knows no shudderings, treads gladly
the undermined road leading to the steps of the throne,
knows the danger and nevertheless mounts confidently.
The golden circlet’s tremendous burden,
he does not try its weight; resolute and calm,
he presses it gladly on his bold brow,
and bears it lightly, as if it were a laurel crown.
Thus didst thou. What seemed so far away,
thou hast tranquilly learned to make thine own;
and whatever fierce obstacles might block the path,
thou sawest them, contemplated them, and understood them.
A joyful day dawned, it summoned thee,
thou wast summoned, and thus it came to pass....
And thou still standest despite all that has happened to thee,
despite the foe, who, with war and death
threatens thee from without and from within....
The peoples are agape, they chatter, they are full of vain imaginings—
What do they care for, but games?...
The false world, it wooes us for our treasure,
for our favour, for our position,
and, even if one makes one’s lover one’s equal,
love does not suffice him, he wants the whole kingdom.
So was it with this man!—And now, declare it abroad,
even if it cost you your life:
To every man, be he whom he may,
there comes a last happiness and a last day.
At the same date, Schelling writes: “I do not believe that Napoleon’s end
is yet very near. If I am right, he will still be spared; and, even if
all his helpers fall away from him, he will still live to drink the cup
of humiliation to the dregs.” When, almost immediately afterwards, the
Bavarians definitively changed sides, Hegel wrote: “In Nuremberg, the mob
has welcomed the incoming Austrians with the most hateful jubilation....
Nothing more contemptible can be imagined than the mood and the conduct
of the burghers.”
Three outstanding Germans, immediately after Leipzig!
Certainly, it is far from being a final defeat. Fighting, and fighting
victoriously, the Emperor withdraws. In Erfurt, Murat presents himself,
wishing to go back to his kingdom. The master allows him to do so,
saying: “By next May, I shall have an army of a quarter of a million on
the Rhine!” Thus does his intelligence work; such is the quality of his
imagination; he can still think only in hundreds of thousands. In Mainz,
his troops are attacked by typhus, and he hastens to move what is left
of them across the Rhine. During the retreat, he works from three in the
morning till eleven at night.
Meanwhile, the advancing allied headquarters are thronged by the princes
who are deserting the cause of Napoleon. All is promptly forgotten
and forgiven. But there is one honest man left who finds strong words
to describe what is happening: “What do you think of these wretches’
behaviour?... They have had better treatment than they deserve.... All
these princelets are weaklings, to whom a far more honourable existence
has been conceded than their pitiful conduct would seem to justify....
The retention of their sovereignty, which consists in pretentiousness,
pleasure seeking, and the lust for dominion, has cost them nothing more
than the blood of their subjects.”
Such is Baron vom Stein’s judgment concerning his peers, the German
princes.
XII
Letizia is sitting by the fire. In her hand is a letter from Mainz, in
which her son answers her intercession for Louis by imposing certain
conditions. But this is not what troubles her; she is thinking of the
Emperor’s parenthetical allusion to the turn in his fortunes. He writes:
“In this situation, when all Europe is rising against me, and my heart is
so full of care....” She has never warned him of the impending dangers;
they are both of them too proud for that. But she has often uttered her
foreboding to intimates, with her phrase “Pourvou que cela doure!” She
has never been disturbed by the thought of any disaster to herself. She
thinks only of her dear ones. Who will help them when everything falls
to pieces? To whom, she is now asking herself, can the Emperor look for
support?
When he returns, she has to endure the recognition that the treachery
begins among her own children. Murat, who is always led by a keener
intelligence than his own (that of Caroline), signs a truce with England
and enters into an alliance with Austria. Elise has an adviser, Fouché,
who keeps away from Paris until the Emperor’s fall. “The only thing
that could save us all would be the Emperor’s death.” Such are the
ex-minister’s words to the Emperor’s sister. But Elise writes to her
mother asking what dances are to be given that winter in Paris. Louis
defies orders, and, being unable to stay in Austria any longer, comes to
Paris without leave. Napoleon proposes to banish him to a distance of two
hundred miles from Paris. The mother intercedes between the pair; there
is a further interview, as a result of which Napoleon and Louis are once
more estranged. Jerome has left his subjects in the lurch, and has fled
incognito from Cassel. Joseph, despite the Emperor’s reiterated requests,
persists in his refusal to undertake the defence of Paris. Lucien keeps
his distance, still in a bad humour.
