Napoleon

Front matter

NAPOLEON.

NAPOLEON

BY

Chapter 1

NAPOLEON.

CHAPTER I.

TAINE'S PORTRAIT.

I begin the series of portraits by giving that of Taine. It is the most finished and the most powerful. Indeed, I know scarcely any portrait in literature in which there is more dazzling literary skill; but it is a portrait by an avowed and a bitter enemy. It is too peremptory and too consistent; above all, it is a portrait drawn by what I may call a literary absolutist—the artist who insists that human figures should follow the rigidity of a philosopher's scientific rules.

I.

NAPOLEON AN ITALIAN.

The first point which Taine brings out is that this mighty despot, who ruled France as she had never been ruled before, was not even a Frenchman. Not only in blood and in birth, but in feeling he was an Italian. He remained, in some respects, an Italian all his life. In Taine's eyes, too, he is not only an Italian, but an Italian of the Middle Ages. "He belongs," says Taine, "to another race and another epoch." And then, in a series of wonderful passages, Taine traces back the heritage of Napoleon to those men and those times. "The man-plant," says Alfieri, "is in no country born more vigorous than in Italy," "and never," goes on Taine, "in Italy was it so vigorous as from 1300 to 1500, from the contemporaries of Dante down to those of Michael Angelo, Caesar Borgia, Julius II., and Macchiavelli." In those times great personalities fought for crowns, money, and life at one cast, and when they succeeded, established a government remarkable for splendour, order, and firmness. This was the period of great adventurers—great in battle, great in council, great in courage, great in imagination, great in their love of the arts. All these qualities are reproduced in Napoleon.

"He is," says Taine, "a posthumous brother of Dante and Michael Angelo; in the clear outlines of his vision, in the intensity, coherence, and inward logic of his reverie, in the profundity of his meditations, in the superhuman grandeur of his conceptions, he is, indeed, their fellow and their equal. His genius is of the same stature and the same structure; he is one of the three sovereign minds of the Italian Renaissance, only, while the first two operated on paper and on marble, the latter operates on the living being, on the sensitive and suffering flesh of humanity."

II.

HIS ITALIAN TEMPERAMENT.

Analysing Napoleon's temperament, Taine also finds that it belongs to another race and another epoch. "Three hundred years of police and of courts of justice," "of social discipline and peaceful habits," "have diminished the force and violence of the passions natural to men," but in Italy, at the period of the Renaissance, those passions were still intact.

"Human emotions at that time were keener and more profound than at the present day; the appetites were ardent and more unbridled; man's will was more impetuous and more tenacious; whatever motive inspired him, whether pride, ambition, jealousy, hatred, love, envy, or sensuality, the inward spring strained with an energy and relaxed with a violence that has now disappeared. All these energies reappear in the great survivor of the fifteenth century; in him the play of the nervous machine is the same as with his Italian ancestors. Never was there, even among the Malatestas or Borgias, a more sensitive and impulsive intellect, more capable of such electric shocks and explosions, in which the roar and flashes of the tempest lasted longer, and of which the effects were more irresistible. In his mind no idea seems speculative and pure; none is a simple transcript of the real, or a simple picture of the possible; each is an internal eruption, which suddenly and spontaneously spends itself in action; each darts forth to its goal, and would reach it without stopping were it not kept back and restrained by force."

Of this Italian explosiveness of nature, Taine gives scores of examples. This conception of Napoleon's character differs fundamentally from many of our preconceived notions; and from the idea of himself which Napoleon was able to convey in public and to all who did not know him intimately during his lifetime. "The public and the army regarded him as impassive;" in his battles "he wears a mask of bronze;" in "official ceremonies he wears a necessarily dignified air;" and in most pictures of him which I have seen, one gets the impression of a profoundly immutable calm. But the real Napoleon was altogether different from this. A more sensitive, restless, irritable nature never existed. His emotions are so rapid that they intercept each other, and emotion irresistibly compels immediate action.

"Impression and expression with him are almost always confounded, the inward overflowing in the outward, the action, like a blow, getting the better of him."

