At this period (1807) Napoleon was a strikingly handsome man. The “wan
and livid complexion, bowed shoulders, and weak, sickly appearance”
of the Vendémiaire period were things of long ago. The skin disease
of the Italian campaign had been cured. Not yet fat and paunchy as he
became toward the end, his form had rounded to a comely fulness, which
did not impair his activity. The face was classic in profile, and in
complexion a clear, healthy white. His chin was prominent, the jaw
powerful, the head massive, being twenty-two inches round, according
to Constant. The chestnut-colored hair was now thin, inclining to
baldness on the crown. Worn long in his youth, he cut it short in the
Egyptian campaign, and ever afterward continued to wear it so. His
ears, hands, feet, were small and finely shaped. The nose was long,
straight, well proportioned. His teeth were white and sound; the lips
beautifully moulded; the expression about the mouth, when he smiled,
being peculiarly sweet and winning. His eyes were gray-blue, and
formed the striking feature of his face. All accounts agree that his
glance was uncomfortably steady and penetrating; or, at other times,
intolerably fierce and intimidating; or, again, irresistibly soft,
tender, magnetic. One is struck with the fact that so many who knew
him, and loved him or hated him, feared him or defied him, should
emphasize the impression made upon them by his eyes. Before that steady
gaze, which seized and held attention, Lavalette said that he felt
himself turning pale; Decrés lost all desire to be familiar; Vandamme
became a coward; Augereau and Masséna admitted they were afraid;
Madame de Staël grew embarrassed; and Barras faltered into silence at
his own table. Not many years ago there lived in Michigan a battered
veteran of the Italian wars, one who had been with Napoleon the day
he reconnoitred Fort Bard, which had checked the army; and this old
soldier’s recollection of Napoleon had dwindled down to the wonderful
eyes which had fixed him as though they would pierce the very innermost
fibre. During the year 1900 there died in London an aged man, who as a
boy had seen Napoleon at St. Helena; and his recollection of the fallen
Emperor hung upon the same feature,--the eyes.
Generally, the expression of Napoleon’s face was that of a
student,--mild, pensive, meditative, intellectual. In moments of
good humor, his smile, glance, voice, were caressing, genial, even
fascinating. In anger, his look became terrible; a rotary movement
took place between the eyes, and the nostrils distended. All agree
that in conversation there was such a play of feature, such quick
changes of expression, such mirroring of the mind upon the face, that
no description or portrait could convey an idea of it. Only those who
had talked with him could realize it. But it is also agreed that when
he wished to banish all expression, he could do that also, and his face
then became a mask.
His voice was sonorous and strong. In anger it became harsh and cruelly
cutting. In his best mood it was as soft and wooing as a woman’s.
His general appearance, then, at this time, was that of a well-built
man, below the medium height, but powerfully moulded, the bust, neck,
and head being massive, and the legs somewhat short for the trunk.
Unfriendly critics called him stunted, his stature being about five
feet, three inches.
He was inclined to be round-shouldered, and, when walking meditatively,
he slightly stooped. In talking he gesticulated freely, sometimes
violently; when in repose the hands were folded behind him, or across
the breast, or one would rest within the waistcoat and the other behind
him.
It is doubtful whether any true portrait of Napoleon exists. He has
been idealized and caricatured until the real Napoleon may have been
lost. If the death mask claimed to have been taken by Antommarchi
is genuine, one must surrender the belief that Napoleon’s head was
massive, his brow imperial, his profile perfect; for this mask exhibits
a forehead which recedes, and which narrows above the temples. It shows
the high cheek-bones of the American Indian, and the skull itself is
commonplace. But this is not the Napoleon pictured in the portraits
and _Memoirs_ of his contemporaries. According to friend and foe, his
head was massive, in fact too large to be in symmetry with his body.
Madame Junot speaks of that “brow fit to bear the crowns of the world.”
Bourrienne, Méneval, and numbers of others speak of the magnificent
forehead and classic face. And yet there are two or three fugitive
portraits of Napoleon which are so different from the orthodox copies,
and so much like the Antommarchi’s death-mask, that one knows not what
to believe.
Napoleon was very temperate in eating and drinking. He preferred the
simplest dishes, drank but little wine, and that weakened with water.
Coffee he drank, but not to excess. He ate fast, and used his fingers
oftener than his fork. He was very sensitive to cold, and could not
bear the least light in his room at night. He slept a good deal, from
six to eight hours per day; and usually took a nap during the afternoon
or evening. His standing order to his private secretary was a model of
wisdom, “Never wake me to hear good news, that will wait; but in case
of bad news wake me at once, for there is no time to be lost.” Another
rule of his was to sleep over a matter of doubt. “Night is a good
counsellor.”
