by Emil Ludwig
Entangled in this error, he failed to realise that, though he might conquer them to-day, his conquest would be for the day only. To-morrow the Spaniards, supported by England (which here finds its greatest rallying point), will begin to shoot once more from the houses, and who shall hinder them ? The
" The Stupidest Thing in My Life I"
Emperor was already willing to admit it to his confidants. To Vincent, who had been a comrade in his earliest campaigns, he said :
" This is the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life! Can you think of any possible way in which I can free myself from the embarrassment ? "
" You have simply to withdraw, Sire, and leave the country to itself."
" Fine words ! Remember my position. I am a usurper. To gain this position, I needed to have the best head and the best sword in Europe. If I am to keep what I have won, all must be convinced of this. There must be no falling off in the prestige of my head and my sword. In face of a watchful universe, it is impossible for me to say that I have made a serious mistake, and to withdraw with a defeated army. You must see for yourself that the thing can't be done. I am still asking for your advice ! "
Conviction that he has made a blunder, and that it is impossible for him to retrieve it; crude admissions made to an old companion-in-arms, whose advice he asks; is this young Bonaparte, or Napoleon growing old ? In a week, he had beaten Frederick's famous army. But in Spain, he effects very little in eight months. When he has to deal with armies in a country which can feed his soldiers, a country with roads and towns, he is always victorious ; but when he must campaign in trackless regions, such as the desert, the plains of Poland, or the mountains of Andalusia, the tempo is too tedious for his impetuous nature, and the circumstances are too incalculable for his mathematics.
His royal brother, instead of supporting him in this perplexing situation, makes difficulties. King Joseph wants to be a Spaniard, and to win his subjects by kindness. There are scenes between the brothers. With good reason the new king feels that he has made himself ridiculous by having to run away, and because he can only return under shield of the advancing
Joseph Makes Difficulties
Emperor. But with even better reason does the man of iron complain to Roederer about the king :
" Joseph wants to be loved by the Spaniards, and to make them believe in his affection. Kings cannot inspire affection through tenderness. They must make themselves feared. ... He writes that he wants to retire to Morfontaine ; at this busiest of moments, he proposes to leave me in the lurch. ... He says that he would rather pass the time at his country-seat than in a land bought with blood unjustly shed. . . . The blood is that of the foes of France ! If he is king of Spain to-day, it is because he wanted to be; he could have stayed in Naples had he wished. Support me ? I need no family. . . . My brothers are not Frenchmen, as I am. . . . The King of Holland, too, talks about going into private life. It seems to me that I, if any one of us three, have the best right to retire to Morfontaine! "
Why does he not break with Joseph ? Here is Marshal Soult, commander in Spain, and perhaps the most highly prized among all his generals. Why does he not give Soult a crown, just as he has given one to Murat ? " Joseph writes to say that if I value any one more highly than himself, that is the man I had better make king. I certainly did not make Joseph a king because I thought such a lot of him ! If I distributed thrones according to merit, I should have made a very different choice ! I need my family to stabilise my dynasty, for that is the system on which I am working."
Now, in Madrid, he issues decrees to establish the new order of things; which is welcomed by few, loved by no one, threatened by England, and detested by the Spanish people. Nothing can restrain him. Only last October he had written to his wife from Weimar, saying that the tsar had been dancing, but he himself would not dance, for " forty years are forty years." Moreover, he often makes fun of the way in which he is putting on fat. Yet on Christmas Eve, afoot, he crosses the Sierra de Guadarrama in a snowstorm, as if he had still been the general
Confidants Conspire
at Lodi. He defeats the English ; but on these miry roads, deep in snow, he is no more able to follow them in retreat than he could follow the Russians after Friedland; and he gnashes his teeth when the enemy escapes to the ships. Shall he follow up the other portion of the English forces, away there in the mountains ? That would be to withdraw the nucleus of his power still farther from France. Here he is, waiting in the centre of Castille ; but what is Paris saying ?
