calculations concerning Paris have no solid foundation in fact. Not
to know what is going on in his capital: a dreadful position this,
like that of a traveller who fancies that during his absence his wife
may be betraying him! Writing to Maret in Vilna, he says: “For more
than a fortnight I have had no courier, so that I am in the dark as to
all that is going on ... in France and Spain.... The army is terribly
disorganised. It would take at least a fortnight to set things straight,
but we cannot possibly spare the time. Shall we be able to maintain our
position in Vilna? Only if we are not attacked during the first week.
Food! Food!... Make sure that there shall be no foreign envoys in Vilna,
for the army is not in a fit condition to be seen. Send them all away.”
Here is the courier at last. Why does the Emperor turn pale? What
terrible news can have come from Paris? Can anything have happened there
worse than what he has just been living through? The fact is that,
through English newspapers, through letters, and through rumour, France
has long since learned the whole truth, which had been glossed over in
the Emperor’s bulletins. Many of the Parisians are fickle, and many of
them are easily reduced to despair. A good part of Paris has already
given up the Emperor for lost. Alarmist reports and spiteful quips are
rife on the boulevards. But what is this item?
A coup d’état had been planned, and had been frustrated. But what a
background of discontent is revealed! Malet, who had been a general
in the days of the republic, had years before been concerned in a
conspiracy, imprisoned, and then committed to a lunatic asylum. Having
received distorted news about the Emperor’s disasters and the burning of
Moscow, he had escaped. With a number of accomplices, he had published
a forged dispatch announcing Napoleon’s death. The conspirators had
seized the Minister of Police; had declared a provisional government;
had bamboozled the National Guard, the militia, the prefects, and even
veteran generals. At length, however, two undismayed officers had seen
through the cheat, had seized the conspirators, and from the balcony of
the governor’s residence had shouted, “Vive l’Empereur.” Therewith the
spectre had been laid.
In his tent, on which the snow is falling, the Emperor contemplates this
document with dismay. More serious news even than that which recently
arrived from Salamanca! The offenders had been shot; the whole affair
had fizzled out. But for a time the conspirators had been masters of the
Paris police, and one who controls the Paris police is master of France!
No carriages would venture into the streets! When an elderly nobleman
had asked what was afoot, a workman had laughed, saying: “Citizen, the
Emperor is dead. At noon the republic will be proclaimed!” Greatly shaken
by the tidings, the Emperor drops the newspaper containing these details,
and says to his intimates:
“What about the dynasty? Did no one think of my wife, my son, all the
institutions of the Empire? I must get back to Paris instantly!”
The dangerous possibilities revealed by this interlude, flash like
lightning through his mind. “The workman who laughs—he is the people! I
toil day and night for years at my great building; I break with the woman
I love, and take an emperor’s daughter to wife, that our heir, the pledge
of earthly immortality, may grow up in our palace. Then some foolhardy
officer, a man no one has ever heard of, has merely to call out that the
Emperor is dead, and instantly a clamour about ‘citizens’ and ‘republic’
rises once more from the people! The regent, the heir, the Council of
State—all these count for nothing? The bottomless cask of the Danaids!
But I will make a bottom for it. Like the Capets, I will have my son
crowned in my own lifetime, and muster my faithful supporters in Paris!”
Fortified by the approach of danger, the Emperor grips the reins firmly
once more. “He is pale, but his face is calm; nothing in his features
gives any sign of trouble.” His health is better, too. Now the army nears
the Beresina. Having received false intelligence to the effect that
the auxiliary armies are close at hand, he draws his own forces more
compactly together, and has the rest of the baggage train burned, that
the horses may be freed to draw the remaining guns. If only the bridge is
still standing! He writes: “Should the enemy have seized the bridge-head
and burned the bridge in order to prevent our crossing, it would be very
serious.”
Next day they come to the river. No bridge, no boats; two armies
outnumbering the French are waiting on the other shore; between runs the
broad river with marshy banks. Is there any way out of the difficulty?
