is a little upset, for she fancies she is being poisoned by those who
would like me to marry some one else. That is despicable. Still, in the
end, I shall have to get a divorce. I ought to have taken the step long
ago, and I should have had quite big children by now; for, I may as well
tell you”—he speaks earnestly—“people are wrong in thinking it is my
fault we have no children. I have several. Two I know of for certain.”
He mentions, without naming her, Léon’s mother; and then, wonder of
wonders, the Polish countess. “She is an exquisite woman, an angel....
You laugh to see that I am in love. Yes, I really am; but I never forget
considerations of policy. She wants me to marry a princess. Of course, as
far as feelings go, I would much rather raise my beloved to the throne.
You, in your dealings with your wife, ought in like manner to be guided
by considerations of policy!”
“Sire, I should act as you are doing if my wife were only my mistress.”
The Emperor grows more and more animated; speaks of a fixed intention to
get a divorce; deplores having given the Bavarian princess to Eugene,
who does not care for her and did not choose her for himself; remarks
that he might long since have had Lucien’s daughter betrothed to the
prince of Asturia “or some other great prince, perhaps even a great
emperor.... Your divorce would have to precede mine, or be simultaneous.
Then there would be less chatter about my divorce; for yours, in view of
your obstinate refusal for so long previously, will certainly arouse more
interest. Will you do me this service? I think you really ought to.”
Lucien looks at him so quizzically that the Emperor is amazed, eyes his
brother up and down, and says: “Why not?”
Lucien smiles at the unreasonableness of the demand. Napoleon is
embarrassed, but returns to the charge. Suddenly he addresses his brother
as “my dear President” (Lucien having long ago been president of the
Council of Five Hundred), and adds with emphasis: “Service for service,
of course—and this time you will not find me ungrateful!”
Lucien sank “into a sort of reverie, which was by no means unpleasant,”
so that for a few moments he hardly noticed what Napoleon was
talking about. Before long he realised that the Emperor was saying,
confidentially, that his only reason for wanting Lucien’s divorce was
that this would probably minimise the effect of his own on public
opinion. Lucien, as tactfully as he could, alluded to his own advantages,
pointing out that his wife was a young woman and was not barren. Napoleon
took no offence. “Your wife, oh, yes, your wife, didn’t I tell you? She
will become the duchess of Parma, your eldest boy will be her heir,
without having any claim of succession to your rights as a French prince.
For this is only the first stage to which I shall raise you, until
something better can be found: an independent crown.”
At the word “independent,” Lucien cannot restrain a smile, for he is
thinking of the part his brothers have to play. Napoleon notices the
expression on his face.
“Yes, independent. You will know how to reign.... You need only take your
choice!” His eyes flash fire, and he bangs the enormous map with the
flat of his hand. “I’m not talking at random. All this belongs to me or
soon will. Even to-day, I can do what I please. Would you like to have
Naples? I will take it away from Joseph.... Italy, the loveliest jewel
in my imperial crown? Eugene is no more than viceroy. He hopes to become
king, expects to outlive me, but he will be disappointed in this matter.
I shall live to be ninety, for I cannot do with less than that for the
complete consolidation of my empire. Besides, Eugene will not suit me in
Italy, after I have divorced his mother. Would you care for Spain? Do you
not see that it is ripe to fall into my hands, thanks to the blunders of
the Bourbons you are so fond of? Would you not like to be king in the
country to which you went as envoy? What would you prefer to have? It is
for you to say. Anything and everything is at your disposal, if only you
will divorce your wife before I divorce mine!”
Lucien is spell-bound for a time by the feverish haste with which
Napoleon speaks. At last he says: “Not even your lovely France, Sire,
would bribe me to this divorce; and besides....” He hesitates; but the
Emperor guesses his thoughts, and says dryly, with an imperious air such
as Lucien has never before seen him assume:
“Do you think that you, as a private individual, are in a more secure
position than I upon my throne?... Do you believe that your friend the
pope is strong enough to protect you against me if I should seriously
propose to take measures against you?” After reiterating arguments and
enticements, he says in a formal tone: “You may be quite sure of this:
everything for the divorced Lucien; nothing for the undivorced!”
