WATERLOO
Waterloo stands for the sudden darkening of the blazing comet,
Napoleon; and for the return of France to the realm of the real
after twenty-five years of hysterical unreality. Consequentially,
too, Waterloo meant the relaxation of the terrible war-tension
which had held rigid both Europe and the civilized world. The
victor-trampling of Napoleon’s troops was heard on this side of the
Atlantic; and our second war with England (1812-1814) was, in great
measure, both in origin and in purposeless conclusion, the result
of that victor-trampling.
After Waterloo (June 18, 1815) the war-weary world snapped tension
and sank to rest; tho’ perhaps the secret terror tremor was not
utterly stilled until six years later (May 5, 1821) when Napoleon,
Man of Destiny, lay dead at St. Helena.
Youth may idolize Napoleon, age may condemn: but so long as
human nature is what it is, we ordinary mortals--knowing the
difficulties that attend success, eminence, excellence; knowing the
almost insuperable obstacles that bar the way to supremacy, be it
cosmopolitan, national, provincial, municipal, or parochial--will
ever regard with loving wonder the man who won excellence and
world-wide supremacy.
It has been said that a base man or a thoroughly selfish man cannot
truly love or inspire love. Whom did Napoleon love? History answers
_Napoleon_. Yet Napoleon certainly inspired love. Josephine, the
army, the Old Guard devotedly loved Napoleon. In the song from the
French “To Napoleon” beginning with the line, “Must thou go, my
glorious Chief”, some ardent admirer lamenting Napoleon’s downfall
and doom cries out:
“My chief, my king, my friend, adieu!
Never did I droop before;
Never to my sovereign sue,
As his foes I now implore:
All I ask is to divide
Every peril he must brave;
Sharing by my hero’s side
His fall, his exile, and his grave.”
And elsewhere we read that at Napoleon’s farewell “all wept, but
particularly Savary, and a Polish officer, who had been exalted
from the ranks by Bonaparte. He clung to his master’s knees; wrote
a letter to Lord Keith, entreating permission to accompany him,
even in the most menial capacity, which could not be admitted.”
Too bad Nap didn’t die with the Old Guard. At _La Belle Alliance_
in the midst of that last square of his death-devoted friends and
lovers Napoleon should have died. “The Guard dies, it does not
surrender” replied that gallant band as they awaited the last
terrible onslaughts of the victor-breathing troops and thus were
they hewn down even to a man. And while this slaughter of his
Guard was going on, Napoleon, urged and aided by Marshal Soult,
was galloping away from the field. Too bad Napoleon didn’t die at
Waterloo.
QUATRE-BRAS AND LIGNY.
Hoping to strike a decisive blow at the Prussian forces under
Blücher before they could effect a junction with Wellington’s
advancing army, Napoleon marched upon Ligny (June 16, 1815). He
left Marshal Ney at _Quatre-Bras_ with instructions to oppose
the advance of the English army towards Ligny, and to fight
if necessary. Ney, taking advantage of Wellington’s temporary
absence, (he had ridden across to confer with Blücher and was then
hastening back) resolved to attack the Anglo-Netherland forces
under the Prince of Orange. He was repulsed; nevertheless he
succeeded in checking the advance of the army towards Ligny.
In the meantime Napoleon had gained a victory over eighty
thousand Prussian troops under Blücher, and they were even then
in ignominious retreat towards Wavre. Napoleon ordered Marshall
Grouchy to follow up the Prussians and to prevent them, at any
cost, from joining forces with Wellington. Blücher had been wounded
at Ligny and his army thoroughly demoralized: Grouchy, with an
army of thirty thousand men, seemed more than a match for such an
opponent; and doubtless, Napoleon, when hastening away from Ligny
to oppose his more formidable foe, felt sure that the Prussians and
Blücher were happily eliminated from the conflict confronting him.
But in that conference between Wellington and Blücher, it had been
agreed upon that in case of defeat at Ligny, Blücher should retreat
towards Wavre, and Wellington would withdraw towards Waterloo; so
that they would still be in line of direct communication, and a
union of forces might be effected. Wellington and Blücher trusted
each other implicitly. “Whether after victory or defeat, come to
me at Waterloo,” said Wellington. “I will come,” answered Blücher
grimly and--he came.
The following day (June 17) a reinforcement under Bülow reached
Blücher at Wavre; thus the loss sustained at Ligny was made good.
