envoys of foreign powers. We see this especially when he is adapting his
demeanour towards the Austrians with an eye to the Habsburg traditions.
He waits for the formal reception on his birthday, and then, faced by
the semicircle of the diplomats, he stops in front of Metternich to say:
“Well, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, what does your emperor want? Would he like
me to come to Vienna?” This is calculated to intimidate the Austrian
envoy, and at the same time to advertise Napoleon’s threatening attitude
throughout Europe. But two days later, when Metternich comes to a private
interview, the Emperor says: “To-day, we won’t play at being Emperor of
the French and Austrian envoy. There is no audience now, so we need not
make any fine speeches.”
Shortly before the conclusion of the first peace with Austria, he wishes
to avoid meeting the defeated archduke in Schönbrunn, lest he should
commit himself prematurely to peace terms. He therefore arranges that
the meeting shall take place in a hunting lodge. “I shall spend only two
hours there: one of them will be occupied in having dinner, and the other
will be devoted to talk about the war and to mutual protestations of
respect.” When the First Consul receives Count Cobenzl, he has personally
arranged the stage in the Tuileries; writing-table in the corner; no
chairs, so that they will have to sit on the sofa; only one lamp, no
lights in the chandelier, although it is late in the evening. When
Talleyrand ushers in the Austrian, the room seems almost dark, and the
Consul, on the farther side of it, is scarcely visible; the stranger is
perplexed, and has to sit exactly where his host chooses.
He is even more subtle in his dealings with the princes. During the years
of his supreme power, he ceases to pay them visits. In Tilsit, he becomes
the host within two days; in Dresden, though he is the king of Saxony’s
guest, he plays the master. He avoids having anything to do with queens.
When Queen Louise pathetically implores justice, he begs her to sit down.
“Nothing interrupts a tragical scene more effectually than this. When
people sit down, tragedy becomes comedy.”
In his dealings with the peoples he was less happy, and his only
tolerable successes were secured with the French and the Italians. During
the Consulate, he said in the Council of State: “My policy is to rule
in accordance with the will of the majority. This, I think, implies the
recognition of the sovereignty of the people. I became a good Catholic
when I wanted to finish the war in Vendée; in Egypt, I was a Turk; when I
wished to win over the Italians, I was an ultramontane. If I reigned over
the Jews, I should rebuild Solomon’s temple. That is why I propose to
talk about freedom in that part of San Domingo where the slaves have been
liberated, while maintaining slavery in the other part of the island.”
His policy was not very successful in the negro republic; he did better
in Poland, which he tried to win over by festivities and phrases; and
better still with the Jews. These had been granted equal rights by
the revolution, and on the Rhine many of them were doing harm by the
practice of usury. Napoleon, who knew their value as traders, did not
have recourse to crude prohibitions. He bethought himself of Jewish laws
and customs; summoned to Paris their highest council, the Sanhedrin,
which had not met for centuries; left the decision to this body, and was
able to arrange that the supreme Jewish authority should forbid usury as
sinful. But in Spain he made a complete mess of things, overlooking the
risks he was running, and advising Joseph to make himself agreeable to
the whole nation “by instilling fear into the rabble.”
The Germans puzzled Napoleon most of all. They had everything he lacked,
and none of the things he had. He therefore, even in the midst of his
successes, regarded them with a mixture of fear and admiration; they
seemed to him uncanny. When he went to Erfurt and wished to influence
the German princes by the drama, he told the managing director not to
stage any comedies. “No one understands comedies on this bank of the
Rhine. Corneille’s _Cinna_ might be played, for therein great interests
are portrayed; then a scene depicting royal clemency, which would
certainly have a good effect.” He went on to misquote _Cinna_. Rémusat,
having put him right, said: “In this sacred office, to which God’s grace
has appointed the king, the past is justified, and the future is free.
He who is advanced to this office, cannot be held culpable; whatever he
does, he remains invulnerable.”
