Book Four

Book Four

THE SEA

It is essential that this man shall be ruined!... But since, here below everything takes place by natural causes, the daimons trip him: thus, in the end, even Napoleon is overthrown.—GOETHE.

I

The old struggle in Napoleon’s mind between mathematics and fantasy had ripened. The issue of the struggle was now to decide the history of his world dominion.

For now, at the climax of his career; fortified by his ties with the Habsburgs, ties for whose sake he had broken the familiar associations of years of married life; fortified by having a legitimate heir, whose birth gave firm anchorage to his adventurer’s dynasty; having gained the mastery over conspiracies, and having learned to dominate all the political parties—he was once more free as he had been eleven years earlier, when the victory of Marengo had safeguarded the tranquillity he needed for the internal development of France. True, England was unconquered; but Russia seemed still friendly. True, Spain was uncoerced; but Europe from Reggio to Hammerfest was allied to France, this being a euphemism for dependence on France. For the last time in his life, he was free to make a great decision.

Had he been nothing more than a mathematician, he would have been content with his calculations within the resuscitated realm of Charlemagne, and dreams of world dominion would have yielded place before the reality of the United States of Europe under France’s leadership. Had he been nothing but a visionary, he would have aimed, like a new Alexander, to march towards the Ganges; and England would have been merely a pretext for his onslaught on India. But he was both mathematician and visionary, and was therefore in danger of disavowing himself. For, as calculator, he failed to grasp an eminently real factor which could not be expressed in figures. The moods of un-uniformed men in Spain and in Germany could play no part in the cipherings of a military commander who thought in terms of army corps and big guns. Nevertheless such moods should have come within the scope of his visions as a seer!

Thus during these decisive years, after the birth of his heir, and before his next warlike designs have become active, his mind is alternately dominated by his two fundamental impulses, and the whole future depends upon which of the two will be supreme when the moment for action comes. Will his awakened fantasy warn him that it is dangerous to brave the anger of exasperated peoples, or will his calculating faculty disclose to him the danger that will await him on the distant road to the East? What will happen should he err in both respects? Then, indeed, his whole world will go up in flames.

He feels that his powers are ripening. In addition to the two energies we have been considering, a third is growing to maturity, the sense of destiny. Words unheard before, or rarely expressed, now find voice: “I feel that I am being driven towards an unknown goal. But as soon as I have reached it, as soon as I no longer have an inexorable mission, an atom will suffice to overthrow me. Till then, no human powers can effect anything against me. The days are numbered.”

Truly they are numbered; and through these prophetic words there already breathes the foreboding of an exit, although he does not know the way thither. Now, on the path towards the tragical catastrophe, the clarity of his inner vision is dimmed. Yet he himself speaks of the campaign against Russia as the “fifth act,” though the full significance of the term is not apparent to him. Tones like those of his youthful days resound in the new harmony. “I have got to the end of everything,” he had said when he was thirty, on the Nile. Now, at forty-three, he declares in the Council of State: “All this will last as long as I do, and no longer. Perhaps when I am dead, my son will think himself well off if he can be sure of an income of forty thousand francs a year.”

But at the same time his ardour increases. Since those days when it seemed to him that (thanks to the acceleration of genius) he had got to the end of everything, since the days of the Egyptian campaign, he had been guided by a religious faith that it was his destiny to become a second Alexander. Now, when for the first time he is equipped with means for the carrying out of his design, is he to annihilate his dream by figures, which are not more potent in the world than dreams? When the arch-chancellor wishes him a happy new year, he answers, as if suddenly rejuvenated: “I must grow wise if you are to be able to repeat this greeting thirty years hence.”

Napoleon never grew wise, but he was always clever. When he finds that his commercial warfare is reacting to the detriment of his own country, he disregards his own prohibitions, and grants licenses for the import of certain raw materials and dyes from England, in part because they are urgently needed for French industry, and in part because the articles in question are among the requirements of Parisian luxury. Soon, in all continental countries, huge sums are made by smugglers who import the very colonial produce which the Emperor wishes to prevent his chief enemy from marketing. These goods are then retailed at a great profit. Is the smartest dealer in Europe to be robbed of his gains by smugglers? He would rather have the business under his own control, so he imposes a fifty per cent. duty on all the colonial produce his agents can find on the Continent, and pouches these receipts for France. Since at the same time he has all English woollen textiles that he can lay hands on burned, he opens opportunities for illicit gains which are so large that for their sake people will ignore the risks of draconian punishments. He has to carry on a guerilla warfare, just as in Spain, though this time he is fighting the nation of shopkeepers with trade weapons.

It is likewise a war of decrees. Since Paris has prohibited all trading in English wares, London reciprocates by demanding from all neutral countries enhanced dues for permission to call at the blockaded ports. Paris counters this move by declaring that the vessels of neutrals which shall call at the ports of London or of Malta, run the risk of capture as prizes. London responds by sending her ships out under false colours, and Paris thereupon has all merchantmen trading in Mediterranean waters overhauled and searched. The American government forbids its citizens to have business dealings with Europe, or even to have any private intercourse with the Continent; but the Emperor promises all kinds of privileges to the Americans if they will cease to call at English ports. So paradoxical is the situation resulting from the endeavour to strangle overseas trade, by which Napoleon had hoped to extort the freedom of the seas!

The Emperor’s hopes are rising. The English pound sterling is still quoted at seventeen francs, the English banks are failing, and in parliament the opposition is against the continuance of the war. In spite of this, his peace proposals are rejected. The disturbances in Spain are at once the cause and the consequence of England’s defiant attitude.

There is still an army numbering a quarter million men stationed in Spain; and, despite all endeavours, Wellington’s thirty thousand are not driven out, for the bands of native insurrectionaries led by officers and monks carry on unceasing guerilla warfare against the French invaders. The Emperor’s quarrel with the pope stiffens the antagonism of the monks. While French children on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees are being taught that Napoleon is God’s vicegerent, Spanish children on the southern slopes are learning that the Emperor is the devil incarnate and that the murder of a Frenchman is a deed pleasing to the Almighty.

In so fanatical a land, where hardly any regular troops are left for the French to fight against, Napoleon’s generals feel out of their element. Disunion prevails. Masséna is sent against Portugal. At the same time, Napoleon deprives Joseph of four provinces. When the king journeys to Paris to demand the cancelling of the decree, the Emperor declares that his brother has ceded these lands. Napoleon places a general to administer each province, and appoints a marshal in supreme command. He carries out this Roman system of ruling through military governors thus ruthlessly and persistently because of his intense disappointment in the rule of the members of his family to whom he has allotted crowns, and, above all, in the behaviour of his brothers. Terrible battles, made more ghastly by famine and disease, are meanwhile forcing Masséna to retreat. The Emperor, in a fury, recalls him.

Will Napoleon at length realise that his presence is essential? Marshals, officers, and, above all, the rank and file of the army, eagerly await his coming. Full well does he know this; and yet he does not go. Does he fear assassination at the hands of some fanatical Spaniard? Or is it treachery at home that deters him; such conspiracies as those which called him back to Paris so suddenly when he was encamped near Astorga? Is he to get enmeshed in this southern corner of his empire at the moment when the whole is at stake? What is Spain to him? He chooses the oldest of his companions-in-arms: Marmont is sent to clear up the mess and bring the campaign to an end.

The second kingly brother had, with good reason, thrown up his job. Napoleon had deprived him of all the Dutch territory on the left bank of the Rhine; had insisted upon the removal of the rest of the protective duties against France; and (this was the worst of all) had angered the Dutch, who are traders and seamen, by the measures he had compelled them to take against England. The Emperor had expected both his brothers to run counter to the currents of national feeling in their respective kingdoms, underestimating alike the strength of popular sentiment and the sense of honour of the two men he had forced to become monarchs. It would have been easier for military governors to cope with the rising tide of nationalism and to dispense with a feeling obligation towards the people they ruled, than it was for kings burdened with historic crowns.

When Louis found it impossible to put up any longer with the Emperor’s tutelage, he abdicated in favour of his younger son, and fled by night from his kingdom for an unrevealed destination. Napoleon’s catchpolls sought him far and wide in Europe, to discover him at length in Austria. The Emperor was greatly enraged, yet he could not but see that he was himself more to blame than Louis. He therefore made no attempt to punish, but sent his own body physician to care for the fugitive, who had excused the flight on the ground of illness. To his mother, the Emperor wrote saying that there were tidings of Louis’ whereabouts. “You need not be anxious; but his conduct has been of a kind which can only be explained by his illness. Your very affectionate son, Napoleon.”

The wording of this subscription stands out among the numberless letters in which the dictator of Europe was accustomed to express his will to those who usually received these missives with trembling. The fugitive king, meanwhile, drawing a breath of relief, settled down to a literary life in Graz, writing in three volumes under the title Marie, ou les peines d’amour (1808), the story of the love affair which the Emperor had so ruthlessly frustrated. But when Joseph wished to follow Louis’ example, feeling that he would rather retire into private life than continue to play the part of king in a pack of cards, he was restrained from abdication by the iron hand of the Emperor. Napoleon considered that his democratically inclined brother would do more mischief as an intriguer in Paris than in his position as nominal chief and military commander; so Joseph had once more to put his hand to the task of war, for which, to the Emperor’s great annoyance, he was utterly unfitted.

The most frivolous members of the family, Jerome and Pauline, were amusing themselves with love affairs. Murat and Caroline were immersed over head and ears in old and new intrigues. As for Elise, she had so much printed in the Tuscan newspapers anent her reviews and hunting parties that the Emperor was even more annoyed by her craze for notoriety than by the things she actually did, and wrote to her, saying: “Europe pays very little heed to what the grand duchess of Tuscany is doing.”

The most dangerous man in his family circle has not yet become an object of his menaces. Since the old king of Sweden was on friendly terms with England, the Emperor had made him abdicate in favour of an uncle; and the new ruler, who is devoted to the cause of Napoleon, has declared war against England. Being old and childless, he thinks he cannot please the Emperor better than by appointing as successor one who is closely connected with Napoleon by marriage. Thus it is that Bernadotte, Joseph’s brother-in-law, who during the wars has made friends in Swedish Pomerania, is unexpectedly nominated crown prince of Sweden—as a result of a complicated intrigue, in which Fouché has played a considerable part. The Emperor would have found it difficult, in any case, to object to this selection of a French general as heir to a foreign throne; and it was practically impossible for him to interfere with the promotion of his sometime rival, the man who had nearly prevented the coup d’état of the Eighteenth Brumaire, and had subsequently become the husband of the woman whom Napoleon had once thought of marrying. “A good soldier,” growled the Emperor; “but with no talent for ruling; one of the old Jacobins, with a bee in his bonnet like the rest of them, and therefore he will never be able to keep his position on a throne.... Still, I could not interfere, were it only because it would be impossible to do anything more effective against the English than to set a French marshal upon the throne of Gustavus Adolphus.... I am glad to be quit of him.”

Is he really so carefree? Hitherto these folk whom he cannot trust have always been kept under his own eyes in Paris.

Bernadotte triumphans! Soon, at last, he too will wear a crown, and will not even have to thank this detested Bonaparte for the gift. To Napoleon, therefore, who till yesterday was Bernadotte’s supreme war lord, the crown prince of Sweden now writes a bitter-sweet letter, offering soldiers and iron, but asking for money. The Emperor smiles. He knows what is written between the lines, and makes no direct answer. He has Bernadotte informed that he does not correspond with royal princes. His old opponent will not forget the gibe. In less than two years, Bernadotte will take vengeance for it, and for all that has gone before!

Ruefully, the Emperor watches the flames that are springing up everywhere, the flames his family mania has lighted. He does not conceal from his intimates that he is disappointed with his kin and his nobles. Writing to one of them at this time, Napoleon says: “I ought never to have had Murat and my brothers crowned. Live and learn!... It was a mistake, too, to give back the confiscated estates to the émigrés. I should have kept the lands as State domains, and have been content to allow the former owners a modest income. I can’t stomach them, these people of the old regime; their light and airy graces are out of keeping with my serious temperament. I myself did not succeed to a heritage, but was content to take what belonged to no one. I ought to have been satisfied with the appointment of governors and viceroys. Some of my marshals, even, are beginning to dream of greatness and independence.”

At length he has realised that it is dangerous to play the emperor! His troubles are the fruit of his wish to safeguard a dynasty (this meaning that the spirits of revolt and of genius, from whose union Napoleon has sprung, are to be taught to walk in the paths of legitimate mediocrity). They are the outcome of the weak moments of a man who in his hours of strength believed in the immortality of deed and of fame, of a man who in these hours of strength felt no need of the perpetuation that is achieved by means of a family line. The brothers, and brothers-in-law, and marshals, who all shine by reflected light, will take vengeance ere long. When his star pales, and the skies of Europe are overcast, they will still try to shine across the Continent in the afterglow of his splendour!

Deeply ingrained in him was the illusion that his good fortune would be transmitted to his son. When, after the boy’s birth, a great reception was held, and all the notables came to offer congratulations, the Schwarzenbergs were among the guests. Schwarzenberg, as Austrian envoy in Paris, had done much to promote the marriage. The Emperor, full of gratitude, went up to Princess Schwarzenberg and, taking from his coat a scarab pin, presented it to her, saying:

“I found this scarab in the tomb of an Egyptian king, and have worn it ever since as a talisman. Please accept it; I no longer need such a mascot.”

He feels that the birth of his son has placed him above all possibility of danger, and that everything will go well with him in future. He can have no further need for an amulet!

These kings, these brothers, have been but a substitute for the sons that were lacking. Now, when he can feast his eyes on a son of his body, he recognises his mistake, and the disastrous consequences of Josephine’s barrenness are plainer than ever. Too many battles have been fought, too many years have passed, there has been too much self-restraint and self-denial, for it to be possible now to give this heir a great place in his system. The boy has been born too late. The tempo of Napoleon’s life has been so rapid. The man who at two-and-twenty was still a lieutenant, had become an emperor at thirty-four. Such a man should have had his first-born son long before the age of forty-one. He has recklessly expended his vital energies, and cannot look forward confidently to many years of power. How can he reasonably expect to establish the child securely as his successor?

It is, indeed, a poignant sight. Watch this man who is now growing old with fearful speed, as he dandles the long-desired infant on his knees, tries his own hat on the baby’s head, watches the child crawling on the floor while he sits at breakfast, and even (when the youngster grows a little older) allows him to run about the study. Napoleon is playing the war game, with little wooden rods representing soldiers dispersed over the floor, and is planning how to make an end of Wellington in Spain. The boy is brought to the door. According to the rule of the house, the governess may not cross this threshold, so Napoleon himself goes to the door for the child, sets him down among the mimic armies, and, with the tolerance of a grandfather, lets the child play riot with the battle. Laughing, he pulls faces at his infant son in front of the looking-glass; buckles round the body of the two-year-old the sword with which he has conquered Europe; and, with his actor’s instincts, feels that the boundaries between jest and earnest are being broken down. Imaginings are ripening into reality, while all that has seemed to him real is not more than an image and a parable.

He says that the child is “spirited and sensitive. Just what I want him to be.... My son is sturdy, and in splendid health. He has my lungs, my mouth, and my eyes.... I do hope he will turn out well.” In such simple fashion he writes to Josephine, and to her only. He insists upon her keeping up the old tone of comradeship, and scolds her when, after the divorce, she writes to him as “Your Majesty.” “You have written me an unkind letter. I am always the same; my feelings do not change.... I shall say no more until you have compared this letter with yours. Then you can judge for yourself which of us two is more friendly, you or I.” To no one else can he speak so simply, unless it be to Berthier, whom he often calls his “wife.” The only thing that annoys him with Josephine is that she is always running into debt. He thinks that she ought to be able to save half of her allowance of three millions. “Then in ten years you would have put by fifteen millions for your grandsons.... Let me know that you are quite well again. I am told that you are getting as stout as one of our good Norman peasant women.” But when Josephine continues to be spendthrift, he tells the steward of her property not to make her any further payments till evidence is forthcoming that she is no longer squandering money.

He sees very little more of her, however; and he will have nothing to do with the lady friends of earlier years. His attitude towards marriage is that of a respectable citizen, and that of an Italian. Besides, as a sovereign prince he wishes to set a good example to his subjects. Since Marie Louise makes no nationalist pretensions (for, being of a dull, easy-going, and fickle temperament, she has promptly come to regard herself as a Frenchwoman), the two get on very well together. He has always time to spare for her. When she is learning to ride, he walks patiently at her bridle. He, who has never waited before, will even wait when she is late for dinner. She is not afraid of him, and is saucy enough to tell the Austrian envoy that she thinks her husband is a little afraid of her. It is important to the Emperor that he should make a good impression upon the Hofburg. Regarding it as politically expedient that a report of his wife’s happiness shall be sent to Vienna, he brings Metternich to see the empress, and tells the envoy to stay until some one fetches him. Napoleon goes away, locking the door of the room after him. He does not release the prisoners for an hour, and then, with a sly laugh, asks Metternich whether he is satisfied, now, that the empress is happy.

These are nothing more than jests, but that he can find it possible to make them in a period of grave decisions indicates that there is a certain release of tension in his heavily laden heart. In truth, Marie Louise’s only service to him was that, during the years with which we are now dealing, her freshness did actually bring him such a solace.

But the marriage did not effect the desired release of political tension. Felix Austria, accustomed to gain advantages by these royal marriages, had hoped for a couple of provinces as dower, but had received nothing. All the more, therefore, must Emperor Francis feel rancorous on account of the humiliation inflicted upon him by the little Corsican; for, as soon as the gates of the Hofburg had closed behind Marie Louise, he could not but regard the marriage as detrimental to his dignity. To appease his legitimist misgivings, the Habsburg ruler had a search for Buonaparte ancestors made in musty old Tuscan documents, and when next he met his son-in-law was able to assure the latter that the Buonaparte lineage had been traced as far back as the eleventh century. At that time, said Francis, there had been members of the family in Treviso. Thereupon the first and last of the Buonaparti made the delicious answer:

“Thank you, Sire. I prefer to be the Rudolf of my race!”

Witty, but unwise, for such words from an upstart sovereign could not but rankle in the mind of this descendant of an ancient line! When, as would soon come to pass, the question whether the emperor of Austria was to take sides for or against his son-in-law was to be decided by Francis’ mood, the memory of this and similar slights may have played a considerable part. Napoleon recognised this when it was too late. “Had I but made myself agreeable to that simpleton, who knows but that in the plains of Leipzig there might have been a hundred thousand fewer men in the opposing army!”

All the same, the revolutionist admired many of the ways of the legitimate ruler. One day he caught sight of a letter his wife had addressed to her father as follows: “His Sacred Majesty, the Apostolical Emperor.” Napoleon considered this an excellent idea; and in private, no doubt, his thoughts turned to Alexander of Macedon who had declared himself to be the son of Jupiter.

The apostolical emperor was especially out of humour with his son-in-law on the pope’s account. Napoleon was continually tightening the bonds round the Holy Father. Pius VII. was kept at Savona. A man by no means learned in canon law, he was cut off from his advisers, and subsequently deprived of his papers, in order to make him pliable. A schism was threatening. Thirteen of the cardinals had failed to put in an appearance at the Emperor’s wedding, for the pope would not recognise the divorce which Fesch had pronounced. Now Napoleon has cases filled with the Vatican State papers brought to Paris, thus arousing the belief that he really intends to make this city the capital of Christendom; he summons a council at which the prelates of his European realm appear; he extorts a decree depriving the pope of the investiture in case of dissent, and ultimately compels Pius to agree to this—at any rate for France.

Europe is troubled by these matters, and split into factions. On the whole, the Russians and the Poles are glad that things are going ill with the Roman pontiff; the Prussians and the English are, of course, delighted; but what arouses general surprise is that the inhabitants of the Papal States are also on the side of the Emperor. This little country, now doubly robbed of its master, is glad to accept the Code Napoléon, modern education, a rational system of administration, vigorous road construction, and the draining of the Pontine marshes. Whereas the son of the revolution has long since brought back the old spirit of Rome to Paris, he now transplants young revolutionary practice from Paris to Rome. Thus does Napoleon build bridges.

The excommunicated Emperor cunningly tries to turn the curse against the pope. When, in newly annexed Holland, he receives the clergy in the presence of the Protestants, he rebukes the bishops as follows: “Are you of the religion of Gregory VII.? I am not. My religion is that of Jesus Christ, who said: ‘Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s.’ In accordance with the same text, I render unto God the things which are God’s. I have received my sceptre from God. But I wear a worldly sword, and know how to use it! God erects thrones. I did not raise myself to my throne: God set me upon it! You poor mortals wish to resist? You will not pray for your monarch, because the priest of Rome has excommunicated him? Do you think I am the sort of man to kiss the pope’s toe?... Prove to me, imbeciles, that Jesus has appointed the pope his vicegerent, and that the pope has power to excommunicate a monarch!... Be good citizens, and sign the Concordat. You, Mr. Prefect, must take such measures as will prevent my hearing any more of these matters.”

To so preposterous a travesty of his own innermost thoughts has Napoleon come. He does not believe a word of what he is here thundering out; and in private mocks at this official doctrine, as he has always done. Nonetheless, to the circlet of golden laurels with which he had crowned himself before the eyes of the priest of Rome, there now attaches a vestige of divine right which makes the crown a heavy one to wear.

II

“Kindly inform me why the price of salt in the neighbourhood of Strasburg has risen one sou.”

Closely following upon the heels of this enquiry to the Ministry for War, comes a command to the Admiralty: two entire fleets are to be constructed in the course of the next three years, one Atlantic fleet and one Mediterranean fleet; the latter against Sicily and Egypt, the former against Ireland. As soon as the Spanish affair is in better case, preparations are to be made for an expedition to the Cape in 1812. An army of from sixty to eighty thousand men is to be got ready for an attack on Surinam and Martinique. “Having eluded the enemy cruisers,” the expeditionary forces are to share out the two hemispheres.

We see how closely at this date, when imaginative fantasies threaten to develop into adventures, the exact observations of the father of his country are allied to the rhapsodical plans of the world conqueror. For that is what Napoleon now attempts: he is actually trying to realise his old dream of world conquest.

“You want to know whither we are going? We shall have done with Europe; then, as robbers of robbers less bold than ourselves, we shall march to the attack, seize India, over which they have made themselves masters.... I must take India ... in the rear, if I am to strike successfully at England.... Just imagine Moscow occupied, the tsar conciliated or killed by his people, perhaps a new, dependent throne,—and tell me whether an army of Frenchmen, reinforced by auxiliary troops from Tiflis, cannot press forward to the Ganges, and thence, at a touch, destroy the whole structure of English commerce!... At one blow, France would have established the independence of the West and the freedom of the seas!” A witness reports that while he was voicing these ideas “his eyes shone with a wonderful light, and he went on to point out the reasons for the adventure, all the difficulties it entailed, the means of achievement, and the prospects of success.”

Shall the tsar be conciliated or killed? That is the question which troubles the Emperor the whole year round. Calculations and presentiments make him desire to have Alexander as his friend rather than his enemy. Napoleon has nothing to gain by a defeat of Russia. On the contrary! He dreads being forced into this war, and endeavours, as on former occasions, to avoid it; though only if the tsar, as previously agreed, shall participate in the great final struggle as an ally. Napoleon keeps the tsar under observation, and perceives that suggestions are having less and less effect upon Alexander. He therefore writes to a prince of the Confederation of the Rhine in these amazing terms: “This war will break out in spite of the tsar, in spite of me, and in spite of the interests of the two empires.”

Never before had the Emperor or the Consul declared, in such words, that war was unavoidable. Precisely because all rational need for the campaign was lacking this time, he found it necessary to proclaim the war with the tsar to be the work of fate. At the very first hand-clasp, in the peace tent on the Memel, the seed of this war was sown. During the days of intimacy which followed, when the encounter blossomed into friendship, that seed invisibly took root and grew. In later days, Talleyrand’s treacherous diplomacy cherished its growth; and when, at Erfurt, the emperors embraced, they could already feel between them the coils of the snake. That they did not become related by marriage was neither an accident nor the outcome of a conscious desire: it was consequent upon the mistrust which had invaded the tsar’s mind, a mistrust of which he could not rid himself and which was to prove well founded. Two men wishing to divide Europe between them, could not see with complacency the half in a rival’s hands. Their intentions were honourable at the outset; but they were impossible of fulfilment. The day of contest must inevitably come at last. “He alone is still weighing upon the pinnacle of my edifice. My rival is young; daily his strength is waxing; daily mine is waning.” This gloomy recognition spurs him ever onward.

It is useless to try to interpret such decrees of destiny as the outcome of political causes.

Somewhat earlier, the Emperor has asked the tsar to lay an embargo on all neutral ships, as he himself has done, and thus give England the death-blow. The tsar cannot agree to this, for it would fatally injure his own sea-borne trade; he will only continue, as before, to confiscate all the prohibited goods he discovers, but he needs colonial wares from the neutrals. Being unable to stop this leak in the East, the Emperor has to exercise redoubled care on the German coast, and he therefore annexes the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe with the Hansa towns and part of Hanover. “Circumstances demand these new guarantees against England.” Oldenburg is swallowed up with the rest, though the heir to this duchy has married Alexander’s sister.

The Emperor’s high-handed proceedings were a logical outcome of his policy, but they were necessarily an offence to the tsar. Alexander regarded them as a breach of the treaty of Tilsit, in which the integrity of Oldenburg had been guaranteed. He issued a circular to the powers protesting against this insult to his house, a remonstrance almost equivalent to a declaration of war. In this document he enquired what could be the use of alliances unless the treaties in which they were incorporated were strictly observed, so that the cabinets of Europe could not but smile at the concluding words of the circular, in which he described the alliance between Russia and France as permanent. His next step was a ukase in which he threw Russia open to colonial goods, while imposing prohibitive import duties on wine and silk, the products of French industry.

The maps lie spread on the tables in St. Petersburg and Paris. Where can either power best harass the other? The tsar proposes to make peace with Turkey. The Emperor incites Austria to seize Serbia, to advance towards Moldavia and Wallachia, promising not to interfere; this will keep Alexander busy. Metternich nods assent, but does not move. “What about Poland?” thinks Alexander. “Has not Napoleon already enlarged the duchy of Warsaw by the addition of Galicia? Is there any guarantee that he will not re-establish the kingdom of Poland?” Caulaincourt, French ambassador in Russia, who admires the tsar and wants peace, gives the desired guarantees. But the Emperor would only agree to a secret ratification. If the differences between France and Russia should culminate in war, he will need Poland for his operations against the tsar; Polish hopes must, therefore, be fostered. Penetrating this design, Alexander demands an open treaty, which shall put an end to Polish expectations.

When Masséna is defeated in Spain, the Emperor entertains fresh doubts. Caulaincourt, who is back in Paris, does his utmost to intensify these misgivings, dilates on the tsar’s will-to-peace, and ventures far in his defence of Alexander. The Emperor leads him on; hears all he has to say; asks a thousand questions concerning the tsar and the court, Alexander’s piety, the nobles, and the peasants; takes Caulaincourt by the ear, a sign of affability.

“You must be in love with him!”

“I am in love with peace.”

“So am I. But I will not allow any one to dictate to me. Evacuate Danzig, forsooth! Next I shall have to ask Alexander’s permission before I can hold a review in Mainz. You are a fool. I am an old fox, and know the people with whom I am dealing.... We must deprive this Russian colossus and his hordes of the power to inundate the south once more.... I shall advance northwards, and re-establish there the old boundaries of Europe.”

Quite unsubstantial reasons, masks, mere pretexts. Warningly Caulaincourt quotes Alexander’s words: “I shall learn from his own teachings, which are those of a master. Our climate will make war for us. The French are not inured to it as we are. Miracles only happen when the Emperor is present, and he cannot be everywhere.” Napoleon is greatly moved by these words; he tramps restlessly up and down the room; the conversation lasts for hours. Since he cannot refute Caulaincourt’s arguments, he makes vague answers behind which his titanic wishes loom.

“A well-fought battle will put an end to the fine resolves of your friend Alexander.... He is false, ambitious, and weak; he has the character of a Greek. Believe me, it is he, not I, who wants this war, for he cherishes a hidden design.... He is out of humour because I did not take his sister.” When Caulaincourt gives proofs to the contrary, Napoleon says: “I have forgotten the details.”—Forgotten! This is a new word in the Emperor’s mouth. He knows his position to be weak; himself a man of facts, he now brushes away those which he finds inconvenient.

He sends a more resolute envoy to the tsar. When a proposal comes from St. Petersburg that Warsaw shall be exchanged for Oldenburg, the Emperor says threateningly to the Russian ambassador, raising his voice so that every one in the room may hear: “Not one Polish village!”

But these political incidents and discussions are merely the forms of destiny. Schemes flash like lightning through his brain; his soul is devoured by wishes: and he will rather reveal these things to a dangerous enemy like Fouché than to a shrewd adherent like Caulaincourt. He cannot rid himself of the ex-Jacobin and ex-cleric. Last year, he had cashiered the Minister of Police, for Fouché was obviously intriguing with England. But Napoleon was as lenient as he had been at the time of the conspiracy which had brought him back hot foot from Astorga. Instead of banishing the man, the Emperor had appointed him senator—at the same time writing to him words which give a glimpse into the inferno of these struggles between the monarch and the spy: “Although I do not doubt your devotion, I find it necessary to have you watched all the time. This is a fatiguing necessity, and I should not be called upon to do anything of the kind.”

But though he dismisses Fouché from his ministerial post, and has the watcher watched, Napoleon cannot get on without him, and talks to him about the most private matters.

“Since my marriage, people fancy that the lion is asleep. They will soon learn whether I am asleep. I need eight hundred thousand men, and have them; I shall tow all Europe in my wake. Europe is nothing more than an old woman, and with my eight hundred thousand men I can make her do whatever I please.... Did not you yourself say to me: ‘You let your genius have its way, because it does not know the word impossible.’ How can I help it if a great power drives me on to become dictator of the world? You and the others, who criticise me to-day and would like me to become a good-natured ruler—have not you all been accessories? I have not yet fulfilled my mission, and I mean to end what I have begun. We need a European legal code, a European court of appeal, a unified coinage, a common system of weights and measures. The same law must run throughout Europe. I shall fuse all the nations into one.... This, my lord duke, is the only solution that pleases me....” Having said this, he suddenly sends Fouché from the room.

Here we have it plainly disclosed, Napoleon’s vision of the United States of Europe. The plan is recorded by one who, in his memoirs, would fain have discredited the Emperor—this plan with its extremely rational deductions and its daimonic inspiration. Europe is no longer a “mole-hill” as it was in the days of Milan and Rivoli, when he was nothing more than General Bonaparte, and when to the young man of genius all possible adversaries seemed too petty. Fifteen years later, Europe has become a plastic material; and Bonaparte is the emperor, the legislator, the great orderer, the enemy of the anarchy out of which he sprang, the modeller who would mould the clay into a splendid whole. Throughout the intervening years he has been marching along a predestined path; now he displays before us, in this statement of his aims, the productive consequences towards which he has been moving along that road of force through ever new hecatombs of slaughter. Behind him lie Charlemagne’s visions of a united Europe; in front of him glide new forms; and Cæsar, half way towards the realisation of his dream, is well aware that the spirit will ultimately overpower the sword. He has himself said this; and what he is now striving to establish by force with the aid of eight hundred thousand men, will some day come into existence as a voluntary amalgamation based upon reason and necessity. All the nations will fuse into one.

This, my lord duke, is the only solution that pleases me.

III

While Napoleon is pouring his thoughts into Fouché’s ears, Alexander is pouring gold into Talleyrand’s pockets, and no doubt Talleyrand is going shares with Fouché. The bank could have informed Napoleon to whom Count Nesselrode, the new secretary to the Russian embassy, was paying out such large sums of money. From month to month Talleyrand lets Russia know how the French preparations for war are advancing, and when they will be completed. The limping Mephistopheles must have smiled to himself, sometimes, when Russia paid him for his information with licenses for the import of English goods into Russian harbours—documents which he could sell for hard cash in Paris!

Is the tsar richer than the Emperor? Russia is still allied to France, but the Russian market has been closed to French goods, and the famous 1811 vintage has one purchaser the less. Since England and Spain have long ceased to be customers, French industry is in a bad way. But when the Minister for Finance urges peace because tranquillity is essential to the restoration of French finances, the Emperor cuts him short by saying: “Not at all! It is true that our finances are disordered, but that is why we need war!”

This argument was valid in the past, when the general had sent from Italy the money which the indebted Directory needed, and when, as Consul and Emperor he had made money by his wars. The French State, suffering more than any other from the effects of the blockade it had itself established, showed a deficit for the first time, though the deficit amounted to hardly more than fifty millions. Yet, even now, the Emperor refused to sanction any kind of State loan; “that would be immoral, for it would lay a burden upon later generations.” Nevertheless, he introduced indirect taxes and monopolies; nor did he act unwisely in doing so, since he expected to acquire fresh markets, and thereby more stable finances, from the Russian war. But victory was essential!

He enthusiastically lays his plans before the Chambers of Commerce. “England has harmed herself far more by her blockade than she has harmed any other country; she has taught us how to dispense with her products. In a couple of years’ time, Europe will have adapted herself to the new ways of feeding her populations. Soon, we shall have more than enough beet sugar and shall be able to do without cane sugar.... Every year I draw only nine hundred millions revenue from my own country; three hundred millions I put away, and store in the cellars of the Tuileries. The Bank of France is full of silver; the Bank of England has none. Since the peace of Tilsit, I have received more than a milliard francs in indemnities. Austria is bankrupt. England and Russia will soon follow suit. I alone have money!”

All the same, no one has much faith in his fine words. The more the Emperor’s plans for world conquest force the pace of recruiting, the more keenly does he keep watch upon the internal tranquillity of France. As the ruthlessness of his dictatorship increases, the mood of the citizens of France becomes gloomier and gloomier. Any criticism, even in the remotest corner of the realm, is immediately pounced upon and prosecuted. There are more than three thousand persons locked up in gaol without trial, because this one “hates the Emperor,” or this other has certain “religious outlooks,” or another has written, “in private letters, unfriendly expressions in regard to the government.” A new press bureau, with the absurd name of “Bureau of Public Opinion,” is established to manufacture political trends. When a Dutch newspaper publishes the statement that it is within the competence of the pope to excommunicate kings, not only is the journal suppressed, but the author of the offending article is arrested. In a certain book, an appreciation of the English constitution has to be deleted; another work has to be rechristened “Campaigns of Napoleon the Great,” whereas the author’s original title had been “History of Bonaparte.”

While oppression of thought is rampant, it is not inconsonant with the imperialistic spirit to find that such men as Monge and Laplace, Guérin and Gérard, are willing to accept baronial honours. And when the French version of The Robbers is prohibited in Hamburg, the last of the republicans recall with ironical bitterness the day twenty years earlier when the revolution had conferred the right of French citizenship upon its German author.

What cares the Emperor for the mood of these ideologues? Under the spell of the evolution of his own powers, his eyes fixed upon the goal of his life’s aspiration, he misjudges now, as earlier in his struggle with the pope, the moral impression he is making upon his contemporaries. Yet in the past he had never failed to take this into account; at each step, he had questioned public opinion. Now, he allows the newfangled Bureau to manipulate public opinion: “What do I care for the opinion of the drawing-rooms and the babblers! I recognise only one opinion, that of the peasants!” Certain it is that the peasants are his most faithful supporters, mainly because he rescued their lands from the dangers threatened by the revolution. Now that the Spanish war has swallowed up larger and larger armies, the peasants have to pay eight thousand francs for a substitute, simply to save the few remaining sons to carry on the work of agriculture on the lands of their fathers. Many thousands of these young men are trying to evade service; and those who in the early days of the war would have joyfully rallied to the colours, have now to be rounded up by mobile columns or forced into the ranks by threats against their families and the communes to which they belong.