"At Paris, towards the end of the Concordat, he says to Senator Volney, 'France wants a religion.' Volney replies, in a frank, sententious way, 'France wants the Bourbons.' Whereupon he gives Volney a kick in the stomach, and he falls unconscious. On his being conveyed to a friend's house he remains there ill for several days. No man is more irritable, so soon in a passion, and all the more because he purposely gives way to his irritation; for, doing this just at the right moment, and especially before witnesses, it strikes terror—it enables him to extort concessions and maintain obedience; while his explosions of anger, half calculated, half involuntary, serve him quite as much as they relieve him, in public as in private, with strangers as with intimates, before constituted bodies, with the Pope, with cardinals, with ambassadors, with Talleyrand, with Beugnot, with anybody that comes along, whenever he wishes to set an example or 'keep the people around him on the alert.

His unfortunate wife is one of the greatest victims of this violence, and even at the moment when she has most right to complain.

"At St. Cloud, caught by Josephine in an act of gallantry, he springs after the unlucky intruder in such a way that she has barely time to escape; and, again, that evening, keeping up his fury, so as to put her down completely, 'he treats her in the most outrageous manner, smashing every piece of furniture that comes in his way.

And here is another example of the way in which he treats his Ministers.

"A little before the Empire, Talleyrand, a great mystifier, tells Berthier that the First Consul wanted to assume the title of king. Berthier, in eager haste, crosses the drawing-room full of company, accosts the master of the house, and, with a beaming smile, 'congratulates him.' At the word 'king' Bonaparte's eyes flash. Grasping Berthier by the throat, he pushes his head against a wall, exclaiming, 'You fool! Who told you to come here and stir up my bile in this way? Another time don't come on such errands.' Such is the first impulse, the instinctive action, to pounce on people and seize them by the throat. We divine under each sentence, and on every page he writes, outbursts and assaults of this description; the physiognomy and intonation of a man who rushes forward and knocks people down."

III.

IN DÉSHABILLE.

And then there come some striking pictures of Napoleon in his study and his dressing-room—where we see him in déshabille and as the natural man. It is not a pleasant picture—indeed, the whole impression one gets from this study of Napoleon is brutal, revolting.

"When dictating in his cabinet he strides up and down the room,' and 'if excited,' which is often the case, 'his language consists of violent imprecations and oaths, which are suppressed in what is written.' But these are not always suppressed, and those who have seen the original minutes of his correspondence on ecclesiastical affairs find dozens of them of the coarsest kind. . . .

"When dressing himself, he throws on the floor or into the fire any part of his attire which does not suit him. . . . On gala days, and on grand ceremonial occasions, his valets are obliged to agree together when they shall seize the right moment to put something on him. . . . He tears off or breaks whatever causes him the slightest discomfort, while the poor valet who has been the cause of it receives a violent and positive proof of his anger. No thought was ever carried away more by its own speed. 'His hand-writing,' when he tries to write, 'is a mass of disconnected and undecipherable signs; the words lack one half of their letters.' On reading it over himself he cannot tell what it means. At last he becomes almost incapable of writing an autograph letter, while his signature is a mere scrawl. He accordingly dictates, but so fast that his secretaries can scarcely keep pace with him. On their first attempt the perspiration flows freely, and they succeed in noting down only the half of what he says. Bourrienne, De Méneval, and Maret invent a stenography of their own, for he never repeats any of his sentences; so much the worse for the pen if it lags behind, and so much the better if a volley of exclamations or of oaths give it a chance to catch up."

IV.

HIS ITALIAN LOQUACITY.