“Splendid!” exclaims the Emperor, “especially for the Germans, who
always cling to the same ideas, and are still talking about the death
of the duke of Enghien! We must broaden their moral outlook. That will
be good for people with melancholy ideas, the sort of persons with whom
Germany is filled.” It is as if he were talking about German music, of
which he knows practically nothing; but really he is thinking of German
philosophy. The one is as uncongenial to him as the other, for he is fond
of Italian arias and the wisdom of Voltaire, but says that “Kant is an
obscure writer.” This misconception of his prevents him from foreseeing
the possibility that so slow-moving a people may one day become inspired
with a passionate enthusiasm.
Perhaps the reason for the misinterpretation lies in the impracticability
of understanding the masses of a foreign nation. In northern Italy, he
did indeed make headway, for he was a young man, his ideas were naïve,
the yearning of the oppressed was still fresh in him; and he was the
herald of the revolution. But the dictator could no longer bring a torch
to foreign peoples. Nevertheless, he continued to watch the sentiments of
the masses. “A ruler should reign for the masses, without asking whether
he is pleasing Mr. So-and-So.... Men of mark look from above, and have
no party ties; one who belongs to a party, is a slave.” Such were his
principles, but his actions told another story.
The masses, even in France, saw a man who made himself dreaded. They
feared him for a decade, but became sceptical at his first failure. “A
ruler should be dignified in his demeanour towards the people,” says
Napoleon. “But he must not flatter the crowd, which will then think
itself cheated if he does not give it everything. You ask me why I make
threatening speeches? I make them in order to avoid having to do the
things I threaten!”
But this severity is, in the long run, out of keeping both with his own
simplicity of nature and with the instincts of the crowd. He could not
seduce the masses by the offer of fame and money, so he showed them
symbols: crowns and coronation ceremonies; courts and splendour and
princes: but the people felt the growing distance between them and their
ruler, and were not deceived.
When the people of Paris learned that the Emperor, in his theatre, would
no longer allow King Henry to say, “I tremble,” but only, “I shudder,”
because, though a king (being only a man) may tremble, he may not admit
it—the crowd must either feel angry or become derisive. But the crowd
did not hear the words in which the Emperor instructed Talma how to play
Cæsar:
“When Cæsar utters his long tirade against kingship, saying, ‘for me, in
whom the throne inspires nothing but contempt,’ he does not mean a word
of what he says. He only talks like that because he knows that his Romans
are standing behind him, and wishes to persuade them that the throne is
an abomination to him. In reality, it is already the goal of his desire.
Consequently those words ought not to be spoken with conviction.”
He wants to use religion, just as he uses the drama, that he may lull the
masses to sleep. Here is what the newmade Consul says to the Council of
State: “What I see in religion is, not the mystery of the incarnation,
but social order. It associates with heaven an idea of equality, which
prevents the poor from massacring the rich. Religion has the same sort
of value as vaccination. It gratifies our taste for the miraculous,
and protects us from quacks; for the priests are worth more than the
Cagliostros, the Kants, and all the German dreamers.... Society cannot
exist without inequality of property; but this latter cannot exist
without religion. One who is dying of hunger when the man next him is
feasting on dainties, can only be sustained by a belief in a higher
power, and by the conviction that in another world there will be a
different distribution of goods.”
Though he knows all this, and though he takes kindly measures for the
relief of the poor, he can never free his mind from thoughts of the
rabble and the mob. When he turns from contemplating the princes to
contemplating the masses, his contempt for his fellows diminishes, but
not enough. The masses, like the princes, are to be used for his own
ends. He says: “The men of intelligence who have changed the world,
have never done so by influencing the leaders, but have always set the
masses in motion. He who influences princes is only an intriguer, and his
results are second rate; but he who moves the masses, changes the face of
the earth.” Democracy came between him and the people; and what he has to
say about parliamentarism is not creative but critical:
“The republic is the political form which elevates the soul and contains
the germ of great things: but, precisely because of its greatness, it
will sooner or later perish; for it needs a unified authority to maintain
its power, and this must lead either to despotism or to a patriciate.