Why should the Emperor be surprised at such a change of mood? Had not General Bonaparte set out to carry the ideas of the revolution to the peoples groaning under the yoke of emperors and kings? Did not the First Consul go forth to repel in his one campaign, did not the Emperor likewise go forth to repel in his three wars, the ever-renewed onslaughts of the allied monarchs? That by wars thus forced upon him he won more than freedom for the land of his adoption, that by the battles of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram he obtained new provinces from the enemy, was the outcome of his genius, and encouraged the people’s army to fresh deeds of valour. Even the rivalry with England was comprehensible to the French people; had it not been ever thus in the days of their fathers and grandfathers before them? But what could the peasant of Provence make of these purely political struggles in Spain and in Russia? The Emperor could not explain to him the plan for setting up a United States of Europe. Men had disappeared in the rivers of Andalusia, the names of which fell haltingly from a Frenchman’s lips. The peasant needed the support of his son’s young arm, now that the years were creeping onward. So it was that he purchased his son’s freedom from military service, and growled as he paid.

What had the German peasants to say when, addressed as “contingents,” they answered the call of their kings and accompanied the foreign Emperor into distant lands? Thousands of peasants from the valley of the Main were dispatched to Spain; Jerome sent thirty thousand Westphalians to the Oder; Saxons guarded the Vistula; Württembergers and Bavarians flowed in a steady stream eastward, for “if the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine” (thus writes the Emperor to one of these same princes) “give me the least cause to doubt their willingness to undertake a joint defence, then, I tell them frankly, they are lost. I prefer open enemies to untrustworthy friends.” Such is the crack of the master’s whip. He deals more politely with the Habsburg. All being well, Austria may even be rewarded for her aid by receiving Silesia.

Germany, composed as she is of many small and disintegrated fragments, serves Napoleon admirably in his jig-saw game with the nations. The three southern States have had their inhabitants and their lands bartered and exchanged at will; and, since Eugene has lost his throne to the Emperor’s son (the baby was made “King of Rome”) he is immediately installed as ruler in the hastily concocted “grand duchy of Frankfort.”

What of Prussia? Why should Prussia continue to exist? Had he not, in Tilsit days, merely preserved this kingdom to please the tsar? But he is about to destroy the tsar! By notices and decrees, the Emperor announces that now, just before the war with Russia begins, Prussia is to be parcelled up. Does he not know that for the last year Prussia has been the ally of Russia, and that in a secret treaty the tsar has promised Frederick William his assistance? The Emperor hears much of defiant songs, of volunteer corps, of discontent in the universities, of the Tugendbund. Beware! Remember Spain! Do not trust to the proverbial “tolerance and coldness of these north Germans”! Surely it would be wiser to utilise the Prussian army before destroying it....

The great-hearted Scharnhorst assures Frederick William that now is the time to strike. But Metternich, in Vienna, tricks the Prussian general when he proposes an alliance, and advises him to seek alliance with Russia rather than with the Habsburg emperor. For only if the man with whom he exchanges these words of false friendship, becomes an opponent, only if Prussia enters the war as Austria’s enemy, can Austria hope to enclose Silesia once more within her borders. At the same time Hardenberg bends before the Vienna wind, to-day as always. The king, who will take no risks, and who considers Napoleon absolutely unconquerable, at last makes up his mind to enter into alliance with the Emperor; his resolution comes too late to secure favourable terms. Silesia and Poland are already alive with troops, and Prussia is surrounded. In such circumstances it is natural that she should be treated as a vassal, should have to tolerate the passage of armies, should have to put up with requisitionings, should have to look on patiently while her eastern fortresses are manned by French soldiers and her auxiliary corps commanded by foreign marshals. Metternich writes to his master in gleeful mood: “Prussia need no longer be reckoned among the powers.”

And yet! And yet! Although Europe, from Capua to Tilsit, at the outset of 1812, is rallying to Napoleon’s standard, although his arm reaches from Finisterre to Bukovina, he feels how uncertain is the outcome of his campaign, and, as Count Ségur tells us, starts up from the conning of his interminable lists and calculations to exclaim in terror: “I am not ready to undertake a war in such far-off lands! I need three years more!”

But the machine rolls on; no master hand can stay it. An inner impulse urges him forward; the whole history of his rise to power impels him; all the shades of vanished years drive him on. He, who has built so many harbours wherein to seek refuge in times of storm and stress, is in the end tossed out upon the open sea, more roughly, more speedily than he had wished, and, with the wild determination of the adventurer, he now recklessly seizes the steering-wheel which for so long he has manipulated with statesmanlike care. “Do you not see,” he exclaims to his brother, “that I can only keep my seat upon this throne by means of the fame which brought me to it? That a private individual such as I, who has merely risen to become a ruler, dare not call a halt? That such a one is constrained to mount higher and ever higher, and is doomed to perish the moment he stops climbing?”

His soul is a-flicker with excitement, so that at one moment he is eager for the final struggle, and at the next dreads it. His letter to the tsar, with which, as heretofore, he begins the campaign, still preserves a friendly tone. At the same time he says to a Russian colonel who is on spy duty in Paris: “Since the tsar is young and I have yet many years to live, I had thought to preserve the peace of Europe by means of our good feelings towards one another. My feelings have not changed. Tell him this; and say, in addition, that if the fates decree that the two greatest powers of the world are to come to blows over girlish peccadilloes, I shall enter the lists as a gallant knight, without hatred and without enmity. I suggest to him the possibility of our meeting for breakfast together between our respective outposts.... I still hope that we shall not spill the blood of hundreds of thousands of brave men, simply because we cannot agree as to the colour of a ribbon!”

How his own unrest vibrates through these brilliant subterfuges, which he specially adapts to cajole Alexander’s feminine disposition! A grey gauntlet of steel is hurled from one world power to the other; the great fight between birth and genius is now to take place in all its grandeur. And he who, after two decades of dreaming, sees his dream descending out of the clouds earthwards, talks as if nothing more were at stake than a girl’s quarrel or the colour of a piece of ribbon—when in reality the fate of the world hangs in the balance!

IV

What is passing in Alexander’s mind? Estranged from the Russian nobility, railed at by his mother, cheated out of his hopes of setting up the cross once more on St. Sophia, deeply concerned about Poland (which his adversary threatens to liberate)—there are reasons enough, both in political and court life, why he should no longer regard Napoleon as his friend. After Tilsit, Metternich had said that it would take five years for the tsar’s feelings to swing to the opposite pole. That period had now elapsed, and although the tsar’s was one of those nervous temperaments in which moods decide actions, on his side, too, the struggle could assume allegorical greatness. But he lacked a grand aim and a lofty thought. He was not even fighting to win warlike renown against the master craftsman in the art of war. The impulses that drove him to the fight were merely the outcome of a confused mysticism, in whose waters he had drowned his old veneration for the magician of Tilsit.

Politically, he makes two successful moves in the game, one of these being intimately adapted to the peculiarities of human character, and therefore weighty with consequence. To cope with Napoleon, he needs tranquillity on his southern and his northern borders. He finds means to keep the sultan neutral; but in the case of Sweden he manages even better, for he is able to secure an alliance. He and Bernadotte meet on the frontier; and here, for the second time, the tsar of all the Russias succumbs to the charm of a French revolutionary. Sweden is in danger of English vengeance. Norway belongs to the Francophil Danes. The community of interests between Sweden and Russia secures expression when Russia, in return for a promise of help in the coming war, guarantees that Sweden shall have Norway.

But this prospect of territorial enlargement is not the thing that spurs Bernadotte to action. He, who is king in Napoleon’s despite, cares no more about his new subjects than those who had become kings by Napoleon’s favour cared about theirs. But the tsar, too, has an imagination. Looking forward to the winning of this game, he sees in broad outline what lies beyond. He sees, not only the Emperor’s defeat, but the Emperor’s destruction; and while Napoleon, at the head of the greatest army known to history, is slowly advancing to swallow up the tsar, Alexander is promising Bernadotte, the friend of Bonaparte’s youth, no less a prize than the throne of France.

To such heights, this summer, do the opposing eagles soar.

In Dresden, the Emperor treats all the princes to the spectacle of a review, just as he had done four years earlier in Erfurt. The only sovereign from among that company who is absent, is the one he is now to fight. But Alexander’s place has been taken by the Habsburg ruler. Only once before have Napoleon and Francis met, on the day after Austerlitz. Twice, since then, has the victorious Emperor of the French occupied the Austrian’s abandoned capital. When peace had been made between them, and the victor had wedded the daughter of the vanquished, the girl had been sent alone from Vienna to distant Paris.

Now Marie Louise sits between husband and father at the sparkling board, and to outward seeming all is well. The father-in-law is pledged in alliance, and the Emperor has appointed his wife regent of France. But vainly has he forbidden her to be so foolish as to attempt the outshining of her step-mother on these festal occasions. The empress from Paris sheds tears at the prohibition, while the empress from Vienna weeps because her pearls are smaller than those worn by Marie Louise. The old jealousies between the principalities and powers now find vent in family quarrels which the courtiers try to gloss over. When a health is drunk to the boy who should be a tie between all four of them, both the men and both the women drown their thoughts in their champagne, though each knows perfectly well what the others are thinking.

The December meeting in the windmill near Austerlitz, and the May meeting in the palace of the Saxon kings! Son-in-law and father-in-law will never set eyes on one another again.

Meanwhile, half a million men are being ranged between Königsberg and Lemberg. The master of these legions journeys to Posen, and announces the “Second Polish War,” for his ostensible aim is merely to wrest Poland from the tsar—most of the old kingdom, at any rate, as far as Smolensk. “There or in Minsk,” he tells a confidant, “the campaign will end. I shall winter in Vilna, organise Lithuania, and live at Russia’s expense. If, then, peace cannot be secured, I shall, next year, advance into the centre of the enemy’s land, and stay there until the tsar becomes pliable.” The whole disposition of Napoleon’s troops is made in accordance with this scheme. At Russia’s expense? What supplies can he get from Russia? Has he accurate information regarding the resources of this foreign land?

In Gumbinnen, he sends for a Prussian president. Speaking of the stores of grain he has collected in the German ports, and proposes to have sent to Kovno, he says:

“I presume there are plenty of mills in Kovno?”

“No, Sire; very few mills are to be found there.”

The Emperor looks at Berthier “dubiously.” This glance of the supreme war lord at his chief of general staff is a fore-shadowing of the disillusionments he is to experience in the unknown land beyond the Memel. It is not the mere lack of mills which disturbs him, but the fact that he is taken by surprise. For a whole year, the Emperor has been preparing the great campaign. Troops, parks of ammunition, reserve corps, fourteen hundred pieces of ordnance, siege trains, bridge-building materials, pontoons, have been assembled from seven realms, counting the Confederation of the Rhine as one. Eight Baltic fortresses are used as storehouses, to which hundreds of ships and thousands of wagons bring wheat and rice. Some of the wagons are drawn by oxen which are destined for the slaughter house at the end of their journey—a symbol of compulsory military service, in which a man serves only that he may die. Now Napoleon learns that he is about to enter a country without mills. He can build them, no doubt; but at what cost in time and men! Are other surprises awaiting him across the Russian border? It will be impossible to carry fodder for one hundred and fifty thousand horses. That is why he has waited till June, when the grass will be green. But what if the steppe should disappoint him here?

And what if his men’s spirit should disappoint him?

On the frontier, warning voices make themselves heard. He is told that these young recruits are hardly able to endure the long marches, and that the heat will be too much for them. In Dresden, Murat had vainly asked for furlough. Now, in Danzig, he and Berthier and Rapp are dining with the Emperor in gloomy silence. Napoleon, emerging from his thoughts of world conquest, suddenly asks Rapp: “How far is it from Danzig to Cadiz?” Rapp is bold enough to answer: “Too far, Sire!” Thereupon the master rejoins:

“I can see, gentlemen, that you no longer have any taste for fighting. The king of Naples would rather be back in his pretty kingdom; Berthier would like to be playing the sportsman in Grosbois; Rapp would fain be enjoying the sweets of Parisian life!”

The marshals answer never a word, for they will not deny that it is so. But that it should be so, is a new experience for Emperor Napoleon.

When he reaches the Memel, the symbolic significance of the Russian frontier captivates his imagination to such an extent that he is the first to cross the river, and he gallops several miles eastward before returning slowly to the bridge. Well, he is over now, and this time, in very truth, he has crossed the Rubicon. At his nod, three armies advance into the interior of Poland. The main army is under his immediate command, the second being commanded by Eugene, and the third by Jerome. Why does he venture to entrust a whole army to the leadership of this amateur (who made such a fool of himself in the last war), even with the safeguard of veteran generals as advisers? Napoleon thinks he can risk it. The enemy has at most three hundred thousand men.

Where is the enemy? In two armies, led by Barclay de Tolly and Bagration. They are somewhere in Lithuania, far away, and the total force is only one hundred and seventy thousand. Napoleon’s overestimate of the strength of his opponents was a disastrous error, for if he had himself had fewer mouths to feed, he would have had a much better chance of getting adequate supplies for his soldiers. Why is he so keen on superiority of numbers? General Bonaparte was used, with forty thousand men, to defeat an enemy that greatly outnumbered him, his method being to crush one wing of the foe after another. The cumbrous multitude he has collected for the present campaign is symptomatic of his own increasing age, and of the lust for power which makes him pile up weight, instead of equipping the spirit with wings. Is he no longer the commander of the days of Rivoli?

In a sense, he is still that commander, for, even with this gigantic array of troops, he will be a victorious invader. His first army will march from Tilsit upon Vilna, to take up a position between the Russian detachments, so that his second and third armies can separately defeat the enemy. But the Russian distances weaken his influence. Upon a front of such vast extent, he cannot show himself everywhere. Those who command under him are too independent of one another (Davoust and Murat nearly fight a duel), and yet they are too dependent upon him. Never did he suffer more than in this campaign from the lack of speedy means of communication. His was the central brain in all his undertakings, so that a telegraph would have been far more useful to him than to his opponents.

The Russians are aware of their own weakness. Neither of the two commanders ventures to stand firm. Both of them withdraw before the invaders, at first without any mutual understanding, to get into touch later, far in the rear. These are not the tactics of inspired leaders. Though the Russians do the right thing, it is merely because they are afraid of the forces that outnumber theirs, and because they dread the great name of Napoleon. They are but instruments in the hands of fate.

For a time, the Emperor pauses in his advance. In Vilna, he says: “If Monsieur Barclay imagines that I am going to run after him to the Volga, he is making a great mistake. We will follow him to Smolensk and the Dvina, where a good battle will provide us with quarters.... It would certainly be destruction were we to cross the Dvina this year. I shall go back to Vilna, spend the winter there, send for a troupe from the Théâtre Français, and another to play opera. We shall finish off the affair next May, unless peace is made during the winter.”

News from the outer world is satisfactory. At length the United States has declared war on England, and has gained some victories at sea. In England the opposition, which wants peace, is gathering strength. Even in Spain things are not going so badly. Forward! A good battle!

But where is the enemy? The Emperor goes scouting, accompanied by only one officer; there is no trace of the Russians. Uneasiness grows. Since the invaders are marching light, and therefore too quickly, part of the army, on bad roads and amid heat and rainstorms, gets separated from its commissariat, upon which everything depends. In Vilna he fails to find the tsar, though Alexander has been there just before. At this moment, news is brought that the supplies are delayed, for the commissariat wagons have stuck fast in a morass, and the vessels that are bringing other supplies have run aground in the river; moreover, ten thousand horses have perished, through gorging themselves upon rank grass. The shortage cannot be hidden from the troops, who scatter through the town, and plunder so recklessly that there will be no supplies left for the next comers.

The Emperor can get nothing from the inhabitants of this land either by threats or cajoleries; and yet he detests rapine, which leads to chaos. The Lithuanians note that even now he has not granted the Poles the promised kingdom. They do not hail him as a liberator, as the people of Lombardy had done long years before. They give no help; they give nothing; they are hardly willing to accept in payment the forged rouble notes, millions of which he has had printed in Paris. They pray.

What is to be done? Now is the time to win over the tsar. He writes: “All that has taken place is out of keeping with Your Majesty’s character, and with the personal consideration you have sometimes shown me in the past.... When I crossed the Memel, I had it in mind to send you an adjutant, as I have always done in previous campaigns.” But, since the tsar had refused to receive his last envoy, “I realised that the invisible providence whose power and dominion I recognise would decide this matter, as he had decided so many others.... Nothing, therefore, is left but to conclude with the request that you will remain convinced of the steadfastness of my kindly feelings towards you.”

Before writing this long and unctuous letter, in which nothing is genuine except the perplexity and the faith in destiny, he has had a conversation with a captured general who is to convey the missive. The way in which the Emperor hectors the prisoner, smacks of comic opera: “What does the tsar expect from this war? I have seized one of his best provinces without firing a shot, and neither of us knows what we are quarrelling about!” Then, as his way was, he spent an hour or more pointing out the Russians’ mistakes, asking why they had not defended Vilna, and talking to this captive just as if he had been berating one of his own generals in Spain. “Are you not ashamed of yourselves?” is the burden of his song. He waxes enthusiastic about the Poles, whom as a rule he frankly despises; but now it suits him to make much of their contempt for death. He says that he has thrice as many soldiers as the tsar, and much more money, so that he will be able to carry on the war for three years. These falsehoods are uttered in simulated anger, which he allows to flash out by fits and starts. The Russian meets bluff with bluff, saying that in Muscovy they have made preparations for a five years’ campaign. But now the turn has come for one of the Emperor’s bursts of frankness, in words suited to the ears of this officer blown him by a chance wind, but of course designed to impress the tsar, to whom they will be reported.

“I am the man of calculations. When I was in Erfurt, my reckonings convinced me that it would suit my book better to walk hand in hand with you Russians, instead of quarrelling with you. We might still have been good friends.... Then the tsar made peace with me, when his country wanted war; now he makes war on me, when his country wants peace. It puzzles me that so distinguished a man can have anything to do with such persons as some of his present advisers.... How can any one make war through a council of war? If at two in the morning a good idea enters my mind, in a quarter of an hour I have issued my orders, and half an hour later my outposts are executing it. But what happens among you?” Napoleon shows the prisoner a letter from the Russian general staff which his men have intercepted. “You can take it with you, for it will while away the tedium of your journey.... Tell the tsar I pledge him my word that five hundred and fifty thousand men have already crossed the Vistula. But I am a man of calculations, not a man of passion. I am still willing to enter into negotiations. What a glorious reign he might have had, if he had not broken with me!”

The general is alarmed by this flood of confessions. But in the evening, when he dines with the Emperor and three of the marshals, he is placed on an entirely different footing, for the Emperor proceeds to cross-question him like an explorer eager for information.

“Have you any Kirghiz regiments?”

“No, but we are making experiments with Bashkirs and Tartars, who are very like the Kirghiz.”

“Is it true that when the tsar was in Vilna, he went to tea every day with a pretty lady there? Let me see, what was her name?”

“The tsar is courtly to every lady.”

“Is it true that Baron vom Stein dined with the tsar?”

“All persons of note were invited to dinner.”

“How can the tsar tolerate such a man as Stein at his table! Does he think the fellow can be fond of him? Angels and devils cannot be good companions.... What is the population of Moscow? How many houses? How many churches?... Why are there such a lot of churches?”

“Because our people are very pious.”

“Nobody is pious nowadays. Which is the shortest way to Moscow?”

“All roads lead to Rome, Sire. You can choose your own route to Moscow. Charles XII. marched by way of Pultava.”

At this mischievous answer, the Emperor thought fit to turn the conversation. As for the general, he had wit enough to report in St. Petersburg that Napoleon was extremely nervous.

This nervousness increases mile after mile. The Emperor tries to join battle, but the Russians evade the issue. Barclay, who is waiting for a junction with Bagration, retreats aimlessly; Bagration does not come, for he believes that he is facing, not Jerome, but the main body of the invaders. Still, Bagration retreats. Jerome, who ought to follow him up, is too slow in his movements, so that Davoust, who is waiting for a junction with Jerome, has to let the enemy slip. The Emperor, in a rage, cashiers Jerome (who retires in dudgeon to Cassel), and gives the command to Davoust. Too late! His fondness for Jerome, the braggart, has cost him the chance of a decisive battle. As difficulties increase, the Emperor redoubles the pace of his advance; but as the tempo is quickened, the difficulties are redoubled. There is no means, now, of providing for the army. The retreating Russians burn their storehouses. No bread, no vegetables, nothing but meat. Dysentery breaks out. The horses eat the thatch from the roofs, and collapse in great numbers, so that their corpses line the road. During this advance in which there are no battles, the Bavarian leader estimates the losses of his corps at nine hundred men a day.

What is Paris saying?

Very little news comes to hand; hardly a word even from the empress. It seems as if the couriers were already being cut off. But here is a report from the Tuileries, written by the governess, to let him know how the child is getting on. He rejoins: “I hope to hear from you soon that the last four teeth have been cut. I have seen to it that the nurse shall get everything she needs. You can assure her of this.”

See the Emperor in the sun-parched steppe; before him rises the smoke of the burning villages he has yet to reach, behind him the stench of decomposing bodies. The strange food and the unaccustomed heat lead to a recurrence of his attacks of gastric spasm; he can no longer bear to ride, and, since wheeled traffic is constantly coming to grief, he covers great distances on foot, accompanied by the whole of his staff, pursued by the thought: Where is the fight to take place? Couriers arrive less frequently, and, when they do come, bring no news calculated to interest him in his present state of nervous tension. Yet here he is, pacing up and down within his tent; and the pen of his secretary, instead of, as usual, ordering masses of men to move from one place to another, hastens over the paper to record the master’s concern about the four teeth which are still lacking to an infant in a forlorn palace twelve hundred miles away. Soon the Emperor will be in Vitebsk. How far is it thence to Paris?

“Too far, Sire,” is re-echoed from unseen lips.

At last! We’ve got him! There stands Barclay, held in check for the moment by Murat! He thinks to escape to Smolensk on the morrow; such are the tidings! The hour has struck. But the Emperor is ill, irresolute. With unwonted consideration, he does not wish his exhausted army to go straight from the heat of the march into the heat of battle; with unwonted caution, he wishes to collect more troops than he really needs before beginning the attack, in order that the battle may be “another Austerlitz.” He waits till morning.

The Russian laughs. Under cover of the morning mists, he makes good his retreat; and when the air clears not a trace of the foe is to be seen, nor can a guess be made as to the direction he has taken. At midday the Emperor returns from the search, flings his sword on the table, and exclaims:

“Here I remain. Let us rally our forces. The campaign of the year ’12 is at an end.” When Murat urges him to continue the forward march, Napoleon answers: “In ’13 I shall be at Moscow; in ’14 at St. Petersburg. This war will last three years!”

It is time that the scattered army should be reorganised. Nearly a third of the forces has been struck off the lists, although no battle has taken place; the country has devoured them. Where are the auxiliaries—the Prussians under Macdonald, the Austrians under Schwarzenberg? Trustworthy news is lacking. Too far! What a country! How is one to pass the weary hours when there is no fighting? Wait? In Cairo there were a hundred men of science in his train, and the country was full of unsolved riddles.—The following letter bears witness to a sense of boredom the Emperor has not known since the days of his lieutenancy:

“Send us some entertaining books,” the secretary writes to the librarian in Paris. “If there are some good novels, new or old, which the Emperor has not read, or memoirs pleasantly written, we should be most grateful; for time hangs so heavily on our hands in this place.”

Can we not see him standing in front of his tent in his old green coat? He takes one pinch of snuff after another, and from time to time looks through his telescope across the plain. Then a grenadier approaches with a paper in his hand; the Emperor reads it, puts it away; the two secretaries gaze dumbly from the gloom of the tent, like two tamed animals awaiting the nod of their tamer. Rustam sits apart Turk fashion; for him alone is the weather never too hot. All movement is paralysed, activity is stopped, one can go neither forward nor backward. Napoleon calls towards the tent: “Méneval! Order some novels!”

News comes at last: England has secured a treaty with the tsar and with the Spanish regent. This arouses the Emperor: he sees in it the birth of a fresh coalition; perhaps, even, encirclement. Must he really lie up here till Europe rises against him or goes to sleep? Over there is Smolensk. The two Russian armies have doubtless by now met in the town. That is where the real Russia begins: surely they will not evacuate and burn the old town of the Blessed Virgin, as they have been doing in the Polish and Lithuanian wilderness! Should victory be achieved at Smolensk, then the march on Moscow or St. Petersburg can be undertaken at will.

He questions his generals. Many of them utter words of warning. But the Emperor replies: “Russia cannot continue this sacrifice of her towns. Alexander can only begin negotiations after there has been a big battle. No blood has yet been spilled. Even if I have to march as far as the holy city of Moscow, I am determined to force a fight and win!”

At last the two Russian armies have effected a junction; they plan a systematic retreat, preceded by a stubborn resistance; wave after wave of the weary French army breaks against the walls of Smolensk. The veterans think of Acre, thirteen years gone by.... In the end, the town falls, but it falls amid the flames; a heap of ruins is all that is left in the victor’s hands. Is the Emperor beginning to understand the moral strength of this people? Can he not see that day by day its mood becomes more fanatical, that it would rather burn its ancient holy things than leave them to the enemy? There remains nothing for a starving army to plunder.

The Emperor, indeed, is in sorry plight. King Lear upon the heath. Power crumbles in fragments from his body; every gesture melts in the air; from afar the laughter of the rational world comes echoing, to be lost in the void. An end must be made. A second message is sent to the tsar. No use writing, for that last letter from Vilna has remained unanswered. Once more a captured general is ushered into his presence, and once more the Emperor’s secret meditations are unveiled. In conclusion he says:

“Can you write to the tsar? No? Still, you can write to your brother at headquarters and tell him what I am saying to you. You will greatly oblige me if you tell him that you have seen me and that I have charged you to write to him. He would do me a real service if he himself would let the tsar know, or get the grand duke to do it for him, that my greatest wish is to conclude peace.... What are we fighting for? Of course, if you were the English, that would be a different matter! But the Russians have done nothing to me. You want to buy coffee and sugar cheaply? Very well. That can be arranged. But do you fancy it will be easy to beat me? Then get your council of war to consider the situation; if it thinks the Russians can achieve a victory, choose your battle-ground.... Otherwise I shall be compelled to take Moscow, and, in spite of every precaution, I shall perhaps not be able to save it from destruction. A capital which has been in the possession of the enemy, is like a woman who has lost her honour.... What do you think? If the tsar wishes to conclude peace, surely none will oppose him?”

As a young lieutenant, as a young general, he had never asked a favour; he could not; he knew only how to command. Even to kings he wrote in the tone of a commander, and the word “please” had only twice passed his lips during the course of this last decade: the first time, when he asked the pope to anoint him emperor; the second time, when he besought Francis of Habsburg for his daughter’s hand. Yet to-day, what a tone! What thoughts must be passing through the captive’s mind at the moment when his sword is given back to him!—Can this be the master of the world? Has he not begged me, a poor man, begged me and my brother, to do him a service? How came these things to be? Has he no other messenger? Coffee and sugar are to blame, it seems, for the fact that an army of hundreds of thousands of men is perishing in my land! And, as though the whole thing were some brilliant game of chess, the master player sends his challenge, while Little Mother Russia is suffering and weeping, and sees one of her cities after the other go up in flames, and the images of her saints reduced to ashes!

The letter to the captive general’s brother is duly written, passes Berthier’s censorship, is delivered—but is never answered. The Emperor is beside himself with rage: he passes through a period in which he makes impulsive and vacillating decisions. When Rapp asks whether the army is to go forward or to retreat, Napoleon answers: “The wine is poured out; it must be drunk to the last drop. I am for Moscow.... Too long have I played the emperor; it is time I became the general once more.” The eyes of the officer light up as he recognises the old ring in the voice!—We are at the beginning of September.

On the sacred soil of the heath near Borodino, Kutusoff, Barclay’s successor, must at length put up a fight. The armies now are of equal strength: this is the game the Emperor proposed. No one sleeps, for to-morrow, to-morrow at last, the battle will be joined! Then will golden Moscow lie at our feet, and all our troubles will be at an end. In the middle of the night, a courier arrives from Paris. The Emperor, bending over his maps, asks if there is anything urgent to attend to. Silently his secretary hands him a dispatch from Spain: Wellington has gained a decisive victory over Marmont in the fight near Salamanca. The Emperor reads the report, makes no comment, and resumes his interrupted work. At the eastern extremity of Europe, at the point where it loses itself in the Asiatic wastes, in a few hours he is to vanquish the Russians. This is no time to trouble his mind as to the significance of the victory of the detested Briton at the southern extremity of Europe. Day has dawned. To-day, as every day, the guards call the salute: “Vive l’Empereur!”

He shows them his son’s picture, which the courier that night had brought him from Paris. There they stand, the old war-dogs, never dreaming that France has been beaten in Spain, but admiring the portrait of the beautiful boy who is their leader’s very own son. When the picture is brought back to the tent, the Emperor says, speaking like a poet: “Hide it away. He is too young to look upon a battle-field.”

In fierce fighting, on this day of Borodino, salient points are taken, lost, and retaken. The guards shout. They want to decide the issue, here, on the Moskva, as they have so often done before. His generals beseech him to order the advance, and his intimates urge him to action, but he will not give the word. For the first time, when the fight is on, he will not stir from his place. He is feverish, panting for breath, racked with a cough, and his legs are swelled. He sits motionless on his horse, and cannot make up his mind to order the advance of the guards, although the fate of the day seems to hang on it. “Suppose there should be another battle to-morrow? What men shall I have left to fight it with?” At night the Russians withdraw. Next day, when the fallen are counted on the field, they number seventy thousand dead or half-dead—more than in any of his previous battles. The Emperor exclaims:

“Fortune is a strumpet. I have often said so. Now the truth is coming home to me.”

But the way to Moscow is open. Half a million men had been chosen for the invasion. One hundred thousand of them are still following him, when, from an elevation, with his back towards the setting sun, he first sees the city of a thousand cupolas, and upon the hill in its centre that fragment of the East, the Kremlin. Napoleon, as he gazes at the sight, is filled with weariness rather than with exultation, and he says in a low tone:

“Moscow! It is time!”

V

“Where are the keys of the city? Why are not the mayor and corporation here to hand them over?”

For the greater part of the afternoon he waits while the army marches past him, waits for the keys of the town. At Vienna and Milan, at Madrid and Berlin, he had ridden through the gates as a conqueror. Are these Tartars ignorant of the fine old Roman custom? From afar can be heard the noise made by Kutusoff’s soldiers, as the half-beaten army evacuates the Eastern side of the town, while Napoleon’s men are streaming in from the west. The advance guard of the French and the rear guard of the Russians are almost in touch. It is a silent entry, for the town is like a city of the dead; the houses are empty. “Still, there are plenty of houses,” think the weary campaigners; “we shall find food, and be able to sleep at our ease.”

The Emperor and his staff ride slowly through the streets whose silence is so ominous. The Kremlin is their destination. Here is the ancient fortress. The newcomers look with astonishment at its walls. All the gates are open, but there is no one there to act as guide. The golden and red halls are forsaken, as in the vision of a dream. The invaders make their way into a huge room where the windows are boarded up. The grenadiers knock the boards away with the butt ends of their muskets, and the Emperor recognises by the canopy that he is in the coronation room of the tsars of Muscovy; but the throne is veiled.

Peace is the only thing lacking to him in this moment of fulfilment. Where is the peace? He has nothing but a victory. Who has cheated him of its fruits? Only the vast, strange land; the steppe has cheated him to-day, as the desert cheated him thirteen years ago. Why did he not free the serfs in Lithuania, and thus win guides and new soldiers, as he had planned to do aforetime with the liberated Arabs? What if he were to adopt this policy now? The town is deserted, but there are peasants in the surrounding countryside. Why not summon them, make terms with them? We are masters here; this enigmatic realm can still offer much of what we desire!

Night comes, but sleep is coy. “Let us do some work, then, to distract our minds,” he says to Caulaincourt. He opens the map of Poland; satisfies himself that it was impossible to stay there; in six weeks he can be in St. Petersburg. The muster rolls (they are his Bible, which he always takes with him on a journey, and perpetually cons even in peace time) show him what forces are still at his disposal. His spirits rise as he looks at the columns of figures. “In a few weeks I could get together a quarter of a million men here. There are plenty of roofs to cover them, but what about food? The city seems to be in the middle of a desert!”

A red glare shows through the windows. Fire! Oh, well, we’re used to that. There were several fires here and there yesterday evening. But orderlies rush in, and generals arrive. A hundred messengers have reported the outbreak of fires all over the city. Not accidental fires, but prearranged, for the fire-engines have been broken or removed. Do these lunatics mean that Holy Moscow should go up in flames? What will the Emperor do? Ségur, who was with him in these dark hours, tells us what happened:

“It seems as if the encircling flames have spread to the Emperor’s mind. By turns, he leaps to his feet, sits down again, or tramps hastily through the rooms of the palace. His abrupt movements betray his terrible agitation. He abandons an urgent task, resumes it, abandons it once more, that he may fling the window wide. He exclaims:

“‘What a dreadful sight! Their own work! So many palaces! How stupendous a decision! Who could have expected anything of the kind? What men they are! They are Scythians!’

“Suddenly we are informed that the Kremlin has been mined. Some of the servants are panic-stricken; the guard quietly awaits orders. The Emperor smiles incredulously, but he continues to pace convulsively to and fro, halting at every window to watch the raging element as it seizes the bridges and the gates, simultaneously imprisoning him and besieging him. The air is full of smoke and flying sparks; the equinoctial gale increases the fury of the conflagration.

“Murat and Eugene arrive hotfoot, force their way to the Emperor, and urge him to flee. In vain! Napoleon, master in the palace of the tsars, is steadfast. He will not yield even to devouring flame. But suddenly comes the cry: ‘Fire in the Kremlin!’ The Emperor is to see the danger close at hand.

“A Russian military policeman has been seized in a turret of the arsenal. Brought before the Emperor, the man admits that he has fired the Kremlin, acting under orders. The Emperor makes a sign of rage and contempt. The prisoner is led out into the courtyard and is cut down by the grenadiers. This incident decides the Emperor’s action.

“We hasten down the northern staircase, and the Emperor orders us to guide him out of the town. But all the gates of the citadel are blocked by the flames. At length an alley-way leading to the Moskva is discovered between two rocks. Through this narrow passage we are able to escape from the Kremlin. But what has been gained? How can we cross the river? The soldiers, blinded by the sparks and deafened by the storm, do not know where they are, and the streets are hidden amid the smoke. The only way out of the inferno is through a winding street where the houses are on fire.

“Heedlessly the Emperor strides along this dreadful exit, undismayed by the crackle of the flaming beams and by the crash of the falling roofs.... We can hardly breathe, so intense is the heat. Our guide loses his way, and we should all have ended our lives in the flames had not some marauders belonging to the first army corps recognised the Emperor and found a way for him and the rest of us out of the smoking ruins.

“We meet Davoust. He has been injured on the Moskva, but has had himself carried back among the blazing houses, hoping to find the Emperor or perish with him. The general embraces Napoleon in a fever of delight. The Emperor responds in friendly fashion, but with that calm which never leaves him in the hour of danger.”

He awaits the end of the conflagration in the Petroffsky palace, a suburban retreat. On the fourth day, he returns to the Kremlin, where very little damage has been done. On the fifth day, his patience gives out. For the third time, he writes to the tsar. Even now, when he is in possession of the capital, he feels he is grasping at the air. He is so cut off from the enemy that once more he has to make use of a Russian prisoner (this time only a captain), in order to find a contact with the tsar. Napoleon receives the man in the throne room. Does he sense the heroic grotesqueness of the scene? An officer of no account, powerless, unknown, is the representative of Holy Russia; before him, in the storied hall of the tsars, stands the mighty Emperor of the French, the conqueror at whose slightest nod all Europe trembles. The Emperor speaks, chaffers, poses conditions with this man, as though the occasion were another Tilsit and the captain the tsar.

“I am conducting a purely political war,” Napoleon reiterates. “All I need is the fulfilment of our treaties. Had I taken London, I would not have offered to leave it so speedily. From here, however, I intend very soon to withdraw. If the tsar wants peace, he must let me know of his desire.... I am setting you free, but on condition that you make your way to St. Petersburg. The tsar will be glad to see an eyewitness of recent happenings in Moscow. You must tell him everything.”

