NAPOLEON was born in the year 1769, the third son of Carlo Maria
Buonaparte, an honest notary public of the city of Ajaccio in the island
of Corsica, and his good wife, Letizia Ramolino. He therefore was not
a Frenchman, but an Italian whose native island (an old Greek,
Carthaginian and Roman colony in the Mediterranean Sea) had for years
been struggling to regain its independence, first of all from the
Genoese, and after the middle of the eighteenth century from the French,
who had kindly offered to help the Corsicans in their struggle for
freedom and had then occupied the island for their own benefit.
During the first twenty years of his life, young Napoleon was a
professional Corsican patriot--a Corsican Sinn Feiner, who hoped to
deliver his beloved country from the yoke of the bitterly hated French
enemy. But the French revolution had unexpectedly recognised the
claims of the Corsicans and gradually Napoleon, who had received a good
training at the military school of Brienne, drifted into the service of
his adopted country. Although he never learned to spell French correctly
or to speak it without a broad Italian accent, he became a Frenchman.
In due time he came to stand as the highest expression of all French
virtues. At present he is regarded as the symbol of the Gallic genius.
Napoleon was what is called a fast worker. His career does not cover
more than twenty years. In that short span of time he fought more wars
and gained more victories and marched more miles and conquered more
square kilometers and killed more people and brought about more reforms
and generally upset Europe to a greater extent than anybody (including
Alexander the Great and Jenghis Khan) had ever managed to do.
He was a little fellow and during the first years of his life his health
was not very good. He never impressed anybody by his good looks and he
remained to the end of his days very clumsy whenever he was obliged
to appear at a social function. He did not enjoy a single advantage of
breeding or birth or riches. For the greater part of his youth he was
desperately poor and often he had to go without a meal or was obliged to
make a few extra pennies in curious ways.
He gave little promise as a literary genius. When he competed for a
prize offered by the Academy of Lyons, his essay was found to be next to
the last and he was number 15 out of 16 candidates. But he overcame all
these difficulties through his absolute and unshakable belief in his own
destiny, and in his own glorious future. Ambition was the main-spring
of his life. The thought of self, the worship of that capital letter "N"
with which he signed all his letters, and which recurred forever in the
ornaments of his hastily constructed palaces, the absolute will to make
the name Napoleon the most important thing in the world next to the name
of God, these desires carried Napoleon to a pinnacle of fame which no
other man has ever reached.
When he was a half-pay lieutenant, young Bonaparte was very fond of the
"Lives of Famous Men" which Plutarch, the Roman historian, had written.
But he never tried to live up to the high standard of character set by
these heroes of the older days. Napoleon seems to have been devoid of
all those considerate and thoughtful sentiments which make men different
from the animals. It will be very difficult to decide with any degree of
accuracy whether he ever loved anyone besides himself. He kept a civil
tongue to his mother, but Letizia had the air and manners of a great
lady and after the fashion of Italian mothers, she knew how to rule her
brood of children and command their respect. For a few years he was fond
of Josephine, his pretty Creole wife, who was the daughter of a French
officer of Martinique and the widow of the Vicomte de Beauharnais,
who had been executed by Robespierre when he lost a battle against the
Prussians. But the Emperor divorced her when she failed to give him a
son and heir and married the daughter of the Austrian Emperor, because
it seemed good policy.
During the siege of Toulon, where he gained great fame as commander of
a battery, Napoleon studied Macchiavelli with industrious care. He
followed the advice of the Florentine statesman and never kept his word
when it was to his advantage to break it. The word "gratitude" did not
occur in his personal dictionary. Neither, to be quite fair, did he
expect it from others. He was totally indifferent to human suffering. He
executed prisoners of war (in Egypt in 1798) who had been promised their
lives, and he quietly allowed his wounded in Syria to be chloroformed
when he found it impossible to transport them to his ships. He
ordered the Duke of Enghien to be condemned to death by a prejudiced
court-martial and to be shot contrary to all law on the sole ground that
the "Bourbons needed a warning." He decreed that those German officers
who were made prisoner while fighting for their country's independence
should be shot against the nearest wall, and when Andreas Hofer, the
Tyrolese hero, fell into his hands after a most heroic resistance, he
was executed like a common traitor.
