Chapter XV: Book THREE: The River (6)

Lucien was now just thirty-two. It was on a December evening when he had reached the castle of Mantua, after a journey during which the dread of imprisonment, aroused by his brother’s summons, had been continually present to his mind. On entering a room extravagantly lighted by numerous candelabra, he was blinded for a moment by the glare. Then he heard Rustam’s voice announcing him: “Sire, your brother Lucien!”

The man to whom the announcement is made does not stir. He is seated at a large round table, which is covered by a huge map of Europe, the biggest Lucien has ever seen. Supporting his head on his left hand, with the other hand he is thrusting coloured pins into the map, pins which presumably represent army corps or whole armies. It is so many years since Lucien has seen his brother, and Napoleon has changed so much, that the visitor is not quite sure whether he is looking at the Emperor, and he remains motionless for several minutes. At length the man sits up, yawns, rubs his back against the chair, takes up a small bell from the table, and rings it with one strong movement. The visitor advances a step or two:

“Sire, I am Lucien.”

The Emperor jumps up from his chair, dismisses the servant, and takes his brother by the hand affectionately, though with a certain amount of reserve. Lucien feels called upon to embrace Napoleon, who does not repel the advance, but accepts it with a passive coldness, as if no longer used to such intimacies. Then, taking the visitor by the hand once more, he pushes Lucien gently away to scrutinise him the better:

“So it’s you, is it? How are you? How is your family? When did you leave Rome? Have you had a pleasant journey? What about the pope? How is he? Does he like you?”

(Photograph by Braun, Paris and Dornach.)]

Lucien notes the nervousness masked by this flood of questions, turns them off lightly, and says he is glad to find his brother in good health.

“Yes, I’m very well.” He pats his waistcoat, and adds: “I’m getting fat, and I’m afraid I shall get fatter still.” He looks keenly at Lucien, takes a pinch of snuff, and says: “As for you! Do you know that you are looking uncommonly well? You used to be rather too thin. Now, you are almost handsome.”

“Your Majesty is good enough to make fun of me.”

“No, no, it’s quite true. But let’s sit down and have a talk.” They seat themselves opposite the huge map, the Emperor fidgets with the pins, and Lucien waits for him to begin. But, since Napoleon does not open the ball, the younger man says, hesitatingly: “Sire....” At this moment, the Emperor sweeps all the pins flat, and says abruptly: “Well, what have you to say to me?”

Lucien replies that he hopes his brother has forgiven him.

“You can have my pardon soon enough. It depends entirely on yourself.”

Lucien expresses his willingness to do anything compatible with his honour.

“Well and good, but what sort of things will square with your honour?”

Lucien speaks of nature and religion.

“But politics, Sire; do politics mean nothing to you?”

Lucien demurs, saying that he has retired into private life.

“It rested entirely with yourself. You could have been a king just as well as your brothers.”

“Sire, my wife’s honour, my children’s position....”

“You keep on speaking of your wife, when you know perfectly well that she has never been your wife. Is not, and never will be, for I shall never recognise her.”

“Ah, Sire!”

“No, never, though the heavens should fall! Since you are my brother, I can forgive the wrong you have done me. But upon her my curse will rest!” There is a long tirade, until at length Lucien intervenes, laughing nervously, and saying:

“Moderate your words, Sire. There is a proverb: ‘La processione torna, dove esce,’” and Lucien thinks it expedient to add a French translation. When Napoleon continues to talk of his brother’s wife as a woman of bad reputation, and Lucien shows signs of taking offence, the Emperor tries to mollify him by admitting that these reports may be calumnious, but adds that nothing will induce him to recognise her. Besides, it is now a fundamental law, as firmly fixed as the Salic law, that no marriage in the Emperor’s family is valid without the Emperor’s consent. Lucien reminds him of the date of the marriage, and Napoleon answers: “Yes, but the law was passed because of what you had done!” This Napoleonic logic makes Lucien smile.

“What are you laughing at? I don’t see anything laughable in it! I know what you and your wife and my enemies say about the matter. You choose your friends from among my enemies. But no good Frenchman approves of what you have done. The only way in which you can regain popular esteem is by espousing my cause, like Jerome.”

Lucien, who is in the Emperor’s hands, has absolutely determined to let nothing affront him. But he is spurred into opposition, springs to his feet, and does not sit down again:

“Your Majesty is mistaken! When your courtiers approve your attitude towards me as thanks for the services I was so happy to render you, they are only acting after their kind. On my side, too, my servants tell me that I am right!”—At these words, Napoleon’s brow is furrowed, his eyes flash, and his nostrils work, “an unmistakable sign of rage in members of our family.” But Lucien has taken the bit between his teeth, and goes on: “What ought the nation to do for me? What gratitude does it owe me? It ought to look upon me as the saviour of the man who has saved it.... I am proud to think that it will rather be inclined to compare me with you than with Jerome. No, Sire, public opinion, which is mightier by far than all the kings in the world, assigns every one to his true place, whatever courtiers may say.”

