less, maybe even more cruelly, than the loss of power, for his conception
of marriage is conservative and bourgeois. Constantly, even during the
via dolorosa of his last journey through France, he has written to Marie
Louise; he has planned a new house for her. But his letters remain
unanswered. Believing that his correspondence has been intercepted, he at
last writes to the grand duke of Tuscany, her uncle, begging for news;
for “I trust that Your Royal Highness has preserved a little friendliness
towards me, in spite of the events which have changed the sentiments of
so many men.... If so, I beg that you will look favourably upon the tiny
commune which feels the same towards you as does Tuscany....” Ay, thus
writes the prince of this diminutive isle, a prince with no more than
twenty thousand subjects, to the mighty grand duke! But the grand duke
keeps silence.
When Napoleon realises the sluggishness of the human heart, his old
defiance regains the ascendant. It is with a sense of relief that we
hear his well-known voice ring out again, after the anguish of this
grovelling letter—a letter that would never have been written but for his
wife’s sake. He exclaims: “These sovereigns, who were wont to send me,
in all solemnity, their delegations of ambassadors, who gave a daughter
of their blood to share my bed, and who called me ‘Brother,’ are now
cursing me as a usurper, and spit upon my picture since they cannot
spit upon the original. They have bespattered the majesty of kings with
mud! What is the title of emperor? Had I no other name to bequeath,
posterity would laugh.... In classical days, the vanquished were robbed
of their children, that these might be paraded before the people when the
conqueror was celebrating his triumph....”
What must be the tenor of Napoleon’s thoughts when he learns how, on that
shameful day of cowardice and confusion, the lad of four had refused to
leave the palace of his father; of how, when the little king of Rome
had met his grandfather for the first time, he had uttered the innocent
words: “I have seen the emperor of Austria. He is not handsome.” This
was precisely what Napoleon had wished to avoid. The fate of Astyanax
has been prepared for the boy; and even though he is made much of, the
child is well aware that he must no longer mention his father’s name.
Though he has received the symbolical names of Napoleon Francis and
thus embodies the unhappy union of two antagonistic worlds, the name of
Napoleon is soon destined to be heard no more. For, when the young cuckoo
is introduced into the Habsburg nest, he is called Francis, and nothing
else. Later, when the empress’ secretary is leaving Vienna and presents
himself to take farewell, the boy draws him into a window recess and says
in a hurried whisper: “Tell my father I love him tremendously!”
What must be the tenor of Napoleon’s thoughts when he hears gossip
about a certain Neipperg, an Austrian officer, a man of no account, and
one whose only way into history is through the bedroom of a Habsburg
princess—who would herself never have been heard of had it not been for
her marriage to Napoleon. Thus terrible are the blows of fate, and his
intimates think it natural enough when they see their master weeping over
his boy’s portrait.
But now Pauline arrives, fascinating as ever, in the best of spirits.
To amuse him, she mimics the grimaces that are made by the worthies
of the island and their wives when, at the weekly receptions, the
Emperor asks them how many children they have, and whether they
think he ought to build a hospital. As the year draws on, Italians
from the mainland come in increasing numbers. Persons with
satisfactory recommendations—historians, poets, men of birth, and even
Englishmen—secure a good reception; and he will talk to them for hours,
though only of the past, with never a word about the future. He is
delighted to hear such visitors rail at the Austrian regime which has now
been set up once more, but he will pay no heed to conspirators who wish
him to come to Italy as leader of a revolt. His thoughts range towards
the other coast, and by slow degrees mature into plans.
What is Paris saying?
To him this is still the question of questions. The news brought to him
in the journals twice a week, and the information he gleans from his
visitors, lead him to turn new possibilities over in his mind. But it
must not be supposed that Napoleon began the new epoch with a definite
plan. When he landed in Elba, it was an open question in his mind whether
he would ever quit the island. Still, the thought of future possibilities
was intensified in him by the usual forebodings of an adventurer—the
adventurer he had become since the failure at Moscow. “A living drummer
is better than a dead emperor.” Slowly, as the conditions change, he
makes plans and rejects them, renews and modifies his designs. They turn
upon what is happening in Paris and in Vienna.