In short, when we study the character of the Emperor, we begin to
understand those anxious British mothers who used to drive their
children to bed with the threat that "Bonaparte, who ate little boys
and girls for breakfast, would come and get them if they were not very
good." And yet, having said these many unpleasant things about this
strange tyrant, who looked after every other department of his army with
the utmost care, but neglected the medical service, and who ruined his
uniforms with Eau de Cologne because he could not stand the smell of
his poor sweating soldiers; having said all these unpleasant things
and being fully prepared to add many more, I must confess to a certain
lurking feeling of doubt.
Here I am sitting at a comfortable table loaded heavily with books, with
one eye on my typewriter and the other on Licorice the cat, who has a
great fondness for carbon paper, and I am telling you that the Emperor
Napoleon was a most contemptible person. But should I happen to look
out of the window, down upon Seventh Avenue, and should the endless
procession of trucks and carts come to a sudden halt, and should I hear
the sound of the heavy drums and see the little man on his white horse
in his old and much-worn green uniform, then I don't know, but I am
afraid that I would leave my books and the kitten and my home and
everything else to follow him wherever he cared to lead. My own
grandfather did this and Heaven knows he was not born to be a hero.
Millions of other people's grandfathers did it. They received no reward,
but they expected none. They cheerfully gave legs and arms and lives
to serve this foreigner, who took them a thousand miles away from their
homes and marched them into a barrage of Russian or English or Spanish
or Italian or Austrian cannon and stared quietly into space while they
were rolling in the agony of death.
If you ask me for an explanation, I must answer that I have none. I can
only guess at one of the reasons. Napoleon was the greatest of actors
and the whole European continent was his stage. At all times and under
all circumstances he knew the precise attitude that would impress the
spectators most and he understood what words would make the deepest
impression. Whether he spoke in the Egyptian desert, before the backdrop
of the Sphinx and the pyramids, or addressed his shivering men on the
dew-soaked plains of Italy, made no difference. At all times he was
master of the situation. Even at the end, an exile on a little rock
in the middle of the Atlantic, a sick man at the mercy of a dull and
intolerable British governor, he held the centre of the stage.
After the defeat of Waterloo, no one outside of a few trusted friends
ever saw the great Emperor. The people of Europe knew that he was living
on the island of St. Helena--they knew that a British garrison guarded
him day and night--they knew that the British fleet guarded the garrison
which guarded the Emperor on his farm at Longwood. But he was never out
of the mind of either friend or enemy. When illness and despair had at
last taken him away, his silent eyes continued to haunt the world. Even
to-day he is as much of a force in the life of France as a hundred years
ago when people fainted at the mere sight of this sallow-faced man who
stabled his horses in the holiest temples of the Russian Kremlin, and
who treated the Pope and the mighty ones of this earth as if they were
his lackeys.
To give you a mere outline of his life would demand couple of volumes.
To tell you of his great political reform of the French state, of his
new codes of laws which were adopted in most European countries, of his
activities in every field of public activity, would take thousands of
pages. But I can explain in a few words why he was so successful during
the first part of his career and why he failed during the last ten
years. From the year 1789 until the year 1804, Napoleon was the great
leader of the French revolution. He was not merely fighting for the
glory of his own name. He defeated Austria and Italy and England and
Russia because he, himself, and his soldiers were the apostles of the
new creed of "Liberty, Fraternity and Equality" and were the enemies of
the courts while they were the friends of the people.
But in the year 1804, Napoleon made himself Hereditary Emperor of the
French and sent for Pope Pius VII to come and crown him, even as Leo
III, in the year 800 had crowned that other great King of the Franks,
Charlemagne, whose example was constantly before Napoleon's eyes.
Once upon the throne, the old revolutionary chieftain became an
unsuccessful imitation of a Habsburg monarch. He forgot his spiritual
Mother, the Political Club of the Jacobins. He ceased to be the defender
of the oppressed. He became the chief of all the oppressors and kept his
shooting squads ready to execute those who dared to oppose his imperial
will. No one had shed a tear when in the year 1806 the sad remains of
the Holy Roman Empire were carted to the historical dustbin and when the
last relic of ancient Roman glory was destroyed by the grandson of an
Italian peasant. But when the Napoleonic armies had invaded Spain,
had forced the Spaniards to recognise a king whom they detested, had
massacred the poor Madrilenes who remained faithful to their old rulers,
then public opinion turned against the former hero of Marengo and
Austerlitz and a hundred other revolutionary battles. Then and only
then, when Napoleon was no longer the hero of the revolution but the
personification of all the bad traits of the Old Regime, was it possible
for England to give direction to the fast-spreading sentiment of hatred
which was turning all honest men into enemies of the French Emperor.