Such is the gallery of brothers and sisters, the relatives upon whom for
a decade the Emperor has been trying to build up his dynasty. What can
be the feelings of a mother who has always cherished the most tender
affection for that one of her children who happened to be suffering most
keenly?
But in Morfontaine a cheerful mood prevails. The company there consists
of Joseph, the Spanish king without a country; Jerome’s wife, a queen in
like situation, whose father has gone over to the allies; the sometime
grand inquisitor of Spain says Mass in the chapel; there are two colonial
bishops; German, Spanish, and Italian courtiers without a court—a
brilliant company, like the audience at private theatricals, watching
actors who will soon come down from the stage to take their place on the
floor of the drawing-room. Only one of them hopes to draw a big fish out
of the troubled waters, Bernadotte’s wife, Joseph’s sister-in-law, the
woman to whom twenty years before the Emperor had given the go-by. She
knows that her husband, commander of one of the allied armies, is already
on the Rhine; she hopes that ere long, in Notre Dame, he will place
Josephine’s crown on her pretty brown head.
[Illustration: Napoleon as Emperor in 1809. Woodcut from a medal by J. P.
Droz.]
At this country-seat, more intrigues are carried on against Napoleon
than Joseph is aware of; for Joseph is not himself an intriguer; he is
merely easy-going and vain. The Emperor recognises this, now that it is
too late, and says to Roederer:
“That has been one of my mistakes. I fancied I needed my brothers for the
dynasty, but it is safe without them. It has been brought into being in
the heart of the storm by the nature of things. The empress suffices....
Everything has been quiet for a year past. There is only disquiet when
Joseph lives in Paris.... He cannot forget that he is the first-born.
Was there ever anything more absurd? If he were talking of our father’s
vineyard, that would be another story!... His interests are in women,
houses, furniture. He likes to go out rabbit shooting, and to play blind
man’s buff with the girls. I am tied to nothing; care not a jot for
houses or for women; though I do feel a little concern about my son.”
Thus does his monomania make headway in these weeks of increasing peril.
We see that all the rest, court included, has been nothing more than a
game. He cares not a jot for anything outside the one passion of his
soul—except that he is a little concerned about his son.
He now quickly makes up his mind to restore the Spanish crown to King
Ferdinand, who is set at liberty; but the Cortes must approve the treaty.
This is Talleyrand’s advice, for Talleyrand has now been recalled to the
Tuileries. Insistence on ratification by the Cortes will delay matters.
The traitor’s aim is to keep a French army in the south, so that France
may be weakened for the benefit of the allies, for whose cause Talleyrand
is now working. Joseph protests.
“My present situation makes it impossible for me to think of any sort
of foreign dominion,” writes the Emperor to his brother. “I shall
deem myself lucky if the peace treaty will allow me to keep the old
boundaries of France. Everything is crashing round me. My armies have
been destroyed, and it will hardly be possible to make the losses good.
Holland is gone, and Italy is uncertain.... Belgium and the Rhine
province are discontented; the Spanish frontier is held by the enemy....
How is it possible, at this crisis, to think of a foreign throne?” When
the prefect of police advises him to leave a larger body of National
Guards in Paris, during the campaign that is now imminent, he rejoins:
“Who can guarantee that they will be faithful to me? Am I to leave so
large a force in my rear?”
He is in despair. Surely there is no other word for the description
of these thoughts? His family, his allies, his own capital, all seem
untrustworthy to him. Thus completely has his mood changed since the
battle of Leipzig. Count Lavalette, Postmaster General, one of the most
honest men in Paris, who often came to see him at this time, found
him one evening in a condition of great depression. Napoleon received
Lavalette in his bedroom, standing in front of the fire, his hands
stretched out towards the blaze. The visitor, though a stout-hearted
fellow, advises peace, saying that the French are mutable. But when
he ventures to mention the name of the Bourbons, on whom perhaps the
Emperor’s mantle may fall, Napoleon turns away from the fire and silently
throws himself on the bed. When, a few minutes later, the count draws
near, he finds that Napoleon is sleeping.
These healthy reactions are a sign of returning courage. Napoleon’s
overthrow is close at hand; he foresees the catastrophe; but when people
talk to him about the Bourbons, to whose throne he has mounted and who
may dispossess him in turn, he cannot be bothered with the topic. It
bores him, and he goes to sleep.