He is in camp at Astorga when the courier arrives. Now he will learn what is going on at home. As he is reading one of the letters, he begins to tremble with a dumb wrath. Silently he paces up and down for an hour, without saying a word even to those who are deepest in his confidence. Then he suddenly issues order that the headquarters staff is to return. For his own part, leaving army and generals, he hastens to Valladolid, and thence to the frontier.
" King Philip was right with his unfathomable gaze ! " thinks the Emperor as he drives northward in his travelling carriage. " Instead of abolishing the Inquisition in Spain, I should have set it up in France. A conspiracy in Paris, and not one organised by the enemy ! Fouche and Talleyrand, whom I could only use because they hated one another, and because each watched the other and told tales, have become reconciled and have entered into an alliance. Murat in it, too ! "
The warning letters, which had decided him to return, were from Eugene and from his mother. Letizia is active in spite of her years ; active in playing her part when danger threatens, though she withdraws when festivals are the order of the day. She is the Corsican mother, and safeguards her children. The scope of Talleyrand's treason, and how long he has been playing a double game, can at present only be guessed. That he has advised the Austrian envoy to take the offensive against France immediately, now when the Emperor is busy elsewhere, is not known, for there are no incriminatory documents. Even if such documents were in the Emperor's possession, how could so
Zeus Thunders
great a master have such great servitors arrested ? Slowly and invisibly has the power proceeding from himself grown in their hands, ultimately to be turned against him whom they hate. During the fortnight's journey to Paris the waters of his wrath are rising against these creatures of his making.
Arrived in the capital, the Emperor calls a Council of State composed of many senators and all his ministers, that they may be witnesses to his vengeance. The two delinquents are present. Napoleon loses no time before he begins his attack on Talleyrand : " You are a thief and a scoundrel, for whom nothing is sacred. You would sell your own father ! I have showered benefactions upon you, and yet there is nothing that you would refuse to do against me. You it was who advised me to undertake the mad venture in Spain, and now you criticise it to all and sundry. It was you who informed me of the duke of Enghien's whereabouts and incited me to take ruthless measures against him. . . . You have intrigued with the dethroned Spaniards who were placed in your charge. To-day, because you consider the Spanish affair a mistake, you have the effrontery to declare that you had always warned me against it. ... You shall restore to me the keys of your office as grand chamberlain. ... I could break you like glass if I chose ; I have the power! But I despise you too much to give myself the trouble! . . ."
For half an hour, Napoleon holds forth in this fashion. His hearers sit petrified. Silently, Talleyrand bows, and withdraws : " What a pity," he says smilingly to a friend he meets outside, " that so great a man should be so ill-mannered ! " Within the council chamber, the Emperor now proceeds to his attack on Fouche, whom he charges with having failed to work up public opinion, with having supported the enemies of the Emperor. . . .
His hearers sit petrified. Silently, Fouche bows—and remains ! The Emperor commands that the higher officials shall renounce all right of criticism ; they are to become mere tools of
Talleyrand Smiles
his thoughts. He declares menacingly that doubt is the first step on
the road to betrayal, which, in its turn, becomes actual as soon as it takes the form of opposition.
Meanwhile, all Paris is convinced that both the unfaithful servants are to be banished or placed in confinement. But neither is dismissed! Fouche remains, for who could replace the man with a hundred eyes ? Talleyrand, smiling as ever, continues to come to court; he has retained his official position; at the Sunday receptions, he always places himself so that his master cannot fail to see him; answers in the stead of his neighbour when the Emperor has put a question to the latter ; and, in general, demonstrates the truth of Lannes' soldierly judgment: when Talleyrand is kicked from behind and one is conversing with him at the moment, not a sign of his feelings can be detected in his face ! Ere long he is to be seen once more, limping away from the chill festivities in the brightly lit Tuileries, following in his master's wake to resume his labours in the Emperor's study, for " he is the only man with whom I can really talk! "
Weighty matters have to be talked over. Germany has awakened ; slowly she is beginning to stir ; all eyes are fixed on Austria. The Prussian king hesitates as usual; and an order, dated from Madrid, has banished Baron vom Stein from Prussia. Tyrol is seething with mutiny, like Spain; Austria, now allied not only with England but also with Turkey, is arming for the fifth time. What matters it, then, that Saragossa, after a heroic struggle, should have fallen ? Troops cannot be withdrawn from Spain so long as insurrection is rife. How can a war be undertaken, seeing that a vast army of a quarter million men is tied up in Spain ? It is precisely on account of this situation that Austria has found courage to take up arms against the Emperor.
