Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  In actual fact, the evenings at the theatre form the climax of the Erfurt weeks. Among the audience are four kings and thirty-four princes, rivalling one another in the splendour of their retinues. The Emperor of the West and the Emperor of the East occupy the royal box. Almost every evening, this distinguished audience sees and hears what the kings of saga or the kings of history proclaim, what they struggle for, what they suffer. Talma, as Orestes, thunders forth :

  The gods are the rulers of our times,

  And yet fame is created by our own deeds.

  Why should the heart allow the heavens to threaten ?

  Resolve to become immortal

  And you will be as gods upon the earth !

  The next evening they see Voltaire's Mahomet, of which the Emperor is especially fond, were it only because the hero so seldom quits the stage. The prophet's disciple exclaims :

  All men are equal; it is not birth, But virtue alone which makes them different. There are certain mortals favoured by the gods, Who achieve everything by their own merits,

  Politics on the Stage

  Who owe nothing to their forefathers.

  Such a one is he whom I have chosen as master ;

  He alone, in all the world, has deserved his position.

  Is there any one among the audience whose heart does not beat faster as he glances at the man up there in the royal box— though the passion may be a passionate antagonism ? The princes by right of birth may dread to look at the Emperor, but at least their eyes will seek one another as if to secure a common understanding. They do not dare to smile. They tremble before the man who sits there in a plain green coat, the man who is revolt incorporated in human form. He knows what the German princes in the stalls do not yet know, that a new and stronger utterance will soon be made by Mahomet:

  See, the Roman Empire falling into ruins, That great torn body, whose scattered limbs Lie spread about the earth dishonoured and lifeless : On these fragments of a world we shall upbuild the far-flung East, A new god reveals himself to the blind world !

  Finally, the Emperor's policy of to-day and to-morrow is voiced in the words :

  Who was it made the master a king ? Victory alone has crowned him ! But now To the name of Conqueror he will add The name of Peacemaker.

  At this instant, when all glance at him questioningly, Napoleon makes a slight movement as a sign that such is actually his intention, and for a political instant the illusion of the theatre is dispelled. But when, next evening, CEdipus proclaims : "A strong man's friendship is a gift of the gods ! " the two emperors rise and clasp hands.

  A Prophet of Evil

  Napoleon knows well enough that Alexander is not a strong man, that his friendship is not a gift of the gods. He tries, therefore, by suggestion, to win over this vacillating personality. If the tsar is to be influenced to move along the lines laid down in the letter previously quoted, if he is to agree to divide with Napoleon the empire of the world, he will require a course of psychomagnetism, renewed from day to day. Napoleon rarely leaves the tsar to his own thoughts, but treats him like a woman who is to be wooed and won. The only person who is allowed to help the Emperor in this matter is Talleyrand.

  The diplomat still limps after Napoleon as the Emperor strides forward, though recently the differences between the two men had found vent.

  Talleyrand's shrewdness had led him—sooner than Napoleon, sooner than any one—to detect the first cracks in his master's system. A year before, after the drawn game of Eylau, he had foreseen the possibility of his master's failure in Russia. This had come to him as the vision of a great statesman, and he had promptly deduced therefrom the mission of a great and statesmanlike traitor. Matters had been privately arranged between Napoleon and Alexander; the Emperor was relying on the tsar (to the exclusion of Talleyrand); Napoleon was cherishing a Carlovingian dream, interpenetrated with thoughts of Csesarism: the fantastical elements in Napoleon's schemes for world conquest had estranged Talleyrand from his master's policy. But instead of cutting adrift from Napoleon, he had been content, on specious pretexts, to resign his ministerial post, receiving instead a lucrative position among the dignitaries of the empire. Both men hoped to gain by the change ; Napoleon thinking that he would be able to keep better watch on Talleyrand, and Talleyrand fancying that he would be able to keep better watch on the Emperor's secret thoughts. He was still grand chamberlain; and Champagny, his successor as minister, was a butt for Napoleon's shafts of ridicule. Thus, even after the divorce from his master, Talleyrand remained the sultan's

  Talleyrand Is a Traitor

  favourite, and his power was redoubled by his shifts as a trickster no longer hampered by official responsibility.