Awakening reinvigorated, he recognises that the Bourbon sympathies of
the northern provinces are a danger; he notes that the funds have fallen
to fifty, and that the shares of the Bank of France have declined to
half their former value; and he finds that the new National Guard, which
after all he is obliged to call up, fails to materialise. He therefore
gladly accedes to a proposal that issues from the allies in Frankfort.
They are as disunited as he can possibly wish. Metternich, being a
statesman, thinks it will be better not to occupy Paris. The tsar, being
a romanticist, wants to take vengeance for Moscow by blowing up the
Tuileries. In the end, Austria gets her way. The offer to France is that
the country is to retain her natural frontiers; the Rhine, the Alps, the
Pyrenees. The Emperor feels that he is saved. Without a moment’s delay
he will accept the Frankfort proposal. Maret has actually drafted the
dispatch.
Suddenly he changes his mind. Why? Perhaps he has been put out of temper
by the opposition voiced in the Chambers. There, at length, the members
are showing themselves refractory. “We will not vote further armaments
unless the government agrees that they are to be used only for defence.
The Emperor must pledge himself to carry out all the laws that protect
liberty.” Thunders of applause greet these words. For the first time in
fifteen years, an assembly has ventured to criticise Napoleon. In his
hatred for all Chambers, the Emperor flies into a passion, forbids the
printing of the speech, closes the House, receives a few of the deputies,
scolds them:
“The throne is nothing more than a piece of wood covered with satin.
I, and I alone, represent the people. I am the State. If France wants
a different constitution, let her find another monarch for herself. Do
you think my words proud? I utter them because I have the courage, and
because France owes her greatness to me.” After this language in the vein
of the Roi Soleil, on New Year’s Day he openly threatens the deputies,
and says he will have them closely watched.
That very day, Blücher crosses the Rhine.
Thus, after twenty years of effort, and after six great wars, the more or
less united powers of Europe and the old monarchical idea, incorporated
in a Prussian field marshal, have made their way back across the boundary
river of the revolution—and in the same hour, the heir of these modern
ideas scatters their representatives and threatens imprisonment. With
a similar logic, the manifestoes of the conflicting worlds have changed
places. In Notre Dame, where for twenty years nothing has been heard
but thanksgiving services, prayers are now offered up on behalf of the
success of French arms. From the allies, on the other hand, who have so
long heard talk of success of the French arms as heralding the liberation
of conquered peoples, come assurances to conquered France that the
invaders are “liberators.”
The legitimists have at length learned from their great foe the technique
of his battles and his proclamations. But if they are able to turn the
lesson to good account, it is only because of their preponderance of
power, and because of the weariness of a nation, which, after twenty
years of glory, now seeks nothing but repose.
To begin with, they weaken their position by asking too much; for when
they offer nothing better than the old frontiers of 1792, the Emperor
breaks off negotiations, and makes ready to repel their onslaught. In
spite of all difficulties, he is able to strengthen his fighting front.
His spirits are now steadily rising. When a pious count advises him to
send the empress and her ladies to kiss the relics of Ste. Geneviève,
Napoleon bursts out laughing, and says: “You’re a pretty bigot! I am
going to fight it out!”
But to whom, in this stern moment, does he entrust the capital? Who
merits all his confidence?
Joseph! Joseph, who understands nothing about war and has been keeping
open house for the Emperor’s enemies, becomes lieutenant general of
France and governor of Paris! This domestic peace treaty throws a glaring
light upon the Emperor’s isolation, upon his lack of confidence in his
supporters, and upon his family feeling. Shortly before leaving for the
front, Napoleon has coldly ordered his brother to choose between openly
declaring himself to be the friend of the empress-regent or continuing to
be banished from Paris. “You can live in retirement at your country-seat,
so long as I am alive. If I die, you will be killed or imprisoned. At
Morfontaine, you will certainly be of no use either to your own people or
to France, but at any rate you will not do me any harm. Make your choice.
Feelings, whether friendly or hostile, are useless and out of place.”