“I shall not be permitted to enter his presence, Sire.”

“Appeal to Court Chamberlain Tolstoy. He is an upright man. If he fails you, get the tsar’s body servant to introduce you to his presence, or you must approach His Majesty during one of his daily walks....” The captain gets cold all over; it seems to him that he is being urged to commit a crime, an attempt on the tsar’s life. He can promise nothing; stammers.

The Emperor says: “Very well. I shall write a letter to your emperor and you must see that he gets it.” This last missive, which finds its way from one emperor’s hands into those of the other, is the strangest of the trio.

“My Lord Brother.... Beautiful, magical Moscow exists no more.... This deed is loathsome, and to no purpose. Did you wish to rob me of my means of support? They were in the cellars, to which the flames never penetrated. How could you consign to destruction the loveliest city in the world, a city it has taken hundreds of years to build; how could you lay it waste for so little gain!... Out of kindness, and in the interests of Your Majesty, I have now taken charge of the town which the Russian army had sacrificed. At least the municipal authorities and the militia should have been left in the city, as was the case in Vienna, on two occasions, and in Berlin and Madrid; Milan, likewise, acted thus when Suvaroff entered at the head of his army.... It is surely impossible that you, with your high principles and your good heart, can have consented to such abominations, for they are unworthy of a great ruler and a great nation. Your people were so busy getting the fire-engines away, that they abandoned one hundred and fifty pieces of ordnance.... I have warred against Your Majesty without bitterness. A sign from you, before or after the last battle, would have stayed my forward march; nay, for Your Majesty’s sake, I should have wished to forego my entry into Moscow.... If you have preserved any of your former friendship towards me, you will receive this letter favourably. In any case, you will be grateful to me for informing you of the recent occurrences.”

The letter of a tutor to his pupil, angry and threatening, written from the depths of his isolation, with intent to rouse the recipient. Thus might an impeccable moralist write to a ne’er-do-well! The whole epistle turns upon the two words “receive favourably”; this is the aim; on these words are built up the writer’s hopes. Will the letter fulfil its mission?

The advance of the invader, the threatening proximity of the foe, the burning of Moscow, have filled all hearts in St. Petersburg with despair. The court is for peace. Can a more favourable opportunity present itself? The enemy is becoming more embarrassed day by day. Emperor Napoleon is eager for negotiations. The madcap grand duke Constantine is in favour of a parley; the tsarina-mother, she who hates the upstart, who refused her daughter to him as bride, who railed at Alexander for weeks after the Tilsit meeting, even she advises the tsar to clasp hands once more in friendship with the Emperor. Now is the time!

But Alexander held firm. Two men were responsible for his unwonted steadfastness. One was a Frenchman, Bernadotte. He and the tsar had recently met in Finland, and Bernadotte had strengthened Alexander in his determination to persevere, had even handed back the Russian auxiliary corps which the tsar had lent for the conquest of Norway. Bernadotte’s hatred was so fierce, he had so inflexibly made up his mind to destroy Napoleon, and he so greedily coveted the crown of France which the tsar had promised him, that he would stick at nothing.

The other was a German, the best the nation had nurtured in its downfall and in its fight for freedom. Four years had passed since Napoleon pronounced a verdict of outlawry on Baron vom Stein. The baron spent them far from his homeland; and had become the tsar’s trusted adviser. In every respect he was Napoleon’s exact contrary. He was now to fight the Emperor to a decisive issue.

This time Stein would conquer.

VI

In many lands, among the many wise and energetic men, who for seventeen years had pitted themselves against the General, the Consul, and the Emperor, none proved equal to the task except Talleyrand and Stein: The former did so, because he succeeded in paralysing Napoleon’s productive will by the genius of his malicious cunning; the latter, because, to Napoleon’s amoral energy, he contraposed a moral energy which was wedded to fervour. Just as Stein embodied the virtues of the Germans, so Napoleon gathered into himself the talents of the Italian character; and yet, since neither Teutonic virtues nor Italian talents are mutually exclusive, but, rather, cut athwart one another, each man could understand the opponent so far, that Stein, had he been a Frenchman (Carnot’s blood brother), might have proved the mainstay of the Emperor. Pride and practical good sense would have brought the two men together.

But this mutual respect could never have bridged the abyss of alienation which must have continued, in spite of everything to hold them asunder. For, just as Napoleon lived entirely without feeling for a fatherland; just as he would gladly have made his career anywhere, and merely placed the French before other peoples because he chanced to be their emperor, so, on the other hand, Stein lived and wrought entirely for the sake of his fatherland; and his Teutonic solidity (firmly rooted in the native soil), the whole weight of his rich soul, remained estranged from the agility, the swiftness, which was so essential a part of Napoleon’s make-up, and which the Emperor utilised so adroitly. Here was a statesman whose one thought was Germany and the Germans, who wanted unity among the stocks speaking the same speech, even if such unity had to be achieved against the wishes of the weakling princes. Over the way stood the man who could only think in terms of Europe and Europeans, people whom he wished to weld together for a fight against the self-same princes.

A baron of the empire, and therefore an independent though petty prince, Stein was a worthy son of ancestors who for seven centuries had tilled and ruled the same fragment of German soil. Having left the home of his fathers for one reason only, that he might serve the nation, he regarded with mistrust, and soon with growing contempt, the other German princes, who were so eager to barter lands and liberties—their own and their subjects—for the favour of the world conqueror. Napoleon, sprung from an impoverished noble stock, a man who had in early youth been driven forth from the ancestral vineyard, despised these lickspittle princes as heartily as did Stein, and in secret he honoured none but the few irreconcilables.

But whereas the contempt with which he regarded the decadence of the European princes was mingled with amusement, Stein’s attitude towards them was purely one of rancour. Their innate impotence, which encouraged the self-confidence of the brilliant upstart, was a challenge to the self-respect of Stein, the man who would fain believe in the knightly order to which he belonged; and just as the Corsican used his own career as an argument to strengthen his conviction that a new and splendid epoch was in the making, the German could not fail to consider the behaviour of his fellow-princes as melancholy evidence of the collapse of the old order, and must perforce regard the king of Prussia with a contempt no less hearty than the hatred he cherished for the Emperor of the French.

Thus Napoleon’s pronouncement of outlawry against Stein was symbolic of the differences between the two men in respect of nationality, class, and epoch. Had the imperial baron been a king, he would, far more worthily than any Habsburg, or Hohenzollern, or other among the defeated monarchs, have embodied, in opposition to the son of the revolution, that idea of legitimacy for which the German nation was willing to battle with no less ardour than it would display in the fight against the foreigner. Apart from the duke of Brunswick and one or two of the younger princes, Stein stood alone in those days as saviour of the pride and dignity of the German rulers.

Now his great moment has come. From Madrid, the Emperor had sent forth his decree of banishment against the Prussian minister. Twice, for this, time was to exact vengeance. Now was the first occasion. Nothing but the sentence of outlawry had brought Stein into contact with the tsar, for whose soul he was wrestling with his old enemy. In all Alexander’s vacillations, no influence did more to strengthen him than the indomitable spirit of the German exile. When the Emperor, not long before, holding forth to the Russian general, had spoken with so much acerbity about Stein, it was because, from afar, he had sensed this influence, and because he was afraid of the imperial baron. He knew Stein to be a vigorous idealist, an undismayed monarchist; and he knew that in the decisive hour such a man was likely to exercise a potent suggestive influence upon the tsar, also an idealist, though irresolute and timid. Stein, knowing human character as he did, and knowing that the tsar, in a hazy fashion, was eager to live in accordance with the moral law, would dilate upon Napoleon’s contempt for morality and itch for dictatorship. Stein would not tempt Alexander with countries to be annexed, but with principles to be obeyed; and would rouse to action a modern monarch who would know better than the German princes how to defend rule by right divine.

This German was the only person at the tsarist court who had no axe to grind. Driven from his own home by the homeless Napoleon, he was ready betwixt night and morning to change his present hospitable asylum for any other. The tsar knew that Stein was not a place-hunter, but an independent foreigner whose counsel was not tainted by any thought of personal advantage; for this reason, he had more trust in the German baron than in his own Francophil minister. Perhaps he had heard of the splendid words uttered by the German when the news of the burning of Moscow had arrived. Stein, sitting at table, had raised his glass, and had exclaimed: “Three or four times, ere this, I have lost my baggage. We must get used to throwing away such things. Since we must die, let us be valiant.”

His enemy in Moscow will soon make up his mind to the same thing. He throws away the baggage of the past, and marches on; he makes up his mind to retreat. Not a word has come from St. Petersburg. Five weeks have been wasted, and the winter draws near! He has been waiting on events, waiting and listening; this is ill suited to his temperament, out of keeping with his energetic nature. The novels he has ordered from Paris have not yet come to hand, so he hunts up whatever can be found in the Kremlin. But he reads very little. After meals, which, contrary to his usual custom he protracts to the uttermost, he sometimes lies for hours, book in hand, but meditating with fixed gaze.

What is there to do in a burned city where nothing is left to organise! On one or two evenings, the Emperor has some French plays performed by a troupe of actors which had remained behind at the time of the evacuation. This reminds the holiday-making ruler of the charter of the Comédie Française, and he sends instructions for its amendment. Half the day is whiled away in issuing army orders which by no means appear to emanate from a wearied brain, and are far from being commonplace; on the contrary, they are as crystal clear as in earlier days. But since nothing remains to be hoped for, since provisions are dwindling and the cold season is imminent, he calls a council of war in mid-October, although he knows that only one way lies open to him.

Daru counsels: make the winter quarters here; await reinforcements from liberated Lithuania; in the spring, march upon St. Petersburg. The Emperor remains for long in a brown study. Then he says:

“That is the advice of a lion. But what will Paris say? Who can calculate the effect of six months’ separation? France may grow accustomed to my absence; Germany and Austria might turn it to account.” The only possible order is for the whole army to turn back. What trophies shall we bring back with us to Paris? The giant cross of gold from the church of St. John within the Kremlin walls is taken down from the cupola that it may be set up on the dome of the Invalides. But can we not devise some better revenge against the false friend? The Emperor orders the Kremlin to be blown up.

Eight miles away from Moscow he reins in, and waits for news of the explosion. The unending stream of the grand army flows steadily by the Emperor; it is flanked by the sick and the wounded; it is laden with booty, rested but undisciplined. At last come tidings: the explosion has missed fire. He is silent. But when Rapp expresses anxiety about the approach of winter, Napoleon rebukes him, saying: “Can’t you see how lovely the weather is, even to-day, on October 19th? Do you not recognise my star?”

Such words hardly ever fall from his lips, and this day he is full of cares. He realises that the baggage train is going to cause delay, and yet he has not the heart to order his men to leave their booty behind; they must have something to take home. Russian troops have encircled the French army, and recently they pressed so hard on Murat’s squadrons as to drive these back upon the town. On the eastward march, the Emperor had longed for nothing so much as a good action to take place; but now, on the westward march, there is nothing he dreads more than to have to put up a fight. Get to Smolensk as quickly as possible; we will find winter quarters there!

Is the beginning of his career falling into step with the end? Again, as in Egypt, the army marches with the baggage in the middle; again the troops have to defend themselves from the swarming enemy. Once the Emperor is saved from being made prisoner only by the presence of mind of one of his men. “Cossacks! Turn about!” cries Rapp, pointing to a thicket. The Emperor will not follow this advice. The adjutant, thereupon, seizes the bridle-rein and turns Napoleon’s horse round. “You must!” Never, in his whole life has he heard such an order addressed to him. What is he to do? Reason tells him to flee.

But the Emperor remains where he is, and draws his sword. Rapp, Berthier, Caulaincourt, do the same. They place themselves to the left of the road and await the riders, who are barely forty paces away. Then the officers of the suite cover Napoleon until the guard cavalry comes to the rescue and puts the Cossacks to flight.

New thoughts flit through his brain after this adventure. Shall Alexander harness him to a triumphal car? He procures a dose of poison from his physician, and wears it always in a black silk bag around his neck, in case he should be made a prisoner. Since the day when he was so nearly captured, the ambition of every Russian flying column is to procure the head of the “wicked infidel.” Russian headquarters issues a warrant against the Emperor; it is embellished with his picture, and orders the corps leaders to have “every man of small stature” among the prisoners brought before them for examination: any one of them may be Emperor Napoleon!

As in Egypt the heat of the march had killed hundreds of men, so now does the Russian cold devour them by thousands. Snow and ice bring down the horses, guns get stuck, munition wagons are blown up, cavalry soldiers must pad the hoof, frozen men line the roads.

Not more than fifty thousand reach Smolensk, one-tenth of all the invading host. They have no more supplies, and cannot winter here. The freezing army pushes forward. Thousands have thrown their weapons away; now, even the guard weakens. The Emperor comes among his grenadiers:

“You see the disorder of my army. These poor deluded men are throwing their muskets away. Are you going to follow this shameful example? If so, then there is no hope left to us! On you the whole future of the army depends!” He marches among them. A silent procession (thus described by one who met it): first come the generals, few of whom are mounted. Ghosts in rags, in scorched cloaks, lean, grey, with matted beards, bent and silent: prisoners of fate. These are followed by the Holy Legion, a legion composed of officers, most of them leaning upon sticks, their feet swathed in remnants of sheepskin. Then come the survivors of the cavalry guard.

Last of all three men on foot: to the right, the king of Naples, no longer concerned about his peacock splendours; to the left, the viceroy of Italy. In the middle walks a little man, wearing a Polish fur coat and a cap of red fox, and helping himself along with a birchen staff. Thus in silence he wends his way through Russia.

VII

What is Paris saying?

He does not know. For the first time since he was in Egypt, his calculations concerning Paris have no solid foundation in fact. Not to know what is going on in his capital: a dreadful position this, like that of a traveller who fancies that during his absence his wife may be betraying him! Writing to Maret in Vilna, he says: “For more than a fortnight I have had no courier, so that I am in the dark as to all that is going on ... in France and Spain.... The army is terribly disorganised. It would take at least a fortnight to set things straight, but we cannot possibly spare the time. Shall we be able to maintain our position in Vilna? Only if we are not attacked during the first week. Food! Food!... Make sure that there shall be no foreign envoys in Vilna, for the army is not in a fit condition to be seen. Send them all away.”

Here is the courier at last. Why does the Emperor turn pale? What terrible news can have come from Paris? Can anything have happened there worse than what he has just been living through? The fact is that, through English newspapers, through letters, and through rumour, France has long since learned the whole truth, which had been glossed over in the Emperor’s bulletins. Many of the Parisians are fickle, and many of them are easily reduced to despair. A good part of Paris has already given up the Emperor for lost. Alarmist reports and spiteful quips are rife on the boulevards. But what is this item?

A coup d’état had been planned, and had been frustrated. But what a background of discontent is revealed! Malet, who had been a general in the days of the republic, had years before been concerned in a conspiracy, imprisoned, and then committed to a lunatic asylum. Having received distorted news about the Emperor’s disasters and the burning of Moscow, he had escaped. With a number of accomplices, he had published a forged dispatch announcing Napoleon’s death. The conspirators had seized the Minister of Police; had declared a provisional government; had bamboozled the National Guard, the militia, the prefects, and even veteran generals. At length, however, two undismayed officers had seen through the cheat, had seized the conspirators, and from the balcony of the governor’s residence had shouted, “Vive l’Empereur.” Therewith the spectre had been laid.

In his tent, on which the snow is falling, the Emperor contemplates this document with dismay. More serious news even than that which recently arrived from Salamanca! The offenders had been shot; the whole affair had fizzled out. But for a time the conspirators had been masters of the Paris police, and one who controls the Paris police is master of France! No carriages would venture into the streets! When an elderly nobleman had asked what was afoot, a workman had laughed, saying: “Citizen, the Emperor is dead. At noon the republic will be proclaimed!” Greatly shaken by the tidings, the Emperor drops the newspaper containing these details, and says to his intimates:

“What about the dynasty? Did no one think of my wife, my son, all the institutions of the Empire? I must get back to Paris instantly!”

The dangerous possibilities revealed by this interlude, flash like lightning through his mind. “The workman who laughs—he is the people! I toil day and night for years at my great building; I break with the woman I love, and take an emperor’s daughter to wife, that our heir, the pledge of earthly immortality, may grow up in our palace. Then some foolhardy officer, a man no one has ever heard of, has merely to call out that the Emperor is dead, and instantly a clamour about ‘citizens’ and ‘republic’ rises once more from the people! The regent, the heir, the Council of State—all these count for nothing? The bottomless cask of the Danaids! But I will make a bottom for it. Like the Capets, I will have my son crowned in my own lifetime, and muster my faithful supporters in Paris!”

Fortified by the approach of danger, the Emperor grips the reins firmly once more. “He is pale, but his face is calm; nothing in his features gives any sign of trouble.” His health is better, too. Now the army nears the Beresina. Having received false intelligence to the effect that the auxiliary armies are close at hand, he draws his own forces more compactly together, and has the rest of the baggage train burned, that the horses may be freed to draw the remaining guns. If only the bridge is still standing! He writes: “Should the enemy have seized the bridge-head and burned the bridge in order to prevent our crossing, it would be very serious.”

Next day they come to the river. No bridge, no boats; two armies outnumbering the French are waiting on the other shore; between runs the broad river with marshy banks. Is there any way out of the difficulty?

He makes a shrewd plan, like those of his early days as general. He will decoy the Russians away. Out of eighteen hundred horseless cavalrymen of the guard, of whom only eleven hundred still have their weapons, he forms two battalions. Then he has all the regimental eagles burned, for even in this dread hour Napoleon thinks of honour and glory, and he will not risk the loss of colours to the enemy. After midnight, he at length lies down in his tent, where he overhears Duroc and Daru, who believed him to be asleep, discussing in an undertone the possibility of a catastrophe. The phrase “State prisoner” has caught his ear. He fingers the black bag he is wearing round his neck, and sits up in bed:

“You think they would dare?”

“I would not trust the enemy’s magnanimity,” says Daru, composedly.

“But France! What would France do?”

Daru’s answer is evasive; but when pressed, he says: “I think, Sire, the sooner you are in Paris, the better. When you are there, you will have a better chance of saving us all.”

“Then you feel I am a burden on you here?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“And you don’t want to be State prisoners?”

There is a long silence. Then the Emperor resumes:

“Have my ministers’ reports been destroyed?”

“Hitherto you have always refrained from giving us the order.”

“It must be done. Destroy the lot of them. We are in a very difficult position.”

This is the only admission of the kind made by the Emperor during all the weeks of the Russian campaign. It is the voice of a man who regards himself as a moriturus. But nature is more sensible than fate, and in a few moments he is fast asleep.

Next morning, while the enemy has been lured down stream and is being kept at a distance by artillery fire, the sappers, neck-deep in the freezing water and amid the drifting ice, hastily build two bridges. The crossing of the river takes two days more. With the cavalry, which swims the stream, the army still numbers about twenty-five thousand men. The Emperor, though the risk of his being taken prisoner is imminent, remains until all have crossed; and then, on the third day, surrounded by the old guard, he too makes his way over the river. But there are still stragglers to come, and these perish during the next few days betwixt ice and fire.

In the ensuing week the Emperor’s life is twice in danger. The first peril is from a Cossack attack. On the next occasion the trouble is an assassination plot in which one of his own Frenchmen is engaged. It is early on the morning of December 5th when Major Lapie meets the officers of the Prussian guard of honour in front of the Emperor’s tent. “Now then, gentlemen, the hour has come!” The senior captain is to cut down the Mameluke, and then to make an end of Napoleon. Presumably the conspirators have seen Schiller’s Wallenstein on the German stage! The Prussian wants the Frenchman to do the deed, but Lapie says he is not sure of his men. Then Caulaincourt, to whom the conspirators’ behaviour seems suspicious, comes forward, claps his hands, and says: “Now, gentlemen, it is time to start!”

That evening the Emperor, who has not heard a word of the affair, summons his marshals. “I shall be stronger when I can speak from my throne in the Tuileries than I am at the head of an army which has been destroyed by the cold.... Had I been a Bourbon, born to rule, it would have been easy for me to avoid making mistakes.” He takes the marshals aside by turns, asking each for his advice; he flatters, praises, and encourages; he smiles and charms. Obviously his design is to counteract the possibility of revolt.

Next, he tells Eugene to read them his latest bulletin, the first in which he admits disaster. “Men who had not been sufficiently steeled by nature to rise superior to all vicissitudes of fate and fortune, lost courage and equanimity, and could dream of nothing but misfortune and defeat. But those who were equal to the occasion were able to keep up their spirits, and regarded every fresh difficulty as a fresh opportunity for glory.”

The only reason why the army had wasted away was the rigour of the climate. “His Majesty has never been in better health.”

The unfeeling, metallic tone! Again we are listening to General Bonaparte who, having recovered confidence in his destiny, and having regained health, is able to use the old language. The incisive sentence at the close is, of course, added for the special benefit of Paris, which for several weeks has had no news as to his state of health. But, on the whole, the mood in which he ends the Russian campaign, exactly six months after it had begun, is one of heroic cynicism. The command of the army is handed over to Murat, who is to lead the survivors home. There are still nine thousand men under arms.

Now there is something new. The Emperor embraces every one of the generals present. Is this the last coup of a trickster who wants to strengthen their waning loyalty? Is he really overcome by his feelings? Every one of these soldiers, that evening, could feel the beating of the Emperor’s heart.

He gets into the sleigh with Daru and Caulaincourt, and the three drive away. To be on the safe side, he travels under an assumed name, that of his secretary, Rayneval. This is his fifth name. The fourth had been Napoleon.

When they are driving through the snows across the Polish plain, he suddenly has the sleigh stopped at a cross road. This must be near Countess Walewska’s mansion; he wants to go there. Napoleon is on the flight from Russia, his head full of world-shaking plans; he is forsaking his army because Paris needs him and he needs Paris—and now comes this lyrical thought, the painful recollection of a frustrated idyl. But the urgent warnings of his companions, who remind him that they are alone in a couple of sledges and that Cossacks are scouring the countryside, induce him to abandon his plan. He wraps his furs around him once more and goes to sleep.

Five days afterwards he leaves the sleighs waiting on the bridge near Warsaw, and at noon goes on foot with Caulaincourt into the town. Should any one recognise him, they will face it out, and declare that the interlocutor is seeing ghosts, or must be mad. Napoleon sends Caulaincourt to the embassy; but, in order to keep his own identity secret, he himself goes to an inn, which, of all names in the world, still calls itself the Hôtel de l’Angleterre. The low-ceilinged white-washed room is cold; there is only green wood, and the maidservant cannot get the stove to light; he must keep on his furs, his cap, and his big boots, while he tramps up and down the room, thrashing his arms like a coachman to keep himself warm. It is thus he is found by two Polish noblemen for whom he has sent through the embassy. They can hardly believe their eyes, but the ghost laughs at their astonishment.

“How long have I been in Warsaw? A week? No, only a couple of hours. It is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. How are you, Monsieur Stanislas?... Dangers? Not a bit of it. I thrive on excitement. The more I am tossed to and fro, the better I feel. The shadow kings grow fat in their palaces, but I put on flesh when riding my nag in the field.... So you’ve been anxious here? The army is in splendid condition. I have still one hundred and twenty thousand men! Gave the Russians a good hiding everywhere. They never ventured to stand up against me. The army will winter in Vilna. I am returning to Paris, and there I shall raise three hundred thousand soldiers! In six months I shall be back on the Memel.

“I have been through other fights! At Marengo I was beaten until six in the evening, but next day I was lord of Italy. At Aspern-Essling I made myself master of Austria, though the archduke believed he had held me in check there. It was not my fault that the Danube rose sixteen feet in one night. But for that, I should have finished off with the Habsburgs once for all. However, it was written in the stars that I was to marry an archduchess....

“The same thing in Russia. I can’t prevent its freezing there. Morning after morning, the report was that ten thousand horses had perished during the night. Bon voyage! Our Normandy horses cannot endure the cold like the Russians; the same with our soldiers.... Perhaps people will say that I stayed too long in Moscow; but the weather was beautiful, and I was waiting for peace. A great political drama! Nothing venture, nothing have. One step from the sublime to the ridiculous!... Who could have foreseen the burning of Moscow?... I never felt better in my life!”...

Such is the spate of words that for two hours flows from the mouth of a man who, after unspeakable losses, wishes to give the impression of desperate courage.

Napoleon becomes an adventurer. To impress these Poles, who will pass on what he says, he invents an army which has vanished long since; cold which really did nothing more than complete the destruction that other forces had begun; battles he never fought. He intersperses these figments with historical parallels of worldwide significance; treats what has just been happening as if it were ancient history; appeals to providence; and repeats no less than four times the cynically imposing aphorism about the sublime and the ridiculous, which blunts the edge of criticism. Great realist though he is, the world and what he is doing with it are becoming drama to him; and thus Napoleon, when his own fortunes are declining, is slowly mounting the ascent towards supreme irony.

The two Poles see nothing of all this. Their thoughts are concentrated upon their country’s debts, and they would fain get money from this man who is still numbered among the great ones of the earth. They seize their opportunity when at length there is a pause in the torrent of speech. He gives them an order on the treasury for six millions, which he thinks will buy support for him in Poland. Then his visitors wish him a happy journey, and, with secret scorn, watch the incognito drive away hastily in his sleigh.

Day and night, night and day, they glide swiftly westward; for Germany, too, is under snow. Day and night, night and day, questions, commands, and plans are churning in his brain. “Is England really invincible? Now, the English can trade freely in the Baltic; English goods can enter Cadiz, and can make their way into the Levant.” He must put off his scheme for the conquest of India, but will abate no jot of his other designs! Will the Confederation of the Rhine still answer to his nod? How will it be possible to explain this crash in Russia? The disaster cannot be hushed up indefinitely. Is there any chance of raising another hundred and twenty thousand men in France? Next year’s levies must be called up in advance. Make peace with the pope at once, and with Spain likewise, for he must feel safe at his back. A National Guard, that was the best thought of the revolution; in that way he will be able to raise a million armed citizens within three months.

Night. Change of horses. He thrusts out his head. “Where are we?”

“In Weimar, Sire.”

“Weimar? How is the duchess? And how is Herr Goethe?”

VIII

Forty bowed backs receive the beaten war lord on his return home. The sight of the court dresses which he has embroidered with his contempt revives his belief in the folly and the weakness of these men whose only wish is to be ruled. But his glance strays to the bars of the golden cage in which the son of liberty has locked himself up. He does not realise that the people of his capital are weary and disaffected; and instead of following the example of his own youth, instead of with disarming frankness acknowledging the faults he hopes to better, he postures as Cæsar before his servile officials, and rails at the weather god, though but yesterday he had boasted his power to make what weather he pleased throughout Europe.

During the nine days’ drive from Warsaw to Paris, the uncertain mood of the adventurer had given place once more to the steadily aspiring flame of the imperator. Although the Russian winter had set in later than usual, he carries off the reverse by saying: “The army sustained heavy losses, but that was because the winter began so early.... The king of Naples is not fitted for high command, and he lost his head after my departure.... All the same, I have three hundred battalions left, without bringing a single man back from Spain.”

Has his contempt for his fellows risen to such a pitch that he can serve up these fables to experienced men who have known the truth for months? But their consciences are uneasy. They feel responsible for the October putsch, or at any rate guilty for not having made an end of the whole business within the first quarter of an hour. On the other hand the Emperor, whose own heart accuses him, is glad to play the accuser, for it galls him that in the decisive hour they should have forgotten the empress and the heir to the throne. In memorable words, at the first reception in the Tuileries, he tries to hammer his point into the heads of his councillors.

“The apostles of the rights of man are really to blame for all that has happened. They declared rebellion to be a duty. They flattered the people, imputing to it a sovereignty it is incapable of exercising. They destroyed respect for law by establishing the supremacy of an assembly which knew nothing of administration and law, instead of holding fast to the nature of things! Any one who wishes to build up a State once more, must be guided by the very opposite principles. History depicts the human heart, and we must study history if we would learn the merits and defects of legislation.... When I undertook the reconstruction of France, my prayer was that I might be spared for a considerable number of years, seeing that what has been destroyed in a moment will take a long time to refashion. The State needs courageous officials. ‘The king is dead; long live the king!’ That was the watchword of our fathers. The phrase makes us realise the advantages of monarchy.”

Were it not for the prettily turned expression about history and the human heart, Emperor Francis might have subscribed to this speech, and it might have been an ornament to the pages of any of the familiar expositions of monarchical doctrine. Why should people go on quarrelling about such matters? The ancient dispute between tradition and revolution has been settled, now that the son of the revolution has acknowledged the supremacy of tradition. No matter whether an heir be named Bourbon or Bonaparte! When we compare the two fathers we see that they are very much alike! His marriage with the daughter of one who rules by right divine has complicated the problem, and has sophisticated his own genius.

Or does he believe no more than half of what he is saying? Before setting out on the Russian campaign, he had frankly explained his plans to Metternich: “The legislature belongs to me; all I need is to put the key of the deliberative chamber in my pocket. France is less suited for democracy than a good many countries.... When I get back, therefore, I shall transform the Senate and the Council of State into an Upper House and a Lower House, most of whose members I shall myself nominate. These will constitute a real popular representation, consisting only of experienced business men, without an ideologue among them. Then France will be satisfactorily ruled, even under a prince who is a mere figure head (and such will come), for whom the ordinary education of hereditary princes will suffice.”

These Cæsarist ideas betray the monarchist, but also the sceptic. Although, when he shows people his son’s portrait, they tell him that the little boy is the loveliest child in France, the flattered father knows perfectly well that dynasties last a long time whereas genius is fleeting. Foreseeing the decadence of his own blood, having studied that decadence in the annals of all princely houses, he wants to rid himself of waverers that he may fortify the position of his heir. For the very reason that he understands the contradiction inherent in monarchy, he wishes to build his own monarchy on a rock.

For the time being, his business is to buttress it anew with the power of the sword. What has been the fruit of the war games in which he moved his myriads over Europe? Those leather-bound muster rolls of his contained the death sentences of numberless youths, even though there were marshals’ batons to be won by a few among the best of them! Of the old guard, four hundred men, and of the cavalry guard, eight hundred men, made their way back to Königsberg; a few thousand officers and sergeants, broken men most of them, have survived the storms of war. Except for the auxiliaries, who are not under France’s orders, that is all that remains of the Emperor’s hosts. Marshal Ney, on his flight from Russia, seems like a hero out of a Greek tragedy when he reaches Prussia, and makes his way into the first Prussian government office on his route. When old acquaintances look at him incredulously, as if questioning who this man can be, he rejoins with a superb gesture: “I am the rear guard of the Grand Army.”

A new army must be made, and it must be made in a few weeks. The year 1813 will supply one hundred and forty thousand recruits, but where are the rest to come from? The Emperor has a magic wand, and can conjure up men whenever he needs them. The passing of a new law is all that is requisite for the levying of the National Guard and for the drafting of eighty thousand soldiers from the dependencies of France. Add one hundred thousand belonging to the oldest conscript levies; and call up the youngsters who should not, properly speaking, be enrolled until 1814. Soon he will have half a million under arms once more. “The French people,” he says to the Prussian envoy, “will follow me whatever I do, and, if needs must, I shall arm the women!”

With unbroken will, he charms into existence the innumerable machines without which he cannot ply his trade. But how shall he explain these unexpected measures to the people? The enemy is far from the frontier.

A stroke of luck! At the close of the year, Yorck, a Prussian general, acting on his own initiative, enters into an agreement with his Russian neighbours, declares the force under his command neutral, and thus opens the door to a change in the military situation for which the German nation has long been eager. The Emperor can use the incident in order to whip up the enthusiasm of the French. For the moment, the treason of his ally costs him no more than twenty thousand men; but it serves as the text for a manifesto in Paris, and for hectoring letters to the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine. He would not, says Napoleon, need their help at all, had not Yorck’s secession compelled his army to withdraw.

The summons of France is actually obeyed. The German princes, including the Habsburg ruler, once more collect money and levy troops. One of them is servile enough to send an assurance that he is “delighted to be able to give the Emperor opportunity for winning fresh laurels.” The king of Prussia cashiers Yorck, and assures the Emperor of his fidelity to the alliance. But Frederick William conveys a hint to the tsar, goes to Breslau, wobbles between the parties, what time a wave of enthusiasm is spreading far beyond Prussia’s borders, and threatening to sweep away the debile monarch. Youths, politicians, and poets are voicing the call of national sentiment. Stein is the man to treat with the tsar on behalf of his country, and in Königsberg the baron takes matters into his own hands.

The Emperor is ever on the watch. In a circular, he warns the princes against the intrigues of those “who by rebellion and revolution are trying to give Germany a new form. Should they succeed in infecting the Confederation of the Rhine with their doctrines, intolerable sufferings may await these territories.”

He feels the stirring of the new spirit. Now, for the first time, does the Emperor seem to become aware of the growth of a national sentiment among the Germans, as among the Spaniards. Shortly before the Russian campaign, he had said that hardly so much as a night watchman was needed to keep the Germans quiet. “Since Germany has no America, nor yet a sea, nor yet a great number of strongholds, nor even Englishmen as there are in Spain, there is nothing to be afraid of, and would not be though the Germans were as lazy, dirty, superstitious, and monk-ridden as the Spaniards. How could there be anything to fear from such honest, reasonable, cool-headed, and patient people, who have so little inclination to violence that throughout the war not one of our soldiers has been murdered in Germany?”

A wonderfully true picture of the Germans, and yet there is a slight miscalculation. He has overlooked the romanticism by which these people can be stirred, and without a knowledge of which they cannot be understood. Of course the Italian, with his fiery imagination, cannot grasp the nature of an imagination that works slowly and lacks ardour. Napoleon, who knows how monarchical the Germans are in their sentiments, believes that when he holds the princes in his hands he must be master of the German people.

Besides, were the Germans a people? Was this realm, which ten years earlier had been formally liquidated by the abdication of the last of its emperors, really anything more than a “metaphysical concept”? Only for a moment, only for two years, will the German peoples be united. Then, as soon as the enemy’s power has been broken, they will fall asunder once more. Not for half a century, and not until another Napoleon threatens them, will they at length become a nation—though even then, only a fragment. So atrophied was Napoleon’s own sense of nationality, that the quarrels and jealousies of the German princes made him believe that the Germans were disintegrated for all time; whereas, had he been able to understand the forces that were at work, he would have realised that the jealousies of the rival sovereign houses were the only obstacle to the reunion of these kindred stocks.

But the sublime breathing of history sometimes determines the rhythm of an epoch even in despite of the will of the genius that animates it. In sweeping curves, during these years, the spirit of liberty returns to her primal home in the hearts of the people. For, just as Bonaparte, in the name of liberty, had defeated the princes and stirred the peoples to revolt; so now, in the name of liberty, the peoples arose to defeat him, the prince of princes. Doubtless this great movement of destiny was complicated by numerous petty wishes, and blurred by minor circles. It is not the force of legitimism which now, after twenty years, is at last gathering strength to slay the spirit of revolt. Pallid, disunited, decadent, and with never a great figure among them, are the princes in the league they form against the one man who rules in virtue of his self-made power.

But the fact that the peoples of Spain and Germany are eager to force their princes into the fight, gives to the tragical collapse of the usurper a semblance of poetical justice, and that is why we who look on find it easier to bear the sight of the slaying of the lion by the spears cast by such a legion of hunters.

IX

Letizia looks anxiously at her son. His face is clouded, though he keeps his thoughts to himself. What can she do to help him? Intimates? Many of them, she sees plainly enough, are betraying him. He needs his brothers, that he may have the support of steadfast hearts, even though he thinks them lacking in intelligence. She therefore puts her trust in her other sons, writes to London and to Graz, smooths the path for reconciliation. One day, after a decade of estrangement, comes a letter from the ambitious Lucien, who says he is always at Napoleon’s service.

