Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  Criticism of the French

  " The political parties I wished to conciliate, the royalists and the Jacobins, will not lose heart as long as they have somebody to dread. I realised, therefore, that no pact between them could be concluded, but that it would be possible to conclude one with them to my own advantage. . . . Now, they have been reduced to silence. Still opposed to me are the republicans, the cranks who believe that Europe will look on quietly while a republic is being established upon the ruins of a monarchy. . . . That is why I preferred the imperial dignity to a dictatorship, for in an empire people no longer feel that they are travelling in unmapped country. . . .

  " You will soon see what a lure court etiquette will exercise on the emigres. The old familiar forms of address will win over the nobility. . . . You French love monarchy. It is the only form of government which really suits you. I will wager, Monsieur de Remusat, that you feel a hundred times more at ease now that you call me ' Sire' and I address you as ' Monsieur ' . . . Your vanity was always being bridled; the strictness of the republic would have bored you to death. . . . Liberty is no more than a pretext; equality is your hobby horse; the people are content to be ruled by a prince who comes from the army. . . . To-day, soldiers and people are on my side. A man who could not rule under such conditions would be an idiot."

  He broke off, resumed a formal demeanour, and gave Monsieur de Remusat an order of no importance whatever in the dry tone of the absolute master.

  These moments of confession; these quarters of an hour in which we stand opposite him, silently listening and watching, while he lounges on his chair, this newly made emperor of thirty-four in his well-worn green coat, looking askance up and down the room, rising to walk restlessly to and fro, pouring out his most intimate thoughts and then with a brusque transition cutting off all the springs of familiarity; when we see him in such movingly close proximity, in scenes full of nature and

  Form Without Content

  purpose, full of surrender to destiny and animus against the present—we can see and hear for ourselves even more than he frankly discloses in simulated self-forgetfulness. We become aware of his easy contempt for persons of noble birth, which is none the less conjoined with a secret wish to make a good impression on them ; we discern programmes which he is always willing to adapt to changing circumstances ; we observe the robust cynicism aroused in him by the folly of mankind, and see that it exists side by side with the foreign character traits of this Corsican, the very traits which enable him to rule the lovely Marianne with such gallant rigour.

  Of course he discloses no more than half his motives, for he is here confining himself to political issues. Still, at the outset of the imperial epoch these political issues exert a predominant influence. It seems as if, to begin with, he regards the change of title with the utmost sobriety : " My brother will not hear a word of his new title," writes Napoleon to Madame de Stael. " He says he is just the same man he was before, and at the same time he puts on great airs. The truly great man is the one who fully realises that such empty names, which only the system of society compels us to assume, make no difference to friendship, to family life, or to social relationships. I am certain that since I have been ' Your Majesty,' not one of those who live with me will have been able to detect any difference in me."

  Yet it is an event that now for the third time he takes leave of his name. It may be nothing that the leading persons in the country who appear at the first court reception address him and Josephine as " Sire " and " Madame," and that the members of the noblesse, who on this same polished floor fifteen or twenty years earlier had said " Sire " and " Madame," should feel their hearts revive as they bandy courtiers' compliments. That may be nothing. Certainly, as regards essential nature, clothing, and deportment, the Emperor of to-day is no different from the Consul of yesterday.

  The Fourth Name

  But the proclamation, the thousand and one letters, memoranda, and decrees, will henceforward be signed with a new name. For eight years they have been signed with the rudiments of a " Bonaparte." Now he signs with a name which he himself has never written since he was a child, and which his nervous hand will speedily compress into an initial N. and a flourish. Josephine has always addressed him as " General." His brothers and his sisters have for a long time past spoken to him with the ceremonial " you " instead of the familiar " thou " (the change was initiated, not by the Consul himself, but by Joseph). Only his mother in rare moments of expansion has occasionally used her son's Christian name; and she utters it in her own dialect as " Napolione."

  There is a profound significance in the newness of this name when, adding to it a brand-new title, he writes for the first time in his life :

  Napoleon I., Emperor of the French.

  VIII

  With the first steps, the dilemma begins. The new coins he issues bear the legend: "Emperor according to the Constitution of the Republic "—this paradox will dog him for another four years. When the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille and the outbreak of the revolution comes round once more, he celebrates it with imperial pomp. The gesture may look sublime, but it is nothing more than a measure of political expediency. Even on this very first occasion, the anniversary of the day of liberation is postponed to a Sunday. A year or two later, the commemoration is completely ignored. With it vanishes the revolutionary calendar, for the old one is restored by degrees.

  All flock to his standard. Ere long, one hundred and thirty of those who twelve years earlier had voted for the king's execution, hold office under the Emperor. This is the revolutionary picture caricatured in France, while Europe looks on,

  The Old Regime

  watching how first the forms, and then by slow stages the content, for whose sake so much blood has been shed, are laid aside in the museum of history. What can Europe do but smile ?

