at two in the morning, he will dictate till four, snatch three hours’
sleep, and start off again at seven. At his halts, four light cavalrymen
surround him in a square, and follow him in all his movements, if,
for instance, in the daytime he studies the country through his small
telescope. Should he need the large telescope, he uses the shoulder of
the page in waiting as a rest. Whether his halt be short or long, in
wartime the map is always ready to his hand, in carriage or tent, in camp
and by the watch-fire. Any member of his escort who fails to show him
in the map the precise point where the halt has been made, the area he
now wishes to study, receives a volley of abuse—be it Berthier himself,
Prince of Neuchâtel. Through all countries, for the whole duration of his
life, the map follows him, pierced with coloured pins, illuminated at
night by twenty or thirty candles, and with a pair of compasses lying on
it. This is his altar, before which he offers up his prayers. It is the
real home of the man who has no home.
Now, without a blow, he takes Vienna for the second time, and occupies
the same room as of old in the palace of Schönbrunn; but the war is not
over.
For what has meanwhile been happening in his wide realms is unfavourable
to him, and encourages the enemy. There is bad news from Spain; in
northern Italy, Eugene has been fighting unsuccessfully; and since, at
this instant, Murat has to advance from Naples, the Roman Emperor makes
as short work of it with Rome as the Hohenstaufen had done many centuries
before. Four years ago, at the same writing table, he had penned a decree
annihilating the royal house of Naples. Now he repeats the manœuvre
with the pope. Since Napoleon, at this juncture, has to strike with his
sword in all directions, he no longer troubles himself about moral and
political consequences, and ventures this dangerous edict for little
better reason than that a junction must be effected between his armies in
Italy.
But anger is a contributory cause. When he had been in Spain at the
beginning of the year, he had let fall expressions showing how out of
humour he was with Rome: “Last year, the pope was impudent enough to
neglect sending us the consecrated candles he sent the heads of other
States. Write to Rome saying that we don’t want any, not even for the
three kings of our house. Say that at Candlemas I always get consecrated
candles from my own clerics, and that the value of these things does not
depend upon purple or the other insignia of power. In the realm of the
shades, there will be priests just as good as the popes! Thus a candle
blest by one of my own clergy will be just as holy as one sent by the
pope. I won’t have his candles, and none of the princes of my house may
accept them.”
In this way he trumped the pope’s trick, like a Protestant, like a
revolutionary. Such was Napoleon’s mood, in the slough of the Spanish
roads and battles. Now, in Schönbrunn, he bluntly deprives the Holy
Father of power as sovereign prince. The pope is relegated to the
Vatican, and assigned a revenue of two millions.
Many members of the Emperor’s retinue are shocked, for some of them are
good Catholics, and it is only five days from the feast of Pentecost.
Is he not challenging God? Those in whom faith becomes intensified into
superstition are likely enough, ere long, to find confirmation of their
presentiments. In five days, at Pentecost, Napoleon will be defeated for
the first time in his life.
Some regard the battle of Aspern-Essling as indecisive; at any rate, no
one can consider it a success for Napoleon. When the bridge across the
Danube was swept away, this was just as much and just as little due to
chance as were all the great happenings whereby at Lodi, Rivoli, Marengo,
and on many other occasions, he had, by precisely such improvisations,
wrested victory from God. A friend of his youth, Marshal Lannes, is
mortally wounded. Napoleon hastens to the dying man’s side, and, so the
story runs, his old comrade shows hostility both in word and glance.
That evening Napoleon sits long before his untasted supper, silent, and
refusing to see any one.
“Conquered? Conquerable?” he muses, staring forth gloomily into the
future. “Has Achilles’ heel indeed been hit? That marksman aimed better
than Talleyrand. No, it was my own fault. Too hazardous to cross the
river in full view of the enemy! Lannes was right; he was already half
way over. What is Paris saying? What will be the best way of reporting
this in Paris?” In uneasy mood, he goes back to Schönbrunn, a huge,
lonely palace in the midst of a hostile land. His Polish mistress! If
only he had had the lovely Walewska with him. She is sitting now in a
Polish castle, far away, but her thoughts fly towards him. His hopes of a
child by her last year had been dashed.
He sends for her.