But the Emperor cannot believe that he, the mightiest of his family, needs any assistance from the others. Though he has always regarded Lucien as the most capable of his brothers, he proposes merely a formal promotion. In imperial fashion, he answers through his mother: “Please write to let him know in my name that his letter has awakened an echo in my heart. I think of raising him to the throne of Tuscany. He loves the fine arts. It will suit him to reign in Florence, and to revive the glories of the Medicis.” There is no place for Lucien at the centre of things! As for Louis, who also offers to devote his powers to the cause of France (in so far as he can honourably do this), and who sends a copy of his last volume of verse—the ex-king of Holland is met with a rebuff: “The idea you seem to have formed about my position is quite erroneous. I have more than a million men under arms, and two hundred million francs in my war chest. Holland remains French.... Still, I am ready to greet you in the spirit of one who brought you up as if he had been your father.”

The Emperor reads this answer to his mother before sending it. She tries to mitigate its harshness in a long covering letter; tells Louis how pretty his children have grown; urges him to come to Paris in any case. “The Emperor has forgotten to give me your poems. I will ask him for them, and will let you know what I think of them when next I write.”

Next day, the old lady finds a savage article in the “Moniteur,” in which she learns that the king of Naples will have to recall his envoys from Vienna. When she asks what this signifies, her friends reluctantly explain that Murat has been persuaded by Caroline to intrigue with the Habsburgs, so that the pair are now playing double. Letizia writes to upbraid her daughter. Joseph is out of humour, for he thinks that Napoleon is not supporting him properly in the Spanish war. She does her best to appease him through the instrumentality of his wife. Furthermore, she tries to mollify Jerome, whom the Emperor had sent home in disgrace. Finally, she gets to work on Hortense, who is doing all she can to hinder Louis’ coming to Paris.

Now a woman well over sixty, she does her utmost to keep the peace between her sons, daughters, sons-in-law, and daughters-in-law. But it seems to her that the greatness for which the world envies her family has brought in its train nothing but discord, jealousy, arrogance, ostracism, and betrayal. Her thoughts fly back to her native island, where her kindred always formed a united front against other clans. Moreover, her eyes, though old, are clear-sighted; and she sees that the star of the Buonaparti is paling.

The Emperor has little personal feeling about these matters. In his present situation, he regards them from a purely political outlook. No doubt he says to himself that Murat and Caroline are traitors; but his main concern is, how he can make sure of the support of Murat’s soldiers. He therefore writes in a conciliatory strain to Caroline; keeps her husband informed about the impending campaign; and asks for troops, which Murat ultimately agrees to send, for both he and Caroline think that Napoleon may prove victorious after all, and are afraid of being dethroned unless they keep in his good graces. At the same time, they wish to have a secure footing in the other camp, and therefore conclude secret treaties with England and with the ex-king of Sicily (whose dominions they themselves have filched).

Napoleon even seeks to conciliate Bernadotte, though he cannot but regard the crown prince of Sweden as a treacherous kinsman and an enemy of his house. He offers Pomerania as the reward of alliance and the prize of victory. But for Bernadotte, the bid is not high enough; this Frenchman prefers to join the coalition against France. His ambition is to reign there; France is worth more than Pomerania. Bernadotte enters into especially close relationships with Prussia. In Berlin he meets Madame de Staël, and these fellow-countrymen of the Emperor, united in their detestation of him, foregather among the oppressed Prussians.

A third enemy, whom the Emperor approaches with blandishments during these feverish weeks, is the captive pope. Pius VII. has been brought to Fontainebleau, and Napoleon gets to work on him through the instrumentality of prelates devoted to the imperial cause, adding personal suggestion until the old man gives way. How great will be the power of the Church (this is the Emperor’s theme) when Catholicism has been re-established throughout Germany! By trifling concessions upon matters of form, and by cunning devices, Napoleon is able to secure a new Concordat. Thanks to this reconciliation with the Church, he is able to recruit new Catholic soldiers in all the lands under his sway. When the pope, a week after signing the Concordat, wants to revoke it, the Emperor says with a smile: “Your Holiness, being infallible, cannot have made a mistake in entering into this arrangement!”

During these weeks, a desire for peace suddenly spreads throughout Europe. The pope wants peace on the Vistula, and Metternich wants it in London. Count Bubna, with whom Napoleon had negotiated years before in Schönbrunn, comes to Paris to advise peace, for Vienna can neither send nor refuse the troops which the Emperor has demanded. In February, peace can be had for the asking. Why does the man who needs peace most of all, make impossible stipulations?

For ten years, one war after another has been practically forced upon the Emperor as a consequence of his first victories. Now, when he is in grievous peril, and when his isolation is increasing, the will-to-war grows in him as in the early days of his career. When unconquered, he would gladly have laid aside the sword; now, after his defeat, he craves for new victories. But though his shield has been tarnished in Russia, though he would fain win fresh glories for himself and for France, these are but the pretexts of destiny. In very truth, he is stiff-necked, and will prove himself to be so at three congresses during this year 1813. The reason is that all the elements of his character are now rolling inexorably forwards; the reason is that, “in accordance with the nature of things,” he is advancing along a road on which he must march to the bitter end.

Forward! Since the war must be, the allies are arming everywhere. England makes treaties with Sweden and Prussia; to conciliate the latter, the tsar renounces his claims to East Prussia; Prussia calls Germany to arms; Austria makes a truce with Russia, tries to enter into an agreement with Saxony and Bavaria and even King Jerome. Emperor Francis withdraws his troops to Cracow, ostensibly to save them for the coming campaign.

“The first step towards desertion!” exclaims Napoleon, when this news comes to hand. He must now withdraw his own forces from the Vistula to the Oder. In Vienna, he once more offers Silesia. The offer is declined with thanks, for the Austrian role is to be one of armed mediation. While the whole world is thus preparing for the struggle, and when in the middle of March the first signal is given in Paris by the Prussian declaration of war, Talleyrand, in his open ambush, says with a smile: “The hour has struck; the Emperor Napoleon must become king of France.”

A remarkable flash of insight, on the part of one who cannot but hope that no step so sensible as this shall be taken—and who must, none the less, at bottom, wish for it. Nevertheless matters have gone too far; not the levying of troops alone, but the preparations in the minds of men. Every one knows that the last great combat is imminent, that nothing can avert it. The only one who could have called a halt, and will not do so, is driven onward in his own despite, and he is weary. There are new signs of this growing weariness.

First of all, there is the simplicity upon which he insists in his environment. “I want my journeys to be very differently arranged. I shall not take so many people with me; fewer cooks and less table furniture; no meal to consist of more than three courses.... I shall not take any pages with me; they are of no use whatever; only two bedmakers instead of four; two tents instead of four; and so on.” At the same time, he orders plans for a small palace, “a comfortable place rather than an imposing one (the two things are incompatible); ... my room must open on the garden; ... or, preferably, I must have a north room and a south room, according to the season; all arranged as in a well-to-do country gentleman’s mansion.... It is to be a holiday seat, or a dwelling for a man in his declining years.”

In 1805, when he was in the plenitude of his powers, he had said: “The war need not take long. I am still good for six years, but then it will be time to call a halt.” Now, when he takes the field once more, four months after his return from Russia, his mien is quiet and careworn as he steps into his travelling carriage in the courtyard at Saint-Cloud. He leans back among the cushions, with his hand pressed to his forehead. To Caulaincourt, his travelling companion, he acknowledges his distress “at having so soon to leave my good Louise and my lovely boy. I envy the poorest peasant in my dominions. By the time he grows old, he has already paid his debt to his country, and can stay at home with his wife and children. I am the only person whom an inexplicable fate leads back ever and again into the field.”

No more pages, he is in his declining years, wants to stay at home with wife and child—and this is only seven years after the programme just quoted! Are these fourth-act moods, these shadows that fall across his soul, merely the consequences of the Russian catastrophe? Are they not, rather, the essential causes of new defeats? The moods of a man growing prematurely old, one whose work is often interfered with by illness, one who is being increasingly mastered by the natural inclinations of a family man well on in the forties. He wants to spend at the domestic fireside the evening of a life which is not equipped for seven or eight decades like that of his mother or his brothers.

He is himself in the frame of mind with which he had reproached his marshals at Danzig less than a year ago, when he had declared they would rather have an easy life of it in their country seats than go campaigning with him. Is not such a longing natural in a man who has been working himself to death for twenty years, and who has chosen the bee for his escutcheon?

But those on whom the Parcæ bestow the ecstasies of youth, must pay for it by the oncoming of age. He has had such wonderful successes that he must not expect to garner also the joys of content in achievement. He has conjured up the gods; now they have come!

X

At the first review in Mainz, there are only one hundred and eighty thousand men instead of the three hundred thousand he had hoped to assemble there. The army is very short of cavalry; the equipment is inadequate, for it has been far too hastily got together; the best guns have been lost in Russia, or are tied up in Spain; the general staff has been decimated; the ambulance service is defective. He sees all that is amiss, but even this imperfect army reminds him of old times and old happiness. He recalls the April days in Cannes and Nice, seventeen years before, when he had taken over the command of half-starved and ragged soldiers, that he might lead them through the mountains to victory. With these memories surging up in his mind, he gathers his energies, and utters the darkly challenging words: “I shall conduct this war as General Bonaparte.”

Such is the signal, a mingling of impetus and self-restraint, with which he launches himself into the first battle. At Lützen, he exposes himself more than he has done for years. During the first day’s fighting, he does not sleep at all; on the second day, when everything is going well, he has his bearskin spread on the ground in the middle of Marmont’s corps; and when, an hour later, they wake him to let him know that all is going on well, he leaps to his feet with the ironical remark: “You see, the best things come to one while one is asleep.”

But hardly has the general won this victory than the emperor-politician resumes the ascendant. He sends letters in all directions; forces the vacillating king of Saxony to a decision, talks to the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine about providence and the fortune of war, that he may keep them up to the scratch; sends his ministers to the Russian outposts; abruptly and informally offers the tsar Poland in exchange for Prussia, and suggests other territorial rearrangements, until Alexander weakens; and he writes to Emperor Francis in terms of unusual self-commendation: “Although I personally led all the movements of my army, and was several times within range of grape-shot, I have not had even a graze.” The words and the actions are those of one who feels weak, and would fain appear strong. Henceforth the warnings of fate thicken.

True, he gains another victory at Bautzen, but does not take any prisoners. On the second day of the battle, he is riding under fire, accompanied by Caulaincourt and his friend Duroc—the latter having for a decade been his inseparable companion in the field. Men are being shot down in his immediate neighbourhood. He gallops to an adjoining elevation; adjutants follow him. Dust and smoke; a tree close at hand is smashed to splinters. He thunders past. On the hillock, a young officer comes up to him and stammers: “Marshal Duroc has been killed.”

“Impossible! He was at my side a moment ago!”

“The cannon ball which struck the tree, brought down the marshal as well.”

The Emperor slowly rides back into camp. He says:

“When will fate have a little discrimination? What will be the end of it all? Caulaincourt, my eagles are again victorious, but my star is setting.”

Duroc has not been killed outright, but he is dying. Terrible is the aspect of this shattered comrade. Greeting and farewell, both men in tears. Duroc murmurs: “I told thee at Dresden what would happen; the inner voice.... Give me some opium.”

This tone, the sudden use of “thee,” the last request of a man who has no fear of death. The Emperor walks unsteadily as he leaves the cottage.

From a farmyard, he contemplates for a while the spot where his friend had fallen, and then makes his way to the place where the guard is encamped, with his own tent in the middle. That evening, wearing his grey field-coat, he sits gloomily on a campstool, apart from his suite; he listens to the sounds of the camp, where the guardsmen are cooking supper and calling to one another; in the distance, the men of a yager corps are singing a song. Bivouac fires are glowing in the half-darkness of the May night; two burning villages flame like torches in the sky. An officer draws near, and hesitates to give his report. Before the words are spoken, the Emperor understands that Duroc is dead.

Next day, he orders the purchase of land where a memorial is to be erected, and he pens the inscription: “Here died, gloriously, in the arms of his friend the Emperor, struck down on the field of battle by a cannon ball, General Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Emperor Napoleon.”

General Bonaparte used to have no time for such feelings. He concealed his heart-ache, and stormed onward, even when he lost his wife’s love. Now it behoved him to push forward into Silesia, to follow up the Russians into Poland, to take advantage of the misgivings of the allies; and, by delivering blows in rapid succession, to fetter the vacillating Austrian to his side. In later years, he said frankly that his failure to do these things had been the greatest mistake in his life. Once more, the deliberations of the emperor are impeding the activities of the general. His private letters from France are full of reports concerning the clamour for peace. “What especially determined my course of action was Austria’s preparation for war, and the desire to gain time. This led me to interrupt the course of my victories.” In Silesia, at the beginning of June, he agrees to a six weeks’ truce, thus giving his adversaries time to attain complete unity at the congresses of Reichenbach and Prague.

Is he deceived as to the frame of mind of the wavering German princes? He knows them all. “The Saxons are just as German as the others, and would gladly follow Prussia’s example. The king is faithful to me, but I do not trust his troops.... Austria’s impudence is indescribable. While uttering honeyed words, she tries to snatch from me Dalmatia and Istria.... There never was anything so false as the court of Vienna. If, to-day, I were to grant Austria’s demands, she would ask to-morrow for Italy and Germany.” Now, when he sees that the Habsburg ruler is about to go over to the enemy, he realises too late that his marriage has been a mistake, for he has gained nothing by it, and has lost much. His own patrician family feeling had made him believe that there must be an imperial family feeling. The old tone of contempt for hereditary monarchs is at length heard once more. To his intimates, he again and again says frankly what he thinks of the kings who are kings by birth:

“Among those who are born to sit on the throne, the ties of nature count for nothing. The interests of his daughter and his grandson will not move Emperor Francis an inch from the calculations of his cabinet. These men have no blood in their veins, nothing but frozen politics! What pygmies they are, the kings by the grace of God—and the grace of Napoleon! My leniency has been my blunder. In Tilsit I could have crushed them, but I was too generous. History should have taught me that houses so degenerate deserve neither loyalty nor faith! Now, England is filling their coffers with gold. But I shall prove myself a better statesman than these born kings who never leave their golden cages!”

In this atmosphere of intrigue, when he has to rub shoulders with princes who dare not fight either for him or against him, traitors are his best confidants.

The Emperor therefore summons Fouché, to whom he says: “Your friends Bernadotte and Metternich are my worst enemies. Your Bernadotte can do us an immense amount of harm, for he is able to give my enemies the key to our policy, and he can explain to them the tactics of our armies.... His head has been turned because legitimate princes flatter him!” There we have it once more, the word whose mystical power explains half of Napoleon’s perpetual unrest. He can never refrain from a tremor when he speaks of the legitimate rulers, whom he regards with mingled contempt and envy. Whether he is mimicking them, or whether he is railing at them, he, who is an upstart, is always pondering this problem of birth.

Instead of listening to the call of the nations, which soon rises clear above the babble of the princes, he can only look on with malicious delight at the manœuvres of the chessplayers in the cabinets. He watches how England doles out subsidies to Prussia; how Alexander and Francis hold converse about the weakness of their ally, the king of Prussia; how Frederick William, in his dread of revolution, disbands the enthusiastic Landsturm, refuses to give high office to Scharnhorst the boldest and to Stein the ablest of his advisers, dismisses and banishes Schleiermacher for a speech voicing the popular sentiment. The Emperor sends Fouché on a secret mission (in plain words, as a spy) to the congress of Prague.

In Spain, meanwhile, though Napoleon in the north has been strengthening his position by two victories, Joseph has been utterly crushed by Wellington at Vittoria. The king of Spain has run away. When the princes learn in Prague that the south of France now lies open to an English invasion, their inclination to defiance is promptly strengthened. The Emperor, who had left the best of his generals to fight for Joseph in Spain, is beside himself with wrath. “He alone is to blame!” writes Napoleon to Paris. “The English reports show how utterly stupid was his command. Never was anything so absurd! Of course he is no soldier, but he is responsible.... Make the king understand that he is not to see any one till I come back.... Otherwise his house in Paris will become a centre of intrigue, and I shall have to put him under arrest, for my patience is at an end. I will no longer have my affairs imperilled out of consideration for idiots who are neither soldiers nor statesmen!”

His eldest brother is his closest intimate in the family,—and now the Emperor thinks that Joseph in a private house in Paris is more to be dreaded even than as king in Madrid! Will Napoleon at length learn his lesson, and, after this outburst, leave Joseph at peace? Hardly! For even little Jerome has an army once more, and is again making a mess of things; he gives one of the generals new marching orders, with the remark that he is acting on instructions from the Emperor. The latter hears of it too late. “I will not tell you in plain terms what I think of your conduct; enough that I will not tolerate it any longer! If you again make false representations of the kind, I shall publish an order of the day to the effect that in future no attention is to be paid to anything you say.... By such behaviour you may disturb the march of my whole army. It is sheer cheating!”

Soon afterwards Junot, one of the oldest of his comrades, becomes affected with megalomania; he loses a battle in Illyria, and then, in a fit of frenzy, throws himself out of a window. Bourrienne, who had for a time been cashiered on account of peculation, and had then been appointed chargé d’affaires in Hamburg, had, after all, to be dismissed once more for the old offence. “If he dares to interfere in public business, I will have him arrested, and make him disgorge his ill-gotten gains!” Bernadotte, the most faithless, has actually landed in Pomerania with his Swedes, has advised the allies to stand firm, and will deceive them as he has deceived others. To crown all, a sworn enemy of the Emperor is now to join the opposing combination. General Moreau, who had been exiled to America for his share in Cadoudal’s conspiracy, is on his way to join the foes of France, and will share with Bernadotte the distinction of fighting against his native land.

In this situation, on the horns of a dilemma, too cautious to turn his victories to account, and too powerful to accept the terms on which alone he would be able to make peace, the Emperor has recourse to his whilom methods. He invites Metternich to Dresden, and tries to win over the Austrian diplomat by suggestion. The interview is typically Napoleonic, lasting nine hours without a break. The Emperor gains nothing by it, but posterity gains a great deal.

Standing in the middle of the room, his sword buckled on and his hat under his arm, the Emperor receives the minister. After making formal enquiries about his father-in-law’s health, he forthwith assumes the offensive: “So you, too, want war. Well, you shall have it. I have crushed the Prussians at Lützen, and have beaten the Russians at Bautzen. You are waiting for your turn? Be it so, we shall meet again in Vienna. Men are incorrigible! Three times I have replaced Emperor Francis on his throne; I have promised always to live at peace with him; I have married his daughter. Even at that time I thought: ‘You are making a fool of yourself.’ Still, I did it; and now I regret it!”

We see that he is not disposed to be civil; that to his father-in-law’s envoy, on whom he wishes to make a good impression, he is blunter than he had been to Francis on the day after Austerlitz. Metternich speaks of world peace, which will only be possible if the Emperor is willing to accept a reasonable curtailment of his dominions. It will be necessary to give back Warsaw to the tsar and Illyria to the emperor of Austria, to set the Hansa towns free, to enlarge Prussia.

“What you are asking is that I shall dishonour myself. I will die rather than cede a hand’s breadth of soil. Your born kings can accept defeat twenty times over, and still go back to their palaces. I am the child of fortune, and I cannot do this! My power will not outlast the day on which I cease to be strong, on which I cease to be feared.... Through the cold of Russia I lost everything except honour.... Now I have a new army; you shall see it; I will hold a review for your benefit!” Here we have once more the pride of the born soldier facing those who are born kings; here we have General Bonaparte. When the minister ventures to declare that this army of which Napoleon speaks would be glad if peace were made, the Emperor cuts Metternich short with one of his amazing outbursts of frankness:

“It is not the army that wants peace! My generals want it! Really, I have no generals left. The cold of Moscow has demoralised them all. There, the bravest among them cried like children. A fortnight ago, I could still make peace; now, after two victories, I can no longer do so.”

“Europe and you, Sire, will never come to terms. When you have made peace, it has been nothing more than a truce. To you, success and failure are equally strong motives for war. This time the whole of Europe will fight against you.”

The Emperor laughs savagely:

“Do you think to destroy me by a coalition? How many of you are there, then, Messieurs les Alliés? Four, five, six, twenty? The more, the merrier!” He goes on to warn Metternich against counting on Germany, whose peoples he is holding together by the presence of his soldiers and whose princes are held together by their dread of Austria. He advises armed neutrality, so long as the negotiations are going on in Prague, whereas Metternich talks of armed mediation. These finesses of the old diplomacy are to mask the gulf between them. Then, for a whole hour, they dispute about the relative strength of the opposing armies, each claiming the possession of exact information about the other side.

“I have detailed and accurate lists of your forces,” says the Emperor. “I have had so many spies at work, that I know to a unit even how many drummers you have. But no one knows better than myself how much or how little value to attach to these secret service reports. My calculations are based on more exact data, upon mathematical inferences. In the last resort, no one has more than he can have.” The Emperor shows the Austrian envoy the muster rolls of the Austrian army, which till yesterday had been part of the French alliance. Metternich can see for himself whether the figures are accurate. The Emperor then spends hours upon a description of the Russian campaign. When the minister remarks that the imperial troops are composed of striplings, and asks what Napoleon will do when these children, like those who have gone before them, have been swallowed up by the war, the Emperor is overcome with wrath. He turns pale, his features are distorted, and he shouts at Metternich:

“You are not a soldier. You do not know what passes in a soldier’s mind. I grew to manhood on the battle-field. Such a man as I does not care a snap of the fingers for the lives of a million men!” He flings his hat into a corner of the room. Now, there is nothing assumed about his anger, and what he has just said is the revelation of an innermost truth. The man who turns pale at the sight of a dying horse, who cannot bear to see a human being pass away, remains and must remain impassive when, in his army lists, he adds up the figures, shifts the hundreds of thousands from column to column, and erases the myriads of slain. Is not war made with human lives, and does it not end with corpses? What is the use of reproaching a craftsman for using the tools of his trade? But as far as morals are concerned, the minister has the best of the argument, and he would have been glad if all France could have heard Napoleon’s words.

“France has no reason to complain,” says the Emperor more calmly. “To spare France, I have sacrificed Germans and Poles. In Russia I lost three hundred thousand men, but only a tenth of them were Frenchmen!” Meanwhile, he has picked up his hat for himself, a thing he has certainly not done for the last ten years; he has acted sensibly, as if he had still been General Bonaparte. Then he plants himself in front of the Austrian and says:

“It was exceedingly stupid of me to marry an archduchess. I was trying to weld the new with the old, to make Gothic prejudices square with the institutions of my own century. Now I can see the whole extent of my error! The blunder may cost me my throne, but I will bury the world beneath its ruins!”

This tragical admission is the climax of the interview, and the turning-point of the problem of war or peace. The rancour engendered in him by his own mistake spurs him on, regardless of prudential considerations, into the fight with a coalition whose forces outnumber his by three to one. Like a great gambler who realises that he has made an irretrievable blunder, he is impelled by the stubbornness characteristic of such natures as his to stake all upon a single throw. He will show that, blunder notwithstanding, he can still win.

By the time he dismisses Metternich, he has fully recovered composure. His hand on the door-handle, he says: “We shall see one another again before you leave?”

“I am at Your Majesty’s service. But I have no longer any hope of succeeding in my mission.”

The Emperor looks at him quizzically, and taps him gently on the shoulder: “Do you know what will happen? You will not make war on me!”

After three days’ negotiation, Metternich wishes to depart, but the Emperor is afraid of the final rupture. Napoleon summons the Austrian envoy several times, and then invites him to an early interview in the garden. The two men walk up and down.

“Now then, you must not assume this injured air!” In ten minutes they arrange for a prolongation of the truce, and talk about further conversations in Prague. Everything is left hanging in the wind; and in the memorandum he signs with Metternich, the Emperor recognises his father-in-law’s position of armed neutrality, which can only be a stage on the way to war. Then he drives off to Mainz, that he may see once more the wife who is daughter of that same Austrian ruler. He has appointed her regent in Paris again, but has expressly forbidden his ministers to submit certain kinds of documents for her consideration. “There are details with which a young woman’s mind must not be besmirched.”

Had the Habsburg archduchess been a staunch wife and an affectionate daughter, she would have journeyed on to Vienna, and would have brought about a reconciliation which there was really nothing to prevent except the two men’s wounded pride. She had a passably good understanding. Only a few weeks before, the Emperor, writing to Francis, had said: “She fills the post of prime minister to my great satisfaction.” We cannot for a moment suppose that now, at the height of the crisis, he can have failed to let her know all the hazards of the hour, were it only to ensure that in the event of a breach her feelings would be on his side. But the little goose made no move. Her only concern was to send costly gifts which would make an impression on her relatives.

In Prague, each party keeps the other in suspense; Fouché does his master harm by gossiping with all and sundry; Bernadotte cements his alliance with his new friends. When, at the last moment, it seems possible that the Emperor may give way, Alexander and Frederick William are so much alarmed at the prospect that they compel Metternich to make the terms more exacting, for they realise that so favourable an opportunity is not likely to recur. The Emperor now angrily draws back, and on the day after the expiry of the truce he receives his father-in-law’s declaration of war. No doubt, in the interval, he has secured reinforcements; but he can no longer trust the Confederation of the Rhine, and has to keep watch upon his German auxiliaries. He stands to arms in Saxony and Silesia, faced by Schwarzenberg in command of three armies, two of them, respectively led by Blücher and Bernadotte, holding Silesia and the north. With Schwarzenberg is Moreau, who has just arrived, and who, on his last visit to Germany, had been the conqueror of that country.

Thus paradoxical is the marshalling forces in the game of chess. Under the Emperor of the French, are fighting three German kings against a German general, who a little while back had been the Emperor’s subordinate in the war against Russia. Against Napoleon, are fighting two French generals. One of them is leading Prussian troops against the man who had for years pushed him to the front; nor is this general really a royalist, for he, too, is a son of the revolution. Blücher is the only true-hearted foe, for Blücher, whom Napoleon defeated seven years earlier, has never fought on the Emperor’s side, and has never espoused his cause. The one element in Napoleon’s favour is that three monarchs have their fingers in Schwarzenberg’s pie, three commanders who know as little about the trade of war as Brother Joseph did in Spain.

At the end of August, the Emperor opens the second Saxon campaign with a great victory near Dresden. But on the third day, when he might have followed up the allies and scattered them, he is seized by a violent attack of gastric spasm. For a whole hour he fancies he has been poisoned; his will is paralysed, and he withdraws instead of pursuing. Thereby he loses an army corps, and thus (according to the report of Daru, his daily companion) “causes the disaster of 1813.” In this first battle against the hated Bonaparte, Moreau falls. Is it an omen? When the Emperor hears the news, the rivalry of his youth flames up anew, and from his very soul he cries: “Moreau is dead! My star!”

His other army has been defeated by Blücher on the Katzbach. Once more, considerations of statesmanship outweigh those of generalship. How can I divide my adversaries? It will be better to spare Bohemia for the sake of Austria, for the defeat has aroused alarm there. He will make a surprise march on Berlin, and will thus lure the Prussians out of Silesia.

But what the tsar had said years ago is still true.... Miracles only happen when the Emperor is present, and he cannot be everywhere. He is thus hampered in his great enterprise. Lack of fighting spirit, difficulties of food-supply, and the frequency of desertion, are continually making it necessary for him to visit his flanking armies: so that in popular parlance, in consequence of his rushings to and fro, he is nicknamed the “Bautzen Messenger.” His armies suffer more and more from lack of food. They are so thickly set upon the ground that they have long since eaten the country bare.

Nevertheless, he has not nearly enough soldiers. Since the 1814 levies are already with the colours, he orders the Senate to call up also those of 1815, and even the men whose liability to service has nearly expired on account of advancing years—the very peasants whom, when setting forth on this campaign in a mood of self-pity, he had envied for their fortunate position. But when will the reinforcements arrive? Who will train them, and how long will it take? Vainly now, at the end of September, he sends an envoy to his father-in-law, to talk of peace; he is prepared to make great sacrifices, “if only you will listen.” But Francis remains firm, and is at length able to detach an important member of the Confederation of the Rhine: the king of Bavaria falls away. Thereupon the anxious chessplayer, round whom the clouds are gathering, says to his old comrade something which he has never before been willing to admit:

“Marmont, my game is going awry.”

With this admission, the Emperor’s genius spreads its wings and flies away.

XI

On Düben Heath is a Saxon fortress, Düben Castle. There, one morning, the Emperor is at work, planning the march on Berlin, the defeat of Bernadotte and Blücher, smashing blows which will finish off the enemy.

Then a number of generals are announced. He comes out of his study to meet them, knowing what they want, for his intimates have kept him informed of the growing discontent among the leaders, who wish to winter quietly on the Rhine. Marshal Ney has recently reported: “I am no longer master of my army.” One of the visitors begins to speak hesitatingly; a second puts forward dubious reasons; then, nodding to encourage one another, they all obsequiously beg him not to march on Berlin. Leipzig will be a better point of attack.

The Emperor listens to them in silence as he wonders: “Is my power vanishing?” At length he replies: “The secession of Bavaria is imminent. A movement on Leipzig, a backward movement, will arouse despair among the soldiers. But I will think over what you have said.” He spends the rest of the day alone, refusing himself to all visitors, brooding over his maps. Caulaincourt, on duty outside, listens for sounds from within, but can only hear the windows rattling in the October gale which is howling round the castle. At length he is allowed to enter. The Emperor walks up and down, and, speaking rather to himself than to Caulaincourt, he says: “The French cannot endure reverses.” Then he sinks into a reverie.

Next day he announces that they will go to Leipzig. It is October 15th: general animation; orders are issued; every one is delighted. Discussing with Marmont the latest steps of the Habsburg ruler, Napoleon says in conclusion: “I prefer a man of honour who simply keeps his word, to a conscientious man who does what he thinks right.... Emperor Francis has done what he believes to be the best for his subjects; he is conscientious, but he is not a man of honour.”

Next day begins the great “Battle of the Nations.” The Emperor has only one hundred and eighty thousand men against three hundred thousand of the allies; by the evening he has won only part of the battle-field. On the second morning Bernadotte arrives with reinforcements. The Emperor sees that things are going badly, and would like to withdraw, but he cannot make up his mind to a step that would give the impression of defeat. Once more he tries negotiation. General Merveldt has been taken prisoner; his sword is restored on parole; he is to go to Emperor Francis with proposals for an armistice.

“I will retire behind the Saale, while the Russians and the Prussians withdraw beyond the Elbe, and you Austrians go back into Bohemia; Saxony must remain neutral.” Then, livening up, he develops to this enemy general nothing less than a new plan for Europe. Hanover is to be returned to England; the Baltic coast is to be freed; any of the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine who wish to do so can leave the Confederation; Poland, Spain, and Holland are to be independent; the only reservation is as regards Italy, which must not become Austrian. “Be off with you! You have a splendid peace mission. Should fortune favour it, you will earn the love of a great nation. But if your side refuse peace, we shall know how to defend ourselves.”

General Merveldt departs in amazement, and his report seems incredible to his master. What! The Emperor Napoleon, in the course of war, between battles, is willing to renounce half Europe and chooses a prisoner to bring this offer? We did not know he was so weak.

The Emperor is anxiously awaiting his emissary’s return. Till far on into the night, therefore, he refrains from issuing orders for the morrow; he speaks of the ties of kinship, and of his wife and child. Suddenly he is attacked by his gastric trouble, and staggers against the wall of the tent, his face pale. They wish to send for his physician. “No! my tent is transparent. If I am up and about, every one is at his post.”

“At least lie down, Sire!”

“No, I will die standing.”

“Do let me fetch the doctor, Sire.”

“No, I tell you! I can send a sick soldier to hospital. But who can send me?” Terrible moments pass. “I’m getting better now. See to it that no one comes into the tent!”

Half an hour later, he issues orders, but not for a retreat. Instead, the army moves a little nearer to Leipzig. The enemy now outnumbers him by two to one.

When day comes, he takes up his headquarters in a windmill. The attack upon the French starts from three sides. It appears that, at the last moment, Bernadotte has persuaded the Saxons to turn their guns against France. “Infamous!” exclaims the Emperor, and all around echo the word. Saxon officers who remain faithful to him, break their swords. A dragoon belonging to the escort wheels his horse, and shouts: “We’ll do for them yet, the scoundrels! We Frenchmen, too, are here! Vive l’Empereur!” The whole escort follows him at the charge. Soon a young officer, who has seized one of the Saxon eagles, gallops back with it to the Emperor, and collapses from his wounds as he arrives. “These sons of France!” says Napoleon softly.

On the second day of battle, he loses sixty thousand men. He is beaten, but even the German critics say of the affair: “The allies did not secure an overwhelming victory, such as might have been expected from the enormous preponderance of their forces.”

During the hasty retreat of the defeated army through the town of Leipzig, the Emperor dictates orders for the withdrawal. “They had brought him a wooden stool,” writes an eyewitness. “On this, he now fell into a slumber of exhaustion, his hands loosely folded in his lap. In gloomy silence the generals were standing round the fire, while the soldiers were marching past a little way off.”

Next morning the pursuing enemy spread disorder in the streets; a bridge was blown up prematurely, so that the rear guard was forced to surrender; one of the marshals escaped by swimming across the river, another was drowned, several were wounded and taken prisoner. When, subsequently Macdonald came across Augereau, for whose corps he had been waiting, Augereau laughed him to scorn: “Do you think me such a fool as to let myself be slaughtered in a Leipzig suburb? I won’t do that for a madman’s sake!”

Here we have it for the first time, a sign that one of Napoleon’s oldest companions-in-arms has become completely indifferent to the Emperor’s fame; is animated by the mere will-to-live, reasonable enough in a private soldier, but unworthy of a marshal of France. On the very same day, another friend of Bonaparte’s youth writes to the Emperor, complaining that in the report of the previous day’s fighting his services have been overlooked, although for ten hours he had held a part of the plain for whose defence another man is now given the credit. “Never in my life have I served you more faithfully than I did on this occasion.... Sire, I could not suffer anything worse than to be forgotten at such a time.” The letter is signed, “Marmont.”

These two utterances on the day after Leipzig are the shadows of coming events. Marmont and Augereau will both desert the Emperor in the decisive hour.

Fifty miles away, Goethe is sitting in his room at Weimar. Napoleon’s picture has fallen from its nail. The poet has heard the sound of the Leipzig guns. The first news of the French defeat has arrived. Though none of the allied generals can say, yet, whether the Emperor may not be able to collect his forces once more, and to resume his career of victory, Goethe, who only a few months earlier had declared Napoleon to be invincible, already realises the full extent of the disaster. On the day of the retreat, as if everything had happened a hundred years before, and the whole matter had become legendary, he writes the following verses:

He who feels courage in his royal breast knows no shudderings, treads gladly the undermined road leading to the steps of the throne, knows the danger and nevertheless mounts confidently. The golden circlet’s tremendous burden, he does not try its weight; resolute and calm, he presses it gladly on his bold brow, and bears it lightly, as if it were a laurel crown. Thus didst thou. What seemed so far away, thou hast tranquilly learned to make thine own; and whatever fierce obstacles might block the path, thou sawest them, contemplated them, and understood them. A joyful day dawned, it summoned thee, thou wast summoned, and thus it came to pass.... And thou still standest despite all that has happened to thee, despite the foe, who, with war and death threatens thee from without and from within.... The peoples are agape, they chatter, they are full of vain imaginings— What do they care for, but games?... The false world, it wooes us for our treasure, for our favour, for our position, and, even if one makes one’s lover one’s equal, love does not suffice him, he wants the whole kingdom. So was it with this man!—And now, declare it abroad, even if it cost you your life: To every man, be he whom he may, there comes a last happiness and a last day.

At the same date, Schelling writes: “I do not believe that Napoleon’s end is yet very near. If I am right, he will still be spared; and, even if all his helpers fall away from him, he will still live to drink the cup of humiliation to the dregs.” When, almost immediately afterwards, the Bavarians definitively changed sides, Hegel wrote: “In Nuremberg, the mob has welcomed the incoming Austrians with the most hateful jubilation.... Nothing more contemptible can be imagined than the mood and the conduct of the burghers.”

Three outstanding Germans, immediately after Leipzig!

