THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF NAPOLEON III
Few English readers are, I imagine, familiar with the boyhood and the
adolescence of Napoleon III., whose centenary fell on April 20, 1908. It
is true that Blanchard Jerrold has given us, in his “Life of the
Emperor” (four volumes, published in 1874 by Longmans), an admirable and
detailed history of the unfortunate Sovereign who drew his last breath
at Chislehurst in 1873; but, perhaps owing to the abundance of other
material officially placed at his disposal, Mr. Jerrold devoted only a
few lines to the eight years during which Philippe Le Bas was the tutor
of the future Emperor.
Luckily, M. Stéfane-Pol has recently produced a volume of the greatest
value, entitled “La Jeunesse de Napoléon III.,”[20] containing the
hitherto unpublished correspondence of the Prince’s tutor, Philippe Le
Bas (of the Institut), with many original illustrations, some from the
Prince’s own pencil, others by Queen Hortense and by artists familiar
with Arenenberg.
“Prince Louis Bonaparte,” wrote Alphonse Karr, in “Les Guêpes,” “born in
Paris in 1808, educated abroad, knew neither France nor its ways. He
spoke our language with difficulty, with a very strong German accent.
His early youth has left no souvenir, even in the mind of his most
complaisant biographers.”
Even his partisans confine themselves to generalities, stupidly
inaccurate. “Although far from France,” says M. Stéfane-Pol, “we read in
a contemporary publication describing the coup d’état, ‘the education of
the young Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely French. His mother
imbued him with a love of his natal land, and his father taught him, at
an early age, to sacrifice everything--life, honours, and fortune--for
the holy and sacred cause of the people; taught him, too, to dare and to
suffer all things for the triumph of such great interests. Later, his
parents, in order to complete his education, confided him to the care of
M. Le Bas, son of the Conventionnel of that name, from whom the Prince
acquired the wisest and most solid Republican principles.’”
Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, youngest son of Louis Bonaparte, King
of Holland, and of Hortense de Beauharnais, was born on April 20, 1808.
He was Napoleon I.’s nephew, and the Empress Joséphine’s grandson. He
was baptized at the Palace of Fontainebleau by Cardinal Fesch, uncle of
Napoleon I., and held at the font by the Great Emperor himself. In the
_Moniteur_ of April 21 his birth was thus chronicled:
Yesterday (Wednesday) Her Majesty the Queen of Holland was happily
delivered of a Prince. In conformity with Article XL. of the Act of
the Constitutions of the 20 Florial, year XII., his Serene Highness
Monseigneur the Prince Arch-Chancellor of the Empire was present at
the birth. His Highness wrote immediately to His Majesty the
Emperor and King, to Her Majesty the Empress and Queen, and to His
Majesty the King of Holland, informing them of the event. At 5 p.m.
the certificate of birth was received by His Serene Highness the
Prince Arch-Chancellor, assisted by His Excellency M. Régnault de
St. Jean d’Angély, Minister of State and Secretary of the Imperial
Family. In the absence of His Majesty the Emperor and King, the
infant did not receive any Christian name; this he will be given by
a later act, in accordance with His Majesty’s orders.
Napoleon I. and Joséphine had been divorced previous to the birth of the
child, whose godmother was Marie Louise, Napoleon’s second consort. At
the time of his birth the parents of the future Napoleon III. were
living apart. “I am sorry Louis is not here,” said the mother; “this
infant would have reconciled us.”
