Chapter XI: Book THREE: The River (2)

“You dare to threaten me?” he exclaims—this time “with a terrible voice.” But upon receiving a matter-of-fact answer, he is calm once more. The noble emissaries retire in disgust, having achieved nothing, having been perplexed by his foreign accent, and by the impetuous imagination, which leads him to complicate the issues to such an extent that it is often hard to follow his meaning.

None the less, the Consul induces a great many of the émigrés to return, disarming their hostility by making suitable provision for them. Forty thousand families promptly come back. At the same time, he negotiates with the Jacobins, although these, “with their metaphysics, are enough to ruin twenty governments.” He feels sure of the support of those who follow the middle courses of democracy, for the democratic masses feel safe under his rule, now that Paris is no longer a sort of civilian camp, and now that (a benevolent despot) he is doing all in his power to bring better times.

Consider these instructions issued to various authorities:

“If the cold should be sharp, as it was in 1789, you must have fires kept alight in the churches and market-places, so that as many people as possible can warm themselves.”—“The winter is very severe, meat is dear, we must provide work in Paris. Get on with the cutting of the Ourcq canal, with the construction of the Quai Desaix, with the paving of the back streets.”—“The law directs that all beggars shall be laid by the heels. Were we to do nothing more than this, our conduct would be barbarous and absurd. Arrest them, certainly, that you may give them work and food. We must have several homes of refuge in every department.”—“There are a great many out-of-work shoemakers, hatters, tailors, and saddlers. See to it that five hundred pairs of shoes are made every day.” He writes to the Minister for War saying that special orders for supplies for the artillery are to be issued. To the Minister for Home Affairs: “We must provide work, especially this month before the holidays. Issue an order that in May and June two thousand of the Saint Antoine workmen are to supply chairs, chests of drawers, armchairs, etc.... Send me your proposals to-morrow, so that a beginning may be made promptly.”

He reads a by-law that no one wearing a workman’s blouse is to walk through the Tuileries garden. Instantly he has the regulation cancelled, and gives express permission for such people to go through. He learns of a proposal to close the public reading-rooms: “I won’t allow anything of the kind. I have not forgotten my own experience, how useful it was to know of a well-warmed room where I could read the newspapers and recent pamphlets. I will not allow others who are as poor as I was then to be robbed of these comforts.” In the Théâtre Français, the stalls are to be very cheap on Sundays, “so that the people may enjoy the performance.” There are to be no gambling hells in France: “They bring families to ruin, and I should set a bad example were I to tolerate them.”

By his new education law, he establishes public elementary schools, middle schools, lycées, and technical colleges, throughout the country. There are to be six thousand free scholarships, and a third of these are to be reserved for the sons of specially deserving persons. Within three years, there are 4,500 elementary schools, 750 middle schools, and 45 lycées. He honours the Institute by choosing a third of his first senators from among its members. The Ministry for Home Affairs is instructed to draw up lists “of the ten best painters, sculptors, composers, musicians, architects, and other artists whose talents make them worthy of support.” He orders great frescoes to be painted, which shall depict striking incidents in his battles. He gives his reasons for this State regulation of art, saying: “People complain that we have no literature. That is the fault of the Minister for Home Affairs!”

But if he tranquillises persons of all occupations by bringing them prosperity, what opening will be left, in this nation of the ambitious, for the pursuit of fame? If there is to be no war and no court life, where will the French find an outlet for their vanity? He answers this question by founding the Legion of Honour.

The Legion will form a group of stalwart supporters, for those who have taken a solemn oath to resist any attempt at the restoration of the feudalist regime will not be so likely to side against Bonaparte. Besides, it is not to be merely an officers’ club, inasmuch as the aim is to provide distinctions for all who do good service. He therefore appoints a natural philosopher to the office of arch-chancellor; and when, in the Council of State, a warning reference is made to the kinship between these orders of distinction and the abuses which have been swept away, he answers with perfect seriousness:

“I doubt if there has ever been a republic without such distinctions. You declare that they are toys for children. Well, grown men are led by toys. I would not say that from a rostrum, but in a council of sages and statesmen I can speak my mind. I do not think that the French love liberty and equality; they have not been changed by ten years of revolution; they are what the Gauls were, fierce and fickle. They are accessible to only one sentiment, the love of honour. That is why we must have distinctions.... Soldiers must be allured by fame and pay.... Here is a new kind of money assessed at a different valuation from current coin. Its source is inexhaustible. With no other kind of money, is it possible to reward actions which are so sublime that they cannot be valued in current coin.” In these notable words, we hear the rippling of the three fountains of his soul: contempt for mankind, understanding of the masses, and the critical aloofness of the foreigner who has chosen a new fatherland.

IV

On Christmas Eve, 1800, the Consul was driving to the opera. Josephine and her daughter were following in another carriage. In a narrow street an empty cart partially blocked the way, and caused a halt. The cart was pushed aside, and the coachman whipped up his horses. The instant after the carriage had passed, an infernal machine hidden in the cart exploded. About twenty persons were killed, but no one in either Napoleon’s or Josephine’s carriage was hurt. On reaching the opera, Napoleon went straight to his box. When his wife arrived, he said calmly: “Josephine, those rascals wanted to blow me up; send for a copy of the music.” Outwardly unmoved, he listened to the performance of Haydn’s recent work, _Creation_.