Certainly, it is far from being a final defeat. Fighting, and fighting victoriously, the Emperor withdraws. In Erfurt, Murat presents himself, wishing to go back to his kingdom. The master allows him to do so, saying: “By next May, I shall have an army of a quarter of a million on the Rhine!” Thus does his intelligence work; such is the quality of his imagination; he can still think only in hundreds of thousands. In Mainz, his troops are attacked by typhus, and he hastens to move what is left of them across the Rhine. During the retreat, he works from three in the morning till eleven at night.

Meanwhile, the advancing allied headquarters are thronged by the princes who are deserting the cause of Napoleon. All is promptly forgotten and forgiven. But there is one honest man left who finds strong words to describe what is happening: “What do you think of these wretches’ behaviour?... They have had better treatment than they deserve.... All these princelets are weaklings, to whom a far more honourable existence has been conceded than their pitiful conduct would seem to justify.... The retention of their sovereignty, which consists in pretentiousness, pleasure seeking, and the lust for dominion, has cost them nothing more than the blood of their subjects.”

Such is Baron vom Stein’s judgment concerning his peers, the German princes.

XII

Letizia is sitting by the fire. In her hand is a letter from Mainz, in which her son answers her intercession for Louis by imposing certain conditions. But this is not what troubles her; she is thinking of the Emperor’s parenthetical allusion to the turn in his fortunes. He writes: “In this situation, when all Europe is rising against me, and my heart is so full of care....” She has never warned him of the impending dangers; they are both of them too proud for that. But she has often uttered her foreboding to intimates, with her phrase “Pourvou que cela doure!” She has never been disturbed by the thought of any disaster to herself. She thinks only of her dear ones. Who will help them when everything falls to pieces? To whom, she is now asking herself, can the Emperor look for support?

When he returns, she has to endure the recognition that the treachery begins among her own children. Murat, who is always led by a keener intelligence than his own (that of Caroline), signs a truce with England and enters into an alliance with Austria. Elise has an adviser, Fouché, who keeps away from Paris until the Emperor’s fall. “The only thing that could save us all would be the Emperor’s death.” Such are the ex-minister’s words to the Emperor’s sister. But Elise writes to her mother asking what dances are to be given that winter in Paris. Louis defies orders, and, being unable to stay in Austria any longer, comes to Paris without leave. Napoleon proposes to banish him to a distance of two hundred miles from Paris. The mother intercedes between the pair; there is a further interview, as a result of which Napoleon and Louis are once more estranged. Jerome has left his subjects in the lurch, and has fled incognito from Cassel. Joseph, despite the Emperor’s reiterated requests, persists in his refusal to undertake the defence of Paris. Lucien keeps his distance, still in a bad humour.

Such is the gallery of brothers and sisters, the relatives upon whom for a decade the Emperor has been trying to build up his dynasty. What can be the feelings of a mother who has always cherished the most tender affection for that one of her children who happened to be suffering most keenly?

But in Morfontaine a cheerful mood prevails. The company there consists of Joseph, the Spanish king without a country; Jerome’s wife, a queen in like situation, whose father has gone over to the allies; the sometime grand inquisitor of Spain says Mass in the chapel; there are two colonial bishops; German, Spanish, and Italian courtiers without a court—a brilliant company, like the audience at private theatricals, watching actors who will soon come down from the stage to take their place on the floor of the drawing-room. Only one of them hopes to draw a big fish out of the troubled waters, Bernadotte’s wife, Joseph’s sister-in-law, the woman to whom twenty years before the Emperor had given the go-by. She knows that her husband, commander of one of the allied armies, is already on the Rhine; she hopes that ere long, in Notre Dame, he will place Josephine’s crown on her pretty brown head.

At this country-seat, more intrigues are carried on against Napoleon than Joseph is aware of; for Joseph is not himself an intriguer; he is merely easy-going and vain. The Emperor recognises this, now that it is too late, and says to Roederer:

“That has been one of my mistakes. I fancied I needed my brothers for the dynasty, but it is safe without them. It has been brought into being in the heart of the storm by the nature of things. The empress suffices.... Everything has been quiet for a year past. There is only disquiet when Joseph lives in Paris.... He cannot forget that he is the first-born. Was there ever anything more absurd? If he were talking of our father’s vineyard, that would be another story!... His interests are in women, houses, furniture. He likes to go out rabbit shooting, and to play blind man’s buff with the girls. I am tied to nothing; care not a jot for houses or for women; though I do feel a little concern about my son.”

Thus does his monomania make headway in these weeks of increasing peril. We see that all the rest, court included, has been nothing more than a game. He cares not a jot for anything outside the one passion of his soul—except that he is a little concerned about his son.

He now quickly makes up his mind to restore the Spanish crown to King Ferdinand, who is set at liberty; but the Cortes must approve the treaty. This is Talleyrand’s advice, for Talleyrand has now been recalled to the Tuileries. Insistence on ratification by the Cortes will delay matters. The traitor’s aim is to keep a French army in the south, so that France may be weakened for the benefit of the allies, for whose cause Talleyrand is now working. Joseph protests.

“My present situation makes it impossible for me to think of any sort of foreign dominion,” writes the Emperor to his brother. “I shall deem myself lucky if the peace treaty will allow me to keep the old boundaries of France. Everything is crashing round me. My armies have been destroyed, and it will hardly be possible to make the losses good. Holland is gone, and Italy is uncertain.... Belgium and the Rhine province are discontented; the Spanish frontier is held by the enemy.... How is it possible, at this crisis, to think of a foreign throne?” When the prefect of police advises him to leave a larger body of National Guards in Paris, during the campaign that is now imminent, he rejoins: “Who can guarantee that they will be faithful to me? Am I to leave so large a force in my rear?”

He is in despair. Surely there is no other word for the description of these thoughts? His family, his allies, his own capital, all seem untrustworthy to him. Thus completely has his mood changed since the battle of Leipzig. Count Lavalette, Postmaster General, one of the most honest men in Paris, who often came to see him at this time, found him one evening in a condition of great depression. Napoleon received Lavalette in his bedroom, standing in front of the fire, his hands stretched out towards the blaze. The visitor, though a stout-hearted fellow, advises peace, saying that the French are mutable. But when he ventures to mention the name of the Bourbons, on whom perhaps the Emperor’s mantle may fall, Napoleon turns away from the fire and silently throws himself on the bed. When, a few minutes later, the count draws near, he finds that Napoleon is sleeping.

These healthy reactions are a sign of returning courage. Napoleon’s overthrow is close at hand; he foresees the catastrophe; but when people talk to him about the Bourbons, to whose throne he has mounted and who may dispossess him in turn, he cannot be bothered with the topic. It bores him, and he goes to sleep.

Awakening reinvigorated, he recognises that the Bourbon sympathies of the northern provinces are a danger; he notes that the funds have fallen to fifty, and that the shares of the Bank of France have declined to half their former value; and he finds that the new National Guard, which after all he is obliged to call up, fails to materialise. He therefore gladly accedes to a proposal that issues from the allies in Frankfort. They are as disunited as he can possibly wish. Metternich, being a statesman, thinks it will be better not to occupy Paris. The tsar, being a romanticist, wants to take vengeance for Moscow by blowing up the Tuileries. In the end, Austria gets her way. The offer to France is that the country is to retain her natural frontiers; the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees. The Emperor feels that he is saved. Without a moment’s delay he will accept the Frankfort proposal. Maret has actually drafted the dispatch.

Suddenly he changes his mind. Why? Perhaps he has been put out of temper by the opposition voiced in the Chambers. There, at length, the members are showing themselves refractory. “We will not vote further armaments unless the government agrees that they are to be used only for defence. The Emperor must pledge himself to carry out all the laws that protect liberty.” Thunders of applause greet these words. For the first time in fifteen years, an assembly has ventured to criticise Napoleon. In his hatred for all Chambers, the Emperor flies into a passion, forbids the printing of the speech, closes the House, receives a few of the deputies, scolds them:

“The throne is nothing more than a piece of wood covered with satin. I, and I alone, represent the people. I am the State. If France wants a different constitution, let her find another monarch for herself. Do you think my words proud? I utter them because I have the courage, and because France owes her greatness to me.” After this language in the vein of the Roi Soleil, on New Year’s Day he openly threatens the deputies, and says he will have them closely watched.

That very day, Blücher crosses the Rhine.

Thus, after twenty years of effort, and after six great wars, the more or less united powers of Europe and the old monarchical idea, incorporated in a Prussian field marshal, have made their way back across the boundary river of the revolution—and in the same hour, the heir of these modern ideas scatters their representatives and threatens imprisonment. With a similar logic, the manifestoes of the conflicting worlds have changed places. In Notre Dame, where for twenty years nothing has been heard but thanksgiving services, prayers are now offered up on behalf of the success of French arms. From the allies, on the other hand, who have so long heard talk of success of the French arms as heralding the liberation of conquered peoples, come assurances to conquered France that the invaders are “liberators.”

The legitimists have at length learned from their great foe the technique of his battles and his proclamations. But if they are able to turn the lesson to good account, it is only because of their preponderance of power, and because of the weariness of a nation, which, after twenty years of glory, now seeks nothing but repose.

To begin with, they weaken their position by asking too much; for when they offer nothing better than the old frontiers of 1792, the Emperor breaks off negotiations, and makes ready to repel their onslaught. In spite of all difficulties, he is able to strengthen his fighting front. His spirits are now steadily rising. When a pious count advises him to send the empress and her ladies to kiss the relics of Ste. Geneviève, Napoleon bursts out laughing, and says: “You’re a pretty bigot! I am going to fight it out!”

But to whom, in this stern moment, does he entrust the capital? Who merits all his confidence?

Joseph! Joseph, who understands nothing about war and has been keeping open house for the Emperor’s enemies, becomes lieutenant general of France and governor of Paris! This domestic peace treaty throws a glaring light upon the Emperor’s isolation, upon his lack of confidence in his supporters, and upon his family feeling. Shortly before leaving for the front, Napoleon has coldly ordered his brother to choose between openly declaring himself to be the friend of the empress-regent or continuing to be banished from Paris. “You can live in retirement at your country-seat, so long as I am alive. If I die, you will be killed or imprisoned. At Morfontaine, you will certainly be of no use either to your own people or to France, but at any rate you will not do me any harm. Make your choice. Feelings, whether friendly or hostile, are useless and out of place.”

The tone is that of a man fighting to save his crown. He reckons with the likelihood of death; burns a great many State papers; and provides for his natural sons. Little Léon is to receive a fixed income, Walewska’s boy is to have a big majorat. As for his legitimate heir, who is now nearly three years old, Napoleon has the child in his arms when he takes leave of the officers of the National Guard. “I entrust to you the dearest of my possessions. You are answerable!” Once more he urges tenacity on his brother; once more he leaves his wife regent of their son’s realm. Next morning he quits Paris.

He will not re-enter the city for more than a year, after devious wanderings.

XIII

In a few weeks he is beaten.

His first strokes are successful. Near Brienne, where he forces Blücher to retreat, and where he himself takes so active a part in the fight that he is obliged to draw his sword in self-defence, he recognises the tree under which “as a twelve-year-old youngster I used to sit and read Tasso.” A romantic encounter which links his later life with those early days when his dreams were first dreamed! His historical feeling concerning himself grows in such circumstances to legendary proportions.

Immediately thereafter, Blücher gains a victory over him near La Rothière. Paris is threatened. The Emperor’s strength seems broken. Caulaincourt, in a letter, begs him to yield; Maret does the same by word of mouth. Napoleon pays little heed to what Maret is saying; absently, he flutters the pages of a book by Montesquieu. Then, pointing to a passage, he bids Maret read aloud. “I know of nothing nobler than the determination of a monarch of our day to prefer to bury himself beneath the ruins of a throne rather than accept proposals to which no king should ever hearken.”

“I know of something nobler still!” exclaims Maret. “That you should sacrifice your glory and thereby fill the abyss wherein, otherwise, France will find her grave!”

“Very well,” answers the Emperor. “Make peace. Caulaincourt can conclude it, and sign the documents. I shall bear the shame. But do not claim from me that I myself should dictate my own abasement!” Maret writes to Caulaincourt in Châtillon, where he is negotiating anew with the enemy. Caulaincourt demands confirmation. Meanwhile the Emperor has veered about. He writes to Joseph: “Hold the gates bravely. Have two guns mounted and see that the National Guard takes up its position there.... Place fifty men at each gate armed with service muskets, one hundred with fowling pieces, and one hundred with pikes. Thus, each gate will be guarded by two hundred and fifty men.”

Crœsus has become a beggar! Only six months ago, nay, even three months back, Napoleon would have added three noughts to the figures! But now, encircled by the conglomerated forces of so many princes, two cannon and a hundred fowling pieces must suffice to save Paris! He sees the absurdity, for the same evening Maret finds him depressed. The minister, however, tries to persuade the Emperor to dictate the conditions of peace: Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine are to be free, Italy must be yielded up, everything which Bonaparte and Napoleon conquered must be given back in order that he may keep Paris and the piece of wood covered with satin. He will sign to-morrow, he says. Those who love him, tremble at thought of the moment when with one stroke of the pen he will lose all that his warlike deeds have won.

But fate guards him from this. News comes during the night. The enemy’s position is worse than it seemed the previous day. Once more the war lord’s imagination gets to work. When, next morning, Maret arrives with the papers for the Emperor’s signature, he finds his master brooding over the map. Napoleon hardly notices his entrance. All the minister can catch is a few hurried words:

“Other matters are to the fore! I am determined to smash Blücher!” When, at the self-same hour, Joseph’s letter arrives wherein he states that Paris is in peril, Napoleon, in the interludes of issuing army orders, dictates, from the depths of his heart, this rock-like answer:

“Should Paris be taken, I shall no longer continue to live.... I have commanded you to do all that is needful to safeguard the empress, the king of Rome, and our family.... I have the right to claim the assistance of my kin, for I have helped them so often in the past....

“If Talleyrand considers that the empress should in any case remain in Paris, this advice is secret treachery. Do not trust him! For sixteen years I have associated with him, and have often given him favours. But nothing is more certain than that he is the greatest enemy of our house, now that luck has forsaken us. Take my advice to heart. I understand events better than the young folk. If I lose the fight and die, you will be the first to hear of it.... I fancy that Madame Mère could find asylum with the queen of Westphalia. For God’s sake, do not allow the empress and the king to fall into the hands of the enemy! Austria would then lose interest in the war, and would take the empress to Vienna. England and Russia would make the French see things from their outlook, and our cause would be lost....

“Perhaps I shall conclude peace in a day or two.... Never since the world began has a sovereign allowed himself to be taken alive in an open city.... So long as I live, I must be obeyed. If I die, my reigning son and the regent his mother must not allow themselves to be taken, were it only for France’s honour. On the contrary, they must withdraw with the last of their soldiers and entrench themselves in the remotest village. Otherwise it might be said that I had sacrificed my son’s throne....

“I would rather know that my son had been killed than that he was being brought up in Vienna as an Austrian prince. I have never seen Andromache played without lamenting the fate of Astyanax, and I have always regarded it as a stroke of good fortune that his father did not live to see it. You do not know the French people. The consequences of these vast events are incalculable!”

This hunted man is panting for breath. For the first time since his youth, death or collapse seems close at hand; perhaps both. When he writes commanding Joseph to prepare for either eventuality, the two main elements of his soul are mingling, and both are scattering sparks. His calculating temperament is reckoning up the disastrous consequences that would ensue, should Austria’s ambition cease to be operative; but at the same time his idea of the destiny of his nearest and dearest takes a soaring flight. Were he to fall next day, this letter would remain to show that honour and glory had been the last flames of his heroic imagination. But to-day, as always, everything discloses a meditation upon the historical parallels which have throughout life been his spur to greatness.

Thus the letter is the burning-cold document of a statesman and poet, and only in this frame of mind is it becoming for a Napoleon to perish.

At the same time, he is a great military commander to the last. When he divides the remnants of his army into two halves, and begins by defeating Blücher with one of them in a brilliant advance, the six battles he fights in nine days, from Champaubert to Montereau, are still in the avalanche tempo of General Bonaparte. But that the names of these battle-fields are French, tells us the whole story; hitherto his victories have always borne foreign names. At Montereau he is an artillerist once more, training the guns with his own hand as at Toulon. He cries: “Forward, comrades! The cannon ball that will hit me has not been cast!”

He has settled accounts with Blücher. Now to deal with Schwarzenberg! But the Austrian is afraid of having his renown as commander dimmed, and is sedulous to avoid a decisive conflict; he actually writes direct to Berthier, suggesting that a truce be arranged in Châtillon. Enough for the Emperor to read this, and his lust for battle is redoubled. Another letter to Joseph, written with his own hand this time, breathing defiance, shrewd, bold:

“You have been talking to my wife about the Bourbons, but you should avoid such topics. I have no wish to take shelter behind my wife.... That would only sow dissension between us.... I have never tried to win the applause of the Parisians, for I am no stage puppet.... Besides, the real Paris is something very different from the passions of the three thousand persons who are raising all the clamour. Of course it would be easier to explain that one cannot levy any soldiers, than it is to make the attempt.... Je vous embrasse!”

It is many, many years since he has penned these words at the close of a letter. Not since the Marengo days has he written thus to any of his brothers or to any of his commanders—and Joseph is both. His heart is beating more vigorously. Next day, writing to Savary, who has informed him about a petition to the monarchs, and about the regency and fears and intrigues, his phrasing is more incisive, and bears witness to the excitement of a campaign:

“They shall learn that I am still the man of Wagram and Austerlitz! I will have no intrigues in the State.... Let me tell you that if a petition against the public authority is being circulated, I will arrest King Joseph and all the others who sign it!... I want no tribunes of the people! I myself am the great tribune!”

Meanwhile the allies are quarrelling. The tsar wants Paris to be placed under a Russian governor until the nation chooses Bernadotte or another; Austria will hear of nothing but a Bourbon restoration; Schwarzenberg wants peace to be made at once, and instead of joining battle is content to assume “a military attitude.” But Blücher, who has remarshalled his forces, simply cries “Forward!” and is on the march. When the allies once more send a proposal for the re-establishment of the old frontiers of France, the Emperor is enraged, saying: “I am so angry, that I feel dishonoured by the mere suggestion.” Being reminded that the enemy outnumbers him by three to one, he answers heroically: “I have fifty thousand men. Add myself, and you get a hundred and fifty thousand!”

Now, at the beginning of March, when he is to attack Blücher once more, for the command of his other army he puts his trust in Marmont, his earliest companion-in-arms.

But the spirit of revolt is rising. It had shown itself to Napoleon at Düben Castle in the previous autumn; during the winter it had been fomented in his brother’s circle; now it was to eventuate in treason under fire. Marmont, the first among men still above ground who had served under Napoleon, is also the first to betray him. Oudinot and Macdonald have lost the battle of Bar-sur-Aube. Now, at Laon, Marmont makes no more than a pretence of fighting, leaves his artillery in the town square, thus snatches victory from his master, and even allows himself to be surprised in his camp. “The Emperor would have been justified in cutting him down,” says Berthier, “but is so fond of him that, after making a scene, he has left him in command of his corps.”

What is more natural than that, during these days, his heart should go out to the friends of his youth? But Marmont is not the only traitor to whom he is lenient! Augereau, who had fought beside him at Rivoli, begins to make signals to the Austrians, fails to be at his post. The reprimand he receives is an affectionate one. Napoleon writes to him almost as if they were still brothers in the field, as of old.

“Six hours’ rest were not enough for you?... What pitiful excuses you are making, Augereau! No money! No horses! I command you to take the field within twelve hours of receiving this. If you are still the old Augereau of Castiglione, you can keep your command. But if you find the burden of your sixty years so heavy, hand over the command to the oldest of your generals. The country is in danger!... You should be the first in the firing line. We must all put on our seven-leagued boots, and must find the reckless courage of ’93. If the French soldiers see your plumes at the outposts, you will be able to lead your men whithersoever you please.”

Here we have General Bonaparte once more. The red of sunset reminds us of the glories of sunrise.

Owing to Marmont’s retreat, the Emperor is left unsupported at Arcis-sur-Aube, and has no more than a few thousand men with which to face a great army. Defeat is inevitable. During the height of the battle, a dust eddy sweeps across the field. A thousand dragoons are panic-stricken, and take to flight, shouting: “The Cossacks!” The Emperor gallops forward into the press. “Dragoons! Turn and fight! You are running away, but I stand firm!” He draws his sword and charges the enemy, followed only by his staff and the bodyguard. Six thousand Cossacks take to flight. It is years upon years since he has led a cavalry attack. His horse is shot under him, and he mounts another. Berthier reports that the Emperor was obviously hoping to find death on the field.

But death does not come for the asking. No more than Cæsar, Cromwell, or Frederick, is Napoleon destined for this swift, heroic end. Such men are something more than military commanders, and must live out their lives as leaders of nations,—even though they have to fight against their own nation. Henceforward the blows thicken, and each blow is symbolical.

But who can wonder if, at last, men forsake the despiser of men? He has made princes of his soldiers; should it surprise us that they prefer their princedoms to a soldier’s death? Need we wonder that a wife sprung from an ancient ruling house, married off to an upstart, should be quick to repudiate him and to become a Habsburg once more? That his brothers, in whom he has shown too much trust, should, when disaster comes, think of themselves rather than of the man to whom they owe everything?

When, in his last letters to Marie Louise, he asks her to write to her father, she complies with a bad grace, and, instead of following the example of Maria Theresa, she pens cold letters which can serve as hints to her father and his ministers. News reaches the allied headquarters that the English have landed in Bordeaux, and that the Bourbon flag has been hoisted there; a letter from the Emperor to his wife is intercepted, a letter in which he announces his intention to withdraw behind the Marne. It is enough; at length all are agreed for the march on Paris.

In this utmost danger, Napoleon has still a last bold shift. He will arm the peasants as a national reserve; they will be ready to his hand, for they hate the invading foreigners. But now tidings come that Marmont has allowed himself to be beaten once more, and is withdrawing to Paris with Mortier. Like one who hears that his house is on fire, the Emperor storms back towards Paris, entrusts the command of his troops to Berthier, and rides citywards with his bodyguard. Then, leaving everything behind, he jumps with Caulaincourt into a post-chaise, hoping it will not be too late to seize the reins of power. After how many victories has he not driven in such a carriage through the gates of his capital? Always his thoughts have circled round the problem, “What is Paris saying? How shall I find things there?” But now there is only one idea pulsing in his brain: Will three persons stand firm till I come; three to whom I can entrust the safety of the realm? The empress as regent, Joseph as governor of Paris, Marmont as leader of the strongest corps!

Night. Change of horses. A squad of soldiers led by an officer. The officer reports: “I am under Marshal Mortier’s orders, and am seeking quarters for the troops that are being withdrawn.”

“Troops being withdrawn? Where is the empress? Where is King Joseph?”

“Her Majesty, with the king of Rome, fled yesterday to Blois. King Joseph left Paris to-day.”

“Where is Marmont?”

“I don’t know, Sire.”

Beads of sweat form on the Emperor’s forehead; his lips twitch nervously; he is horrified at the news. He breaks out: “Forward! To-morrow the guards will be here. The National Guard is on my side. Once within the walls of Paris, I shall only leave the town as a conqueror or as a dead man!”

With difficulty, Caulaincourt persuades him to renounce this foolhardy design. The Emperor orders that Marmont’s corps is to take up its position behind the Essonne. Then he says to his minister: “Hasten to Paris! Go on negotiating for a treaty. I have been betrayed and sold. You have full powers. I will wait for you here. It is not far. Forward!”

He drives a hundred paces nearer, and can see the waters of the Seine. But what is mirrored therein? The enemy’s watch-fires! At the outposts, the invaders are cooking supper and singing songs; while the Emperor, on the left bank with two post-chaises and a few servants, watches them under cover of the darkness.

Then he has the carriage turned, and drives to Fontainebleau.

XIV

Next morning, Talleyrand is sitting in his bedchamber, submitting to the ministrations of his valet. This statesman of the revolution still has his wig dressed in the rococo style. The door is thrown open, and almost before the servant has time to announce him, Count Nesselrode hurries in to greet the friend of many years’ standing. He gets covered with powder from head to foot, Talleyrand informs us. Two hours later, the tsar himself comes to stay with his intimate friend as guest; he will not put up at the Elysée for fear of bombs. The moment for which Napoleon’s minister has worked indefatigably for six years has come at last, and the smiling victors shake hands with a sense of moral righteousness: virtue has triumphed! After knocking at the gates of Paris for two and twenty years, the legitimist monarchs have at length been admitted. This is their great moment. They have ridden into the city. A small party of Bourbon supporters has hailed them as liberators; the Faubourg Saint-Germain has rallied. Elsewhere in Paris, silence reigns. Every one is calmly waiting to see whether, on the morrow, Napoleon or Louis is to be called master.

The Emperor’s fate is sealed, for Joseph, in his cowardly flight and in spite of Napoleon’s warnings, has not taken Talleyrand along with him, but has left that cleverest and most dangerous of enemies in Paris. It is not fixity of purpose on the part of the nation that brings the Emperor to his doom; nor are the four allied foes unanimous as to his fate. He is ruined by the co-operation of faithless servants and treacherous friends, under the guidance of a man who is both—for Talleyrand, with the good graces of the tsar, takes upon himself the spiritual leadership of the next ten days. Now the intriguer is in his true element.

Yesterday he received another guest. Talleyrand by no means hates the Emperor, but has from the first sign of Napoleon’s decline, forsaken his master in order that he himself may climb. He has no wish to wreak vengeance on a prisoner, and, indeed, has no reason for revenge. Still, it would be convenient were the disturber of the peace quietly to disappear; and therefore he promises a goodly reward to a certain Maubreuil (a monarchist officer with an adventurous past) if this man “will carry out an important commission on the road to Fontainebleau.” But the adventurer’s heart fails him at the last moment, and he is content to attack Jerome’s brave young wife and carry off her jewels, instead of making an attempt on Napoleon’s life. Blücher, too, on his own initiative, has sent a detachment with definite orders to make an end of the Emperor.

“Well, what does France want?” asks the tsar of the abbé, as a man of wide experience. Talleyrand has long had in mind the restoration of the former king, but he thinks it best to ask whom Alexander would recommend. Somewhat diffidently, the tsar mentions the name of Bernadotte. Talleyrand smiles: “France does not want any more soldiers. If we wanted one we should keep the one we have already, the finest soldier in the world. No other, in his place, would find a hundred men to follow him.” Talleyrand says this to the conqueror, says it in plain words to the tsar; the defeated Emperor at Fontainebleau could have wished no greater tribute of admiration than such words from such lips in such a situation.

A day later, Talleyrand summons the Senate, and the legislature confirms the decision that the Emperor must abdicate. There is a general swing of opinion in this direction. Caulaincourt is the only one who puts up a fight for Napoleon, and tries to win over the tsar. For a moment, Alexander’s impressionable heart is touched; the image of his whilom friend rises before his mind; he wavers, and says that he will do his best with his allies to save the crown for the king of Rome.

But while the impotent Caulaincourt is trying to persuade the vacillating tsar, and is doing what he can to save the house of Bonaparte, at this same hour on the third of April, Talleyrand has summoned Marshal Marmont who, with his twelve thousand men across the Seine, is still a power, since the main body of the allies has not yet reached Paris.

See them sitting there, Napoleon’s companion-in-arms and senior officer, hobnobbing with the doyen of the Emperor’s ministers. The diplomat reasons coldly with the soldier, who hardly needs to listen to the arguments. He is hopelessly disillusioned, tired out. His faith had been shaken three years ago in Spain. His thoughts run this wise: “What is the use of trying to march with a dead man? The king is dead; long live the king! At the military academy, we were all monarchists. His defeat is a proof that the Bourbons have the right of it. The only choice is between being stood up in front of an old wall or taking one’s stand behind an old throne. The oath of allegiance? That has been abrogated. The ties of friendship? Only the other day, he was scolding me after the Laon affair.” Acting on the suggestion of his old acquaintance, Marmont writes to Schwarzenberg, the allies’ commander-in-chief:

“By the decree of the Senate, the army and the people have been released from their obligation of fealty to Napoleon. I am ready to promote an understanding between people and army, in order to avoid civil war.” Upon this pretext, which he subsequently endeavoured to fortify with the excuse of patriotism (the paltry argument of every turncoat), the Emperor’s senior marshal destroys the Emperor. Augereau, in a shameful proclamation, is quick to follow Marmont’s lead.

At the time when Talleyrand is winning over the marshals, the Emperor in Fontainebleau is reviewing his guards. To them he exclaims: “Never shall we allow any one to wear in Paris the white cockade of the émigrés.... In a few days we will attack the enemy in Paris!” The officers brandish their swords enthusiastically, shouting: “À Paris! Vive l’Empereur!” He waves his hand to them, and, smiling joyfully, he briskly mounts the steps, surrounded by his last ministers in their embroidered coats.

Soon afterwards, a carriage draws up in the courtyard. Caulaincourt steps out; he is pale, having passed the night in a vigil. He approaches the Emperor. Berthier enquires: “Well, my lad, how goes it?” The minister hesitates to answer, for he does not like Berthier’s tone. Are the very nearest going to fall away too? He finds the Emperor at work.

“What do they want of me?” asks Napoleon eagerly.

“Great sacrifices, that you may retain the crown for your son.”

“You mean that they refuse to treat with me! They want to make a helot of me, to hold me up as a warning to all those whose genius enables them to rule men and to make the born kings tremble on their ancient thrones!”

Bonaparte’s metallic tone! Such is the mood produced in the Emperor by the sight of his guards, by the perusal of his latest muster rolls, by the study of his maps. Now the minister mentions the most moderate of the tsar’s demands. Napoleon is to abdicate in favour of the king of Rome, and then the terms of a regency will be discussed. But there is talk of a Bourbon restoration. The Emperor leaps to his feet:

“They are mad! The Bourbons in France; they would not be able to hold their position for a year! Nine-tenths of the nation cannot endure them; my soldiers will never serve under them. They have lived for twenty years upon the alms of a foreigner, at war all the time with the fundamental principles of their homeland! The Senate consists entirely of regicides, or the sons of regicides. I was a newcomer, with nothing to take vengeance for; a man whose only business it was to upbuild.... No doubt they can draw profit out of the crash, can exile me and my family; but the Bourbons—never!”

Thus does his work roll before his mind as in a rhapsody, lighted up by his contempt for those whom he succeeded and who are now to succeed him. He becomes the soldier once more. “They demand my abdication. Will the crown then be secure for my son? I have still fifty thousand men. They will march with me to Paris. After the victory, the people shall decide. If, then, the French want to chase me away, I will go.” See the conflict in his soul. As statesman, he is willing to abdicate, that his son may reign; as soldier, he is still eager to fight, that he may retain all.

But while enthusiasm grows in the rank and file of his army, while the common soldiers are willing to give their lives for the Emperor, the marshals are malcontent. Although they have not yet heard of Marmont’s defection, they cherish like wishes, and would gladly shake off their allegiance to Napoleon if they could do so decently. This marked difference between the mood of the men and that of their leaders is once more a vengeance for the system of titles and monetary rewards with whose aid the military commander, when he had become an emperor, had transformed generals into marshals. Next day, the seniors among them are of one mind. Ney, Macdonald, Oudinot, and Lefèvre, in the most subservient way possible, speak to him of the advantages of abdication.

The Emperor shows them his maps, which are again beset with coloured pins; he points out to them that the enemy is in an unfavourable position, and enumerates his own resources. All is vain! The frame of mind they had shown in Düben Castle, intensified a hundredfold, blocks his way. Silently he dismisses them, for he wants to think over a plan. Mentally, he has mustered his forces, and the total of his additions does not seem to him a bad one. A conditional renunciation, therefore, will not betoken anything more than an armistice, a postponement.

A few hours after the audience of the marshals, he sends for Caulaincourt, and points to a holograph document on the table:

“There is my abdication. You can take it to Paris.”

The minister reads:

“Since the allied powers have declared that Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to the peace of Europe, Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares himself ready, for the welfare of his country, which is inseparable from the rights of his son, from those of the regency of the empress, and from the maintenance of the laws of the Empire, to descend from the throne, to give up France and even life itself.”

What a style! A diplomatic document, involved in its phraseology, cautiously worded, ambiguous, penned for the inspection of diplomats of the old school. Nothing of Napoleon in it. The minister begs for the companionship of two of the marshals for so important a mission.

“Take Marmont and Ney,” says the Emperor, adding, “Marmont is my oldest comrade.”

“Marmont is not here.”

“Macdonald, then.”

Late that evening, three hours after the interview with Napoleon, the plenipotentiaries are at the Elysée confronting the allied princes and ministers. Most of the negotiations are carried on between the tsar and Caulaincourt. The latter’s contention that the French are heartily against the Bourbons has its effect; the parleys continue far into the night. Suddenly an announcement is made in Russian; the Frenchmen do not understand. Thereupon the tsar speaks: “You are relying, gentlemen, upon the unshakable loyalty of the troops towards the imperial regime. Well, I have just been informed that the advance guard, the sixth army corps, has deserted the Emperor. It has come over to our lines.”

The allies’ task has become easier; they now demand instant and unconditional abdication. Meanwhile the Emperor sends one courier after another from Fontainebleau to his minister. He writes:

“If they refuse to negotiate with me, what kind of a treaty will it be?... Bring back my act of abdication, I command you.... I will sign no treaty!”

Next day at six o’clock in the morning the Emperor is at work with Berthier. A captain is introduced, an adjutant of Mortier’s.

“Well, what news?”

“The sixth army corps has gone over to the enemy. It is marching to Paris.”

The Emperor seizes him by the arm and shakes it.

“Marmont? Are you sure? Did the troops know where they were being led?”

“During the night they were led into the Austrian camp. They were told that they were marching against the enemy.”

“My men have to be duped before they can be torn away from me! Did you see Marmont at the time he set out?”

“No, Sire.”

“The cavalry, too?”

“In close columns.”

“Where is Mortier?”

“He sent me to tell you that his corps will be loyal to you in life and in death. He awaits Your Majesty’s orders. The young guard is ready to die for you. All young France is ready!”

The emperor steps close up to the young officer, looks him straight in the eyes, and with a friendly gesture allows his hand to slip under the fringe of the epaulette so that it may rest on the captain’s shoulder. Thus does the ageing Napoleon find support once more in the young men of France.

When Caulaincourt brings the demands, he is accompanied only by Macdonald.

“Where is Ney?”

Silence. A pause. Then he is told the conditions. They probe him to the quick. To disavow the dynasty! For a decade the dynasty has been his goal.

“My personal withdrawal did not suffice? Must I, with my signature, disinherit my wife and my son? I cannot do this! I won their throne for them by my deeds!” The paradox has taken such deep root in his thoughts that he has ceased to be aware of his existence. Then he counts his troops again.

“I have twenty-five thousand men here; I can speedily bring up another eighteen thousand from Italy; Souchet has eighteen thousand, Soult forty. I shall fight!...”

The remaining troops are loyal, but the leaders are weary of the struggle. Why does he not place himself at the head of his guards? Because he can only think in terms of marshals, because the feudalist atmosphere is cutting him off from his stalwarts.

Here they all come again! They warn him, even Berthier joins with the others now, that Fontainebleau can easily be surrounded. He listens to them with dignified composure. Then he abruptly asks them whether they are prepared to march with him to the Loire; or to Italy, where they can join Eugene’s forces. Behind the proposal, we sense new plans of our adventurer. But the men who stand before him are marshals and Frenchmen; they breathe the words “civil war”; they advise him to abdicate. The island of Elba has been chosen for his dwelling place; he had better take what he can get! He dismisses them.

“None of them has either heart or reins! I am not so much beaten by fortune, as by the ingratitude of my brothers-in-arms. It is infamous. All is over!”

Without, in the drawing-room, groups of courtiers and dignitaries have assembled. Voices are hushed as though a king lay dead. All are awaiting the signature. The Emperor is well aware of this, he allows no one to enter his room, he will keep them waiting till morning. After a feverish, sleepless night, his negotiators find him sitting in his dressing-gown before the fire, a broken man and pitiable.