One generally associates extraordinary military genius with taciturnity; and there is also a disposition to regard reticence as an inevitable accompaniment of great force of will, and of genius in action. There are many good people who really think that Mr. Gladstone cannot be regarded as a man of genius in action for the reason that he has talked so much throughout his life. A study of Napoleon will dissipate this idea; never was there a talker so incessant, so impetuous, so daring. Here, again, his Italian origin reveals itself. Italy is the land of improvisation, and over and over again Taine applies to Napoleon the Italian term "improvisatore." This is his description, for instance, of Napoleon speaking at a Ministerial Council:—

"Never did speech flow and overflow in such torrents, often without either discretion or prudence, even when the outburst is neither useful nor creditable; subject to this inward pressure the improvisator and polemic, under full headway, take the place of the man of business and the statesman. 'With him,' says a good observer, 'talking is a prime necessity; and, assuredly, among the highest prerogatives, he ranks first that of speaking without interruption.' Even at the Council of State he allows himself to run on, forgetting the business before the meeting; he starts off right and left with some digression or demonstration, some invective or other for two or three hours at a stretch, insisting over and over again, bent on convincing or prevailing, and ending by demanding of the others if he is not right, 'and in this case, never failing to find that all have yielded to the force of his argument.' On reflection he knows the value of an assent thus obtained, and, pointing to his chair, he observes: 'It must be admitted that in that seat one thinks with facility!' Nevertheless, he has enjoyed his intellectual exercise and given way to his passion, which controls him far more than he controls it."

V.

AND HIS SENSIBILITY.

It is, however, one of the contradictions of this extraordinary character, that he has moments of intense and almost ingenuous sensibility. "He who has looked upon thousands of dying men, and has had thousands of men slaughtered, sobs after Wagram and after Bautzen at the couch of a dying comrade." "I saw him," says his valet, "weep while eating his breakfast, after coming from Marshal Lannes' bedside; big tears rolled down his cheeks, and fell on his plate."

"It is not alone the physical sensation, the sight of a bleeding, mangled body, which thus moves him acutely and deeply; for a word, a simple idea, stings and penetrates almost as far. Before the emotion of Dandolo, who pleads for Venice his country, which is sold to Austria, he is agitated and his eyes moisten. Speaking of the capitulation of Baylen, at a full meeting of the Council of State, his voice trembles, 'and he gives way to his grief, his eyes even filling with tears.' In 1806, setting out for the army and on taking leave of Josephine, he has a nervous attack, which is so severe as to bring on vomiting. 'We had to make him sit down.' says an eye-witness, 'and swallow some orange water. He shed tears, and this lasted a quarter of an hour. The same nervous crisis came on in 1808, when he was deciding on the divorce. "He tosses about a whole night, and laments like a woman. He melts and embraces Josephine; he is weaker than she is. 'My poor Josephine, I can never leave you!' Folding her in his arms, he declares that she shall not quit him. He abandons himself wholly to the sensation of the moment; she must undress at once, and lie beside him, and he weeps over her; 'literally,' she says, 'he soaked the bed with his tears.

VI.

HIS MOMENTS OF COWARDICE.

It is also this extreme sensibility which accounts for those few moments of abject cowardice that stand out in the career of one of the most fearless human beings who ever lived. He himself has always the dread that there would be a breakdown in the nervous system—a loss of balance. "My nerves," he says of himself, "are very irritable, and when in this state, were my pulse not always regular, I should risk going crazy." But his pulse does not always beat regularly.

"He is twice taken unawares at times when the peril was alarming and of a new kind. He, so clear-headed and so cool under fire, the boldest of military heroes, and the most audacious of political adventurers, quails twice in a Parliamentary storm, and again in a popular crisis. On the 18th of Brumaire, in the Corps Législatif, 'he turned pale, trembled, and seemed to lose his head at the shouts of outlawry. . . . They had to drag him out . . . they even thought for a moment that he was going to faint.' After the abdication at Fontainebleau, on encountering the rage and imprecations which greeted him in Provence, he seemed for some days to be morally shattered; the animal instinct asserts its supremacy; he is afraid, and makes no attempt of concealment. After borrowing the uniform of an Austrian colonel, the casque of a Prussian quartermaster, and the cloak of a Russian quarter-master, he still considers that he is not sufficiently disguised. In the inn at Calade 'he starts and changes colour at the slightest noise;' the commissioners, who repeatedly enter the room, 'find him always in tears.' 'He wearies them with his anxieties and irresolution;' he says the French Government would like to have him assassinated on the road, refuses to eat for fear of poison, and thinks that he might escape by jumping out of the window. And yet he gives vent to his feelings and lets his tongue run on about himself, without stopping, concerning his past, his character, unreservedly, indelicately, trivially, like a cynic and one who is half crazy. His ideas run loose and crowd each other like the anarchical gatherings of a tumultuous mob; he does not recover his mastery of them until he reaches Fréjus, the end of his journey, where he feels himself safe and protected from any highway assault. Then only do they return within ordinary limits, and fall back in regular line under the control of the sovereign intellect, which after sinking for a time, revives and resumes its ascendency."