Napoleon grows calmer. Instead of flying into a passion, as Lucien dreaded for a moment, he controls himself, and says quietly:

“Talleyrand is right. You speak of the affair with an ardour worthy of a political club. Such eloquence, Citoyen, is, believe me, long since out of fashion. I am well aware that you did me good service on the Nineteenth Brumaire; but as for having been my ‘saviour,’ of that proof is lacking. This much I remember clearly, that you disputed with me the unity of power which I needed for the saving of France, and that I and Joseph spent half a night before we could get you to pledge yourself to silence when these questions should be touched upon.... Finally, after the victory, you were inclined to oppose my personal elevation, and this conduct on your part releases me from all obligation to show gratitude.

“But you, do you owe me no gratitude? When you ‘saved’ me at Saint-Cloud, were not you yourself in mortal peril? I sent my grenadiers to save you from the hands of assassins. And if you, a bad brother, an unnatural brother, had really allowed that vote of my outlawry to be taken, do you imagine that I should have been such a fool as to accept the decree unresistingly? Had I not adherents enough, with God’s aid, to defend this head that was destined to wear so many crowns?” He goes on to speak for a whole hour of those days, and of Corsican compatriots who had helped him; suddenly gives the conversation an intimate turn; speaks of his generals and the extent of their devotion; refers to political conflicts in which the brothers had held divergent views, and shows how his view had been right. Then he changes the subject, saying abruptly:

“Enough. That is all ancient history, like your great day of the Nineteenth Brumaire. I did not summon you that we might deliver lectures to one another.” A long pause.

“Listen to me, Lucien, and weigh my words carefully, for, above all, let us avoid getting heated.... I am too powerful to have any desire to lose my temper. You have come to me trustfully. Corsican hospitality shall never be violated by the Emperor of the French. This virtue of our forefathers and fellow-countrymen is a guarantee for your absolute safety.” The Emperor strides up and down the hall for a long time, pulling himself together, and then turns to Lucien, whose hand he takes and presses:

“We are alone here. You see? We are alone. No one can overhear us. I am wrong about your marriage.... Knowing your wilfulness as I did, knowing your self-love—for everything, you know, depends on self-love, which regards itself as a virtue, just as we princes dignify by the name of policy everything which turns on our passions—I ought not to have interfered with your union. People slandered your wife to me, though some ventured to speak well of her, especially Mamma, who loves her, saying she makes you happy and is a good mother.... Lebrun, indeed, has sung her praises so often that Josephine once told the good fellow he must be in love with her himself. I was very much amused at my wife, who has more of a temper than people fancy. Still, I must say that Josephine never shows her claws to me! Well, I have no disrespect for your wife, but I detest her because this passion of yours for her has robbed me of the most capable of my brothers. However, her beauty will pass; you will be disillusioned; then, returning to political life, you will oppose my policy, and I shall have to take measures against you whether I like it or not; for—let me say this to you—unless you are on my side, Europe is too small for the pair of us!”

“You are making fun of me.”

“No, I’m in earnest; friend or foe! It is easier for you to-day than ever before. You need not be surprised: there has been a change in my family policy. You will see soon enough. Your children, which hitherto I have wanted to exclude, can now be of great use to me, but they must be dynastically recognised. The offspring of a marriage I do not recognise can have no right to the throne. Tell me, then, what would you do in my place?”

Lucien advises him to make the Senate pass a simple resolution to the effect that the children come within the right of succession.

“Of course I know that I can do that, but I must not. As you said just now, public opinion has to be conciliated. What would the family, the court, France, which all watch my slightest movements, say about such a step? A recantation of that kind would do me more harm than the loss of a battle.”

Lucien points out that he cannot possibly ask pardon for a marriage which had been entered into long before Napoleon’s accession to the throne. “Grant my request, Sire. You will have no more faithful servant than I. All the rest of my life will be an expression of my gratitude.”

The younger man goes on talking for a long time, and throughout his speech Napoleon is incessantly taking snuff, but spilling most of the tobacco, so nervous is he, growing more and more anxious; in his perplexity exclaiming at length: “Good God, you press me hard, and I am weak. But I shall not be so weak as to move the Senate to pass the resolution you ask for. I cannot recognise your wife!”

Thereupon Lucien, who is now almost beside himself, says: “Well, then, Sire, what do you really want of me?”

“What do I want? Simply that you should divorce your wife.”

“But you have always maintained that we are not married, so how can we get a divorce?”

“I expected you to say that. What do you think I can mean by asking you to procure a divorce? Obviously, thereby I recognise your marriage, but not your wife. The divorce will be the best thing for your children, just like all that you have hitherto refused to do, all that I have so much wanted you to do: to annul the marriage and divorce her.”

“That would be a dishonour for me and my children, and I will never do it!”

“Why is it, that with all your mother wit, you cannot see the difference between my earlier proposals and my present ones. In the former case, if your marriage had been declared null, your children would have become bastards!”

Lucien points out the difference between his children’s dynastic rights and their civic rights. “You can bestow your thrones upon whom you will, Sire, for you won them at the point of the sword. But no one shall cheat my children out of their share in the modest heritage of Carlo Bonaparte, for they are as legitimate as any one else’s both by canon law and by State law. The pope has even given one of my daughters the name of his mother!”