The English people from the very beginning had felt deeply disgusted
when their newspapers told them the gruesome details of the Terror. They
had staged their own great revolution (during the reign of Charles I)
a century before. It had been a very simple affair compared to the
upheaval of Paris. In the eyes of the average Englishman a Jacobin was
a monster to be shot at sight and Napoleon was the Chief Devil. The
British fleet had blockaded France ever since the year 1798. It had
spoiled Napoleon's plan to invade India by way of Egypt and had forced
him to beat an ignominious retreat, after his victories along the banks
of the Nile. And finally, in the year 1805, England got the chance it
had waited for so long.
Near Cape Trafalgar on the southwestern coast of Spain, Nelson
annihilated the Napoleonic fleet, beyond a possible chance of recovery.
From that moment on, the Emperor was landlocked. Even so, he would have
been able to maintain himself as the recognised ruler of the continent
had he understood the signs of the times and accepted the honourable
peace which the powers offered him. But Napoleon had been blinded by the
blaze of his own glory. He would recognise no equals. He could tolerate
no rivals. And his hatred turned against Russia, the mysterious land of
the endless plains with its inexhaustible supply of cannon-fodder.
As long as Russia was ruled by Paul I, the half-witted son of Catherine
the Great, Napoleon had known how to deal with the situation. But Paul
grew more and more irresponsible until his exasperated subjects were
obliged to murder him (lest they all be sent to the Siberian lead-mines)
and the son of Paul, the Emperor Alexander, did not share his father's
affection for the usurper whom he regarded as the enemy of mankind, the
eternal disturber of the peace. He was a pious man who believed that he
had been chosen by God to deliver the world from the Corsican curse.
He joined Prussia and England and Austria and he was defeated. He tried
five times and five times he failed. In the year 1812 he once more
taunted Napoleon until the French Emperor, in a blind rage, vowed that
he would dictate peace in Moscow. Then, from far and wide, from Spain
and Germany and Holland and Italy and Portugal, unwilling regiments were
driven northward, that the wounded pride of the great Emperor might be
duly avenged. The rest of the story is common knowledge. After a march
of two months, Napoleon reached the Russian capital and established his
headquarters in the holy Kremlin. On the night of September 15 of the
year 1812, Moscow caught fire. The town burned four days. When the
evening of the fifth day came, Napoleon gave the order for the retreat.
Two weeks later it began to snow. The army trudged through mud and sleet
until November the 26th when the river Berezina was reached. Then the
Russian attacks began in all seriousness. The Cossacks swarmed around
the "Grande Armee" which was no longer an army but a mob. In the middle
of December the first of the survivors began to be seen in the German
cities of the East.
Then there were many rumours of an impending revolt. "The time
has come," the people of Europe said, "to free ourselves from this
insufferable yoke." And they began to look for old shotguns which had
escaped the eye of the ever-present French spies. But ere they knew
what had happened, Napoleon was back with a new army. He had left his
defeated soldiers and in his little sleigh had rushed ahead to Paris,
making a final appeal for more troops that he might defend the sacred
soil of France against foreign invasion.
Children of sixteen and seventeen followed him when he moved eastward to
meet the allied powers. On October 16, 18, and 19 of the year 1813, the
terrible battle of Leipzig took place where for three days boys in green
and boys in blue fought each other until the Elbe ran red with blood.
On the afternoon of the 17th of October, the massed reserves of Russian
infantry broke through the French lines and Napoleon fled.
Back to Paris he went. He abdicated in favour of his small son, but the
allied powers insisted that Louis XVIII, the brother of the late king
Louis XVI, should occupy the French throne, and surrounded by Cossacks
and Uhlans, the dull-eyed Bourbon prince made his triumphal entry into
Paris.
As for Napoleon he was made the sovereign ruler of the little island
of Elba in the Mediterranean where he organised his stable boys into a
miniature army and fought battles on a chess board.
