by Allan Massie
We progressed to Paris following the route of the victorious armies, amid scenes of wretchedness and devastation, for, while our British troops behaved with discipline, dignity and humanity, the Prussians took a terrible revenge for the hardships which Napoleon had inflicted on their country. Meanwhile disbanded French regiments were roaming the countryside, dirty, despairing, and resembling banditti rather than soldiers. If war’s rattle and the groans of the dying were now behind us, all that we saw bore witness to its awful consequences. Outside an inn, one day, I saw a middle-aged Frenchman, in a tattered uniform, sitting on a bench, flanked by a British grenadier with a glass of brandy and water, and a German soldier smoking a pipe. They none of them spoke, and the Frenchman looked from one to the other in a manner which indicated his incredulity or incomprehension of how he came to be there with such companions.
We could not enter Valenciennes, which was still held by a French garrison whose commander refused to surrender: an empty gesture of defiance, though a spirited one, which however laid the town’s inhabitants open to the threat of a Prussian bombardment. So we proceeded to Chantilly, through miles of magnificent forest, but the great palace of the Prince de Conde had been destroyed by the Parisian mob in the early stages of the Revolution; only the stables remained, which were of a magnificence that gave some idea of what the palace must have been. The stables in their turn were now given over to the Prussians who were engaged in wrecking them as if in calculated insult. I could not but reflect on what the emotions of the great Conde, whose grandson had built these stables, but who had himself led so many invading armies into Germany, would have been if he had been told that these Prussian vandals were marching unopposed on Paris, holding in their disposal the fate of the House of Bourbon and the Crown of France.
As so often on this journey, Johnson’s great lines echoed in my head:
Yet Reason frowns on War’s unequal Game,
Where wasted nations raise a single Name,
And mortgag’d States their Grandsires Wreaths regret
From Age to Age in everlasting Debt;
Wreaths which at last the dear-bought Right convey
To rust on medals, or on Stones decay.
Or, as Shirley put it:
The Glories of our Blood and State
Are Shadows, not substantial Things;
There is no Armour against Fate,
Death lays his icy Hand on Kings.
I could not, while surveying the ruins of Chantilly, but think of Napoleon himself, so recently returned in triumph to the Tuileries, now consigned to a little rock in the remote Atlantic; the most ambitious and audacious of men, now reduced to vain imaginings, profound and unassuageable regret, but whether – ever – for the misery he has brought on men, who can tell? I only pray, now, that in the six years he was compelled to pass, wasting away, on St Helena, he at least vouchsafed repentance to the Almighty, even though he could never bring himself to express that in conversation with those around him. To them he sighed of his lost glory, his defeated ambitions; spoke of pity for his own condition, never for those he had ruined, and whose lives he had treated as if they were his own insensible possessions. Of his genius, his transcendent qualities, I have no doubt; but what is one to make of genius which expresses itself in utter indifference to the sufferings it imposes on mankind? Yet, if I encountered a Napoleon, two hundred years back in time, would I not have been so dazzled by the glamour of his achievements, extraordinary as they were, as to be blind to the cost? Is there, I wonder now, any difference between what the Emperor demanded of the French and what Prince Charles Edward called for from his Highlanders; and did not the Prince bring ruin on them as Napoleon did on all Europe?
And have I been guilty, by means of my writings, of encouraging men to see the glory of war, and to forget its price?
That is a thought I find painful to entertain.