Ordinarily, good music made him forget all his schemes; but this evening his brain was busily at work, pondering the causes and foreseeing the consequences of the attempt on his life. It mattered little who “the rascals” were, revolutionaries of the left or revolutionaries of the right. He knew well enough that he had plenty of enemies on both sides. The question was, whether it would suit him best to assume that his would-be assassins belonged to the right or to the left. His mind was soon made up on this point. Had the attempt been successful, the consequences for France would have been immeasurably great. Well, the consequences of the unsuccessful attempt should be no less momentous. It was a lucky chance, and he would make it solve the problem of personal power.

Next morning, when people came to offer congratulations on his escape, and when all were agreed in the opinion that the outrage must have been planned by the royalists, with assumed heat Napoleon declared they were absolutely mistaken. “This was the work of Septembrists, intellectuals, the non-commissioned officers of the revolution—persons with a bolder imagination and more culture than the masses, but in close touch with them, and always ready to spur on the workers!” When, in the Council of State, a proposal was made to institute special proceedings, Bonaparte objected on the ground that the method would be too slow. His speech was impassioned:

“Either we must do nothing at all, and, like Augustus, forgive the sinners; or else we must act promptly, take far-reaching steps which will guarantee social order once for all.... No ordinary criminal procedure will suffice; this is a matter for statesmanship.... Blood must flow. As many of the guilty must be shot as there perished innocent persons in the streets. Two hundred of these raging wolves must be seized and transported. They are always watching and waiting for their prey. All our troubles are due to these metaphysicians!”

Old Tronchet shakes his head. The attempt had been the work of émigrés and Englishmen.

“Are you proposing that I should transport noblemen or priests?” asked Napoleon angrily. “Vendée is quiet, and I do not want to banish the servants of the most widely spread religion in the world. I shall have to dismiss all the members of the Council of State, for, with two or three exceptions, every one of you believes in this fable of a royalist plot.... Do you think me a child? Am I to say that the country is in danger? Has France ever been in better case since the revolution, the army more victorious, the country more peaceful? A pretty thing that men who have never been among the true friends of liberty, should now display so much concern for liberty! Do not think to excuse yourselves by saying: ‘I defended the patriots in the Council of State.’ That might go down in a drawing-room, but it will not go down here, among the most enlightened men in France!” He abruptly closes the sitting. Do the councillors understand his drift?

These alarums and excursions are not the outcome of any sense of personal danger, for if that were his motive, if his own alarmed will-to-live were at work, he would seek out the real offenders as object for vengeance. The whole scene was statecraft. Whom can we frighten here at home? Whom can we pacify across the frontier? That is what the Consul is asking himself. Those are the considerations that guide his actions. Of course, there is a personal motive as well. He thinks that his own safety can best be guarded by draconian measures. “I did not sleep well o’ nights,” he said at a later date, “until I had had these leaders of the great towns sent across the seas. I was not afraid of the sort of conspirator who gets up at nine o’clock in the morning and puts on a clean shirt!”

At the same time, he is infuriated by an anonymous pamphlet, “Cæsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte,” in which the writer advocates the establishment of a hereditary monarchy. Who is daring to disclose his own secret thoughts, even though the indiscreet pamphleteer is a sympathiser? When one of his confidants says that the only thing wrong with the pamphlet is that the disclosure is premature, Bonaparte lets the observation pass. But these two attempts, the attack on his body and the attack on his mind, have terrible consequences as far as freedom is concerned. The Tribunate and the Chambers are purged of a fifth of their numbers, Constant, Chénier, and other noted democrats being excluded; sixty-one out of seventy-three newspapers are suppressed; pamphlets and plays are subjected to a censorship. When the Council of State reminds him of the freedom of the press, he answers: “Do you think that, in such a situation, we can allow public meetings?... And is not every journalist an orator? Do not the subscribers to his newspaper really form a club? Calumny is like an oil spot, which always leaves traces.... In England it is different; there the Government is old-established; here it is new. People would write worse things about me day by day; saying, for instance, that I am so afraid of being poisoned that I dare not eat!... The only way of keeping the political parties in check is to deprive them of their battle-ground.”

Sound reasoning, appropriate measures. But the spirit of free thought stands weeping at the door; her fascinated gaze is fixed upon power enthroned.

V

The man who was certainly in part responsible for the before-mentioned pamphlet, perhaps its author, the man who had thus inflicted a grave injury upon the First Consul, was the very man who had been his main buttress on the Eighteenth Brumaire, and who had saved the situation that day—Brother Lucien. The most gifted of Napoleon’s four brothers, six years younger than the Consul, scaling the heights of ambition at an even earlier age than his great brother, though helped in his upward progress by that brother’s prestige, Lucien coveted the highest for himself. To stand in the shadow of Napoleon’s great name, to be under his protection, and even to be the object of his love—these were more galling to Lucien than Napoleon’s disfavour in later days. He never forgot the incidents of the coup d’état. He had been the king-maker. How, then, could he obey the man whom he had raised to the throne?