“Calm yourself!... Of course the divorce I ask for implies the recognition of your marriage. Nor do I wish to force an actual separation from your wife. She shall be honoured in accordance with her merits if she will make this sacrifice to my policy and to the future interests of France. I would even pay her a visit. But if she refuses, you and she will both be blamed for having sacrificed the true greatness of your children to your own egoism, and your children will curse your memory!”

Lucien answers mournfully.

“You are really incorrigible,” rejoins Napoleon. “You take everything so tragically. I am not asking for any tragedies! Think it over.”

After Lucien has again and again insisted upon his point of honour, and has several times wished to take leave, the Emperor once more brings up the distribution of the thrones. Eugene’s position in Italy is merely provisional, and he would much rather see Lucien installed there. Napoleon complains about Hortense, too. None of them are satisfied. “Pauline is naturally the most reasonable in the matter of ambition, for she is the queen of fashion. Besides, she grows more lovely day by day. Josephine is ageing, and is greatly distressed about a divorce.”

Lucien pricks up his ears. Napoleon goes on as if he were talking at random:

“Can you believe it? She always bursts into tears when her digestion is a little upset, for she fancies she is being poisoned by those who would like me to marry some one else. That is despicable. Still, in the end, I shall have to get a divorce. I ought to have taken the step long ago, and I should have had quite big children by now; for, I may as well tell you”—he speaks earnestly—“people are wrong in thinking it is my fault we have no children. I have several. Two I know of for certain.” He mentions, without naming her, Léon’s mother; and then, wonder of wonders, the Polish countess. “She is an exquisite woman, an angel.... You laugh to see that I am in love. Yes, I really am; but I never forget considerations of policy. She wants me to marry a princess. Of course, as far as feelings go, I would much rather raise my beloved to the throne. You, in your dealings with your wife, ought in like manner to be guided by considerations of policy!”

“Sire, I should act as you are doing if my wife were only my mistress.”

The Emperor grows more and more animated; speaks of a fixed intention to get a divorce; deplores having given the Bavarian princess to Eugene, who does not care for her and did not choose her for himself; remarks that he might long since have had Lucien’s daughter betrothed to the prince of Asturia “or some other great prince, perhaps even a great emperor.... Your divorce would have to precede mine, or be simultaneous. Then there would be less chatter about my divorce; for yours, in view of your obstinate refusal for so long previously, will certainly arouse more interest. Will you do me this service? I think you really ought to.”

Lucien looks at him so quizzically that the Emperor is amazed, eyes his brother up and down, and says: “Why not?”

Lucien smiles at the unreasonableness of the demand. Napoleon is embarrassed, but returns to the charge. Suddenly he addresses his brother as “my dear President” (Lucien having long ago been president of the Council of Five Hundred), and adds with emphasis: “Service for service, of course—and this time you will not find me ungrateful!”

Lucien sank “into a sort of reverie, which was by no means unpleasant,” so that for a few moments he hardly noticed what Napoleon was talking about. Before long he realised that the Emperor was saying, confidentially, that his only reason for wanting Lucien’s divorce was that this would probably minimise the effect of his own on public opinion. Lucien, as tactfully as he could, alluded to his own advantages, pointing out that his wife was a young woman and was not barren. Napoleon took no offence. “Your wife, oh, yes, your wife, didn’t I tell you? She will become the duchess of Parma, your eldest boy will be her heir, without having any claim of succession to your rights as a French prince. For this is only the first stage to which I shall raise you, until something better can be found: an independent crown.”

At the word “independent,” Lucien cannot restrain a smile, for he is thinking of the part his brothers have to play. Napoleon notices the expression on his face.

“Yes, independent. You will know how to reign.... You need only take your choice!” His eyes flash fire, and he bangs the enormous map with the flat of his hand. “I’m not talking at random. All this belongs to me or soon will. Even to-day, I can do what I please. Would you like to have Naples? I will take it away from Joseph.... Italy, the loveliest jewel in my imperial crown? Eugene is no more than viceroy. He hopes to become king, expects to outlive me, but he will be disappointed in this matter. I shall live to be ninety, for I cannot do with less than that for the complete consolidation of my empire. Besides, Eugene will not suit me in Italy, after I have divorced his mother. Would you care for Spain? Do you not see that it is ripe to fall into my hands, thanks to the blunders of the Bourbons you are so fond of? Would you not like to be king in the country to which you went as envoy? What would you prefer to have? It is for you to say. Anything and everything is at your disposal, if only you will divorce your wife before I divorce mine!”

Lucien is spell-bound for a time by the feverish haste with which Napoleon speaks. At last he says: “Not even your lovely France, Sire, would bribe me to this divorce; and besides....” He hesitates; but the Emperor guesses his thoughts, and says dryly, with an imperious air such as Lucien has never before seen him assume:

“Do you think that you, as a private individual, are in a more secure position than I upon my throne?... Do you believe that your friend the pope is strong enough to protect you against me if I should seriously propose to take measures against you?” After reiterating arguments and enticements, he says in a formal tone: “You may be quite sure of this: everything for the divorced Lucien; nothing for the undivorced!”

