makes a public display of such expressions of approval, he is just as
sedulous to draw near to the footlights when he has to censure or to
condemn. That is one of the tricks of his trade.
Now, he is careful to behave in such a way that all Paris, every one
of his opponents, the whole press, shall exclaim: “The modesty of
true greatness!” Twice more, during these days, he makes ceremonial
appearances, one of them being at a festival held in his honour by
Talleyrand. He had hastened to pay his respects to the Minister for
Foreign Affairs on the day after his return to Paris. Neither of them had
as yet disclosed his ultimate plans, but Bonaparte, in his dealings with
this scion of the old nobility, had not forgotten to speak of his own
exalted antecedents. “You are the nephew of the archbishop of Rheims,”
he had said in the first half hour. “One of my uncles, who helped in my
education, is an archdeacon—in Corsica, you know, that means much the
same as being a bishop in France.” In this way Napoleon implied that he
was no parvenu whom a man of ancient lineage was, in his heart, entitled
to despise. From the first, he looked upon Talleyrand as a possible
antagonist.
He has bought the little house in which Josephine used to live. Here he
leads a retired life, with his wife, who has at length arrived in Paris.
His circle is small, consisting of his brothers and a few friends who
come and go. He often wears mufti, drives out alone, avoids parties, is
easy of access. When he is cheered at the theatre, he draws back into
the recesses of his box. This is the man who, a little while ago at
Montebello, was keeping up a princely state. “If I am seen three or four
times at the theatre, people will cease to notice me,” he says to an
intimate. “You expect me to be pleased by such public demonstrations?
There would be quite as big a crowd to see me guillotined!”
He invites men of learning to his house; attends most of the sittings
of the Institute, and is willing to read a paper there now and again;
discusses mathematics after dinner with Laplace, and shows the astronomer
new Italian methods of calculating orbits; argues with Chénier about
poetry, and even metaphysics (if he can’t help himself!).
But he silently follows, all this time, every move made by the Directors,
whose power is continually on the wane. Knowing them to be his secret
enemies, he keeps out of their path, and has them watched by his
brothers. He gathers information as to the relative strength of the
various parties, and ponders his own course. “Paris has no memory. A new
reputation drives out an old one; and if I linger here inactive, I shall
be lost. I must not stay here.” Often he walks to and fro in the garden,
arms locked behind, thinking.
“Too soon. Better wait until they have made a complete mess of things.
Become their colleague, a member of the Directory, just when the pillars
are crackling? A good thing that I am not yet forty, as the law demands.
Meanwhile, I must capture the fancy of the crowd! How? There is peace
throughout the Continent. Hardly a rival left to dread. Hoche, the
most dangerous of them, is dead, thanks be! One of Josephine’s lovers;
a handsome fellow, certainly. His passing troubled her little; she is
inconstant by nature. Carnot thrust aside, Moreau defeated. Augereau, in
command of the Army of the Rhine, is jealous of me; I must put a spoke
in his wheel. The Corsican stalwarts have little influence now; but that
woman who came to warn me against the risk of poisoning was stabbed next
day; there are conspiracies. Too soon. I must leave Paris once more.
“Get to work against England? That would be the best plan, if only these
idiots had not allowed the navy to get into so wretched a condition!
I’ve been worrying them about the matter ever since the siege of
Toulon. During the naval war of the last five years, we’ve lost half a
dozen sea-fights. What about invasion? If only that were possible! Any
one who could defeat England would be master of the world. Sail along
the coast, study the possibilities, and then, if there seems no chance
of a successful landing on the other side of the Channel, back to the
Mediterranean! Only there, in the East, can I throw off all restraint,
and keep France a-quiver with curiosity and excitement. Egypt’s the
place, in the footsteps of Alexander; and there we can strike England a
shrewd blow!”