This strange, tasteless loquacity of Napoleon—without dignity, self-respect, or decency—is one of the many features in his character which must always be remembered if one wishes to have a clear and full conception of him. I shall, by-and-by, bring out the severer and more sinister aspects of his nature; for a moment let me lay stress on this smaller, and what I might call more frivolous, side of his character; it adds grimness to his more fatal and awful qualities. Some of his sayings at the period to which I have just referred cannot be transferred to the chaste pages of an English book. Taine is justified in speaking of Napoleon as giving under such circumstances "a glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian buffoon;" and it was probably this aspect of his character conjoined to others—this petty buffoonery in association with almost divine genius—which suggested the felicitous title of "Jupiter Scapin," applied to him by M. de Pradt, who knew him well. To this same M. de Pradt Napoleon spoke very plainly after the return of the disastrous and terrible expedition to Russia; in these reflections he appears "in the light of a comedian, who, having played badly and failed in his part, retires behind the scenes, runs down the piece, and criticises the imperfections of the audience." This "piece" which had sent hundreds of thousands to violent death!

VII.

NAPOLEON'S FAMILY.

Napoleon's father, Charles Bonaparte, was weak and even frivolous, "too fond of pleasure to care about his children," or his affairs; he died at thirty-nine of cancer of the stomach—"which seems to be the only bequest he made to his son, Napoleon." His mother was altogether of a different type—a type, too, thoroughly Italian. "Serious, authoritative," she was "the real head of the family." She was, said Napoleon, "hard in her affections; she punished and rewarded without distinction good or bad; she made us all feel it."

On becoming head of the household "she was too parsimonious—even ridiculously so. This was due to excess of foresight on her part; she had known want, and her terrible sufferings were never out of her mind. . . . In other respects this woman, from whom it would have been difficult to extract five francs, would have given up everything to secure my return from Elba, and after Waterloo she offered me all she possessed to retrieve my fortunes."

Other accounts of her agree in saying that she was "unboundedly avaricious;" that she had "no knowledge whatever of the usages of society;" that she was very "ignorant, not alone of 'French' literature but of her own." "The character of the son," says Stendhal, "is to be explained by the perfectly Italian character of Madame Lætitia." From her, too, he inherited his extraordinary courage and resource. She was enceinte with her great son at the very moment of the French invasion, and she gave birth to him "amid the risks of battle and defeat. . . . amidst mountain rides on horseback, nocturnal surprises, and volleys of musketry." "Losses, privations, and fatigue," says Napoleon, "she endured all, and braved all. Hers was a man's head on a woman's shoulders."

The sisters of Napoleon are also remarkable in their way—though, as often happens, what is strength in the men, degenerates in them into self-destructive vice.

"Passion, sensuality, the habit of considering themselves outside of rules, and self-confidence, combined with talent, predominate in these women as in those of the fifteenth century. Elisa, of Tuscany, had a vigorous brain, was high-spirited and a genuine sovereign, notwithstanding the disorders of her private life, in which even appearances were not sufficiently maintained. Caroline of Naples, without being more scrupulous than her sister, 'better observed the proprieties; none of the others so much resembled the Emperor.' 'With her all tastes were subordinated to ambition; 'it was she who advised and prevailed upon her husband, Murat, to desert Napoleon in 1814. As to Pauline, the most beautiful woman of her epoch, 'no wife, since that of the Emperor Claudius, surpassed her in the use she dared make of her charms; nothing could stop her, not even a malady attributed to her dissipation, and on account of which we have often seen her borne on a litter.