The latter is the worst of despotisms; Rome, Venice, England, and even
France are instances. If the republic wishes to attain greatness, the
central authority must be established upon a permanent parliamentary
majority; ... but this can be secured only by corruption, which is the
cancer of the peoples, and a terrible weapon in the hands of the central
authority. The liberals have discovered the expedient of constitutional
monarchy. That is a mezzo termine, which has its advantages, but only
when the popular assembly, whose business it is to bridle the monarchical
authority, is elected by universal suffrage.”
Napoleon recognised the existence of all the problems that confronted
the nineteenth century; but he never understood the social problem, with
which his own story began.
VII
Imagination, the third element of his personality, is the real driving
force of his self-confidence and his energy. Continually at war with
the calculating part of his nature, fantasy, in the end, brings this
harbourer of opposites to destruction. The imaginative power, which
links the poet to the statesman (enabling both unceasingly to dwell
in the affective world of strangers as well as in their own), is also
the source of his knowledge of men and his guide to the management of
men. But always his energy interacts with other qualities. One who, for
analytical purposes, would force the living whole of his character into
the framework of a system, cannot avoid, from time to time, breaking
threads that he may bind other threads together.
“I know not what I do, for everything depends on events. I have not a
will of my own, but expect everything from their outcome.... The greater
one is, the less can one have a will. One is always dependent upon events
and circumstances.” Such words, casually introduced into a letter from
husband to wife, express the distantly visible forms of his fantasy; for
only the imaginative man, not tied to systems and principles, trusts
himself to the movements of the moments, allows his spirit to roam
freely, and discovers his course as he goes. In this sense, his whole
career is improvisation, though in the converse way from that in which
most people improvise. He calculated little things in advance with great
precision; whereas his worldwide designs were originated, transformed,
improvised, in accordance with circumstances and developments. “One who
has become familiar with affairs, despises all theories, and makes use
of them only like the geometricians, not in order to move forward in a
straight line, but merely to keep heading in the same direction.”
This direction, this fundamental idea of the statesman, was, moreover,
only possible in a man whose mind was simultaneously imaginative and
mathematical. It is his most ardent vision and his coolest calculation;
it is his political aim, his hope, his ambition: Europe. If this vision
could be realised only by force of arms, that was because of the
fierceness with which the first republic of Europe was again and again
attacked by the European princes. We have seen how earnestly he strove
for peace. No doubt he chose his means badly, his error being due to
the time, the circumstances, and his own domineering character. But his
mistakes as to method still leave undiminished the genius of the seer
who looked forward towards an aim which was again to become an object of
statesmanship a hundred years after his fall.
“There are in Europe more than thirty million Frenchmen, fifteen million
Italians, thirty million Germans.... Out of each of these peoples, I
wanted to make a united national whole.... That would have supplied
the best chance of establishing a general unity of laws; a unity of
principles and thoughts and feelings, of outlooks and interests.... Then
it would have been possible to think of founding the United States of
Europe after the model of the United States of America or of the Greek
Amphictyonic League.... What perspectives of strength, greatness, and
prosperity this opens up!... For France, unity has been wrought; in
Spain, it has proved unattainable; to establish the Italian nation, I
should have needed twenty years; to make the Germans a nation, would
have required still more patience, and all I could do was to simplify
their monstrous constitution. At the same time, I wanted to pave the
way for the unification of the great interests of Europe, just as I
had unified the parties in France.... The transient mutterings of the
peoples troubled me little; they would have been reconciled to me by
the result.... _Europe would soon have become one nation, and any who
travelled in it would always have been in a common fatherland.... Sooner
or later, this union will be brought about by the force of events. The
first impetus has been given; and, after the fall and the disappearance
of my system, it seems to me that the only way in which an equilibrium
can be achieved in Europe is through a league of nations._”
Here there is no talk of a dictatorial welding together of different
stocks, or of an enthusiastic fraternisation. He speaks only of
interests, and of a preliminary unification of these on a national and
racial basis. The work of the nineteenth century was to inaugurate the
preliminaries by the establishment of the nations. The twentieth century
opens with the realisation of the Napoleonic idea.
VIII
The effects underlying his energy and his imagination are dominated by
the clarity of his thought. Napoleon hated less, and loved more, than he
would have been willing to admit. In this domain, we find the converse of
what happens in the matter of his sympathies in war time, when a million
men are coldly sacrificed, while one man wounded and bleeding touches him
to the heart. Since his fantasy needs enormous masses, he is enraged when
Joseph says: “I am the only person who cares for you.” Napoleon rejoins:
“Nothing of the sort. I need five hundred million men to love me.” In
these icy words glows the volcano which one of his school masters heard
rumbling long ago.
Emotionally convinced of his mission to order the affairs of the
nations, he deliberately rejects anything that may distract him from this
aim, and nothing sustains him but his monomania. Even in the drama, he
objects to the interweaving of love stories, saying: “Love is a passion
which should only be the main theme of a tragedy, and never a subsidiary
motif.... In the days of Racine, it was the whole content of a human
life. That happens in a society where no great deeds are being done.”
If love becomes intrusive, he annuls it. “I have no time to be bothered
with feelings and to repent them like other men.... There are two
motives to action: self-interest and fear. Believe me, love is a foolish
blindness!... I love no one, not even my brothers—Joseph a little, from
force of habit, and because he is the elder. I am fond of Duroc, too;
he is serious and resolute; I believe the man has never shed tears in
his life!... Let us leave sensibilities to women. Men should be firm of
heart and strong of will, or else they should have nothing to do with
war or governance.” Another time: “The only friend I have is Daru; he is
unfeeling and cold; that suits me.” Last of all, in St. Helena: “A man of
fifty has done with love.... I have an iron heart. I never really loved;
perhaps Josephine, a little; but then I was only seven-and-twenty. I
incline to the view of Gassion, who once said to me that he did not love
life well enough to give it to another being.”
Always half ashamed of his feelings; ever ready to make excuses for them;
“perhaps,” “a little.” Yet this is the same man who said: “I am the slave
of my way of feeling and acting, for I value the heart much more than the
head.” This very feeling is his fantasy.
One in whom egotism is supreme, will be more inclined to jealousy than
to love. His first letters to Josephine show him devoured by jealousy.
Years later, as Consul, when he is inspecting his new bridge in course of
construction across the Seine, he has to step aside with his companions
for a moment to let a carriage pass. In the carriage sits Hippolyte,
his sometime rival. That was long ago; everything has been condoned;
the man’s name is never mentioned in his presence. But now, at a chance
encounter in the street, Bonaparte grows pale and confused, and takes a
little while to recover composure.
From time to time, he shows an involuntary kindliness. On one of the
Italian battle-fields, he sees a dog howling over the dead body of its
master. “The poor beast seemed to be asking for an avenger, or begging
help. I was profoundly moved by the dog’s suffering, and at that moment
I should have been very much in the mood to grant quarter to an enemy. I
understood why Achilles surrendered Hector’s body to the weeping Priam.
Such is man; so little can he count upon his moods. Impassively I had
sent my soldiers into the battle; dry-eyed I had watched them marching
past in an advance where thousands of them would meet their fate; then I
was shaken to the depths by the howling of a dog.”
Affectionate tones are to be heard in many of his letters. To Cambacérès:
“I am so sorry to hear that you are not well. I hope it is only a passing
trouble. If you did not take so much medicine, you would be better
already.... But anyhow, you must do your utmost to get well, if only
because of my friendship for you.” To Corvisart: “Dear Doctor, I wish
you would see to the arch-chancellor and to Lacépède: the former has
been ailing for a week, and I am afraid he is in the hands of a quack;
Lacépède’s wife has been ill for some time. Give them the benefit of your
advice, and cure them as soon as you can. You will save the life of a man
of note, and one who is very dear to me.”
Chénier, who has written against him for years, is assisted by him in
poverty and given a secure position. Carnot, for ten years an enemy of
the Emperor, is heavily in debt; Napoleon learns this, settles the debts,
and refuses to hear of being given a note of hand; reckons up the pay
which Carnot would have received as general in active service, makes this
calculation the basis of a large pension; and when Carnot says he would
like to do some work for his money, Napoleon commissions him to write
a military treatise, lest his pensioner should have to undertake duties
that might go against the grain.