The tone is that of a man fighting to save his crown. He reckons with the
likelihood of death; burns a great many State papers; and provides for
his natural sons. Little Léon is to receive a fixed income, Walewska’s
boy is to have a big majorat. As for his legitimate heir, who is now
nearly three years old, Napoleon has the child in his arms when he
takes leave of the officers of the National Guard. “I entrust to you
the dearest of my possessions. You are answerable!” Once more he urges
tenacity on his brother; once more he leaves his wife regent of their
son’s realm. Next morning he quits Paris.
He will not re-enter the city for more than a year, after devious
wanderings.
XIII
In a few weeks he is beaten.
His first strokes are successful. Near Brienne, where he forces Blücher
to retreat, and where he himself takes so active a part in the fight
that he is obliged to draw his sword in self-defence, he recognises
the tree under which “as a twelve-year-old youngster I used to sit and
read Tasso.” A romantic encounter which links his later life with those
early days when his dreams were first dreamed! His historical feeling
concerning himself grows in such circumstances to legendary proportions.
Immediately thereafter, Blücher gains a victory over him near La
Rothière. Paris is threatened. The Emperor’s strength seems broken.
Caulaincourt, in a letter, begs him to yield; Maret does the same by word
of mouth. Napoleon pays little heed to what Maret is saying; absently,
he flutters the pages of a book by Montesquieu. Then, pointing to a
passage, he bids Maret read aloud. “I know of nothing nobler than the
determination of a monarch of our day to prefer to bury himself beneath
the ruins of a throne rather than accept proposals to which no king
should ever hearken.”
“I know of something nobler still!” exclaims Maret. “That you should
sacrifice your glory and thereby fill the abyss wherein, otherwise,
France will find her grave!”
“Very well,” answers the Emperor. “Make peace. Caulaincourt can conclude
it, and sign the documents. I shall bear the shame. But do not claim
from me that I myself should dictate my own abasement!” Maret writes to
Caulaincourt in Châtillon, where he is negotiating anew with the enemy.
Caulaincourt demands confirmation. Meanwhile the Emperor has veered
about. He writes to Joseph: “Hold the gates bravely. Have two guns
mounted and see that the National Guard takes up its position there....
Place fifty men at each gate armed with service muskets, one hundred
with fowling pieces, and one hundred with pikes. Thus, each gate will be
guarded by two hundred and fifty men.”
Crœsus has become a beggar! Only six months ago, nay, even three months
back, Napoleon would have added three noughts to the figures! But now,
encircled by the conglomerated forces of so many princes, two cannon
and a hundred fowling pieces must suffice to save Paris! He sees the
absurdity, for the same evening Maret finds him depressed. The minister,
however, tries to persuade the Emperor to dictate the conditions of
peace: Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine are to be free, Italy must
be yielded up, everything which Bonaparte and Napoleon conquered must be
given back in order that he may keep Paris and the piece of wood covered
with satin. He will sign to-morrow, he says. Those who love him, tremble
at thought of the moment when with one stroke of the pen he will lose all
that his warlike deeds have won.
But fate guards him from this. News comes during the night. The enemy’s
position is worse than it seemed the previous day. Once more the war
lord’s imagination gets to work. When, next morning, Maret arrives with
the papers for the Emperor’s signature, he finds his master brooding over
the map. Napoleon hardly notices his entrance. All the minister can catch
is a few hurried words:
“Other matters are to the fore! I am determined to smash Blücher!” When,
at the self-same hour, Joseph’s letter arrives wherein he states that
Paris is in peril, Napoleon, in the interludes of issuing army orders,
dictates, from the depths of his heart, this rock-like answer:
“Should Paris be taken, I shall no longer continue to live.... I have
commanded you to do all that is needful to safeguard the empress, the
king of Rome, and our family.... I have the right to claim the assistance
of my kin, for I have helped them so often in the past....
“If Talleyrand considers that the empress should in any case remain in
Paris, this advice is secret treachery. Do not trust him! For sixteen
years I have associated with him, and have often given him favours. But
nothing is more certain than that he is the greatest enemy of our house,
now that luck has forsaken us. Take my advice to heart. I understand
events better than the young folk. If I lose the fight and die, you will
be the first to hear of it.... I fancy that Madame Mère could find asylum
with the queen of Westphalia. For God’s sake, do not allow the empress
and the king to fall into the hands of the enemy! Austria would then lose
interest in the war, and would take the empress to Vienna. England and
Russia would make the French see things from their outlook, and our cause
would be lost....