Lucien glances at the door, as a hint to the Emperor that he would be glad to be given his dismissal; but Napoleon takes him by the hand, and says “in a vague tone, and with a demeanour which might mean anything”:

“If I get a divorce, you will not be the only other one. Joseph is merely waiting for my divorce to arrange for his own. Madame Julie has been good for nothing but to bring girls into the world, whereas I urgently need boys. The only use of girls is to marry them off in advantageous alliances. Besides, your eldest girl is nearly fourteen, so you tell me; just the right age. Won’t you send her to Mamma? If you do what I want, I will get Mamma to arrange something good for her.... You are not afraid that we shall do any harm to your spoiled darling? Tell her we shall be good friends, and that I will not pull her ears as if she were a child.... I need more nephews and nieces! The divorced Josephine, the grandmother of Hortense’s children, will always be the enemy of my legitimate and my adopted sons.” Then, murmuring as if to himself, “It must be done. I have no other way of undermining the power of Louis’ and Hortense’s children.”

He comes back to the subject of his own illegitimate children, says he intends to adopt them, enters into details, and suddenly exclaims: “You cannot suppose that I have not the power to legitimise my natural children, just as Louis XIV. declared his bastards, the fruit of a twofold adultery, to be within the right of succession to the throne.” Again he speaks of Joseph’s intention to procure a divorce, and, when Lucien is sceptical, he rubs his hands delightedly, saying:

“Yes, yes! Joseph and you will both divorce your wives! We will all three get divorces, and then marry again, all of us, on the very same day!” He adds a number of quips in the like merry vein. Then, suddenly: “But why have you become so serious? One might think you a sage of classical antiquity! You must stay with me for three days. I’ll have a bed made ready for you in the next room to mine!”

He presses this invitation. Lucien, who dreads his brother’s blandishments, has to invent an excuse, and says that one of his children is ill.

His wife, he goes on to say, has suffered because of the Emperor’s dislike; so much so, that he had been afraid at one time her anxiety and distress about the matter would be too much for her.

“Is that really so? I’m sorry. You must take care of her! Whatever happens, she must not die before you get your divorce, for if she did I should not be able to legitimise her children!”

Lucien pretends that he will think the matter over.

“That’s all right. Well, well, go if you must! But be sure to keep your word!” Napoleon takes Lucien by the hand, and at the same time presents his cheek for a kiss, which is not as brotherly as it might be. Lucien departs, and when he is in the anteroom he hears the Emperor calling: “Méneval!”

Lucien quickens his steps, for again the dread of imprisonment has seized him.

No one, no historian and no imaginative writer, has ever given a more brilliant description of Napoleon than the foregoing, penned by his brother with obvious fidelity. This evening, the Emperor is in a quandary. He wants the help of a man whom he cannot coerce, and one who in certain respects is his equal. In the light thrown by Lucien, Napoleon’s character becomes positively transparent. He develops himself under our very eyes, showing us all the interplay of his motives.

He lavishes temptations in the endeavour to overpersuade his adversary. Every move is carefully thought out, that it may exercise its appropriate influence upon the ambition of his interlocutor, whom he tries to win by the studied gradations of the dialogue. The visitor finds him brooding over the map of Europe, and is greeted in a way which is to alarm and to inspire confidence by turns. The wife, the bone of contention, is first vilified and then extolled. Napoleon goes back to the phraseology of the Jacobin Club, calls his brother “citizen,” pulls out one emotional stop after another. He reminds Lucien that they are both Corsicans; says with a challenging irony that Europe is too small for the pair of them; talks of Mamma and Pauline, of Joseph and Louis, using names that carry with them reminiscences of the nursery in which the Bonaparte children had played together. Thus he spins his web round Lucien.

And yet—this is the marvel—we are shown the bubbling up of his nature, the beating of his heart, the quivering of his brain. Again and ever again, imagination and passion seem to carry him beyond the limits of self-restraint. Though his brother is a declared opponent, he makes all kinds of confessions: about Josephine and the countess; about his stepchildren and his generals; about his own blunders and his new, far-reaching plans. There is a flood of confidential admissions. Why?

Because this Lucien, though an adversary, though no less gifted than Talleyrand, is a brother, and therefore, to the clannish Napoleon, is, in spite of everything, worthy of confidence. It moves us to see the way in which Napoleon detains him in private talk for hours, till midnight is long past; how he presses Lucien to stay for a few days, that they may thrash matters out; and how Lucien insists on going, not because he really needs to, but because he does not wish to bow before the force of his brother’s genius. For there is a secret contest between the pair, not about love or divorce, not about honour or crowns. To-day, just as seven years before, when the younger man could not bring himself to obey the elder, the contest is between the innermost self-esteem of one rival and of the other. After all these years, in the privacy of his own thoughts Lucien is still convinced that he could have managed everything much better than Napoleon.

And yet, all the time, he loves him after his own fashion. Every word of his report betrays the obscure enmity between the brothers, the enmity that lives side by side with love. That is why he concedes nothing. The memory of the Nineteenth Brumaire has to be revived, and once more each of them is confident he was right. While these expert realists are talking, with the old phrases on their lips, the old verbiage about the greatness and the safety of France, they are really moved by nothing but their own passions. We seem to see them posturing before the crowd (a doubt seizes them—“We are alone here. You see. We are alone. No one can overhear us”); but in truth they are alone, in a strange and foreign castle, beneath huge candelabra, on which the candles are burning low.

