The French Revolution was no longer guided by the men of ideals. With
the downfall of Robespierre had come the triumph of those who bothered
themselves with no dreams of social regeneration, but whose energies
were directed with an eye single to their own advantage. Here and there
was left a relic of the better type of revolutionist, “a rose of the
garden left on its stalk to show where the garden had been”; but to one
Carnot there were dozens of the brood of Barras.
The stern, single-minded, terribly resolute men of the Great Committee,
who had worked fourteen hours a day in a plainly furnished room of the
Tuileries, taking their lunch like common clerks as they stood about
the table at which they wrote,--smiling perhaps, as they ate, at some
jest of Barère,--with no thought of enriching themselves, intent only
upon working out the problems of the Revolution in order that France
might find her way to a future of glory and happiness--these men were
gone, to come no more. Fiercely attached to variant creeds, they had
warred among themselves, destroying each other, wearying the world with
violence, and giving the scoundrels the opportunity to cry “Peace!”
and to seize control. True, the work of the Revolution had been done
too well to be wholly undone. Feudalism had been torn up root and
branch; it could never be so flourishing again. Absolutism, royal
and papal infallibility, had been trodden into the mire where they
belonged; they might be set in place again, but they would never more
look quite so dazzling, nor be worshipped with quite such blindness
of devotion. Great principles of civil and religious liberty had been
planted; they could never be wholly plucked out. The human race had
for once seen a great people fill its lungs and its brain with the air
and the inspiration of absolute freedom from priest, king, aristocrat,
precedent, conventionality, and caste-made law; the spectacle would
never be forgotten, nor the example cease to blaze as a beacon,
lighting the feet and kindling the hopes of the world.
But, for the time, the triumph of the venal brought with it shame
and disaster to the entire body politic. The public service corrupt,
the moral tone of society sank. Ideals came into contempt, idealists
into ridicule. The “man of the world,” calling himself practical,
and priding himself on his ability to play to the baser passions
of humanity, laughed revolutionary dogmas aside, put revolutionary
simplicity and honesty out of fashion, made a jest of duty and
patriotism, and prostituted public office into a private opportunity.
Hordes of adventurers, male and female, stormed the administration,
took it, and looted it. The professional money-getter controlled the
Directory: the contractor, stock-jobber, fund-holder, peculator, and
speculator. In all matters pertaining to finance, the Bourse was
the government. The nobility of the Old Order had monopolized the
State’s favors under the kings; the rich men of the middle class, the
Bourgeoisie, did so now. The giver and the taker of bribes met and
smiled upon each other; the lobbyist hunted his prey and found it.
Once again the woman, beautiful, shrewd, and unchaste, became greater
than the libertine official who had surrendered to her charms; and she
awarded fat contracts, trafficked in pardons and appointments, and
influenced the choice of army chiefs.
The government no longer concerned itself with chimeras, dreams of
better men and methods, visions of beneficent laws dealing impartially
with an improving mass of citizenship. Just as the Grand Monarch’s
court had revelled in the fairyland of joy and light and plenty at
Versailles while peasants in the provinces fed on grass and roots,
dying like flies in noisome huts and garrets; just as the Pompadour of
Louis the XV. had squandered national treasures upon diamonds, palaces,
endless festivities, while the soldiers of France starved and shivered
in Canada, losing an empire for want of ammunition to hold it! so,
under the Directory, Barras held court in splendor, while workmen died
of want in the garrets of Paris; and he feasted with his Madame Tallien
or his Josephine Beauharnais, while the soldiers on the Rhine or on
the Alps faced the winter in rags, and were forced to rob to keep from
starvation.
This wretched state of things had not reached its climax at the period
I am treating, but the beginnings had been made, the germs were all
present and active.
In this revival of mock royalty, Barras outshone his peers. He was of
most noble descent, his family “as old as the rocks of Provence”; his
manners redolent of the Old Régime, and much more so his morals. His
honesty, like his patriotism, delighted in large bribes; and he never
by any chance told the truth if a lie would do as well. His person
was tall and commanding; his voice, in a crisis, had sometimes rung
out like a trumpet and rallied the wavering, for the man was brave and
capable of energetic action. But he was a sensualist, base to the core,
vulgar in mind and heart, true to no creed, and capable of no high,
noble, strenuous rôle. Rotten himself, he believed that other men were
as degraded. As to women, they never stirred a thought in him which
would not, if worded in the ears of a true woman, have mantled her
cheek with shame.
This was the man to whom Napoleon had attached himself; this was the
man in whose house Josephine was living when Napoleon met her. Barras
was the strong man of the hour; Barras had places to give and favors to
divide; Barras was the candle around which fluttered moths large and
small; and to this light had come the adventurer from Corsica, and the
adventuress from Martinique. Usually it is the candle which singes the
moth; in this case it was the moths which put out the candle.
Napoleon had become a thorough man of the world. Hard experience had
driven away sentimental illusions. The visionary of the Corsican
sea-lulled grotto, the patriotic dreamer of the Brienne garden-harbor,
had died some time ago. The man who now commanded the Army of the
Interior was different altogether. Reading, experience, observation,
the stern teachings of necessity, had taught him to believe that the
Italian proverb was true, “One must not be too good, if one would
succeed.” He believed now that rigid principles were like a plank
strapped across the breast: not troublesome when the path led through
the open, but extremely detrimental to speed in going through a wood.
He had studied the lives of great men,--Alexander, Cæsar, Richelieu,
Frederick, Cromwell,--and the study had not tended to his elevation
in matters of method. He had studied the politics of the world, the
records of national aggrandizement, the inner secrets of government,
and his conceptions of public honor had not been made more lofty.
He had come to believe that interest governed all men; that no such
things as disinterested patriotism, truth, honor, and virtue existed on
earth. He believed that life was a fight, a scramble, an unscrupulous
rush for place, power, riches; and that the strongest, fleetest, most
artful would win--especially if they would take all the short cuts.
Idealogists he despised.
Cold, calculating, disillusioned, he took the world as he found it.
New men and women he could not create, nor could he create other
conditions, moral, social, political, or material. He must recognize
facts, must deal with actualities. If bad men alone could give him what
he wanted, he must court the bad men. If bad men only could do the
work he wanted done, he must use the bad men. Barras, Fréron, Tallien,
being in power, he would get all he could out of them, just as he had
exhausted the friendship of Robespierre and Salicetti, and just as he
afterward used Fouché and Talleyrand.
Nor was he more scrupulous in his relations with women. He must have
known the character of Madame Tallien, mistress and then wife of the
man of July, and now mistress of Barras; but nevertheless he sought
her acquaintance, and cultivated her friendship. Knowing the character
of Madame Tallien, he must have felt that her bosom friend, Madame
Beauharnais, could not be wholly pure. He saw them together night and
day, he witnessed their influence with Barras; it is impossible that he
did not hear some of the talk which coupled their names with that of
the libertine Director. He must have heard of the early life of this
creole widow, whose husband, the Viscount Beauharnais, had separated
from her, accusing her of scandalous immorality. He must have heard
that after her husband had been guillotined, and she herself released
from prison by the overthrow of Robespierre, she had begun a life of
fashionable dissipation. He must have heard the talk which coupled her
name with that of such women as Madame Tallien, Madame Hamelin, and a
dozen other Aspasias of like kind. The names of her lovers were bruited
about like those of Madame Tallien, one of these lovers having been
General Hoche. Now that she, a widow just out of prison, having no
visible income or property, and whose children had been apprenticed at
manual labor, sported a magnificent establishment, wore most expensive
toilets, led the life of the gayest of women,--the favorite of those
who had recently beheaded her husband,--the world classed her with
those with whom she was most intimate, and thought her morals could
not be purer than those of her associates. Justly or unjustly, she was
regarded as one of the lights of the harem of Barras; and people were
beginning to hint that she and her extravagance had become a burden of
which the Director would gladly be rid.
Napoleon had never come under the spell of such society as that which
he had now entered. That fleeting glimpse of polite society which
he had caught at Valence bore no comparison to this. In his limited
experience he had not met such women as Madame Tallien and Josephine.
He moved in a new sphere. Around him was the brilliance of a court. In
apartments adorned with every ornament and luxury, night was turned
into day; and with music, the dance, the song, the feast, men and
women gave themselves to pleasure. He, the unsocial man of books and
camps, was not fitted to shine in this social circle. He was uncouth,
spoke the language with an unpleasant accent, had no graces of manner
or speech, had nothing imposing in figure or bearing, and he felt
almost abashed in the high presence of these elegant nullities of the
drawing-room.
Shy, ill at ease, he was not much noticed and not much liked by the
ladies of the directorial court, with one exception--Josephine. Either
because of the alleged return of the sword, and the good impression
then made, or because of her natural tact and kindness of heart, Madame
Beauharnais paid the uncouth soldier those little attentions which
attract, and those skilful compliments which flatter, and almost before
he was aware of it Napoleon was fascinated. Here was a woman to take a
man off his feet, to inflame him with passion. She was no longer young,
but she was in the glorious Indian summer of her charms. Her perfect
form was trained in movements of grace. Her musical voice knew its own
melody, and made the most of it. Her large, dark eyes with long lashes
were soft and dreamy. Her mouth was sweet and sensuous. Her chestnut
hair was elegantly disordered, her shoulders and bust hid behind no
covering, and of her little feet and shapely ankles just enough was
seen to please the eye and stimulate the imagination.
As to her costume and her general toilet, it was all that studied art
and cultivated taste could do for generous nature. Madame Tallien was
more beautiful and more queenly than Josephine, many others excelled
her in wit, accomplishments, and mere good looks; but it may be doubted
whether any lady of that court, or other courts, ever excelled the
gentle Josephine in the grace, the tact, the charm, which unites in the
make-up of a fascinating society woman.
Add to this that she was sensual, elegantly voluptuous, finished in
the subtle mysteries of coquetry, fully alive to the power which the
physically tempting woman exerts over the passions of men, and it
can be better understood how this languishing but artful widow of
thirty-three intoxicated Napoleon Bonaparte, the raw provincial of
twenty-seven.
That he _was_ madly infatuated, there can be no doubt. He loved her,
and he never wholly ceased to love her. Never before, never afterward,
did he meet a woman who inspired him with a feeling at all like that
he felt for her. If he did not know at that time what she had been,
he knew after the marriage what she continued to be, and he made a
desperate effort to break the spell. He could not completely do so.
She might betray his confidence, laugh at his love-letters, neglect
his appeals, squander his money, sell his secrets, tell him all sorts
of falsehoods, underrate his value, misconceive his character, and
befoul his honor with shameless sin; but against her repentance and her
childlike prayers for pardon, the iron of his nature became as wax.
Before those quivering lips, before those tear-filled eyes, before
that tenderly sweet voice, all broken with grief, he could rarely
stand. “I will divorce her!” he said fiercely to his brothers, when
they put before him proofs of her guilt, after the Egyptian campaign.
But through the locked door came the sobs of the stricken wife, came
her plaintive pleadings. “_Mon ami!_” she called softly, called hour
after hour, piteously knocking at the door. It was too much; the cold
resolution melted; the soldier was once more the lover, and the door
flew open. When the brothers came next day to talk further about the
divorce, they found little Josephine, happy as a bird, sitting on
Napoleon’s knee, and nestling in his arms.
“Listen, Bourrienne!” exclaimed Napoleon, joyously, on his return to
Paris from Marengo, “listen to the shouts of the people! It is sweet to
my ears, this praise of the French--as sweet as the voice of Josephine!”
Even when cold policy demanded the divorce, it was he who wept the
most. “Josephine! my noble Josephine! The few moments of happiness I
have ever enjoyed, I owe to you!”
And in the closing scene at St. Helena it was the same. The dying
man thought no more of the Austrian woman. Even in his delirium, the
wandering memory recalled and the fast freezing lips named “Josephine!”
* * * * *
Yet calculation played its part in Napoleon’s marriage, as it did in
everything he undertook. He was made to believe that Josephine had
fortune and high station in society. He weighed these advantages in
considering the match. Both the fortune and the social position would
be valuable to him. In fact, Josephine had no fortune, nor any standing
in society. Men of high station were her visitors; their wives were
not. All the evidence tends to show that Barras arranged the match
between his two hangers-on, and that the appointment to the command of
the Army of Italy became involved in the negotiation. Napoleon received
this coveted commission March 7, 1796; two days later the marriage
occurred.
On the register both Napoleon and Josephine misrepresented their ages.
He had made himself one year older, and she three years younger, than
the facts justified. There was a difference of six years between them,
and Madame Letitia angrily predicted that they would have no children.
In forty-eight hours after the marriage, Napoleon set out for Italy. At
Marseilles he stopped, spending a few days with his mother and sisters.
On March 22, 1796, he was at Nice, the headquarters of the army with
which he was to win immortality.
Almost at every pause in his journey Napoleon had dashed off hot
love-letters to the languid Josephine whom he left at Paris. The bride,
far from sharing the groom’s passion, did not even understand it--was
slightly bored by it, in fact. Now that he had gone off to the wars,
she relapsed into her favorite dissipations, she and her graceful
daughter Hortense.
Madame Junot gives an account of a ball at the banker Thellusson’s,
which not only illustrates the social status of Josephine, but also the
mixed conditions which the Revolution had brought about in society.
Thellusson was a rich man, and not a nobleman; one of those unfortunate
creatures who, in the eyes of lank-pursed aristocrats, have more money
than respectability. In our day he would be called a plutocrat, and
he would hire some bankrupt imbecile with a decayed title to marry
his idiotic daughter. For Thellusson, just like a plutocrat with
more money than respectability, craved what he did not have, and was
giving entertainments to foist himself up the social height. Of course
he crowded his sumptuous rooms with a miscellany of people, most of
whom despised him, while they feasted with him. It was one of these
entertainments, a ball, at which took place the incidents Madame Junot
relates.
It seems that a captious, querulous, nose-in-the-air _Grand Dame_,
Madame de D., had been decoyed to this Thellusson ball by the assurance
of the Marquis de Hautefort that she would meet none but the best
people--her friends of the Old Régime. Very anxious to see former
glories return, and very eager to meet her friends of this bewitching
Old Régime, Madame de D. not only came to the ball herself, but
consented to bring her daughter, Ernestine. As all high-born people
should, Madame de D. and her daughter Ernestine arrived late. The
ballroom was brilliant, but crowded. The high-born late comers could
find no seats, an annoyance which the Marquis de Hautefort, who was on
the lookout for them, at once tried to remedy.
A sylph-like young lady, who had been divinely dancing, was being led
to her place beside another beautifully dressed woman who seemed to be
an elder sister. So charming was the look of these seeming sisters that
even Madame de D. admired.
“Who are those persons?” she inquired of the Marquis, before the seats
had been brought.
“What!” he exclaimed, “is it possible that you do not recognize
Viscountess Beauharnais, now Madame Bonaparte, and her daughter
Hortense? Come, let me seat you beside her; there is a vacant place by
her, and you can renew your acquaintance.”
Madame de D. stiffened with indignation and made no reply. Taking the
old Marquis by the arm, she led him to a side room and burst forth:
“Are you mad? Seat me beside Madame Bonaparte! Ernestine would be
obliged to make the acquaintance of her daughter. I will never connect
myself with such persons--people who disgrace their misfortunes!”
Presently there entered the ballroom a woman, queen-like, lovely as
a dream, dressed in a plain robe of Indian muslin, a gold belt about
her waist, gold bracelets on her arms, and a red cashmere shawl draped
gracefully about her shoulders.
“Eh! my God! who is that?” cried Madame de D.
“That is Madame Tallien,” quoth the Marquis.
The high-born relic of the Old Régime flamed with wrath, and was
beginning a tirade against the Marquis for having dared to bring her to
such a place, when the door flew open, and in burst a wave of perfume
and--Madame Hamelin, the fastest woman of the fastest set in Paris. All
the young men crowded around her.
“And now in heaven’s name, Marquis, who may _that_ be?”
At the words demurely uttered, “It is Madame Hamelin,” the high-born
Madame de D. unfurled the red banner of revolt. It was the one shock
too much.
“Come, Ernestine! Put on your wrap! We must go, child. I can’t stand
it any longer. To think that the Marquis assured me I should meet my
former society here! And for the last hour I have been falling from the
frying-pan into the fire! Come, Ernestine!”
And out they went.