“Perhaps I shall conclude peace in a day or two.... Never since the
world began has a sovereign allowed himself to be taken alive in an open
city.... So long as I live, I must be obeyed. If I die, my reigning son
and the regent his mother must not allow themselves to be taken, were it
only for France’s honour. On the contrary, they must withdraw with the
last of their soldiers and entrench themselves in the remotest village.
Otherwise it might be said that I had sacrificed my son’s throne....
“I would rather know that my son had been killed than that he was
being brought up in Vienna as an Austrian prince. I have never seen
_Andromache_ played without lamenting the fate of Astyanax, and I have
always regarded it as a stroke of good fortune that his father did not
live to see it. You do not know the French people. The consequences of
these vast events are incalculable!”
This hunted man is panting for breath. For the first time since his
youth, death or collapse seems close at hand; perhaps both. When he
writes commanding Joseph to prepare for either eventuality, the two main
elements of his soul are mingling, and both are scattering sparks. His
calculating temperament is reckoning up the disastrous consequences that
would ensue, should Austria’s ambition cease to be operative; but at
the same time his idea of the destiny of his nearest and dearest takes
a soaring flight. Were he to fall next day, this letter would remain
to show that honour and glory had been the last flames of his heroic
imagination. But to-day, as always, everything discloses a meditation
upon the historical parallels which have throughout life been his spur to
greatness.
Thus the letter is the burning-cold document of a statesman and poet, and
only in this frame of mind is it becoming for a Napoleon to perish.
At the same time, he is a great military commander to the last. When
he divides the remnants of his army into two halves, and begins by
defeating Blücher with one of them in a brilliant advance, the six
battles he fights in nine days, from Champaubert to Montereau, are
still in the avalanche tempo of General Bonaparte. But that the names
of these battle-fields are French, tells us the whole story; hitherto
his victories have always borne foreign names. At Montereau he is an
artillerist once more, training the guns with his own hand as at Toulon.
He cries: “Forward, comrades! The cannon ball that will hit me has not
been cast!”
He has settled accounts with Blücher. Now to deal with Schwarzenberg!
But the Austrian is afraid of having his renown as commander dimmed,
and is sedulous to avoid a decisive conflict; he actually writes direct
to Berthier, suggesting that a truce be arranged in Châtillon. Enough
for the Emperor to read this, and his lust for battle is redoubled.
Another letter to Joseph, written with his own hand this time, breathing
defiance, shrewd, bold:
“You have been talking to my wife about the Bourbons, but you should
avoid such topics. I have no wish to take shelter behind my wife.... That
would only sow dissension between us.... I have never tried to win the
applause of the Parisians, for I am no stage puppet.... Besides, the real
Paris is something very different from the passions of the three thousand
persons who are raising all the clamour. Of course it would be easier
to explain that one cannot levy any soldiers, than it is to make the
attempt.... Je vous embrasse!”
It is many, many years since he has penned these words at the close of
a letter. Not since the Marengo days has he written thus to any of his
brothers or to any of his commanders—and Joseph is both. His heart is
beating more vigorously. Next day, writing to Savary, who has informed
him about a petition to the monarchs, and about the regency and fears
and intrigues, his phrasing is more incisive, and bears witness to the
excitement of a campaign:
“They shall learn that I am still the man of Wagram and Austerlitz!
I will have no intrigues in the State.... Let me tell you that if a
petition against the public authority is being circulated, I will arrest
King Joseph and all the others who sign it!... I want no tribunes of the
people! I myself am the great tribune!”
Meanwhile the allies are quarrelling. The tsar wants Paris to be placed
under a Russian governor until the nation chooses Bernadotte or another;
Austria will hear of nothing but a Bourbon restoration; Schwarzenberg
wants peace to be made at once, and instead of joining battle is content
to assume “a military attitude.” But Blücher, who has remarshalled his
forces, simply cries “Forward!” and is on the march. When the allies
once more send a proposal for the re-establishment of the old frontiers
of France, the Emperor is enraged, saying: “I am so angry, that I feel
dishonoured by the mere suggestion.” Being reminded that the enemy
outnumbers him by three to one, he answers heroically: “I have fifty
thousand men. Add myself, and you get a hundred and fifty thousand!”
Now, at the beginning of March, when he is to attack Blücher once more,
for the command of his other army he puts his trust in Marmont, his
earliest companion-in-arms.