Nevertheless, despite Napoleon’s wealth and all his crowns, despite his stupendous powers of intellect and imagination, how poor a man he is, entangled in the threads of destiny, the threads which he has spun, but which are now spinning themselves in defiance of his wishes! For all his omnipotence, he is the slave of an incalculable, much-courted power, public opinion, which will not allow him to effect a reconciliation with his brother, to recognise his own children, or to marry the woman he loves. The impotence of the man of might is displayed in his own exclamations. He asseverates his power to do anything and everything—and yet he dare not do what he wants. How pleased he is with his brother, whose affairs he could manage so beautifully now that they have met after many years of separation. If Lucien would only stay with him, were it but for three days, they would certainly be able to come to an understanding. “Good God, you press me hard, and I am weak.”

During this night when an emperor was offering his brother a choice among the thrones of Europe, was there not talk of the heritage of Carlo Bonaparte, a poor nobleman, on a small, out-of-the-way island? Did the Emperor of the French, who will never hear a word of his being a foreigner in France, conjure up the shade of the Corsican; was it he who evoked the penates of his birthplace for the protection of Brother Lucien, a negotiator in a hostile camp? Surely what we are recounting is a saga, told at midnight beside the fireplace in Mantua? Yes, it is the saga which the little Corsican lieutenant has woven out of the threads of his life: first a narrow band; but as he trails it after him, twists it and loops it, mixes colours and patterns, by degrees a carpet is formed; greater and more varied become the pictures produced out of the one thread, pictures of lands and thrones, of seas and men.

The whole has been woven in the most natural way in the world. Not by a miracle, but only through the working of his talents, has the man become master of men. To-night he wants to add yet another to the long list of his subjects. He has not enough time, even though he hopes to live till he is ninety. He cannot allow his brothers to have girl children, or to live with the women of their choice. But if these undesired nieces throng his stage, he must set up new nephews against them. If a wife is in danger of dying of grief, she must at least be good enough to wait until she is divorced. When the men of the family have at length forsaken the wives who are barren or can only bear daughters, then, on the same day, they will take new wives unto themselves—and all will go happily ever after. Look at him, when the conversation is drawing to a close, rubbing his hands in his satisfaction, the little magician who stands in front of his immense map. By the time he has impaled all the countries with his coloured pins, impaled them like butterflies to put away in his collection—well, by that time the candles have burned out and a large slice of to-morrow has already been devoured.

XIX

The Spanish dynasty seemed about to fall. Immediately after the conversation recorded above, war was declared. Had not the Emperor already predicted it? A king who had degenerated into being his wife’s souteneur; a queen who only lacked courage to be a Messalina; a faithless minister; hatred between father and son; rascality, bribery, and corruption—to such a pass had sunk the house of Bourbon! He who wished to dethrone those who represented it, must use the same means as were used by the Spanish royal house itself. Never before had Napoleon’s actions been more fiercely unscrupulous; never before had the degeneracy of his opponent been a more useful weapon to his hand. He had always adapted his methods to his adversary; and, in the case of this decayed dynasty, he had recourse to the wiles and trickery similar to those which the Spanish house availed itself of in a last effort to preserve its integrity. Absorbed in his schemes, he forgot the Spanish people, which was in no way responsible for such princes, and which in no way resembled the royal rulers: in days to come the Emperor was bitterly to rue his forgetfulness.

He who is for England, is against me! In support of this principle, Napoleon had already chased the Portuguese royal family from the throne. Now, since Spain, too, is on the side of England, in a prolonged intrigue he turns to his own advantage the struggle between the king and the crown prince; brings the latter to the front; then orders him to withdraw in favour of the father; and, finally, at a meeting of all parties in Bayonne, is able, by threats and cunning, to ensure that the Spanish crown shall be his own. The Mediterranean must belong to him; the coasts at any rate, from Gibraltar to Cattaro. This is an essential part of the war on England.

At first his generals have an easy task in their work of conquest. “Do you know why I am invading Spain?” says Napoleon to Metternich. “I must feel safe at my back.” Alas for him when he is no longer safe in that quarter!

On the critical day when he has settled matters with the Spanish princes, and has arranged that they shall be kept in a mild imprisonment, he is in a condition of moderate intoxication. The new crown gives him fresh impetus. He no longer sees Spain; his eyes are turned to contemplate the worldwide empire of Spain in the days of her vanished glory. On this occasion, a witness tells us, “the Emperor spoke, or rather dictated, at great length, in the Ossianic vein, ... like one whose heart was uplifted.... In his picturesque, metaphorical style, he referred to the powerful kingdoms of Mexico and Peru, describing the might of their rule and their influence. Never have I heard him display such a wealth of imagery as on this day. He was sublime.”