He makes a shrewd plan, like those of his early days as general. He will
decoy the Russians away. Out of eighteen hundred horseless cavalrymen of
the guard, of whom only eleven hundred still have their weapons, he forms
two battalions. Then he has all the regimental eagles burned, for even in
this dread hour Napoleon thinks of honour and glory, and he will not risk
the loss of colours to the enemy. After midnight, he at length lies down
in his tent, where he overhears Duroc and Daru, who believed him to be
asleep, discussing in an undertone the possibility of a catastrophe. The
phrase “State prisoner” has caught his ear. He fingers the black bag he
is wearing round his neck, and sits up in bed:
“You think they would dare?”
“I would not trust the enemy’s magnanimity,” says Daru, composedly.
“But France! What would France do?”
Daru’s answer is evasive; but when pressed, he says: “I think, Sire, the
sooner you are in Paris, the better. When you are there, you will have a
better chance of saving us all.”
“Then you feel I am a burden on you here?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“And you don’t want to be State prisoners?”
There is a long silence. Then the Emperor resumes:
“Have my ministers’ reports been destroyed?”
“Hitherto you have always refrained from giving us the order.”
“It must be done. Destroy the lot of them. We are in a very difficult
position.”
This is the only admission of the kind made by the Emperor during all
the weeks of the Russian campaign. It is the voice of a man who regards
himself as a moriturus. But nature is more sensible than fate, and in a
few moments he is fast asleep.
Next morning, while the enemy has been lured down stream and is being
kept at a distance by artillery fire, the sappers, neck-deep in the
freezing water and amid the drifting ice, hastily build two bridges.
The crossing of the river takes two days more. With the cavalry, which
swims the stream, the army still numbers about twenty-five thousand men.
The Emperor, though the risk of his being taken prisoner is imminent,
remains until all have crossed; and then, on the third day, surrounded by
the old guard, he too makes his way over the river. But there are still
stragglers to come, and these perish during the next few days betwixt ice
and fire.
In the ensuing week the Emperor’s life is twice in danger. The first
peril is from a Cossack attack. On the next occasion the trouble is
an assassination plot in which one of his own Frenchmen is engaged.
It is early on the morning of December 5th when Major Lapie meets the
officers of the Prussian guard of honour in front of the Emperor’s tent.
“Now then, gentlemen, the hour has come!” The senior captain is to cut
down the Mameluke, and then to make an end of Napoleon. Presumably the
conspirators have seen Schiller’s _Wallenstein_ on the German stage! The
Prussian wants the Frenchman to do the deed, but Lapie says he is not
sure of his men. Then Caulaincourt, to whom the conspirators’ behaviour
seems suspicious, comes forward, claps his hands, and says: “Now,
gentlemen, it is time to start!”
That evening the Emperor, who has not heard a word of the affair, summons
his marshals. “I shall be stronger when I can speak from my throne in the
Tuileries than I am at the head of an army which has been destroyed by
the cold.... Had I been a Bourbon, born to rule, it would have been easy
for me to avoid making mistakes.” He takes the marshals aside by turns,
asking each for his advice; he flatters, praises, and encourages; he
smiles and charms. Obviously his design is to counteract the possibility
of revolt.
Next, he tells Eugene to read them his latest bulletin, the first in
which he admits disaster. “Men who had not been sufficiently steeled by
nature to rise superior to all vicissitudes of fate and fortune, lost
courage and equanimity, and could dream of nothing but misfortune and
defeat. But those who were equal to the occasion were able to keep up
their spirits, and regarded every fresh difficulty as a fresh opportunity
for glory.”
The only reason why the army had wasted away was the rigour of the
climate. “His Majesty has never been in better health.”
The unfeeling, metallic tone! Again we are listening to General Bonaparte
who, having recovered confidence in his destiny, and having regained
health, is able to use the old language. The incisive sentence at the
close is, of course, added for the special benefit of Paris, which for
several weeks has had no news as to his state of health. But, on the
whole, the mood in which he ends the Russian campaign, exactly six months
after it had begun, is one of heroic cynicism. The command of the army is
handed over to Murat, who is to lead the survivors home. There are still
nine thousand men under arms.
Now there is something new. The Emperor embraces every one of the
generals present. Is this the last coup of a trickster who wants to
strengthen their waning loyalty? Is he really overcome by his feelings?
Every one of these soldiers, that evening, could feel the beating of the
Emperor’s heart.
