NAPOLEON
Napoleon went forth to seek Virtue, but, since she was not to
be found, he got Power.—GOETHE.
NAPOLEON
[Illustration]
_By_
EMIL LUDWIG
_Translated by_
EDEN _and_ CEDAR PAUL
NEW YORK
BONI & LIVERIGHT
1926
Copyright, 1926, by
BONI AND LIVERIGHT, INC.
First Printing, December, 1926
Second Printing, January, 1927
Third Printing, January, 1927
Fourth Printing, March, 1927
Fifth Printing, May, 1927
Sixth Printing, July, 1927
Seventh Printing, September, 1927
Eighth Printing, November, 1927
Ninth Printing, December, 1927
Tenth Printing, December, 1927
Eleventh Printing, January, 1928
Twelfth Printing, January, 1928
Thirteenth Printing, March, 1928
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC.
RAHWAY, N. J.
_To_
ELGA LUDWIG
_Moscia. Summer 1924_
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xi
BOOK ONE
THE ISLAND 3
BOOK TWO
THE TORRENT 55
BOOK THREE
THE RIVER 165
BOOK FOUR
THE SEA 357
BOOK FIVE
THE ROCK 545
ENVOY 679
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 683
INDEX 685
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Buonaparte in 1783. The first known portrait, drawn by his
fellow-countryman Pontornini. Musée Nationale, Versailles 4
General Bonaparte in 1797. After a painting by Jean Guérin.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 36
(From the “Corpus Imaginum” of the Photographic Society,
Charlottenburg.)
General Bonaparte in 1796. Engraving from the Kircheisen
Collection 68
General Bonaparte. Unfinished portrait by Jacques Louis David.
From the collection of the Duke of Bassano 100
(Photograph by Braun, Paris and Dornach.)
General Bonaparte in 1797. Drawing by Wocher in Basle. Town
Library, Basle 140
General Bonaparte in 1798, during the voyage to Egypt. Sketch
by André Dutertre 156
Bonaparte as First Consul. Painting by Girodet. Musée Nationale,
Versailles 196
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
Bonaparte as First Consul. Pencil sketch by J. D. A. Ingres.
Germain Bapst Collection 228
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
Bonaparte in 1802, as First Consul. Engraving by Alexandre
Tardieu. After a drawing by Jean Baptiste Isabey 260
Bonaparte as First Consul. Painting by J. D. A. Ingres. Musée
de Liége 292
(Photograph by Braun, Paris and Dornach.)
The Coronation. Detail from the picture by Jacques Louis David.
Louvre, Paris 324
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
Napoleon as Emperor. Painting by Vigneux. Count Primoli Collection 356
(From the “Corpus Imaginum” of the Photographic Society,
Charlottenburg.)
Napoleon as Emperor. Bust by Houdon, Musée de Dijon 388
(Photograph by J. E. Bulloz, Paris.)
The Emperor’s profile. Sketched during Mass in the Tuileries.
Germain Bapst Collection 420
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)
Napoleon as Emperor in 1809. Woodcut from a medal by J. P. Droz 452
Napoleon as Emperor. Engraving by Bourgeois, after a painting
by Jacques Louis David 484
(From the “Corpus Imaginum” of the Photographic Society,
Charlottenburg.)
Napoleon as Emperor in 1814. Painting by Horace Vernet. Tate
Gallery, London 516
(From the “Corpus Imaginum” of the Photographic Society,
Charlottenburg.)
Napoleon as Emperor in 1815. Engraving by Robert Lefèvre, after
a painting by Muneret 548
Napoleon as Emperor in 1815. Woodcut, after a medal 580
Napoleon at St. Helena. Watercolour painting, probably by
a Japanese, with a marginal inscription in Chinese
ideographs concerning the owner. Broadley Collection 612
Death mask of Napoleon. By Dr. Antommarchi 644
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
BOOK ONE
1769. August 15th, Napoleon born.
1779. At School in Brienne.
1784. At the military academy.
1785. Sub-lieutenant of artillery.
1789. To Corsica.
1791. April, lieutenant in Valence.
October, to Corsica.
1792. Putsch in Ajaccio. Banishment.
1793. Captain. Siege of Toulon.
1794. February, brigadier general.
August, arrested.
1795. June, at the Ministry for War.
October, suppression of the Paris rising.
Commander of the Army of the Interior.
1796. March 2nd, Commander of the Army of Italy.
March 6th, married to Josephine Beauharnais.
BOOK TWO
1796-7. Battles of Millesimo, Castiglione, Arcola, Rivoli, Mantua.
1797. At the castle of Montebello.
Peace of Campo Formio.
1798. In Paris till May.
May 19th, embarcation for Egypt.
Battle of the Pyramids.
1799. Jaffa, Acre, Aboukir.
October 7th, landing in France.
November 9th, coup d’état of the eighteenth Brumaire.
December 24th, First Consul.
BOOK THREE
1800. June 14th, battle of Marengo.
December 24th, attempted assassination.
1801. Peace of Lunéville.
Concordat with Pius VII.
1802. Peace with England.
Consul for life. Legion of Honour.
1804. March 21st, duke of Enghien shot.
May 18th, assumption of imperial title.
December 2nd, coronation.
1805. October, Trafalgar.
November, Vienna taken.