  Still more broadly smiles the old noblesse. In the Faubourg Saint-Germain, which the emperor watches as closely as he watched the working-class quarter of Saint Antoine, anecdotes are rife concerning the new master in the old Tuileries. Now that he is called " Sire," just like the last of the Bourbons, all the lorgnettes are turned on him, and he has become the focus of criticism. As far as his own personality is concerned, so great is his native dignity that he is practically above criticism ; in Milan, already, when no more than a general of the French Republic, he ruled simply because he was there. But his relatives, with their childish curiosity and jealousy, and with their gossip about everything that goes on in the palace, soon become the targets of mockery. Magnified by rumour, and carried across the frontiers, this ridicule besmirches the master.

  Henceforward England keeps in Paris, in addition to ordinary spies, a horde of quilldrivers, whose tales find credence whenever they are enlivened with wit. Caricatures pass from hand to hand, showing the little lieutenant being taught by the great Talma how to walk like an emperor—Napoleon, who has often taught Talma the best way of playing the royal roles in Corneille! How otherwise could old Europe defend herself against this saga which had become reality ? The only resource was to degrade to farce what was being staged with all the crude seriousness of tragi-comedy.

  For the Emperor needs a court! It is his way to do everything with due attention to detail; but the details of court life are beyond the range of his studies, and he has to call in the experts of the old regime. The sometime chamberlain at the court of the late king must lay aside his pen (literature had been the resource of his retirement), to resume his staff of office, Josephine, who at first is attended by no more than a few of the ladies of the

  Plebeians at Court

  former court, is at a loss as to the management of an empress' train. What has become of Marie Antoinette's lady-in-waiting ? She is still alive, and keeps a school in Paris. Bring her forth from her obscurity! She comes, and in the same rooms, before the same mirrors, arranges the folds of the train round these Creole feet which know very different dances from those of the poor dead queen.

  The Emp
eror organises his court with the same seriousness and the same precision as if he were organising the general staff of a new army. No one knows better than Napoleon the vanity of these things : "I am well aware that plenty of people are writing unfavourably about them. Even you, Monsieur Roe-derer, are not complaisant enough to suppose that I have a little common sense ! You ought to understand without my telling you why I have given my new marshals, plain republicans though they be, the title of ' Monseigneur'; it is only to safeguard my own imperial title of' Majesty ' ! The marshals, having grand titles of their own, cannot make fun of mine." His very first undertakings as Emperor involve him in the toils of such contradictions.

  The two ex-consuls (these are the only offices suppressed by the Emperor) become respectively arch-chancellor and arch-treasurer of the Empire. Talleyrand, as grand chamberlain, brings back the old arts and graces into the old house. How easy it would be for the Emperor to appoint none but gentlemen and ladies of the old regime to the leading offices at court! Instead, he chooses the scions of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the men who have risen with him : Berthier, Murat, Lannes, Ney, and Davoust. Fourteen generals, who in youth had been bakehouse lads, stable boys, waiters, cabin boys, or vagrants, must now exchange their campaigners' uniforms for the gold-braided coats of the marshals of France, must double their military duties with offices at court, must wear lace ruffs and buckled shoes; their wives must learn how to curtsey in the grand manner, how to stand and sit properly, how to scratch at

  The Storming Pace

  the door instead of knocking—all that Europe may see how the Emperor, who was himself a lieutenant, promotes his lieutenants according to merit. Marmont is there, still wearing his arm in a sling ; he is decked out in silk and satin and gold; but the slit sleeve, with its reminiscence of martial glory, seems to mock the splendour of his breeches. The Emperor tactfully drops out of the ceremonial two details that were degrading to the dignity of the courtiers : the presentation of the shirt at the king's levee, and the kissing of the ruler's hand.

  But how is the charm of the rococo court to be revived, now that a soldier sits upon the throne ? True, that, after hours of deliberation, it is possible to decide what colours the empress and the highnesses (Napoleon's relatives) must wear when they go out hunting. When, however, the time has come to bring down the stag, and the Emperor's thoughts are wandering in other fields, no one else ventures to shoot, with the result that the stag escapes because the chief sportsman has so much else on his mind. The ceremonial " was conducted as if to the sound of drums; everything seemed to happen at the storming pace ; and the dread which he inspired in all, drove away grace and ease. . . . Court life was cold and dull, was gloomy rather than dignified. Since we were following a prescribed ritual, our inner feeling was that we were only machines which some one had placed upon the new gilded couches."

  The Emperor is bored by ladies' society. With blunt circumstantiality, he asks how many children they have had, and whether they suckle their own babies. He tries to make himself agreeable, but often fails, when his thoughts range to other matters. At Saint-Cloud, in a room full of ladies, he can find nothing to say but, again and again : " How hot it is here ! "

  All the same, every one attached to the court grows rich. He gives princely salaries to the court officials, and only shows thrift in his payments to some of the members of the old noblesse, maliciously implying that such work is nothing more than their duty. In general, he pays munificently, for " ambition

  His Simple Tastes

  is the mainspring of action. People work so long as they are aspiring upwards. ... I have made senators and princes in order to promote ambition, and to make them dependent on me." He thus uses both honours and money to attach people to his cause, making, not friends, but dependents.

  He knows the value of money; and though at all the critical moments of his career he surprises us by improvisation, we are, in general, just as much astonished by the way in which he continually displays a bourgeois rationality and foresight. His own demands are moderate. The Emperor's personal salary is fixed at twenty-five millions, the amount paid to the late king ; but whereas Louis had spent forty-five millions, Napoleon saves twelve. The whole court, resplendent though it is, does not cost a fourth as much as the Bourbon court. France, which has to foot the bill, owes this economy to the care and knowledge of the master, who once had to live on ninety francs a month, and even now declares that he could get along well enough with twelve hundred francs a year and a horse.

  There was no change in his routine of life. The Emperor was called at seven, and held his first reception at nine. Most of the day, his secretaries were engaged in taking down from dictation. This dictation was at the speed of ordinary conversation, and must be transcribed with perfect accuracy. At night, when he had some difficulty in sleeping, Meneval must come to record his master's night thoughts. His dinner took twenty minutes, and he hardly noticed what he was eating. He was much more plainly clad than his gaily bedecked courtiers ; and when, on State occasions, he had to dress ceremoniously, he was always in a bad temper while being arrayed, and greatly relieved when he could doff his finery. When he entered Saint-Cloud after the place had been done up, he regarded it with disfavour, saying : " Rooms like this are suitable for a kept woman ; they lack seriousness."

  He does not allow himself to be enslaved by anything, and never insists that his bed or his meals or the lighting shall be

  Our Father of Blessed Memory

  I

  just so and no otherwise. Even the snuff-box that he always carries is no more than a toy. The only things which the Emperor finds indispensable are open fires, hot baths, eau-de-cologne, Chambertin, and clean linen twice a day.

  Josephine is extravagant. Her seven hundred dresses and two hundred and fifty hats, her jewels, her shawls, and her hair-dressing, cost millions; and although the Emperor wants her to shine in all the splendours which he scorns for himself, he often grumbles at the preposterous totals of the bills.

  His brothers and sisters squander money too. He gives them everything, and they are never satisfied. There is an absurd rivalry between the five couples (Lucien is still banished) and Josephine, whom all the others detest. Of the six grand dignitaries who draw fabulous salaries, four are his near relatives, by blood or by marriage. Joseph is grand elector ; Louis, constable ; Eugene, arch-chancellor of State; and Murat, high admiral. Since the brothers are to be styled Imperial Highnesses, the sisters have their noses put out of joint, and make a collective demand, complaining that Hortense, as the wife of Louis, has become Imperial Highness, while they are " nothing." He eyes them for a moment, and replies with a witticism which deserves a place in universal history: " "When I listen to you, I can almost believe that His Majesty our father of blessed memory must have bequeathed us crown and realm ! "

  Indeed, one could almost believe it. For when he complies with their demand, with a good nature he is not apt to show towards others, and when for ten years to come he showers honours and wealth, crowns and territories, upon these brothers and sisters who show no gratitude, who never obey him, and never cease to trouble him—we cannot but ask ourselves once more what can be the prejudice which blinds his eyes where they are concerned. His pride is great; he is lonely in his self-confidence ; his path is that of a pioneer ; in this instance as in others, his motives must be mixed; in part obscurely felt, in part coldly calculated.

  My Strength Is Builded on a Rock

  He is half an oriental, and it tickles his fancy to bestow diadems as he used to bestow swords and snuff-boxes ; but all the same, he warily contrives that power shall be given to those only on whom he can rely. Well, what is thicker than blood ? Even his companions-in-arms seem to him less trustworthy than his relatives; but for his trust in them, his relatives will repay him with ingratitude, and in the end his sister will betray him. Because in this one respect he infringes his own principle of equality and departs from his determination to choose only the efficient,
because he appoints brothers and nephews to high office and looks upon them as his heirs, he cannot give them the free hand which it is his way to give all his generals within the limits of their commissions. By treating his relatives as an all-powerful minister treats princes who are still under tutelage, he enrages them, and lays up a store of bitterness for himself.

  Joseph is already animated by a mocking spirit. He tells his daughter to address His Majesty as " Consul" ; holds disputations in democratic circles; refuses to become a minister of State; but accepts an allowance of two millions as an imperial prince, and lives at the Luxembourg, which his brother hands over to him. At length Napoleon loses patience. The ostensible cause of his anger is a trifle, but all the rage of his heart is now vented in this complaint:

  " What on earth is Joseph thinking about ? Does he imagine that he has been made prince in order to hobnob with my enemies and walk up and down the streets of Paris in brown surtout and round hat ? I have sacrificed my own personal pleasures in order to become what I am. I am as well fitted as another to shine in society ! . . . But things of that sort do not help a man to rule. Does he dream of disputing with me for the supreme power ? My strength is builded on a rock ! . . .

  " Do you know what he ventured to say to me recently in the presence of two others ? I ought not to have my wife crowned ; the step would be opposed to his interest; it would give Louis'

  Advancement of Relatives