Napoleon

by Emil Ludwig

  He breakfasts with Gourgaud since the young man chances to be there. The talk is of artillery fire, and means of defence against it. In the afternoon, lounging on the sofa in the bedroom, he reads. The old home on the other island was certainly more comfortable. A couple of bound volumes of the " Moniteur " pass the hours. If he wearies of reading, his book will sink on to his knees, and his gaze will wander to Isabey's portrait of wife and child. Nearby, on the white lacquered shelf, are two eagles, candlesticks, from Saint-Cloud. Between them is the marble

  Daily Life

  bust of his son; and, hanging to the faded gilt frame of the mirror, four miniatures of the boy. There is also a picture of Josephine ; and the gold watch of Rivoli, suspended by a chain made from the fair plaited hair of Marie Louise, hangs to the wall. There hangs also the silver alarum clock of Frederick the Great. Jetsam from the past, adorning his last, tiny bedroom !

  He dressed for dinner in the old green coat; sported the decoration of the Legion of Honour; wore white silk stockings, and shoes with golden buckles. He was waited on at table by his Parisian servants in their rich liveries of green and gold. The table in his fusty dining-room was set with a dinner service of Sevres depicting Napoleon's battles, branched candlesticks, glass globes crowned with eagles. Cipriani carved for His Majesty and served his master with great ceremony. Conversation was usually carried on in monosyllables; it concerned the cost of various things in Paris; the price of the throne and the sceptre. After dinner, the company would pass into the drawing-room for a reading of Corneille ; the same plays over and over again ; the Emperor read with too much feeling to read well. Sometimes his hearers would nod : " Madame, you are asleep ! " or," Gourgaud, wake up ! "

  " At your orders, Sire."

  Occasionally he plays chess with Bertrand or reversi with Montholon. Then it is time to withdraw.

  " What o'clock is it ? "

  "Eleven, Sire."

  " Another victory over time. One day the less ! " Thus passed more than two thousand days and nights. His campaigns in Italy and Egypt and his coup d'etat had taken half the time !

  The best way of getting through the weary hours is by reading and dictating. For five-and-twenty years he had had no time for reading; in earlier days he had devoured and annotated a whole library of books. What is he reading to-day ?

  Reading

  The things which the young man had not had an opportunity of reading. In those days, standing outside the closed portals of the world, he gathered materials from all sides, went to firsthand sources : a practically minded student. Now, standing on the further side of the portals of the world, which have now closed behind him, he surveys the material: a sceptical philosopher. In those days, he searched history; now, he searches the poets, and especially relishes those passages from the poets which apply to his own case. An epic lies behind him; in the epics of others, he tries to find his prototype.

  First of all, the Iliad. He sometimes browses over this till midnight. " Now, at length, I understand Homer. He is, like Moses, a child of his epoch : poet, orator, historian, lawgiver, geographer, theologian. ... I am specially struck by the rough manners of the heroes as compared with their lofty thoughts." Napoleon finds ease of heart in Homer. He cares less for the Odyssey. This seems to him no more than the story of an adventurer: he himself is more than that. Next in order of preference come Sophocles' CEdipus, a tragedy of banishment ; CEschylus' Agamemnon; Milton's Paradise Lost; the Bible. Corneille and Racine depict, in the French style, the heroes of antiquity, who for thirty years have been his models : unending are his readings of Cinna and Philoctete. Ossian rises out of the roar of the Atlantic : this he reads in an Italian translation. In addition, the satirists of the social life of Europe: Moliere, whom in the ardent years of conquest and success the Emperor had scorned; and Beaumarchais' Figaro and the Barbier de Seville. Finally, all the latest publications, whether memoirs or pamphlets, and, preferably, anything against himself.

  The golden day for him was when the ship arrived with cases of books. In the course of his stay, he collected three thousand volumes ; they were ranged on the bare damp shelves Unfortunately, he reads so fast that a book hardly lasts him an hour, and the servant is kept busy carrying away armfuls of

  Memoirs

  finished books which only a day before had been brought from the shelves. As soon as a book is read (or rejected) the Emperor flings it on to the floor.