It was said that the King of Holland was not the father of the young
Louis Napoleon.[21] It is difficult, however, to adduce proofs of that
assertion. There is one fact concerning which there is general
agreement. There was no physical or moral resemblance between the
brother of Napoleon I. and the son of Hortense de Beauharnais. The
infant had neither the face nor the character of the Bonapartes; on the
contrary, he was the image of his mother, whose large heart, as well as
many other characteristics, he inherited. Ambition and superstition were
the principal features of the life of Queen Hortense. “She inspired her
son,” said Henri Martin, “with a fanatical faith in his destiny,” and
circumstances developed in both mother and son a firm belief in their
lucky star. With the exception of the King of Rome, Louis Napoleon was
the only Prince born under the imperial régime--the only one whose birth
was greeted by military honours and the people’s homage. Was not that
(asks M. Stéfane-Pol) a presage of his destiny? A family register,
devoted to the children of the imperial dynasty, was deposited at the
Senate as the grand-livre of the right of succession. The name of Prince
Louis was the first to be inscribed in it, with all the pomp of a
consecration. What better auspices could there have been for an aspirant
Emperor?
Later, when the Duchesse de Saint-Leu (Queen Hortense), mother of Prince
Louis Napoleon, occupied the leisure afforded her by her exile in
roaming through Switzerland with Mlle. Cochelet, she had no object in
view except that which chance offered. “All our distractions during
these wanderings,” wrote Mlle. Cochelet, “were confined to searching for
four-leaved shamrocks, to which were attached various ideas. ‘If,’ said
the Duchesse, ‘I find a four-leaved shamrock, it will signify that we
shall return to France before very long, or that I shall receive a
letter from my son to-morrow,’ and so on.” The author does not add, “Or
perhaps I shall reign through my son,” but that is implied in most of
the wishes of the ex-Queen of Holland.
In 1834 Louis Napoleon and his mother travelled in Italy. They had been
in Rome for some time, when one day Hortense consulted a negress, a
somnambulist, who, according to M. de La Guéronnière, had produced some
remarkable phenomena. A clever magnetizer sent the negress to sleep,
and presently, in response to the eager questions of Hortense, the
somnambulist exclaimed suddenly, as if inspired, “I see your son happy
and triumphant. A great nation takes him for chief.” “For Emperor, you
mean, do you not?” asked the mother breathlessly. “For chief,” replied
the somnambulist. Hortense could not obtain from the negress anything
more satisfactory, but the prediction was confirmed subsequently by what
the doyen of Paris priests said to Louis Napoleon, then President of the
Republic: “Monseigneur, the will of God will be fulfilled quand même.”
Louis Napoleon was imbued with all his mother’s superstitious ideas. One
of his friends having asked him why the attempt at Strasburg had failed,
the Prince smilingly furnished an explanation which doubtless accorded
with his fatalistic instincts--a wheel of his carriage had come off
between Lehr and Strasburg! But his instincts required guiding, and
Hortense was not equal to the task. While she was making lint for the
wounded and weaving patriotic romances to cheer the faint-hearted, the
mother of the future Emperor (then Queen of Holland) inculcated in the
young Louis those bellicose ideas which were quite foreign to his calm
and dreamy nature. “Supposing you had not a sou in the world to call
your own,” she said to her eldest boy one day, “what would you do,
Napoleon, to gain a livelihood?” “I should go for a soldier,” was the
reply. “And you, Louis, what would you do?” “I should sell violets, like
the little boy who stands at the gates of the Tuileries,” answered the
child whom Destiny had marked out for an Emperor. There was something in
this boy’s character to reform, and his mother set about the task,
invoking the aid of all around her--amongst them Napoleon I. and Mme.
Bure, the faithful nurse, who was jealous of the attention bestowed upon
the boy by Mme. de Boubers and the Abbé Bertrand.
Henceforward the young Louis made considerable progress. Although he was
always extremely sensitive, he longed to share the dangers of others.
Renault, imitating Mlle. Cochelet, tells this story of him:
At this time Prince Louis Napoleon was seven years old. One day, on
the eve of the departure for that fatal campaign which, after two
striking victories, ended with the disaster of Waterloo, Napoleon
I., accompanied by Marshal Soult, entered his cabinet. He appeared
sad and thoughtful. The tones of his voice, sharp and emphatic,
revealed the preoccupation of his mind. Suddenly a child slips into
the room. His features are stamped with grief, and he vainly
struggles to restrain his emotion. He approaches, kneels before the
Emperor, and, laying his head and hands on Napoleon’s knees, bursts
into tears.
“What is the matter with you, Louis?” exclaims the Emperor, in a
tone showing his annoyance at being interrupted. “Why have you come
here? Why are you crying?”
The child, frightened, can only reply with sobs. By degrees he
becomes calm, and then, in a sweet, sad voice, says: “Sire, my
governess has just told me that you are leaving for the war. Oh! do
not go--do not go!”
The Emperor could not but be touched by this solicitude, for the
child was Prince Louis, the nephew whom he loved above all others.
“And why do you wish me not to go?” asked the Emperor sadly. Then,
passing his hand through the child’s golden curls, he said: “Mon
enfant, it is not the first time that I go _to the war_. Why should
it trouble you? Never mind; I shall soon return.”
“Oh, my dear uncle,” said the boy, again bursting into tears,
“those wicked Allies want to kill you! Oh, _uncle, let me go with
you_!”
For a time the Emperor did not speak. Taking the child on his knee,
he pressed him to his heart and embraced him warmly. The Emperor
was deeply moved, but presently, when he had steadied his voice, he
called, “Hortense! Hortense!” And as the Queen came hurrying into
the room, Napoleon said: “Here, take my nephew out and give his
governess a severe scolding for thoughtlessly putting such words
into his mouth and exalting his sensibility.” Then, after
addressing the boy affectionately, the Emperor, turning to Marshal
Soult, who was labouring under deep emotion, said vivaciously:
“Embrace him--he will have a good heart and a beautiful soul. He
may be the hope of my race.”
Hortense must have relished these last words. Are not great captains
regarded as oracles? When, at Paris, as at St. Leu, some of the visitors
discussed metaphysics, or grouped themselves around La Bédoyère, reading
Racine or Shakespeare; when others posed to Garnerey for their
portraits, and others played billiards, Louis Napoleon and his brother
listened open-mouthed to the tales of heroism which Mlle. Cochelet was
instructed to tell them. Later, in the land of exile, while the Duchesse
de St. Leu and her suite played diabolo--one room serving as salon and
salle à manger--and when the only book at their disposal was a volume of
“Anecdotes de la Cour de Philippe-Auguste,” discovered, after a long
search, by the Abbé Bernard, the ex-Queen of Holland would watch her
sons playing at soldiers with the common children. And the day came
when she saw Louis at the military school of Thün learning how to
command, and then at Rome, at the house of his grandmother, Lætitia
Bonaparte--scenes which enabled her to record the story of Prince Louis
Napoleon’s youth.
The character of the Prince, according to Mlle. Cochelet, was amiable,
timid, self-contained. He spoke very little, and Le Bas (his tutor) adds
that he was naturally distrait and inactive. Thus he always remained.
Those who most flattered Napoleon III. never concealed, in rhetorical
phrases, the evident inertness of his physical nature; morally, he was a
docile slave.
His look of inertness and apparent insensibility is only the mark
of an ardent and powerful inner life. His eyes are dull, but they
are as deep as the thought in which they are plunged, which appears
now and again as the flame leaps from the hearth. His forehead is
as sombre as fate, but it is large, like its conception. The lips
are white, but fine, delicate, discreet, only sufficiently opened
to allow of the escape of sharp and precise expressions of a
reflecting and ordered will. His speech is indolent and slow, but
he is sure of himself, and his apparent indifference is but the
excess of his self-confidence. Audacity veiled by timidity,
firmness dissimulated by mildness, inflexibility compensated for by
goodness, finesse concealed by bonhomie, life under the marble,
fire beneath the cinders--in a word, something of Augustus and of
Titus under the look of Werther, that type of German dreaminess:
such was the appearance of Louis Bonaparte.[22]
M. de La Guéronnière finds, in this portrait which he gives of the
Prince, a justification for the various appreciations formulated of his
mind and character. But do we not see, on the contrary, in the portrait
a simple play of antitheses, a fantastic interpretation of that which
appeared to be the evident reality?--which is to say that Louis Napoleon
was a young man of average intelligence, without mental unbending, and
characterized by an absolute lack of willpower. Like all who hesitate
and dream, he finished by attaching an idea to himself and adopting it,
in order not to be submerged by other ideas. Thus he deserved the title
of “doux entêté” given to him by his mother. But his impassiveness, his
stiffness, were only timidity, and his resolutions to act showed
themselves only after delays or with sudden coups, which emphasized his
weakness.
