scene: the word of a seer, deeply felt, an impression rather than a
judgment—and it is meet that such it should be. For, precisely because
the world ruler does not know that a world ruler is now before him,
this utterance, the like of which he had never made to or of any one in
the past and which he is never to make in the future, shows the godlike
kinship of a genius with his brother genius. It is as if two elemental
forces hovering on high had recognised each other through a rift in the
clouds, and had, despite themselves, stretched out arms to one another
until the tips of their forefingers had met; then the mists of time once
more rose between them. A fleeting moment in the course of a thousand
years; there has been nothing to compare with it since the meeting
between Diogenes and Alexander.
Goethe’s discretion prevented him from recording the conversation for
many a year, and even then the record was incomplete. Other memoirs
provide us with fragments only.
Napoleon praises _Werther_, and adds: “I do not like the end of your
romance.”
“I can well believe that, Sire. You would rather that a romance had no
end.”
The Emperor calmly accepts this wellnigh threatening epigram. He then
continues to criticise the story, saying that Werther’s love was not
the only factor of the catastrophe, for ambition was likewise at work.
The poet laughs (in two letters Goethe mentions this—a freedom rarely
indulged in when the Emperor was present), and admits that the criticism
is sound; but he adds that surely an artist may be forgiven for using an
artifice which few readers will detect.
[Illustration: The Coronation. Detail from the picture by Jacques Louis
David. Louvre, Paris.
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)]
The Emperor is well content with his little victory in the other man’s
domain. Turning now to drama, he makes “very remarkable observations,
like one who had studied tragedy with the closest attention, in the
spirit of a judge presiding over a criminal trial, and of one who keenly
regretted the departure of the French theatre from nature and truth.” He
spoke unfavourably of the drama of destiny, saying that it was a relic of
less enlightened days:
“What have we to do with destiny now! Politics are destiny!”
As he utters these words, he gives an object lesson in his own fashion,
turning to Daru to discuss requisitions, and then speaking to Soult who
has just entered. Turning back to Goethe, he manœuvres to get the poet to
himself, and asks personal questions. Then he assumes the offensive:
“Does it please you here, Herr Goethe?”
But Goethe, too, knows how to seize political opportunities, and rejoins:
“Very much; and I hope these days will also prove advantageous to our
little country.”
“Is your people happy?” asks the Emperor, not noticing that he has
phrased the question as if he were talking to a sovereign prince—for he
must often have used such words in conversation with rulers. Really, he
has no interest now in Saxony, and is thinking: “How can this man of
genius be useful to me? What a pity he does not write history. But as a
novelist he might describe this congress, or he might write a play.—He
would certainly do either much better than our folk; and, besides, this
would have redoubled value coming from a foreigner.” He therefore says:
“You would do well to stay here for the whole period of the conference,
that you may write your impressions of this great drama. What does Herr
Goethe think of the suggestion?”
Napoleon ends with this question (so unconsonant with his customary
dictatorial manner) almost all his advances to the poet who is so hard to
lure out of his reticence. Goethe says cautiously:
“I have not the pen of a classical author.”
“That’s in the political vein,” thinks the Emperor. But what he says is:
“Your duke has invited me to Weimar. For a time he was sulky, but now he
is in a better humour.”
“If he was sulky, Sire, the punishment was certainly rather sharp; but
perhaps I ought not to express an opinion on these matters. At any rate,
we all owe him reverence.”
“Splendid!” thinks Napoleon. “He stands in front of his master, but lets
me see he knows that the duke is a donkey. I must get this man to write
my ‘Cæsar’ for me! The effect in France would be bigger than that of
winning a battle!” His spoken words are:
“Tragedy should be the school of kings and peoples; there is no other
field in which the poet can win such laurels. Why do you not write
‘Cæsar’s Death,’ more worthily, more splendidly than in Voltaire’s
attempt? This might be the greatest work of your life. The aim of the
tragedy would be to show how much happiness Cæsar would have conferred
on the human race had he been given time to carry out his far-reaching
plans. Come to Paris! I urge you to do so! Thence you will get a wider
prospect of the world, and there you will find the most abundant
materials for new imaginative creations.”