At Grouchy’s approach the following morning (June 18) Blücher
resolved to sacrifice deliberately a regiment of seventeen thousand
men in order to detain Grouchy and keep him from returning to
Napoleon, while he (Blücher) and Bülow with the bulk of the
Prussian army should hasten to the aid of Wellington at Waterloo.
Not at Wavre but at Waterloo was destiny at work; this Blücher
knew and he acted accordingly: this Grouchy did not know; and
after completely routing with great slaughter the Prussians
under Thielman, he kept up a meaningless pursuit following a
will-o-the-wisp, whilst Napoleon, after sending to him messenger
after messenger urging his aid, stood still at last and deadly pale
under the gorgeous June sunset, and saw all his hopes and dreams
go down in darkness as the ominous moving cloud emerging from the
direction of Wavre and advancing, glitteringly advancing, proved to
be Blücher--not Grouchy.
That deliberate leaving of seventeen thousand men as a bait in a
trap for the victorious French forces thundering onward from Ligny
is typical of the demon ingenuity of war. I have read somewhere
that in darkest Africa the lure to the tiger trap is a kid securely
fastened. Its fearful bleatings attract the night prowling brute:
there is a spring: then awful shrieks arise growing shriller and
shriller as the pangs of being devoured alive grow tenser and more
terrible: by this time the cannibals are upon the scene and the
trap is sprung.
Seventeen thousand soldiers as kid to the tiger lure--and men call
themselves civilized! Could a woman do that? No; woman is higher in
the moral scale than man. And the higher, thank God, is the kinder,
tenderer, the more compassionate. Wars and all hellish machinations
of cruelty must cease as the race, as a whole, advances into that
higher. And advancement, even tho’ zigzag, shall ultimately attain
to the higher and even to the highest. We dream so.
KING MAKING VICTORY.
Perhaps no other battlefield of the historic past has been more
frequently described or rendered more vivid to mental vision than
the field of Waterloo. Victor Hugo’s masterly portrayal in _Les
Miserables_ is doubtless the best; but Sir Walter Scott, Lord
Byron, Captain Siborne, and Napoleonic writers _ad infinitum_ have
added richness of tonal qualities to the monochrome.
Those two long lines of undulating hills running nearly parallel,
with a valley half a mile in width between; the allied army under
Wellington on the northern ridge, the devoted French forces on
the southern; the artillery of each army firing incessantly upon
the other over the heads of the combatants in the valley and on
the lower slope; the forest of Soignies darkly waving in the
rear of Wellington’s forces; the village and ravine at the right
warding off a possible flank movement; the two hamlets La Haye and
Papillote at the left, strongly garrisoned of course and then, too,
expectant of Blücher’s approach from Wavre; Hougoumont, an old
stone chateau surrounded by a copse of beech trees, half way down
the slope nearly in front of the British right center--strongly
fortified, most important, strategic; Hougoumont--to be taken and
retaken seven times during that day of destiny and held at last
in flaming ruins by the British; the farm house La Haie Sainte
somewhat down from the British left center, heavily garrisoned,
expectant of what came; the French forces in superb battle array on
the Charleroi crest of the hill, with an open way to France behind
them and the hamlet La Belle Alliance, Napoleon’s headquarters, and
their idol Napoleon--before: why every school-boy knows the plan of
this most famous battlefield!
Had Napoleon’s star not been fatally descendant he must have won
at Waterloo. His forces, seventy-two thousand, were numerically
stronger than the opposing forces seventy-one thousand eight
hundred and five, under Wellington; then, too, his army was a unit
and unanimously devoted to him, whereas Wellington’s army was a
mixup of Belgians, Dutch, Nassauers, Brunswickers, Hanoverians,
with only twenty-four thousand English troops upon whom he could
implicitly rely. Wellington knew and Napoleon knew that the Belgian
and Netherland forces would far rather be fighting under the
French eagles than against them. And in truth these regiments did
disgracefully run away from before the advancing French columns
in the crisis of the strife, and the demoralizing effect of
their flight was counteracted only by the superhuman efforts and
life-sacrificing devotedness of England’s two brave heroes Picton
and Ponsonby.
It is true that Wellington confidently awaited a strong Prussian
reinforcement, eighty thousand--and Blücher. It is equally true
that owing to heavy rainfall and consequently almost impassable
roads between Wavre and Waterloo, Blücher who was eagerly looked
for at 3 p. m. did not reach the field until 7 p. m. and at that
time the battle was practically won by the British.