While his nerves were very irritable, his pulse was slow and regular.
He declared that he had never felt his heart beat. Medicine he detested
and would not take. When ill, he left off food, drank barley water,
and took violent exercise. He could not bear the least tightness in
his clothing. His garments were of the softest, finest material, and
cut loose. His hats were padded, his boots lined with silk, and both
hats and boots were “broken” for him before he wore them. His favorite
trousers were white cassimere, and a habit he had of wiping his pen on
his breeches made a new pair necessary every morning. His taking of
snuff consisted merely in smelling it. He used tobacco in no other form.
Extremely careful in business matters, he was disorderly in some
personal details. In undressing he flung his clothes all about the
room, and sometimes broke his watch in this way. Newspapers and books
which he had been reading were scattered around in confusion. In
shaving, he would never allow both sides of his face to be lathered
at the same time: one cheek was finished before the other was touched.
He had a habit of poking the fire with his foot, and burnt out many a
pair of boots in so doing. Excessively fond of the hot water bath, he
opened letters, read newspapers, and received callers while splashing
around in the tub. On leaving the bath, his valet rubbed him down,
using the flesh brush and coarse cloths, and then dressed him. The most
self-helpful of men in matters of importance, he was one of the least
so in this. He depended upon servants for almost everything connected
with the care of his person. “Rub me hard! Scrub me as though I were
an ass!” he would call to his valet, while he stood almost naked, and
with a red bandanna handkerchief knotted about his head. He loved
cologne-water and drenched himself with quantities of it. One of the
privations he keenly felt at St. Helena was the lack of cologne. Other
perfumes he detested, and Constant relates a curious incident of
Napoleon calling to him one night to take out of his room a certain
young lady who had been brought there, and who was “killing me with her
perfume.”
With his elevation to empire, Napoleon became more stately, reserved,
dignified, and imposing; but perfect ease and repose of manner he never
acquired. The indolent, calm, and studied air of languor and fatigue
which, according to a well-known standard, constitutes good-breeding,
he did not have. Perhaps he did not realize its tremendous value.
Nervous, intense, electrical, pulsing with vital power, tossed by
colossal ideas, ambitions, purposes, it was never possible for
him to become a self-complacent formality, posing with studiously
indolent grace, and uttering with laborious ease the dialect of polite
platitude.
But the man never lived who knew better how to talk, how to write,
how to say what he meant. He could address mobs, committees, state
councils, senates, armies, peoples, and kings. Who that ever lived
excelled him in speaking to soldiers? Verily the lines are yet hot
in his proclamations, and he who reads them even now will feel the
magnetic thrill. How they must have inspired the soldiers _then_!
His speeches to the councils and the Senate were models in their way;
his state papers have not been excelled; his diplomatic correspondence
measures up the loftiest standards. In truth, his language varied
with the subject and the occasion. He could be as elegantly gracious
as any Bourbon, if the occasion required it. If it became needful
to call a spade a spade, he could do it, and with a vim which left
the ears tingling. In all of his talk, however, there was character,
individuality, and greatness. Wrong he might often be, weak never.
Whatever view he expressed, in youth or age, was stated clearly, and
with strength. Even when sifted through the recollections of others,
his sayings stand out as incomparably finer than those of any talker of
that age. Compare the few little jests and epigrams of Talleyrand, for
instance, with the numberless comments of Napoleon on men and things,
on matters social, political, industrial, financial, military, and
religious. It is like a comparison between a few lamps in a hallway
and the myriad stars of the firmament. On every topic he discussed
he said the best things that can be said on that side; and there is
no subject connected with human affairs in a state that he has not
touched. Upon every subject he had a word which shot to the core of the
matter. His talent for throwing into one dazzling sentence the pith of
a long discussion was unexcelled. Some of the best sayings attributed
to Talleyrand were really the sayings of Napoleon. It often happened
that these terse expressions were coarse, the language of men on the
street. At such sayings the “Lady Clara” tribe of men arched their
eyebrows in delicate protest, and said to one another, “This Bonaparte
is no gentleman; he was not so well brought up as we were,--we, the
Talleyrands, Metternichs, and Whitworths!”
In one humor, Napoleon was brusque, coarse, overbearing, and pitiless;
in another he was caressing, elegantly dignified, imperially generous
and gracious. Between these extremes ran the current of his life:
hence the varied impressions he made upon others. Charles Fox and Lord
Holland knew him personally, and they risked political and social
influence in England by defending him from the abuse which had become
the fashion there. Almost without exception the men who came into
personal relations with him loved him. The rare exceptions are such
people as Bourrienne and Rémusat, whom Napoleon had to rebuke for ways
that were crooked. Even to his valets he was a hero.