I trust that the price has always been implicit in what I have written. At any rate I believe I have never concealed the manner in which commitment to a cause, leading as it so often does to fanaticism, is used by men to justify the most barbarous cruelties, and indifference to the tender and natural impulses of humanity. And how much worse it is when men are driven by a conviction of their own utter righteousness, as the most extreme and loathsome of the Covenanters were. How closely nobility and virtue may be joined with a repellent harshness! I have often observed that men rarely act so vilely as when they are buoyed up by the conviction that the Lord, or destiny – which is perhaps another name for the same idea – is guiding them. In like manner, Liberty has so often been made the pretext for crushing its own best and most ingenuous supporters, that I am always prepared to expect the most tyrannical proceedings from those who boast themselves democrats – aye, and the most cruel persecutions from those who claim liberty for their own tender conscience. The vilest deeds are often performed by those who profess the most noble purposes, and it is one of the most wretched features of our existence that it is so much easier to inflict pain than to create pleasure; moreover, the infliction of pain, if presented as a duty executed in deference to some high ideal, easily becomes a pleasure in itself. The witch-finders enjoyed hunting their wretched victims – and so did the Spanish inquisitors; and their consciousness of their own virtue gave an irresistible zest to the enterprise, like the touch of vinegar a salad requires.
When we arrived in Paris we lodged at the Hotel de Bourbon by the Tuileries. We found the city one great garrison of foreign troops, where challenges were issued by soldiers on guard duty in a dozen languages at least. The sight of our British troops caused me to reflect that not since 1436 when the armies of Henry VI withdrew from Paris had an English drum been heard in the city.
We were fortunate to have the good services of the distinguished traveller and archaeologist, M. Jean-Baptiste le Chevalier, who, I was pleased to discover, retained many happy memories of the long visit he had made to Edinburgh as a travelling tutor in the years before the war, when he had been on friendly terms with Professor Dugald Stewart and Professor Andrew Dalzell, both of whom had been so unfortunate as to be required to instruct me. Under his amiable guidance we surveyed the magnificent galleries of the Louvre, where Napoleon had collected artistic spoils from all Europe. These works of art were now as was proper to be restored to their rightful owners, but I was grateful to the defeated Emperor for having made it possible for me to see such a remarkable collection. Nothing impressed me more than a Romantic masterpiece by the great Neapolitan painter Salvator Rosa; it was entitled The Witch of Endor, and its sulphurous gloom was magnificently picturesque.
The mood in the French capital was uneasy. One could not but be aware of the resentful shame of a proud nation, so long accustomed to glory, now crushed beneath the heel of its enemies. The conviction that the Bourbon king was being restored by allied arms against the wishes of his subjects was too pervasive to be ignored, and boded ill for the restored dynasty. Meanwhile, many who had suffered in the Royalist cause expressed their indignation at the retention of those whom they considered traitors, such as M. de Talleyrand and even more conspicuously the police chief and former Terrorist, Fouche, whom Napoleon had created Duke of Otranto. His presence in the ministry must offend sensitive nostrils; yet it was justified, if only because none knew better where the bodies were hidden. I did not believe however that he would long hold his post, once the King was firmly back on the throne; and this indeed proved to be the case.
I was honoured to be presented to the Duke of Wellington. The Duchess of Buccleuch had kindly furnished me with a letter of introduction, but since I spent much time in Paris in the company of one of his bravest officers, General Sir John Malcolm, the letter was scarcely necessary, though this did not diminish my gratitude to the Duchess. Of Wellington, concerning whom I have already written in this memoir, it is here sufficient to say that he was as remarkable as I expected, and that his outstanding quality was his complete self-possession. He seemed to me to offer an exc
ellent illustration of the truth that men of genius are not only fit but much fitter for the business of the world than those less gifted, providing always that they will give their talents fair play by curbing them with application. I was never in the company of a man with such a noticing eye and such sound judgement. He treated me with a kindness and consideration which I regard as the highest distinction ever conferred on me.
At a dinner of Lord Cathcart’s I was also introduced to the Czar Alexander. It so happened that I was wearing the blue-and-red uniform of the Selkirkshire Lieutenancy, and, seeing my lameness, the Czar’s first question, delivered in a very elegant French, was in what action I had been wounded. I replied that my lameness was the result of a natural infirmity.
‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I thought Lord Cathcart mentioned that you have served.’
Seeing that the Earl looked somewhat embarrassed, I felt I could not deny the matter.
‘Yes, indeed, Your Majesty,’ I said, ‘I have served, in a manner of speaking, but only in the yeomanry cavalry, which is a home force, resembling the Prussian Landswehr.’