They bring him the deed which they have signed in Paris that night. He is to receive Elba, and two million francs as annual subsidy; he is to retain the title of Emperor; he is to have a guard of four hundred men. Talleyrand had warned the allies that this proximity of the lion to France was a menace; he suggested Corfu, and even mentioned St. Helena. Fouché endeavours to shield the Emperor from a slow descent from the heights; in elegantly phrased letters he suggests that Napoleon should go straight to America, where, as a free citizen, life could be started anew.—The farther away from the coasts of Europe, the better!

All this leaves the Emperor cold. He is visioning something different. He sees how Macdonald is standing the test; in his secret heart he is comparing this marshal with those others who have shown so much ingratitude; he feels now that he has not honoured the man enough. In this hour when he has to sign his abdication, Napoleon says:

“I have not sufficiently rewarded you. Now I can do no more. Take the sword which Sultan Selim gave me and keep it in remembrance.” While all are waiting for the signature, the Emperor sends for the gilded scimitar, and embraces the general as he presents it. Then Napoleon signs the act of abdication.

“The allied powers having declared that Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no sacrifice, not even that of life, which he is not ready to make for the interests of France.”

The deed is done! All breathe freely again. The generals and the courtiers leave Fontainebleau; Maret alone remains. They hasten to Paris; even Berthier throws himself into the arms of the provisional government. Talleyrand and Fouché are at the head of things.

But the Emperor remains another nine days in his palace, and he is not alone. Around him, unshaken, his guards are encamped; they still muster twenty-five thousand men. Who else is with him? His brothers have taken to their heels. What is Josephine doing, at Malmaison? After she has wept, and sworn that she will follow the forsaken Emperor, she receives Napoleon’s conqueror with sparkling eyes and adorned with all the pitiful appeal of a Niobe. The tsar wishes to play the part of a knightly cavalier, and succumbs to the renowned charms of the first empress. But Hortense, her daughter, receives the tsar’s visit coldly and off-handedly. As soon as he is gone, she hastens to Fontainebleau and remains with the Emperor till his departure.

At first, his mother is with him. But, wishing to see her in safety, he persuades her to go away with Jerome. They will meet again later. When the empress says good-bye to Letizia, she utters polite commonplaces and wishes her mother-in-law well. The old lady, who sees through Marie Louise, and knows that all she cares for is security and enjoyment, answers this daughter of the Habsburgs: “That will depend upon you, and upon your future conduct.”

The Emperor has no word from wife or son in reply to his numerous letters and messengers. While for himself he asks neither land nor money, for her he demands that, in addition to Parma, she should have Tuscany, or at least a strip of it which would bring her lands nearer to Elba and thus set up a link between man and wife. He writes to her advising as to the best halting-places on the route; Corvisart is to decide which waters will do her health most good; she is to take her personal treasure with her. Then he writes to the palace prefect that all the diamonds which are not her or his personal property must be given back to the treasury, for they belong to France.

Meanwhile the government has sent a confidential agent to the Tuileries with orders to seize the imperial treasure. All the gold and securities, valued at one hundred and fifty millions, were taken away; in plain words, stolen. These sums had been saved by Napoleon from his civil list during the fourteen years of his rule. His silver plate, all personal articles of value, his golden snuff-boxes, and even his handkerchiefs embroidered with the initial N., were taken at the same time. The order for this bears, among others, Talleyrand’s signature. The Emperor, who until yesterday was the wealthiest man in Europe, journeys to Elba with three million francs as his fortune!

He is profoundly disheartened. Can anything disillusion him further? Lucien writes to the pope the day after the abdication, and becomes a Roman prince. Murat, acting on the advice of Fouché (who holds the net of intrigues during these last weeks), has entered Rome, has advanced his troops towards Tuscany, invading Elise’s realm—always spurred on by Caroline, and always in alliance with England, which has occupied Tuscany. Elise, who at the last moment has staked on the wrong hazard, and has through a false calculation remained faithful to her brother, flees before her sister’s troops, brings a child into the world while lying up at a mountain tavern, and in Bologna is taken prisoner by the Austrians. The only two of the pack who have behaved decently are Jerome and his wife.

The last days pass in sinister silence. “If a carriage drives into the palace yard, all prick up their ears. Is any one coming to bid Napoleon farewell? No one comes while affairs are being wound up. But a day or two before the departure, a veiled lady arrives, late in the evening. No one knows her, and she is not admitted. Countess Walewska waits a whole night, and when she goes away in the morning she leaves a letter for him. He sends after her, but she has gone. He writes:

“Marie!... The feelings which animate you touch me profoundly. They are worthy of your lovely soul and the goodness of your heart.... Think affectionately of me! Never doubt me! N.”

As soon as he has recovered his old tranquillity of mind, the Emperor is promptly animated with new energy. Has he not an island as base of operations? Who knows what may come of it? Corsica, too, is an island in the Mediterranean! He orders a monograph and studies the geography and statistics of Elba. “The air is wholesome, the inhabitants are honest folk, and I hope that my good Louise will like the place well enough.” He chooses his four hundred men; but the whole guard wants to go with him, though this will involve leaving wife and children. Among them are men whose hearts he had won two-and-twenty years earlier when he had been captain in Toulon, men who had followed his fortunes from Cairo to Moscow, through sixty battles.

He cheers up. Discussing predetermination with the palace prefect, and how death has passed him by during the last battles, he adds:

“A violent death is cowardice. I can see no greatness in shirking responsibility in that manner, like one who has gambled away his fortune.... Suicide is incompatible with my principles and with the position I have occupied in the world.” They walk up and down the terrace in silence for a time, and then he says with a smile: “Between ourselves, a living drummer is better than a dead emperor!”

All the formalities have been accomplished; the allied commissioners who are to accompany him to Elba, four in number, have arrived; the start is fixed for noon. He writes in simple terms to tell his wife, and concludes: “Farewell, my good Louise. You can rest assured of the courage, the tranquillity, and the affection of your husband. N.” He adds as a postscript: “A kiss for the little king!”

The start will be an easy matter, for no one has come to take leave.

But there are to be leave-takings after all. The old guard is waiting for him in the palace yard, drawn up in a square. As he comes down the steps, thousands of eyes are fixed on him. He must say something. What can he say? For twenty years he has only spoken to these men just before a battle and just after a victory, to inspire them or to thank them. Well, he will thank them now, though there has been no victory; he will thank them for the hundred victories of the past. He steps forward. “Vive l’Empereur!” He enters the square, and says:

“Soldiers of my old guard, I take leave of you. For twenty years I have seen you always upon the path of honour and glory. During the last few weeks, you have been models of bravery and fidelity, just as in the years of good fortune.... But there would have been civil war. That is why I sacrificed all other interests to those of the country. I am going away.... You, friends, continue to serve France. Her happiness has been my only thought. My good wishes go with you. Do not mourn my fate. If I have determined to go on living, it is that I may increase your fame. I shall write the story of the great deeds we wrought together. Farewell, my children. I would gladly press you all to my heart. At least let me kiss your colours!”

The general holds out the colours. Napoleon embraces him, and kisses the flag. “Good-bye, comrades!” He gets into the carriage. “Vive l’Empereur!” He drives away.

The war-hardened veterans stand there, blubbering like children. Their father has gone away. Never had he spoken to them more movingly. The dignified pathos of ancient Rome, the ardent imagery of his manifestoes, the similes and the exaltations, have vanished with the fever of battle. This Emperor spoke like a commander, this commander spoke like a company leader. His words were manly, blunt, and restrained. When he kissed the colours, it was an unparalleled gesture; never before had he done anything of the kind. They will tell their grandchildren what the great Emperor, their “petit caporal,” has said to them this day. The grandchildren will tell their grandchildren in turn, and so the story will go down the generations.

But hardly has he left this soldierly atmosphere, in which he grew to manhood and then to greatness, when he has to face the mob. After the sobs of his old soldiers, come clamour, cries, and curses! As the train of carriages drives swiftly through Provence, the threatening shouts of the people deafen him: “Down with the tyrant! Kill the wretch!” In the villages where the horses are changed, women rage round his carriage, screaming at him, flinging stones, trying to force the coachman to shout “Vive le Roi!” At one of these villages, the crowd has prepared an effigy, a uniform coat stuffed with straw and smeared with mire and blood. Here they hail him with the cry: “Kill the murderer!” The carriages press on at top speed and the journey becomes a flight. Napoleon’s first flight.

With rigid face, the Emperor looks at the mob and listens to the cries of execration. Are these the same people who ran beside his carriage, eager to catch a glance from his eyes? They are indeed the same! What he is now experiencing, he had foreseen, with the seer’s vision of the misanthrope, at his first entry into Paris when the crowd had jubilantly welcomed him as conqueror. He sits huddled in a corner of the carriage, pale and silent; at each halt, the foreign commissioners jump out to guard the windows of his coach. Will he bear all this without making a sign? Will he draw his sword? He does not wear one now. In mufti, he can get away from his country, but not in his green uniform. Only once before has he had such an experience. It was on the Nineteenth Brumaire, when the radicals were shaking their fists at him. Then he did not draw his sword. Then, as now, he was powerless against the mob, for it was not his trade to beat the mutable many, nor was it his talent to persuade them. He is not a tribune; he is an emperor. One who can command as well as he, can do nothing but command. If he fights, it must be in a battle.

Movement! Air! In a lonely road, he has the carriage stopped, and one of the post-horses taken out of the traces. He fixes a white cockade on his plain round hat, and rides in front of the carriages, outstripping them, his servant following. Thus he makes his way to Aix, but halts short of the town, enters a wayside inn, and gives his name there as Campbell, a British colonel. This is his sixth name.

The little Provençal maid who waits at table prattles: “They’ll finish him off before he reaches the sea!” “Colonel Campbell” nods, saying “Of course, of course!” to all her utterances. Then, when he is left alone with his servant, his head droops on the man’s shoulder, he has a nap to make up for two sleepless nights. Kindly nature, this is your gift to the greatest of your warriors! When he wakes, the recent sounds and sights recur to his mind. With a shudder, he says in low tones:

“Never again! I shall be happier in Elba than ever before. The sciences now, nothing more. I do not want to wear another European crown. You have seen what the people really is. Was I not right to despise man?”

When the carriages reach the inn, he thinks it wise, warned by his previous experiences, to change his clothes once more. Since time presses, he puts on the uniform of an Austrian general which belongs to Commissioner Koller; surmounts it with the cap of Truchsess, the Prussian colonel; and has a Russian cloak hung round his shoulders by Shuvaloff. Thus bedecked in a carnival costume, pieced together from garments belonging to the three allied powers, a fool on the heath, does Emperor Napoleon escape from his country.

Fréjus at last! This is the port where he landed on his return from Egypt, a beaten commander, who had lost all the battleships of France, and ought to have been tried by court-martial! But how enthusiastic, then, had been his reception by this leaderless people, for the memory of his successful Italian campaign was still fresh. Then, he had driven through triumphal arches on the journey to Paris; the journey he had now been making in the reverse direction, in danger of being stoned, and escaping murder only by a mummer’s disguise! Fifteen years lie between, the rebirth of a State, the glory of a nation. Europe lies between, the clash of arms, dead soldiers rotting in their graves, the returning hero received with frenzied acclamations, a marshal rising from pothouse to palace, men of genius taking sides for and against the conquering nation—and a circlet of little golden leaves which the foreigner from the Mediterranean island had, with the simplicity of the self-made man, placed on his own brow.

XV

How big Corsica is! How high her mountains! Bastia is an admirable harbour; its fortifications can be seen through a spyglass. If taken from the eastern side....

When the ruler of Elba rides among the hills of his new home, the silhouette of his old home lies spread before him; everything looms larger across the water. Forty times bigger, ten times as many inhabitants; he has all the figures, to a unit, in his head. Elba is nothing more than a mole-hill.

On the clear May morning when he landed, he was welcomed by a deputation of peasants and petty burghers in Porto Ferrajo. Timidly they had paid their compliments to the man who was to reign over them. But their astonishment was great when, instead of inviting them to a banquet, he leapt into the saddle and rode off to inspect the fortifications. On the morrow, orders began to fly about the sleepy little isle: Pianosa was to have two more batteries; the mole must be lengthened; the roads improved. When first the four hundred grenadiers appeared in the land, the natives looked at them askance as men of a foreign race. Soon, however, the forces were increased by the creation of a foreign battalion, and a National Guard. Napoleon once more has an army of over a thousand men; soon he has a small flotilla likewise. What for? Just for him to see after and take care of. He has a Council of State; Bertrand and Drouot (the generals who have accompanied him into exile) and a dozen inhabitants of the island, are members; and, together with Napoleon who presides over the assembly, they discuss improvements in the iron mines and the salt pits. Have you no mulberry culture here? The silkworms bring in good money over there, in Lyons; and if the French government imposes a tariff upon our produce, we can easily sell to Italy.

Save! We are so poor, and France makes no move to pay the promised allowance. The white house is smaller than the one in Ajaccio, and very much simpler; but there is no money for building additional accommodation; and when the “grand marshal” Bertrand draws up a list of mattresses and other bedgear, his master underlines the mistakes,—for he has every detail of his establishment by heart.

Is this indefatigable man never to realise what a parody is his administration over the tiny island, the diminutive army, the small household? Never! Here in Elba, where in the best of spirits and health he throws himself whole-heartedly into his undertakings, he comes to realise that it was not the masses that had allured him. To order, to build, to press his finger into the wax of humanity, these things he must do, urged onward by the impulse of his artist’s soul. But, since humanity is not as wax, and since his constructions can never be finished and are always vibrant with life; since the opposition of material forces also takes a hand in the game, even when matter seems to have been conquered—he can only fulfil his mission by coercing and conquering the human spirit, by issuing orders and bringing suggestions to bear, by constant vigilance and constant upbuilding; in a word, by ruling. He has never been a dilettante or a parvenu; and, this being so, he drives the little wheel to-day with just as much precision and earnestness as he had driven the earth’s sphere in former days.

But soon, when most of his enterprises are in good going order, he feels he is becoming lazy, even when he is studying mathematics. This causes him to reconsider his position.

“It is by no means difficult to accustom oneself to a life of meditation,” he writes, “if one possesses within oneself the necessary reserves. I work hard in my study; when I emerge I have the delightful spectacle of my old grenadiers in front of me.... Born kings must suffer terribly when they are dethroned, for pomp and etiquette are the very marrow of their lives. For my part, I have always been a soldier, and became a king only by chance, so that these things have been nothing but a burden to me, whereas wars and camps come naturally. Out of my great past, I regret naught but my soldiers. After all my treasures and my crowns, my most cherished possessions are the couple of French uniforms they have allowed me to keep.”

These are the words of an unpretentious king. Do people not believe him? And does Europe laugh when, in his kingdom of Lilliput, he preserves the forms of kingship? Does Europe begin to suspect a secret in the island? The innate dignity, whereby long ago the young general had wrung respect from the bearers of inherited rank, to-day is still able to hold satirical visitors in check. Every one admires the natural simplicity of the lonely man who, despite the exiguity of his dwelling, still holds to the title of “Majesty.” He lives in his island sans palace or fittings, sans court or ministers, only surrounded with the aureole of his deeds.

This return home brings solace to his heart—for Elba is Italy. The peasant speaks to him in the language Napolione had learned at Letizia’s knee. The Mediterranean amid whose waters he was born and reared, the islands with their quiet shores, do they not all of them bring back memories of youthful days? Stone-pines, fig trees, and crags; the white houses among the vineyards; the sails, and the fishermen’s nets; pride of clan, and the headkerchief worn at church; all these things seem to take him gently by the hand and lead him back to the dreams of childhood. Now the storm-racked nerves relax, and at length know a spell of repose. In these wholesome months, the Emperor comes to look upon his career as a visionary flight into the land of childish imagination; and it is only when he contemplates the men of his old guard that he realises something did happen during the years that separate Corsica from Elba.

“The Emperor lives very contentedly on his island,” writes one who accompanied him there. “He seems to have forgotten the past. The management of his small household gives him occupation; he is now looking out for a suitable site to build his country-seat; we ride, and drive, and sail round the coasts as much as we please.”

Since he has plenty of time on his hands, and since thrift is essential, he examines everything, to the minutest details. Just as, in the Tuileries, he himself drew up the list of his clothing, so now, in Elba, he says to Bertrand: “My underlinen is in a lamentable state. Part of it has never been unpacked, and it has not been marked. Give orders that everything must be laid out in drawers and presses, and that no one is to be given anything belonging to our court without furnishing a receipt.... There are not enough ordinary chairs. Have a sample sent from Pisa; they must not cost more than five francs apiece.”

Europe laughs when it hears of this. Posterity stands bewildered before such energetic renunciation.

Once only do we hear a gentle sigh. He has climbed to the top of a hill whence he can look over the whole of his realm. Surveying the prospect, he says: “One must acknowledge that the island is very small.” Like distant thunder, the fate of a man seems to rumble in these words; for an all too great imagination, confined within the narrow limits of Europe and cribbed within the circle of the folk intelligence of the nineteenth century, is doomed at the outset to be crushed.

With the summer, comes his mother. She, alone, is happy. Her son is no longer threatened with assassination or with battles. Here, all is peaceful and warm; Elba is almost as lovely as Corsica. Daily intercourse with him renews for her the good old times. It is as well that she has come; for, from the millions which she alone has put by, she now brings her son what he needs; and when he receives her banknotes, may we not picture mother and son smiling at one another? On his name-day, she invites him to a little rustic feast.

A dozen and more St. Napoleon days she has spent in Paris: the guns would fire the salute from the Invalides, Masses would be said; Senate and ministers, the court and foreign diplomats, would throng the halls of the Tuileries. When, in the evening, the rooms were filled with guests, and, amid the strains of music, there came and went all that France possessed of great names, of beauty, and of precious jewels; when the fireworks filled the August night-sky with brightness, and thousands of tiny lamps formed the initial N.—Letizia, surrounded by the kings who were the fruit of her womb, would stand silent and proud, thinking the old words so full of ominous warning. But to-day she is blithe; to-day she compares this jocund festivity with the little town of Ajaccio; to-day, for the first time, she thinks: “All the same, we achieved something fine!”

Letizia had been able, while in Rome, to heal many wounds dealt in the heat of the fray. The pope, on his return, had pardoned the mother of his sometime foe. She was not surprised when the whole court, when even her secretary (a Corsican), speedily went over to the Bourbon king. Has she not always foretold it? Caroline, alone, is not permitted to appear before her.

Pauline, Princess Borghese, merry and brilliant, does not hang long in the wind. She has always been the most affectionate, and has been clever enough to prefer real diamonds and nights of love to uncertain thrones and crowns. She comes to the island, so that, with her mother, she may bring cheer to the Emperor. She shakes out a basketful of gossip and news for his delectation.

Hardly a word from his brothers. One letter comes from Lucien. What propositions can he be laying before his banished brother? Will he, who lives in princely fashion in Rome, with magnanimous generosity offer Napoleon money or bring his influence to bear in his imperial brother’s behalf? What does the “Prince of Canino” by the pope’s grace write in his letter? He owns smelting furnaces, and Elba has iron ore wherewith to feed them: he asks his brother to provide him with the minerals. Crowns and gold, he has refused; but iron, which his brother still possesses, he can make good use of. Maybe he, who is a poet, is enjoying the farce of these blast-furnaces! Is it not a kindness that one still thinks of the exile? Who else writes?

Josephine is dead. A few weeks after Napoleon’s departure, she died at Malmaison. No one knows if she ever wrote to him; what is certain is that she left debts amounting to three millions, which he had to pay. Hortense has been separated from her husband. She has become a duchess, and has made her most graceful curtsey before the Bourbon king, in the very room where she and her mother had held sway for so long. Little Léon, whom Letizia had for a time with her in Rome, resembles his father; he is reported to be courageous and full of pranks. These are all the members of Napoleon’s family about whom he has news.

An English vessel brings the unknown lady who visited Fontainebleau to the island. In a marquee, beneath the chestnut trees, the Emperor receives Countess Walewska. For two days and two nights they are inseparable. The Emperor only issues forth to give the necessary orders, and the four-year-old boy, dressed in the Polish national costume, plays in the meadow with the tall grenadiers. The Emperor would like to keep Walewska by his side, but he does not wish to provide the empress with an excuse for not coming to live with him. Thus, for the second time, he sacrifices on the altar of the Habsburg princess the phantom of his happiness. Walewska sails away. Her ship encounters bad weather, and the Emperor is filled with restless anxiety until he receives tidings that she has arrived safely at Leghorn.

How marvellously are the threads weaving themselves into the tissue of a legend! With wizard spells this man of forty-five links up epochs and customs. Here he is, a petty prince on a Mediterranean isle: he receives his beloved, the lady with whom he had lived in the imperial palace at Schönbrunn when he himself was an enemy and unknown to the proprietor; to-day he is once again this man’s foe, and another woman whom he had invited to his arms from the self-same palace has long since forsaken him; yet his natural son, born in a lonely castle in Poland, is playing beneath the trees of the southern land and wears the dress of a foreign folk which the Emperor had once promised to free. Who could believe that all this had come to pass within five years? A hundred years seemed likelier for the accomplishment of so many events. With such nets, what other fish could one expect to catch but the golden ones of the fairy tale? A thousand years ago a great emperor was banished and left forsaken on an island; but from a distant realm a beautiful, tragical woman found the way to him across the sea, and brought him his son.

In truth Napoleon is forsaken by wife and child. This loss cuts him no less, maybe even more cruelly, than the loss of power, for his conception of marriage is conservative and bourgeois. Constantly, even during the via dolorosa of his last journey through France, he has written to Marie Louise; he has planned a new house for her. But his letters remain unanswered. Believing that his correspondence has been intercepted, he at last writes to the grand duke of Tuscany, her uncle, begging for news; for “I trust that Your Royal Highness has preserved a little friendliness towards me, in spite of the events which have changed the sentiments of so many men.... If so, I beg that you will look favourably upon the tiny commune which feels the same towards you as does Tuscany....” Ay, thus writes the prince of this diminutive isle, a prince with no more than twenty thousand subjects, to the mighty grand duke! But the grand duke keeps silence.

When Napoleon realises the sluggishness of the human heart, his old defiance regains the ascendant. It is with a sense of relief that we hear his well-known voice ring out again, after the anguish of this grovelling letter—a letter that would never have been written but for his wife’s sake. He exclaims: “These sovereigns, who were wont to send me, in all solemnity, their delegations of ambassadors, who gave a daughter of their blood to share my bed, and who called me ‘Brother,’ are now cursing me as a usurper, and spit upon my picture since they cannot spit upon the original. They have bespattered the majesty of kings with mud! What is the title of emperor? Had I no other name to bequeath, posterity would laugh.... In classical days, the vanquished were robbed of their children, that these might be paraded before the people when the conqueror was celebrating his triumph....”

What must be the tenor of Napoleon’s thoughts when he learns how, on that shameful day of cowardice and confusion, the lad of four had refused to leave the palace of his father; of how, when the little king of Rome had met his grandfather for the first time, he had uttered the innocent words: “I have seen the emperor of Austria. He is not handsome.” This was precisely what Napoleon had wished to avoid. The fate of Astyanax has been prepared for the boy; and even though he is made much of, the child is well aware that he must no longer mention his father’s name. Though he has received the symbolical names of Napoleon Francis and thus embodies the unhappy union of two antagonistic worlds, the name of Napoleon is soon destined to be heard no more. For, when the young cuckoo is introduced into the Habsburg nest, he is called Francis, and nothing else. Later, when the empress’ secretary is leaving Vienna and presents himself to take farewell, the boy draws him into a window recess and says in a hurried whisper: “Tell my father I love him tremendously!”

What must be the tenor of Napoleon’s thoughts when he hears gossip about a certain Neipperg, an Austrian officer, a man of no account, and one whose only way into history is through the bedroom of a Habsburg princess—who would herself never have been heard of had it not been for her marriage to Napoleon. Thus terrible are the blows of fate, and his intimates think it natural enough when they see their master weeping over his boy’s portrait.

But now Pauline arrives, fascinating as ever, in the best of spirits. To amuse him, she mimics the grimaces that are made by the worthies of the island and their wives when, at the weekly receptions, the Emperor asks them how many children they have, and whether they think he ought to build a hospital. As the year draws on, Italians from the mainland come in increasing numbers. Persons with satisfactory recommendations—historians, poets, men of birth, and even Englishmen—secure a good reception; and he will talk to them for hours, though only of the past, with never a word about the future. He is delighted to hear such visitors rail at the Austrian regime which has now been set up once more, but he will pay no heed to conspirators who wish him to come to Italy as leader of a revolt. His thoughts range towards the other coast, and by slow degrees mature into plans.

What is Paris saying?

To him this is still the question of questions. The news brought to him in the journals twice a week, and the information he gleans from his visitors, lead him to turn new possibilities over in his mind. But it must not be supposed that Napoleon began the new epoch with a definite plan. When he landed in Elba, it was an open question in his mind whether he would ever quit the island. Still, the thought of future possibilities was intensified in him by the usual forebodings of an adventurer—the adventurer he had become since the failure at Moscow. “A living drummer is better than a dead emperor.” Slowly, as the conditions change, he makes plans and rejects them, renews and modifies his designs. They turn upon what is happening in Paris and in Vienna.

What is Paris saying about the Bourbons? Hardly is Napoleon away, when they make their “entry” after the usual manner of exiled kings who return; and though the newspapers, under duress of the censorship the Emperor had established, lie like troopers, in his remote island he can learn the ridiculous truth. Four persons are sitting in a small carriage. The Parisians, whose risibilities are easily touched, certainly have something to laugh at. The king is there, in an amazing rig-out, in plain clothes, but decked with gigantic epaulettes; a man so fat that he has three chins; and he smiles at the gaping crowd. Beside him is the duchess of Angoulème, her face tearful with reminiscence. On the opposite seat are the prince of Condé, a very old man, and the duke of Bourbon; they wear the uniforms of the good old days, which none of the younger onlookers have ever seen before. This carriage, freighted with the resurrected ghosts of those who had been laid to rest twenty-two years ago, was attended by Emperor Napoleon’s sulky-looking guard, men whose uniforms, shot and slashed, bore witness to the titanic struggles that had been waged in the interim.

The Emperor makes eager enquiries concerning the habits of his successor on the throne, and is gratified to learn that Louis has taken over his room without making any changes. The king’s demeanour is said to be far from regal. According to a German description of this date, Louis was “extremely obese, so fat that he can hardly walk. Wearing black satin boots, he is supported on each side, and would stumble over a straw. He is clad in a sort of blue soutane with a turn-over red collar and hanging golden epaulettes of an antique pattern.” This sort of thing keeps the Emperor amused for a whole hour. For a dozen years, England has been publishing caricatures depicting Napoleon’s camp manners in the palace of the Bourbons, and now this legitimate ruler, set up by England, is a veritable caricature of a monarch. What is Louis doing to show his good will towards the people?

He has granted a constitution? But soon comes news that this gracious gift exists only on paper. The old inequalities, the privileges of caste, which had cost the present king’s brother his head, are quietly stealing in through the back door. The nobles are not liable to military service, and men of humble birth have no chance of rising to high office. The new nobility is made a mock of. King Louis, a good old man, reasonable enough, is led by his brother, the gloomy count of Artois. Around the latter are concentrated the vengeful émigrés, who are demanding the return of their property; but the law guarantees the rights of the actual holders. The king, therefore, gives peerages and large pensions to the émigrés.

What is this? So the clergy is rising to power once more! The priests are on the side of the old nobility, and by threats of hell-fire induce the dying to execute wills in favour of the sometime owners of confiscated property. On Sundays, though the new constitution guarantees religious freedom, all business is suspended under threat of punishment. Religious processions again make their way through the streets. But there is a reaction against ecclesiasticism. When Christian burial is refused to an actress who has lived a gay life and is the darling of the Parisians, there is a riot, the first under the restored regime.

People are beginning to see how much they owed to their foreign liberator. With intense delight, the exile contemplates a caricature showing Louis riding pillion behind a Cossack, making his way into France over French corpses. When Wellington, the conqueror of Spain, comes to Paris as British ambassador, he meets angry glances when he walks the streets. What is the new regime doing for the thousands who may no longer remain soldiers? The officers are put on half-pay, and those who are not practising Catholics are cashiered. A new royal guard, consisting of gentlemen of noble birth, is richly endowed; the nobles’ military academy is reopened; but the schools for the orphans of members of the Legion of Honour are done away with. Disillusionment spreads through France more quickly than the Emperor had expected.

But the tone in Elba is not Jacobin. Napoleon does not abandon his system, although he recognises his mistakes: “France needs an aristocracy. For its foundation, however, time and memories are requisite. I made princes and dukes, and gave them land and wealth; but they were men of low birth, so it was impossible to make noblemen of them. I tried, therefore, to unite them by marriage with old families. Had I been granted the twenty years I wanted for the establishment of France’s greatness, I could have done much. Fate willed otherwise.”

On the whole, like a chessplayer when the game is finished, he frankly acknowledges the wrong moves that have led to his defeat. Nor is he cautious in the choice of persons to whom he pours out such confessions. He tells English visitors that he ought to have made peace after Dresden. But when they ask why he did not make peace in Châtillon, he answers proudly:

“I could not make a peace dishonourable to France. Belgium was part of France when I rose to power. Could I cede the lands I had conquered, and go back to the Bourbon frontiers? Never!... I am a born soldier. Suddenly, I found myself in the midst of the revolution. The throne was vacant. I took it, and kept it as long as I could. Now I am once more what I was to begin with, a soldier....”

Those who know the man will recognise from such thoughts that he is still unbroken. But what amazes us is the freedom with which he speaks of the past. Never, in Elba, does he show any desire to falsify his history. And yet, during the first months, he believes his career finished, and has no thought of trying a new coup de main. He even fancies that he would like to become a justice of the peace in England. “What would happen to me if I went to England? Would people throw stones at me? The London mob is a dangerous factor.” The Englishmen to whom he thus talks assure him that their country is hospitable. He makes a mental note of this assurance.

The Vienna congress is the first thing to set him in motion. Four monarchs, allied against one republic, were at length able, after a decade, to annihilate it; five monarchs, now all united, had assembled to reorganise Europe, and there was no longer an enemy worth considering to hold them in check; but four and a half conquerors (if the Bourbon ruler can be accounted as half) were soon to be disunited, thanks to the inborn jealousy with which each one of them regarded his fellows. Does the tsar want to take the whole of Poland as his share of the spoil; and does Prussia want Saxony? What will happen, then, to Galicia; and what about the worthy king of Saxony, Bourbon’s ally? A split is inevitable. By New Year, three months after the opening of the congress, the coalition has been broken up. Ministers and potentates who had so recently been celebrating their victory in a series of festivities, have begun to cheat one another. The Habsburg ruler is now allied with England and France against the Russians and the Prussians, by whose side the Austrians had a few months earlier been fighting against Napoleon.

Metternich’s levity, laziness, vanity, intriguing disposition (this is Stein’s description), dominated the situation: “he twists our excellent and victorious monarchs round his fingers.” A Saxon nobleman writes from Vienna: “The king of Prussia is the embodiment of wrath.... The king of Denmark is ... well-meaning and sometimes intelligent. The king of Bavaria looks like an uncouth and morose wagoner. The grand duke of Baden is huge, gloomy, vain, and robust.... The old duke of Weimar lives as jovially as ever he did.” The hopes of the man of Elba rise as he reads and hears all this. “My time will come,” he thinks, “when the congress goes up in the air!” Henceforward, he is in receipt of secret information concerning the currents of opinion in Vienna. The faithful Maret is able to arrange an intelligence service. But while the congress, a brightly lit pleasure ship, rolling for lack of ballast, is intriguing and enjoying itself, in the crow’s nest sits Napoleon’s old enemy, keeping anxious watch. He has his spies in Leghorn, who report every ship that sails to Elba, and tell him the names of the passengers.

Thus do the old adversaries eye one another across mountains and seas and across the documents of the diplomats, until it seems as if all these people of importance had come together in Vienna to furnish a lively setting for the game of chess the two experts are playing. Does either of them recall that night just before the Eighteenth Brumaire, when they had been scared by the clatter of hoofs from the mounted patrol, and had turned pale in their dread of arrest?

This much is certain, that at Vienna Talleyrand remains a shrewd judge of men. Regarding Murat as a dangerous personality, he would like to have the king of Naples shipped off to the Azores, nearly a thousand miles from the nearest continent. But his ruling passion, avarice, comes in the way. At the congress, Murat, driven into a corner in the defence of his kingdom, promises Talleyrand a large sum of money in return for the minister’s princedom of Benevento. Talleyrand therefore drops the plan against Murat, and concocts a new scheme. The Emperor is to be kidnapped. But the spies in Leghorn report that this will only be possible if one of the four captains who command his ships can be suborned.

When Napoleon gets wind of these intrigues, the adventurer’s blood of his Corsican home runs swiftly through his veins. He has the defences of Elba strengthened, and his artillerymen are trained in the use of hand-grenades. “I am a soldier, and am ready to face a firing squad. But I will not be deported! Before they can do that they will have to take my citadel by storm.” No attempt is made. In Vienna there is now a better understanding, and the likelihood of the rupture of negotiations diminishes. In France, however, disaffection to the Bourbons is growing. The general upshot is to stimulate the Emperor’s determination. His thoughts run as follows:

“If the congress closes with a peace festival after all the documents have been signed, the phalanx will have been reconstituted. But now, when it is still imperfectly consolidated, a touch will break it to pieces. France is murmuring against the Bourbons; Paris makes fun of them; every one detests the allies. There are a hundred signs to show that the old army is devoted to me—the Emperor. The Bourbons are fainthearts, and will run away. As soon as I regain my position, my son and heir will be sent back to me.”

Calculations, only calculations; and never has he reckoned more soberly. None the less, though he considers his figures with the utmost care, in the last resort he relies upon psychological reactions. “I count upon taking them by surprise. A bold deed upsets people’s equanimity, and they are dumbfounded by a great novelty.” He adds: “I am the cause of France’s unhappiness. I must effect a cure.” In the end of February, he sends for his treasurer. “Have you plenty of money? How much does a million in gold weigh? What is the weight of a hundred francs? How much does a box filled with books weigh?... Take a couple of packing cases, put all the gold coin you have at the bottom, and fill up the case with my books; my valet will give them to you. Discharge the present staff of servants; pack their trunks and pay them off. Everything must be kept strictly secret.”

In alarm, the man hastens to General Drouot. They exchange glances, but keep their own counsel. Next day, Napoleon orders that no ships are to leave the harbour. Everything has been quietly prepared; an expedition like that to Egypt, but on a small scale.

On the eve of his departure, he plays a game of écarté with the ladies; but he soon leaves the table and goes into the garden, whence he does not return. His mother, according to her own story, finds him sitting under a fig tree. After brief hesitation, he lays his hand on her forehead, and says, much moved:

“I will tell you all about it. No one else must know, not even Pauline.”

Then he goes back to his old tone, as if he were talking to Berthier:

“I must tell you that I am leaving next evening.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Paris.” A pause. “I should like your advice.”

The mother’s heart stops beating for a moment. How she has enjoyed the last six months; the period of quiet intercourse with her son. An end to the tranquillity and the security! But Letizia is a proud woman and a clever one. She knows that nobody can hold him back when he has made up his mind, and that the only effect of anxious dissuasion will be to disturb his composure. She says:

“Follow your destiny. It cannot be God’s will that you are to die from poison, or after an inactive old age; though it may well be his will that you are to die sword in hand. Let us put our trust in Mother Mary.”

On the last evening, the authorities are summoned by their sovereign. He announces his imminent departure. “I have been extraordinarily well pleased here. As a sign of confidence, I am leaving my mother and my sister. To your care, too, I entrust this country, to which I attach great importance.” The governor and the mayor express their lively regret. The tone befits the departure of a distinguished guest, who has been spending a few months in a lovely island for the benefit of his health, and is sorry that the time has come for his return home.

