previous occasions. Wishing to be independent of the parties and to stand
above them, he again demands a popular vote; and the very Frenchmen who
twelve years earlier had destroyed, not only the king, but kingship, now
re-establish both, doing this with even more enthusiasm than when, two
years before, they had made Napoleon Consul for life. In a few days,
everything is settled. First of all there are votes in the Chambers. In
the Senate, only three adverse votes, those of personal enemies. In the
Tribunate, Carnot is alone in recording his dissent, Carnot who admires
Napoleon, but is a far-sighted devotee of the principle of freedom.
The result of a plebiscite is overwhelmingly in favour of the adoption
of the imperial title with hereditary succession. In May 1804, the new
constitution is promulgated. It is short and businesslike, as if it were
a mere paragraph modifying an old constitution.
He never affects to believe that his power has a mystical origin, or even
that it really springs from the people. See him, a few days after he has
been proclaimed Emperor, seated in a bow window one evening after dinner.
He is astraddle on a chair, with his chin resting on the back. For a
long time he is silent while Josephine and Madame de Rémusat are talking
(the latter records the incident). Then he stands up, turns to Madame
de Rémusat, and, after posing for a while as an easy-going and cheerful
man of the world, of a sudden, with that free gesture which always
amazed his associates and still amazes posterity, he tore off the veil,
disclosed his motives, expounded his thoughts as if he had been writing a
predecessor’s history:
“You were all very angry with me about the execution of the duke of
Enghien. You seem still to be fond of traditional memories. My own
memory goes back only to the time when I began to be something. What is
a duke of Enghien to me? An émigré, more important than the others, and
therefore one whom it is all the better to destroy.... Two years ago,
power dropped into my hands in the most natural way in the world....
It is true that the duke compelled me to cut the crisis short. I had
expected to carry on the Consulate for another two years, although its
forms conflicted with the reality of things. France and I could have
walked along arm-in-arm for a while longer, for France had confidence in
me, and wanted everything that I wanted. But after this conspiracy, which
was to set the Continent in motion, it was necessary to show Europe the
error of her ways....
“The political parties I wished to conciliate, the royalists and the
Jacobins, will not lose heart as long as they have somebody to dread.
I realised, therefore, that no pact between them could be concluded,
but that it would be possible to conclude one with them to my own
advantage.... Now, they have been reduced to silence. Still opposed
to me are the republicans, the cranks who believe that Europe will
look on quietly while a republic is being established upon the ruins
of a monarchy.... That is why I preferred the imperial dignity to a
dictatorship, for in an empire people no longer feel that they are
travelling in unmapped country....
“You will soon see what a lure court etiquette will exercise on the
émigrés. The old familiar forms of address will win over the nobility....
You French love monarchy. It is the only form of government which really
suits you. I will wager, Monsieur de Rémusat, that you feel a hundred
times more at ease now that you call me ‘Sire’ and I address you as
‘Monsieur’.... Your vanity was always being bridled; the strictness of
the republic would have bored you to death.... Liberty is no more than a
pretext; equality is your hobby horse; the people are content to be ruled
by a prince who comes from the army.... To-day, soldiers and people are
on my side. A man who could not rule under such conditions would be an
idiot.”
He broke off, resumed a formal demeanour, and gave Monsieur de Rémusat an
order of no importance whatever in the dry tone of the absolute master.
These moments of confession; these quarters of an hour in which we stand
opposite him, silently listening and watching, while he lounges on his
chair, this newly made emperor of thirty-four in his well-worn green
coat, looking askance up and down the room, rising to walk restlessly to
and fro, pouring out his most intimate thoughts and then with a brusque
transition cutting off all the springs of familiarity; when we see him
in such movingly close proximity, in scenes full of nature and purpose,
full of surrender to destiny and animus against the present—we can see
and hear for ourselves even more than he frankly discloses in simulated
self-forgetfulness. We become aware of his easy contempt for persons
of noble birth, which is none the less conjoined with a secret wish
to make a good impression on them; we discern programmes which he is
always willing to adapt to changing circumstances; we observe the robust
cynicism aroused in him by the folly of mankind, and see that it exists
side by side with the foreign character traits of this Corsican, the very
traits which enable him to rule the lovely Marianne with such gallant
rigour.
Of course he discloses no more than half his motives, for he is here
confining himself to political issues. Still, at the outset of the
imperial epoch these political issues exert a predominant influence.
It seems as if, to begin with, he regards the change of title with the
utmost sobriety: “My brother will not hear a word of his new title,”
writes Napoleon to Madame de Staël. “He says he is just the same man he
was before, and at the same time he puts on great airs. The truly great
man is the one who fully realises that such empty names, which only the
system of society compels us to assume, make no difference to friendship,
to family life, or to social relationships. I am certain that since I
have been ‘Your Majesty,’ not one of those who live with me will have
been able to detect any difference in me.”
Yet it is an event that now for the third time he takes leave of his
name. It may be nothing that the leading persons in the country who
appear at the first court reception address him and Josephine as “Sire”
and “Madame,” and that the members of the noblesse, who on this same
polished floor fifteen or twenty years earlier had said “Sire” and
“Madame,” should feel their hearts revive as they bandy courtiers’
compliments. That may be nothing. Certainly, as regards essential nature,
clothing, and deportment, the Emperor of to-day is no different from the
Consul of yesterday.
But the proclamation, the thousand and one letters, memoranda, and
decrees, will henceforward be signed with a new name. For eight years
they have been signed with the rudiments of a “Bonaparte.” Now he signs
with a name which he himself has never written since he was a child,
and which his nervous hand will speedily compress into an initial N.
and a flourish. Josephine has always addressed him as “General.” His
brothers and his sisters have for a long time past spoken to him with
the ceremonial “you” instead of the familiar “thou” (the change was
initiated, not by the Consul himself, but by Joseph). Only his mother in
rare moments of expansion has occasionally used her son’s Christian name;
and she utters it in her own dialect as “Napolione.”
There is a profound significance in the newness of this name when, adding
to it a brand-new title, he writes for the first time in his life:
Napoleon I., Emperor of the French.
VIII
With the first steps, the dilemma begins. The new coins he issues bear
the legend: “Emperor according to the Constitution of the Republic”—this
paradox will dog him for another four years. When the anniversary of
the taking of the Bastille and the outbreak of the revolution comes
round once more, he celebrates it with imperial pomp. The gesture
may look sublime, but it is nothing more than a measure of political
expediency. Even on this very first occasion, the anniversary of the
day of liberation is postponed to a Sunday. A year or two later, the
commemoration is completely ignored. With it vanishes the revolutionary
calendar, for the old one is restored by degrees.
All flock to his standard. Ere long, one hundred and thirty of those who
twelve years earlier had voted for the king’s execution, hold office
under the Emperor. This is the revolutionary picture caricatured in
France, while Europe looks on, watching how first the forms, and then by
slow stages the content, for whose sake so much blood has been shed, are
laid aside in the museum of history. What can Europe do but smile?
Still more broadly smiles the old noblesse. In the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, which the emperor watches as closely as he watched the
working-class quarter of Saint Antoine, anecdotes are rife concerning
the new master in the old Tuileries. Now that he is called “Sire,” just
like the last of the Bourbons, all the lorgnettes are turned on him, and
he has become the focus of criticism. As far as his own personality is
concerned, so great is his native dignity that he is practically above
criticism; in Milan, already, when no more than a general of the French
Republic, he ruled simply because he was there. But his relatives, with
their childish curiosity and jealousy, and with their gossip about
everything that goes on in the palace, soon become the targets of
mockery. Magnified by rumour, and carried across the frontiers, this
ridicule besmirches the master.
Henceforward England keeps in Paris, in addition to ordinary spies,
a horde of quilldrivers, whose tales find credence whenever they are
enlivened with wit. Caricatures pass from hand to hand, showing the
little lieutenant being taught by the great Talma how to walk like an
emperor—Napoleon, who has often taught Talma the best way of playing the
royal roles in Corneille! How otherwise could old Europe defend herself
against this saga which had become reality? The only resource was to
degrade to farce what was being staged with all the crude seriousness of
tragi-comedy.
For the Emperor needs a court! It is his way to do everything with due
attention to detail; but the details of court life are beyond the range
of his studies, and he has to call in the experts of the old regime. The
sometime chamberlain at the court of the late king must lay aside his pen
(literature had been the resource of his retirement), to resume his staff
of office. Josephine, who at first is attended by no more than a few of
the ladies of the former court, is at a loss as to the management of an
empress’ train. What has become of Marie Antoinette’s lady-in-waiting?
She is still alive, and keeps a school in Paris. Bring her forth from her
obscurity! She comes, and in the same rooms, before the same mirrors,
arranges the folds of the train round these Creole feet which know very
different dances from those of the poor dead queen.
The Emperor organises his court with the same seriousness and the same
precision as if he were organising the general staff of a new army. No
one knows better than Napoleon the vanity of these things: “I am well
aware that plenty of people are writing unfavourably about them. Even
you, Monsieur Roederer, are not complaisant enough to suppose that I have
a little common sense! You ought to understand without my telling you
why I have given my new marshals, plain republicans though they be, the
title of ‘Monseigneur’; it is only to safeguard my own imperial title of
‘Majesty’? The marshals, having grand titles of their own, cannot make
fun of mine.” His very first undertakings as Emperor involve him in the
toils of such contradictions.
The two ex-consuls (these are the only offices suppressed by the Emperor)
become respectively arch-chancellor and arch-treasurer of the Empire.
Talleyrand, as grand chamberlain, brings back the old arts and graces
into the old house. How easy it would be for the Emperor to appoint
none but gentlemen and ladies of the old regime to the leading offices
at court! Instead, he chooses the scions of the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie, the men who have risen with him: Berthier, Murat, Lannes,
Ney, and Davoust. Fourteen generals, who in youth had been bakehouse
lads, stable boys, waiters, cabin boys, or vagrants, must now exchange
their campaigners’ uniforms for the gold-braided coats of the marshals
of France, must double their military duties with offices at court, must
wear lace ruffs and buckled shoes; their wives must learn how to curtsey
in the grand manner, how to stand and sit properly, how to scratch at
the door instead of knocking—all that Europe may see how the Emperor, who
was himself a lieutenant, promotes his lieutenants according to merit.
Marmont is there, still wearing his arm in a sling; he is decked out in
silk and satin and gold; but the slit sleeve, with its reminiscence of
martial glory, seems to mock the splendour of his breeches. The Emperor
tactfully drops out of the ceremonial two details that were degrading to
the dignity of the courtiers: the presentation of the shirt at the king’s
levee, and the kissing of the ruler’s hand.
But how is the charm of the rococo court to be revived, now that a
soldier sits upon the throne? True, that, after hours of deliberation,
it is possible to decide what colours the empress and the highnesses
(Napoleon’s relatives) must wear when they go out hunting. When, however,
the time has come to bring down the stag, and the Emperor’s thoughts
are wandering in other fields, no one else ventures to shoot, with the
result that the stag escapes because the chief sportsman has so much else
on his mind. The ceremonial “was conducted as if to the sound of drums;
everything seemed to happen at the storming pace; and the dread which
he inspired in all, drove away grace and ease.... Court life was cold
and dull, was gloomy rather than dignified. Since we were following a
prescribed ritual, our inner feeling was that we were only machines which
some one had placed upon the new gilded couches.”
The Emperor is bored by ladies’ society. With blunt circumstantiality,
he asks how many children they have had, and whether they suckle their
own babies. He tries to make himself agreeable, but often fails, when
his thoughts range to other matters. At Saint-Cloud, in a room full of
ladies, he can find nothing to say but, again and again: “How hot it is
here!”
All the same, every one attached to the court grows rich. He gives
princely salaries to the court officials, and only shows thrift in his
payments to some of the members of the old noblesse, maliciously implying
that such work is nothing more than their duty. In general, he pays
munificently, for “ambition is the mainspring of action. People work so
long as they are aspiring upwards.... I have made senators and princes
in order to promote ambition, and to make them dependent on me.” He thus
uses both honours and money to attach people to his cause, making, not
friends, but dependents.