‘Under what commander?’ he asked, this no doubt being the stock response of royalty to such an admission.
‘Under M. le Chevalier Rae,’ I said, wondering if my old friend would recognize himself under such a designation.
‘Were you ever engaged in action?’ was the next question, strengthening my suspicion that conversation with royalty generally must consist of question-and-answer sessions.
‘In some slight actions. Sire,’ I said, keeping a straight face with the more difficulty when I saw Lord Cathcart ready to break into a fit of Homeric laughter. ‘Such as the Battle of the Cross-Causeway and a skirmish at Moredun-Mill.’
Fortunately, before his Imperial Highness could probe further, and perhaps demand of me which enemy forces had been engaged there – an honest answer to which would have surprised him, I fear, and lowered me still further in his estimation – he was apprised that another was waiting to be introduced, and I was dismissed.
It would be absurd on such a brief acquaintance to pretend to have acquired any sense of the Czar’s complicated and difficult character, which was to give rise to wild speculation on the occasion of his sudden death some ten years later; but watching him through the evening, I had the sense of a man of fine sensibility unhappy in the role he was compelled to play. I was aware of course that, like our own James IV, he was reputed to be racked with guilt for the supine (at best) part that he had played in acquiescing in the assassination of his father, the Czar Paul; and I had the impression of a haunted spirit. My knowledge, too, of how he had been first dazzled, then – as it were – seduced, and finally revolted by Napoleon added to the interest with which I observed him.
A few nights later I dined with Lord Castlereagh and the Duke’s aide-de-camp Colonel Stanhope. The talk turned on the Czar – ‘the imperial dandy’, as Stanhope called him. I remarked on the impression I had taken away, and said that he looked like a man who had not only seen a ghost, but lived with one.
‘I should not be surprised,’ Castlereagh replied. ‘The Czar is possessed of a most delicate sensibility. Besides, we all know that such things exist. I must tell you, Mr Scott, that I have encountered a wandering spectre, in a house in County Limerick where I was stationed as a young officer.’
The account he gave of his supernatural experience was not in itself remarkable, for I have heard countless such stories from the old men and women of Selkirkshire, but it was remarkable coming from a man celebrated for his good sense, and sometimes censured for his lack of imagination. Yet I had no doubt that he placed an absolute trust in the authenticity of his experience.
My surprise redoubled when Colonel Stanhope, with an apologetic cough, confessed that he too had seen a ghost, which investigation proved could not have been a natural occurrence.
Like Castlereagh, Colonel Stanhope died some years later by his own hand. They were both men of sound sense and credibility; I tremble when any friend relates visionary experiences of this kind, and even more so at the thought that I have undergone such myself in recent years.
Curiously, the morning after this supper-party, when their confessions were fresh in my mind, M. le Chevalier asked me if I had ever heard that Napoleon was said to be haunted by a familiar spirit described only as ‘l’Homme Rouge’. ‘It is reported that it appeared to him at Vilna,’ M. le Chevalier said, ‘to warn him against the projected invasion of Russia, and also, they say, before Waterloo. For my part, I am sceptical, not, you understand, mon cher Scott, that I assert that there are no such beings, but that I question the way in which they are so often said to appear to men of power to warn them against a particular course of action. I believe it is certain that they are reported only subsequent to the disaster which they are said to have predicted.’ This is undoubtedly true, and I made use of this idea in The Bride of Lammermoor; yet I felt it uncanny that, in writing Waverley only the previous year, I had supplied Fergus MacIvor with such a spirit, the ‘grey spectre’ which appeared to him on the eve of the battle which was to lead to his capture and execution at Carlisle. But it is one thing to do that in fiction for a Gaelic chief, another to believe it of a man like Napoleon.
It was evident even in my month in Paris so soon after his defeat that he was already receding into legend and myth, a process which has since gone very much further with the poems of Beranger and the memoirs of his time in St Helena. But even then I recall a conversation after the execution of General la Badoyère for treason. One lady talked of this as un horreur, an atrocity unparalleled in the annals of France.
