by Emil Ludwig
But this severity is, in the long run, out of keeping both with his own simplicity of nature and with the instincts of the crowd. He could not seduce the masses by the offer of fame and money, so he showed them symbols : crowns and coronation ceremonies ; courts and splendour and princes : but the people felt the growing distance between them and their ruler, and were not deceived.
When the people of Paris learned that the Emperor, in his theatre, would no longer allow King Henry to say, " I tremble," but only, " I shudder," because, though a king (being only a man) may tremble, he may not admit it—the crowd must either feel angry or become derisive. But the crowd did not hear the words in which the Emperor instructed Talma how to play Csesar:
" When Csesar utters his long tirade against kingship, saying, ' for me, in whom the throne inspires nothing but contempt,' he does not mean a word of what he says. He only talks like that because he knows that his Romans are standing behind him, and wishes to persuade them that the throne is an abomination to him. In reality, it is already the goal of his desire. Consequently those words ought not to be spoken with conviction."
He wants to use religion, just as he uses the drama, that he may lull the masses to sleep. Here is what the newmade Consul says to the Council of State : " What I see in religion is, not the
His Social Philosophy
mystery of the incarnation, but social order. It associates with heaven an idea of equality, which prevents the poor from massacring the rich. Religion has the same sort of value as vaccination. It gratifies our taste for the miraculous, and protects us from quacks; for the priests are worth more than the Cagliostros, the Kants, and all the German dreamers. . . , Society cannot exist without equality of property; but this latter cannot exist without religion. One who is dying of hunger when the man next him is feasting on dainties, can only be sustained by a belief in a higher power, and by the conviction that in another world there will be a different distribution of goods."
Though he knows all this, and though he takes kindly measures for the relief of the poor, he can never free his mind from thoughts of the rabble and the mob. When he turns from contemplating the princes to contemplating the masses, his contempt for his fellows diminishes, but not enough. The masses, like the princes, are to be used for his own ends. He says : " The men of intelligence who have changed the world, have never done so by influencing the leaders, but have always set the masses in motion. He who influences princes is only an intriguer, and his results are second rate ; but he who moves the masses, changes the face of the earth." Democracy came between him and the people; and what he has to say about parliamentarism is not creative but critical:
" The republic is the political form which elevates the soul and contains the germ of great things : but, precisely because of its greatness, it will sooner or later perish ; for it needs a unified authority to maintain its power, and this must lead either to despotism or to a patriciate. The latter is the worst of despotisms; Rome, Venice, England, and even France are instances. If the republic wishes to attain greatness, the central authority must be established upon a permanent parliamentary majority; . . . but this can be secured only by corruption, which is the cancer of the peoples, and a terrible weapon in the hands
Imagination
of the central authority. The liberals have discovered the expedient of constitutional monarchy. That is a mezzo termine, which has its advantages, but only when the popular assembly, whose business it is to bridle the monarchical authority, is elected by universal suffrage."
Napoleon recognised the existence of all the problems that confronted the nineteenth century ; but he never understood the social problem, with which his own story began.
VII
Imagination, the third element of his personality, is the real driving force of his self-confidence and his energy. Continually at war with the calculating part of his nature, fantasy, in the end, brings this harbourer of opposites to destruction. The imaginative power, which links the poet to the statesman (enabling both unceasingly to dwell in the affective world (strangers as well as in their own), is also the source of his knowledge of men and his guide to the management of men. But always his energy interacts with other qualities. One who for analytical purposes, would force the living whole of his character into the framework of a system, cannot avoid, from time to time, breaking threads that he may bind other threads together.
" I know not what I do, for everything depends on events I have not a will of my own, but expect everything from their outcome. . . . The greater one is, the less can one have a will. One is always dependent upon events and circumstances." Such words, casually introduced into a letter from husband to wife, express the distantly visible forms of his fantasy; only the imaginative man, not tied to systems and principles, trusts himself to the movements of the moments, allows his spirit to roam freely, and discovers his course as he goes. In this sense, his whole career is improvisation, though in the converse way from that in which most people improvise. He calculated
Europe
little things in advance with great precision ; whereas his worldwide designs were originated, transformed, improvised, in accordance with circumstances and developments. " One who has become familiar with affairs, despises all theories, and makes use of them only like the geometricians, not in order to move forward in a straight line, but merely to keep heading in the same direction."
This direction, this fundamental idea of the statesman, was, moreover, only possible in a man whose mind was simultaneously imaginative and mathematical. It is his most ardent vision and his coolest calculation; it is his political aim, his hope, his ambition : Europe. If this vision could be realised only by force of arms, that was because of the fierceness with which the first republic of Europe was again and again attacked by the European princes. We have seen how earnestly he strove for peace. No doubt he chose his means badly, his error being due to the time, the circumstances, and his own domineering character. But his mistakes as to method still leave undiminished the genius of the seer who looked forward towards an aim which was again to become an object of statesmanship a hundred years after his fall.
" There are in Europe more than thirty million Frenchmen, fifteen million Italians, thirty million Germans. . . . Out of each of these peoples, I wanted to make a united national whole. . . . That would have supplied the best chance of establishing a general unity of laws ; a unity of principles and thoughts and feelings, of outlooks and interests. . . . Then it would have been possible to think of founding the United States of Europe after the model of the United States of America or of the Greek Amphictyonic League. . . . What perspectives of strength, greatness, and prosperity this opens up ! ... For France, unity has been wrought; in Spain, it has proved unattainable ; to establish the Italian nation, I should have needed twenty years; to make the Germans a nation, would have required still more patience, and all I could do was to simplify their monstrous
The United States of Europe
constitution. At the same time, I wanted to pave the way for the unification of the great interests of Europe, just as I had unified the parties in France. . . . The transient mutterings of the peoples troubled me little; they would have been reconciled to me by the result. . . . Europe would soon have become one nation, and any who travelled in it would always have been in a common fatherland. , . . Sooner or later, this union will be brought about by the force of events The first impetus has been given; and, after the fall and the disappearance of my system, it seems to me that the only way in which an equilibrium can be achieved in Europe is through a league of nations.'"
Here there is no talk of a dictatorial welding together of different stocks, or of an enthusiastic fraternisation. He speaks only of interests, and of a preliminary unification of these on a national and racial basis. The work of the nineteenth century was to inaugurate the preliminaries by the establishment of the nations. The twentieth century opens with the realisation of the Napoleonic idea.
VIII
/> The effects underlying his energy and his imagination an dominated by the clarity of his thought. Napoleon hated less and loved more, than he would have been willing to admit. In this domain, we find the converse of what happens in the matter of his sympathies in war time, when a million men are coldly sacrificed, while one man wounded and bleeding touches him to the heart. Since his fantasy needs enormous masses, he is enraged when Joseph says : " I am the only person who care for you." Napoleon rejoins : " Nothing of the sort. I need five hundred million men to love me." In these icy words glow the volcano which one of his school masters heard rumbling long ago.
Emotionally convinced of his mission to order the affairs of
Unfeeling
the nations, he deliberately rejects anything that may distract him from this aim, and nothing sustains him but his monomania. Even in the drama, he objects to the interweaving of love stories, saying : " Love is a passion which should only be the main theme of a tragedy, and never a subsidiary motif. ... In the days of Racine, it was the whole content of a human life. That happens in a society where no great deeds are being done."
If love becomes intrusive, he annuls it. " I have no time to be bothered with feelings and to repent them like other men. . . . There are two motives to action : self-interest and fear. Believe me, love is a foolish blindness ! . . . I love no one, not even my brothers—Joseph a little, from force of habit, and because he is the elder. I am fond of Duroc, too ; he is serious and resolute; I believe the man has never shed tears in his life ! . . . Let us leave sensibilities to women. Men should be firm of heart and strong of will, or else they should have nothing to do with war or governance." Another time : " The only friend I have is Daru ; he is unfeeling and cold ; that suits me." Last of all, in St. Helena : " A man of fifty has done with love. ... I have an iron heart. I never really loved ; perhaps Josephine, a little ; but then I was only seven-and-twenty. I incline to the view of Gassion, who once said to me that he did not love life well enough to give it to another being."
Always half ashamed of his feelings; ever ready to make excuses for them ; " perhaps," " a little." Yet this is the same man who said : "I am the slave of my way of feeling and acting, for I value the heart much more than the head." This very feeling is his fantasy.
One in whom egotism is supreme, will be more inclined to jealousy than to love. His first letters to Josephine show him devoured by jealousy. Years later, as Consul, when he is inspecting his new bridge in course of construction across the Seine, he has to step aside with his companions for a moment to let a carriage pass. In the carriage sits Hippolyte, his sometime
Sympathetic
rival. That was long ago; everything has been condoned ; the man's name is never mentioned in his presence. But now, at a chance encounter in the street, Bonaparte grows pale and confused, and takes a little while to recover composure.
From time to time, he shows an involuntary kindliness. On one of the Italian battle-fields, he sees a dog howling over the dead body of its master. " The poor beast seemed to be asking for an avenger, or begging help. I was profoundly moved by the dog's suffering, and at that moment I should have been very much in the mood to grant quarter to an enemy. I understood why Achilles surrendered Hector's body to the weeping Priam. Such is man; so little can he count upon his moods. Impassively I had sent my soldiers into the battle ; dry-eyed I had watched them marching past in an advance where thousands of them would meet their fate ; then I was shaken to the depths by the howling of a dog."
Affectionate tones are to be heard in many of his letters. To Cambaceres : " I am so sorry to hear that you are not well. I hope it is only a passing trouble. If you did not take so much medicine, you would be better already. . . . But anyhow, you must do your utmost to get well, if only because of my friendship for you." To Corvisart: " Dear Doctor, I wish you would see to the arch-chancellor and to Lacepede : the former has been ailing for a week, and I am afraid he is in the hands of a quack; Lacepede's wife has been ill for some time. Give them the benefit of your advice, and cure them as soon as you can. You will save the life of a man of note, and one who is very dear to me."