He knows the value of money; and though at all the critical moments of
his career he surprises us by improvisation, we are, in general, just as
much astonished by the way in which he continually displays a bourgeois
rationality and foresight. His own demands are moderate. The Emperor’s
personal salary is fixed at twenty-five millions, the amount paid to the
late king; but where as Louis had spent forty-five millions, Napoleon
saves twelve. The whole court, resplendent though it is, does not cost a
fourth as much as the Bourbon court. France, which has to foot the bill,
owes this economy to the care and knowledge of the master, who once had
to live on ninety francs a month, and even now declares that he could get
along well enough with twelve hundred francs a year and a horse.
There was no change in his routine of life. The Emperor was called
at seven, and held his first reception at nine. Most of the day, his
secretaries were engaged in taking down from dictation. This dictation
was at the speed of ordinary conversation, and must be transcribed with
perfect accuracy. At night, when he had some difficulty in sleeping,
Méneval must come to record his master’s night thoughts. His dinner took
twenty minutes, and he hardly noticed what he was eating. He was much
more plainly clad than his gaily bedecked courtiers; and when, on State
occasions, he had to dress ceremoniously, he was always in a bad temper
while being arrayed, and greatly relieved when he could doff his finery.
When he entered Saint-Cloud after the place had been done up, he regarded
it with disfavour, saying: “Rooms like this are suitable for a kept
woman; they lack seriousness.”
He does not allow himself to be enslaved by anything, and never insists
that his bed or his meals or the lighting shall be just so and no
otherwise. Even the snuff-box that he always carries is no more than
a toy. The only things which the Emperor finds indispensable are open
fires, hot baths, eau-de-cologne, Chambertin, and clean linen twice a day.
Josephine is extravagant. Her seven hundred dresses and two hundred and
fifty hats, her jewels, her shawls, and her hair-dressing, cost millions;
and although the Emperor wants her to shine in all the splendours which
he scorns for himself, he often grumbles at the preposterous totals of
the bills.
His brothers and sisters squander money too. He gives them everything,
and they are never satisfied. There is an absurd rivalry between the
five couples (Lucien is still banished) and Josephine, whom all the
others detest. Of the six grand dignitaries who draw fabulous salaries,
four are his near relatives, by blood or by marriage. Joseph is grand
elector; Louis, constable; Eugene, arch-chancellor of State; and Murat,
high admiral. Since the brothers are to be styled Imperial Highnesses,
the sisters have their noses put out of joint, and make a collective
demand, complaining that Hortense, as the wife of Louis, has become
Imperial Highness, while they are “nothing.” He eyes them for a moment,
and replies with a witticism which deserves a place in universal history:
“When I listen to you, I can almost believe that His Majesty our father
of blessed memory must have bequeathed us crown and realm!”
Indeed, one could almost believe it. For when he complies with their
demand, with a good nature he is not apt to show towards others, and
when for ten years to come he showers honours and wealth, crowns and
territories, upon these brothers and sisters who show no gratitude,
who never obey him, and never cease to trouble him—we cannot but ask
ourselves once more what can be the prejudice which blinds his eyes
where they are concerned. His pride is great; he is lonely in his
self-confidence; his path is that of a pioneer; in this instance as in
others, his motives must be mixed; in part obscurely felt, in part coldly
calculated.
He is half an oriental, and it tickles his fancy to bestow diadems as
he used to bestow swords and snuff-boxes; but all the same, he warily
contrives that power shall be given to those only on whom he can rely.
Well, what is thicker than blood? Even his companions-in-arms seem to
him less trustworthy than his relatives; but for his trust in them, his
relatives will repay him with ingratitude, and in the end his sister will
betray him. Because in this one respect he infringes his own principle of
equality and departs from his determination to choose only the efficient,
because he appoints brothers and nephews to high office and looks upon
them as his heirs, he cannot give them the free hand which it is his
way to give all his generals within the limits of their commissions. By
treating his relatives as an all-powerful minister treats princes who are
still under tutelage, he enrages them, and lays up a store of bitterness
for himself.
Joseph is already animated by a mocking spirit. He tells his daughter
to address His Majesty as “Consul”; holds disputations in democratic
circles; refuses to become a minister of State; but accepts an allowance
of two millions as an imperial prince, and lives at the Luxembourg, which
his brother hands over to him. At length Napoleon loses patience. The
ostensible cause of his anger is a trifle, but all the rage of his heart
is now vented in this complaint:
“What on earth is Joseph thinking about? Does he imagine that he has been
made prince in order to hobnob with my enemies and walk up and down the
streets of Paris in brown surtout and round hat? I have sacrificed my
own personal pleasures in order to become what I am. I am as well fitted
as another to shine in society!... But things of that sort do not help a
man to rule. Does he dream of disputing with me for the supreme power? My
strength is builded on a rock!...
“Do you know what he ventured to say to me recently in the presence
of two others? I ought not to have my wife crowned; the step would be
opposed to his interest; it would give Louis’ children a better position
than his, because they would be the grandsons of an empress! He had the
impudence to talk to me about his rights and his interests! He wanted
to touch me on the raw! He might almost as well have boasted he had
slept with my mistress, or hoped to do so soon. My mistress! Power is my
mistress! The conquest of that mistress has cost me so much that I will
allow no one to rob me of her, or to share her with me!”
Thus does the volcano suddenly spout forth great rocks, in the midst of
a conversation about trifles. But the rest of the conversation does not
turn wholly on trifles. He speaks bitterly of his brothers and sisters,
comparing them with Eugene and Hortense. “My stepchildren always side
with me. If their mother is put out because I take a fancy for a pretty
girl, they say to her: ‘Oh, well, he’s still quite young, you know. You
mustn’t make a fuss. No doubt he has faults, but you must not forget how
much he has done for us all.’”
But nothing will keep him from pushing his brothers’ advancement. When
Joseph refuses all other occupations, Napoleon forces him into the army.
“He must have military rank, get a nice wound, and win a good reputation
for himself. I shall only give him easy jobs. Then he can win a battle,
and I shall be able to promote him to a higher rank than all the other
commanders.” It sounds like the education of a degenerate son by a great
father.
Louis has an enthusiasm for poetry; he becomes chief of the imperial
guard, so that he may have a dignified position; but he can stay at home
when the guns begin to shoot.
Murat and Caroline are frightfully extravagant; their table service is of
gold. “As for Caroline, my own sister, if I have to discuss anything with
her, I must make longer speeches than at the Council of State....
“The whole lot of them are always thinking about my death. It’s rather
nasty of them to be continually bringing that into my mind.... Were it
not that I find some happiness in my home life, I should be miserable!
Why are they always so suspicious of my wife? What has she more than
they? Diamonds and debts!... She’s a good wife to me, and does them no
harm! She’s rather fond of playing the empress, with her jewels, her
dresses, and the whimsies natural to her age. I have never been blinded
by love. But I am just. She shall be crowned, even if it costs me two
hundred thousand men!”
Thus he is continually bickering with a family which he could reduce to
nonentity in a moment, but from which he is unable to cut adrift.
Only one of them is incorruptible, asks for nothing, and holds aloof.
Lucien writes from Rome:
“Mother thinks that the First Consul is wrong to take the Bourbons’
crown. She has uneasy presentiments which she will not confide to me. Her
dread is that a gang of fanatics will assassinate the Emperor.”—While
this dignified mother of the family, still a beautiful woman though
well over fifty, is led by her knowledge of the world and her gloomy
forebodings to keep herself to herself, while she holds her tongue and
only mentions her anxieties to a few intimates, in the Tuileries her
children are quarrelling about titles and precedence, disputing who is to
sit at the Emperor’s right, debating whether they are entitled to walk
out of the room in front of a sovereign prince!
Then Napoleon summons Madame Mère to Paris. But here is one who will
not obey him. At first she makes excuses. When more urgent commands are
sent, she sets out on the journey, but takes her time, and does not reach
Paris for the most splendid festival that a mortal mother can ever have
witnessed. She hears and reads all that a gaping world says and writes
about the affair. Her only comment is: “Pourvou que cela doure!”
IX