But no sooner had he left France than the people began to realise what
they had lost. The last twenty years, however costly, had been a period
of great glory. Paris had been the capital of the world. The fat Bourbon
king who had learned nothing and had forgotten nothing during the days
of his exile disgusted everybody by his indolence.
On the first of March of the year 1815, when the representatives of the
allies were ready to begin the work of unscrambling the map of Europe,
Napoleon suddenly landed near Cannes. In less than a week the French
army had deserted the Bourbons and had rushed southward to offer their
swords and bayonets to the "little Corporal." Napoleon marched straight
to Paris where he arrived on the twentieth of March. This time he was
more cautious. He offered peace, but the allies insisted upon war. The
whole of Europe arose against the "perfidious Corsican." Rapidly the
Emperor marched northward that he might crush his enemies before they
should be able to unite their forces. But Napoleon was no longer his old
self. He felt sick. He got tired easily. He slept when he ought to have
been up directing the attack of his advance-guard. Besides, he missed
many of his faithful old generals. They were dead.
Early in June his armies entered Belgium. On the 16th of that month he
defeated the Prussians under Blucher. But a subordinate commander failed
to destroy the retreating army as he had been ordered to do.
Two days later, Napoleon met Wellington near Waterloo. It was the 18th
of June, a Sunday. At two o'clock of the afternoon, the battle seemed
won for the French. At three a speck of dust appeared upon the eastern
horizon. Napoleon believed that this meant the approach of his own
cavalry who would now turn the English defeat into a rout. At four
o'clock he knew better. Cursing and swearing, old Blucher drove his
deathly tired troops into the heart of the fray. The shock broke the
ranks of the guards. Napoleon had no further reserves. He told his men
to save themselves as best they could, and he fled.
For a second time, he abdicated in favor of his son. Just one hundred
days after his escape from Elba, he was making for the coast. He
intended to go to America. In the year 1803, for a mere song, he had
sold the French colony of Louisiana (which was in great danger of
being captured by the English) to the young American Republic. "The
Americans," so he said, "will be grateful and will give me a little bit
of land and a house where I may spend the last days of my life in peace
and quiet." But the English fleet was watching all French harbours.
Caught between the armies of the Allies and the ships of the British,
Napoleon had no choice. The Prussians intended to shoot him. The
English might be more generous. At Rochefort he waited in the hope that
something might turn up. One month after Waterloo, he received
orders from the new French government to leave French soil inside of
twenty-four hours. Always the tragedian, he wrote a letter to the
Prince Regent of England (George IV, the king, was in an insane asylum)
informing His Royal Highness of his intention to "throw himself upon the
mercy of his enemies and like Themistocles, to look for a welcome at the
fireside of his foes..."
On the 15th of July he went on board the "Bellerophon," and surrendered
his sword to Admiral Hotham. At Plymouth he was transferred to the
"Northumberland" which carried him to St. Helena. There he spent
the last seven years of his life. He tried to write his memoirs, he
quarrelled with his keepers and he dreamed of past times. Curiously
enough he returned (at least in his imagination) to his original point
of departure. He remembered the days when he had fought the battles of
the Revolution. He tried to convince himself that he had always been
the true friend of those great principles of "Liberty, Fraternity and
Equality" which the ragged soldiers of the convention had carried to
the ends of the earth. He liked to dwell upon his career as
Commander-in-Chief and Consul. He rarely spoke of the Empire. Sometimes
he thought of his son, the Duke of Reichstadt, the little eagle, who
lived in Vienna, where he was treated as a "poor relation" by his young
Habsburg cousins, whose fathers had trembled at the very mention of the
name of Him. When the end came, he was leading his troops to victory. He
ordered Ney to attack with the guards. Then he died.
But if you want an explanation of this strange career, if you really
wish to know how one man could possibly rule so many people for so many
years by the sheer force of his will, do not read the books that have
been written about him. Their authors either hated the Emperor or
loved him. You will learn many facts, but it is more important to "feel
history" than to know it. Don't read, but wait until you have a chance
to hear a good artist sing the song called "The Two Grenadiers." The
words were written by Heine, the great German poet who lived through the
Napoleonic era. The music was composed by Schumann, a German who saw
the Emperor, the enemy of his country, whenever he came to visit his
imperial father-in-law. The song therefore is the work of two men who
had every reason to hate the tyrant.
Go and hear it. Then you will understand what a thousand volumes could
not possibly tell you.