Lucien glances at the door, as a hint to the Emperor that he would be
glad to be given his dismissal; but Napoleon takes him by the hand, and
says “in a vague tone, and with a demeanour which might mean anything”:
“If I get a divorce, you will not be the only other one. Joseph is merely
waiting for my divorce to arrange for his own. Madame Julie has been
good for nothing but to bring girls into the world, whereas I urgently
need boys. The only use of girls is to marry them off in advantageous
alliances. Besides, your eldest girl is nearly fourteen, so you tell
me; just the right age. Won’t you send her to Mamma? If you do what I
want, I will get Mamma to arrange something good for her.... You are
not afraid that we shall do any harm to your spoiled darling? Tell her
we shall be good friends, and that I will not pull her ears as if she
were a child.... I need more nephews and nieces! The divorced Josephine,
the grandmother of Hortense’s children, will always be the enemy of my
legitimate and my adopted sons.” Then, murmuring as if to himself, “It
must be done. I have no other way of undermining the power of Louis’ and
Hortense’s children.”
He comes back to the subject of his own illegitimate children, says
he intends to adopt them, enters into details, and suddenly exclaims:
“You cannot suppose that I have not the power to legitimise my natural
children, just as Louis XIV. declared his bastards, the fruit of a
twofold adultery, to be within the right of succession to the throne.”
Again he speaks of Joseph’s intention to procure a divorce, and, when
Lucien is sceptical, he rubs his hands delightedly, saying:
“Yes, yes! Joseph and you will both divorce your wives! We will all three
get divorces, and then marry again, all of us, on the very same day!”
He adds a number of quips in the like merry vein. Then, suddenly: “But
why have you become so serious? One might think you a sage of classical
antiquity! You must stay with me for three days. I’ll have a bed made
ready for you in the next room to mine!”
He presses this invitation. Lucien, who dreads his brother’s
blandishments, has to invent an excuse, and says that one of his children
is ill.
His wife, he goes on to say, has suffered because of the Emperor’s
dislike; so much so, that he had been afraid at one time her anxiety and
distress about the matter would be too much for her.
“Is that really so? I’m sorry. You must take care of her! Whatever
happens, she must not die before you get your divorce, for if she did I
should not be able to legitimise her children!”
Lucien pretends that he will think the matter over.
“That’s all right. Well, well, go if you must! But be sure to keep your
word!” Napoleon takes Lucien by the hand, and at the same time presents
his cheek for a kiss, which is not as brotherly as it might be. Lucien
departs, and when he is in the anteroom he hears the Emperor calling:
“Méneval!”
Lucien quickens his steps, for again the dread of imprisonment has seized
him.
No one, no historian and no imaginative writer, has ever given a
more brilliant description of Napoleon than the foregoing, penned by
his brother with obvious fidelity. This evening, the Emperor is in a
quandary. He wants the help of a man whom he cannot coerce, and one
who in certain respects is his equal. In the light thrown by Lucien,
Napoleon’s character becomes positively transparent. He develops himself
under our very eyes, showing us all the interplay of his motives.
He lavishes temptations in the endeavour to overpersuade his adversary.
Every move is carefully thought out, that it may exercise its appropriate
influence upon the ambition of his interlocutor, whom he tries to win by
the studied gradations of the dialogue. The visitor finds him brooding
over the map of Europe, and is greeted in a way which is to alarm and to
inspire confidence by turns. The wife, the bone of contention, is first
vilified and then extolled. Napoleon goes back to the phraseology of the
Jacobin Club, calls his brother “citizen,” pulls out one emotional stop
after another. He reminds Lucien that they are both Corsicans; says with
a challenging irony that Europe is too small for the pair of them; talks
of Mamma and Pauline, of Joseph and Louis, using names that carry with
them reminiscences of the nursery in which the Bonaparte children had
played together. Thus he spins his web round Lucien.
And yet—this is the marvel—we are shown the bubbling up of his nature,
the beating of his heart, the quivering of his brain. Again and ever
again, imagination and passion seem to carry him beyond the limits of
self-restraint. Though his brother is a declared opponent, he makes
all kinds of confessions: about Josephine and the countess; about his
stepchildren and his generals; about his own blunders and his new,
far-reaching plans. There is a flood of confidential admissions. Why?
Because this Lucien, though an adversary, though no less gifted than
Talleyrand, is a brother, and therefore, to the clannish Napoleon, is,
in spite of everything, worthy of confidence. It moves us to see the way
in which Napoleon detains him in private talk for hours, till midnight
is long past; how he presses Lucien to stay for a few days, that they
may thrash matters out; and how Lucien insists on going, not because he
really needs to, but because he does not wish to bow before the force of
his brother’s genius. For there is a secret contest between the pair, not
about love or divorce, not about honour or crowns. To-day, just as seven
years before, when the younger man could not bring himself to obey the
elder, the contest is between the innermost self-esteem of one rival and
of the other. After all these years, in the privacy of his own thoughts
Lucien is still convinced that he could have managed everything much
better than Napoleon.
And yet, all the time, he loves him after his own fashion. Every word of
his report betrays the obscure enmity between the brothers, the enmity
that lives side by side with love. That is why he concedes nothing.
The memory of the Nineteenth Brumaire has to be revived, and once more
each of them is confident he was right. While these expert realists are
talking, with the old phrases on their lips, the old verbiage about the
greatness and the safety of France, they are really moved by nothing
but their own passions. We seem to see them posturing before the crowd
(a doubt seizes them—“We are alone here. You see. We are alone. No one
can overhear us”); but in truth they are alone, in a strange and foreign
castle, beneath huge candelabra, on which the candles are burning low.
Nevertheless, despite Napoleon’s wealth and all his crowns, despite his
stupendous powers of intellect and imagination, how poor a man he is,
entangled in the threads of destiny, the threads which he has spun, but
which are now spinning themselves in defiance of his wishes! For all his
omnipotence, he is the slave of an incalculable, much-courted power,
public opinion, which will not allow him to effect a reconciliation
with his brother, to recognise his own children, or to marry the woman
he loves. The impotence of the man of might is displayed in his own
exclamations. He asseverates his power to do anything and everything—and
yet he dare not do what he wants. How pleased he is with his brother,
whose affairs he could manage so beautifully now that they have met after
many years of separation. If Lucien would only stay with him, were it but
for three days, they would certainly be able to come to an understanding.
“Good God, you press me hard, and I am weak.”
During this night when an emperor was offering his brother a choice
among the thrones of Europe, was there not talk of the heritage of
Carlo Bonaparte, a poor nobleman, on a small, out-of-the-way island?
Did the Emperor of the French, who will never hear a word of his being
a foreigner in France, conjure up the shade of the Corsican; was it he
who evoked the penates of his birthplace for the protection of Brother
Lucien, a negotiator in a hostile camp? Surely what we are recounting is
a saga, told at midnight beside the fireplace in Mantua? Yes, it is the
saga which the little Corsican lieutenant has woven out of the threads of
his life: first a narrow band; but as he trails it after him, twists it
and loops it, mixes colours and patterns, by degrees a carpet is formed;
greater and more varied become the pictures produced out of the one
thread, pictures of lands and thrones, of seas and men.
The whole has been woven in the most natural way in the world. Not by a
miracle, but only through the working of his talents, has the man become
master of men. To-night he wants to add yet another to the long list of
his subjects. He has not enough time, even though he hopes to live till
he is ninety. He cannot allow his brothers to have girl children, or
to live with the women of their choice. But if these undesired nieces
throng his stage, he must set up new nephews against them. If a wife is
in danger of dying of grief, she must at least be good enough to wait
until she is divorced. When the men of the family have at length forsaken
the wives who are barren or can only bear daughters, then, on the same
day, they will take new wives unto themselves—and all will go happily
ever after. Look at him, when the conversation is drawing to a close,
rubbing his hands in his satisfaction, the little magician who stands in
front of his immense map. By the time he has impaled all the countries
with his coloured pins, impaled them like butterflies to put away in his
collection—well, by that time the candles have burned out and a large
slice of to-morrow has already been devoured.
XIX
The Spanish dynasty seemed about to fall. Immediately after the
conversation recorded above, war was declared. Had not the Emperor
already predicted it? A king who had degenerated into being his wife’s
souteneur; a queen who only lacked courage to be a Messalina; a faithless
minister; hatred between father and son; rascality, bribery, and
corruption—to such a pass had sunk the house of Bourbon! He who wished to
dethrone those who represented it, must use the same means as were used
by the Spanish royal house itself. Never before had Napoleon’s actions
been more fiercely unscrupulous; never before had the degeneracy of his
opponent been a more useful weapon to his hand. He had always adapted his
methods to his adversary; and, in the case of this decayed dynasty, he
had recourse to the wiles and trickery similar to those which the Spanish
house availed itself of in a last effort to preserve its integrity.
Absorbed in his schemes, he forgot the Spanish people, which was in no
way responsible for such princes, and which in no way resembled the royal
rulers: in days to come the Emperor was bitterly to rue his forgetfulness.
He who is for England, is against me! In support of this principle,
Napoleon had already chased the Portuguese royal family from the throne.
Now, since Spain, too, is on the side of England, in a prolonged intrigue
he turns to his own advantage the struggle between the king and the crown
prince; brings the latter to the front; then orders him to withdraw
in favour of the father; and, finally, at a meeting of all parties in
Bayonne, is able, by threats and cunning, to ensure that the Spanish
crown shall be his own. The Mediterranean must belong to him; the coasts
at any rate, from Gibraltar to Cattaro. This is an essential part of the
war on England.
At first his generals have an easy task in their work of conquest. “Do
you know why I am invading Spain?” says Napoleon to Metternich. “I must
feel safe at my back.” Alas for him when he is no longer safe in that
quarter!
On the critical day when he has settled matters with the Spanish princes,
and has arranged that they shall be kept in a mild imprisonment, he is
in a condition of moderate intoxication. The new crown gives him fresh
impetus. He no longer sees Spain; his eyes are turned to contemplate the
worldwide empire of Spain in the days of her vanished glory. On this
occasion, a witness tells us, “the Emperor spoke, or rather dictated,
at great length, in the Ossianic vein, ... like one whose heart was
uplifted.... In his picturesque, metaphorical style, he referred to the
powerful kingdoms of Mexico and Peru, describing the might of their rule
and their influence. Never have I heard him display such a wealth of
imagery as on this day. He was sublime.”
The one thing he lacks is an occupant for the vacant throne, since
Lucien has not accepted the bribe. The only way out of the difficulty
will be a general post, like that which occurs when a vacancy is filled
in the upper ranks of the officialdom and every one is promoted a step.
Let us do away with the kingdom of Holland, make it into a province,
and discrown Louis. The victim protests: “It does not suit me to be
governor of a province. A king must rule by divine right.... How could
I demand loyalty from my people if I myself were false to the oath I
swore when I ascended the throne?” Napoleon is troubled once more by the
consequences of having founded a dynasty. This modern Roman should have
put his provinces in charge of generals and regents, whom he could recall
whenever he pleased. But the ermine in which he dresses his puppets, all
the apparatus of coronation and Mass and anointing, awaken ideas which
were being laid to rest, and fully justify little King Louis in his
refusal. Joseph is more accommodating. Till yesterday, he was king in
Naples: why should he not be king in Madrid to-morrow? Shortly after the
Bayonne intrigue, King Joseph I. enters his new capital, acclaimed, not
indeed by the hearts of the people, but by the proper number of salute
guns and all the ceremonial suitable to the occasion. Murat, whose wife
has long been pestering her brother for a crown, Murat the son of the
proletariat, becomes king of Naples, and thus the imposing couple gain a
statelier field for their intrigues, and in due time for their treason.
But this Spanish affair is a great adventure, and has serious
consequences. There is muttering “at the Emperor’s back,” for the
Spaniards are proud, and will not endure the conquest without a struggle.