(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)]

Needs must, however. Shortly after Brumaire, he becomes Minister for Home Affairs, a mere instrument of the master brain. Is it not natural that he should critically examine all that comes to him from the chief, wondering whether he can make a better job? Hostile to Josephine, he is hostile to her confidants. This brings him into conflict with Fouché, who is always ready to blame the Minister for Home Affairs for anything untoward, like the publication of the pamphlet.

By temperament, Lucien was as unscrupulous and amoral as his brother. Though very like his brother, he lacked the boldly calculating brain, and may even be said to have had semi-criminal traits beneath his smiling exterior. A Napoleon, like the other, but one degree more adventurer and several degrees less statesman. At twenty-five years of age, Lucien was powerful and yet embittered, his audacious spirit urging him to more and yet more hazardous adventures. His first wife was an innkeeper’s daughter; he sold monopolies; speculated in grain; lived beyond his means, instead of setting to work; bought the finest house in Paris, furnished it sumptuously, rebuilt it, and refurnished it; gave splendid banquets, indulged in amateur theatricals, wrote verses. All these extravagances were undertaken in the half-conscious desire to eclipse his brother.

Between two such men, in such a relationship, how can a breach be avoided! Lucien taunts the Consul, saying that he, Lucien, had won the victory on the Nineteenth Brumaire. In the first flush of his wrath, Napoleon has it in mind to banish Lucien; but, in the end, he is content to deprive the young man of ministerial office. This will put a term to the monetary scandals attaching to Lucien’s abuse of his position. Lucien goes to Madrid as envoy. His ability in this new post enables him to work successfully against England, and also to divert the flow of a good many millions into his own pockets. Being now a widower, he soon returns, and marries his lady love, a beauty whose reputation is of the same sort as Josephine’s in earlier days. The First Consul is furious, for he has been working to promote a marriage that would have brought political advantages.

Joseph, too, man of the world and good fellow, is inclining to join the ranks of the sceptics, now that, with his brother’s aid, he has risen to wealth and power; he frequents Madame de Staël’s circle, and speaks critically of the Consul. He is no longer content with the position of envoy in Rome, refuses the presidency of the Italian Republic and the chancellorship of the Senate; cannot forget that he is the eldest; looks upon himself as head of the family.

Louis still vacillates, the poet in his temperament taking charge from time to time. For years he is in love with one of Josephine’s relatives, and has no affection for Hortense, whom he is forced to marry. Years afterwards he will sing the love of his heart.

Jerome, the youngest, good-natured and frivolous, is brought up by his brother with paternal strictness. “I send you Citizen Jerome Bonaparte, who is to serve as a midshipman. As you know, he must be kept under strict discipline. See to it that he fulfils all his duties.”

His sisters, again; he has loaded them with money and honours, but they give him little thanks, and are incessant in their demands for more. There is Elise! She and Lucien, her favourite brother, vie with one another in escapades that are the talk of Paris. At amateur theatricals, they disport themselves in pink tights, and the Consul thunders: “Disgraceful behaviour! While I am wearing myself out trying to make people moral and respectable once more, my brother and my sister appear before the footlights almost naked!” But as soon as his back is turned, they laugh merrily, and follow their own bent.

Caroline, who has married General Murat, is already involving her husband and Bernadotte in intrigues against the Consul. The public learns nothing of these matters, but they come to Napoleon’s ears, and he says angrily that Murat deserves to be shot.

Pauline loses her husband in a colonial campaign. She does not regret the loss. By her second marriage, she becomes Princess Borghese in Rome. Her innocence is no more than a cynical pose, but her brother remains fonder of her than of any of the others. Even when the looseness of her life imperils his reputation, and he thinks it necessary to remonstrate, he words his remonstrances cautiously.

Uncle Fesch, at first a priest, and then an army contractor, now enters political life and resumes the clerical habit. Napoleon secures his appointment as archbishop and then as cardinal. All the Bonapartes exploit the man of power, that they may win money and position, lead a splendid life, and enjoy themselves, whereas in his life of superhuman toil there is little scope for pleasure.

Only his mother continues to hold aloof. Although she is not better pleased with Josephine now than formerly, although she is still the woman of Corsica and continues to talk an island dialect, he invites her, immediately after the coup d’état, to come and live with him in the Tuileries. She refuses, prefers to stay with Joseph. At the first great parade he holds in the courtyard of the palace, when she appears on the balcony among the highest State officials, she is very simply dressed, all in black, and yet looks prouder than Josephine, hard by, decked out in peacock array. Letizia mistrusts all this splendour, being now inured to the vicissitudes of life. When any one tries to flatter her by speaking of her son’s greatness and power, she sagely answers, in her Italian French: “Pourvou que cela doure.”

What is the source of these family dramas, some of which will end in farce, others in tragedy?