December 2nd, battle of Austerlitz.
Peace of Pressburg.
1806. Confederation of the Rhine. Joseph, King of Naples.
Louis, King of Holland.
October 14th, battle of Jena.
Berlin. Continental System.
1807. Battles of Preussisch-Eylau and Friedland.
June 7th, treaty of Tilsit.
Jerome, King of Westphalia.
1808. Rome. Madrid. Bayonne. Joseph, King of Spain. Murat, King of
Naples.
1809. Excommunication. Battles of Aspern-Essling, Wagram, and Vienna.
1810. January, divorce.
April, married to Marie Louise.
1811. March 20th, birth of his son.
BOOK FOUR
1812. Battles of Smolensk, Borodino, Vittoria, Moscow.
December, return to Paris.
1813. April, battles of Lützen and Bautzen.
July, battle of Dresden.
October 16th to 18th, battle of Leipzig.
1814. Battles of Brienne, La Rothière, Champaubert, Montereau,
Bas-sur-Aube, Laon, Arcis-sur-Aube.
April 6th, abdication in Fontainebleau.
April 20th, embarcation for Elba.
1815. February 26th, sails from Elba.
March 13th, outlawed.
March 20th, Paris.
June, battles of Ligny and Waterloo.
June 23rd, second abdication.
July 13th, letter to the prince regent.
July 31st, declared a prisoner.
BOOK FIVE
1815. October 17th, arrival in St. Helena.
1821. May 5th, death.
BOOK ONE
THE ISLAND
The story of Napoleon produces on me an impression like that
produced by the Revelation of Saint John the Divine. We all
feel there must be something more in it, but we do not know
what.—GOETHE.
I
A young woman is sitting in a tent. Wrapped in a shawl, she is suckling
her baby, and listening to a distant rumbling and roaring. Are they still
shooting, though night has fallen? Maybe it is only the sound of one of
those autumn thunderstorms whose echoes reverberate from the mountains;
or perhaps it is nothing more than the murmur from the surrounding forest
of pines and evergreen oaks, where foxes and wild swine have their lairs.
She looks like a gipsy, sitting there with her white breast half covered
by the shawl, brooding within the murky tent, uncertain what the fate of
the day may have been. Now she hears the sound of hoof-beats. Is it he?
He promised to come; but it is a long way from the fighting line, and the
mists are rising.
The flap of the tent is thrown open, letting in a breath of night air.
A man enters. An officer in a coloured tunic and wearing a plumed
head-dress; a slim fellow, nimble of movement; a young patrician, in the
middle twenties. He greets the woman ardently. Springing to her feet,
she gives the nursling to her maid. Wine is brought. Taking the kerchief
from her head, she stands before him, showing chestnut ringlets astray
on a smooth, white brow. An eager question is on her well-shaped lips.
Add to the picture that she has a long chin, a sign of energy; that her
aquiline nose is thrown into relief by the firelight; and that on her hip
there gleams the dagger which in this mountain land she never lays aside.
We see a lovely amazon, daughter of an ancient race, sprung from men of
action and resolution. The woman’s forebears, like the man’s, have for
centuries been leaders and warriors; first across the water in Italy, and
then in this craggy island.
But now, when all have gathered together against the hated enemy, have
joined forces in the attempt to drive out the French, here, in the
wildest part of the mountains, whither the brave girl of nineteen has
followed the husband fighting for their fatherland; who, now, could
recognise in her the brilliant patrician, the magnet of all eyes? Here,
nothing but pride and courage show that she is of noble birth.
The man, full of life and vigour, ever in movement, tells her all his
news. The enemy has been beaten, driven back towards the coast. There is
no escape. Envoys have been sent to Paoli.
“There will be a truce to-morrow. Letizia, we are winning! Corsica will
be free!”
Every Corsican longs for many children. It is a land where an affront is
instantly avenged by a dagger thrust; where the vendetta is sacred; where
family feuds last from decade to decade and from century to century. The
man before us wants many children, to ensure that his race shall persist;
and the woman has learned from mother and grandmother that children are
tokens of honour. She had become a mother at fifteen; but the baby she
has just been nursing was her first boy.
The thought of freedom glows afresh, for the officer is adjutant to
Paoli, the leader of the people.
“No longer shall our children be the slaves of France!”
II
With the coming of spring, despondency prevails. The enemy has landed
reinforcements; the children of the island take up arms once more; again
the young wife accompanies her husband to the war; this time she carries
a child beneath her heart, the child conceived during the storms of the
previous autumn.
“Often, in search of news, I would steal forth from our mountain nook to
the battle-field; I heard the bullets whistling, but I put my trust in
Our Lady”—so she would tell the story in later years.
[Illustration: Buonaparte in 1783. The first known portrait, drawn by his
fellow-countryman Pontornini. Musée Nationale, Versailles.]
In May, the Corsicans were defeated. There was a terrible retreat
through the dense forests and the rugged mountains. Among the multitude
of men and the few women, rode Letizia, big with child, carrying her
one-year-old boy in her arms, seated on a mule. They reached the coast
safely. In June the defeated Paoli, accompanied by a few hundred of his
faithful followers, had to flee to Italy. In July Paoli’s adjutant,
Letizia’s husband, with other envoys, capitulated to the conqueror. The
insular pride was humbled. But in August his wife brought the avenger
into the world.
