Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  As a young lieutenant, as a young general, he had never asked a favour ; he could not; he knew only how to command. Even to kings he wrote in the tone of a commander, and the word " please " had only twice passed his lips during the course of this last decade : the first time, when he asked the pope to anoint him emperor ; the second time, when he besought Francis of Habsburg for his daughter's hand. Yet to-day, what a tone ! What thoughts must be passing through the captive's mind at the moment when his sword is given back to him !— Can this be the master of the world ? Has he not begged me, a poor man, begged me and my brother, to do him a service ? How came these things to be ? Has he no other messenger ? Coffee and sugar are to blame, it seems, for the fact that an army of hundreds of thousands of men is perishing in my land ! And, as though the whole thing were some brilliant game of chess, the master player sends his challenge, while Little Mother Russia is suffering and weeping, and sees one of her cities after the other go up in flames, and the images of her saints reduced to ashes !

  The letter to the captive general's brother is duly written, passes Berthier's censorship, is delivered—but is never answered. The Emperor is beside himself with rage : he passes through a period in which he makes impulsive and vacillating decisions. When Rapp asks whether the army is to go forward or to retreat, Napoleon answers : " The wine is poured out; it

  Bad News from Spain

  must be drunk to the last drop. I am for Moscow. , . , Too long have I played the emperor; it is time I became the general once more." The eyes of the officer light up as he recognises the old ring in the voice !—We are at the beginning of September.

  On the sacred soil of the heath near Borodino, Kutusoff, Barclay's successor, must at length put up a fight. The armies now are of equal strength : this is the game the Emperor proposed. No one sleeps, for to-morrow, to-morrow at last, the battle will be joined ! Then will golden Moscow lie at our feet, and all our troubles will be at an end. In the middle of the night, a courier arrives from Paris. The Emperor, bending over his maps, asks if there is anything urgent to attend to. Silently his secretary hands him a dispatch from Spain : Wellington has gained a decisive victory over Marmont in the fight near Salamanca. The Emperor reads the report, makes no comment, and resumes his interrupted work. At the eastern extremity of Europe, at the point where it loses itself in the Asiatic wastes, in a few hours he is to vanquish the Russians. This is no time to trouble his mind as to the significance of the victory of the detested Briton at the southern, extremity of Europe. Day has dawned. To-day, as every day, the guards call the salute : " Vive l'Empereur !"

  He shows them his son's picture, which the courier that night had brought him from Paris, There they stand, the old war-dogs, never dreaming that France has been beaten in Spain, but admiring the portrait of the beautiful boy who is their leader's very own son. When the picture is brought back to the tent, the Emperor says, speaking like a poet; " Hide it away. He is too young to look upon a battle-field."

  In fierce fighting, on this day of Borodino, salient points are taken, lost, and retaken. The guards shout. They want to decide the issue, here, on the Moskva, as they have so often done before. His generals beseech him to order the advance, and his intimates urge him to action, but he will not give the word. For

  "Fortune Is a Strumpet"

  the first time, when the fight is on, he will not stir from his place. He is feverish, panting for breath, racked with a cough, and his legs are swelled. He sits motionless on his horse, and cannot make up his mind to order the advance of the guards, although the fate of the day seems to hang on it. " Suppose there should be another battle to-morrow ? What men shall I have left to fight it with ? " At night the Russians withdraw. Next day, when the fallen are counted on the field, they number seventy thousand dead or half-dead—more than in any of his previous battles. The Emperor exclaims :

  " Fortune is a strumpet. I have often said so. Now the truth is coming home to me."