The one thing he lacks is an occupant for the vacant throne, since Lucien has not accepted the bribe. The only way out of the difficulty will be a general post, like that which occurs when a vacancy is filled in the upper ranks of the officialdom and every one is promoted a step. Let us do away with the kingdom of Holland, make it into a province, and discrown Louis. The victim protests: “It does not suit me to be governor of a province. A king must rule by divine right.... How could I demand loyalty from my people if I myself were false to the oath I swore when I ascended the throne?” Napoleon is troubled once more by the consequences of having founded a dynasty. This modern Roman should have put his provinces in charge of generals and regents, whom he could recall whenever he pleased. But the ermine in which he dresses his puppets, all the apparatus of coronation and Mass and anointing, awaken ideas which were being laid to rest, and fully justify little King Louis in his refusal. Joseph is more accommodating. Till yesterday, he was king in Naples: why should he not be king in Madrid to-morrow? Shortly after the Bayonne intrigue, King Joseph I. enters his new capital, acclaimed, not indeed by the hearts of the people, but by the proper number of salute guns and all the ceremonial suitable to the occasion. Murat, whose wife has long been pestering her brother for a crown, Murat the son of the proletariat, becomes king of Naples, and thus the imposing couple gain a statelier field for their intrigues, and in due time for their treason.

But this Spanish affair is a great adventure, and has serious consequences. There is muttering “at the Emperor’s back,” for the Spaniards are proud, and will not endure the conquest without a struggle. In front, across the Rhine, all the Prussians and all the Austrians who hate the Emperor have now reason to dread that Prussia and Austria may share the fate of Spain, and have good grounds for yet another renewal of their offensive. In Berlin, Napoleon had declared that on the Elbe he had conquered the Ganges. Now he fails to see that in his dealings on the Tagus he is raising up new enemies on the Danube. But he knows that he cannot do as he pleases in Spain unless the tsar holds Austria in check for him. The tsar is a man of unstable character. The only way to win over Alexander is by suggestion, as two years before, in Tilsit, and for this a personal interview will be necessary. The Emperor thereupon proposes to meet the tsar in central Germany, half way between their respective empires, thus initiating a form of policy new to him, a conference. Always before, when he has left France, it has been sword in hand, and he has invariably paved the way for negotiations by fighting. Now, to avoid a fight, a conference table is established in Erfurt.

Napoleon prepares for this new sort of campaign with as much care as if he had been preparing for a military expedition. Day after day he summons court officials and other dignitaries. “My journey must be extremely imposing. I want great names for the headquarters, ... and I wish to amaze Germany by the splendour of the occasion.” For others are coming besides the tsar. The great double stars are attracting all the lesser stars. How can he best influence this assembly? The play’s the thing wherein he’ll catch the conscience of the kings! He stage-manages his theatre elaborately, devotes much thought to the cast, amends passages, and gives Talma (for whom he feels something akin to friendship) hints as to what requires to be emphasised—all with an eye to the royal audience. “You are going to play your parts in a theatre where the stalls will be filled with kings.”

In actual fact, the evenings at the theatre form the climax of the Erfurt weeks. Among the audience are four kings and thirty-four princes, rivalling one another in the splendour of their retinues. The Emperor of the West and the Emperor of the East occupy the royal box. Almost every evening, this distinguished audience sees and hears what the kings of saga or the kings of history proclaim, what they struggle for, what they suffer. Talma, as Orestes, thunders forth:

The gods are the rulers of our times,
And yet fame is created by our own deeds.
Why should the heart allow the heavens to threaten?
Resolve to become immortal
And you will be as gods upon the earth!

The next evening they see Voltaire’s _Mahomet_, of which the Emperor is especially fond, were it only because the hero so seldom quits the stage. The prophet’s disciple exclaims:

All men are equal; it is not birth,
But virtue alone which makes them different.
There are certain mortals favoured by the gods,
Who achieve everything by their own merits,
Who owe nothing to their forefathers.
Such a one is he whom I have chosen as master;
He alone, in all the world, has deserved his position.

Is there any one among the audience whose heart does not beat faster as he glances at the man up there in the royal box—though the passion may be a passionate antagonism? The princes by right of birth may dread to look at the Emperor, but at least their eyes will seek one another as if to secure a common understanding. They do not dare to smile. They tremble before the man who sits there in a plain green coat, the man who is revolt incorporated in human form. He knows what the German princes in the stalls do not yet know, that a new and stronger utterance will soon be made by Mahomet:

See, the Roman Empire falling into ruins,
That great torn body, whose scattered limbs
Lie spread about the earth dishonoured and lifeless:
On these fragments of a world we shall upbuild the far-flung East,
A new god reveals himself to the blind world!

Finally, the Emperor’s policy of to-day and to-morrow is voiced in the words:

Who was it made the master a king?
Victory alone has crowned him! But now
To the name of Conqueror he will add
The name of Peacemaker.

At this instant, when all glance at him questioningly, Napoleon makes a slight movement as a sign that such is actually his intention, and for a political instant the illusion of the theatre is dispelled. But when, next evening, Œdipus proclaims: “A strong man’s friendship is a gift of the gods!” the two emperors rise and clasp hands.

Napoleon knows well enough that Alexander is not a strong man, that his friendship is not a gift of the gods. He tries, therefore, by suggestion, to win over this vacillating personality. If the tsar is to be influenced to move along the lines laid down in the letter previously quoted, if he is to agree to divide with Napoleon the empire of the world, he will require a course of psychomagnetism, renewed from day to day. Napoleon rarely leaves the tsar to his own thoughts, but treats him like a woman who is to be wooed and won. The only person who is allowed to help the Emperor in this matter is Talleyrand.