What is Paris saying about the Bourbons? Hardly is Napoleon away, when
they make their “entry” after the usual manner of exiled kings who
return; and though the newspapers, under duress of the censorship the
Emperor had established, lie like troopers, in his remote island he can
learn the ridiculous truth. Four persons are sitting in a small carriage.
The Parisians, whose risibilities are easily touched, certainly have
something to laugh at. The king is there, in an amazing rig-out, in
plain clothes, but decked with gigantic epaulettes; a man so fat that he
has three chins; and he smiles at the gaping crowd. Beside him is the
duchess of Angoulème, her face tearful with reminiscence. On the opposite
seat are the prince of Condé, a very old man, and the duke of Bourbon;
they wear the uniforms of the good old days, which none of the younger
onlookers have ever seen before. This carriage, freighted with the
resurrected ghosts of those who had been laid to rest twenty-two years
ago, was attended by Emperor Napoleon’s sulky-looking guard, men whose
uniforms, shot and slashed, bore witness to the titanic struggles that
had been waged in the interim.
The Emperor makes eager enquiries concerning the habits of his successor
on the throne, and is gratified to learn that Louis has taken over his
room without making any changes. The king’s demeanour is said to be far
from regal. According to a German description of this date, Louis was
“extremely obese, so fat that he can hardly walk. Wearing black satin
boots, he is supported on each side, and would stumble over a straw. He
is clad in a sort of blue soutane with a turn-over red collar and hanging
golden epaulettes of an antique pattern.” This sort of thing keeps the
Emperor amused for a whole hour. For a dozen years, England has been
publishing caricatures depicting Napoleon’s camp manners in the palace
of the Bourbons, and now this legitimate ruler, set up by England, is a
veritable caricature of a monarch. What is Louis doing to show his good
will towards the people?
He has granted a constitution? But soon comes news that this gracious
gift exists only on paper. The old inequalities, the privileges of caste,
which had cost the present king’s brother his head, are quietly stealing
in through the back door. The nobles are not liable to military service,
and men of humble birth have no chance of rising to high office. The
new nobility is made a mock of. King Louis, a good old man, reasonable
enough, is led by his brother, the gloomy count of Artois. Around the
latter are concentrated the vengeful émigrés, who are demanding the
return of their property; but the law guarantees the rights of the actual
holders. The king, therefore, gives peerages and large pensions to the
émigrés.
What is this? So the clergy is rising to power once more! The priests are
on the side of the old nobility, and by threats of hell-fire induce the
dying to execute wills in favour of the sometime owners of confiscated
property. On Sundays, though the new constitution guarantees religious
freedom, all business is suspended under threat of punishment. Religious
processions again make their way through the streets. But there is a
reaction against ecclesiasticism. When Christian burial is refused to an
actress who has lived a gay life and is the darling of the Parisians,
there is a riot, the first under the restored regime.
People are beginning to see how much they owed to their foreign
liberator. With intense delight, the exile contemplates a caricature
showing Louis riding pillion behind a Cossack, making his way into France
over French corpses. When Wellington, the conqueror of Spain, comes to
Paris as British ambassador, he meets angry glances when he walks the
streets. What is the new regime doing for the thousands who may no longer
remain soldiers? The officers are put on half-pay, and those who are not
practising Catholics are cashiered. A new royal guard, consisting of
gentlemen of noble birth, is richly endowed; the nobles’ military academy
is reopened; but the schools for the orphans of members of the Legion of
Honour are done away with. Disillusionment spreads through France more
quickly than the Emperor had expected.
But the tone in Elba is not Jacobin. Napoleon does not abandon
his system, although he recognises his mistakes: “France needs an
aristocracy. For its foundation, however, time and memories are
requisite. I made princes and dukes, and gave them land and wealth; but
they were men of low birth, so it was impossible to make noblemen of
them. I tried, therefore, to unite them by marriage with old families.
Had I been granted the twenty years I wanted for the establishment of
France’s greatness, I could have done much. Fate willed otherwise.”
On the whole, like a chessplayer when the game is finished, he frankly
acknowledges the wrong moves that have led to his defeat. Nor is he
cautious in the choice of persons to whom he pours out such confessions.
He tells English visitors that he ought to have made peace after Dresden.
But when they ask why he did not make peace in Châtillon, he answers
proudly:
“I could not make a peace dishonourable to France. Belgium was part of
France when I rose to power. Could I cede the lands I had conquered,
and go back to the Bourbon frontiers? Never!... I am a born soldier.
Suddenly, I found myself in the midst of the revolution. The throne was
vacant. I took it, and kept it as long as I could. Now I am once more
what I was to begin with, a soldier....”
Those who know the man will recognise from such thoughts that he is still
unbroken. But what amazes us is the freedom with which he speaks of the
past. Never, in Elba, does he show any desire to falsify his history. And
yet, during the first months, he believes his career finished, and has no
thought of trying a new coup de main. He even fancies that he would like
to become a justice of the peace in England. “What would happen to me if
I went to England? Would people throw stones at me? The London mob is a
dangerous factor.” The Englishmen to whom he thus talks assure him that
their country is hospitable. He makes a mental note of this assurance.
The Vienna congress is the first thing to set him in motion. Four
monarchs, allied against one republic, were at length able, after a
decade, to annihilate it; five monarchs, now all united, had assembled to
reorganise Europe, and there was no longer an enemy worth considering to
hold them in check; but four and a half conquerors (if the Bourbon ruler
can be accounted as half) were soon to be disunited, thanks to the inborn
jealousy with which each one of them regarded his fellows. Does the tsar
want to take the whole of Poland as his share of the spoil; and does
Prussia want Saxony? What will happen, then, to Galicia; and what about
the worthy king of Saxony, Bourbon’s ally? A split is inevitable. By
New Year, three months after the opening of the congress, the coalition
has been broken up. Ministers and potentates who had so recently been
celebrating their victory in a series of festivities, have begun to cheat
one another. The Habsburg ruler is now allied with England and France
against the Russians and the Prussians, by whose side the Austrians had a
few months earlier been fighting against Napoleon.
Metternich’s levity, laziness, vanity, intriguing disposition (this is
Stein’s description), dominated the situation: “he twists our excellent
and victorious monarchs round his fingers.” A Saxon nobleman writes from
Vienna: “The king of Prussia is the embodiment of wrath.... The king
of Denmark is ... well-meaning and sometimes intelligent. The king of
Bavaria looks like an uncouth and morose wagoner. The grand duke of Baden
is huge, gloomy, vain, and robust.... The old duke of Weimar lives as
jovially as ever he did.” The hopes of the man of Elba rise as he reads
and hears all this. “My time will come,” he thinks, “when the congress
goes up in the air!” Henceforward, he is in receipt of secret information
concerning the currents of opinion in Vienna. The faithful Maret is able
to arrange an intelligence service. But while the congress, a brightly
lit pleasure ship, rolling for lack of ballast, is intriguing and
enjoying itself, in the crow’s nest sits Napoleon’s old enemy, keeping
anxious watch. He has his spies in Leghorn, who report every ship that
sails to Elba, and tell him the names of the passengers.
Thus do the old adversaries eye one another across mountains and seas and
across the documents of the diplomats, until it seems as if all these
people of importance had come together in Vienna to furnish a lively
setting for the game of chess the two experts are playing. Does either of
them recall that night just before the Eighteenth Brumaire, when they
had been scared by the clatter of hoofs from the mounted patrol, and had
turned pale in their dread of arrest?
This much is certain, that at Vienna Talleyrand remains a shrewd judge of
men. Regarding Murat as a dangerous personality, he would like to have
the king of Naples shipped off to the Azores, nearly a thousand miles
from the nearest continent. But his ruling passion, avarice, comes in
the way. At the congress, Murat, driven into a corner in the defence of
his kingdom, promises Talleyrand a large sum of money in return for the
minister’s princedom of Benevento. Talleyrand therefore drops the plan
against Murat, and concocts a new scheme. The Emperor is to be kidnapped.
But the spies in Leghorn report that this will only be possible if one of
the four captains who command his ships can be suborned.
When Napoleon gets wind of these intrigues, the adventurer’s blood of
his Corsican home runs swiftly through his veins. He has the defences
of Elba strengthened, and his artillerymen are trained in the use of
hand-grenades. “I am a soldier, and am ready to face a firing squad.
But I will not be deported! Before they can do that they will have to
take my citadel by storm.” No attempt is made. In Vienna there is now a
better understanding, and the likelihood of the rupture of negotiations
diminishes. In France, however, disaffection to the Bourbons is growing.
The general upshot is to stimulate the Emperor’s determination. His
thoughts run as follows:
“If the congress closes with a peace festival after all the documents
have been signed, the phalanx will have been reconstituted. But now, when
it is still imperfectly consolidated, a touch will break it to pieces.
France is murmuring against the Bourbons; Paris makes fun of them; every
one detests the allies. There are a hundred signs to show that the old
army is devoted to me—the Emperor. The Bourbons are fainthearts, and will
run away. As soon as I regain my position, my son and heir will be sent
back to me.”
Calculations, only calculations; and never has he reckoned more soberly.
None the less, though he considers his figures with the utmost care, in
the last resort he relies upon psychological reactions. “I count upon
taking them by surprise. A bold deed upsets people’s equanimity, and they
are dumbfounded by a great novelty.” He adds: “I am the cause of France’s
unhappiness. I must effect a cure.” In the end of February, he sends for
his treasurer. “Have you plenty of money? How much does a million in gold
weigh? What is the weight of a hundred francs? How much does a box filled
with books weigh?... Take a couple of packing cases, put all the gold
coin you have at the bottom, and fill up the case with my books; my valet
will give them to you. Discharge the present staff of servants; pack
their trunks and pay them off. Everything must be kept strictly secret.”
In alarm, the man hastens to General Drouot. They exchange glances, but
keep their own counsel. Next day, Napoleon orders that no ships are to
leave the harbour. Everything has been quietly prepared; an expedition
like that to Egypt, but on a small scale.
On the eve of his departure, he plays a game of écarté with the ladies;
but he soon leaves the table and goes into the garden, whence he does not
return. His mother, according to her own story, finds him sitting under a
fig tree. After brief hesitation, he lays his hand on her forehead, and
says, much moved:
“I will tell you all about it. No one else must know, not even Pauline.”
Then he goes back to his old tone, as if he were talking to Berthier:
“I must tell you that I am leaving next evening.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Paris.” A pause. “I should like your advice.”
The mother’s heart stops beating for a moment. How she has enjoyed the
last six months; the period of quiet intercourse with her son. An end
to the tranquillity and the security! But Letizia is a proud woman and
a clever one. She knows that nobody can hold him back when he has made
up his mind, and that the only effect of anxious dissuasion will be to
disturb his composure. She says:
“Follow your destiny. It cannot be God’s will that you are to die from
poison, or after an inactive old age; though it may well be his will that
you are to die sword in hand. Let us put our trust in Mother Mary.”
On the last evening, the authorities are summoned by their sovereign.
He announces his imminent departure. “I have been extraordinarily well
pleased here. As a sign of confidence, I am leaving my mother and my
sister. To your care, too, I entrust this country, to which I attach
great importance.” The governor and the mayor express their lively
regret. The tone befits the departure of a distinguished guest, who has
been spending a few months in a lovely island for the benefit of his
health, and is sorry that the time has come for his return home.
He goes on board, and at dawn seven little frigates, carrying a thousand
men and a few guns, set sail for the French coast. He stands on the deck.
The outlines of Elba, where he has lived so peacefully, and of Corsica,
where many years before he had made stormy attempts to force his way
upwards, fade into the distance. Slowly the coast of the French Riviera
begins to show clearly through the mists of the first day of March. Let
us look into the Emperor’s mind:
“What is the minimum? Defeat and death. What is the maximum? Europe?