He goes on board, and at dawn seven little frigates, carrying a thousand men and a few guns, set sail for the French coast. He stands on the deck. The outlines of Elba, where he has lived so peacefully, and of Corsica, where many years before he had made stormy attempts to force his way upwards, fade into the distance. Slowly the coast of the French Riviera begins to show clearly through the mists of the first day of March. Let us look into the Emperor’s mind:

“What is the minimum? Defeat and death. What is the maximum? Europe? No use thinking any more about Europe! The dream of the United States of Europe is finished. I cannot get another million Frenchmen, and the foreign nations are not ready for my scheme. I must give France a constitution, and must accommodate myself to governing through Chambers. The time for dictatorships is over. Besides, we are not in Paris yet. What will the army do?”

His thoughts are coloured with the spirit of the time. He is a man of forty-five, with more past than future; no longer young enough to take the world by storm, but not too old for a desperate venture. Thus does Napoleon again draw near to French shores, in a mood betwixt courage and renunciation.

XVI

The mountains are calling, the valleys are echoing, as the procession of a thousand men who landed at Cannes wends its way through one Alpine village after another. An enthusiastic crowd encircles the old guard which has pursued its way along the road of history without jubilation and without sorrow, imperturbable as a rock. The peasants, these sons of the hills, in the self-same hamlets, had once before seen him, a lean, small, unknown general; in those days he had relieved them from the burden of maintaining an undisciplined soldiery, and had led the troops over the Alps to victory. These mountain folk were the first to see the miracle he wrought; they plumed themselves on the thought that from their villages the Emperor had gone forth. And now, of a sudden, he is among them again! Surely the procession of the thousand will work a spell, and seem to be the march of prophets and saviours?

They come from their mountain fastnesses; women and children bring up the rear; songs against the king are composed and sung; in the lesser towns, the bolder spirits force the city fathers to go forth to meet the new comer; for more than a hundred miles he encounters none but peasants.

Napoleon had reckoned upon this. He would not face a march through Aix and Avignon, through the monarchical provinces. He preferred to leave his few cannon behind in the snow-covered mountain paths, in order the quicker to reach Dauphiné. Here the peasants had received the most generous distribution of the nobles’ lands. They are full of anger now against king, priest, and émigré, who, after the lapse of twenty-five years, are contesting the peasants’ right to hold these lands. Was not the great revolution made to protect the poor? Was it not made by peasants in the country and workmen in the town? The Consul had not taken back anything from them; even the Emperor had only called up their sons; they have never ceased to look upon him as one of themselves, for their minds moved slowly and their hearts were constant. Now, the king had come back again, and forthwith the nobles had begun to squabble over the fields the peasant had tilled.

The souls of the countryfolk were heavy at the change of fortune. Fifteen years ago the mood had been similar when Napoleon, returning from Egypt in his little ship, had landed, and the whole of southern France had hailed him as saviour. What can have happened in the last ten months, to make these people receive with every token of joy the man whom they had so recently execrated? True, he had passed through another part of the country at that time; and the national misfortune had needed a scapegoat. His disfavour among the folk had been as brief as his defeat. But belief in him lasted as long as the years of his glory.

What will the first troops we meet do? He himself, when he took leave, had urged them to serve the fatherland. And the fatherland was the king! They wear the Bourbon’s white cockade, they eat the king’s bread, from the lips of patrician officers they have received a new and ugly picture of the erstwhile leader. Everything will depend on his power of suggestion. Uncertain feelings govern his heart as he strides inland from Cannes. To his left, lies the fort of Antibes. Does he recognise the tower wherein he was thrown when Robespierre fell? In just such a tower, the Bourbon will fling him, against just such a wall Europe will stand him, if he should fail on the morrow to accomplish what his glance and his word have so often succeeded in doing before.

Outside Grenoble, near La Mure, he has his first encounter with the royal troops. They have orders to exterminate him and his “band of brigands”; the officers have taken the oath to the king just as in former days they had taken the oath to the Emperor. The order to attack is given. Is the blood of brethren to be shed? That is what Napoleon has spent a lifetime in avoiding. Is this highway to be turned into a battle-field? He alights from his horse, takes ten strides towards them, and shouts:

“Soldiers of the fifth army corps! Don’t you know me? If there is one among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, let him come forward and do so. Here I am!” Saying which, he throws open his grey cloak.

A terrible pause. What will happen?

Those are our brethren! This is our general! We have seen him in so many battles, standing on a hillock, or sitting over the bivouac fire, or facing the musket shots and cannon balls! Must not nature and remembrance overpower the influence of recent vows? The soldiers cry: “Vive l’Empereur!” A general running to and fro ensues, guards and soldiers mingling; caps are stuck upon bayonet points—what does one more hole in the blue cloth matter? An hour later, two thousand instead of one thousand fall in behind their leader.

This encounter on the high road to Grenoble, this moment of time, his call, his aspect, were decisive. The man of action had won back to leadership through his own deed; the middle-aged warrior had regained life, power, and realm, by a look and a word. Thus he reaches Grenoble. By a manifesto he communicates his thoughts to the people:

“Frenchmen!... After the fall of Paris my heart was torn, but my spirit remained unshaken.... My life belongs to you, and must once more be made useful to you. In my exile, I heard your plaints and your cries.... You accused me of too long a slumber, saying I was sacrificing the interests of the country to my own repose. Encompassed by dangers, I have sailed over the sea. Now I am in your midst, to demand my rights, which are also your rights.

“Soldiers! We are not conquered!... Marmont’s treachery delivered the capital into the hands of the enemy, and disorganised our army.... Now I have come! Your general, who was elected to the throne by the suffrage of the people, and raised aloft on your shields, has returned to you. Rally to him!... Wear the tricolour cockade again, the cockade of our days of victory! Let the eagles which you bore at Ulm and Austerlitz, at Jena, Eylau, and Friedland, at Eckmühl and Wagram, at Smolensk and on the Moskva, at Lützen and Montmirail, once more wave on high!... Possessions, rank, and glory, for yourselves and for your children, have no worse foes than those princes who have been forced upon you by foreign powers.... Victory will guide us forward through the storms, and the eagles shall fly from one church steeple to the other until at last they alight on Notre Dame!”

Vive l’Empereur! The troops in Grenoble, together with the imperial nobles, come over. Seven thousand men follow him to Lyons. Lyons comes over. Masséna, who had been serving the king, journeys from Marseilles and pays homage to the Emperor.

“Where is Ney?” Embarrassed silence. “With the king?”

They tell him about the council of war in Paris. Since the terrible news was brought, the fat king and his lean court have sat there trembling. The “Moniteur,” which had lied in Napoleon’s favour for fifteen years, now lies on behalf of the king: the Emperor, it announces, is dead. Just as they are deliberating what to do, old Count Condé enters the room and asks his royal cousin whether on Maundy Thursday the king himself should not officiate at the washing of feet. The king is writing a manifesto to the army. But who is sitting by him, his mainstay, the true leader of the Bourbon army? What is the man’s name?

It is Marshal Ney. When, on the retreat from Moscow he had been cut off from the main body and appeared to be lost, his master had cried: “Ney is lost! I would give the two hundred millions from my cellars in the Tuileries, if I had him again!” Now he rises from among the royal plenipotentiaries gathered round the conference table; he swears to annihilate his sometime master. But when the breeze of general enthusiasm sweeps by him, he veers; his corps dons the tricolour cockade, and in Besançon he sends word to the Emperor that he would like to write a vindication of his conduct. But the Emperor waves the proposal aside, saying: “Tell him I love him the same as ever, and that to-morrow I shall embrace him.”

What a master-stroke! True, he forgives; but he leaves Ney on tenterhooks till the morrow. Next day, the marshal stammers: “I love you, Sire; but as a son of the fatherland ... I was forced to kneel down before that fat hog to receive the cross of St. Louis! Had you not come, we should have chased him away ourselves.”

“Marvellous! How vacillating he is, how pale!” These thoughts flit through the Emperor’s mind as he asks his questions.

The count of Artois has fled. The very morning of the flight, the guards had sworn to die with him; by midday, they had rallied to the Emperor. Such behaviour does not please Napoleon, and he keeps this portion of the guard at arm’s length. But there is one man who had remained loyal to Louis until the Bourbon was in safety; not till then does he change sides. This recruit, Napoleon welcomes, and with his own hand decorates him with the emblem of the Legion of Honour!

But what a change! The more this avalanche of soldiers grows as he marches forward towards Paris, the more peaceful do his speeches become. In one town after another, he addresses the municipal councillors and the citizens in the following words: “War is at an end. Peace and liberty! The principles of the revolution must be protected from the onslaughts of the émigrés. The treaties with Europe must be adhered to. France will win back her glory without war. We must be content to be the most esteemed nation, without trying to dominate other countries.”

Does the people grasp the significance of the new tone? If the nation understands, is there belief in its genuineness? Must one be content? Glory without war? To a high official, an old acquaintance whom he meets on the march and in whom at length he finds an intelligent listener after addressing dull-witted citizens and partisan officers, he gives this political explanation:

“The spirit of the people is changed. In earlier days, the nation thought only of glory; now it thinks only of liberty. In the past, I brought the nation glory; I will not withhold liberty now. Freedom can be enjoyed in full, when power rests upon a good constitution.... Only—no anarchy! That would bring us back to the days of the despotic republicans, when every one had a finger in the pie. I shall retain only so much power as is essential for governing properly.”

In the naïve closing sentence lies the new problem. He has broached the question; he is determined to stabilise the basic ideas of democracy. One thing is the same as on the Eighteenth Brumaire: no party politics! “I don’t want to write to them,” he says, when advised to forgive the turncoats. “They would believe that I was pledged to them. How are things in the Tuileries?”

“Nothing has been changed; not even the eagles have been removed.” He is gay, bubbling over with good humour. He laughs.

“I suppose King Louis found the eagles decorative! What are they playing at the theatre? How is Talma? Were you at court? I’ve been told that the Bourbons looked like parvenus, did not know what to talk about, nor how to behave.”

How inquisitive he is! How full of malicious joy! How he yearns for the air of Paris! He seeks his revenge in mockery, he whom the others had so long held up to ridicule. He is told of the parsimony of the court. He is shown the king’s effigy on a twenty-franc piece.

“Do you see? They’ve got it again: ‘God protect the king’! My device is: ‘God protect France’! They’ve left out those words. They were always like that: everything for themselves; nothing for France!” In the course of three minutes he enquires after twenty persons. When he is told that Hortense has been made a duchess, he answers simply:

“She should have called herself Madame Bonaparte. That name is worth more than all the rest.”

His words are symbolic of the new epoch. If he calls himself Bonaparte once more, grants a constitution, allows liberty, and does not grasp at more power than he actually needs, he can make himself king of France. Then, after the failure of his attempt at the unification of Europe, he will still be able to become the happy exemplar of a modern prince by God’s grace. He has always ruled as circumstances might dictate. Now, called to power for the second time, and after his imaginative flight towards far horizons, he will still prove himself a master. The road lies open.

The road to Paris is likewise open. The Bourbon king has run away, and the majority of the inhabitants are on the Emperor’s side. Any one who might still have dreaded a fight with the last royal troops, must have overestimated them. When the Emperor is yet a hundred miles from the capital, the remnants of the royal guard flee from the city. The Emperor’s army overtakes the king, but allows him to escape to a seaport, being content to take the silver he is carrying off with him in sixty carts, and to seize his cannon. France has a hearty laugh at this fat old gentleman, who had been escorted from England to Paris by enemy soldiers, and now makes all speed back to England with the soldiers of France chasing him.

Paris is calm. The town has long since forgotten how to take the initiative. During the twenty days between the Emperor’s landing in the south and his arrival at the capital, the thermometer of the press registers the following degrees: “The monster has escaped from his place of exile.”—“The Corsican werewolf has landed at Cannes.”—“The tiger appeared at Gap, troops were sent against him, the wretched adventurer ended his career in the mountains.”—“The fiend has actually, thanks to treachery, been able to get as far as Grenoble.”—“The tyrant has reached Lyons, where horror paralysed all attempts at resistance.”—“The usurper has dared to advance within a hundred and fifty miles of the capital.”—“Bonaparte moves northward with rapid strides, but he will never reach Paris.”—“To-morrow Napoleon will be at our gates.”—“His Majesty is at Fontainebleau.”

When, at length, without having had to fire a shot, the Emperor mounts the steps of the palace he had been compelled to leave thirteen months before, Paris is overawed by his soldiers, and the émigrés have fled with the king. All is quiet. He notes the fact, listens attentively, and says: “They have let me come, just as they let the others go.”

Now he has his first disappointment! The march on Paris had been glorious, and in after days he spoke of it as the most splendid experience in his life. But here, in the city which will ultimately decide his fate, the city whose favour he has wooed more assiduously than he ever fought for any realm, the city he has never wholly conquered, he encounters moral resistance. Those whose favour he courts are no longer in the arms of their new friend; but they are listless, as if, after excess of passion, their vital energy had run down. Still, here he is, and he must bestir himself.

He looks to Vienna for a sign.

A week after Napoleon’s landing in France, Metternich goes to bed at three o’clock, and is awakened at six by a messenger who hands him a despatch. He reads the inscription on the envelope, “General Consulate, Genoa,” angrily turns over and goes to sleep again. He does not open the missive till several hours later, to read: “Campbell, the English commissioner, has just called to enquire whether Napoleon has been seen in Genoa. He has vanished from the island of Elba.”

The bomb! Those who were yesterday still intriguing against one another, now become thick as thieves once more. The vows which have so often been broken are renewed. The first to think of declaring the man an outlaw is Baron vom Stein, whom Napoleon had outlawed five years earlier. The possibility is discussed, but father-in-law Francis of Habsburg cannot make up his mind to the step; he would like to ask Marie Louise first. Four years ago she was devoted to her husband. She has never breathed a word of complaint to her father or to any of her women friends. Why should she? Napoleon had done whatever she wanted; she had been courted and wealthy; he had been the most equable of husbands; the parents had shared in the games of the little boy. Will she now become the Emperor’s advocate?

The wife of Napoleon and the mistress of the Austrian officer prefers to take up her pen and write a formal declaration to the congress. She will have nothing to do with the Emperor, and she will put herself under the protection of the allies. Such is her answer to that hour when Napoleon had had to choose between the mother’s life and the child’s, and had decided in favour of the mother. Not until his wife has cast her vote against him, is the Emperor made an outlaw: “The powers declare that Napoleon Bonaparte has placed himself outside the bounds of civil and social relationships, and that as an enemy and disturber of the peace of the world he is consigned to public prosecution.”

The tidings leave him unmoved. He is used to being outlawed. When he left Corsica, he and all his relatives were under sentence of outlawry. The word “outlaw” had been shouted at him in the Orangerie at Saint-Cloud. The pope had pronounced the major excommunication against him. All three anathemas had glanced harmless from his coat of mail, so that he deemed himself impregnable. But this fourth ban will lay him low.

He still continues to hope in the Habsburg. Announcing his intention to summon the Electoral Colleges of the Empire to a great assembly, he speaks of the gathering, in Carlovingian terminology, as a Champ de Mai, for he intends to have the empress and his son crowned there. He thinks that this will ensure Austrian support, and writes to his wife:

“I am master of France. The people and the army are wild with enthusiasm! No one but the so-called king has run away to England.... I expect you here in April with my son.” The thought of his dynasty is ineradicable.

But even this most natural of feelings assumes a distorted form, for his feelings are in pawn to the old world. Writing to the man who has just outlawed him, he says: “At the moment when providence has recalled me to the capital of my States, it is my chief desire, the object of my tenderest inclination, to see my wife and son once more.” He goes on to speak of his wife, who must certainly reciprocate his longing. Then: “All my endeavours are directed towards the firm establishment of this throne which the love of my people guarantees and restores to me; and towards handing it down to my son in due time, based upon an imperishable foundation.... Since a lasting peace is essential to the attainment of this important and sacred aim, there is nothing nearer to my heart than to remain at peace with all the powers.”

Is this sublime, or is it ridiculous? Napoleon renounces war, and abandons his designs on Europe. He speaks truth when he says that he needs nothing more than France. The monarchs who had conquered him last year have formed a new alliance against him, and have declared him an outlaw. The sentence of outlawry has been signed by Emperor Francis, in the Austrian capital, with Marie Louise’s express authorisation. She had left him after the last defeat; had thrown up the regency which she had sworn to carry on faithfully; had taken the boy with her; had thrown herself into another man’s arms, and is still living with him: the Emperor knows these things. But now, instead of beginning the new era with a clear-cut severance from all that has overthrown and disappointed him, he begins by suing for the friendship of this old throne which had triumphed over his new one.

This is the ban, this is the outlawry, which will for the second time bring him to his doom.

XVII

The adventurer now becomes a rat-catcher, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Bourbon had been clever enough to invite the best talents to serve him; and as a result of this, when once the royalist national anthem had been sung, all went smoothly for him. Some of these men know not whether to go or to stay: they wait upon events. But Napoleon, who has always commanded, who has never canvassed for any one’s services, places the flute of the tempter to his lips: he knows that now is the time for suggestion and smiles. The loyal few, he restores to their posts, with a shake of the hand. Maret, Davoust, and Caulaincourt, form part of his ministry.

He knows all that those who have proved ungrateful have been doing, and he judges them by their record. Officials, officers, and court dignitaries, again flock to his levees. A count of the old aristocracy comes likewise. Napoleon had called this man back from exile and had made him senator; but at the Bourbon restoration the count had gone over to the king. Now, as the Emperor draws near, the count casts his eyes heavenward and seems to imply that his actions were dictated by God’s inscrutable will. The Emperor smiles. Not a word is exchanged. But the count comes no more to court. When, on the other hand, one of Marmont’s generals, a man who had delivered a decisive speech in the war council before the marshal’s defection, approaches Napoleon and begins to stammer out an explanation, the Emperor does not smile. He says, in an overbearing tone: “What do you want of me? Can you not see that I do not know you?”

Here is Oudinot: for twenty years he was Bonaparte’s companion-in-arms; now he comes back to the Emperor. “You see, Oudinot? You were worshipped as a god by the Lorrainers; two hundred thousand peasants were ready, even last year, to go through fire and water for your sake. To-day I have to protect you against these same peasants!”

Here is Rapp. He has wavered longer than the rest, and even now comes hesitatingly to his master. “You’ve kept us waiting a long time! Did you really want to take up arms against me?”

Rapp is an Alsatian, half a German, and as such he is more a man of duty than a man of feeling: “My duty, Sire, constrained me.”

“Diable! The soldiers would not have obeyed you; your Alsatians would have stoned you!”

But Rapp is nothing if not thorough: “You must admit, Sire, the position was a difficult one. You abdicate, you leave France, you advise us to serve the king, you come again....”

“Were you often here? How did they treat you? At first, I suppose, they flattered you. Soon they’d have chucked you out of doors. That is what your fate would have been.... Have you read Chateaubriand’s pamphlet? Is it true that I am a coward on the battle-field? They are always accusing me of ambition because they have nothing better to say. Does one get as fat as I, if one is constantly being spurred on by ambition?... Once again, General, we must serve France. Then we can be gathered to our fathers.”

In such a debonair and lively manner does he play with this doughty and decorous old comrade. But Rapp holds his own: “You must admit, Sire, that you made a mistake in not concluding peace after Dresden. You treated as nonsensical my reports concerning German sentiment....” The Emperor is quick with his repartee:

“You do not understand what such a peace would have meant!” Suddenly his tone changes into one more suitable to the camp than to this palace and to this hour; it is intimate and familiar, and goes home to Rapp’s heart: “Or were you perhaps afraid of beginning a fresh war, you who for fifteen long years had acted as my adjutant? When you returned from Egypt you were nothing more than a soldier. I have made a man of you. To-day you can have whatever you like to ask for.... I shall never forget your conduct before Moscow. At Danzig you achieved the greatest that any man could achieve. Ney and you, you belong to the tiny legion of those who have strength of character!” The Emperor embraces him, kisses him again and again. Then, pulling Rapp’s moustache, he says:

“Eh? One of the braves of Egypt and Austerlitz—and you wanted to forsake me! You shall take command of the army on the Rhine, while I am dealing with the Prussians and the Russians. In two months, I hope you will be receiving my wife and my son in Strasburg. From to-day, you are my adjutant!”

“At your orders, Sire!”

Had the Emperor ever seen Wallenstein’s Death performed on the German stage, as had, perhaps, that would-be murderer in Poland? He must have this fellow, Rapp, about him. The man is fundamentally honest, and is as brave as he is honourable; of all the Grand Army, he is the officer who was most frequently wounded. He only went over to the king from a sense of duty; he is not to be bought by the lure of promises. And yet, in a quarter of an hour, he is not only the Emperor’s man once more, but has accepted the posts of army commander and adjutant, as of old. Fidelity, Napoleon realised it well, is what the Emperor most urgently needs.

Ney’s case is a more difficult one. Remorse keeps Ney sleepless. With distraught countenance and extravagant words he addresses his master: “Perhaps you have heard, Sire, before I marched to Besançon, I said at the council of war—here, in the Tuileries, I promised the king—”

“Well, what did you promise?”

“To bring you in an iron cage, and place you before his throne—”

The Emperor stiffens. Then: “Foolishness! Such thoughts are unworthy of a soldier!”

“You are mistaken, Sire,” exclaims the Marshal yet more excitedly; “allow me to finish. I said it, yes—but—I wanted to hide my real feelings—”

The Emperor is incensed. Ney quickly withdraws, and only after the lapse of two months takes command in the campaign. Thus near to madness had these iron warriors been brought through their struggle between duty and inclination, when the one great will which mastered them had been withdrawn. Berthier, who also rallied to Napoleon, had gone through the same experience.

“The donkey,” exclaims the Emperor leniently, when talking of his old favourite. “He’s a good fellow. I ask nothing of him than that he should present himself before me in the uniform of the royal guard!” But Berthier, since the Emperor’s return, rushes all night through the rooms of his mansion, and at last throws himself headlong from a balcony, like Junot, to perish on the cobbles instead of dying in the battle-field.

Forwards! We have no time for loitering! Who else is there? Ah, Madame de Staël pops up again. This old opponent writes to him, admires his conduct, and promises that if he will restore the two million francs which France still owes her father, she will in future devote her literary gifts to the cause of France. The pity of it! Through making this stipulation, so splendid a woman must come down to history as beaten in the game! The Emperor mischievously replies that, to his great regret, he is not wealthy enough to fulfil her condition.

Who else is there? Marmont? Augereau? They are declared outlaws by the Emperor, because they sold the fatherland to the foreigner. And then, at long last, Talleyrand likewise! The lightning flashes that travel from Vienna to Paris and from Paris to Vienna strike a deadly blow at this hostile friendship which has lasted for eighteen years. Each man thinks in his secret heart: “A pity that so fine a brain should be working for the other side!”

What about the second of the Dioscuri? Fouché is back again! He takes up his service as Minister of Police in the twofold capacity of working for and against his master. He says of the Emperor: “Well, he’s here. We none of us exactly wished him back again; now we shall have to keep close watch on him.... The man has returned even madder than when he left. I give him three months!” Meanwhile, he corresponds with Metternich; but spies soon tell the Emperor, who angrily apostrophises him: “You are a traitor!” Lavalette, who is in waiting, hears the words through the half-open door. “Why do you consent to be my minister if you mean to betray me? I know that you are exchanging letters with Metternich through the intermediation of a bank official in Basle. I could have you hanged, and all the world would applaud my action.” Fouché’s answer has not been recorded!

The minister owed his present position to his radical outlook, for he had been a revolutionary in theory ever since Robespierre’s time. The Emperor needed him in the cabinet as a decoy for the democrats. But Fouché not only betrayed his master to Metternich, he likewise betrayed Metternich to the radicals; he wanted to set up a republic—with Fouché at the head. Carnot, who was a more violent antagonist of the king than even the Emperor himself had been, now, for the first time since the days of the Directory, entered the ministry.

But, as spiritual leader, the Emperor wins over his whilom enemy, Benjamin Constant, a friend of Madame de Staël. This old-time democrat, who had recently been thundering in the press against the brigand of Elba and comparing him to Attila and to Genghis Khan, is needed now that the Emperor proposes to govern through Chambers. Napoleon, therefore, invites Constant to an audience. The Emperor has not seen him for fifteen years. The interview, recorded by Constant, occupies four pages of print. We are shown, without periphrases, the last transformation of Napoleon, the statesman who was ever ready to adapt his course to the demands of practical politics.

“The nation again wishes for tribunes and assemblies. It has always wanted them, for it threw itself at my feet when I climbed to power.... I assumed less power than was actually conceded me. To-day, all is otherwise. The preference for constitutions, for elections, for speeches, is again to the fore. This is, however, the desire of a minority. The majority desires myself, alone.... I am not only the soldiers’ Emperor; I am also the Emperor of the workers and peasants.... Thus, in spite of all, the people comes back to me. I treat the people severely, I never flatter the people; and yet the people cries: ‘Long live the Emperor!’ This is because there are common bonds between us....

“It is otherwise with nobility. The nobles thronged my ante-rooms begging and receiving the posts they coveted.... But no common bond has ever existed between us. The horse submitted to the rider, it had been well trained; all the same, I felt it tremble beneath me.... Yes, I endeavoured to set up a world monarchy, and for this I needed unfettered power. Who, in my place, would not have wished to do likewise? Did not the world itself encourage me? Princes and subjects hastened to come beneath my sceptre’s sway.... But if France is to be the whole of my dominions, then a constitution is better....

“Tell me your ideas. Freedom of speech, free elections, responsible ministers, freedom of the press?... I am agreeable to all this. Especially the freedom of the press. To try and crush this any longer would be absurd.... I am the man of the people. If the people really wants freedom, I must give it.... I am no longer a conqueror; I can no longer be a conqueror. I know what is possible and what is impossible. My sole mission now is to set France on her feet once more and to give her a constitution adapted to the temperament of her people....

“I do not hate freedom, although I gave it a wide berth when I met it on my way. I understand liberty; I was nourished on this idea. The labours of fifteen years have been destroyed; if I wished to begin all over again, I should need twenty years and should have to sacrifice two million men.... I want peace; I can get it only through victory. I will not fill you with false hopes; I foresee a terrible war. In order to win through, I must have the support of the people. The people will ask for freedom in exchange for its support. Very well, the people shall have freedom.... My situation is a new one for me. I am getting older. At forty-five one is no longer the man one was at thirty. The repose of a constitutional king would suit me excellently. And I am sure that this state of things would meet with the approval of my son.”

Such were the basic ideas of Emperor Napoleon on his return from Elba; he was to become king of France. That his ideas are genuine and his intentions pure, is proved by the realism of his motives. We have not to do with a man who pretends to a change of heart; this is no hero who, in commune with his maker upon an island, has become a saint. Here we have the man himself, wishful to rule as circumstances permit; a man who has ever been mindful of public opinion. He recognises that he has to do with a new epoch. If he himself did not inaugurate such an epoch, at least, through his fall, he made its realisation possible. Napoleon feels that a land which has experienced the dictatorship of genius, can no longer revert to the dictatorship of inheritance. If the spirit of the revolution has become petrified into a single huge figure, a new structure must arise from its ruins, and the stone blocks that are used in the building must be so placed as to secure wider levels and a less tapering pinnacle. In very truth, the son of the revolution, even when he becomes a tyrant, cannot be succeeded by a king who reigns by God’s grace. He can only be succeeded by democracy.

For this reason, the Emperor deals more severely with the émigrés than he was wont; he confiscates estates; he disbands the royal guard; and does at the end of his career what he should have done at the start, namely, he abolishes feudal titles, thus ridding himself of the old nobility whose false compliments had cost him so dear. By these decrees he recreates the revolutionary spirit, and makes it stronger than it has been since his coronation, eleven years earlier. He issues the following declaration to the civil authorities:

“I have returned to-day for the same reason which brought me back from Egypt: because things are not going well with the fatherland.... I do not want to carry on any more wars. We have to forget that we were masters of the world.... In those days, I pursued the aim of creating a great United States of Europe, and I was compelled to neglect many points of home policy which would have secured the freedom of the citizens of France. Now I shall work for no other object than for France’s consolidation and tranquillity, for the protection of property, for the free interchange of ideas: the prince must be the first servitor of the State.” Among the hearers are many who, but a year ago, amid the thunder crashes of the catastrophe, had listened to other words uttered by these self-same lips: “I am the State.” Nevertheless they pin their faith to his new constitution, whose elaboration is entrusted to Constant.

When the constitution is placed before them, they are alarmed. “Additional Act?” Are we once more to be cheated? The democrats pour forth a hail of criticism. Simultaneously, news comes from Vienna: the powers declare war on Napoleon; no harm shall come to France. A signal! For twenty years, so the saying runs through the land, we have desired peace. At last we have got it. Is it once more to come to an end? “I cannot hide the fact from you any longer,” says a councillor of State to the Emperor; “the women are your declared enemies, and these opponents are always dangerous in France.” No one wants any more levies to be made. Instead of two hundred and fifty thousand men, only sixty thousand answer his call.

This decision of the powers is an expression of the mood of the princes, and not of the peoples they govern, for these, just like the French people, are eager for repose. The sentence of outlawry is not so much a political move as an insistence on a point of honour, and the expression of Emperor Francis’ desire to exact moral vengeance. But it gnaws at the foundation of Napoleon’s power. When he had first come back, France had been in his favour. Since, however, all the other States of Europe are against him, France will make no more sacrifices on his behalf. The funds, which had risen when he reached Paris, fall.

The Emperor is alarmed. An intimate, from whom he has asked news of the recruiting campaign, says to him: “Your Majesty will not be left unsupported.” To which the Emperor replies in low tones: “I was almost afraid I should be!”

His friends find him less active than of yore; he is fatter, his features are lax, he needs many hot baths, and lies in them a long time; he takes a great deal of sleep. “He seemed full of cares,” writes one of his circle. “The self-confidence of his speeches, his authoritative tone, had vanished.”

Only four weeks ago, at his first advent, he appeared rejuvenated and lively. Why this relapse?

First and foremost, his wife’s behaviour has shaken him. A semi-anonymous letter from Vienna, addressed to Lavalette, has fallen into his hands. Herein are described Marie Louise’s scorn for the Emperor, her love for Neipperg; and a number of shameful details are added. The Emperor is surprised holding this letter, in his dimly lighted study, crouched over the fire, silent.

When Méneval, who was to have accompanied Marie Louise on her return journey to Paris, comes back from Vienna, he finds the Emperor, in the very midst of these eventful weeks, lying on a sofa, sunk deep in reverie. For many hours that day, and for half the next, the secretary has to give his master a precise account of everything that is happening over there, of all he has observed. The Emperor spoke as though “overwhelmed by a calm sorrowfulness, and seemed so resigned that I was deeply moved. He was no longer confident of victory, and I felt that his belief in his good luck, which had sustained him during the march to Paris, had forsaken him.” Méneval has to describe every trait and gesture of the little son. The Emperor, an ageing man, paces to and fro in the garden on this day in May, alone; he has to rely on a stranger’s word to know what his boy is like, whether the child is growing up to resemble his father or his grandfather.

These things weigh him down. Tragically, the conflicts within him are renewed. Now that he wishes to be a democrat in response to the spirit of the time, now that his will-to-peace is great, the menace from without frustrates his attempts to establish democracy or maintain peace. If no one in Europe were to lift a finger in order to replace Louis on the throne, Napoleon might content himself with ruling within the boundaries of France, might introduce the freedoms he had promised. But the powers, which have no more lands to reclaim (since they have received back all that was ever taken from them, and now possess what they had had before the revolution), come forward as they had in ’92, because the wind blowing from this stormy corner of Europe threatens their inherited calm, and because none of the monarchs can sleep sound o’ nights so long as their Bourbon cousin is standing on the English shore of the Channel looking plaintively across the waters towards France, the land of his fathers.

Never had Napoleon taken up arms more reluctantly than he did when this war was forced upon him by the Vienna decree. Never had the rapidity and clear-sightedness of a dictator or the sympathy of public opinion been more necessary to him than in this terrible crisis. Just now, when every one wants peace, he is obliged to arm for war; just now, when he is to bestow liberties on the people, his actions are hampered at every turn. The struggle of the legitimists with this interloper (the upshot of which had been his own legitimisation), the struggle which had placed him on the throne, is resumed when, too late, he is cured of his longing to pose as legitimate monarch. Though he is reaching out towards liberty once more, he is now to sustain his final defeat.

Thus the great renewal gets no further than the Additional Act to the Constitutions of the Empire, which, as earlier with his great decrees, he leaves to the approval of the “sovereign people.”

Nevertheless, the sixty-seven articles evolved out of Constant’s head contain all the newer democratic elements; they are a great advance upon English constitutional law, and remain as a model for the whole of the subsequent century. No one henceforward can be imprisoned or banished without due form of law; religious belief and the press are to be free. The legislative body is changed into a Lower House, the Senate becomes an Upper House without the former privileges, all deliberations are open to the public, both Houses may initiate legislation and reject the budget, the ministers are to be responsible to parliament, the interpretation of the law devolves upon the Chambers.

A number of new laws, each a dagger in the dictator’s heart! Yet he yields in everything save two points which he carries, after a lively debate against Constant: the hereditariness of the peerage, into which “after one or two successful battles,” the nobility would again pour; and his right to confiscation, for “without this right I should be defenceless against the party factions. I am not an angel, but a man who cannot allow himself to be attacked without meting out punishment.”

These two concessions to him create as bad an impression as the words “Additional Act” had done. Since he will allow no discussion on the matter, but only consents to the empty form of a plebiscite, as he had done in the days when he wished to become consul for life and subsequently emperor, the democrats begin to grumble, and no one is aware how greatly the nation is to be congratulated on this latest work of its leader. Instead of the four million votes he had received of yore, his constitution receives only just over one and a half million votes, for most of the citizens abstain.

A few venture to protest. Honest Carnot says: “Your Additional Act has not pleased the people; it will not meet with acceptance. Promise me that you will amend it. I must tell you the truth, for your and our salvation hangs upon your tolerance.” His tone is upright, but wholly unprecedented. Since the days when Bonaparte was a lieutenant no one had ever spoken thus to him. He makes a gesture of annoyance, and Carnot continues: “This word alarms you, Sire? Yes, you must show tolerance in the face of the national will.”

“The foe is at our gates,” answers the veteran soldier. “First of all, help to chase him away. Then I shall have time to occupy myself with your liberal panaceas.” Even though he profoundly recognises the demands of the new age, he finds it impossible to deliberate with representatives of the people.

Napoleon knows only how to command!

XVIII

On a bright spring morning, the plain is lively as on days of high festival. The Parisians are flocking in crowds to the Champ de Mai. The whole town has come forth to this revival of the Carlovingian folk assembly. The old troops are there, and the new. The platforms are gaily decorated with tricolours. Six hundred deputies and several hundred peers are waiting for the Emperor, who is to take the oath to the new constitution before starting on his campaign. It is the first time for two or three years that the people of the gay city have had a chance of glutting their lust for merrymaking. Under the king, all had been sober and staid.

Now the procession is coming forth from the town; from afar can be heard the fanfare of the trumpets, and every one is expecting the hero of the occasion, the warrior Napoleon, to be dressed as beseems the posture of affairs, seeing that within a few days he will be fighting for throne and country at the head of his troops. Rumour has run through Paris saying that he still wears his old green coat, in which people love best to see him.

But what is the pageant which unfolds itself?

First comes the guard of honour, followed by the eagles and the colours; then heralds and pages, clad in many-coloured costumes, as if in an allegorical picture; then the Emperor’s coronation coach, drawn by eight horses. In it is seated a man picturesquely attired in white silk, almost overshadowed by a hat decked with huge ostrich plumes, and burdened by his vast coronation mantle; a solitary man, glittering with gold. Is this the Emperor?

The masses are dumbfounded, for they wanted to fraternise with their ruler returned from exile; they are stupefied by the spectacle of a Cæsar whose chill splendours seem to repel the cordiality they would fain exhibit. Painful indeed is the forlorn aspect of this middle-aged man, whose wife has not returned to him and whose son is far away, as he drives among the gaping crowds in his stately chariot.