As Charles Fox said, “The First Consul at Malmaison, at St. Cloud, and
at the Tuileries are three different men, forming together the _beau
ideal_ of human greatness.”
To these three Napoleons should be added at least one other,--Napoleon
at the head of his army.
In public, Napoleon trained himself to that majestic dignity, grace,
and thoughtfulness which his imposing position required. The Pope did
not act his part better at the coronation, nor Alexander at Tilsit. He
rarely, if ever, overacted or underacted a public part, but in private
there was a difference. In familiar converse he would pace up and down
the room, or twitch in his chair, or throw his feet up on the desk, and
open his penknife and whittle the chair arm, or sprawl on the floor
studying his big maps, or sit down in the lap of his secretary.
With the rough good humor of a soldier, he would call his intimates
“simpleton,” “ninny,” or even “fool”; he would pinch their ears, and
lightly flick them on the cheek with his open hand. Whereupon the
oversensitive biographers have unanimously shuddered, and exclaimed,
“See what a vulgar creature this Napoleon was!”
In his personal habits he was neat to the point of being fastidious.
If ever he wasted any time at all, it was the hours he spent in the
bath. Simple in his dress and in his tastes, no gentleman was ever more
scrupulously clean. Generally he wore the uniform of a colonel of his
guard; and his plain gray overcoat, and plain little hat with its cheap
tricolor cockade, formed a vivid contrast to the gaudy dress of foreign
diplomats, or of his own officers.
He pretended that anger with him never reached his head, that he had
his passions under perfect control. This was all nonsense. His temper
frequently burst all bounds, and for the moment he was as insane as
other men in a passion. Madame Junot states that when he fell into one
of these fits of anger, he was frightful.
Upon at least one occasion of this kind he kicked the dinner table
over, and smashed the crockery; at another he put his foot, in a
violent and tumultuous manner, against the belly of Senator Volney.
It was rumored around the palace, on his return from Spain in 1809,
that he gave Talleyrand a “punch on the nose”; and once when the
jealous and watchful Josephine came upon him as he was enjoying himself
with another woman, he sprang at her in such a fury that she fled the
room in terror.
At Moscow while the Emperor was in his blackest mood, everything going
wrong, and a general crash impending, Roustan, kneeling before him to
put on his boots, carelessly got the left boot on the right foot. The
next instant he was sprawling on his back on the floor. Napoleon had
kicked him over.
It is said that he threatened Berthier once with the tongs, and Admiral
Bruix with his riding-whip. On the road to Moscow he rode furiously
into the midst of some pillaging soldiers, striking them right and left
with his whip, and knocking them down with his horse.
But these occasions were rare. His control of himself was almost
incredible, and he learned to endure the most startling and calamitous
events without a word or a change of expression.
If you would see far, far into the heart of Napoleon, study his
relations with Junot. Not much brain had this Junot, not much
steadiness of character; but he was as brave as a mad bull, and he had
shared his purse with Napoleon in the old days of poverty and gloom.
More than this, he had believed in Napoleon at a time when Napoleon
himself had well-nigh lost heart. So it came to pass that Junot was
the beloved of the chief, and remained so in spite of grievous faults
and sins. Junot gambled, and Napoleon abhorred gaming; Junot drank
to excess, and Napoleon detested drunkards; Junot was a rowdy, and
Napoleon shrank from rowdyism; Napoleon loved order, and Junot was
most disorderly; Napoleon loved a strict relation between income and
outgo, and Junot was a marvel of extravagant prodigality. Napoleon
loved success, and Junot brought failure upon him where it hurt
dreadfully--in Portugal, in Russia. Yet through it all Napoleon never
flagged in his indulgence to Junot. He made the hot-headed grenadier
Governor of Paris, Duke of Abrantes, lapping him in honors and wealth.
Sometimes Junot would be angry at his chief, and Napoleon would coax
him back to good humor, as a father would a child. Sometimes Junot
would run to Napoleon with his griefs; and the busiest man in the world
would drop everything, take his suffering friend by the arm, walk him
up and down some quiet room or corridor, soothing him with soft words,
with caresses. One day when Junot had taken to his bed, because of a
fancied slight at the palace, Napoleon, hearing of it, slipped away
from the Tuileries, went to the bedside of his old comrade, comforted
him, reassured him, and stood by him until he was himself again.