The diplomat still limps after Napoleon as the Emperor strides forward, though recently the differences between the two men had found vent.

Talleyrand’s shrewdness had led him—sooner than Napoleon, sooner than any one—to detect the first cracks in his master’s system. A year before, after the drawn game of Eylau, he had foreseen the possibility of his master’s failure in Russia. This had come to him as the vision of a great statesman, and he had promptly deduced therefrom the mission of a great and statesmanlike traitor. Matters had been privately arranged between Napoleon and Alexander; the Emperor was relying on the tsar (to the exclusion of Talleyrand); Napoleon was cherishing a Carlovingian dream, interpenetrated with thoughts of Cæsarism: the fantastical elements in Napoleon’s schemes for world conquest had estranged Talleyrand from his master’s policy. But instead of cutting adrift from Napoleon, he had been content, on specious pretexts, to resign his ministerial post, receiving instead a lucrative position among the dignitaries of the empire. Both men hoped to gain by the change; Napoleon thinking that he would be able to keep better watch on Talleyrand, and Talleyrand fancying that he would be able to keep better watch on the Emperor’s secret thoughts. He was still grand chamberlain; and Champagny, his successor as minister, was a butt for Napoleon’s shafts of ridicule. Thus, even after the divorce from his master, Talleyrand remained the sultan’s favourite, and his power was redoubled by his shifts as a trickster no longer hampered by official responsibility.

His doubts as to the stability of Napoleon’s position were confirmed by the progress of events in Spain. Directly he saw that the Emperor’s mind was set on this act of plunder, he realised that its upshot would be disastrous, and for that very reason encouraged his master to the venture. Since the days of Louis XIV., said Talleyrand, the Spanish crown had always been an apanage of the rulers of France. Napoleon, when his mind had been rendered effervescent by this and similar pseudo-arguments, decided upon the occupation of Catalonia “for the duration of the war with England.” Now the intriguer promptly returned to a critical attitude, and laughed to himself when the Emperor gave him the ignominious task of entertaining the infantes of Spain in their durance at his mansion near Valençay.

He wants privacy, that he may keep watch on the kidnapped princes, and, through their instrumentality, not only spy upon England, but also keep England informed. Thence it is but a step to open betrayal, and that step Talleyrand now takes. This is in keeping with his whole career as a statesman. Henceforward he sends Tolstoy and Metternich (the envoys of Tsar Alexander and Emperor Francis in Paris) private information. How can he make his duplicity square with his duties to the master, to whose service he is pledged as imperial official, court official, and confidential adviser?

There is a scene about the matter.

“Well, you see,” says the Emperor on his return from Spain, “they all walked into the net I spread for them!”

“I think, Sire, you have lost more than you have won by what has happened at Bayonne.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something quite simple. Let me explain my meaning by an example. If a man of standing commits follies, keeps mistresses, treats his wife and his friends badly, he will be blamed; but his wealth and his power will enable him to regain the good opinion of society. But if the same man cheats at cards, he is expelled from good society, which will never forgive him.”

The Emperor turns pale—so Talleyrand reports and will not speak to him for the rest of the day. Why does he not drive the plain speaker out of his circle? Why does he not banish Talleyrand to the West Indies? Napoleon receives a moral castigation from a scion of the old nobility, and still keeps the man in his entourage! Or was Talleyrand lying? We may have all the more confidence in the diplomat’s memoirs, seeing that they were written twenty years later, after the Restoration; were written to show how he had always played double, and (of course, owing to his respect for the claims of the legitimate rulers!) had served his imperial master only by halves. We can assume that the words were actually spoken, and to a man to whom hardly any one now spoke the truth, to a man whom even fewer now ventured to affront. Why does Napoleon keep Talleyrand in his service?

“He is the only one who understands me,” said the Emperor of Talleyrand again and again. That accounts for much. Talleyrand’s unscrupulous way of thinking, his freedom from all qualms of conscience, furnished a tilting-ground on which the Emperor could joust freely when running a political course. The others had principles or considerations which must first be leapt over. Because Talleyrand was exempt from all prejudices of class and time, and also lacked the ordering ideas with which Napoleon fashioned his realm out of the chaos of chances, the wily opportunist, whose only passion was for money, was the best adviser of the other realist, who could only assuage his stormy imagination in a perpetual succession of new plans.

That is why they understood one another, though only in the superficial regions of their respective characters. Napoleon never plumbed the depths of the treason that Talleyrand was preparing.

Here, in Erfurt, the great day for the double-dealer has at last dawned. When the German princes gather round him and listen as he talks of the Emperor, he gives little heed to these pygmies, for there is some one else who will pay a far higher price for information, will pay both in political advantages and in ready cash.

Alexander is prompt to seize the opportunity! The Russian has been well informed by his representative in Paris, and is almost as inquisitive concerning this Frenchman as he is concerning the Emperor. Talleyrand soon meets the tsar in the reception room of the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, who keeps open house every evening after the play. Talleyrand’s report of the encounter, written several decades later, reads like the utterance of a Mephistopheles: “The arts which I had prepared for the capture of the tsar were quite unneeded. At my first word he understood me, just as I had wished him to understand.”