The Russian menace is Napoleon's last hope. When the Russian envoy, Romanzoff, is leaving for St. Petersburg, the Emperor overwhelms him with gifts and with promises.
The Tsar Breaks Away
thinking to make himself agreeable to the tsar, he pledges himself to the evacuation of Prussia; and urges Alexander, for his part, to proclaim the alliance of the two emperors to a trembling central Europe.
But Alexander vacillates; he allows himself to be reassured by Vienna, Berlin, and London; timid and hesitant as he is, he yields to the threats of his grand dukes (who to a man detest Napoleon), and yet cannot make up his mind to go wholeheartedly over to their side; Vienna's hopes of securing one of the tsar's sisters as bride for an Austrian archduke are frustrated ; the tsar elects to remain neutral!
The Emperor is cut to the quick by his friend's breach of faith ; indeed, it is the unkindest cut of all. He has given too much personal confidence, his pride is wounded, his labour lost. Literally, there remains nothing for him to do but to raise an army out of the very earth : the levies for the following year are now being called up, a year in advance; money must be procured by every possible and impossible means; the funds have fallen to 78, in consequence of the Spanish affair. Still, Austria is ready far earlier than he had expected. When, in April, the semaphore announces that the enemy is on the march, and Napoleon is informed of the news in his bed at ten o'clock that night, he orders the mobilisation of his troops for midnight, and is furious when the unwieldy machine is not ready until four hours later.
When he arrives in Bavaria, he sees the mistakes committed by the Austrians in their advance. He can hardly believe his good luck ; it was as if" he grew ; his eyes gleamed, and with a delight which his glance, his mood, and his movements all betrayed, he exclaimed : ' I've got them ! Their army is lost! A month hence, and I'll be in Vienna!' " He overestimates the time : he will be there in three weeks ! He incites his soldiers to marches of over sixty-five miles in forty hours, and beats his foe in a series of five battles. Later he was to call these five days his finest achievement from the point of view of manoeuvring. The last day he is wounded on the foot; and,
In the Travelling Carriage
since fate wills that the legend of his invulnerability (in which the army whole-heartedly believes and to which even he is inclined to lend an ear) shall be exploded, the bullet hits his Achilles' tendon.
But he speeds away again, and crosses Germany. Napoleon's carriage is outwardly plain, but within it is comfortably built. The Emperor can sleep in it; by day he can govern from it, just as well as from the Tuileries or from a tent. He is the first to overcome the friction which brings movement to a standstill; and, though he does not travel as fast as we do nowadays, he travels faster than any man ever travelled before. Five days take him from Dresden to Paris. In a number of lock-up drawers within the carriage, he collects reports, dispatches, memoranda ; a lantern hanging from the roof lights up the interior; in front of him hangs a list of the different places he must pass through, including where relays of horses are awaiting him. Should a courier reach him, Berthier, or another official who happens to be at hand, must take down the more pressing orders, while the carriage goes jolting on its way Before long, orderlies are to be seen flying off in every direction.