When Madame Junot is in the throes of child-birth, it is to Napoleon
that the distracted husband flies. At the Tuileries he is soothed by
Napoleon himself, who sends off messengers to inquire after the wife;
and when the ordeal is safely over, it is Napoleon who congratulates
the now radiant Junot, finds his hat for him, and sends him off home to
the mother and babe.
At last there did come something like a rupture between these
two--and why? Junot had brought scandal on Napoleon’s sister while
the brother was off with his army in Germany. “To bring shame upon
my sister--_you_, Junot!” and the great Emperor fell into a chair,
overcome with grief.
In his relations with Duroc, Berthier, Lannes, La Salle, Rapp, Méneval,
Eugène Beauharnais, we find the same traits. The indulgence with which
he treated those he liked, the pains he took to keep them in good
humor, his care not to wound their feelings, and his caressing way of
coaxing them out of their occasional sulks, shows a phase of Napoleon’s
own character which is usually overlooked.
He had many boyish ways which never left him. He would hum a song and
whistle a tune to the last. During moments of abstraction he fell to
whittling his desk or chair, sat upon a table and swung his leg back
and forth, or softly whistled or hummed some favorite air. During the
great disaster at Leipsic, when all had been done and all had failed,
Napoleon, in a kind of daze, stood in the street and whistled “Malbrook
has gone to the wars.”
He was fond of playing pranks. He tried to drive a four-in-hand at
Malmaison, struck a gate-post, and got thrown headlong to the ground,
narrowly escaping fatal injuries to himself and Josephine. He would
disguise himself, and go about Paris to hear the people talk, coming
back delighted if he had provoked angry rebuke by some criticism of his
on Napoleon. He would throw off his coat at Malmaison, and romp and
play like a schoolboy. After dinner, if the weather was fine, he would
call out, “Let’s play barriers!” and off would go his coat, and in a
moment he would be racing about the grounds.
One afternoon while amusing himself in this way, two rough-looking
men were seen near the gate, loitering and gazing at the romping
group. The ladies saw fit to become frightened, and to make the usual
hysterical outcry. Gallant young officers sprung forward to drive off
the intruders, as gallant young officers should. But it turned out
that one of the men was a maimed veteran of the wars, come with his
brother, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the beloved form of his
general--Napoleon. Having seen, having heard, the First Consul put his
arm around Josephine, drew her toward the two men, gave them gracious
welcome, introduced them to his wife, and sent them under Eugène’s
escort to the house to drink his health in a glass of wine. So promptly
was the thing done, so naturally, so warmly, so tactfully, that the
one-armed soldier was melted to tears.
In his rude horse-play, Napoleon taught his gazelle to chase the ladies
of the court, and when the animal caught and tore a dress, or caught
and pinched a leg, his delight was precisely that of the mischievous,
slightly malicious boy. In playing barriers he cheated, as he did at
all games, and violated all the rules. When he was unbent, when he was
at Malmaison, he could take a joke as well as any. One very rough piece
of horse-play he took a good deal more placidly than many a private
citizen would have done. Passing through a gallery at Malmaison, he
stopped to examine some engravings which were lying upon a table. Young
Isabey happening to come into the gallery behind Napoleon, and seeing
the back of the stooping figure, took it to be Eugène Beauharnais.
Slipping up softly, Isabey gave a jump, and leaped upon Napoleon’s
shoulders, astraddle of his neck. Napoleon recovered from the shock,
threw Isabey to the ground, asking, “What does this mean?”
“I thought it was Eugène,” cried Isabey.
“Well, suppose it was Eugène--must you needs break his shoulder bones?”
Without further rebuke Napoleon walked out of the gallery. Through the
folly of Isabey, the secret leaked out, and there was just enough of
the ludicrous about it to embarrass both the actors, and Isabey went to
play leap-frog elsewhere.
Napoleon was fond of children, knew how to talk to them, play with
them, and win their confidence. The man never lived who knew better
than he the route to the heart of a soldier, a peasant, or an ambitious
boy. With these he could ever use exactly the right word, look, smile,
and deed. He was familiar with his friends, joked them, put his arms
around them, and walked with them leaning upon them: he never joked
with men like Fouché, Talleyrand, Bernadotte, Moreau, and St. Cyr.
These men he used, but understood and disliked.
Fat women he could not endure, and a pregnant woman showing herself
when she should have been in seclusion, excited his disgust. One of the
pictures he most liked to gaze upon was that of a tall, slender woman,
robed in white, and walking beneath the shade of noble trees.