The play of their eyes conveyed a meaning which was not manifest in the words, for on the first day Talleyrand had said to the tsar: “Sire, what are you thinking of doing here? It lies with you to save Europe. But you will not succeed in your task unless you become a match for the Emperor. The French people is civilised: their ruler is not. The ruler of Russia is civilised: his people is not. Thus, the ruler of Russia should be the ally of the French people.... Your Majesty should not allow yourself to be inveigled into any disciplinary measures against Austria, but should consent to undertake the same duties towards that country as those my master has undertaken.”

During the long evenings, over a glass of punch or a dish of tea, Talleyrand (who, like Napoleon, knows the manifold arts of the seducer) instils into the tsar’s brain all the truths and the hopes he wishes to bring to life within this suggestible spirit. The tsar shows his appreciation of the diplomat’s indiscretions at France’s expense by bestowing his favour upon the Emperor’s confidential adviser. He promises the hand of a Russian princess to one of Talleyrand’s nephews; she is the richest heiress in the eastern realm.

Alexander, who in any case had come to Erfurt in a cautious frame of mind (for his relatives had succeeded in arousing suspicions before he started), is now for the first time able to resist Napoleon. In their private interviews, each is always trying to humbug the other; the honeymoon atmosphere of Tilsit has vanished, and the tsar’s enthusiasm for the Emperor is a thing of the past.

Napoleon is taken aback. He makes Talleyrand draft the new treaty of alliance. Then, with great labour, he transcribes it, inserting his own emendations, and takes it to Alexander, who has to promise that no one shall hear a word of what is written in this secret document. The tsar gives the required pledge; but the very same evening he hands Talleyrand the amended treaty, so that the author of the draft learns what alterations his master has made. In the end, this treaty is not signed.

At night, the Emperor summons Talleyrand, who plays the part of Iago admirably. The Emperor says: “I can make no headway with him; he takes such short views.”

“But he is completely under your spell, Sire.”

“He makes you think so, and you are taken in by him. If he is really fond of me, why won’t he sign?”

“He is a man of knightly faith,” answers Talleyrand. “His simple word and his inclinations will bind him more strongly than a treaty.”

“I shall not talk to him about this matter any more; for if I do, he will think I have it very much at heart. Our private interviews will be enough to make Austria believe that there is a secret treaty.... I cannot understand your fondness for Austria, a country whose whole policy recalls that of our old regime!”

When fundamental principles are under discussion, Talleyrand is apt to become more communicative: “It seems to me that Austrian policy is also that of the new regime, and I venture to say it ought to be your own policy. People count on you, Sire, to safeguard civilisation.”

“Civilisation!...” Napoleon halts in front of the fireplace, and, with a sudden change of tone, says softly: “Do you know why no one will negotiate with me plainly and straightforwardly? Because I have no children.... That is the secret. People are afraid of me, and every one wants to snatch what advantages he can. This is an unfortunate state of affairs for the world, and it must be altered.”

A few days pass. Intercourse between the two rulers seems more cordial; etiquette has been forgotten; they come and go freely, like ordinary friends in private life. Napoleon spreads his nets cunningly. He says to the tsar: “Yes, I need rest; I need a home. How can one get these when one has no children? My wife is ten years older than I,” he goes on, falsely adding four years to Josephine’s tale. “Please excuse me. What I have just said may sound rather absurd, but I do not wish, where you are concerned, to hide the stirrings of my heart.” A pause. “Hullo, I see it’s almost dinner time, and Baron Vincent is still waiting my leave to depart.”

The kings of the drawing-room are fond of describing Napoleon as a man of camps; but how prettily he can introduce a delicate topic just before dinner, so that he can slip away without having it discussed at this state. Late that evening he summons Talleyrand to his bedside; orates, questions, suggests combinations, and issues orders by turns. At length he speaks of divorce. “Fate constrains me to it, and it is essential to the tranquillity of France. I have no successor. Joseph is a man of no account, and his children are all girls. I must found a dynasty, and my consort must be the daughter of a great line. Alexander has sisters, and one of them is of suitable age. Have a talk with Romanzoff. When the Spanish affair is settled, I shall discuss the partition of Turkey. Tell him this, and use other arguments as well. I know you have long been in favour of the divorce.”

Next day, Talleyrand broaches the topic with the tsar, who has been influenced by the suggestion the Emperor has instilled with his assumption of melancholy overnight. “No one fully understands the man’s character,” says Alexander, much moved. “All the commotion he spreads abroad is an inevitable outcome of his position. No one realises how good he is. You know him so well. What is your opinion?”

Talleyrand has no intention of saying what he really thinks, but deems it expedient, at this juncture, to let Alexander know what Napoleon had let fall about the Russian princess. “I should have no objection,” rejoins the tsar promptly, “but I cannot dispose of my sister’s hand without my mother’s consent.”

Thereafter, a long conversation between the emperors, and a renewal of intimacy; Alexander spends some more evenings with Talleyrand, talking over the teacups—but no conclusion is reached. The expanded treaty of alliance between the emperors is not signed at Erfurt, nor is the marriage to Alexander’s sister arranged. Although Napoleon receives more adulation than ever before, he is disappointed at having to leave without his treaty and without his Russian bride. The only one who brings home substantial advantages is Talleyrand, for he has secured the new niece’s millions.