  But the way to Moscow is open. Half a million men had been chosen for the invasion. One hundred thousand of them are still following him, when, from an elevation, with his back towards the setting sun, he first sees the city of a thousand cupolas, and upon the hill in its centre that fragment of the East, the Kremlin. Napoleon, as he gazes at the sight, is filled with weariness rather than with exultation, and he says in a low tone :

  " Moscow ! It is time ! "

  " Where are the keys of the city ? Why are not the mayor and corporation here to hand them over ? "

  For the greater part of the afternoon he waits while the army marches past him, waits for the keys of the town. At Vienna and Milan, at Madrid and Berlin, he had ridden through the gates as a conqueror. Are these Tartars ignorant of the fine old Roman custom ? From afar can be heard the noise made by Kutusoff s soldiers, as the half-beaten army evacuates the Eastern side of the town, while Napoleon's men are streaming in from the west. The advance guard of the French and the rear guard of the Russians are almost in touch. It is a silent entry, for the town is

  Moscow

  like a city of the dead; the houses are empty. " Still, there are plenty of houses," think the weary campaigners ; "we shall find food, and be able to sleep at our ease."

  The Emperor and his staff ride slowly through the streets whose silence is so ominous. The Kremlin is their destination. Here is the ancient fortress. The newcomers look with astonishment at its walls. All the gates are open, but there is no one there to act as guide. The golden and red halls are forsaken, as in the vision of a dream. The invaders make their way into a huge room where the windows are boarded up. The grenadiers knock the boards away with the butt ends of their muskets, and the Emperor recognises by the canopy that he is in the coronation room of the tsars of Muscovy ; but the throne is veiled.

  Peace is the only thing lacking to him in this moment of fulfilment. Where is the peace ? He has nothing but a victory. Who has cheated him of its fruits ? Only the vast, strange land; the steppe has cheated him to-day, as the desert cheated him thirteen years ago. Why did he not free the serfs in Lithuania, and thus win guides and new soldiers, as he had planned to do aforetime with the liberated Arabs ? What if he were to adopt this policy now ? The town is deserted, but there are peasants in the surrounding countryside. Why not summon them, make terms with them ? We are masters here ; this enigmatic realm can still offer much of what we desire !

  Night comes, but sleep is coy. " Let us do some work, then, to distract our minds," he says to Caulaincourt. He opens the map of Poland; satisfies himself that it was impossible to stay there; in six weeks he can be in St. Petersburg. The muster rolls (they are his Bible, which he always takes with him on a journey, and perpetually cons even in peace-time) show him what forces are still at his disposal. His spirits rise as he looks at the columns of figures. " In a few weeks I could get together a quarter of a million men here. There are plenty of roofs to cover

  Fire !

  them, but what about food ? The city seems to be in the middle of a desert'. "

  A red glare shows through the windows. Fire! Oh, well, we're used to that. There were several fires here and there yesterday evening. But orderlies rush in, and generals arrive. A hundred messengers have reported the outbreak of fires all over the city. Not accidental fires, but prearranged, for the fire-engines have been broken or removed. Do these lunatics mean that Holy Moscow should go up in flames ? What will the Emperor do ? Segur, who was with him in these dark hours, tells us what happened :

  " It seems as if the encircling flames have spread to the Emperor's mind. By turns, he leaps to his feet, sits down again, or tramps hastily through the rooms of the palace. His abrupt movements betray his terrible agitation. He abandons an urgent task, resumes it, abandons it once more, that he may fling the window wide. He exclaims :

  " ' What a dreadful sight ! Their own work! So many palaces ! How stupendous a decision! Who could have expected anything of the kind ? What men they are ! They are Scythians !'

  " Suddenly w
e are informed that the Kremlin has been mined. Some of the servants are panic-stricken; the guard quietly awaits orders. The Emperor smiles incredulously, but he continues to pace convulsively to and fro, halting at every window to watch the raging element as it seizes the bridges and the gates, simultaneously imprisoning him and besieging him. The air is full of smoke and flying sparks; the equinoctial gale increases the fury of the conflagration.

  " Murat and Eugene arrive hotfoot, force their way to the Emperor, and urge him to flee. In vain! Napoleon, master in the palace of the tsars, is steadfast. He will not yield even to devouring flame. But suddenly comes the cry : ' Fire in the Kremlin !' The Emperor is to see the danger close at hand.

  " A Russian military policeman has been seized in a turret

  The Burning Street

  of the arsenal. Brought before the Emperor, the man admits that he has fired the Kremlin, acting under orders. The Emperor makes a sign of rage and contempt. The prisoner is led out into the courtyard and is cut down by the grenadiers. This incident decides the Emperor's action.

  " We hasten down the northern staircase, and the Emperor orders us to guide him out of the town. But all the gates of the citadel are blocked by the flames. At length an alley-way leading to the Moskva is discovered between two rocks. Through this narrow passage we are able to escape from the Kremlin. But what has been gained ? How can we cross the river ? The soldiers, blinded by the sparks and deafened by the storm, do not know where they are, and the streets are hidden amid the smoke. The only way out of the inferno is through a winding street where the houses are on fire.

  " Heedlessly the Emperor strides along this dreadful exit, undismayed by the crackle of the flaming beams and by the crash of the falling roofs. . . . We can hardly breathe, so intense is the heat. Our guide loses his way, and we should all have ended our lives in the flames had not some marauders belonging to the first army corps recognised the Emperor and found a way for him and the rest of us out of the smoking ruins.

  " We meet Davoust. He has been injured on the Moskva, but has had himself carried back among the blazing houses, hoping to find the Emperor or perish with him. The general embraces Napoleon in a fever of delight. The Emperor responds in friendly fashion, but with that calm which never leaves him in the hour of danger."

  He awaits the end of the conflagration in the Petroffsky palace, a suburban retreat. On the fourth day, he returns to the Kremlin, where very little damage has been done. On the fifth day, his patience gives out. For the third time, he writes to the tsar. Even now, when he is in possession of the capital, he feels he is grasping at the air. He is so cut off from the enemy that

  A Third Messenger

  once more he has to make use of a Russian prisoner (this time only a captain) in order to find a contact with the tsar. Napoleon receives the man in the throne room. Does he sense the heroic grotesqueness of the scene ? An officer of no account, powerless, unknown, is the representative of Holy Russia; before him, in the storied hall of the tsars, stands the mighty Emperor of the French, the conqueror at whose slightest nod all Europe trembles. The Emperor speaks, chaffers, poses conditions with this man, as though the occasion were another Tilsit and the captain the tsar.

  " I am conducting a purely political war," Napoleon reiterates. " All I need is the fulfilment of our treaties. Had I taken London, I would not have offered to leave it so speedily. From here, however, I intend very soon to withdraw. If the tsar wants peace, he must let me know of his desire. ... I am setting you free, but on condition that you make your way to St. Petersburg. The tsar will be glad to see an eyewitness of recent happenings in Moscow. You must tell him everything."

  " I shall not be permitted to enter his presence, Sire."

  " Appeal to Court Chamberlain Tolstoy. He is an upright man. If he fails you, get the tsar's body servant to introduce you to his presence, or you must approach His Majesty during one of his daily walks. . . ." The captain gets cold all over; it seems to him that he is being urged to commit a crime, an attempt on the tsar's life. He can promise nothing ; stammers.

  The Emperor says : " Very well. I shall write a letter to your emperor and you must see that he gets it." This last missive, which finds its way from one emperor's hands into those of the other, is the strangest of the trio.

  " My Lord Brother. . . . Beautiful, magical Moscow exists no more. . . . This deed is loathsome, and to no purpose. Did you wish to rob me of my means of support ? They were in the cellars, to which the flames never penetrated. How could you consign to destruction the loveliest city in the world, a city it

  The Last Letter

  has taken hundreds of years to build; how could you lay it waste for so little gain ! . . . Out of kindness, and in the interests of Your Majesty, I have now taken charge of the town which the Russian army had sacrificed. At least the municipal authorities and the militia should have been left in the city, as was the case in Vienna, on two occasions, and in Berlin and Madrid; Milan, likewise, acted thus when Suvaroff entered at the head of his army. ... It is surely impossible that you, with your high principles and your good heart, can have consented to such abominations, for they are unworthy of a great ruler and a great nation. Your people were so busy getting the fire-engines away, that they abandoned one hundred and fifty pieces of ordnance. ... I have warred against Your Majesty without bitterness. A sign from you, before or after the last battle, would have stayed my forward march: nay, for Your Majesty's sake, I should have wished to forego my entry into Moscow. ... If you have preserved any of your former friendship towards me, you will receive this letter favourably. In any case, you will be grateful to me for informing you of the recent occurrences."

  The letter of a tutor to his pupil, angry and threatening, written from the depths of his isolation, with intent to rouse the recipient. Thus might an impeccable moralist write to a ne'er-do-well ! The whole epistle turns upon the two words " receive favourably " ; this is the aim; on these words are built up the writer's hopes. Will the letter fulfil its mission ?

  The advance of the invader, the threatening proximity of the foe, the burning of Moscow, have filled all hearts in St. Petersburg with despair. The court is for peace. Can a more favourable opportunity present itself ? The enemy is becoming more embarrassed day by day. Emperor Napoleon is eager for negotiations. The madcap grand duke Constantine is in favour of a parley; the tsarina-mother, she who hates the upstart, who refused her daughter to him as bride, who railed at Alexander

  Baron vom Stein

  for weeks after the Tilsit meeting, even she advises the tsar to clasp hands once more in friendship with the Emperor. Now is the time !

  But Alexander held firm. Two men were responsible for his unwonted steadfastness. One was a Frenchman, Bernadotte. He and the tsar had recently met in Finland, and Bernadotte had strengthened Alexander in his determination to persevere, had even handed back the Russian auxiliary corps which the tsar had lent for the conquest of Norway. Bernadotte's hatred was so fierce, he had so inflexibly made up his mind to destroy Napoleon, and he so greedily coveted the crown of France which the tsar had promised him, that he would stick at nothing.

  The other was a German, the best the nation had nurtured in its downfall and in its fight for freedom. Four years had passed since Napoleon pronounced a verdict of outlawry on Baron vom Stein. The baron spent them far from, his homeland ; and had become the tsar's trusted adviser. In every respect he was Napoleon's exact contrary. He was now to fight the Emperor to a decisive issue.

  This time Stein would conquer.

  VI

  In many lands, among the many wise and energetic men, who for seventeen years had pitted themselves against the General, the Consul, and the Emperor, none proved equal to the task except Talleyrand and Stein : The former did so, because he succeeded in paralysing Napoleon's productive will by the genius of his malicious cunning; the latter, because, to Napoleon's amoral energy, he contraposed a moral energy which was wedded to fervour. Just as Stein embodied the virtues
of the Germans, so Napoleon gathered into himself the talents of the Italian character ; and yet, since neither Teutonic virtues nor Italian talents are mutually exclusive, but, rather, cut athwart one another, each man could understand the opponent

  Comparison with Napoleon

  so far, that Stein, had he been a Frenchman (Carnot's blood brother), might have proved the mainstay of the Emperor. Pride and practical good sense would have brought the two men together.

  But this mutual respect could never have bridged the abyss of alienation which must have continued, in spite of everything, to hold them asunder. For, just as Napoleon lived entirely without feeling for a fatherland ; just as he would gladly have made his career anywhere, and merely placed the French before other peoples because he chanced to be their emperor, so, on the other hand, Stein lived and wrought entirely for the sake of his fatherland; and his Teutonic solidity (firmly rooted in the native soil), the whole weight of his rich soul, remained estranged from the agility, the swiftness, which was so essential a part of Napoleon's make-up, and which the Emperor utilised so adroitly. Here was a statesman whose one thought was Germany and the Germans, who wanted unity among the stocks speaking the same speech, even if such unity had to be achieved against the wishes of the weakling princes. Over the way stood the man who could only think in terms of Europe and Europeans, people whom he wished to weld together for a fight against the selfsame princes.

  A baron of the empire, and therefore an independent though petty prince, Stein was a worthy son of ancestors who for seven centuries had tilled and ruled the same fragment of German soil. Having left the home of his fathers for one reason only, that he might serve the nation, he regarded with mistrust, and soon with growing contempt, the other German princes, who were so eager to barter lands and liberties—their own and their subjects'—for the favour of the world conqueror. Napoleon, sprung from an impoverished noble stock, a man who had in early youth been driven forth from the ancestral vineyard, despised these lickspittle princes as heartily as did Stein, and in secret he honoured none but the few irreconcilables.