She named him Napolione.
This woman, who during the campaign had played the heroine and had
shown a man’s courage, must now, in the great house by the seashore,
become a prudent and thrifty housewife. Her young husband, fanciful by
temperament, lived more on plans than on income. For years his energies
were mainly devoted to the great lawsuit concerning his inheritance.
As a student in Pisa, where among his fellows he was known as Count
Buonaparte, he had lived well but learned little. After the birth of
his second son, he cut his studies short. How was he to make a living?
In troublous times, a man of the world takes the world as it is; comes
to terms with the conqueror; all the more since the French, in order to
secure their footing in the island, are inclined to show favour to the
Corsican nobility.
Soon he becomes assessor in the new law-courts; superintendent of a
nursery in which the king of France, eager to turn the new possessions to
account, wishes to grow mulberries; and when the distinguished marshal
comes to stay, no expense must be spared. There are still flocks of sheep
in the hills and vineyards along the coast; his brother, archdeacon
at the cathedral, is well-to-do; and his wife’s half brother, another
priest, a merchant’s son, is skilled in worldly affairs.
By the time his proud and beautiful wife has reached her thirties, five
boys and three girls have been born to her. This is well accordant to the
notions of the islanders, for whom rivalries and vendettas are supreme
virtues. But the rearing of eight children is a costly matter; so, day
by day, the youngsters hear their parents talking about money. At length,
however, the father finds a way out of his difficulties. Accompanied by
his two eldest sons, now ten and eleven years of age, he sails to France,
and journeys from Toulon to Versailles.
He brings recommendations from the marshal in Corsica. The Buonapartes’
Italian title of nobility is confirmed by the Herald’s College in
Paris. To the Corsican official who has been loyal for a decade, King
Louis makes a grant of two thousand francs. The two sons and one of the
daughters are given scholarships in the Nobles’ Schools. One son is to be
a priest; the other, an officer.
III
A taciturn boy, small, shy, and lonely, sits reading in a corner of the
garden. It is his own plot in the school garden at Brienne, and he has
made a fence round it. Really, only a third of the enclosure is his
own, for he has fenced in the plots of neighbours on either side. They
may come in too; but woe to any one else who disturbs his privacy! He
rushes furiously at the intruder. A little while ago, when the boys had
had a fireworks’ display, two of his schoolmates, who had been slightly
burned, had run away to his garden for refuge. He had driven them out,
flourishing a hoe at them.
No punishment will bring him to reason in this matter. The masters shake
their heads and let him go his own way.
“The youngster is made of granite,” says one of them, “but there is a
volcano inside.”
No one may touch this little kingdom of his in the garden, though part of
it is usurped. He has an ardent feeling for his own independence. Writing
to his father, he says: “I would rather be the first among the workmen
in a factory than the last among the artists in the Academy.” Did he get
the idea out of Plutarch? Certainly he has an enthusiasm for that author,
the lives of the great men as sketched by Plutarch, especially the Roman
heroes. Of these, he is always dreaming. No one tells us that he ever saw
this boy laugh.
To his schoolfellows he seems half a savage, or at best a queer
foreigner. He knows scarcely a word of French, and has little inclination
to learn the language of the foe. What a tiny little chap he is, and what
a ridiculous name! His coat is too long. No pocket-money, nothing to
spend, and yet he claims to be of noble birth! The scions of the French
nobility laugh. Who cares about Corsican noblemen?
“If you Corsicans are such brave fellows, why did you let yourselves be
beaten by our unconquerable troops?”
“We were one to ten,” the lad angrily exclaims. “You just wait till I’m
grown up, and I will pay you Frenchmen out!”
“Your father is nothing more than a sergeant, after all!”
An outburst of wrath from the boy, who challenges his tormentor. The
young Napoleon is “kept in.” He writes to his father: “I am tired of
explaining my poverty; of having to endure the mockery of these foreign
boys, whose only superiority is in respect of money, for in nobility of
feeling they are far beneath me. Must I really humble myself before these
purse-proud fellows?” The answer from the island is: “We have no money.
You must stay where you are.”
He stays five years; and, just as his revolutionary feeling is
intensified by every slight, so does his self-confidence grow
proportionally with the growth of his contempt for his fellows. The
masters, indeed, monks one and all, have a good opinion of him, although
he does not make much headway except in mathematics, history, and
geography—subjects which appeal to a precise mind, a seeing eye, and
also to the bitterness of spirit characteristic of one who belongs to a
conquered race.
For always his thoughts turn back to his native island. In secret, he is
angry with his father for having come to terms with the French. He has
made up his own mind. He will get all he can out of the king at whose
cost he now pursues his studies, so that in due time he may use the
knowledge against his patron. He has a presentiment that some day he will
set Corsica free. As yet all the lad of fourteen can do is to pore over
books about his homeland, for he who would make history must first study
history. He devours, too, all that Voltaire, Rousseau, and the great
king of Prussia shortly before his death, have written on behalf of the
liberation of Corsica.
Such a boy as this—solitary, suspicious, questing and rebellious,
brooding rancorously over vast designs—what is he likely to become?
Precociously thoughtful; endowed with a knowledge of men that is beyond
his years. When Joseph, his elder brother, wishes to abandon the priestly
career and to adopt the profession of arms, the youngster writes of him:
“1. He lacks courage to brave the perils of the battle-field.—He will
be a good garrison officer: well-grown and handsome, quick-witted and
therefore inclined to pay frivolous compliments, with his talents he
will always make a good impression in society. But in battle? 2. ’Tis
too late to make a change. He might have got a rich benefice, and what
an advantage that would have been to the family! 3. What branch of the
service will he enter? The navy? (a) He knows nothing of mathematics;
(b) his health could never endure life at sea. He is too light-minded
for the sustained work that will be needed if he is to be an artillery
officer.” These are the reflections of a fifteen-year-old observer, who
sees in himself the qualities that his brother lacks; and it is a perfect
description of Joseph, who was, indeed, his father’s son.
From this same father, Napoleon had inherited versatility and a vigorous
imagination; from his mother came pride, courage, and accuracy; from both
was derived his strong family feeling.
IV
“Only the sword-belt belongs to France; the edge is my own,” thinks
the youth, as he first buckles on his sword. At sixteen he has become
a sub-lieutenant—and he will don uniform a good many more times before
he dies. He has qualified for this rank by a year in the Paris Cadets’
School, where he spent his time as he had spent it at Brienne, poring
over books. A lad of Spartan tastes, he finds the prodigal expenditure
of the sprigs of the French nobility (by whom he is utterly outshone)
extremely distasteful. Since, however, nature sets him, even more than
most young men, in the centre of his own world, he makes a virtue of
necessity, and pens a memorial to the effect that luxurious living is
unsuitable for budding soldiers. He must not get into debt, for he
knows how poor they are at home. Now, when his father dies, the family
affection of this Italian becomes intensified. Though little more than a
boy, he begins to save money in order to help his mother.
After his examination, passed with fair credit, his superiors wrote
of him: “Reserved and diligent, he prefers study to any kind of
conversation, and nourishes his mind upon good authors.... He is
taciturn, with a love for solitude; is moody, overbearing, and extremely
egotistical. Though he speaks little, his answers are decisive and to
the point, and he excels in argument. Much self-love, and overweening
ambition.”
Clad in his new uniform, the little sub-lieutenant goes to join his
regiment at Valence, compelled by his poverty to walk a great part of the
way. Three impulses stir his youthful heart: to despise and make use of
his fellow-creatures, most of whom are empty-headed and pretentious; to
extricate himself from the clutches of poverty; to learn much in order
that he may rule others. The means and the goal are one. He is to be a
leader in the struggle on the island, and then to make himself master of
Corsica.
How dull life is in this garrison town! Of course, a young man should
learn to dance, should taste the pleasures of lively society. He tries
this, but soon abandons the attempt, for his teeming pride makes him want
to hide his poverty. However, any one who holds converse with members
of the burgher class, lawyers and shopkeepers, hears strange talk, gets
wind of things that the young viscounts in Paris never dream of. Is it
really true? Has the spirit of Voltaire’s and Montesquieu’s, and Raynal’s
writings actually climbed down so soon, to stalk among the provincial
petty bourgeois? Is the movement which these prophets were conjuring up
now seriously afoot? Can it be that the revolution is at hand?
Books clamour it abroad. Reading is free as breathing; and when a man
has read all the books in the lending library, he can spare a franc or
two now and again to buy a new book. True, the youth lodges in a café,
and the clicking of the billiard balls in the next room is tiresome.
But it would be still more tiresome to move. In personal habits, he is
conservative.
What about his sentiments? Judge for yourselves. Like every young man
of his generation, he is keenly interested in the State and society.
There he sits in the room next the billiard-room; pale, lonely, in a hot
and stuffy atmosphere. While his comrades, after their short hours of
duty, scatter to seek distraction in gaming or the pursuit of women, the
impoverished lieutenant bends over his books, reading with sure instinct
about the things (and those only) that will be of use to him in days
to come: artillery, its principles and its history; the art of siege;
Plato’s _Republic_; the constitution of the Persian, the Athenian, the
Spartan State; the history of England; the campaigns of Frederick the
Great; French finances; the Tartars and the Turks, their manners and
customs, and the topography of their countries; the history of Egypt
and the history of Carthage; descriptions of India; English accounts of
contemporary France: Mirabeau, Buffon, and Machiavelli; the history and
the constitution of Switzerland; the history and constitution of China,
India, the Inca State; the history of the nobility and the story of
patrician misdeeds; astronomy, geology, and meteorology; the laws of the
growth of population; statistics of mortality.
He did not simply flutter the pages of his books, but was an attentive
reader. There is extant a whole series of copy-books containing
Napoleon’s notes, penned in an almost illegible handwriting. The contents
of these, reprinted, occupies four hundred pages. Here we find a map of
the Saxon heptarchy with a list of the kings for three centuries; item,
the varieties of foot-race in ancient Crete; item, lists of the Hellenic
fortresses in Asia Minor; item, the dates of twenty-seven caliphs, with a
note of the strength of their cavalry, and an account of the misconduct
of their wives.
Especially frequent are memoranda concerning Egypt and India, including
even the measurements of the Great Pyramid and a catalogue of Brahminical
sects. He copies a passage from Raynal: “In view of the position of
Egypt, lying betwixt two seas, and in fact betwixt the East and the West,
Alexander the Great conceived the design of establishing the capital of
his worldwide empire in that country, and of making Egypt the centre of
world commerce. This most enlightened of the conquerors had realised that
if there was any practicable way of amalgamating his conquests into one
consolidated State, it was by this use of Egypt, created as a point of
union between Africa, Asia, and Europe.” Thirty years later, he still had
the words by heart. He had read them so often.
At this date, too, he begins original composition, drafting more than a
dozen essays and projects: the placing of artillery; suicide; monarchical
authority; the inequality of men; and Corsica, above all, Corsica—each
were the topics. Rousseau, the most popular author of those days, is
pulverised by Napoleon’s realism. The young officer is epitomising
Rousseau’s views on the origin of the human race (in the _Discours sur
l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes_), but
abruptly he breaks off the epitome with the comment: “I don’t believe
a word of this.” Then come a couple of pages filled with his own
counterstatement. Human beings were not, to begin with, solitary; nor
were they nomadic. They were happy, and lived apart, because they were
not numerous enough to be forced into close contact. When the population
grew more thick upon the ground, “then imagination came forth from the
cave in which for so long it had been prisoned: self-confidence, passion,
and pride reared their heads; there arose ambitious men with pale
features, who took control of affairs, and mastered the multicoloured
young popinjays, the Lotharios and lady-killers.”
Do not we already hear him rattling his chains, in the dark cavern where
he himself is prisoned with his titanic imagination? Do not we see the
fancy portrait of the young author, pale of visage, full of hatred for
the brilliant lady-killers who are his messmates?
Away from these fellows, who are Frenchmen! His gaze is still fixed upon
his native isle, and it is to the advantage of Corsica that he twists the
new sociological outlooks. We read in one of the essays: “How absurd to
declare that divine laws forbid us to shake off a usurper’s yoke! Were
that so, then every regicide who has clambered into the vacant throne
would be under God’s protection, whereas in case of failure he would have
lost his head. With how much better right, then, can a people drive out a
usurping prince! Does not this speak for Corsicans?... Thus we can shake
off the yoke of France, just as we shook off the yoke of Genoa. Amen.”
Meanwhile, the fledgling genius wished to try its wings, and this
urge led Napoleon to draft a novel on Corsica, and also some short
stories. All were animated by hatred of France, but none of them were
ever finished. Still he was learning his trade, spurred on by poverty,
passion, and sentiment. Imagination rules the world, but cannons are the
instrument whereby imagination realises its purposes. “I have no refuge
but my work. I only change my linen once a week. Since I was ill, I have
slept very little.... I eat only once a day.”
He studies ordnance and munitions of war, always thinking in figures, so
that every one says that he is a born mathematician. Now, side by side
with the drafts of works of imagination, he draws up specifications of
all the localities in the island where he would place batteries, dig
trenches, station troops—if he had but the power! Beneath the network of
poetical thoughts with which he has covered the island, he spreads over
his maps a second network, wherein crosses denote big guns. Maps, maps!
In his room beside the noisy café, he restudies everything conceivable,
copies whole speeches out of the report of the parliamentary proceedings
at Westminster, and sketches the remotest parts of the earth. At the end
of the last of his copy-books, the final entry runs: “St. Helena, a small
island in the Atlantic Ocean. English colony.”
At this juncture he received a letter from his mother. Her powerful
patron, the marshal, was dead; the house had lost its main prop; the
mulberry orchard was no longer to be a means of livelihood; Joseph had
no paid occupation; could the second son give any help? Shortly after
this appeal reached him, he went home on furlough. Are we to consider him
an unacknowledged conqueror, returning to the island of his plans and
dreams? Read what he wrote in his diary:
“Always alone, though in the midst of men, I go back home that I may
give myself up to my lonely dreams and to the waves of my melancholy.
Whither, now, do my gloomy thoughts tend? Towards death. Yet I stand
on the threshold of life, and may reasonably expect to draw breath for
many, many years. For the last six or seven years I have been far away
from my country. How great the joy—to see my own people once more!—What
demon, then, is it that tempts me to self-destruction?—Since misfortune
dogs my footsteps, and nothing gives me pleasure, why should I go on
bearing a life in which, for me, everything goes awry?—What a tragedy in
the homeland? My fellow-countrymen, in chains, kiss the hand that beats
them.—Proud, buoyed up by a sense of his own worth, so lived of yore the
happy Corsican, giving his days to the service of the State, and spending
his nights in the arms of his beloved wife—the nights which nature and
affection made divine for him. With the disappearance of freedom, those
happy times have vanished like a dream. Frenchmen, not only have you
stolen from us our greatest good, but now you are corrupting our morals!
That is how I see my country, and yet I am powerless to help. Are there
not reasons enough for quitting a world in which I must glorify those
whom I hate?—If it were but the life of one individual which stood
between us and our liberties, I should not be slow to act.—Life has
become a burden to me, I have no enjoyment, nothing but pain,—and because
I cannot live after my own fashion, everything is loathsome to me.”
V
After a year spent in Corsica, a year rendered gloomy by money troubles
and family cares, he was still in this mood of despair when his furlough
expired. He returned not to Valence, but to Auxonne. What did the change
matter?
But, at last, recognition comes. His new general, who sees that this
subaltern of nineteen is well informed, puts into his hands the task of
carrying out some works upon the parade ground. “Difficult calculations
are involved; and so, for the last ten days, I have been busied from
morning till night at the head of two hundred men. This unusual
preferment has given some of my superiors a spite against me. They are
furious that so important a job should have been taken out of their hands
and given to a lieutenant.”
The old depression recurs. Promotion will be desperately slow, and when
he becomes a captain he will be retired on half-pay. He will return home,
to be despised because he is a pensioner of the French. At long last,
he will be buried in his native soil. Of that privilege, at least, the
French cannot rob him! Were they, then, nothing but froth, the dreams of
liberty revealed in the books he had read? If mighty France herself was
unable to shake off the yoke of the nobility, to rid herself of venality
and nepotism, how was poor little Corsica to shake off the French tyranny?
The young author fills his diary with new schemes. He would have had
to pay heavily for it if the book had fallen into the hands of his
superiors. “Draft for a memorial concerning monarchical authority. Set
forth details as to the usurped power which kings enjoy to-day in the
twelve monarchies of Europe. There are few of them who have not merited
dethronement.” Thus does he vent his spleen in the faithful diary; whilst
in public on every royal birthday, dressed in gala uniform, he must join
in the cry: Long live the king!
Another year of his youth is spent in the dull routine of such service,
while Napoleon holds his peace and waits, dividing his energies between
imaginative writing and mathematics.
The year of destiny has opened. Into the most out-of-the-way regions of
the slumbering province comes the presage of the trumpets that are about
to sound. We are in the month of June 1789. The melancholy lieutenant
feels that the day of vengeance draws near. Is the arrogance of those who
have so long humiliated him, to bring destruction upon their own heads?
May it not be that the call of the myriads is also the battle-cry of the
island? He takes his _Letters on Corsica_; sends them to his admired
exemplar Paoli, in exile; and writes:
“General! I came into the world when my country was perishing. My cradle
was surrounded by men with the death-rattle in their throats, and by
those whom despair had driven to tears.... With them, hope vanished.
Slavery was the reward of our subjugation. To justify themselves, the
traitors have heaped calumnies upon you.... When I read this, my blood
boiled, and I resolved to scatter the mists. Now I shall blacken with
the brush of shame all who have betrayed the common cause.... If I lived
in the capital, I should find other means.... Owing to my youth, this
undertaking may be fruitless; but I shall be helped by my passion for
truth, my love for my country, and my enthusiasm. If you, General, will
encourage in this work a young man whose coming into the world you saw,
I shall gain confidence.... My mother, Madame Letizia, has charged me to
remind you of the old days in Corte.”
We notice a new tone, a symphony of new tones: the soaring emotion
of the epoch; the gesture of the tyrannicide; the whole equipment of
scintillating words, not an uprush of feeling (as in the pages of his
diary), but deliberately chosen with an eye to their effect. Only one
thing is alarmingly original, quite peculiar to the writer: the decisive
“I” at the opening of the letter, this “I” as a great thesis, fronting
the world. Immeasurable self-confidence is breaking a trail; for now the
drum-taps of a new era are sounding; an era which will give the palm,
not to birth but to action, thus sweeping away the only hindrance that
has hitherto been insuperable. An unprecedented claim is voiced, a claim
which henceforward will never cease to be heard. But at the close of the
letter, with a courteous turn of phrase, he slips back into the familiar,
implying that he looks to Paoli for protection. What adroitness, what
good manners, we find in all the letters of this adolescent, who in
person is still rough and enigmatical!
Paoli, the survival from an earlier day, is annoyed by such arrogance,
and answers with civil irony that young people should not try to write
history.
Four weeks after the sending of the letter, young people begin to write
history, for the first time in the eighteenth century. They storm the
Bastille; the great signal has been given; and France leaps to arms. Even
in the garrison town of our young lieutenant, the masses riot and loot,
until the propertied classes join forces with the troops. Buonaparte
is at his post with his battery in the streets, and helps to shoot down
the people. This is the first time he has fired a gun in real earnest.
He acts under orders from the king’s officers; but there can be no doubt
that he acts whole-heartedly against the mob, which he despises no less
than he despises the nobility.
In the depths of his soul, he regards this as nothing more than a dispute
among foreigners. What does he care about Frenchmen who raise their
hands against other Frenchmen? His brain is fired by a single thought:
“Corsica’s hour has come!” Madness or enthusiasm, an ideal or merely a
catch-word? What matter? Let us carry the message to our island. Apply
for leave; and, in the turmoil of the new movement, be the first to reach
home!
VI
Lieutenant Buonaparte landed on his island like a prophet carrying a new
doctrine to a foreign coast. He was the first to bring the red cockade;
to promise liberty, equality, and fraternity. Was not this a race of free
mountaineers, who of old had been self-governing, but for twenty years
had groaned under the heel of the oppressor—a conqueror who ruled through
the instrumentality of the nobles and the Church, but did not understand
the people?
What did it matter to the young Jacobin that until yesterday he had
lived upon his patrician birth, that solely because of his rank he had
been educated at the king’s cost? What was the king to him? At length
the peoples were to be free to rule themselves. If the new France, just
awakened, had proclaimed the right of self-government, Corsica, which
the old France had loaded with chains, must proclaim its own freedom.
Citizens, the hour has struck! To arms! Let every one wear the red
cockade of the new era; let us form a National Guard, as they have done
in Paris! Let us wrest the means of power from the king’s troops. I am an
artillerist, and I will be your leader!
Twenty years of age, pale of countenance, with cold, blue-grey eyes,
but with a mouth full of glowing phrases, such is the aspect of young
Buonaparte as he hastens through the streets of Ajaccio. Every one in the
little town knows him, and he is followed by a growing number of persons,
some eager for liberty, and others in search of a change of any kind.
To the crowd in the square, he seems a man bringing passionate hopes;
his figure is that of a tribune of the people. In this half-oriental
atmosphere, and among these quarrelsome families (so he says later), “a
man soon learns to study the human heart.”
But there is a set-back. No reinforcements come from the mountains;
and, when the regular troops put in an appearance, they scatter the
revolutionists. Within a few hours, all have been disarmed, though,
for prudence, no arrests are made. This is a further source of
disillusionment. He is not even a martyr, but only a would-be popular
leader who has been defeated; his position borders on the ludicrous.
Yet the fever is still burning in his veins, and at all costs he must
do something to cool himself. A statement of grievances to the National
Assembly in Paris! First of all, in the florid style of the day, an ode
to the new freedom, and then a spate of complaints and adjurations. To
the gallows with the king’s servants! Arm the citizens of the island!—A
committee promptly joins him in signing the document.
Weeks of waiting. What answer will come from Paris? Here is the courier
at last. The island is to be a French province, having the same rights as
the other provinces; in accordance with Mirabeau’s proposal, Paoli and
all the champions of liberty are free to return home. The lieutenant is
taken aback. A province? In spite of the new ideas, and indeed because of
them, the Corsicans are to remain Frenchmen? A strange form of liberty!
But there, already, is the procession, headed by the authorities, on
its way to the cathedral, where the decree from Paris is to receive a
blessing. Buonaparte is prompt to seize the rope which all are seizing.
He pens fiery manifestoes to his fellow-citizens, seeks supporters in the
new political club, and engineers his elder brother’s election to the
town council. Meanwhile he continues to work at his history of Corsica,
and reads to his mother choice passages of what he is writing.
“Can this be the great Paoli?” That is the question Buonaparte asks
himself, when, after twenty years’ exile, the hero of his youthful
enthusiasms returns amid popular acclamations. “His talk and his
appearance are so humdrum, so politic, so unsoldierly.” But it was
expedient to keep on good terms with Paoli, for he was to be the
commander of the National Guard. In the mountains, the young artillery
officer was for some time closely associated with the man who had been
his father’s chief just before his own coming into the world.
When they were sitting together or riding together—the tried veteran and
the darkly aspiring young Corsican,—the latter would eagerly expound
to the former his plans for an armed rising, and even for the forcible
severance of the island from the new France. On these occasions, Paoli
would look at Buonaparte with mingled pride and alarm. He could not but
feel that the author of the _Letters on Corsica_ really had a claim upon
him. But the young fellow had the devil in his body; and (which was
worse) in his brain, for in the man’s brain was the image of the world
throne in solitary splendour. Shaking his head, Paoli would exclaim:
“There is nothing modern about you, Napolione. You come from the age of
Plutarch!”
For the first time in his life young Napoleon felt that he was
understood. The Roman heroes of Plutarch were alone adequate to his
aspirations. Paoli was the first to recognise the Roman in Buonaparte.
At length he has a phrase upon which his self-esteem can luxuriate.
Now, from his country retreat, when at Paoli’s instigation he writes a
manifesto, the superscription penned by his fevered imagination runs
as follows: “23rd day of January in the 2nd year, from my study at
Midilli.” Ridiculous or sublime? However this may be, as soon as he
has issued the dictatorial pronunciamento the young man has to hasten
back to his military duties in France, for his furlough, though renewed
again and again, has finally expired. Is he to sacrifice this last firm
standing-ground? To what end? Why should he stay in the island any
longer? The first place is occupied!
VII
“I am in a peasant’s hut writing to you, after a long talk with the
good folk.... It is four in the afternoon; the weather is fresh but
mild; I thoroughly enjoyed walking. No snow yet, but there is snow in
the air—Everywhere I have found the peasants staunch; ... they are all
ready to die for the constitution—The women are royalists almost without
exception. No wonder for that, seeing that Liberty is fairer than they,
and eclipses them. In Dauphiné, the priests have taken the oath of fealty
to the constitution; they laugh at the bishops.—‘Good society,’ as it is
called (three out of four are aristocrats), affects admiration for the
British constitution. It is true that Peretti threatened Mirabeau with
a dagger. This is little to our credit. The Patriotic Society must make
Mirabeau a present of our national costume: biretta, vest, knee-breeches
and hose, cartridge pouch, stiletto, pistol, and musket. It will
certainly have a good effect.”
Everything in this letter to Napoleon’s maternal uncle, the abbé Joseph
Fesch, bears witness to observation and calculation, the elements upon
which the politician’s influence is based: the weather, the State,
travelling on foot, the conciliation of a man in high position, men’s
motives—all have been the objects of careful consideration. Vanity and
avarice, these are the weaknesses to which an appeal can be successfully
directed. We see deep into his soul when, in a bluntly-worded letter
dating from those weeks, he arraigns an opponent thus: “Your study of
human nature has taught you the price of every man’s enthusiasm; for you,
the difference between people’s characters was summed up in a few gold
pieces more or less!”
Gold pieces! Where were they to be had? Louis, the brother of thirteen,
had come back to France with him. When Lieutenant Buonaparte (he had the
full rank now) and his brother got back to Valence, they had no more
between them than eighty-five francs, to provide for food, clothing, and
the boy’s education. They had to brush their own clothes.
Money! Not for enjoyment (he despises trivial pleasures), but to help
him make his way in the world! Lyons Academy has offered a prize for
an essay. Twelve hundred francs; one could for that sum equip half
Corsica with weapons. “What truths and sentiments is it most important
to inculcate upon men for their happiness?” The lieutenant smiles. The
subject suits him very well. First of all, so to say, he leaves his card
on the academicians who have chosen the theme. They are disciples of
Rousseau. Our essayist opens by extolling the joys of nature, friendship,
ardent idleness—three things which he neither knew nor prized. Suddenly
the argument takes a political turn, against kings, and on behalf of the
universalisation of the free enjoyment of possessions and rights. Then
comes a sinister tone, as if the writer were contemplating in a mirror
his own image as the pallid student of a few years before: “The ambitious
man, pale of countenance, laughing sardonically, plays with crime, and
intrigue is his chosen instrument.... If, at length, he gets his hand on
the rudder of power, he soon wearies of the adulation of the crowd....
Men of great ambition have sought happiness, and have found fame.”
Sublime forebodings, worthy of any of the characters in Plutarch. Soon
the author expresses himself more plainly. His ideal is Sparta; courage
and strength are the outstanding virtues. A Spartan moved through life
as a man moves in the plenitude of his powers. “He was happy because he
lived in accordance with his nature. Only the strong man is good; the
weakling is evil.” Another presage glows in the following utterance: “Men
who are truly great are like meteors: they shine and consume themselves,
that they may lighten the darkness of the earth.”
This was too much for the Lyons Academy, which declared the essay
“unworthy of commendation.” A fresh disappointment! The effort had
brought neither money nor renown. With indefatigable assiduity, none the
less, he resumes work on his Corsican novel, and pens a dialogue on love.
What? Does this word, too, shed its lustre into the youth’s sombre mind?
Are we to have an outpouring in the Rousseauist vein? Hearken to the
words of our lieutenant, now twenty-two years of age: “I, too, was in
love once, and learned enough of it to despise definitions, which only
confuse the issue. I deny its justification; nay, more, I regard it as
injurious to society and destructive to the happiness of the individual.
Men could bless heaven if they were quit of it.”
Fanfares interrupt these political and social musings, fanfares from
Paris! Louis XVI, attempting to escape, had been caught at Varennes and
brought back. The people had triumphed, and the revolutionary movement
was intensified. On the second anniversary of the taking of the Bastille,
the Red lieutenant proposed a toast to the patriots. From the island
came to him sounds of confusion, the heart-beats of anarchy—for during
these wild years the ripples of turbulence spread from Paris in widening
circles, to reach distant shores. In Corsica, too, civil war is imminent.
Back there, for a second venture!
VIII
Now the lieutenant has to play the part of Coriolanus. Catch voices,
catch men; for, since the people have come into power, it is necessary
to cultivate popularity. Archdeacon Lucien Buonaparte has chosen this
convenient hour for dying, and the family is in easier circumstances.
Mother’s brother Fesch, another cleric, has been prevailed upon to join
the Jacobin Club. Joseph can influence opinion in the town council. Is
there any other man in the island competent to direct a battery? Of
course the leader of the National Guard would have the real power in his
hands. But suppose one should fail to secure election?
This time his furlough lasts only till the new year. Better be careful!
He writes to his commanding officer: “Urgent circumstances have forced
me to outstay my leave. But I have nothing to reproach myself with: more
sacred duties, tenderer obligations, are my excuse.” He hopes that he
will not be cashiered. No answer! Well, he must take the risk.
Now comes the election of the commandant of the National Guard. Kinsmen
everywhere, but that does not suffice. His mother keeps open house for
party friends; often sympathisers from the hills have to be put up for
the night; this is the way to catch votes. “At that time,” writes a
comrade, “he would for a season be taciturn and reflective; then he
would be genial once more, pleasant to all comers, conversationally
inclined, prepared to visit any one who might be of use, and doing his
utmost to win adherents.” When the commissaries come, he has one of them
forcibly detained in his house; and he arranges that the supporters of
a rival shall have a thrashing. This is a Corsican election! But when
the palpitating day draws to a close, Napoleon has gained his end. He is
second in command, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Shall he seize the opportunity, this Italian, of sending in his papers
in France? Shall he leave the French service? Better be careful, still!
From the memoirs of great commanders he has learned that it is always
wise to leave a line of retreat open. “In this difficult posture of
affairs,” he writes to Valence, “a good Corsican’s post of honour is
in his native country. That is why my own folk keep me from returning
to France. Since, however, I am not one to compromise where duty is
concerned, I had it in mind to resign my commission.” But, far from
sending in his papers, he asks for arrears of pay, and actually speaks
of France as “your nation.” In answer, he is cashiered by the French
military authorities.