In Napoleon’s heart, had he been nothing more than a parvenu of the familiar type, he would, when pressed by his nearest and dearest for a share in his good fortune, graciously or ungraciously, but infallibly, have kept this dozen or so of men and women far from his circle of influence, for he would have been fain to conceal an origin which conflicted with his affectation of French nationalism. He is dictator of France, and yet every time his mother opens her mouth she reminds all the nationalists of his foreign birth. Here is the sister of a man who ranks with kings, and she plays the maddest pranks before the eyes of the monarchs of Europe, who naturally delight in pointing the finger of scorn at the ill-breeding of the upstart’s relatives. His brothers wallow in the practice of corrupt methods which it was a primary aim of the revolution to abolish. All this occurs in Paris, where irony has ever been the fundamental tone of criticism!

Yet he does not merely tolerate these embarrassing kinsfolk; he is continually showering honours on them, promoting them to high office, making them his representatives abroad.

Herein we see the working of his Italian blood, and, above all, of his island upbringing. Every Corsican family, patriarchal by tradition, is clannish to the core, while filled with sentiments of hatred and vengefulness towards the rival houses of the puny isle. Such traditions are older than those of many of the royal families, and as a result of them the urge towards the gratification of pride and towards the vindication of honour is more powerful than the desire for wealth. With this inborn clannishness is associated and intertwined the intense longing of a conqueror to preserve for the heirs of his body all that he has snatched for himself by the strength of his genius and through the favour of fortune. Nevertheless, destiny (tragical in its working, being conditioned by his innermost sentiments, and therefore inexorable) has made this man childless. The wife, into whose arms he has been driven by all the passion of love, the wife who has borne two healthy children in previous marriage, remains barren in her second union; and the infirmity of barrenness, but for which the history of Europe would have taken a different turn, is obviously a consequence of her devotion to the art of love, of the facile amorousness with which she won Bonaparte’s affection and held him for a time in thrall. For, when she first met him, she was little over thirty; and, as for him, in subsequent relationships with other women, he was able to procreate three sons. He urgently needs a legitimate heir. Even an heiress would serve his turn. There can be no doubt that Josephine’s failure to satisfy him in this crucial instance had a decisive effect on his plans.

In view of the plenitude of his powers, how could it be otherwise? During the first years of his rise, Roederer propounds the great theme: “The royalists are saying: ‘Who will be Bonaparte’s successor!’ If you die to-morrow, what will happen to us? You must nominate your successor.”

“What you suggest would not be a strong policy.”

“France would be more at ease if she knew who was to succeed you.”

“I have no children.”

“You could adopt one.”

“That would not meet the difficulties of the moment. I can see no other way out than that the Senate should appoint my successor. Only three of the senators and myself should know his name. But who is it to be?”

“They had better choose a lad of twelve.”

“Why do you want him to be a child?”

“A boy who can grow up in your school; one whom you can train and love.”

At length the Consul, driven into a corner, exclaims: “My natural heir is the French people.”

The man who speaks is not old. He is little more than thirty. Though he is appointed dictator for ten years only, he plainly foresees that he will be monarch. But he is already alarmed by the dangers of the position. When he looks round in search of an heir, his only hope is in his brothers. The best return they can make for the gifts he showers on them is that they should raise up heirs to his name, heirs who will at least have the advantage of Bonapartist blood. That is why Napoleon is so furious with Lucien, not because he has taken a wife with a bad name, but because he has taken a wife with no name. Lucien must get a divorce, and thus win freedom to marry a woman of royal blood.

Lucien refuses, quite as much owing to spite for his all-powerful brother as owing to affection for his wife. He is, indeed, fond of her; but he is so ambitious that he would sacrifice anything in the world for the sake of supreme power. After a stormy scene between the pair, Bonaparte comes into Josephine’s room, and his voice is shaken with emotion as he says: “It is all over! I have given Lucien his dismissal.”

Similar considerations explain the long-lasting quarrel with Louis, to whom Josephine looks for the salvation of her own line. He cannot endure Josephine’s daughter Hortense, who reciprocates the dislike and loves another man. Josephine, however, forces her to marry Louis, and the son of this ill-assorted union becomes Napoleon’s darling, and is looked upon as likely to be the heir. Thereupon, his sisters begin to intrigue, spreading abroad the report that Napoleon is really the father. Through these disputes, the unity of the family is shattered, at the very time when Europe envies it for its good fortune. Letizia sides with the young people who have been forced into a marriage; and also espouses the cause of the ostracised Lucien, whom she follows to Rome. There she can live happily, far from the glowing star that has sprung from her womb. There she can live as an Italian, a wealthy and respected associate of Rome’s leading families, and treated by the pope with all the honours due to a woman of royal blood.

What if Bonaparte were to divorce Josephine? His sisters, who hate “the old woman,” do what they can, and trot attractive beauties up and down in full view. As Josephine grows older, Napoleon’s relations with her become more tranquil, but he needs her friendship. He has ceased to be fastidious and has transient love affairs with one pretty actress after another, or makes this or that companion of his sisters the mistress of a few evenings or a night or two.

Georges, who, like all the rest, is afraid of him, describes him as “an amiable and considerate man,” who plays hide and seek with her, helps her to undress, and bends to her “childish caprices.” Since her Christian name is Josephine, he refuses to call her by it, and invents for her an Italian name. She is Giorgina. He asks her to tell him her own story, listens attentively, and nods approvingly—for he has taken care to learn all about her, and is pleased that she tells him the truth.

Sometimes the Consul’s servants catch sight of him in the evening, as, in his stockinged feet, he steals up a secret winding staircase to visit the lovely Duchatel. She is gentle, slender, and blonde—the type he prefers. Duchatel is one of Josephine’s ladies-in-waiting. He likes to play cards with her sometimes, talking to her in an undertone about matters of love, while the uneasy Josephine, at another card table, strains her ears to catch what he is saying. The lady-in-waiting retires. Napoleon follows, to find her in the place of assignation. His wife, beside herself, pursues them, rattles the door-handle. Napoleon comes to the door in a rage. Next day he threatens her with divorce, but he is softened by her tears.

These amours are but occasional. He is always up to the eyes in work. Besides, he has made up his mind to avoid what has proved disastrous to so many kings. He will not squander his resources on inamoratas, and he will not allow them to interfere in matters of State. As regards affairs of love, he is prematurely old. It is with a sense of shock that we find this man of thirty writing in a letter to a friend: “My old heart, which now knows human beings for what they are....”

Josephine is racked with anxiety about his conduct, just as formerly he was racked with anxiety about hers. She relies on dresses, hats, the arts of the toilet; spends more than the late queen of France; and has still so little reticence that, though she is the first lady in the land, she cannot refrain from telling her maid when the Consul has spent the night with her. He forgives her much. Sometimes she sits at the weary man’s bedside, reading to him in her lovely alto voice. He thanks her with his eyes. He is conservatively inclined, this man of the revolution. Rarely does he part with a general, dismiss an official. How, then, shall he divorce this woman whom he loves, despite her faults?

In the pleasant gardens at Malmaison, where during his year’s absence in Egypt she lived with her light-of-love, Hippolyte, he runs races with Bourrienne, Rapp, and a few men of letters, while Eugene and Hortense look on. When he trips and falls, he joins merrily in the others’ laughter. Then he gets into his carriage for the drive to Paris, saying:

“Now I can put my head in the collar once more.”

VI

“Bonaparte very seldom writes with his own hand. He dictates everything, while walking up and down his study; dictates to a young man of twenty named Méneval, the only one who has the entry to this study and the three other rooms of the private suite. No use approaching Méneval; nothing to hope in that quarter; indeed, no one would dare to try. But the First Consul himself jots down the memoranda that relate to his most important plans. This ... very special map, he locks up with his own hand, and always carries the key about with him. If he leaves his study, Méneval has to put the map away in a cupboard screwed to the floor. Of course the map might be stolen, but it would instantly be missed. Suspicion would at once fall upon Méneval and the underling, who cleans the study and lights the fire, so the underling would have to make a bolt for it.... All the secret memoranda concerning his military operations must be in it, and since the only way of overthrowing his power would be to destroy his plans, the theft of this map would bring everything to naught.”

Who writes the foregoing? A Bourbon spy? Or is it a traitor among the Consul’s intimates?

Neither the one nor the other. The young man of twenty named Méneval writes it; and it is dictated to him by his chief, the First Consul, who is walking up and down the study. Acting on Bonaparte’s orders, the Minister for Justice is sending a provocative agent to Munich, where the man is to get in touch with English agents of the Bourbons. The letter is to be part of the outfit. Many other details are given. We are told more about the royalist menial who cleans the study and lights the fire; what this fellow will get if he brings off the coup successfully; where he will spend the night during his escape. The commander is drafting the plan of a little campaign directed against himself.

He has good reason to be on his guard. Uneasy winter weeks are these, during which he collates the data sent in by a hundred spies in London, Vendée, and Paris itself. “Has the time come to strike?” his agents are continually asking. “Wait,” he replies, and quietly goes on gathering information. At length he has all the proofs in his hands. His deadly enemies of the extreme right and the extreme left, the royalists and the Jacobins, have joined forces for the destruction of their great enemy. Pichegru, the friend of the Bourbons, and Moreau, the champion of the republicans who are opposed to the dictatorship, are working together. Both the generals are his rivals. Now is the time to strike.

When the plot became public property, alarm spread across Europe. The legitimate rulers were amazed at Napoleon’s perspicacity, but put their trust in his enemies, whose number must be greater than the “Moniteur” was willing to admit. The English ambassador compromised! The great Moreau in jail!—Bonaparte hesitates a long time before arresting Moreau, having high esteem for the man who had shared his laurels. On the day of the arrest, the Consul sends repeatedly for news. Is his memory at work? Less than four years ago, he himself had a scare that night in Talleyrand’s house when he believed his own arrest to be imminent! The trial is distressing; Moreau’s complicity is clearly proved; but Napoleon thinks it better to pardon the victor of Hohenlinden on condition of withdrawal to the United States. Pichegru is found strangled in prison. Thirteen of the conspirators are executed. A man named Querelle, personally involved in the conspiracy, reveals that one of the Bourbon princes has been privy to the plot.

The Consul lends an eager ear. A Bourbon prince! Talleyrand draws attention to the fact that for a long time the duke of Enghien has been living close to the Rhine frontier—presumably in order to watch through a telescope what is going on in France. Would a man spend his time thus inertly in Baden, simply in order to make love to a cardinal’s niece? The duke of Enghien is a scion of the house of Condé; he is a Bourbon, and is in English pay. Most likely he is the Bourbon prince incriminated in the affair. At any rate, he is in touch with the agents who swarm in South Germany. An example must be made of this suspect of the blood royal. That will put an end to the reiterated attempts on the part of the exiled Bourbons to disturb the peace of France and to trouble the sleep of its master!

In a lengthy despatch, the Consul orders an attack on the little Badenese town of Ettenheim, just across the Rhine. The number of boats and the soldiers’ rations are prescribed with as much care as if the expedition were the siege of Mantua. Three hundred dragoons make a raid into Baden and carry off the duke. Four days later, he is brought in secret to the fortress of Vincennes.

Two of Napoleon’s confidants warn the dictator that no compromising documents have been found among the duke of Enghien’s belongings. But Talleyrand, who has ever an eye to his own future, advises court martial and the severest measures, knowing that the moral reprobation thus aroused will, in the end, prove disastrous to Napoleon. Brother Joseph is alarmed at the same thought. He reminds Napoleon of the veneration they had shared for the great Condé during their cadet days; of the verses they had recited about the hero of the seventeenth century. Was the only remaining descendant of that famous man to be slaughtered?

“I have made up my mind to pardon him,” answers the Consul. “But that is not sufficient. I feel that I am strong enough to have him fighting on my side.”

Joseph returns home, able to reassure Madame de Staël and his other quests.

The duke, who was two years younger than Napoleon, and who would probably have won renown but for the peculiar political circumstances which had brought Napoleon fame and power, was tried by court martial the same evening. With a brave and knightly bearing, he faced the twelve staff officers who formed the court, while a member of the Council of State, acting as prosecutor, asked the questions that had been drafted by Napoleon.

“Did you never have any dealings with English agents?”—“No.”—“Was it not your intention, if Pichegru’s conspiracy had been successful, to cross the Rhine and invade Alsace?”—“No.”—“Have you been in receipt of an English pension?”—“Yes.”—“Did you wish to enter the English service?”—“Yes, in order to free my country.”—“This means that you placed yourself at England’s disposal in order to take up arms against France?”—“How can a Condé return to his homeland except under arms?”

A death sentence follows, and next day at dawn the duke of Enghien is shot.

In one respect the treatment of the duke of Enghien was definitely illegal. The French had no right to kidnap him in foreign territory and to bring him across the frontier. Once he was on French soil, there was legal warrant for condemning him to death as a person who (according to his own admission) desired by force of arms to overthrow the extant form of State. With the primary reservation regarding the French raid into Baden, of course absolutely indefensible, the condemnation was technically just.

Nevertheless, as Talleyrand subsequently said of the affair, it was worse than a crime—it was a blunder. In time of revolution, hundreds are put to death who are more innocent than was this prince. Even though he may not have been privy to the plot, he would have hailed with delight the assassination of the usurper, and would, sword in hand (to quote his own words), have joined in the march on Paris to take vengeance on any of the regicides who remained alive. There would have been very little said about the court martialling and shooting of this young officer, had he not been a Bourbon, had he not been a symbol of that prince-ridden Europe whose system had been ended on French soil by the revolution. The shooting of the duke of Enghien was a challenge to a dozen thrones, and to the many millions of Europeans who believed in rule by divine right. It gave the signal for a rallying of forces against the dictator who had had neither part nor lot in the reign of terror, and who during his seven years as military commander and as statesman had never committed an outrage.

The day after the execution, a few tongue-tied and crestfallen guests were seated at his board. Josephine was doing her best to hide her fears, and Napoleon had been taciturn despite his tumultuous thoughts. Then, suddenly, he broke out: “At any rate, they will know now what we can do. Henceforward, I hope, they will leave us in peace.” After dinner, he walked up and down the room, explaining to the silent listeners his reasons and what he thought of it all. Continuing to pace the room, he went on to speak movingly of genius, of statesmanship, and above all of Frederick the Great, for whom he had so profound an admiration:

“Ought a statesman to indulge in feelings? Is he not an isolated individual, always alone though always in company? Policy is his telescope, which must neither reduce things in size nor magnify them. Even while he is attentively watching the course of events, he must be pulling the strings which move them. Often enough, ill-matched horses are harnessed to his chariot. Do you think he can allow himself to heed some of those feelings which may in other respects be of great importance to the welfare of society?... How often he will have to do things which seem quite out of keeping with the whole!... Try to get outside the limitations of your own epoch, enlarge your imagination instead of being content merely to blame, and you will see that those great personalities you had regarded as violent and cruel, are nothing but statesmen! They know themselves better than others know them; they are the best judges of their own conduct; if they have true ability, they will even know how to control their passions, for they will be competent to calculate the precise effect of these.”

Suddenly breaking off this monologue, which discloses some of the deepest recesses of his soul, he sends for the documents bearing on the conspiracy and has them read over to him.

“You see,” he says, “we have incontrovertible proof that the conspirators wanted to spread disorder in France, and hoped, through killing me, to slay the revolution! It was my business to defend the revolution, to avenge it! The duke was a conspirator just like another, and had to be treated in the same way as the others.... The madmen seek to kill me, though they would gain nothing by it, for a gang of fanatical Jacobins would take my place.... These Bourbons! If they ever do regain power, I will wager that their first concern will be with etiquette. If they were prepared to share in the rough and tumble of the battle-field, with its blood and its grime!... But how can they expect to win back a kingdom with a letter dated from London and signed Louis? All the same, letters like that will incriminate incautious recipients.... I have shed blood; I had to. Perhaps I shall shed more in the future. But always without passion, quite simply, because blood-letting is indicated. I am a statesman: I am the French revolution, and shall know how to protect it!” Abruptly he dismisses his guests.

Such is his mood; such are his motives, his views, the undercurrents of his feelings. But his notable inferences are not yet disclosed.

VII

A week after the court-martialling of the duke of Enghien a committee of the Senate comes to see the Consul, with a very remarkable twofold request: for the establishment of a State tribunal and the foundation of a monarchy. This is a cautious improvisation, to test the current of popular opinion. Can anything be more logical, or simpler? To scare the terrorists, to safeguard the head of the State, two things are requisite, a State tribunal and an heir!

As with all the decisions of his life, so also this premature resolve to become an emperor is an outgrowth of circumstances. In none of the decisive moments of his career, do we find evidence that he had a definite scheme of life, which he systematically endeavoured to realise. When he first invaded Italy, it was not in search of the crown of Milan, and still less in search of the crown of France. But, as he winged his soaring flight, the natural sequence was that wider and ever wider vistas of land and sea should unfold themselves before his eyes. What happened, was a fulfilment of his own guiding principle: “He will not go far who knows from the first whither he is going.” Improvisation, which, in amazing fashion, characterises so much of his activity, merely deprives him of the nebular glory of the mystical hero. As far as details are concerned, it leaves him free to make exact preparations, while restoring to him, as a whole, a liberty and a guilelessness which strengthen his genius.

Was the desire to become emperor a mistake? What urged him towards the adoption of such a role?

First of all, the imaginative side of his nature, which for the second time is blinding the cold reason of the calculator. Thus was it in Egypt, and thus was it to be for a third time in Russia. His ideal drives him to take this step. He had grown to manhood amid dreams of the antique world; classical imagery had filled his mind; his dictatorial nature necessarily craved for the forms of Roman imperialism. A poetical temperament which makes him look upon the successive occurrences in his life as phases in the unrolling of a saga, and makes him feel, on the very evening after a battle has been won, that the battle has already passed into the realm of history; this engine, driven by the power of fantasy; this eye that looks upward and beyond to see how posterity will crown his deeds with fame—they need a symbol which no one has to-day, but which shone over Europe two thousand years ago.

Yet the mathematician in him also needs this symbol; the statesman needs it, that he may safeguard his country without perpetual wars. Lastly, and perhaps most passionately of all, the man with strong family attachments needs it; the man who feels he has won nothing, if what he has won be no more than an adventurer’s prize that will perish with the winner.

“The name of king is outworn. It carries with it a trail of obsolete ideas, and would make me nothing more than the heir of dead men’s glories. I do not wish to be dependent upon any predecessor. The title of emperor is greater than that of king. Its significance is not wholly explicable, and therefore it stimulates the imagination.” Here, in two or three sentences, are compendiously disclosed the impetuous and the hot, the cunning and the cold, motives of his soul.

Does he see the dangers, or does he overlook them? What are his antitoxins? “What is a throne? A piece of wood covered with satin!” When he has become emperor he will ask the question and answer it thus, more than once. But with this satin-covered piece of wood, as he knows, he can influence grown men, just as he could influence them with the toys of the Legion of Honour. Indeed, the glamour of the throne is stronger, and therefore he will take the establishment of his throne more seriously than he took the foundation of the Legion of Honour. It is an instrument of policy, a means for the management of men. In the real world, where no one can call familiar spirits to his aid, the private person, the poet or the philosopher, can raise his head heavenward without bearing the burden of a crown; but the statesman needs the insignia of power, for the dull populace cannot believe in the reality of power unless he who wields power wears the insignia.

Are we to suppose that he, who can calculate all eventualities, does not see the danger that lurks in the symbol of the crown? Does he not know that for thousands of years people have regarded the monarch as akin to God? If he is aware of this, how without disaster will he be able to harmonise the illusion with his political cynicism? If the crown is the gift of his genius, how can he bequeath it without bequeathing the genius?

Nevertheless, all his endeavours, like those of the emperors of ancient Rome, are now concentrated upon the bequest of power. He, whose own genius has taught him that genius is always aboriginal and primary; he who with his own eyes has seen hereditary power perish amid blood and grime, and whose inmost heart said aye to the act of regicide; he, who to-day reproaches the Bourbons, not with their origin, but with the cowardice that keeps them trembling in their mouseholes; he, Napoleon Bonaparte, who feels himself to be the one man of a millennium; he, a principle of whose rule it is to grant honour and wealth only to merit and courage and talent; he, who is the symbol of revolt incorporated in human flesh—believes that in the place he has fought and won for himself through the storms of eight years, he will be able to perpetuate his blood for the sole reason that it is his own!

He knows Plutarch and the story of the Cæsars. He has studied the history of the great kings of France and England and Prussia, and has learned to look with contempt upon their decadence. And yet he is ready and eager to restore the hereditary principle for the succession to this, the highest office in the State! Here, and here only, he wishes to combine the newest of the new with the old, so that, as he says later in a phrase both profound and tragical: “I might achieve that harmony which I regarded as essential for the tranquillity of the world, a solitary man, driven forward by the impetus of my own personality. That is why I dropped sheet-anchors everywhere.”

But side by side with these heroic words, which sufficed to class him with the heroes of Plutarch, were housed the simplest feelings of domestic life. For, when his confidant Roederer urged him to seek a new wife, who would bear him a son, Napoleon answered in great excitement:

“Hitherto I have always ruled justly. It might be to my interest to seek a divorce. But what right have I to put away a good wife merely because I have become a greater man than I was when we married? She would have followed me into exile or imprisonment. Now I am to divorce her? I am not strong enough to do that. A human heart beats in my bosom; my mother was not a tigress.” After Josephine’s death, he would be free to choose a new partner. But, as things are, what will be the best way of solving this problem of the succession? “My brothers, like myself, were born in petty circumstances, but they did not force themselves upwards unaided as I did. The man who is to rule France must either be born to greatness, or he must be one of those whose inborn strength enables them to distinguish themselves from the herd.”

In this last idea is implicit the disastrous error which in due time is to lead him to inevitable destruction.

For the nonce, however, all is done quietly and soberly, just as on two previous occasions. Wishing to be independent of the parties and to stand above them, he again demands a popular vote; and the very Frenchmen who twelve years earlier had destroyed, not only the king, but kingship, now re-establish both, doing this with even more enthusiasm than when, two years before, they had made Napoleon Consul for life. In a few days, everything is settled. First of all there are votes in the Chambers. In the Senate, only three adverse votes, those of personal enemies. In the Tribunate, Carnot is alone in recording his dissent, Carnot who admires Napoleon, but is a far-sighted devotee of the principle of freedom. The result of a plebiscite is overwhelmingly in favour of the adoption of the imperial title with hereditary succession. In May 1804, the new constitution is promulgated. It is short and businesslike, as if it were a mere paragraph modifying an old constitution.

He never affects to believe that his power has a mystical origin, or even that it really springs from the people. See him, a few days after he has been proclaimed Emperor, seated in a bow window one evening after dinner. He is astraddle on a chair, with his chin resting on the back. For a long time he is silent while Josephine and Madame de Rémusat are talking (the latter records the incident). Then he stands up, turns to Madame de Rémusat, and, after posing for a while as an easy-going and cheerful man of the world, of a sudden, with that free gesture which always amazed his associates and still amazes posterity, he tore off the veil, disclosed his motives, expounded his thoughts as if he had been writing a predecessor’s history:

“You were all very angry with me about the execution of the duke of Enghien. You seem still to be fond of traditional memories. My own memory goes back only to the time when I began to be something. What is a duke of Enghien to me? An émigré, more important than the others, and therefore one whom it is all the better to destroy.... Two years ago, power dropped into my hands in the most natural way in the world.... It is true that the duke compelled me to cut the crisis short. I had expected to carry on the Consulate for another two years, although its forms conflicted with the reality of things. France and I could have walked along arm-in-arm for a while longer, for France had confidence in me, and wanted everything that I wanted. But after this conspiracy, which was to set the Continent in motion, it was necessary to show Europe the error of her ways....

“The political parties I wished to conciliate, the royalists and the Jacobins, will not lose heart as long as they have somebody to dread. I realised, therefore, that no pact between them could be concluded, but that it would be possible to conclude one with them to my own advantage.... Now, they have been reduced to silence. Still opposed to me are the republicans, the cranks who believe that Europe will look on quietly while a republic is being established upon the ruins of a monarchy.... That is why I preferred the imperial dignity to a dictatorship, for in an empire people no longer feel that they are travelling in unmapped country....

“You will soon see what a lure court etiquette will exercise on the émigrés. The old familiar forms of address will win over the nobility.... You French love monarchy. It is the only form of government which really suits you. I will wager, Monsieur de Rémusat, that you feel a hundred times more at ease now that you call me ‘Sire’ and I address you as ‘Monsieur’.... Your vanity was always being bridled; the strictness of the republic would have bored you to death.... Liberty is no more than a pretext; equality is your hobby horse; the people are content to be ruled by a prince who comes from the army.... To-day, soldiers and people are on my side. A man who could not rule under such conditions would be an idiot.”

He broke off, resumed a formal demeanour, and gave Monsieur de Rémusat an order of no importance whatever in the dry tone of the absolute master.