A fastidious, exacting busybody, he was forever on the lookout for
violations of good taste on the part of the ladies of his court. He
detested the low dresses which exposed the bosom to the vulgar gaze;
and if he saw some one dressed in peculiarly unbecoming style, he was
rude enough to give words to his irritation. “Dear me! are you never
going to change that gown?” This was very, very impolite, but the
costume was one which he abhorred, and the wearer had inflicted it upon
him “more than twenty times.”
Possibly if there were a greater number of outspoken Napoleons, there
would be fewer absurdities in fashionable female attire.
To some of Napoleon’s sharp sayings, the haughty dames and damsels
of the old aristocracy made some crushing replies--according to their
_Memoirs_. It is fairly safe to say that these crushing retorts were
made in the seclusion of the homes of the fair retorters. The man whose
stern look and bitter tongue awed into embarrassed silence such a
veteran in word-play as Madame de Staël, was not likely to be crushed
by such pert and shallow beings as Madame de Chevreuse and her kind.
For facts, events, his memory was prodigious; for names and dates, it
was not good. Sometimes he would ask the same man about court three or
four different times what his name was. In his later years his memory
became very fickle, and he was known to forget having given the most
important orders. He could not remember a charge he ordered Ségur to
make in Spain; nor could he recall that he had ordered the charge of
the heavy cavalry at Waterloo.
Noted at school for his skill in mathematics, and using that science
constantly in his military operations, it is said that he could rarely
add up a column of figures correctly.
He could not spell, nor could he write grammatically; and he took no
pains to learn. A busy man, according to his idea, had no time to waste
on such matters.
He loved music, especially Italian music; was fond of poetry of the
higher sort, and appreciated painting, sculpture, and architecture.
He loved the beauty and quietude of such country places as Malmaison,
never wearied of adding to their attractions, and was happy when free
from business, and taking a solitary stroll along garden walks amid
flowers and under the shade of trees.
In his work, Napoleon was all system. No clerk could keep papers in
better order. No head of a department could turn off business with such
regularity and despatch. He knew all about his army, down to the last
cannon; knew just what his forces numbered, where they were, and what
their condition. He was master of the state finances, of every branch
of the internal administration, of every detail of foreign affairs. He
kept up with everything, systematized everything, took the initiative
in everything. An extra plate of soup could not be served in the
palace without a written order from Duroc, the proper officer. An army
contractor could not render a false account without being exposed and
punished. An overcharge could not be made in the palace furnishings
without his finding it out. “He is a devil,” said many a quaking
Beugnot.
One day, says Constant, the pontoon men were marching with about forty
wagons. The Emperor came along, and cried, “Halt!”
Pointing to one of the wagons, Napoleon asked of the officer in
charge:--
“What is in that?”
The officer answered, “Some bolts, nails, ropes, hatchets, saws--”
“How many of all that?”
The officer gave the number.
“Empty the wagon and let me see!”
The order was obeyed, bolts, nails, ropes, saws, everything taken out
and counted. But the Emperor was not satisfied. He got off his horse,
climbed into the wagon over the spoke to see that it had been emptied.
The troops shouted: “Bravo! That’s right! That is the way to find out!”
He compared his mind to a chest of drawers, where each subject occupied
its separate space. In turn he opened each drawer. No one subject ever
got mixed with another. When all the drawers were shut, he fell asleep.
Of course this was not literally true, but during his best years it
came as near being literally true as is possible to the human brain.
After the day’s work was done, he would enter into the amusements of
his domestic circle, would play and dance with the young people, would
read or listen to music, or would entertain the circle by telling some
romantic story which he composed as he talked. In the evening he loved
to have the room darkened while he threw the ladies into a gentle state
of terror with a ghost-story.
Napoleon’s penetration in some directions was wonderfully keen; in
others remarkably dull. For instance, it was almost impossible to
deceive him in matters of account, the number of men in a mass, or
the plan of battle of a foe. He would converse with an engineer in
reference to a bridge he had been sent to build and which Napoleon
supposed he had built; after a few words he would turn away and say to
the prefect, “That man did not build the bridge--who did it?” The truth
would come out: an obscure genius had planned the work, and Napoleon
would say to this genius, obscure no more, “Come up higher.”
He could scan a list of political prisoners, pounce upon the name of a
surgeon, decide at a flash that this man could not be a fanatic. “Bring
him to trial, order him to be shot, and he will confess.” And it so
happened.
But it is marvellous that Napoleon, who revolutionized the strategy of
war, improved nothing, invented nothing, in the instruments of warfare.
A Prussian offered to him the original of the needle-gun, and he
totally failed to grasp the terrible effectiveness of the weapon. True,
he experimented with it, ordering that specimens should be made and
shown him. But when his armories turned out clumsy models, as at first
they were almost sure to do, he seemingly lost interest. The Prussian
carried his invention to Germany; and the Austrians and French of a
later day melted like snow before this new and fearful gun.