After long preparations, the general visits Dunkirk and the Flemish
coast. He asks questions wherever he goes, not forgetting to
cross-examine fishermen and smugglers. Returning unexpectedly, he gives
Josephine a fright, but it escapes his notice that she hastens to pen a
few lines to the secretary of an old flame. In his campaigns, hundreds
of spies have brought him secret missives; what would he say if he could
read this one? “Bonaparte has come back this evening. Please tell Barras
how sorry I am that I cannot come to supper after all. Say that he is
not to forget me. You know better than any one what my position is.—La
Pagerie Bonaparte.”
Thus undermined is the marriage in which he still puts his trust. Thus
equivocal is the position of Barras, the impotent Director, who hates
and mistrusts the mighty commander of the forces. Thus nonchalant is
Josephine, as with carefree heart she makes her way through society,
passing her time in women’s boudoirs and men’s bedrooms—and, among the
men, she has to put up with Bonaparte, although when she signs her
married name she prefixes to it her maiden name, as though she were still
mistress of her own destinies and free to choose her lover.
No doubt Barras is cursing Bonaparte this evening, but next day the
general writes to him and the other Directors a long report, which
begins as follows: “Even with our best efforts, it will take us several
years to get the upper hand at sea. The invasion of England would be
a desperate venture; it will only be possible if we take the islanders
by surprise.... We shall need long nights, so it must be in winter.
Consequently we cannot make the attempt till next year. Before then,
it is likely enough that hindrances will have arisen on the Continent.
Perhaps the great moment has been lost for ever.”
After this amazingly perspicacious renunciation of his scheme for the
invasion of England, he goes on to formulate a yet more amazing plan
for achieving the same end by other means. Substantially, he proposes
eight naval campaigns, ranging from Spain to Holland, all the political
conditions and consequences being carefully considered. If, however,
ships and money are not forthcoming, the next best expedient will be to
attack English commerce, beginning in Egypt, whence Bonaparte could get
back to direct further operations against England.
Enough for the Directors to hear the word Egypt, and they are ready to
agree to this last plan. He shall have the command there, and all the
help they can give. So dangerous a man as this—the farther away he is,
the better! Best of all would be, to make an end of him!
The Egyptian plan is not new; it has been mooted at intervals for years.
Talleyrand had brought it forward in connection with Bonaparte’s letter,
though his comment had been: “The leader of this campaign would not need
to be a man of exceptional military talent.” Was this remark prompted
by a wish to keep Bonaparte in France, or was it nothing more than a
spiteful innuendo? However that may be, the talented commander, when he
read the words at a much later date, wrote in the margin: “Crazy!” But we
anticipate. He drafted the terms of his own nomination as chief of the
Army in the East: plenipotentiary powers; a commission to take Malta and
Egypt, to drive the English from the Red Sea, to cut a canal through the
Isthmus of Suez in order that France may be secure in the possession of
the Red Sea.
With feverish energy he now devotes himself to preparations for the new
undertaking. He has long been familiar with all the essentials of the
problem. The Mediterranean is his home. In childhood, he was wont to
contemplate the Moor’s head on the scutcheon of Corsica; sailing ships
from Africa often visited the island; not long ago, he had deprived Genoa
and Venice of their fleets; he was already in touch with Tunisians and
Greeks, with Albanians and Bosnians. Over all these machinations brooded
the spirit of Alexander, who had chosen Egypt as the centre of his world
empire.
For the first time, during these weeks of waiting, do the elements
of Bonaparte’s nature become formally compacted within him. What has
been no more than a scheme of the unbridled imagination, the plan of
one who aspires to resemble the most splendid exemplars of the ancient
world, is now dissected, pondered, weighed in the calculating brain; it
is refashioned, reconsidered; by degrees it is adapted to the actual
possibilities of the situation. When preparing his Egyptian campaign,
Bonaparte attempts, in the grand style, to unite the calculator with
the dreamer, while it escapes his notice that there is an incalculable
residue. His imagination, nourished upon dreams of the heroic age, blinds
him to the fact that we are no longer living in the days of classical
antiquity, that caliph and conqueror can no longer command millions of
unthinking slaves, that even in distant Africa the peoples are awakening.
Bonaparte is making ready for a titanic and insoluble conflict; and
the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more defiantly will he
continue his vain attempts to solve it.
This man of genius, born two thousand years too late, is already spinning
the threads of his own doom. With the hand of a demigod, he is sketching
the outlines of his own fate.
XIII
“I am going to the East,” he writes to his brother, “with all the means
to ensure success. Should France need me, ... should war break out and
take an unfavourable turn, I shall come home, and public opinion will be
more solidly on my side than it is now. But if the fortune of war should
favour the republic, if another commander like myself should appear upon
the scene, I shall, perhaps, be staying in the East, do the world more
service than he can.” When Bourrienne asks how long they are to be away,
Bonaparte answers: “Six months or six years.”
At the last moment, fate wants to give him another warning. In Rastatt,
Austria refuses to cede the left bank of the Rhine; in Vienna,
Bernadotte, who is French envoy there, is so provocative that a new war
already seems imminent. Would it not be better to stay in Europe? But the
Directors speed the departure, saying that matters have now gone too far
to withdraw. In May, exactly two years after Napoleon’s entry into Milan,
four hundred ships set sail from Toulon. Josephine waves farewell to
her husband, and (doubtless with more concern) to Eugene. Not until the
whole mighty apparatus has been set in motion at the master’s nod, does
he disclose to his subordinates the goal of the voyage. All are on deck,
watching the gradual disappearance of the European coast; but Napoleon,
on the “Orient,” standing beside the mainmast among the eight-pounders,
is not, like the others, looking back at Europe. His gaze is directed
towards the south-east.
At the same hour, Nelson and three other British admirals, standing on
the decks of their ships, are searching the seas with telescopes for
a sign of the hated enemy, who is, it is supposed, about to sail for
Sicily. Where is he to be found? Yesterday, Nelson’s fleet was scattered
by a storm. Days pass before the ships can get together again, and the
very storm which had detained Bonaparte for twenty-four hours in Toulon,
saves the French. They reach Malta before the English fleet, and seize
the important island by a coup de main. By the time the cat arrives, the
mouse is gone. Under all sail, Nelson presses on to Egypt, but finds no
one there, for he has outstripped the enemy. He tries the Syrian coast.
Nothing! Back to Sicily. No one! “The Devil has the devil’s own luck,”
says Nelson, cursing himself and the foe.
The French fleet is four weeks on the voyage, and Napoleon, who is a bad
sailor, spends most of the time in bed. Is not this symbolic? Will the
seasick general ever win to the command of the sea? He is restless lying
down, and, to pass the weary hours, he makes Bourrienne read aloud to him.
For on board this fleet there are not only two thousand guns. A
whole university is sailing to the East. Astronomers, geometricians,
mineralogists, chemists, antiquarians, bridge-builders, road engineers,
orientalists, political economists, painters, poets—one hundred and
seventy-five learned civilians, with hundreds of boxes full of apparatus
and books. Everything in this land of ancient story is to be meticulously
studied. For France, Bonaparte is to win a colony, and for himself an
African reputation. The soldiers have bluntly nicknamed these learned
passengers, collectively, “the donkeys.” But Bonaparte prizes them, and
his wrath breaks loose on any of his officers who grumble at the presence
of so many “idlers.” He has chosen his experts with the utmost care,
and has thought out every detail of what they are to do. He has brought
a font of Arabic type, extracted with great difficulty from the State
printing house. He has taken especial pains in the choice of books for
the library with which the flagship is freighted for the voyage to Egypt.
Novels are good for officers; and when he finds them reading novels, he
laughs good humouredly. For himself, he has only _Werther_ and _Ossian_,
works of passion, his inseparable companions. On this journey, however,
he seldom reads them.
What does Bourrienne read aloud to the chief? Travels in Egypt, which
have been collected from various quarters, from Rome and elsewhere;
Plutarch; Homer; Arrian’s account of Alexander’s campaigns; the Koran,
which, logically enough, is housed among the political works, beside the
Bible and Montesquieu.
After dinner, he is fond of holding sessions of “the Institute.” He uses
the name jestingly, and yet in the discussions he takes it seriously
enough. He propounds a subject for debate, and nominates the champions.
Mathematics and religion are his favourite topics on these occasions, for
he has always been both calculator and dreamer. There sits the famous
Monge, a man with a crooked nose, a receding forehead, and a massive
chin; Napoleon has admired him for years, and thinks more of him than
of any of the others. Beside Monge is Desaix, whom Bonaparte has just
summoned from the Army of the Rhine; he has a thick nose and thick
lips, a somewhat negroid but kindly face, and the strategist rivals
the mathematician in the shrewdness of his eyes. Look at Kléber, a man
of fearless countenance, full of courage and resolution; beside him,
Laplace, who peers earnestly at the company from beneath his eye-shade;
next is Berthollet, with a head like a ram. Kléber runs atilt at
geometry; but when one of the professors wishes to take up the cudgels on
behalf of the things of the spirit, Bonaparte signs to him not to waste
breath, and points with a smile to Berthier, who has fallen asleep in the
corner over the _Sorrows of Werther_.
The weather is getting much warmer. Napoleon, wishing to breathe the
night air, lies on deck till a late hour. His intimates are sitting round
him in a circle, and discussion turns on the planets, on the question
whether they are inhabited. Pros and cons are voiced by the disputants.
This leads to the problem of the creation. The sons of the revolution,
disciples of Voltaire, be they generals or be they professors, are
agreed upon one point, that the universe and its origin are rationally
explicable in terms of natural science, without reference to the idea of
God. Napoleon lies there, listening in silence. Then, pointing to the
stars, he interjects:
“You may say what you like, but who made all those?”
XIV
Bonaparte rides slowly across the desert sands to look upon the face
of the Sphinx. The eyes of stone and the eyes of steel meet. Like the
Sphinx, he knows how to be silent, but we can guess his thoughts.
“Alexander stood here. Cæsar stood here. They lived two thousand years
after this image was sculptured, as I live two thousand years after them.
Immeasurable empires, consecrated to the sun, extended around the Nile.
Millions obeyed the will of one. What the ruler dreamed, was fashioned
by his slaves with their myriad hands. Everything was possible to him.
The king was the son of the gods. All obeyed him as the descendant of
the original conqueror. Because that first conqueror named himself king,
and son of the gods, all believed him. Here, in the East, it is possible
to say to human beings, ‘I am your god,’ and all believe. Europe is a
mole-hill.”
Soon, not many miles away, Napoleon makes ready for battle. Eight
thousand Mamelukes, the best cavalry in the world, are ready to crush
the invader. He rides up and down in front of his troops, points to the
pyramids in the distance, and exclaims: “Soldiers, forty centuries are
looking down on you.” The Mamelukes charge the French, but are driven
back by artillery fire; their camp is soon in Bonaparte’s hands; they
flee to the Nile, crossing the river in boats and by swimming; since it
is notorious that they always have gold with them, the fight continues
for hours on the bank and in the water until the victors have secured
some of the treasure.
In Cairo, he knows how to win the support of the pashas and the sheiks.
He gives out that he loves and venerates the Turks and the sultan.
He is only attacking the Mamelukes, who are their enemies likewise.
Periphrases, bowings and scrapings, elaborate metaphors—these come
natural to him, the man of the Mediterranean who is half an oriental.
They are devices for lying even more circumstantially than do the
diplomats of Europe with their speedier and directer methods. Here he is
following the oriental custom. While still on board the “Orient,” he had
dictated to his interpreter a letter to the pasha of Egypt. It began as
follows:
“Thou who shouldst be supreme over all the beys, but hast, as I know,
neither power nor prestige in Cairo, thou wilt welcome my coming.
Assuredly thou knowest that I have it not in mind to do anything against
the Koran or against the sultan. Come, therefore, to my help, and join
with me in cursing the godless race of beys!”