Strange news from Rome! To Napoleon’s edict of deposition, the pope
has promptly replied by a bull of excommunication. Does this alarm the
Emperor? He laughs. He laughs at Catholic mediævalism, and the soldier,
the self-made man, thinks:
“Is this vengeance for my having, in Notre Dame, snatched from him the
crown which the holy man wanted to place on my head with his own hands?
And what is holy? It is doubtful if Christ ever lived; the only certain
thing is that we can make use of him. But in these enlightened days, none
but children and nursemaids are afraid of curses. I have been outlawed
twice ere this, on the Nineteenth Brumaire, and in Corsica. Such farces
bring good luck!” Much refreshed by these thoughts, he prepares for the
counterstroke on the Marchfeld, and at Wagram is again victorious, as in
thirty battles, his excommunicated weapons being too much for the pious
archduke Charles. Towards the end of his two days’ battle, when all was
going well, and the commander was overpowered by fatigue, he made Rustam
spread a bearskin for him on the battle-field, told the Mameluke to call
him in twenty minutes, lay down, and fell fast asleep for the prescribed
period, to awaken fully reinvigorated. The war was finished, and a truce
was agreed on. Next day, reporting the new victory to his wife, he adds:
“I’ve been burned as brown as a berry.” He has been thoroughly toned up,
and his mood is rejuvenated.
Returning to Schönbrunn, he finds Walewska awaiting him. How many lovely
women have glided through the secret portals and discreet chambers of
this vast palace, to revivify the Habsburgs? Now the adventurer from the
Mediterranean sends evening after evening to fetch the countess, who is
housed near by; and again and again he warns the groom of the chambers
to be careful lest the carriage should be overturned on the rough road.
For the second time, the pair live three months together. He had looked
forward to this in Finckenstein, and had promised her that it should
happen; but the where and the when depended on the course of universal
history, and not wholly on himself.
In a few weeks, she knows that she is with child. Will she this time give
him the gift that he has been asking from women for twelve years, and
has only once received? Thus, the idyll gains a new content; and when,
at midnight on August 15th, lying in her arms, waiting for his fortieth
birthday to dawn, and thinking how early next morning salutes and bell
peals will hail the coming of this day, throughout France, and indeed
in all the countries over which he rules,—the day to which the pope
had complacently transferred the feast of St. Napoleon—may it not seem
strange to him that the first to congratulate him should be this beauty
of twenty summers, who can speak but haltingly the two languages in which
he is at home, and whose glances convey more meaning than her words? His
thoughts may well fly back to that time ten years ago when he sailed
homeward from Egypt, hazarding all to the luck of the seas, out of which
the great English net could so readily have fished him. Now he is a
different man, but not a happier one, for he is the slave of “the nature
of things.”
He is different, also, from the man he was two years ago in Finckenstein.
Then he was the builder of a world empire, the potentate to whom the
kings of the East and the kings of the West paid homage; now, that empire
is on the defensive, and even a great victory like that he has just won,
can only be turned cautiously to account.
On the day of Wagram, his people in Rome had committed a blunder of which
he has only just heard:
“I am very much annoyed at the arrest of the pope. That was an idiotic
thing to do! You should have arrested Cardinal ——, while leaving the pope
at his ease in Rome.” He had laughed at the symbolic power of the bull
of excommunication. “Excommunication” is an empty word, an airy nothing,
which the French bishops can blow away; but as statesman he realises
instantly that the imprisonment and deportation of the Holy Father are
very serious matters. This rash action has put him in the wrong, for a
banished pope is morally stronger than a pope fulminating bulls.
Other letters are coming to hand, from Spain this time, telling how
England has made good her losses there; and how, in the forest wilds,
the visible-invisible Spanish people, allied with England, is standing
more stoutly to arms. The news from Paris is that Fouché has overstepped
his orders, and has called up the National Guard everywhere; his obvious
intention has been to intensify the dread of England throughout the
country, and to fan the flames of discontent among the newly levied
conscripts.
A difficult and dangerous situation, and one whose difficulties and
dangers thicken as the radius widens. The despatches from Rome and Paris
are a week old, and those from Spain date from more than a fortnight
back. By the time fresh orders from Schönbrunn can reach Valladolid, the
whole position will have changed. If only he had the power to issue his
commands with the velocity of light, then he would be able to rule the
world from this office on the Danube. As things are, he must cut short
the negotiations, which Austria, encouraged by England and Hungary, has
been protracting for weeks. When, recently, the victor demanded a third
of the monarchy, with nine million souls, he was met with a refusal.