He gets into the sleigh with Daru and Caulaincourt, and the three drive
away. To be on the safe side, he travels under an assumed name, that of
his secretary, Rayneval. This is his fifth name. The fourth had been
Napoleon.
When they are driving through the snows across the Polish plain, he
suddenly has the sleigh stopped at a cross road. This must be near
Countess Walewska’s mansion; he wants to go there. Napoleon is on the
flight from Russia, his head full of world-shaking plans; he is forsaking
his army because Paris needs him and he needs Paris—and now comes this
lyrical thought, the painful recollection of a frustrated idyl. But the
urgent warnings of his companions, who remind him that they are alone
in a couple of sledges and that Cossacks are scouring the countryside,
induce him to abandon his plan. He wraps his furs around him once more
and goes to sleep.
Five days afterwards he leaves the sleighs waiting on the bridge near
Warsaw, and at noon goes on foot with Caulaincourt into the town.
Should any one recognise him, they will face it out, and declare that
the interlocutor is seeing ghosts, or must be mad. Napoleon sends
Caulaincourt to the embassy; but, in order to keep his own identity
secret, he himself goes to an inn, which, of all names in the world,
still calls itself the Hôtel de l’Angleterre. The low-ceilinged
white-washed room is cold; there is only green wood, and the maidservant
cannot get the stove to light; he must keep on his furs, his cap, and
his big boots, while he tramps up and down the room, thrashing his arms
like a coachman to keep himself warm. It is thus he is found by two
Polish noblemen for whom he has sent through the embassy. They can hardly
believe their eyes, but the ghost laughs at their astonishment.
“How long have I been in Warsaw? A week? No, only a couple of hours. It
is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. How are you, Monsieur
Stanislas?... Dangers? Not a bit of it. I thrive on excitement. The more
I am tossed to and fro, the better I feel. The shadow kings grow fat in
their palaces, but I put on flesh when riding my nag in the field.... So
you’ve been anxious here? The army is in splendid condition. I have still
one hundred and twenty thousand men! Gave the Russians a good hiding
everywhere. They never ventured to stand up against me. The army will
winter in Vilna. I am returning to Paris, and there I shall raise three
hundred thousand soldiers! In six months I shall be back on the Memel.
“I have been through other fights! At Marengo I was beaten until six in
the evening, but next day I was lord of Italy. At Aspern-Essling I made
myself master of Austria, though the archduke believed he had held me in
check there. It was not my fault that the Danube rose sixteen feet in
one night. But for that, I should have finished off with the Habsburgs
once for all. However, it was written in the stars that I was to marry an
archduchess....
“The same thing in Russia. I can’t prevent its freezing there. Morning
after morning, the report was that ten thousand horses had perished
during the night. Bon voyage! Our Normandy horses cannot endure the cold
like the Russians; the same with our soldiers.... Perhaps people will say
that I stayed too long in Moscow; but the weather was beautiful, and I
was waiting for peace. A great political drama! Nothing venture, nothing
have. One step from the sublime to the ridiculous!... Who could have
foreseen the burning of Moscow?... I never felt better in my life!”...
Such is the spate of words that for two hours flows from the mouth of
a man who, after unspeakable losses, wishes to give the impression of
desperate courage.
Napoleon becomes an adventurer. To impress these Poles, who will pass on
what he says, he invents an army which has vanished long since; cold
which really did nothing more than complete the destruction that other
forces had begun; battles he never fought. He intersperses these figments
with historical parallels of worldwide significance; treats what has just
been happening as if it were ancient history; appeals to providence; and
repeats no less than four times the cynically imposing aphorism about the
sublime and the ridiculous, which blunts the edge of criticism. Great
realist though he is, the world and what he is doing with it are becoming
drama to him; and thus Napoleon, when his own fortunes are declining, is
slowly mounting the ascent towards supreme irony.
The two Poles see nothing of all this. Their thoughts are concentrated
upon their country’s debts, and they would fain get money from this man
who is still numbered among the great ones of the earth. They seize their
opportunity when at length there is a pause in the torrent of speech. He
gives them an order on the treasury for six millions, which he thinks
will buy support for him in Poland. Then his visitors wish him a happy
journey, and, with secret scorn, watch the incognito drive away hastily
in his sleigh.