The poet expresses his thanks for the proposal, and says he would deem
himself happy were it possible to accept.
“That is as far as I had better go,” thinks the Emperor, as he had
thought recently in his dealings with the tsar; “if I am too insistent,
he will fancy I have a strong interest in the matter. It is very strange!
He wants nothing from me, not even to shine in my presence. What can
charm him out of himself, this incorruptible man? He must come and see
the plays we are presenting here; that will stimulate his ambition to
write better ones.”
Out loud: “I hope you will come to the theatre this evening. You will
find a lot of princes there. Do you know the prince-primate? You’ll
see him in his box, fast asleep, with his head pillowed on the king of
Württemberg’s shoulder. Do you know the tsar? You ought to dedicate
something to him in honour of Erfurt!”
Thus the Emperor gives a third hint. Will Goethe take it? But the poet
only smiles civilly, and candidly declares:
“I have never done anything of that sort, Sire, and therefore I have
never had occasion to repent it.”
A touch! A touch! The Emperor of the French cannot but feel it!
Marvellous to relate, the son of the revolution tries to strengthen his
position by referring to the Roi Soleil:
“In the reign of Louis XIV., our great authors held other views!”
“No doubt they did, Sire; but we do not know whether they may not have
repented.”
“How true!” is the Emperor’s thought when he hears this sceptical
answer, which is really a skirmisher’s attack on the part of the German.
Consequently, he makes no attempt to detain the poet when the latter,
with a deprecatory gesture, himself closes the interview and bids the
Emperor farewell—another breach of court traditions, with which Goethe is
perfectly familiar.
Thus the amazing upshot of this uncanny conversation between the two
men of genius is that the Emperor, to whom the duologue was merely
interesting, had vainly solicited a favour of the poet to whom it was
the greatest encounter in his life. The explanation is simple: The
Emperor wanted to make use of the poet, whereas the poet did not need
the Emperor. Napoleon wanted Goethe to write for him. But to Goethe,
Napoleon’s actions were merely the precious material which enabled him
to penetrate to the heart of the other’s genius; and he could do this
without a journey to Paris.
Although the poet did not respond to the Emperor’s invitation by so
much as a poetically worded compliment, years afterwards, in a tragical
moment, Napoleon remembered the man whom, by three great words, he had
set apart from all contemporaries.
XXI
Two months after this conversation, Napoleon is in Madrid, standing in
front of the picture of Philip II. He has been over the palace, and has
made a quick transit through the galleries; but here, in front of this
conqueror’s image, he stands so long that the members of his suite watch
in dumb amazement while the Emperor seems to be holding converse with the
king. The man contemplating the picture is unable to say: “Upon my realm
the sun never sets.” Perhaps this worldwide empire cannot be achieved
without the aid of the Inquisition—which Napoleon has just suppressed,
when invading Spain. Has he always been too lenient? Too democratic?
Still, he has, in a dozen countries, put liberty in harness, that she may
be broken in to dragging the dictator’s chariot. Perhaps the trouble is
that he talks and writes too much? Philip, with the unfathomable eyes,
was always silent. He does not look happy. But who is happy?
A gloomy and joyless war had led the Emperor to this southern capital,
for the intrigues with which the Spanish affair had been begun had
wrought their own revenges. The kings and princes with whom he had dealt
so high-handedly in the previous spring, had deserved no better fate; but
the Emperor had failed to understand the temper of the Spanish people.
When these had taken up arms in defence of their injured pride, the
Emperor had regarded the insurgents as mere windbags. “They were worthy
countrymen of Don Quixote. Ignorance, arrogance, cruelty, cowardice—these
made up the spectacle before our eyes. Monks and inquisitors had stolen
away Spanish brains.... Their soldiers were like the Arabs, and would
only fight from behind the protection of walls; their peasants were no
better than fellaheen; their monks were ignorant and dissolute; their
grandees were degenerate, and had neither energy nor influence.”
Entangled in this error, he failed to realise that, though he might
conquer them to-day, his conquest would be for the day only. To-morrow
the Spaniards, supported by England (which here finds its greatest
rallying point), will begin to shoot once more from the houses, and who
shall hinder them? The Emperor was already willing to admit it to his
confidants. To Vincent, who had been a comrade in his earliest campaigns,
he said:
“This is the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life! Can you think
of any possible way in which I can free myself from the embarrassment?”
“You have simply to withdraw, Sire, and leave the country to itself.”
“Fine words! Remember my position. I am a usurper. To gain this position,
I needed to have the best head and the best sword in Europe. If I am
to keep what I have won, all must be convinced of this. There must be
no falling off in the prestige of my head and my sword. In face of a
watchful universe, it is impossible for me to say that I have made a
serious mistake, and to withdraw with a defeated army. You must see for
yourself that the thing can’t be done. I am still asking for your advice!”
Conviction that he has made a blunder, and that it is impossible for him
to retrieve it; crude admissions made to an old companion-in-arms, whose
advice he asks; is this young Bonaparte, or Napoleon growing old? In a
week, he had beaten Frederick’s famous army. But in Spain, he effects
very little in eight months. When he has to deal with armies in a country
which can feed his soldiers, a country with roads and towns, he is always
victorious; but when he must campaign in trackless regions, such as the
desert, the plains of Poland, or the mountains of Andalusia, the tempo
is too tedious for his impetuous nature, and the circumstances are too
incalculable for his mathematics.
His royal brother, instead of supporting him in this perplexing
situation, makes difficulties. King Joseph wants to be a Spaniard, and
to win his subjects by kindness. There are scenes between the brothers.
With good reason the new king feels that he has made himself ridiculous
by having to run away, and because he can only return under shield of
the advancing Emperor. But with even better reason does the man of iron
complain to Roederer about the king:
“Joseph wants to be loved by the Spaniards, and to make them believe in
his affection. Kings cannot inspire affection through tenderness. They
must make themselves feared.... He writes that he wants to retire to
Morfontaine; at this busiest of moments, he proposes to leave me in the
lurch.... He says that he would rather pass the time at his country-seat
than in a land bought with blood unjustly shed.... The blood is that
of the foes of France! If he is king of Spain to-day, it is because he
wanted to be; he could have stayed in Naples had he wished. Support me? I
need no family.... My brothers are not Frenchmen, as I am.... The king of
Holland, too, talks about going into private life. It seems to me that I,
if any one of us three, have the best right to retire to Morfontaine!”
Why does he not break with Joseph? Here is Marshal Soult, commander
in Spain, and perhaps the most highly prized among all his generals.
Why does he not give Soult a crown, just as he has given one to Murat?
“Joseph writes to say that if I value any one more highly than himself,
that is the man I had better make king. I certainly did not make Joseph
a king because I thought such a lot of him! If I distributed thrones
according to merit, I should have made a very different choice! I need
my family to stabilise my dynasty, for that is the system on which I am
working.”
Now, in Madrid, he issues decrees to establish the new order of things;
which is welcomed by few, loved by no one, threatened by England, and
detested by the Spanish people. Nothing can restrain him. Only last
October he had written to his wife from Weimar, saying that the tsar had
been dancing, but he himself would not dance, for “forty years are forty
years.” Moreover, he often makes fun of the way in which he is putting
on fat. Yet on Christmas Eve, afoot, he crosses the Sierra de Guadarrama
in a snowstorm, as if he had still been the general at Lodi. He defeats
the English; but on these miry roads, deep in snow, he is no more able to
follow them in retreat than he could follow the Russians after Friedland;
and he gnashes his teeth when the enemy escapes to the ships. Shall he
follow up the other portion of the English forces, away there in the
mountains? That would be to withdraw the nucleus of his power still
farther from France. Here he is, waiting in the centre of Castille; but
what is Paris saying?
He is in camp at Astorga when the courier arrives. Now he will learn what
is going on at home. As he is reading one of the letters, he begins to
tremble with a dumb wrath. Silently he paces up and down for an hour,
without saying a word even to those who are deepest in his confidence.
Then he suddenly issues order that the headquarters staff is to return.