Now he pursues a different plan. With the splendid frankness which
is so baffling to diplomats of the old school, in one of his endless
conversations (this particular talk with Count Bubna lasted seven hours),
he explains his own difficulties to his opponent:
“I was to blame for Aspern-Essling, and suffered for my mistake: but the
confidence of my soldiers remain unshaken.” In broad outline, he sketches
his own tactics on the battle-field. “But I will tell you the mistake you
are always making.... You draw up your plans the day before the battle,
when you do not yet know your adversary’s movements, or what positions
you will have to occupy. But for my part, I never issue orders long in
advance, and am especially cautious overnight. At peep of day, I send
out my scouts, survey the field for myself, and keep my troops in mass
formation as long as I am still in doubt.... Then I hurl myself on the
enemy, attacking him wherever the ground makes attack most favourable....
You are right when you remind me that my free use of artillery fire
causes much bloodshed. But what am I to do? My troops are weary; my men
want peace. That is why I have to be sparing with the bayonet, and to use
cannon more than formerly.”
Later he comes to the condition of the alliances: “To-day I am sure of
the tsar, but what guarantee have I that he will stand by me? As regards
Prussia, I have known for a long time that that country is oscillating
between you and me.” Suddenly he demands only half of what he had asked
before, disavows his minister, and offers an alliance. Needs must, for he
has to get back to Paris. A new basis for negotiation! Austria is to lose
a fragment to the Confederation of the Rhine, and another to Russia; a
pathway to the Balkans has to be left open for Napoleon. Several more
weeks pass in negotiation. His impatience is soothed by the bright
glances of Walewska.
In October, Napoleon is holding a great review in Schönbrunn. A young
man forces his way into the palace. He is arrested. When searched, he is
found to be carrying a long knife and the picture of a girl. Examined in
the guard room, he refuses to give any information, and says he will only
explain himself to the Emperor in person. Soon the lad of eighteen, a
fair-haired youth, serious of aspect, frank and courageous but courteous,
is confronted with Napoleon. His name is Friedrich Staps, and he is the
son of a Tyrolese pastor. Napoleon questions him in French, Rapp acting
as interpreter.
“Yes, I intended to kill you.”
“You must be mad, young man, or ill.”
“I am neither mad nor ill, but in the full possession of my faculties.”
“Then why do you want to kill me?”
“Because you are ruining my country.”
“Your country?”
“It is mine, as it is that of all good Germans.”
“Who was the instigator?”
“No one. My heart told me that by killing you, I should do good service
to Germany and to Europe.”
“Have you ever seen me before?”
“In Erfurt. Then I believed you would make no more wars, and I was your
greatest admirer.”
The Emperor sends for his physician, in the hope that the young fellow
will be declared a lunatic; but the doctor, having made his examination,
says that Staps is of sound mind.
“I told you so,” says Friedrich.
The Emperor is uneasy. He is loath to make an end of so frank and bold a
youth. He has not to do here with a partisan, with a conspiracy, with one
who is out to destroy a principle; he has not to do with an ideologue,
but with an idealist. Germany has sent forth against him a Brutus with a
long knife.
“You are distraught. You are bringing affliction on your family. Ask my
forgiveness, and say you are sorry. Then I will grant you your life!”
Never before has Napoleon spoken thus, at any rate to an assassin. The
young man remains steadfast. Has Napoleon lost the power of suggestion?
“Well?”
“I do not want your forgiveness, and I am not sorry. My only regret is
that I have failed.”
The Emperor grows angry.
“The devil! A crime means nothing to you, then?”
“To kill you would not be a crime, but a public service,” says Staps,
still perfectly respectful, indeed, thoroughly well bred.
“Hm. Whose portrait is this?”
“The girl I love.”
“Will she approve this attempt of yours?”
“She will be sorry it has miscarried, for she hates you as much as I do.”
“What a pretty girl,” thinks the Emperor looking at the miniature in his
hand. “Am I really to be baffled by this young fellow? No, I will save
him, will pardon him. What does it matter to me if he hates me?” Still
holding the miniature, he looks Staps squarely in the face: “If I pardon
you, I suppose it will gladden the heart of this girl?”
Friedrich’s blue eyes flashed, and he says firmly:
“Then I shall be able to kill you after all!”
The Emperor turns away, and leaves the prisoner to his doom. To
Champagny, who is present, he talks for a long time about the
Illuminates. Then, with a sudden transition he says:
“We must make peace. Drive back into the town. Summon the Austrians. We
are practically agreed on the main points, and the only trouble relates
to the war indemnity. The difference amounts to fifty millions. Reduce
the demand by half. Get the matter settled. I was satisfied with the last
draft. Add whatever clauses you think necessary. I leave everything in
your hands. Make peace.”
So great is the impression wrought by the youth. We cannot call it alarm.
Caution is too mild a word. The trouble is that a shadow has fallen
across his soul. After negotiating for three months, the Emperor, simply
that he may save one day, leaves the conclusion of the peace to his
minister. He has Staps examined once more, but the enthusiast prefers
death to recantation. Next morning at six, the minister brings the treaty
which has been arranged during the night. The Emperor, well content,
praises his minister:
The same morning, the assassin is shot, and the Emperor returns to
the topic: “The thing is unprecedented! So young a man, a German, a
Protestant, well brought up; and such a crime! How did he meet his end?”
The answer is that Staps, in face of the firing squad, had cried in loud
tones: “Liberty for ever! Death to the tyrant!” The Emperor holds his
peace.
Napoleon commands that the long German knife shall be brought back with
him to Paris.
XXII
The Empress Josephine is lying in a swoon on the floor. Napoleon summons
the palace prefect, and orders him to bear her to her chamber. The
Emperor goes in front, carrying a lighted candle. Since the staircase
is narrow, he passes the candlestick to a servant, and helps Bausset
to carry Josephine. He carefully lays her on her bed, and, in a state
of great excitement, leaves the room. Hardly is he out of sight, when
the empress opens her eyes: cries and fainting fit were all a pretence!
Bausset betrayed her secret later, stating that, as he carried her up the
stairs, she had whispered that he was holding her too tightly, and was
hurting her.
All the same, fear and sorrow are in very truth her portion; for she has
been informed that she must leave the Tuileries, where, for more than a
decade, she has ruled as queen. The Emperor himself has broken the news
to her. Matters cannot continue as in the past: every one is counting on
his death: across the frontier are the Germans with their long knives;
here at home is Fouché, colloguing with the English. Napoleon needs a
son; and his son must be the child of a princess of royal blood. The
scene with Josephine took place shortly after his return from Schönbrunn.
Probably he was feeling sore because he could not place his Polish love,
who bore his child in her womb, straightway upon the throne. For a
certainty, he did not as yet know the name of his future bride.
Mother, sisters, brothers, are sitting in silence, with stony faces,
round the table, in family conclave: Josephine is likewise present. She
can detect the smothered joy in the minds of these witnesses who at
last have gained their end. The “old woman” must go! With uncontrolled
emotion in his voice, the Emperor declares that all hope of an heir from
the empress is quenched, and that it is solely on this account that he
must part from her. “God alone knows how hard a step this is for me to
take.... But no sacrifice is too great for the sake of France.... For
fifteen years, the empress has made my life beautiful by her presence.
She was crowned by my own hands.... I have determined that she shall
preserve the rank and the title of empress; and, above all, that
she shall look upon me as her lifelong friend.” Josephine exercises
admirable self-control, but asks the arch-chancellor to read her words of
acquiescence.
The memorandum concerning the divorce is then signed by all. Napoleon’s
signature is more legible than usual. It is vigorous, and a long, firm
flourish underlines his full name: he thus brings a very serious matter
to a close, in manly fashion. Nervously, Josephine adds her signature
to the right of his, quite near, as though pleading for his support.
Madame Mère writes her M. as her son has written his N., and follows him,
likewise, in the concluding flourish.
That night, Josephine makes an amazing entry into his room, and
approaches his bed, tears streaming down her face, and her hair falling
round her shoulders. Next day, supported by Napoleon, a veritable Niobe,
she quits the palace and drives to Malmaison. Before leaving, however,
she has (foolishly perhaps) besought Méneval to speak of her as often as
possible to the Emperor.
Napoleon went alone to Trianon, which was at this time unoccupied. There
he held a death watch such as no lover had ever held before over the love
from whom he was to be eternally severed: he remained there for three
days, absolutely inactive—this being as great an achievement as if a
Buddhist holy man had for three days done Napoleon’s work! He received
no one, he dictated never a word, read nothing, noted down nothing; for
three days the mighty wheel stood still, the wheel which for fifteen
years had rotated by the strength of its own impetus. Soon afterwards he
visited his divorced lady at her house in Malmaison. Then he wrote to her:
“I found you to-day in a worse condition of mind than I had hoped, mon
amie.... You should not give yourself up to so profound a melancholy.
Take good care of your health, which is so dear to me. If you love
me, then show me how strong and happy you can be. You cannot doubt my
fondness, or all the tenderness I feel for you. You cannot believe that I
shall ever be happy if you are unhappy.... I was very sad when I got back
to the Tuileries; the great palace seemed so empty; I felt so lonely....
Farewell, chère amie; sleep soundly, and remember that I wish it
thus....” After fifteen years of intimate association, the man of forty
writes in so natural and so grateful a fashion—though at the same time we
may detect a gentle hint of a determined will that commands.
Then come endless calculations: he will allow her three millions per
annum; the set of rubies he will pay extra for: “this will cost me quite
four hundred thousand francs and I will have it valued, for I do not
wish to be cheated by the jeweller.... In the wardrobe at Malmaison you
should find five to six hundred thousand francs. You can take this money
in order to increase your silver plate and your underclothing. I have
ordered a beautiful china service for you, but I have told the makers to
await your commands, for I wish it to be really lovely.... The page who
saw you this morning, tells me you were weeping.... I shall take my meals
all by myself.... Have you really lost courage since going to Malmaison?
And yet that house has been the witness of our happiness, and our
feelings for one another. These feelings must never change; nor can they,
at least as far as I am concerned.... I should so much like to pay you a
visit; but first I must know if you are a valiant woman or a weakling.
I am rather weak myself, and am suffering greatly. Farewell, Josephine.
Good-night.”
A melting mood has once more taken possession of him. The tone resembles
that of the passionate letters sent from Milan by the young general to
his faithless wife in Paris. It is set in a minor key; and the same
melody that surged up and soared above the whole orchestra of his senses
in those days, is now played by the ’cello as a solo echoing through the
desolate halls of the Tuileries.
Shortly after this, a masked ball was given by the arch-chancellor. Among
the guests was Princess Metternich, whose husband had formerly been envoy
at the court of Paris. A man clad in a green domino took her by the arm
and led her aside. Every one knew who he was, for although no one fully
knew Napoleon unmasked, the masked Napoleon was impossible to mistake:
the tragi-comedy of genius in this world. After a few quips, he asked her
whether she thought that an archduchess would accept the offer of his
hand.
“I do not know, Sire.”
“Were you in the archduchess’ place, would you accept the offer?”
“I should certainly refuse it,” says the Viennese lady with a smile.
“How unkind! Will you write to your husband, to ask his views on the
matter?”
“I think you had better say that to Prince Schwarzenberg, Sire; he is the
envoy now.”
Thus with one of his improvisations does Napoleon begin his new wooing
after the divorce. It is a splendid return to the straightforwardness of
the revolution. The same evening, he instructs Eugene, who next morning
approaches the Austrian ambassador. None of the Habsburg clan understand
promptness and simplicity in such campaigns; but to the Emperor these
qualities come naturally. The tsar makes no sign. Vienna, beaten in four
wars, must at length be pacified. What could be more obvious than this
solution? Why get a divorce if you do not forthwith do your utmost to
attain the unattainable?
The Corsican family feeling is at work once more. He, who so rarely holds
a council of war, summons a family council before the divorce and before
the marriage. There they sit, just as six weeks earlier, round the oval
table; all the great dignitaries are there; according to the report
of one of those present, general embarrassment prevails. The Emperor
announces his desire for an heir, and then speaks with an assumption of
dubiety:
“Were it possible for me to be guided by personal feelings alone, I
should choose my bride out of the circle of the Legion of Honour,
from among the daughters of the heroes of France, and should make the
worthiest of Frenchwomen empress of the French. But a man must adapt his
actions to the customs of his own century, to the usage of other States,
to political considerations. Many sovereigns have sought my alliance, and
I do not think there is any reigning house to which I cannot propose this
personal tie. Three of them have now to be considered: the Austrian, the
Russian, and the Saxon. I should like to hear your views.”