On the box seat, the Mameluke is enthroned in solitary grandeur. Two postilions whip up the six horses. The carriage is surrounded by a crowd of equerries, pages, and light cavalrymen; when the procession sets forward, the road is all too narrow to accommodate it, eddies of dust and heat envelop it, night and fog encompass it. The peasants stand aside to let the tornado pass; they are agape with wonderment and firmly believe that the devil is hiding inside the great Napoleon. He leaves behind him a trail like that of a paper-chase : for he throws out of the windows of the carriage, not only all the envelopes and other useless paper, but all the reports he does not wish to file (torn into tiny fragments); all the newspapers he has read; and, finally, books, which he glances at when he has a moment to spare, and then consigns to their fate in the mud of the highway.
A Short Way With the Pope
Wherever he gets out of his carriage, a hot bath is ready for him. Then, at two in the morning, he will dictate till four, snatch three hours' sleep, and start off again at seven. At his halts, four light cavalrymen surround him in a square, and follow him in all his movements, if, for instance, in the daytime he studies the country through his small telescope. Should he need the large telescope, he uses the shoulder of the page in waiting as a rest. Whether his halt be short or long, in war time the map is always ready to his hand, in carriage or tent, in camp and by the watch-fire. Any member of his escort who fails to show him in the map the precise point where the halt has been made, the area he now wishes to study, receives a volley of abuse—be it Berthier himself, Prince of Neuchatel. Through all countries, for the whole duration of his life, the map follows him, pierced with coloured pins, illuminated at night by twenty or thirty candles, and with a pair of compasses lying on it. This is his altar, before which he offers up his prayers. It is the real home of the man who has no home.
Now, without a blow, he takes Vienna for the second time, and occupies the same room as of old in the palace of Schon-brunn ; but the war is not over.
For what has meanwhile been happening in his wide realms is unfavourable to him, and encourages the enemy. There is bad news from Spain ; in northern Italy, Eugene has been fighting unsuccessfully; and since, at this instant, Murat has to advance from Naples, the Roman Emperor makes as short work of it with Rome as the Hohenstaufen had done many centuries before. Four years ago, at the same writing table, he had penned a decree annihilating the royal house of Naples. Now he repeats the manoeuvre with the pope. Since Napoleon, at this juncture, has to strike with his sword in all directions, he no longer troubles himself about moral and political consequences, and ventures this dangerous edict for little better reason than that a junction must be effected between his armies in Italy.
First Defeat
But anger is a contributory cause. When he had been in Spain at the beginning of the year, he had let fall expressions showing how out of humour he was with Rome : " Last year, the pope was impudent enough to neglect sending us the consecrated candles he sent the heads of other States. Write to Rome saying that we don't want any, not even for the three kings of our house.
Say that at Candlemas I always get consecrated candles from my own clerics, and that the value of these things does not depend upon purple or the other insignia of power. In the realm of the shades, there will be priests just as good as the popes ! Thus a candle blest by one of my own clergy will be just as holy as one sent by the pope. I won't have his candles, and none of the princes of my house may accept them."
In this way he trumped the pope's trick, like a Protestant, like a revolutionary. Such was Napoleon's mood, in the slough of the Spanish roads and battles. Now, in Schonbrunn, he bluntly deprives the Holy Father of power as sovereign prince. The pope is relegated to the Vatican, and assigned a revenue of two millions.
Many members of the Emperor's retinue are shocked, for some of them are good Catholics, and it is only five days from the feast of Pentecost. Is he not challenging God ? Those in whom faith becomes intensified into superstition are likely enough, ere long, to find confirmation of their presentiments. In five days, at Pentecost, Napoleon will be defeated for the first time in his life.
Some regard the battle of Aspern-Essling as indecisive; at any rate, no one can consider it a success for Napoleon. When the bridge across the Danube was swept away, this was just as much and just as little due to chance as were all the great happenings whereby at Lodi, Rivoli, Marengo, and on many other occasions, he had, by precisely such improvisations, wrested victory from God. A friend of his youth, Marshal Lannes, is mortally wounded. Napoleon hastens to the dying man's side, and, so the story runs, his old comrade shows hos-
