reached on various important points, such as the celibacy of priests, the choice of bishops by Rome, and the re-establishment of the old canon law. But though these conces
sions are made to the Church, the payment of stipends by the State, which gives the latter decisive influence, is to remain. A great ceremony in Notre Dame seals the agreement. The Consul, with the other State dignitaries, had wanted only to come for the Te Deum; but he found it expedient, after all, to attend Mass, stipulating that he was not to be expected to take the sacrament, "or to participate in all the rest of the hocus-pocus that makes a man ridiculous." To his brother, he said on this occasion : " We're going to Mass to-day. What will Paris say about it ? "
" The audience will look on at the play, and will hiss if it does not please."
" Then I shall have the church cleared by the guards ! " " But what if the grenadiers join in the hissing ? " " They won't. My old war-dogs will be just as respectful in Notre Dame as they were in the Cairo mosques. They will keep their eyes on me, and when they see that their general is serious and well behaved, they will follow his example, saying to themselves,' Those are the orders of the day !'"
III
The ground is still unsteady beneath his feet. His consulship is for ten years only, and there are but eight years more to run. Then a rival may take his place. He is dependent on popular favour, which he must court, and which he despises. What sort
Consul for Life
of a position is that for the head of a State in his dealings with foreign potentates ? They will not take him seriously, any more than if he were an American president. Turning these thoughts over in his mind, he makes a sign to the Senate.
Always compliant (being dependent on his good graces), the Senate now proposes to ensure that the First Consul shall hold office for an additional term of ten years after the expiry of the present term. Put out of humour by this suggestion, he jogs the senators' thoughts and induces them to propose a lifelong tenure of the consulship. But, prudent as Csesar, he says that the matter must be referred to the " people," the source of all power. A plebiscite is taken, and there are nearly four million ayes against a handful of courageous noes. His powers are enlarged. He now has sole authority to sign treaties with foreign States; he alone appoints the senators, who are themselves entitled to dissolve the Chambers; and he is granted the right to appoint his successor. When he compares his position with that of other European rulers, and notices that they all wear crowns, he consoles himself with the na'i'e sophism: " Henceforward, I am as good as the other sovereigns, for they, likewise, rule for life only ! "