This, perhaps, is the most effective and deadliest blow at Napoleon in Taine's terrible indictment. If to this despot had been apportioned the female belongings of a man in, say, Ratcliff Highway, we should know what it implied. It would imply a family of brutal, predatory, foul instincts. The inheritors of such instincts would, in the case of the men, be the denizens of gaols; in the case of the women, would swell the ranks of prostitutes.

It is healthy, though not wholly comforting, to be reminded of the similarity of human nature through the vast differences of human rank and fortunes. To those who are fearless realists like Taine, there is a sombre joy in penetrating through trappings and robes to the naked animal beneath. Reflect for a moment that behind the flowing Imperial robes at the High Altar in Nôtre Dame, there is a nature, which in other circumstances would be clothed in the garment of a violent convict; that these beautiful, delicate, richly-bedizened women, whom Napoleon and chance have placed on thrones, are of the same mould as that brawling drab who is being haled to the prison, or lies, broken and beaten, in the bed of a hospital!

All the brothers of Napoleon were likewise remarkable in their way; and finally, the family picture is completed, and Napoleon's character is also indicated by what Napoleon himself says of one of his uncles. He "delights in calling to mind one of his uncles who, in his infancy, prognosticated to him that he would govern the world because he was fond of lying."

VIII.

NAPOLEON'S BEGINNINGS.

Moody, rancorous, hating the French as the conquerors of his country, Napoleon as a youth looked on the events of the French Revolution with the detachment of a foreigner. In 1792, when the struggle between the monarchists and the revolutionists was at its height, he tries to find "some successful speculation," and thinks he will hire and sub-let houses at a profit. On June 20 in the same year he sees the invasion of the Tuileries, and the King at a window placing the red cap on his head. "Che Coglione!" (What a cuckold!) he exclaims, and immediately after, "How could they let the rabble enter! Mow down 400 or 500 of them with cannon-balls, and the rest of them would run away."

"On August 10, when the tocsin is sounding, he regards the people and the King with equal contempt; he rushes to a friend's house on the Carrousel, and there, still as a looker-on, views at his ease all the occurrences of the day; finally the Château is forced, and he strolls through the Tuileries, looks in at the neighbouring cafes, and that is all. He is not disposed to take sides; he has no Jacobin or Royalist impulse. His features, even, are so calm as to provoke many hostile and distrustful remarks, 'as unknown and suspicious.' None of the political or social conditions which then exercised such control over men's minds have any hold on him. . . . On returning to Paris, after having knocked at several doors, he takes Barras for a patron Barras, the most brazen of the corrupt; Barras, who has overthrown and contrived the death of his two former protectors. Among the contending parties and fanaticisms which succeed each other, he keeps cool and free to dispose of himself as he pleases, indifferent to every cause, and caring only for his own interest. On the evening of the 12th of Vendémiaire, on leaving the Feydeau Theatre, and noticing the preparations of the Sections, he said to Junot: 'Ah, if the Sections would only let me lead them! I would guarantee to place them in the Tuileries in two hours, and have all those rascals of the Convention turned out!' Five hours later, denounced by Barras and the Convention, he takes 'three minutes' to make up his mind, and instead of 'blowing up the representatives,' he shoots down Parisians like any other good condottiere, who, holding himself in reserve, inclines to the first that offers, and then to whoso offers the most, prepared to back out afterwards, and who finally grabs anything he can get."

And it is as a condottiere that Taine regards Napoleon to the end. From this point of view he surveys his whole career, and here is the result of the inspection:

"He is like a condottiere, that is to say, a leader of a band, getting more and more independent, pretending to submit under the pretext of public good, looking out solely for his own interest, centreing all on himself, general on his own account and for his own advantage in his Italian campaign before and after the 18th of Fructidor. Still he was a condottiere of the first class, already aspiring to the loftiest summits, 'with no stopping-place but the throne or the scaffold,' 'determined to master France, and Europe through France, ever occupied with his own plans, and demanding only three hours' sleep a night'; making playthings of ideas, people, religions, and governments; managing mankind with incomparable dexterity and brutality; in the choice of means, as of ends, a superior artist, inexhaustible in prestige, seduction, corruption, and intimidation; wonderful, and far more terrible than any wild beast suddenly turned on to a herd of browsing cattle. The expression is not too strong, and was uttered by an eye- witness almost at this very date, a friend and a competent diplomat.' You know that, though I am very fond of the dear General, I call him myself the little tiger, so as to properly characterise his looks, tenacity, and courage, the rapidity of his movements, and all that he has in him which may be fairly regarded in that sense.

IX.

HIS POWER OF COMMAND.

Poor, forlorn, discontented, at first sight insignificant in figure, and without any employment, Napoleon in these early days might have been passed by without much notice. But it is a singular thing that the moment he attains any position, people at once, involuntarily, even strongly against their will, recognise and bow down before his calmly arrogant capacity. There are, for instance, two portraits of him at the period in his existence just following that to which we have now reached, and both give the same impression—the one is by Madame de Staël, and is in words; the other is by Guérin, a truthful painter. Madame de Staël meets him at a time when, having gained some victories, she and the public generally are sympathetic towards him; and yet, she says, "the recovery from the first excitement of admiration was followed by a decided sense of apprehension." He had then no power, and might any day be dismissed, and "thus the terror he inspired was simply due to the singular effect of his person on all who approach him."

"I had met men worthy of respect, and had likewise met men of ferocious character; but nothing in the impression which Bonaparte produced on me reminded me of either. . . . A being like him, wholly unlike anybody else, could neither feel nor excite sympathy; he was both more and less than a man; his figure, intellect, and language bore the impress of a foreign nationality. . . . Far from being reassured on seeing Bonaparte oftener, he intimidated one more and more every day. . . . He regards a human being as a fact, an object, and not as a fellow-creature. He neither hates nor loves: he exists for himself alone; the rest of humanity are merely ciphers. . . . Every time that I heard him talk, I was struck with his superiority. It bore no resemblance to that of men informed and cultivated through study and social intercourse, such as we find in France and England; his conversation concerned the material fact only, like that of the hunter in pursuit of his prey. His spirit seemed a cold, keen sword-blade, which freezes while it wounds. I realised a profound sense of irony which nothing great or beautiful could withstand, not even his own fame, for he despised the nation whose suffrages he sought."

X.

AN EARLY PORTRAIT.

And now, here is Taine's description of the Guérin portrait:—

"Now, notice in Guérin, that spare body, those narrow shoulders under the uniform wrinkled by sudden movements, the neck swathed in its high twisted cravat, those temples covered by long, smooth, straight hair, exposing only the mask, the hard features intensified through strong contrasts of light and shade, the cheeks hollow up to the inner angle of the eye, the projecting cheekbones, the massive protuberant jaw, the sinuous, mobile lips, pressed together as if attentive, the large clear eyes, deeply sunk under the broad arched eyebrows, the fixed oblique look, as penetrating as a rapier, and the two creases which extend from the base of the nose to the brow, as if in a frown of suppressed anger and determined will."

"Add to this the accounts of his contemporaries who saw or heard the curt accent, or the sharp, abrupt gesture, the interrogating, imperious, absolute tone of voice, and we comprehend how it was that the moment they accosted him, they felt the dominating hand which seized them, pressed them down, held them firmly, never relaxing its grasp."

Admiral Decrès, who had known him well in Paris, learns that he has to pass through Toulon on his way to take up the command of the army in Italy. He rushes to see an old acquaintance:—

I at once propose to my comrades to introduce them, venturing to do so on the grounds of my acquaintance with him in Paris. Full of eager ness and joy, I started off. The door opened, I am about to press forward,' he afterwards wrote, 'when the attitude, the look, and the tone of voice suffice to arrest me. And yet there was nothing offensive about him; still this was enough. I never tried after that to overstep the line thus imposed upon me.' A few days later, at Alberga, certain generals of division, and amongst them Augereau, a vulgar, heroic old soldier, vain of his tall figure and courage, arrive at head-quarters, not well disposed towards the little parvenu sent out to them from Paris. Recalling the description of him which had been given to them, Augereau is abusive and insubordinate beforehand: