noblest incorporation. “I wish I could be my own posterity, and read
what such a poet as Corneille would make me feel, do, and say.” From
boyhood’s days down to the time of his exile, in the island where he was
born and in the island where he died, his self-esteem is nourished on
historical parallels. History, he said, was the only true philosophy. Had
he not had his peculiar feeling for history, Napoleon’s career would have
been very different; nay, it would have been impossible. His political
calculations are fed from two sources, history and imagination; the first
of these streams being intellectual, and the second passionate. It is
history alone which gives him alighting places on his flight. In his own
age he is unique; he travels alone; nowhere but in history can he find
prototypes by whose example he can guide his impetuous progress. With
Cæsar, the lieutenant begins to soar. At Rochefort, the Emperor ends the
active phase of his existence by trusting too implicitly in the heroic
example of Themistocles.
Between the opening and the close, we find numberless indications of
the way in which his imagination remains at work, mirroring the great
incidents of classical and modern history. Why is he opposed to Tacitus
and Chateaubriand? Because they warn the people against tyrants. Why does
he blame the assassins of Cæsar? Because he wishes to defend his own
sentence upon the duke of Enghien. When he is First Consul, he actually
thinks of writing a few chapters of Roman history, to prove “that Cæsar
never wanted to become king, and that he was murdered because he wished
to re-establish order by uniting all parties.” He goes on to add that
Cæsar had been killed in the Senate House, and that in the Senate were
forty Pompeians, personal enemies of the dictator. Napoleon’s unexpressed
inference is that he must clean up the Senate, and he does so.
In the Roman style, he sketches the ideas for eight splendid bas-reliefs
which, on triumphal arches, are to illustrate the doings of his reign;
they are to be representations of fact, devoid of self-commendation,
and only in a formal sense illustrations of historical egotism. He
summons historiographers and imaginative writers from all civilised
lands, and converses with them for hours, in order that, through their
intermediation, he may win the approval of posterity. When his portrait
seems to him too crudely lifelike, he says that Alexander never sat to
Apelles; David must paint him “in a tranquil attitude, mounted upon a
fiery steed.” It pleases him to write army orders when he is sitting
in Frederick the Great’s study; at Sans Souci, to invite the biographer
of the former master of the house to dine with him; in Lombardy, to
visit the arch of Augustus, in Egypt, the pillar of Pompey, and on these
monuments to inscribe the names of those who have recently fallen; in
Madrid and Moscow, to study the environment and the habits of Philip and
of Catherine. But his pleasure in these things is not purely æsthetic.
The hours he devotes to them are heroical; they are Napoleon’s true
recompense; they are realisations of his earliest dreams.
With his own hand, he is continually writing his own history. The young
general records his first victories in orders of the day; with each
new campaign, and after every battle, he adds to the long series; and
the work is done with the hand of an artist, is wrought with an eye to
immortal fame. When he is offered the crown of Italy, he surveys his own
deeds of little more than five years ago as if they had come down in
legend: “When, a few years later, we learned on the banks of the Nile
that our aims had come to naught, we were bitterly distressed at this
evil turn of fortune; but, thanks to the courage of our armies, we were
able to appear in Milan at a time when Italy believed us to be still on
the shores of the Red Sea.” Actually, in the interim, he had, before the
eyes of all the world, trampled on the constitution of France, and even
the meanest herd in the Apennines knew of his return from Egypt.
When he is carrying on a struggle with the pope he pens a long letter,
and sends it to Eugene for the latter to copy, since ostensibly it is to
be a letter from Eugene to the pope; therein Eugene is made to say that
Napoleon can only be compared to Cyrus and Charlemagne.
At the height of his career, he says to his Austrian ambassador: “Don’t
you make any mistake, I am a Roman emperor, in the best line of the
Cæsars. Chateaubriand has compared me with Tiberius, who could only
travel from Rome to Capri. A pretty idea! Trajan. Aurelian—that would
be another story. They were self-made men, who shook the world out of
old ruts. Do you not see the resemblances between my regime and that of
Diocletian? The net so widely spread; the Emperor’s eyes everywhere; the
civil authority omnipotent throughout an empire that is fundamentally
warlike.... A man is born to be a Cæsar.”
This is not a proclamation, not a political letter, not an attempt to
seduce any one. The words are spoken lightly, in a drawing-room, without
emotion and without ulterior aim, with all the simplicity of a man aware
of his own strength.
After victories and successes, this historical feeling for his own
personality becomes as objective as the attitude of the chessplayer
towards the pieces on his board. We seem to be contemplating a man whose
fondness for the game is the only thing which makes him want to win;
and who, as soon as he has won, can converse dispassionately with his
defeated opponent about the mistakes they have made and the artifices
to which they have had recourse. When he is talking to enemy generals
whom he has taken prisoner or with whom he is negotiating, he will say:
“You ought to have done this, that, or the other. There, you were in an
advantageous position. That would have been an excellent move.”
Immediately after his victory at Wagram, he says to Count Bubna: “I am
certain that you are damnably strong, for you can deliver shrewd blows.
At what figure do you estimate my forces?... You appear to be uncommonly
well informed! Would you care to have a look at my army?... No? Well, at
least you had better study my position on this map. It was my own fault
when I failed to win a victory at Aspern-Essling. I got the punishment I
deserved.”
Only with regard to one matter does this detachment fail him—Waterloo.
In St. Helena, an English surgeon ventured to say that people in England
would be glad to hear his opinion of Wellington. The remark was followed
by an embarrassing silence.
Fame is the supreme goal of his egotism; substantially, it is the only
goal. All his energies are directed towards this end: his consciousness
of his uniqueness; his historic sense; his sense of honour; his
dignity; the boy’s dreams, the youth’s plans, the man’s deeds, the
prisoner’s unrest. Posterity is the great confused picture which fills
his imagination; and the desire of his heart would seem to be rather
the Latin “gloria” which thinks of future generations, than the French
“gloire” which suns itself in the smile of contemporaries. He is animated
by a daimonic being’s eager wish for immortality, although he knows that
he must share the fate of all mortal men. “Better never to have lived;
than to exist, and pass without leaving a trace.”
He modifies the coronation oath by swearing, not only to protect the
realm and the happiness of France, but also to rule for the glory of his
people. On one of the battle-fields of Henry IV in Normandy he has a
column erected with the inscription: “Great men love the fame of those
who resemble themselves.” Frederick’s sword is “more precious than all
the treasures of the king of Prussia”; but it is not only when he is
campaigning that his thoughts turn towards the future. When he is having
houses built for the unemployed, his order to the minister to whom the
task is entrusted ends with the phrase: “We must not pass out of the
world without leaving traces that will commend us to the thoughts of
posterity.” At the close of his career as Emperor, he refuses to make
peace on terms that will involve the renunciation of territories upon
whose conquest part of his fame depends; and towards the end of his life
he utters a melancholy parable, darkly significant, lonely as his own
destiny:
“The love for glory is like the bridge which Satan tried to build across
chaos in order to make his way into paradise. Glory is a connecting link
between past and future, from which an abyss separates him. I leave to my
son nothing but my name.”
IV
Energy is the second element in Napoleon’s make-up. How does this quality
show itself?
First of all in calculation. Never a trace of the flash of genius; but,
rather, continuous weighing, over-elaborating, discarding:
“I have known myself to argue with myself over the thoughts concerning
a battle, and have contradicted myself.... When I have drawn-up a plan
of battle I am the most pusillanimous of men. I magnify the dangers and
the incidents, am in a terrible state of excitement even when I seem
cheerful; I am then like a girl who is going to have a baby.” This is the
mood of an artist during the conception of his work. He once described
these feelings to Roederer in even franker terms:
“I am always at work; I think a great deal. If I appeared to be ever
ready and equal to any occasion, it is because I have thought over
matters for long before I undertake to do the slightest thing; I have
foreseen all eventualities. There exists no guardian angel who suddenly
and mysteriously whispers in my ear what I have to do or to say.
Everything is turned over in my mind, again and again, always, whether I
am at table or at the theatre. At night, I wake up in order to work.”
This constant deliberation builds up something within him which he names
“the spirit of things:” the precision, which penetrates he touches; the
thinking in numbers, to which he ascribes part of his success and for
which he has to thank his mathematical training. There is nothing too
small for this brain; for the sum total of millions of details is a plan
whose scope is world embracing. If one of his officers writes to say that
the Emperor’s instructions have been carried out, Napoleon waives this
general statement aside and demands details. Nothing is so small but
he wants to know all about it and judge its importance for himself. He
writes to Eugene, who is in Italy:
“How is it possible that you are distributing three million seven hundred
and forty-seven thousand rations of meat?... I can calculate a similar
gross total for dried vegetables, wine, salt, and spirits. But I want
calculations according to corps. I am robbed of fifty per cent., even
as much as seventy per cent.... How can you allow them to calculate for
one million three hundred and seventy-one thousand rations of hay? I
should have to provide twelve thousand horses to eat it, not counting
the Istrians and Dalmatians! You know I have only seven thousand.... The
office charges are insane! Frs. 118,000 for four months! That equals frs.
400,000 a year! Such a sum should suffice for the whole of Italy!”
This is but one example among many. Thousands of such letters, hailing
from every corner of the military and civil administration, personally
dictated, are to be found in the volumes of correspondence, and must
sadly disappoint those who expect to find only ideas and temperament
in the letters. He is the man who, in the midst of his wars in Italy,
writes home that they must concoct a letter, nominally written by a
German patriot and dealing with Austrian politics, and have it circulated
throughout Germany; again, in the throes of a campaign, he has to write
to Murat, King of Naples, detailing how the latter is to behave at balls
or when he visits the theatre, whom he is to invite and whom to exclude
from his invitations. While the preparations are being made for the
Erfurt gathering, he suddenly remembers that some one must be there to
introduce the actresses to the gallant grand dukes. He never demonstrates
more forcibly the way he formulates destinies in figures than by the
following incursion into social life: “Each household should have six
children, seeing that, on the average, three are sure to die. Of the
three who survive, two should replace the father and mother; the third
will serve for an unforeseen emergency.”
His precision of thought goes to such grotesque lengths!
A third means for expressing this energetic faculty is his tempo.
“Activity! Speed!” he writes with his own hand at the foot of an
order. The king of Prussia has depicted this peculiarity with especial
felicity: “We need but see him ride: he always gives his horse rein, and
never troubles about what may be happening in his rear!” But Napoleon
negotiated better than he rode, for he never negotiated until after long
reflection. “Not a moment must be lost,” is the slogan even when nothing
presses for decision. The instinctive impetus of an overburdened but
short life drives him forward; it seems as if he could not arrive quickly
enough at the end of his career. He writes to Bernadotte, in the course
of a campaign: “I have lost a whole day through you, and the fate of the
world hangs upon one single day.”
The drive he imposes upon himself has its reaction upon those who serve
him. He drives them, not only in the field, but also in circumstances
which ordinary governments would take months to decide. He demands a
treaty with Russia from Talleyrand, saying it is to be drawn up and ready
in a couple of hours. To explain the reasons for his second marriage, he
wants a circular letter sent to all his ambassadors and consuls; this
is to be drafted “in the course of the day.” One night he is immersed
in thoughts concerning the embellishment of Paris. Next morning he says
to his Minister for Home Affairs: “I require that Paris shall have two
million inhabitants by the end of ten years. I want to do something
useful and great for the city. What do you suggest?”
“Provide the town with a good water-supply, Sire,” and the minister
expounds a plan whereby the Ourcq water can be conveyed to Paris.
“Your proposal is good. Summon G.; he must send five hundred men to La
Vilette to-morrow, in order to start work on the canal.”
Another of his weapons is memory. “I always know my position. I cannot
remember a single Alexandrine, but I never forget a figure relating to
my military situation.” This is the productive memory. Although he
pronounces them abominably, he retains the names of all the important
places—important from his point of view—in all the countries where he
has fought. The Postmaster General reports that the Emperor is able to
mention, offhand, distances which he himself has to hunt up in works of
reference. On his way back to Paris from the camp at Boulogne, Napoleon
encounters a troop of soldiers who have lost their way, asks the number
of their regiment, whence they set out, and when. He tells them their
line of march! “Your battalion will be at H. this evening.” At this time,
two hundred thousand men were on the march close at hand!
His technique is to arrange things in his head “as in a wardrobe.” He
says: “When I wish to put any matter out of my mind, I close its drawer
and open the drawer belonging to another. The contents of the drawers
never get mixed, and they never worry me or weary me. Do I want to sleep?
I close all the drawers, and then I am asleep.”
Among the numerous heraldic emblems which might have tickled the fancy of
an upstart—stars, tutelary deities, saints, beasts of prey—he finds none
to please him. He chooses the bee, thus emphasising once more his opinion
that a man of talent who aspires and works unceasingly, can achieve
everything that can otherwise be achieved through what is vaguely spoken
of as genius. He declares that genius is industry; meaning, of course,
that genius is industry among other things. He says that work is his
element, that for which he has been created. Had he left nothing behind
him, had all his works perished, still his industry and his glory would
have been an emblematic stimulus to the youth of countless generations
after he had passed away.
Many witnesses testify to his amazing powers of continued work. Roederer,
who was his close companion during the Consulate, writes as follows:
“That which especially characterises him is the power and persistence of
his attention. He can work for eighteen hours at a stretch, it may be at
one piece of work, it may be at several in turn. I have never seen his
mind flag. I have never seen his mind without a spring in it, not when
he was physically tired, not when he was taking violent exercise, not
even when he was angry. I have never seen him distracted from one affair
by another, neglecting the matter in hand for one which he is about to
work. Good or bad news from Egypt never interfered with his attention
to the civil code, and the civil code never interfered with the steps
it was necessary to take for the safety of Egypt. No one was ever more
wholly immersed in what he was doing, nor did any one ever make a better
distribution of his time among all the things he had to do. Never was any
one more stubborn in rejecting the occupation or the thought which was
not appropriate to the hour or the day; nor was any one ever more adroit
in seizing an occupation or a thought when the right moment had come.”
He robbed hundreds of his fellow workers of health and youth, because
he demanded too much of them when he demanded from them what he exacted
from himself. His private secretary would be sent for at a late hour,
and would get to bed at four in the morning; at seven, the poor man
would find new tasks ready for him, and would be told that they must be
finished within two hours. When Napoleon and his secretary were together
all day, one dictating and the other writing from dictation, at meal
times the chief would order food for two, and would share with his
subordinate at a corner of the work-table, just as he would have shared
with his adjutant on a boundary stone. During the Consulate he would
sometimes begin a sitting with his ministers at six in the evening and
keep it up till five next morning. In the three months at Schönbrunn, his
official correspondence comprised four hundred and thirty-five letters
occupying four hundred folio pages of print. This was only his political
and administrative correspondence; in addition he wrote a great many
private letters, and delivered innumerable orders by word of mouth.
These are the main forms of his energy. It is with their aid that he
enters upon his duel with the world, availing himself of their interplay,
and speaking of his genius as a talent for combination. In his plans
and orders, he is fond of the phrase “at the given moment.” He is not
hampered by any principle; is always willing to modify his scheme to
suit the weather of destiny, to adapt his combinations to the slightest
modifications of the situation. This man of iron will had a most supple
intelligence. While forcing all those with whom he came in contact to
bend before his resolves, he himself showed a wonderful elasticity in
compliance with the will of circumstances.
“The weakness of a captain who, instead of forcing his way into port,
preferred to let himself be chased on the open sea—this, and some of
the trifling defects of our frigates, were the reasons why I failed to
change the face of the world. Had Acre fallen, we should have made our
way to Aleppo by forced marches, have enlisted Christians, Druses, and
Armenians; have speedily reached the Euphrates: thence I should have gone
to India, and should have stablished new institutions everywhere.”
Whether these vaticinations were historically tenable, may remain an
open question; but his belief that he could have done what he describes,
bears witness to his realism. In this world of figures and magnitudes,
for Napoleon everything depends upon the individual behaviour of the
individual man at his post. Since the failure of any one individual may
give the totality of circumstances a new trend, he is always ready to
adapt the trend of his own intelligence to changing circumstances. But he
does not himself attribute his successes to this, saying that they were
due to his having been born at the right moment, and that under Louis
XIV. he would only have become a marshal like Turenne.
Napoleon’s energy is very little disturbed by the passions. His
self-confidence and his sense of dignity made self-command easy to
him, and, being habituated to surprise, he was always fully master of
himself. “Since I am used to great events, they make no impression on
me at the moment when they are reported; I feel the pain an hour later.”
This sometimes makes him appear more stoical than he might wish people
to believe him. When Hortense’s boy dies, he tells her to be composed,
saying: “To live means to suffer; but the brave man is continually
striving for self-mastery, and achieves it in the end.”
Nevertheless, he sometimes loses his temper. The fierceness of his
passion is then proportional to his pride, the irritability of his
nerves, and the impatience of his creative will—the will of one who
needed a thousand hands to complete his work. The stories about his
threatening an ambassador with his fist, and similar outbursts of
violence, are fabulous; but there is trustworthy evidence as to the
terrible moment when Berthier had infuriated the First Consul by his
tactlessness. Led on by Talleyrand as Mephistopheles, Berthier, in the
Tuileries, had urged upon the Consul the need of assuming the title of
king. Bonaparte’s anger flashed from his eyes, his lips twitched, he
seized the offender by the throat, and pushed him back against the wall,
shouting: “Who put you up to raising my bile in this way? You will pay
for it, if you dare to do anything of the kind again!”
Even amid his anger, his faculty for combination is at work, and he
realises that the notion cannot have originated in the good Berthier’s
mind. In its psychical significance the scene is unique.
Often he is a rough, irritable soldier, who furiously lifts a badly
closing window off its hinges and hurls it into the street; lashes a
groom with his whip; when dictating a letter, utters curses against the
addressee, which his secretary suppresses; even before the vicars-general
speaks in an unseemly way, asking, “Which of you leads this blockhead of
a bishop by the nose?”
One of these vicars-general, who has been absent from duty for a long
time, returns, and comes to report.
“Where have you been, misérable?”
“At home, with my people.”
“How dare you stay away so long when you know that your bishop is such a
damned fool?”
More important are the occasions when he simulates anger to gain some
political end. Occasionally he gives the show away afterwards. “You think
I was in a rage?” he says in Warsaw. “You are making a mistake. While
I have been here, my wrath has never exceeded bounds.” One day he is
playing with his little nephew and gossiping with the court ladies, in
the best of humours. The English ambassador is announced. Instantly his
face changes like an actor’s, his features are convulsed, he turns pale,
strides towards the Englishman and storms at him for a whole hour in the
presence of numerous witnesses. He is genuinely angry with England and he
is genuinely annoyed at being disturbed by this visit; but the wrathful
mask, the scene he makes, the angry expressions he uses, are political
expedients.
The frequency of such incidents made many people believe that Napoleon
was a passionate man. Talleyrand has more insight: “He’s a perfect devil.
He humbugs us all, even about his passions, for he knows how to act them,
though they are really there!”
Self-command and coldness are so dominant in him that he never takes the
vengeance that might seem appropriate to his irritable sense of honour
and to the extent of his power. He never punished rivals or traitors
unjustly. He only banished those whom he had good reason for wishing
out of the way; and it was a point of chivalry with him to leave beaten
enemies, great or small, unmolested.