Had Napoleon’s pristine favor been accorded him--the magic favor
of fate that had made possible Areola, Rivoli, Jena, Ulmn, Wagram,
Austerlitz--he would have defeated Wellington at Waterloo, advanced
upon the advancing Prussians and completely routed them; and then
he would have hastened to crush separately and before a junction
could be effected the various contingencies of the Coalition even
then converging upon him by way of the Rhine, the Alps, and the
Pyrenees. But fate forsook her favorite at Waterloo. Olympian Zeus,
jealous of Promethean man, has decreed that if once, then certainly
not _twice_, shall a mortal transcend the lot of mortals.
It rained all night long that memorable seventeenth of June,
the night before the battle. Of those forces that thus drearily
bivouacked upon the opposing hills, some fifty thousand men thus
passed their last night upon earth. Nature wept for them. The skies
dissolved in tears at the mad folly of mortals. Rain, inconsolable
rain, fell from the early afternoon of the seventeenth, thro’
all the night, and sobbingly drizzled late on the morning of the
eighteenth as the armies went out to battle.
That dreary last night of life for fifty thousand men--what did
it mean to them! Did any flint-glitterings, struck out of sullen
gloom, zigzag thro’ the darkness of their minds? Why should
they fight? Why should they kill and be killed on the morrow?
Wellington, Napoleon--what were they to the common soldier; he
would be free, he would go to his home, he would live his life as
God gave it to him to live. Desert on the eve of battle! Ah, no!
Yet, why not?
“So free we seem, so fettered fast we are.” Honor bound tonight and
death bound tomorrow night! Who of those sleeping in yonder tents,
under the rain, shall fall tomorrow? Whom shall he kill? Who may
kill--him?
“Some one has blundered.”
* * * * *
“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.”
Again, why? Half a million men must die because Napoleon
blundered--Why! And the tears of the rain made answer.
At half past eleven o’clock Sunday morning, June 18, shortly after
the village church bells had ceased ringing, the French forces
began descending the slope of the southern ridge and were soon
dashing across the valley. Their first object was the capture of
Hougoumont. In the words of Creasy: “Napoleon began the battle by
directing a powerful force from his left wing under his brother,
Prince Jerome, to attack Hougoumont. Column after column of the
French now descended from the west of the southern heights, and
assailed that post with fiery valor, which was encountered with the
most determined bravery. The French won the copse round the house,
but a party of British Guards held the house itself throughout
the day. Amid shell and shot, and the blazing fragments of part
of the buildings, this obstinate contest was continued. But still
the English held Hougoumont, tho’ the French occasionally moved
forward in such numbers as enabled them to surround and mask this
post with part of their troops from their left wing, while others
pressed onward up the slope, and assailed the British right.”
The fight then became general all along the line. As the French
advanced to the left center the Dutch and Belgians under Blyant
threw down their arms and fled from the field, whether as result of
fright, disinclination to fight, or treachery will, perhaps, never
be known. The second line consisted of two brigades of English
infantry and with these the gallant Picton charged the advancing
French columns already flushed with victory. Volley after volley
thinned the advancing ranks and then, at the opportune moment, the
British made a fierce bayonet charge. The French reeled back in
confusion, halted, and staggering tried to rally, but just then
a brigade of English Cavalry rushed down upon them. Two thousand
French soldiers were taken prisoners, the artillery-men of Ney’s
seventy-four advanced guns were sabered and the guns rendered
useless. The British cut the throats of the horses of the artillery
wagons, and severing the traces, left these poor brutes maddened
with pain to add to the horror of the slaughter. In this charge
Picton fell.
At La Haie Sainte, the fortified farm house that served as
protection of the British left wing, the French performed prodigies
of valor. At last Donzelot’s infantry gained possession of this
long desired point of vantage.
About 4 o’clock a corps of Prussians under Bülow made its
appearance at the French right. This disconcerted Napoleon’s plan
of general assault on the allied center. He sent ten thousand men
under Lobau to hold Bülow in check.
In the meantime, Wellington ordered another assault to be made
for the re-capture of La Haie Sainte. Ney repelled this attack,
but sent for reinforcements. Napoleon sent him the cuirassiers
under Milhaud. By mistake the forces of light cavalry under
Lefebvre-Desnouettes joined the cuirassiers and hastened to the
assistance of La Haie Sainte. Ney finding himself in command of
two powerful bodies of horse resolved to take the offensive; he
accordingly renewed the attack upon the British center. Wellington
had arranged his men in squares; these hedged in with bayonets
presented an almost impenetrable front to the enemy. Still they
showed signs of wavering; and Ney seeing his advantage sent
hurriedly for a reinforcement of infantry; Napoleon could send no
more.
Lobau had succeeded in driving Bülow out of the village
(Planchenoit) on the French right; La Haie Sainte was still in the
possession of the French; and could Ney have obtained the infantry
he desired, historians agree that he would have succeeded in
forcing the British center. That hour was the pivotal beam of the
battle and it seemed about to dip in favor of France.
Nap watched the scene from the opposite hill. How his heart
must have thrilled to the air of old time victory; Wagram,
Austerlitz,--Waterloo!
It was evening, the western sky was crimson with sunset, night
must soon come and end the conflict. Wellington, too, was ardently
longing that “the night would come or--Blücher.”
And just then on the ominous French right whence Bülow’s division
had been routed an hour ago, another darkly moving mass of men
appeared. Was it Grouchy--hope! or Blücher--despair! It was
Blücher. Napoleon turned deadly pale; he asked for a glass of water
but in his agitation, he spilled more than half the contents ere
his trembling hand could lift the glass to his lips. Thus bitterly
began Napoleon’s Waterloo.
Napoleon concentrated all his available forces, the reserve troops,
and the Old Guard for one more Herculean attack upon the British.
Across the plain they dashed, Ney leading the charge, and over
their heads played the French artillery in an incessant rain of
lead upon the opposing height. Men there were falling under it
like leaves in autumn. Wellington, observing the havoc wrought
by the French guns, ordered the British Guards to lie prone upon
the earth so as to be out of range of the bullets. As the French
approached the foot of the ridge, and even as they advanced up the
slope, the fire from Napoleon’s headquarters continued, but when
they had fairly gained the height, the French guns ceased firing.
On rushed the devoted French columns led by Ney, _bravest of the
brave_, who, covered with blood and dust, hatless, with clothing
torn, and on foot--five horses having been shot under him--still
dared to dream of victory. As the French reached the top of the
hill, for one madly exultant moment they thought that the enemy
had fled; but at Wellington’s hissing command, “Up, Guards, and at
them!”, they stood aghast as the very earth seemed to open and pour
out brigade after brigade of British Red Coats. The onslaught was
awful. Over the crest of the hill and far down the slope the French
were driven saber-slaughtered and slaughtering. _La Garde Reculée_
(The Guard is repulsed)--this cry with its ominous suggestion sped
from blanched lip to lip. And soon the most desperate of all defeat
cries _Sauve qui peut!_ (All’s lost: save himself who can!) became
general among the fleeing French forces.
At La Belle Alliance Napoleon attempted to make a rallying point;
he hastily pressed his few devoted followers into a square,
declaring it his intention to perish with them. But as it is the
surgeon that has most mercilessly used his knife upon others, who
shrinks back in awful dread from the knife as used upon himself:
so Napoleon who had seen thousands of soldiers die of bloody
wounds, could not endure for himself that which he had been willing
to witness in others. As the English drew near and, seeing the
hopelessness of the French position, called upon them to surrender;
and even as General Cambronne gallantly replied, “The Guard dies;
it does not surrender”, Napoleon spurred back his horse, turned,
and galloped at full speed from the field.
EXILE.
Napoleon a second time signed a treaty of abdication just
one hundred days after his flagrant violation of the first
treaty of abdication. One hundred days of doubtful triumph and
then--Waterloo: was it worth while!
The Machiavellian principles--honorable fraud; splendid rascality;
a ruler should combine the qualities of the fox and the lion;
no matter what the means may be, the vulgar are ever caught by
appearances and judge only by the event--which Napoleon had so
deeply imbibed from perusal of his favorite book _Il Principe_,
suffered sudden collapse of inflation and wraith-like glimmered
as will-o-the-wisps in a bog. That stripping away of names and
epithets and phrases and opinions and customs and sunlight success
from the--Lie: and that Lie in naked hideousness black-branded on
the soul for self and all the world to see;--how terrible a triumph
of the unseen over the seen, the real over the apparent, the truth
over the lie! What Austerlitz concealed Waterloo revealed. Outlaw
of Europe, execrable wretch, vile miscreant whom no promises or
vows could hold in honor, etc., were among the uncouth Teutonic
free translations of Nap’s subtly soft _Il Principe_.
And Josephine was dead; she had died a year ago while Nap was at
Elba. Josephine never knew the worst about Napoleon; she never
could have known the “execrable wretch” as the Congress of Vienna
knew him. Love and hate see differently the same objects. As she
would gladly have followed Nap to Elba, so, too, would she have
been a pitying angel at his side in the world-execration after
Waterloo, and in the bitter loneliness of St. Helena. Was Nap, the
real, what he was as known and loved by Josephine or what he was
as seen and hated by the Congress of Vienna; or neither?
That portrait of Napoleon by Delaroche comes to mind. We are sorry
for Nap in his hour of ignominy; we forgive him all the sorrows
that he caused--to others; we look with him fascinated into the
fatal future, we grieve with the stoic grief of the Man of Destiny.
Meissonier’s companion pictures “1807: Friedland” and “1814:
Retreat from Moscow” come to mind. Full success-sun convergent
from Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram shines in “1807”; penumbral shadows
gray-flecked with snows from Borodino, Moscow, Berizina lower in
“1814”.
Louis David’s statuesque picture “Napoleon Crossing the Alps”
comes to mind. It seems the “French Revolution on horse-back” yet
controlled, goaded up the ascent, led out from bleeding France, and
destiny-plunging on towards Italy, Prussia, Austria, Russia.
David’s canvas “Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine” comes sadly
to mind. From that rhapsody of color-splendor to bleak Helena
surf-lashed by the sea; from that act of crowning exaltation to
the signing of abdication at Fontainebleau; from that supreme
success in life to a failure-grave under the willows: ah! surely
there throbs within and between these antithetic scenes all that
enigmatic life may hold for us mortals. Nothing exists beyond--in
pleasure or in pain, in honor or dishonor, in success or failure,
in highest or lowest.
COR NE EDITO (EAT NOT THE HEART).
Napoleon spent the last six years of life on the island St. Helena
(Oct. 16, 1815--May 5, 1821). There are various stories told as
to his bitter loneliness whilst in exile, his ceaseless repining
at fate, his chafing chagrin under the cautious coldness of Sir
Hudson Lowe. Nap is most frequently represented walking alone
on the shore, his hands locked behind, his head lowered and his
“broad brow oppressive with his mind” bent sullenly forward. Again
as a caged eagle he stands for hours at a time on the rocky ledge
looking out over the gray waste of waters with eyes straining
towards France. And old ocean always inimical to Napoleon and
coldly conscious of Aboukir and Trafalgar enjoys indifferently
its final triumph. True to Britannia, Ruler of the Wave, the
gray waters roll impenetrable to bribery or betrayal, impervious
to sentiment or sympathy. Napoleon, victor of a hundred fields,
king-maker, arbiter of Europe, is caught and caged; his eagle wings
all torn and bleeding yet dash against the bars; he is eating his
heart, O restless sea, and he gazes on thee: old ocean rolled
responseless.
Am I tonight participant in the woe that had its hours of agony one
hundred years ago? It seems so.
HERO WORSHIP.
Balance is hard. And to see clearly all sides of a subject, however
conducive to balance, is destructive of enthusiasm. Hero worship
is, perhaps, a phase of hysteria, but without it there are no
heroes. No name upon the historic page, from Homer’s Achilles down
to Carlyle’s Cromwell, but shines with luster luminous from hero
worship. Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemagne, Napoleon--the
world will ever love them, not perhaps for what they were, but for
the vision splendid with which they are attended, and which was
formed and fitted to them by admiring love.
RETROSPECT.
As Nap paced sleeplessly his rock kingdom under the flaky stars,
did memory ever conjure up a strange night scene in old Vincennes?
The young Duc d’Enghien, last of the race of the great Conde, was
asleep in bed. Suddenly, by order of the First Consul, the French
soldiery aroused the sleeper, dragged him from his luxurious couch,
hurried him across the French frontier, tried him by a military
commission, and then, in a ditch of the castle grounds, that very
night, by order of the First Consul, they shot to death the gay
young man. And they tied a lantern to his breast that it might
serve as target to his heart. Did Nap see that night scene from
under the flaky stars of St. Helena? His _Memoires_ do not so
record.
Did the treacherously yielding waves that lapped his island home
ever suggest to Nap that horror scene, when after Austerlitz, as
the fleeing enemy were escaping over the frozen lake, the French
artillery, by order of the Emperor, played heavily upon the ice;
it cracked, broke, crashed down, and thousands sank within the
treacherous waves. Or did they softly sigh of Berezina, when the
heavily laden bridge broke down and his own devoted soldiers and
friends--those who had stood by him at Borodino, in Moscow, and in
the dread Retreat--struggled in the icy waters? Nap’s _Memoires_ do
not so record.
And the dark rolling billows surf-capped--did they at times suggest
low mounds in churchyards, or ominous ridges on recent battle
grounds? Half a million men had died that Nap might rise and--fall.
All Europe, from Lisbon to Moscow was dotted with their graves.
Surely in the retrospective leisure of exile, however it may have
been in the fever of the empire-strife, there was regret for all
the young life suddenly darkened into death; there was awakening
self-knowledge regretful, remorseful; there was lamentation at the
futility of it all, the horror, the agony, the shame; there was
prayer, the bitter prayer of Thais of the Desert, “Thou who hast
made me have mercy on me!” Maybe: not ours to know the enigmatic
heart of man; we only say there is no record of such feelings in
Nap’s memoirs.
Did the year 1809 loom sullen in retrospect? That year held in
record the capture of Pope Pius VII. and his confinement at Savona;
the ban of excommunication pronounced against Napoleon by his
illustrious prisoner; and Nap’s divorce from Josephine.
The Emperor was at this time at the height of his career. He was
drunk with power. In his hand as playthings were the kingdoms of
Europe, and he awarded them as whim or pleasure urged. To his
brother Joseph, too scrupulous to be great, Nap condescendingly
gave the throne of Spain; to his brother Louis, Holland; to his
brother Jerome, Westphalia; to a favorite general, Bernadotte,
Sweden; to Murat, Naples. At his touch, the Holy Roman Empire--no
longer, indeed, either holy or Roman or an empire--had crumbled
into dust. Germany lay prostrate; Austria humbled; Russia
chastened, yet friendly. Only England, secure in her watery
kingdom, dared to oppose his plans and resist his power.
And then this madman on the dizzy height dreamed a glorious dream.
The Pontiff, Pius VII., prisoner at Savona, would annul the
marriage with Josephine; then he would marry the sister of the Tsar
of Russia; then with the help of Russia he would conquer India and
“so strike England to the heart.” After that “it will be possible
to settle everything and have done with this business of Rome and
the Pope. The cathedral of Paris will become that of the Catholic
world.” And Napoleon shall be all in all. Perhaps, too, this
rhapsody ended half audibly with the adulatory words of the prefect
of Arras, “God created Napoleon and then rested from His works.”
But as seen from gray Helena, the Pope did not annul the marriage
with Josephine, nor did Nap marry the sister of Tsar Alexander or
long retain the friendship of Russia; nor did he conquer India and
so strike England to the heart; nor did he ever have done with that
business of Rome and the Pope. That “business” has seen the rise
and fall of many--and yet shall see.
Was Napoleon a Catholic? He died in the bosom of the Catholic
church after having devoutly received the sacraments. To General
Montholon he said: “I was born in the Catholic religion; I wish
to fulfil the duties it imposes and to receive the succors it
administers.” On another occasion he said, “It would rest my soul
to hear Mass.” These words having been reported to the Pontiff,
Pope Pius VII., one time prisoner at Savona, the gentle old man
immediately petitioned the English government to send a priest to
minister to the spiritual wants of Napoleon. In compliance with the
papal request the Abbe Vignali was sent to St. Helena.
Napoleon in his _Memoires_, speaking of Pius VII., calls him “an
old man full of tolerance and light”; and in euphemistic reference
to his troubles with the pontiff he writes, “Fatal circumstances
embroiled our cabinets; I regret it exceedingly.”
But whatever Nap may have been in exile at St. Helena, certainly in
1809-10, as arbiter of Europe, he was an arch enemy to the Catholic
church, and he acted in flagrant violation of all that the Church
stands for. And had his phenomenal success continued to favor him,
he would, without doubt, have lived and died an enemy to the Church.
Napoleon never ceased to be a deist. “Who made all that,
Gentlemen?” he said one night as he and his friends were gazing at
the starry heavens. As a statesman he perceived that religion is
an ally to good government, and doubtless he was sincere when he
said, “A society without religion is like a ship without a compass;
there is no good morality without religion.” Nap’s re-establishment
of the Church in France after the Revolution, and the Concordat
made in the beginning of his reign; the six years spent at St.
Helena and his death there, would seem to testify that Napoleon was
at deepest heart a sincere child of that Church so tolerant of
human frailty and so divinely compassionate towards those who come
contritely back from error’s devious ways and would sleep the last
sleep in her bosom.
LET WARS CEASE.
“The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.
And why? because it brings self-approbation:
Whereas the other, after all its glare,
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,
Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,
A higher title or a loftier station,
Tho’ they may make Corruption gape or stare,
Yet in the end, except in Freedom’s battles--
Are nothing but a child of Murder’s rattles.”--_Byron._
The rattles of this preeminent child of Murder were heard in
deafening clatter over all Europe for twenty years; there is a
singular dearth of the acts that have honest fame or that conduce
to self-approbation. A steely selfishness from first to last marks
the career of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Nearly a hundred years have passed away since Nap’s dread Waterloo.
There have been wars since then and much blood has flowed, tho’
perhaps of no one battle since Waterloo may it decisively be said
that had victory gone other than it did go, all subsequent history
would be essentially different from what it is.
Perhaps in our Civil War the three days’ battle of Gettysburg
may seem to hold a determinant place. The continuance of slavery
and the break up of the young Republic of the West would surely
have made a momentous page of history--but one with which we are
happily unfamiliar. Nor would the import of that page affect only
us and our Republic; both continents are now more or less favorably
influenced by what we now are, so may they have been unfavorably
influenced by what we might have been. But Gettysburg is too near
for perfect vision. Then, too, the personal element, favorable or
unfavorable, is conducive to myopia. So with Waterloo, secure in a
hundred years’ perspective, the Battles of Destiny end.
In a hasty glance over the historic field from Memphis, 5000 B.
C. to Mexico, 1914 A. D.--the great conflicts of nations loom
sullenly as blood red peaks daubing the darkness. There is no
sequence; they lead nowhere; they just sullenly, luridly bleed.
Memphis; Nineveh; Babylon; Marathon, Salamis, Syracuse, Ægospotami,
Leuctra, Mantinea, Chæronea; Granicus, Issus, Arbela; Ipsus;
Cannæ, Zama, Cynoscephalæ, Magnesia, Pharsalia, Philippi, Actium;
Teutobergerwald; Chalons; Tours; Hastings; Orleans; Lepanto;
Blenheim; Naseby; Pultova; Saratoga; Valmy; Waterloo; Gettysburg;
Mukden; Adrianople; Mexico--as blood red peaks dot the darkness. Is
warfare and concomitant hate the natural state of man? The peaks
ooze blood in answer.
Some pessimistic glimmerings of the Epicurean philosophy seem to
scintillate out from the past. And that philosophy, crystallized in
Lucretius’ cynic saying, _Homo homini lupus_ (One man is a wolf to
another man) glitters in icicle harshness and coldness down in the
darkness. And yet amidst this general censure of the heart of man I
hear a shrill true cry of self exculpation. I am not a wolf to man
or beast or bird. My hands are clean; my heart is kind. Am I unique
in the human nature plan? No. May I affirm of self that which I
deny of others? No. My own light illumines the darkness and leads
upward and on.
_Cease Firing, Lay Down Your Arms_, “We speak for those (dumb
animals) who cannot speak for themselves”; “I would not enter on
my list of friends the man who needlessly sets foot upon a worm”;
“He who is not actively kind is cruel”--are among the utterances of
the hour that tip the farthest pendulum-swing from old Lucretius’
snarl. Wars must cease. The searchlight of civilization’s best
thought and feelings is turned full upon war--showing its hitherto
darkly concealed causes; its concomitant wrongs, sufferings,
shamble horrors; its calamitous, nation-suicidal results. However
necessary or inevitable the arbitrament by the sword may have been
in the past, it is so no longer.
Let wars cease: in the name of all the bloody battlefields from
Marathon to Waterloo; and in pity for all the war-woe from Egypt’s
Memphis down to Mexico--let wars cease.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Death of General Nogi.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
‘Blucher’ has been replaced everywhere by ‘Blücher’.
Pg 12, 63: ‘Peloponessian War’ replaced by ‘Peloponnesian War’.
Pg 12: ‘fractricidal strife’ replaced by ‘fratricidal strife’.
Pg 13: ‘seemed jubliant in’ replaced by ‘seemed jubilant in’.
Pg 14: ‘attacked vigoriously’ replaced by ‘attacked vigorously’.
Pg 19: ‘a fugutive, bereft’ replaced by ‘a fugitive, bereft’.
Pg 24, 25, 59: ‘Rennaissance’ replaced by ‘Renaissance’.
Pg 29: ‘terror siezed’ replaced by ‘terror seized’.
Pg 38: ‘what Seutonius says’ replaced by ‘what Suetonius says’.
Pg 52: ‘Platea, Salamis’ replaced by ‘Platæa, Salamis’.
Pg 53: ‘upheavel of any’ replaced by ‘upheaval of any’.
Pg 59: ‘of Assissi:’ replaced by ‘of Assisi:’.
Pg 59: ‘Cressy, Potiers’ replaced by ‘Cressy, Poitiers’.
Pg 60: ‘Gibbons says:’ replaced by ‘Gibbon says:’.
Pg 60: ‘by the Greks’ replaced by ‘by the Greeks’.
Pg 66: ‘pentinential expiation’ replaced by ‘penitential expiation’.
Pg 68: ‘what evancescent’ replaced by ‘what evanescent’.
Pg 77: ‘conquered at Portiers’ replaced by ‘conquered at Poitiers’.
Pg 89: ‘Beauvias were’ replaced by ‘Beauvais were’.
Pg 95: ‘John, ideal Chirstian’ replaced by ‘John, ideal Christian’.
Pg 98: ‘Ulich Ali, seeing’ replaced by ‘Ulrich Ali, seeing’.
Pg 98: ‘were siezed as’ replaced by ‘were seized as’.
Pg 100: ‘similar cricumstances’ replaced by ‘similar circumstances’.
Pg 103: ‘as a maritine’ replaced by ‘as a maritime’.
Pg 104: ‘Artistotle, master’ replaced by ‘Aristotle, master’.
Pg 104: ‘Macchiavelli, serpent’ replaced by ‘Machiavelli, serpent’.
Pg 104: ‘any more realiable’ replaced by ‘any more reliable’.
Pg 105: ‘galeons and galeasses’ replaced by ‘galleons and galleasses’.
Pg 108: ‘buccanneers siezed upon his galeons’ replaced by
‘buccaneers seized upon his galleons’.
Pg 109: ‘Macchievellian queen’ replaced by ‘Machiavellian queen’.
Pg 109: ‘leaky caravals’ replaced by ‘leaky caravels’.
Pg 117: ‘his side, abbetted’ replaced by ‘his side, abetted’.
Pg 124: ‘enimity one’ replaced by ‘enmity one’.
Pg 128: ‘in the tumbril’ replaced by ‘in the tumbrel’.
Pg 130: ‘razed the Pyrennees’ replaced by ‘razed the Pyrenees’.
Pg 130: In the poem by Southey a newline has been added
after ‘looks up’. The rest of the poem has several lines
out of order, but this has not been changed.
Pg 132: ‘the Thiry’ replaced by ‘the Thirty’.
Pg 138: ‘Te Deum ecstacy’ replaced by ‘Te Deum ecstasy’.
Pg 140: ‘As result of’ replaced by ‘As a result of’.
Pg 141: ‘neglegible--and yet’ replaced by ‘negligible--and yet’.
Pg 146: ‘Prusia, urged’ replaced by ‘Prussia, urged’.
Pg 149: ‘Brittainy there was’ replaced by ‘Brittany there was’.
Pg 155: ‘the Coaliton even’ replaced by ‘the Coalition even’.
Pg 158: ‘joined the curassiers’ replaced by ‘joined the cuirassiers’.
Pg 160: ‘The Macchievellian’ replaced by ‘The Machiavellian’.
Pg 160: ‘will-o-the’ wisps’ replaced by ‘will-o-the-wisps’.
Pg 162: ‘True to Brittania’ replaced by ‘True to Britannia’.
Pg 162: ‘young Duc d’ Enghein’ replaced by ‘young Duc d’Enghien’.
End of Project Gutenberg's Battles of Destiny, by M. Fides Shepperson