When, after High Mass, the spokesman of the new Chambers confronts the Emperor, this citizen speaks in tones which ring athwart the plain: “Trusting your pledges, the deputies will sagaciously revise our laws, and harmonise them with the constitution”—the implication being that the representatives of the people are not yet satisfied, but want more than this Additional Act. Then the spokesman of the Chambers and the citizens expresses his hopes of victory, and wishes success to the eagles.

The Emperor has to hide his vexation. He announces the new constitution, and swears to observe it faithfully. Then the soldiers must acclaim the oath. But they can hardly recognise their master in this pompously attired ruler. They want the old green coat; their hero should be wearing the tricolour cockade, not gold and plumes. Their cheers lack enthusiasm. An eyewitness writes: “These were not the cheers of Austerlitz and Wagram. The Emperor could not fail to notice it.”

A week later, when he opened both Houses with a speech from the throne, he was careful to avoid everything which had put people out of humour at the Champ de Mai. The Lower House promises to devote its energies to the defence of the nation; but goes on to say: “Even the will of the victorious ruler would not induce the nation to transcend the bounds of defence.” The peers in the Upper House utter a like warning in their address, saying: “The French government will never be led away by the seductions of victory.” Napoleon stands there constrained to silence, but trembling with wrath. He would like to sweep them all away, but dares not even give them the lie.

Among the new peers is Lucien. He has come to join his brother after all. A glance and a hand-clasp have reconciled the brothers. For the first time in his life he is styled prince and imperial highness. He is the Emperor’s companion, delivers speeches, even gives lectures in the Institute, and receives large sums of money. Louis is ill, and does not come. Jerome is ready and willing. Hortense must replace the missing lady of the house, and her sons have once more become important to the man without a son. Napoleon appears on the balcony with his nephews, to show the crowd, to show France, that the Emperor still has heirs. Unseen, the spirit of irony contemplates this tragical conclusion to the history of his dynastic delusion.

Once he drives with Hortense to Malmaison, but goes alone into the room where Josephine died, to come forth from it in silence.

Next day he sets out for the war, hoping it will be his last war. It is.

Carnot, to whom at this late hour he divulges his plan, strongly advises him to wait until the army has been reinforced. Neither the Russians nor the Austrians can arrive before the end of July. The English and the Prussians will not venture to attack until their allies have joined them. During these six weeks, Napoleon could double his forces, transform France into an armed camp, fortify Paris on the side whence the onslaught will come. The Emperor shakes his head:

“I know all that. But it is essential that I should win a brilliant victory without waiting so long!”

He knows what is at stake. It is his way to assume the offensive. But the master of figures would have done well to wait awhile, and collect his forces. “I must win a brilliant victory soon!” Is not that the thought of a beaten champion? Perhaps it is; but the gloomy vaticinations of the ruined Cæsar are fortified by the memories of General Bonaparte. Not since his youth has he ventured to do what he now proposes, to advance with a small army, without reserves, mobile, swift. Such, then, is his plan. He will not give his four opponents time to get together. The two that appear to be ready must be separately attacked and defeated. That is the picture which hovers before his mind. What Napoleon, the Emperor, now begins at Charleroi, when his prospective opponents are the Prussians and the English, Bonaparte, the unknown general, had begun at Millesimo, when his prospective opponents were the Austrians and the Piedmontese. His last battle is the parallel of his first.

But during these twenty years, all the commanders of Europe have learned the tactics of the new master of the art of war; and he, during these twenty years, has worn out his machinery. Moreover, swift though his movements are in the days before Waterloo, he no longer possesses the old tempo. As in his recent campaigns, so now, anxious considerations hamper the boldness of his attack. Having taken Charleroi, he fails next day to make a mass onslaught on Blücher, sends Ney with half the army along the Brussels road against the English, only to learn with alarm in the afternoon that he is faced by the whole of the Prussian army. He sends to recall the marshal, writing: “The fate of France is in your hands.” Ney, instead of continuing his advance, must envelop the Prussian enemy. Too late! Ney has become involved in the fight with Wellington at Quatre Bras, can spare only one army corps, and sends it to a place where it can be of no use. This makes it impossible for him to gain a victory over the English, and he is driven back.

Napoleon, this same day, fighting with only half his army at Ligny, secures a victory.

The last victory! Blücher falls from his wounded horse, and is reported killed. Gneisenau retains composure, prevents the retreat from degenerating into a rout, and sends to let his ally know that they can form a junction at Wavre the next day. With an inertia which we should wonder at did we not know that Napoleon is ailing and prematurely old, the Emperor makes no move on the day after his victory. Too late he sends Grouchy with thirty thousand men to follow up the Prussians, not believing that they can reorganise their forces speedily, or that after the heavy losses they have sustained they will be able to effect a junction with the English. Yesterday, he had dealt with the Prussians singly; to-morrow he will be able to defeat the English, now cut off from their allies. His seventy thousand men will suffice. He fails to allow for Gneisenau’s imperturbability and for Blücher’s impetuosity.

For the first time, he underrates an opponent. At Friedland, Aspern-Essling, and Laon, he was not beaten. Nor was he beaten in Russia. At Leipzig, and at Arcis-sur-Aube, he was defeated; but it was because he had only a small army with which to meet the onslaughts of vastly superior forces; those of three great powers in one case, and those of four in the other. Never, yet, had any isolated commander been able to say: “I have defeated Napoleon.”

Now he thinks too much of his victory, and too little of his opponent. For the first time he fails to focus his lens accurately, with the result that one point escapes his reckoning. But it is not that he makes a wanton and ill-considered onslaught. Nor is the trouble on this occasion that family feeling makes him entrust leadership to inefficient hands. If he had kept Grouchy’s force with him, his enemy would have scarcely outnumbered him. But the course of the decisive battle shows that this error in calculation was not the main cause of the French defeat.

The final cause, as any one can recognise who studies all the elements in Napoleon’s fate, was the man’s advancing years.

His activity was undermined by his ailments, and that is why, on the morning of the battle of Waterloo, he failed to attack promptly. In the middle of June, the sun is above the horizon by four. If the Prussians were able to march upon the roads that had been softened by the recent heavy rains, the French veterans could have done the same—for the Emperor’s soldiers on this occasion were almost all of them tried men. But he waits till noon, that he may place his guns better when the ground becomes less sodden! At Jena, in October, in a Scotch mist, he had headed his troops, shouted to encourage them, attacking so early in the morning as to arouse many of his foes from their slumbers. To-day he waits till noon.

The loss of this half-day is to destroy him. He rides to an elevation bearing the fatal name of La Belle Alliance; he arranges his troops in three lines, rides along the front, shouts to his men in metallic phrases; he is going to break through the enemy and enter Brussels; he already has the proclamation to the Belgians in his pocket. He has only wasted half a day!

In the afternoon, when battle is already joined, news comes that Bülow’s corps is advancing. The Emperor turns pale, and sends Grouchy orders to come back. Will the orders reach him? If they do, will he be able to disengage himself from the enemy? Everything turns upon the fortune of the next hour. The English must be beaten before the Prussians can come to their aid. Napoleon delivers a great cavalry attack on the centre, but the English stand firm. Shall he use the old guard? Not yet! Not yet! Bülow is already beginning to fire. At all costs he must keep the line of retreat open, for otherwise there may be a catastrophe. But, in fact, the English forces are already half defeated. It is five o’clock, and the guard might have finished their defeat, for at this hour Wellington sent a message to his Prussian ally: “Unless your corps keeps marching, and attacks without respite, the battle will be lost.” This would have been the moment for an attack by the old guard, but once more caution makes the Emperor hold his hand at the critical moment. He sees that a second Prussian corps is about to attack.

A dread decision! A brilliant gamester staking his last coins, but to-day he must not be beaten. At length, towards seven, he sends the last five thousand guardsmen, the veterans, to the attack. Now, it is only a forlorn hope. “Vive l’Empereur!”

This cry has shaken half Europe. Is it not a century old? In a decade it has gained a legendary force throughout the Continent. But what is imperishable? Even the eagles of Marengo are not imperishable. Is the mythical energy of this cry, Vive l’Empereur, to subside with the setting of to-day’s sun? Yes, to-morrow it will be heard no more!

The second Prussian corps pours a deadly fire on the guard, which yields ground. The opposing force continues to grow; at eight, the third army corps appears on the scene, and a hundred and twenty thousand of the allies are now attacking half that number of Frenchmen. The battered French army takes to flight, and Bonaparte, in his last hour as a commander, is for the first time in his life commander of a routed army. After an hour on horseback in the open, exposed to the British fire, the Emperor rides into the centre of one of the two remaining French squares. When these, likewise, break up, he gallops across country protected only by mounted grenadiers. Though in bodily pain, he has to stay in the saddle until five in the morning, when he is able at length to secure a few hours rest in an old cart.

Is he discouraged?

By no means! What is Paris saying? This is the thought which continually drives him onward. He does not venture, as he had done last year, to assemble the guards in Laon or Soissons, or to betake himself to one of the fortresses. He thinks only of Paris, as the place from which more soldiers can be gathered. Calculations, as of old: “I can still mobilise a hundred and fifty thousand men; with the National Guard, there will be three hundred thousand in all. That will be enough to stop the advance of the enemy.” The last orders he sends to Paris end with the words: “Courage! Firmness!”

Two days later, he is once more in the Elysée, which he had left so recently. Has the whole campaign been a dream? In nine days he has lost the empire which he had fought nine years to win.

XIX

Not lost yet!

In the cabinet and in the Chambers, opinions are divided. He sits in council with his brothers and his ministers; he is worn out, but there is no sign of collapse. What does he propose? To work hand in hand with the Chambers? Far from it; he proposes dictatorship. In this national crisis, he needs, for a short time, full freedom of movement. Some of the ministers point out to him that the Chambers no longer trust him. Then Lucien takes the floor, and with all the fire of a youth urges the Emperor to dissolve the Chambers, declare Paris in a state of siege, take all power into his hands, get together the remaining troops—thus alone, now, can France be saved!

He listens. Sixteen years have passed since that November day at Saint-Cloud when this very Lucien had made the same proposal, and, with a single speech, had snatched his brother from the abyss. Then Lucien had raised Napoleon higher than he had wished. The Emperor approves the plan, but does not instantly act on it. Instead, he listens while Davoust, the Minister for War, refuses to place the remnants of the armed forces at his disposal. While they are disputing, news comes from the Chamber of Deputies. It has declared itself in permanent session, will regard any attempt to dissolve it as high treason, and will impeach any one who may dare to try. “I can see only one man between us and peace,” said old Lafayette from the rostrum. “If we rid ourselves of him, peace will be ours for the asking!”

Is this the cry of the people? Paris is perfectly calm, so it is nothing more than the cry of a liberated democracy. But it is also the cry of a society which loves change and bears adversity badly, for the House of Peers now passes a vote identical with that of the Chamber of Deputies. The Chambers demand that the Emperor shall appear before them. Why does he not go? Who would venture to oppose him openly? “I ought to have gone,” he said subsequently, “but I was tired out. I could have dissolved them, but I lacked courage; I am only a man, after all. My memories of the Nineteenth Brumaire terrified me.”

Now the Chambers send for the ministers. The Emperor replies that he has forbidden them to go. The Chambers rejoin that they will depose him unless the ministers come. He gives way. He sends Lucien and the ministers to the Chamber of Deputies, and they report that he has formed a commission to negotiate with the enemy. “The powers will not treat with him!” cry the Chambers. “They have outlawed him. He must abdicate. If he refuses, we shall depose him!”

While this is going on in the Chambers, the Emperor, much agitated, is walking to and fro in the garden with Constant. At length he is roused, and flames out:

“Not my own future, but that of France is at stake! Have they considered the consequences of my abdication? The army is grouped round me. Do they think they can fight the general dissolution with ideology? I could have understood it if I had been repelled when I landed three months ago. But to-day, when the foe is only a hundred miles from Paris, they cannot overthrow a government without suffering for it. A fortnight back, to repudiate me would have been a bold action. Now, I am part of what the enemy is attacking, a part of France which it is their business to defend. France will sacrifice itself if it sacrifices me! It is not liberty which would fain depose me, it is Waterloo—fear!... All I want now is to be the commander; but even if part of the troops were to fall away, I should promptly replace them by workmen, who can readily be moved to revolt.”

At this moment, the two men in the garden hear shouts from the avenue, “Vive l’Empereur!” Whose are these last voices raised for Napoleon? The workers from Saint-Antoine; men whose troubles he had remembered in days of need, men who cared little about the suppression of liberty, for equality had made them free. There they were, peering through the railings which separated the son of the revolution from them just as it had separated the kings, but shouting through the bars of the cage into which he had shut himself: “Dictatorship! National Guard! Vive l’Empereur!”

“You see?” said Napoleon to Constant. “I never loaded those fellows with honours. What have they got to thank me for? I left them poor men, just as I had found them. Nothing but instinct leads them to me. If I liked, these rebellious Chambers would be dissolved within the hour.... I need merely say the word, and all the deputies who oppose me would be butchered! But for one man, the price is too high. Blood must not flow in Paris!”

This mood of renunciation, which is akin to justice, this refusal to employ brute force in his extremity, just as he had refused (to begin with) sixteen years earlier, resembles the mood of Brumaire. But what was then the prudence of a statesman who did not wish to tarnish the origins of his long career of power, is now a prudence which does not beseem the adventurer he is to-day. Nevertheless, his unwillingness to use the bayonets with which, to-day, he could again have cleared the Chambers, is one more sign of his recognition of the new epoch, which wants more freedom and less force.

Meanwhile, the Chamber of Deputies is in secret session. Lucien has presented the imperial message. The deputies are willing to discuss matters. Some of them speak, in civil terms, of the abdication as a sacrifice necessary for France. Honest Carnot mounts the rostrum, and, in this moment of disaster, is almost alone in espousing the cause of the Emperor whom almost alone he had openly attacked in the days when all others had been subservient to the man of the hour. But now Sieyès, too, speaks in favour of the Emperor, speaks like a Roman of old: “Napoleon has lost a battle.... Let us help him to drive the barbarians from our country, for no one else is equal to the task. If, when he has done it, he wants to play the despot, we can hang him. But to-day we must march with him shoulder to shoulder!”

Lafayette springs to the rostrum once more: “Have you forgotten where the bones of our sons and our brothers whiten? In Africa, on the Tagus, on the Vistula, amid the snows of Russia. Two million have been the victims of this one man who wanted to fight all Europe! Enough!” In the small hours, the Chamber demands Napoleon’s abdication.

The Emperor hesitates. In the morning there is another cabinet council. Much agitated, he paces the room, uttering gibes about these Jacobins, foreseeing a new Directory. Then the commandant of the Palais Bourbon arrives with a message from the Chambers. He stammers when he attempts to discharge his commission, but at length manages to get the words out. If the Emperor does not abdicate, the Chambers will outlaw him. Savary and Caulaincourt come in. All present urge him to the step, for even Lucien has given up the game. The Emperor says:

“I have accustomed them to great victories, and now they do not know how to endure a single day of adversity. What will happen to France?” He adds in low tones: “I have done what I could.”

After this epilogue of six words, which tells the whole story, at noon he dictates his declaration to the people. He is making the sacrifice, his political life is at an end, he proclaims his son emperor as Napoleon II., the Chambers must establish a regency. To whom does he dictate these words? Who among his intimates can hold the pen firmly enough to write them down?

Lucien! The brother who for years from the enemy coast had gazed enviously at this city and this throne; who, if he had been a little less of a poet, might long since have collected the malcontents around him; and who might even now come to the front, not indeed as a second Napoleon, but at least as a second Bonaparte—and that would be something. Lucien sits there, a man of forty now. He had been no less ambitious than the Emperor, but had had to content himself with the modest career of a virtuoso and a Mæcenas. For four whole weeks, now, he has been an imperial prince! Smiling inwardly, he pens his great brother’s abdication; writes from dictation, still a mere hodman, but this time animated with a humorous sympathy which atones for the old discords.

For, in truth, it is the eternal recurrence of the similar. As before, come cries from the Chambers, “Outlaw him!” As before, five Directors, like those Bonaparte had once deposed, are appointed. They call themselves a provisional government. But when they proceed to elect from among their own number one to function as president of the Directory, who is chosen to take over the authority from Napoleon’s hands? Who, by his own vote, has decided his own choice as president?

Fouché.

But the Chamber has become less turbulent. Those who, yesterday, were thirsting for Napoleon’s blood, to-day send a deputation to thank him for his abdication. To these polite gentlemen the Emperor says: “I fear things will turn out badly, now that there is no head. I trust France will never forget that my sole object in abdicating was to promote the welfare of the nation, and that I have abdicated in favour of my son. Only under my dynasty, will France remain free and happy.”

At the very time when he is saying this, Fouché and the others are considering the possibility of having one of the Orleanist Bourbons, a member of the Brunswick family, or even the king of Saxony, as Napoleon’s successor. Moreover, the five Directors are appointed to form a government, not a regency; and, in his decrees, Fouché often speaks of the nation, but never of Napoleon II. The Emperor notes all this, but holds his peace. Slowly his dream of a dynasty vanishes, the dream for whose realisation he has fought half a lifetime. It has become for ever unattainable. When Lavalette comes to see him in the evening, he is in a hot bath, has been there for several hours.

“Where am I going? Why not to America?”

“Because Moreau went there.”

To the Emperor this answer seems surcharged with emotion, for he has serious thoughts of seeking an asylum in the United States, and he asks the government for a frigate. But the only answer is a request that he should leave Paris, for crowds are flocking round the Elysée, clamouring for a dictatorship. He burns a number of documents, and then betakes himself to Malmaison.

In the garden there, the garden that is full of memories of Josephine, he passes two whole days in a state of reverie. The few who remain faithful to him are there: his mother, Hortense, Caulaincourt, Lavalette, Lucien, even Joseph. But when the Emperor asks who will go with him, the answers are evasive. Letizia, indeed, will go gladly, but he thinks that at her age it would be dangerous. Lavalette has a daughter growing up, and his wife is expecting another child; perhaps he will follow later. Drouot, who shared the Elba exile, is wanted in France. The secretary had promised the day before to accompany Napoleon into exile, but now his mother, who is blind, has implored him not to leave her. “You are right; you must stay with your mother,” says the Emperor, turning away.

Pauline, before the last campaign, had pressed her jewels on him; now Hortense offers him a diamond necklace; a quixotic return of imperial gifts, a gesture suitable to the strange turn in his fortunes. He tells Hortense she will have a million, but no one knows if it will ever be paid. Lucien and Eugene get money, and he gives little Léon something for his mother—still dealing in hundreds of thousands.

But he does all these things like a man in a dream. He does not say a word about the last few weeks, but talks only of old times, and chiefly of Josephine. “I have promised the minister to go away. I shall start to-night. I am weary of myself, of France, and of Paris. Make your preparations.”

Whither away? Conjectures, deliberations. Spectral is the tone of the manifesto he now addresses to the army:

“Soldiers!... I am with you even though I am away. I know every corps. If any one wins a victory, I shall approve his courage.... Show, in days to come, that, before all, you serve your country, show it by obeying me; and show that I have earned your affection (if indeed I have earned it) by my ardent love for our common mother. One more storm, and the coalition will be shattered! Napoleon will know you by the blows that you deal out. Save the honour and the liberty of the French. Be what you have been for twenty years, and you will be unconquerable!”

The government suppresses the document, but could have published it without risk. No one could be more aloof, no living man could have become more completely a part of history, than this man who speaks of himself as if he were speaking of a stranger. He seems to be no longer present in the flesh.

Suddenly he is startled! The old sounds assail his ears. The noise of cannon shots reaches him from the plain of Saint-Denis; the foe is at the gates. Officers and soldiers, scarred and tattered, but hastily patched up, bring him the news, vague and dispersed like the sound of the firing. Instantly he returns to life. “In two detachments? You must attack and defeat them separately; first one and then the other.” At night he elaborates a plan for the defence of Paris. Next morning it seems as if the familiar sounds had rejuvenated him, and he writes to the five Directors as General Bonaparte had written of old:

“I offer to place myself at the head of the army. At sight of me, the soldiers will recover their courage, hurl themselves on the foe, and punish him. I pledge you my word as general, soldier, and citizen that I will not retain the command an hour after the victory has been won. I vow to conquer, not for myself but for France.”

It is impossible that after such words he should fail to conquer, unless he is slain in the first onslaught. In this mood of impending death, he writes his magnificent letter. Napoleon, in the garden, surrounded by his remaining officers, restlessly awaits the answer.

Fouché’s great moment has come. To this ex-master of his, to the man whom he so cordially detests, he does not even vouchsafe a written answer. The Emperor, who is trembling with eagerness to take up arms, and who has never since he grew to full manhood had to wait for another man’s permission, tears the response out of the returning messenger. It is curt: The Emperor is mistaken if he thinks the members of the government are such fools as to entertain his proposal; all they ask is that he should go away as soon as possible. Napoleon says bitterly: “I ought to have hanged him long ago. Now I must leave the job to the Bourbons.”

Mufti; a rapid gathering together of necessaries; Hortense sews her necklace for him into a black silk belt. For a few minutes he entertains the thought of Corsica, with Lucien as governor of the island. His mother’s eyes sparkle. But he knows that the scheme is impracticable. America is his last resource. The only thing lacking is the frigate for which he has been asking. All are aware that every hour increases the risk to his liberty. It is said that Wellington has demanded his surrender, and the number of the deputies in favour of his being handed over is steadily increasing. Lavalette urges him to start, but the Emperor is stubborn.

“I cannot leave without an order from the government to the captain.”

“Why not, Sire? Have the anchor weighed, promise the crew money, send the captain ashore if he won’t set sail. You may be sure that Fouché has already promised to hand you over to the allies.”

“Drive to the Minister for the Navy!”

The councillor drives to Decrès’, and finds him in bed. Decrès refers the messenger to Fouché, saying: “I can do nothing.”

Fouché cannot be found. The councillor gets back to Malmaison at one in the morning. The Emperor is awakened, gets up, still thinks the United States will be best, but hesitates. “Over there, they will grant me land, or I will buy an estate and till it. I shall end where mankind began. I shall live upon the produce of my fields and my herds.”

“But what if they propose to hand you over?” enquires the secretary.

“Then I shall go to Mexico. There I shall find patriots at whose head I can place myself.”

“The leaders there might turn against you.”

“All right; I shall leave them and go to Caracas. If I don’t like it, I shall go on to Buenos Ayres or to California. I shall sail across the seas until I find a city of refuge where I can be safe from the persecutions of my fellows.”

“But what if the English catch you, Sire?”

“I must risk that. A bad government, but a great nation, noble and generous. England will treat me properly. Besides, there is no choice. Am I to allow myself, like a ninny, to be taken prisoner here by Wellington, to be led in triumph through the streets of London like King John the Good of old? Since they have no use for my services here, I must go elsewhere. Ability will do the rest.”

“Your Majesty was not made for flight.”

“Flight! What are you talking about?” He looks at the secretary “questioningly and proudly.”

“The English must certainly be on the watch for you already. Your end ought to be the worthiest possible.”

“Suicide, like Hannibal? Leave that to weaklings and persons of disordered mind! Whatever fate may hold in store for me, I would never deliberately shorten my life by a single day.”

“I did not mean that, Sire. But what if you were to hand over liberty and life to the enemies of France in order to save France? That is how Napoleon the Great should act.”

“All very fine, but to whom am I to hand myself over? To Blücher? To Wellington? They have no plenipotentiary powers. They would simply take me prisoner, and do what they pleased with France and with me.”

“The tsar, perhaps?”

“You do not know the Russians! Still, I will think the matter over. To sacrifice my own person would be easy enough. The question is, whether it would help France?”

Almost every element that goes to make the statesman seems to have been eliminated from this all-too-human dialogue. Here is an adventurer hankering after fresh voyages in every corner of the world. Here is the man without a country, the ocean traveller without any earth under his feet, always on board, always driven hither and thither, a bold pirate fearless of death. Ay, fearless of death! The dry manner in which, once again, he waves aside the idea of suicide, the sober realism of his outlook, this grasp at the flying moment, the old-time dauntlessness of the islesman—what unconquerable vital energy!

Now he is to start. The last person with whom the Emperor has a quiet talk is his mother. But a soldier rushes in; he will not let any hold him back: the soldier is Talma. The call of his heart and his love of the tragical have urged him to come for a great farewell; he feels he must be there. Later he is to represent this leave-taking between mother and son, in all its dignified simplicity, in a pathetic scene on the stage. Then the Emperor invites young General Gourgaud, the scatter-brained idealist, into his dilapidated carriage. Bertrand and his wife, who had lived with him in Elba, and two others, accompany him. They drive to Rochefort, to the port where they hope to find a frigate. The pace is too slow for a fugitive. He still looks over his shoulder, listening for the call which shall summon him back at the eleventh hour. They meet two regiments marching northward. The men raise a cheer, and the Emperor discusses with the generals the possibility of overthrowing the government if he places himself at their head and marches on Paris.... Away again, at length the long drive is over, and he stands gazing at the Atlantic Ocean. Joseph is there, and urges Napoleon to charter a brig which is taking a cargo of spirits to America. The Emperor assumes the name of Muiron, his seventh name. This name calls up the vision of another coast, the Mediterranean with its many isles, and Corsica, and then Italy; and again he sees the young, small, lean general, with long hair falling on his shoulders and cold grey-blue eyes, and the bridge of Arcola where the fate of a man and a country hung in the balance; and he sees Lieutenant Muiron fling himself before the young general in the mêlée, he sees Muiron fall, and he knows that by this love-death the lieutenant’s name will be immortalised. It would seem that once again a new epoch is opening before the genius of energy, and that across the seas, in new zones, on uninhabited prairies, the adventurer will swing himself into the saddle, will watch the increase of his herds; maybe, even, will travel to Mexico and become the leader of a band of rebels!

But God is wiser.

He sees to it that this great life shall have an epilogue such as no man has ever lived through before, an epilogue which shall fitly round off its tragical poesy. Once more the Almighty stifles the adventurous impulse in the soul of Napoleon; once more there are days of questioning, negotiation, vacillation—ten days before the final decision.

The Emperor crosses to a small island. They think of chartering two fishing smacks which the English will never dream of searching for Napoleon; but in the end he rejects the plan. There are two American ships available. Negotiations are entered into with a Danish sloop. Enthusiastic youths from the naval training school propose to carry him off in an advice-boat. Sixteen midshipmen will spirit him out of the harbour at dead of night. They sit packed together in the little room, feverishly discussing the plan with Las Cases, the Emperor’s new confidant. The man to whom this madcap venture is proposed, talks over the situation coolly with his companions, asking each in turn for an opinion as to the best course. Most of them advise a return to the army, for there are still good prospects that the soldiers in the south will support him. He emphatically refuses:

“Nothing will induce me to light up a civil war. I will have no more to do with politics; I need repose; I shall go to America!”

But his self-respect makes him shrink from the thought of escaping in disguise.

News comes that the Bourbon has re-entered the land of his fathers, once more under the protection of allied troops. The path of escape seaward is now blocked by an English cruiser which bears the ominous name of “Bellerophon.” The Emperor has missed his chance. Here are his thoughts: “A return to Paris is impossible. The port is blockaded. Shall I allow myself to be seized like a pirate, and taken in chains to London? England has been my foe for twenty years. Next to the French, the English nation is the greatest and the most distinguished in the world. Have I not been an Emperor? Has not, from of old, chivalry toward a fallen enemy aroused universal admiration? In Corsica, they knife any one who violates the rights of hospitality.”

Making up his mind, he dictates the following letter to the prince regent:

“Your Royal Highness, Exposed to the factions which distract my country and to the enmity of the greatest powers of Europe, I have closed my political career, and I come, like Themistocles, to throw myself upon the hospitality of the British people. I put myself under the protection of their laws, and beg Your Royal Highness, as the most powerful, the most persistent, and the most generous of my enemies, to grant me this protection. Napoleon.”

Eight lines, three words of respect, neither arrogance nor humility, almost courtly. There is, however, one word which embodies the pathos of the step he is taking, and assumes that his adversary will give moral guarantees; that in this century, after such a life, Napoleon will be as welcome a guest in the enemy land, as of old in Persia had been—Themistocles. It is overwhelming self-confidence, based upon historical parallels, which determines the last great step of his career, as, in youth, it had determined his first advances to Paoli. Now, this self-confidence will be his ruin.

Next day, Las Cases hands the letter to the captain of the “Bellerophon,” and negotiates with Maitland for Napoleon’s reception on board. Admiral Hotham, Maitland’s immediate superior, was not a party to the negotiations, but had long since received orders to seize the fugitive if possible. In accordance with international law, this was quite in order, for England, with the other powers in Vienna, had decreed Napoleon’s outlawry. But it is an undisputed fact that Captain Maitland, supreme on his own ship, guaranteed his guest’s liberty, saying: “Napoleon will receive all proper attention in England. Our people are generous and democratic.”

No record was taken at the time of the terms of the understanding in accordance with which the man who had been the master of Europe went on board one of his enemy’s ships. Nevertheless, it was not an affair of hours, but, rather, of days; not the outcome of haste and desperation, but the logical conclusion of a long chain of reasoning. Napoleon’s own experience of the last twenty years had shown him that verbal agreements are untrustworthy, whereas written agreements are comparatively reliable. Yet he takes this last step, one of profound historical significance, without any written document having been signed, sealed, and delivered. In truth, he cannot await an answer from London. He trusts, however, not in the mere word of a captain in the navy, but in the moral effect of what he is doing. That is why, just before going on board the “Bellerophon,” he writes the above-quoted heroic lines, addressed to the ruler of the land in which he seeks hospitality, and the supreme commander of all its navies.

Then, in uniform, Napoleon boards the British vessel.

XX

Maitland stands on the quarter-deck. Napoleon raises his hat, a thing he has not always done to greet princes, and addresses the captain as follows: “I come to place myself under the protection of your king and your laws.” The British naval officers are introduced to him, and he asks about the sea-fights in which they have been engaged. Then, with the detachment of a man discussing ancient history, he talks about the English navy and the French, says that the English sailors are cleaner and more efficient, and argues with his host about certain punishments customary in the navy after a fight. Then he passes to generalities:

“I really cannot understand why your ships have defeated our French vessels so easily. The best of them were ours to begin with. A French ship is stronger in every respect than an English vessel of the same type. It has more and heavier guns, a larger complement.”

“I have already explained that to you, Sir. Our seamen have had more experience than yours.”

Napoleon does not move an eyelash. The conversation remains strictly academic; they talk of the nautical science of their respective countries.

“If you had tried to escape in a French frigate,” says Maitland, “you would have seen for yourself how well we can shoot.”

No repining! Here stands a gamester who has lost the game. All that the Emperor troubles to dispute is Maitland’s contention that two frigates with a few twenty-four pounders could not possibly have got the better of the “Bellerophon,” which carried seventy-four heavy guns. The captain proves that it would have been impossible. Napoleon examines the ship’s guns, praises what he sees, but has some criticisms to make here and there. Maitland declares afterwards, when alone with his own people, that he has been amazed by the extent of the Emperor’s technical knowledge.

The ship puts out to sea.

Meanwhile, the legitimate ministers and kings are discussing their course. Not a single member of this circle proves great enough to advise a great gesture, before Europe and before history. Ten days after leaving the roads of Rochefort, the “Bellerophon” anchors in Plymouth harbour. It is a fine morning in the end of July, and the water is thronged with rowing boats full of people anxious to catch a glimpse of the caged lion. Since no decision has yet arrived from London, civilian visitors are not allowed on board. But it is a great time for the crew. They can see Napoleon every day, and he converses with any of them that are able to speak French. The gaping crowds in the boats are the thousands who for twenty years past have heard nothing but abuse and mockery of “Boney”; have seen numberless caricatures of him, depicted as a hideous monster. Now, they are all animated with the same curiosity; they all want to feast their eyes upon this dread spectre.

For the most part, Napoleon stays in his cabin. He does not want to become a raree-show. A few days’ patience, and he will be able to go ashore, and live where he pleases. At length, however, feeling the need for fresh air, he comes up the gangway and mounts the poop. There he stands, the great defeated foe, in his old world-famous green coat; defenceless. Thousands of eyes instantly converge on him, so that it seems as if he must be consumed in their fire.

But the man with the simple, impenetrable countenance, who is thus pilloried, must radiate an aura of dignity and suffering, for an extraordinary thing happens. Thousands of heads are bared. As far as Napoleon’s gaze can reach, on the boats, the ships, throughout the harbour, not a man remains covered. The greeting is universal, but for one exception. Only one man among all those onlookers keeps his three-cornered hat on his head. It seems as if the whole nation were willing to pay the Emperor the homage which a pettifogging captain withheld.

Such was the judgment of the British nation, which in this tense moment cleared itself from all the contumely so soon to be heaped upon its name. The waiting lasted three days. On the fourth, British officers entered the Emperor’s cabin, and laid before him a paper containing the government’s decision. No direct answer had come from the prince regent.

The document was to the effect that it would not be consistent with the government’s duties towards England and her allies to allow General Bonaparte any further opportunity of disturbing the peace of Europe, and it would therefore be necessary to restrain his liberty to “whatever extent may be necessary for securing that first and paramount object.” St. Helena would be his place of residence, as it was healthy, and would admit of a smaller degree of restraint than might be necessary elsewhere. He could take with him three officers, a physician, and twelve servants.

Such was the reply of the modern Xerxes.

Napoleon, we are told, “laid the paper on the table, and, after a pause, began to protest in vigorous terms.” He said:

“I am not a prisoner of war!... I came on board the ‘Bellerophon’ of my own free will, after previous negotiation with the commander. I threw myself on your protection, and claimed the rights of hospitality. The tricolour was still waving over Rochefort and Bordeaux. I might have gone back to the army; or might for years have lived secretly among the people, who were devoted to me.

“Instead, I came to this country as a private person. I asked the commander of one of your warships whether he was disposed to take me and my train to England. He told me he had orders to this effect from his government. If I have fallen into a trap, your government has acted dishonourably and has dishonoured your flag.... St. Helena will kill me in three months. I am used to riding twenty leagues a day. What can I do on a little rock at the world’s end? I will not go!... If your government wishes to kill me, that can be done here.... I gave the prince regent an opportunity of performing the finest action of his life. I have been the greatest of his country’s foes, and I paid you the highest compliment in the world by voluntarily entrusting myself to your protection.... What you are proposing will be an everlasting disgrace to the whole British nation!”

The most characteristic point in this protest, which he renews in writing, is the moral indignation with which it thrills. International law is but lightly touched upon, for what he claims is a hero’s right. Such were the words spoken in the heat of the moment, in that small cabin, to the officers who had brought him notice of his doom, and who subsequently recorded them for posterity. Though spoken in haste, they have a historical ring and some of the sentences are modelled for imperishability. A soul has been wounded, a soul that is mourning, not so much on account of its own loss of freedom, as because the world fails to recognise greatness.

Thus, in the first moment of his doom, he recognises that which, a century later, cannot be more profoundly expressed by the great grandchildren of the men of those days, who have been brought up on contemplation of the legend of Napoleon’s career. Themistocles feels that he has been betrayed. Once again, one of these legitimate princes has failed to seize the opportunity of performing the finest action of his life. A man void of imagination, a weakling in possession of brute force, he crushed the great and splendid thing which has fallen into his hands.

But from under the brutal pressure of this fist, the spirit of what he is crushing rises in a tenuous column. He upon whom the doom is enforced has acquired a power over himself, a power which sustains him in his powerlessness—stoicism. After the first outbreak, he bears the injustice with indomitable firmness, enduring for ten days the indignity of his position at Plymouth, and unruffled while England seizes his baggage and his money.

In due course, the Emperor and his companions were transferred to the “Northumberland,” which set sail for St. Helena. It was on an August morning that, for the last time, Napoleon set eyes on the coast of France, looming through the mist. But what did he care about the coast? The centre of his interest lay many miles to the eastward—Paris, which he had wooed more hotly than all the rest of the world, Paris, which had rejected his suit.

By evening, he loses sight of Europe, which he has ruled. Darkling is the sea, which he has never been able to rule. He stands in the bows, not looking backwards, nor forwards either. As on the voyage to Egypt, he looks upwards towards the stars. He is seeking his own star.

A great saga is drawing to its close.