  His doubts as to the stability of Napoleon's position were confirmed by the progress of events in Spain. Directly he saw that the Emperor's mind was set on this act of plunder, he realised that its upshot would be disastrous, and for that very reason encouraged his master to the venture. Since the days of Louis XIV., said Talleyrand, the Spanish crown had always been an apanage of the rulers of France. Napoleon, when his mind had been rendered effervescent by this and similar pseudo-arguments, decided upon the occupation of Catalonia " for the duration of the war with England." Now the intriguer promptly returned to a critical attitude, and laughed to himself when the Emperor gave him the ignominious task of entertaining the infantes of Spain in their durance at his mansion near Valencay.

  He wants privacy, that he may keep watch on the kidnapped princes, and, through their instrumentality, not only spy upon England, but also keep England informed. Thence it is but a step to open betrayal, and that step Talleyrand now takes. This is in keeping with his whole career as a statesman. Henceforward he sends Tolstoy and Metternich (the envoys of Tsar Alexander and Emperor Francis in Paris) private information. How can be make his duplicity square with his duties to the master, to whose service he is pledged as imperial official, court official, and confidential adviser ?

  There is a scene about the matter.

  " Well, you see," says the Emperor on his return from Spain, " they all walked into the net I spread for them ! "

  " I think, Sire, you have lost more than you have won by what has happened at Bayonne."

  " What do you mean ? "

  " Something quite simple. Let me explain my meaning by an example. If a man of standing commits follies, keeps mistresses, treats his wife and his friends badly, he will be blamed; but his

  But Talleyrand Is Indispensable

  wealth and his power will enable him to regain the good opinion of society. But if the same man cheats at cards, he is expelled from good society, which will never forgive him."

  The Emperor turns pale—so Talleyrand reports—and will not speak to him for the rest of the day. Why does he not drive the plain speaker out of his circle ? Why does he not banish Talleyrand to the West Indies ? Napoleon receives a moral castigation from a scion of the old nobility, and still keeps the man in his entourage ! Or was Talleyrand lying ? We may have all the more confidence in the diplomat's memoirs, seeing that they were written twenty years later, after the Restoration; were written to show how he had always played double, and (of course, owing to his respect for the claims of the legitimate rulers !) had served his imperial master only by halves. We can assume that the words were actually spoken, and to a man to whom hardly any one now spoke the truth, to a man whom even fewer now ventured to affront. Why does Napoleon keep Talleyrand in his service ?

  "He is the only one who understands me," said the Emperor of Talleyrand again and again. That accounts for much. Talleyrand's unscrupulous way of thinking, his freedom from all qualms of conscience, furnished a tilting-ground on which the Emperor could joust freely when running a political course. The others had principles or considerations which must first be leapt over. Because Talleyrand was exempt from all prejudices of class and time, and also lacked the ordering ideas with which Napoleon fashioned his realm out of the chaos of chances, the wily opportunist, who
se only passion was for money, was the best adviser of the other realist, who could only assuage his stormy imagination in a perpetual succession of new plans.

  That is why they understood one another, though only in the superficial regions of their respective characters. Napoleon never plumbed the depths of the treason that Talleyrand was preparing.

  Here, in Erfurt, the great day for the double-dealer has at last

  Tea and Talk

  dawned. When the German princes gather round him and listen as he talks of the Emperor, he gives little heed to these pygmies, for there is some one else who will pay a far higher price for information, will pay both in political advantages and in ready cash.