During the Hundred Days, learning that some of the Bourbon princes
are greatly distressed for lack of money, he sends them large sums
anonymously. On one occasion his secretary is asleep, and he himself has
nothing particular to do; he looks through a pile of begging letters, and
writes in the margin of each the amount of an allowance which is to be
given to the sender. Hundreds of officers whom, in fits of anger, he has
sworn to have shot, remain at their posts—to forsake him in the end. When
he orders Jerome to get a divorce, he is alarmed at his own harshness.
After he has written to enforce his command with threats he sends a
letter to his mother saying that she had better write to Jerome at once
and get his sisters to write as well, “for if I have passed judgment on
him, nothing can alter it, and his life will be spoiled.”
From his few friends, he demands blind devotion. Never is the
self-centred nature of Napoleon more plainly shown than in the words the
exile speaks to Montholon, from whom he has been temporarily estranged:
“I love you like a son, for I believe that you love me only; otherwise
you could not love me at all. According to my way of feeling, it is not
in our nature to love several persons at once. People deceive themselves
in these matters; they cannot even love all their children with the same
intensity. For my part, at any rate, I want to be the supreme object of
affection in the case of those whom I love and honour with my confidence.
I cannot bear partings. They stab me to the heart, for my disposition is
too sensitive; spiritual poison affects the body more powerfully than
arsenic.”
Logically enough, he dislikes western views concerning the enlightenment
of women. He always hankers after the East, and in this matter he is an
oriental. “Nature intended women to be our slaves; and it is only because
of our distorted outlooks that they venture to describe themselves as
our rulers.... For one who can influence us in a good direction, there
are a hundred who will only lead us into follies.... What a mad idea to
demand equality for women! They are our property, we are not theirs; for
they give us children, but we do not give them any. They belong to us,
just as a tree which bears fruit belongs to the gardener.... In this
difference, there is nothing degrading; every one has his privileges, and
every one his duties. You, ladies, have beauty, attractiveness; but also
dependence.”
IX
Throughout life, the imagination of this creator was troubled by the
thought of the Creator. This ruler of men was greatly disturbed that
there should be no one who ruled all men. It was not that he ever
regarded himself as divine; he laughed at all mystical interpretations
of his own power: but there was one great power which remained
uncoercible—no matter whether it were called God, destiny, or death. How
do self-confidence and fantasy escape from this snare?
First of all by the rejection of dogma. “My firm conviction is that Jesus
... was put to death like any other fanatic who professed to be a prophet
or a Messiah; there have been such persons at all times. For my part,
I turn from the New Testament to the Old, and there I find one man of
mark, Moses.... Besides, how could I accept a religion which would damn
Socrates and Plato?... I cannot believe that there is a god who punishes
and rewards, for I see honest folk unlucky, and rogues lucky. Look at
Talleyrand; he is sure to die in his bed!... How could I have remained
independent if I had been subject to the influence of a confessor to
threaten me with the pains of hell? Think what powers a confessor who is
a rascal can exercise!...”
In this matter he is consistent; from childhood, when he would not
go to Mass, until the end of his life, he rejected (for himself) all
the religions. The man who, in his own life, would not recognise the
existence of miracle, and ascribed everything that he was able to achieve
to the working of the healthy human understanding, boldness, power of
combination, knowledge of men, and imagination, could not possibly
believe in the miracles recorded in the Bible. He was perfectly logical
when he told one of his subordinates it was impossible that two million
men could have quenched their thirst at the Wells of Moses.
Even more uncongenial to him is any dread of a great assize. He does not
talk about morality; or at most, he does so with some political end in
view. Only towards the last, on the island, he says once in an evening
conversation with his intimates: “How happy should we be here if I could
confide my troubles to God, and could expect from him happiness and
salvation! Have I not a just claim to it? I, who have had so unusual a
career, have never committed a crime, and need not fear to step before
God’s judgment seat and await his sentence. Never has the thought of
committing a murder entered my mind.”