[Illustration: The Emperor’s profile. Sketched during Mass in the
Tuileries. Germain Bapst Collection.
(Photograph in the Kircheisen Collection.)]
Day and night, night and day, they glide swiftly westward; for Germany,
too, is under snow. Day and night, night and day, questions, commands,
and plans are churning in his brain. “Is England really invincible? Now,
the English can trade freely in the Baltic; English goods can enter
Cadiz, and can make their way into the Levant.” He must put off his
scheme for the conquest of India, but will abate no jot of his other
designs! Will the Confederation of the Rhine still answer to his nod?
How will it be possible to explain this crash in Russia? The disaster
cannot be hushed up indefinitely. Is there any chance of raising another
hundred and twenty thousand men in France? Next year’s levies must be
called up in advance. Make peace with the pope at once, and with Spain
likewise, for he must feel safe at his back. A National Guard, that was
the best thought of the revolution; in that way he will be able to raise
a million armed citizens within three months.
Night. Change of horses. He thrusts out his head. “Where are we?”
“In Weimar, Sire.”
“Weimar? How is the duchess? And how is Herr Goethe?”
VIII
Forty bowed backs receive the beaten war lord on his return home. The
sight of the court dresses which he has embroidered with his contempt
revives his belief in the folly and the weakness of these men whose only
wish is to be ruled. But his glance strays to the bars of the golden cage
in which the son of liberty has locked himself up. He does not realise
that the people of his capital are weary and disaffected; and instead
of following the example of his own youth, instead of with disarming
frankness acknowledging the faults he hopes to better, he postures as
Cæsar before his servile officials, and rails at the weather god, though
but yesterday he had boasted his power to make what weather he pleased
throughout Europe.
During the nine days’ drive from Warsaw to Paris, the uncertain mood of
the adventurer had given place once more to the steadily aspiring flame
of the imperator. Although the Russian winter had set in later than
usual, he carries off the reverse by saying: “The army sustained heavy
losses, but that was because the winter began so early.... The king of
Naples is not fitted for high command, and he lost his head after my
departure.... All the same, I have three hundred battalions left, without
bringing a single man back from Spain.”
Has his contempt for his fellows risen to such a pitch that he can serve
up these fables to experienced men who have known the truth for months?
But their consciences are uneasy. They feel responsible for the October
putsch, or at any rate guilty for not having made an end of the whole
business within the first quarter of an hour. On the other hand the
Emperor, whose own heart accuses him, is glad to play the accuser, for
it galls him that in the decisive hour they should have forgotten the
empress and the heir to the throne. In memorable words, at the first
reception in the Tuileries, he tries to hammer his point into the heads
of his councillors.
“The apostles of the rights of man are really to blame for all that
has happened. They declared rebellion to be a duty. They flattered the
people, imputing to it a sovereignty it is incapable of exercising. They
destroyed respect for law by establishing the supremacy of an assembly
which knew nothing of administration and law, instead of holding fast to
the nature of things! Any one who wishes to build up a State once more,
must be guided by the very opposite principles. History depicts the human
heart, and we must study history if we would learn the merits and defects
of legislation.... When I undertook the reconstruction of France, my
prayer was that I might be spared for a considerable number of years,
seeing that what has been destroyed in a moment will take a long time to
refashion. The State needs courageous officials. ‘The king is dead; long
live the king!’ That was the watchword of our fathers. The phrase makes
us realise the advantages of monarchy.”
Were it not for the prettily turned expression about history and the
human heart, Emperor Francis might have subscribed to this speech, and
it might have been an ornament to the pages of any of the familiar
expositions of monarchical doctrine. Why should people go on quarrelling
about such matters? The ancient dispute between tradition and revolution
has been settled, now that the son of the revolution has acknowledged the
supremacy of tradition. No matter whether an heir be named Bourbon or
Bonaparte! When we compare the two fathers we see that they are very much
alike! His marriage with the daughter of one who rules by right divine
has complicated the problem, and has sophisticated his own genius.