When Fulton came to France with his steam-boat discovery, offering
a means by which Napoleon might have destroyed with ease England’s
all-powerful navy, his invention was not appreciated. True, Napoleon
gave him encouragement and money, and urged the wise men of the
Institute to look into the thing; but Napoleon himself did not “take
hold.” When the sages of the Institute reported adversely to the
new invention, as sages almost always do, Napoleon let the subject
drop, apparently forgetting that it is usually the ignorant “crank”
and the untutored “tenderfoot” who stumbles upon great inventions
and the richest mines. So far-sighted in some directions, it seems
unaccountable that he did not realize immediately the vast importance
of the breech-loading gun, and the steam-propelled vessel. With the
same muzzle-loading muskets he fought the first battle and the last.
The same little cannon which could not batter down the old walls of
Acre, sent balls which rebounded from the farmyard enclosures at
Waterloo.
During all of his campaigns prior to 1812, Napoleon gave personal
attention to everything; no detail was neglected. He saw with his own
eyes, taking nothing for granted, nothing on trust. As far as possible
he followed up his orders, seeing to it that they were executed.
Thus on the night before Jena he risked his life and came near being
shot reconnoitring the Prussian position, and after he had selected
positions for his batteries, and marked out the path up which the guns
were to be drawn to the heights, he could not rest until he had gone in
person and seen how his orders were being executed. It was fortunate
that he did so. The foremost cannon carriage had got jammed between
the rocks of the passage and had blocked the way of all the others.
The whole battery was at a halt, and nothing being done to forward the
guns. Angry as he was, Napoleon at once took command, ordered up the
sappers, held a lantern while they were at work, and showed them how to
widen the road. Not until the first gun had passed through did he leave
the place. The failure to look after such things was one cause of the
disasters of his later years.
He spared himself no fatigue in war. Sensitive to cold, to evil smells,
to ugly scenes, to physical discomfort of all sorts, the Sybarite of
the palace became the Spartan on the campaign. He could stand as much
cold, or heat, or hunger, or thirst, camp hardships and camp nastiness
as any private. He could stay in the saddle day and night, could march
on foot by the hour in snow or mud, could stand the storms of rain,
sleet, and wind, made no complaint of filthy beds and disgusting
surroundings, and could eat a soldier’s bread out of the knapsack with
all of a soldier’s relish.
In later years he carried his habits of luxury to the army, and with
them came defeats. The general who in Italy could have taken all his
baggage in a cart was followed in 1812 by a train of seventy wagons. He
went to war then like Louis XIV., and the luck of Louis XIV. overtook
him.
On the field of battle his aspect was one of perfect composure. No turn
of the tide broke through his absolute self-control.
At Marengo, when the great plain was covered with the flying fragments
of his army, and fugitives were crying: “All is lost! Save himself
who can!” he was as calm as at a review. Berthier galloping up with
more bad news, Napoleon rebuked him with, “You do not tell me that
with sufficient coolness.” When Desaix arrived, Napoleon took all the
time that was necessary to make proper dispositions for the attack,
exhibiting not the slightest nervousness under the galling Austrian
fire.
In the retreat from Russia he was stoically serene, save on the rarest
occasions. Only a few intimates knew how much, in private, he gave way
to his immense burden of care, of grief, of impotent rage. To the army
he appeared as cold, as hard, as unyielding as granite. When a general
brought him some unusually appalling news, Napoleon turned away as
though he did not wish to hear. The officer persisted; Napoleon asked,
“Why do you wish to disturb my equanimity?”
If his fatigues had been excessive in the preparation for battle, and
his dispositions had been made, and all was going as he had foreseen,
he could slumber restfully while the combat raged. Thus at Jena, Ségur
speaks of Napoleon asleep on the ground where his great map was
unrolled--asleep with the grenadiers standing in hollow square about
him.
Lord Brougham writes: “Lying under some cover in fire, he would remain
for an hour or two, receiving reports and issuing his orders, sometimes
with a plan before him, sometimes with the face of the ground in his
mind only.
“There he is with his watch in one hand, while the other moves
constantly from his pocket, where his snuffbox, or rather his snuff,
lies. An aide-de-camp arrives; tells of a movement; answers shortly,
some questions rapidly, perhaps impatiently, put; is despatched with
the order that is to solve the difficulty of some general of division.