In front, across the Rhine, all the Prussians and all the Austrians who
hate the Emperor have now reason to dread that Prussia and Austria may
share the fate of Spain, and have good grounds for yet another renewal
of their offensive. In Berlin, Napoleon had declared that on the Elbe
he had conquered the Ganges. Now he fails to see that in his dealings
on the Tagus he is raising up new enemies on the Danube. But he knows
that he cannot do as he pleases in Spain unless the tsar holds Austria
in check for him. The tsar is a man of unstable character. The only
way to win over Alexander is by suggestion, as two years before, in
Tilsit, and for this a personal interview will be necessary. The Emperor
thereupon proposes to meet the tsar in central Germany, half way between
their respective empires, thus initiating a form of policy new to him, a
conference. Always before, when he has left France, it has been sword in
hand, and he has invariably paved the way for negotiations by fighting.
Now, to avoid a fight, a conference table is established in Erfurt.
Napoleon prepares for this new sort of campaign with as much care as
if he had been preparing for a military expedition. Day after day he
summons court officials and other dignitaries. “My journey must be
extremely imposing. I want great names for the headquarters, ... and
I wish to amaze Germany by the splendour of the occasion.” For others
are coming besides the tsar. The great double stars are attracting
all the lesser stars. How can he best influence this assembly? The
play’s the thing wherein he’ll catch the conscience of the kings! He
stage-manages his theatre elaborately, devotes much thought to the cast,
amends passages, and gives Talma (for whom he feels something akin to
friendship) hints as to what requires to be emphasised—all with an eye to
the royal audience. “You are going to play your parts in a theatre where
the stalls will be filled with kings.”
In actual fact, the evenings at the theatre form the climax of the
Erfurt weeks. Among the audience are four kings and thirty-four princes,
rivalling one another in the splendour of their retinues. The Emperor of
the West and the Emperor of the East occupy the royal box. Almost every
evening, this distinguished audience sees and hears what the kings of
saga or the kings of history proclaim, what they struggle for, what they
suffer. Talma, as Orestes, thunders forth:
The gods are the rulers of our times,
And yet fame is created by our own deeds.
Why should the heart allow the heavens to threaten?
Resolve to become immortal
And you will be as gods upon the earth!
The next evening they see Voltaire’s _Mahomet_, of which the Emperor is
especially fond, were it only because the hero so seldom quits the stage.
The prophet’s disciple exclaims:
All men are equal; it is not birth,
But virtue alone which makes them different.
There are certain mortals favoured by the gods,
Who achieve everything by their own merits,
Who owe nothing to their forefathers.
Such a one is he whom I have chosen as master;
He alone, in all the world, has deserved his position.
Is there any one among the audience whose heart does not beat faster as
he glances at the man up there in the royal box—though the passion may
be a passionate antagonism? The princes by right of birth may dread to
look at the Emperor, but at least their eyes will seek one another as
if to secure a common understanding. They do not dare to smile. They
tremble before the man who sits there in a plain green coat, the man who
is revolt incorporated in human form. He knows what the German princes in
the stalls do not yet know, that a new and stronger utterance will soon
be made by Mahomet:
See, the Roman Empire falling into ruins,
That great torn body, whose scattered limbs
Lie spread about the earth dishonoured and lifeless:
On these fragments of a world we shall upbuild the far-flung East,
A new god reveals himself to the blind world!
Finally, the Emperor’s policy of to-day and to-morrow is voiced in the
words:
Who was it made the master a king?
Victory alone has crowned him! But now
To the name of Conqueror he will add
The name of Peacemaker.
At this instant, when all glance at him questioningly, Napoleon makes a
slight movement as a sign that such is actually his intention, and for
a political instant the illusion of the theatre is dispelled. But when,
next evening, Œdipus proclaims: “A strong man’s friendship is a gift of
the gods!” the two emperors rise and clasp hands.
Napoleon knows well enough that Alexander is not a strong man, that his
friendship is not a gift of the gods. He tries, therefore, by suggestion,
to win over this vacillating personality. If the tsar is to be influenced
to move along the lines laid down in the letter previously quoted, if
he is to agree to divide with Napoleon the empire of the world, he will
require a course of psychomagnetism, renewed from day to day. Napoleon
rarely leaves the tsar to his own thoughts, but treats him like a woman
who is to be wooed and won. The only person who is allowed to help the
Emperor in this matter is Talleyrand.
The diplomat still limps after Napoleon as the Emperor strides forward,
though recently the differences between the two men had found vent.