  In the early days on St. Helena, Napoleon's actions were performed at his erstwhile speed, a speed which was many times faster than that of any of his associates. He forgot that now it was expedient to go slower. The consequence was that the few duties the prisoner imposed upon himself came to an end too quickly.

  When, on taking leave of the imperial guard, he had promised that, during his reign in Elba, he would record their deeds, this had only been thought of as a way out of the threatened idleness. In the days of his first exile, he had begun no such record. Now, during the first year of his second exile, he dictates the whole of his memoirs. This work too, like all else in his life, is begun on the inspiration of the moment. Some pamphlets have arrived. In one of them, his landing at Cannes in the year '15 is falsely described. He tells his doctor the true sequence of affairs ; paces up and down, declaiming; motions to Montholon while continuing his tirade, and dictates, without a pause, the whole chapter dealing with his return from Elba. Separated from his archives by five thousand miles and more, lacking documents, from his unerring memory, and with an inspiration unsurpassed in the days of his greatest activity, he dictates the story of the Hundred Days. Then, suddenly, he breaks off. What's the use of it all ?

  Another day, the report of an incident in the Lower House excites him : he thereupon dictates for fourteen hours without a rest. Those who take down his words, collapse, and replace one another at the task. Napoleon laughs them to scorn, and continues his dictation. Or, again, he sends for Montholon in the middle of the night to pen his recollections of more recent times.

  Since he loves above all to dwell on his early victories, his friends at first advise him :" Perhaps Your Majesty might set

  Story of Waterloo

  about describing the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, and the days of the Consulate ? " Set about describing ! No one seems to notice, and least of all the Emperor, that these events are being spoken of as one might speak of the Thirty Years' War. And just as, in those days, the man in whose heart and brain these things first took birth had projected his thoughts to the ends of the earth and had commanded his legions, so now, to the last instruments in his service, he communicates the details of his early campaigns, and in a few weeks describes how he conducted the wars from 1796 to 1799. Up and down, up and down, the Emperor paces, noticing nothing, wholly absorbed. Without, doors bang, people talk; the amanuensis is disturbed by these noises; not so Napoleon.

  Las Cases, after taking down the description of the battle of Areola, exclaims : " That's finer than the Iliad !" The Emperor makes a wry face, and laughingly rejoins : " Bah! You still fancy yourself at court! I shall rewrite that chapter twenty times ere I shall be satisfied." This expostulation is only a defence against flattery, for he has no intention of writing the chapter again; all he does is to make certain emendations when it is read over to him.

  On the other hand, he dictates the events of Waterloo over and over again. Since, in spite of his historical objectivity, he cannot understand the result of this battle which undid him, he is always searching for new formulations. When, through the good offices of some sympathetic Englishmen, an opportunity occurs for smuggling documents to Europe, he works laboriously at the battle of Waterloo in order to dim England's glory in the eyes of the European continent. But, he avers: " this task always makes me sad."

  In these memoirs, there are errors here and there. They are not due to lapses of memory, but to the author's desire to emphasise his own place in history. Such errors are not more serious than those to be found in Caesar's works, are not serious
errors at all. When he erroneously records that in his lieutenant

  Falsifications

  days he received the gold medal from the academy of Lyons for his solution of a problem, and states that the money prize was of great use to his mother; when telling the story of his battles he ascribes to himself certain deeds which, in reality, had been performed by his generals (at Marengo, for instance); when he invents a treaty in which the tsar, before the Russian campaign, is made to propose the division of Europe, we have inaccurate statements regarding the individuals concerned, but the broad facts are correct. It is true that, in accordance with his conception of the hero, he formally idealises the hero's deeds ; but he seems to us to lose more than he gains thereby. Since he is describing the period of his rise to power, he cannot materially falsify the facts : the immeasurable consequences of his first victory were bound to give rise, on the one hand, to a certain boastfulness, and, on the other, to detraction. But these volumes, which deal for the most part with the exploits of the commander, furnish but little real knowledge of Napoleon. Where we have to seek for the true Napoleon is in the memoirs of those who had the privilege of recording his conversations in exile.

  Soon, indeed, his pleasure in dictation evaporates. Though he had intended to dictate in a few weeks the campaign of 1800 which had lasted but that amount of time, he postpones this labour, and tells Gourgaud to collect material bearing upon the Russian campaign. Then the young general, who had himself participated in the campaign of 1812, sets to work to read—not a Russian work dealing with the campaign, but an English work dealing with the life of the Emperor who is there, three rooms away, and could probably furnish full particulars!

  Napoleon, the movement of whose mind was from events to ideas, and very rarely from thought to deed, is still true to type. When he reads news from Paris, he dictates rejoinders which demonstrate his expertise, and he compiles financial schemes. From his rock, from his little room, he answers the sounds coming from the outer world, although the sounds are no

  Visitors

  summons and his answer dies away into the void. He often proposes to write a treatise on the art of war, but he gives the notion up, " for the generals who in days to come get beaten will blame me, and say they were following my principles. ... I could instruct them, for I am a good teacher; but I cannot have my principles of warfare set down in print." He mistrusts every systematisation, for he is essentially a man who has learned by experience, by the unexpected. But if an isolated problem crops up in the course of a book he is dictating, then he deals with it in the precisest of terms. Thus, he makes Gourgaud calculate how much water a fire hose can deliver, for he wants to introduce the fire hose to combat the consequences of artillery fire.

  Congenial society occasionally shortens the day. Or visitors come to see the Emperor. English travellers, men of learning, colonial magnates, are admitted to audience. On their return to Europe, they bear witness to his mental alertness. Napoleon himself desires such reports to be spread abroad, for they can do nothing but good to his cause now that Las Cases' diary has aroused fresh sympathy for his plight.

  " Scatter your complaints throughout Europe! I myself do not complain." And he adds the orphic saying:

  " I command, or else I hold my peace."

  His visitors tell him interesting things. An English admiral, whose vessel had been lying off the coast during the battle of Waterloo, assured the Emperor that Wellington had already given orders to ship the English army because Bliicher did not arrive. When his companions inform him of the enthusiasm with which the enemy officers were filled after their interview with the Emperor, he says, assuming the role of the revolutionary : " Of course, these people belong to us. They all come from England's third estate, and are the natural foes of their haughty aristocracy."

  All the men in the services are on his side. English sailors, on shore leave for a day or two, will prowl round the place all

  Three Cheers

  night. At the first opportunity, they pounce upon him, stuttering incoherent words, presenting him with flowers. The Emperor claps them pleasantly on the shoulder. When the garrison is changed, he receives the members of the officers' corps, exactly as though they had been Frenchmen and he their army chief. They form a semicircle; he asks, " How many years' service ; how many wounds ? I was greatly pleased with the 53rd regiment. I shall always be delighted to hear of good strokes of luck coming in its way. You are sad, Admiral Bingham, that these brave soldiers are leaving you. To comfort your heart, My Lady must bear you a little Bingham ! " The army men laugh. The admiral blushes. When, next day, the transport hoists sail, the men give the prisoner three hearty cheers. A few months later, all Europe is agog with the anecdote.

  On another occasion, he sees a medal displayed on the chest of a captain, half raises it, and reads : Victory at Vittoria. The Emperor allows the decoration to slip from his fingers, and passes without a word to the next visitor.

  Each of England's allies sends a commissioner to the island. They are there merely to gratify the curiosity of their sovereigns. The prisoner refuses them access to his presence, and, though they are here on this desolate rock with the sole purpose of seeing that he is in safe custody, during all the years of their sojourn they never clap eyes on him once. Here is a fresh focus of intrigue and boredom. The only one of the commissioners whom the Emperor allows his suite to make friends with is Monsieur le Marquis. This is the representative chosen by His Very Christian Majesty King Louis XVIII to keep watch on his formidable predecessor. The marquis sees that Napoleon gets all the most recent periodicals; the Emperor reciprocates by the loan of books. When tidings are brought announcing the assassination in France of a Bourbon duke, General Bonaparte sends his condolences to the marquis of the old nobility by the intermediation of Count Bertrand, who is also a sprig of the noblesse. A scene out of comic opera !