Another is ordered to attend, and sent off with directions to make
some distant corps support an operation. The watch is again consulted;
more impatient symptoms; the name of one aide-de-camp is constantly
pronounced; question after question is put whether any one is coming
from a certain quarter; an event is expected; it ought to have
happened; at length the wished-for messenger arrives. ‘Well! what has
been done yonder?’--‘The height is gained; the Marshal is there.’--‘Let
him stand firm--not to move a step.’ Another aide-de-camp is ordered to
bring up the guard.
“‘Let the Marshal march upon the steeple, defiling by his left--and all
on his right are his prisoners.’ Now the watch is consulted and the
snuff is taken no more; the great captain indulges in pleasantry; nor
doubts any more of the certainty and of the extent of his victory than
if he had already seen its details in the bulletin.”
Cruelty and kindness, selfishness and generosity, loyalty and
treachery, honesty and perfidy, are almost unmeaning terms if applied
without qualification to Napoleon. Where his plans were not involved,
he frequently manifested the human virtues in their highest form;
where those plans were involved, he practised all the vices without
scruple or pity. Naturally he was humane, charitable, kind, indulgent,
sympathetic, generous; if policy required it, he became as hard as
steel. He left no debt of gratitude unpaid; ignored none of the claims,
however slight, of kindred and old association. See how he behaves
toward Madame Permon, how tolerant he is of that intolerable woman,
how he forgets her snubs, how he forgives her a public insult, how he
follows her with respectful consideration all the days of her life--and
why? She had been kind to him when he was a poor boy, had nursed his
father on the death-bed. “It is a devil of a temper, but a noble
heart;” and the noble heart makes him forget the devil of a temper.
He gave place and pension to early sweetheart, to boyhood friends,
to schoolmates, to teachers. The son and daughter of General Marbeuf
found him delighted to serve them in remembrance of their father. The
widow of the Duke of Orleans who had chanced to be the giver of a prize
to him at Brienne, and who had forgotten all about it, was happily
surprised to find that he had remembered. He restored her confiscated
pension, and gave a relative of hers a place in the Senate. To the
daughter of Madame de Brienne he proved himself a vigilant guardian. So
the record runs throughout his life, and his last will is little more
than a monument of gratitude to those who had at any time done him a
service.
He was not free from superstition. What people called “omens” made an
impression upon him. He sometimes made the sign of the cross, as though
to ward off impending evil. When in Italy the glass over Josephine’s
portrait was broken, Marmont says that he turned frightfully pale, and
exclaimed that his wife was either dead or unfaithful.
He was a man of insatiable curiosity. He wished to know everything,
and to have a hand in everything. His police infested every nook and
corner, and over his police he set spies, and over the spies he set the
informer. Thus he had two or three systems going at the same time. He
not only sought to know all about public affairs, but private matters
also. He delighted in gossip and scandal, hugely enjoying his ability
to twit some man or some woman with an amour which he had discovered.
Theatre talk, street talk, drawing-room talk, were reported to him
regularly. Copying the Bourbon example, he opened private letters to
ascertain what correspondents were saying to each other. He allowed no
freedom of the press, and no real freedom of speech. Journals which
showed the least independence he suppressed. Authors, actors, orators,
who ventured upon forbidden ground, felt the curb at once.
Lavish as he was in expenditures, there was method and economy
throughout. He was good at a bargain, exacted the worth of his money,
would tolerate no imposition or overcharge. His imperial displays were
more magnificent than those of the Grand Monarch, but they cost him
less than one-tenth as much.
It is not possible to dogmatize about a man like Napoleon, saying
positively just what he was. A more contradictory mortal never lived.
The man who massacred the prisoners at Jaffa was the same who perhaps
lost his crown because he would not consent to excite civil war in
Russia or in France. He who had just sent tens of thousands to death at
Borodino, angrily reproved a careless member of his staff for allowing
the hoof of his horse to strike one of the wounded, causing a cry of
pain.
“It was only a Russian,” said the negligent rider.
“Russian or French, it’s all the same,” cried Napoleon, furiously; “I
want them all cared for.”
His temper was despotic; he could not brook opposition, nor tolerate
independence. Hence he banished Madame de Staël, suppressed the
tribunate which had the power of debate, and frowned upon voluntary
movements of all kinds, whether clubs or schools. His treatment of
Toussaint was atrocious, filling the honest biographer with anger,
disgust, and shame: but, after all, Toussaint was a rebel, and the
way of the rebel is hard. In his own eyes the insurgent, striving for
national independence, is a hero: in the eyes of the world he is an
incendiary, unless he whips his master and becomes free.
From the grave of Robert Emmett, Ireland can speak of England’s
treatment of rebels: from Cuba comes a voice choked with blood, which
vainly tries to do justice to Spain’s treatment of the rebel; and
from Siberia, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Hindustan, Crete, Italy,
South Africa, come awful reminders of the well-known fact,--the way
of the rebel is hard. Toussaint L’Ouverture, regarded as a rebel, was
cast into prison: Jefferson Davis, regarded as a rebel, was cast into
prison: Davis, the white man, was put in irons and came near dying:
Toussaint, the black man, was ironed, and died. In each case the motive
was the same,--to degrade and to punish an alleged rebel.
Great has been the outcry made by the literary Scribes and Pharisees
against Napoleon because of his cruelty to the hero of St. Domingo
and to Andreas Hofer, the hero of the Tyrol; until these indignant
people indict also the kings and cabinets who have slain their hundreds
where Napoleon slew his dozens, we cannot feel much sympathy for the
prosecution.
Relentlessly selfish in the pursuit of power, it will be admitted by
those who impartially study his career that he used his power, not
for personal and selfish pleasures, but for the future welfare of the
peoples over whose destinies he presided. The laborious manner in which
he worked out the revolutionary principle of lifting the despised Jew
into full citizenship, will always be a striking illustration of the
liberality of his statesmanship.
He loved to tour the country, to see with his own eyes, to hear with
his own ears. He loved to meet the people face to face, to talk with
them familiarly, to get at the real facts about everything. The man
never lived who had such a passion for making things better. Harbors
must be widened, deepened, made more secure. Trade routes must be
improved, rivers linked to rivers, or rivers connected with seas.
Mountains must be conquered by broad, easy-grade roads; and villages
must be planted along the route for the convenience of the traveller.
He tore out old buildings to make way for new ones,--larger, better,
grander. Crooked streets--narrow, nasty, the homes of squalor, of
crime, and of pestilence--he replaced by broad avenues and handsome
buildings. Churches, schools, town-halls, arsenals, dockyards, canals,
highways, bridges, fortifications, manufactories, harbor works, new
industries, sprang up at his touch throughout the realms he ruled.
Had he never been known as a warrior, his work as administrator and
as a legislator would have made his name immortal. Had he never been
heard of as a legislator, his work in Europe as a developer of material
resources would have made it impossible for the world to forget him.
The manufactories which he encouraged were but the beginnings of a
mighty evolution which would have transferred to the Continent the vast
profits England had so long reaped. At every seaport, on every canal,
on all the highways, in every town from Venice to Brest and Cherbourg,
the traveller of the present day sees the footprints of Napoleon the
Great.
He rid Paris of the periodical nuisance of the Seine overflow, and
along the river ran his magnificent embankments. At St. Helena he
expressed a wonder that the Thames had never been thus controlled, and
England afterward embanked her river as the great Emperor suggested.
His natural instinct was to make improvements. The first thing he did
in Spain was to establish free-trade between her provinces, abolish
feudal burdens, suppress one-third of the monasteries where “those lazy
beasts of monks” lived in idleness at public expense, and to give the
people the right to be heard in fixing taxes and making laws. The first
thing the Bourbons did, on their return, was to restore all the abuses
Napoleon had abolished.
In Italy, the first thing he did, after overturning the temporal
power of the Pope, was to suppress the papal monopolies by which the
Albani family had the sole right to manufacture pins, Andrea Novelli
the exclusive privilege of selling oil for lamps, Alexandro Betti
the monopoly of ferry boats, and so forth. To these benighted Romans
he gave the Code Napoléon, trial by jury, home rule in local affairs,
equality before the law, and relief from all feudal abuses.
The first thing the Pope did when in 1814 he was restored to temporal
power was to abolish all things Napoleonic, and to reëstablish the
hateful monopolies, feudal burdens, and papal customs.
In Egypt he projected the mighty work of adding millions of acres to
the cultivable area by the construction of vast storage basins on the
Nile. England has but recently carried to successful completion the
magnificent plan he suggested.
In Milan he finished the gorgeous cathedral which had been commenced
hundreds of years before. To stagnant, pestilential Venice he gave new
life, dredging her lagoons, decreeing a Grand Canal, deepening her
harbor, overhauling her sanitary system--spending $1,000,000 during his
one visit. And the story is the same for almost every portion of his
huge empire.
Bad? Lord Wolseley says he was not only bad, but “superlatively” so.
Perhaps he was; but here is one publican and sinner who dares to say
that were the good men to work half as hard as Napoleon did to improve
the condition of _this_ world, its moral and material situation would
more nearly approximate the imagined perfection of that heavenly abode
in whose behalf _this_ poor planet and its poor humanity are so often
neglected.