Or does he believe no more than half of what he is saying? Before
setting out on the Russian campaign, he had frankly explained his plans
to Metternich: “The legislature belongs to me; all I need is to put the
key of the deliberative chamber in my pocket. France is less suited for
democracy than a good many countries.... When I get back, therefore,
I shall transform the Senate and the Council of State into an Upper
House and a Lower House, most of whose members I shall myself nominate.
These will constitute a real popular representation, consisting only of
experienced business men, without an ideologue among them. Then France
will be satisfactorily ruled, even under a prince who is a mere figure
head (and such will come), for whom the ordinary education of hereditary
princes will suffice.”
These Cæsarist ideas betray the monarchist, but also the sceptic.
Although, when he shows people his son’s portrait, they tell him that
the little boy is the loveliest child in France, the flattered father
knows perfectly well that dynasties last a long time whereas genius is
fleeting. Foreseeing the decadence of his own blood, having studied that
decadence in the annals of all princely houses, he wants to rid himself
of waverers that he may fortify the position of his heir. For the very
reason that he understands the contradiction inherent in monarchy, he
wishes to build his own monarchy on a rock.
For the time being, his business is to buttress it anew with the power
of the sword. What has been the fruit of the war games in which he
moved his myriads over Europe? Those leather-bound muster rolls of his
contained the death sentences of numberless youths, even though there
were marshals’ batons to be won by a few among the best of them! Of the
old guard, four hundred men, and of the cavalry guard, eight hundred men,
made their way back to Königsberg; a few thousand officers and sergeants,
broken men most of them, have survived the storms of war. Except for the
auxiliaries, who are not under France’s orders, that is all that remains
of the Emperor’s hosts. Marshal Ney, on his flight from Russia, seems
like a hero out of a Greek tragedy when he reaches Prussia, and makes
his way into the first Prussian government office on his route. When old
acquaintances look at him incredulously, as if questioning who this man
can be, he rejoins with a superb gesture: “I am the rear guard of the
Grand Army.”
A new army must be made, and it must be made in a few weeks. The year
1813 will supply one hundred and forty thousand recruits, but where are
the rest to come from? The Emperor has a magic wand, and can conjure
up men whenever he needs them. The passing of a new law is all that is
requisite for the levying of the National Guard and for the drafting
of eighty thousand soldiers from the dependencies of France. Add one
hundred thousand belonging to the oldest conscript levies; and call up
the youngsters who should not, properly speaking, be enrolled until
1814. Soon he will have half a million under arms once more. “The French
people,” he says to the Prussian envoy, “will follow me whatever I do,
and, if needs must, I shall arm the women!”
With unbroken will, he charms into existence the innumerable machines
without which he cannot ply his trade. But how shall he explain these
unexpected measures to the people? The enemy is far from the frontier.
A stroke of luck! At the close of the year, Yorck, a Prussian general,
acting on his own initiative, enters into an agreement with his Russian
neighbours, declares the force under his command neutral, and thus opens
the door to a change in the military situation for which the German
nation has long been eager. The Emperor can use the incident in order
to whip up the enthusiasm of the French. For the moment, the treason
of his ally costs him no more than twenty thousand men; but it serves
as the text for a manifesto in Paris, and for hectoring letters to the
princes of the Confederation of the Rhine. He would not, says Napoleon,
need their help at all, had not Yorck’s secession compelled his army to
withdraw.
The summons of France is actually obeyed. The German princes, including
the Habsburg ruler, once more collect money and levy troops. One of them
is servile enough to send an assurance that he is “delighted to be able
to give the Emperor opportunity for winning fresh laurels.” The king
of Prussia cashiers Yorck, and assures the Emperor of his fidelity to
the alliance. But Frederick William conveys a hint to the tsar, goes to
Breslau, wobbles between the parties, what time a wave of enthusiasm is
spreading far beyond Prussia’s borders, and threatening to sweep away the
debile monarch. Youths, politicians, and poets are voicing the call of
national sentiment. Stein is the man to treat with the tsar on behalf of
his country, and in Königsberg the baron takes matters into his own hands.
The Emperor is ever on the watch. In a circular, he warns the princes
against the intrigues of those “who by rebellion and revolution are
trying to give Germany a new form. Should they succeed in infecting the
Confederation of the Rhine with their doctrines, intolerable sufferings
may await these territories.”