  Killing Time

  When the prisoner is in happy vein he seeks other pastimes. One evening he spends fluttering the pages of the official yearbooks of his reign, and says, like the bewitched tinker in the old folk-tale : " It was a fine empire. I ruled eighty-three million human beings ; more than half the population of Europe ! " He spends the whole of another evening with Las Cases chatting over old times. They laugh, the Emperor's spirits rise, he orders champagne to be brought, and before they realise it the hands of the clock point to eleven. Napoleon says delightedly : " How quickly the time has gone ! What agreeable hours ! My dear fellow, you are sending a happy man to bed."

  Words which grip one perhaps more poignantly than any complaint could do.

  He takes Montholon's seven-year-old child on his knee and recites La Fontaine's fable of the wolf and the lamb. The child has not fully understood, and makes a delicious muddle of lamb, wolf, and His Majesty. Another happy half hour in the Emperor's life ! Again, he strolls up and down the room in the evening after dinner, humming an Italian aria, and laughing gleefully, for he has just read that King Louis always speaks of him as " Monsieur de Buonaparte." If he has a sleepless night, he makes Las Cases tell him anecdotes from the Faubourg ; or he says to Gourgaud : " Let us exchange stories about love affairs. I never had enough time to spare for women. Otherwise they would have ruled my life for me." If he gets bored in his bath, he takes the opportunity of demonstrating to Gourgaud why the pressure of the water upon a floating body is equal to the weight of the body. On one occasion, in the drawing-room, he has his own height and that of his companions measured against the door.

  Sometimes he will not dress or go out in the morning, putting off both until the afternoon. On one of these occasions, after an exceptionally torrid evening, he does not re-enter the house till midnight, and says that he has won a real victory by staying out so long. Another day he goes up the stair-ladder into

  Tobias, the Malay

  his valet's garret, having been told that it is so nicely furnished. He is shown his own wardrobe, which is stowed away there, and is amazed to find what a lot of clothing he
still possesses. He fingers the uniform he had worn as Consul (a gift from the city of Lyons), the spurs he had worn at Wagram, the cloak of the Marengo days. He makes no comment; goes down the stair-ladder in silence.

  Amid these desperate attempts to kill time, does the prisoner come across no one whose situation moves him ?

  Yes, there is one. Of all the dwellers on this rock, the one whose lot touches the Emperor's heart most profoundly is a slave, a Malay who passes by the name Tobias, has been kidnapped, sold into slavery, and cast up on this remote island. Napoleon comes across him working in the garden, or meets him in the road, is never weary of studying him, and gives him a gold coin whenever he sees him. The Malay thanks him in broken English : " Good gentleman."

  " Poor devil! " says the Emperor to his companion, obviously picturing himself in the position of this dusky piece of flotsam. " Snatched from his family, torn from his home, robbed of himself, sold into slavery! Was there ever a greater piece of wickedness ? If a captain did it, he was a villain ; but if the crew combined to seize poor Tobias, they were hardly responsible. Wickedness is always individual, never collective. Joseph's brethren could not make up their minds to kill him, but Judas betrayed his master."

  After the next encounter with the Malay : " What a pitiful machine man is, after all! Not one bodily wrapping like another ; not one soul that does not differ from all the rest. Those who fail to recognise this, make a great many mistakes. Had Tobias been a Brutus, he would have hurled himself on death; an Jisop, and he would have been governor by now; a good Christian, and he would have blessed his chains. But he is only poor Tobias, so he is none of these things, merely bows his head in his simplicity and goes on with his daily task."

  The Emperor and the Slave

  The two continue their walk: " Certainly it is a long way from poor Tobias to King Richard. But the deed which brought the fellow here is no less shameful, for this man had his family, his friends, his own life. What a crime to have condemned him to slave on this island until the day of his death ! " Suddenly, Napoleon stops short, and eyes Las Cases quizzically :