For his own part, leaving army and generals, he hastens to Valladolid,
and thence to the frontier.
“King Philip was right with his unfathomable gaze!” thinks the Emperor as
he drives northward in his travelling carriage. “Instead of abolishing
the Inquisition in Spain, I should have set it up in France. A conspiracy
in Paris, and not one organised by the enemy! Fouché and Talleyrand, whom
I could only use because they hated one another, and because each watched
the other and told tales, have become reconciled and have entered into an
alliance. Murat in it, too!”
The warning letters, which had decided him to return, were from Eugene
and from his mother. Letizia is active in spite of her years; active
in playing her part when danger threatens, though she withdraws when
festivals are the order of the day. She is the Corsican mother, and
safeguards her children. The scope of Talleyrand’s treason, and how long
he has been playing a double game, can at present only be guessed. That
he has advised the Austrian envoy to take the offensive against France
immediately, now when the Emperor is busy elsewhere, is not known, for
there are no incriminatory documents. Even if such documents were in
the Emperor’s possession, how could so great a master have such great
servitors arrested? Slowly and invisibly has the power proceeding from
himself grown in their hands, ultimately to be turned against him whom
they hate. During the fortnight’s journey to Paris the waters of his
wrath are rising against these creatures of his making.
Arrived in the capital, the Emperor calls a Council of State composed of
many senators and all his ministers, that they may be witnesses to his
vengeance. The two delinquents are present. Napoleon loses no time before
he begins his attack on Talleyrand: “You are a thief and a scoundrel, for
whom nothing is sacred. You would sell your own father! I have showered
benefactions upon you, and yet there is nothing that you would refuse to
do against me. You it was who advised me to undertake the mad venture
in Spain, and now you criticise it to all and sundry. It was you who
informed me of the duke of Enghien’s whereabouts and incited me to take
ruthless measures against him.... You have intrigued with the dethroned
Spaniards who were placed in your charge. To-day, because you consider
the Spanish affair a mistake, you have the effrontery to declare that you
had always warned me against it.... You shall restore to me the keys of
your office as grand chamberlain.... I could break you like glass if I
chose; I have the power! But I despise you too much to give myself the
trouble!...”
For half an hour, Napoleon holds forth in this fashion. His hearers sit
petrified. Silently, Talleyrand bows, and withdraws: “What a pity,” he
says smilingly to a friend he meets outside, “that so great a man should
be so ill-mannered!” Within the council chamber, the Emperor now proceeds
to his attack on Fouché, whom he charges with having failed to work up
public opinion, with having supported the enemies of the Emperor....
His hearers sit petrified. Silently, Fouché bows—and remains! The Emperor
commands that the higher officials shall renounce all right of criticism;
they are to become mere tools of his thoughts. He declares menacingly
that doubt is the first step on the road to betrayal, which, in its turn,
becomes actual as soon as it takes the form of opposition.
Meanwhile, all Paris is convinced that both the unfaithful servants are
to be banished or placed in confinement. But neither is dismissed! Fouché
remains, for who could replace the man with a hundred eyes? Talleyrand,
smiling as ever, continues to come to court; he has retained his official
position; at the Sunday receptions, he always places himself so that his
master cannot fail to see him; answers in the stead of his neighbour
when the Emperor has put a question to the latter; and, in general,
demonstrates the truth of Lannes’ soldierly judgment: when Talleyrand is
kicked from behind and one is conversing with him at the moment, not a
sign of his feelings can be detected in his face! Ere long he is to be
seen once more, limping away from the chill festivities in the brightly
lit Tuileries, following in his master’s wake to resume his labours in
the Emperor’s study, for “he is the only man with whom I can really talk!”
Weighty matters have to be talked over. Germany has awakened; slowly
she is beginning to stir; all eyes are fixed on Austria. The Prussian
king hesitates as usual; and an order, dated from Madrid, has banished
Baron vom Stein from Prussia. Tyrol is seething with mutiny, like Spain;
Austria, now allied not only with England but also with Turkey, is arming
for the fifth time. What matters it, then, that Saragossa, after a heroic
struggle, should have fallen? Troops cannot be withdrawn from Spain so
long as insurrection is rife. How can a war be undertaken, seeing that a
vast army of a quarter million men is tied up in Spain? It is precisely
on account of this situation that Austria has found courage to take up
arms against the Emperor.