To approximate his own creed to the faith of Allah, he begins, like a
conjuror, to juggle with the Trinity. First of all he explains that he
has conquered the pope and the Maltese, and that for him the Koran is
the word of God just as much as the Bible. But, at a later date, when
the forces sent to dislodge his own are being disembarked, he argues as
follows: “Allah is Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. To the divan of
Cairo, chosen from among the ablest, most learned, and most enlightened
of men! The blessing of the Prophet be upon you!” He goes on to say that
he has allowed these men to be landed in order that he may kill them
all at one blow, “which will be a glorious sight for Cairo.” There were
Russians on board the invader’s ships. “The Russians hate all who, like
you and myself, believe in one God, for, in their own legends, they speak
of three gods. They will learn, soon enough, that there is but one God,
the father of victory, who graciously fights on the side of the good.”
Out of this potpourri of the religious, which ends on a more pagan
note than he seems to be aware, he subsequently extracts unchristian
France as a political instrument, saying that the religion of France is
especially akin to Mohammedanism. He is continually appealing to the
Koran as the basis of his thought. The holy book which he has included
in the political section of his travelling library, shall be made to do
him good service. When he dismisses a dangerous cadi in Cairo, he finds
a justification for his action in the Koran: “All that is good comes
from God; he gives us victory.... Whatever I undertake must succeed. All
those whom I call my friends, thrive. But any one who helps my enemies,
perishes.”
If he had but had the luck to have been born here in Egypt four thousand
years ago, he would have gained the victory by the power of suggestion
alone. But nowadays even these brown fellows are sceptical! He despises
them, while showering them with superlatives; but, at the same time,
he threatens to punish with the utmost rigour any of his soldiers who
injure a native. The first order of the day to the Army in the East runs:
“The peoples with whom we are now in contact do not treat their women as
we treat ours. Nevertheless, any one who harms a woman is looked upon
as a monster here as in Europe. Looting enriches very few, dishonours
all, destroys the sources of aid, and makes us hated by those with whom
it is to our interest that we should be friends.” No one is to enter a
mosque, and groups must not even assemble round the doors. By cajolery
and threats, by tolerance and intrigue, by Allah and the sword, by all
the methods of the oriental, Bonaparte secures an authoritative position
within a few weeks.
At length he can regard himself as master in the East. Is he any the
happier for that?
Junot has received a letter about Josephine. If only this letter, like
hundreds more, had been intercepted by the English! Then, at least,
Napoleon could still have enjoyed the bliss of ignorance! For Junot feels
it his duty to tell his commander and old friend all about the matter. It
concerns Hippolyte Charles, as well as Josephine. Napoleon had cashiered
the young man. Josephine had found him a job with an army contractor, and
had lost sight of him for a time. But she has met him again, has come
across him at a fashionable dancing school. Her old passion has revived.
He has such graceful hips! He makes such elegant sallies! Now he has the
added charm of wealth. Meanwhile, Josephine has bought a fine estate near
Paris (though it is not yet paid for); the young dandy is living with
her at Malmaison as master of the house....
Bonaparte walks up and down as he talks things over with Junot. He grows
paler and paler; his face twitches; twice or thrice he strikes his
forehead despairingly with his fist. Suddenly, turning upon Bourrienne,
who is sitting in front of the tent, he says: “You are not a true friend!
These women! Josephine! You ought to have told me. Junot, he is really
my friend. Josephine—and I am more than two thousand miles away! How can
she betray me like this? Damn these puppies and coxcombs! I’ll make short
work of the lot of them. I will divorce her. Yes, a public, sensational
divorce! I will write instantly. I know everything. If she is guilty,
farewell! I will not be a mock for the flâneurs on the boulevards.”
Bourrienne tries to pacify him; tells him that fame is more important
than family happiness. “Fame! What is that worth? I would give everything
in the world, so much do I love her, if only Junot’s news were false.”
But the English may intercept and publish anything he writes, so in his
letter to his brother Joseph he can do no more than hint at this private
calamity. The missive has a peculiar charm, which is perhaps given to
it by the writer’s enforced restraint, by the need for using veiled
expressions. Tædium vitæ of genius at its climax. This private letter is
penned the day after a victorious and virile despatch: