"There shall be no Alps," he said; and he built his perfect roads,
climbing by graded galleries their steepest precipices, until Italy
was as open to Paris as any town in France. He laid his bones to, and
wrought for his crown. Having decided what was to be done, he did that
with might and main. He put out all his strength. He risked everything,
and spared nothing, neither ammunition, nor money, nor troops, nor
generals, nor himself.
We like to see everything do its office after its kind, whether it be
a milch-cow or a rattlesnake; and, if fighting be the best mode of
adjusting national differences (as large majorities of men seem to
agree), certainly Bonaparte was right in making it thorough. "The grand
principle of war," he said, "was, that an army ought always to be
ready, by day and by night, and at all hours, to make all the resistance
it is capable of making." He never economized his ammunition, but, on
a hostile position, rained a torrent of iron,--shells, balls,
grape-shot,--to annihilate all defense. On any point of resistance,
he concentrated squadron on squadron in overwhelming numbers, until
it was swept out of existence. To a regiment of horse-chasseurs at
Lobenstein, two days before the battle of Jena, Napoleon said, "My
lads, you must not fear death; when soldiers brave death, they drive
him into the enemy's ranks." In the fury of assault, he no more spared
himself. He went to the edge of his possibility. It is plain that in
Italy he did what he could, and all that he could. He came, several
times, within an inch of ruin; and his own person was all but lost.
He was flung into the marsh at Arcola. The Austrians were between him
and his troops, in the melee, and he was brought off with desperate
efforts. At Lonato, and at other places, he was on the point of being
taken prisoner. He fought sixty battles. He had never enough. Each
victory was a new weapon. "My power would fall, were I not to support
it by new achievements. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest
must maintain me." He felt, with every wise man, that as much life is
needed for conservation as for creation. We are always in peril, always
in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved
by invention and courage.
This vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence and
punctuality. A thunderbolt in the attack, he was found invulnerable
in his intrenchments. His very attack was never the inspiration of
courage, but the result of calculation. His idea of the best defense
consists in being still the attacking party. "My ambition," he says,
"was great, but was of a cold nature." In one of his conversations
with Las Casas, he remarked, "As to moral courage, I have rarely met
with the two-o'clock-in-the-morning kind; I mean unprepared courage,
that which, is necessary on an unexpected occasion; and which, in spite
of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and
decision;" and he did not hesitate to declare that he was himself
eminently endowed with this "two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, and
that he had met with few persons equal to himself in this respect."
Everything depended on the nicety of his combinations, and the stars
were not more punctual than his arithmetic. His personal attention
descended to the smallest particulars. "At Montebello, I ordered
Kellermann to attack with eight hundred horse, and with these he
separated the six thousand Hungarian grenadiers, before the very eyes
of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was half a league off, and
required a quarter of an hour to arrive on the field of action; and
I have observed, that it is always these quarters of an hour that
decide the fate of a battle." "Before he fought a battle, Bonaparte
thought little about what he should do in case of success, but a great
deal about what he should do in case of a reverse of fortune. "The
same prudence and good sense mark all his behavior. His instructions
to his secretary at the Tuilleries are worth remembering. "During the
night, enter my chamber as seldom as possible. Do not wake me when you
have any good news to communicate; with that there is no hurry. But
when you bring bad news, rouse me instantly, for then there is not a
moment to be lost." It was a whimsical economy of the same kind which
dictated his practice, when general in Italy, in regard to his
burdensome correspondence. He directed Bourienne to leave all letters
unopened for three weeks, and then observed with satisfaction how large
a part of the correspondence had thus disposed of itself, and no longer
required an answer. His achievement of business was immense, and
enlarges the known powers of man. There have been many working kings,
from Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who accomplished a tithe
of this man's performance.
To these gifts of nature, Napoleon added the advantage of having been
born to a private and humble fortune. In his latter days, he had the
weakness of wishing to add to his crowns and badges the prescription
of aristocracy; but he knew his debt to his austere education, and
made no secret of his contempt for the born kings, and for "the
hereditary asses," as he coarsely styled the Bourbons. He said that,
"in their exile, they had learned nothing, and forgot nothing."
Bonaparte had passed through all the degrees of military service, but
also was citizen before he was emperor, and so had the key to
citizenship. His remarks and estimates discover the information and
justness of measurement of the middle class. Those who had to deal
with him found that he was not to be imposed upon, but could cipher
as well as another man. This appears in all parts of his Memoirs,
dictated at St. Helena. When the expenses of the empress, of his
household, of his palaces, had accumulated great debts, Napoleon
examined the bills of the creditors himself, detected overcharges and
errors, and reduced the claims by considerable sums.
His grand weapon, namely, the millions whom he directed, he owed to
the representative character which clothed him. He interests us as he
stands for France and for Europe; and he exists as captain and king,
only as far as the Revolution, or the interest of the industrious
masses found an organ and a leader in him. In the social interests,
he knew the meaning and value of labor, and threw himself naturally
on that side. I like an incident mentioned by one of his biographers
at St. Helena. "When walking with Mrs. Balcombe, some servants, carrying
heavy boxes, passed by on the road, and Mrs. Balcombe desired them,
in rather an angry tone, to keep back. Napoleon interfered, saying,
'Respect the burden, Madam.'" In the time of the empire, he directed
attention to the improvement and embellishment of the market of the
capital. "The market-place," he said, "is the Louvre of the common
people." The principal works that have survived him are his magnificent
roads. He filled the troops with his spirit, and a sort of freedom and
companionship grew up between him and them, which the forms of his
court never permitted between the officers and himself. They performed,
under his eye, that which no others could do. The best document of his
relation to his troops is the order of the day on the morning of the
battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon promises the troops that he
will keep his person out of reach of fire. This declaration, which is
the reverse of that ordinarily made by generals and sovereigns on the
eve of a battle, sufficiently explains the devotion of the army to
their leader.
But though there is in particulars this identity between Napoleon and
the mass of the people, his real strength lay in their conviction that
he was their representative in his genius and aims, not only when he
courted, but when he controlled, and even when he decimated them by
his conscriptions. He knew, as well as any Jacobin in France, how to
philosophize on liberty and equality; and, when allusion was made to
the precious blood of centuries, which was spilled by the killing of
the Duc d'Enghien, he suggested, "Neither is my blood ditch-water" The
people felt that no longer the throne was occupied, and the land sucked
of its nourishment, by a small class of legitimates, secluded from all
community with the children of the soil, and holding the ideas and
superstitions of a long-forgotten state of society. Instead of that
vampire, a man of themselves held, in the Tuilleries, knowledge and
ideas like their own, opening, of course, to them and their children,
all places of power and trust. The day of sleepy, selfish policy, ever
narrowing the means and opportunities of young men, was ended, and a
day of expansion and demand was come. A market for all the powers and
productions of man was opened: brilliant prizes glittered in the eyes
of youth and talent. The old, iron-bound, feudal France was changed
into a young Ohio or New York; and those who smarted under the immediate
rigors of the new monarch, pardoned them as the necessary severities
of the military system which had driven out the oppressor. And even
when the majority of the people had begun to ask, whether they had
really gained anything under the exhausting levies of men and money
of the new master,--the whole talent of the country, in every rank and
kindred, took his part, and defended him as its natural patron. In
1814, when advised to rely on the higher classes, Napoleon said to
those around him, "Gentlemen, in the situation in which I stand, my
only nobility is the rabble of the Faubourgs."
Napoleon met this natural expectation. The necessity of his position
required a hospitality to every sort of talent, and its appointment
to trusts; and his feelings went along with this policy. Like every
superior person, he undoubtedly felt a desire for men and compeers,
and a wish to measure his power with other masters, and an impatience
of fools and underlings. In Italy, he sought for men, and found none.
"Good God!" he said, "how rare men are! There are eighteen millions
in Italy, and I have with difficulty found two,--Dandolo and Melzi."
In later years, with larger experience, his respect for mankind was
not increased. In a moment of bitterness, he said to one of his oldest
friends, "Men deserve the contempt with which they inspire me. I have
only to put some gold lace on the coat of my virtuous republicans, and
they immediately become just what I wish them." This impatience at
levity was, however, an oblique tribute of respect to those able persons
who commanded his regard, not only when he found them friends and
coadjutors, but also when they resisted his will. He could not confound
Fox and Pitt, Carnot, Lafayette, and Bernadotte, with the danglers of
his court; and, in spite of the detraction which his systematic egotism
dictated toward the great captains who conquered with and for him,
ample acknowledgements are made by him to Lannes Duroc, Kleber, Dessaix,
Massena, Murat, Ney, and Augereau. If he felt himself their patron,
and founder of their fortunes, as when he said, "I made my generals
out of mud," he could not hide his satisfaction in receiving from them
a seconding and support commensurate with the grandeur of his
enterprise. In the Russian campaign, he was so much impressed by the
courage and resources of Marshal Ney, that he said, "I have two hundred
millions in my coffers, and I would give them all for Ney." The
characters which he has drawn of several of his marshals are
discriminating, and, though they did not content the insatiable vanity
of French officers, are, no doubt, substantially just. And, in fact,
every species of merit was sought and advanced under his government.
"I know," he said, "the depth and draught of water of every one of my
generals." Natural power was sure to be well received at his court.
Seventeen men, in his time, were raised from common soldiers to the
rank of king, marshal, duke, or general; and the crosses of his Legion
of Honor were given to personal valor, and not to family connection.
"When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they
have all one rank in my eyes."
When a natural king becomes a titular king, everybody is pleased and
satisfied. The Revolution entitled the strong populace of the Faubourg
St. Antoine, and every horse-boy and powder-monkey in the army, to
look on Napoleon as flesh of his flesh, and the creature of his party:
but there is something in the success of grand talent which enlists
an universal sympathy. For, in the prevalence of sense and spirit over
stupidity and malversation, all reasonable men have an interest; and,
as intellectual beings, we feel the air purified by the electric shock,
when material force is overthrown by intellectual energies. As soon
as we are removed out of the reach of local and accidental partialities,
man feels that Napoleon fights for him; these are honest victories;
this strong steam-engine does our work. Whatever appeals to the
imagination, by transcending the ordinary limits of human ability,
wonderfully encourages and liberates us. This capacious head, revolving
and disposing sovereignly trains of affairs, and animating such
multitudes of agents; this eye, which looked through Europe; this
prompt invention; this inexhaustible resource;--what events! what
romantic pictures! what strange situations!--when spying the Alps, by
a sunset in the Sicilian sea; drawing up his army for battle, in sight
of the Pyramids, and saying to his troops, "From the tops of those
pyramids, forty centuries look down on you;" fording the Red Sea;
wading in the gulf of the Isthmus of Suez. On the shore of Ptolemais,
gigantic projects agitated him. "Had Acre fallen, I should have changed
the face of the world." His army, on the night of the battle of
Austerlitz, which was the anniversary of his inauguration as Emperor,
presented him with a bouquet of forty standards taken in the fight.
Perhaps it is a little puerile, the pleasure he took in making these
contrasts glaring; as when he pleased himself with making kings wait
in his antechambers, at Tilsit, at Paris, and at Erfurt.
We cannot, in the universal imbecility, indecision, and indolence of
men, sufficiently congratulate ourselves on this strong and ready
actor, who took occasion by the beard, and showed us how much may be
accomplished by the mere force of such virtues as all men possess in
less degrees; namely, by punctuality, by personal attention, by courage,
and thoroughness. "The Austrians," he said, "do not know the value of
time." I should cite him, in his earlier years, as a model of prudence.
His power does not consist in any wild or extravagant force; in any
enthusiasm, like Mahomet's; or singular power of persuasion; but in
the exercise of common sense on each emergency, instead of abiding by
rules and customs. The lesson he teaches is that which vigor always
teaches,--that there is always room for it. To what heaps of cowardly
doubts is not that man's life an answer. When he appeared, it was the
belief of all military men that there could be nothing new in war; as
it is the belief of men to-day, that nothing new can be undertaken in
politics, or in church, or in letters, or in trade, or in farming, or
in our social manners and customs; and as it is, at all times, the
belief of society that the world is used up. But Bonaparte knew better
than society; and, moreover, knew that he knew better. I think all men
know better than they do; know that the institutions we so volubly
commend are go-carts and baubles; but they dare not trust their
presentiments. Bonaparte relied on his own sense, and did not care a
bean for other people's. The world treated his novelties just as it
treats everybody's novelties,--made infinite objection: mustered all
the impediments; but he snapped his finger at their objections. "What
creates great difficulty," he remarks, "in the profession of the land
commander, is the necessity of feeding so many men and animals. If he
allows himself to be guided by the commissaries, he will never stir,
and all his expeditions will fail." An example of his common sense is
what he says of the passage of the Alps in winter, which all writers,
one repeating after the other, had described as impracticable. "The
winter," says Napoleon, "is not the most unfavorable season for the
passage of lofty mountains. The snow is then firm, the weather settled,
and there is nothing to fear from avalanches, the real and only danger
to be apprehended in the Alps. On those high mountains, there are often
very fine days in December, of a dry cold, with extreme calmness in
the air." Read his account, too, of the way in which battles are gained.
"In all battles, a moment occurs, when the bravest troops, after having
made the greatest efforts, feel inclined to run. That terror proceeds
from a want of confidence in their own courage; and it only requires
a slight opportunity, a pretense, to restore confidence to them. The
art is to give rise to the opportunity, and to invent the pretense.
At Arcola, I won the battle with twenty-five horsemen. I seized that
moment of lassitude, gave every man a trumpet, and gained the day with
this handful. You see that two armies are two bodies which meet, and
endeavor to frighten each other: a moment of panic occurs, and that
moment must be turned to advantage. When a man has been present in
many actions, he distinguishes that moment without difficulty; it is
as easy as casting up an addition."
This deputy of the nineteenth century added to his gifts a capacity
for speculation on general topics. He delighted in running through the
range of practical, of literary, and of abstract questions. His opinion
is always original, and to the purpose. On the voyage to Egypt, he
liked, after dinner, to fix on three or four persons to support a
proposition, and as many to oppose it. He gave a subject, and the
discussions turned on questions of religion, the different kinds of
government, and the art of war. One day, he asked, whether the planets
were inhabited? On another, what was the age of the world? Then he
proposed to consider the probability of the destruction of the globe,
either by water or by fire; at another time, the truth or fallacy of
presentiments, and the interpretation of dreams. He was very fond of
talking of religion. In 1806, he conversed with Fournier, bishop of
Montpelier, on matters of theology. There were two points on which
they could not agree, viz., that of hell, and that of salvation out
of the pale of the church. The Emperor told Josephine, that he disputed
like a devil on these two points, on which the bishop was inexorable.
To the philosophers he readily yielded all that was proved against
religion as the work of men and time; but he would not hear of
materialism. One fine night, on deck, amid a clatter of materialism,
Bonaparte pointed to the stars, and said, "You may talk as long as you
please, gentlemen, but who made all that?" He delighted in the
conversation of men of science, particularly of Monge and Berthollet;
but the men of letters he slighted; "they were manufacturers of
phrases." Of medicine, too, he was fond of talking, and with those of
its practitioners whom he most esteemed,-with Corvisart at Paris, and
with Antonomarchi at St. Helena. "Believe me, "he said to the last,
"we had better leave off all these remedies: life is a fortress which
neither you nor I know anything about. Why throw obstacles in the way
of its defense? Its own means are superior to all the apparatus of
your laboratories. Corvisart candidly agreed with me, that all your
filthy mixtures are good for nothing. Medicine is a collection of
uncertain prescriptions, the results of which, taken collectively, are
more fatal than useful to mankind. Water, air, and cleanliness, are
the chief articles in my pharmacopeia."
His memoirs, dictated to Count Montholon and General Gourgaud, at St.
Helena, have great value, after all the deduction that, it seems, is
to be made from them, on account of his known disingenuousness. He has
the goodnature of strength and conscious superiority. I admire his
simple, clear narrative of his battles;--good as Caesar's; his
good-natured and sufficiently respectful account of Marshal Wurmser
and his other antagonists, and his own equality as a writer to his
varying subject. The most agreeable portion is the Campaign in Egypt.
He had hours of thought and wisdom. In intervals of leisure, either
in the camp or the palace, Napoleon appears as a man of genius,
directing on abstract questions the native appetite for truth, and the
impatience of words, he was wont to show in war. He could enjoy every
play of invention, a romance, a _bon mot_, as well as a stratagem
in a campaign. He delighted to fascinate Josephine and her ladies, in
a dim-lighted apartment, by the terrors of a fiction, to which his
voice and dramatic power lent every addition.
I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of modern
society; of the throng who fill the markets, shops, counting-houses,
manufactories, ships, of the modern world, aiming to be rich. He was
the agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the internal improver,
the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, the opener of doors
and markets, the subverter of monopoly and abuse. Of course, the rich
and aristocratic did not like him. England, the center of capital, and
Rome and Austria, centers of tradition and genealogy, opposed him. The
consternation of the dull and conservative classes, the terror of the
foolish old men and old women of the Roman conclave,--who in their
despair took hold of anything, and would cling to red-hot iron,--the
vain attempts of statists to amuse and deceive him, of the emperor of
Austria to bribe him; and the instinct of the young, ardent, and active
men, everywhere, which pointed him out as the giant of the middle
class, make his history bright and commanding. He had the virtues of
the masses of his constituents; he had also their vices. I am sorry
that the brilliant picture has its reverse. But that is the fatal
quality which we discover in our pursuit of wealth, that it is
treacherous, and is bought by the breaking or weakening of the
sentiments; and it is inevitable that we should find the same fact in
the history of this champion, who proposed to himself simply a brilliant
career, without any stipulation or scruple concerning the means.