No use thinking any more about Europe! The dream of the United States
of Europe is finished. I cannot get another million Frenchmen, and
the foreign nations are not ready for my scheme. I must give France a
constitution, and must accommodate myself to governing through Chambers.
The time for dictatorships is over. Besides, we are not in Paris yet.
What will the army do?”
His thoughts are coloured with the spirit of the time. He is a man of
forty-five, with more past than future; no longer young enough to take
the world by storm, but not too old for a desperate venture. Thus does
Napoleon again draw near to French shores, in a mood betwixt courage and
renunciation.
XVI
The mountains are calling, the valleys are echoing, as the procession
of a thousand men who landed at Cannes wends its way through one Alpine
village after another. An enthusiastic crowd encircles the old guard
which has pursued its way along the road of history without jubilation
and without sorrow, imperturbable as a rock. The peasants, these sons of
the hills, in the self-same hamlets, had once before seen him, a lean,
small, unknown general; in those days he had relieved them from the
burden of maintaining an undisciplined soldiery, and had led the troops
over the Alps to victory. These mountain folk were the first to see the
miracle he wrought; they plumed themselves on the thought that from their
villages the Emperor had gone forth. And now, of a sudden, he is among
them again! Surely the procession of the thousand will work a spell, and
seem to be the march of prophets and saviours?
They come from their mountain fastnesses; women and children bring up the
rear; songs against the king are composed and sung; in the lesser towns,
the bolder spirits force the city fathers to go forth to meet the new
comer; for more than a hundred miles he encounters none but peasants.
Napoleon had reckoned upon this. He would not face a march through Aix
and Avignon, through the monarchical provinces. He preferred to leave
his few cannon behind in the snow-covered mountain paths, in order the
quicker to reach Dauphiné. Here the peasants had received the most
generous distribution of the nobles’ lands. They are full of anger now
against king, priest, and émigré, who, after the lapse of twenty-five
years, are contesting the peasants’ right to hold these lands. Was not
the great revolution made to protect the poor? Was it not made by
peasants in the country and workmen in the town? The Consul had not taken
back anything from them; even the Emperor had only called up their sons;
they have never ceased to look upon him as one of themselves, for their
minds moved slowly and their hearts were constant. Now, the king had
come back again, and forthwith the nobles had begun to squabble over the
fields the peasant had tilled.
The souls of the countryfolk were heavy at the change of fortune. Fifteen
years ago the mood had been similar when Napoleon, returning from Egypt
in his little ship, had landed, and the whole of southern France had
hailed him as saviour. What can have happened in the last ten months, to
make these people receive with every token of joy the man whom they had
so recently execrated? True, he had passed through another part of the
country at that time; and the national misfortune had needed a scapegoat.
His disfavour among the folk had been as brief as his defeat. But belief
in him lasted as long as the years of his glory.
What will the first troops we meet do? He himself, when he took leave,
had urged them to serve the fatherland. And the fatherland was the
king! They wear the Bourbon’s white cockade, they eat the king’s bread,
from the lips of patrician officers they have received a new and ugly
picture of the erstwhile leader. Everything will depend on his power of
suggestion. Uncertain feelings govern his heart as he strides inland from
Cannes. To his left, lies the fort of Antibes. Does he recognise the
tower wherein he was thrown when Robespierre fell? In just such a tower,
the Bourbon will fling him, against just such a wall Europe will stand
him, if he should fail on the morrow to accomplish what his glance and
his word have so often succeeded in doing before.
Outside Grenoble, near La Mure, he has his first encounter with the royal
troops. They have orders to exterminate him and his “band of brigands”;
the officers have taken the oath to the king just as in former days they
had taken the oath to the Emperor. The order to attack is given. Is the
blood of brethren to be shed? That is what Napoleon has spent a lifetime
in avoiding. Is this highway to be turned into a battle-field? He alights
from his horse, takes ten strides towards them, and shouts:
“Soldiers of the fifth army corps! Don’t you know me? If there is one
among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, let him come forward and do so.
Here I am!” Saying which, he throws open his grey cloak.
A terrible pause. What will happen?