‘Did Bonaparte never order such executions?’ I asked.
‘The Emperor? Never,’ was the emphatic reply.
‘But what of the shooting of the Duc d’Enghien at Vincennes, Madam?’
‘Ah! Parlez-moi d’Adam et d’Eve.’
So soon can iniquity be swept aside when partisan feelings are aroused.
Every step we took in Paris seemed alive with historical association. We visited the site of the old Temple, where the unfortunate Louis XVI and his Queen were imprisoned in the months before their execution. Our guide there gave further evidence of Napoleon’s superstition, for he asserted that the Emperor had ordered the Temple’s destruction on account of a presentiment that he himself might one day share the fate of the unfortunate Louis, a presentiment which, if he indeed felt it, he forestalled effectively enough by having the building pulled down.
Napoleon certainly in conversation generally affected to despise superstition, and was quick to mock it in others. Yet he had undoubtedly a share of it in his own bosom, and he had strange and visionary ideas concerning his own destiny. Well, I can scarcely reprove him, for while I would deny any such conviction myself, I have been aware more often than I would care to confess in conversation that, when I write with my greatest fluency, I feel myself to be in the possession of some being other than myself, over which I can exercise but little control.
Before leaving Paris we visited Malmaison, where the Empress Josephine had lived after her divorce, and died soon after Napoleon’s first abdication, and the Emperor’s own favourite residence of St-Cloud; its gardens so enchanted me that when, a few years later, I required a garden scene in Kenilworth, I drew partly on my memories of this afternoon passed there, and partly on the poetry of Tasso and Ariosto, which had delighted me since my youth.
It saddens me now to think of these days in Paris, though I have not found the actual re-creation of them painful. But the contrast between then and now is as stark as the two portraits which Hamlet compelled his mother to gaze upon, and does not bear consideration.
On our way through London, I had my last meeting with Byron, though I had no reason then to suppose we should not speak again. Young Gala was intoxicated by his beauty, though he deplored to me the bitterness which he discerned in his talk. It was true that though he listened with close attention to my account of our experiences, and took great inte
rest in all which I had to relate of Waterloo, he did not pretend to anything but disappointment at the restoration of the Bourbons, and could not share my unmixed pleasure in a feat of British arms which had led to such a conclusion. Yet the tenderness with which he spoke of his cousin, Major Howard, who had fallen there, spoke of his true nature; even more beautifully expressed in the lines of mourning for Howard in the third canto of Childe Harold.
Once, certainly, what might have been thought bitterness broke out. I recounted the story of a gallant officer who had been shot in the head while conveying a message to the Duke, and of how he had staggered on, completed his duty, and then fallen. Byron knew the young man – perhaps – I cannot now recall – they had been schoolfellows. ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed. ‘I daresay he would do as well as most people without his head – it was never of much use to him.’ This rather shocked young Gala, but seemed to me an expression of Byron’s refreshing freedom from cant. It also pleased me as calling to mind the remark of the old woman concerning the unfortunate Duke of Hamilton, executed by order of Cromwell after he had led the Engagers to defeat in Charles I’s cause at Preston: ‘Folks said his heid wasna a very gude ane, but for a’ that, it was a sair loss to him, puir gentleman.’
‘And I suppose, in truth that could be said of any of us,’ Byron smiled. ‘I know there have been occasions when I would willingly have stopped the working of my head, even if I had left it on my shoulders; but I suppose I would have regretted even that.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘regrets, fears and wishes are often fair mixed. Did you ever hear the story of the auld wife at Carlisle in the Prince’s year? When the Jacobites descended on the town, the word went round that they were no better than savage barbarians – as bad as the Cossacks, we might say now – and that the town would be given over to looting and rapine. So the auld wife locked herself safe in her chamber. But time passed and nothing happened. So, at last, she pops her head out of the window and cries out, “Pray, tell me, when is the ravishing to begin?” ’