  Alexander is prompt to seize the opportunity ! The Russian has been well informed by his representative in Paris, and is almost as inquisitive concerning this Frenchman as he is concerning the Emperor. Talleyrand soon meets the tsar in the reception room of the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, who keeps open house every evening after the play. Talleyrand's report of the encounter, written several decades later, reads like the utterance of a Mephistopheles : " The arts which I had prepared for the capture of the tsar were quite unneeded. At my first word he understood me, just as I had wished him to understand."

  The play of their eyes conveyed a meaning which was not manifest in the words, for on the first day Talleyrand had said to the tsar: " Sire, what are you thinking of doing here ? It lies with you to save Europe. But you will not succeed in your task unless you become a match for the Emperor. The French people is civilised: their ruler is not. The ruler of Russia is civilised : his people is not. Thus, the ruler of Russia should be the ally of the French people. . . . Your Majesty should not allow yourself to be inveigled into any disciplinary measures against Austria, but should consent to undertake the same duties towards that country as those my master has undertaken."

  During the long evenings, over a glass of punch or a dish of tea, Talleyrand (who, like Napoleon, knows the manifold arts of the seducer) instils into the tsar's brain all the truths and the hopes he wishes to bring to life within this suggestible spirit. The tsar shows his appreciation of the diplomat's indiscretions at France's expense by bestowing his favour upon the Emperor's confidential adviser. He promises the hand of a Russian

  Talleyrand as Intermediary

  princess to one of Talleyrand's nephews; she is the richest heiress in the eastern realm.

  Alexander, who in any case had come to Erfurt in a cautious frame of mind (for his relatives had succeeded in arousing suspicions before he started), is now for the first time able to resist Napoleon. In their private interviews, each is always trying to humbug the other; the honeymoon atmosphere of Tilsit has vanished, and the tsar's enthusiam for the Emperor is a thing of the past.

  Napoleon is taken aback. He makes Talleyrand draft the new treaty of alliance. Then, with great labour, he transcribes it, inserting his own emendations, and takes it to Alexander, who has to promise that no one shall hear a word of what is written in this secret document. The tsar gives the required pledge; but the very same evening he hands Talleyrand the amended treaty, so that the author of the draft learns what alterations his master has made. In the end, this treaty is not signed.

  At night, the Emperor summons Talleyrand, who plays the part of lago admirably. The Emperor says : "I can make no headway with him ; he takes such short views."

  " But he is completely under your spell, Sire."

  " He makes you think so, and you are taken in by him. If he is really fond of me, why won't he sign ? "

  " He is a man of knightly faith," answers Talleyrand. " His simple word and his inclinations will bind him more strongly than a treaty."

  " I shall not talk to him about this matter any more; for if I do, he will think I have it very much at heart. Our private interviews will be enough to make Austria believe that there is a secret treaty. ... I cannot understand your fondness for Austria, a country whose whole policy recalls that of our old regime ! "

  When fundamental principles are under discussion, Talleyrand is apt to become more communicative : " It seems to me

  A Fruitless Wooing

  that Austrian policy is also that of the new regime, and I venture to say it ought to be your own policy. People count on you, Sire, to safeguard civilisation."

  " Civilisation ! ..." Napoleon halts in front of the fireplace, and, with a sudden change of tone, says softly: "Do you know why no one will negotiate with me plainly and straightforwardly ? Because I have no children. . . . That is the secret. People are afraid of me, and every one wants to snatch what advantages he can. This is an unfortunate state of affairs for the world, and it must be altered."

  A few days pass. Intercourse between the two rulers seems more cordial; etiquette has been forgotten ; they come and go freely, like ordinary friends in private life. Napoleon spreads his nets cunningly. He says to the tsar : " Yes, I need rest; I need a home. How can one get these when one has no children ? My wife is ten years older than I," he goes on, falsely adding four years to Josephine's tale. " Please excuse me. What I have just said may sound rather absurd, but I do not wish, where you are concerned, to hide the stirrings of my heart." A pause. " Hullo, I see it's almost dinner time, and Baron Vincent is still waiting my leave to depart."

  The kings of the drawing-room are fond of describing Napoleon as a man of camps; but how prettily he can introduce a delicate topic just before dinner, so that he can slip away without having it discussed at this stage. Late that evening he summons Talleyrand to his bedside; orates, questions, suggests combinations, and issues orders by turns. At length he speaks of divorce. " Fate constrains me to it, and it is essential to the tranquillity of France. I have no successor. Joseph is a man of no account, and his children are all girls. I must found a dynasty, and my consort must be the daughter of a great line. Alexander has sisters, and one of them is of suitable age. Have a talk with Romanzoff. When the Spanish affair is settled, I shall discuss the partition of Turkey. Tell him this, and use other

  Servile Princes

  arguments as well. I know you have long been in favour of the divorce."

  Next day, Talleyrand broaches the topic with the tsar, who has been influenced by the suggestion the Emperor has instilled with his assumption of melancholy overnight. " No one fully understands the man's character," says Alexander, much moved. " All the commotion he spreads abroad is an inevitable outcome of his position. No one realises how good he is. You know him so well. What is your opinion ? "

  Talleyrand has no intention of saying what he really thinks, but deems it expedient, at this juncture, to let Alexander know what Napoleon had let fall about the Russian princess. " I should have no objection," rejoins the tsar promptly, " but I cannot dispose of my sister's hand without my mother's consent."

  Thereafter, a long conversation between the emperors, and a renewal of intimacy; Alexander spends some more evenings with Talleyrand, talking over the teacups—but no conclusion is reached. The expanded treaty of alliance between the emperors is not signed at Erfurt, nor is the marriage to Alexander's sister arranged. Although Napoleon receives more adulation than ever before, he is disappointed at having to leave without his treaty, and without his Russian bride. The only one who brings home substantial advantages is Talleyrand, for he has secured the new niece's millions.

  Meanwhile the thirty-eight princes have been cajoled or threatened, rewarded or ignored, by the Emperor and his train. " In Erfurt," writes Talleyrand, " not a man among them was bold enough to face the lion. . . . On the last day he was surrounded by princes whose armies he had seized or destroyed, whose States and existence he had curtailed, but not one of them ventured even to proffer a request. The only wish of them all was to be seen ; and to be seen last if possible, in order to remain in his memory."

  In any case, Napoleon thinks Vienna will believe that to have been settled which unfortunately has not been settled. Fear

  Homage to German Genius

  will achie
ve what he has failed to secure through a treaty. He does not know that Talleyrand has betrayed him to Metternich, saying: " It rests with you to restore your relationships with Russia to the intimate footing that existed before Austerlitz. Nothing but an alliance between Austria and Russia can save the vestiges of Europe's independence." The Austrian diplomat writes exultantly in his report: "At length we have entered a new epoch, in which allies offer themselves to us from within the French Empire."

  Farewells are taken. The Emperor, watched by the princes, exchanges a brotherly kiss with Alexander. All the onlookers are profoundly impressed by this token of friendship in the pair who rule the world. But Talleyrand, hat in hand, smiles inwardly, for over the teacups at the German princess' he has been able to undermine the foundations of this friendship.

  In four years his labours will bear fruit, and the fruit will poison Napoleon.

  XX

  Brightly, against this dull background of German princelets, shines the torch of the German spirit. " I have gained only one thing here to take back with me to Paris : that you will have a pleasant memory of me." To the Weimar circle, the Emperor says these words on the evening of his departure, for here and in Erfurt he has spent several evenings among those who are the true princes of Germany—princes who have no ancestors, but only genius. Himself a genius without ancestors, it is solely among them that he feels at home; though, during this fortnight, he experiences so much that increases his misanthropic contempt for his fellow-men, a contempt which has its counterpart in the respect he feels for the German spirit. The works of the masters of German literature are, indeed, unknown to him; but he knows their reputation, he knows the position