He had doubtless a certain fatalistic power of resistance, but this side
of his character only showed the absence of an active mind; the
enterprises of Stratford and Boulogne do not contradict this view. As to
the coup d’état, one might explain it by many causes foreign to a ripe
will. Besides, was not the coup d’état predicted by the “Grand Albert,”
and did not that prediction give the rein to the superstitious docility
of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte?[23]
However this may be, whatsoever his faults may have been, we must
recognize in him who was Napoleon III. one quality: he had a heart. Even
his adversaries knew this, and some of them--those who were
sincere--admitted it with a good grace. The words of Georges Sand,
written when the Prince was a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, would
have remained true if events, stronger than his apparent energy, had
not let loose against him hatreds at once tenacious and justified. “Two
or three of us,” she wrote, “often talk about you, and we always say,
after recognizing the dangers which would follow your accession to power
of any kind, ‘He possesses the gift of making himself loved; it is
impossible not to love him.’”
Le Bas, who knew the Prince better than anyone else, speaks of his
excellent heart, and quotes examples of the sensitiveness and the
generous instincts of him whom his mother and the Abbé Bertrand long
called “notre petit oui-oui.”
The character of the child reflects, in an exaggerated form, the
qualities and the defects of those by whom he was surrounded. It is
sufficient to peruse the letters of the Abbé Bertrand to understand the
lightness and the inconsistency which vitiated the education of the
future Emperor Napoleon III. The Republican Le Bas, on the contrary,
enunciated more severe, and at the same time more generous, ideas, which
his pupil transmitted into Utopian reveries. Later, the Prince’s
initiation into military studies gave him a taste for the profession of
arms, and inspired him with the secret hope of continuing, by modifying
and even socializing it, the work of Napoleon I.
The docility of the child bent under the influence of his preceptors, as
it had previously given way under that of his mother and the intimates
of the household. But, besides this, the fashionable life, the soirées,
the concerts, the drawing-room theatricals, and the organization of
lotteries, as well as the excessive walks and drives, disarranged the
carefully-elaborated programmes of education, so that the personality of
Prince Louis could not prevail against the numerous changes of scene, to
say nothing of the drawbacks to study caused by the life in exile and
the uncertainty of what might happen at any moment.
It would be a curious study to examine the writings of Napoleon III.,
and to ascertain who amongst those by whom he was surrounded in his
youth inspired him with the thoughts which he has put into his book,
“Idées Napoléoniennes.” That work, his essays on military subjects, and
his “Extinction de Paupérisme,” all reveal the accurate memory of the
former pupil of the camp of Thün, and show how well he recollected the
lessons of Le Bas and the advice of the ambitious Hortense, while they
also give evidences of that futility for which the Abbé Bertrand was to
some extent responsible.
“Slave of the souvenirs of his childhood,” wrote the Emperor, “the man
obeys all his life, without doubting them, the impressions which he
received when he was young, and the experiences and influences of which
he has been the object.”[24]
If (concludes M. Stéfane-Pol) circumstances had not been stronger than
the free-will of Napoleon III., those impressions, experiences, and
influences, many and various as they were, would never have brought
about the unheard-of metamorphosis of a man of heart and delicacy, if
not of reason, until popular sentiment, refusing to analyze him in order
to arrive at a result, finished by execrating him.