The Russian menace is Napoleon’s last hope. When the Russian envoy,
Romanzoff, is leaving for St. Petersburg, the Emperor overwhelms him with
gifts and with promises. Thinking to make himself agreeable to the tsar,
he pledges himself to the evacuation of Prussia; and urges Alexander, for
his part, to proclaim the alliance of the two emperors to a trembling
central Europe.
But Alexander vacillates; he allows himself to be reassured by Vienna,
Berlin, and London; timid and hesitant as he is, he yields to the threats
of his grand dukes (who to a man detest Napoleon), and yet cannot make
up his mind to go whole-heartedly over to their side; Vienna’s hopes of
securing one of the tsar’s sisters as bride for an Austrian archduke are
frustrated: the tsar elects to remain neutral!
The Emperor is cut to the quick by his friend’s breach of faith;
indeed, it is the unkindest cut of all. He has given too much personal
confidence, his pride is wounded, his labour lost. Literally, there
remains nothing for him to do but to raise an army out of the very earth:
the levies for the following year are now being called up, a year in
advance; money must be procured by every possible and impossible means;
the funds have fallen to 78, in consequence of the Spanish affair. Still,
Austria is ready far earlier than he had expected. When, in April, the
semaphore announces that the enemy is on the march, and Napoleon is
informed of the news in his bed at ten o’clock that night, he orders the
mobilisation of his troops for midnight, and is furious when the unwieldy
machine is not ready until four hours later.
When he arrives in Bavaria, he sees the mistakes committed by the
Austrians in their advance. He can hardly believe his good luck; it was
as if “he grew; his eyes gleamed, and with a delight which his glance,
his mood, and his movements all betrayed, he exclaimed: ‘I’ve got
them! Their army is lost! A month hence, and I’ll be in Vienna!’” He
underestimates the time: he will be there in three weeks! He incites his
soldiers to marches of over sixty-five miles in forty hours, and beats
his foe in a series of five battles. Later he was to call these five days
his finest achievement from the point of view of manœuvring. The last
day he is wounded on the foot; and, since fate wills that the legend of
his invulnerability (in which the army whole-heartedly believes and to
which even he is inclined to lend an ear) shall be exploded, the bullet
hits his Achilles’ tendon.
But he speeds away again, and crosses Germany. Napoleon’s carriage is
outwardly plain, but within it is comfortably built. The Emperor can
sleep in it; by day he can govern from it, just as well as from the
Tuileries or from a tent. He is the first to overcome the friction which
brings movement to a standstill; and, though he does not travel as fast
as we do nowadays, he travels faster than any man ever travelled before.
Five days take him from Dresden to Paris. In a number of lock-up drawers
within the carriage, he collects reports, dispatches, memoranda; a
lantern hanging from the roof lights up the interior; in front of him
hangs a list of the different places he must pass through, including
where relays of horses are awaiting him. Should a courier reach him,
Berthier, or another official who happens to be at hand, must take down
the more pressing orders, while the carriage goes jolting on its way.
Before long, orderlies are to be seen flying off in every direction.
On the box seat, the Mameluke is enthroned in solitary grandeur. Two
postilions whip up the six horses. The carriage is surrounded by a crowd
of equerries, pages, and light cavalrymen; when the procession sets
forward, the road is all too narrow to accommodate it, eddies of dust and
heat envelop it, night and fog encompass it. The peasants stand aside to
let the tornado pass; they are agape with wonderment and firmly believe
that the devil is hiding inside the great Napoleon. He leaves behind him
a trail like that of a paper-chase: for he throws out of the windows of
the carriage, not only all the envelopes and other useless paper, but all
the reports he does not wish to file (torn into tiny fragments); all the
newspapers he has read; and, finally, books, which he glances at when he
has a moment to spare, and then consigns to their fate in the mud of the
highway.