Chenier, who has written against him for years, is assisted by him in poverty and given a secure position. Carnot, for ten years an enemy of the Emperor, is heavily in debt; Napoleon learns this, settles the debts, and refuses to hear of being given a note of hand; reckons up the pay which Carnot woul have received as general in active service, makes this calculation the basis of a large pension : and when Carnot says he would like
Women Are Slaves
to do some work for his money, Napoleon commissions him to write a military treatise, lest his pensioner should have to undertake duties that might go against the grain.
During the Hundred Days, learning that some of the Bourbon princes are greatly distressed for lack of money, he sends them large sums anonymously. On one occasion his secretary is asleep, and he himself has nothing particular to do ; he looks through a pile of begging letters, and writes in the margin of each the amount of an allowance which is to be given to the sender. Hundreds of officers whom, in fits of anger, he has sworn to have shot, remain at their posts—to forsake him in the end. When he orders Jerome to get a divorce, he is alarmed at his own harshness. After he has written to enforce his command with threats he sends a letter to his mother saying that she had better write to Jerome at once and get his sisters to write as well, " for if I have passed judgment on him, nothing can alter it, and his life will be spoiled."
From his few friends, he demands blind devotion. Never is the self-centred nature of Napoleon more plainly shown than in the words the exile speaks to Montholon, from whom he has been temporarily estranged: " I love you like a son, for I believe that you love me only ; otherwise you could not love me at all. According to my way of feeling, it is not in our nature to love several persons at once. People deceive themselves in these matters ; they cannot even love all their children with the same intensity. For my part, at any rate, I want to be the supreme object of affection in the case of those whom I love and honour with my confidence. I cannot bear partings. They stab me to the heart, for my disposition is too sensitive: spiritual poison affects the body more powerfully than arsenic."
Logically enough, he dislikes western views concerning the enlightenment of women. He always hankers after the East, and in this matter he is an oriental. " Nature intended women to be our slaves ; and it is only because of our distorted outlooks that they venture to describe themselves as our rulers.
Scepticism
. . For one who can influence us in a good direction, there are a hundred who will only lead us into follies. . . . What a mad idea to demand equality for women ! They are our property, we are not theirs; for they give us children, but we do not give them any. They belong to us, just as a tree which bears fruit belongs to the gardener. ... In this difference, there is nothing degrading; every one has his privileges, and every one his duties. You, ladies, have beauty, attractiveness ; but also dependence."
IX
Throughout life, the imagination of this creator was troubled by the thought of the Creator. This ruler of men was greatly disturbed that there should be no one who ruled all men. It was not that he ever regarded himself as divine ; he laughed at all mystical interpretations of his own power: but there was one great power which remained uncoercible—no matter whether it were called God, destiny, or death. How do self-confidence and fantasy escape from this snare ?
First of all by the rejection of dogma. " My firm conviction is that Jesus . . . was put to death like any other fanatic who professed to be a prophet or a Messiah; there have been such persons at all times. For my part, I turn from the New Testament to the Old, and there I find one man of mark, Moses. . . Besides, how could I accept a religion which would damn Socrates and Plato ? . . . I cannot believe that there is a god who punishes and rewards, for I see honest folk unlucky, and rogues lucky. Look at Talleyrand; he is sure to die in bed! . . . How could I have remai
ned independent if I had been subject to the influence of a confessor to threaten me with the pains of hell ? Think what powers a confessor who is a rascal can exercise! . . .
In this matter he is consistent; from childhood, when he
Natural Philosophy
would not go to Mass, until the end of his life, he rejected (for himself) all the religions. The man who, in his own life, would not recognise the existence of miracle, and ascribed everything that he was able to achieve to the working of the healthy human understanding, boldness, power of combination, knowledge of men, and imagination, could not possibly believe in the miracles recorded in the Bible. He was perfectly logical when he told one of his subordinates it was impossible that two million men could have quenched their thirst at the Wells of Moses.
Even more uncongenial to him is any dread of a great assize. He does not talk about morality; or at most, he does so with some political end in view. Only towards the last, on the island, he says once in an evening conversation with his intimates : "How happy should we be here if I could confide my troubles to God, and could expect from him happiness and salvation! Have I not a just claim to it ? I, who have had so unusual a career, have never committed a crime, and need not fear to step before God's judgment seat and await his sentence. Never has the thought of committing a murder entered my mind."
For these reasons, he does not falter in the days of misfortune. Five years before the end, he expresses the hope that he will die without a confessor, but adds that no one can be certain what he will do in his last hours. In fact, this heart of steel was steadfast to the end.
Nevertheless, his ideas as to the nature of the creation developed, and just as the revolutionist became a legitimist, so the materialist became a theist. But these developments were not transformations; there was simply a broadening of the basis of his thought. Throughout life, he had a sense that things had come into existence by a natural process : " When out hunting, I had the deer cut open, and saw how like the beast's internal organs were to those of a human being. Man is merely a more perfect creature than a dog or a tree. The plan is the first link in a chain whose last link is mankind." It should be remembered
